ustxtxb_obs_1956_03_21_50_00006-00000_000.pdf

Neglect for Youth in Trouble TIPRO Seeks Oil Price Hike ers. Here again lack of trained personel handicaps ef fectiveness. Ili “adequate.,” the organization means a juvenile police bureau, a probation department, a detention home, and trained ‘correction workers who study the youth before sending him to one place or another. For example, the police pick up Johnny on his first offense and send him to their juvenile authorities, who investigate and either send him home or to the probation department. The probation office case worker investigates further, then either sends . him home with supervision, or sends sends him to the detention home. While he is at the detention home a trained worker decides whether he should be sent homewith periodic supervision as necessaryor sent to the juvenile court where a judge, with a .dossier of material to go !on, either sends Johnny home \(under superviSchool. Npwhere in Texas, the NPPA says, is this ideal situation in practice. Some few cities have the equipment, but not the trained workers. Personnel problems will plague Texas for years to come. Two schools in the stateOur Lady of the Lake in San Antonio and the University of Texasoffer graduate social service courses in their psychology departments, and even these do not specialize in detention. At its meeting at Gatesville, the committee felt several counties could get together with a common probatiOn office, detention home and juvenile court and ease the burden on smaller counties. Though of utmost importance, such facilities would be impractical for -some smaller and rural counties, which produce few offenders. A regional plan, operated either by the counties or by the state, would especially benefit these counties. THE SAME LACK of adequate pre-Galesville facilities holds true throughout Texis for post-Gatesville facilities. PSythologists call this phase the “after care”, HOUSTON About 150 Negroes picketed the Governor Sunday. They were objecting to his selection as speaker at inauguration ceremonies for Texas Southern University’s new president, Dr. S. M. Nabrit. Shivers did not refer to the silent pickets in his address, but he did call for tolerance of others’ It began last week when Francis Williams, president of the Houston N.A.A.C.P. chapter, announced that a boycott of the speech was being considered. “We feel he is not acceptable to the majority of Negroes as the inaugural speaker,” Williams, an attorney, said: Members of the Negro barbers’ local voted to shun the ceremonies at once. Then the presidents of three Negro civic clubsthe Golden Rule and Third and Fourth Ward clubs opposed the boycott. One of them, Rufus -Bolden of the fourth ward, said, “Governor Shivers … is Fad of all state institutions, and I think it was an honor for him to accept the invitation to speak.” But only a few of the 150 persons attending the NAACP meeting on the issue opposed to boycott. The resolution overwhelmingly adopted said “We recognize that Gov. Shivers has a right to say anything that he desires to say, and we do not challenge his right to speak ; .. but we do believe that we have a right to boycott his speech, refrain from attending, and to influence other people not to . . .listen to a man who has publicly declared that he will do everything in his power to abridge the rights of the Negro citizens and their children in this state.” Sunday Shivers was driven through the picket lines unnoticed. As he left the institution and crossed the jaket lines to walk to the student union building across the street for the inaugural reception, several picketers broke ranks and rushed toward him, KARNES CITY A county judge here has taken Matters into. his own hands and telephoned Ezra Taft Benson about the drouth in South and West Texas. County Judge W. S. Pickett, who is president of the South Texas EmergencyAssistance Assn., called the Secretary of Agriculture and told him how bad things were. He said drouth conditions are be . coming gradmlly worse over a very large area. “Secretary Benson ‘told me he would send R. B. McLeaish, director of the Farmers Home Administration, and Kenneth L. Scott, director of ag:. ricultural credit services of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, to make a first-hand study of our situation,” Pickett said. The two men are expected sometime this month, and a three-day meeting in or near San Antonio is being arranged so they can hear from farmers, ranchers, businessmen, bankers, and others. probation departments which do not exist? Nearly 61 per cent of youth released under supervision last year:returned to the same circumstances family and communityfrom which they were admitted. W HAT THEN is the real effect of this lack of careboth preGatesville and post-Gatesville care? It means that the treatment Dr. Sapier can give his charges at Gatesas he put it, “only custodial.” “About all we can hope to do is keep the boys here long enough to let them grow up a little,” Dr. Sapier said. “As far as correctional work is concerned, it’s mighty little we can do for a boy.” \(Actually Dr. Sapier is too modest. Whereas before he became head of the school three and a half years ago, Gatesville had no facilities to teach a boy a trade, Dr. Sapier has set up He says the crux .of his problem is numbers. There are 600 boys at the school ; 250 should be maximum. Gatesville is the third largest state foul up the program.” Dr. Sapier feels the state should have a separate reform school for the hardened offenders “who come in and foul up the program”. Some boys, he says, are beyond correction. The average age of boys .in Gatesville is 15 1/2 years. Chances are he has been delinquent since he was nine or ten. “What can you expect to do with a boy like that in eight months ?” Dr. Sapier asks. Reduction of numbers would result from better pre-Gatesville service. Now, Sapier says, many boys are in Gatesville simply because there is no place else to send them. A boy is a truantpossibly because of a medical problem, bad eyesight or hearingand he winds up in Gatesville. With better probational services, Dr. Sapier would not only get the boys soon enough to do them some goodand thus save the state the expense of two or three or ten tours in Gatesvillebut he would get only the true delinquents. Texas needs in the field of detention and probation are -obvious. How to fulfill them is the