ustxtxb_obs_1968_09_20_50_00002-00000_000.pdf

by about 2-1. It then appeared that perhaps 30 persons, almost all of them of college age, were trying to organize themselves into a walkout. However, this point of business was the last of the day and adjournment was voted before any budding walkout could have been mounted, if indeed that had been intended. Most of the young people had chosen between attending the coalition meeting and a gathering that same afternoon to form the liberal New party, a group which this year will work to organize a write-in campaign for Eugene McCarthy as president and New York Mayor John Lindsay as vice president. A few of the young people attended both meetings but most attended one or the other. Some state newspapers reported that the coalition had luke-warmly endorsed Humphrey, but clearly this was not the intent of the vast majority present. The resolution sought only to recognize the differences within the group on the question, a question which, really, is not germane to the group’s central purposes, which extend beyond and do not really include the 1968 elections. Virginia Curry, Arlington, introduced a resolution urging Humphrey to resign as vice president so he could campaign free of President Johnson’s influence on Vietnam. Dugger said he feared the Curry resolution might jeopardize the budding compromise between the proand anti-Humphrey factions in the group. The resolution, which had been defeated in 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. Associate Editor, Kaye Northcott. 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. 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. the resolutions committee, likewise was turned down on the floor. Two Vietnam resolutions were passed. The first endorsed the minority plank that was defeated at the national Democratic convention; a second decried the intervention by great powers in the affairs of smaller nations. Other resolutions passed expressed “regret for the conduct [in Chicago] of John Connally and Frank Erwin, men who reflect a departing order in Texas, grounded in intolerance and the unprincipled use of power”; said the state Democratic party has, “in alliance with oil, gas and banking interests” become “an institution privately supported by leading Republicans with the aim of suppressing any genuine statement of Democratic ideals”; pledged to organize a statewide council on a senatorial district pattern, to form local organizations and to reform the state party, “opening up the party machinery for all the people, returning it to the ideals of progressive reform”; opposed the “militarization of our nation . . . and therefore we favor the ultimate abolition of the draft”; endorsed changes in the state election code, to provide for permanent voter registration, a state presidential primary, no unit rule and proportional representation to national conventions based on the percentage of support for opposing positions; said that problems of Mexican-American education must be faced more squarely; urged that UT regents chairman Frank The Observer is published by Texas Observer Publishing Co., Inc., 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. Houston office: 1005 S. Shepherd Drive, Houston, Texas 77019. Telephone 523-0685. 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. Subscription Representatives: A r ling t o 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, PO Box 13059, 523-0685; 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, 204 Terrell Road, TA 6-3583; Wichita Falls, Jerry Lewis, 2910 Speedway, 766-0409. Washington, D.C., Mrs. Martha J. Ross, 6008 Grosvenor Lane, 5300884. Erwin not be reappointed; called for the Texas Rangers to be abolished; advocated higher standards in the employment and pay of state and local police, in training them, “especially in the area of nonviolent crowd control,” and opposed equipping police with “such excessive devices and weapons as armored vehicles, automatic weapons and disabling chemical agents such as Mace; supported civilian review boards to oversee police activities; commended the Kerner commission report on civil disorders; and said that “justice in law is more important than order and especially order before or without justice.” ED COGBURN, Houston, was named by the nominating committee to be the coalition’s chairman. Graves was nominated from the floor. Graves, who had left the meeting, reportedly had told some members of the black caucus that he would serve as chairman if elected. The vote was 68-63 for Graves. His election was a surprise to the Houston people who, Cogburn among them, have been instrumental in organizing the coalition. After the meeting there was d o u b t expressed by some that Graves, a popular state legislator, would have sufficient time to do much work for the coalition. Some persons said that if he does not, he should be asked to resign the chairmanship. The coalition will be led by an executive committee composed of the chairman and eight committee members two each chosen by the Mexican-American, black, Anglo, and youth \(younger Houston, and Trey Ellison, San Antonio, Anglo; Miss Sarah Lewis and Phillip Green, both of Houston, youth; Mrs. Gus Gonzales, Austin, and Mike Gonzalez, Del. Rio, Mexican-American; and Mrs. J. H. Means, Austin, and Graves, black. A council of 124 persons will be named later four members from each of the 31 state senatorial districts, each district naming a black, Anglo, youth and Mexican-American member to the council. During the day Mrs. Carr reported on the activities of the Texas Democrats for an Open Convention in Chicago. The rules committee minority report that was accepted at the convention abolishing the unit rule in 1972 was, she said, just the second minority report to prevail at a national Democratic convention. Mrs. Carr said Will Davis, the Texas party chairman, came up to her at one point in Chicago and asked “When are you gonna get off our backs?” “When you do right,” Mrs. Carr said she replied. She said that if the TDOC had been given one more day they could possibly have mustered the votes to have had at least some of the challenge delegation seated. TDOC people were scheduled to talk to twelve state caucuses that Tuesday but a last-minute switch in schedule, which Mrs. Carr called “a Texas-type trick” moved consideration of the Texas challenge up to Monday night. “We did have one advantage there that THE TEXAS OBSERVER The Texas Observer Publishing Co. A Journal of Free Voices A Window to the South 62nd YEARESTABLISHED 1906 Vol. LX, No. 18 September 20, 1968