Sissy Farenthold Interview, Part 2 of 2

(misc.)

SF: But that's the extent of it.

DT: When we talked earlier, about, umm, your campaign for office, public office, and some of the help that you might have gotten from the media, I was wondering if you could talk some more about some of the other influences on the campaign, such as the lobbying industry?

SF: Oh yeah, and that's what I was going to mention. And, I...I ran into campaign finance very soon on, because, umm, members of my family actually were the ones helping me. And, my campaign manager, who had been the one that asked me to run, had said we need to break these amounts down with other names, because then it looks as if you have more support.

And, I guess that was the first place I drew the line. I said no. We're going to show what we have, and where it came from. So that was really my introduction, in a way, to how, how things were handled. You know, better to show it as, instead of $200, show...what would it be? Eight $25 contributions from all over, when, in fact, it wasn't the case.

And, umm, the way we raised money for television was to do it on the daytime TV shows, which was - took much less. And I had friends of mine, women friends of mine that would pay the $25 or $50 dollars each to say why they were voting for me. So we had all kinds of enterprising ideas and for a campaign of two counties in the late '60s, it worked.

Now, I didn't know until later that the statewide business lobby, which, umm... And, I'm trying to think of the Dean of the, of the Legislature was, ah, Bill. It escapes me for the moment. Anyway he was a very powerful member of the Appropriations Committee. And this Republican from Nueces and Kleberg County had been a thorn in his side, a big one, because he had challenged some of the appropriations.

Actually, unbeknownst until later, when he kissed me at the first gathering, that this is the little lady that defeated the Republican, I had had help that I didn't know I had. Umm, but one incident I had, I had a very small office in a...in an office building. I was a practicing lawyer at the time.

And this lobbyist came in to me, and told me that he wanted to give me some money. Though he wanted me to understand that it was illegal. And I hit the ceiling. I didn't...I think I was, I think in part of it...it was indignation, but it was fear too. I didn't know. It was something new to me and I asked him to leave. I, maybe later on I'd have been a little smoother about it, but it just hit me.

And, umm, I thought, you know, you're already compromised before you ever win your office. And, later, the head railroad lobbyist, who had been a grader of mine when I was in law school, laughed, you know he thought it was a big joke. And he took me to dinner, uh lunch one day, and he had a little black book and he said there were over 200 bills that the railroads were concerned with. Which just, I never saw the little black, the interior, of the little black book.

But he told me then that the lobbyist had come back, and said that he would never go see that woman again. But it was, I can still remember the afternoon. I didn't know how to deal with it. I just didn't. And it, but then I saw it all, I saw how it worked, how you're compromised before you ever get there.

So, umm, I had, umm, a couple of other experiences that also taught me how things operate. Uh, I had a lobbyist come in and just start talking to me and he was from a shell dredging company. And, he assumed, since I was from the coast, that I supported that kind of thing, which I found abhorrent, because I'd heard over the years what it had done. I could see those muddy bays that had been destroyed and so forth.

And, he said, in effect, you understand, we don't ask you to carry our shell legislation, we give it to people up the country like in Fort Worth that won't be bothered by that kind of pressure. And I don't remember if I told him where I stood on it or not. But I - I acquired information this way that I probably wouldn't have, umm, otherwise, because I was not ever part of the team. I mean, I think efforts were made, which efforts were made with all incoming legislatures.

For example, the Appropriations Committee Chairman, umm, Heatly was his name, the one I couldn't remember, the one that kissed me and said I'd defeated the Republican. Heatly called me up to his office within the first two weeks of the legislative session and had me sign a card supporting Gus Mutscher, not for that term, but for the next term. And I signed it. I mean, I didn't know, I didn't know what it was doing to me, and to my function as a legislator, that it was taking all my freedom away for the next time, if I came back.

You know, you do these things. I learned. But I think it's the form of indoctrination that new legislators get. First they get compromised by the lobby and I can understand that; you have to have money to run -- why intimidate these people, etc. etc. Then, this signing, you know, before you know even what's going on.

