ustxtxb_obs_1966_12_30_50_00008-00000_000.pdf

the Roma bridge several weeks ago. The fines could have been $200 each. Nine others who had been charged in the incident were acquitted by a justice of the peace. V The San Antonio Express, in an edi torial, thought it significant that U.S. Sen. Ralph Yarborough did not include a call for a municipal minimum wage when, in a speech in that city, he advocated passage of a state minimum. “The senator implied it is an issue for determination at the [state] level,” the editorial said. V The Texas Council of Churches, which has worked to support the striking Valley farm workers, has urged passage of a minimum wage law. The council also has taken three other stands while issuing its first strong legislative position: urged establishment of a state commission on human rights, opposition to loyalty oaths or statements of belief in a supreme being as a prerequisite for employment, and opposition to parimutuel betting. V U.S. Sen. John Tower will introduce legislation next year in Congress to halt issuance of “green card” work permits to aliens who displace Americans from work. So says Celso Moreno, an administrative assistant of Tower’s. V About 14q of adult Texans are illite rate. Adult basic education programs are running out of money and Cong. J. J. out why. He became aware of the situation when a course for 50 adults ended this month in Austin for lack of $7,200. Other programs will shut down in the next several months throughout the state, it appears, also because of no money. A Texas Education Agency official says that the Office of Economic Opportunity had indicated that $6 million would be available for Texas to spend in the 1966-67 fiscal year; but only $1.9 million was provided. Many of the applications for programs that would have used the $6 million have been simply filed away by the T.E.A. because of the lack of War on Poverty money. V President Johnson will run again in 1968, Gov. Connally says. V Sen. Jim Bates of Edinburg may speak out in the coming legislative session about the methods of collecting money for the LBJ Park. V Cong. Jack Brooks of Beaumont is being talked of by some in Washington as the next Speaker of the House. V Dr. William H. Crook has become di rector of VISTA, the domestic Peace Corps; Dr. Crook was the head of the regional 0E0. V State Demo chairman Will Davis was named to an unexpired term on the Austin school board. V Sam Fore, Jr., of Floresville, longtime Texas weekly newspaper publisher and a friend of President Johnson and Gov. Connally, died Dec. 24. The President attended the funeral, V The aspect of an item in last issue’s political intelligence, concerning the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s report that UN Ambassador Arthur Goldberg has bought some land from Johnson interests in Texas, has been denied by a spokesman for the ambassador. NEWS IN THE NAMES New York City My heart leapt up when I beheld a stroke of printer’s genius in the November 25th Observer. In a flash, it ignited a chain of powdery thoughts that went up in one thunderous burst of insight: Texas conservatism is such a superficial affair that the very names of the opposition reveal their true natures! You doubt me? Consider, then, this typographical fragment that, like Newton’s apple, jolted me with revelation. It occurred in the article about the Senate race, where that magic name “Waggoner Carr” was making one of its increasingly treasurable appearances in print \( these couldn’t fit it on one line, he rammed home a hyphen, ending the line with “Wag-” and beginning the next with “goner Carr.” “Goner Carr”! Well, so he is, poor boy, and for years he had been striding about, flaunting his fate with every check he signed and letter he sent. A wag, of course, as are most politicians, but a goner, too. It was all in his name. Had there beenare there nowothers? TREMBLING, I wrote as many names from the past and present as I could recall. Excluded were those prankish types who deliberately fasten upon themselves fey constructions like “Cyclone” or “Barefoot” or most damnable of all “Puss” \(not 8 The Texas Observer Harris Green The grim truth I discovered is not to be trifled with nor flaunted. It is embedded in paradox, not to be revealed until it is probed or dissected or held up to the light at the proper angle. Politics is a devious art that thrives on subterfuge. He who scorns its dark gods has had it. Think back for a moment to Beauford pretended to be the people’s servant while actually doing his act for the courts of the rich. Jester, indeed. Ah, but who was Beauford’s little lieutenant? Yes, the seemingly timorous Allan Shivers. Innocent, doesn’t he sound? Yet which of his many darkalley deeds is considered his most characteristic? Why, of course: The time he stabbed all loyal Democrats in their collective back, in 1952. I ask: Could anything less have been expected of a man whose name can be reduced to the cold steel essence of “A. Shiv”? Think now who governs Texas today. Is he a public servant or is he more of a front man for those interests that con all too many Texans into thinking they have the best government imaginable. Connally? Now that the scales have fallen from my eyes, I see him as a con ally. EXAS POLITICIANS loosed upon the nation sometimes seem to have been selected and elected because their names embody their constituents’ nature. Such uncharacteristic blatancy is apparently allowed to make the maximum effect on a national scale. There’s a fine, moss-backed medieval sternness, worthy of the fortress mentality, to “Tower.” Dallas may find “Pool” limpid and restful and synonymous with wealth; I say it and something still, stagnant, and possibly scummy comes to mind. No one in all Congress is better named than Dowdy nor comes closer to the Promethean excess of Jester. You’re back on familiar, enigmatically shifting ground when you start wondering how much progressive Congressional legislation over the years was scorched juiceless by a ray burn. “Lyndon Baines Johnson” deserves to be cited in full. He was called “Lyin’ Down Johnson” years ago by Senate liberals driven to obvious desperation by the fun and games he used to play when he was their leader. Desperation is unavoidable but unproductive with Johnson. \(I confess that our scorched earth policy toward North Vietnam last summer started me insisting that his initials does reveal his true nature, but once you’ve discovered that, you must be even more patient. That nature is split, as “Johnson” will show. Our President, on good authority, claims kin with the common people with John Doe, if you wish. Well, that’s in his name. But so is his great service to people with wealth or “jack,” as it’s familiarly known. Johnson is too respectful toward money to call it “jack.” He uses the more formal “john” and there you are. How can anyone reconcile populism and The President’s Club? As far as I know, no bne has, despite much effort.