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The one great rule of composition is to speak the truth. Thoreau We will serve too group or party but will hew hard to the truth as we find it and the right as we see it. hstrurr An Independent Liberal Weekly Newspaper TEXAS, NOVEMBER 16, 1955 ,Vol., 47 Gaives.’in GALVESTON Front Our Correspondent Anew political group, originated by operators of illegal night clubs and styled the 20th Century Club, has been organized here to combat attempts to make Galveston a “closed” town. Boasting a membership of more than 1,000 “small business men” and various labor leaders, the club announced its purpose as the “political, liberals, and progressive advancement of Galveston.” Although .disclaiming opposition to the Galveston County Betterment Assn. organized by the Galveston Ministerial Assn., the club’s secretary-treasurer William J. Hoover;made it clear the group does not favor a “closed” . town. “We’re not against the ministers or anyone in office now,” said Hoover, “but we intend to support what we consider liberal candidates to the benefit of everyone in Galveston.” Now representative of many aspects of the city, the club first was formed a month ago by night club operators to combat anti-vice groups and as an answer to the short-lived “shot-down” inspired by the Chamber of Commerce in late September. Hoover does not deny the club’s origin but insists the “handful of club owners” are now a small part of the cit!h. At least three of them are on the club’s 15-man steering committee. ADDRESSING the last meeting of the group, its fourth meeting but first public session, were U. S. Rep: Clark W. Thompson and State Rep.. Jean Holey. Warily, Rep. Thompson told the group he was “not too familiar” with their aims but added he thought labor groups and small business men are “just the people to make things better for the whole community.” . More enthusiastic, Hosey took a LONGVIEW Agents fromthe United States Post Office Department made inquiries last week at the scene of recent shootings in the Negro community of Mayflower, and the g -r -been fired into said he was going to Tyler to ask the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the federal district .attorney to intervene. The postal agents entered the case because one of the bullets fired the night of Oct..22 in Mayflower penetrated a Negro’s mailbox. Other bullets fired from a passing car that night killed a 16-year-old Negro boy and wounded two yoUnger Negro girls ; penetrated a Negro school bus for the second time in six months; burst into a Negro home, narrowly missing a Negro vvornan; and broke five windows in the Negro school at M ay flower. Atty. Gen. John Ben Shepperd, who says that as far as he can determine the killing was not an act of racial terrorism or reprisal, said last week he understood the F.B.I. had investi-: gated. No one in the Longview-Henderson-Mayflower area could confirm this Saturday, R. A. Shaw, white superintendent of the Tatum-Mayflower Independent School District, who has said the shootings were “a scare campaign and slap at Mayor George Roy Clough by decrying “bad publicity” as unnecessary and detrimental and urging the club to elect officials “who can get along with each other.” This brought immediate response from Clough, who declared: “The very man who spoke to them office trying to prevail upon me to let his clients put slot machines in all the bars in town. “What kind of a state representative is it who wants to make felons of the people of Galveston,” the mayor asked. “He talks about bad publicity, and he’s creating it and wallowing in it himself.” Nosey, who defeated crusader Bill Kugle for the Legislature last year, has previously said he did not speak to the mayor on behalf of the slot machine owners. Hoover indicated the club is not opposing Clough politically, declaring AUSTIN In 1950, 4’7000 persons paid their poll tax in the three main counties of the Rio Grande Valley. Of this total, 20,000, about 43 percent, were Lat in-Americans. Population and vot ing list studies indicate that the Vall’ey Latins who could become qualified voters outnumber the Anglos three to one and that 56,000 Latins did not pay their poll taxes in 1950. This is the background for the concentrated poll tax .drive now in progress among Valley Latins, and it is the basic reason for the concentrated reaction against that drive. coercion” designed to scare the Negroes “out of their citizenship,” said he didn’t know if local law enforcement agencies were doing a good job of investigation, but “theyhaven’t come up with anything yet.” “I imagine we’re gonna see jus’ what else can be done about it,” he said. The Gregg County grand jury last week called Shaw, Negro principal J. C. Beckworth, and H. C. Thompson, delver of the Negro school bus, for testimony on the shootings. In Dallas, U. SiMpson Tate of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People said his organization had not investigated because no one in the area had asked them to, a requirement of their participation, he said. He added that they all probably were too “intimidated” to call on the organization. The Texas Social and Legislative Conference, in convention in Houston, called on Governor Shivers to use all law enforcement officers and the Rangers to remedy conditions that led to “atrocities …. against, the colored residents of Rusk County, Texas.” GREGG COUNTY Sherif f Noble Crawford, it developed last week, called in Texas Ranger Dick Oldham two days after the shooting. Colonel Homer Garrison, director of \(Continued on they will support “any candidate who is for a liberal city.” “If two candidates are far a liberal city,” Hoover said, ‘we won’t back either of them. But