ustxtxb_obs_1956_10_10_50_00001-00000_000.pdf

MRS. MARTHA WOOD, 88, YOAKUM The Girls Look Over Her Expert Crochet Work Barratry May Exclude Test Suits . . ….. W e will 3erve no group or party but will hew hard to the truth as we find it and the right as we see it. 1Y # OC .0 -.4\\ Liberal Weekly Newspaper Vol. 45 TEXAS, OCTOBER 10, 1956 The one great rule of composition is to speak the truth. Thoreau brrurr 10c per copy No. 25 WHEN? “I’ve never thought of that,” he said. “I have no idea of that. Since the Garner Act \(under which Daniel sought to election will be called after the acceptance, I think it is contemplated that both the acceptance and the call would be facilitated.” It is Daniel’s position that the election should be called about Dec. 15 in time to allow his successor to take office for the opening of Congress Jan. 3. But his resignation was so worded that Shivers can choose to regard it as effective either upon the election of Daniel’s successor or Jan. 15. Daniel told the executive committee he has kept his two campaign pledges: one, that he would resign “at a time when the people would have the freest possible choice of my successor,” and two, “that I would time my resignation so that there would be no appointment of my successor, by myself or anyone else.” \(For a report on the revelations about NAACP’s Texas activities AUSTIN Barratry has a long history at law. The origins of the word go back to a parent word, said to be found in the Sanskrit, “bharat,” meaning war. The concept is found in Roman law and was enforced in England. Now it has come to be pertinent to the life or death of the NAACP in Texas. What is it, and what does it mean? A layman journalist’s inquiry took him to the University of Texas law school and an informal round table with faculty members there. In the Attorney General’s Tyler suit against the NAACP, it is maintained that attorneys for the A Texas Palace HOUSTON Even this “land of the big rich” is in a tizzy at reports on construction plans for a halfmillion-dollar, 28-room mansion to be built on the banks of Buffalo Bayou by socialites Mr. and Mrs. Harmon Whittington. Besides the air conditioned chateau, to be of French provincial design, there will be a separate $80,000 building for servants’ quarters, a six-car garage, and private room with bath for the family poodles. Whittington, whose parties are legendary in Houston social circles, is the president of the world’s largest cotton firm, Anderson, Clayton & Co., Inc. group solicited Negro parents and students to file law suits seeking the students’ admission to formerly all-white schools. This is alleged to be barratry. Barratry is the crime or offense of frequently stirring up suits and quarrels between individuals, either at law or otherwise. In. Texas it is a misdemeanor punishable by $500 fine or three months’ imprisonment. Heretofore, it is safe to say, it has not been applied to the solicitation of plaintiffs for cases to test constitutional issues. Mainly it has been aimed at “ambulance-chasers” in the legal profession who solicit injured people to file claims for damages. Even under this construction, there has been, as one law prof says, “almost no effort” to enforce it under the criminal law. The Texas law seems to contemplate that barratrous behavior must be motivated by a desire for personal profit, but this is not clear. It is clear that this is so of the general law of barratry. “Maintenance” is an ancient offense at law of the upholding of a suit by a stranger, often by financial assistance. This used to be held to be wrong in general, but modern authorities have tended to introduce the idea that it is not wrong “unless something is done which tends to obstruct the course of justice” or cause unnecessary litigation or is badly motivated. “Champerty” Is maintenance with an agreement to divide the proceeds of a law suit. If champerty is habitual, it is barratry. In American Jurisprudence, Vol Some Oldsters Have A Pleasanter Outlook HOUSTON, SAN ANTONIO and CLIFTON “We’ve had a lotta fun not to be no older than we are,” Mrs. Martha Wood laughed. The 88-year-old woman, a longtime resident of Yoakum, was discussing her life in a private rest home in Houston, the place she has lived the past eleven years. When she moved to the nursing home her hands were so crippled with arthritis that she could hardly hold a coffee cup. Today, after special treatments. and. medication, Bob Bray she does crochet work as intricate as any expert seamstress. She lives in a clean but not fancy home where the food is excellent and the care is kind, even devoted. Life is still interesting and meaningful. Her situation is in direct contrast to that of Paul E. Wander and the many other unfortunate senior citizens of Texas who reside on the niaximum oat age assistance of $58 a month. He sleeps in a tiny, smelly trailer house and mourns for the clean, country life he once