ustxtxb_obs_1968_03_01_50_00002-00000_000.pdf

union people wanted to endorse Don Yarborough, but they felt that their leaders had made a bargain, that a real benefit had been deliveredno serious opposition to the senatorand that they, therefore, were bound to keep that deal. On the other hand, there was the fact that the liberals who [had] met in the Democratic Coalition late in January were gung-ho for Don . . . and that the matter needed to be carried off with the least damage to the Coalition they could manage. . . . “Without any public remarks, then, labor voted not to endorse any candidates for state office. Homer Moore, oilworker delegate from Corpus Christi, expressed the spirit of many of the remarks heard among the delegates when, in a later debate, Moore said right out: ‘There has been so much arranged before we got here on 90% of it, and the other 10% was pretty much pressured. Gentlemen, it is my feeling that. I have compromised everything but my wife and my soul in the governor’s race,’ ” the Observer reported in 1964. In 1966 COPE endorsed the liberal Stanley Woods over Connally and Johnnie Mae Hackworthe but did not endorse Woods’ teammate Bill Hollowell over Lt. Gov. Smith. Spears was endorsed over Crawford Martin and Galloway Calhoun. Woods received 291,000 votes in losing to Connally; Hollowell got 213,000 votes losing to Smitha difference of 78,000 votes between the COPE-endorsed Incorporating the State Observer and the East Texas Democrat, which in turn incorporated the State Week and Austin Forum-Advocate. We will serve no group or party but will hew hard to the truth as we find it and the right as we see it. We are dedicated to the whole truth, to human values above all interests, to the rights of man as the foundation of democracy; we will take orders from none but our own conscience, and never will we overlook or misrepresent the truth to serve the interests of the powerful or cater to the ignoble in the human spirit. Editor, Greg Olds. Editor-at-large, Ronnie Dugger. Business Manager, Sarah Payne. Associate Manager, C. R. Olofson. Contributing Editors, Elroy Bode, Winston Bode, Bill Brammer, Lee Clark, Sue Horn Estes, Larry Goodwyn, Harris Green, Bill Helmer, Dave Hickey, Franklin Jones, Lyman Jones, Larry L. King, Georgia Earnest Klipple, Al Melinger, Robert L. Montgomery, Willie Morris, James Presley, Charles Ramsdell, John Rogers, Mary Beth Rogers, Roger Shattuck, Robert Sherrill, Dan Strawn, Tom Sutherland, Charles Alan Wright. Contributing Photographer, Russell Lee. The editor has exclusive control over the editorial policies and contents of the Observer. None of the other people who are associated with the enterprise shares this responsibility with him. Writers are responsible for their own work, but not for anything they have not themselves written, and in publishing them the editor does not necessarily imply that he agrees with them, because this is a journal of free voices. Unsigned articles are the editor’s. candidate and his running mate whom COPE did not endorse. THERE IS TALK around the state this year that President Johnson and national labor leader George Meany are looking to Barnes as the coming power in Texas politics, the man they will deal with. There is the story, first reported by Garth Jones in the Associated Press, of President Johnson telling Barnes as Barnes was leaving a party during the holidays, “Mr. Speaker, I want you to know I am with youmoney, marbles, or chalk.” While Barnes was attending the State AFL-CIO convention last August in Fort Worth he conferred privately with Vice President Humphrey; Barnes is the only Texas politician whom Humphrey is known to have seen in such closed door circumstances during the Vice President’s brief visit to that convention. Texas labor president . Hank Brown, who first opposed or was unimpressed by Gladden’s entry into the race, was reported in December and January as becoming more enthusiastic about Gladden, perhaps favoring endorsement. Since late January, a time when: Brown made a trip to Washington, it is understod that Brown is now dead set against endorsing Gladden. Barnes, then, it appears, is evidently to take up where Gov. John Connally is leaving off, despite the fact Barnes would be lieutenant governor, not governor. He could be expected to run for governor in Subscription Representatives: Arlingto n, George N. Green, 300 E. South College St., CR 70080; Austin, Mrs. Helen C. Spear, 