ustxtxb_obs_1957_04_02_50_00003-00000_000.pdf

ployers on how they might cut down their accidents. THE ONLY SERIOUS question raised about a non-coercive program by business spokesmen at the House committee hearing, was, are the accidents really preventable? The answer is that they are mostly due to human failings, but that safety equipment can arrest those failings or correct their consequences before they result in bloodshed or broken bones. Bob Eckhardt’s example is in point. It is true that it is a human failing to leave the hatch of a submarine open, but a red light that warns it is open before the plunge prevents the mistake from leading to catastrophe. The National Safety Council says that 8 percent of all industrial accidents are preventable, two percent are “acts of God.” Rhode Is land reported a 30 percent cut in such accidents after it passed its safety law. Furthermore, 70 percent of them occur in small plants that can’t afford a safety engineer. Nothing .’ pending , in the legislature is more important than the proposal that – the state provide friendly advice, counsel . and know-how on how the small plants can cut down their accident rates. Texas employers every year are paying $91,000,000ninety one million dollarsfor workmen’s compensation insurance. Furthermore, they lose’ in every direction when a. worker is injuredthey lose his experience, they lose time replacing him, they _lose money while a. new man is trained. The National Safety Council offers what it calls a conservative estimate that for every dollar spent for workmen’s compensation, $4 is lost indirectly. This means that in Texas in 1954, when $47 million was paid out to injured workers or the survivors of dead ones, indirect losses ,amounted to an additional $200 million. It is obviously in the interests of Texas businessmen to support every reasonable noncoercive program for industrial safety. WE, DO NOT join doctrinaire critics of “big business” who think that a man’s grey flannel suit shields him from humanitarian considerations. Now that Hughes has agreed to capitulate on requiring businesses to live by a state-promulgated safety code, we cannot visualize any responsible Texas businessman objecting to the purposes of the Hughes bill “It is the purpose of this act to afford such research, educational, and advisory functions promoting health and welfare as provided in this Act …. The provisions . . do not establish penalties for deviation from standards promulgated herein, and the remedies provided for … are not mandatory or punitive “Every employer should furnish and maintain employment and a place of employment which should be reasonably safe and healthful for employees. Every employer should install, maintain and use such methods, processes,, devices and safeguards, including methods of sanitation and hygiene, as are reasonably necessary to protect the life, health, and safety of employees and should do every other thing reasonably necessary to render safe such employment and place of employment.” Every day the legislature delays, two or three more Texas workers are killed on the jobevery clay, 7,000 more are injured. Some of these deaths and injuries can be stopped. In industrializing Texas, such a law is in the cards, and more delay would be indefensibly inhumane. R. D. Page 3 April 2, 1957 THE INDUSTRIAL SLAUGHTER IN TEXAS AUSTIN It is difficult to believe the true fact that one-fourth of a million workers in Texas are paid off by insurance companies every ‘year for injuries sustained on the job. It is difficult to believe the true fact that between 400 and 1,000 workers are killed on the job every year. It is even more difficult to believe the true fact that to date the Texas legislature has taken no steps to stop the substantial part of this slaughter that can be stopped. One of the responsibilities of a state which solicits industry is concern for the workers who will be involved. The state of New York has 400 full-time . industrial safety personnel ; Pennsylvania has 210 ; even …. Jim Lindsey, chairman of the state Democratic executive committee, is reported organizing a fight to “take over” the state Young Democratic Clubs from the liberal-loyalists now in control. The state convention is the weekend of April 12 in Dallas. …. Lindsey’s forces in San Antonio, led by a group of 18 teamsters, moved in on the” Bexar Young Democrats and got in a wrangle over whether they could vote their first night of attendance. In a compromise, the liberals got an 8-6 majority among the delegates and instructed the delegation how to vote on key issues. …. San Antonio Young Democrats petition the legislature to strike the Bracewell amendment from the party registration bill. The amendment lets independents vote in one but only one party primary. The Texas Democratic Women’s State Committee meeting .in Waco expressed concern. that the governor’s plan for a state grand jury system ; s o in e opponents called it a “sort of gestapo.” …. Ed Idar, Jr., former executive secretary of the American GI Forum, writes Sen. Hubert Hudson, Brownsville, that the segregation bills “will clearly permit the segregation not just of Negroes but of students of Mexican descent.” He objects to Hudson’s bill limiting absentee balloting to voters in a county with certain exceptions on grounds it will disenfranchise the many thousands of LatinAmerican migrant farm workers. …. The Railroad Commission has ruled that railroads applying for discontinuance of passenger trains must file exhibits showing “complete itemized information” on their alleged losses on the trips in question. NEW WAVERLEY Are all the pigeonholes packed full of pending public business ? There are many, many such pigeonholes, we know, but they must be full, what with the lobbying bills and the party registration bill and the proposals to_ tax natural gas and so on. They must be full or By Countryside and Town why is the Governor seeking to create a new, de luxe one to be called a crime commission? That amazing and cumbersome piece o f legislation i s several things. First it is a man viewing from the inside saying in