ustxtxb_obs_1955_08_10_50_00007-00000_000.pdf

Called “Stockholder Profit Sharing Plan”, and available only to ICT Group stockholders, this plan offers: 1.INCOME-PRODUCING INVESTMENT 2.SAVINGS BANK SECURITY 3.LIFE INSURANCE PROTECTION All who participate in the Stockholder Profit Sharing Plan create profit for themselves in two ways: 1.FROM CASH DIVIDENDS PAID ON UNITS OF THE PLAN 2.AS STOCKHOLDERS IN ICT IN-SURANCE COMPANY OR ICT DIS-COUNT CORPORATION, YOU SHARE IN THE PROFITS MADE BY ICT LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY. LIFE can be comfortable, on a relative basis, in this piled-stone house in Mexico. Built without mortar, its carefully placed and fitted stones will not admit rain. For the few who can give the years necessary to build it, it makes fine housing. Village COOPERATION My host, Maestro Don Francisco Pena, showed me around the village of Acatitlan. We entered the house of the president of their equivalent of the P-TA. It was a small adobe and stone place near the edge of the village. Our host greeted us cordially and brought out his only two chairs for us to sit on. seating himself on the ground and assuring us how pleased he was to have someone from the /outside visit him. As he talked, I could see why he was the P-TA president: ideas came naturally to him, and he saw, in limited objectives, a school plan that would benefit the village. Night classes for illiterates, extra courses in agriculture and apiculture, better and more books, a nutritional program. Here was a man on the edge of a life which most North Americans shun or fear, yet he was able and capable and full of ideas. His wife soon appeared with something to eat. We ate sparingly, knowing that it was most of the food that they had in the house nonetheless it was always offered o strangers. ,Becoming acquainted with ejido society is hard, even for someone who is familiar with Mexico. The smaller ejidos tend to be closed to strangers. Even in accessible ones, a period of re-education is necessary. Life is built on the idea of AUSTIN Land Commissioner J. Earl Rudder says he has found no evidence of irregularities in the leasing program of the School Land Board since he took over Bascom Giles’s old job last January. Rudder testified last week before an Attorney General’s Department inquiry into the overall operations of the General Land Office. Since irregularities were discovered in the Veterans’ Land Board, the Attorney General’s investigation was started to check on the various other land matters administered by the State. The School Land Board, which handles the leasing of millions of dollars in state landsincluding the oil-rich tidelandswas composed of the same members who made up the Veterans’ Land Board: the Land Commissioner, the Governor, and the Attorney General. Governor Shivers appointed Rudder to the Land Commissioner’s post when Giles refused to qualify Jan. 1 for another term in office. Rudder testified at last week’s hearing that upon entering the office he immediately began working with the Legislature to plug what he called “loopholes” in the veterans’ land program and the operation of the General Land Office. “As far as I can determine, everything has been on the up and up,” Rudder said of the School Land Board’s operations. Rudder told the court his office was continuing the veterans’ land investigation, sending files of questionable transactions to district attorneys where the land is located. He said he believes the veterans’ cooperation, not competition. There is a strongly competitive strain in Mexican culture, also, but on the ejidos, in varying degrees, you see how the cooperative society carries through into all phases of life. The ejido is run by an elected council and administered by a president. The terms vary, but in some they coincide with the federal congressional elections. Work is organized on the basis of committees, and all males of age are members of the ejido. Don Francisco and I passed the schoolchildren playing in the school yard. “They look like they’re enjoying themselves,” I said. “They are,” Don Francisco said. But there were various degrees of participa tion. Soine played competitively. Others would not run ahead of another in a race, for instance, but rather would wait until the slower caught up with hini. The logic seemed to be: What’s the use of winning when the running is the fun of it? At first it seemed strange, but the reflexive way of putting the interests of others fir s t soon showed itself as an essential value in the ejido. In another house there was a guitar playing, and some foggy voices were singing. Don Francisco was not opposed to an occasional drink, “but some people carry it too far,” he said. The voices, he explained, belonged in the main to ne’er-do-wells who kept themselves oiled a good deal of the program is now functioning as it should”so far as humanly possible protecting veterans’ interests.” He told the court that five land office geophysical inspectors on the Gulf Coast have been discharged as a result of evidence turned up by the inquiry. A hearing in Corpus Christi had developed evidence of inspectors renting equipment to companies whose operations they were assigned to supervise. Before Rudder testified, a veterans’ land program appraiser, Leon Kreidel, told the investigators