ustxtxb_obs_1971_03_12_50_00009-00000_000.pdf

Columnist New Columnist of the Month Award to: Mrs. Reta Jones, wife of Rep. Delwin L. Jones, for “A Housewife’s Report,” published by the Brownfield News. The lead of her first column reads, my better half, has asked me to write you folks back home and let you know what’s going on.” Mrs. Jones proceeds to give the low-down, to really tell it like it is. To wit: “Donna Mutscher, wife of the speaker, is such a gracious person. Of course, everybody knows how attractive she is, but also has been declared unconstitutional. Laredo Junior College may join Amarillo College, Texas A&M University and Frank Phillips College on the blacklist of college administrations censured by the American Association of University Professors. The winter AAUP Bulletin contains a long report in its academic freedom and tenure section concerning the firing of Lyndon L. Daly in 1969. An AAUP investigating committee conlcuded that Daly was summarily fired in violation of the due process section of the AAUP’s statement of principles. Dallas radio station KLIF, owned by right-wing former state officer seeker Gordon McLendon, rewards its own. Last week the station named Asst. Dist. Atty. Les Eubanks as “Bachelor of the Year” and It was Eubanks who got himself into a bit of hot water last fall by telephoning KLIF with unsupported “evidence” linking four Santa Barbara, Calif. blacks on trial for marijuana possession with the Black Panther party. Convictions of the four are currently being appealed. Most of the state legislators call the Governor “Pop Smith.” “Pop” does not connote a kindly, paternal image. It stands for “Poor Old Preston.” Pop. A White House social aide said, “It just is not done.” Pop. He got an invitation to a formal dinner at the White House: he didn’t decline the invitation: nor did he show up at the dinner. A butler finally cleared the tableware from his assigned place after the dinner began. Then there was a Pop-like stream of conflicting explanations. Pop’s press secretary said Pop’d been working late on his effort to get the feds to take over the welfare mess. Another aide said Pop didn’t go cause Mrs. Smith wasn’t with him. White House social aides said Ima had R.S.V.P.’d negatively but didn’t answer for Pop. Pop said Ima apparently forgot to R.S.V.P. at all. White House social secretary Lucy Winchester said the whole business was “very unusual.” She’s clearly unaccustomed to dealing with Pop. I want you all to know she is just as sweet and kind as she is pretty. “I knew Donna was doing some needlepoint so I told her I might need some help doing some I brought down here. So she asked me to come to the her help me. Dink Short wife of E. L. Short from Tahoka was needing some help too, so Donna told her to come also. Because we both had earlier engagements, we couldn’t get to the apartment before 11:00. When I arrived Donna told me that we were having cheese souffle for lunch. I hadn’t expected lunch but we ate and it was very good. She visited awhile and then it was time to go. This time Donna had the engagement we are a bunch of busy wives. She is a very fine person and I feel we are most fortunate to have her and Gus.” Secon, -Best New Columnist of the to Phyllis George of Denton, Miss America, for her series published in the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram. Some excerpts: “God blessed us with femininity and we’re lucky. We’re even born knowing how to use feminine wiles.” “I do think of myself as a typical young American girl.” “There will always be a dog in my future.” “I’ve become intrigued with the world of television commercials and perhaps I’ll try my hand in that exciting business. Who says women aren’t liberated? And where else in the world do women have such opportunities?” “We all need a little fun and humor in a troubled world.” Bluebonnets Faux pas are not entirely unknown in the Texas State Legislature, but seldom is there an error of such magnitude as that exposed last week by Rep. Aubrey Moore of Hillsboro. Ladies and gentlemen, for 70 years now this state has recognized the wrong damn kind of bluebonnet as the Official State Flower. On March 7, 1901, at the request of the Colonial Dames of Texas, the 27th Legislature declared the Lupinus Subcarnosus the state flower. But the Lupinus Subcarnosus is not what you see in the fields and along the waysides every spring. The Lupinus Subcarnosus is hardly ever seen by anyone, being a rare species. What’s more, it’s a red-headed bluebonnet. Representative Moore told a hearing of the House Governmental Affairs and Efficiency Committee \(where else that the Subcarnosus has got a red dot at the top. According to Rep. Moore’s House Concurrent Resolution 44, the Lupinus Texensis is not only more common than the Subcarnosus, but better-looking as well. Rep. Moore, a statesman, does not propose to banish the Subcarnosus into outer oblivion.. He resolves that the Texensis \(and any other type of Lupinus anyone sees Subcarnosus. It should be noted that the Dames have redeemed themselves. Rep. Moore was alerted to the bluebonnet gaffe by Mrs. Robert Ward Cutler, a citizen of his district, with the cooperation of the National Society of Colonial Dames. Let us be thankful. In 1967, the annual report of the California State Senate Committee on Un-American Activities was devoted almost entirely to an old-style orgy of innuendos directed against Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee. Now State Sen. Wayne Connally of Floresville has been mailing out copies of the report with the following cover letter on State Senate stationery: “Attached you will find background information on Cesar Chavez that may or may not be of interest to you, and a record vote on a resolution in the Texas Senate commending him. “Sincerely yours, Wayne W. Connally.” One Rio Grande Valley newsman said his copy of the 77-page Xerox mailing came in a “plain brown wrapper.” The final paragraph of the report is a good summary: “We are certain that the 500 members of AWOC, and a majority of the membership of NFWA [Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee, AFL-CIO, and the National Farm Workers Association, the two groups which merged in 1965 to form UFWOC with Chavez as director] were in no way connected with any of the New Left or subversive organizations that swarmed to Delano. The concern of the membership of the unions, and after they merged, of the resulting union, was and is to obtain better wages and working conditions. We are saying that outsiders entered the Delano strike for the purpose of using it for their own purposes, and also that the leaders of the unions were perhaps carried away with the idea of achieving power to dictate terms to the growers, and to some extent to the state and federal governments.” [Italics in original.] Referring to Texas, the report says, “While we must end our report here, the Delano grape strike is not over, nor is `La Causa’ to use needy farmworkers to promote leftist aims. A ‘crusade’ similar to the one in Delano has been started in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas by two of the early organizers of the Delano grape strike Eugene Nelson and Dolores Huerta but it is too early to say what direction it will take.” March 12, 1971 9