July 18, 1969 Twenty-Five Cents

A Journal of Free Voices A Window to the South The Observer

A Warning from California Voters of Texas: Look Before You Leap In a couple of weeks Texas will make a 1952. It was his knowledge which powered revenues, through the sale of water and decision about water that California made the battle in the U.S. Senate in 1959 by power. In other words, it will pay for several years ago. In 1960 Californians which Sens. Paul Douglas and Wayne Morse itself." (The underscoring was in the committed themselves in a public election prevented the 160-acre law from being voters' guide.) The taxpayer, it was made to pay for a state water program, despite abandoned in the California water pro- to appear, would feel nothing. the availability of an interest-free federal gram. Professor Taylor has written many Although the project would take north- water program. From California's experi- articles on the 160-acre law and the Cali- ern California water and deliver it to ence, it is not too late for Texans to fornia water plan for law journals and southern California, the argument for made learn—much as a member of a family other scholarly periodicals and has testified it appear that both regions would gain, and watches his brother make a mistake and at many congressional hearings on these neither would suffer. The south was as- learns. subjects. He wrote the following explana- sured that "The tap will be open, and no The Texas and California situations are tion of the California water plan especially amount of political maneuvering can shut strikingly similar in other respects. There is for The Texas Observer. it off." The north was assured equally that "the water rights of northern California a surplus of water in and a Berkeley, Calif shortage of it in West and . In will remain securely protected." Every- California, there is an abundance of water On August 5 Texas voters will decide at body was assured that the state water in the north; in the south the state is a the polls whether to approve or disapprove project would "nourish tremendous indus- desert. The water plans in both states a $3.5 billion state water project bond trial and farm and urban expansion which simply move the surplus water to the dry issue. Before marking their ballots it may will develop an ever-growing source of areas. be worth their while to examine Califor- employment and economic prosperity." California's politics, too, have become nia's nine-year experience with a similar The climax of the argument for the bond increasingly like the politics of Texas. In issue was an alliterative attraction — "water both states big business interests control for people, for progress, for prosperity." the Legislature and the major cities and Paul S. Taylor Tucked in between arguments were threats agribusiness is squeezing the smaller that a "no" vote would "slow to a halt" farmers off the land. The California water state water project and bond issue. A water the development of the San Joaquin Valley plan was conceived in the midst ofa fight project can cost a lot of money and be a and "by 1965" begin the "return of [its] over the abolition of the federal law which big undertaking for a state, even for states cultivated areas to wasteland"; in southern limits the land that may be watered by as wealthy as Texas and California. Califor- California development "must wholly federally funded projects to 160 acres per nia's voters and taxpayers are finding out cease"; northern California would lack person, and the champions of the Texas that the cost of their project is a whole lot "desperately needed flood control." water plan have declared this same purpose more than they were led to expect when — the abolition of the water sharing law in they gave it original approval. TO BE SURE, there was also the "state water program." Californians narrowly approved a $1.75 argument against the bond issue. Tempe- The Californian who best understands billion bond issue to finance a state water rate and analytical in tone, it cautioned this subject from the viewpoint of the project in 1960. The public relations pill that the interest carrying charge on the public interest is undoubtedly Paul S. that helped it to go down was sugar-coated; $1.75 billion bond issue "could impair the Taylor, professor emeritus of economics at everything was made to appear rosy. The credit of the entire state of California." It the University of California at Berkeley. He argument for the bond issue placed in the warned that the state project "fails to was consultant to the office of the secre- hands of every voter assured blandly that insure enough water for the north," that tary of interior and the Bureau of Reclama- "The program will not be a burden on the the funds provided might prove insufficient tion, successively, during the Democrats' taxpayer; no new state taxes are involved; for acknowledged needs, and that "it might period in between 1943 and the bonds are repaid from the project very well be less costly" to develop the state's waters in other ways. The 'other' project may be abruptly halted in Septem- nia voters in 1960 that northern water ways were unspecified, but certainly did ber because the state can't find a market rights would be "securely protected" is not exclude the precedent established by for its voter-approved 5% bonds." now being challenged. The Daily Com- two huge federal reclamation projects — When the state water project was 'sold' mercial News opened one of its 1968 series Colorado River and Central Valley — of to the voter in 1960, the interest charge of articles on the water project with this which California already was the benefici- on bonds was estimated at 4%. In June, assertion: "The blank check the voters ary. An evaluation of the state's water 1969, State Sen. Gordon Cologne was handed the California water project by plans by Charles T. Main, Inc. contained seeking legal authorization to raise the approving the $1.75 billion bond issue in the caution — phrased mildly — that "In interest rate on state general obligation 1960 to upset nature in northern California deciding whether to undertake construc- bonds to 7%, and to issue "anticipatory for the benefit of promoters in the Los tion of this project, the state must be notes" at 7% "to meet the immediate Angeles area will go up at least another prepared to assume the risk that it might financial crisis of the north-south water billion. Project officials have just figured not be completely reimbursed during the project." that the cost of diverting water south now bond repayment period, which runs to the Awareness of the fiscal defects in the stands at $2.78 billion." Apparently to this year 2040." This caution reached the State state water plan has been growing for some day nobody has yet carried the news to Department of Water Resources barely five time. Under the title "There Goes Another Californians that in 1958 and 1959 three or six weeks prior to the balloting, and its $1 Billion, Calif. Water Project Costs Soar California senators and a governor prom- message never really reached the voters. Beyond Original Estimate," the Daily Com- ised Congress (yes, it's printed in the The California Labor Federation and mercial News of San Francisco on July 17, Congressional Record) that the people of State Grange, among others, opposed the 1968, exposed the fact that the original California will pay $11 billion or more to water project and bond issue, and their $1.75 billion figure was a very misleading build the state water project! efforts held the majority needed for ap- measure of cost. Revenues from tidelands proval of the bond issue to a narrow oil, some of these earmarked for building margin. Perhaps the billboards saying construction for higher education, have THIS PROJECT, says the Com- simply that "California Needs Water," and been diverted to feed the water project; the mercial News, is "not only out of money the bare symbol of the drip from a budgets of the state college system and the but it is out of water, the Contra Costa household faucet sufficed to by-pass analy- University of California have been sharply County water agency contends and others sis and debate, and so to carry the day. cut — the latter by $46 million in a single declare that contamination of San Francis- Now, nearly nine years later, the truth is year; and the programs in mental health co Bay and the Delta are certainties with emerging to public view. California has and medical care of the poor have been northern California water being exported been unable to complete the marketing of similarly reduced to speed construction of for the benefit of land developers and the $1.75 billion water bond issue. There the water project. Proposals are being others in the Los Angeles area." The are no takers, notwithstanding that the full pressed currently to impose tuition charges damage done to the environment by the credit of the state stands behind it. On upon students in the state university state water project evidently is having June 18, 1969, the San Francisco Chroni- system to offset in part the legislative cuts enough political impact to worry those cle reported under the headline "Bond favoring water development above educa- who may have overlooked this in their Snag in Huge Water Project" that "Work tion. preoccupation with other aspects of the on California's huge billion dollar water The validity of assurances given Califor- state water project. Under the title "The Water Raiders" the San Francisco Chroni- cle editorialized on June 12, 1969: "So the THE TEXAS OBSERVER raiders from across the Tehachapi are © The Texas Observer Publishing Co. 1969 moaning low about the 'increased influence A Journal of Free Voices A Window to the South of so-called environmentalists' in the area 63rd YEAR—ESTABLISHED 1906 of 'water development.' " Remember how back in 1960 an argu- Vol. LXI, No. 10 7000 July 18, 1969 ment was made against the $1.75 billion Incorporating the State Observer and the East Texas agrees with them, because this is a journal of free bond issue, that "it might very well be less Democrat, which in turn incorporated the State Week voices. costly" to develop the state's waters in and Austin Forum-Advocate. The Observer is published by Texas Observer other ways? The argument was not spelled We will serve no group or party but will hew hard to Publishing Co., biweekly from Austin, Texas. Entered the truth as we find it and the right as we see it. We as second-class matter April 26, 1937, at the Post out to the voters, but clearly it was an are dedicated to the whole truth, to human values Office at Austin, Texas, under the Act of March 3, understatement. One way less costly to above all interests, to the rights of man as the 1879. Second class postage paid at Austin, Texas. foundation of democracy; we will take orders from Single copy, 25c. One year, $6.00; two years, $11.00; Californians is development through fed- none but our own conscience, and never will we three years, $15.00; plus, for Texas addressees, 4% eral reclamation. Federal reclamation overlook or misrepresent the truth to serve the state sales tax. Foreign, except APO/FPO, 50c addi- brings heavy federal subsidies in the form interests of the powerful or cater to the ignoble in the tional per year. Air-mail, bulk orders, and group rates human spirit. on request. of interest-free money on irrigation bene- Editorial and Business Offices: The Texas Observer, fits. State projects must make up the Editor, Greg Olds. 504 West 24th St., Austin, Texas 78705. Telephone Associate Editor, Kaye Northcott. 