ustxtxb_obs_1957_01_22_50_00002-00000_000.pdf

‘Was That a Gasp? Or Did He Just Volunteer?’ Bartlett Appears Exclusively in the Texas Observer 11, With. Some OmioJion,J Let those flatter who fear, it is not an American art. JEFFERSON buserperating The State Observer. combined with The East Texas Democrat JANUARY. 22, 1957 Iambs’ Dagger, Editor and General Manager Bob Bray, Associate Editor Sarah Payne, Office Manager Published once a week from Austin, Texas. Delivered postage prepaid $4 per annum. Advertising rates available on request. Extra copies 10e each. Quantity orders available.. gatered as second-class matter April 26, 1937, at the Poet Office at Austin, Texas, under the act of March 8′, 1879. TELEPHONE in Austin: GReenwood 7-0746. HOUSTON OFFICE: 2501 Crawford St., Houston, Mrs. R. D. Randolph, treasurer. We will serve no group or party but will hew hard te the truth as we find it and the right as we see it. We are dedicated to the whole truth, to human values above all interests, to the rights roretm. ies ; broke new ground by asking for faculty salary increases in the colleges and universities; olitned up the subject of state-federal matching funds for medical expenses of pensioners, needy blind, and dependent children. He took his stand for better parole supervision for adults and juveniles. . WHAT f3E SAID on integration is in ‘doubt. He is, he said, “still” opposed to “forced .integration.” He thinks a majority of the people in “most” of the school districts oppose -integration and should have the right “to make local determinations as to how this problem shall be handled,” which the state will back up by “every legal means.” But what does “how this . problem shall be handled” mean ? Does it imply that school districts brave to get used to the idea that all they can do is adapt to the law, one way or the other, but adapt to it, nevertheless? Governor . Daniel recalled for the legislators that he took the floor of the U. S. Senate the day after the Supreme Court decision and defended separate but equal schools. But lie also said in that May 18, 1954, speech : “No matter how much some of us may disagree …. we must look to the future with patience, wisdom, and sound judgment to live under the law. as it has now been iuritten and at the same time preserve our public school systems and maintain peace, order, and harmony. My of forts shall be in this direction.” We hope that still nesthat Price Daniel agrees, not with the few extremists in the House, but witli the unanimous’ judgment of the nine Texas Supreme Court justices that the desegregation decision is the law of the land. . WE REGRET several very important skip-overs and omissions in the speech. It is not enough’ to say .loan ..companies need to be regulated : the ruthless Texas loan sharks ifiust be registered and limited to a 30 or 36 percent total annual charge, and we hope Governor Daniel will take occasion to say so in time to affect the legislature. The governor could give -an assist to the hundreds of thousands of poor and hapless families living in the rat-infested, bathless, toiletless dumps in the slum areas in all our major cities merely by advocating legislative permission for the cities to enter into contracts for federal urban renewal if they want to. ‘Unemployment benefits, like of man as the foundation of democracy; we will take orders from none but our own conscience, and o never will we overlook or misrepresent the truth to serve the interests of the powerful or eater to the ignoble in the human spirit MAILING ADDRESS: 504 West 24th St., Austin, Texas. EDITORIAL AND BUSINESS OFFICE: 604 Weet 24th St., Austin, Texas. P.O. Box 2246, Capitol Station, Austin, Texas ADVERTISING REPRESENTATIVE SJA Associates Staff correspondents : Ramon Garces, Laredo; Clyde Johnson, Corsicana ; Mike Mistovich, Bryan ; Jules Loh, Central Texas ; Jack Morgan. Port Arthur ; Dan Strewn, Kenedy ; Al Heiken, Houston ; and reporters in San Antonio, Dallas, El Paso, and Big Spring. Staff contributors: Franklin Jones, Marshall; Minnie Fisher Cunningham, New Waverly ; Robert G. Spivak, Washington, D.C. ; John Igo, San Antonio ; Edwin Sue Goree, Burnet ; Drew Pearson, Washington, D.C..; and others. Staff cartoonist: Don Bartlett, Austin. Cartoonists: Bob Eckhardt, Houston ; Etta Hulme, Houston. workmen’s comp, are disgracefully low. The continuation of monopoly premium rates in the $400-million a-year Texas casualty insurance businessrates set, maintained, and enforced by the State of Texas it , selfis a gross offense against business competition and a burden on hundreds of thousands of Texas policyholders. Apparently the ‘Governor either does not think this is a serious problem, or lie is not ready to slug toe-to-toe with the insurance industry for the public interest. Another monopoly getting away with mayhem on the consumers’ pocketbook is the telephone indus try. Texas is one of only two states in the union which do not regulate Mr. Ratt y It seems likely to us that Price. Daniel and Allan Shivers agreed on the appointment of Mr. Blakley