ustxtxb_obs_1957_04_09_50_00001-00000_000.pdf

Vol. 48 WELL ALLAH DAMN ME! An Indep ender As Many As b Solons Involved in Testimony AUSTIN Charges that one senator and some representatives received payments from the Texas naturopaths during past legislative sessions are under study by the House Investigating Corrimittee and the Travis County grand jury, the Observer has learned. Although Rep. Wade Spilman, investigating committee c h a i rman, declined to discuss the matter, there are strong indications that testimony on such payments was the “major development” officially disclosed when the committee postponed hearings pending grand jury action. It is to be laid before the grand jury Thursday or Friday. Dr. Howard Harmon says as many as six< legislators may be involved. This newspaper can further report that Dr. Robert Spears of Dallas, 1955 president of the naturopaths, and Dr. Henry Schlichting of Midland, a member of the naturopaths' 1955 legislative committee, have given sworn testimony which has been confirmed by lie detector tests. It is the Observer's authoritative information that Dr. Spears and Dr. Schlichting attested to details which jibed independently. Rumors on the House floor last week said some members of the legislature might be involved in the testimony the House committee turned over to the Travis County grand jury. The Observer's information is that the senator involved is alleged to have received amounts in 1953 and 1955but not as much in 1955 as he was supposed to get. Dr. Spears, president of the naturopaths in Texas in 1955, han died some of the money and, according to testimony, became custodian of all the records of the naturopath lobby that year. Dr. Schlichting, contacted by the Observer in Midland, was asked if he had testified in secret with the Department of Public Safety. "I've been to Austin, yes sir," he replied. He has not testified in open hearing. The Observer w a s advised Schlichting was under a strong injunction not to mention circumstances surrounding the matter and asked him if this was so. "I don't have any comment to make at this time," he said. "I just don't think I should make any comment." Was he a member of the legislative committee in 1955? he was asked. His voice full of emotion, he replied, "Wellno com ment." AUSTIN Apparently Texas and the nation are going to be inundated with even more balderdash about .t h e great Lone Star Statethis in the name of tourism and the merry jinglings of the local cash registers. Both the House and Senate have now passed, although in radically different versions, the Syers-Pickle and Winn promotion on behalf of the Texas Tourist Foundation. During the carpetbagger era a clause was inserted in the state constitution prohibiting using public funds to bring "immigrants" into Texas. At the behest of the tourist-boosters, Sen. Carlos Ashley and Rep. Jack Bryan . AUSTIN Ralph Yarborough is a re, lentless man. He ran for governor three times, and he lost 1 three times. Through defeat after defeat he would not be knocked down. His tenacity became both a legend and a joke, at one time or another dismayed most of his friends, and finally disorganized his enemies. He is now the new United States senator from Texas. cent plurality and is therefore "a Though he won with a 38 permiin.ority senator," Yarborough's showing was phenomenal in a field of 19 candidates, six of them politicians of parts. As the incumbent he will be the man to beat in 1958, especially if the party registration bill passes the legislature. The Republican, Thad Hutcheson, got only a fourth of the vote but proved that when the Republicans vote for their own candidate instead of for the conservative Democrat, the Democrats divide about half and half along liberal and conservative lines. Martin Dies, Second-running Senate race in losing his second percent of the 16 years with 31 suggestion that vote, repeated his his Congressman-at-Large post ought to be abolishe Reports circulated he might, .gai t politics or run for the Senate again in 1958. Yarborough's election not only secures the Democrats' Senate majority and preserves Lyndon Johnson's majority leadership, it also may have some influence on Johnson himself. Washington observerS' seem to expect a liberal colleague to cause Johnson to show more deference to the liberals in the Senate. An intellectual whose character is complicated by a plain desire for public life, Yarborough has put aside his private interests so long, his friends have difficulty remembering the way he was before '1952. When he first set out that year to bring to shambles the Shivers regime, he promised himself and others he wouldn't go fishing again until he won, and he hasn't wet a hook since. He has had to discontinue a lot of his reading \(which is his home life in favor of long have pushed through a constitutional amendment to let ,the state spend tax money to advertise, or "sell," Texas. NOT, HOWEVER, without some embarassing moment s. SyersPickle and Winn, the jet-powered Austin PR firm which first attracted considerable