ustxtxb_obs_1957_06_07_50_00004-00000_000.pdf

AUSTIN A new Travis County grand jury, not including, however, Weldon Hart, for said it is likely that some new mer press secretary to Gov witnesses will be called and posernor Shivers, will take up sible that the new jury will wind investigation of the ICT In up work on the two cases within surance Company collapse the next three or four weeks. ICT, Naturopath Probes Pass to New Grand Jury Oil interests Welcome Anderson Selection and alleged bribery of legislators by naturopaths. The grand jury whose term had testimony and has evidence of possible criminal activity that certainly warrants a continued and thorough study of the matters involved.” It reported: “This grand jury has been able in the limited time , available to examine only a portion of the large volume of records and evidence presented to it and there remain many facets AUSTIN Seven more Texas insurE ance companies, six of them mutual assessment and burial associations and the other a fire and casualty company, a r e teetering dangerously near to collapse, it has been disclosed by Insurance Commission Chairman John Osorio. The seven firms, said Osorio, are among the 143 companies which the insurance commission has declined, for the time being, to relicense until they have given the state additional information Among key witnesses who have appeared before the jury in the two probes were Henry G. Leh Rogers of Childress, who also sponsored one of the naturopath bills; Dr. Howard Harmon, San Antonio naturopath who tape-recorded a payoff conversation with then Rep. James E. Cox of Conroe; and former insurance commissioners J. Byron Saunders of Smith of Austin, and Smith’s sonin-law, Max Wayne Rychlik. The 143 . companies not yet relicensed include 40 Texas legal life companies, 61 mutual assessment a n d burial associations, three fire and casualty companies, 27 foreign life companies, and 12 foreign fraternals. Saunders, Smith and Hart were among the top-ranking appointees named by Allan Shivers during his administration. Smith was on Shivers’ staff before the Governor named him to the insurance commission. Hart was excused from the grand jury at his own request. Meanwhile, the Dallas County grand jury returned its second indictment in ten days against BenJack Cage, playboy promoter of the ICT company. Cage was billed for allegedly defrauding the insurance firm out of $100,000 in a transaction on June 22, 1955. The earlier indictment charged him with theft and embezzlement of $500,000 from the organization which he managed. Attorney General Will Wilson commended the Dallas grand jury on its work in the ICT case and disclosed that studies up to this point indicate that it was not the questionable transactions a n d stock sales which finally broke the company. He said, “The major factor appears to have been basic policies of the company. The plan of using labor unions as the sales before he was billed by the jury he had told friends he was planning to return to this country voluntarily. At that time he was in WASHINGTON Appointment of Robert B. Anderson as Secretary of the Treasury gives oil interests another powerful ally in their fight to retain their coveted 27.5 percent depletion allowance. Anderson, ex-general manager of the multi-million dollar Waggoner Estate, is a past president of the Texas Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association and a director of the American Petroleum Institute and Independent Petroleum Association. His position on the depletion allowance is on record. He testified in favor of the allowance before a congressional committee while representing Texas MidContinent. An honor law graduate from the University of Texas, Anderson has had a varied public record for a man just approaching his 47th birthday. He served one term as a state representative and has held posts as assistant state attorney general, state tax commissioner, a director of the Texas Unemployment Commission, Secretary of the Navy, and deputy Secretary of Defence. President Eisenhower has heaped praise on Anderson on several occasions, once commenting that Anderson was qualified to hold any job in government “including my own.” At the time, able speculation that Anderson was being groomed as a possible GOP presidential contender. His appointment as Secretary of the Anderson was during the first years of his federal appointment an Eisenhower Democrat, but since moving his residence to New York he has registered as a Republican. South Texans For Budget Cuts CORPUS CHRISTI Senator Lyndon B. Johnson and the Corpus Christi Caller Times circulated a questionnaire among South Texas voters to get their views on the proposed budget and other issues. Out of a total of ‘716 answers, 538 favored trimming President Eisenhower’s proposed $71.8 billion budget. Of the budget cutters 479 wanted to trim down foreign aid; 301 said there should be no new spending programs, and 250 favored cutting domestic programs. In Washington, Johnson called for an “early and complete survey by the Army Corps of Engineers to determine the flood control needs of the rivers of Texas.” He took sharp issue with those who termed flood con trol projects pork barrel legislation. “We must not be deterred by those who, through lack of information or because of wrong information, raise the cry ‘pork barrel.’ I have never regretted a dollar of any money ‘I have voted to spend for controlling floods and conserving our water resources,” he declared. and ramifications to be more toroughly investigated.” District Attorney Les Procter exipred retired without returnman of Giddings, former repre ing indictments in the major sentative who sponsored naturo probes but reported it had “heard path bills in 1955; Senator Andy Seven More Insurance Companies Nearly Under concerning their operating proceorganization for the company and dures and financial position. Six the policy writers was,, unsound of the mutual assessment and from the beginning.” He exburial associations have been plained that policies were written given orders to show cause why which no ordinary insurance they should not be put out of company writing competitive prebusiness. One of the fire and casmiums would have risked. ualty companies, he said, is in a No word had been heard from questionable position. BenJack Cage since return of the indictments at Dallas, but shortly the remark touched off consider Buenos Aires, Argentina, promotTreasury has revived some of ing a fiber glass business. that conjecture. Senator Gonzalez Mail Favored Filibuster An Irving man wrote disconsolately: “If a majority can’t rule, then I can’t see where we are any better off than the people in Russia.” An envelope from Temple contained a piece of cardboard with the red-letter words, “Communism says Integrate.” `True American’ But if Gonzalez had to bear more than the ordinary senator’s burden of abuse, he also received a far greater share of adulation and encouragement than most of his colleagues. A Latin-American wrote from the University of Missouri, where he is a senior: “I have experienced the same experiences you have by being denied a clerical job while attending the University of Texas due to my Mexican ancestry.” “It is especially encouraging,” said a man in Towson, Md., “to realize that opposition to the extreme racists exists and indeed fights in the South.” Writing from Nashville, another man said: “Being from Kilgore, I was not sure that we had such great liberals in the state. I was wrong.” From Hempstead, deep in East Texas, came the word: “There are white people in. the state who dont want to live by the distorted standards of East Texas … Don’t let them browbeat or intimidate you.” A Port Arthur man with “a solid racist rearing” told Gonzalez he was grateful for his stand. A Victoria doctor told him, “Your name will go down in Texas history as one of the greatest statesmen of omtime.” San Antonians wrote Gonzalez: “I am for youyou are a true American!” “San Antonio has a reputation for being a community that is tolerant to all races and religions. We wish to keep it that way.” “God love you and Senator Kazen.” “I am a teacher in a junior high school; I teach Negroes, whites, Chinese, and Mexicans and like it that way!” “We have one Negro in our outfit who is without question the most brilliant man on electronics it has been my privilege to work with.” “White, black, or yellowGod loves all of his children.” A Danish-named San Antonian told Gonzalez he is “a worthy descendant of such other champions of liberty and equality as Hidalgo and Juarez.” An Austin girl thanked Gonzalez “for making me a little less, ashamed of my white skin.” A Rusk County Negro said, “We there were some left with the idea of freedom and justice as well as liberty in the Texas Senate.” A Galveston lawyer said: “We did not oppose the racism of fascist Germany in order to preserve to our state legislatures the privilege of enacting legislation based on the same principles of racism.” Said a letter from Beaumont: “There are hundreds of thousands even millionsin this state who deep down in their hearts know that you are working in a just cause.” “Keep the faith,” said an Austin adherent, in what a Marshall correspondent called “heroic opposition” to what a San Antonio C.P.A. called “this unholy legislation.” “If state officials expect