THE TEXAS
B SERVER A Journal of Free Voices November 18, 1977 50
Whatever Bellaire happened Who killed the little town? to D. B. Hardeman
lllL V. •
9,r:' 1 1. 0.1•41,rial.' 11141 '0411
West Texas ranchers: What's the beef? A need, a hope, a fear
By Ronnie Dugger
Corpus Christi Texas needs a politician who will defy the oil and gas indus- try. Huey Long made his reputation among the plain people of Louisiana by breaking out of the same industry's half-Nelson on The Texas Louisiana politicians, but none of our statewide officeholders—with the 13-year exception of Ralph Yarborough OBSERVER in the U.S. Senate— has done likewise. @The Texas Observer Publishing Co., 1977 Ronnie Dugger, Publisher THIS OBI Gov. Dolph Briscoe, who has oil interests of his own, con- readers v tinues his stiff-necked performance as the Charley McCarthy of Vol. 69, No. 22 November 18, 1977 newsstand the ,Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association. Atty. Gen. John ables you Hill, running against Briscoe, calls on Texans to "unite" against Incorporating the State Observer and the East Texas Demo- tion at $1 certain portions of Democratic President Jimmy Carter's energy crat, which in turn incorporated the Austin Forum-Advocate. program. Lloyd Bentsen, the senator from oil, insurance and EDITOR Jim Hightower BESIDES T banking, exults in his preliminary victories over Carter in the MANAGING EDITOR Lawrence Walsh scribing, yc Senate on the issue of federal deregulation of new natural gas. ASSOCIATE EDITOR Laura Richardson will arrive John Tower, the senator from cynicism, continues voting EDITOR AT LARGE Ronnie Dugger whichever way the oil flows. Bob Krueger, running for the fore they a Democratic nomination to oppose Tower, leads the fight in the ASSISTANT EDITORS: Colin Hunter, Linda Rocawich, House for the same deregulation of gas. And Joe Christie, run- Susan Reid IN ADDITIl STAFF ASSISTANTS: Vicki Vaughan, Margaret Watson, Bob Sin- scription yot dermann, Kathy Tally, Debi Pomeroy, Teresa Acosta, Eric Hartman, back issue Tim Mahoney, David Guarino, Cathy Stevens, Debbie Wormser this envelop CONTRIBUTORS: Kaye Northcott, Jo Clifton, Dave McNeely, Don Observations Gardner, Warren Burnett. Rod Davis, Steve Russell, Paul Sweeney, Marshall Breger, Jack Hopper, Stanley Walker, Joe Frantz, Ray Re- AND FINAL' ece, Laura Eisenhou•, Dan Hubig, Ben Sargent, Berke Breathed, Eje sues, you an ning against Krueger, complains not that Krueger is trying to rip Wray, Luther Sperberg, Roy Hamric, Thomas D. Bleich, Mark Stin- off American consumers through deregulation, but that he son, Ave Bonar, Jeff Danziger, Lois Rankin can obtain a didn't succeed in his labors on the House side. to cancel yol Meanwhile, Comptroller Bob Bullock has announced that A journal of free voices natural gas prices in Texas have increased 19 percent this year We will serve no group or party but will hew hard to the and that Texans pay 97 cents per million cubic feet for natural truth as we find it and the right as we see it. We are dedicated WHA gas, compared to 47 cents per mcf in the country as a whole. to the. whole truth, to human values above all interests, to the Texas politicians, almost to a one, brag that by permitting the rights of humqnkind as the foundation of democracy; we will Enter my take orders from none but our own conscience, and never will sale of gas intrastate at prices twice the national average, Texas r---1 one year we overlook or misrepresent the truth to serve the interests o is doing all right. So what if Texas consumers pay twice as $11.00 the powerful or cater to the ignoble in the human spirit. much for heat and cooking? The oil companies are getting the which incentives they need to discover more natural gas. In the Con- The editor has exclusive control over the editorial policies and contents of the Observer. None of the other people who gress, the Texas contingent now works mightily to federalize name the condition at home. are associated with the enterprise shares this responsibilit with Pun. Writers are responsible for their own work, but no street The facts of natural gas pricing in Texas prove that the state for anything they have not themselves written, and it.. government has defaulted on its responsibilities to regulate oil puelishing them the editor does not necessarily imply that h1 City, state, zip and gas. The Texas Railroad Commission, which historically agrees with them because this is a journal of free voices. has functioned as the production control division of the oil in- dustry, now serves those interests by doing nothing. By putting PbaztYcr BUSINESS STAFF: Cliff Olofson, Alice Embree, Ricky the oil and gas companies ahead of the people, the bill Cruz commissioners—and Texas politicians generally—have failed (and the state's consumers. Published by Texas Observer Publishing Co., biweekly except for a three-week in val between issues twice a year, in January and July; 25 issues per year. Second-c Nothing exemplifies the situation better than the industry's postage paid at Austin, Texas. Publication no. 541300. predicament in having to choose, prospectively, between Single copy (current or back issue) 500 prepaid. One year, $12; two years, $22; three Krueger and Tower. As political columnist Kemper Diehl wrote years, $30. Foreign, except APO/FPO. Si additional per year. Airmail, bulk orders, and recently in the San Antonio Express, Krueger, the oilmen's group rates on request. Microfilmed by Microfilming Corporation of America, 21 Harristown Road, Glen most effective spokesman in the House, is gunning for the seat Rock, N.J. 07452. of one of their oldest friends in the Senate, Tower. Krueger shamelessly announces a target of $1 million for his campaign Editorial and Business Offices: The Texas Observer through the primary; Tower knows he can get more than that by 600 West 7th Street a factor of two or three for the general election. Just as the oil Austin, 'Texas 78701 512-4:77-0746 (Continued on page 20) A Texas suburb hits the brakes
"City of homes? . . . We don't use that anymore be- "The city fathers were not incompetent for the city of cause it is not appropriate." – A Bellaire Chamber of Bellaire ten years ago. They were incompetent for the city Commerce official of today." – A Bellaire Civic Action Club leader
By Mark Addicks southwest metropolitan area. The 1970 Texans have recently been warned by Bellaire census showed that in a community of urban affairs specialists that the prob- Like many American cities, Houston 20,000, there were 1,200 Mexican- lems of urban decay and the desertion of has for 70 years been following a Americans and only six blacks. In 1977, downtown areas are not restricted to the "slash-and-burn" pattern of develop- a prospective resident needed an annual cities of the Northeast and Midwest. ment, marked by a widening circle of income of at least • $25,000 to buy a Dallas and Houston both are losing suburban housing developments around house, which, on the average, cost from population to outlying suburbs, and the inner city. In the early 1900s, Bellaire $55,000 to $60,000. Politically, Bellaire is some urbanologists predict that within (formerly the Westmoreland dairy farm- a conservative place: Republican Bill ten years, problems as grave as those of land) was Houston's finest "trolley sub- Archer represents it in Congress, Walter Detroit and Newark may be hard upon urb," whose residents rode the electric "Mad Dog" Mengden is the state sena- us here in Texas. What have received rails for a 30-minute commute into town. tor, and the electorate has traditionally less attention, however, are the relatively In time, however, more exclusive towns given strong support to the GOP's presi- new problems of the suburbs themselves, grew up beyond Bellaire, and the aging dential candidates and most state and especially those closest to their central "city of homes" suddenly found itself local advocates of the status quo. • cities. The "bedroom" towns of Texas hard against Houston's spreading com- But on Aug. 13, the complacency that might well learn much from the response mercial development. Traffic and crime has characterized Bellaire's public life of Bellaire's citizens to the encroach- problems began to take on big-city di- was altered dramatically. A record ment of Houston's runaway commercial mensions. number of voters-4,646 (or slightly expansion. Bellaire today is a middle-to-upper- more than 50 percent of those –Eds. middle-class municipality in Houston's 11111•1•11•1111111•11111. registered)—turned out to recall their 4111111=111.1111111111111111111■111111•11 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 3
FOREST I I 0 of C c. n 311'1_ N way borders and in previously residen- W. NORTH (do N. ;51 tial areas, but this was nothing new. In 1965, the council had allowed Texaco to build a huge office complex in North Bel- laire. "Texaco got everything they wanted. It was agreeable to us," recalls Gary Summers, former city manager. • By 1975, houses were being torn down to make way for new office buildings. In
t - the 1976 city election, one candidate for EMORIAL PARK LLEN City mayor, Mimi Superville, ran against in- A w Hell Observation (0 PIatIoIN cumbent Joe Poindexter on an anti- Basin' ~4yr • growth platform. Though few people no- .;,‘.. e ..1 ( .9. + A ticed Superville's campaign (Poindexter k • ,...... - lg l' _RICHMOND _ -L:7 ',./9q‘C,," —. i ii I 1 4, 4• FREEWAY, sr.., .r., / won re-election with 58 percent of the / 4S, $...,. , .; , i___ ] N' .Puthern vote), Bellaire's growth debate was ,...1--- - ,6T§SONNET Rice ..i.t//'' 1, , Ontversity i , ,.! West . ilk Umversit,,,,V4 7 •7• ', .,.. r -, ; -' / framed. Pro-development forces argued a0,, 460',::,z. F, ..4?" University • I iversity COURSE -411.- '''?t. zi of Houston ; ,. Br ys that offic buildings and other corporate 1, I: Southskie Plac—e7/ k\\ -1------47i structures would bring in so much added HOLCOMSE BLVD , O . 2-3 -,": \ ( tax revenue that whatever they detracted 90 2. 4 -6-1-q.9/11 ../tor,...... 01.ENBR .1 s PARK from the "city of homes" image would be t •113•5 0 i (MUSIC'' • 477 0 GOLF COU N more than compensated for. "My pur- 1L94;41 'is GOLFCRESDTR pose [in supporting commercial devel- • 1.7; COUNTRY CLUB 2.4 "04- opment] was to make things easier for ;As!ro \I` 9* the taxpayer," said Edwin Milwee, one 221 04 PSI I of the recalled councilmen. The order of battle Anti-growth activists responded that mayor and three of the six members of flooded on, sometimes exiting for a the new tax income would barely cover the city council. The issue sparking the shortcut through Bellaire's residential the outlays for expanded sewage treat- unprecedented recall action was the streets. ment facilities, larger police, fire and character and pace of commercial devel- The suburb was no longer comfortably water departments, and the control and opment within the city, and it had been isolated from Houston's big-city prob- maintenance of increasingly congested brewing a long time. lems. Soon, as many as 250,000 people streets and parking lots. Finally, resi- With the end of World War II, Bellaire were racing through Bellaire on 610 dents began to ask why the argument boomed, and the number of its single- every day on their way to work. Keeping over growth should be conducted solely family dwellings went up tenfold in a dec- pace with the commuter traffic speeding in terms of the tax dollar. ade. The suburb managed to remain through its middle was the crime rate, governmentally independent: it adopted which soared from four burglaries in Strange neighbors a home rule charter in 1949 and went on 1965 to 138 in 1976—last year's figure Increasingly, citizens were finding that to survive the annexation efforts of both represented $132,000 in stolen goods. life lived next door to the 25-foot brick West University Place and the city of Ninety percent of those arrested in con- walls surrounding the likes of the Pru- Houston. nection with the 138 burglaries were dential Insurance Co. tower or the Big Many of Bellaire's current problems out-of-towners. Lift building was a distasteful prospect. can be traced to events and trends in its While Chamber of Commerce spokes- Residents in increasing numbers were men were proud that Bellaire had "some post-war period of growth. Houston, by dismayed that their town was not as "ex- 1949, had incorporated all adjacent un- of the finest companies in the world— clusive" as it once had been. Zoning reg- Prudential, Getty Oil, Texaco, Sun Oil, developed areas, thus forestalling any ulations had to be more strictly enforced possible expansion of its neighbor to the Northern Natural Gas"—sitting on tree- in a few areas to keep people from park- lined streets next to old houses, people in southwest. Five years later, 250 citizens ing cars on their lawns. The East Side crowded a public zoning hearing to de,- the affected neighborhoods were coming houses hastily erected for veterans in the to feel differently. bate a proposed West Bellaire shopping late '40s were now crowded with blue- center. Although some insisted that Bel- collar workers. In the '60s, the Iowa At a city council meeting in November laire "was never planned for business," Basic Skills Test scores of Bellaire 1976, developer Frederick McCord per- ground was broken for the complex after school children began to decline, and the suaded a city council majority (Mayor the city council approved the plans by a lower test results were partially blamed Poindexter and councilmen Jim Hagood, 4-3 vote. In 1955, construction of a high- on school integration (Bellaire is part of Jack Gurwell and David Dewhitt) to in- way that would eventually cut through the Houston Independent School Dis- crease the city building code's floor- the heart of town, remove homes, and trict). The changes for long-time resi- space-to-open-acre ratio by 20 percent. compromise Bellaire's bedroom- dents, a Bellaire official told the Observ- (The code had previously required that community ambiance, was begun with er, were becoming "traumatic." for every square foot of floor space, the little opposition. As then-mayor Abe builder must plan for one square foot of Zindler put it, "I'm not stuck on [the Perhaps. But trauma or no, Bellaire free and open ground.) At the same highway], but what can we do about it? If householders who wanted to preserve meeting, Clyde Willbern, president of the they [Houston's planners] need it, and the residential quality of their neigh- Northeast Civic Club, got nowhere when that's the best route, then we can't stop borhoods refused to give up. More and he tried to introduce a resolution calling progress." more of them resolved to do what they for efforts to keep Bellaire a "city of The new highway became a stretch of could to reverse the drift of things. homes." Evidently the powers-that-be what is now Houston's 610 loop. With In 1969, the city council approved were unimpressed with the civic club's every strip of concrete added to the plans for extensive commercial and plea—and certainly the developers didn't road, more Houston-bound motorists townhome development along the free- care.
