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not more, of his family and free time as the speakership could. Caldwell should have been written out of this speaker’s race long since. All hands have agreed for at least a year that the time for him, if ever, was a couple of months ago. “Too late, too late,” they all nod and say. “If only he’d announced a couple of months ago, he could’ve had it walking away.” Caldwell knows damn well that no one walks away with a speaker’s race. But each fresh rumor of revisionism on his part touches off enthusiastic rounds of, “Well, if he would . . . ” He is, at this point, committed to Carl Parker, his close friend. In fact, Caldwell’s support of Parker has given Parker a legitimacy he never could have attained on his own. The late Hawkins Menefee, for example, leaned toward Parker mostly on Caldwell’s guarantees of the man, but still hoped to persuade Caldwell himself to run. CALDWELL HIMSELF considers his own case pretty well hopeless at this point, even if he should decide to run. He does point out that his commitment to Parker is not that he will stay out of the race as long as Parker wants to stay in it. His commitment is to stay out unless or until the majority of Parker’s supporters conclude that Parker’s cause is hopeless. Since Parker’s cause has recently been gaining ground albeit with the help of such people’s illuminati as Heatly a Caldwell candidacy would seem farther than ever from reality. There is now even a liberal backlash concerning the Caldwell circulating among liberals that Caldwell had been phoning libs and asking them if they would support him if he were to get into the race. “Too late, baby, I wanted you, but you were chicken and now I’ve made my commitment to someone else,” said one liberal sourly upon hearing the rum or. Caldwell, upon being told of the rumor, appeared genuinely upset. A closer inspection of the sources produced the operative statement that the alleged calls dated back to last summer. There is also a let’s-all-flake scenario which generally winds up at least mentioning Buddy Temple of Diboll, one of the most popular freshmen. Temple is committed to Head and has in fact contributed substantially to his campaign. \(So has Rep. Luther Jones of El Paso, not to mention Jones’ father-in-law. “That kind of leaves us poor folks out in the cold for committee chairmanships,” said retiring theory behind this scenario is that all the good folks now committed to Head who are fed up with his sanctimony, piousness and unctuousness \(so fortuitously lent should join with all the good folks now committed to Parker who have had it with Parker’s general sleaziness-cum-I’m-gonna kick-your-butt machismo. The flakees will then rally ’round A Decent Man, who, Caldwell having proved unwilling, is likely to be Temple. Temple emphatically denies nurturing any such scheme himself and is generally sick of the whole damn race. The Parker variation on this theme, advanced by Caldwell among others, is that all this dissension in the mod-lib ranks is benefiting no one but Clayton. The thesis is that the Headophiles and the Parkerites will tear one another to shreds, leaving Billy C. to swoop down on the remains flanked by a set of would-be committee chairmen who account for the first seven on last session’s Top Ten Dumb list. The Republican Improvisation is equally interesting. In this one, Head and Parker fight one another to a standstill, leaving the decisive balance to about 14 Republicans, superbly organized by Ray Hutchison of Dallas. The Republicans then hold up the guy they think they can extract the most from say 10 of the 21 committee chairmanships and they generally move into the cat-bird seat. The Finney Cadenza is also nice: Head, Parker and Clayton kill each other off, leaving the field clear for Finney, who pops into a phone booth and emerges as Super-Moderate. There might have been a nice Black Riff but for an accident of geography. Craig Washington, who is for Head, lives in close proximity to Anthony Hall, who is for Parker. They are both able black members. But they live in the same senatorial district and the same congressional district, and, etc. Suppose U.S. Rep. Barbara Jordan should be offered a federal judgeship or even a cabinet post? Could Hall have been thinking he should knock Washington off at this early date instead of waiting until things get to a level at which the showdown might cost the community some real money? Anyway, Washington suspicions that Hall was behind the recruitment of his opponent. The recruitee, Washington claims, was such an utter turkey that Washington had to give up on his idea of not running for the Lege again. Claims he felt some resonsibility for ol’ District 86 didn’t want to have it represented by a linthead. He further says that Hall must have had some help in getting the Harris County Council of Organizations \(your local black Washington won three-to-one anyway, but he’s convinced that Parker money helped his opponent. “That,” says Arthur Vance, “is a perfect example of how paranoid this all gets. In fact, we had nothing whatsoever to do with Washington’s opponent: if fact, if Carl gets elected, Craig is just the kind of guy we want on our side. But we still wind up taking the credit for messing around in his district.” On the more conservative side of the musicale, Jim Nugent is playing out a waiting fugue, in part, reportedly, because he wants to see whether or not Caldwell is really going to Do It. Caldwell is not universally beloved and Nugent is rumored to be among his non-fans. In between times, there are splendid rumors of private detectives being hired to spy on one candidate or another, bugging, wire-taps and any day now Caldwell will preside over the burning of the Gemstone file underneath the portrait of Jim Hogg. One active participant, meditating on recent doings in the capitol, finally said, “Well, it’s a nice building, isn’t it?” It took years for citizens of this country to realize that environmental pollution is dangerous to themselves and every living thing…. Then came the energy crisis … [and] a search for villains on which to blame the oil shortages. The villain role shifted from the Arabs, who curtailed exports to the U.S., to the big oil producers who were alleged to be monopolizing resources. But it may be that the search for a villain in the energy crisis is now centering upon environmentalists. .. . The pressure is building to dismantle EPA by reducing its funding, limiting its authority and exempting EPA’s previous role in energy industries. The White House, trying to make itself the champion of energy development, has led efforts to restrict even EPA’s ability to comment on proposed strip mining, offshore drilling or shale oil extraction. A grave mistake will be made in this country if the achievements made in abating pollution are now undone. Editorial, The Dallas Times Herald, April 9, 1974. June 7, 1974 5 Bookkeeping & Tax Service CU 503 WEST 15TH, AUSTIN 78701 CO CU OFFICE HOURS: 9 A.M. TO 5 P.M. a.. AND BY APPOINTMENT ANYTIME BIG THICKET MUSEUM Saratoga, Texas Open . Weekends 10:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Support Your Big Thicket Association