ustxtxb_obs_1957_09_06_50_00001-00000_000.pdf

Report on the Code of Ethics DALLAS “It is difficult for me to approve this order, but this is the land of law and it is my duty to do what I have been ordered to do by a higher court.” In these troubled terms, Federal District Judge William H. Atwell, 87, Thursday ordered desegregation of the schools of the Dallas Independent School Districtthe hitherto all-white public schools of the city of Dallas at the close of the Christmas, 1957, holiday. There was no “gradual” implication in the order. It said : “Segregation will be ended at the commencement of the midwinter term and not before.” Judge Atwell spoke exactly two yearsalmost to the hour after Negroes first challenged the historic Dallas public school segregation pattern. On Sept. 5, 1955, 23 Negro students asked for admission to public schools here, were turned down and took their case to court. On Sept. 16, 1955, Judge Atwell ruled that the schools could remain segregated. The Negroes appealed to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals at New Orleans. That court held Atwell had erred in making his decision by failing to hear all the evidence on the Negroes’ side. It remanded the case. Judge Atwell again held for the schools, saying school officials must have time to study the problem and commenting: “If there are civil rights, there are also civil wrongs.” \(After the July decision, Dallas school officials made public a report on which it had based part of its defense against the lawsuit. The report showed that 23.2 percent of Dallas’ school personnel questioned favored integration on a theoretical basis but had “grave misgivings as to the immediate practicality of such a step.” “A definite disfavoring of desegregation” was shown by 48.5 per cent. Nineteen and a half percent said they “favored integration with a feeling that it would be a positive force after some initial adjustment difficulAgain, the Negroes appealed to the New Orleans appellate court. That court then ordered desegregation here “with all deliberate speed.” The schools asked a rehearing, based on passage of the new Texas law requiring a referendum on the question of desegregation. The rehearing was denied, the New Orleans court saying of the Texas law, “This act of course cannot operate to relieve the members of this court of their sworn duty to support the Constitution of the United States, the same duty which rests upon the members of the several state legislatures and all legislative and judicial officers of the several states.” Despite this ruling and fearing the loss of an estimated $6,000,000 in state funds to the Dallas schools \(if it acted without the school board opened its schools on Wednesday on the old segregated basis. Reluctant Order Meantime, though, last Saturday, Judge Atwell had called the Thursday hearing, based on the latest ruling of the New Orleans court. On Thursday, Atwell said: “There are approximately 119,000 children in the Dallas Independent School District, one of every six of whom is a Negro. The school buildings are completely filled. White children would have to be displaced to let Negro children in. “There is an apparent difference in the scholastic ability of white and Negro children. There are not enough teachers to impart adequate education because of this difference in aptitude. “The Court of Appeals has ruled that as long as Negro scholars are ; denied by reason of their color, they are denied their constitutional rights and has ordered that desegregation proceed with all deliberate speed. “The petition for rehearing by the school board called further attention to the state law approved by the governor which became would cause a loss to the defenda year from the state of Texas heretofore granted to the Dallas schools. This petition was likewise denied. “This court is now called upon to issue an order in accord with the ruling of the higher court. “This not only unsettles the tranquility of the Dallas puolic SAN ANTONIO The Texas REA Co-ops should throw themselves into the summer legislative elections to avenge their defeat in the last legislature, Riggs Shepperd, manager, Medina Electric Cooperative, told the annual convention of the Texas Electric Cooperatives here last week. “For 20 years,” Shepperd said, “I have said REA ought to keep out of politics. I was wrong. I apologize completely. “I hope you’ll determine to be politically active. I hope we can show them how simple and how direct we can be.” Shepperd urged the co-op leaders to “screen local candidates to the legislature.” “From now on I’m going to take an interest in anybody who runs for office, even if he just wants to be dogcatcher,” he said. Shepperd said the public power companies’ advertisements a r e paying off.” “People think they are true,” he said. Responding to an address on “The Texas Lobbyists” by Ronnie Dugger of the Observer, Sheppard told the convention, “It makes me ashamed of the political situation we have. It makes me determined to do all that one man can to change it.” Shepperd endorsed the legislative pay raise citizens will vote Howard ‘ Dodgen, Railroad Commissioner Bill Murray, Land Commissioner Earl Rudder, Highway Commissioners Marshall Formby and Herbert Petry, Prison System director B. Ellis, and even one college president, James G. Gee of East Texas State Teachers College at Commerce, have filed affidavits recording some of their business circumstances. But a number of state officials Lt. Gov. Ben Ramsey, House Speaker Waggoner Carr, many commissioners and administrators Ronnie Duggcr either have not recorded such connections or have decided they do not have any to report. Officials Record It Daniel reported he is not connected as the law specifies with any business entity, although he owns two mutual life insurance’ shares of stock \(one-third of the Inc., at Liberty. Wilson reported he’s a director and stockholderof Cullum ‘Ik”. Boren Co. in Dallas and has a fractional interest in an oil and ga,4 lease in Ward County. Steakley recorded his ownership of 18 shares in Great National Life Insurance Co. of