ustxtxb_obs_1955_04_18_50_00005-00000_000.pdf

‘In the Texas Senate, Almost Everybody Reads The Texas Observer’ 1 The other day in the Texas Senate, during one of the world-record filibusters, a senator approached the press table, laughing hard. He said to the reporter there from The Texas Observer : “Look up there, man, you oughta have a camera.” On the lieutenant governor’s platform, two senators and a reading clerk were clustered around the lieutenant governor, who gripped in his hands the latest issue of The Texas Observer. They were all reading it of course. Lacking a camera, we had our genius with the charcoal, Don Bartlett, recreate a likely scene on the Senate floor. Any morning of our day of publication, you can walk up and down the aisles of the Texas Senate and the Texas House and find that the pressing business of the State is suspended while those alert fellows peruse our little journal. For the interest of out’ lawmakers in our humble product, we are grateful. But to tell you the truth, as we always try to dowe need subscriptions, and plenty of them. If you have some friends whose fund of information about their state is low, why not send them a three-month trial subscription for $1 ? And for yourself of closer friends, a year’s subscription to The Texas Observer makes a fine birthday gift. Thanks. Our Address : Drawer F, Capitol Station, Austin ONE-YEAR SUBSCRIPTION Name Street Address GIFT SUBSCRIPTION Name City & State City & State The Texas Observer, one year $4.00 \(We will be glad to send sample issues of The Texas Observer to friends of our readers at no charge. Send us the name and address and, if you wish, the issue or issues you prefer to have Street Address The Texas Observer, three months __$1 to notify the recipient that you are the sender. Attach an extra sheet for other gift subscriptions. THE TEXAS OBSERVER Page 5 April 18, 1955 the Justice Depart Texas from getting what the President Shireman Wants Influence Facts DeWitt County’s grand jury recommended that Texas adopt a law like the federal one prohibiting a Congressman from representation of a client before a government agency on a government program and making a violation punishable by a fine up to $10,000 and a jail sentence. “DeWitt County’s grand jury wanted to prohibit this sort of thing,” Shireman said, “but I feel that when all’s said and done, at least no member of the Legislature is here more than 120 days, and he shouldn’t be precluded from practicing before a state agency if he wants to just because he holds a public office. Asked if he thinks such practices are widespread among legislators. Shireman said: “No, sir, I do not. I think we’ve got some folks who are doin’ it, but less are doin’ it than are not, I’ll say that. Now when people come to me and ask me to represent ’em, I tell ’em, ‘I don’t think I can exercise any influence with anybody in the sense of them doing something wrong,’ but I do say that if I send my card in, I’ll damn sure get to see the top man, or if Senator Shireman calls, the boss will get on the line, and he’ll pull the file out usually. A speedy hearing was set on the bill for the State Affairs Committee Monday. “If any of the members think they can vote against this thing,” Shireman said, “why, that’s allright.” Shireman’s bill would apply to all state officials. “I started out with just legislators,” Shireman told The Texas Observer, “but then I thought, well, why should I say that just legislators are bad?” Any legislator receiving compensation or any valuable consideration, or agreeing to such an arrangement, for rendering services before “any executive agency of the state government” would have to file a written statement with the Secretary of State within ten days. The statement would give the name of the client, the name of the person giving the services, “the nature of the compensation,” the transaction in question, and any additional information the Secretary of State might require. The information would be open to public inspection “at all times.” Anyone failing to file the statement would be guilty of a felony and liable to a fine of not less than $2,000 and not more than $5,000, or imprisonment for not less than two and not more than five years, or by both such fine and imprisonment. pegged at a royalty of one-sixth, a minimum bonus of $15 an acre, and rental of $3 an acre. The old prices were one-eighth, $5, and $2 respectively. Oilman H. L. Hunt got 25 per cent of the lands offered at the first tidelands sale, Dec. 1, 1953, paying an average of about $6 an acre. An even older lease price policy one that dates back to the Jester Administration w hen Governor Beauford Jester, Bascom Giles, and then Attorney General Price Daniel were sitting in on the boardcalled for high royalties to the state when bidding was on tracts near oil-producing lands. This policy has since been abandoned. The May 3 lease sale will involve not only tidelands, but uplands, bay areas, and river beds.’ IRVING Open attempts to link ousted Irving School Superintendent John L. Beard and his backers with “forces foreign to our country” evidently failed to sway voter sentiment in this little suburban city last week. By about the same slender majority with which pro-Beard enthusiasts abolished their school district and turned out their school board members on March 26, trustees supported by the Beard faction gained control here Saturday. Supporters of Beard, who was fired as superintendent of the 27square-mile Irving Independent School District in February, won a 4 to 3 majority on the re-created school district board of trustees. The district was re-created by a 3,299 to 123 vote. Earlier in the week some oppon ents of Beard and the Irving Citizens Committee supporting him unleashed an attack on the National Education Association’s “progressive education” policies; linked them with “the Marxist, the liberal, the socialist and the Communist” then attempted to link Beard with the NEA. A crowd of 400 gathered in the Irving High Auditorium to hear the speakers. One speaker, Don Wayne of Dallas, who identified himself as a lecturer in the speech department at Purdue University, told of his experiences with professors in three separate universitiesincluding SMUwho had “socialist and collectivist” views. Wayne said there is a movement under way in education which is part of a plan instigated “by forces foreign to our country.” He said the plan is a concept of change. U.S. Will Contest Tidelands Sales AUSTIN The Federal Government apparently had some reservations about it when Congress gave Texas back its longsought and much-publicized tidelands. Attorney General John Ben Shepperd has discovered that ment “is still determined to try to keep more than three miles offshore, despite said.” Texas officials at the time were under the impression the congressional decision pegged the state’s tidelands at the “historic” boundary the ten-and-a-half-mile limit. Now it develops that some federal officials think it should be three miles. Shepperd called for help last week while he was in Washington, and Land Commissioner Earl Rudder responded. He was going to Washington anyway, his office announced, to work out some joint offshore leasing plans between Texas and the Federal Government. Shepperd sent for Rudder after learning that the Justice Department plans to oppose a sale of offshore leases by Texas scheduled May 3. It is to be the second big sale since Congress restored the tidelands to state ownership. It was also expected to be the first sale in which the state’s “new” lease prices were to be put into effect. The new prices are more in line with what the Federal Government charges. Previous leasings in Texas had been at considerably lower prices. The Land Office says the higher state yield schedule resulted from the realization that “land in Texas is worth more nowadays.” Both the Interior Department, which administers federal oil and gas leasing beyond the ten-and-ahalf-mile offshore Texas boundary line, and the Department of Justice will oppose the lease sale, Shepperd told newsmen in Washington. Such action by the Federal Government became a brief issue in last summer’s gubernatorial campaign. When it was rumored the Federal Government would oppose the Texas claim of ten and a half miles, critics of Governor Allan Shivers announced that it appeared Shivers didn’t get much out of the tidelands fight in 1952 after all. But Senator Price Daniel quelled the row when he said he had heard of no such federal plans to trim seven and a half miles off the Texas claim. Shepperd said last week he went to Interior Secretary McKay to propose a plan for joint state and federal operation of leases on submerged t r a c t s extending both within and without the ten-and-ahalf-mile boundary line. “I got nowhere,” he said, “and I was told that the Federal Government would oppose the sale.” The reason never was specified. Shepperd indicated that he now believes that Attorney General Herbert Brownell’s Justice Department would join in the fight for federal control. President Eisenhower pledged to plug for state control of tidelands during the 1952 presidential campaign. Governor Allan Shivers supported Eisenhower on grounds that he could not get the pledge from Adlai Stevenson, the Democratic nominee. “The Justice Department is still determined to try to keep Texas from getting more than three miles offshore, despite what the President said . ..” Shepperd commented. Reliable geologists have estimated that the great wealth in offshore oil lands lies beyond the three-mile limit, maybe even beyond the ten-and-a-half-mile boundary. The first tidelands lease sale brought the school fund $32 million in bonus payments. More exploration has been done on the Texas coast since then, and bidding was expected to be active in the scheduled May 3 sale of leases. There are some 600 tracts up for sealed bidding in May. About 75 to 100 representatives of various companies were expecteddespite the new lease prices which have been Pro-Beard Faction Gains Control In New Irving School District Row “Change is the byword of the liberal, the Marxist, the socialist and the Communist,” he said. He said the NEA is crusading for a “progressive education policy” and that Dr. Beard had been urging teachers at Irving schools to join NEA. New trustees from the pro-Beard group elected Saturday are Russell Horn, 1,659 votes; John Andrews, 1,652; Jack Williams, 1,638, and Walter Hansen, 1,630. Trustees from the other faction are Dr. Joe Roberts, 1,696; W. T. Gandy, 1,628, and Lynn Brown, 1,624. Roberts led all candidates. Horn and Andrews had been appointed interim trustees after the district was abolished. Another interim trustee, an anti-Beard member named Clifford Moore, ran eighth in the race for the sevenman board.