problem. JULES Lox holding their signs up as they did so, then following him . across the street. In his speech Shivers said: f we demand tolerance from others as a mark of _Our freedom, we should not be intolerant of their views.” The pickets bore such slogans as “We Want Integration, not Shivers,” “Separate ‘but Equal is Dead,” and “Shivers Against Humanity.” They . may also inspect farms and ranches. County judges and commissioners from 20 or 25 coitnties met in San Antonio Wednesday of this week to plan for the Washington officials’ visit. Pickett said five-day notice is expected, “and this will give us time to invite representatives from some 45 South and West Texas counties which are now in the throes of the worst drouth in history.” In many counties in South Texas, Pickett said, “all livestock is being sold and the -farms all but abandoned. Those who can do so are finding employment in other lines, many at any kind of odd jobs they can obtain.” . Surplus commodities are now being issued to 8,246 people in Karnes County alone, Pickett said. They include butter, lard, dried milk, pinto beans, rice, and cornmeal. About half of the recipients are people who normally would be growing their own foodstuffs at home, and the others are mostly transient farm workers whose homes are in the county. 20 Percent Increase Approved by Committee AUSTIN Texas independent oil producers are starting a campaign to raise the price of crude oil from $2.77 to about $3.30 a barrelan increase of 20 percent. A. P. King, Jr., president of the Texas Independent Producers and was authorized by the group’s executive committee to appeal to purchasing -companies for a 20 percent increase “to offset increased costs.” The last general increase was in 1953. T.I.P.R.O. holds its annual meeting in Dallas April 15-17. Even as T.I.P.R.O. was expressing disappointment that President Eisenhower has not taken any action to curb crude oil imports which are produced at lower cost than the Texas output, the buyers of Texas crude to whom King will direct his appeal for higher prices were asking the Texas Railroad Commission to decrease-“allowable” production in Texas for April. Friday the Commission concurred, reducing the daily allowable 64,159 barrels to 3,356,857 barrels daily with 16 days .of operation for most fields. The purchasers’ nominations for April, as reported by the Commission, were for 2.955,612 barrels a day. The commission Friday heard from varions oil executives on the need for reduced production. W. W. Keeler of Bartlesville, Okla., vice-president of Phillips Petroleum Co., said U.S. crude oil stocks, mainly from Texas, are increasing “at an alarming rate.” These stocks ‘totaled 255,933,000 on March 10. In all,’ 20 companies replied to a commission request for advice on 1956 petroleum prospects, and most of them agreed that present gasoline stocks of 196,000,000 barrels are excessive. Generally they testified that crude and other stocks are now satisfactory but that oil production during the second quarter of 1956 should be cautious. They saw no need to increase the recommended level of crude stored above ground, although U. S. demand has increased steadily. P. W. Pitzer, Jr., of Breckenridge, who is president of West ,exas Central Texas Oil & Gas Assn.; said that many wells in his area are ‘restricted” to 65 to 70 percent of their allowables for lack of a market outlet. That is, they cannot sell what they are legally permitted to produce. Pitzer asked buyers to take “distress” crude from the area, stating that “pipeline proration,” that is, production regulation by the pipelines, could be abolished if buyers would take about 500,000 barrels out of the, area in the next 90 days. Humble, Magnolia, and Texas Company ,each agreed to buy 50,000 barrels more oil in the area during the next three months, but no other companies made such offers, so presumably the pipeline proration will probably continue. Incidentally, a $100 million lawsuit has been filed by plaintiffs alleging they hold title to one-third of a league of land in the heart of the Conroe ail fields. They are alleging that Humble, Skelly, Tidewater, Sun, Texas, and Mon-Sho oil firms entered their land and took out oil, gas, and other minerals without 15ermission. The land claim of the 1,200 plaintiffs is based on a patent to William. Strickland allegedly ‘granting Strickland the land from the Republic of Texas on Dec. 20, 1841. THE TEXAS OBSERVER MARC1:4 21, 1956 PAGE 6 Right now “after care” is shamefully inadequatea fact made clear by this statistic: 84 percent of the children who are readmitted to the state schools because of broken paroles are received back within a year of their release. -Harold Matthews, director of the state’s institutions, says the first six months after a youth is discharged from a state school is the critical period. Under proper supervision, says Matthews, the child can be corrected. Without supervision “he most likely will be back in the training school in short order.” The Texas Legislature in 1949 enacted a law which created -the Youth Development Council. It placed on the Council two broad responsibilities one relating to the administration of the three state training schools and children committed to the state ; the other relating to work with courts, social agencies, and civic organizations in the counties on prevention of .delinquency and improvement of methods and facilities for handling children who get in trouble. The Legislature gave the YDC a healthy budget, a staff of nine field workers, and a competent office force. The next year, the Legislature -cut the budget, and the field work came to a stop. Now virtually the only work the YDC does is administer the schools place the children in them and . try to keep track of them when they are discharged. Diagnosis, community service, research and area-office workwhich the lawprovides for YDCare nil. The YDC staff now consist of Director of Institutions Matthews; juvenile consultant James A. Turman, an ex-stenographer, who does. the job of researcher and statistician, a building supervisor, a payroll clerk, and four clerical workers. It is Turman’s job to keep track of the care given offenders after they are released from Gatesville, -GainesNelast report, they held 1,132 youths. How effective can one man be in this job his “help” coming from The Governor is Picketed by Negroes AN ANGRY COUNTY JUDGE