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Scene one, Take 1 16. Oh, two small. Thank you for Felonious son. We present at this time an informal discussion with Senator George Smathers from the nation's capital. Now, here is the first question that out? Yeah, Yeah. 5. 16. What? 16 Oh, two Scene one, take two.

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We present at this time an informal discussion was Senator George Smathers from the nation's capital. Now here is the first question. Well, Senator Smathers, I've been reading the New York papers, and it looks to me like you're sort of a different breed of Southerner. How do you explain that?

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Well, I'm not. The only thing that I have stated is that in this with respect to his voting rights bill, I have I'm going to support it. Uh, during the times that I have filibustered against the bill Civil rights, so called civil rights bills in 1957 again 1960 again 1964 in each one of those instances, I said I have no objection to the civil rights provisions of the voting provisions of these bills, but I do object to the public accommodations laws.

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I do object to what we call the genocide section. I do object to the F e p C. But as far as the voting is concerned, I've always believed that every citizen should vote. When I took an oath of office, I held up my hand and swore I would protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

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And in that Constitution, the 15th Amendment says that every citizen shall be given the right to vote, irrespective of his race, color or creed. And I think that they should vote in our state. We encourage them to vote. So I'm going to support some voting rights legislation.

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Then you don't have a strict literacy test. In the state of Florida. We have a literacy test, but so far as I know, I don't know of anybody who has been where. There has been a pattern setup of discriminating against a group of citizens merely because of their color.

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If they can pass the literacy test, it's sort of 1/6 grade type of test. Most everybody, of course, can pass that they're eligible to register and thereafter eligible to vote, and they should vote if they're going to claim American citizenship, which they do. I noticed you escorted the president to the joint session.

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What's your comment on his speech? Well, I thought it was a good speech and very powerful speech. I think that he used every method of oratory that has known to man in order to make his message. Agreed. Basically, with that which he was trying to say, I thought he did a very good job.

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I'd like you when the speech has finally been. The bill has finally been going to committee and been analyzed to give us your thoughts on what it will do to the Constitution. If it abrogates it or not, hesitate to ask you that question now. Well, I don't believe that it will, because, after all, all we're doing is saying that under the 15th Amendment, we all know this where the where the state Constitution and the federal Constitution collide, then it has long been accepted legal practice that the federal Constitution prevails.

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Now the federal Constitution now says under the 15th Amendment that no citizen shall be denied the right of vote franchise because of his razor color. Now, when there has been established a pattern that there is a discrimination against certain citizens because of their razor color, and they use some state law which requires some qualifications which very few people can meet.

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Then I think the federal government and the federal law should prevail. That's why I expect to support it. I understand you're still getting complaints and cries from our Citrus and vegetable growers in Florida. Have you been able to do anything about that at all in regard to assistance as to harvesting crops?

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We hope so. Senator Holland and I had a meeting with Secretary of Labor Works, who is the sort of the problem in this whole matter, and we met with him for 3.5 hours the other day. We're very hopeful that as a result of that particular meeting in a subsequent meeting, which has been arranged, that we're going to be able to get some 3500 offshore laborers to come in there and help us, particularly the Valencia orange crop, and also help us with our fresh fruit vegetables.

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We think that we're on the road to a solution there and we've satisfied the president. United States are going to help us bring about a solution to that problem, now. Is that just a temporary solution of a long range solution? Well, it did. The problem arises only once every year when we begin to harvest the crops.

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So if we have settled it in the past, The President Kennedy helped us two years ago and overruled works. I don't know whether the President United States this time is going to overrule works. But I'm sure that the word has been passed along that the president expects this problem to be solved, and I think it will be solved.

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Thank you very much. Senator George Smathers. Sentence matters. I'd like to go into a problem which is of great interest to our Florida broadcasters and broadcasters all over the country. For many years, we've had what we call a clear channel set up with a number of very high power stations having express and complete rights for a particular frequency.

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Understand? This now is going to be overcome this monopoly, so to speak. And it will be a benefit to the Florida people. Tell us something about that. Well, we hope that will be the case. Senator Sparkman of Alabama and I have introduced law which will actually direct the Federal Communications Commission to not permit broadcasting beyond the 50,000.

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What station? Because what does happen is you have said in your question that by virtue of these clear channel stations that they can reach all over the country, and pretty soon they gain a monopoly. Sort of like we have, in point of fact, that we have monopoly with the networks on television where we could have an equal, stronger monopoly with these Clear Channel operations, with the result that with the many thousands, tens of thousands individual radio stations which serve local communities and local needs and provide local news, they wouldn't be able to make it.

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So. The idea in in effect, is sort of to bring about this legislation which would sort of be establishing an antitrust section against all clear channels which would sweep will, say, the whole nation. I hope it will pass. I think it would be good for radio developing that just a little further, senator, we have a great problem with the Mexicans who are good friends of us to the South.

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They operate on an international agreement and go away above 50,000 watts of power and as a result. For instance, all Florida can hear many times stations in Mexico and, of course, in Cuba. But is this going to be also approached on the international level? It will have to be, as a matter of fact, in South Florida, For example, we here you ride along in your radio with you in your car and turn your radio on.

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You frequently can get more. In fact, you it's all about you do get a Cuban stations with Cuban music in Spanish, language being spoken and with the result that they overlap us and drive out some of the signals from some of our own stations. Now, when we had friendly relations with Cuba, we were able to work this out pretty well.

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What? The only thing we're doing now in order to stop that is to run our own signals so strong into Cuba that we give them the same problem they're giving us, and then by a sort of mutual agreement, we say, Well, we'll lay off if you lay off.

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But with the Mexicans, what we have to do is enter into this, then befalls in the field of foreign relations. We have to enter into what we call bilateral agreements with them with respect to this particular radio operation. And we found the Mexicans are generally fairly cooperative in this matter.

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We have another problem in Florida in particular. I'm speaking now of the problem of air traffic control. What can be done to alleviate the many problems which are snowballing, so to speak well, in this area, I think that the air traffic controllers, a lot of people forget this fact.

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But example, when we have bad weather, we don't have too much bad weather in Florida. But we have it. Another area we got to here in Washington, for example, today we've got a Chicago. I was in Chicago not long ago when Northwest Airline alone had 22 planes in the air.

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We're waiting to come down well, if we're Northwestern had 22 I'm sure United must had 22. American must have had 32. Eastern must have had 20. There had to be 145 planes up in the air trying to get in in Jacksonville, Florida We have a particularly difficult problem in that.

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From time to time, we do get rather difficult air there. And we have the Navy station not too far away. With these young pilots flying these fast jets. I believe that one of the major problems we have is that these boys who do a magnificent job not speaking of the pilots of the plane.

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I'm speaking of the men who run the control section of the aviation tower. The boys who talked to these airplane pilots who talked to these military pilots who tell them where they are, who got him in on radar. These fellas, I think you're underpaid. These fellas are overworked.

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I know myself of several instances where boys hadn't been sick. He couldn't leave his radio position, his television position, his radar position because he had something like 40 planes in the air. And he was telling each one where to go and he didn't have any relief.

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These fellas run a greater nerve strain in some respects than do the pilots. And I think the time has come to recognize their great responsibility, which they have to give them higher wages and better security in their job. Thank you very much, Senator George Smathers, until next week.

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I return you now to your station announcer