ustxtxb_obs_1958_04_18_50_00001-00000_000.pdf

Texans must gaze beyond the borders . of the Texas “province,” past even the national frontiers, if they wish to exercise full advantage of their tomorrows, said James P. Hart of Austinattorney and former Supreme Court justice, university chancellor, and U. S. Senate candidate to the University of Texas’s Lyman Jones ALIEN INFLUENCE AUSTIN Dr. John M. Smith, Jr., of San Antonio, writing in the current issue of the Texas State Journal of Medicine, organ of the Texas Medical Assn., attacks extension of social security programs to physicians by implying the extension is inspired by alien in-. fluences. Smith writes: ties, namely, New York and Connecticut, presented resolutions to the House of Delegates of the American Medical Assn. in June, 1957, requesting inclusion of physicians. … Both of these states are in industrial areas in which there is a high physician-patient also be the influence of a large alien population in the profession or of those who are one generation removed? “The 7,000 physicians of Texas in a poll in 1955, in which more than 3,700 replied, voted nine to one against inclusion. … Possibly Texans, having fought for their freedom once, wish to keep it …” , . The one great rule of composition is to speak the truth. Thoreau Orxa,9 Oligrrurr We will serve no group or party but will hew hard to the truth as we find it and the right as we see it. An Independent-Liberal Weekly Newspaper Vol. 50 TEXAS, APRIL 18, 1958 10c per copy No. 3 JIM HART EYES A ‘PROVINCE’ Meantime, insured unemployment in the state climbed to a new high mark. A total of 91,214 individuals filed claims for unemployment compensation in the week ending April 10. Total compensation payments in the same period came to $1,830,794about half a million dollars higher than in the previous week. Previous high claims mark was the 90,352 total reached March 20. The number of claims leaped 3,419 from the week ending April 3 and was more than double the 40,455 claims filed for that week of 1957. The TEC statistics cover only insured employment. Total unemployment in Texasinsured and uninsuredis estimated in excess of 200,000. last week Conference on Texas. \(Other conference remarks are Hart titled his speech “Texas Looks Ahead,” but he sighted in on the past before speaking of the future. Texas began, he said, as a frontier province, peopled by all kinds of men”practical political leaders like Sam Houston,” “men of vision, almost dreamers, like Mirabeau Lamar,” even scholars like John Hemphill who had in common a single characteristic: “boldness in facing the future” without expectation of security and success beyond what they could gain by their own efforts. Though geographically a part of the Deep South, said Hart, early Texas was “not dominated by Southern concepts or leadership”: it numbered Border Staters, Yankees, European immigrants and Latins among its people. To I AUSTIN, ABILENE Ever since the Observer, on June 20, 1956, asked why it costs $1 to call from Austin to Texarkana, Texas, when a call to the far side of the same town, Texarkana, Arkansas, costs only 75 ‘cents, a citizen of Abilene, Robert Bryan Sloan, has been badgering Southwestern Bell on variations of the same question. Telephone rates on calls crossing state lines are set by the Federal Communications Commission. Calls which do not cross state lines fall within the state’s regulatory authority. Texas is one of only two out of the 48 states of which do not regulate long-distance telephone tolls for calls within its borders. The tolls for the long distance call from Austin to Texarkana, Tex., or from any Texas point to any other Texas point, are set by Southwestern Bell Telephone officials. R. L. Bence, staff supervisor of Southwestern Bell in Dallas, and C. F. Weekley, information manager, prepared for the Observer a written explanation of the higher rates Texans pay for calls to others in Texas. They wrote: “Rates are not established on the basis of costs between specific points. Instead, they are based on average distances. The average distance of an interstate message is about two and one half times the average distance of a message between two Texas points. Long distance plant costs less per mile for longer messages “The Civil War lined Texas up with the South, in its own mind and from the viewpoint of the rest of the nation. For decades Texas’s outlook would be provincial rather than national.” The North and East, following the Civil War, Hart said, “started a period of rapid industrial development, but not the South, including Texas.” It was not until “about 75 years ago,” said Hart, that “Texas started getting back gradually into the main stream of national life.” Texas was a oneparty state, he said, until, and suffered because, the “national Democratic organization took the workers from Mexico, and it has been producing results. Secretary of Labor James Mitchell has sent 😮 all federal employment officials, including the Dallas office, orders “not to approve” employers’ requests for braceros “where, through additional recruitment efofrts of employers and the state employment service, domestic workers can be obtained.” “Because of the current labor supply situation, employers will find workers available in areas which have not been sources of labor supply in recent years,” Mitchell’s order said. This means Texas farmers will have to try more seriously to hire ing letter was sent simply to Southwestern Bell Telephone Co. in Dallas June 23, 1956, three days after the Observer’s first story on the higher intra-state rates appeared. Among his questions: “Have you ever stopped spending advertising money with a newspaper that did oppose you “Do you ever publicize a consolidated profit and loss or balance statement for all the Bell companies?” “Have you ever quit a town or sold out, or offered to sell out, if you failed to get the rate you asked for? If not, does that mean your figures were untrue in the first place, or do you make it up on some other town?” “Have you ever asked a city for a cut in rates? If so, where?” “The people that control you also own Western Electric outright. You buy most of your equipment fi.om Western Electric. That means they are buying from themselves. Doesn’t that make Western Electric just a