ustxtxb_obs_1956_11_28_50_00001-00000_000.pdf

p 4 A foc 4 fk Co, \(” per ,.e > 413 r oc Liberal Weekly Newspaper rte Olv nun We will serve no -croup or party but will hew hard to the truth as we find it and the right as we ,see it. No. 32 TEXAS, NOVEMBER 28, 1956 10c per copy The one great rule of composition is to speak the truth. Thoreau OIR Vol. 48 -0*\(0 $3.5 Area Not Taxed Except for Identical Services Manufacturers Are Exempt AUSTIN In 1720, the only manufacturing industry in Texas was a little buhrstone grist mill driven by a water wheel, at the Mission San Jose at San Antonio. By the time of the civil war all of our manufacturers pulling together could add only three million dollars to the value of the things they worked with. But today they add three and a half billion dollars a year, more than the value of the state’s annual oil and gas production yet they still pay no state taxes as manufacturers. Oil and natural gas produced in AUSTIN Within the past feW months, two elderly patients at the Austin State Hospital for the mentally ill have been seriously injured by other patients. Some hospital workers blame the beatings on the housing together of senile patients and younger men whose mental disturbances make them dangerous. These workers also believe the in juries would not have occurred had the patients had enough attendants. In both instances only one attendant had been assigned to keep order on two wards with a total of more than 200 patients. One of the men injured is reported recovering from various injuries, including multiple rib fractures. Another man injured early this summer has died, but hospital officials said the causes were natural and not connected with his hospital injury. Dr. Sam Hoerster, Jr., hospital superintendent, refused to release details of the beatings to the Observer on grounds that the patients’ families “didn’t want any publicity.” While refusing at first to confirm that a Waco man had been severely beaten by another patient, Dr. Hoerster was willing to talk guardedly about “hypothetical” cases. He said, with reference to injures to patients: “Those things happen no matter how careful we are … Injuries as a whole here are less than in a normal town of. 3,000 people.” Dr. Hoerster said that he felt the Observer’s interest in the matter was motivated by an interest in helping the patients. He said that to help, the paper should “support me in my legislative program,” instead of inquiring about issues which might cause criticism from legislators and others. \(He produced statistics showing that he is requesting a budgetary increase of from $3.2 million to $5.7 million for fiscal 1958. “All improvement,” he said, “is aimed at giving the hospital’s 2,700 patients better care and treatment and shortening their stay in the hospital.” 147,000; value added by manufacture the same year was $3,508,133,000. Oil and natural gas paid 29 percent of the state’s revenue in fiscal 1956, yet the manufacturers, pr oducing everything from boots to ships, are exempt from any taxes on manufacturing as such. What explains this most curious anomaly? T h e legislators have proceeded on the theory that it’s necessary to promise manufacturers that their opera \(Dr. HOERSTER showed graphs indicating that in the past year approximately 2,500 patients were successfully treated. He said that the per diem budgetary increases allocated to the hospital budget in 1950 was an “investment that paid off and an additional investment will pay off more.” \(Under current operations, he said, an emergency case can be admitted immediately and a regular admission can be set up within a week. \(Under the proposed budget, the hospital would increase its medical staff from 22 to 45, its psychology section from 5 to 13, its social service section from 8 to 27, its registered nurses from 12 to 82, its technical nurses from 39 to 75, and its attendant perAlthough still refusing to go HOUSTON AND AUSTIN “I was rolling around on the floor and sobbing. It felt , like all my bones were breaking. I vomited so hard it doubled me up, and the thirst was awful. It got worse and worse until I begged them to kill me ….” This is the way a narcotics addict described the suffering he went through when he was jailed and given the “cold turkey” cure, the forced physical withdrawal from heroin. Texas, under a law which became effective in October, 1955, is “curing” its narcotics addicts in this manner. But the cure is only physical; the psychological addiction remains almost incurable. From a standpoint of law enforcement the law seems to be working fairly well, but so far as effective and humane treatment is concerned, it leaves much to be desired. Houston police make the strongest claims to success of the law, which makes narcotics addiction a felony and gives the offender a choice of federal institu them to come into the state. True, minerals producers had to come here, since the minerals are here; many of the manufacturers had to come, too, for the minerals they wanted for fuels and raw materials. But the big need, at least until 1940, was to attract heavy industry. Since the war the legislators have been more and more harassed by the buckling and faults heavy industry has pressed into the social structure. In the short seven years between 1947 and 1954, the number of workers in manufacturing increased two-fifths, the number of establishments increased a fourth, new capital expenditures increased a halfand dollar value added by manufacture doubled. In that period the establishments employing more than 100 people jumped from 550 to 750, signifying the accelerated growth of heavy industry in the state. Almost 2,000 new establishments were on the scene at the end of the period. Total employees \(increasing in numbers from 297,000 $1.6 billion in 1954, which was 116 percent higher than 1947’s total of $755 million. New capital expenditures rose from $305 million to $457′ million and value added by manufacture rose front $1.7 billion to the new high. This has been the process behind the gradual urbanization of the people, their problems, and