ustxtxb_obs_1957_04_02_50_00001-00000_000.pdf

The one great rule of composition is to speak the truth. Thoreau Olir 3itt Ohsrrurr An Independent 0-6\(\\ 4’qi Newspaper t ‘a” We will serve no group or party but will hew hard to the truth as we find it and the right as we see it. Vol. 48 091zN \\cvs 7 10c per copy No. 48 Solons’Y “a ‘achFinal’ Month Session May Pass 120 Days, But Key Issues Still Pending The bill states its purpose is to afford industry “research, educational, and advisory functions promoting health and welfare,” with no penaltieS for deviation from the occupational safety board’s standards. It is provided every employer “should” maintain a reasonably safe establishment. The board could promulgate safety standards for any place of employment it finds needs such standards. The commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics could enter places of employment and compel attendance of witnesses at hearings in his work of developing statistics on industrial accidents. The Commissioner of Health would have to report violations of good safety practices to the occupational safety board. Hughes says three workers are Parkhouse ‘Mellows’ In Gonzalez Dispute AUSTIN Sen. George Parkhouse, Dallas, has decided to “lay off” Sen. Henry Gonzalez, San Antonio, who, in an interview in the Observer last week, outlined a series of Parkhouse actions and remarks he ‘ regarded as abusive. “I’m trying to be nice to him,” Parkhouse said late last week. And Gonzalez agreed, “he’s mellowing.” Beniack Paid Sparks, Harris Two Ex-Labor Leaders Deny interest Conflict AUSTIN Now it is official that the two top Texas State Federation of Labor leaders from 1951 to 1953 took money from a BenJack Cage company while they were promoting ICT with Texas labor. Neither of them told their coworkers in labor about it.. The Observer reported \(Feb. dent of the TSFL from 1951 to 1953, had ‘received $5,000 from Cage’s North American Development Co. during that period, while Paul Sparks, executive secretary of the federation, went to work for Cage in Houston after leading labor and ICT into a management contract that turned out to be extremely lucrative for Cage. Harris said that the $5,000 was all he got from the Cage firm. Sparks would not respond to Observer inquiries. Last week Harris admitted to the House investigating committee that he received a total of $14,000 instead of only $5,000 from Cage while he was TSFL president, and Sparks admitted he received $4,000 “expense” money from the Cage company within a period of five months. , This was during the time when Harris and Sparks were carry ing “the ICT story” to the federa tion members who had chosen them as their leaders. Asst. Atty. Gen. Joe Carroll asked them both if they had any trouble “serving AUSTIN Will the House Cox committee look into other lobbies, like the chiropractors and medical doctors, as well as the naturopaths? That idea, said Chairman Wade Spilman of McAllen, had “never dawned on me.” He disclaimed a news story that quoted an unnamed committee member to the ‘effect the committee was differing over whether to expand the inquiry. Another question in the foreground now is whether the group will call the representatives on the 1955 public health committee. Records of the committee reflect a 12-8 vote in favor of a naturopath-backed bill Jan. 31, 1955. The Observer is refraining from publishing the names of the repre AUSTIN If the legislature is to adjourn sine die a month from now at the end of the 120 days after which its members get no pay, it’s going to have to move fast to accomplish final action on the major issues before it. Below is a review of the status of some of the key legislation pending, Segregation One of the segregation bills last week, and another, HB 65, the “local option” bill, is low on the calendar, but most of the others have relatively high numbers. Early adjournment would mean these would either die on the House calendar or have to be taken up out of order by a twothirds House vote. There is one proviso, however. Should Speaker ‘Waggoner Carr choose to exercise his option to place the segregation bills on what is called “the suspension t. TI AUSTIN, LAREDO One of Texas’s largest minority groups, and the fastest growing segment of the state’s population, the LatinAmericans, are undergoing a political awakening that is making them potentially one of the most powerful groups in the state with an estimated voting potential of almost 500,000. For the first time since Civil War days the Texas Senate has a Spanish-named legislator in Henry B. Gonzalez of Bexar County, where 175,000 Latin Americans reside. El Paso, where 46 percent of its 130,485 population is Mexican-American, elected its first Latin American mayor in its history three weeks ago, Raymond Telles. All over the state in school boards, city councils and county governments Spanish-named citizens for the past ten years have been taking their place as representatives in government where before they used to take a back seat. calendar,” they could be brought up out of order by simple majority vote. A filibuster is certain should any of these bills reach the Senate floor. Industrial Safety The industrial safety bill by Rep. Charles Hughes, Sherman, has been rewritten by a subcommittee to exclude provisions which would require employers to comply with safety regulations set up by an Occupational Safety Board. Hughes believes the rewrite meets the objections of those who testified against the bill in its first form, including spokesmen for the Texas Manufacturers Assn., Associated General Contractors, Texas Company, Lone Star Steel Co., Reed Roller Bit Co., and East Texas Steel Casting Co. With organizations like the American G.I. Forum and the League of United Latin American Citizens working to educate and spur the group of a million and a half into more active participation in community life, the Spanish-named citizenry h a v e tremendously improved their environment. Just how strong is