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delegation giving them an opportunity to vote for their candidate without pressure from Humphrey delegates. Sen. Barbara Jordan, one of the liberals on the delegation, explained she voted for the majority plank because “there isn’t really enough difference in the two planks to make a major fuss about it.” The final vote was 1,5674 for the majority plank, 1,0411/4 for the minority plank. Immediately after the vote, the governor thanked the three liberal delegates who went with the majority and thanked the whole delegation, saying, “The president will appreciate it.” He told members of the press that the vote was a “clear message to Hanoi. It’s a vote of confidence in the president. It means this convention is not going to put itself in the position of dictating military strategy.” THE GOVERNOR himself probably received the gratitude of the president for his little-publicized efforts to stop an embarrasing draft Johnson movement following the Vietnam vote. Richard Goodwin, a key strategist in McCarthy’s campaign, and William Vanderhooven, McGovern’s campaign manager, had threatened over nationwide television to nominate Johnson if the convention decided to approve the president’s war policy. “It’s his platform. Let him run on it,” Vanderhooven said. Soon after the vote was taken, Goodwin and Vanderhooven walked over to the rear of the Texas delegation and informed some Texas delegates of what they planned to do. Then Governor Connally sent word to the two New Yorkers that if they tried to nominate Johnson, he would ask Alaska or Alabama or the first state agreeable to yield to Texas for the purpose of nominating the president. Thus, Texas would have been in control of the nominating speeches. After the nominations were over, Connally would have taken Johnson off the list of nominees. It is not known whether the governor’s move squelched the doves’ plans, but the nomination was never made. A number of Texas delegates, including one very highly placed one, believed Johnson might well have won the nomination if the delegation had been forced to go through with their preemptive nomination. A Class Challenge Although the Texas challenge delegates were not seated at the convention, their struggle to obtain 50 of Texas’ 104 votes came much closer to success than either the Connally delegates or the challengers themselves expected. The credentials committee heard four hours of testimony in the Texas case Wednesday, Aug. 21. Maury Maverick, Jr., of San Antonio, State Rep. Curtis Graves of Houston, State Rep. Don Gladden of Fort Worth, Bexar county Commissioner Albert Pena, and Sen. Ralph Yarborough were among the persons who spoke in behalf of the Texas Democrats for an Open Convention, the coalition of blacks, latinos, antiConnally liberals and McCarthy supporters who challenged the regular delegation. Their arguments, put forth in a brief \(Obs., the Connally delegation was packed with “Month of May Democrats” who turn Republican in November, that the liberal minority had been disenfranchised by the unit rule, and that the Connally Democrats had shortchanged minority groups in defiance of the call of the convention that “all delegations be broadly representative of the Democrats of the respective states.” Graves, a Negro, pointed out that only two of the six Negroes on the Connally delegation were elected on the precinct level to be delegates. The others were appointed by the governor. “The rest are hand-picked, pledged ‘Toms’ who guaranteed they’d shut up and wouldn’t rock the boat,” Graves charged. Valmo Bellinger, a Negro newspaper publisher from San Antonio and a member of the regular delegation, countered that he was one of the “Uncle Toms” Graves was talking about. He attacked Commissioner Pena, accusing him of hiring only Latins, never Negroes, for public jobs in Bexar county. “Gov. Connally and Secretary of State [Roy] Berrera are angels compared to 4 The Texas Observer this racist,” Bellinger said. Will Davis, state Democratic chairman, and Frank Erwin, Texas’ national committeeman, represented the regular delegation at the meeting. They had four witnesses: Bellinger; Secretary of State Barrera; M. J. Anderson of Austin, a NeMartin, Jr., mayor of Laredo. After sitting through the liberals’ presentation, Davis said all he had hear d were “charges against one man, John Connally, the governor of Texas. They are totally unsupported, malicious charges against a decent, fine man who is a great governor of his state,” Davis said. Speaking of the regular delegation, he said, “By Jesus, everyone is a Democrat, one and all. They will stand up loyally for the Democratic party.” Since the insurgents seemed to have made points by emphasizing that Senator Yarborough, the state’s senior senator, was not on the regular delegation, Davis said that the senator was not on the delegation because he had not been elected to it. Davis was asked a question about the Yarborough issue, but New Jersey Gov. Richard Hughes, the credentials committee chairman, cut it off, saying “We ought not to engage in party strife. We could be here a very long time if we tried to settle the internal disputes of the Texas Democratic party until Christmas or a year from Christmas.” The committee voted 128 to 23 to seat the regular delegation. BY THE TIME the Texas challenge delegates arrived in Chicago Saturday and Sunday, the committee had made its decision. The next step was to gather eleven signatures from the committee members to bring the challenge up on the floor in the form of a minority report. Caucusing Sunday, the group decided to limit its arguments to the racial issue, reasoning that it was the only legal basis on which the convention could seat them and also that it was the only issue in which most delegates showed interest. Sunday night and Monday the challenge delegates visited major delegations to present their case. Most regular Texas delegates felt confident that the challenge had been rebuffed. Sunday in a press conference, Governor Connally dismissed the TDOC case as “almost completely without merit.” He said that Texas had 17 black delegates and alternates, more than any other state except Michigan. \(He later was proved to be wrong. The official convention count showed that three states had more Negro delegates and alternates than Texas and nine states Monday morning the TDOC delegates met at the YMCA Hotel, their headquarters for the convention, and then split up, some going to gather signatures on the minority report, others visiting delegation caucuses. Gladden had obtained affidavits of 17 Negro precinct leaders who said that they asked to be delegates to the state convention and were not chosen, and the evidence was used at many delegation meetings to try to prove that Negroes had been excluded from the Connally delegation. The challengers knew they would have to work quickly, but they did not realize at the time that the credentials fight would be set for that same evening. When they learned of the change in schedule, members of the TDOC began to contact sympathetic delegates who were willing to present the minority position on the floor. There was some discussion as to whether a member of the regular Texas delegation should second the minority report. Benton Musslewhite had offered to do so, but leaders of the challenge decided to get seconds from other states. They reasoned that the TDOC would have a better argument if the regular delegation appeared as a united front against their challenge. They also wanted to present the credentials as a national issue concerning minority group discrimina