to the Senate seat for the interim. Otherwise Shivers would have appointed a man who would vote with the Republicans, or Daniel would have been sworn in at midnight and mad his own appointment or wood simply have made an appointment of his own on the grounds that he had not resigned the Senate until he became governor, thus retaining the right to appoint his own succesSon But the more pertinent question is why Mr. Blakley was appointed. Apparently his main qualification is that he is a millionaire. He has never taken much part in public life, and surely nobody could possibly think of -him as “the people’s choice.” Nor did it.reflect much credit on the Democrats’ frequentlyaired indignation about “conflicts of interest’? in the Republican administration when Lyndon Johnson appointed Senator Blakley, the biggest stockholder in Braniff Airlines to the Senate committee which handles airline matters. But we will wait and see. long-distance rates within their bor ders. The way the phone company gigs a man more for calling a fel-7 6 low Texan than he does for calling some non-Texan further away in a neighboring state is downright “unTexan;” as .Beauford. Jester would have said. \( Provincialism does have A $2-a-month raise must seem dismal to the needy aged of the’ state. You can’t buy much lodging or clothing or food for that; the state really ought to construct decent homes for the aged. But if. Texans will match the $10 million available from the national government to meet medical expenses of the aged, the needy blind, and dependent children, it will be some improvement for these now neglected citizens. The whole area of the education of migrant children ought to be opened up for study, for nowhere are more poignant human. values at stake. Parents who can’t afford to clothe or feed their children well put off enrolling them until they are seven, because the ‘law, strangely, does not require enrollment at six;. aid to dependent children stops at 14, but the leaving-school age is 16, ‘so for two years underprivileged children are under unfair pressures to leave school. The legislature has as great a dtity.to care for the state’s 1,300,000 Latinos as it does to advance industry and trade. BUT PRICE DANIEL cannot say everything at once, and every man has his own ideas about what is most urgent. Last Thursday the new Governor showed that he is ready to fight for constructive advances. If, now, he will come forward with a new tax plan based on the democratic principle of ability to paya plan like the graduated corporate income tax, which would come out of the federal treasury in large partthen lie will be bidding for the stars of state history. made his own appointment or Are states’ rights real or imagin .ary? Will the states really pass the taxes necessary to protect and advance the public good, or ‘do the states’ righters merely use the states as lineblockers for reaction? “If we have more exercise of states’ responsibilities,” Governor Daniel said at his inauguration, “we will’ not have so much worry about lOss of our states’ rights.” He is right. There is rio necessary reason why federal action is preferable to state action. The point is simplly that the states do little or nothing while the national government acts for the people. Nov we will see in Texas. In his policy address to the legislaturea speech at once bold and forward-stridingGovernor Daniel asked the legislators to adopt a constructive spending program and told them lie is ready to fight for a tax bill if. it is needed. The lobbyists sat in the gallery figuring up the costs ; few doubt new taxes will have to be raised. IVe are eager to learn whether Daniel will want to tax the average man or the massive interests who are profiting handsomely from the resources and labor of the state. For the meantime, we assert that he acquitted himself worthily in the books of the future when he rose Thursday to lay out his ideas. For first lie said we must rein in for good the relatively few miscre .ants who have so spectacularly discredited the state government. He wants a lobby registration law, a code of conduct for state. officials, a law requiring state legislators who represent others before ‘state agencies to register When they are doing so, a commission to investigate offi cial misconduct. . He asked the legislature to double the water projects revolving-fund to $200 millionstill just two drops in the bucket of the state’s needs, but another step in the. right direction. Perhaps, someday, somebody will mention in the legislative halls the Bureau of Reclamation Lyndon Johnson plan for state-federal co , operation in this critical area. He spoke out eloquently for the needs of injured workmen for more adequate compensation benefits, reporting Texas a shameful fiftieth among the states and territories in this area. While he was vague about industrial safety, he certainly left the way open for the legislature to adopt a strong industrial safety law to help both workers and industry. He stood fast for teachers’ salar Zip &xas Obstrurr