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The one great rule of composition is to speak the truth. Thoreau Trxas Obstrurr We ws72 serve no group or party but will hew hard to the truth as we find it and the right as we see it. An Independent Liberal Weekly Newspaper Vol. 48 TEXAS, JUNE 27, 1956 10c per copy No. 10 Just Like in a Book Bomb Victim Has No Suspects Rudder Involved In Vet Land Deal BRADY , J. Earl Rudder of Brady, whom Governor Shivers appointed to replace Land Commissioner Bascom Giles, himself sought to buy 240 acres of land east of here through four Latin-American veterans in a block veterans’ land deal in 1953, the Observer learned here last week. The deal did-not go throughRuth der wanted a higher appraisal than the state would approveso the state returned to Rudder’s lawyer the four earnest money ,checks of $375 each which Rudder had_paid in the names of the four veterans. The cut above BRADY Sam McCollum III, the blond young lawyer Who has bada key role in the land scandal trials, lay in bed in his narrow hospital room in Brady. His right leg, broken in two places,. is frozen in a plastic trough. His left leg is bandaged over where the skin was blown away, his thighs are bandaged, a score of small wounds in his chest and shoulders are healing. It had been two weeks . since he turned on the ignition of his car outside his Brady home and was smashed in, by a dozen exploding sticks Of dynamite: . A reporter wondered if he wouldn’t have to be mighty careful from here on out. He smiled a little, reached. to the left beside his bed, and lifted a loaded .38 into view. “Well, I’m ready,” he said. L. V. Ruffin, .a _close friend and regular client. of McCollum’s, is feeling a .little uneasy these days himself. “I’m not scared of any son of a bitch. I can see. It’s those I can’t see I’m scared of,” he says. Ruffin is under 19 indictments growing out of the land scandals: McCollum has been cryptic with reporters since his injury, but he was feeling pretty good the night theObserver man dropped in on him. He will be in the hospital another year. He can’t move his right leg ; he can bend his left knee, but it hurts; he can make no more than a quarter turn from his hips: He Can’t shake hands with his :right hand, and when his left one was gripped, his shoulder tightened a littlethe only sign of pain he let escape. , In spite of all this, Sam McCollum :is cheerful. Ranger Captain Gully Cowsert came out of his room one day late last week , and said : “His spirit is high. You couldn’t kill a man like that with a pole ! Some people call it intestinal fortitude, but I call it plain guts.” As for whoever placed the dynamite, Sam McCollum will say only: “The time will come, sure enough.” DOES he think the bombing might be in any way related to the veterans’ land program ? he was asked. “Well, I been wonderin’ like everybody else,” he said, “but I don’t know of anyone who would want to put a bomb in.my’car. I guess we never will know until they find out who did it.” There were More than 100 get-well cards in a rack beside his bed, and he had received half again as many letters and phone callS. Had -he heard from, the governor or other state officials ? He smiled and said: “No, I haven’t heard from any of those boys up there.” ‘ Shortly after the bombing, gubernatorial candidate Ralph Yarborough suggested that the state offer a $50, 7 000 reward for the culprit: An aide to Governor Shivers said that ‘this might be a little high ; the governor’s’ emergency funds total only $45,000, it was explained. “Well,” McCollum observed about this, “I guess it all depends . on the position you see it from.” Does McCollum have any idea about who made . -the murderous plant ? “I don’t have .any idea in the world. I don’t have any more idea than I did two weeks ago.” Is he satisfied with the way the investigation is gOing? “I have absolute confidence in Captain Cowsert. If I could have had a…choice of ‘anyone in the state, I would have picked him.” Cowsert has moved in on the case from his base of operations at Junction, D AILY the doctors are digging more metal out of Sam Meal:. lure’s body. Over on the dresser in his room this night was a little jar, tightly capped, containing two tiny, jagged pieces of blackened steel. “They’ll never get it all out,” he ‘said. Ruffin, who often goes up to the room before McCollum goes to sleep for the night and rubs him down, stood at the foot of the bed and said to him: “I bet when you come outa here you’ll weigh more’n I do.” said McCollum,.”all I lost is what they. bleW away, and time you allow for all the metal in me, I ‘magine I will weigh more. Only they’ll have to use the scales they use for scrap metal instead of ‘for a human being.” . If McCollum hasn’t lost weight, his pretty, cheerful wife, Lanell, twelve potinds in the few weeks since’ the bombing. But she -has no cornplat -Itsonly a kind of incredulity. “Sam and I were just talking about it tonight,” she said. “We still can’t really believe, it happened. Of course it’s a lotmffre real .to us than it is to other peoplebut, you, know, it’s the kind of thing you read about in books, and just never could happen.” A STATE EMPLOYEE’S TEMPTATIONS \(Fifth in a AUSTIN The case of Sol Glickman has never been told, even thongh it is an extremely