4 NOVEMBER 18, 1977 The anti-growth forces decided to take The results of the Aug. 14 recall elec- The other steps have proved just as action. Attorney Taylor Hicks and tion were almost unbelievably close. controversial. The building moratorium physicist Tom Teer called a community Mayor Poindexter lost his job by 11 halted not only commercial develop- meeting for Jan. 26, 1977. Over 500 citi- votes, and Hagood lost his by four. Mil- ment, but also residential remodeling. zens filled the Bellaire Community wee was recalled by 60 votes, Gurwell by Pressure was such that on Nov. 8 the Building auditorium to figure out what 35. Dewhitt managed to stay in office by council rescinded several provisions of could be done about runaway develop- a 16-vote margin. the moratorium to allow construction of ment and an acquiescent city council. The October special election to fill the new houses and additions to and remod- The group constituted itself as the Bel- vacant seats was more decisive. The eling of existing structures in all residen- laire Civic Action Club, and got to work. BCAC slate won handily, routing the es- tial zones. Businessmen and developers
Straw poll
First, the new organization proposed that the council hold a referendum on the new floor area ratio. The city attorney replied that zoning laws were not subject to referenda. BCAC representatives then called for a 180-day building moratorium to allow a thorough re-evaluation of the city's growth choices and priorities. The council voted 5-2 against the moratorium; those in favor were NASA engineer Rod Rethwisch and long-time civic leader Louise Ware. The council unanimously approved, however, a BCAC alternative suggestion that a straw poll be taken on the two issues. BCAC members asked 4,623 of their neighbors: "1. Do you favor a return to the one- to-one floor area ratio for commercial buildings?" [yes-79 percent] "2. Do you favor delaying new com- mercial construction in Bellaire for a Yeah, but whatta tax base! period of at least six months?" [yes-82 tablishment slate without a run-off. have threatened lawsuits, and a new or- percent] Former councilman Rethwisch (who had ganization formed by some of them on "3. Do you favor returning areas pres- not involved himself in the recall drive) Oct. 27, the Save Our City Committee, ently zoned for commercial development was elected mayor, beating Milwee 2,167 has promised to fight the proposed mas- to residential?" [yes-64 percent] to 1,368. Carolyn Schum defeated Poin- ter plan and to run a slate of sympathetic Despite the lopsided responses, the dexter for the place 2 council slot, and candidates in next April's general elec- council establishment chose to ignore Bill Berryhill won in place 4, over Gur- tion. the poll, claiming the questions were well. "This city is changing directions," The success of the Bellaire recall biased. The council's decision was, ac- observed Gary Summers when it was all movement was, as many BCAC leaders cording to BCAC vice president David over. "This is the first change in city insist, largely a product of the establish-_ Nagle, "political suicide" because it was government in over 25 years." ment's political miscalculations. But the then, he said, that the community Former mayor Poindexter added, surprisingly energetic petition drive and group's leaders began talking about a re- "Politics here has always been small- the special election campaign that fol- call of the intransigent officials. towny. Bellaire is now in big-time poli- lowed had more motive force behind On April 27, the BCAC presented the tics." In the opinion of BCAC vice pres- them than that supplied by simple voter council with a recall petition bearing ident David Nagle, however, the election dissatisfaction. The leaflets, bumperstick- 2,400 signatures-82 percent of all votes "wasn't big city politics. It was an output ers and door-to-door appeals were re- cast in the last election. Mayor Poindex- of citizen energy." ally the signal flares of a citizenry pre- ter and councilmen Milwee, Hagood, The new council acted quickly on its pared, at long last, to grapple with some Gurwell and Dewhitt were targeted for mandate, approving the building fundamental questions about the nature removal. Friendships began to dissolve moratorium on Oct. 25, after a seven- of community life: Should a town or a as a result of the petition drive. Milwee hour meeting that also saw passage of a city concern itself with the growth of its tried to fire several members of different resolution to make completion of Bel- tax base or with the residential well- commissions because they had signed laire's comprehensive master plan and being of its residents? Can a community the petition, and justified his attempt to action on related zoning recom- be both a place to work and a place to dismiss the commissioners by saying he mendations the city's top priorities. In a live? And how should growth—and "wanted them off because if they don't six-and-a-half hour session on Nov. 7, progress—be defined? While these ques- have any confidence in me, then I don't the council closed four streets near West tions may not be new to anyone ac- have any in them. It's a two-way street." Loop 610 for an eight-month experiment quainted with big city governance, the Mayor Poindexter fought back by chang- in traffic control. The planning commis- answers to them will dictate the future of ing the format of council meetings to re- sion considered a scheme to close a main suburbs in Texas and everywhere else. ❑ quire that citizens request time on the thoroughfare, Bissonnet Street, and con- Mark Addicks, a Bellaire resident for agenda several days in advance. Both ac- vert it to a park or walkway, but strong 16 years, is a government student tions made the old guard look silly and merchant opposition forced the commis- specializing in urban politics at the Uni- insensitive. sion to back down. versity of Texas at Austin.
THE TEXAS OBSERVER • Election roundup
If the percentage of no-shows at the polls is any indication, Houston votes citywide, but drawing 29 per- Texas voters were less than excited by this year's electoral cent of the black vote.. Bris- Elections in Houston re- coe, a hard-right conservative offerings. About 12 percent of the state's 5.8 million eligible . sulted in decisive vic- who lost to Hofheinz in 1975, voters turned out to do their civic duty on a mixture of constitu- tories for each of the eight in- took a low-key tack this tional amendments, special elections, city races and local mat- cumbents on the city council year, and some observers ters. Granted there were snow flurries in the Panhandle, dust and run-offs for the offices of said he had been muzzled blows in West Texas, heavy rains in the northern part of the mayor and controller and for state, and tornadoes in the Houston area, but 12 percent? Some by his campaign staff. four positions on the school McConn, a Houston builder lowlights: board. regarded as a political moder- —A bright fall day and several important ballot questions in Eleven men and one woman ate, says he won't let Briscoe Austin drew only 15 percent of registered voters. ran to succeed Mayor Fred hide behind his PR in the —Even with its major offices up for grabs, Houston, the na- Hofheinz, who decided run-off, but instead reveal tion's fifth largest city, saw only 24 percent of its registered against a race for a third term him for what he is: "The old voters show up at the polls. earlier in the year. None of prosecutor." —The race for state representative in a five-county district the 12 candidates managed to In a result that surprised the that includes El Paso attracted only 415 voters in the four coun- win a majority of the votes pundits, the race to replace ties outside the city. cast, and so the first and sec- Leonel Castillo as city con- —For the first time in memory, one Dallas precinct had not a ond place finishers—former troller was narrowed to two single vote cast in the 12 hours it was open, and another Dallas D.A. Frank Briscoe, 51, and largely unsung CPAs. Kath- precinct reported only one voter. former city councilman Jim ryn Whitmire, generally McConn, 49—will fight it out thought of as a liberal, won 31 in the Nov. 22 run-off. percent of the vote, with The amendments jurists. The vote was 73 per- Briscoe, a distant cousin of Steve Jones, who calls himself cent for, 27 percent against. the governor, spent half a mil- a conservative, taking 21 per- Texas voters who cast • —Approved Amendment 2, lion dollars in his campaign, cent. Two candidates figured ballots Nov. 8 on seven which authorizes an extra netting 32 percent of the total to be in the run-off were constitutional amendments $200-million state bond issue vote (he received 59 percent former Hofheinz assistant showed their uneasiness for the Veterans' Land Fund of votes cast in the predomi- Bob Brewer, who ran third, about computer banking by and allows the widows and nantly white and affluent and John Castillo, cousin to defeating proposition 6, which widowers of veterans to pur- West Side, but less than 4 per- Leonel, who ran fifth. would have allowed banks to chase land in some cases. The cent of the vote in black do business by means of vote: 59 percent for, 41 per- A 21-candidate field for neighborhoods). seats on the school board was "electronic fund transfer sys- cent against. tems." The state's big bankers McConn placed second in cut to eight; run-offs are —Approved Amendment 4, slated for the-four positions up had campaigned hard for ap- spending as well as votes, tak- which extends tax relief to the ing 22 percent of the votes for grabs. proval of the amendment, owners of certain cultural, his- while consumer and labor torical or natural history re- groups opposed it. The split sources to encourage preser- was 38 percent for, 62 percent vation efforts. The vote: 55 against. percent for, 45 percent At the same time, the voters against. displayed a decided lack of —Defeated Amendment 5, concern about the rights of which would have allowed ag- prisoners and alleged two- ricultural and marine com- time criminals (and the U.S. modity associations to collect• Constitution) by giving over- mandatory fees for the promo- whelming approval to tion of products. Amendment amendment 3, which allows 5 went down 44 percent for, 56 judges to deny bail to people percent against. free on bond for felony —Approved Amendment 7, charges, and who sub- which changes the name of sequently are accused of sec- the Judicial Qualifications ond felonies. Eighty-three Commission to the State percent of those who went to Commission on Judicial Con- the polls liked the proposition. duct, increases the member- Voters also: ship to 11, and gives the com- —Approved Amendment 1, mission and the Supreme which increases the Court of Court the power to oversee Criminal Appeals from five to the conduct of Texas judges. nine judges and permits the No. 7 carried 66 percent to .34 Frank Briscoe Jim McConn court to sit in panels of three percent.