2615 Pecos, HO 5-1805; Corpus Christi, Penny Dudley, 12241/2 Second St., TU 4-1460; Dallas, Mrs. Cordye Hall, 5835 Ellsworth, TA 1-1205; El Paso, Philip Himelstein, 331 Rainbow Circle, 584-3238; Ft. Worth, Dolores Jacobsen, 3025 Greene Ave., WA 4-9655; Houston, Mrs. Kitty Peacock, 718 Capital Nat’l Bank Bldg., CA 8-7956; Lubbock, Doris Blaisdell, 2515 24th St.; Midland, Eva Dennis, 4306 Douglas, OX 4-2825; Snyder, Enid Turner, 2210 30th St., HI 3-9497 or HI 3-6061; San Antonio, Mrs. Mae B. Tuggle, 531 Elmhurst, TA 6-3583; Wichita Falls, Jerry Lewis, 2910 Speedway, 766-0409. The Observer is published by Texas Observer Co., Ltd., biweekly from Austin, Texas. Entered as second-class matter April 26, 1937, at the Post Office at Austin, Texas, under the Act of March 3, 1879. Second class postage paid at Austin, Texas. Delivered postage prepaid $6.00 a year; two years, $11.00; three years, $15.00. Foreign rates on request. Single copies 25c; prices for ten or more for students, or bulk orders, on request. Editorial and Business Offices: The Texas Observer, 504 West 24th St., Austin, Texas 78705. Telephone GR 7-0746. Editor’s residence phone, GR 8-2333. Houston office: 718 Capital National Bank Building, Houston, Texas 77002. Telephone CA 8-7956. Change of Address: Please give old and new address and allow three weeks. Form 3579 regarding undelivered copies: Send to Texas Observer, 504 W. 24th, Austin, Texas 78705. 1970 or later ancl, meanwhile, seek to control the state’s politics by running the Senate the next two years. COPE’s dilemma at Galveston as to Gladden’s candidacy is whether to go against the apparent wishes of Johnson and Meany and support the liberal candidate. The situation is similar to that in 1964, when Johnson and other national labor leaders had determined to damp down the challenge to Connally by withholding COPE endorsement from Don Yarborough. Barnes is becoming a power in Texas politics; he is likeable; he is not personally antagonistic to labor and liberal people; he is favored to win. There appears no percentage in endorsing Gladden, not at least in terms of the reasoning that has prevailed in previous COPE decisions; COPE has characteristically shunned committing itself fully, by endorsement, to an underdog, having done so only three times in its historyMaverick in 1961 and Woods and Spears in 1966. Liberalism and a .good labor voting record have not meant as much to COPE in the past as have other more practical considerations on the state political scene. This is a fact many liberals outside organiezd labor don’t understand, or if they understand, don’t like. THE LEADER of Texas liberals, Senator Yarborough, has been appealed to in person by Gladden himself. Gladden and his advisor-pilot Bill Thomas conferred with the senator on Feb. 9 in Yarborough’s Washington office. The senator is in an improving position to affect Texas politics by virtue of his growing influence, born of his Senate seniority. It is quite possible Yarborough will become the chairman of. the Senate labor committee next year, with the retirement of Sen. Lister Hill of Alabama, the chairman; and the possible defeat of Oregon Sen. Wayne Morse, the No. 2 man in seniority on the committee. Yarborough, third in seniority on the committee, thus is a man Meany must have good relations with. Yarborough is understood to have been noncommittal in his conversation with Gladden about doing anything to line labor up behind Gladden. Gladden, in early February, told the Observer he had not talked with Brown about endorsement. “I have heard that Hank is of the opinion there should be no endorsement, but I haven’t discussed it with him,” Gladden says. He believes it would be a mistake for liberals to underestimate the importance of the lieutenant governor’s race, saying that Barnes as lieutenant governor could frustrate the enactment of a liberal governor’s program. By example Gladden cites the tenure of Lt. Gov. Ramsey. “Under Ben Ramsey the lobby didn’t concern itself with the number of liberals elected because it knew it could stop any liberal legislation in the Senate, which,happened many times. “1 can’t stop seeking labor’s endorsement,” Gladden went on. “If my own sort of people don’t want me, I can’t explain that to the voting public.” G.O. THE TEXAS OBSERVER The Texas Observer Publishing Co. A Journal of Free Voices A Window to the South 62nd YEARESTABLISHED 1906 Vol. LX, No. 4 7cOSO March 1, 1968