their social and political values. Does the almost magical expansion of manufacturing prove that the no-tax policy has worked and argue for its continuation? Or has the time come for the manufacturers to pull their weight in helping to finance the state’s tional treatment at Fort Worth or Lexington, Ky., or three years in prison. Captain Jack McMahon. head of the city’s 12-man narcotics squad, says that while Houston once had the title, “Dope Capital of the South,” it is now the “cleanest city of its size” in the nation. Six persons died there from narcotics addiction this year. McMahon\\ pointed out that 205 suspects have been arrested under the “addiction” law in three raids dyer the past 14 months. He says the law has “been very successful if as nothing but a weapon.” To enforce the law, officers raid bars, residences, dance halls, or anyplace else they believe there are addicts. Those rounded up are examined for needle marks or other physical signs of drug use. The real test is the watching and waiting after the lockup. “The nightmare known as withdrawal refers to the process that begins when the effects of the dope wear off and the addict can .not get another shot to keep him `charged up’,” according to a medical description. “Twelve to State Buying Hit in-Study `Competition’ Was Lacking In Big Printing Orders The massive, .$100 million operation. of the State. Board of Control, the state’s central purchasing agency, presents a maze of Texas-size problems, not the least of which is fantastic waste. The Texas Research League, which at the request of the board is currently making a detailed study of purchasing problems has reported on its investigation of how the board is spending. some $2.25 million annually for printing. In. the current budget, the league reports having found the state has contracted with four printing firms io do approximately $156,000 worth of work “without any real competition.” The league explained the printing bidding practices this way: “One of the four submitted a single blanket bid on all contracts except those for the Senate and House of Representatives. The bid was plus 30 percent on cornposition, plus 33 percent on work and plus 50 percent on binding, and was the highest bid offered. The blanket bidder, . received no contracts en whi”h any of . thrs other three printers bid. The remaining three bidders did not compete against each other in a single instance in the entire group of 121 contracts._. Reference to the 1954-55 bid tabulation reveals that these three bidders failed to compete against each other during that contract term as well.A fifth bidder provided, some competition in 1954-55, but’ did not bid on the 1955-57 contracts because of alleged political connections. “The 1955-57 contract awards were remarkable for another reason. The research staff was told have been released under bond. Principally as a result of the raids, McMahon says, “we have cut out 65 percent of the narcotics traffic in Houston.” In addition, many other crimes have been cleared up, including thefts, burglaries, robberies, and murders. CHIEF W. E. NAYLOR of the State Narcotics Bureau in Austin reports the addiction law has been effective on clearing up some crime but has not solved the problem. “The only thing wrong with the law is that no provision was made for treatment of the addicts,” he explained. When it passed the addiction law, the Legislature failed to make any provision for the medical treatment of the addicts by the state. The state hospital is set up to treat only a few such patients at a time. A serious drawback to sending addicts to federal hospitals for treatment is that they enter as “voluntary” patients and may leave at any time they wish, even though they may be under probation. Hospital regulations are growing program of social, educational, and business services? The answer is for the politicians to give. Texas manufacturing per capita still lags behind the: nation’s,. but its organic basis in the, oil and gas supply \(especially through the chemical and prospects even more exciting than its immediate past. A state tax on a new manufacturer could be larger than his anticipated ,—marginal saving by proximity to fuels and raw materials; it could be smaller than that saving. But the drawing of a tax that would increase state revenues without decreasing the entry of n e w manufacturers might call for the kind of tax department Texas conspicuously does not have. GO AWAY, PABLO, WE’RE BUSY NOW DALLAS “It is not,” said Librarian James L. Meeks, “that we surrender in’ principle. We just don’t think it worth the effort to go through a siege of petitions. board meetings, and periods of tension at this stage of the library’s organization and development.” Thus did he explain the removal of a rug and a painting by Pablo Picasso from a display of a collection of rugs and paintings. Various people called the library, members of the library board, friends of the library, and members of the city council,” Meeks said. “I talked to Councilman W. C. Miller, and then we just took the Picasso rug. and picture down rather than stir up a lot of controversy.” 14 hours after the last dosage, if he is deprived of his next shot, the first symptoms appear. They are characterized by yawning, sneezing, and perspiration …. In 18 to 48 hours the symptoms become greatly intensified. His hands tremble and soon begin to shake uncontrollably. Peak intensity occurs at. about 48 hours, when he is in constant movement. There is dilation .of the pupils, gooseflesh, twitching of the muscles and alternate chills and fever similar to an attack of malaria.: Severe abdominal cramps begin, accompanied by vomiting, diarrhea, and nausea. Death is not uncommon when an addict is de-I prived of narcotics without medical supervision …. Thus, explained McMahon, the narcotics addicts make the case against themselves. In a raid three weeks ago, 31 suspects were charged with addiction, and all have been indieted by the grand jury. Twelve of the 31 ‘entered pleas of guilty and asked to enter a federal hosI pital for treatment. The others