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Funniest thing. All this time I thought the direct election of candidates to public office was considered progressive. But now the plaintiffs in the Dallas city council redistricting suit before Judge Eldon Mahon are arguing against direct election of the mayor of Dallas. They say they want all councilmen elected from single member districts, and that they want the council itself to elect the mayor. When I first saw this it struck me as a little shady. I mean, the good guys are supposed to be for more democracy, not less.

Then I saw a reference to Mr. Dan Weiser in a news report, and the darkness was dispelled. Mr. Weiser is a Mobil Oil mathematician whose avocation is restructuring district lines to encourage the election of liberal Democrats in conservative Dallas. Mr. Weiser seems to enjoy the irony in that. So he has become the city’s one outstanding practitioner in the fine art of political gerrymandering.

There’s nothing crooked about this, but it does help to understand what the plaintiffs are up to. Well, not the plaintiffs exactly, who seem to have split with the former Legal Services attorneys that are still pressing the case. Now the plaintiffs are off center stage, and Mr. Weiser and the attorneys have taken the spotlight. Their objectives are simple. They hope the judge will go farther than his recent 10-1 order and substitute an 11-0 system. They hope he will reject all other plans and accept Mr. Weiser’s. Presumably Mr. Weiser’s plan will lead to several “safe” minority or liberal districts. Those districts will probably constitute a majority of the city council. With a 6-5 vote, Mr. Weiser’s friends will control the council and elect your next mayor. You. on the other hand, will have nothing to do with the election of your next mayor. If this reminds you of the bad old days when the famous Dallas oligarchy hand-picked the city’s mayors, you must remind yourself that then it wasn’t considered progressive. Now it is. Understand? I don’t, but I sure hope Judge Mahon does.

The account of Bob Strauss’ maneuver-ings at last year’s Democratic National Convention, excerpted from Richard Reeves’ Convention and beginning on page 61, may make you wonder how Dallasite Strauss became such a power on the national scene. Local Democratic chairman Ron Kessler has the answer, which he says is Strauss’ own version of his ascension into national politics.

As Strauss relates it, he was having breakfast with then Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield. Strauss had just been chosen chairman of the Democratic National Committee and Mansfield, too, was curious about how Strauss had broken into the big-time.

“It’s all very simple, Senator,” Strauss replied. “When I first attained some modest success in business, I thought I ought to do something to help the town that had given me the opportunity to be a success. So I went to the local leadership in Dallas, and I told ’em I wanted to run for the city council.

“Impossible, they said. First, you’re Jewish. Second, you haven’t gone through all the steps, you haven’t given enough time and effort to building the community.

“That made sense to me, Senator. So I joined the United Fund campaign, and I worked hard. I joined half-a-dozen other service organizations, and I worked hard. I considered myself to be on call for Dallas, and I was willing to take on any job they wanted to give me.

“After a few years of that, and while I had continued to be fortunate enough to make a good living, I went back to those same fellows, and I said I wanted to run for the city council.

“Strauss, they said, you’ve done a good job here. But you’re still Jewish, and it just wouldn’t be wise to put you up for election.

“So I said to hell with it. I went to work on the state level, and got myself a governor. Then I went out and worked a little harder, and got myself a senator. Then things got a little rough for the national party financially, so I pitched in there. And now I got myself one whole Democratic Party.

“And, Senator, you can believe me, none of it would have happened if they’d just let me run for the Dallas city council.”

That’s probably not the exact way BobStrauss would tell the story (his versionmight go on for another page), and I’mnot about to vouch for its accuracy anyway. But it does make an interesting footnote to history.