477-0746. Editor's residence phone, 472-3631. difference on their own. This simple fact is Editor-at-large, Ronnie Dugger. Change of Address: Please give old and new address a primary reason why the proposed Califor- and allow three weeks. nia state water project remained in cold Editorial intern, Mary Callaway. Form -3579 regarding undelivered copies: Send to Business Manager, C. R. Olofson. Texas Observer, 504 W. 24th, Austin, Texas 78705. storage from the mid-forties until 1960. Business Manager Emeritus, Sarah Payne. Subscription Representatives: Arlington, George N. Cong. (later Sen.) Clair Engle made the Contribtiting Editors, Elroy Bode, Winston Bode, Green, 300 E. South College St., 277-0080; Austin, point in 1952. The question of building a Bill Brammer, Lee Clark, Larry Goodwyn, Harris Mrs. Helen C. Spear, 2615 Pecos, 465-1805; Beau- state project, he said, is "whether it is Green, Bill Hamilton, Bill Helmer, Dave Hickey, mont, Betty Brink, 2255 Harrison, 835-5278; Corpus Franklin Jones, Lyman Jones, Larry L. King, Georgia Christi, Penny Dudley, 12241/2 Second St., 884-1460; necessary or wise to cut ourselves com- Earnest Klipple, Larry Lee, Dave McNeely, Al , Mrs. Cordye Hall, 5835 Ellsworth, 821-1205; pletely off from desperately needed in- Melinger, Robert L. Montgomery, Willie Morris, James El Paso, Philip Himelstein, 331 Rainbow Circle, Presley, Charles Ramsdell, John Rogers, Mary Beth 584-3238; Ft. Worth, Dolores Jacobsen, 3025 Greene terest-free federal funds." The price of Rogers, Roger Shattuck, Robert Sherrill, Dan Strawn, Ave., 924-9655; , Mrs. Kitty Peacock, PO Box doing so would be "the sacrifice of" other Tom Sutherland, Charles Alan Wright. 13059, 523-0685; Lubbock, Doris Blaisdell, 2515 state programs "such as schools and The editor has exclusive control over the editorial 24th St.; Midland, Eva Dennis, 3523 Seaboard, policies and contents of the Observer. None of the 694-2825; Snyder, Enid Turner, 2210 30th St., roads." other people who are associated with the enterprise 443-9497 or 443-6061; , Mrs. Mae B. Naturally no attempt was made in the Tuggle, 204 Terrell Road, 826-3583; Wichita Falls, shares this responsibility with him.. Writers are re- argument for the bonds in 1960 to con- sponsible for their own work, but not for anything Jerry Lewis, 2910 Speedway, 766-0409. Washington, they have not themselves written, and in publishing D.C., Mrs. Martha J. Ross, 6008 Grosvenor Lane, vince California voters that it was well them the editor does not necessarily imply that he 530-0884. worth trimming education budgets to get a state project without interest-free money, "they have several other proposals to ac- phrase "a few individuals with large land- in preference to a federal project with complish their end. One of them . . . said holdings," can be clothed with statistics. interest-free money. The point simply was to have originated among the big land- Government figures have shown 34 land- buried in silence. owners of Fresno County, is for the state holders owning three-quarters of a million acres in the southern and western San WHAT REASON, then, is there for Joaquin Valley, lying largely in the path of a state rather than a federal water project? Want Reprints? the state water project. An estimate of the The main reason is swept under the rug. It financial subsidy given to these land- is this: federal reclamation law controls The Observer is considering making holders, along with the public water, can monopoly and speculation by limiting be placed at $1,000 an acre. Naturally a water deliveries to 160 acres per individual available bulk quantities of a special reprint of Paul S. Taylor's article in this corporate landowner of 79,000 acres resists private landowner. Associate Justice Tom a ceiling on public subsidy of $160,000, Clark, speaking for the U.S. Supreme Court issue, comparing the California and Texas water plans. If interested in ac- and would prefer one of $79 million, or no in 1958, stated the purpose of the 160-acre quiring a copy, or copies, of the article ceiling at all. Besides, giant landholders law clearly: "That benefits may be dis- before the voters of the state consider, want the incremental land values that the tributed in accordance with the greatest Aug. 5, issuance of $3.5 billion worth of coming of water will add. good to the greatest number of individuals. bonds to finance the Texas plan, please Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes The limitation insures that this enormous let the Observer know immediately. We made this reason for a state water project expenditure will not go in disproportionate need to make our plans shortly as to the crystal clear. "It is," he said, "the age-old share to a few individuals with large land- reprint, particularly the number of cop- battle over who is to cash in on the holdings. Moreover, it prevents the use of ies that should be printed. Please con- unearned increment in land values created the federal reclamation service for specu- tact the business staff at 504 West 24th, by a public investment. . . . Their principal lative purposes." Large landholders wish to Austin 78705, or telephone Area 512, objective is to avoid . . . the long-estab- escape this limitation. 477-0746. lished reclamation policy of the Congress As far back as May 13, 1944, Business which provides for the distribution of the Week put its finger on the real reason why benefits of great irrigation projects among giant landowners ultimately might resort to the many and which prevents speculation the device of a state water project in of California to take over the Central in lands by the few." California. "If the big landowners in the Valley Project, paying the entire bill. This Are the motives behind the Texas state valley lose out in this . . . fight [to exempt . . . would side-step the 160-acre limita- water project and bond issue perhaps the Central Valley Project from the excess tion." same as those behind the California state lands, or 160-acre provision] ," it said, The meaning of the Supreme Court's water project? ❑ Ferment on the New Left The First Time Is Tragedy; The Second Time, Farce Recent months have been trying ones Austin why did it happen? These were not evil for members of the Students for a Demo- After a decade of valiant and pragmatic people who had set out to revive Stalinist cratic Society, as for other persons who striving to create a radicalism relevant to politics in the American left. Many of them consider themselves part of the New Left America, the New Left held its last major were young people whom I had known and movement in the United States. The recent gathering of the 1960s in the Chicago worked with at one time or another — national SDS convention at Chicago was a Coliseum in the midst of an ideological hopeful, life-loving young people who climax to the ideological struggles on the orgy of doctrinaire, sectarian, and faction- wanted a new society of freedom and had radical left of this nation. Perhaps the alist disintegration. I did not attend — as I been willing to give up everything except convention marked the end of SDS as an had not attended national SDS meetings deeper, more human relationships in order influential force on the nation's New Left for the last year — because I had long to achieve what they longed for. — that remains to be seen. before become convinced that SDS was When my wife walked into the Coliseum Regardless, a significant segment of New on the first day, the Progressive Labor Left people are deeply troubled at the Party-Student Worker Alliance faction was developments in SDS and on the radical Greg Calvert chanting at the top of their voices "FIGHT left generally. The Observer here presents SELF, SERVE THE PEOPLE." The re- the thoughts of two movement leaders, failing to meet the challenge and hope of sponses of their opponents (or was it who have been taking stock anew since the radical organizing and socialist possibility counterparts?) was to intone "MAO, MAO, SDS meeting in Chicago last month. in this country. MAO-TSE-TUNG!" with equal fervor. Our Mr. Calvert was formerly the national Strange tragedy. The new movement of 12-year-old companion who was accom- secretary of SDS. He has lived in Austin for the 1960s with its emphasis on grassroots panying her said, "It sounded just like a more than a year. He is regarded as one of organizing, its ideals of participatory dem- , wrestling match." the leading theoreticians among the young ocracy, and models of parallel institutions, radical leftists. He and his wife, Carol, are its refusal to accept ideological formula- The final split of the organization be- presently doing writing for a book on tions which were not grounded in concrete tween the Maoist PLP and their opponents, radical left thought that will be released in political experience, ended with one of the also Maoists, has left the New Left with a few months. bitterest faction fights in the history of two SDS's. The so-called "regulars" walked Mr. Pittman, also an Austin resident, was socialist movements — and all the major out and elected a set of officers, although active in SDS affairs for a number of years, factions adhered to one version or another they were in a minority in the convention; most recently at the University of Texas at of Leninist-Stalinist-Maoist rhetoric. Clear- Austin. • ly, something had gone awry. But