ustxtxb_obs_1968_09_06_50_00016-00000_000.pdf

Now What? dows. One can only conclude that the McCarthy staff members were the victims of a brutal form of political harrassment. Thursday Eugene McCarthy spoke to demonstrators in Grant Park and many of his youthful supporters had participated in the demonstrations. Hubert Humphrey’s vascillating statements on the incidents of violence in Chicago are disturbing. He decried “storm trooper” tactics on both sides, congratulated Mayor Daley for protecting him and other candidates from assassination attempts, and then called for a blue ribbon into the incidents in Chicago. The vicepresident’s reactions to events in Chicago indicate that as president he might be even less tolerant of dissent than Lyndon Johnson. Equally disturbing is the fact that the majority of the American public, after Austin The problem for liberals and for Democrats now, after Chicago, is somehow to bring themselves around to pulling the lever for Hubert Humphrey. I am by no means certain I can bring myself to do that, though I fully expect HHH to look better and better as he is juxtaposed with Richard Nixon and George Wallace. Still, I am revolted by what the Democratic party has become and outraged that the administration which most Democrats have repudiated in primaries across the land this year has been chosen 16 The Texas Observer seeing instances of police brutality on television, still insist that the police were justfied in ther handing of the “hippies.” There seems to be an assumpton on the part if the police and the public that young people with long hair, or beards or in unconventional clothing are less equal other citizens. It’s all right for them to be beaten up. Such an attitude is unworthy of a free society. The Aug. 23 issue of the Observer listed persons who, according to a McCarthy campaign official, met with Sen. Eugene McCarthy during his visit to Houston. On the list was a contributor to the Observer, Walter Hall of Dickinson. Mr. Hall informs us that he was invited to meet with McCarthy but declined because he is a long-time supporter of Hubert Humphrey. K.N. to carry the party banner in November. I nurture a fragile hope that Humphrey can somehow be liberated by liberals and radicals from the party hacks and know-nothing bosses who engineered his nomination. I doubt it. But HHH is a decent man, good and evidently inventive in his domestic thinking. But Vietnam and and foreign policy, there’s the problem. Humphrey does not realize that a substantial segment of this nation wishes to turn away from the imperialism that American foreign policy has become \(or perhaps always has been since the SpanI doubt that Humphrey understands what is going on in this country domestically, that racism, poverty, and tactics approaching racism are going to be stopped. The time is at hand for new directions at home and abroad and I do not believe Humphrey realizes this. I believe he envisions some sort of warmed-over New Deal for the America of the seventies. It won’t do. Drastic changes are needed domestically. There is a surging, relentless tide of opposition to social injustice at home, a tide that will not be stemmed by dated liberal rhetoric. People are far too keenly aware today of the gulf between talk, legislation passed, and reality. Change will occur in this nation, whether Humphrey or Nixon want that or not. If they are to be remembered kindly by history the two major candidates had best become aware of the rising revolutionary tide in this country. I don’t know what to do this November. I may end up voting for Humphrey but I will not do so gladly; I may vote for Nixon, preferring that the Democratic party nationally thus be given to the McCar thys and Kennedys and McGoverns for 1972 and, in Texas, break thereby the Austin-Washington axis which has been so effective in stifling progressivism in our home state. I might vote for a fourth party candidate should one emerge. There is talk of a write-in campaign in Texas. That will prove futile, I think, but I feel futile right now and at this point can’t bring myself to face the Humphrey-Nixon choice. I had for several day after the convention intended to write a column in this space entitled “I Am no Democrat.” I would have written how I have at last become weary of aligning myself with politicians like Maddox, Connally and Daley. But what is the alternative to that? I believe too deeply in electoral politics to urge taking to the streets. And I believe thare are signs that the Democratic party can once again be returned to the people, particularly with a Humphrey defeat this fall. If I don’t vote for Humphrey it will be for that very good reason. The Democratic party has richly earned defeat in 1968 by foisting off Humphrey on us when he clearly is not the choice of the party’s rank and file, and by permitting Mayor Daley to become the image of the party. Daley is a swine. He does not understand nor care for democracy. He respects only power. He is a grass monument to what has gone so wrong with the Democrats and with American politics, the satrap who cares only for his own selfish little games. Such petty men of such miserly spirit are not fit to hold public office, and certainly they are not entitled to such influence in the affairs of a great political party. The Democratic party is sick. Its sickness is infecting the nation and killing people in Vietnam \(and elsewhere have while setting these thoughts down pretty much decided I’ll not vote for Humphrey. I guess I’ll just abstain or cast a protest, fourth party vote. What a wretched year. G.O. The Welcome Mat Is Pulled Back A correspondent for a national newspaper advises, of the White House press corps’ recent Texas visit: “On the ‘how have the mighty fallen’ theme, even in San Antonio they seem to have heard that LBJ will not be president next year. The Tropicana Motel, which once greeted the White House press corps with margueritas and mariachi bands, charged a good many of us an extra half day’s room rent for staying in our rooms past 5 p.m. the day we left Texas.”