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H-bomb, Nixon, Farm Prices Argued The H-Bomb Adlai Stevenson’s proposal that hydrogen bomb tests be suspended provided the Russians follow suit and the ensuing pandemonium has involved Texas politicians just as it involved spokesmen for both parties all around the country. Speaker Sam Rayburn, Senator Lyndon Johnson, and various Texas Congressmen backed up Stevenson. Governor Allan Shivers, Mrs. Oveta Culp Hobby, and others hopped the Democratic candidate. Rayburn said President Eisenhower should be concerned with “how to save the world from atomic death” more than with diplomatic niceties of rebuke to Premier Nicolai Bulganin of Russia for his support of the idea. posals should be phony or insincere,” Rayburn said, “let us smoke them out and prove conclusively to the rest of the world that they never meant business. … If, on occasion, the Russians should be sincere, let us by all means make the most of it.” Shivers said the only dispute between Stevenson and Bulganin is “over which one of them thought of it first.” He added: “I think the Bulganin Stevenson plan. is idiotic. What do Johnson and Rayburn think? … do they agree with good old Adlai and Nicolai?” Senator Johnson accused the GOP of playing politics with the issue. He said Eisenhower and Stevenson agree in principle. Johnson recalled that he had supported Eisenhower when Eisenhower told him of his hopes for peace after the Geneva conference and that he had backed Eisenhower’s proposal to exchange defense blueprints of aerial photographs with the Russians. Mrs. Hobby, former member of the Eisenhower cabinet and publisher of the Houston Post, called the Stevenson plan “naive and irresponsible nonsense” and added: “This plan has ‘met with warm endorsement in Moscow and well it might.” Rep. Wright Patman said Stevenson is right “about insisting on County. Anything less than a loss by ten thousand would be a vic tory. Things are a little better northside, but not very much; on the south side there is a little more shift. It’s too quiet on the and that worries me. We don’t have a surge of enthusiasm for our candidates like we did be fore ….” She said Negro leaders there are staying with the ticket. Mrs. Voigt was asked why she thinks the Stevenson campaign seems to have slowed. “I think we had it a month ago,” she said. “But the people who know how to do the job haven’t been asked to do it. The liberals haven’t got any place in this setup, and the Negroes and Latins aren’t going to work with Price Daniel and Lyndon Johnson. The other crowd looks at them and thinks, well, we’ll carry those people …. We’re loyal Democrats and we’re working our hearts out, but I’m terribly discouraged. “If we bring Stevenson in here I think we will win,” Mrs. Voigt said. “As it is Lyndon is running the thing for Lyndon.” Byron Skelton, contacted a t Temple, said he thinks “we’re going to carry the state by a good our country taking initiative to secure an agreement with other nations to stop tests of hydrogen bombs.” Rep. Homer Thornberry said Stevenson has made “a sincere proposal.” Rep. 0: Clark Fisher backed Eisenhower, favoring continued nuclear tests. Rep. W. R. Poage deplored Eisenhower’s “refusal to even try to work out some kind of control of atomic weapons.” Rep. 0 1 i n Teague said if it’s true, as some scientists say, that we will know within minutes when another nation tests an H-bomb, he agrees with Stevenson. Kennedy’s. Tour poor Reform Party Claims ‘Snub’ LAREDO South Texans from 2 0 counties, minus the Reform Party Democrats , from Laredo, who said they were snubbed, gathered in Laredo last week to hear Sen. Lyndon Johnson jibe Allan Shivers on the tidelands, listen to Price Daniel say he won’t forget South Texans because they didn’t forget him, and applaud the Boston accent of Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kennedy. Judge Ezequiel D. Salinas, who was a delegate to the national convention, and who Daniel said was the one who asked the party to Visit Laredo, presented a check for $5,000 to Sen. Kennedy for the Democratic National Committee. Reform Party Democrats were absent f r o m the Democratic luncheon. safe margin.” The Democratic national committeeman said there was “some trouble in Dallas” and several other spots but that in Contral Texas “Republicans are few and far between” and that the state will go Democratic. JOHN V. WHEAT, an Eisenhower leader in Houston, says the H-Bomb issue is changing votes to Eisenhower. “The issue his made them see that … Ike’s a much bigger man,” he said. “The campaign here is really on the move now with lots of newcomers helping out.” Earl