ustxtxb_obs_1957_10_11_50_00008-00000_000.pdf

Farm to Market Roads Due Cuts Forced integration with troops might lead to “heavy casualties,” say Marshall officials. But Marshall’s mayor says Marshall may have lost businesses because it’s known as a focal point for segregation. In the area north of Dallas there seems to be no “do-or-die” opposition to integration. There is “a feeeling that while integration is not desirable, it is inevitable … can be made to work.” In Greenville several people are convinced integration is coming. Dallas’ News Urges Integration AUSTIN Texas can have a “hilly adequate” state highway system by 1975, without new taxes, says the Texas Research League provided the State Highway Commission is granted “greater flexibility” in the use of its available funds by the legislature. And the place in which to get this flexibility, says the league, in a report prepared for the. highway commission, is in the funds now used for construction and reconstruction of farm-to-market roads. There are three sources of the funds for FM construction and perpetuation \(another word for one federal. The state sources: The Colson-Briscoe Act of 1949, which provides for the transfer of $15 million a year from general revenue for use exclusively for construction of FM roads, and the Motor Fuels Tax Act, which earmarks moneycurrently about $28 million a yearfor the construction and improvement \(“improvement” means reconstruction, not maintenance, in this context, Federal funds of about $7 mil lion a year are available for FM construction and reconstruction \(again not maintenance, says Therefore, concludes TRL, “the that the true needs of the farm road system have changed and that the highway commission should be granted enough flexibility to meet these changed conditions.” If this is not done, TRL says the state “can go on building FM roads ad infinitum out of the presently earmarked funds … and by 1975 would have 71,000 miles of FM roads. \(The present FM goal, as set by the highway commission, is 35,000 miles. Approximately 31,000 miles of FM tain these roads … would require $432 million of the state’s general highway revenues; such a drain … would prevent the state from achieving a fully adequate highway system.” Also, says the league, if the FM program emphasis is not shifted to perpetuation and maintenance, the state will be forced to “impose a substantial increase in the highway user taxes …” C… keep our heads …” concluded the water-breaking editorial. On Sunday the News explained that the school board could not call an election on integration because “nobody in Dallas” believed 32,000 persons could be found to sign the petition for it as required, “nobody in Dallas” believed a majority would order integration, the NAACP “refuses to risk a failure,” and “the school authorities are not free to resort to an election to order segregation and so comply with court commands.” The editorial said: “… with a court at Washington saying one thing and a legislature at Austin saying another, something has to give.” It ended: “Something has got to give.” Monday there appeared an edi torial entitled, “Texas is against violence.” Little Rock violence set back integration in. the South five to 50 years,” it said. Tuesday the News seemed to warn of violence if the courts do not allow Dallas more time: “Little Rock’s distance from Dallas is no longer measured in miles. It is a matter of weeks … and months … If the courts insist upon weeks, the least favorable conditions for peace will prevail. If more time is granted, the forces for goodwill here in Dallas can hit upon a plan which will be gradual, friendly, and free.” The editorial cites the Observer’s editorial statement that the President is now committed to use troops to enforce compliance In certain circumstances and concludes: “Faced by that ‘commitment,’ it is the duty of the legislature to authorize the governor to close a school …. occupied by United States troops.” But also, it adds, “a school board which is forced by court order to integrate should not be compelled to face state criminal penalties for having done so.” IN THE SURVEY story, the News reporters, 12 in all, ranged throughout the state. They reported: East Texans are “boiling mad.” In West Texas opinion is divided on who fouled up in Litle Rock, a slight majority believing Eisenhower could have found a better way to solve the problem. royalty deed which, he testified to the House investigating committee last March 15, he executed on Jan. 11, 1954, in Tyler. The grand jury charged Saunders perjured himself when he swore the deed was executed on that date in Tyler and that the royalty interest was