And thirdly, during that same period, those first two weeks or maybe even week, I was invited out by a committee chairman, and the chairmen were always members of what they called the speaker's team. And, told, you know, how I would work as a team member, and be helpful to the speaker and to the team and then I could get what legislation I needed and so forth. And it was just a kind of, it was a luncheon of indoctrination, I guess.

But, as I said, umm, that didn't last long. I went off the reservation very soon, and I didn't intentionally do it. It was just that, I found, and I was alone too, in the sense of being the only woman there, and thank heavens for those deskmates I had that I mentioned earlier: Ed Harris, Curtis Graves, Rex Braun and Nick Nichols.

Because I'd ask them and they said, "Oh, you went up to Mr. Healy and you signed a card, do you know what that means?" No, I didn't, you know. But, I learned, I learned, I learned...

And then, I think, the really turning point for me, and it didn't have anything to do with the environment. It was the fact that the Del Rio, umm, I can't think of that county right now, but in Del Rio, the County Commissioners had kicked out the VISTA workers, because the VISTA workers, and this was Holy Week actually, of 1969, just getting sort of into the legislative process.

And they had asked the Governor to get rid of them. And they were angry with VISTAs, because the VISTAs, the people were down there registering new voters, primarily Mexican-Americans. And, the Governor went along with that. And so I was in a quandary. I didn't know what I was going to do about it. So I went to the Governor.

I have an earlier story to tell you about the Governor. I went to the Governor. As I did with the Speaker over and over again, I never did anything in the House that the Speaker didn't know I was going to do. I always informed him, and kept it on that level, and kept, I hope, all my relationships. I never saw any reason for personal enmity, which I saw a lot of in that, in that institution.

But I went and I heard the Speaker's, I mean, the Governor's explanation of what he was going to do. Then I went down to my district, Corpus Christi, and I called Jim DeAnda. Jim DeAnda was a lawyer for the GI Forum, and who later was a federal judge. He had been a protégé of Dr. Garcia's, and I said, Jim, I need to talk to you about this because I...I have to make a decision.

Well, primarily I was into it, and I felt obligated to come out one way or the other because my district was so heavily Mexican-American and they were my constituency. And, anyway, his reasoning prevailed, and that Sunday it was Easter week- well, a weekend before Easter, Palm Sunday, one of my sons, it was George Jr., drove me to Del Rio and I participated.

I guess I was the only Anglo, and certainly the only woman that spoke. I remember Joe Bernal spoke from San Antonio, the State Senator and so forth. And I've often said that was the turning point for me and I call it the road to Del Rio. Because, umm, I learned a lot of things in that.

Ah, for example, I was marching with my children, with my son anyway, and, Joe Bernal, the Mexican-American Senator from San Antonio, and I said, what is that up there? Well, there were all these men, men with guns, ah, on the top of the court house that had been deputized.

And it was a...it was a peaceful demonstration. It was a Palm Sunday demonstration where we spoke against, you know, expelling the VISTAs and the general problems with, the problems Mexican-Americans have in the State of Texas. And then we marched to the courthouse and put whatever the demands were, I've forgotten them, on the courthouse door. That's all there was to it.

But I saw again, I saw our pictures being taken constantly by the DPS. I saw those people that were deputized and I wouldn't give up that trip for anything in the world.

But it did place me outs...off the team, off the Governor's list. And the rest of it. But that was okay. And that particular legislator, from Del Rio, made the statement that he'd never let a bill of mine get through. Which was true. But, you know, it depends upon what your interests are and where you put your priorities. And, umm, that was a turning point for me, and that was the Easter...Easter week of 1969.

DT: Umm, where were some of your priorities to some of the environmental things, ah did you...?

SF: (talking over DT) Well, I followed, I followed, ah, Rex Braun. He was the one that sponsored legislation and, and, umm, I would support him. Priorities also with, with, actually Carlos Truan and I. Carlos is still in the legislature, I mean in the Senate, co-sponsored the Human Relations Commission. And, I had been interested in that ever since we had gotten one started in Corpus Christi.

DT: One of the first ones...

SF: Very first. We modeled ourselves, and I did a lot of work on that, on the Louisville one. And umm...our big deal was to try to get minority women in to Meter Readers. There weren't any. And to desegregate bowling alleys, and things of this ilk. So, again, that was something that had started before I came to the legislature. And then tried to carry that through, in that, in the next phase of my activity.