enjoyed. Mrs. Wood lives in a home operated by Mrs. R. H. Leath, who sees that her guests have the opportunity to attend religious services a n d entertainment programs. The home is not full and others might go there, but Mrs. Leath says she “can’t afford” to take people who only have the old age pension to live on. “I just can’t keep them for $58 because I lose money every day they are here,” she explained. “No one who takes proper care of them can feed, clothe and care for them at that rate,” she added. All of those residing in her home are folks who have income in addition to their pension. They pay from $135 to $220 a month. The maximum old age grant was increased from $55 to $58 this month. ELDERLY NEGRO FOLKS living. in San Antonio might be admitted to the Harriet Tubman Home for the Needy Aged, a charitable institution at 1824 Nebraska. Mrs. Mozelle O’Connor, the home supervisor and nurse, said the home takes pensioners but is in desperate financial circumstance. A sign at the front says: “I was a stranger and ye took me in.” She produced a check made out to the Borden Company for $8.22 for milk and another $16.30 made out to the night nurse. “I can’t give them these checks because we don’t have any money to cover them,” she said. Mrs. O’Connor produced a bill for groceries which s h e had “bought out of my own money. The directors, eight ladies who are interested in these poor old people, will pay me back when they can,” she explained. Then spot \(See page eight for full report on Democratic executive AUSTIN The special Senate election will be sometime after the November sixth general election; that much, because of the stat_ utory requirement that candidates have 30 days to file, seems certain. But will it come off in November, December, January or as late as April? For all the juggling around of primary plans last week, Governor Allan Shivers still has the answer in his head up in Alaska this week. Conceivably, as the Observer pointed out last week, Shivers might “accept” Senator Price Daniel’s resignation effective January 15, call an election as late as April 15, and then either himself appoint an interim successor or in effect force Daniel to do so. After last week’s state executive committee meeting, Daniel was asked about this possibility. \(Fourth LAREDO Albert Martin is a gentle man in his way of life but a steely boss of patronage in his politics. He values his civic standing even as he is deeply involved in his political, heritage. “I’m in this because I can’t get out,” he says. “Personally it wouldn’t matter to me …. You grow up here in a family ….” Martin is the new jefe of Laredo. Nobody outs and says it; “the Martins and the Kazens” are boss, they say. But Albert Martin is the smooth one of the Martins, and the Martins run things now. The reformers of Laredo think the respectability of the new leaders is cramping their political facility. Attorney Francis Maher, who started his reforming back when Manuel Raymond ran Laredo with a strong and ruthless hand, says: “These guys aren’t like Manuel. He’d tell you to go to hell instead ALBERT MARTIN True, A Few Tricks of dreaming up some fancy deal. They don’t have his guts. They’re trying to be respectable. He didn’t care what they thought of him.” Maher was not talking specifically about Albert Martin, but about the new leaders of the Independent Club of whom Albert Martin, Independent Club president and city father emeritus, is the spokesman and guide. Ask Albert Martin how Laredo politics works, and he will tell you. Whether the others do or not, he doesn’t bother dreaming up some fancy deal. “We’re not ashamed of anything,” he told the Observer’ one afternoon in his carefully-appointed, old fashioned home. “True! We’ve got some tricks in the political game that other people do/al have, and they want to know how we do it. That’s what irks them and angers them .,… “Well, you consider, you have friends. Well, they want a little advantage or a favor, and they say to themselves, well, who’s likely to give it to the, him or this fellow?” You see? That’s all there is to it. But does that mean you hire and fire city employees in return for political support? “If I had a friend or somebody working for me, naturally I’ll expect him to be loyal to me. There won’t be any pressure, but you can by talking, by insinuuation. It’s not, if he doesn’t do that he’s gonna be fired. Who knows? It’s just as easy for me to hire somebody loyal to me as not.” Virgilio Roel, a leader of the reformers, maintains that civil service would ‘end favoritism in Laredo and Webb County politics. What does Martin think of this? “Civil service is just another organization that will come through there they’ll have to support,” Martin says. A Brighter Prospect ume 10, ‘pages 552-553, it is stated:1 she led the way through her “A general exception to the rule lessly clean old house. The New Jefe The Laredo Situation