ustxtxb_obs_1955_07_27_50_00001-00000_000.pdf

We will serve n. group or party but will hew hard to the truth as we find it and the right as we see it. The one great rule of composition is to speak the truth. Thoreau 0’111, avveas Otinrrurr An Independent Liberal Weekly Newspaper VOL. 47 JULY 27, 1955, AUSTIN, TEXAS 10c per Copy NO. 15 Price Daniel in Washington Morrow roses Committee Post Happier in His Work Now, He Loses Zest for Governor’s Race \(This is a report on Price Daniel in Washington. A separate story on some of the senator’s activities in the Senate is WASHINGTON, D.C. Quiet, low-keyed P r i c e! Daniel, whom many here think of as the Senator from the Tidelands, says he will decide whether to run for governor of Texas after January first. He will resign the Senate if he runs instead of trying to hold the one job while running for the other. -He wants people to understand he is a Democrat in spite of his 1952 bolt for Eisenhower. He talks nostalgically now about the days before the war when he was an active Democrat and a campaign worker for Franklin Roosevelt. A short man, friendly and unpretentious, Daniel is enjoying his work in Washington a lot more than he did at first. He is excited about atomic energy for peaceful uses. He is conducting a well-publicized investigation into the narcotics trade, and his status among AUSTIN An alternative source of new money for the State, certain to be pleasing to major Texas industries but not so pleasing to the Texas public school and university systems, w a s suggested last week by State Auditor C. H. Cavness. The suggestion being put forward is to take the money the schools and universities get now for their permanent investment funds and spend it on their current operating costs, instead. This would reduce demand for general revenue for the schools, therefore also reduceing the demand. which has become insistent lately, for new tax sources. “Like eating our seed corn instead of planting it for future yield,” said University of Texas President Logan Wilson. Such a plan would be shifting the burden of University finances to future generations in order to meet present needs, even though this is a time of general prosperity, he said. “Every taxpayer would benefit and I cannot see how the public schools or the University and A&M could be hurt,” said Cavness. Cavness outlined his suggestion in a letter to Governor Allan Shivers and members of the Legislature. He said the plan was the “result of much study and thought and discussion with various persons concerned with our State’s finances,” and “not exactly ‘original’ with me.” When a n Observer reporter vsked him about it, he said “Read it twice before you comment.” `Entirely My Idea’ “One thing I want to say,” he commented. “Doing this was entirely my idea. I was asked, who put me up to this? and the suggestion was that some big taxpayers might have. That’s not the case.” ‘-avness wouldn’t say who had the inestion. When the his fellow senators is improving. One senses in him now a certain drawing back from his first enthusiasm when he announced that there could be “some circumstances” under which he would try for the governorship next summer. “There are some circumstances under which I would consider it,” he said in his Washington office last week, “but whether those circumstances will ever happen, whether it will ever pan out, I don’t know. I’ll decide sometimes after January 1. I mean, I want to leave the door ajar so I can consider it then.” Changing His Mind? Last November Daniel said that he would “a lot rather be in Texas, I’d rather send my children to school in Texas. I never realized there was so much difference in schools until we got to Washington.” But now he is not so sure about it. “I don’t know that I’d rather be governor than senator,” he said. “I used to, before coming hereI always had in mind that I would rather be governor, because I like Texas and wanted to stay home. The only thing that made me want to come here was the Court’s re sources would be sympathetic to” the plan would be fair comment, he said it would and added: “Remember that general citizens, teachers, university employees they’re all taxpayers. This plan ought to at least delay the need for new taxation. He said he had talked to a good many people about the plan”staff members here in the office, members of the Legislature, and otherwise.” Last session, he said, two or three legislators told him it would be “a good idea if it could be done.” “If the general public could understand the whole thing, they would be for it,” he said. Since the plan would require a constitutional amendment, the people could not vote on it before 1958. `Not Fighting Anybody’ `I am not fighting anybody, I’m not against the universitycertainly I’m for them,” Cavness told the Observer. “I’m anxious that nobody think I am arguing against the University that’s just not true.” University President Wilson had SOCIAL HYGIENE REPORT By BOB BRAY Galveston Correspondent The Texas Observer GALVESTON There are eleven Texas statutes dealing directly or indirectly with prostitution. In Galveston, according to the American Social Hygiene Association, all eleven are being violated, plus a couple more that aren’t even in the books. The AHSA, a federally subsidized organization which combats “commercial” prostitution nationally, found that isle bawdy houses are easier to find than avoid, generally speaking. Checking here the July 4th weekend, investigators for the anti-redlight group noted 18 brothels and I R bar ” —-rhere . n buff and the two vetoes from Tru”But now, I am getting tremendously interested in the overall picture of trying to work toward a permanent peace, in the international situation. Before that, I’d rather have stayed home. Now that I’m here I can’t say I have any fixed feeling about it.” PRICE DANIEL said at an Austin Rotarians meeting that the Cavness plan would interfere with the University’s plan to invest more of its permanent funds in corporate stocks to increase the return on them. \(The return now is about 2.7 percent from ture passed a constitutional amendment for public decision on this issue. Wilson said the plan was based on the assumption permanent funds would increasewhich they wouldn’t, except for a few million dollars a year, under the Cavness plan. “I am in favor of the corporate stock investment plan,” Cavness said, “and I don’t see why this plan would make it difficult. There would be less money on which to earn five percent interest, but more