DT: Did you get involved much in the Open Beaches legislation?

SF: Oh yes, yes, yes. I was umm, umm, that story about, of course, Bob Eckhardt, was the, was the proponent of that and the...the bill sponsor and all of that. And then, umm, again, Babe Schwartz was the leader on that while I was in the legislature and you see, by the time my first term was over, I was, well, I was just one of the dissidents, that's all. I didn't choose it particularly, but my interests and the Speaker's interests simply didn't converge.

Especially over the Jerry Sadler, he did not want me to-to move into that. And one of the reasons I learned later, not his reason, but one of the reasons I had so many problems getting support to umm, rebuke, and Terrence O'Rourke worked on this, did the research on that, to censure Sadler. I couldn't get support in the beginning. And what I learned is he had many of the State Legislators as local counsel for the general land office.

You know, just these-these little things. You wonder why these particular people are so powerful. Well, it's really a bread and butter issue, I guess you'd say.

DT: When you bring up the connection between Jerry Sadler and the General Land Office and the Legislature, could you talk about other kind of examples of the relationship between the State natural resources agencies and the Legislature?

SF: Well, all I ever saw with them, was that, they just went their own way. And, there wasn't....and it was again, Rex Braun, and I'm trying to think, was the man named Yansey(?), that was head of water?

I once, once saw him. It was very spooky. It was a dark day and it was in the first floor of the Capitol. And he, in effect, was saying, what was I interested in? You know, why was I doing these things? It, it seems like it was, it was a question that some men couldn't fathom. It had been the same thing at the City Council. One would say, well you have everything, why are you down here?

I mean, the interest in public matters, just was, for a woman to be interested in public matters, was unfathomable to some. And it seemingly was to Mr. Yansey(?).

And I remember, and I don't think this was an environmental matter, but I had a young legislator sitting across from me that asked me how would Mr...what did Mr. Butt think about this issue? Well, he assumed that I had come there with the support of HEB, since I was with Corpus Christi. Well, I had never met Mr. Butt, and so I had to tell him I had no idea how Mr. Butt felt about that particular matter. So...

DT: What were some of the other environmental issues that your constituents were concerned about?

SF: Well, one for example, was concerned about the waste discharge of the DuPont plant over there by, Port, not Port Aransas, but Gregory, Portland, in that area. Umm, there were the discharges, not water discharges, but air, from, uh, the storage plants for grain. And I would always be contacting these respective agencies. I never got any place with them.

I mean as, again, they were, all I could tell, independent fiefdoms. And, umm, I once asked why is there such opposition to annual terms, you know. I think we're the only industrialized state in the country that doesn't have annual sessions. And, the same thing about, you know, the salary is kept so low that you either have to embellish your office staff and make arrangements there, or have a full-paying lobby job.

And so I asked about these annual sessions, because I took my legislative role as a full-time job. And, you can tell, it kept me involved full-time. And I was told that it was the big agencies, and the lobbyists, wanted the legis...to get the legislature out of town.

And, by observation, I learned after my second term, we were trying to get together over something, a group of us, say the Dirty Thirty. It was impossible. I mean, just the size of the State, where we all were, what place we'd go to. Because we didn't feel the legislative intent was being carried out by, I think it was the Department of Education.

DT: Speaking of the Dirty Thirty, and I guess this all revolves around this Sharpstown scandal, can you talk about that issue and then maybe the influence of special interests and developers and so on...in the legislature?

SF: (talking over DT) Well, and you know how the...yeah...that's where we got our name. Ah, the Dirty Thirty, was from a lobbyist. And I was told this by a reporter. Because after, again, doing the research and, umm, introducing, umm, legislation that Terrence O'Rourke worked on, ah, the Speaker had to vacate the chair while we made some argument, or other, and a reporter overheard, umm, a lobbyist coming down, where they all would watch us up there, and they were in the galleries, usually. Ah, and the lobbyist said, "those dirty-thirty bastards".

DT: That was the full name, right?

