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don’t know if rifles in white men’s hands intimidate you, but they intimidate the hell out of me!” Graves charged that all of the blacks on the state’s delegation to the national convention, except for himself and State Sen. Barbara Jordan, were “handpicked, paid, genuine Uncle Toms . . . whites painted black.” At this point, Will Davis asked to insert into the record the U.S. Civil Rights Commission’s most recent report on voting in the South. He explained that Texas was the only Southern state to get a clean bill of health. “Who -was president then? ” Graves asked. “I wouldn’t criticize the boss either.” The audience whooped. “If we want to be partisan about it, I’d rather have him than the one we’ve got now,” Davis snapped back. Graves read an affidavit from Roger Bell, who went to a precinct convention in a rural area to find he was the only black man there. According to the affidavit, a white man approached him and said, “Boy, what you doin’ here? Don’t you know this is white man’s business?” Graves concluded, “If you keep this process up, maybe we won’t have a Democratic Party, because, like Lauro Cruz, I hear footsteps behind me. . . . Violent change may happen in Texas because so many people are excluded from the decision making process.” MRS. BILLIE CARR, a Houston liberal leader, asked the task force to recommend that the national committee send observers to the state’s precinct, county, and state conventions. She said that the SDEC is “really the governor’s committee. It never goes against his interest.” She called Texas political conventions “politics by conspiracy.” “In some precincts we have fist fights,” Mrs. Carr said. “One precinct chairman had to go to the hospital last year. Houston even had one murder that resulted from a precinct fight.” She suggested that secret balloting be held to select representatives to the county, state, and national conventions. Hank Brown, president of the state AFL-CIO, had a number of specific proposals. They included: Abolish the precinct conventions and replace them with direct election of delegates to the county and state senatorial conventions. Elect delegates to the national Democratic convention at state senatorial district conventions, instead of at the state party convention. Enlarge voter participation by requiring that delegations to the national convention be selected in a voting system that includes permanent voter registration and longer registration periods. Encourage party primaries for the selection of nominees for president and 8 The Texas Observer vice president. Abolish the electoral college and elect president and vice president by direct vote and by a majority, in a runoff if necessary. Provide free television debate time for majority party candidates. Lower the voting age to 18. Abolish all forms of discrimination within the electoral process. CHRIS HARTE, a college student from Corpus Christi, also urged the commission to recommend lowering the voting age to 18. In addition, he suggested that a third person from each county be placed on the state committee to represent persons under 30. Mrs. William E. Joor, president of the League of Women Voters of Texas, called for: Replacing annual voter registration with a system of re-registration by voting. Extending the period of registration Austin Land Cmsr. Jerry Sadler, who dips snuff, recently decreed that workers in his office must have, in the case of men, sideburns no longer than halfway down the vertical axis of the ear, and, in the case of women, skirts of sufficiently modest length, i.e., no miniskirts. Snuff dipping was not mentioned in Sadler’s edict. One supposes that the commissioner considers long hair and short skirts more of a threat to departmental morale than a poochy lower lip. At least one Land Office employee disagreed and resigned prior to the effective date of the Sadler personal appearance policy. Now another Austin governmental bureau leader has taken official note of the newest trends in grooming. R. L. Phinney, the district director of the Internal Revenue Service, and formerly the commanding general of the Texas National Guard’s 36th Infantry Division, has issued the following memorandum to the supervisors in his district, quoted in full, to wit: SUBJECT: Employee appearance. Hair on the face is a provocative subject. Some men are wearing longer sideburns. A few of our male employees are experimenting with a little lower haircuts on the sides. Perhaps we should think about this. The majority of men wear moderate sideburns. This is the continuing, conventional style. Some taxpayers associate the more extreme style of long sideburns with undesirable people and events. Because of these mental associations, an Internal Revenue man with long sideburns may evoke unfavorable reaction from some of the people with whom he deals. By the very nature of our profession we start with a handicap. It would seem unwise that we, of our own volition, would add handicaps by a mode of appearance that provokes some from the present Oct. 1 to Jan. 31 period to year ’round registration. Liberalizing resident requirements. Liberalizing registration requirements for armed services personnel. The Houston meeting was the 13th of 17 regional hearings to be held by the commission. In a prepared statement, Bayh explained the purpose of the committee is to “search for and examine ways to bring the Democratic Party in touch with the needs and desires of the American people. Some are already suggesting that this will be an exercise in futility, that we should avoid any criticism of our party,” the senator said. “The commission believes, however, that the long term well-being of our party demands that we distinguish between loyalty to our party’s principles and servility to its name.” The commission will present its report at the 1972 Democratic convention. K.N. folks. In other words, long sideburns might make a hard job harder. We certainly are not suggesting that there is anything immoral or unhygienic about long sideburns. We are suggesting that short or medium sideburns are less controversial and provoke less unfavorable reaction from many of our clients the taxpayers. Since our success depends so much on favorable taxpayer reaction, we strongly urge that our Internal Revenue Service men wear the moderately styled short sideburns. We recommend that you have a one-toone talk with those men who are inclined to experiment with long sideburns. We believe our folks will understand the advantages of reasonable conservatism and the disadvantages of extreme styles. We all know that a few of the business aitd professional people have adopted the “mod.” But they have the advantage over us because their clients choose them and they can choose their clients. We do not expect you to use a ruler or issue anatomy charts or other guidelines to indicate the desirable length of sideburns. As usual, this is a matter of individual judgment which we will leave to .you and your folks. G.O. Bussing Decision Washington, D.C. Things have changed in Washington. One of our correspondents got on a city bus there the other day. Who got on right in front of him but Liz Carpenter, former press secretary to former first lady, Lady Bird Johnson. What’s more, she got a transfer. HAIR