ustxtxb_obs_1956_02_29_50_00006-00000_000.pdf

?entail’ SOO OCRCEOVI 500 100 1100 00 PRICES RECEIVED BY FARMERS-TEXAS …… …….. 1 too –, PRICES PAID BY FARMERS1047’EO STATES 30G $5 Million a Year from Gambling Regents Told 4. 4 + 4. Texan Free Galveston Games, Saloons, and Females Are Available, But Simpson May Run GALVESTON Edgar Bergen’s Charlie McCarthy, upon eyeing a shapely young model, once commented that he was “torn between vice and versa.” That is pretty much the situation of Galveston County voters again this election year. There is a growing sentiment for reform among mainland residents, and former FBI agent Jim Simpson makes no bones about the fact he’s ready to run if residents with poll tax receipts convince him he wouldn’t be wasting his time. Simpson, a young attorney, shattered isle gamblers’ in their political at the last election when, as the darkest sort of darkhorse, he lost by only eight votes of 25,000 cast, while running . on a “complete cleanup” ticket. “klecting him district attorney would be hanging the crape on the causeway,” one gambler said. In addition Galveston County gamblers’ political interest is by no means confined to the local officer level. No business man in the state is more concerned with the governor’s race than theirs, for example. Galveston’s “wide open” city interests would like to see things stay just like they are in Austin. “If a Maceo syndicate stockholder were appointed to head the Rangers,” one wag pointed out, “he could scarcely figure out a policy that would ignore Galveston gambling, prostitution and other corruption more cooperatively.” Governor Shivers headed the gamblers’ “preferred voting list” which was handed out at all isle joints last election. He’d doubtless have their blessing if he ran again, which most here say they don’t expect. Allen Undaunted I FORT WORTH Laredo Times Publisher William Prescott Allen says he will “keep fighting vice and corruption” despite his incarceration here for a temporary refusal to tell a grand jury who his sources were. After dozing overnight in striped coveralls along with twelve other prisoners in a misdemeanor tank, he told the jury his sources were “anonymous.” The grand jury then heard a radio broadcaster play tape recordings he said later proved six local officers are taking payoffs. Allen charged such was the case and said these payoffs extend to Austin. The day Allen was released Fort Worth’s City Council passed an ordinance against pinball machines. ikllen told the grand jurorswho released selected excerpts of the secret proceedingsthat the “whole thing is repulsive” and that they made him “ashamed that I live in the same state.” District Attorney Fender said after the episode that he knew the charges were false from the beginning. Allen told reporters as he was being locked up: “When the gamblers take over, it’s something, isn’t it, boys?” As he left the county jail the next day, he said it was all worthwhile, “although it might should have . been handled in a milder manner by all concernedinchiding me.” Gov. Shivers came to Allen’s defense, saying he was “shocked” to hear of his detention and that newsmen have to protect their sources of information. He added, however, that politicians who make wild charges of corruption should be subpoenaed by grand juries \(see political roundup, Whoever runs and wins, isle gainbiers don’t expect to have it any better, a local bar operator explained. “Our trouble right now is \(Mayor able as a pair of straight dice and rattles a hell of a lot louder.” T o SEE what our bar operator friend means about not “having it any better,” one needs-only to make a brief tour of the isle. Despite widely broadcast “cleanups” favored by the Chamber of Commerce and the ministerial alliance, together with ultimatums and crackdowns delivered by District Attorney Marsene Johnson Jr., Police Commissioner Walter L. Johnston, anda.twone-else who could crowd in the Ave, E:7r.tveston is still the same bawdy, gaudy, gambling town. As one reporter pointed out at the height of “cleanups” a couple of years ago”Galveston gamblers never die, they just keep fading all the bets they can find.” Under the Clough regime, the bawdy house district for the most part has been moved to the slightly more discreet 26th and Market Street area. There, within a six-square-block area, Jessie Elliott, Margaret Lera, and other well-known madams operate their red or blue lighted houses. This is the result of Mayor Clough’s classic statement on prostitution segregation”when you have hogs you put ’em in a hog pen.” From the .subtly-lighted doorways come the same whispered invitations. Upstairs are many of the same faces, the same two-bit juke box, the same watered drinks, the same depravity, even .the same prices. All told, there must be .a minimum of 100 prostitutes working in or out of some 20 houses and cheap hotels. There hasn’t been any attempt to segregate Galveston gambling. Vic and Anthony Fertitta and their henchmen, successors of the. Maceo syndicate, still control most gambling through their Turf Athletic Club headquarters located over the fashionable Turf Grill. They are currently engrossed in peddling ultra-swank dinner tickets to help finance rebuildino -b of the burnedout Balinese Room, which they report is going to re-open around May 1. Forms of gambling on the isle include slot machines \(despite the recent anti-slot machine law legislators deall types of book bets, bingo, numbers, marble machines and tips. The sale of “tip books” is one of the biggest revenue raisers where the bettor can wager anywhere from a quarter up to $10. On a “good Saturday night” patrons have to wade ankle deep through the discarded tips to get to the bar. Since each ticket in the carpet cost someone a nickle, it isn’t hard to figure that somebody’s baby is well stocked with shoes. AMBLERS, bawdy house madams, corrupt officials, and the like, however, are understandably reticent about revealing the amount of their income, sometimes even to Uncle Sam. Three wheels of the syndicate are currently under indictment for short-potting on their income tax and other