SF: That's the full...that's the full phrase. And it was cut just to "Dirty Thirty", and that's how we got the name. It was said in complete disparagement. And, umm, there were, there was a lot of money invested in the Speaker to keep him there. Ah, for example, one of the biggest issues was, that was the year that it became legal to have liquor by the drink and, ah, we were biting away at his heels.

DT: This was Gus Mutscher?

SF: Gus Mutscher. And we were doing it. All I had ever asked for, and I had no idea of attacking the Speaker, or the Lieutenant Governor, or the Governor. I wanted to know, and it was really from my college days, I think, because I had done my thesis in college on, ah, the history of legislation, how it comes about, all the way from the social need through a decision in the Supreme Court.

And when those two banking bills had come up the prior special session, I had voted for one and not for the other. And, between the one I voted for and the one I didn't vote for, I had gone to Bill Patman, who was in the Senate, whom I had total confidence in, and he advised me to vote against the second one.

Well, the companion bill, I'd already voted for, just because I didn't know any better. There'd been no hearings. It was pushed through. And, that really bothered me. And, when I came back that next session, and the issue of favored legislation for the Sharpstown Bank was actually a Republican issue. They brought it up, a few Republicans that were there, and for some inexplicable reason, dropped it.

It did not want to go into it. I cannot tell you why. But it was their issue, but we picked it up, and there were thirty of us that voted for this investigation with the Speaker, in his office, listening on the loudspeaker, whatever hook-up they had in there. But, umm, it was, and let me just say, there were bills that would have set up something on the state level comparable to the FDIC, without nearly the rigorousness of the FDIC.

DT: But with bank insurance...

SF: With bank insurance. And it was from that experience that I said that people used their public office for collateral, because they were given stock. And I loved what the Governor said, he said, "Well, he sold that stock just to pay debts". And it would have gone, as I said, it was dropped by the Republicans after about two weeks. I don't know why.

But when we first started, it was a matter of great disparagement. And, you know, I don't like the term kamikaze liberal. I loath it. I don't like to use it. First, it distorts what kamikaze actually meant, was a kind of heroic thing.

And secondly, I think it depends whether - in your own eyes, you succeed or not, depends upon the timeframe you're giving. You know, so, what you do may, may look hopeless, but the seed may be there for something on.

So, ah, in the beginning, and there was the talk, and I don't think any of us passed any legislation that year. And, I know when the, ah, bill came, which was one of the big things that we'd all be sent up on from Corpus Christi, was to get a state college established.

It's now, over the years, you know, it's gone through different...first it was a, umm, upper-level college. They were all the vogue then, junior and senior years, where the junior colleges fed into these. There was a great need in Corpus Christi for such an institution. So we were all sent up there.

But I can remember Ronald Bridges, who was our State Senator, and very close to Barnes, came to me and said, umm, "we'd have more luck with this bill if your name wasn't on it." So, all kind of things happened.

To me, one of the most despicable things was, I had a son that worked on the Senate side, who was very much of the counter-culture. He's the first one that talked to me about Vietnam. He's the one that gave me the book on Malcolm, the Malcolm X's autobiography. All these things.

And, he told me one night, he'd come over and watched our late sessions when we were into all these debates. He said, you know, they... someone keeps taking my picture. These flashes are right in front of my eyes. Well, again, it was someone from inside. The photographer that was actually employed by the Speaker, or selected by the Speaker, came to me, at great risk to himself, and said, "I have been asked to...to take photographs of your son."

Now, I did not go to the press with that, because I knew that would fit into the stereotype of the "hysterical mother." I just, I wasn't going to do it. But I went up directly to the Speaker and I was angry. I was very angry. And told him it was difficult enough to be raising children without having that kind of thing. And he pleaded, you know, just looked at me.

And his sidekick, Joe Shannon was up there at the Speaker's. I remember it, because I was so angry, but I was...as I said, I wasn't going to the press over it. And that summer, he handed me those pictures. I've never looked at them. I gave them to a friend of mine and just said, "keep them, I don't want to see them". So, that kind of thing would happen.

DT: It was intimidation...

SF: Intimidation, yeah. And, where those pictures were going...I'm sure they were going to show him as some hippy, you know, and that would...I don't know what they were going to do with it.