the sole consideration for the $7,000. Atlas Alarm Corp. and Triangle Research and Advertising Co., two other ICT-Cage firms. paid Saunders $300 and $600, respectively. The grand jury, in a second count against Saunders, charged him with perjury in tes= timony in which he said this $900 was for legal services he rendered the companies when he was insurance commissioner. Saunders quit as commission chairman Jan. 1 to become vice president and general counsel of the Republic National Life Insurance Co., which, upon the return of the indictments, announced Saunders’s resignation. Smith, appointed casualty commissioner in April, 1952, resigned under fire in January, 1956, after the U.S. Trust & Guaranty collapse. The grand jury accused him of perjury in testimony before the House committee March 13 on whether he had given ICT more than usual consideration because of $18,200 paid to his son-inlaw for a job with no work. The grand jury also said he gave false testimony when he denied he had received any gifts from Cage except for a Christmas present of little value. The indictment says he received an automobile air conditioner from Cage on March 30, 1953. Rychlik is charged with lying on four points March 13 before the House panel on. whether he had received money from Cage companies in addition to twelve $700-a-month payments. He is charged with failing to give true testimony about his receipt of another $9,800 from Cage companies. Cage was indicted for bribery, said DA Les Procter, because he had been out of the state, during which time the three-year statute Ashley, Others File Statements AUSTIN Senator Carlos Ashley of Llano has added his name to the senators who have filed under the new code of ethics law. Ashley reported he has .1333 percent working interest in an oil and gas lease on 160 acres of land and is operator of Mayfair Minerals, Inc., in McAllen. Rep. R. H. Cory, Victoria, also has filed his report since the Observer’s series on the reports has 25 shares in Texas State Bank in Victoria, 100 shares in Insurance Co. of Texas, five shares in South Texas Savings Assn., and 214 shares in Southern Bankers Investment Co., and he owns Guarantee Abstract Co. of Victoria. E. Harold Beck, a member of the State Board of Control, reports he owns 1200 shares in Beck Industries, Inc., McAllen, 500 shares in the State National Bank in Texarkana, Ark., 200 shares in Canadian Homestead Oil, Ltd., in Alberta, Canada, and 400 shares in Merrill Petroleums, Ltd., also in Canada. ranger Panel To Visit Texas he was told by Texas officials such an inquiry was not needed. The Attorney General’s own probe was headed by Assistant Attorney General Larry Jones, who says details of the findings will not be disclosed until the credit insurance rate hearing. However, to give an idea of the scope of some “small” operators, Jones did divulge that a couple of small loan operators in Fort Worth were found to have outstanding balances of nearly $1 million each. Meanwhile, the loan shark situation in Texas seems generally unchanged from what it has been for many years. Ed Buehner, manager of the Houston Better Business Bureau, recently reported: “The loan shark infestation in Houston is the worst in the entire nation.” He cited a current case where a man borrowed $1900 for two years on a new car and found he must repay $2800 of which $600 was for credit insurance. Buehner invited Senator Langer’s investigators to come to Houston. He said: “I think we’ll be able to supply them with plenty of information on the situation here.” THE TEXAS OBSERVER Page 8 October 11, 1957 Labor Explains DOT Alignment AUSTIN The Texas AFL-CIO, through its committee on political education, has given its reasons for support of the DOT organization instead of the state Democratic executive committee. In a formal statement, COPE says a party should “belong to the people,” not to any office holder, should “be the political voice of its members and not the political machine of its nominees,” and has a right to “demand loyalty of its officers and all those who elect its officers, name its nominees, and devise its platform and policies.” COPE favors a party registration law and believes that “every honest and honorable person who truly loves his party can do no less than support” it. “It is extremely difficult for us to trust the motives of any person who seeks to perpetuate a system whereby a party’s enemies may control it. “We find it difficult if not impossible to place our allegiance with … party officers who oppose and reject these principles that we consider the essence of integrity,” said the statement. Until FOR PERJURY, BRIBERY ICI INDICTMENTS of limitations