ustxtxb_obs_1972_05_12_50_00016-00000_000.pdf

Farenthold’s mistake THE ROCKEFELLERS refused to negotiate with the UMW. The state militia was called out, and, as tension mounted, it became an instrument of the coal operators. On April 20, 1914, troops, yelling war cries, charged the Ludlow tent colony, shooting children, women, burning tents, looting. This massacre was too much for the union men to take. They rose in great rebellion, organizing into armed bands throughout Colorado, bringing the state to a stage of virtual civil war and open revolution. Still the Rockefellers would not bend. President Wilson sought to persuade them to agree to arbitration, but they refused. Federal troops were sent to Colorado. Wilson proposed a truce plan, which the UMW accepted, but the Rockefellers and other coal operators disdained. In the end the strike was broken. The mines continued to produce at full capacity with scab labor; the union was out of money; its leaders were tried and temporarily jailed; membership _declined with failure. It must not be easy for the presidential candidate to issue this thesis as a book. For it is no simple dry history. It is told with great passion. In a way, by publishing the book at this time, he is admitting his own failures, exposing his own vulnerabilities. Now he is a member of Congress, and he must know that the conditions he so passionately portrayed in Colorado in 1913 still exist throughout every part of Appalachia, where men, women and children die every day at places with names like Farmington, and Buffalo Creek, where the coal barons in Houston and New York refuse to pay the money to build the simplest of school systems, and all from the failure of government to govern. 16 The Texas Observer Like the vast majority of Texas’ College Students, I firmly believe Sissy Farenthold to be the best candidate in the Democratic race for governor, and I intend to vote for her. Yet, judging from what I have seen of the Farenthold campaign in San Antonio, I think the campaign is destined to fail because it is run according to the wrong premise. In the Farenthold office on N. St. Mary’s Street in San Antonio, they have a map of the county with the precincts colored in that were carried by Ralph Yarborough in 1970. This in itself is ridiculous: SISSY FARENTHOLD IS NOT A CARBON COPY OF RALPH YARBOROUGH, and, theoretically, would have a totally different base of support. Lloyd Bentsen, who opposed Yarborough, is certainly a different kind of opponent than Smith and Barnes: As one S.A. Farenthold worker put it, “There is a corruption factor in this year’s Governor’s race.” Many persons believe Yarborough to be just as corrupt as Smith and Barnes. And by searching for votes almost totally from Yarborough’s people, Farenthold workers are throwing many into the arms of Uvalde rancher Dolph Briscoe. By working almost totally in the Yarborough precincts, they discount the more affluent, more conservative Democrats who are fed up with Smith and Barnes. This campaign is not one of liberal versus conservative, but of whom can Texans trust. If Farenthold people are content that Northside San Antonians, and others not in the traditional “liberal” bloc, fall to Briscoe, it’s downright ridiculous! By not publicizing greatly the story of Briscoe’s Maverick County School District incident \(as told in the Plainview Reporter-News, if good people vote for a man who may be as corrupt as Smith and Barnes. If the runoff is between Barnes and Briscoe, and not between Sissy Farenthold and one of them, this premise of the Farenthold campaign will be to blame. . Nick Shuler, 5214 Keystone, San Antonio, Tex. 78229. Dialogue acquiesce to constructive criticism. They just cannot stand the strain. Example: I wrote a letter to my friend and your friend, Dick West, at the Dallas Morning News, and said: “If you and the editor of the Times Herald, were to break down and tell the truth in your editorials, you both would be borrowing money to operate your papers within 24 months. Nary a word did he utter. You see what I am alluding to is that, in all of our concerted efforts to do things for the little fellow, it all pales into nonexistence, when it is not in favor of the establishment. . . . Now, I am breaking down and sending you a few simoleons to pacify your mumbling creditors, for the express purpose of affording me the pleasure of reading all the tripe you publish in your splendidly conglomerated newspaper. I just love your political attitude. I and my wife are Farenthold addicts, knee-deep to a giraffe. Rugen Franklin Spivey, 1004 North “A” St., Midland, Tex. 79701. Illegal endorsement I am writing in reference to the letter of Mr. Jay Vogelson in support of candidate [Barefoot] Sanders. Mr. Vogelson’s act of identifying himself as president of the Dallas Legal Services Foundation in that endorsing letter is in direct violation of the could result in the loss of DLS’s grant. As a DLS staff attorney, I can assure you that Vogelson’s actions do not reflect the opinions of the staff of DLS. And, now that the subject has been broached, such actions certainly do not reflect upon the opinions of the staff as regards Sanders. Vogelson’s letter is an insult. For obvious reasons I choose to remain anonymous. I Kudos & simoleons For 53 years I have fought single s handed the corruption in government, in business, in politics. All I have to show for my efforts is a reputation for being against something or other. I have longed for some worthy brother in the fourth-estate, to publish a paper in the Capitol City of our beloved Texas. It was, and is, foolish to expect the newspapers of the establishment, to Slimmer pickin s’ The facts of the no-fault case are as the Observer investigators have reported: it will cut down on insurance expenses. And the proof lies in the howls of those who will be hurt, our lawyers who will lose all those easy pickings! Ray Heinrich, Box 3498, Baytown, Tex. 77520.