But one night our car was stopped on the pretext that it had been stolen, in Brenham, Texas. Just a coincidence. One time a legislator told me there...that the DPS was tracking my car. They...because it was on the radio, you know, on their radio. And, he, this particular legislator, had one of these radio set-ups, which he wasn't supposed to have. But I ignored those things.

But you asked what happens, and, umm, these are some of the things. Now, I'm sure they were mild, compared to some. We had a wonderful legislator that was the youngest son of Governor Allred, Dave Allred, and he is responsible for the Open Records [Act]. He was a reporter.

And, umm, I worked with him on that issue. And, of course, that's very important on environmental matters, very, very important. It's a - across the board. And, ah, he was just given holy hell by his people back in Fort Worth, coming from the Speaker to the business interests there. So, you get, you know, you...you get...you get fallout, there's no question about it.

DT: Can you tell us some of the, the sort of environmental issues that you think might have spurred some of the pressures that you were getting?

SF: Well, and...and, this is very indirectly, but, I had ah, he's a prominent member of the...what...Fortune 500, I guess, I guess he's in Fortune 500 now. He called me from Corpus Christi and said, umm, you give me more problems that all the other dele-...all the other members of our delegation.

And the reason for that, you see, this was the way they were getting to me again, was we were trying to topple Mutscher over the dry vote. I voted against my district there, in a way, because Corpus Christi's a tourist place and wanted...wanted the open bars and liquor by the drink. And I voted wet all the time. I mean, I had no scruples about that, that was just the way to vote.

But on this particular vote, ah, we went with the "dries" to show that Mutscher had lost his power. So, I had a lot of static. I mean, only from one person, but a very powerful person. And, again, like the...like the game wardens, you know, I just got, just stopped. I couldn't go in their cars anymore, and see these...see these outrages that had been done to our land and our water, where they knew these things were.

DT: What sort of things did they show you?

SF: Pollution. Pipelines. And then, you know, in our time I don't know how it is with...I really don't know how it is, except, I don't think it's much better by consolidating. We always had that idea that it would be so helpful. But consolidation doesn't work unless you have responsive people in staff. You know...

DT: You mean by consolidating all the...?

SF: (talking over DT) All the natural resources, yes, yes, yes. I don't, and I've gone the same way over the nuclear, when we...I put that bill in to not have any more nuclear plants until we had a real regulatory commission. That's not a real regulatory commission. And I think our district is supposed to be the most ineffective of all of them. I think it's out of New Orleans, District 5, or something.

So we had the idea that you separate and make this regulatory over here, and the, umm, selling of nuclear power over here, you know, atoms for peace and the rest of it. Then we'll get some, some safety matters resolved. It doesn't work. Because the same kinds of people are in it. I mean you take that whole low level nuclear authority. Jacoby was in charge of building South Texas Power Plant.

DT: Could you talk a little bit about South Texas...

SF: When I went off to Wells College to be President in 1976, someone phoned me and said, you're in the wind, or whatever, from that, from the proposed nuclear power plant. Is it Bay City? So, would you be one of, you know, would you sign on as one of the parties to this grievance, or whatever they were trying to do. I said yes. And, but then I went off for four years up in western New York. And that was the end of that.

Well, I come back and the power plant is being built. And, I've forgotten what year in the '80s, we had a demonstration over there, a small group of us. A woman's name was Ann Wheeler, who was a long time environmentalist. She was then deep in her 80s. And she insisted and take balloons to show how the wind blows. And, we had no press. I mean, there again, it's not of interest.

And, there was one woman there that was the secretary to the Mayor of Bay City. And she said that it was such a job...there was such emphasis on the jobs that were coming into that town, that everything was being rubber-stamped. And she was not in step with them. Because, one of the things she said, they really didn't have adequate plans to get people out if there was an accident there.

But, you know, we could get nowhere. And I had a very clear instance of that when I had here a man who was the last, who had been, umm, they called them liquidators. They were the people that were taken into Chernobyl to shut that plant off. And he was a highly recognized Ukrainian physicist.

