ustxtxb_obs_1972_06_09_50_00004-00000_000.pdf

Great, gooey gobs of it Thus far during the runoff campaigns, the lieutenant governor’s race is attracting the lion’s share of the attention, mostly because that’s where the mud’s being slung. Great, gooey gobs of it. First Wayne Connally called Bill Hobby a liberal. Then Bill Hobby called Wayne Connally a bunch of names. Then Hobby came up with copies of two letters Connally wrote John Osorio, of Sharpstown scandal fame, as well as copies of two checks to Connally, totalling $3,072, from National Bankers Life Insurance Co. Connally was one of three senators who signed a favorable floor report allowing the Sharp banking bills to be considered by the Senate. \(Joe Christie of the two letters Connally wrote Osorio was dated Sept. 8, 1969, the day before the Sharp bills passed the Senate. Connally said the NBL checks were in payment for a deer hunting lease on a ranch obtained for a party of Osorio’s friends. Connally said the matter was “a pure and simple hunting arrangement.” On the checks themselves, “promotional expenses” for NBL is listed as the reason for payment. Hobby, who was having a good day, went on to point out that Connally has accepted 17 illegal contributions from corporations. Most of the donations were small. But Connally, faced with illegal campaign contributions and being linked to the Sharp scandal, roared back gamely the very next day and announced Political Intelligence that Bill Hobby is a child molester. If he’d thought of it, he probably would have added that Hobby is an egg sucker too. On Sept. 10, 1967, the charge of assault on a minor was indeed filed against Bill Hobby. The charge stemmed from an incident with the 11-year-old child of some of Hobby’s neighbors. The boy was twisting the arm of Hobby’s five-year-old son. So Hobby came out and spanked the 11-year-old. His mother filed the charge, but the Harris County D.A.’s office decided not to re-file it since it was “not meritorious.” Failure to re-file is equivalent to dismissal. Connally said, “Does he feel that the law should not apply to anyone born rich, or anyone with an influential mother and father, or who controls an influential newspaper? I think Mr. Hobby owes an explanation to the people of Texas on why he attacked this minor and then managed to get the matter dropped or hushed up.” In point of fact, Hobby took some pains not to hush it up. Publishers their power to keep their peccadillos out of their papers, but Hobby, Post staff members assert, insisted that the Post cover the charges. The Post, like any other major daily, would ordinarily have no more bothered with charges stemming from a neighborhood incident than they would front-page the DAR’s dahlia contest. In the bad old days Dolph Briscoe’s legislative record on the screwworm problem is a great deal better than his record on civil liberties. Back in the bad old days, there was a representative named Marshall O. Bell from San Antonio, who set himself up as the Joe McCarthy of Texas. Bell produced a series of horrendous bills and Briscoe voted for them. Among the more pertinent gems was his proposal to set up an un-American activities committee. The bill was backed by the American Legion and heavily lobbied. Briscoe voted with the two-thirds majority that suspended the rules in order to consider the thing on the last day of the 51st session. Briscoe also voted for an amendment to the bill that would have required intensive investigation of anyone nominated to the committee and would have permitted the speaker to make the results of the investigation public. The bill was talked to death during the closing hours of the session by three liberals, Anita Blair of El Paso, Maury Maverick of San Antonio and Edgar Berlin of Port Neches. Another prize proposal of Bell’s was a little book-burning bill. The bill would have required all books in school libraries by “subversives” to be stamped in red ink. Further, it would have banned from school libraries a wide range of books THE TEXAS OB SERVER The Texas Observer Publishing Co. 1972 Ronnie Dugger, Publisher A window to the South A journal of free voices Vol. LXIV, No. 11 June 9,1972 Incorporating the State Observer and the East Texas Democrat, which in turn incorporated the Austin ForumAdvocate. Editorial and Business Offices: The Texas Observer, 600 W. 7th St., Austin, Texas 78701. Telephone 477-0746. 741:3160.-74-.7 EDITOR Kaye Northcott CO-EDITOR Moll Ivins EDITOR AT LARGE Ronnie Dugger REVIEW EDITOR Steve Barthelme Contributing Editors: Winston Bode, Bill Brammer, Gary Cartwright, Sue Horn Estes, Joe Frantz, Larry Goodwyn, Harris Green, Bill Hamilton, Bill Helmer, Dave Hickey, Franklin Jones, Lyman Jones, Larry L. King, Georgia Earnest Klipple, Larry Lee, Al Melinger, Robert L. Montgomery, Willie Morris, Bill Porterfield, James Presley, Charles Ramsdell, Buck Ramsey, John Rogers, Mary Beth Rogers, Roger Shattuck, Edwin Shrake, Dan Strawn, John P. Sullivan, Tom Sutherland, Charles Alan Wright. We will serve no group or party but will hew hard to the truth as we find it and the right as we see it. We are dedicated to the whole truth, to human values above all interests, to the rights of man as the foundation of democracy; we will take orders from none but our own conscience, and never will we overlook or misrepresent the truth to serve the interests of the powerful or cater to the ignoble in the human spirit. The editor has exclusive control over the editorial policies and contents of the Observer. None of the other people who are associated with the enterprise shares this responsibility with her. Writers are responsible for their own work, but not for anything they have not themselves written, and in publishing them the editor does not necessarily imply that she agrees with them, because this is a journal of free voices. BUSINESS STAFF Sarah Boardman Joe Espinosa Jr. Marcus Mosbacker C. R. Olofson The Observer is published by Texas Observer Publishing Co., biweekly from Austin, Texas. 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