ustxtxb_obs_1970_12_25_50_00007-00000_000.pdf

with Smith and Barnes squared off in open, candid hostility. And this, politics’ domino theory in reverse, sets up the game, “Who’ll be the next lieutenant governor?” Sen. Ralph Hall, Rockwall, is a presumed candidate, allegedly with Barnes’ backing. Musselwhite vs. Wilson There is a rivalry between Benton Musselwhite, Yarborough campaigner who once nearly beat Cong. John Dowdy of Athens, and State Sen. Charles Wilson, Trinity, for the inside track against the indicted Dowdy in 1972; meanwhile, Wilson is being pushed in some quarters for lieutenant governor. A recent AP feature on Wilson’s perennial bill to establish a public utilities commission did not hurt him, and he has also set staffers to work on the auto insurance issue. Musselwhite is contending to the many who will listen that Wilson brags with amusement that he was party to a trumped-up letter endorsing Sen. Don Kennard of Fort Worth last spring, signed by a non-existent right-winger and sent to a list of ring-wing voters. There is also, after a lapse of several years, some renewal of agitation for a statewide liberal-labor-minorities coalition. The difficulties are severe, perhaps insuperable. The Barnes matter has split many in labor and the liberal communities, with Johnson-oriented people in both camps hot for Barnes, non-Johnson people Ethnic leaders have had a few exploratory meetings \(one, for instance, in Houston, on which B. T. Bonner reported to the toward forming a union of La Raza Unida and blacks willing to go into a fourth party, wherein they would be willing to be joined, after the party’s formation, by whites. Labor’s national alignment in 1968 with Johnson and Humphrey on war and political policy is not to be left out of the list of compound fractures that have hospitalizaed politics on the left in Texas. And state labor president Hank Brown, who has been friendly with Barnes, will probably renew, in 1971, his attempt unsuccessful in 1969 to oust his more militant secretary-treasurer, Roy Evans, with whom Johnson and Barnes are not pleased. Yet an attempt to bring the appearance of unified purpose to this mess will probably be made. `Welfare crisis’ No need to rely on the left-wing press to explain the outcry among conservative Texas politicians about what they call “the welfare crisis.” Time Magazine liberalized requirements, more applicants and high unemployment, Time said, welfare rolls have increased 22% in a year. And, continued Time: “Hardest hit have been states that in the past have been stingiest in dispensing relief payments. Texas, which last year raised its constitutional limit on welfare spending, experienced a 67% rise in the number of recipients last year; Indiana’s welfare rolls grew 53%. New York, on the other hand, experienced a relatively small 12.4% increase in the same period, since its welfare program has long been one of the more generous in the U.S.” Ralph Yarborough was the only well known liberal in the U.S. Senate who voted in support of the supersonic transport plane. Both Yarborough and conservative Texas Sen. John Tower voted in the minority on the SST controversy. The Senate turned down $290 million for a plane by a vote of 52-41. There is speculation that Yarborough traded a favorable vote on the SST for Sen. Henry Jackson’s action to get the Big Thicket Park bill out of the Senate InterioCommittee. Jackson is chairman of the committee. The House subsequently refused to accept the Senate’s rejection of funds for the SST 213 to 174. Bob Eckhardt and George Bush, both of Houston, were the only Texas Congressmen to vote with the minority and against the supersonic transport. The measure goes to conference. Lee Otis silenced? The Dec. 12 New Yorker has a piece by Calvin Trillin dealing with the repressive climate in Houston. “U.S. Journal: Houston, Not Super-Outrageous” is primarily concerned with Lee Otis Johnson and the 30-year prison sentence he received for giving a joint to an undercover policeman \(Obs., Trillin concludes that Johnson, a black militant, was put away for so long because the Houston power structure feared him. “In Houston, it has been routine to use all sorts of laws in any way they can serve to maintain the climate of order a climate that is considered necessary to the hyper-modern, hyper-expanding kind of prosperity the city prides itself on,” he writes. The New Yorker article also mentions the Observer’s coverage four black students in Dallas. Let’s hear it for freedom of assembly. A subcommittee of Texas House Speaker Gus Mutscher’s “Committee of 100” has recommended that the Legislature limit parades and demonstrations on the Capitol grounds to those “designed to aid the legislative processes.” The Houston Chronicle’s Austin bureau chief, Bo Byers, has columnized that the recommendation indicates a “police state” attitude on the part of the subcommittee. Byers believes the subcommittee is on sounder ground with its recommendation that the Legislature install bullet-proof glass around the House and Senate galleries to prevent possible assault on lawmakers. Second coming Austin Women’s Liberation has started a bi-monthly newspaper, Second Coming. Its purpose, the first issue says, “will be to explore new ideas, new alternatives, new ways of being women. . . . We’ll be talking about new lifestyles from communal living to single life. We’ll be talking about the place men and children have in liberation. We’ll be talking about sex, economics and art.” A six-month subscription to Second Coming costs $1.50, c/o Box 8011, UT, Austin, Tex. 78712. Another new publication out of Austin is the Lone Star Dispatch. Stoney Burns, former editor of Dallas Notes, is one of the organizers of the new undergroundish tabloid which costs $5 a year. The address is 900 West Ave., Austin, Tex. 78701. The UT Board of Regents recently held a luncheon honoring outgoing Land Commissioner Jerry Sadler. The commissioner, who was defeated in the Democratic primary by State Rep. Bob Armstrong, was given a plaque “in recognition of distinguished service to the University of Texas System.” Sadler was reprimanded by the Texas House last year for his activities concerning the retrieval of submerged Spanish treasure off the coast of Corpus Christi \(Obs., An inquiry There was strong draft resistance in Texas during the Civil War. Not much of its record is in print, but family stories still flicker, old letters and diaries still hold together, great grandchildren can still remember and quote some of its participants. For too long this material has been swept under the historical rug. Before it is too late \(and because it has be gathered. Any and all leads, old letters, diaries, possibilities of interviews will be appreciated. Dellar Rushing, 1424 Kipling, Houston, Tex. 77006. December 25, 1970 7