money would be coming available to be used, too. I think it would be a bigger help to the. University than the way it is.” The way things are now, the Constitution sets aside public lands for the public school system and the University of Texas. Oil and gas have been discovered on much tion six hotels -1where promiscuous women took customers. The reportlike the guy who watched his mother-in-law drive his new car over the cliffwas eyed by islanders with “mixed emotions.” Members of the Galveston Ministerial Association were perturbed; Mayor George Roy Clough said, “I told you so,” and the general populace was hardly concerned. Clough Not Surprised A few weeks ago the Ministerial Association gave District Attorney Marsene Johnson, Jr., a list of some 15 bawdy houses, and he reportedly had his investigator close them all. Some pastors had believed that bawdy house operations “iad been cut 80. percent. The report wove Texas politics in 1956 will be a holocaust of corruption charges, demands for reform, and recriminations about the 1952 bolters. Since Daniel feels he would have to resign his Senate seat to run, he would be risking oblivion at his own option in preference to two more years in the Senate, the satisfaction he is getting from his Washington work, and possibly a quieter campaign for governor in 1958. He wouldn’t feel right holding his Senate seat and running for governor at the same time. Asked if he would resign, he replied: “I haven’t gotten far enough in my consideration of that to say. But I certainly wouldn’t ever want to be in a position of appointing my successor.” If he resigned before running for governor, Governor Shivers would appoint his successor until an election could be held. But if Daniel held on to his Senate seat and won the governorship, he would have to appoint his own successor. Thus, by implication, he makes it clear he would resign. May Support Adlai He hopes the Democrats will not nominate Adlai Stevenson again, but he adds that with Lyndon of this land, and the royalties, lease bonuses, and lease rentals are now deposited intact to the Permanent Fund of the Public Schools and the Permanent Fund of the University of Texas. Only the income on the investments of these permanent funds is available for current expenditures. This income goes into the Available Funds of the school and university systems. One-third of the University Available Fund goes to Texas A&M, the balance to the University of Texas. In fiscal 1954, the Permanent School Fund increased $53,739,000, and the University Permanent Fund increased $25,384,000a total increase of $79,123,000. $71-Million Difference Had the Cavness plan been in effect in fiscal 1954, 91 percent of this money $71,881,000 would have been spent for current costs of the public schools and the University system. The rest would have entered the permanent funds. The University Available Fund would have received $22,563,000 \(Continued on Page Mayor Clough, who has publicly favored re-opening of the infamous Post Office Street district \(“when you have hogs you put port hardly surprised him. He pointed out the girls were scattered all over town and if he had his way he’d confine them to a district. But he didn’t. The problem of law enforcement was up to Police Commissioner Walter L. Johnston and Sheriff Frank L. Biaggne, and they weren’t having any, not so far as bawdy houses were concerned. Both carefully avoided any comment on the matter. The ministers of the Protestant churches in Galveston were so concerned with the situation that they “o'” -4Conservatives Declare ‘Vacancy’ Despite Pleas AUSTIN Wright Morrow, an old conservative campaigner w h o has weathered many a battle with the liberal element of the Democratic Party, lost his fight to retain his job as national committeeman from Texas this week. The assassins, in this instance however, weren’t the vengeancebent “radicals” who have so long sought Morrow’s scalp. They were the conservatives from Morrow’s own countrythe members of the State Democratic Executive Committeewho turned in a nice, neat execution. They would’ve preferred it some other way, of course, but Morrow gave them no choice. He refused to resign from the national committee post, insisted on a hearing, and demanded a showdown. It came in Austin’s Commodore Perry Hotel ballroom Monday, and it was a day-long session. Morrow worked hard, came up with about 10 members of the committee who would back him. Governor Allan Shivers, who had asked Morrow to resign, had to place his own personal popularity on the line as an issue. He attended the meeting, rendered a rebuttal to Morrow’s charges, and won out easily with roughly 42 votes. There never was a roll call Chairman George Sandlin wouldn’t permit itdespite demands from Morrow supporters that “we draw it on the line.” Hard Choice During the morning session, Morrow seemed bitter and lonely. Once, he yelled across the room, “Hey Pete, I want to talk to you.” It was Pete Coffield of Rockdale, a member of the committee and close personal friend of both Shivers and Morrow. Coffield didn’t look -V happy about the ‘decisionhavi to choose between one of the tl; He lined up with Shivers, thoug It was after lunch before t resolutions committee finished its work. It reported out a resolution declaring that a “vacancy exists in the position of Democratic National Committeeman for the State of Texas.” No one seemed to know just how the vacancy came to exist. Morrow certainly hadn’t quit. Some figured the committee had sirnpl accepted Morro w’s resignation which he had submitted in 1952 during the Eisenhower campaign. That year the committee refused to accept it, and Morrow has insisted that once it had refused, the matter was done with. Morrow, looking grim and his voice breaking at times, took the floor and outlined his quarrel with the Governor. He revealed the various meetings since March 2 in which, he said, Shivers had asked him to resign so that “we can replace you with someone acceptable to Mr. Rayburn.” He claimed that the committee, in its action, was actually condoning the actions of former National Chairman Stephen Mitchell, who had refused to accept Morrow as committeeman. Special Reports AUSTIN The Texas Observer is now preparing special reports or the State Board of Control an the Texas Railroad Commi sion. In addition, a project 1 been inaugurated for a ser of reports on slums in the jor cities of Texas. These s will begin in the immr future. CAVNESS EYES SCHOOLS’ FUNDS Isle’s Wiles Are Reviled