ustxtxb_obs_1966_09_16_50_00004-00000_000.pdf

The Candidates Open Up Carr Stresses His Party Ties Lubbock Some 2,000 home town and area supporters, filling only a small portion of Lubbock municipal coliseum, last week heard Waggoner Carr emphasize his Democratic Party membership as a key reason Texas voters should elect him to replace Republican John Tower in the U.S. Senate. “When the views of the Texas governmental leaders are to be persuasively stated to the leaders of the federal government,” Carr said, “who can do that most effectively, a Texas Democrat who has been a part of that government for 15 years and who has an unparallelled working relationship with its leadersor a Republican who has never been a part of it, not for a single day!” Tower, too, by implication, has acknowledged that he feels this point will influence Texas voters. His signboards in Lubbock and across the state do not bear the word “Republican,” and the same is true of Tower’s campaign literature seen to date. Lieutenant Governor Preston Smith, also of Lubbock, introducing Carr, likewise stressed the theme that a Democrat would serve the state better in the Senate: “As one of two Democratic senators from Texas, Waggoner Carr will be an effective force in the majority party that controls the United States Senate. No other candidate can make that statement.” Carr criticized Tower’s saying on TV’s “Meet the Press” in 1961, “I do not see it as my function in Washington to try to secure for Texas the expenditure of as much federal money in Texas as possible.” And, Carr added, in 1965 Tower was quoted in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram saying, “I don’t think it is my function to try to get defense contracts for Texas.” Carr drew his loudest ovation of the night when he Austin The Observer has received substantial reports of the visit by a high U.S. Labor Department official with Houston Negro leaders in which the federal spokesman conveyed President Johnson’s urgings that the Negroes back Waggoner Carr all-out for senator against Sen. John Tower. All but one of the Negroes involved were understood to have promised explicit support for Carr. The U.S. official, George Weaver, also reportedly told the Negroes that if Sen. Ralph Yarborough did not back Carr all-out, there would be no more federal patronage for Yarborough, this word presumably coming from Johnson. Obviously this last report is political dynamite. Yarborough was given news of the WeaverNegro meeting on the eve of the Valley march’s climax in Austin. Inquiries by the 4 The Texas Observer added : “You all know my record. I am for economy in government and am against needless spending. But, I’ll tell you this right now : so long as the federal government is going to spend the money it does, so long as federal defense contracts amount to billions of dollars, so long as federal grants amount to billions of dollars, so long as Texans can do as good a job as any other state, I’ll fight to see that Texas gets every last penny of its share.” OVERALL the carefully planned evening went off well, but Carr backers must be dismayed to some extent by the sparse crowd, most of whom were seated on folding chairs on the building’s floor, with perhaps 200 to 300 in the 8,500 permanent seats that ring the arena. In the Lubbock afternoon paper, published only a few hours before Carr spoke, his campaign leaders were quoted predicting an attendance of 10,000. Perhaps the complications of getting back to the post-summer routine kept many away, and the campaign has not yet begun in earnest, but if Carr can’t draw a sizeable crowd in his own hometown to a rally widely publicized and for which thousands of free tickets were distributed, then he has cause for concern. The general reasoning goes that Carr must excite a large turnout Nov. 8; a light vote would favor Tower. The evening was to have been a gala start for Carr’s Senate bid, but the disappointing turnout had a somewhat. dampening effect on the enthusiasm of those who were there. Though they interrupted the candidate by applause 21 times in 30 minutes, this may be attributable to the usual pep talk that preceded the television in four West Texas cities \(and taping for showings later last week and this week else Observer to Yarborough’s staff have yielded disclaimers that they know anything about a presidential threat to Yarborough on appointments. In Yarborough’s speech on Labor Day he referred to those who had “turned their back” on the marchers at New Braunfels ; he made no exception for Carr, who went to New Braunfels with John Connally and Ben Barnes. Carr, who told the marchers to beware of outside agitators who might cause violence, evidently went dove-hunting the af ternoon of Labor Day when the marchers and sympathizers were gathered at Zilker Park for a picnic. A Tower supporter known to be reliable told the Observer he saw Carr at Holiday House at the airport in Austin Labor Day about 2 :30 p.m. wear ing a baseball cap, sunglasses, fatigue pants, and boots. Dove hunting season had just opened. a Lubbock attorney, had urged that “each person here tonight can play an important role. . . . Our show, very frankly, is the largest of its kind ever staged in West Texas. We must show our enthusiasm. . . Let this kick-off rally do the selling job it was designed to do.” Yet many of the ovations seemed neither hearty nor sincere. High school cheerleaders from Lubbock wielded “cheer” and “stop” signs the latter to stop ovations and conserve air time for Carr’s speech. The challenger entered from the rear of the coliseum to the roar of “Seventy-Six Trombones” played by the Lubbock High School Band. He, his wife Ernestine, and their son David, 16, were driven in a Mustang convertible to the speaker’s stand. As they alighted the band played “The Eyes of Texas.” The young minister of one of Lubbock’s largest chuurches intered the invocation \(in a “stained glass voice,” one spectator was prayed “. . . we thank Thee for Waggoner Carr and his willingness to serve in the Senate.” Many of the preliminaries dwelt on Carr’s West Texas background, suggesting the advantages for the region in having one of its inhabitants in the Senate. Carr himself began his remarks in this vein, lyrically describing his homeland in solemn, hushed syllables: “West Texas is a state of mind, as well as a geographic area. It is cow ponies and Cadillacs, oil and optimism, sand and smiles. It is confidence in a dusty Stetson, faith in a pair of faded jeans, and hard work in overalls at the end of a long cotton row. Our land is like a freckled nose kid with a frog in his pocket, a grin on his lips and a stubborn cowlick of obstinacy as a banner.” Carr made no mention of Vietnam nor of any other foreign policy issue. In addition to his compatibility with leaders of the state and national governments, he cited four other areas of concern, all domestic: 1 The need to purify the brackish water that underlies much of ‘West Texas so it can be used to meet the growing needs of the region and the state. Carr said he has discussed this project with Interior Department officials and has been assured that “an economical and practical solution can be found within the reasonable future.” 2 Distribution of federal education grants on a population basis to give Texas more of a share and enable the colleges of the state to retain their better teachers. “An unfortunately increasing factor in this,” Carr said, “is the role being played by the federal government, which results in unequal educational opportunities for one section of the country over another.” He believes Massachusetts and other East Reports of Presidential Pressure