ustxtxb_obs_1971_09_10_50_00015-00000_000.pdf

P. O. Box 61164, Houston, Texas 77061 I am enclosing $ as my contribution to the McGovern campaign. Please keep me informed on the progress of the campaign. me what I can do to help. I am \(list business position, political background, job skills, or any other Name Address City State Zip MAKE CHECKS PAYABLE TO “McGOVERN FOR PRESIDENT” Advertisement paid for by Students for McGovern, San Antonio, Tex. r Citizens for McGovern/Texas ePticieni Mr. Smith goes to Washington Austin On Aug. 15, Richard Milhous Nixon, President of the United States, declared a 90-day wage-price freeze. On Aug. 19, Preston Earnest Smith, governor of Texas, plucked the beard of the President on the matter of said wage-price freeze. \(The euphemism in the preceding sentence is the consequence of a quandary. Other journals, less punctilious than we, have called Smith’s action “defiance of the wage-price freeze.” \(Smith himself, during his Aug. 20 press ‘conference, said, “I am defying the President’s executive order. There is no question. That’s what I meant to do.” \(However, during his Aug. 23 press conference, the governor said, “There has never been any intent on my part to defy the President.” \(The Observer wishes to record accurately the governor’s posture. The Observer has consulted a thesaurus, 791.3 “defy, bid defiance to, hurl defiance at; dare, double-dare; challenge, call out, stump [coll. U.S.] throw or fling down the gauntlet glove or gage, throw or toss one’s hat in the ring [coll.] ; knock the chip off one’s shoulder; affront, pluck by the beard; dance the war dance.” \(Although we like the visual connotations of “dance the war dance,” we have settled THE PURPOSE of the President’s action was to halt inflation. The governor favors halting inflation. “I personally called on the President to invoke wage and price controls a full year ago,” Smith said at his Aug. 20 press conference. Upon further questioning, it developed that the governor had made this personal call at a press conference in Amarillo during the 1970 campaign. What’s more, Smith added, he got “unshirted devil” from his Republican opponent for having made the suggestion. Smith made it clear that if it had been only a matter of halting inflation, he never would have plucked the President by the beard. The rub, Smith explained, lies in a constitutional question. Texas alone among the states \(with the possible exception of Alabama the governor never did get clear Sept. All the other 48 or 49 begin their fiscal years on July 1, as does the federal government and most corporations. Therefore, the wage-price freeze does not affect state employes and teachers elsewhere. The 61st session of the Texas Legislature passed a schedule of salary increases for state employes and for teachers which covers 10 years. The 62nd Legislature then passed an appropriations bill providing the money to pay for the scheduled salary increases. The salary increases are law. The appropriations bill is law. They were to have taken effect on Sept. 1. According to the Constitution of the State of Texas, yes, right there in Article I, Section 28, it says: “No power of suspending laws in this State shall be exercised except by the Legislature.” And when the President’s executive order on the wage-price freeze went into effect, it would clearly have the effect of suspending the laws of this state. The governor took an oath to uphold the constitution of this state and that is how he came to pluck the President by the beard. In truth, the decision to pluck was not lightly come by. The day after the President’s ‘announcement, the governor’s staffers were on the phone to the Office of Emergency Preparedness, which is to enforce the freeze, asking whether or not Texas, with its peculiar fiscal year, would be affected by the big freeze. They were told by several officials, both in September 10, 1971 15 Make George McGovern President in ’72. . . . Senator George McGovern . . . took the lead in attacking the President’s plan, calling the 5 per cent cut in Federal jobs ‘absurd’ and the investment credit proposal ‘another hand-out to big business.’ ” The New York Times Tuesday, August 17 Today, George McGovern is actively seeking the support of rank-and-file, genuine Democrats in Texas. Indeed, only one Presidential contender, George McGovern, is working directly with Texans to end the control of our delegation by special interests and crypto-Republicans.