ustxtxb_obs_1967_09_01_50_00014-00000_000.pdf

Considering 1968 ATHENA MONTESSORI SCHOOL Open House 3 to 8 September 3 & 4 Red River at 41st Opposite Hancock Center Membership Association Montessori Internationale American Montessori Society National Society for Programmed Instruction GL 4-4239 or AT 2-1719 COGSWELL FOR THE PEOPLE’, BUMPER STICKERS FREE GR . 7 7 0 7 0 Box 7191, Austin, Texas 78712 Austin Although the importance of Texas politics as such has been reduced by the fierce and violent events of these times, still there are matters that matter among us here. It is of first importance, in my personal view, that Texas liberals not give up the fight for the governorship. People know that the President is for John Connally, his old sidekick and secretary, but the President’s pressure has not stopped Texas liberals yet; much less should It these days. The announcement of Lt. Gov. Preston Smith, an independent conservative from West Texas, that he will run for governor next year no matter what Connally does, coupled with the indication from Speaker Ben Barnes, Connally’s heir-apparent, that he will run for lieutenant governor, permit us to make out the shape of next spring’s primary, conjecturally. Evidently in part because President Johnson does not want a fight for the governorship in Texas next year, Connally will tun again, hoping, even against the fourth ; term question, that his acceptance among the voters, combined with the effects of presidential wheedling and pressure on Texas labor, will deter the liberals from fielding anyone. If all goes well by the one-party state’s plan, Barnes will 14 The Texas Observer become the lieutenant governor, ready to step up when Connally either returns to his growing ranch holdings or, during Johnson’s second term, accepts a high post in the federal government. However, among a free people no individual’s conduct can be predicted on the basis of the tendency of his views. He may still turn out to be a stout-hearted human being with a will of his own. Preston Smith is turning out this way, and his entry into the governor’s race assures a ,division among conservatives in the primary \(if, as assumed, he runs as a Demoservatives in the absence of an issue about Johnson, the governor is correctly identified, intimately, with Johnson, who has called him “my closest friend,” whereas Smith is not so identified. Furthermore, one can deduce that Smith has decided already to stand up to the blandishments certain to be forthcoming from the White House \(if they have not already been exthe chances of a liberal candidate in .the Democratic primary immediately improve. The Republicans have a good chance to win the governorship in 1968, and they know it. Should Connally be renominated, his strength in November would be intimately associated with the President’s; a fresh Republican contender against Connally would have a chance. Should Smith be nominated, he would not be more formidable for them in November than Connally. Should a liberal be nominated, the Republicans would whoop with joy, sure they could take him in November. Thus it is clearly to the Texas Republicans’ self-interest that they hold a presidential preferential primary vote that will ble contenders in 1968 is most popular tives out of the Democratic primary the same day, perhaps increasing the chance of a Smith upset and definitely increasing the chance of a liberal’s nomination. The immediate practical question is whether the liberals should concentrate on a voter registration drive, beginning in October. They should. Only those who have given off believing in democracy can oppose seeking out the poor and the apathetic and signing them up to take an in terest, to make their weight felt as they will, in 1968. One can sympathize, one can side with, those who are disgusted with liberals avoiding the Vietnam war issue without opposing a large liberal turnout in 1968. It is better that the boat be rocked with votes than with rocks. Arguments are being advanced that labor and the liberals should skip voter registration. In other words, Johnson, who has never been able to control the Texas liberal movement, would be pleased if it would roll over and play possum next year. The situation contains its own answer. The Limit Senator Yarborough has foreseen an expedition in Vietnam he will not stand for, the invasion of North Vietnam. Do that, he has declaredand he was declaring it, of course, to the President, as well as to the peopleand he is getting off. Surely, if the President has been intending such an invasion, this will give him serious pause, for if the senior senator from Texas gets off, so will other senators, who are still on. Fulbright in Honolulu Senator Fulbright, on August 8 in Honolulu, delivered another of those speeches he makes which sum up our national situation so truthfully, one feels no impulse to add anything. Read as a rebuke from the senator from Arkansas to the President from Texas, the Honolulu speech is stark; read as a passionate crying out for the saving of our country, it is , deeply moving. I would quote a few sentences from it, but that would be rape. I recommend you write Fulbright’s office in Washington and get a copy. And leave it among your papers for your children. The State of Columbia Congressman Henry Gonzalez’ proposal to give statehood to the. District of Columbia is a good and a creative idea. Of course it would be a small state; so is Rhode Island. No comparable area is nearly as important in the history and present life of the nation. Gonzalez’ idea has something of compensatory justice about it, too. The Congress has always dealt with residents of the district as step-citizens. The betteroff people, generally, have moved into the environs in neighboring states. As a statethe state of Columbia?the district would have two senators who could get full citizenship for their constituents. Introducing the legislation, Gonzalez said: “It is an embarrassing and degrading paradox that the nation which claims to be democracy’s ardent and most able defender has as its capital a captive district governed by absentee Landlords. It is my contention that regulation without participation is as equal a tyranny as taxation without representation. “And, so today I am introducing an