ustxtxb_obs_1957_08_16_50_00004-00000_000.pdf

LaredoForum Differs `We Live Off Their Sweat’ 1955-56, home was South Texas, in one of the counties bounded by the west boundary of Maverick County; the north boundaries of Maverick, Edwards, Kerr, Gillespie, Blanco, a n d Williamson Counties; the eastern boundaries of Williamson, Bastrop, Caldwell, Ghadalupe, Wilson, McMullen, San. Patricio, Kleberg, Kennedy, Willacy and Cameron Counties; and the Rio Grande. This is the way Von Zuben describes the migrant’s home: “He tries to own his own home. Usually it’s a shack on a piece of ground 25 feet square. His home is usually substandard, devoid of plumbing facilities, and not infrequently disease ridden and vermin infested.” He lives in this home from November, when he comes home from the harvests, until March, when his wandering must, “for sheer survival,” begin again. What Now? Local city-county health units serve many of these South Texas counties. Why can’t the migrant be reached by their free clinics and immunization programs, by visiting bourses, by the well-child classes? Because, said Zuben, he has no routine. He is not at home nine months out of 12. The children are taken out of school to go on the annual trek. They miss shot programs, TB x-rays, visiting nurses. As a class, Von Zuben said, the migrant helplessly perpetuates himself. “The average child probably reaches the third grade at about the age 12 or 13, becomes discouraged, a n d embarrassed, and gives up school. Since the young do not get an education or develop any special skills, the citizen migrant is perpetuated, generation after generation.” \(The migrant family desperately needs the earnings of its several children, too, Von Zuben said, “Oh, yes, most states have child labor laws, but you drive along the highways and look out into the fields. You’ll see the Health Department spokesmen said they believed only a concerted federal-state effort, aimed at treating the migrant as a special problem needing special treatment, will provide any permanent improvement. Von Zuber, meantime, has some concrete short-range suggestions, although neither the Health Department nor USPHS has funds in sight for for most of them. Von Zuben suggests: 1.That a pilot study be made of a select group of migrant workgoing from Texas to Michigan. \(This is the in works, to begin in group is to be selected in cooperation with labor recruiters and the Texas Employment Commission. These workers will be examined, given health cards so accurate checks can be made at any time of pertinent health information. 2.The development of “some form of medical insurance for migrants in order to take the burden off individual communities ….One plan \(which another Health Department official said doctors fight as ‘socialized medicost of insurance evenly by the federal government, employers and workers. 3.Special local health department services for migrants financed by federal grants-in-aid. 4.Housing programs. This, said LAREDO The Laredo GI Forum has declared that the bracero program with Mexico “has been subverted to the crass desire of American ranchers and farmers for a cheap supply of foreign labor at the cost and expense of American citizen labor.” In a resolution criticizing an Observer editorial of July 19 discussing the bracero program, the Forum here apparently sought to qualify a resolution adopted at the recent state convention condemning the admission of any Oriental workers to the United States. The resolution also commended the Observer, said the issue was “a disagreement between friends,” and recommended that members of the GI Forum subscribe to and read the Observer. The text of the resolution: Whereas, in its issue of July 19, 1957, The Texas Observer carried an editorial criticizing the American GI Forum for its stand against the importation of Oriental labor and for its opposition to the use of Mexican bracero labor in American agriculture under present conditions; and Whereas The Texas Observer has in other issues and on other occasions been a strong advocate of civil rights, economic, and other protections for the LatinAmerican, the Negro, and other minorities; and Whereas, The Texas Observer has as its editorial policy one based on strict adherence to facts, to honesty, to integrity, to democracy, and to debate of public issues in a fair, intelligent, and constructive way, now, therefore, be it Resolved, by the American GI Forum of Laredo that it deplore the fact that the aforementioned editorial was written in such a manner as to reflect a liberal philosophy based on the “white castle, what should be rather than what is” attitude; that it ignored the patent fact that the program with Mexico looks fine on paper and as an ideal or theoretical system but in actual fact and in practical application it has been subverted to the crass desire of American ranchers and farmers for a cheap supply of foreign labor at the cost and expense of American Von Zuben, has been neglected “almost universally.” And, he said, “we must come up with a suitable dwelling to cost about $1200 to $1500 which employers can afford to build for their migrants. 5.The development and distribution . of a manual on rudimentary sanitation to migrant crew leaders. 6.An intensive educational program among individual farmers and agricultural cooperative personnel using migrant labor. Von Zuben does not pretend to have a permanent solution. He said: “I do know that we live off the blood, sweat, and tears of these people. Texas certainly has a responsibility for part of the solution.” State Health Commissioner Henry Holle believes progress toward a solution will be slow, hampered by the many overlapping and conflicting governmental jurisdictions, the effect of adding even slight additional costs to employers’ labor costs and the unique nature of the problem. Von Zuben said a Texas constitutional amendment setting up an earmarked health tax might be a “salvation.” “An answer to this problem has to be found; it simply has got to be found.” citizen labor which is being displaced in increasing numbers and whose wages are being depressed more and more; that American history undeniably shows that during those periods when Oriental labor was imported it was imported purely and solely