6 NOVEMBER 18,1977 Bob Price Bob Simpson Lee Yeakel Mary Jane Bode
the presidency of West Texas School of Public Affairs at Hill, will be in the run-off for By-elections State University. Top fin- UT-Austin, and Lanell Cofer, the District 37-B House seat ishers Rep. Bob Simpson a 28-year-old attorney. The vacated by Sarah Wed- State legislators who dington. Bode took 36 percent decided to move on to (D-Amarillo) and Pampa Re- two Democrats will meet in a • publican Bob Price, a former run-off. of the vote to Yeakel's 31 per- bigger, better, or just plain dif- cent, with two other candi- ferent things following the U.S. congressman, will face James J. Kaster Jr. of El one another in a run-off. Paso gave up his House seat dates splitting the rest. Wed- 1977 session left three House dington left Texas in August seats and one Senate vacancy In Dallas, the voters in to take a city job, and left a House District .33 went to the vacancy in District 71. S. L. to become general counsel to to be filled in special elections the U.S. Department of Ag- Nov. 8. All four races will be polls to choose a successor to Abbott, a former El Paso Re- riculture. settled in run-offs expected to Eddie Bernice Johnson, the publican Party chairman, and be held between Dec. 7 and new regional director of the Democrat Orthon Medina Jr., 10. Department of Health, Educa- a civil engineer, are slated for tion and Welfare. Surviving a The lone senate contest was a run-off. held to replace District 31 hotly contested four-way race Two Austin Democrats, at- senator Max Sherman of are former Lyndon . Johnson torney Lee Yeakel, 32, and Amarillo, who resigned his aide Crawford B. Bunldey III, Mary Jane Bode, 50, a former seat this summer to assume 24, a student at the LBJ press aide to Atty: Gen. John
its state of repair stood in vio- was the campaign's second Local matters lation of the constitutional biggest spender, and Pete Nov. 8 ballots around rights of prisoners. Baldwin, a real estate devel- oper who outspent the other • the state confronted A record $215 million bond voters with a variety of local issue was approved in Dallas six candidates combined. issues in need of resolution. County. Included in the pack- Bexar County voters de- cided by a two-to-one major- Travis County voters de- age are funds for improve- ments to county roads and ity to turn over San Antonio's feated a $13.85 million bond city bus system to a new met- proposal for a new public construction of a new jail. safety building and jail, and Voters evidently took ser- ropolitan transit authority iously U.S. District Judge next March 1, despite the op- another bond issue that would position of San Antonio city have raised $1.15 million for a Sarah Hughes' threat to close the present jail to additional council members. Starting new county parking facility. in March, the authority will (However, a proposition to prisoners if funds for a new one were not forthcoming. collect a one-half cent sales spend $2 million on renova- tax added on the present tions of the courthouse Dallasites also voted on a passed.) The county will now replacement for city council five-cent levy, with the new money intended to upgrade have to go the more expensive member Adlene Harrison, who recently quit her seat to and expand bus service in route of borrowing commer- greater San Antonio. cially to pay for a new jail and become the regional director thus satisfy U.S. District of the Environmental Protec- Out in the Plainview area, Judge Jack Roberts, who in tion Agency. The seven-way voters in five counties nar- 1974 ordered the county special election race resulted rowly rejected a proposal to commissioners either to make in a Nov. 22 run-off between allow weather modification improvements to the facility Steve Bartlett, a North Dallas flights (cloud seeding), 1,731 Travis County jail or replace it entirely because safety tool manufacturer who to 1,416. THE TE Every society produces certain Brownsville, Tex., to San Diego, Calif. for anyone other than an immigration phenomena which, because they never These statements, their attendant officer to arrest or detain aliens sus- seem to die or go away, wheedle their rationale, and the spirit behind what is pected of INA violations. He also way into our pantheon of institutions. presented as "responsible citizenship" agreed to involve the Justice Depart- Reference is made to commodities like were carried by the Head Dragon to ment's Civil Division in the matter if that Coca-Cola and apple pie, and organiza- other parts of the State of California and became necessary. tions like the DAR and the Ku Klux to Texas as he attempted to marshal We at MALDEF will be closely Klan. Although Coke, pie, and the DAR his troops of Klansmen and sympathiz- monitoring developments and remain have remained fairly constantly with us, ers for new vigilante efforts. On October prepared to take legal action to defend the Klan is a little more elusive—it tends 25, 150 white citizens began a patrol of the rights of citizens and aliens in this to raise its hooded head intermittently, the remote and isolated portions of the situation. depending in part on whether the border to block the passage of "untold The Ku Klux Klan would appear to be socio-political climate is conducive to its millions." an American institution that is as per- health and well-being. Unfortunately, The Mexican American Legal De- manent as right-wing politics. The spirit many of us are duped by those brief fense and Educational Fund, along with with which they now interfere with im- periods when the climate is not so good the Chicano community, has been ap- migration policy and procedure—a fed- for the Klan. We let ourselves be misled palled by these developments. Coali- eral government responsibility— into believing that the Klan's hibernation tions of concerned minority groups suggests activity that will fit quite nicely represents a disappearance of the scar have formed around this issue in sev- on an historical continuum that includes it has been on American history. Specu- eral communities in Texas and Califor- lynching, mob violence, intimidation, lation abounds on how the evolutionary nia. Here at MALDEF, our President and harassment of minority com- process swallows up things that out- and General Counsel, Vilma S. Mar- munities. grow their time. tinez, has contacted the office of Com- Help us stop them now. But the Klan will fool you. The proof missioner Leonel Castillo, head of the is in its recent emergence as a force to Immigration and Naturalization Service, be dealt with on the issue of illegal im- and asked for response to a series of MALDEF migration from Mexico. very serious questions we think have 501 Petroleum Commerce Building David Duke, the Grand Dragon of the been raised by Duke's escorted tour of 201 N. St. Mary's Street Ku Klux Klan, arrived a few Sundays INS facilities and the present policing of San Antonio, Texas 78205 ago at the San Ysidro facility to take a the border by civilians who lack au- Enclosed is my contribution of $ tour under the guidance of Allen thority and responsibility to engage in these sorts of activities. Clayton, the immigration agent in Name charge there. Relative to his tour, Duke In addition, we have informed Attor- went on to say that the Klan had be- ney General Griffin Bell in writing and in Address come concerned about the large influx person of our position and the legal im- of illegal aliens into this country across plications of Klan border activities. In City State Zip our southern border, and that they in- our meeting with him, the Attorney tended to assist the Immigration Ser- General reaffirmed the policy directive Make checks payable to MALDEF. Contributions vice in the patrol of that border from emphasizing that there is no authority are tax deductible. MEXICAN AMERICAN LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND, INC. A Public Service Message from the American Income Life Insurance Co.—Executive Offices, Waco, Texas—Bernard Rapoport, Chairman of the Board NOVEMBER 18, 1977 L_ _J L_ _J U.S. corporations will go to protect their Exxon cuisine interests abroad (Obs., Oct. 21). The Amnesty for aliens firms claim in documents filed with the A hearty helping of ajam panggang A Who's Who of the chicano left, • Securities and Exchange Commission • bumbu bali (spicy marinated In- that they were approached by In- meeting in San Antonio late last donesian chicken to you) might give a donesia's national oil company to make a month, denounced President Jimmy Car- gourmet gas, but it hardly explains why little investment in the New .York restau- ter's immigration policy and called in- Exxon, Mobil, Continental and other rant as a way of promoting the home- stead for unconditional amnesty for il- major oil firms invested $25,000 or more land's image in this country. The ap- legal aliens. Anything less, they pre- each in an Indonesian restaurant in New proach apparently was less than dicted, would make undocumented York City. Thera; is no question that it subtle—sign up if you intend to do oil workers a new slave class in the United was a good restaurant—The New York business in Indonesia. Exxon's man States. Times' food critic, Craig Claiborne, termed it a shakedown, but his firm and It was an emotionally charged gather- gushed that the Ramayana, which the others paid. Indeed, Mobil chipped in ing that brought together radical leaders opened in 1971, was among the "most $5,000 more than the going rate of from the Socialist Workers Party and La opulent and agreeable" places to grace $25,000, saying that it might "present us Raza Unida as well as representatives the city's dining scene in years. in a more favorable light than other com- from the mainstream League of United Little wonder. Some 50 U.S. busi- panies." And Continental not only Latin American Citizens, the American nesses operating in Indonesia pumped bought $30,000 worth of stock to show GI Forum, and the Mexican American more than a million dollars into the res- that it was a "cooperative, responsive Legal Defense and Educational Fund. taurant's parent firm, Indonesian Enter- company," but a Conoco executive even The SWP and La Raza had a majority of prises, Inc., according to an Oct. 13 story put some of his own money into the the 2,600 delegates. in The Wall Street Journal. It's another venture and became a director of the res- Former Houston controller Leonel example of the curious lengths some taurant. Castillo, Carter's new director of immi- gration and naturalization, came under fire for declining to attend the confer- ence. "Castillo made a confession by not being here today. He can join us by quit- ting his job and stop being the police against us," insisted Peter Camejo, the SWP's candidate for president last. year. Making a play on words, Zavala County Judge Jose Angel Gutierrez labeled the Democratic administration "demoatras" (backwards) on alien policy. But Vilma Martinez, president of MALDEF, warned, "It is clear we agree on the need for unity, but that sort of unity will not be accomplished by denigrating Leonel Castillo or those of us who are Demo- crats." The major disagreement to come up at the three-day meeting was over political stance rather than policy. Delegates Jim Wright Bob Eckhardt Barbara Jordan spent most of one day condemning the ing to be a most effective instrument in SWP for allegedly trying to manipulate Imagine our surprise targeting ultra-liberals in the Congress," the conference. Then delegates took says CSFC director Paul Weyrich. only half an hour to agree on a series of Is nothing sacred? The Texas dele- The committee has targeted 21 of resolutions calling for an immediate end gation to the U.S. House, it turns these dangerous liberals for defeat in to deportations of illegal aliens, an open out, harbors radicals. Flat-out, unre- 1978. Strangely enough, the only Texas border with Mexico, and full extension deemed radicals. Three of them, by ac- incumbent CSFC plans to challenge is of constitutional rights and social ser- tual count of the Committee for the Sur- Dallas freshman Jim Mattox—even vices (including government jobs and vival of a Free Congress. Which three? though he didn't make the radical list. welfare, minimum wage and retirement Bob Eckhardt, of course; everyone Mattox scored as a moderate-liberal, benefits) to aliens. Another resolution knows that. And Barbara Jordan, when along with George Mahon, Chick Kazen, urged supporters to dramatize these de- she's not reading the Constitution. Jack Hightower, Jake Pickle, John mands in street demonstrations across And—will you look at this—Jim Wright! Young and Kika de la Garza. Tom the country Nov. 18-20. Old "stroke-it-down-the-middle" Pauken, a lawyer who has announced his Two times four Jim, unmasked as a rad. intention to take on Mattox next year, is CSFC, as you might have guessed, is a likely to receive CSFC support. An October telephone poll by The • little on the conservative side. They fer- Meanwhile, the ultras—Wright, Jor- Dallas Morning News found 55 reted out congressional radicals by dan and Eckhardt—will be - left alone. percent of the Dallas public in favor of analyzing 315 "significant" House votes David Troxler, CSFC assistant director, limiting Texas governors to two four- cast from January through August of this explained that his group looks at the dis- year terms. Twenty-two percent of those year. The organization's purpose is to trict's constituency and the vulnerability polled were against the idea, and 23 per- recruit, train and finance conservative of the incumbent, as well as ratings, in cent didn't know what to make of it. candidates, and these ratings are "prov- deciding who to fight. THE TEXAS OBSERVED 9 For more than a year, Coors stub- board still has not adopted any rules. Dr. bornly maintained that its can worked. Kenneth Ashworth, head of the board, Beer drinkers—some with gashed fingers says it will be at least another couple of as a result of taking the plunge—thought months before the Family Residency otherwise, and they let Coors know Advisory Committee (its members come about it. The turning point may have from the state's medical establishment) been when WFAA-TV in Dallas inter- drafts any rules for the board to con- viewed Bill Coors, president of the firm, sider. last spring. He insisted that it was a sim- But that has not stopped the allocation ple task to open the beer without wetting of money under the new law. The board a finger, then proceeded while on the air has just divvied up the 1977-78 appro- to poke his own digit deep into the can priation of $852,700, and the breakdown twice in two tries. On Oct. 17, the com- is not encouraging. Eighty percent of the pany announced that Press Tab II money is going to be spent on the 12 fam- "hasn't caught on like we had hoped it ily residency programs already estab- would," adding that "people report diffi- lished; the