ustxtxb_obs_1968_08_23_50_00010-00000_000.pdf

Photo by Frank Armstrong Hubert Humphrey in Old San Antone assumption that there are military solu tions for nearly every political problem.” WHILE McCarthy was in Houston calling for a new kind of politics, Vice-president Humphrey in Corpus Christi was heralding a “new era in American foreign policy.” Humphrey told Mexican-American members of the GI Forum, “You did not fight the wars of the pastyour boys are not fighting in Vietnam todayso that there would be more dangermore miserymore war. America has fought its wars and built its unparalleled defensive strength to achieve a groundwork for a lasting and honorable peace based on self-determination of nations and dignity of man. Now I believe it is time to move ahead with equal courage to seize the rewards of peace. I believe that much of the world is ready for reconciliation. I have called 10 The Texas Observer for a new era in Americaq ‘foreign policy based on peaceful engagement, rather than containment and hostile confrontation. That demands peace in Vietnama stable, lasting and honorable peace settlement in Vietnam at the earliest possible moment.” Humphrey spent a significant portion of his two-day visit to Texas courting the latino vote. In Corpus, he said, “If I am elected president, I pledge that the federal government will be the model employer of Latinsand that means from the White House on down.” He guaranteed a minimum wage for Rio Grande Valley migrant farm workers and, for the internationalists, increased support for the Alliance for Progress. Saturday the vice-president campaigned for nine straight hours under a hot San Antonio sun. He began the day with a breakfast meeting which included Texas House Speaker Ben Barnes, who had been charged by the Southern Legislative Con ference to urge Humphrey to make law and order the major issue of the campaign. The southern legislators, meeting in Biloxi, Miss., last month, agreed that the Democrats will lose the south in the November election if they fail to decry “crime in the streets.” Later in the day Humphrey made what was considered by some observers his strongest appeal to date for law and order. “There isn’t a single problem that can be solved through lawlessness, crime or violence,” he said. “Law violators are destroying, not building a better America.” Humphrey toured the HemisFair with Governor Connally, Commissioner General of the U.S. Pavilion Ed Clark, Barnes, Congressman Henry Gonzalez and others. He dedicated recreational facilities at Lake Brauning, visited a federal job training center, and ended the day of campaigning with a tardeada zalez. During the day, the vice-president touched most all the major issues of the 1968 campaign the war, the poverty program, pollution, crime, the “quality of life” in America. At Lake Brauning, he exercised the joyful optimism for which he is famous. “The greatest title in the world is to be a citizen of the United States of America,” he said. “Gee, it’s great to live in this country.” With the enthusiasm of a man who obviously loves campaigning, Humphrey painted a door at the job training site, squeezed hands, kissed babies and even danced a tango at the tardeada. Humphrey met with many important Democrats including Congressmen Abraham Kazen, 0. C. Fisher, Jake Pickle and General Crawford Martin, and a bevy of Texas labor leaders. Hank Brown, president of the Texas AFL-CIO announced after the meeting with Humphrey that his organization will back the vice-president, despite Sen. Yarborough’s endorsement of McCarthy. Humphrey did not comment publicly on Sen. Yarborough’s defection, but Speaker Barnes, asked whether Humphrey discussed it privately, answered, “All I can tell you is that Mr. Humphrey knows about Senator Yarborough, and he had plenty to say about it.” Nor did Humphrey have anything to say about the possibility of Governor Connally’s sharing the ticket with him. One Humphrey adviser said Connally definitely had been ruled out. When Ed Clark, a close friend of President Johnson, introduced the governor to a crowd at HemisFair as a man with the “character, heart and conscience” to fill any office in the United States, Humphrey did not respond. By the end of his visit it seemed apparent that Connally was no longer in the running for the vice-presidential nomination, but that Humphrey would still fall heir to Texas’ 104 delegate votes. It also seemed apparent that despite the fact that labor and the Democratic establishment are inclined to support the vicepresident, a significant portion of Texas Democrats are committed to Eugene McCarthy’s quiet political revolution. K.N.