members are almost constantly interrupted by some T-man stopping in to count the chipS. `Galloping Sales Taxes’ PORT NEC,I1 ES Dr. Frederick Meyers, professor of economics at the University of Texas, says that Texas has “galloping sales taxes and creeping resource taxes.” He told a Sabine Area Industrial . Council seminar here that taxes collected during fiscal 1955 in Texas were $530 million, of which $279 were from sales taxes. When the state House Crime Investigating committee checked the 11/laceo Syndicate in 1951, it determined the organization had grossed $4 million the preceding year. Estimates based on federal gambling tax collections from the South Texas area indicate Galveston County’s gambling revenue has been hitting about $5 million annually , in recent years. There’s no proven method of determining the prostitution racket income, but whatever the liquor, gambling, and brothel revenues total, the powers that keep the county open know the chips are on the table. They know they first must keep “cleanup candidate” Simpson out of the district attorney’s office. Equally important, they must help elect a governor who won’t send the Rangers below the mythical “Maceo-Dickinson Line.” \(Next week: What keeps Shivers Called AUSTIN When they tried Bascom Giles in Austin, neither of his former colleauges on the Veterans’ Land Board, Allan Shivers and John :Ben Shepperd, were called to testify. It may be a different story when they try Giles’s former business partner, B. R. Sheffield of Brady. Giles, it will be recalled, was convicted of acting as an accomplice to theft by Sheffield in his only jury trial. Former Land Commissioner Giles admitted fo other accomplice acts involving Sheffield subsequently. Monday at mid-morning Gov. Shivers was handed a subpoena to appear as a defense witness in the Sheffield trial. Also to be called : Shepperd and the new Land Commissioner, Earl Rudder, and other state officials. Austin D.A. Les Procter was working on the Sheffield case this week, and nothing else. The transaction in question is known as the “Rosenow Ranch” deal. Procter has called. only 17 witnesses, substantially the same people he called in his prosecution of Giles. But Sheffield’s lawyers have called more than 100. A very long trial is therefore in prospect. COMMERCE The Board of Regents of East Texas State Teachers College has approved the abolition of the college’s Department of Economics and its “consolidation” with the ‘Department of Business Administration, the Observer has learned. James Gee, president of the college, notified Dr. J. Cullen Sowers, dean of the Department of Economics, that the nine Regents had adopted this resolution Feb. 10: “East Texas State Teachers College be authorized to discontinue the Department of Economics as an administratively separate department of instruction, and that the courses now ‘:given, together with the present teaching staff in said department, be consolidated within the Department of Business Administration, the effective date of such action to be 1 September, 1956.” Gee asked Sowers to start work on the consolidation. Vernon Hughes of the economics staff wrote the Regents; “Sometimes, to cut costs is parsimony. To do it arbitrarily, dictatOrially, is poor administration and does dot create the best of morale: But Editorial Is HeIct Out; Regents’ Reaction -Awaited AUSTIN His right to express his opinions on state and national affairs backed up by the student-faculty publications board, Editor Willie Morris of The Daily Texan was nevertheless prevented from reprinting an excerpt from an Amarillo News editorial Sunday and published instead a blank space in his editorial .column and the announcement, “This Editorial Censored.” Morris wanted to reprint the News’s comment that Gov. Shivers should not run again. He did not intend to reprint a portion of the News editorial which said Ralph Yarborough should not run, either. Harrell Lee, Texan editorial supervisor, refused to clear the reprint until the publications board met and passed on it. The board last Wednesday stated in a letter to the Regents of the univer 7 sity that as long as the Texan gives the factual basis on an issue; the editor has a right to express his opinion on it editorially. “Student interest in state and national affairs is a recognized part of the educational objective of good zenship, and it is quite natural and proper that this interest be reflected in student publications,” the board told the Regents. The Regents held in a recent statement that the Texan could not comment pro or con on public figures or legislative issues because of a rider on the appropriations bill for the university. One of the Regents said Morris should not have urged opposition to the natural gas bill. The Regent, Claude Voyles, said that was not proper when 66 percent of the state’s tax revenues come from oil and gas. Morris said he has been criticized for publishing materials critical of Gov. Shivers, Sen. Daniel, Atty. Gen. John Ben Shepperd, and urging higher state taxes on oil, gas, and sulphur. The student faculty publications board accepted several points re-asserting the editor’s right to comment editorially. They were submitted by a committee consisting of Morris, James Hall, Ranger editor, and Dr. DeWitt Reddick, acting dean of the school of journalism. Dr. Reddick said the letter sent to the Regents is for the in. terim, and that it is subject to the further deliberations of the board, on the basic rules governing the Texan. The Regents’ reaction may not be known until they meet again in April. He told the Regents the “method and reason for the action seem to me very questionable.” Regents of the college are Judge Frank Barnes, Terrell ; John C. Calhoun, Corsicana ; W. L. Kerr, Midland ; Elizabeth Koch, San Antonio; Charles P. McGaha, Wichita Falls; Hubert Mills, Houston ; Henry Sears, Hereford; Frank White, Cleveland; and T. S. Woodward, Dallas. AGRICULTURAL PRICE INDEXES um 14 -100 cxeDz3 From Monthly Business Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas THE TEXAS OBSERVER Page 6 February 29, 1956 Economics Department ‘Merged’