remaining 20 percent will be culty in opening it." So Coors is made available for expansion of current withdrawing II and going back to Press programs and development of new ones. Tab I. Dean Herbst, a member of the advi- sory committee that recommended the 80-20 split, told the Observer that the The Coors boycott lopsided allocation is for the first year Those who think that consumer only. The committee felt it had to put the • boycotts don't do much good might bulk of the money into existing programs contemplate the Coors experience. In to strengthen them, she said. The the six months since the AFL-CIO an- $682,160 that they will get does not rep- nounced a boycott against the Colorado resent additional or expanded funding, brewery, Coors sales have fallen off but merely a new source of money to about 5 percent nationwide, according cover existing budgets, now being sup- to the company, and the firm says its ported by non-state sponsors. Ashworth sales are down as much as 25 percent in was quick to say that things will change: some markets. "We notified all existing programs that we have no intention of allocating 80 Not a moment too soon Latest available figures from the percent of funds in the future to them." Wholesale Beer Distributors of Texas, Coors, which has long been in hot He did not venture an opinion on what a • however, indicate that the boycott is cut- proper allocation might be. water for its labor and racial ting into Coors consumption even fur- policies, finally met a group • it couldn't ther. In Austin, a city that saw consider- browbeat: beer drinkers. At issue was able boycott activity this summer, Coors the matter of getting into a Coors can. volume dropped from 99,516 cases in In 1973, the Colorado company be- May to 55,296 cases in July—a 45 per- came the first major brewer to abandon cent tumble. the controversial ring-pull opener, re- sponding to environmentalists' com- plaints that the little pulls were being Still waiting for doctors strewn across America at such a rate that they threatened to replace amber waves • This spring, the Legislature passe( of grain as the landscape's dominant fea- a bill appropriating several million ; ture. Coors, which makes its own cans, dollars for medical training program. introduced "Press Tab I"—a litter-free that proponents said would create 27( innovation that required customers to new doctors for "underserved" areas o punch in two round openings on the lid. Texas—rural towns and urban ghetto Problem was, the drinker's finger (Obs., March 25). Doubters, however, plunged into the beer along with the pointed out that the bill had no guaran- What'd he say? press tab. Hence, "Press Tab II," intro- tees that the money would create any new family residency programs, or that John Tower refuses to use the new duced in 1976. This "improvement" con- • fronted one with a single, tear-shaped any doctors trained under those that microphone system in the U.S. tab, engineered to require less finger were established would wind up in areas Senate chamber. During a floor debate pressure. To get to the brew, it was first of need. More cynical opponents said on Sept. 8, the' following exchange took necessary to press with the thumbs at aloud that the money would go to exist- place: two designated points along the scored ing programs training family doctors, and Sen. Howard Metzenbaum (D-Ohio): edges of the tab, then merely fold it in. that those doctors would go straight to "Mr. President, if the senator from Two problems: first, thumbs didn't the suburbs and other comfortable areas. Texas will excuse me, I am very in- always do the trick, leaving people to Tut-tut, chided the proponents, the bill terested in what he is saying, but I can- pound on the lid in angry frustration with requires the state college coordinating not hear him. If it is possible, will he use whatever blunt instrument they could board to adopt rules "providing for dis- the mike?" find, and, second, even when the two tribution of family physicians and im- Senator Tower: "I shall try raising my pressure points gave way, the task of provement of medical care in under- voice. I opposed putting these evil in- folding in the tab still got fingers directly served urban and rural areas." struments in the Senate in the first place into the beer. Six months later, the coordinating and I have no intention of using them." NOVEMBER 18, 1977 Texas Black Caucus How sweet it is It's been a long time coming, but • Texas' black political activists One man's misery is another 's op- have finally put aside differences and portunity, or something like that. come together in an effort to consolidate While Leonel Castillo, the Ku Klux statewide political strength. Delegates to Klan, the Mexican government, com- a July convention in Houston adopted a munities along the Rio Grande, John constitution, approved an operating Hill, Texas chicanos, and a host of others budget, elected an executive committee, wrestle with the illegal alien dilemma, and raised the banner Of what they hope some Texas academics see the whole will quickly become a significant politi- mess as a chance to grab off some re- cal force—the Texas Black Caucus: search grants. "For scholars," says a The group, an outgrowth of the Texas University of Texas press release, "the Black Democratic Caucus, has an initial problems of the United States-Mexican membership of more than 1,000 and an border area are like a shower of sweets operating budget of $81,000 for the cur- from an exploded piñata, releasing many rent year. Debbie Haley of Houston, varied and intriguing research pos- caucus chair, says the group will do sibilities." No joke, it really said that. things bottom-up style, working with Dr. Stanley Ross, a UT Latin Amer- blacks at the local level to develop strong icanist, heads a nationwide program to political consciousness. She explained study border issues, and he reports that that although a little over half of TBC's U.S. scholars are in the process of de- current membership is in Houston, signing research and seeking funding, members all over the state are organizing with the expectation that some projects groups which will then develop local po- will get off the ground by the first of the litical programs. year. The press release termed the The TBC hopes to raise the political 1,905-mile border "a region whose time consciousness of blacks by registering has come." voters, by explaining the fine details of the workings of government, by taking NOV strong stands on issues of importance to This issue's Political Intelligence was blacks, and by encouraging more blacks researched and written with the help of Pomeroy, Susan Reid, Teresa Acosta to seek office and government appoint- Kaye Nori'hcott, Eric Hartman, Debi and Alice Embree. ments. The Prisoners of Perote By William Preston Stapp / Foreword by Joe B. Frantz On December 20, 1842, Private William Preston Stapp and about 300 other Texans took it upon themselves to invade Mexico. Here is Stapp's firsthand account of the disastrous adventure which became known as the Mier Expedition. Barker Texas History Center Series, No. 1 249 pages, illustrated, $8.95 Killing the Hidden Waters By Charles Bowden 14 . . . with rare insight, Charles Bowden analyzes the human adventure, past and present, with the great Southwestern desert."—Natural History 207 pages, illustrated, $9.95 University of Texas Press Post Office Box 7819 Austin, Texas 78712 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 1 1 What's the beef? The Great Range War of '77 By Jim Hightower and Ron Butler Austin, Waco, Amarillo A hundred and sixty-eight ranchers in West Texas and New Mexico who say supermarkets are fixing prices against them organized something of a modern- day posse in August and hauled 24 of the country's biggest food retailers into fed- eral district court in Lubbock. Their case reads a bit like the story-line of an old, Saturday morning Western melodrama: little ranchers fi- nally get their fill of rough treatment and band together to battle landgrabbers, bankers or other intruders. Well, this time it's supermarkets. The list of plaintiffs alone recalls characters from the flickering screen—names like Crump Ferrel, Jana Posey, Dare Lock and Cloyce Box might have been lifted from the script of "The Oklahoma Kid"; the cattle enterprises of the plaintiffs bear names worthy of Zane Grey—Triangle J, Half Love Partnership, Rawhide Feed- ers, Triple D, Kiowa Cattle Co., Tee Pee, OK, Cowboy, and Big 7. The cattle market The reality, of course, is much less romantic, but the anger and save-the- ranch seriousness behind the lawsuit is no less intense than that which stirred cattlemen to, protect their interests in frontier days. Since 1973, cattle prices have dropped to the point where the costs of raising a steer today actually ex- ceed what a rancher can get for it. Not that it's costing consumers less to buy steak or hamburger at the nation's meat retain title to the animals. In either case, industry. Safeway, for example, had counters: retail beef prices have risen steers are fattened and then sold, 1976 sales of $10.4 billion, making it the steadily over the last four years. either by feedlots or ranchers, to com- 15th largest corporation in America (big- How can this be? Because a complex mercial meat packers for slaughter. ger than such industrial giants as Shell marketing sector in the food industry Packers then sell beef carcasses to Oil and U.S. Steel). This massive retailer puts a great distance between ranchers supermarkets and restaurants. operates 2,400 stores, maintains its own and consumers and lends itself to price In terms of economic structure, there distribution and warehousing network, manipulation. Cattle raisers generally are thousands of ranchers selling to hun- and runs four meat processing plants. don't sell beef directly to consumers, or dreds of feedlots selling to a few packers Even though Safeway and chain outfits even to retailers (supermarkets and res- selling to a handful of supermarkets. It is like it may bid lower for beef than other taurants). Today's ranchers maintain a funnel-shaped arrangement that less powerful marketers, packers prefer herds that produce calves. Those calves economists call an "oligopsony"—many selling to the big firms because they deal are raised on the ranch until they reach a sellers confronted with few buyers—and in enormous volumes, and because it just weight of about 700 pounds, at which it places pricing power at the narrowest isn't good business to cross such cus- time they are sent to a feedlot for polint of the funnel. tomers. formula-feeding that brings them up to The major supermarket chains buy A price squeeze of this sort doesn't slaughter weight (the process is appro- millions of pounds of beef each week hurt the packers any, since they enjoy priately called "finishing"). Sometimes through their own centralized purchasing oligopsonic power of their own over ranchers sell Their calves to the feedlot systems, telling packers how much they feedlots in ranching areas. If you were to for finishing, at other times they pay the want and what they will pay. Theirs is draw a circle centered in Amarillo and feedlot for finishing their yearlings and the dominant market power in the beef with a 150-mile radius, you would en- 12 NOVEMBER 18, 197 compass one of the nation's major In addition to controlling prices even closer to the bone than a strike for cattle-producing regions—and all the through The Yellow Sheet, the super- higher prices knight because it challenges landholdings of the plaintiffs in this case. markets are charged also with manipula- the economic structure that has pro- The findings of a 1974 study made by the tion of beef supplies. Most packers do duced the paradox of falling farm in- U.S. Packers and Stockyards Adminis- not have warehousing facilities to store comes and rising consumer prices. tration reveal that four meat packers perishable beef for long periods and gen- It takes a measure of courage to take control 78 percent of the Amarillo-area erally move their supply out within 24 on the supermarkets, especially wheii market; the obvious consequence, as the hours of slaughter. The dominant groc- they have the power to turn the screws PSA points out, is that there is very little ery chains, however, have extensive on your economic livelihood. Of course, price competition locally. warehousing facilities that allow them to the 168 ranchers stand alone—none of If feedlots have little to say about pric- es, ranchers have even less. Thousands of small cattle-raising operations dot the In terms of economic structure, there are thousands of Panhandle, producing an average of 67 head annually. Their proprietors are ranchers selling to hundreds of feedlots selling to a few fiercely independent—about the only packers selling to a handful of supermarkets. It is a funnel- practitioners of free enterprise in the beef economy—and they are paying for shaped arrangement that places pricing power at the nar- their independence. A June 1977 report rowest point of the funnel. prepared by agricultural economists at Texas A&M observes that any price pressure applied on feedlots from above store enough beef to keep rancher and the Dolph Briscoes, Reagan Browns, is passed directly backward along "the Billy Claytons, John Hills, Lloyd path of least resistance"—the ranchers. packer prices depressed. It is alleged that because of their storage capacities Bentsens, Bob Kruegers, or any of the other drugstore cowboys who go regu- The supermarket conspiracy supermarket chains are in a position to, say, stock up only on hind quarters for a larly to the Panhandle on political forays Come now 168 of these folk before the while, thus leaving an excess of front (declaring their empathy for the bar, praying for relief, as the lawyers quarters on the market. Such a maneu- ranchers' plight by the bye), has shown say. They charge that the likes of ver causes front quarter prices to drop, any inclination to stand with them Safeway, A&P, Kroger, Winn-Dixie and at which time the big retailers return to against the big food marketers. Piggly Wiggly have not been content buy them. These battles are not easy to win. A lot just to exercise their dominant market of money is at stake, and the supermar- muscle in legitimate fashion, but have The ranchers' beef kets and packers will have a corral full of conspired among themselves and with lawyers. Safeway, meanwhile, has flatly meat packers to fix prices at the packer It's these business practices, say the denied any use of The Yellow Sheet. Pub- level, thus keeping beef prices paid to ranchers, that are losing them money and driving many out of business. To sub- lic relations manager Felicia del Campo, ranchers below fair market values. The in an interview from Safeway's corpo- plaintiffs say this price fixing has been stantiate their charges, they point to aberrant market behavior, such as that rate headquarters in Oakland, Calif., going on for at least 14 years—since said, "We don't subscribe to it. We buy 1963—though the focus of their case is which occurred between May and July of 1973, when the price for finished beef carcasses by the author and acceptance on business activity from 1973 to the method, which means individual trans- present. The challenged transactions in- dropped from 56 cents a pound to 34 cents. During that same period, con- actions between our buyers and meat volved some 391 million pounds of beef. packers. They offer a price and we take The ranchers' particular charges in- sumer prices for beef galloped over the horizon. "It's hard to figure that the it or leave it; no bargaining. I'm sure our clude one that a handful of major super- [The Yellow same animal was worth over $400 one meat people know about markets serve as "price leaders" for var- Sheet], but we don't use it." ious beef-producing areas of the country: day and less than $250 the next," says one of the plaintiffs who lost more than The ranchers do stand a chance, during any given week, they allege, the though. A similar suit brought by Colo- leaders agree on the price they will pay, $50,000 over that three-month span. "Somehow we held in," he says, "be- rado cattlemen was won in 1974, when a offer that amount to packers a day in ad- federal jury found A&P guilty of price vance of offers made by other chain cause we didn't have all that many head on feed. But a lot of folks lost anywhere fixing and awarded $11 million to six stores, then promulgate their "set" price ranchers for losses they had suffered. through an industry publication called from a thousand dollars to a quarter of a million, and it's easy to see that they did- Safeway and Kroger both had been The Yellow Sheet.