how and July 18, 1969 3 thus they clearly violated the constitution regard it as tragic in its conception and in historical moment (the increase of waste of SDS in order to maintain control of the its consequences) at least made some sense work and waste production, the warped national office. The PLP-WSA also elected in terms of the objective social situation of potential for post-scarcity and post-market a set of officers and are, according to the the Russian socialist movement. Its transfer economy, and the end of toil) which are constitution, the legal representatives of to American and other western capitalist the ground of the New Left and the SDS. societies has produced no revolution and political basis out of which a socialist The legal and constitutional points, how- little relevant social practice. But, when program could be developed to challenge ever important, are finally less of interest SDS revives the irrelevance of Leninism in radically the emerging order. As a corol- than the real tragedy of the hour. For the form of Maoism, when it attempts to lary, they reject the rudiments of a cultural neither the PLP nor their opponents are build a socialist movement here on the revolution in favor of authoritarianism and relevant to the building of a broader New basis of the experience of a political puritanism. Left in the years to come. Both accept one struggle for national liberation in agrarian version or another of Mao's adaptation of China, tragedy indeed becomes farce — Unable to realize that the student Leninism as the ideological basis of their farce which remains tragic because it will political perspectives. And, however brilli- stratum and post-students (the "new not only fail to build a movement but working class" of the multiversity-trained) ant a Chinese revolutionary leader Mao has because it will also land many of my been and is, the strategy and tactics of a are the real basis for a socialist movement former brothers and sisters in jail with and perspective in this society, the national liberation struggle based on guer- nothing but a cult of martyrdom to sustain rilla warfare in a predominantly peasant Leninist-Maoists create a myth of revolu- their mythical notions of revolutionary tion on the basis of mythical revolutionary society have very little to say regarding the relevance. possibilities for socialist transformation in strata. Either they actually believe that For outsiders, these developments with- "Black people can make the revolution by the United States, the most advanced in the New Left may appear as the work of themselves" (says the resolution of the industrial society on the face of the earth. madmen or the machinations of evil-doers. dominant non-PL tendency in SDS) or It is neither, although current debates do they somehow believe that the blue-collar I CHOSE as a title for this bit of involve an atmosphere of situational worker will finally fulfill his prophetic soul-searching Marx's observations on the psychosis and there are a number of role and take the task of socialist French Revolution of 1848 ("The opportunistic bastards whose warped ca- transformation as his own (as PLP-WSA Eighteenth Brumaire of LouiS Napoleon") reerism is hard for me to stomach. Maoist intones). because I wanted to link two important rhetoric and talk of guerrilla warfare have, in fact, enough basis in reality to sustain and related phenomena which the SDS Personally, I regard this whole develop- disaster symbolizes. Two repetitions of the ideological constructs which are ban- died about. ment as a revival of the politics of liberal "tragedy and farce" which can go a long guilt which were so prominently clear in way in explaining why and how national the early part of this decade (e.g., the civil SDS has arrived at this point of political ET ME attempt a brief descrip- rights phenomenon). What is new in SDS is impasse. L tion of the problem as I see it. What has that this same politics of guilt and reliance The first time that the Leninist model of finally happened in the New Left is that a on others to make the revolution is now revolution entered American politics (and political spectrum has emerged within the clothed in a revolutionary vanguardist, the socialist movements of other advanced Maoist rhetoric — while the same psycho- capitalist societies) was in the form of the most advanced neocapitalist society whose class base and historical perspective lie in social dynamics operate. First, there was Moscow-led Communist Party-USA, riding and emerge from the movements for "the Friends of the Russian Revolution" on the laurels on the Bolshevik coup d'etat national liberation on the fringes of the (the CPUSA). Now there is "the Friends of of 1917. Borrowing its organizational the Chinese Revolution" (PLP and its form, rhetoric, and strategic directives industrial capitalist world. Thus, Mao and pseudo-opponents). Somewhere in between from the most backward western capitalist Lin-Piao offer the most coherent revolu- there was the "Friends of SNCC." The first society, Russia, the CPUSA played out a tionary world-view for a political perspec- time was tragedy, the second time farce. drama of revolutionary posturing and tive which says absolutely nothing about reformist practice without ever making a real conditions and potential for revolution significant contribution to the within our own society but which is able to maintain itself as an ideological superstruc- radicalization of the industrial working HAVING GONE through the pain- ture on the basis of successful third-world class whose representative it claimed to be. ful process of breaking my personal, struggles. Attempts to ground this perspec- And, it left behind it after its demise in the emotional ties with SDS, during the last tive in a potential class base within 1950s a legacy of bitterness, sectarianism, year, I must admit that I felt a sense of advanced industrial society end in the and disillusionment which grew out of its relief regarding the recent developments at creation of social myths — whether the manipulative practice, its opportunist the SDS convention in Chicago. Whatever I myth of the "black colony," as with the propaganda ("we've changed our line may feel personally for many of those Black Panther Party and its cocksucking again"), and its servile responses to the involved, I had come to realize that it was adherents among white radicals, or in the needs of Moscow foreign policy. necessary that the current political perspec- myth of the blue-collar vanguard, as in the The second time is farce: If Leninism in tive crystallize and solidify itself. Not its first exported form was a tragedy for PLP-Student Worker Alliance grouping. because I wanted to see good people hurt the American Left after the First World Both reproduce a Leninist politics of guilt but because I wanted to find the possibility War because it attempted to transfer the and a Stalinist style because they project for an alternative. Until the tendency experience of Russian Bolshevism to the revolution outside of their real base found its ideological form, until an totally different social situations, the (the trainees in the multiversity) and reject irrelevant politics reached its apogee, it was Maoist form of Leninism which now their potential base (the new working class hard if not impossible to address oneself dominates all the national factions of SDS strata of scientific, technical, and profes- meaningfully to the problem of the future. is even more farcically irrelevant to the sional, workers — multiversity-trained work- Now that the worst has happened, I feel building of a socialist movement and the ers who will be one-fourth of the work a kind of confidence about the future, making of a socialist revolution in the force by 1975). about the decade of the seventies. It's advanced industrial world. The centralized, In addition, they are unable to perceive going to be hard because SDS has left a conspiratorial, vanguard party of Bolshe- the real nature of the neocapitalist stage in vacuum. But it is also a vacuum in which vism in Russia of 50 years ago (although I which we live and refuse to recognize the many things are possible and in which nature of the new contradictions and much hard work must be accomplished. It .4 The Texas Observer potentials which are specific to this will be a period in which those who wish to ing in situations which call for realistic self- consciousness and social consciousness be both revolutionary and relevant will which correspond to those objective poten- have to concentrate seriously on finding political strategies and mass-based organ- tialities. those models of political work which are izing. relevant to the society and historical As a libertarian Marxist who has to make Thirdly, that I believe, again with Marx, potential with which we are faced. It will choices I find hope in three things: that if one lives on the verge of mean new forms of organizing to reach revolutionary possibility (as I believe we First, that while the current governing and bases of those "new working class" strata which can clique, a la Nixon, is closing down, the do) that the new life forms challenge the irrationality of this society power will be created. That a model of society is still opening up in terms of a relevant to with a new vision of human possibility — generation of young people who are fed up socialist revolution which is neocapitalism will be developed in which the possibility for a qualitatively different with the meaninglessness of the affluent we will begin finally to comprehend that kind of civilization and a qualitatively society — man defined as commodity "socialism emerges out of the womb of different kind of human experience of life. producer and commodity consumer — and capitalism." That we will begin to develop The New Man. The New Society. Those who are searching, however desperately its embryonic forms. potentials which are inherent in our midst and incoherently, for the possibility, of a in terms of cybernated technology and new new kind of life. After tragedy and farce, there is a time human needs. hope. Then begins the Secondly, that I still believe with Marx, for re- evaluation and We will also live with the tragedies and that the potential of new historical hard work of building the movement and farces of the 1960s. We will still face black bases for the new society. militancy and white revolutionary postur- situations will produce the kind of ❑ On Leaving SDS