for the purpose of supplying cheap labor to American industry and agriculture; that as far as Mexico and the Mexican people are concerned as well as Oriental peoples of whatever nationality, The American GI Forum is opposed to their temporary entry only when it is impelled by a desire to Seven Indicted Over U S Trust HOUSTON The federal government charges that officers of U. S. Trust & Guaranty, including A. B. Shoemake, entered into a conspiracy to defraud the investing public by false representations to get deposits, inflating assets and shunting off obligations to a subsidiary they knew couldn’t sustain them. This is the company that collapsed late in 1955, taking with it the savings of thousands of Texas people a n d revealing in its wreckage payments to nine members of the Texas Senate. U. S. Trust & Guaranty never was regulated in its banking operations because the Senate killed a bill to accomplish that objective. Senator Carlos Ashley of Llano received $10,000 from A. B. Shoemake, president of the firm, and then helped defeat the company’s regulation as a bank in the Senate. Shoemake subsequently shot himself in the head. Ashley was elected president pro tem of the Senate in the closing days of the last session. A federal grand jury in Houston indicted Shoemake and six othersWillis V. Lewis, former president of Arkansas Fire and Marine Insurance Co.; J. Hugh Hope of Waco, former Arkansas . Fire & Marine and UST&G officer; James M. Hay of Waco, former UST&G bookkeeper; W. E. Hutchenrider, f o r m . e r UST&G San Antonio branch manager; and two former appraisers for U. S. Automotive Service, Marshall A. Fuglaar, Sr., and Sylvester Loughlin of San Antonio. Shoemake probably will never come to trial. He is now in a hospital reportedly suffering from mental incapacitation. The grand jury charges the group schemed to defraud investors by false and inflated representations of the firm’s strength. It charges they falsely said money on deposit with UST&G was insured and guaranteed up to $10,000 by 100 percent reserves in cash. Three parcels of land a subsidiary bought for $180,000 were appraised a t $2,088,592; three tracts also bought for $180,000 were listed as a deed of trust of $1,492,050. The indictment says further that although the public was told all deposits would be reinvested in car finance notes or kept as cash reserve, the firm took half a million dollars from the treasury to organize Arkansas Fire & Marine and then had that firm assume obligations for $1,537,472, which was then removed from UST&G’s listed obligations. Arkansas Fire & Marine never wrote a single insurance policy. The firm was relicensed year after year by the Insurance Cornmission. The grand jury did not remark on. any state officials. bring cheap labor into the American labor market; that the American GI Forum is not opposed to the entry of any foreign national under the normal and usual procedures laid out by the immigration laws for permanent residence in the United States and with adequate safeguards to protect American citizens, business, industry and labor; that the American GI Forum feels that as a matter of practical application of the liberal philosophy and of humane considerations it is best to help Mexico and other underdeveloped foreign countries to develop their economies so as to develop better opportunities for their own people rather than to throw the border wide open to the importation of additional misery into the United States by bringing in foreign nationals without adequate and practical safeguards for their protection while in this country. Be it further Resolved, that the American GI Forum of Laredo commend the editor and personnel of The Texas Observer for the overall general high quality, caliber and excellence of their news reporting and editorial opinion; that the organization take the aforementioned editorial and the direct and implied criticism by it of the Forum as a disagreement between friends, subject to rapid and amicable settlement and understanding; and that every member of the Ameriacn GI Forum be encouraged to subscribe and read regularly The Texas Observer. 99 Yarborough On Tax Reduction WASHINGTON Senator Ralph Yarborough broke into a spate of statements this week on everything from $32 million drouth and flood relief for the state’s farmers to a pledge for federal funds to repair the Port Arthur seawall. In a Senate speech he proposed cutting income taxes by increasing the personal income deduction from $600 to $800 a year. And he called on President Eisenhower to sign the postal pay raise bill after its Senate passage. “The President felt no such qualms about raising the interest rate to give the money lenders even more handsome profits,” Yarborough said. Hearing Slated On Ad Wording DALLAS A Federal Trade Commission hearing will be held here Sept. 17 to hear answers to complaints against Federated Department Stores, Inc. FTC said the corporation is charged with “misbranding, false advertising and false invoicing of furs.” Specifically, FTC said, Federated is charged with failure in newspaper ads “to give the proper names of the animals producing the furs or to show when furs were artificially :..olored,” with “failing to show in advertising when furs are composed of paws, tails, bellies or waste fur,” with “making fictitious pricing claims in its newspaper ads” and with “failing to keep the required record on facts on which … pricing claims are based.” THE TEXAS OBSERVER Page 4 Aug. 16, 1957 hotel. \(Cage himself was regisIrion urged Cage not to go back to Texas. “Time is the best lawyer,” Irion told newsmen. “In a year or so, the publicity of this thing will die down.” Cage released a statement sprinkled with the qualification, “if I return.” No deal had been made with Wade, he said. Wade said this, also. “I have never knowingly done anything in violation of the law,” Cage said to reporters. “If anything I have done constitutes a violation of the law, I am willing to accept my punishment.” The next day, the group were closeted in conference another six hours. Nobody knows what went on inside, but when they came out, they looked beat. Cage was beseiged after the conference with reporters’ questions. “Are you going back to Texas?” He smiled, said, “I think