* Other buyers follow named defendants in that case, but they the leaders, paying nothing more nor n't stay in business if they didn't have some other kind of collateral to borrow settled with the plaintiffs rather than go less. The ranchers say that Safeway is to court. generally the price leader for West Coast off of." At least someone is attacking the prob- buyers and that A&P sets the pace on the The present agricultural depression East Coast; other chains act as price lem at the source. Consumers spent has brought so much unrest to the High $31.4 billion for beef in food stores and leaders at other times and in other Plains that farmers and ranchers in sev- places, the suit claims. It is the ranchers' restaurants in 1976; of this amount $17.6 eral states are ready to go on strike Dec. ' contention that the packers not only are billion (56 percent) was pocketed by 14. Those set to strike say they will not middlemen. The fat in America's food aware of the conspiracy, but are parties buy farm equipment, sell commodities, to it, serving to push the low, fixed prices budget will be found at the marketing or even plant next spring's crop unless level, ajnd Crump Ferrel, Jana Posey, onto ranchers. their prices improve. It's all aeOgned to Dana Lock and Cloyce Box are doing us * This weekly sheet, with a subscription rate of get the attention of the lawmakers and all a favor by attempting to trim it. ❑ $180 a year, reports livestock prices all over officials in Washington who establish the country. Publihed by National Provisioner, price supports for crops. But the West Ron Butler works 1,64eite Texas Farm- Inc. (also named a defendant in the suit), it has Texas cattlemen's suit promises to cut ers Union at its Waco headquarters. been around for some 50 years. •■•• THE TEXAS OBSERVER 13 LETTER FROM ALBUQUERQUE such remote bigness and the lack of By Fred Harris competition in the food industry. The re- tail clerks union has, for months and Winn-Dixie, the nation's fifth largest months, been snarled in legal tangles supermarket chain, has spread into New with the Winn-Dixie management since Mexico as quietly as cobwebs. And the takeover. Just as Winn-Dixie was another independent, regional food re- buying Foodway, the retail clerks were tailer has "passed on," without even -so signing a renewed contract with local much as perfunctory last rites being of- supermarket companies, including fered by our government's anti-trusters. Safeway, Piggly Wiggly and Foodway. The Florida-based firm's purchase of But W/D is, outside New Mexico, a no- the local 'Foodway stores makes it union company, and management appar- another notch bigger, but leaves the rest ently intends to try to break the union at of us that much smaller. Winn-Dixie, Foodway before breaking the no-union with $3.3 billion in annual sales and more habit. As they say here, W/D has more than 1,000 stores throughout the South, "movidas," more maneuvers, than a de- has left us the Foodway name and little coying mother dove. The retail clerks else—local control and profits now flow have had to learn a lot of law—and out of our community. The sale of the they've taught W/D Some, too. The regional chain tightens the grip that na- union's winning, but how long will vic- Burger tional supermarkets have on Albuquer- tory take? And at what cost? Can they que. Three of them now control 80 per- keep up the fight as long as Winn-Dixie? r- cent of the market. I hope so. A city or region with With 11Sealed in Freshnese A good many New Mexico workers unionized labor is generally a place iN/D Braiql liatuil -Pak Pure &mod Here' s our ell new , and consumers can be forgiven, I think, where workers are more self-sufficient, Beet! Unconditionally guaraetod to be the best test for not being wildly pleased with this ground Beet you've ever sarved,.. or year money ilea. and taxpayers are not called upon to pay transaction. And it's not because we're for the food stamps, medicaid, public ight pat**, Me ratOvigi be When you open this air-t . against outsiders; I've only recently housing, and other forms of public assis- Whe r it wridoem" to 3 fottli3k-brn,ow As te hai matterreac ANDERSON • COMPANY COFFEE TEA SPICES TWO JEfikilltSON SWAIM AUSTIN, TEXAS 78731 51g. 453-1533 Send me your list. Name Street City Zip 14 NOVEMBER 18, 1977 dreds of miles away and shipped in from home—a minimal gesture, Qne would great distances. Central production and think, if you're selling a "guess what?" long-distance transportation of food gen- The wrapper does not say where the erally mean more artificial additives to meat is packed. It gives only the home Closer to home keep it salable and looking decent. office address of W/D in Jacksonville, Winn-Dixie gives the most prominent Fla. But consumers are told in the flyer In the grocery business, bigger is shelf space in its meat counter to its own that "When you open this air-tight pack- far from better. In fact, it makes "Hickory Sweet" bacon. Not "hickory age, the color will be a reddish-brown. good economic sense to build our smoked," mind you, but "Hickory As the air reaches it, it will 'bloom' to a food marketing system around small Sweet." And W/D has come up with a bright red within a matter of minutes .. . supermarket chains, locally owned novel way to pre-package hamburger this color change is your guarantee of and managed. A 1969 study con- meat and ship it over long distances and quality and 'Sealed In Freshness.' " I'm ducted by the Federal Trade Com- store it for lengthy periods. In their meat not making this up. mission staff concluded that effi- counters, there is still some of the old To tell the truth, I'm a little put off by ciency in food retailing is achieved see-through, locally wrapped ground the prospect of having my meat "bloom" at a surprisingly small scale of meat, but there are relatively few such right before my eyes, like these new in- operation—five-store chains with packages now and those still offered stant color photographs. And I suspect one warehouse each can market the come with a limited selection of sizes. that good old Winn-Dixie leaned a slight nation's food. The FTC study's con- However, there are now great quantities bit more toward their own interests than clusions verified the findings of the of W/D's log-shaped hamburger meat toward those of us housepersons when National Commission on Food packages, opaquely wrapped in a plastic they came up with the great Handi Pak Marketing, which reported in 1966 cover printed in a grainy, bright red color idea. that small chains of up to ten stores to simulate the tightly sealed—and So, I've taken to raising my own eggs were efficient, profitable and com- concealed—ground meat. These and fryers and my own vegetables, and I petitive. packages come in a profusion of conven- expect to raise my own beef and bacon The NCFM also found a small- ient sizes—one pound, two pounds, next year. And I've switched grocery is-beautiful rationale for the three pounds, four pounds and five stores. All this may not bring Winn-Dixie hometown supermarket in the kind pounds. to its chubby knees, but it seems little of people who own and operate Now, why in the world would W/D enough to do if you like hometown folks them: "These individuals are typi- want to avoid the simple process of buy- and downhome food. cally a part of the community they ing hamburger meat locally, grinding it ❑ serve, they know their customers up right on the premises, and packaging Fred Harris, a former U.S. senator personally, and they are able to ob- it so that shoppers could see the con- from Oklahoma and unsuccessful candi- serve, understand, and respond to tents? It's for our own good, they tell us. date for president, is now a professor of their particular environments with "Here's our all-new W/D brand Handi political science at the University of much more sensitivity than is typi- Pak pure ground beef!" a store flyer New Mexico. His latest book, Potomac cal of [national] chain store organi- exclaims. 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Hardeman, one of the nation's and write well before entering the first tacked Congressman James P. Buchanan leading authorities on the Congress and grade. As a young boy riding cattle of Austin, chairman of the House Ap- its institutions, came to Austin and the drives, Hardeman, like other cowboys, propriations Committee, in whose dis- University of Texas this week to take packed his saddlebags with necessities. trict the dams were being built. Con- part in an LBJ School of Public Affairs His companions carried whiskey and struction had been started by utilities conference, "Congress and the Pre- tobacco—Hardeman took books. He magnate Samuel Insull who had fled the sidency: A Shifting Balance of Power?" gobbled up the first three grades in one country after his house-of-cards utilities Hardeman discussed Sam Rayburn's year in a one-room country schoolhouse. empire collapsed during the Depression. role in making the 1950s an era of con- For the next three years, his mother was The federal government then had taken gressional power. After a 20-year ab- his teacher at an officially approved over construction of the dams. sence from his home state, D.B. (christ- Although Parten and Hardeman were ened D. Bernard, a name he has never opponents in the censorship con- used), is preparing to move back to Tex- troversy, they eventually became close as, probably to San Antonio. -Eds. friends, and Parten was instrumental in getting D.B. to manage Homer Rainey's By Johti McCully 1946 gubernatorial campaign. And Hardeman made another lifelong friend Austin during the censorship battle—Maury "Of all the legislators I served with, Maverick Sr., a congressman from San Jim Sewell was the most colorful, Antonio who allied himself with Harde- Johnny Barnhart the bravest, Babe man. (After a year of controversy, the Schwartz the quickest, Joe Kilgore the censor was removed. The regents' policy best technician, but on balance the most had never been particularly effective be- important colleague I had in the Texas cause the Texan arranged for the House was D. B. Hardeman. When D.B. school she organized for D.B. and the Scripps-Howard newspapers in El Paso, wasn't around, we liberals ate one neighbors' children. Since there was no Forth Worth and Houston to publish any another alive, but when he was on the secondary school near his home, D.B. blue-lined material. Offensive articles scene, we went after the common boarded in Goliad and graduated from thus were read even more widely than enemy. In that regard he was absolutely the town's high school at 14. they would have been without the cen- magnificent." At the university, D.B. studied his- sor.) —Former State Rep. Maury Maverick tory, government and economics, taking While in law school, D.B. held a Jr. a couple of journalism courses on the number of jobs, and engaged in a variety For D. B. Hardeman, politics has been side. He worked on The Daily Texan and of political activities. He managed the a way of life. As a 14-year-old orator in ran three times for editor, the last time losing campaigns of two liberal candi Goliad, he won a declamation contest successfully. His second race, however, dates for statewide office and worked as with a speech in support of Tom Connal- verged on becoming a campus cause an old-age pension investigator, a publi- ly's candidacy for the U.S. Senate. celebre. It was 1933, and Hardeman and cist for the newly created Texas Unem-- Nearly half a century later he can look his opponent were six votes apart. ployment Compensation Commission, back on a career that has included ser- D.B.'s friend Allan Shivers chaired the an administrative assistant to Atty. Gen. vice as a state representative, manager of recount committee, and one John Pat- Gerald Mann, and as a newspaperman. Homer Rainey's 1946 campaign for gov- rick, a campus pol, published a few During his journalist phase, he and Alex ernor, Texas director of organization for broadside attacks on Shivers and Louis (a friend from university days who Adlai Stevenson's presidential campaign Hardeman. When the future governor was later to become one of Texas' lead- in 1952, advisor and advance man for ran across Patrick in a downtown cafe, ing pollsters), worked for Van Kennedy, Stevenson in 1956 and John Kennedy in words came to blows and the fight riled Austin bureau chief of International 1960, and intimate and biographer of both camps. Hardeman lost the recount. News Service and publisher of the State Speaker Sam Rayburn. He won the editorship in 1934 and kept Observer, a predecessor of today's Texas Hardeman has never committed him- up his interest in the paper's fortune after Observer. Louis and Hardeman even self completely to any calling. He quit leaving the University (he returned to leased the publication for six months, but newspaper work to enlist in the U.S. enter law school in 1938). In the summer couldn't make a go of it financially. D.B. Army right after American entry into of 1936, the UT board of regents (of wasn't just Kennedy's employee; he be- World War II, and was never again a which Madisonville oilman J.R. Parten came his political protege, when Ken- full-time journalist. He has a law degree was a member) installed an official cen- nedy, for many years secretary of the but has yet to practice law. sor in the Texan office to tone down or State Democratic Executive Committee, D.B. entered the University of Texas cut controversial political copy. The steered him into political campaign jobs. in 1929 at age 15—not quite in his first final straw for the regents was Texan pair of shoes, as his friend Alex Louis editor Ed Hodge's editorial supporting Off to war tells it, but "darn near it," according to an investigation into alleged pork barrel Nine days after Pearl Harbor, D.B. D.B. He was already a good student. deals and graft in connection with the and Louis, newly minted lawyers (but Growing up on his parents' farm in construction of Lower Colorado River still in Kennedy's employ), resigned their Goliad County, he had learned to read Authority dams. Hodge specifically at- jobs and went to San Antonio to enlist. 