they Austin knowledge. It has been a long six years that much since I first joined SDS — from the integration marches in Austin to have suddenly been made clear to me. I It is a strange experience to suddenly the recent SDS convention in Chicago. Six still believe that the revolution in this find myself no longer a member of the years ago there was still the naive hope that country must be made by people who love formal'organization, Students for a Demo- a change was imminent and that it could be and who care about the pain and misery of cratic Society (SDS). My status has not brought about by demonstrating to the other humans. I also believe that a changed, according to me, in the informal American public that there were certain revolutionary, while recognizing the evils organization known as "the movement" or human laws that transcended the law of around him, must seek to rid himself of his the "New Left." SDS, which at one time books and courts. own pain and misery — that to become a was virtually synonymous with "the new Since then we have understood the revolutionary one must first create a left," is now another faction — leaving me inhumanity of a system of government, revolution within oneself. Now. that I am with a feeling of remorse about what could military, and big business. We now are no longer posturing behind the facade of have been and of release for what can be. certain that, according to the big business an organization, I am able to find in myself At last the line has been drawn to such an those frightening ghosts and devils that my extent that I no longer feel the loyalty and culture visited on me. I can fight those sometimes blind, and romantic, devotion Scott Pittman things inside me that prevent me from to an organization that carried me through loving and caring for myself and thus be my political puberty. I think that this same morality of this country, property is more free to help others fight those same battles. feeling of release is being felt all over the valued than human life, and lives of our . It is no longer a matter of liberal, radical, country by political activists who have friends (mostly black) have been lost in the etc.; rather, it is a question of lots of found it increasingly difficult to rationalize name of that morality. This has finally led frightened, sick people who are looking for their adherence to an organization which to despair and frustration politics which answers outside themselves. It is not until no longer voices their desire to create a have become as inhuman as the establish- this is recognized that real, fundamental nonrepressive and human revolution in this ment's politics. changes which are necessary to this country. The recent SDS national convention was country can be made. It is when you SDS has been part of an incredible the apex of this frustration, and hate was understand the emptiness of millions dynamic in the United States, and its born out of that frustration. I don't believe whose main pleasure in life is consuming, history has affected the history of this that most of my movement friends have (or sublimating), that you can start country in spite of the mistakes and succumbed to a mentality of hate and realizing where to begin, and what to do. naivete the organization has sometimes repressiveness, and because of that belief I The isolation and fear in this country is exhibited. For myself, a "dirt farmer am optimistic about the polarization that incredible and must be ended if we are to conservative" from Gaines County, Texas, took place in Chicago. It leaves many find a human place. The "other"-oriented SDS was clear-eyed, morally sound — a hundreds of people free to start new work politics of ballot box and bullet are solving haven from despair and lies that had been or continue work that has been impeded nothing in this country. (I feel I must add my steady diet for 21 years. It was SDS that by the schizophrenia of defending an that while I may not agree with the ordered my confusion and gave me a organization that no longer represents the political strategy of the Black Panthers, I direction for doing meaningful political best in this country. So many of us have do believe in the right and necessity for work. SDS gave me faith that something been in the position of defending an armed self-defense, not only for the could be done and kept me from wallowing organization that has been our political Panthers, but for any oppressed people.) in the make-believe world of electoral home for many years, while at the same "Other"-oriented politics builds phony politics, that look to senator and repre- time trying to dissociate ourselves from so solutions into the mentality of an impotent sentative to solve problems — leaving the many of its national statements and policy and frustrated population. The individual voter's conscience free to go back to his decisions. Now, the new work ahead is problems are glossed over by attacking the alienating job, wife, children, and television going to have to be successful if we are to public problems. The first concern should to watch the world act out its insanity in defeat repressive tendencies that pervade be the human concern and not abstracted his living room. It was through SDS, in its this country. early stages, that I met and learned to love people who were struggling for self MY BASIC beliefs haven't changed July 18, 1969 to Fords, hair dyes, vagina deodorants, and partner with the U.S. military in the about was Sen. Joseph McCarthy and his all the other boogey bears and dildoes subjugation of Latin America, with its invented by a repressed advertising indus- campaign to create a one-dimensional capital supporting apartheid in South America. Self-hate leads to incredible justi- try, (that includes politicians), for an Africa; lawyers who work for money only increasingly repressed people. fication of all sorts of inhuman acts against and exclude from justice all who cannot others. pay; the largest military-industrial partner- IGNORANCE: I talk to so many people ship ever known, which is glutting the THE MAIN problem is trying to who think that knowledge is gained in their communicate those fears to others and world for profit, using human lives as local paper and who never seek further for currency. The list is endless. realizing that your fears are not unique to answers. I have little patience with anyone Now SDS becomes a stumbling block to you but shared by everyone. You aren't who can support war, imperialism, racism, itself by loss of tolerance and compassion, the only one who doesn't understand why capitalism, and miseducation — but pa- you can't relate with and love your wife, and trying to ignore that it is a product of tience comes double-hard when I realize the very mass of people that it is now that most of such people accept these and children. You are one of many who are struggling to ignore. confused and paralyzed by not knowing things because they have been too damned what to do but who do realize that lazy to read and ask questions about their something must be done. The middle class own motives and the motives of the poli- of this country has been the proving N MY YEARS of association ticans whom they continue to put into ground of capitalist society and has with those who identify themselves as positions of power. It is incredible to demonstrated that it can create absolute liberals I have realized that we apply many watch some of my liberal friends with misery while materially outfitting that class of the same words to our enemies, but the $20,000 incomes whine about how they with all it could dream for. Unfortunately, words mean very different things to us. can give only $20 to get someone out of good physical health and abundance have The words to describe our common jail when they spend hundreds putting not created a better human environment. enemies are fear, hate, ignorance, and self some idiot in a position of power to deal The American male has relinquished his deception. But we — liberals and radicals — with problems that they never question but manhood; lost it in the dump ground of mean different things. Hopefully this can leave to his expertise—and it is his sort of consumer goods and alienated labor. The be changed. This is what I mean when I use expertise that has bought off the involve- American female has accepted that revised those words: ment of the people in governing them- version of a man and in the process lost her FEAR: creates a mentality that reacts selves. womanhood. The resulting bond called irrationally — this is a fear of losing SELF-DECEPTION: which leads people family is frantically welded together by TV material things and the willingness to take to ignore their own impotence and lack of communalism and by the fear which each a human life for stealing a car, breaking a courage to fight what they know is wrong member of the family has, that another window, etc. As previously stated, I don't and inhuman. In a way this is a combina- member of the family will see the think there is any justification in harming tion of all the above categories because it emptiness in his existence. Love has another human being except in self- allows one to get from day to day. Each become only a word, used in the lexicon of defense, and I mean threat of bodily harm, day is faced with a bottle of booze, or the church and evoked by hard sell not the extension of self that leads to hustling another bedmate. The emptiness advertisers. Sexual expression has become identification with that new car or mink of most people's existence cannot be just another way to sell soap. Our genitals coat. Fear of loss of status or sexual faced, and this culture has provided an have become the means of making us work identification is also a phony issue because abundance of escapes so they don't have to ($20,000 per year means bigger man than status as a man or woman is an internal do anything about their lives. $10,000 per year). Our genitals, lost process, not an external one. I am optimistic that the various escapes through work, are packaged and sold back HATE: which denies any solution ex- are becoming increasingly less effective, and I am seeing more and more people who to us in the name of sexuality, (tigers in cept destruction. This is the drug that is our Cougar's tank, or the romance of Brute being used presently to justify Vietnam are for the first time examining the real shaving lotion coming into contact with and prevent guilt from the immoral and reasons for their loyalty to an inhuman establishment. The fortunate thing is that My Sin perfume). All of this sickness and inhuman slaughter that is taking place in there is a place for anyone who is tired of demeaning of humans can be stopped only that country. Hate is also generated out of trying to lie his way through life; that place when we recognize that we are the only guilt and there is an abundance of that in is with others who realize the same thing ones who can say: No more. Senator the United States today. I think the epito- and with enough of us a "change has gotta Yarborough can't do it, J. F. Kennedy me of the kind of hate that I am talking couldn't, and no other politician can come." 0 because they are just as caught up in the game as you and I are — except they set the rules that escalate the cost of the game. The same game has been played in SDS, except different symbols had to be PL vs. Non-PL realized: the black man became the sexuality of some; Che Guevara provided the identification for others. The gun and Austin SDS turned to God. He did not fail them. violence have now entered the New Left Shortly before several hundred delegates In a decision that stood 1,000 years of scene. No contradiction is seen in calling and camp-followers trickled into Austin for church history on its collective head, offi- another man a pig and calling his gun his the National Conference of the Students cers of the Catholic Student Center al- penis, and calling one's self a revolutionary for a Democratic Society, President Nor- lowed the conference to use their building. and one's hardware the arm of the people. man Hackerman banned them from the The Catholic Student Center sits in front "People" has been defined recently by SDS University of Texas. SDS then appealed his of the university at the intersection of 21st as those they choose to identify with, and St. and University Ave. Across 21st "the enemy" is dehumanized (not people) Dean Rindy and considered lost because he occupies a Dissension among new leftists was evi- certain economic class. SDS has always had dent at an SDS national meeting held in decision in the Federal District Court and many enemies: First National City Bank — Austin earlier this year. These are the im- the Fifth US Court of Appeals. The courts pressions of an Austin newspaper reporter said no. 6 The Texas Observer who observed one of the minor skirmishes Thus spurned by the secular authorities, at the Austin gathering. splashes the Littlefield Fountain, where just after dinner, and people were hooting hamfistedness is not universally loved in copper-plated soldiers and sailors, bathed about the "dessert debate." SDS, which has six or seven factions in jets of water, sit grimly on winged McCarthy, calm above the tumult, gav- competing for control. But under the dolphins and stare down the hill toward eled them into silence. The neat fellow pressure of events, the New Left is meta- the Capitol building of the state of Texas. started to talk: morphosing into a creature much more like Across University Ave. from the CSC is "The ruling class has been injecting the Old Left than it used to be. As SDS'ers the University Christian Church. For three increasing amounts of drugs into the high search for a theoretical framework to hang days, in between the Catholics and the schools, colleges, ghetto communities, their rage on, and as violence grows more Protestants roamed the scruffy legions of army and factories. The mafia, police, city attractive—an old fashioned, coherent the New Left. On Sunday, when mass and hall, high school principals, army officers, bunch like PL offers a lot. church services let out simultaneously, the factory bosses, college deans are all in the faithful sidled uneasily past a mob of ruling class alliance to push drugs." pagans and atheists sporting on the lawn. I had not known this before, and I was N OW PL WAS - saying that opium startled. had become the religion of the masses; and IT WAS A pleasant atmosphere, "Who is that guy?" I asked the skinny they were getting a lot of support. Debate and SDS put on an orderly and good- kid sitting next to me. swept back and forth for three hours. No humored conference. Life was good. "Why, that's Jeff Gordon of the New one could deny that if Lenin and the Anarchists bathed in the fountain. A little, York PLP," he said. Bolsheviks had spent all their time blowing white Austin Ice Cream Man Co. truck was grass in Moscow cellars, the Revolution usually parked out front. The attendant would have been a tricky thing. But the was a chubby, vanilla-faced girl with pro-potters were not without argument. PROGRESSIVE LABOR flowers braided in her blond hair, and a big THE Drugs had been a symbol of liberation. Party, hardline doctrinaries, the Maoist cloth flower sewn on the bottom of her Why abandon something that had radical- blue jeans. She sold the radicals malt faction of SDS. ized so many? And isn't all human pleasure crunch bombs and orange-raspberry sweet- PL fancies itself the pure vessel of classic frivolous? Where do you draw the line? heart twin-pops. Marxism. Its members are fond of discuss- Inside, the delegates unraveled lengthy ing the "international working class strug- A satirical amendment was proposed dialectics like balls of yarn, held innumera- gle" which exists only in the sunlit imagi- which condemned "all apolitical, counter- ble caucuses and workshops, and passed nation of PLP. Progressive Labor people revolutionary fucking, cigarette smoking, handfuls of resolutions . . . on War (SDS are all business. They are usually short- drinking, tambourine playing, waitress deplores it) . . . on Racism (SDS will smash haired and clean shaven, and they dress the pinching," etc. The hall roared. it) . . . on Imperialism (SDS reviles it). way they think workers and student- A long haired fellow announced he was One of the most interesting resolutions workers dress. Nowadays that's pretty from the Boulder, Colorado, Psychedelic was not passed. But before defeating it, the straight. Society. "The brothers from PLP have conference came fairly close to condemn- In its efforts to advance the pure line, politically dogmatized, narrow sectarian ing marijuana and drugs as "counter-revolu- the PLP often looks like cartoon cutouts of minds," he said. "Why wasn't alcohol tionary." the Thirties. It employs all the classic mentioned in the resolution? The same A sizeable faction of SDS thinks that Marxist jargon and much of the old "Work- people who condemn grass are going out drugs are an albatross around the Move- ers of the world, unite!" style of oratory. and getting drunk." ment's neck. They want their revolution- PLP'ers are the Movement's puritans. They Wild cheers from the pro pot side. aries sober and clear-headed; and it galls have the unrelenting, self-righteous temper At length, McCarthy bade the hooting them when teeny-hoppers drift leftward on of Baptist deacons, and that resemblance masses be still. Ten or 15 amendments a cloud of pot. extends to their public distrust of human - were considered and rejected. Then they About 9 p.m. on a Saturday night the pleasure. voted on the main motion. By about 120 delegates were groping through clouds of "Individualism is the ideology of bour- to 80, pot won. Beneath the applause there cigarette smoke in the CSC auditorium. geois capitalist society, i.e., serving oneself was grim silence in the PLP. The conference chairman was Tim Mc- above serving the people," the PLP resolu- It might be unwise to say 40 percent of Carthy, a big, iron-voiced, black Irishman tion said. SDS opposes drugs. The evening was late from the national SDS office in Chicago. "Drugs help promote a selfish, escapist and the cigarette smoke was thickening. He announced the anti-drug resolution outlook which is in opposition to the PLP, more disciplined, may have retained would be read. liberation of the working class. ... Drug more members and allies inside the hall, There was an immediate stir. A neatly taking feeds anti-communism by promot- while weaker elements drifted outside. dressed young man walked to the podium ing individualism. Specifically, we mean it But it was midnight now, and McCarthy in a crescendo of applause from his own feeds a lack of self-discipline, and an recessed the whole bunch. The delegates people. Then, in the backwash of the unwillingness to fight our own bourgeois went away—some to parties, some to bed, cheers, the pro-pot faction sent a gale of aspects." and some, no doubt, to seek out hidden derisive laughter around the room. It was Progressive Labor's uncompromising crannies and smoke the magic smoke. ❑ Political Intelligence The Governor's Tax Plans