attention for its part in preparing the famous "Port Arthur story" campaign for Gov. Allan Shivers, published a weighty tome on how they were going to get this amendment through the legislature. On. page .27 it says that one of the "basic hours on the campaign trail or at his law office between elections, trying to pay off his campaign debts. His friends have worried that his work load, financial sacrifices, and pains of loss might eventually make him bitter. He hopes to have some time for his private life againhis reading, fishing, hunting, wood fireplace. He and Mrs. Yarborough are taking a temporary apartment in Washington until the end of this session \(about the end of Austin for the rest of the year. In January he will have to go back to Washington, and the 1957 session won't be over before he'll have to start campaigning again. AUSTIN Jake Pickle, who's now working with Jim Lindsey and Harold Winters for the state Democratic executive committee, lost his bets on the Repu,blioan candidate, Thad Hutcheson, in the Senate race. "I bet Hutcheson would win. I'm glad to say, he didn't," Pickle Fagan Dickson, betting on. Ralph Yarborough against the field, collected a $25 hat from Pickle. \(The report was out he was calling Dallas to see if ho coud find one for $250, but he Pickle also lost bottles of whisky to Dickson's secretary and to Bill Petri, a Yarborough leader in Austin, Pickle betting Hutcheson would beat the field. Pickle, now sharing the S.D.E. C. suite behind the Governor's Mansion in Austin, was with Syers-Pickle & Winn, Austin PR firm, but left the firm \(retaining ago. After some independent public relations work and a few months in. Price Daniel's campaign for governor, he joined the state committee. It has been reported he will receive part of the $80,000 budget the committee is seeking to raise for its state staff. Lindsey as chairman is to receive $15,000 a year. , tools required would be legisla tive representation," and not con tent with this provocative gener alization, the firm provides a $6,000 item in the budget for "campaign organization and leg islative services," plus another $2,000 for "travel and expenses." Passage of the amendment. says the S-P and W report, will de pend largely on "handling of bill in the legislature" and "amount of constituent organization to bring pressure from home" through "comprehensive organi zation." 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. Yarborough is generally expected to join the FulbrightSparkman-Hill-Kefauver band of Southern liberals. He is not, however, "a liberal's liberal." He is on record against "forced integration." Just what this will mean in this session's civil rights fight is yet to be seen. \(In spite of James Hart's stand for integration, Yarborough carried the Negro precincts in the cities overevery other member of the Texas delegation, he is committed to defend the oil industry's 27.5 percent depletion allowance, and he opposes federal regulation 'ef natural gas prices. He is for "trim 245e\\ 4P% \(Dt e \(2, Newspaper 'Free Juice, Tree Plantings, Styles Touted for Tourists N\\-14,..\\\\ \\ovs No. 48 enmity Prevails 43 Pickle's Bets HUCKSTERS TO GET TAX FUNDS? , An additional budget of $30,000 is also set up for running the Texas Tourist Foundation. Back at the end of the pamphlet it is estimated the program will cost the state $1 million a year,, starting the first few years at $500,000 annually. Sure enough, Rep. James Cotten, Weatherford, noticed the "legislative services item" and told the House during last week's debate: "I don't know what that legislative service is or what they spent that money for but it's right there in the book." Rep. Bryan said he had hoped he wouldn't have to do this, but he read from affidavits and bank statements that "no money has Pickle said Hutcheson would have won if he had played his cards right. "He dissipated his strength," said Pickle, "partly with the Pool bill operation. He was just too cute about it ...,. Then he made a basic mistake, I think, he could have followed the same Republican line, against everything, Truman, Roosevelt, Stevenson .... ihe old moss-backs, you know," Pickle thought he could have added this negative vote to his initial strength and won. The Pool bill, promoted by the state committee and Governor Daniel, would have called a runoff after the April 2 Senate voting. It passed the House with a squeak but the Senate refused to take it up in time for the election. Hutcheson opposed it vehemently. Daniel and the committee are now working to pass through the legislature a bill to prohibit use of a pre-existing political organization name that might suggest an official sanction. The bill is aimed at "Democrats of Texas," a group seeking to assert control of the party at the 1958 state convention. It is , led by Mrs. R. D. Randolph of Houston, Democratic national committeewoman. The Harris County Democratic executive committee has refused to raise a part of the state committee's budget. The ewe great rule of composition is to speak the truth. Thoreau