ustxtxb_obs_1956_02_08_50_00001-00000_000.pdf

\\ The one great rule of composition is to speak the truth. Thoreau Oly Orxas Obstrurr An Independent Liberal Weekly Newspaper 416 We unit 3e1 uo no group or party but will hew hard to the truth as we find it and the right as we see it. A Student-Regent Crisis Student Paper at U.T. Runs Editorials Despite Official Disapproval . TEXAS, FEBRUARY 8, 1956 10c pei copy Commissioners Got Whisky No. 40 grounds that material on the other side of the issue had not been presented to balance.” Morris continued : “Several paragraphs by Thomas Jefferson on press freedom were also submitted under the guise of a personal column. They also failed to pass because it was felt events did not jus-‘ .tify excessive discussion of the subject.” Morris said “the trend has been toward absolute censorship of the Texan” and he felt that to consent or to fail to object to the Regents’ proorarn would injure college journalism. t i-le defended “freedom of inquiry, criticism, and noncomformity.” He was criticial of “those who say they are the University, yet fail to recog I WHITE LONGVIEW Two white men will come to trial on a-charge of Murdering a 161yearold Negro boy in :about 45 days, District Attorney -Ralph Prince told the Observer here late last week. The first-degree murder indictment was returned . by the Gregg County grand Jiffy Thursdayafter two Rangers, a local law enforcement officer, ,two Negro teen-age_ girls who were also wounded in the . fatal hail of bul–. lets, and a newspaper . reporter had -testified._ . The men are Dean Ross, 22, and Joe Simpson, 21. Ross has also admitted he was responsible for similar shootings in the same Negro area between Longview and Tatum in April and June of last year. The 16-year-old 4boy, John Reese, Was killed Oct. 22 ‘by a bullet that was one of many fired from a speeding car passing a Negro . cafe toward midnight. The two white men have also stated they then drove on toward Mayflower and shot into a Negro school bus and a Negro home where a middle-aged woman was kneeling saying her midnight -prayers. That same night in the same area the Negro school and a Negro’s mailbox were shot into. Local law enforcement officers and the Rangers staunchly deny that there was any racial issue involved, as re veston’s entering into the field of prostitution is entirely, repugnant to God’s eternal law, and an offense to thousands of citizens who stand for all that is right and decent.” Attorney Jim Simpson, narrowly, defeated for county attorney in 1954, said Clough’s statement was “shameful” and “fantastic.” “It is absolutely deplorable when a city government places itself in a position of perpetuating a shakedown in the name of organized society and orderly government,” Simpson said. Clough said he had been able to crowd about three-fourths of the brothels into an area west of Twentyfi fth street, “the old district.” He said he’ had carried on a drive against “unaffiliated women” in apartments and houses in the residential districts ; he has run several unsavory characters out of town, he said. But if he ran the prostitutes ‘out of town, too, he said, “they’d be replaced helot -11 nightfall.” Mayor Clough’s Crusade AUSTIN A crisis has developed in studentRegent relations at the University of Texas. Tuesday morning The Daily Texan, the student newspaper, revealed that the student majority on the .university’s, publications board had voted to override the uni versity’s editorial director and act ing journalism dean and approve editorials written by Willie Morris, student editor. They were published in Tuesday’s issue. –.. The . kegents Saturday adopted a resolution that the Texan should not comment on state legislative issues or candidates for public office and should not be “preoccupied” with state and natipnal, political issues. Harrell Lee, editorial director ap pointed. by the Administration, rejected editorial materials submitted to him by Morris at 9 a.m. Monday morninga new deadline set up Sat-; _urday to giveLee more time to study such materials.. “It is my opmion, the Regents don’t op inion, feel the Texan is being -edited -With the zeal which would bring favorable feeling -s toward the University,” Lee was quoted in Tuesday’s Texan. Morris said in a page one .editorial t h a t’ a University administration spokesman told .him that the .Regents had decided Saturday morning, that stricter rules should be invoked on what the Texan publishes. . He said some RegentS told students earlier that morning that the editorials were “not read,” did not ‘reflect ‘majority ,stu dent opinion, and should not deal with state affairs or national issues such as the Harris. natural gas bill, Morris said he had been elected by a two-AO-one student majority “to express his own convictions. Binding . editorials ..to majority opinions would “compel conformity and silence dissent,” he said. Morris has criticized . the Shivers Administration and has published editorials from other state newspapers. in a similar vein. The present Regents were appointed by Governor Shivers. Morris said he “tested the new editorial policy” Monday morning by submitting for publication a “guest editorial” critical of the natural gas bill from The New York Times. “It was rejected,” Morris said, “on the GALVESTON So far as Mayor Roy Clough is concerned, prostitutes are here to stay and the city might as well get in on their profits. He announced he has reached an agreement with the madams of this port town’s houses of ill fame that is producing $1,000 a month for the city treasury. “The madams have agreed to one raid a month,” he said. “The girls pay $25 each and the madams $100.” Average monthly income for , corpora tion court : $1,000. inyears the operators have had iy off to stay in business here,” Clo, o h said. If