Gov. Preston Smith has scheduled din- the regular session. Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes sounded a bit ner meetings with the state's business A source which ought to know says the hawkish when he defended the "mili- leaders July 7, 14, and 21 to discuss taxes. governor never wanted to take the food tary-industrial complex" before the state Right now, the governor is seriously con- exemption off of the state sales tax as convention of the Air Force Association in sidering asking the legislature to increase some newspapers reported, that instead he San Antonio recently. the corporate franchise tax and the oil and came very close to calling for a corporate "We won't be here tomorrow to solve gas production tax, in addition to some of income tax in his second budget message. 7 the tax increases he recommended during July 18, 1969 Congressman Fisher on Strutting Darkies, Changes in the GOP

Racial Amalgamation, and Ethnic Pride Sen. John G. Tower is now firmly in • control of the Texas Republican Party, From a recent newsletter of the offspring. although he has suffered a little bit getting Cong. 0. C. Fisher: It will be recalled that only a year ago there. In a totally expected move, the State Adam Powell, who a little more than a daughter of then Secretary of State Republican Executive Committee on June two years ago was denied a seat in Dean Rusk, amid raised eyebrows, 30 voted William M. Steger of Tyler into Congress after a committee found he married a Negro. the office of state chairman, succeeding had misapplied $40,000 of federal Another example of the trend was Peter O'Donnell, Jr., of Dallas, who was money which had been entrusted to him disclosed last summer when a Washing- elevated to the GOP National Committee as chairman of a committee, was in his ton Post columnist reported that Kathy the previous Friday afternoon. The SREC glory at the Washington National Harris, daughter of a U.S. Senator from also elected Mrs. Malcolm Milburn of Aus- Cathedral last week, where his son, Oklahoma who is also chairman of the tin vice-chairman, succeeding Mrs. Bradley Adam III, was married to a descendant of Democratic National Committee, ad- Streeter of Wichita Falls, who resigned for Miles Standish, a Miss Beryl Slocum. mitted she dated Negro boys, "and personal reasons. The match had the blessing of the would marry one if she really loved What was unexpected and what may bride's wealthy parents, the John him." Slocums.... have rattled Tower and his troops was the And so it goes. It's a matter of taste, narrow margins of victory. Despite a claim This wedding served to focus atten- there is consolation in the fact these are by a GOP spokesman to newsmen, who tion on the trend toward amalgamation undoubtedly isolated instances. Pride of were barred from the session, Steger (who of the races, which some geneticists race should prevent many recurrences of was Tower's candidate) defeated Millard insist tends to downgrade the quality of this unfortunate trend. Neptune of Austin (who wasn't), 33-30, and Mrs. Milburn downed her opponent, our problems if we are short-sighted today • A book being written by Dallas News Mrs. John Andujar of Fort Worth (another in defending our country," Barnes said to reporter Jimmy Banks may be part of a non-Tower candidate), 34-29. These votes an audience that included Rep. Mendel GOP campaign strategy aimed at deposing are in sharp contrast to the two-thirds Rivers, the South Carolina Democrat who Yarborough. Banks, probably the most vote of the 64-man SREC that O'Donnell heads the House Armed Services Commit- conservative member of the Austin Capitol and Tower produced May 3 in Dallas when tee. press corps, has signed a contract to do a O'Donnell purged Houston oilman Albert "I do not believe it is necessary to make book on Austin-to-Washington politics dur- Bel Fay from the national committee post, the military a whipping boy for everyone's ing the 1960s.• Reportedly he is being well which the former state chairman had covet- domestic project which cannot be ap- paid for the book, to be published in early ed for a long time. proved overnight," Barnes said. "The so- 1970 by National Press, a new public called military-industrial complex has sud- affairs publishing house in Washington. The • Steger had told reporters earlier he denly become public enemy No. 1. It's the director of National Press is James Clay, a planned no changes in employes at state vogue these days to zero in on military former aide to Senator Tower. Tower is on headquarters in Austin until he had a spending as if the cold war is just a method the corporation's board of directors. chance to survey the situation. But a scant of getting more tax dollars for national Banks, who authored the $50,000 bribe 48 hours after he took over, Texas GOP defense. ... You cannot provide national charge attempting to link Yarborough with headquarters announced that former exec- security and world peace on the basis of Billie Sol Estes in 1964 — a charge which utive director John M. Stokes, an O'Don- wishful thinking." the FBI helped shoot down — is said to be nell appointee, had been replaced by focusing heavily on Yarborough's relations Norman F. Newton, 27, and an aide to Looking to 1970 with the Johnson administration from Tower since 1966. Stokes earlier had con- 1963 through 1968. fided to reporters at the SREC meeting and Rumors persist that Lt. Gov. Barnes is • seriously thinking about challenging before that he feared for the safety of his A Washington Post survey of senators Yarborough in the 1970 Democratic pri- job if Neptune, who openly had vowed to • facing re-election in 1970 lists Senator remove some of the state employees, if mary. If he does, he probably will have the Yarborough among a sizeable group who help of members of Lyndon Johnson's old elected, won. But, said Stokes, if Steger will face formidable opposition, but not wins, "I'm home free." team now living in Austin. Among his among the most vulnerable. Democrats closest advisors now are said to be two considered most likely to go down in 1970, As protocol apparently dictated, Stokes Austinites, George Christian, one of John- according to the Post, include Senators submitted his resignation together with son's press secretaries, and Jake Jacobsen, Stephen Young of Ohio and Thomas Dodd that of O'Donnell, since an executive di- the ex-president's emissary to the banking of . Young is 80 years old; Dodd rector serves only at the pleasure of the industry. has been censured by the Senate for misuse state chairman; Stokes apparently thought it would be rejected, for a while, at least. Ambassador Edward Clark of Austin, of Senate funds. • But Steger readily accepted it and named who has a sturdy foothold in both Newton to the post. Newton, whose last Sen. George McGovern of liberal and conservative camps in Texas • job was that of an assistant to Tower in his is soliciting campaign funds for Sen. Democratic politics, attended the annual capacity as chairman of the Senatorial , as well as several other Texas picnic in Washington hosted by the Campaign Committee, has followed the liberal Democratic Senators. staff of Sen. Ralph Yarborough. Naturally, senator around for almost three years, In letters mailed nationwide, McGovern the talk ran to politics. working for him in Washington and in "Do you think Ben Barnes will run says 1970 "threatens to be a most difficult Texas. It was Newton who reportedly year for liberal senators who have taken against Senator Yarborough in the 1970 worked behind the scenes for Steger's primary?" someone asked Clark. strong stands on the controversial issues election while on "vacation" from Tower's "No," Clark replied. "I don't think he before the country." In addition to Yarbo- Austin office. wants to jeopardize his short but mediocre rough, he names Eugene McCarthy, — I mean, meteoric — career." Edward Kennedy, William Proxmire, Mike The SREC vote has placed Tower people Mansfield, Harrison Williams, Jr., Edmund in the top three spots in the Texas GOP: 8 The Texas Observer Muskie, and Philip Hart. chairman, vice-chairman, and executive di- and agri-corporations. The effort passed rector. And Steger announced that Paul the House but has been subverted in the Miscellaneous Notes DesRochers of Austin would stay on as executive director of the finance commit- Senate Appropriations Committee. Cong. Fortune magazine points out currently Bob Eckhardt, an urban liberal from Hous- tee, meaning, of course, DesRochers, too, • that two of the biggest 15 foundations ton, sided with the big farm bloc in has Tower's blessings. in the United States are Texas-based—the speaking against the limitation. Senator Moody Foundation, with assets of $390 Tower and Bush Yarborough, a member of the Senate Ap- million, and the Houston Endowment propriations Committee, also opposes the (owner of the , etc.,) Speculation now is that Tower is begin- limit. with assets of $193 million. The first had . Sen. Yarborough has introduced in the ning to build a power base for his • income of $6.6 million and gave away $4.7 re-election bid in 1972, when he may have U.S. Senate a Southwestern Human million last year; Houston Endowment had to face a tough challenge from Lt. Gov. Development Act to provide, at the outset, income of $14.3 million but gave away Barnes, provided Barnes does not yield $100 million toward overcoming special only $3.1 million. They ranked 14th and to pressure from within Democratic ranks barriers encountered by Mexican-Ameri- 15th, respectively, in the top 15. and challenge Senator Yarborough for re- cans through special programs in educa- election next year. tion, training, health, leadership, and citi- zenship. The Ford Foundation's recent back- What's more important, however, is that • down on providing funds to the militant • Tower is in control of the state party Senator Yarborough was one of 28 Mexican-American Youth Organization, which will, in essence, be the main vehicle • senators who voted in vain against the based in San Antonio, reflects a new for support of Houston Cong. George nomination of Otto F. Otepka to be a caution on the part of national founda- Bush, who is the most likely GOP chal- member of the Subversive Activities Con- tions. A bill by Cong. Wilbur Mills, D-Ark., lenger to Yarborough in 1970. Tower is trol Board. In opposing Otepka, a darling chairman of the House Ways and Means said by many in the GOP's ranks not to be of the John Birch Society and other Committee, and supported by Cong. enthusiastic at the prospect of Bush being a far-right groups, Yarborough broke with Wright Patman, D-Texas, would severely candidate, fearing that the more popular, his standard policy of approving qualified restrict use of foundation funds for com- younger, and somewhat more moderate presidential nominees. munity organization work, including voter Bush will force Tower to stand in his The senator supported a number of LBJ registration. The Mills bill is likely to pass shadow. appointees to high offices about whom he the House, but may be thwarted in the had some misgivings, among them Post- When Bush challenged Yarborough for Senate. The failure of the national AFL- • master General W. Marvin Watson and the U.S. Senate post in 1964, he had to CIO to oppose it aggressively was a factor Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas. Otepka in its success on the House side. run his own campaign without much help was removed from his State Department from the Texas GOP, which, at the time, job under Dean Rusk for passing confiden- Lee Smith, the young El Pasoan who was doing all it could for Barry Gold- tial papers to conservative senators. His • was prominent in leading liberal efforts water's election. Bush just may have to do efforts to win reinstatement were endorsed at the 1968 state Democratic convention, the same thing again in 1970 — if he by the Liberty Lobby, the Birch Society, decides to run — unless he promises Tower and others. They failed, but President was active in the Texas McCarthy move- to stay in line once in office. Nixon appointed Otepka to the SACB ment, and was a leader in the formation of post, which pays $36,500 yearly. Texas the New Democratic Coalition of Texas last fall, has been transferred out of state Republican Sen. supported the In Washington by his employer, the Radio Corporation of choice. Hilary Sandoval, the El Paso business- America, and now resides in Puerto Rico. Waco Cong. Bob Poage, chairman of the man who became the Nixon administra- • tion's first major Mexican-American ap- House Agriculture Committee, is laying July 18, 1969 9 pointee, may be on his way out. A flurry roadblocks in front of the Nixon adminis- of publicity, most of it bad, centering tration's efforts to replace the holdover around Sandoval's activities as Small Busi- Democratic farm program with a GOP MARTIN ELFANT ness Administrator have caused his stock to version. Poage called hearings for mid-July drop significantly among key administra- to extend both the current farm program tion politicos. Particularly anxious to see and the present laws authorizing food Sun Life of Canada Sandoval go, it is reported, are Senators stamps and commodities, indefinitely. Jacob Javits, R.-N.Y., and Charles Percy, Nixon's Agriculture Secretary Clifford M. 1001 Century Building R.-Ill. Javits' office is said to be the source Hardin still has not completed designing a of several Evans and Novak columns chas- Republican alternative. He has urged a new Houston, Texas tising Sandoval, which appeared in news- look which probably would include papers around the country. massive land retirement instead of the Democratic subsidy program — a switch CA 4-0686 Bush of Houston is one of 22 Re- likely to work against small farmers. publican House members who toured strife-torn college campuses across the na- A- PLUS UNIVERSITY SERVICES tion in an effort to understand the youth With you in mind: revolt. Led by Cong. William E. Brock • typing of , the group made a report • theses to President Nixon which, reportedly, • resumes Since 1868 showed great sympathy for students re- • law briefs volting against inflexible campus adminis- • multilithing The Place in Austin trations. Nixon did not comment on the • dissertations graphic arts dept. content of the report, and Bush has de- • GOOD FOOD ferred to the president. Our prices are reasonable — our service is good. GOOD BEER • The entire Texas delegation in the House went against liberal efforts to Come by 504 West 24th St. (in the same 1607 San Jacinto limit farm program payments to $20,000, building with The Observer) or call GR 7-4171 cutting back hefty payments to giant farms 477-5651. the bother•me•later deal from pacifica.

