ustxtxb_obs_1975_05_09_50_00013-00000_000.pdf

THE TEXAS OBSERVER “A tradition of honesty, accuracy, fairness, and tireless investigation has enabled the Texas Observer to occupy a unique place in Texas journalism.” The Adversaries: Politics and The Press, Bill Rivers, ed. “The always impious Texas Observer … We recommend it.” I. F. Stone’s Bi-Weekly, May 31, 1971 … the Progressive and the Texas Observer, both of them knowledgeable, superbly written, and leavened by a wit of which conservatives seem incapable.” George Frazier, The Boston Globe, Dec. 15, 1973. “Oddly, the impact of some of its biggest stories comes on the rebound: They are picked up and commented on nationally before the state’s daily press recognizes them,” Lew Powell, Chicago Journalism Review, April, 1974 “One of the best publications in the country remains the Texas Observer.” Pete Hamill, The New York Post, Dec. 18, 1969 “The Observer is the conscience of the political community in Texas.” Andrew Kopkind, The New Republic, Nov. 20,1965 think the Observer ranks with The Progressive as one of the two most useful papers in the United States.” John Kenneth Galbraith, Sep. 16, 1970 “The Observer keeps coming out with serious and thorough news of this critically important state which people inside and out can’t get elsewhere.” Nicholas von Hoffman, The Washington Post, Sep. 10, 1971 [ ] One Year $10.00 [ ] Vivo Years $18.00 [ ] Three Years $25.00 \(Non-Texas addresses exempt from 5% sales tax Name Street City & State Zip [ ] Check encl.; [ ] Bill me 600 WEST 7 AUSTIN, TEXAS 78701 Those were the days July 11, 1959 An interesting sidelight has come to the Observer’s attention concerning Sen. [Lyndon] Johnson’s vote against the McClellan “Bill of Rights” amendment to the labor bill. The weekly newspaper in Andrews, Texas, in the column “Drifting Sands,” reported that Johnson had written “chiding us” for a recent column criticizing Yarborough and Johnson for voting against the bill-of-rights amendment, which labor also opposed. The column continued: “The senator enclosed a memorandum that was circulated among southern senators prior to the voting pointing out that the bill-of-rights amendment as passed contained provisions extremely harmful to the South’s position on civil rights legislation. “The memo points out that, in effect, the provisions of the amendment would have permitted the Secretary of Labor to integrate thousands of union locals and establish precedent for the attorney general to integrate schools in the South. Johnson adds, ‘I was in accord with Senator McClellan’s objectives but I could not go along with these provisions.’ ” \(my westward for to visit Nannie and Grandad. And here am I: jobless by choice, not even a Jaycee, possessed of a fine, new set of radical-looking muttonchop whiskers, with bumperstickers on my car advertising the wisdom of re-electing Senator Yarborough and snidely backing Goldwater in 1864. More, the author of a heresy-filled book soon to appear, which stomps on the sensitive toes of the Old South and hoots and dances in favor of radical integration, and goes so far as to make fun of bankers and Rotary Clubs and newspapers and J. Edgar Hoover and speaks, additionally, of S-E-X in approving tones. I tell yew, a body is not safe in his bed. Shave I the chin whiskers, rip off the stickers, troop dutifully down to buy the Reporter Telegram \(“The Best Investment for welcoming Visiting Lions and congratulating the merchants on another rip-snorting, money-coining, progress-on-the-march $Dollar Day$? Or shall I skulk about the city in nocturnal shadows, paying a surreptitious call on Reagan Legg and Dallas Willis and a few other folks in whom the human juices have not yet dried and withered? Or, shall I rush in where angels fear to tread: bristling chin whiskers and barking at the moon, spitting defiance and rattling staid old walls with mad hootings, saying: “I am come home Midland! I am come the bearer of face beard, habitual voter for Democrats, prodigal son of Liberal persuasion, and embarassing statistic to the Administration each month when it grimly totes up the unemployed.” Once I was secure in my little cocoon, content to grin the working politicians’s great, practiced glee; whooping for Prayer In The Schools, damning Jimmy Hoffa, puckering my forehead in Sincere Concern over Constitutional conflict in the Public Accomodations section of that caw, properly suspicious of federal aid and the gubernatorial reign of Price Daniel. Made welcome at country clubs, beloved by moderates and jelly-fish spines and cuddled snugly against the gray flannel bosoms of all beholden to the Establishment. Now I am ruint and spoilt and flawed and gone to seed. And must go Home again. Howdja git us into this mess, Billie Lee?