that the VLB once purchased land that was a part of Mexico for resale to veterans. The Attorney General’s department said it would investigate Kreidel’s story. Giles Bribery Trial Set In San Antonio Court AUSTIN The lawyers for Bascom Giles are working on an appeal of his conviction of encouraging theft of state funds. They are also preparing for his bribery trial in San Antonio Aug. 15. Giles has been convicted in 98th District Court, Austin, of aiding and abetting Brady land promoter B. R. Sheffield in stealing $6,800 from the State under the veterans’ land program. The former Land Commissioner also faces three indictments in Zavala County, charging him with consenting to bribes of $8,000, $15,000, and $36,000. Ten more indictments charging felony theft and conspiracy to commit theft are pending against him in Travis County. time. The reason? Oh, not cut out, to be ejidatarios or farmers, but not willing or able to leave the ejido. We suffer sometimes from a lack of direction,” Don Francisco said. In the midst of the beauty of the surrounding mountains, you could see gulleys washing out of the corn fields, and the trail has to be repaired weekly in the rainy season. The timber is being cut over even though it is against the law, the population is increasing, corn yields are down. All these factors run through your mind as you look at this small village with its virtues and its vices on a damp, cold day in June. BRUCE CUTLER \(To be THE TEXAS OBSERVER Special to The Texas Observer LAREDO A touchy international truck traffic situation is developing along border ports of entry. The Texas Highway Commission is still turning back Mexican trucks not carrying Texas license plates, and the Mexican government has not acted on a reciprocity agreement Texas wants which would permit trucks of both countries to use the other’s highways with their own license plates. As a result, truck freight across the Rio Grande at Laredo and other points of entry is at a virtual standstill. It all started one morning when blue-uniformed men of the Texas Highway Patrol and brown-uniformed men of the Texas License and Weights Division set up barricades at all border ports of entry and turned back all Mexican trucks not having Texas license plates and the green safety tag on their windshield. Highway Commission Chairman E. H. Thornton, Jr., said enforcement of the law would not be relaxed until he received assurance from the U. S. State Department that Mexico is now willing to act on the reciprocal agreement, which Texas has been after for eight years. The move was a retaliation, as Mexico has not permitted Texas Page 7 August 10, 1955 trucks onto its highways unless the vehicles have Mexican license plates, and it was impossible to get plates unless the vehicles were legally imported into Mexico and duties paid on them, which amounted to a tidy sum. Texas wants a reciprocal agreement, saying “You let us in with our plates, and we’ll let you in with your plates.” Mexico puts off acting and asks for 90-day extensions which it has kept getting. Two years ago, in 1953, R. J. Potts of the Texas Highway Commission went to Mexico City to negotiate the reciprocal agreement with the Ministry of Communications. Everything went along smoothly, and Potts signed the document for Texas and returned to Texas. Time passed. Mexico never did forward the document signed by their officials, as Potts had been promised they would. Several months ago the Texas Highway Department warned that the law would be enforced, and the warning was well publicized along the border. Highway officials therefore claim that the clamp-down did not come on the spur of the moment. Most Mexican truck drivers, who had ignored the warnings, were caught without Texas plates. They had to unload into trucks with Texas plates. RAMON GARCES A Tour of the Rudder Says Everything’s Fine In Land Office Operation Now AIM LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY ICT Building, Dallas REMEMBER, STOCKHOLDER PROFIT SHARING PLAN IS FOR ICT STOCKHOLDERS ONLY! ICT Truck Traffic Situation Touchy Issue on Border A vitally important message to all ICT Group stockholders YOU ARE ENTITLED TO PARTICIPATE IN THE NEW STOCKHOLDER PROFIT SHARING PLAN After many months of hard work and careful study, The ICT Life Insurance Company is ready to announce an exclusive personal benefit plan for ICT Group stockholders only! If you are an ICT Group stockholder, Home Office Representatives will soon be calling on you to fully explain your rights under the Plan and show you how to exercise them. For your own benefit and profit, give these Representatives an opportunity to point out the many exclusive advantages the Plan offers. Many of you may want to have the Plan explained in detail to you before a Home Office Representative has the chance to contact you personally. Below is a coupon to be filled out and mailed if you would like to have complete facts on the Plan as soon as possible. Gentlemen: I understand the Stockholder Profit Sharing Plan offers me as an ICT Group stockholder many exclusive,unprecedented benefits. I want to be among the first ICT stockholders to hear all about the Plan and ‘receive my Allotment Certificate. So, please have a Home Office Representative call on me as soon as possible. Name Address City State