Hollandsworth, head of the Longview campaign for Eisenhower, said it looks “awful good.” Charles Gibson, Democratic leader at Amarillo, said that it will be a toss-up in Amarillo, but the plains counties will go for Stevenson. Frank O’Brien, GOP leader in Amarillo, foresees a GOP win there. Craven Beard, Smith County Democratic chairman, says Stevenson is losing ground steadily. Dick Danner, chairman of the Stevenson campaign in Fort Worth, sees a standoff there; G. W. Parker, chairman of the Eisenh o w e r campaign in Tarrant County, says: “Suddenly everything got off the ground …. The enthusiasm is hitting at just about the right time.” He said the South should be allowed to handle its own segregation problems. At San Angelo Long said the “… You really took these checks and other information from the office because you knew they might have established the criminality’ of your own acts in writing these fraudulent checks, didn’t you?” Foreman demanded. Heras at first gave evasive answers. Foreman persisted: “You know you did it because those books and checks would have helped to prosecute you, wouldn’t they?” “Yes,” Heras admitted, in a low voice … “I took those records out probably for that purpose.” Parr, who had tensed forward to hear the answer, leaned back to relax. But not for long. Soon. Heras was restating that he had written at least “100 fictitious checks a year” for a period of four years at Parr’s order. He said he would write the checks, some of which were countersigned by Parr, and then usually take them to Texas State Bank teller B. F. ‘Donald, Jr., who would cash them without proper endorsement. Inquired Foreman: “You didn’t get any of this money yourself … You never got a dirty dime, did you?” Heras answered, “No, sir,” and added that he took it to “Mr. Parr.” It was brought out that Heras had been granted immunity by the. -:state in return for agreeing to testify against Parr, Donald, and others allegedly involved in the theft and embezzlement of Benavides school funds. TWO OTHER major witnesses for the state were W. F. Reed, principal of Freer High School, and Joe Vaello, ‘ current president of the Benavides school board. Vaello, who explained that his contracting firm was low bidder and received a contract for construction of a new high school cafeteria prior to his appointment to the school board, brought to light after alleged embezzlements government’s interest rate policies have cut small business profits by 41 percent. “The rate at which small businesses go bankrupt has doubled,” he sala. Long also said he understands Atty. Gen. Herbert Brownell would like to file a tidelands suit against Texas as he has against Louisiana, seeking to restrict its Gulf of Mexico boundary to. three miles offshore instead of the ten miles claimed by the state. On the tidelands issue, incidentally, Shivers asked Johnson whether the Democrats might be planning to reopen the tidelands case. Johnson. asked Shivers whether Brownell might be considering the suit against Texas Long mentioned. Kennedy and Adlai Stevenson as well have taken the position Congress has acted and the tidelands matter is closed. Farm ‘Individualism’ GOP Asst. Secretary of Agriculture Ervin L. Peterson said in Houston that farmers must recapture their individualism and put more emphasis on realistic marketing practices instead of hunting for some system of complete security. “The concept that places a price tag on security. rather than on opportunity does not enhance the enduring values so clearly understood by the dedicated men who gave us the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution,” Peterson said. in connection with fictitious checks. He testified that he paid the electricians, plumbers, painters, and other subcontractors for the cafeteria work. But the state introduced checks on the school district purporting to be payment for the subcontracting work on the cafeteria. Vaello also testified concerning bills for which school district checks were issued. One was for steel window sashes in the high school science room, but Vaello said the room has wooden sashes. Another was for a sound absorbing ceiling for the kindergarten, but the school district doesn’t have any kindergarten. The checking game, according to high school principal Reed, also extended to the payroll. He told the jury he had a teacher named Reyes P. Jarratt whose paycheck was $247.40 monthly. In addition to the legitimate Jarratt check, another one for another $247.40 was made out to a G. P. Jarratt, a man who had never been known at Freer. In a similar manner, teacher Ida B. Kennard had received a $219.60 check, but Reed had never met the