the people to observe state laws,” I said an Orange resident, “they in turn should attempt to obey our national laws.” A Lubbock writer, excoriating “ignorant Ku Klux Klan bigots,” went on to say: “I stricken nightmares for his Judas kiss-of-death to your efforts.” Dr. He c t or Garcia, Corpus Christi, said passage of the bills would cause the loss of “all of our work for 100 years” for LatinAmericans’ welfare. Richard Casillas, San Antonio, chairman of the American GI Forum, backed up Garcia. A number of League of United Latin American Citizens locals also sent Gonzalez their support. A University of Texas girl wrote Gonzalez: “I live in a house with a Negro girl, and I have grown to like her very much and to respect her.” ‘Opposed to God’ Religious sour c es uniformly condemned what an Amarillo priest called “the hate bills.” Wired Archbishop Robert E. Lucey of San Antonio: “Hate legislation plays into the hands of communists, Keep up the good fight.” “The brotherhood of all men under the fatherhood of God” was upheld by the chairman of the Catholic Interracial Committee of San Antonio. The President of St. Marys University, the Very Rev. Walter J. Buehler, sent “our compliments and appreciation.” “We congratulate you on your stand against hate legislation,” wired a spokesman for 500 women of the Big Spring district of the Diocesan Council of Catholic Women. Rev. Erwin A. Juraschek, Archdiocesan Director for the Archdiocesan Councils of Catholic Men and Women and San Antonio, wrote Gonzalez and all the other senators: “It is most difficult to conceive how any man who considers himself loyal to Texas and our country to come up conscientiously and cast a favorable vote for bills that would attack the rights of any minority group In my humble opinion anyone who acts thus would make a very good commie monger.” The San Antonio and Fort Worth section of the National Council of Jewish Women and rabbis in Dallas and San Antonio sent Gonzalez their good wishes. Rt. Rev. Everett Holland Jones, bishop of the Diocese of West Texas of the Episcopal Church and president of the. Texas Council of Churches, which includes more than a million of the church members of the state, wrote all San Antonio legislators to ask them “to oppose any legislation that will obstruct the orderly progress of integration.” “I think that any obstruction in legislation at this time will be most unfortunate, and I believe I speak for the large body of church people when I express this conviction,” he said. The Rev. Das Kelly Barnett, associate professor of Christian Ethics at the Episcopal Seminary of the Southwest, and Harold Kilpatrick, executive secretary of the Texas Council of Churches, were in regular attendance at the filibusters and lent support to the opposing senators. The curate of a San Antonio Episcopal church wrote Gonzalez: “The intention of such bills seems clearly and unalterably opposed to the will of God.” A wire commending Gonzalez’s “sense of justice” in the segregation fight was signed by “three hundred ministers representing 300,000 Negro Baptists in Texas’s 27th annual session of Lacy Kirk Williams Minister’s Institute, Bishop College, Marshall, Texas,” and the names of officers of a committee. A Presbyterian pastor from the Sabine area told Gonzalez, “Legal ruses to prolong segregation. are doomed to ultimate failure.” A Presbyterian pastor from a Deep East Texas community wrote him: “I am certain that your courage w i 11 ultimately weigh in the cause of justice.” A Texas Tech Presbyterian leader sent Gonzalez encouragement. Foy Valentine, director of the Christian Life Commission of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, wrote Gonzalez he was making news “around the world.” Valentine pleaded “against these billsall of them” as “unnecessary, inflammatory, discriminatory, and, I believe, unconstitutional.” Baptist ministers from San Marcos, San Antonio, and Dallas also supported him. Other denominations were amply represented, too. The Texas District of the American Lutheran Church sent a resolution against circumventing the court decision. Other letters and wires came from leaders of an Evangelical and Reformed Church, The Texas Board of Christian Churches sent a resolution “to speak out boldly in defense of human rights” on the bills. A large number of Methodist ministers wrote Gonzalez. Wrote these clergy: “Our segregationists are cut of the same cloth as Hitler.” “Thank you for your fine Christian leadership.” “You are a credit \\ to the Spanish-speaking people of Texas, and not only to them, but to all in our state who believe in democracy and Christian brotherhood.” THE TEXAS OBSERVER Page 4 June 7, 1957