ustxtxb_obs_1956_11_07_50_00004-00000_000.pdf

The Week in Texas Harris County Looks At Its Loan Sharks General rains have “greened up” much of the state and have brought up small grain that was dry-planted. The Legislature will be asked for $10 million a year for buying conservation. water storage space in federally-constructed reservoirs, the Texas Water Resources Committee said. The committee is also rewriting several bills, including one for the issuance of $100 million in state bonds for water development. THE TEXAS OBSERVER Page 4 Nov. 7, 1956 0 A juvenile court judge in Abilene said drive-in restaurants there have become centers of juvenile hoodlumismfighting, throwing light switches, racing cars around the parking areas, cursing, flipping cigarettes into awnings, and unscrewing and breaking lights bulbs. Zsa Zsa Gabor said in Hous ton the man she’ll marry “Must be a scoundrel. Zey are ze most fascinating.” OAtty. Gen. John Ben. Shop perd filed a “friend of the court” brief with the U.S. Supreme Court protesting an appeals court decision establishing a natural gas pricing formula he said would be unfair to small gas producers. Southern School News re ports that 462 Negro teachers have been displaced in Oklahoma, Kentucky, West Virginia, Missouri and Texas-304 in Oklahoma alone, with the exact Texas number not reported. OA plea for federal . restric tions on crude . oil imports was made by Robert L. Wood of Midland, president of the Independent Petroletun Association of America, at the group’s 27th annual meeting in Dallas. OMouston Mayor Oscar Hol sold.,a 20-acre tract of land in South Houston for nearly $1 million. OJim Hogg County Constable Rafael Garza, Jr.,’ was indicted in. connection with the slaying of Judge Francisco Bar! rera Guerra. OPolice Chief Carl Shuptrine of Houston announced that all habitual speeders will be jailed and prosecuted under a little-used state law which authorizes penalties of up to six months in jail and $1000 in fines. OThe Mexican Government announced establishment of a 30-plane “border air force” to patrol for smugglers and “pirate fishermen,” its term for American shrimpers who operate in territorial waters claimed by Mexico. to the district attorney’s office about “interference from the union and the State Board of Barber Examiners and pressure to make us go up on our prices.” Day explained that he had been charging $1 for haircuts for sev-. eral weeks and that a window in his shop had been smashed by “someone who is trying to make me go up on my prices.” Day and two other barbers, Bryan and C. E. Parks, accused Barbers’ Local Union 781 and the state barbers’ board of “interference, threats, and pressure.” C. E. Parks, who works for Day, said he had received several threaten ing telephone calls and that two masked men tried to beat him until he ran them off with a hunting knife. He quoted them as saying if they “couldn’t get me in line they were going to beat some sense in me.” Day charged that when a barber shop fails to fall in line with prices of union shops, the union calls for state barber board inspectors to come in and find alleged “violations of the sanitation laws so our licenses can be revoked.” He charged that was what had happened in Lubbock in July when the state board had temporarily revoked the licenses OFederal District Judge Joe Ingraham of Houston issued an order impounding absentee ballots in the runoff primary in Zapata County. “We want the ballots preserved as evidence if a U. S. investigation proves fraud,” explained U. S. District Attorney Malcolm Wilkey. There h a v e been complaints that people not living in Zapata County had voted there absentee. Texans who follow the bull fights were advised that opening of Mexico’s biggest bull ring in Mexico City may be postponed until after Nov. 18 because of a dispute between the matadors’ union and the ring management. A similar dispute last year lasted so long the usual three-month season was cut to a few weeks. OThe Hidalgo County grand Jury indicted Mayor R. S. Bowe of Pharr on four counts of forgery and altering public records of the board of equalization. OThe Garrison Telephone Company of West Columbia received a $364,000 Rural Electrification Administration loan to extend rural phone service in Brazoria and convert to dial service for some 800 present subscribers. Shamrock Oil a n d Gas Company cut the price of crude being paid in Texas Panhandle, Oklahonia and ‘ KanSas fields by seven cents per barrel. Phillips Petroleum Company made a similar cut in September. ODr. Beeman Phillips, assist ant professor of psychology at the University of Texas, says gentlemen do not prefer blondes. A survey of the 510 -‘men students in his class showed that 275 preferred brunettes, 225 favored blondes, and ten abstained from voting in the presence of /their wives. Two Wharton county osteo paths, Dr. Alan J. Poage and Dr. John H. Boyd, have filed suit against the board of managers of the county owned Nightingale Hospital seeking authority to have their patients admitted to the hospital. of eleven barbers for “violation of the barbers’ sanitation code” in a justice court hearing. Day declared that the eleven barbers whose licenses were revoked previously had refused to charge prices in accordance with union requests. C. B. HARDIN, president of the Lubbock barbers’ local, said following Day’s charges that he was “confident” that no union intimidation was being exerted to force a raise in prices. He said that several Lubbock union barbers had given notice they were dropping their prices back to $1.25 and $1 and that no force had been used on them to try to force them up. “I feel confident in. saying that the union is not involved in any alleged intimidation of the other barbers and I am awe that the union barbers as individuals are not trying pressure tactics,” Hardin declared. “We are businessmen, n o t goons, and many of our barbers are fine church people. We wouldn’t do anything like that. Day and his friends are perfectly welcome to refer their case to the district attorney’s office or to anyone else. I’m sure the officials will find there’s nothing to it.” POWELL, who has been a state barbers board member for five OD. A. Biggs, Dallas Park foreman, estimated that 19,000 dead trees have been removed from Dallas parks and street parkways in the last