they can pay off individuals, I don’t see why they can’t pay the city. Of course this might cut into the individuals’ payoffs.” “Complete dismay and horror” was expressed at . once by Galveston’s ministers. The president of the Ministerkal Association said “the idea . of Gal+ , T nize those things upon which a university must eternally stand.” Morris is a 21-year-old English major from Yazoo City, Miss. He has won a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University next fall. The student majority supporting him on the publications board included Roland Dahlin, student body president from Dallas, and Bob Siegel, student vice-president from San Antonio. A check at the Texan office Tuesday morning indicated the student staff is lined up with Morris. \(“I stand with the editor,” Managing Editor Carl Burgen wrote in his column therefore, is the reaction of the Board of Regents to publication of student editorials over the disapproval of its representatives. ported in the. Observer last week. . Prince denied to the Observer that he had said “anything like” the statement ‘a Houston reporter said he had recorded from the district attorney that the shootings were “part racial” but that they had had to try to “smother” that impression. suggeStions of racial -difficulty involved in said murder.” The grand jury said’ it “finds that there is absolutely no indication for The grand jury, in returning the indictments, also stated it did not “condone” inquiries by “outside independent investigators” in the case. It said such investigations had made persons reluctant to talk to law enforcement officers. Prince has charged the Observer editor, Ronnie Dugger, with failing to turn over “important evidence.” This was ahull and slug Dugger and a friend picked up a few miles from the scene of Reese’s’ death three weeks after the shooting. The grand jury did not mention this issue in its report. Prince had also stated that a Houston reporter went over the killers’ bullet-spraying route posing as an insurance salesman and advised Negroes not to turn over evidence to local authorities. This reporter was not -identified and was not called to testify. , Prince said the Observer’s reports sought to create the impression that a racial issue was at stake and the liVes of Negroes were in jeopardy. The .grand jury commented: “The grand, jury does not condone the activities of outside independent investigators who. have attempted to create racial tension and fear in the community involved and which has resulted in reluctance on the part of witnesses and other citizens to furnish information to . law enforcement agencies.” Prince has also stated the Reese murder was “a case of two irresponsible boys attempting to have some fun by scaring Negroes.” Dugger released a statement before his hour-long testimony before the grand jury Thursday morning. “The essential point is that I have been called here by the voice of a governmental authority because I published the truth that authority did not want published,” Dugger said in a statement of “the issues as I see them” He denied “hampering” the investigation and said that he had “endeav ored to assist” in three waysby publishing “more facts” about the murder . General American Paid For Two Bottles of Pinch AUSTIN General American Casualty Insurance Compai my, once freewheeling, now bankrupt San Antonio firm, paid for two bottles of expensive scotch whisky for Insurance Commissioners “B. J. Saunders and G. A. Smith” in Miami in 1953, six months before the company went broke. Records obtained by the Observer indicate this whiskyHaig & Haig “Pinch Bottle”was sent to the two commissioners at their hotel rooms at Hotel Saris Souci in Miami about Dec. 1, 1953. Sails souci means “careless ;. free and easy.” A letter enclosing a bill for the whiskey is stamped : “Paid, 31560, Jan. 4, 1954, General American Casualty Co.” Last weekend, four .employees of the commission who had come under fire in the General American case were permanently severed from the commission’s employ. Haig & Haig -puts’out two kinds of scotch, Five Star and Pinch,. the latter the more expensive. The two bottles cost $16 in 1953 and now retail for $7.95 a bottle in Austin. The name of. the more expensiVte brand is “Haig & Haig.Pinch,” but it is called “Pinch Bottle” because it ,comes in a triangular bottle with the sides “pinched in.” J. Byron Saunders, now chairman of the Insurance Commission, and Garland Smith, former chairman who resigned last week, were in Miami in December, 1953, for an insurance commissioners’ convention. \(As the !Observer’ previously reported, Benjack ,Cage of Insurance Company -of Texas flew them and their wives from Miami to Havana one day “for lunch” Atty. Gen. John Ben Shepperd brought the mortal receivership action against General American on June 16, 1954. Shepperd said at that time he was “sorely disappointed over the handling by Board of Insurance Commissioners of the certificate suspension” of General American. THE HANDWRITTEN bill for the bottles of whiskey is dated 12/1/53 and readsas best it can be deciphered : twi Club Deuce Bar & Grill, 222 14th St., MBF, 12/1/53, to M M Sheldon . 2 bcittles Haig & Haig Pincl.$16.00 delivered to Safis Souci 1Hotel to Mr. G. A. Smith ” B. J. Saunders 1, On Dec. 24, 1953, Murray M. Sheldon, who had an insurance agency in Miami Beach, wrote Fred Lagerquist of Southern Underwriters Agency, Ltd., in Atlanta “Enclosed is bill for two bottles whiskey delivered to Texas Commissioners G. A. Smith and B. 5. Saunders when in Miami Beach attending the Insurance Commissioners meet- ing.” A note apparently signed by Lagerquist says : “Send to Ralph Stokes. Ralph : you can send the check to me and I will mail with thanks to agent.”‘ Stokes was a director of General American. MEN INDICTED