ustxtxb_obs_1974_05_24_50_00005-00000_000.pdf

The other parties With Nixon and all, the Republicans had a hard row to hoe at their conventions. By a narrow margin, the Travis County GOP decided to adjourn rather than express “faith in and support of” the President. But the convention did pass a resolution expressing “adherence to the due process of law extending to every citizen, including the President.” They also called for “sweeping reform of the University of Texas system” and barely defeated an amendment stating that “Frank Erwin should not be reappointed” as a regent. Press reports from around the state indicated that a vast majority of GOP conventions were sticking with their foundering president. A number of conventions passed resolutions blaming the mess on the press. Party loyalty no doubt was enhanced by Vice President Gerald Ford’s presence in Texas. He gave a commencement speech at Texas A&M, appeared at a fund-raising dinner at the Dallas/Fort Worth Airport and visited the Republican convention in Houston’s 7th District. Ford, fresh from a meeting with the President, pulled back from his earlier critical statements on the Watergate transcripts and simply called the transcripts “disturbing.” He said he “very strongly” disagrees with persons who are calling for Nixon’s resignation. And he soberly predicted that in November Democrats will have “a smashing, devastating, ramrod victory with a net gain of 50 and perhaps 100 seats” in the House of Representatives. Such a victory, Ford said, would result in a “possible legislative dictatorship” able to override any presidential veto. Jim Granberry, the Lubbock orthodontist who won the Republican gubernatorial nomination, judiciously chose to talk exclusively about state issues as he toured GOP conventions in Dallas. But over in Fort Worth’s 12th District, State Sen. Betty Andujar lit into the House Judiciary Committee, saying the committee “will perform a scenario written by George Meany of the AFL-CIO and The New York Times, with assistance from the American Civil Liberties Union, Americans for Democratic Action, National Council of Churches, Common Cause and the Nader types.” In Dallas, Republicans praised the President for ending the Vietnam War, enhancing prospects for world peace, gaining a favorable international trade balance and an economic climate resulting in a low unemployment rate in Dallas County. The American Party, weakened by George Wallace’s return to. the Democratic fold, didn’t have a very good day. Press reports on American Party conventions were scarce, but the AP said that in Midland, a right-wing stronghold, only 12 delegates appeared for the county meeting. The Raza Unida party held conventions in a number of cities. Party workers said that votes cast in the primary were unimpressive because none of the candidates had opposition. Most Raza conventions reported passing impeachment resolutions. In Fort Worth, one of the senatorial gatherings approved resolutions calling for recognition of Mexican-Americans as a separate ethnic group and expanding bilingual education from kindergarten through high school. Thirty-eight county delegates met at La Cucaracha, a night club in East Austin. They endorsed free admission of any person to any university in the state regardless of the applicant’s previous education level and urged the governor to call a special session on public school financing. Meanwhile, the congressional races Nary an incumbent was defeated in the prim aries. Congressman Wright Patman skunked a Harvard law man and a junior college government professor to win reelection to his 24th consecutive term in Congress. Patman, 80, first won election in 1928 using the slogan, “Give a Young Man a Chance.” One of his opponents used the same slogan this year, but voters decided to stay with an old favorite who’s still as springy as a spike buck. After all, Patman’s been in Congress 46 years now, and he’s never been linked to a scandal. “You don’t see any populists in the penitentiary,” he recently told Karen Elliott of the Dallas News. “Lots of Democrats and Republicans, but you don’t see populists.” Patman, chairman of the House Banking and Currency Committee, has been tearing into the big money interests for half a century. He has fought to limit banks’ authority to own other businesses, to control high interest rates and to create credit unions. But he hasn’t always been effective, according to some of his critics in Washington. Reporter Elliott quoted a lobbyist as saying, “He is a lousy legislative technician.” An unnamed member of his Patman: 24 terms. banking committee said, “I am frequently with him but I sometimes think he would rather lose and say he was screwed by Wall Street bankers than win.” Apparently Patman’s constituents have no such complaints. He’s brought East Texas enough jobs through dams and reservoirs and other federal projects to keep the population of a fair-sized city in perpetual employment. And every year he sends each high school graduate in the district a copy of Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People. Wolff/Krueger It could be a battle of bachelor PhDs for 0. C. Fisher’s congressional seat if Bob Krueger beats Nelson Wolff in the Democratic primary runoff. Dr. Doug Harlan, a 30-year-old government professor who has done some writing for the Observer, beat Van Henry Archer, a former Bexar County GOP chairman, for the privilege of facing the winner of the Democratic runoff in the fall. Harlan got a law degree at Duke University and Krueger was dean of students at Duke. Krueger, who holds a PhD in literature, now runs Comal Cottons, his family’s textile mill in New Braunfels. Sen. Nelson Wolff of San Antonio led a field of six Democrats with 32,000 votes, followed by Krueger with 25,000. Both men are moderates: Wolff is actually further to the right, but Krueger has made it clear that he doesn’t want to be labelled a liberal. Wolff is very popular in his home May 24, 1974 5