ustxtxb_obs_1967_02_17_50_00012-00000_000.pdf

Sen. J. William Fulbright’s ARROGANCE OF POWER $4.95 Arthur Schlesinger’s BITTER HERITAGE $3.95 GARNER AND SMITH Bi STORE 2116 Guadalupe, Austin, Texas, 78705 Mail order requests promptly ,filled n My Opinion Welcome Discord Austin It’s good to see Republicans having their intraparty disputes \(see Political InG.O.P. is becoming a real .political party after all. I sense a certain malaise in the party’s ranks since the disputes broke out in Houston and Dallas; many Republicans are appalled at the spectacle of the brawling and in-fighting which these disagreements entail. Republicans, who are genteel, hate to be caught acting like those commoners, the Democrats. Jim Lehrer, political writer for the Dallas Times-Herald, observes that such disputes are “everpresent, traditional, routine, expected, matter-of-fact, customary, recurring, inevitable, normal, and revered in the Democratic Party. Factional wars, in factto those involved as participants or observersare what make the party warm and lovable. It wouldn’t be the Democratic Party without them . . . War is still hell to a Republican. It’s a way of life to a Democrat.” What Lehrer says is true and the Republicans should take his words to heart. There is great interest in Texas Democratic Party affairs because large numbers of people have become involved in issues in dispute. There is talk in the Texas G.O.P. now of avoiding contested local primary races in the future; the Dal 12 The Texas Observer BUMPERSTR IPS: oKENNEDY’68 Fluorescent, genuine peel-off bunwerstrip stock. 1 for 25c 6 for $1 _ 100 for $10 1,000 for $65 Pass the Torch in ’68 Committee P. 0. Box 3395 Austin, Texas 78704 MARTIN ELFANT Sun Life of Canada 1001 Century Building Houston, Texas CA 4-0686 /0#.1****W las county party chairman, for one, has made such a suggestion. But the Republicans won’t soon win a very wide fallowing if they insist on too stringent limits on intraparty contests. And there’s another thing they should consider: political campaign machinery assembled for a hard primary race will serve more efficiently in the fall general election then will an organization with no primary experience. True, the Republican Party is still a fragile thing in Texas, but it’s growing and it needs to strengthen its legs with some hard-running primaries. In the spring the sap begins to flow and, in even-numbered years, the interest of voters begins to course, as well, particularly so if there are some interesting, disputed primary elections. The Republicans hope to lure to their side the several -hundred thousand Texans who have not yet admitted that they are Republicans. A vigorous primary campaign is one good way to hasten the process. It is said that two attractive Republican candidates in Dallas, Jim Collins and Frank Crowley, want a shot at Cong. Joe Pool in 1968. Such a race would excite a great deal of interest in Republican affairs. Let Crowley and Collins slug it out in May and then unite their supporters behind the winner. That’s how the Democrats do it. Well, usually. Of course my reason for saying all this is transparent; I want to rid the Democratic Party of the Connallycrats, so the Republicans will run only one party and not both, as now. For this reason liberals have helped elect John Tower to the U.S. Senate twice. This work must go on. Liberals and Republicans must continue to cooperate to achieve the happy day when they can go for each other’s throats, as is their ‘natural inclination. Until then we must show the conservative Democrats that political and intellectual honesty requires that they join the Republicans, following the example of such men as U.S. Sen. Strom. Thurmond and State Sen. Henry Grover of Houston \(who was, until ,not long ago, a fourth generation Texas in the Democratic Party of Texas now, of ten and rightfully say that competition means more preferable choices in the marketplace. The same is true in the marketplace of ideas. Let the political monopoly be broken up for healthier state and local government in Texas. A Needless Nuisance The dying out of the loyalty oath as a requirement in our state and nation is occurring with few protests. The oath is merely a needless nuisance; it didn’t do the job for which it was designed to expose communists and keep them from sharing the benefits of tax dollars paid by us free enterprise types. The very first registration at the University of Texas after the 1949 oath law was passed by the legislature a student who was an avowed communist signed the required form, promising not to overthrow the government that semester. But the loyalty oath is also somewhat more than a nuisance; it is rather erosive of human dignity. Thus it is appalling that 18 years passed before a student protested. the oath in court. I remember during my undergraduate years, in the fifties, that a friend, a shaggy-haired malcontent, proposed a campaign to encourage students not to sign the oath forms. But those were deadly dull days then, the McCarthy-Eisenhower period, and campus ferment bubbled gently indeed. I remember one afternoon a student got worked up over some public issue a rare happening on the campus back then a n d started haranguing passersby. Some other students, mildly amused and probably a little embarrassed by the spectacle of someone trying to engage in dialogue on a current affair, dumped the orator into the fountain. Today that same student would draw an attentive crowd on the campus, I am pleased to report. The question remains, however: will state employees \(including public school the oath which they have to sign at the time of their employment be struck down in court? The case being prosecuted by the Dallas college teacher may not succeed in raising the pertinent legal question; there is doubt that El Centro Junior College. has ever received state aid \(though it probably. will, beginning in unchallenged. Perhaps someone else will have to rise and stand where Everett Gilmore, Jr., and Cameron Cunningham have .11114111=11111M01111110.1111MIMIN101111M01111111301=10 1 I Texas Society i i to Abolish I Capital Punishment i 1 1 memberships, $2 up 1 1 P.O. Box 8134, Austin, Texas 78712 I …………—-0……………………i