ustxtxb_obs_1957_03_12_50_00002-00000_000.pdf

‘Gwan, I’m Just Investigatin’ Pie Thieves’ Bartlett Appears Exclusively in the Texas Observei TEXANS FEAR OIL FIGHT If the naturopath lobby spent $40,000 to $50,000 on the legislature in 1955 without accounting for it to anybody, what has the chiropractic lobby spent? the medical lobby ? the oil lobby ? the chemical lobby ? the labor lobby ? the beer liquor lobby ? the opthahnic dispensers lobby? enerai The three-membor House subcommittee now writing a lobby-registration bill has a hard job. Two cf the three, Leroy Saul, Kress, and Max Smith, San Marcos, voted against lobby control last session. The subcommittee therefore must come up with a bill as effective as the most effective of the four it has before it or be accused of spooning out mush to kill the people’s appetite for meat. In our judgment the House committee program of raises for the upper echelon state employees and peanuts or nothing for hardworking lower echelon employees ought to be carefully evaluated. We are delighted that the House appropriation committee not only knocked out the Texas Employ-ment Commission rider specially benefiting the Brown brothers, as exposed in the Observer, but replaced it with a rider requiring a building built in Travis County under specific circumstances. The people should commend and encqurage legislators for continuing hard work, and making real progress, on such issues as water conservation, a statewide paid probation and parole system, the new mental health code, and higher legislative salaries and annual sessions. But why has there been no progress for legislation against the loan sharks ? We note Sam Hanna and Doug Bergman cruising around among members, which may explain that matter. We trust the legislature will now have the wisdom to kill the college tuition increase and finance college salaries out .of the glut of general revenue the Comptroller says is .due from the oil taxes. It would be an awful criticism of the legislature if the only revenue bill it passed taxed students when manufacturing, for example, pays no state taxes at all. Governor Daniel admits natural gas is undertaxed. The House passed the fat-cat resolution to limit income tax to 25 percent. In other words, said the House majority, excuse the rich from their taxes, but raise’ the tax on the poor to 25 per cent. The issue was not closed; it might come up again this week. Every member who so voted to emasculate his national government ought to hear from his people in no uncertain terms. Ineorporating The State Observer, combined with The East Texas Democrat MARCH 12, 1957 Ronnie 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 I0c each. Quantity orders available.. Entered as second-class matter April 26, 1937, at the Post Office at Austin, Texas, ender the act of March 8, 1879. The House committee is still trying to get the facts of the naturopaths’ spending, and this is .entirely commendable. But the point is, these naturopaths number only 350 souls in a state of eight and a half million. Obviously, they are only a wee fragment of the Austin lobby. Anyone who doubts it is referred to the Observer’s ground-breaking report, “Austin Lobbyists at Work.” occueying the entire issue of May 23, 1955. Senators’ names keep turning up in records of bankrupt insurance companies. Representatives keep getting drawn into the investigation of even this two-bit naturopath lobby. Anybody who has been close to the legislature knows the naturopaths, like Jim Cox, are small fry. We are considerate of the objection that many legislators raise against this suggestion : that, after all, their colleagues are involved, and how can you ask a man to investigate his colleagues ? But the people will not suddenly start believing in their legislature again if a lobby representing 350 Texans is brought to the floor. We would venture that if the legislature does not launch a full-scale investigation of all the Austin lobbyists, it will be incumbent on Gov. Daniel to appoint a non-legislative committee to do it. Even the Fort Worth Star Telegram is editorializing that the people don’t trust their representatives any more that the public confidence is lost. When the Star-Telegram says the public is lost, brother, the public confidence is lost. By whatever means, the people must’ learn what has happened to their legislature. If the legislature won’t tell them, the Governor should. 