ustxtxb_obs_1957_05_14_50_00001-00000_000.pdf

-Bray Photo Sen. Bruce Reagan He Pushed It Through w will serve no . group or party but will hew hard to the truth as we find it and the right as we see it. The one great rule of composition is to speak the truth. Thoreau Vol. 49 OIR Orxr 2: ,c 4fN 4 4. 4 4C.. 02,0 An hick, ca’ c Weekly Newspaper s , MAY 14, 1957 rr 10c per copy No. 1 Water Plan Clears Filibuster Lock Yields on Monday, Bond `Gravy’ is Discussed `DOT’ Meets On Saturday New Political Group Attacked, Defended AUSTIN With statements flying both to encourage and discourage attendance, “Democrats of Texas” holds its first statewide meeting Friday and Saturday here. Mrs. R. D. Randolph, Democratic national committeewoman returned to Houston from a meeting of the national committee, said D.O.T. in effect has the sanction of the national committee, , while Jim Lindsey, state Democratic executive committee chairman, said it has “no connection with the official state Democratic Party.” Ralph Yarborough, the junior senator from Texas, and Charles Brannan, former Secretary of Agriculture under President Harry Truman, will speak. Plans will be made for county by county oraanizati Mrs. Randolph said D.O.T. will be a “grass roots group to work for the principles and ideals of the Democratic Party.” “The organization of the Democrats of Texas,” she said, “has, in effect, the sanction of the Democratic national committee. The committee voted, by a good majority, to encourage the organization of Democratic clubs which will work for the platform and candidates of the Democratic Party.” Lindsey, in a letter to county Democratic chairmen, advised KENEDY “Texas is said to be the loan shark state but it will soon be known as a bond b u y e r’s paradise,” charged Sen. Ottis E. Lock, Lufkin, in a filibuster attack on one phase of the proposed multimillion-dollar state water development and conservation program. Although he debated for 12 hours and 50 minutes, and managed at least temporarily to block the bill setting up a $100 million bond issue for purchase of water storage space in federal projects, Lock was not clear on just how much money bond buyers will make off the proposed program. The Senate took up the bill for the second time this week and passed it 29-1, with Lock casting the only no vote. WASHINGTON Ralph Yarborough, the new senator from Texas, voted on the opposite side from his senior Texas colleague, Lyndon Johnson, May 8 on the issue of confirming the Administration’s appointment of Scott McLeod as ambassador to Ireland. McLeod has been an extremely controversial State Department officer. The vote was on whether to recommit his nomination to committee. Johnson and some other Democrats voted with the Republicans on the issue. Yarbor He warned that the proposed storage space bond issue, unlike the $200 milion issue bill approved for aiding local water districts with local projects, “is not self-liquidating. It will cost the people of Texas a lot of money, sooner or later. It is being presented along with the good water bill and stands a good chance of passage when the Senate would never seriously consider it if it was shown under its true colors,” Lock charged. Senator George Parkhouse, author of the plan, fumed helplessly during Lock’s debate. He said later that he would bring the meas ough voted with Democrats who oppose the President on it. The motion to recommit was defeated 54-22. Next day he voted against McLeod on the direct question. Among those with whom Yarborough voted were Sens. Clark, D o u g 1 a s, Fulbright, Kennedy, Morse, Neuberger, and Sparkman. Yarborough also loosed his first political blast as a senator at the Eisenhower administration. He criticized the Agriculture Department for refusing to extend the deadline for including Texas farm lands covered by water in recent floods in the soil bank program. ure up again early this week and would possibly have some one move the previous question to block Lock from a ‘second filibuster. “I hate to do it, stop anyone from debate. But he has had his say and time is short with a Bob Bray lot of important work still in the mill,” said Parkhouse. The senator from Dallas said the plan to purchase conservation storage space in federal dams is in some ways “more important than the other bill.” He said it was untrue that the program The senator charged that the Department last year extended the soil bank deadline for farmers in the similarly flooded “Republican Middle West. That extension was timed to let the Middle Westerners reflect on Republican generosity in advance of going to the polls to vote in the 1956 presidential election,” Yarborough said. “I want the people of Texas to know that sole responsibility for the refusal to help disasterstricken Texas rests on the Rep u b l i c a n administration’s Department of Agriculture,” he added. would not be self-liquidating. “It will not pay for itself immediately, but it will in time,” Parkhouse declared. He told the Senate that recent floods have given ample proof of the need for such facilities. “Around $65 million has beeri spent in our area on flood control projects and the recent floods caused small damage. More than $100 