five years, with drouth responsible for killing 95 percent of them. OA fire at the Smith office building in Corpus Christi did an estimated $250,000 damage and menaced, an entire downtown block before firemen brought it under control. The building is owned, by Mayor Farrell Smith. ONearly 250 Dana’s grocers were subpoenaed by labor lawyers Oscar Mauzy and Charles J. Morris to testify in a legal battle growing out of a strike by the Dallas General Driver s, Warehousemen and Helpers Local Local 745, AFLCIO, against Associated Wholesale Grocery, Inc’. The grocers maintained that the dispute involves the AWG warehouse operation and that picketing of three grocery stores associated with the AWG is illegal on grounds the stores are independent operations. OThe Texas Supreme Court awarded 572 acres of land in Corpano Bay to a private group. The state claimed it owned it under Spanish-Mexican law. The group laid ,claim to it under English common law. OIn El Paso, a woman attor ney told Future Homemakers of America at Ysleta High School that men often leave their wives because they can’t cook the wives, that is to say. “and they all receive good treat ment and live in clean rooms everything except the basement is above standards. I don’t approve of her putting those men down therethey wouldn’t have a chance if there was a firebut you can’t condemn all the homes because of one incident. We years, said the “union doesn’t have a thing to do with the operation of the board.” He said the Lubbock price fight is just “a matter among barbers up there … It loOks like the boys took a little rough action on their own … We know nothing about it.” Asked whether the eleven Lubbock barbers charged with sanitation code violations in July had all refused to raise prices, Powell said he didn’t know whether they had or not. If such was the case he said it would simply be a matter of coincidence so far as he knew. The barber board member said his group doesn’t plan any investigation of the case. “We’re not involved, other than accusations by someone that don’t like the way things are going. It’s not anything for anyone to get accused … That stuff just goes on, it’s some sorehead Someone is always accusing boards of something. The board just stays as clear as it can when it’s not our business,” Powell said. He said the hearing held in Lubbock in July was just like hearings being held all over the state periodically, and reiterated that “unions had nothing to do with it. We had a hearing for the president of one of the locals in West Texas,” he added. HOUSTON Texans are not adequately protected against loan sharks by state laws, the Harris County grand jury says. “We are certain that hundreds of of our citizens are being swindled out of their earnings, and in most cases the operators of the said companies appear to be operating within the confines of the Texas law,” the jury’s final report said. “The Legislature has examined the situation numerous times, but in our opinion the additional legislation which has been enacted has failed to secure the adequate protection for our citizens,” the report concluded. The jury found no criminal violations in its inquiry into loan practices and referred one case to the Texas Attorney General’s office. This was the case of Mrs. Cedelia Shaw; 20-year-old Houston woman, who said she was told to repay $1,585 on loans totaing $500. She took the case to the Houston Better Business Bureau. Ted Hansen, chief investigator of the BBB, said on a TV program here that hundreds of sharks, some of them backed by respected individuals and corporations, are milking Houstonians of millions every year. . “Texas is the last frontier for the loan shark. It is the only in. dustrial state where loan. sharks can operate without government control,” Hansen said. He pointed to credit insurance as a gimmick to increase loan charges, as developed by the Observer earlier this year. need those homes, but what we need real bad is a county home.” THIS PLEA for a county home for the aged was not. new. In the past year it had been voiced over and over again by many groups. On Tuesday, voters were to decide by referendum. whether to build such a home with county funds or wait for the Moody Foundation to carry out its promise of building a county home. Chances that the tax-supported institution would be approved were slim. County officials are in favor of letting the Foundation build the home. But since W. L. Moody, III, San Antonio, has contested his multi millionaire father’s will, litigation could conceivably delay construction of the home for years. The county home would cost about $250,000 to build, plus $75,000 a year to maintain, according to County Judge Theodore Robinson. The Moody Foundation says it will build a home costing $750,000 to $1,000,000, with a more “homey” atmosphere and facilities enabling married couples to live together. Many feel it is worth a few more years to get such a home. Meanwhile, the old people of the county must make the best of the little offered by their fellow citizens. The old men in the basement have been moved to clean, separate roomsbut one is still tied to a door. County Commissioner Irwin P. Dantin summed up the feeling of helplessness that comes from lack of money to cope with the problem: “We just issue a check and hope the old folks will be taken care a. I guess they \(home optoo many people for too cheap a price.” OPrice Daniel said in College Station he is alarmed over the drop in farm income. OTestimony by deposition has begun in the Dallas case in which 24 Negro students have attempted to enroll in white schools. OThe Corpus Christi park and recreation board took no action on a demand by an .attorney for five dance studios who said the city’s dance classes for school. children was “just about to put the dance studios out of business.” A mother said $100 a year was too much to pay for the private lessons. Sen. Rogers Kelley of Edin burg \(defeated for re-elecwhen the war broke out. He was there as an investigator for the American Legion, but he said the Am e rican embassy people gave him the distinct impressioil his group was “non-essential.” OState liquor agents have ad vised several Galveston taverns they’ll have to close when state laws say they must or be shut down. OA congressional subcon -unit tee will visit Brownsville