16 NOVEMBER 18, 1977 They tried the Air Corps but were turned former was in law school; D.B. was best recite some of the speeches from down ("the Air Corps doesn't think any- man at Briscoe's wedding. Shakespeare, or our country's history. body over 25 has anything between their It took less than a month for Harde- He could make you feel like you wanted ears," the recruiting sergeant told the man's planned cooperation with Shivers to do great things. He was a good man on 27-year-olds). Finally, their old Packard to evaporate. Lines were drawn in the the floor, and he was an even better man stalled in the middle of Fort Sam Hous- 1951 session when Shivers proposed to off it." ton. They abandoned the car and en- eliminate the Colson-Briscoe farm-to- The gathering tax bill passed, only to listed as privates in the army. After get- market road program, and D.B. never re- be invalidated later as an unconstitu- ting his lieutenant's bars, intelligence of- turned to the governor's fold. Liberal tional infringement of interstate com- ficer Hardeman was shipped off to and rural legislators banded together to merce. But no matter: Hardeman's new Europe. He was mustered out in 1946 as fight the road bill, and the alliance held friendships—with Maverick (today his a major. during the natural gas gathering tax fight personal attorney), Jim Sewell of Cor- Civilians again, Hardeman and Louis which followed. sicana, Charlie Hughes of Sherman, settled in Austin, intending to open a Zeke Zbranek of Liberty, and many public relations firm. Almost immediate- The gathering tax was written to raise others—endured. ly, however, D.B. signed on as manager revenues and at the same time protect At the end of the lengthy overtime ses- of the Rainey campaign for governor. Texas consumers by imposing a sion of the 51st Legislature, Harde- After Rainey's run-off loss to Beauford wellhead levy on gas shipped out of man—who disowns the tag "liberal" but Jester, D.B. moved to Denison to take state. When the proposed tax had not proudly claims "progressive"—had, by up PR work and advertising full time. passed by the end of the regular session, the lights of organized labor, 18 right skW4Vt' votes and none wrong. Briscoe in that session was 15 and 3. Only three other House members matched D.B.'s record: Maverick, George Hinson of Mineola, and Sewell. Viti,AMM.. In the 1952 primary, D.B., running for C*5 re-election to the Texas House, faced an ilustotPAVE 'ME Vigo t opponent for the first time. An excellent strategist and tactician for others, D.B. proved to be a lousy campaigner for him- self. He felt a personal repugnance at asking people to vote for him. He could make a good speech, but when it came to the important matter of one-on-one vote solicitation, he performed badly. His natural interest in people didn't help. Charlie Hughes reported later—probably with only slight exaggeration—that "D.B. would start out in the morning campaigning and stop to talk with a farmer. After visiting with him all morn- ing, he would stop for lunch, then spend the afternoon with somebody he ran across in front of the restaurant." •m..,S5(alfita*Millia=5:k In any event, while he easily carried his home county of Grayson, his oppo- • . • \•• < . nent racked up a 7-1 margin in Cooke County, enough to win. The Gashouse Gang In 1950, D.B. tried politics for himself Hardeman and other liberals moved into All the way with Adlai and won Denison's seat in the Texas an old house on Rio Grande Street in That summer, Democrats nominated House of Representatives. He arrived in Austin, vowing to fight through the en- Adlai Stevenson for president, and Shiv- Austin for the 1951 session determined tire summer, if necessary. ers put the Texas Democratic Party ma- to cooperate with the administration of Back in the '50s, legislators were paid chinery at Dwight Eisenhower's dispo- his old friend, newly elected Gov. Allan $10 a day when in session, and $5 during sal. Loyal Democrats (who had unsuc- Shivers, who had not yet developed the adjournment. With the regular 120-day cessfully fought to bar Shivers from the ultraconservative stance which would session at an end, the money soon ran Texas delegation to the national party later mark his career. "I intend to work out for the "Gashouse Gang," as the convention because of his refusal to with Shivers," Hardeman told a liberal bill's supporters were known. They got pledge support for the nominee whoever associate. "You probably won't like by, though, by eating food donated by he was) mounted their own campaign for some of my votes." friends and drinking whiskey supplied by the Illinois governor, but their effort "If you vote as good as your friend friendly partisans. Maury Maverick Jr. lacked official sanction. Speaker Dolph Briscoe, I'll be more than happy," remembers that it was Hardeman who Rayburn stepped in and asked Jim the friend replied. Unbelievable as it held the coalition together with a special Sewell manage it. Rayburn said he him- may seem now, Briscoe, during his first blend of kindness, fortitude, and intellec- self would run the show from his Dallas legislative session in 1949, had compiled tual rabble-rousing: "We'd come in at headquarters. Sewell accepted and im- a voting record of 10 plus and one minus the end of the day, feeling depressed and mediately named Hardeman his director on the AFL's and the CIO's labor-liberal tired, and D.B. could always get us ready of organization. scorecards. D.B. and fraternity brother to go again. At night, sometimes, he'd get Hardeman did not yet know Rayburn Briscoe had become friends during the all full of whiskey, and we'd he sitting personally, and early on. D.B. was left latter's undergraduate days while the around in our shorts, and he'd read or out of the casual daily conferences that THE TEXAS OBSERVER 17 took place over meals in the Speaker's After Stevenson's nomination, D.B. everything that Rayburn was up to— Adolphus Hotel suite one floor above the stayed on the campaign staff as advisor which, of course, as Speaker of the official headquarters. Sewell simply and advance man, House was everything. D.B. probably passed Rayburn's instructions on to the With the campaign over and achieved that position partly because of rest of the staff. But when Hardeman Eisenhower returned to the White his incredible discretion. Although we sent the Speaker a memo suggesting that House, Hardeman went to Washington were close friends, I never knew him to Stevenson pay a visit to former vice to look for work (he applied for a report- spill to me any of the secrets to which he president John Nance Garner in Uvalde, ing job at The Washington Post, but was must have been privy. After Rayburn's Rayburn liked the idea. The visit was turned down because of his age—he was departure from the scene, he seemed to something of a public-relations coup and 42) and accepted Rayburn's offer to join be playing the same role with Hale from then on, D.B. was always included his staff. D.B.'s title was research assis- Boggs. with Sewell in the daily conferences and tant, but that meant nothing. Rayburn, "So close was his relationship with dinner-table discussions. The when asked what a research assistant (or Rayburn that he even was able to take Rayburn-Hardeman friendship was anyone by any other title) on his staff me into a meeting of Sam's 'board of launched. did, replied: "They work for me." When education'—one of those intimate By the time Rayburn died in 1961, asked, but what do they do? he replied: gatherings in Rayburn's little hideaway D.B. had become a member of the "Whatever needs to be done." D.B. re- tucked back somewhere in the bowels of Speaker's inner circle, handling various members that he and others were the capitol. Rayburn met there late every part-time assignments until 1956, when Rayburn's eyes and ears: talking, read- afternoon after the day's session, and he went to Washington to join the ing, clipping, digesting, and passing along over a glass of bourbon with his closest Speaker's staff. to the Speaker things he might have cronies [he] philosophized, spun marvel- Stevenson again missed but needed to know. ous political anecdotes, and not infre- In 1957, with Rayburn's blessing, quently did the nation's business. It was In the 1954 legislative elections, Hardeman began work on a still- there where they found Vice President Hardeman, unopposed, won back his unpublished Rayburn biography, a proj- Harry Truman to tell him that Franklin seat in the Texas House. The 1955 ses- ect which has dogged D.B. off and on for Roosevelt was , dead." sion was fairly uneventful, but D.B. had the last 20 years. Several years ago he Enough of Capitol Hill a 30 and 0 voting record by the labor- asked Don Bacon, a Washington In 1965 D.B. resigned his position with liberal count, as did his friend Maverick, newsman and close friend, to collaborate Boggs, deciding that he had had enough Bob Wheeler of Tilden, and Herman with him on the book, which is finally of the pressure of life on Capitol Hill. He Yezak of Bremond. Uvalde's Dolph complete, although not yet off to the wanted to devote his time to teaching, Briscoe slipped to 19 and 7. publisher—or so D.B. now assures lecturing, traveling, and finishing the After the session, D.B. went to friends who long ago became reticent Rayburn book. In the dozen years since Europe for several months, paying for about asking how the book was coming. his departure from formal politics, he has his vacation in part by writing a series of Then D.B. returned to Rayburn's of- done all of these things. Until this year travel columns for several Texas fice. When the Speaker's health began to he taught political science at Trinity Col- newspapers (The Texas Observer carried fail in 1961, D.B. and others from his lege in Washington. For several years he some of his pieces). But he couldn't staff stayed with him constantly, briefing taught political science students in UC- leave politics alone: he also published a him on developments within the new LA's summer program in the capital, piece in Harper's on Shivers' missed op- Democratic administration and staying usually meeting classes in his apartment. portunity to be a great and good gov- at his bedside until his death in a He has also lectured regularly to semi- ernor. Bonham hospital in November of 1961. nars sponsored by the Brookings Institu- When he returned to the U.S. he With the change in House leadership, tion and addressed college audiences started looking for a newspaper job, but Rep. Hale Boggs of New Orleans, D.B.'s around the country. before he found one, Steve Mitchell, friend and colleague from Stevenson As a classroom teacher, D.B. is re- former Democratic National Committee campaign days, became majority whip, laxed and informative. He enjoys the chairman, asked him to help Stevenson and D.B. became the whip's administra- curiosity, enthusiasm, even the naiveté, campaign for the 1956 Democratic nomi- tive assistant, working closely with con- of young people. In San Antonio where nation. D.B. talked with Rayburn, who gressional Democrats and their leaders, he taught last spring, students gave him had been mentioned as a Texas favorite Speaker John McCormack, Majority rave reviews. As one of them later told son nominee. Rayburn told him that he Leader Carl Albert, and, of course, Maury Maverick: "That D.B. is some- would not run, that Stevenson was "the Boggs himself. thing. When he talks about Sam best we've got," and that he—D.B.- Rayburn, he is Sam Rayburn. When he should accept Mitchell's job offer. After Cronkite on D.B. talks about Lyndon Johnson, he is Lyn- a New Orleans meeting with Con- don Johnson. And when he talks about gressman Hale Boggs, Stevenson's During his ten years with Rayburn and Franklin D. Roosevelt, he is Franklin D. Southern manager, D.B. went to work. Boggs, D.B. became an authority on the Roosevelt. He is really something." Boggs sent him to Florida, even congressional system and the people in For D.B.'s many friends, for the young though Stevenson had not planned to it. As the majority whip's administrative people who have had the good fortune to enter the primary there. Under Florida assistant he knew the people of know him or to study with him, for law a slate of pledged delegates could be Congress—staffers as well as House writers and politicians who have bene- placed on the ballot without a candi- members. He acquired an uncanny fited from his wisdom, that description date's permission. D.B. concluded this knowledge of the voting behavior of expresses their feelings. D.B. is really should be done for Stevenson, since the every member, and was often able to tell something, and we are glad he will soon thinking was that Estes Kefauver would both the House leadership and the White be back with us in Texas. 0 score a crucial victory in the absence of . House how each member would vote on an official Stevenson slate. Hardeman, a given issue. John McCully worked as a after consultation with Stevenson in Walter Cronkite, who had known D.B. newspaperman and information director Chicago, managed the Florida campaign' during their University of Texas days, of the Texas AFL-CIO before joining the that ended in a narrow Stevenson vic- recalls: "On the hill [D.B.] truly sat to U.S. Information Agency. Now a USIA tory. Sam Rayburn's right, it seemed to me, in retiree, McCully lives in Austin. 