54ree Men The Senate race now appears to be ,between Ralph Yarborough, Martin Dies, and Thad Hutcheson. The likeliest winner is Yarborough. He is the best known of all the candidates, and he starts with a hard bloc of votes , no other candidate has except Hutcheson. Dies, now using his free mailing frank to call attention to his Washington harangues, is almost as well known as Yarborough, but he has never been in a big league Texas election before. Hutcheson can expect certainly 200,000 Republican votes, perhaps 300,000 The main question is, whom will the big money boys settle on, if anybody? They may have given up, but if they do get together on one candidate, he will have all the benefits of a whirlwind big-money finish in a short campaign. Right now it looks like Martin Dies. TELEPHONE in Austin : GReenwood 7-0746, HOUSTON OFFICE : 2601 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 havaan values above all interests, to the rights of man as the foundation of democracy we will take orders from none but our own conscience, and never will we overlook or misrepresent the truth to serve the interests of the powerful or cater to the ignoble in the human spirit. , MAILING ADDRESS: 504 West 24th St., Austin, Texas. WASHINGTON The Democrats made a big Hurrah about helping small business during the recent election. Now, however, they are coming up with a nice fat zero. The Republicans, it’s true, also made a lot of noise about helping small business, and Sherman Adams told the Smaller Business Association of New England that tax relief definitely would be forthcoming if Ike were re-elected. Now Ike is opposing this. Now, however, let’s see what the Democrats, who yelled the loudest, did about small business. Very quietly, and in one single morning, the Democratic leadership rushed the existing tax bill Drew Pearson through the House ways and means committee which handles taxes. No effort was made by either party to reduce the tax on small buginess. No small-business witnesses were heard. The speed was such as to arouse suspicion. Afterward, the tax bill was giVen a gag rule by the rules committee, which means that it cannot be amended on the floor of the House. No Congressman can propose a lower tax for a small business and get it voted on. Officially, the rush was justified by the fact that the tax bill expires March 31. However, here is the very significant development regarding the tax bill after it was rammed through the ways and means committee. At first it was sent to the full House for action during the week of Feb. 18. Then suddenly it was withdrawn. It is now being held in abeyance until a few days before the taxes are due to expire on March 31. The reason is complicated but important. In brief, it smacks of oil. In Capitol cloakrooms it’s admitted the House Democratic leadership is fearful that the Senate will pass a reduction of the 27y, per cent oil depletion allowance. This is the big tax bonanza which permits oil men to have the most favored tax position in the U.S.A. and, incidentally, also permits them to throw all kinds of money into election campaigns. Seldom has public opinion been so irate against the oil companies as right now. So Democratic leaders, one of them coming from oilrich Texas, another from oil-rich Oklahoma, have held up the tax bill. They know the Senate is always slow. Therefore, House leaders intend to pass the tax bill at the last min ute, then send it to the Senate. In the few hours or days before March 31 they know the Senate won’t have time to add any amendments hurt , ing oil. NoteSpeaker Sam Rayburn has pushed more legislation through the House favoring humanitarian causes than any single living American. So he can be forgiven for bowing three times in the direction of oil when oil legislation peeks even remotely over the edge of the. Capitol dome. After all, he’s from Texas. Rep. Carl Albert of Oklahoma is a Democratic whip. Meanwhile, Sen. Bill Fulbri,9 -,ht, Democrat of Arkansas, is carrying out the Democratic platform by offering an amendment reducing taxes on small corporations and increasing them slightly on giant firms, such as General Motors, which dominate the American economy -. This, he contends, would get around the White House argument that the Treasury can’t afford loss of tax revenue. Thirty-two senators are supporting Fulbright’s amendment. But he can’t get Sen. Harry Byrd, of Virginia, biggest apple grower in the world and no friend of small business, even to hold hearings. Byrd is chairman of the Senate Finance committee, and he has ignored all of Fulbright’s requests for hearings. In the House, Rep. Wright Patman of Texarkana, Texas, staunch friend of little business, has proposed a similar tax reduction for small business, but he has already been thwarted by the ways and means committee’s ramrod action. Let those flatter who fear, it is not an American art. JEFFERSON -9nveJtigate ern in .&oxas bstruer