I. B. Kennard who got another check for the same amount. As principal, it was Reed’s job to receive the bills for operation of the high school and submit them to the school board for payment approval. He told the jury he had checked school district records and found checks had been issued for many bills that he had never received or recommended for payment. Some of the bills for construction work never done ran as high as $1,889. THE 15 OTHER witnesses for the state helped weave a stout case around the alleged conspirators, but it was clearly the statements and exhibits of Heras that had the most impact. It was brought out that virtually all of the school district records and Peterson said rigid farm price supports are not the answer to farm income. Byron Skelton, Democratic national committeeman from Texas, said Allan Shivers is “the number one turncoat in the Democratic Party.” He expressed surprise Shivers expects Democrats to follow him. U. S. Rep. Albert Thomas of Houston said Secretary of the Treasury George Humphrey alone killed an attempt of the Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp. application for tax amortization. on a steel plant in the Houston area. “He killed this plan for purely selfish reasons, in my humble judgment,” Thomas said. “No one ever heard of Humphrey criticizing tax amortization for the steel industry when his companies were receivamortization.” W. Bedford Sharp, board chairman of Mission Manufacturing Co., said Thomas’s remarks were “blasphemous” and that Humphrey’s holdings in the companies Thomas referred to “had long since been sold.” Eisenhower canceled a scheduled speech at Love Field at midweek; but Harold Stassen was and Harold Stassen was also scheduled to tour North and Central Texas. For the Democrats, Senators Gore and Anderson, as well as many Texas Congressmen, were to close out the campaign, and another visit from Estes Kefauver was reported possible. blow to the state’s case. But the checks and other data admittedly stolen from the school district office by Heras pinned down the prosecution presentation. Parr, sitting tensely as a spectator in the pea-green courtroom of the aging, brownstone Comal County courthouse 150 miles removed from his own turbulent political empire, must have bitterly reflected upon the possibility that a man who had obviously been a ‘lesser cog in his machine might be the key to stopping the operation permanently. Parr, now his county’s Democratic Party nominee for sheriff, was not on trial here. Although he and his cousin, Givens Parr, were indicted with B. F. Donald as co-conspirators in the school fund thefts, a legal severance pushed Donald up as first batter. He went down hardly swinging, and on the same indictment in the same case in which the South Texas political czar must ultimately face a jury. In Donald’s case, the panel deliberated only two hours before finding the former Parr bank teller guilty and recommending his sentence at the five-year maximum. District Judge John R. Fuchs freed Donald under $2,500 bond after the bank teller’s attorneys gave notice of appeal. Parr was not present for the final day of testimony. But among those who were on hand was U. S. District Attorney Malcolm Wilkey of Houston, who is scheduled to prosecute Parr and eight others under a mail” fraud indictment in federal court at Houston Nov. 9. Parr also faces trial under 14 other, state indictments alleging perjufy, misappropriating public funds, receiving misappropriated funds, making a false affidavit, making false entries in bank records, and destroying bank records. Adlai Tide Hits Turbulence John Kennedy, the senator from Massachusetts, was introduced to a San Antonio crowd at Club Sevenoaks as “one of the rising stars of the Democratic Party” by Johnson. Kennedy demanded to know who would lead the Republican Party in Eisenhower’s absence. “Where are the ‘Young Turks’ who were to sweep to power … and reform the party?” he asked. “Who is to lead? Certainly not old brainwashed Harold Sen. Russell B. Long \(D.Corpus Christi for its handling of the Suez Canal situation, “broken 1952 campaign promises,” and continued importation of Near East oil Stassen. No, they are all gone save the vice president. When Mr. Eisenhower talks about the party of the future, he talks about the party of Richard Nixon.” Kennedy said that despite “Republican resistance” the Congress extended social security benefits passed a highway bill unequaled by. any previous public works program, increased the minimum wage of $1, and tightened up antitrust laws. He said corporation profits have increased 61 percent while small business profits have dropped 52 percent.