And I had heard him speak in Salzburg, and I was so taken with him I filed that away, that sometime we have to hear this man talk, because he spoke of Chernobyl. Well, through a whole set of circumstances, through Gen Vaughan inviting him to Hou - Austin, I was able to get him down here, because he wanted to get to the Medical Center. He was suffering from radiation poisoning.

And, umm, I tried to get him in there for, you know, they have a PR, kind of, tour. Well, I couldn't get any response. And then it later learned they had an incident there, during the time he was here, and so the PR office was not answering. But anyway, we were able to have him speak at the Baylor School, Baylor Hospital. And I called the reporters. And there was no interest. Now here we are on the fly-way, the wind or whatever.

DT: Umm, well, so much of the fight against nuclear power and other uses of radioactive materials has been frustrating, but we think there was a win recently in regard to Sierra Blanca. Can you talk a little bit about your involvement there?

SF: Yes, well, I- I can't remember when I first heard about - I think I heard about Sierra Blanca from a-a woman, umm, on the staff of Gen Vaughan's Foundation for a Compassionate Society. And, it was only later that I realized Olive Hershey was involved in it. But the first of it had come from the staff meeting in Austin.

And, I don't even remember at this point, but I did make the decision to go to the public hearing. And, as you know, that is no easy trip. I flew to El Paso, and then the Lynch sisters picked me up and we went to Sierra Blanca for the public hearing that night.

And I again, again, the-the Texas utilities who, as I understand it -were the real force behind this legislation, enabling legislation in the compact and the siting. They were very much in the background.

The people we heard from were the doctors from M.D. Anderson [Hospital]. And there were several there. I went up to them afterwards and said, "well, have you left anyone on your staff in Houston?" Because, you know, it was obvious that they were being used, when really the medical waste is very, a very, very small part of this.

And I never did untangle all the political things. But I think the University of Texas and the utility companies were really the sponsors of that. They wanted to get this stuff off of their premises. And, it looked like a losing battle in many, many ways. And I still don't have the answer. And if we ever have open records some day well find out, maybe.

But I couldn't help but think, once the opponents of siting a waste dump there, once they were able to make it an international...issue, international, umm, issue, with, umm, the agreement of La Paz, I think it was and so on, that it was something the Governor didn't want on his plate for, for now.

That's the way I interpreted it at that time. I may be totally off, I don't have all the facts. But that's just my surmise about it. Yes, it was a win. Now what's going on in Andrews County is something else. And, umm, it took care of that one place, maybe. But I've always learned, and I learned it back in those days of that oversized sign on the shoreline, that often it's one step forward and two steps backwards.

DT: Maybe we could step back once again and talk a little bit about the legislature. You've some talked about the-the radioactive issues that have come up over the years and-and I think you also mentioned about the Open Beaches legislation that you worked on. Did you get involved much with dredging...umm?

SF: (talking over DT) Most of it had been done. It'd already been done. That was it and I think something had taken place where it wasn't they - they were not into it any longer. But I had been brought up on the horrors of shell dredging. And had heard a lot. I guess I'd heard talks of Bob Eckhardt's on the issue. But that day was pretty well over with.

DT: What about brine disposal and those kinds of problems?

SF: We didn't...we weren't into that.

DT: ...from oil and gas?

SF: No, we, and you know when I first, and I spoke to two railroad commissioners, and they just acted like they didn't know what I was talking about. This was much, much later after I was out, and after I'd come back from New York and one thing and the other.

There was an extensive article, it was about the oil fields in - in Louisiana, what would apply to Texas too, all the radiation that comes from the drilling, which I was totally ignorant of.

And, again, when I left that, that ah - Salzburg conference in 1993, I was at the airport in Vienna, and there was a man, a scientist, that had, umm, been to, you know, the U.N. has an atomic control commission, international atomic control commission that's part of the U.N. It's housed in Vienna. He'd been to a meeting there and we were standing in line and I said something about being from Houston and he said to me, "well you have an enormous amount of radiation down there due to the, due to the oil drilling." Yes.

DT: Were there other oil and gas problems, umm, spills or leaks...?