Dallas, ten shares in Capital National Bank in Austin, and two shares in Builderi and Bankers Insurance Corp. of America, of Austin. DPS Director Garrison, who has hag his employees file affidavits tactically en masse \(most \(Continued on in November, 1958. Speaking individually, he said: “It might help more men of experience to stand for election. It will help see that the best candidates can afford to announcc and_ that they will live decently and honorably. Unless we pay them decently it will be hard for them to resist all the free stuff.” Shepperd reviewed setbacks for public power in the national Congress and said REA people have no choice but to “support every deserves.” William A. Brown, attorney for the co-ops, reviewed the legislative fight between the co-ops and the private utilities last session in Austin. He said the bill sponsored by Rep. Leroy Saul, Kress, was supported by the private utilwhoever drafted it made some mistakes and gave the co-ops more power than they had had before. But he indicated the legislative fight will continue in the 1959 session. Sen. Charles Herring, Austin, who sponsored pro-REA amendments in the Senate, Sen. Henry Gonzalez, San Antonio, who voted for the REA-supported program, and Rep. Alonzo Jamison, who introduced the REA-backed bill in the House, spoke to the convention. Also present was Sen. Andy Rogers, Childress, who supported REA in the controversy. Aging Judge Gives In REA Eyes Politics vestments or other financial connections that might create “sub, stantial” conflicts of interest between public service and private gain, it does not require public officials to report investments which they believe do not create such conflicts. It does require them to advise the Secretary of State in sworn affidavits if they are officers, agents, members of, or own “a controlling interest in” any business entities under the jurisdiction of the Insurance Board, Banking Department, Railroad Commission, and Texas Liquor Control Board. With the program in its fifth month, twelve senators have re corded business connections, three have said they had none to record, and the remaining 16 have not filed affidavits. Thirty-nine of the 150 members of the Texas House of Representatives have acknowledged certain financial connections, while a handful have reported they do not have any to report. About half the Senate and two-thirds of the House are yet to be heard from. Gov. Price Daniel, Atty. Gen. Will Wilson, Secy. of State Zollie Steakley, Director of Public Safety Homer Garrison, State Auditor C. H. Cavness, Adjutant General K. L. Berry, Game and Fish Commission c h a it m a n Herbert Frensley, and executive secretary! AUSTIN Many High Public Officials The Code of Ethics is not working out quite as it had been expected to. It is true that three thousand, five hundred and three completed, signed, and notarized affidavits have been filed with the Secretary of State reporting business connections of public servants which might fall under the authority of certain state regulatory agencies. But most of these are formalities: most of them concern routine shareholding in agency credit unions. Since the law sets no deadline after which public servants could be penalized for not filing the affidavits, legislators or high executive officials who do not fileand plenty haven’tcan -always say they just didn’t get around to it. While the code prohibits in List Their Business Activities -44 The “low great rule of composition is to speak the truth. Thoreau .rxa,6 srrurr Ws will servo so group or party but will hew hard to the truth as we ford and the right as itv see it. An Independent Liberal Weekly Newspaper Vol. 49 TEXAS, SEPTEMBER 6, 1957 10c per copy No. 17 The Unwanted Want Ad The Austin American-Statesman refused to run a state representative’s classified ad on Wednesday in which he proposed to find out when the special legislative session is to be called so lawyer-legislators could decide whether to accept certain cases. Control of retainer fees received by legislator-lawyers is one of the subjects of the special session tentatively set for Oct. 14. Rep. Harold Kennedy, redheaded legislator from Marble Falls, said he took the ad to the Statesman Wednesday and was told they wouldn’t run it. When he asked the clerk to “write the rejection” across the face of it, he was told, he said, that it would be considered and he would be advised. He said he wanted it publshed immdiately. Whereupon Rep. ‘Kennedy telephoned the Observer to see if this newspaper would publish his remarks at our usual commercial rates. Taking the notice to be of public interest, the Observer agreed to publish it at no charge. The text of Rep. Kennedy’s want ad: “Insurance-clean and unindicted state representative desires information concerning the if and when of a special session of the legislature. Have lawyer colleagues who cannot accept employment due to uncertainty of fall availability. Anyone having advance information, straight poop, or good used political crystal ball please notify Harold G. Kennedy, state representative, at Marble Falls, Texas.” Kilday Scores Civil Rights SAN ANTONIO Sheriff Owen Kilday, vowing “I was never so sick of anything in my life as I am of civil rights,” said he’d “use a rubber hose” on intransigent prisoners in the county jao. he had a jail rebellion over food Tuesday, the most recent of various protests in the last two years. He said he’d “start violating civil rights all over the place” and “restore order no matter how much violence I have to use–and I don’t care who knows it …. I may get in trouble with the FBI but those men are going to respect authority …” “If there had been stricter discipline, shooting would never have been necessary,” he said. “Every thief, burglar, and killer over there may not know anything else but he knows all about civil rights and defies anyone to touch him or order him about or exercise any kind of control. “The next man that refuses to obey a jailer, guard, or me, I will take out of there and work him over. If I have to, I’ll use a rubber hose. I don’t want to but I will.”