Pacifica Foundation is trying to start one of its listener-sponsored FM stations in Houston. Pacifica stations play what regular stations can't, don't or won't. The result sounds so interesting that where we're already on the air — San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York — a total of more than 40,000 listeners pay fifteen tax-deductible dollars a year for the programs and a monthly magazine about them.

For the past seven months in Houston, Pacifica's money-raising volunteers have heard many words to the following effect: "I'll subscribe if the thing ever gets on the air, but don't bother me now." Okay, all you people like that. We've run up a new coupon, below. Our doubting-Thomas special. No station, you never hear from us.

But if the FCC says yes, one of our teen-aged accountants will write you our call letters, frequency and on-air date, asking you to remit $15 for four thousand hours or so of the most adventurous public broadcasting anywhere.

Frankly, if Pacifica hadn't been running like this for twenty-one years, we wouldn't believe it ourselves.

IN - - MN - - - MIN MI MN ------OEM MI MIN Mai ------1 Dear Pacifica:

I'll go along with this, because I think Houston could use a little Pacifica. If enough people like me I pledge enough money for the FCC to approve Pacifica's Houston station, you may bill me — and I 1 shall pay — $15 for a one-year subscription to the programming. I understand I'll then get the 1 monthly program Folio for a year, and that my gift, when made, will be deductible when I do my 1 federal income tax.

Signature 1

1 Name

1 Street City Zip

- ttlit 1 1 pacifica 1 Adventurous Public Broadcasting 1 1200 Bissonnet, Houston 77005 1

The space for this advertisement was contributed by Bernard Rapoport, president of American Income Life Insurance Company, P. 0. Box 208, Waco, Texas 76703. Mr. Rapoport sent in his fifteen dollars way last June and has been so kind since that Pacifica considers him paid up until the middle of the twenty-ninth century. Saving Our Open Space

Los Angeles maintain the land to whatever extent may Those who own what is left of woods, fields, and streams in the urban regions, There is an open space movement, clos- be necessary. Little explains, have options for preserving ely tied to private non-profit land conserva- it that "range from rational self-interest to tion trusts, in New England. So far it has A GOOD PLACE to start in the outright philanthropy." They can donate not spread to any appreciable extent into literature of this subject is the book, land for open space use to a park authority Texas, the Southwest, or the West. Its Stewardship, by Charles Little, executive or, if they trust it more, a conservation purposes generally are to receive gifts of, or director of the Open Space Action Insti- tute. This institute is a non-profit corpo- organization, such as a land trust. They can buy, privately owned open space in or near reserve the right to live on the land for the cities or towns and conserve and maintain ration financed in part by foundation rest of their lives. Or they can grant limited it permanently for public benefit and use. grants (Ford, Rockefeller, Taconic, and others) and in part by fees, contributions, public right to it, or have it developed in The land trusts also work with public ways that preserve open space values. conservation agencies and municipalities to and subscriptions to its handsome maga- zine, Open Space Action. The institute Charles Little remarks that there is "an save open space in urban or suburban areas antique quality about the word steward- for parks, nature and nature study, and counsels with private landowners, com- panies, and governments on the preserva- ship, suggesting an ancient wisdom calling "sheer visual amenity." for the careful husbandry of ancestral Evidently there is some principle at tion of open space in and near cities. One basis of hope for open space in and acreage," but that nowadays a more pro- work in urbanization that city-dwellers' found land ethic is required, recognizing need for open land will be defeated before near cities is the sense among the owners of such land of what Little calls their "stew- "that land of itself . . . is important . . . to they know it. The sense of space and preserve natural processes, provide oppor- freedom is not missed until it is gone. Then ardship." Owners of land own it only for a it is almost or altogether too late. For this time. We pass over it like nomads and are July 18, 1969 11 reason, the open space and land trust gone; the land continues. movements ought to be extended into Texas, where it is not too late. As Sen. Paul Douglas' National Commission on Urban Problems pointed out, Texas cities are not Keep It Beautiful as densely packed, yet, as Eastern cities. If America hired people for the job, it would take the The San Antonio Conservation Society, largest sort of army to keep our country free of litter. whose dedicated membership will strike But there's no need to hire anyone. It's a job we can dead, or at least half-dead, any politician or do for ourselves. All of us. Every family that spreads a bureaucrat who glances askance at any of picnic lunch. Every boatman who cruises the lakes and the few historic homes or landmarks left in waterways. Every motorist who uses cur roads and their city, has resisted the penetration of highways. Brackenridge iPark by traffic routes that It is the pleasure of the U. S. Brewers Association would violate the park's tranquility and each year to give its fullest support to the Keep America bisect and thus disrupt its ecology. In Beautiful Campaign. Remember: Every Litter Bit Hurts. Dallas there is a group of large membership This is our land. Let's treat it right. within this general area of concern, but it is understood to concentrate mostly on zon- UNITED STATES BREWERS ASSOCIATION, INC. ing matters. The Arlington Conservation 905 International life Bldg., Austin, Texas 78701 Council has been formed by a small group of people to preserve Arlington's wooded areas and open spaces and encourage their development as parks, nature areas, bird sanctuaries, and green belts. But in general Texans have not organized to defend them- selves against urban blight, crummy con- struction, and neonization and to use all the available tricks and devices to save what they can of the open space in and around their cities. The land trusts are private non-profit trusts or corporations that acquire open land and keep it open. They can negotiate quietly to buy this land. They can buy land beyond the jurisdiction of political subdi- visions whose people are affected by its conservation. They can sell open land to government, requiring that the land be kept reserved for conservationist and recre- ational purposes and providing that it revert to the trust if faithless politicians try to use it for a city dump, a school, or For information on how you can help, write: something else. Receiving tax-free dona- Beautify Texas Council, Drawer CS, tions and sometimes income from the land College Station, Texas 77840. (as in the case of gift forests), they can tunity for recreation, and maintain sur- east bank of the Hudson. People ap- roundings worth looking at and living in." Yarborough, have had priceless park areas proached them about development, but One of the great valid complaints in the set aside for posterity, including Padre they decided on a natural museum of the riot-torn urban cores of the United States Island, the Guadalupe Mountains, and, if region and gave the land to the National is the lack of open space. It is a common- Yarborough prevails on the subject now Audubon Society. Thousands of children pending in Washington, parts of the Big place that the Hudson River in New York have enjoyed it. has been ruined by roadways and railroad Thicket. When he was a state represent- Halpern and Tuschak, New Jersey devel- track beds alongside it, as though the ative, Bob Eckhardt (now the congressman opers, asked a municipality to let them people thus shut off from the river existed from Houston) pioneered through the take a tract, use smaller lots for the houses, for the convenience of the transportation beach bill that established the public's right and surround them with green open spaces. planners. Jam people together in fetid of access to Texas beaches. An interim This method of development, called "clus- State Senate committee, of which Don streets and they behave in fetid ways. tering," put open green space within a few Suburbians with pleasant lawns and coun- Kennard of Fort Worth is chairman, has steps of every homeowner's doorsteps. proposed a state buying program for wil- try places used to feel free of all that, but A surgeon in New York gave his thous- now they do not walk the streets of their derness areas, hiking trails, and new parks, and-acre country retreat to a New York along with a quasi-state advisory parks cities at night. City "fresh air fund" that has provided Little's book shows, from the New foundation that could function on the almost a million impoverished children two statewide level like the New England trusts England experience, how much can be weeks in the country. What kind of fund, done by land-owning individuals and co- do on the township level. or land trust, or similar program, has But the New England open space and operative public agencies. Houston? Dallas? San Antonio? "Everything that gets done within a land trust movements also emphasize the The owner of 136 acres of pristine other foundation of progress in conserving society is done by individuals," says Al- timberland in New Jersey wanted to make dous Huxley in the book's motif. Writes open space, the sense of stewardship money out of it, but wanted it to be among landowners. former Secretary of the Interior Stewart preserved, too. At Rutgers University, Udall in the foreword, "The essential in- The most shameful episode in recent which had been using the woods as a Texas conservationist history was the Leg- gredient in the preservation of open space research area, a campaign was organized to must be a heightened sense of stewardship islature's failure to respond adequately to raise enough money to buy it. In response the offer of the Wheatleys to give the state on the part of those of us who use the land the owner dropped the price far below and those of us who own the land. . . . their river-watered 5,000-acre wildlife market value and gave the committee time refuge in the Hill Country. The literature [E] very land owner is a trustee for tomor- to raise the money. School children, busi- row." of the New England movements contains nessmen, and housewives put up two-thirds instances in which private donors have of the money and a labor union the rest. financed half the public cost of such THE B RI NTONS owned a The forest was saved. 150-acre tract, including a hilltop, on the acquisitions. One booklet of the Open In some New England states, under Space Institute is addressed in the main to provisions of law that let tax assessors 12 The Texas Observer officials of municipalities, telling them how reduce property taxes on land whose own- they can use proven techniques to expand ers dedicate it to conservation as unspoiled, the open land in and near their towns and A NEW VOICE undeveloped open land, a wonderful estate cities. The institute's case study of the in Nassau County has been opened as a Redding, Connecticut, land trust explains nature center with limited public access. how private citizens can establish a trust, The OKLAHOMA LIMITED is the The landowner has lower taxes and knows get tax exempt status, and go to work only paper of its kind in our state. It she has been a good steward of her land. receiving, buying, and protecting tracts of does not belong to the publisher or open space in their cities for themselves to the staff, but to our readers. It is Ten landowners along the beautiful little and their fellow townspeople and all their our readers that circulate the paper Bantam River in Connecticut have entered children and the children of their children. and our readers that write the arti- into a covenant with the Nature Conserv- R.D. cles. We accept articles from all poli- ancy, Inc., of Washington, D.C., not to cut tical religious, and racial communities trees, permit billboards, remove sand or in our state. We are attempting to be gravel, erect buildings, or put roads in a the link between the various groups strip of their land 200 feet from either side of the river's edge. The covenant runs with BIBLIOGRAPHY that our society consists of. We do "Land Trusts for Open Spaces," The New York Times, Feb. 2, not wish to become identified as a the land and binds future landowners. 1969, in the gardening Later owners may be able to give the land section. Liberal, Jewish, Black, Union, Indian, Stewardship, the Land, the Landowner, the by the river for public uses; the present Establishment or an Anti-establish- Metropolis, (by Charles Little) Open Space Ac- owners, who cannot or do not want to do tion Committee, 205 E. 42nd St., New York, ment newspaper. In short, we wish to this, have agreed together to protect the N.Y., 1965, $3 paper, $6 cloth. become the voice of all these groups, Charles Little, Challenge of the Land, An Open river during their stewardship over it. Space Action Institute report for municipal officials and civic leaders, 1968, $3.75. Russell L. Brenneman, Private Approaches to THE OKLAHOMA LIMITED the Preservation of Open Land, the Conservation POST OFFICE BOX 1041 I N THE LAST ten years a few and Research Foundation, Inc., 13 Woodsea Texans in Washington, notably Sen. Ralph Place, Waterford, Conn., paper $10, $12 hard Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 73101 cover. Open Space Action, magazine of the Open r Space Action Institute, 145 East 52nd St., New I I enclose $5.00 for a 1 year subscrip- York, N.Y., 10022. t tion to the OKLAHOMA Linda A. Murray, Land Trusts, Open Space LIMITED. EL CHICO, Jr. Action Institute Staff Report No. 2, 1968, $2 Burnet Road & Hancock Dr., Austin (esp. on the Redding trust; the appendix is the by-laws of that trust). • Beer patio under the stars • Fast service Name "Local Land Trusts/What They Can Do," The & carry-out • Delicious Mexican food Conservation Leader, Jan., 1968, the Massachu- Street • setts Audubon Society, Drumlin Farm, Lincoln, Dinners $1.15 to $1.45 Mass. I City An operation of "Your Forest Forever," New England Forestry I State Zip R & I INVESTMENT CO. Austin, Texas Foundation, Inc., One Court St., Boston, Mass. 02108 (on memorial forests). Don't forget your zip code. Alan Reed, President An untitled paper on how to set up a land —• G. Brockett Irwin, Vice President trust, $2, from the Massachusetts Forest and Park Association, One Court St., Boston, Mass. 02108. A Communication vines and old pecan and oak trees hanging heavy with Spanish moss. Today Park Road 11 is a much straighter, 24-foot strip with broad shoulders — less Texas wildlife but considerably more Texas sunshine. It's Our State Parks now almost as tastelessly bland as the other road that goes straight to the park en- trance. Austin parking lot (paved) in the middle of that There's only one more fate to befall . . . For many years, one of our favorite glorious green wilderness [see accompany- Palmetto — it has already struck Blanco, camp spots has been lovely and primitive ing photos] . Kerrville, and Bastrop State Parks that we Palmetto State Park near Luling. Last But that wasn't the end of the profiteer- know of, and there are probably more. August we witnessed the destruction of ing at Palmetto. Park Road 11 is one of This is undoubtedly a talent learned while two of the most beautiful camp sites in the two entrances into the park. This was an building roadside parks for the Texas High- park as bulldozers cleared away trees and 18-foot asphalt strip that dated back to the way Dept. They lay the campsites out — brush of all ages to create a two-acre '30's or '40's. It twisted among the grape- suburban style — in 40x40-foot units — one right to the other. They provide a concrete slab (the symbol of our civiliza- tion), a chained-down table, an anchored burner, and "facilities" close by. Since this construction uses lots of truck-delivered cement, open areas, easily accessible, are usually selected for our camping fun. Do you realize how many campers can be directed toward those sunny, paved three or four acres (out of hundreds or thou- sands available)? It is almost unbelievable, after being elbow to elbow with people all week, after coming home to our look-alike house in the suburbs on its 75x125-foot lot, that the Parks and Wildlife Dept. should suggest I take my family for the weekend to a look-alike campsite on a 40x40-foot lot, elbow to elbow with more people. Quite frankly, we've stopped going to state parks. With the new entrance fees, they are now as expensive as private camp grounds, and have a helluva lot less privacy. LARRY ROEGNER, 400 Clover Court, Austin, Tex. 78745.

