ustxtxb_obs_1975_02_14_50_00004-00000_000.pdf

Page 30

by

Editorial and Business Offices: The Texas Observer, 600 W. 7th St., Austin, Texas 78701. Telephone 477-0746. 704121W7-5 gets $22,900 as an executive of the World Trade Center. But Wise lost a bunch of money on a busineSs deal. The famous Volkswagen incident may yet turn out to be helpful to Wise. While it does not precisely inspire confidence about a man who is managing a quarter of a billion dollars of the taxpayers’ money, it does garner him a certain amount of sympathy from debt-ridden Little People. In fact, a bar owner was so moved by Wise’s plight \(after all, a that he went and bought the car at auction and gave it back to Wise. Gordon McLendon, a Dallas radio millionaire and ultra-conservative, who is not exactly Little People, has organized a “Friends of Wes Wise” committee to help pay off the mayor’s debts. Meanwhile, the CCA has already found a candidate to oppose Wise this spring. His name is John Schoellkopf \(if the citizens have to learn to spell it before they vote Establishment and is supported by a lot of liberals. That’s how bad things have fallen apart in Dallas. Libs like Schoellkopf because he keeps saying that Dallas’ most serious problems are white flight and the decay of the inner city, i.e., segregation. The Establishment likes him because he’s a rich businessman. WHILE REDISTRICTING was working on the Establishment like a wrecking ball at the legislative, school district and city levels, the county Establishment suffered from simple atrophy.. Lew Sterrett headed the county commissioners court for 25 years and was finally defeated last fall. Sterrett had always had a splendid record of fistfights, shouting matches, and general hot controversy on a wide range of topics. But after a 1967 visit to Detroit, which was having a race riot at the time, the Judge took to fulminating mostly about conspiracies and commie infiltrators and the evils of the anti-poverty program. His rhetoric became increasingly John Birchish, while his temper didn’t improve at all. He had worked closely with Dallas mayors, especially Thornton, earlier in his career, but for some reason, possibly just ego, he never got along with Jonsson. For even less explicable reasons, he didn’t work well with Wise either. He was narrowly defeated by John Whittington in November, 1974. The Dallas Morning News had, of course, supported its old friend Sterrett against Whittington and since his defeat has run a couple of editorials lavishly praising his career and suggesting that Parkland Hospital be re-named in his honor. But the Dallas Times-Herald, whose editor Felix McKnight had rivalled the News’ Dick West in unswerving support of the Establishment, had been bought in 1973 by the Los Angeles Times-Mirror Corp. The Times-Mirror brought in Tom Johnson, one of LBJ’s bright, young men, to replace McKnight. Johnson has not precisely revolutionized the Times-Herald, but it did endorse Whittington over Sterrett. The night he was defeated, the Judge bowed out with a characteristic blast. He declared that his defeat was “a conspiracy brought on by the Los Angeles Times. It wasn’t the voters, the voters have always been good to me. It was the news media and Erik Jonsson. You can’t fight that. I was fighting crime and I didn’t have time to fight the Establishment. They took their money away from me this time, the Establishment. Only one of them stood by me and that was John Stemmons and for that I will be eternally grateful. I saw this coming. I tried to save Dallas but it was too much. You hear about the Eastern conspiracy. You see something like this and it makes you believe it, doesn’t it?” The Judge is mild as milk these days. He told the Observer that he thought “that just fine and was learning real fast. In fact, the Judge was so mild about absolutely everything that we became positively alarmed. We suspect that his uncharacteristic lack of candor may have had something to do with the fact that three top members of the firm he recently joined sat in on the interview. The Judge now works for the VanCronkhite firm, a political public relations outfit. Before the 1973 elections, VanCronkhite used to run campaigns for the CCA slate. They are expected to handle Wise’s mayoral campaign this year. They have also handled, according to one of their officers, “every successful bond election in Dallas for years and years.” Right now, they are doing p.r. for Southwestern Bell on its request for a $23 million rate increase now before the city council. The day we interviewed the Judge, there was some unpleasant publicity concerning Mayor Pro Tern George Allen, the lone, CCA-backed black on the council, who is also involved in a business partnership with David VanCronkhite. Tecog Services, Inc., is a building maintenance outfit that has some city contracts with firms that stand to benefit from favorable council action in areas such as zoning. Not a very big deal, but it could understandably make the VanCronkhite folks a little nervous. Speaking of bond elections, it should be noted that if there is any area in which the Contributing Editors: Steve Barthelme, Bill Brammer, Gary Cartwright, Joe Frantz, Larry Goodwyn, 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, Buck Ramsey, John Rogers, Mary Beth Rogers, Roger Shattuck, Edwin Shrake, Dan Strawn, John P. Sullivan, Tom Sutherland. 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 humankind 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. Published by Texas Observer Publishing Co., biweekly except for a three week interval between issues twice a year, in July and January; 25 issues per year. Entered as second-class matter April 26, 1937, at the Post Office at Austin, Texas, under the Act of March 3, 1879. Second class postage paid at Austin, Texas. Single Copy, 50g. One year, $8.00; two years, $14.00; three years, $19.00; plus, for Texas addresses, 5% sales tax. Foreign, except APO/FPO. 50q additional per year. Airmail, bulk orders, and group rates on request. Microfilmed by Microfilming Corporation of America, 21 Harristown Road, Glen Rock, N.J. 07452. Change of Address: Please give old and new address, including zip codes, and allow two weeks. Postmaster: Send form 3579 to Texas Observer, 600 W. 7th St., Austin, Texas 78701. THE TEXAS OBSERVER The Texas Observer Publishing Co. 1975 Ronnie Dugger, Publisher A window to the South A journal of free voices EDITOR CO-EDITOR MANAGING EDITOR EDITOR AT LARGE Kaye Northcott Molly Ivins John Ferguson Ronnie Dugger BUSINESS STAFF Joe Espinosa Jr. C. R. Olofson Keith Stanford Vol. LXVII, No. 3 Feb. 14, 1975 hicorporating the State Observer and the East Texas Democrat, which in turn incorporated the Austin ForumAdvocate.