SF: (talking over DT) Well, the spills of course. The leaks, and we'd worked on the spills in Corpus Christi on a local level. And, but you ran into the Railroad Commission and you never got an answer from them. And, of course, when, when the water quality board, if my memory serves me, was established, what was exempt from their authority was all pollution caused by production development of oil and gas. And guess where that goes.

So, that was a constant. I haven't brought it up because we didn't anything, we didn't get any place on it. And we didn't get any information from them. But I would hear it, and then I'd hear it from Chief Carlisle. You know, these pipes were, there were so many pipes underneath the bays, to say nothing of the damage that they were doing, that long ago should have been replaced. But these issues never were out in the public when I was...I mean I couldnt get them out.

DT: Umm, I know there are a number of - of oil refineries, petrochemical plants in the Corpus Christi area. Did you all ever get involved much with air emissions?

SF: Tried to. Tried to. Called the air quality board about it. I remember two...two women that had been in the, in a law family that had been there many generations, lived out on ah, ah, what was called Shell Road which was across from - from those things and they suffered from this pollution.

I mean we would try to do something. I wasn't trying to do anything so much on the state level, that was what Rex was working on. But having some platform as a legislator, I would go to these various agencies with the problems that my constituents were having. But I got nowhere.

DT: What do you think, umm, were some of the environmental successes while you were there? I mean, it seems like there were many frustrations.

SF: Umm, it would be, I guess only an awareness that might pay off later. I mean, it was a terrible, and Schwartz stayed in there and I'm sure Schwartz got things done after I left. That was a great disa...a big blow when he - Buster Brown defeated him. But, but see, Rex was lost because he ran for the Senate, the State Senate, and was defeated.

So, you know, about all I know was that they kept grandfathering those plants in, because here, how many years later, I was involved in a press conference up there over grandfathering those plants under the Air, Clean Air Act, 20 odd years later. So, there are many different groups now working in Austin that I'm not aware of. I mean the, oh what is this, Rick Abraham's group. They're in touch with...

DT: ...the Texas United?

SF: Yeah. They're in touch with me, from time to time, and they're the ones that arranged the press conference in front of the Governor's house when the DPS was arresting people for demonstrating there. I think we've got that stopped.

DT: Can you talk a little bit about the public participation and some of the problems with DPS coming up in the midst of a peaceful demonstration and....(And, if we might, just because....the DPS is an acronym for....?)

SF: For Department of Public Safety, Department of Public Safety. It has a chilling effect. Now, for example, for example, in 1970, I had a skiing accident, only time I was ever on skis and got a terrible break and I was on crutches for eight months. And, I was on crutches when someone, I was running back, I mean, traveling back and forth from Austin to Corpus Christi and so on.

And this minister, a reverend, called, and the only place we could meet was, was, umm, the airport. And he wanted me to come to a demonstration in Mathis, and to simply be present, as a legislator. And, I said to him, having been to the peaceful demonstration in Del Rio, I said, "You're not going to have any problems, it's going to be a peaceful demonstration".

And he said, "We're not concerned about the demonstrators, we're concerned about law enforcement." And that really hit me between the eyes. And, indeed I did go. I hobbled out there and sat there for the whole thing. Nothing came of it. I don't know if anything would have come of it or not.

DT: It seems like in many parts of your life, you know, during your term in the legislature, but then in subsequent years, you've acted as a witness.

SF: That's right.

DT: Umm, can you tell a little bit about some of your role there?

SF: Well, let me say, my interest, my interest in public affairs is very deep. And I think certainly after my second run for the Governor's position, I frankly had to face it that there wasn't any place in electoral politics for me in Texas...period. And I mean, that's nothing to waste tears over, but at the same time it wasn't going to stop me from this really abiding interest I have in, if you want to call it, civil society and public welfare. All, you know, for ourselves and our posterity.

And so this is the place I found I can work, is with different groups, with witnessing things, and putting things together. And, if I have an opportunity, speaking on them. Occasionally harassing government officials, but, I don't get too much out of that. I mean, I don't get many results out of that. But it's a way to keep, to be involved in what I really care about and not shut the door on it simply because I was defeated for office. I think I know what it takes to be in office and it doesn't interest me.

DT: You talked about posterity. What do you think are the big issues facing the future, environmentally?

