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Page 3 April 18, 1955 THE TEXAS OBSERVER. THE LESSON DIDN’T STICK While Local Capitalists Hesitated, El Salvador Lay Still Undeveloped By BRUCE CUTLER Written for The Texas Observer We call them “underdeveloped areas.” T h e y call themselves “slowly developing areas.” Whatever the name, these areas face a major problem that at first seems to be a contradiction in terms. That is the availability of local capital to do what must now be done through international agency credits. For me, it all started one day when I went down to the Pacific coast of El Salvador on a vacation day to swim. On the road up the shore \(“road” here is a relative same on a cement factory running full blast. It was one of the three large buildings I ever saw in that country, and when I got back to town, I tried to piece together the story of how it got there. Some years ago, the Government of El Salvador woke up to the fact that its predecessor-dictatorships had been importing hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of productsincluding jams and jellies, while fruit lay rotting on the ground, and also Italian and German portland cement. Almost the whole cost of the cement was made up in shipping costs. A brilliant young economist who some back to his country after a career with an international financial agency soon became Minister of Finance. He decided that if his country was going to grow and develop, the first thing she needed was portland cement to do it with. There was plenty of suitable lime By Countryside and Town NEW WAVERLY There is a new word on the air. It seems to applyat the moment to Democrats. Almost every radio news commentator used it in reporting the April local elections. The word is r-e-s-u-r-g-e-n-c-e. The usual sentence was, “There seems to be a resurgence of Democrats in city elections …” The dictionary says that this word means “to surge or sweep back againas a tide.” I say it is a very nice word. It has in it the promise of better things for the country in 1956. And it is an interesting pastime to take a map and go from place to place and see how we fared. Even one’s own county seat town is-not without its bit of ‘resurgence.’ The thing to remember is that this is not accidental. It did not just happen. It came to pass because people are finding out some things they did not know. They needed to know. They should have known. But … Like this: In the 1920s we proved beyond peradventure of a doubt that the national economy is all in one piece; that injury to one part of it was reflected by reaction all over. But here we go in the 1950s knocking the blocks from under the farmer’s prosperityall the time feeling that the man in the bank won’t feel it. But he will. Last week we had a severe freeze that destroyed all fruit and vege Never Say Die AUSTIN Hugh Roy Cullen said on an NBC network program that if that Eisenhower doesn’t get on the ball and start backing the Bricker Amendment, he, Cullen, was going to start pushing Allan Shivers for President. Not to be outdone, Raymond Brooks of the Austin American reports that a strong movement in the Democratic National Committee to team up Soapy Williams for President and Allan Shivers for vicepresident on the Democratic ticket in ’56. Which finishes another chapter of “Allan in Wonderland.” stone, and he knew how to get the needed power. But how to finance it? First logical answer: the source with an adequate amount of capital: the Government. But thinking it through the second time, even though the factory would require an outlay somewhere equivalent to the total budgets of half the states within El Salvador, there were private sources of capital within the country. One coffee grower was about to gross around $800,000 on his year’s crop; another was giving away to charities about $1,000,000 every two years. The question was put to them: would they be willing to finance the cement plant? Their answer: had it. ever been done before? The result: impasse. But he persisted. There was a waiting market in the Government alone that would buy the entire production of the projected factory for the next ten years. Resistance began to melt, and attractive bonds were issued through the major banks. Advertising was taken in the newspapers. The Government gave every possible inducement for persuading citizens to invest in the cement factory as a private enterprise. At the end of the first month, sales were reviewed. So few bonds had been sold that the Government quickly bought up the remainder. Quietly, the Government drove ahead and built the plant anyway. table crops that had responded lushly to an “early spring.” The losses were tragic. After the weather became milder I was in a department store crowded with customers \(Easter Sunday was owner, I thoughtlessly said “I suppose the freeze doesn’t mean anything to your business,” and I mentioned my losses. He said “You are wrong, I am badly hurt.” And then I saw that people were not buying Easter outfits, just single items with which to freshen up old clothes. Net farm income cannot fall off nearly 15 per cent in one year as it did, and not hurt every family in the nation. We are one people. We had better resurge! MFC FRANKLY SPEAKING MARSHALL We Democrats have long been indebted to the Sunflower State. It sent us Paul Holcomb. Recently its 38-year-old Governor, Fred Hall, spoke in the voice of Paul as he stripped naked the hypocrites who shamelessly refer to union-busting legislation as “Right-to-Work” measures. Beginning in 1947, the Kansas Legislature had been given “the treatment.” It withstood until this year the well tested assaults of the hucksters and their misrepresentations. Recently a Right-to-Work Bill passed both houses, and the neanderthals prepared to celebrate. But they reckoned not with Fred Hall. No Shivers occupied their Kansas Governor’s Mansion. From the executive came a veto message breathing fiery courage and logic. “House Bill 30,” it read, “has only one real purposeto ultimately destroy the right of labor to organize and the principle of collective bargaining. It will accomplish this purpose by prohibiting maintenance of membership in labor unions under state law. This right is now carefully guaranteed to labor under the Taft-Hartley Act .. Now, five years later, two plants are in operation. Both plants are completely owned by local capital, and the government no longer is financing the cement business. And it is buying its cement at a price cheaper than the price from abroad. The question arises: did this lesson in increasing confidence in industrial investment carry through into other industries? Are the coffee growers also canning fruit and vegetables that lie on the ground for lack of means to preserve them? Apparently, for a few forwardlooking individuals, yes. But there is still no rush of capital into greatly-expanded raw good processing industries, or industrial developments of any size. In former years, another factor held up this development: lack of power. A small, American-owned company produced not-too-dependable power for home use in the capital only. The government has driven ahead