bookkeeping gimmick to pad costs with? … Instead of actual cost, you base your rates on … present cost to replace your plant. Can the present value of existing plants be raised by raising Western. Electric prices?” “The public tells the telephone company it will be paid costs plus a fair rate of return on investment. When the rate gets based on present replacement value instead of actual cost, isn’t that like society saying, ‘We’ll pay all costs, plus a return, and we will guarantee the buying power of the return when we pay it’?” unswerving loyalty of Texas for granted; there was no reason for the Democrats to court the favor of Texas.” It was not until the upsurge of the Democratic Party culminating in the election of Woodrow Wilson that “the Democrats discovered that Texans could be useful in national affairs.” Hart said a major economic change came about the same time as political recognition: Spindletop blew in. Oil replaced agriculture as the chief underpinning for the state’s economy. Now, though, he said, “recent events have caused us to pause and think about the future” of that petroleum prop: The great increase in imports … has forced the reduction of the allowable Since the financial support for the state government comes largely from the oil and gas industry, the reduction … means that new sources of taxes have to be found. “As a practical matter, we cannot reasonably expect too much relief … More and more foreign oil fields will probably be discovered, and imported oil will probably get even cheaper. “The oil consumers in this country greatly outnumber the oil producers; so embargoes or protective tariffs on imported oil probably will not be imposed … transition, that we have to adjust ourselves to the situation where oil and gas will become less im TEC Battle Still Warm AUSTIN In the conflict of Texas Employment Commission members \(Obs. Feb. 28, et developments : 1.Lee G. Williams, fired after 20 years as chief legal counsel to the TEC, was held by the federal bureau of employment security to be entitled to a hearing by the state merit system council on his dismissal. 2.Embattled Commr. Robert Newman submitted to the federal labor department questions which, if answered negatively, could cut off federal funds for TEC’s administration. Newman asked the employment security bureau to determine whether the state merit systema kind of civil servicemeets federal standards. He said it was his opinion that the system might not be up to federal snuff. gether, in the beginning, they “gave every indication of building a commonwealth that would be distinct in character, and national or even international in its outlook.” But, said Hart, “that great American tragedy”the Civil Warhalted expected development “in its tracks.” “Though leading Texans hoped to avoid “majority sentiment was probably for the preservation of the Union,” Texas, ‘in a burst of sectional pride and emotion broke away from the Union and joined the Confederacy … \(Last week, the new federal regulations saying in effect that domestic unemployment must be hired instead of braceros erupted in a stormy hearing before the Texas Employment Commission in which agricultural spokesmen bitterly opposed the new rules. Here is more “bracero background” in the series on the subject which the Observer has been pubAUSTIN One immediate consequence of the national recession has been an intensification of the campaign against “importing unemployment” in the form of bracero farm than it does for shorter messages. This means that the average post per mile on intrastate calls is greater than the average cost per mile on interstate calls. Operating expenses are virtually the same for each message regardless of distance and whether interstate or intrastate. As a consequence, to provide the same earnings on a mile of interstate plant, the rate per mile for the intrastate message must be a little higher than that for the interstate message.” They said Texas intrastate rates are about average and yield 6.7 percent profit. The Observer computed charges for twelve out-of-state calls which covered 12,635 miles \(along cost to he $15.40. On the other hand, twelve in-state calls covering only 4,185 miles would cost $10.95. Sloan, a C.P.A., was born in McAllen in 1912. Married, with three children, he has been employed in the company end of fire and casualty insurance in Texas since 1931 \(as special agent He attended the University of Texas in economics for a few years in 1950, dropping out in 1950 with 104 hours’ credit. “I travel as a field man for an insurance company, and I see many people in many different areas of Texas,” Sloan says, “and in all of my put togethersi I’ve never yet heard anyone express any love foror defense ofthe telephone company. So many seem to pay the bill because there’s nothing else they can do.” Sloan’s first hostile, question Bracero Background CITIZEN SLOAN VS. S. W. BELL “A reply is requested,” Sloan closed his letter. But a reply was not granted. “I guess they didn’t care to put any answers in writing,” he said in a letter to the Observer. He was not to be put, off. January a year ago he wrote the Observer comparing rates for person-to-person weekday calls between Texas points, as against interstate rates. IIe had sorted charges listed in the Wichita Falls phone book for 110 towns, separating calls to Texas points and calls to points outside of Texas. “Note the $2.25 charge to El Paso. For two bits more you can call Los Angeles,” he wrote. “Notice the $1.10 arc of cities around Wichita Falls on the Texas side. The several examples are Denison, Fort Worth, Ranger, Cisco, Stamford, and Childress. Now on the Oklahoma side from Wichita Falls, you can call Tulsa for $1.10 and Woodward for $1.05, and those Oklahoma cities are much further away from Wichita Falls than those Texas cities are. “People in Wichita Falls pay $1.90 to call Houston; New Orleans is about twice as far, but they can also call there for the same $1.90. “To Burkburnett, Texas, it’s 40 cents, while to Lawton, Oklahoma, three or four times as far, it’s 55 cents. “To Vernon, Texas, it’s 80 cents, while to Oklahoma City, well over twice as far, it’s 85 cents.” His slow burn. unabated, he wrote to Southwestern Bell in Abilene on Oct. 26, 1957and this time he got a reply. R.D.