SF: Well, you know, and, and, and there are two sides of the coin. There is, there is the problem of population, but there is also a problem of over-consumption. And we're, you know, the developed countries are right there.

And then there is the question of this enormous waste and devastation that comes with our technology. And I'm speaking especially about weapons. That, I think, is one of our greatest environmental problems. We touched on the nuclear, but just, and we're in the middle of that, because we are the primary, we, meaning the United States, we are the primary exporter of weapons of all descriptions. Umm, we, as tax payers, subsidize those sales.

And what they do in the way of environmental destruction, to say nothing of human suffering, I think, is beyond our imagination, as we sit here in our cocoon. And, speaking of environmental devastation, I spent a good part of the '80s concerned with our role in Central America, and first with...with ah, different forms of agriculture and cutting timber. That part of the world has just been destroyed.

So, you have over-consumption. You ha- you, no question about it you have population problems. You have environmental problems that may...may soon be beyond us. Ah, you know, we haven't touched on it, and I leave that to others, the ozone, the greenhouse effect, and all of those things.

And then I think it's difficult to simply keep up with the times. I look back on, on one thing that I did that...it's very different from what I'd do today. And that was, there was a tax on gasoline, and I saw it primarily as a way to give the Railroad Commission, I mean the Highway Commission more resources, to keep our poison pills on the road, and voted against it.

Now, I might vote another way, simply because we need to find some alternative to these poison pills we all drive around in. The military is right up there, as one of the primary problems that we face today. And then, you know, it brings us, it brings us to an issue that we all skirt in this country, and that is our own economic system.

DT: What do you mean by that?

SF: Well, umm, our capitalism. Our our kind of capitalism. Or the kind we try to import, or export, rather. The kind we try to export, you know, just anything for markets and the rest will take care of itself. The rest doesn't take care of itself. And, our capitalism is survived as long as it has because there were some safeguards put on them, some protection given people. And, umm, that's not what we're trying to export today.

DT: You mentioned safeguards. Are there, is there advice, recommendations that you have on how to safeguard the environment?

SF: Well, I think, ah, first, first I think citizens have to find over and over again that they have to do the work that we think we elect people to do. And that's deplorable. And that probably, in part, goes back to campaign financing.

But, I find it and I, I, you know, whether and I'm still doing it on the local level, going to these council, city council members, that are talking to each other on the telephone, as citizens are standing there trying to get their attention. And, you know, the...the indignity may be a little more concealed, but it's the same thing if you go up there to Austin to try to talk about, or a hearing before the low level nuclear authority, or, or whatever I've never been before, you know, the train wreck group, so I can't speak about them but I would sense it would be the same thing.

So, citizens, sad to say, given our system, have to still do the primary work. And I had a friend that came back from Eastern Europe, and I have seen it certainly in Central Asia. You see what's happened when there weren't citizen groups able to do things. So, let me say this, with all the disappointments, without citizens' activities in this country, and efforts, we would be in much worse shape than we are today.

DT: I know that a foundation that you were involved with, helped some of these citizens' groups. Can you talk briefly about the foundation...?

SF: (talking over DT) Yes, that was Genevieve Vaughan's, ah, Foundation for a Compassionate Society. And, ah, I think she can speak much more eloquently to this because it was her concept and her vision that brought it about. And she saw, one of her principle priorities was to have woman in leadership roles and it moved from that, I think, to seeing the connections between women and environmental issues. And she certainly was into the Sierra Blanca thing, but into other, umm, other projects in other parts of the world.

I think one of the most thoughtful and generous things she did, was she bought and returned some of the land to the Shoshone people. And it's the Shoshone people's land that that miserable nuclear test site is on.

We've come full circle...(misc.)

DT: We have very few minutes remaining, is, is there something that you'd like to say, a message you'd like to...?

SF: (talking over DT) Only that it's, it's worth putting your heart and and your energies into it, because without the work of many millions of people in this field, things would be worse today than they are.

DT: Without your help, things would be worse as well. Thanks for your help and for all the environmental work that you've done and for participating in the interview today.

SF: Thank you, David.

DT: You're welcome. End of reel 2034 End of interview with Sissy Farenthold