July 18, 1969 13 BEFORE

Personal Service — Quality Insurance Alice Anderson—"Bow" Williams INSURANCE & REAL ESTATE 808A E. 46th, Austin, Texas 4654577

Bound Volumes

Bou nd volumes of the 1968 issues of The Texas Observer are now available. In maroon washable binding — the same as in recent years — the price is $12. Also available at $12 each are volumes for the years 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, and 1967 — the years of The Observer in its present format.

A very limited number of volumes for 1960, 1961, and 1962 remain in stock. These will be sold, on a first-come first-served basis, at $25 each. Texas residents please add the 4% state and Austin city sales tax to your order. Volumes Will be sent postpaid. THE TEXAS OBSERVER 504 West 24th Austin, Texas 78705 (adv.) Here's how they refer to the The Texas Observer in other ports of the country:

Of • 11. 1,1•1 The Texas Observer "A respected journal of dissent."—THE NEW A journal of "considerable influence in Texas El Paso's 'Other America' YORK TIMES MAGAZINE, March 2, 1969 public life."—THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW, Oct. 22, 1967 ". . . that outpost of reason in the Southwest ..."—NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS, ". . . that state's only notable liberal publica- April 11, 1968 tion ..."—THE WASHINGTON POST, Nov. 25, 1968 "No doubt the best political journal in the state."—THE REPORTER, Nov. 30, 1967 "The conscience of the political community 30 ISM The Texas Observer With "influence felt far beyond the state in Texas ..."—THE NEW REPUBLIC, Nov. borders."—TI ME, Sept. 27, 1968 20, 1965 The Politics of HemisFair-- And of San Antonio . . delights in exposing the peccadilloes of "Copies find their way to the desks of the O: the Texas establishment . .."—The PRO- mighty and even into the White House."—ST. The Texas Observer GRESSIVE, November, 1968 LOUIS POST-DISPATCH, July 25, 1965 The Vietnam War's Fall-out

The Texas Observer Here's how The Observer is usually identified (when

11.11 1C110.1 .1.11. November 22,1963: The Case Is Not Closed unavoidable) in the Texas press:

The Texas Observer "the Texas Observer" "an Austin-based biweekly"

What 's With "the ultra-liberal Texas Observer" "a small-circulation newspaper" 11 The Chronicle?.

The Texas Observer -"- • ■■•••■••• And here, perhaps, is why:

The Observer "voices dissent to almost every power bloc or politician of consequence in the state, from far left to far right. ... Time and again since its first appearance in 1954, the Observer has cracked stories ignored by the state's big dailies and has had the satisfaction of Panhandle People Hear watching the papers follow its muckraking lead."—NEWSWEEK, March 7, 1966 Of the Dump-181 Drive But... The Texas Observer Close-ups of the Oil Industry a national reputation isn't worth much unless it helps you, the occasional reader, decide that you need to be reading The Texas Observer regularly.