the Latin American voting power in the state? Although there has never been a survey made as to the exact voting strength of the MexicanAmerican in Texas, the voting Ramon Garces age population, according to the 1950 U.S. census, would now make it close to 500,000. Taking in the age group 14 years ‘old in. 1950, which would make them of voting age by April 1, 1957, there are now 457,935 native Texans of Mexican descent. Added to this group would be an estimated 40,000 foreign-born residents who have been naturalized. That’s the potential voting strength. Although most students of politics agree that Latin interest is on the increase, in years past political participation by Latin Americans has been low. The poll tax requirement is listed by many as one of the principal obstacles. Another has been the lack of media to communicate political issues to the Latin public. Except in some border counties where political machine leaders claim a Latin organization, there has been no state political group identified as Mexican-American. The only known survey of Latin voting is one made in 1956 by the G.I. Forum and the Junior G.I. Forum of a three-county section in the Rio Grande Valley. It was a nose count in Cameron, Hidalgo, and Willacy counties. The Junior G.I. Forum actually went through the poll killed every day in Texas and that probably 30 percent of the state’s 250,000 industrial accidents Workmen’s Comp Substantial workmen’s compensation improvements seem far off for this session. Sen. Doyle Willis’s bill using real salaries for computing benefits and raising maximum weekly benefits from $25 to $30 passed the Senate ; 294 and will likely pass the , House; but the comprehensive revision is bogged down in compromise .and discord about cern; promise. H. B. 5, tile TMA-labor cornpromise, was pulled down some time ago. TMA, which also here represents some insurance inter ‘ ests, and the unions now back . . separate bills by Reps. Wade Spilman and Don Kennard, respectively. Their chief difference. is the extent of medical differences. The Texas Association of Plaintiffs Attorneys is not backing either bill but rather supports “a rate increase bill ‘with: out controversial amendments.” State Employees Apparently headed for a conference committee is a substantial di_fference ,’of opinion between representatives and senators over the kind of state , employees’ raise needed. The House passed selective raises, refusing an across-the-board raise for lowerechelon state workers. The Senate finance committee provided for a 10 percent hike up to the first $2,400 foru.employees earning less than $3,600 a year. \(They also recommended a 15 percent The Senate money bill is very much like the House measure. It appropriates about $2,085,000,000. The Senate version, like the House’s, stresses treatment instead of custodial care for the mentally ill and actually appropriates $2 million more for state eelymosynary institutions than does the House. Sen. Jimmy Phillips got the Senate committee to appropriate an additional half million dollars a year for 200 extra beds for the John Sealy hospital in Galveston. lists, the only way such a count can be made, and counted the Spanish names. It was found that 44 percent of the 46,674 poll taxes issued in the three counties went to Latinnamed persons. However, in none of the counties did the Latins have a vote majority over the Anglos, although, Hidalgo is 70 percent Latin and Cameron and Willacy about 60 percent. Taking the 1950 total of 76,551 potential voters of Latin descent in those three counties, the survey figured that if in 1950 the same percentage of Latin voters got poll taxes, then only 27 percent of the voters actually qualified themselves to vote. If that 1950 percentage is representative of the voting habits of Latin Americans in the rest of the state, then only about 150,000 of the close to half million voting age Mexican-Americans actually qualify themselves to vote. State Senator Gonzalez, who won in Bexar County in a close V Cox Probe Is Stalled sentatives who so voted until the committee’s course becomes clear. Al Brown, the naturopaths’ lob, byist, refused to take a lie detector test under any circumstances, couldn’t remember very much about how he spent tens of thousands of dollars except that he had not given it as cash to legislators, and admitted the writ-ing of multiple checks to cash in curious clusters during the 1953 and 1955 legislative sessions before the House committee last week. The testimony lasted five hours, but it was so uninformative, the Observer reporter present and many of the spectators caught up on their correspondence and newspaper reading during the long evening. yearly can be prevented. An editorial Governor Daniel says he wants the investigating committees to go on until they get “all the facts.” Do we in Austin, really want All the Facts? It is a serious, not a rhetorical question, because obviously, if we do, the legislature must investigate the entire Austin lobbynot just the anaemic naturopathsfor the 1955 session, at least. “Al]. the facts” obviously would further horrify or terrify the Capitol down to its limestone foundations. Perhaps they would. overtax the body politic’s capacity for an indefinite series of shocks. Perhaps they would involve too many legislators who have been going along with the game as it has been so notoriously played. Perhaps they would hurt too many innocent people in the work of getting at the But Governor Daniel wants “all the facts.” Why, then, has it never occurred to Rep. Wade Spilman, chairman of the House committee on the Cox bribery case, to investigate so much as the chiropractic and medical lobbies, much less oil and gas ? “No dirt,” says Daniel. “is being swept under the rug.” What, then, are those wriggling bulges thereunder? If the Governor wants all the factsas we do-, and the people dohe, and the legislature with him, will set up a committee to work as long as possible investigating all the Austin lobbyists.