if only one favors a liberal city, we’ll support him.” Hoover, who acts as spokesman for club president Elmer Wilson, insurance agent, said that in addition to its political activities the club will promote Galveston’s port, “operating like what we think a Chamber of Commerce should be like.” MEANWHILE, Rev. George Scotchmer, Galveston Ministerial Assn. president, said the group “apparently is not interested in Galveston’s welfare” and declared the club “Won’t dampen our enthusiasm for law enforcement, if that’s their purpose.” Admitting the Galveston County Betterment Assn., patterned after the Valley Press Is Alarmed; Latins Have 3-to-1 Population Majority Texas organized labor is helping finance the campaign of the GI Forum an organization of Latin-American veteransto sell poll taxes to the Latins before the Jan. 31 deadline. Representatives of the CIO State Council, the State Federation of Labor, and the Railroad Brotherhoods of Texas have met with Robert San-chez,, district chairman of the GI Forum, to plan the campaign. Sanchez sent out a letter of invitation Ivhich stated that “a wide scale poll tax drive dedicated exclusively to the people of Mexican extraction has now got underway.” Edinburg’s Daily Review printed excerpts from the letter. The Valley Evening Monitor of McAllen reported in a news story that the meeting “had .the earmarks of a political sounding board in the Valley for labor unions or an initial effort to unionize this area.” This story was headlined : “Move Begun to Unionize Valley ?” The poll tax meeting was closed to the press. The Valley Chamber of Commerce has claimed that a bus’ strike by 38 drivers of the Valley Transit Company is “the opening wedge in a movement to bring a systematic unionization of the Valley economy.” The drivers have sued the . chamber for $570,000 for an alleged statement by one of its officers, Jack Drake, that the bus strike is opening wedge in a drive to “Port Arthurize” the Valley. The Valley Morning Star editorialized Nov. 1 that labor is trying to forge the Latin-Americans “into a political tool for the furtherance of unionism in the Valley” and that this is “class warfare.” Sanchez denied that the poll tax drive had anything to do with the bus strike. He said that labor and Latin groups, which have formed a Rio Grande Valley Democratic Club, are pushing poll taxes “because no one else has done the job” and only 46,000 of the Valley’s 185,000 potential voters qualified themselves to vote. He invited the Chambers of Com 10c per copy No. 30 group which cleaned up Phenix City, Ala., “hasn’t ,made too much progress,” Rev. Scotchmer said the group is “within sight of completing organization.” The ministers have been responsible for a few raids on clubs, bawdy houses, and gambling spots since the end of the three-week crack-down set off by the Chamber resolution against “flagrant law violations.” Hiring their own investigators, the ministers have reported a few violations to Dist. Atty. Marsene Johnson, Jr., spurring him into action. Even so, the Isle has about resumed its “wide open” status. The Chamber, attacked by business men as well as club owners, has tried to slip out of the picture as gracefully as possible. resulting in a naive play by club Owners. Receiving an unofficial message from the Chamber that it “does not want clubs advertised in Galveston,” club owners complied by altering their neon signs to eliminate the word “club.” Apparently satisfied, neither the Chamber nor anyone else has insisted they eliminate gambling, prostitution or liquor by the drink and they haven’t. merce, the Farm Bureau, and other groups to join the. drive. There was to be a -.Veterans’ Day parade Nov. 11, but the Third Battalion. 112th Armored Calvary Regiment, National ‘Guard, announced it wouldn’t march with the Forum, “a political faction, and not a veterans’ service organization,” said one of the Guard’s officers. The American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars withdrew with similar charges. The Marine Corps League said it would march Nov. 10 and invited anybody else to join except groups not “entirely nonpolitical.” The Marines marched alone Thursday, and Friday a sparse crowd attended a memorial day observance at the Veterans’ Monument in McAllen. About a dozen members of the Forum and two or three Legionnaires and Marine Corps League, members attended. Ed Idar, Jr., executive secretary of the GI Fortitn, said in Austin: “Isn’t one of the things we fought for the right to come home and put on a poll tax drive in association with anybody we want to? By God, if that wasn’t one of the things we fought for, what did we have a war for?” He said Latin-Americans have a right to pay their poll taxes like anybody else and that the resentment developed because the driveVas “threatening.; the life of a lot of vested interests.” He called the National Guard’s officer’s statement “an unwarranted libel” on an organization that has \(\(proved its patriotism.” None of the turncoats in Korea were of Mexican descent, he said. “I can only say that we have come to a sad day in Texas Democracy when an organization of Veterans cannot join in efforts to promoteof all thingsthe ..sale of poll taxes.” Idar said that Sanchez will leave his law practice three months to work on the drive and will be paid a moderate salary and expenses ; that he will have a stenographer ; and that county chairmen in each of the three key Valley CountiesCameron, Hidalgo, and Willacywill be allowed $5 a day expenses. The participating unions are helping with these costs. Clean-Up Gone Awry New Political Club Forms to Oppose Closed Town; The Chamber of Commerce Is in Flight REESE INVESTIGATION WIDENS VOTING DRIVE FOR LATINS CRITICISED