If you share the disappointment of many citizens who feel that their daily newspapers don't The Texas Observer always provide adequate in-depth coverage of events and issues that matter, you should May the Lobby Hold You consider joining the community of Observer readers—now 10,000 strong in its 15th year. In the Palm of Its Hand • If, after a few issues, you feel that the Observer has not been faithful to its promise—to adhere to the traditions of responsible journalism in telling the truth about the mysteries and myths of Texas life and politics — you may receive a full refund on your subscription; or merely tell us to cancel your bill.

messmosmommouweimaisumassommommesmossmarsomawawasomommniew I Enter 1-year subscriptions, at $6.24 each (including 4% Texas and Austin sales tax), for: I I I name (please print) name (please print) I I I I street street I I I I I city state zip city state zip Read I I the Observer 1 [ ] send gift card announcement [ ] send gift card announcement regularly. [ ] remittance enclosed [ ] bill me Subscribe I for a friend. THE TEXAS OBSERVER 504 West 24th St. Austin, Texas 78705

4 Dave Hickey's Column Notes on the University II

Austin the university as a library where you can ever endure the authentic indignities to There is no use pretending that these quest for what you damn well please, and achieve the spurious respectability of being criticisms of the university are written in find it or not in your own good time, and a "college professor." I do know, however, good faith, because they are not. They are in your own good universe for that matter. that there is no other profession, excepting simply the only way that I can enumerate locker-room-attending, where sexual preju- my frustration with academic life short of 4. dice is more virulent. If you are a woman, writing one of those dull novels pre- I do not believe that the university you have next to no chance in the aca- poisoned by the shabbiness of its subject. stifles new ideas. As a point of fact, it demic world. And if you are as yet What you must understand though is that I thrives on new ideas. Look over the past undecided about your sex, you had better really wanted to be a part of the university, curricula for freshman English and you will take up handball, give up deodorant and that I enjoy teaching, respect good scholar- discover a veritable graveyard of novelties. tell your students long anecdotes about the ship, admire good criticism, and don't even The university does, however, stifle cre- virility of various poets. If you want to get mind a fair-to-middling committee. ative thought. Since genuinely creative the general effect of a conversation among I am not even angry, you see. I am just work defies teleology, it never looks new; junior professors — imagine drowning in so damned irritated with the absolute, it only looks strange and threatening. To Aqua Velva while Johnny Unitas reads you slovenly, provincial smugness of the univer- survive in the university, you should always the complete works of Rupert Brooke. sity milieu that I could puke. But I realize, be the friend and champion of "original- as well, that writing criticisms of the ity," just don't be the origin of it. 7. university ranks second only to the frisbee as the principal occupation of third rate 5. minds in this decade, so I will cast this I would like to disavow any belief that latest list of bitches in the negative. To Correlatively I do not believe that the the university has become a hot -bed of re- distinguish myself from my fellow detrac- university need be relevant to this "present action. More precisely, I don't believe it has tors I will begin by enumerating some of day modernistic world of today." It ever been anything else, or could be. As a the things which I do not think are wrong should, I think, be aware of the future and self-contained welfare state and breeding with the university. And then go on. therefore constantly vigilant of the past — ground for hypocritical individualism, it is which the present has a way of becoming. only challenged by the professional mili- Speaking to the student in a "language he tary. And if, as I do not believe, the pen is 1. can understand" more often than not mightier than the sword, then the profes- I do not believe that the university is means telling him what he already knows. sorial - publishing complex is more dan- administered by men of good will whose Not all, but a great many of the faculty intentions are perverted by the corrupt members who advocate using the "present" July 18, 1969 15 system within which they must function. as text are only expressing the bankruptcy On the contrary it has been my experience of their own engagement with the cultural that many of the men in power in this past. Now it may well be that there are a ATHENA MONTESSORI SCHOOL university are authentically vicious and great number of faculty members who have Leo Nitch, Director • vindictive creatures whose authoritarian been alienated from the present, and are RED RIVER AT 41ST tendencies are only impeded by the ineffi- attracted to it, but all of the students are Opposite Hancock Center ciency of the bureaucracy through which alienated from the past. The Fugs may be Phone 454-4239 they must exercise their power. We are hot stuff to the Geritol set but they are old saved, it seems to me, only by administra- hat to the kids. By comparison Alexander tive oversight. Pope is something rich and strange. 2. CLASSIFIED I do not believe that my right to "speak 6. out on major issues of our time" has been BOOKPLATES. Free catalog. Many beautiful To change fetish topics, I do not believe designs. Special designing too. Address: BOOK- curtailed. In fact, I have been encouraged that racial prejudice enters into my depart- PLATES, Yellow Springs 8, Ohio. to take more license with the subject ment's hiring procedures. I attribute the matter of my courses than I have ever YAMAHA: For the best sound—pianos—organs- lack of racial balance to the fact that no guitars available at Amster Music & Art Center. wished to. Occasionally, though, I have one but a middle-class white would come to class unprepared. Then I have 17th & Lavaca, Austin. 478-7331. spoken out on "major issues." The stu- dents have loved it. They have been titi- Good Job, tated. "Gosh! Wow! Gee Whiz!" But such MEETINGS is my devotion to seminal thought that I Sen. Yarborough THE THURSDAY CLUB of Dallas meets each would still rather recommend a book than Thursday noon for lunch (cafeteria style) at the an abortionist. Downtown YMCA, 605 No. Ervay St., Dallas. "Yellow Rose" bumper stickers: 4 for 50d, Good discussion. You're welcome. Informal, no 15 for $1.00, 100 for $3.00, 1000 for dues. 3. $22.00. Send check and Zip Code; we pay postage and tax. ACLU luncheon meeting. I do not believe that the university Spanish Village. 2nd Friday every month. From should be "a community of free men FUTURA PRESS INC. noon. All welcome. questihg for the truth about their world." If you tell a man what to quest for, Phone 512/442-7836 ITEMS for this feature cost, for the first entry, you can hardly call him free. And I, 7c a word, and for each subsequent entry, Sc a 1714 SOUTH CONGRESS word. We must receive them two weeki before personally, would rather belong to a polity P.O. BOX 3485 AUSTIN, TEXAS the date of the issue in which they are to be than a community, and would rather view II published. gerous than the military industrial. In any for its own sake, or that university profes- in our culture, that the average professor case it is just as corrupt, self-serving, and sors perform any different function than a wants to be much more than a technical profitable. Some booksellers for instance lathe instructor in a technical school. Nor instructor. Nor, finally, should we assume got the mistaken impression that I had should we assume, now that we have made that petulant graduate students like myself some say on the committee which is to working for the university one of the least are wrong because they cannot mask their choose a new sophomore text. So far, demanding and least rewarding professions irritation. unsolicited, I have received two hundred ❑ and eighty-five dollars worth of books. Now if I were on three committees, and if I wrote off and solicited texts, or maybe a television. . . . Observations 8. Finally, I do not believe that any of this is constructive criticism. I wish only to Los Angeles something of the toughness of this state's suggest that if every fashionable criticism Texas has no daily newspaper nearly as progressivism in the fact that the chancel- of the university were recognized and the good as the Los Angeles Times. Annually lor of the University of California at Los faults corrected, the university would be the Times publishes its own roster of Angeles bluntly wired the president of the no better place for those who might wish California's top hundred companies, giving University of California urging withdrawal to live among it. If the university must useful economic data on each of them. The from Berkeley of "the armed force which teach high school disciplines it does little Times carries on the great muckraking is so repugnant and antithetical to the goals good to pretend that these are worthy tradition with hundreds of articles that of the university community," commended topics of adult inquiry. If the student, carefully expose and lead to the correction UCLA demonstrators against the Berke- having, by accident, been awarded the of corruption in state and local govern- ley repression for their non-violence, and privacy, freedom, and safety which exists ment. Most recently it has caught a state sent a message of respect to student hunger only in numbers, demands more "atten- senator with his arm in the till up to the strikers. tion" and "recognition," it does no good shoulder in a disgraceful case of at the least And while the Legislature at Sacramento to tell a teacher that by acting as a "conflict of interest." Editorially the paper affords many examples of that small-time surrogate father he is treating his students dodges the important questions of eco- corruption and log-rolling Texans know like adults. If professors are unable to nomic control, but it is not afraid to about in nauseating plenitude, recently reinterpret the past in the light of the advocate reducing penalties on marijuana California's Legislature has passed the present, it does little good to pretend that and is generally liberal. In the recent toughest state water anti-pollution bill in the professors are relevant and the past is contest for mayor of Los Angeles between the country, levying civil fines of up to not. If we have created an educational Sam Yorty, the incumbent, and Thomas $6,000 a day for violations, and the Senate system where professors can teach what Bradley, a Negro and a former policeman, has voted to prohibit most cigarette adver- they want, there is no reason to assume the Times was for Bradley. tising in the state. that this means that the student can learn Yorty, a Joe McCarthy-type mudslinger Fundamentally California cannot be re- what he wishes. If our academic depart- who would remind middle-aged Texans formed sufficiently at the state level, just ments now use women rather than blacks even more of Allan Shivers, won, and in as Texas cannot. The compromises and as slave labor, there is no reason to assume many other respects California is mired sell-outs by which the common wealth, that this constitutes an advance. If a down, like the rest of the country, in the such as water, public power, and electri- university degree is now as necessary as a worst repression and reaction since the Joe city, have been appropriated by large mon- social security number to acquire work, McCarthy era. Ronald Reagan, the right- opoly interests require a long and careful there is no use pretending that the students wing, uptight governor, now has clear telling. The arena of such subjects is local, fighting for a degree are engaged in learning control of the board of regents of the state, national, and sometimes, (as in the University of California system, the conse- case of oil), international; more and more 16 The Texas Observer quences of which dismal fact will be felt we are confronted with the fact of one for another ten years. Witch-hunts are world and only one humanity. running continuously in Southern Califor- But that is why many of us do not let nia like sideshows at the circus. politicians get away any more with the pro Still, California continues to be some- forma hypocrisies they have been pulling what more progressive than Texas. The off for years. Such, for instance, as Gov. people themselves enjoy life more and Preston Smith's statements in the spring simply do not care how this guy or that girl about W. S. (Bill) Heatly of Paducah and chooses to look. The open feeling about the late Gov. W. Lee O'Daniel. life runs deep in the politics, too, especially Of Heatly, chairman of the House Ways on the campuses, and one senses that this and Means Committee, Smith said, "he . feeling will not be shut down or intimi- has proved time and time again that he is dated even if John Wayne runs for office. working for the best interests of all the San Francisco is a very special place, a free people of Texas and not just a select few." place, and although some of its residents That is false. Heatly has proved time and have begun to consider digging a channel to time again that he is working for just a cut off the peninsula from the rest of the select few and not for all the people of state, planting the channel, perhaps, with Texas. Fifty percent bunk, you might let shark and barracuda, San Francisco is not pass; hundred percent bunk, no. about to change. Of O'Daniel, Smith said, "the people Perhaps you did not gather, from the owe him much." What? What? He was one news accounts, the salient, somber fact of the trickiest right-wing Texas governors that during the recent disturbances at in this century and the worst and possibly Berkeley, the police, for the first time in the most reactionary U.S. senator from the country to my knowledge, fired shot- Texas since the beginning of statehood. guns into unarmed crowds. Reagan thinks Possibly the most reactionary. There is this was all right, but one encounters also John Tower to consider. R.D.