did not obtain. The same areas of transactions are involved in the indictments against him, Saunders, Smith, and Rychlik. Cage is accused of bribing and offering to bribe Saunders for favorable consideration of matters concerning ICT and for bribing and consenting to bribe Smith by making the payments to Rychlik to get favorable action by Smith on the issuance of a Texas certificate of authority to do business to the Guardian Insurance Co. of South Dakota, which handled some ICT reinsurance. In Fort Worth three unnamed labor officials criticized Eisenhower for using troops. In San Antonio “a Dallas News reporter found it difficult to find anybody stirred up about Little Rock bayonets.” Heavy Latin and Catholic populations there “have contributed to a liberal attitude” on segregation. San Antonio is integrated in schools, parks, city auditorium, swimming pools. A white citizens’ council never got off the ground in Waco. In Austin, Atty. Gen. Will Wilson said: “Mr. Eisenhower … would have been wiser to use peace officers.” In Dallas a file of “trouble makers” is being built up and the sheriff thinks local authorities can handle any trouble. Eisenhower is being defended by the “liberal labor loyalist bloc who fought him hardest and bitterly attacked by states’ righters who supported him. Said Jim Lindsey, chairman of the state Democratic executive committee, Eisenhower is driving people away from the Republicans, but northern Demos “are not doing anything to welcome these voters. Even so, the people who helped Eisenhower will help elect a Democrat in 1960.” Byron Skelton, national committeeman, said “Democrats are opposed to the action the President took …. He made a terrible mistake.” Dean Johnston, Houston liberal Demo, said “most liberal Democrats stood behind Ike but feel he waited terribly long, resulting in a greater disaster.” The News concludes by quoting several National Guard officials Brig. Gen. Robert Ives, Maj. Gen. K. L. Berrythat they would enforce integration if ordered to do so. \(Continued from Page Negro races in the public schools but over a range of time.” This survey continues: “They feel that if piished too quickly, violence may erupt in some schools. The great prayer, a concensus indicates, is that orderly processes of the law can be achieved without ‘bayonets at their throats’ action by federal troops.” In short, then, the News has weighed the dangers of ,state-federal conflict over final ocurt orders and has decided in favor of the court orders. THE FIRST EDITORIAL Oct. 3 asked “What Shall Texans Do Nov?” Arguing for the exemption of court-ordered integration from the new state law, the News said that Dallas school authorities ought not to have to face the dilemma of “going to either a federal or state jail,” and the school system ought not to be fined for an action “it is compelled to take.” \(The East Texas group which met in Palestinesee elsewhere in this issueexpressed opposition to such exemptions from the Urging integration, the News said: “Dallas leaders of both the white and colored parents most concerned in integration. should take quiet steps to arrive at a plan which can reasonably be made the basis of a consent decree, outlining precisely what may be done and what shall be done to arrive at an intermingling of the races in the school system under conditions most likely to gain co-operation from students and parents and least likely to provoke racial clashes, violence, and destruction of public property.” Tending toward the success of such “a consent plan,” said the News, are the points that Dallas federal judge Atwell “knows the facts of life in Dallas” and “believes in law and order under the Constitution of the United States”; Dallas Negroes have practiced “prudence and patience” and will come up with leaders favoring `gradual” plans rather than “agitition”; and, “There is a growing public sentiment for a compromise which will authorize a beginning of integration on a limited geographical basis …” In Dallas Cage’s lawyer, Monte Irion, said “there has been no proof of bribery. “There must be proof that there was an agreement and that it was carried out, and there has been no such proof,” he said. The payments alone do not constitute such proof, he said. Irion said he may ask for a second delay in Cage’s trial in Dallas on a charge of embezzling $100,000 from an ICT subsidiary. Cage is also accused of embezzling another half million from ICT. In Austin last week Otto Mullinax, Dallas labor relations lawyer, said he thinks Cage’s “net worth is well over $1 million. I am satisfied he is not broke as he reports.” All the principals in the indictments made bonds. Cage’s was $5