18 NOVEMBER 18, 1977 #"*".4.. .4 lE3ERTY COU KTrY By Bill Brett Hull "If they could give it to the pore peo- ple down there I wouldn't mind but the I don't know why the government is rich ones will get the benefit from it. having such a problem with that Panama Always do." Canal pact. I walked in the post office this morning here in town and throwed I can't seem to get it straight just how the boys done it but somehow they got the question among the retired hands that was waiting for the mail to get on the other side and decided that (1) sorted. In 15 minutes they had 'er Panama should let the U.S. keep the ca- thrashed out, had their mail, and was nal. (2) Since Panama owns the oceans headed home to get another cup of cof- 200 miles off its coast it could lease the fee. water to fill the canal to the U.S. (3) Have a 30-day break- lease clause put in Surprised the hell out of me. Getting the deal and if the Panamanians didn't an answer didn't. You can get an answer like the way things was going they could from the same bunch in nearly ever' tell the U.S. "Get your boats out. Next small town p.o. in the country on every- month we're taking our water back." (4) thing from original sin to how hot it was They'd end up with the same rights as last Tuesday. The solution they wound them coffee raisers and the oil countries, up with was what was surprising. There and could keep going up on the price of was several opinions to start with. water. "We built it and paid for it. Keep it." I think it might need a little more "Let 'em have it. In six months they'll work, but you gilt to admit, it ain't any be trying to give it back and get out from worse than some of them congressmen's under the upkeep." proposals. And it would be a damn sight "It's just like that feller up there in the cheaper. ❑ U.S. Senate, Si Hiawatha said: 'we stole it fair and square, we ought to keep it.' " Bill Brett, a former Hull postmaster, is "We took Panama away from Colom- an East Texas folklorist. His Stolen bia to start with and they're the ones we Steers: A Tale .of the Big Thicket, was ought to give it back to or keep it away published by Texas ARM Press this from." year. Enter 1-year gift subscriptions for: Name Street City State Is this a renewal? Zip Sign gift card from Name 1 Street City State Is this a renewal? Zip Sign gift card from Give the Observer as a gift to a friend. You'll make our holidays happier and we think your friend will appreciate a year of Observer journalism. New gift subscriptions will begin with the issue published in late De- Your Name cember and a greeting card announcement of your gift will be sent to arrive just before Christmas. (But we will adapt to any special instructions I Street about when to begin the subscription, send cards, or send bills.) For one City State 12-month subscription, the regular $12 rate applies. A second subscrip- Zip tion is $10 and each additional gift is only $6. Your own subscription can be renewed at these same prices. Shall we enter or extend ❑ yes Observer subscriptions. You'll spread your holiday your own subscription? ❑ no So, give several If "yes" please indicate: new or renewal. cheer a long way. send bill on Texas Observer — 600 W. 7th — Austin, Texas 78701 ❑ check enclosed ❑ (date) onsarmarrnemimar, „sweismomisibiNI■MMG THE TEXAS OBSERVER 19 Dugger. . . from page 2 Now, however, it looks like this mul- and gas industry nationally cannot con- tibillion dollar leak might finally be ceal its embarrassment of riches, neither plugged. Cecil Andrus, President Car- 6axecidite& YeAile„ th&. in Texas can it hide its embarrassment of ter's tough-minded Interior secretary, is sycophants, falling over each other in showing an admirable determination to 514 N. WATSON ROAD every election. enforce the law of the land in the face of (Hwy. 360 at Randol Mill Road) cries from the nation's huge landholders ARLINGTON, TEXAS Ralph Yarborough, in the Senate, (including banks, oil companies and 640-8864 made the honorable progressive distinc- other "farmers") that enforcement of Cocktails • Happy Hour • Food tion between the independent oilmen and this populist law would interfere with the the majors, and in this way distanced natural efficiency of bigness. But these them—and himself—from the oil RITA BAKER Owner claims no longer carry the day, for goliaths. Exxon, Texaco, Gulf, Mobil, careful studies by the U.S. Department Conoco—these are not oilmen, but fi- of Agriculture and other researchers • • el it, nancial institutions. In the Texas House, show that family-sized farms are more Bob Eckhardt once proposed a gradua- efficient than factory farms, some of tion of the production tax on oil that which have shut down and many of would have reduced the levy for 90 per- which are regarded as shaky by their cent of the oil drillers in Texas, while corporate proprietors. increasing it on the largest producers (the other 10 percent) and adding to the The Interior Department is also con- state's revenues at the same time! In sidering enforcement of another provi- Washington now, Congressman Eck- sion of the 1902 law—one requiring hardt continues his honorable course on recipients of free water to live on or energy. within 50 miles of the farm being irri- Union printing with com- gated. The intent is to subsidize families petitive prices. Support the When will we again hear a statewide rather than absentee landlords. movement, help us build candidate utter the heresies that Texas is not the property of the major oil com- A tireless advocate for these devel- the ideal. Come to I.D.A. for panies; that state officials must bear the opments has been Professor Paul Taylor your printing needs. blame for the higher gas prices Texas of the University of California at Ber- consumers pay; that as consumers of oil keley. In 1969 I worked with Taylor, Fred Schmidt (then a professor at 901 W. 24th St., Austin and gas, Texans have as much right as other Americans to fair prices; that Tex- UCLA), and other Californians on plans for opening the San Joaquin Valley to 477-3641 ...f423ILuva CiAuo, 15 ans do not want their fellow citizens ME‘p. anywhere gouged for necessities like small farmers, provided the 160-acre lim- gasoline and heat? itation could be enforced. Schmidt (who used to be the No. 2 man in the Texas I have friends in California, Illinois, labor movement and was once Con- Bob and Sara Roebuck Virginia, New York, Massachusetts, gressman Henry Gonzalez' top aide), North Carolina—we all have friends figured out that within a 50-mile radius of everywhere. Are we supposed to rejoice any little hamlet in the valley, there were Anchor National that our politicians are working to visit 31,416 160-acre parcels of land. Writing on people in other states what they have Financial Services in his hometown paper in Tehachapi, visited on us in Texas? We need now in Calif., Schmidt has said that with the Texas a politician like Huey Long in one 1524 E. Anderson Lane, Austin 160-acre limitation enforced, "instead of respect, at least—a politician who knows having great expanses of absentee- that such economic injustice is an issue (512) 836-8230 owned and corporately farmed lands to which millions of people in Texas will with virtually no homes and very few ac- • bonds • stocks • insurance respond. commodations for even the migrant • mutual funds The 160 - acre rule farmworkers the area must now depend • optional retirement program You may remember that when we lit upon for a workforce, the west side of out against the "Texas Water Plan" the San Joaquin [Valley] would have lit- (Obs., Aug. 1, 1969) as a $7 billion boon- erally thousands of new homes and HALF doggle, one of the issues we raised was schools and churches. . . ." PRICE the need for enforcement of the limita- At last, then, a national administration tion on access to federal irrigation water. may give more than lip service to the RECORDS MAGAZINE The Reclamation Act of 1902, passed family farm—that is, if the giant agribus- under Republican President Theodore iness interests don't first get to either the Roosevelt, restricted the free distribu- President or Congress and, through IN DALLAS: tion of federally subsidized water to 160 them, force Andrus to back off. 4528 McKINNEY AVE. 1605 ELM (DOWNTOWN) acres per landowner. (Actually, a farmer and spouse are entitled to water for 160 Maybe it's settled RICHARDSON: 508 LOCKWOOD acres each from federal projects.) The Driving from Aransas Pass to Port (WEST OF POST OFFICE) law was written to prevent big absentee Aransas now, you pass, just before landowners from cleaning up at a time boarding the ferry that makes runs FARMERS BRANCH SHOPPING CTR., when publicly financed water was turn- across the intracoastal canal, the as- SW CORNER,. VALLEY VIEW ing deserts into valuable farmland. It is tonishingly huge Brown & Root facility IN WACO: 25TH & COLUMBUS one of the most persistent American at Harbor Island. Giant pipes lying scandals of this century that big about, construction cranes, a 25-foot IN AUSTIN: landowners have prevented the en- 1514 LAVACA elevated platform at the water's edge, a 6103 BURNET RD. forcement of this law. Texas politicians, sprawling layout, all sealed from the road including Lyndon Johnson and Lloyd by high barbed-wire fence—this may be Bentsen, have joined in its vitiation. a visible manifestation of the Corps of 20 NOVEMBER 18, 1977 Engineers plan for a supertanker port at Harbor Island (Ohs., April 22). Rod Speer, writing in Island Sun, a lit- tle paper that serves the South Texas Gulf Coast, has reported that "To many PRIME RIP Port Aransas residents, the dredging of a deep water port for Corpus Christi rep- reseats a severe threat to their livelihood STEAK and quality of life." Under the Corps of Engineers proposal, the ship channel LOBSTER which runs by Port Aransas would be deepened to 76 feet to accommodate very large tankers, and Harbor Island CRAP would be made the docking home for the superships. Many Corpus businessmen want a deeper channel and the super- port, but 939 citizens of Port Aransas have signed a petition opposing both. Speaking for them, Don Rhudy of Port .1 Aransas has said a deep water port would damage the local fishing industry, fouling the immediate coastal waters so badly that fish would not return from the Gulf to spawn in the bays. But looking at that Brown & Root lay- out and knowing the mindless pork- I elican's barreling momentum behind any Corps project, you get the feeling that the big boys, up there somewhere, have already had cut their deal. Austin, Corpus Christi, Victoria, Brownsville, Temple, McAllen, Port Aransas, Tucson ROLOFF SETTLEMENT AMERICAN DINERS College Station, San Antonio, Lake Tahoe SS The Texas Observer has reached an 10' CLUB acceptable settlement in the libel suit against it by evangelist Lester Roloff and Roloff Evangelistic Enterprises as a re- sult of stories appearing in the Observ- er's Nov. 2 and 16, 1973, issues. As a part of the settlement, the Observer FUTURE makes the following statement: PRESS INCORPORATED The Observer's review of Roloff and his operations reveals that, although Roloff's homes include physical disci- Reminds you of the pline of children, Roloff does not con- done child beating or child abuse: Neither Roloff nor his family diverted contributions of Roloff Evangelistic En- "Thank Goodness for Gonzalo" terprises for personal profit. Roloff Evangelistic Enterprises uses all contri- Party Honoring butions to further "the work." The Ob- server found no instance in which a baby born to an unwed mother in the care of State Rep. Gonzalo Barrientos Roloff Evangelistic Enterprises was "sold" to adoptive parents. Enterprises did suggest that the adoptive parents pay the medical and legal expenses of the Friday, Nov. 18 8p.m. to Midnight birth and adoption; some adoptive parents—but not all—did so. Enterprises did not require or suggest that parents Chaparral Club give love gifts as a prelude to the adop- tion, although almost all adoptive par- 4749 E. Ben White Blvd., Austin ents did give contributions. Finally, ig- noring for a moment Roloff's fight against licensing of the homes, a fight he believes to be for freedom of religion, Roloff's homes unquestionably are a $10.00 per person Ticket info: (512) 327-1181 haven for some delinquent and unwanted children and do have a beneficial effect Music, booze, fun, T-shirts, surprises on many children. —Ronnie Dugger, Publisher THE TEXAS OBSERVER 21 Last call at Louie's By Colin Hunter for and plotted against under the eyes of patron Joe Christie. Then all assembled Austin Louie's plaster longhorn. will mourn vigorously the loss of the lit- Louie's Bar in Austin is an ugly green The chic go elsewhere—to fashionably tle beer joint—another victim of politi- building some 30 feet deep by 50 feet laminated places where they can relax cians, progress, and parking lots. So, un- wide. About 1,500 square feet at the and be comfortable with a more sanitized less the , state yields again to Louis corner of 18th and San Jacinto. Or, as the version of Texas. To be sure, Louie's is a Mecey's' pleading and grants his bar State of Texas views it, 8.33 parking crude and embarrassing remnant of a another condemnation stay, the hard spaces for a proposed government office time past. It is not the sort of establish- truth is this: Monday, when the other building which may open sometime in ment where a waitress/coed shares her drinking places in Texas open for busi- 1979. So after 25 years, Louie's must go, name with you before suggesting a ness,.Louie's won't. 0 sacrificed to make room for eight and a Tequila Sunrise. Not a disco, not a third automobiles. trendy watering hole nor swinging sing- Colin Hunter is an assistant editor of "I've been drinking beer here since les bar, it is nothing but the purest es- the Observer. 1954," a patron confides. "I started com- sence of a Texas beer joint. ing because it was close to campus and "It's kind of like belonging to a club," the juke box had the only progressive says our friend. "After you've been in a GOODBYE, jazz in town. Now it just seems to me few times you get to know most of the LOUIE'S that after all the people the Texas Legis- Sinatra songs on the juke box and the (August 1, 1952 - November 19,1977) lature has screwed around over the things tha Louie says all the time. Then years, it wouldn't hurt them to forget the later when you walk in, even if you don't one little place between the university recognize any of the other customers, it's and the Capitol that doesn't belong to the still not like you're drinking beer alone . . damned state." not really." Louie's never seems to change. Just But Louie's reputation is not restricted another beer joint where air conditioning to a handful of local partisans. In fact, ducts describe a soft geometry on a any list of the bar's regulars over the dusty ceiling while through the dim light Louis Hens. vet Joe Chesse years would be practically a Who's Who Remember Louie's? The Sinatra records, the after-game crowds, an electric beer sign bubbles in blue and the quiet retreat after that last exam? of Texas. (To give you an idea, a few Well, by December 1st - after one last hurrah on Saturday, gold. Around the edge of the room a days ago Tom Wicker came by just so he November 19th - Louie's will be leveled for a state parking lot. Yes, it'll be gone forever - all except for Louie's "antique" bar top, quiet procession of customers slowly could see Louie's before the bulldozers which has rested some of Texas most famous elbows. Louie has donated this Texas landmark to the Joe Christie campaign for the wears down the seats of the hardwood claim it.) U.S. Senate. This historic bar top will be cut into squares and mounted on attractive certificates signed by Louie himself. booths. (Great Christmas gifts!) Recently, statewide ads have an- These pieces of Texas past are available for a modest investment But political intrigue and passionate In Texas' future - a $10.00 tax-deductible political contribution nounced a "Goodbye Louie's" celebra- to Joe's campaign. romance have occasionally been known Send Joe a check Then come by and say goodbye to Louie's tion for Nov. 19. As a highlight, the (San Jacinto at 18th Street) on the 19th - after UT's last to flourish here, despite a stray cobweb crowd will see Louie's old bar sawed home game (against Baylor). or two strung above five plastic clocks into small squares and distributed to all To: Deer Joe. quoting five different times. Campaigns Joe Christie Here's my check for Plesse send rile who have contributed at least $10 to the The Christie Committee pieces of Louie's. 813 Brazos, Suite 703 Name and marriages alike have been planned U.S. senatorial campaign of long-time Austin, Texas 78701 Qty State 22 NOVEMBER 18, 1977 Pd. poi yely. addbanyed by T. Loa. Convent. (IS SV.., MT Au... 