million in damage was prevented from these rains alone,” Parkhouse said. He pointed out the program also was aimed at helping supply industrial water and that those who say think it is “too costly” should co -ider that California has an $11.5 billion program underway. “That’s what they are doing to get sufficient water, and we are in competition with California for this business, for new industry,” he said. Parkhouse told the Observer that charges by Lock that the proposed Texas Water Development Board would be composed of “people who know nothing about water but are finance experts” were entirely wrong. He said it would be up to the Governor to appoint the board and added he “didn’t think” any bond company representative would want to serve, because that would disqualify him from bidding on the bond issue. LOCK SPENT much of his filibuster alluding to the storage space purchase bill as “a marriage between the State of Texas and the U.S. Corps. of Engineers, with too little attention given to the c o n t r act of marriage. I don’t know who is going to be the bride and who is going to be the groom, but I believe this is n Yarborough Opposes McLeod It is the slum clearance or urban renewal bill, which al sideration. He said it was “the slum clearance bill so badly needed by many cities … It enables the people of each city to vote on whether they want such a debate on the bill in the upper program and then gives city of fihouse there was little reference cials authority t o rehabilitate to the thousands of underpriviblighted areas.” leged families it is to help. At only one point, just after it had been voted down in Senate committee, did Senator Henry Gonzalez, San Antonio, present the case for the people who would be helped. “As a man who comes from an area much of which unfortunately is in slum conditions, I know what it is. If you have never seen nine or ten people living in a one-room shack, perhaps you don’t understand.” But although tIle bill did not draw strong debate on the basis of human need it got powerful backing from the Texas Home Builders Association, which stands to profit financially from the rehabilitation programs, and from officials of more than half a dozen cities now preparing for slum clearance projects. Among these cities are Corpus Christi \(whose Sen. Bruce Reagan, steered the bill to Senate pasWorth \(whose Rep. Don Kennard Austin, Lubbock, Laredo, a n d Corsicana. Reagan got a favorable 22-5 vote to suspend the rules and bring the bill up for Senate con sorta rushed up elopement, not at all a proper ceremony. When the honeymoon is over, one party will be very unhappy and I predict it won’t be the federal agency.” had this Sen. Preston Smith, Lubbock, there’s been some auestioned Lock about his state charged “those ment that the program would not , turned from the right be self-liquidating. Smith said, “I in principle to the left in expediency.” He charged the bill was a “socialistic scheme” and branded it “unconstitutional.” At that point, Sen. Abraham Kazen, Laredo, who had filibustered the first segregation bill as being unconstitutional, arose for a question of Hardeman. “Do you recall, senator from Tom Green, that last week I was pleading the same instrument and looked in vain for someone to get up and speak with me, and you never answered?” reminded Kazen. “Ah, er, I know what you mean,” answered Hardeman, and returned to his assault of the slum clearance bill. He charged that “regardless of the value put on it the owners will never get their money out of it. No matter how poor it is, it’s their home,” he said. He termed the condemnation powers given the city officials to clear such areas as “dangerous.” The bill was engrossed, 22-7, and barely failed to get the required four-fifths approval for immediate passage. It was passed a day later in half a minute by voice vote. BOB BRAY AUSTIN most miraculously returned A bill expected to mean life from the dead after being in comfortable, clean homes voted down in the Senate for thousands of Texans is state affairs committee. now awaiting signature by Strangely enough throughout Governor Daniel. Bray Photo Sen. Dorsey Hardeman Said It’s Unconstitutional Anti-Slum Bill Is Finally Passe . Sen. Dorsey Hardeman, San An gelo, was the only senator to speak in opposition. “We killed once but turncoats,” he who have \(Continued on WATER PROGRAM ‘INADEQUATE’? HOUSTON One of Texas’ foremost authorities on water development, Harry P. Burleigh, Austin, told a Houston Post television panel that the dambuilding program currently before the legislature is inadequate. Burleigh, an engineer for the U. S. Bureau of Reclamation, said the state program is “a very fine beginning” but lacks the scope and is not large enough to meet the needs of Texas cities and industries. He said the program “is aimed deliberately at the smaller cities. To meet the future demands of cities and industries will take a plan of considerably larger magnitude,” he said. “Our studies indicate that an expenditure of $2.5 billion and possibly as much as $3.5 billionwill be needed to meet the basic water requirements of major cities and industries in Texas during the next three decades,” Burleigh reported.