instructive instance of some of the temptations of profit and politics that may beset an employee of the Texas; Railroad Cornmission. Glickman was hired by CommisSioner Olin Culberson in January, 1941. In June, 1953, he was indicted on five counts of selling securities without a licensehe was getting commissions from an oil company on oil leasesand was fined $1,500 in Wichita Falls. Glickman had been hired at a time when the three commissioners divided up the available jobs among them and appointed the job-holders from among their friends. Largely at the instigation of Commissioner Bill Murray, this system has been. challenged in recent years. Complaints about Glickman were received in Austin from Wichita Falls oilmen. One was from R. Clay Underwood, an o i 1 producer, who charged that .Glickman’s principal function was political. He said that since the oil industry paid the cost of the commission’s oil regulation, it was “entitled to the best service obtainable.” State investigators started nosing around. They found. that , Glickman was . doing a lot of traveling by air and that some oil, companies were paying for it. They also found. letters between Glickman and Culberson establishing Glickman’s political f unction * On February 1, 1946, when Culberson faced his race for a second term, he had written Glickman asking him to talk to the state president of the Jaycees in Wichita Falls and to contact a a bill of goods on our second term.” Said Culberson : “I have heard of no opposition yet, and for the sake of you folks who are working for me, I hope that I have none.” Four days later, Glickman wrote Culberson: “Olin, I do not think we have very much to worry about, bec/use I really believe you will go with no opposition….I have had Howard scouting around. Assuring you that I have my ears to the ground at_ all times, and will let you know of any opposition I hear. …” Glickman wrote to Culberson in April, 1946: “NoW for the situation in Wichita Falls, I’ve done exactly wh4t you advised me to do concerning the matter pertaining to your campaigni f there is anything you want me to do…. please write me, for we are going to give this baby the kind of a trimming that he will remember for a long time.” TWO YEARS e a r l i e r, March 24, 1944, Culbersdh had written asking Glickman to support Dunk Perkins for an honor in Disabled Anierican Veterans. His letter read: “Anytime Dunk Perkins needs anything I want you to lay everything else down and give your last ounce of efiergy and blood to see that ole Dunk gets it… Jake whatever time is necessary, because we have lots of people on this Commission who don’t do anything except draw their salaries, and I know you deliver the goods and are justified in taking time for your and my friends.” Apparently concerned that he had, riot made his point emphatically enough, Culberson wrote Glickman again on March 24, 1944: “Supplementing my letter to you about ole Dunk,.I want to tell you again to take every minute that may be necessary to do anything that would help Dunk realize his ambition., not only in the Disabled Veterans, but anything else he might try or want.” Aparently “ole Dunk” got the job, because on June 19, 1944, Culberson wrote Glickman: “I want you to do any and everything that will make Dunk’s administration the most successful that has ever been made. My suggestion for your thought is that you should actively camjaign through your service. officers for membership in the D. A. V.” THE QUESTION natuPally arises, how much time did Glickman have for his work for the state? Once he remarked : “No particular work has ever been assigned to mejusta free agent and doing a great deal of public relations work.”, The supervisor for the commission at -Wichita Falls had been directed to let Glickman have “free reign”; could do as he pleased. The supervisor said that Glickman rarely visited oilfields to check allowables. The “public relations work” apparently came to include certain private matters, too. Glickman had banked over $160,000 in his personal bank accounts between Jan. 2, 1951, and May 27, 1953, while working at a monthly salary of less than $400 a month. In. June, 1953, Culberson testified before the Wichita County grand jury. There was no doubt that the Reno 011 Co. had paid Glickman commissions on oil leases. Five indictments were returned against Glickman for violations of the Securities Act. He. was then given an opportunity to resign. He pleaded guilty to five violations, paid a $1,500 fine. Later, Culberson wrote the State Board of Pardons and Paroles asking a full pardon for Glickman. Said his November, 19.53, letter: “I have never known of Glickman’s having done anything irregular or connected with turpitude, and inasmuch as he has paid the penalty … I can see no reason for any further discrimination against him by reason of withholding a full pardon.” The request was not granted. Questioned in Austin about Glickman, Culberson said he doesn’t know where he is now. He said that the commission has had “five or six cases” of employees taking commissions on leases’ from oilmen. “It’s, a natural ‘temptation, you see a leasing opportunity, tell an oilman about it, and he wants to give you a commission. But of course we have had to let them go,” Culberson said. R.D. \(To be continue*,