'Nub TVOT 4 Dm Col* Trtstartr. Al op, 01 ok, M41 vo41 !Mew Ily,,,Commay toy n and t purclux um, Me Fule131 onvuitton, WasIvKlon OC I I 1 ' Li J L 'VA Dec. 1-2 / Thurs.-Fri. / Ar- This calendar is an information service for Observer readers. Notices Nov. 29 / Tues. / Houston: "Government-Technology In- lington: "Employment for the must reach the Observer at least three weeks before the event. teractions" is the topic of a lec- '70s." The University of Texas at ture to be given by Frank Press, Arlington's Institute for Urban Nov. / Houston: Amnesty In- Nov. 21 / Mon. / San Antonio: science adviser to President Car- Studies, the Dallas AFL-CIO, and ternational seeks people in- Trinity University's Continuing ter. 9 a.m., Constellation Room, the newly formed Democratic terested in working "for the re- Education series offers "Credit University of Houston campus. Agenda organization put on a con- lease of prisoners of conscience and Collections," a workshop for Information: Dr. Auguste El- ference devoted to work issues. and the abolition of torture." owners of small businesses. Reg- Kareh (713) 749-2401. Speakers include Michael Har- Members of the Houston chapter istration fee is $50. 9 a.m. to 4 rington, 11 a.m. Thursday; Gerald of the Nobel. Prize-winning or- p.m., Trinity University campus Nov. 30 / Wed. / Austin: The University of Texas Young So- Trucker, national officer of the ganization have taken up the refectory. Information (512) 736- cialist Alliance concludes its se- United Auto Workers, 2 p.m. cause of prisoners in East Ger- 7601. Thursday; Harry Hubbard, pre si- many and the Philippines. whom ries, "What Socialists Stand For: An Introduction to Marxism," de nt , state AFL-CIO, 11 a.m., they propose to help through cor- Nov. 21-22 / Mon.-Tues. / with a program entitled "How Friday; Barbara Ehrenreich, a respondence. The work takes Houston: As part of its 50th an- Can Socialism Be Achieved in the writer concerned with women's about two hours a week. Write niversary, the University of Houston sponsors a regional con- United States?" 7:30 p.m., Batts employment and health care, 2 Amnesty International, P.O. Box p.m. Friday. All conference ference of distinguished writers, Hall 104 on the UT campus. In- 3592, Houston 77001. formation: (512) 452-3923. meetings held at the University Nov. 17-19 / Thurs.-Sat. / poets, critics, editors and pub- lishers. At the Continuing Educa- Nov. 30 / Wed. / Dallas: The Hall, UT-Arlington. Information: Houston: "Media '77." Jour- Texas Association of Taxpayers Gene Freeland (214) 742-9246. nalists and businessmen come to- tion Center, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Conference sessions open to the holds its annual membership gether in search of mutual under- meeting. A legislative panel dis- standing. Speakers and seminar public without charge. Informa- Dec. 2 / Fri. / Austin: The tion: Dr. Terrell Dixon, (713) cussion follows with Lt. Gov. Bill State Bar of Texas and Baylor panelists include former White Hobby and House Speaker Bill House press secretary Ron Nes- 749-3431 or 749-2720. Law School convene an Energy Clayton reviewing fiscal issues Law Institute. U.S. energy poli- sen; Washington Post reporter 10:30 a.m., Fairmont Hotel. Lou Cannon; CBS reporter Dan Nov. 22 / Tues. / Dallas: cy, fuel choices, and environmen- Rather; and humorist John Henry Dec. 1-2 / Thurs.-Fri. / tal issues are on the schedule. In- "Health Care: Your Money or League City, Houston: The Citi- Faulk. Former President Gerald Your Life," a two-part documen- formation: Dan Price (512) 475- zens' Environmental Coalition 6842. Ford and CBS anchorman Walter tary, examines the nation's health Cronkite will attend the dinner presents an Audubon Society film care industry-hospitals, the med- on the Florida Everglades, "The Dec. 2 / Fri. / Austin: The Cen- following the seminar. At the ical profession, and rising costs. tral Texas Chapter of the Texas University of Houston Continuing Vanishing Eden." 8 p.m. Thurs- Host Jim Lehrer leads a discus- day in the League City au- Civil Liberties Union sponsors a Education Center; dinner at the sion with various health au- luncheon with guest speaker Atty. Houston Club. Information: UH ditorium; 8 p.m. Friday, Memo- thorities and government repre- rial Drive Methodist Church in Gen. John Hill. 11:30 a.m. at the Half Century Programs Office sentatives. 8 p.m., KERA-TV, Red Tomato restaurant, 16th and (713) 749-2315. Houston. $2 for adults; 50 cents channel 13. for children and people over 65. Guadalupe Streets. NIED SOMETHING from Germany? Jim WIN YOUR NEXT ELECTION. Send for & Hanni International, 1600 Northwood, free catalogue of service and materials avail- Austin 78703. 474-2582. able from one of America's best-known politi- LIBERTY LUNCH. 405 W. 2nd. Austin. Ec- cal consulting firms. Write Campaign As- lectic fare. Jazz Theatre. JOIN COMMON CAUSE. Only one person sociates, Inc., 516 Petroleum Bldg., Dept. can make democracy work again . . . YOU. TO-1, Wichita, KS 67202. (800) 835-2234 $15 ($7 for students). Common Cause/Texas, FREE WHEELING BICYCLES, 2404 San 711 San Antonio St., Austin, Texas 78701. JOIN THE ACLU. Membership $20. Texas Gabriel, Austin. For whatever your bicycle seeds. _Civil Liberties Union, 600 West 7th, Austin, RECORDER PLAYERS. Looking for re- Texas 78701. corder music? We have largest library in West. Come in or send for catalog. Amster EIGHT LARGE COLORED 'PRINTS, UT Recorder Co., 1624 Lavaca, Austin 78703. FINANCE YOUR NON-TANGIBLE sales' and Austin. $5.90 ppd. Longhorn Frame,, 507 contracts through me. Trade school, health Bee Caves, Austin 78746. BOOK-HUNTING? No obligation search for spas with service contracts financed without. NEW ORLEANS ON $8 A YEAR. The rare or out-of-print books. Ruth and John credit check. Write Kenneth Edwards, Economist, 3237 Ewing Ave., Houston,- Weekly Courier, 1232 Decatur, New Orleans, McCully. ARJAY Books. (512) 263-2957. Rt. Texas 77004. La. 70116. 8, Box 173, Austin; Texas 78703. IRISH TIN WHISTLES. Bb,C,D,Eb,F. and FOREIGN AUTO SERVICE. In Houston. Classified advertising is 30¢ per word. Dis- G. Any three for $10 postpaid. Amster Music. Honest, reliable service. VW, yolvo, and counts for multiple insertions within a 12- 1624 Lavaca, Austin 78703. some othdrs. 1805 Laverne, 467-0664. month period: 25 times, 50 percent; 12 times, 25 percent; 6 times, 1.0 percent. I PAY CASH for family, regional yarns de- Personal Service - Quality Insurance La Fonda de (a Noche picting early hotel, storekeepers, cattlemen, Southwestern Cuisine doctors, others as colorful figures. 100% ALICE ANDERSON AGENCY confidential; spelling and grammar unimpor- INSURANCE & REAL ESTATE Liberal Food-Conservative Prices tant. Mail 50 words for $2. If usable will send reporting form for more money. Henry Farr, 808A E. 46th, Austin, Texas 2405 Nueces 474-7562 Stockton Springs, Maine 04981. 459-6577 THE TEXAS OBSERVER 23 I Vote Republican tive like Bob Casey, there was no way cannot buy liquor, that they cannot they were going to accept anything but a smoke marijuana, or that they cannot use It doesn't do any good to try to tell conservative. EFTS. I am a firm believer in con- anyone anything. Nobody listens, I told Bob Gammage didn't give up, though, sumerisn-i if and only if it restricts the the following to Willie Morris when he when most would have. He persisted, as choices that individuals can make. Free- edited The Texas Observer: he always did in the Texas Legislature, dom of choice should be abandoned and The only way to advance the liberal and pulled off a minor miracle. we should vote for prohibition early and cause in Texas is for every liberal to If anyone examines the nature of that often if we can. support every Republican who runs on district and its previous voting behavior, The Texas Observer claims that there the state level. Liberals are the swing this should explain the odds against is no popular demand for the systems vote. They can swing elections. As long Bob's victory, as well as his pragmatic (there was no popular demand for au- as liberals vote the Democratic ticket on voting behavior in Congress. tomobiles, airplanes, computers, etc., the state level the conservatives will con- First, you have a bunch of technicians before they were invented or put into tinue to control the state Democratic and astronauts who, although their bread use) and that there has been a large cut- Party. and butter comes from working for back on implementation of EFTS in Take a close look at Texas history. NASA, are against the federal govern- other states because banks are not find- There have only been four liberal gov- ment unless it means keeping NASA ing them as profitable as they first ernors of Texas. The last one served 45 open and keeping them employed. Next thought. Now we see that the editors years ago: Jimmy Allred. We can con- you have a bunch of conservative Re- want to prohibit EFTS not in the name of tinue to vote the state Democratic ticket publicans in Ron Paul's stomping the consumer but to prevent "Big: and we'll continue to return to office the ground, Brazoria County, and nouveau Banks" from losing money by installing entrenched conservatives. riche in Fort Bend County. Then you too many EFTS. The editors also claim As swing votes we can swing state have some folks who work for a living that massive capital outlays will proba- elections to the Republicans. After a few and belong to Houston labor unions and bly increase banking costs. However, if elections, name-only Democrats will should vote Democratic. this is true only banks using EFTS will desert an always-losing party and be- Just over 10 percent are labor-oriented experience rising costs and these banks come overt Republicans. They don't blacks, supporters of Rep. Anthony will not be able to compete as well with care whether they're Democrats in name Hall. Even with Casey in that seat, the banks that do not install EFTS. I3anks or Republicans in name. They want to district was carried by archconservative will not use EFTS if consumers will not win. They've won every election since Republicans for their party in the presi- use them and consumers will use EFTS Allred, and every election this century dential, gubernatorial and senatorial if and only if it is cheaper or more con- except for Culberson, Ma and Pa Fergu- races. It is amazing to me that Bob venient or both than regular checking son (treated as one), and Allred. Gammage could win that seat, much less accounts. We do not need laws prevent- You can continue to lose or you can hold onto it! ing consumers from making their own study the history so thoroughly you can If he is following the same pragmatic choices or to prevent banks from losing learn how to win. path to survival that is followed by all money if they install EFTS and no one Rus Purifoy, 600 Dotsy, Odessa. other members of Congress, I don't think uses them. he should be faulted for this, for he has Michael Maher, 5309 Ashby, Houston. Gammage defended "paid his dues" over and over again, here in Texas. Let me ask the residents I feel obligated, as a former legislative of the 22nd District: would you rather and congressional staffer and govern- have Ron Paul? He is the only alterna- Corrected ment professor, to come to the defense tive! In your article "Bob Eckhardt vs. the of Congressman Bob Gammage ((Ms., Robert Sindermann Sr., Department corporations" (Obs., Sept. 23), you are Oct. 7). I can vividly recall that when I of Government, San Antonio College, in error in saying the Association of Trial served on Sen. Joe Bernal's staff during 1300 San Pedro, San Antonio. Lawyers of America is a member of the the many special sessions called by Pres- Business Roundtable. This association ton Smith in 1972, that one House Observer irrational would not take a position that would re member in particular, a prematurely strict the right of injured people to seek graying fellow from Houston with a per- I want to thank the editors of The redress in the courts. We have opposed petual cigar, kept on doggedly coming to Texas Observer for warning us against the "clogged dockets" argument that our office every day to urge my boss to the evils of electronic fund transfer sys- your writer, Charles Holmes, attributes "keep the faith" and fight the "good tems (Oct. 21). It does not matter that to the Business Roundtable. It is difficult fight" for liberal causes, long after the editorial lacked even a modicum of to imagine how he could have aligned us everyone else had given up. rational economic thought, the important with that argument and the Roundtable. When he ran for Congress, I went to thing is that individuals should never Francis J. Bolduc, Executive Director, Houston on several weekends to work as have a chance to decide whether they The Association of Trial Lawyers of a volunteer. My wife and I block-walked want checking accounts or EFTS. After America, 1050 31st St., NW, Washing- a precinct on election day, and he lost, to we prohibit EFTS, Texas should bring ton, D.C. Ron Paul. I frankly gave up at that point, back prohibition of liquor because only convinced that, given the fact that the big liquor distributors and producers de- Our mistake. We apologize to the trial folks in District 22 had been content for rive any gain or pleasure from alcohol. It lawyers for labeling them Roundtablers. over 15 years with a mossback conserva- is our moral duty to declare that people -Eds.