effect he does not believe in the honesty of the public officials of Texas, executive and legislative. He should know. Legislature Asked Republican Kansas has 20, even rural Georgia has eleven. Mighty Texas has two, and one of them is not full-time. Rep. Charles Hughes of Sherman early this session introduced a bill which would have set up an Occupational Safety Board with the power to make industrial safety regulations with the force and eft, feet of law. Employers wonld have been subject to penalties if they failed to comply. The Texas Manufacturers’ Association expressed the typical business reaction in its “News and Views on Legislation.” The bill, said TMA, “would empower a few men to write law and enforce it …. Tom Reavley, former Secretary of State who fought for loan shark curbs as president of the State Junior Bar, is writing friends supporting Rep. Tony Korioth’s loan shark control bill; which he says would be “a long step.” He is now with Powell, Rauhut, Reavley in Austin. …. Booth Mooney, author of a biography of Lyndon Johnson, is back at work for himhe mailed out to the press copies of three columns friendly to Johnson recently. …. The Texas Manufacturing Assn. will give its legislative din The Listening Post ner for the members April 3 at the Austin Hotel. …. Texas names endorsing a letter from the “Manion Forum” calling for repeal of the 16th \(inGeorge W. Armstrong, Jr., H. R. Cullen, E. B. Germany, David T. Searls, and others. W. R. Archer, chairman of the board of Uncle Johnny Mills, Houston, writes on his firm’s letterhead of the forum’s work, “My company and myself support this …. necessary proAmerican program.” …. The pending bill to double the college tuition brought to mind an ode composed on the University of Texas campus when the tuition was raised from $30 a year to $25 a semester about 1939. It Went like this : “Beneath the stately statue tall .. Of Robert Edward Lee .. The goodly dean sat, on a wall, . A student on each knee “Though ye shall know the truth,” he said, . “Ye shall not get it free.” …. An article in the Progressive magazine says Lyndon Johnson “has consistently put first the interests of his stateor at least Second it is the top executive of the state trying to abdicate the duties and responsibilities. of the office of chief executive of Texas less than one whole year since he went up and clown the state pleading for a chance to “clean up” in Austin. Third it is a dangerous meddling with the system of checks and balances between the executive, the legislative and the judiciary divisions of government devised by our wise and far-seeing forefathers. This system has served us well down the years. We face, the fast moving Atomic Age with a more stable government and citizenship than any other people on the globe. Let us not for lack of moral courage to prosecute a few thieves destroy the basic foundation upon which we have built our strong government. M. F. C. THE CRIME COMMISSION Hughes Capitulates To Save Some Lives and Limbs; through a ‘Gestapo’ type enforcement operation that should have no place in America.” TMA had no observations to offer on how the grisly maiming and slaughter of a quarter million Texans a year ought to be stopped. Ordinarily, Hughes -would have fought it out. But the bill. cannot pass without business support, so he has now made substantial concessions. All his billHB 60proposes now is that a board be set up with the power to ask businesses to observe good safety standards. It could compile statistics and re quire testimony on safety condi tions, and then it could advise em some of its leading citizens.” He is, says writer Davie C4 -Williams, opposed to civil rights not from passion but from political calculation, is “a shrewd rather than a wise man,” has “more than once told Texas labor leaders : ‘Once you guys have the votes, I’ll be with you’.” …. Last summer the San Antonio News got pledges from Bexar county legislative candidates opposing “interposition or any similar scheme to obstruct the U. S. Supreme court’s ruling against racial segregation.” After some of the San Antonio delegation voted for engrossment of bill prohibiting members of the NAACP from holding public jobs, the News said : “We feel that the votes of Bell, Sheridan, Strickland, Russell and Hensley for the anti-NAACP bill violated the .spirit of the pledge … We know that a vote by any of the Bexar county representatives for any of the ten segregationist bills now pending would be a violation of the letter of those pledges.” Rep. Ed Sheridan took a walk during the final passage vote. …. Rep. Carlton Moore, objecting strenuously to the proposed Code of Ethics as being an invasion of his privacy, declared regardless of whether the bill was passed he was not going to comply with it. Answered the Houston Press “… when a legislator apparently is more interested in protecting his `privacy’ than cleaning up,.the voters should really make his affairs private by removing him from public life. Which would be a particu larly good idea as far as Representative good is concerned.” …. Moore’s stand on the code got capitol press members to talking about one of their experiences with him. ‘A couple of years ago, in a sarcastic mood, members of the press corps ran a poll to determine whom they facetiously considered the “best legislator.” As one member recalled it, “Moore won going away.” In the next campaign Rep. Moore used the results in telling voters why he should be re-elected. “That broke us from sucking eggs. It was the last such contest,” said a newsman. Yoakum, recently wrote a letter to a newspaper in his district cornmending the editor on an editorial “condemning the corruptions and vice apparently rampant in our state capital.” Wrote Matthew : “The temptations that are -found here provide a real challenge to each individual. With the help of God, one who is morally clean and essentially honest can survive …” … The Victoria Advocate edi torializes for five to ten years in prison for the giver and the taker of a bribe to a government official. To Pass Very Mild Safety Bill YOUNG DEMOCRATS FIGHT BREWIN