and opened a $20 million hydroelectric development to supply needed industrial power, the first such project financed by the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development in Central America. But even so, are people shaking money out of their pockets to invest in the hydroelectric project bonds? Are the few, wealthy families putting large sums into underdeveloped industries? By and large, the answer is still no. I was talking with an El Salvadoran government expert in agriculture one day. We were standing on the rich valley land which, under irrigation at the government experimental station, is producing abundant crops of vegetables and other, protein foodstuffs for a hungry people. All around were visible the huge sugar cane tracts of the large landowners. I asked him what the land was worth. He said, “About $300 a manzana \(about 2 land. It doesn’t pay, because our land is overvalued and not worth half the asking price. Traditionally the rich plow their money back into the land until it is overvalued. Sometimes they invest through the Swiss or Amreican banks, but usually it’s just buying more land. Even if a peasant can afford to buy land, it’s absurd for him to do it at the price that’s asked.” He took up a clod of the gummy, black soil. “We have to produce much more now, because we’re overpopulated. We can’t put this land in the bank.” “I have been deeply disturbed by the efforts of the proponents of House Bill 30 to turn the farmers of Kansas against labor in Kansas.” \(Here the Governor pointed to the usual demagogic argument that had been made in the Senate, that a guaranteed annual wage would mean we must guarantee profits for the groceryman, and you guessed it lead to a “socialistic “This is not a sound argument. It has nothing to do with either the right to work or not to join a union. Those who would put one group of people against another to make it otherwise are doing their country a great disservice.” Contrast this moral courage with what passes for leadership in Texas! Gov. Hall is a Republiacn. He must be uncomfortable on the Elephant, and what the Elephant must think of him could not pass the censor. Down our way, the Democrats who were kicked in the teeth in 1952 by Republican copperheads are not too happy with our Governor. Ladies and gentlemen, I propose an exchange. The occupant of our A Lawyer’s Reply To the Editor: I have read with interest the articles printed in The Texas Observer and have found them interesting and informative. This last week’s issue did have an article in it that gave me some concern. It was the article by Paul B. Holcomb under the title “No Man Can Serve Two Masters.” I think that Mr. Holcomb’s attack was rightly made upon those lawyers in the Legislature of this state that have reaped large profits from their position and have represented conflicting interests in relation to the Veterans’ Land Scandals. However, there was one portion that bordered upon an attack upon the entire legal profession for upholding the “Code of Legal Ethics” referred to by Mr. Holcomb. Mr. Holcomb states that the “special privileges and immunities” granted to the legal profession have been greatly extended and increased by the “Code of Legal Ethics,” which he states have been worked out and adopted by the lawyers themselves, and that we terested in upholding it \(the Code tution and laws of this state and nation. The true facts are quite to the Contrary. The purpose of the Canons of Professional Ethics is not to expand and increase any privileges and immunities, but rather to limit and regulate the activities of those lawyers who do not have a sufficiently strong conscience to regulate themselves. To give an example of what I mean, Mr. Holcomb states that the lawyers violate the teachings of Jesus that no man can serve two masters, and in this connection I would call his attention to the following portion of Canon 6 of the Canons o f Professional I Ethics adopted by the American Bar Association: “It is unprofessional to represent conflicting interests, except by express consent of all concerned given after a full disclosure of the facts. Within the meaning of this canon, a lawyer represents conflicting interests when, in behalf of one client, it is his duty to contend for that which ‘duty to another client requires ,him to oppose. mansion cannot be comfortable within the party of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman. Fred Hall can’t be too happy in the party of McKinley, Harding and Hoover. Let’s give Kansas Shivers for Hall. I know, it may be hard to trade even. Hall is courageous and plainspoken, but our Governor is prettier. Hall -is younger, but I daresay he never filled a Hollywood contract like our boy. One mustn’t have a conscience in political trade-outs. But if we do hear a small still voice protesting this treatment of the Jayhawkers, we could throw in something to boot. How about kicking in a couple of oil millionaires, Facts Forum, and the Texas Foundation to make the Kansas Republiacns happier with the trade? In the end the principals would be better satisfied. Hall’s spirit must be that of old Tom Paine, who, we know, said that where slavery existed, there was his home. Our Governor could cornfortably gaze over the Kansas prairies, hopefully awaiting the second coming of Coolidge. FRANKLIN JONES “The obligations to represent the client with undivided fidelity and not to divulge his secrets or confidences forbids also the subsequent acceptance of retainers or employment from others in matters adversely affecting any interest of the client with respect to which confidence has been reposed.” The truth of the matter is that lawyers do understand the Sermon on the Mount, and in fact have incorporated it into the very Canons of Ethics that Mr. Holcomb attacks. As to advocacy of other than judicial causes, Canon 26 provides: “A lawyer openly, and in his true character may render professional services before legislative or other bodies, regarding proposed legislation and in advocacy of claims before departments of government, upon the same principles of ethics which justify his appearance before the Courts; but it is unprofessional for a lawyer so engaged to conceal his attorneyship, or to employ secret personal solicitations, or to use means other than those addressed to the reason and understanding, to influence action.” From the above you can see that it is no defect nor leniency in the “Code of Ethics” which allows a lawyer to make profits from Veterans’ Land Deals, when at the same time he is representing the people and their interests in the legislative body. Such actions on the part of the participants are a violation of both the Sermon on the Mount and the Canons of Ethics of their chosen profession. The Canons of Ethics are no license to do as you please, but are the expression of the Organized Bar of what the highest type of advocacy and professional conduct should be. JAMES BARLOW San Antonio On News About Labor To the Editor: Most of us are aware of the pitfalls set for organized labor. Communism in some isolated, unenlightened unions has caused grief for the other patriotic, worthwhile