ustxtxb_obs_1967_10_13_50_00005-00000_000.pdf

cannot substitute for active help during the crisis:”..McKeithan \(the Mission city that just the threat of a major disaster is sufficient cause for requesting designation as a disaster area, even before the disaster strikes. “The effect of the delay in certification . .. can never be exactly determined,” the attorneys wrote Yarborough. “All that can be said is that United States government pumps, bulldozer’s, personnel, and expert assistance would have been invaluable while the winds were blowing, floodwaters rising, and floodway levees breaking.” V On the day the storm struck Texas Yarborough won the addition of $10 million to the President’s emergency disaster relief fund, and was instrumenttal in securing an additional million dollars for the Army engineers to repair navigable watercourses damaged in the storm. V Yarborough visited the storm area on Sept. 24-26. “I was requested by many People to help get an emergency declaration because areas were being turned down for relief, because there had been no emergency declaration,” he tells the Observer. “I feel that my efforts and demands had a material impact in obtaining an earlier declaration of a disaster area than could have been obtained without a fight being made to get it and that my fight was necessary and helpful to these areas.” The state press was almost unani mously against Yarborough in his attack on Connally. An editorial in t the Fort Worth Star-Telegram suggested that the Senator should have stayed in ‘Wash ton during the storm crisis, “keeping his mouth shut.” La Huelga Dead? . I/ The storm ravaged Starr county, among some 20 others, and has made even more desperate the plight of the striking farm workers at Rio Grande City. There is some talk that Beulah was the death blow of La Huelga, as the strikers’ economic plight is now even worse since Beulah. Cesar Chavez, the head of the farm workers’ union, has lately begun a nationwide boycott against a large California grower he is striking; Chavez is reported to be putting his Texas staff people to work in that effort, leaving the Starr county strike for another day, perhaps, or to be transplanted later to a more promising Texas strike site, perhaps in one of the Valley counties nearer the coast. Chavez has not been happy about Starr county as the locale for a strike, feeling the economic conditions strategically unfavorable. V Doug Adair, the editor of El Malcria do, the farm workers’ union publication at Rio Grande City, notes that many of Starr county’s people lived much better than usual during the disaster relief effort of the Red Cross, church people, and Army doctors. “Many of the people crowding in for the free food suffer from chronic malnutrition. It was worth it to wait in the long lines, to get three good, balanced meals a day, during the disaster. Refugees were given clothing, blankets, diapers, many things which during normal times they could never . have afforded to purchase.” More on 1968 Decision time is near for Gov. Con nally as to next year. The latest development occurred Oct. 4 in a story in the Austin paper to the effect that the governor, at a meeting of some of his inner circle, expressed his inclination against trying for a fourth term. The same story said that House Speaker Ben Barnes sookvyould announce that he’ll run for lieutenant governor. The story left unanswered the intriguing question of who would head the Establishment’s ticket next year. . There was some talk in the wake of the Austin newspaper story that Connally was seeking reassurance from President Johnson that LBJ does still value Connally as governor. It is understood that LBJ has made no overtures to the Governor to urge Connally to seek reelection next year. There was talk that Connally wanted some sign that he is not taken for granted by Johnson. Also, some of Connally’s sources of campaign finances are reported under some competing pressure for contributions from other Establishmentarians, Barnes and Lt. Gov. Preston Smith, who both plan statewide races next year. V If reassurance is what Connally want ed,. he got it from the state’s daily press, which promptly responded to the prospect of his not running with a bundle of editorials saying that Texas needs Connally in the Governor’s Mansion. I/ Should Connally Step aside \( the Ob server the governor’s race next year will be wilder and woolier than had been anticipated, with Barnes, Smith, one of the liberal YarboroughsDon or Ralphand Waggoner Carr likely to be in the race. V Carr is reported considering a race against Barnes, regardless of what Barnes runs for. There is a story current in Austin that Carr is peeved at Barnes for some reason and means to do him in politically. The exact nature of the grievance is unknown but speculation centers vaguely around Carr’s unsuccessful race in 1966 against US Sen. John Tower. V The current ratings as to likelihood of being the Republicans’ candidate State Will Wilson, the former Democrat state attorDallas man who is now considered more likely to challenge Cong. Joe Pool. V That long-awaited list of donors to the LBJ State Park is now promised before Christmas by former Atty. Gen. John Ben Shepperd, who was named last Dec. 31 as administrator of the fund. V US Supreme Court Associate Justice Hugo Black has denied a request for a stay order on the court’s ruling outlawing Texas’ loyalty oaths for state officials. State AG Crawford Martin says he’ll give up trying to keep the oath alive. The city sales tax is winning remark able acceptance; 14 cities have adopted ordinances by local option vote, none have voted the proposition down. More elections are planned. 0 A Fugue on a Fugue by Mailer Why Are We In Vietnam? by Norman Mailer. Dial Press. $4.95. Austin In the Summer, 1967, issue of the Partisan Review there is a discussion of Norman Mailer by Leslie A. Fiedler. \(” . . . For a contemporary Master of Dreams more explicitly Josephian, which is to say, Jewish, we must turn to a writer who in his own fantasies is never more than half Dave Hickey is an Observer contributing editor whose book reviews appear frequently in these pages. In the same issue of the Partisan Review there is a review of Norman Mailer’s book Cannibals and Christians writ Dave Hickey ten by Tony Tanner. \(” . .. One readily concedes him the gift of being able to catch and articulate the general mood of certain key moments in post war America: wrong about surface facts, he is often In the same issue of the Partisan Re Norman Mailer signs “A Statement on’ the CIA.” \(” . . . we, the undersigned, would like to make public our opposition Among the undersigned: Paul Goodman, Dwight MacDonald, John Hollander, Richa d Poirier, Philip Rahv et al. In the same issue of the Partisan Reiew Norman Mailer submits a paragraph which attests to the fact that he is “In Clay’s Corner.” \( ” . . . I’m working on something else now, so don’t want to get started writing about Muhammed Ali, because I could go on for a book . . . They ran him out of boxing .. .Therefore we are all deprived of an intimate spectacle October 13, 1967