ustxtxb_obs_1959_01_16_50_00012-00000_000.pdf

A Quietly Tense Start Three-Year-Old Story On Calvert Is Bared Taxes Talked; Carr Wins or from unfriendly to friendly, committees. A compromise is being discussed, majority transfer but only one try per bill, but the situation is still fluid. Most of the interest, apart from this issue, will concern the Governor’s message on Tuesday, after he is inaugurated, and his tax message on Wednesday. The Dal las News predicted he may propose sales tax increases to meet the current deficit. He released a memo saying that news had not been authorized from his office. He said he will propose two separate revenue plans, one to balance the budget \(there is a $65 $65 million more for each year of the next biennium. Rep. Frates Seeligson, San Antonio, stepped forward last week with a 1.5 percent general sales tax proposal and with a manyfeatured plan for the revision of the present tax laws which he said would raise more from taxes paid by business than those taxes paid by individuals and would raise $22 million. Rep. George Hinson, Mineola, and Rep. Dean Johnston, Houston, were discussing natural gas taxes; Johnston mentioned a tax on industries not now paying what he thinks they should. Reps. Marshall Bell, San Antonio, Charles Hughes, Sherman, and Seeligson plan a bill designed to acquire for the state $40 or $50 million in unclaimed bank balances. Waggoner Carr of Lubbock was re-elected House speaker, 79-71, after an exciting, see-sawing vote tally. He defeated Joe Burkett of Kerrville. Carr was supported by a coalition of conservatives, moderates, a n d liberals; Burkett mostly by conservatives and moderates. Carr’s election therefore was taken as the better outcome for the liberals. An unsigned sheet which was circulated among the members in advance of the vote singled out 13 House members as liberal or labor partisans who were backing Carr. It caused extensive comment because of its novel candor. The Senate elected Sen. George Parkhouse, Dallas, president pro tern and adopted El Paso Sen. Frank Owen’s resolution for final adjournment after 120 days, that is, May 12, which is when the legislators’ $25 a day stops coming. The House did not immediately act on the resolution. The House rejected a plan to finance the session mostly out of the totally and permanently disabled fund. Since it was not disbursed by a specified deadline, the money has become inaccessible .to the disabled or anyone else until it is reappropriated, but there was a political consideration. Going payless, the House refused to suspend the rules by the necessary four-fifths \(though the again Monday. Rep. Obie Jones, Austin, moved to pay the secretaries $12 a day instead of $10, but the House refused, 98-37. AUSTIN After an opening week of quiet tension, the legislature turns to the introduction of bills and the organizing of committees this week. The most important issue may arise in the House, where liberals are seeking a change in the House rules to permit a majority to transfer bills from one committee to another, instead of two-thirds after ten days’ notice, the present rule. This would permit a House majority to re-assign bills from friendly to unfriendly, Party Changes Are Considered AUSTIN Governor Daniel and the state Democratic executive committee heard from the party’s grass roots, about 65 county chairmen and proxies for a dozen others, at a conference in Austin last weekend. The Governor laid out his suggested party law reforms, and the county chairmen discussed them pro and con, without a very clear concensus emerging. J. Ed Connally of Abilene was elected to succeed Jim Lindsey of Texarkana as state committee chairman. The Houston members of the committee, Mrs. Ellana Ball and Billy Goldberg, sought to have disqualified the two members of the SDEC who were substituted for caucus nominees at the 1958 state convention, but their point of order was not granted. Goldberg warned that those who were screening “might someday be screened.” Daniel said the 1958 convention committee’s “so-called purge” of two SDEC nominees was’ the most limited exercise of disapproval of the caucus nominees in state history. After the meeting Mrs. R. D. Randolph, the Democrats of Texas leader, charged Daniel had “pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor but denied committing a felony.” Daniel, in his speech to the assembled SDEC members and county chairmen, advocated, in addition to support of Democrats, the state party platform, and elected party officials, legislation which would: 1.Prevent a member of one party “from participating in primaries and conventions of another party” by having him designate his party on. his poll tax receipt and then checking his party at the polls and conventions. 2.Base a county’s delegate strength at the state convention on the total vote for the candidates for governor in the first primary in non-presidential election years. 3.Elect county convention delegates directly or let the elected precinct chairmen be the delegates, continuing precinct conventions only for the purpose of adopting resolutions and recommendations. The debate became vigorous and contentious. It was emphasized that party registration cannot affect a general election; the point was made that the law might keep some conscientious Republicans away from Democratic political occasions; doubt was cast on the workability of party registration by John Peace of San Antonio, while Janice Sherrod, speaking for the county chairman from that city, said it is imperative to keep Republicans away from the Democrats’ primaries and conventions. It appeared likely that Daniel would propose his reforms to the legislature in his formal message Tuesday. Lobbyists were registering in droves under the new law. Rep. Zeke Zbranek, Daisetta, a House sponsor of the plan last session, said he wants to see how the present law operates before proposing any changes. ‘Late in the week 82 p?.rsons had registered, including many regulars of the Third House, some “amateurs,” unpaid lobbyists, a representative of the Ku Klux Klan, and even a member of the Texas House, Rep. Bob Bullock of Hillsboro, who said he represented all the tax payers and citizens of Hill County and is interested in every bill introduced. Rep. W. A. Stroman, San Antonio, is leading an effort to move reporters off the House floor, presumably up into the gallery. This will probably be debated early in the second week. A petition was circulated advocating moving the reporters out. Rep. Don Kennard, Fort Worth, said he would favor barring everybody from the floor except the legislators, but would oppose barring only the reporters from among those now having floor privileges. THE WEEK IN TEXAS OWith a strike threat at Sin clair refineries, the Texas Railroad Commission decided on an eleven day oil producing schedule for February. OJ. Byron Saunders of Tyler, former insurance commissioner charged with perjury, was expected to get a trial delay Monday. OAttorneys for seven Houston and Dallas loan companies denied in court in. Houston that the firms had charged usurious rates, as Atty. Gen. Will Wilson charged. OBilly Graham said in Dallas that Christians are losing their battle for the growing world population. He was attending the Texas Baptist world evangelism conference. OIn Corpus Christi, the coun cil prepared to grant the phone company rate increases … The city urban renewal administrator warned that if something isn’t done about slums in Corpus, “we will all be eventually living in them.” The Court of Criminal Ap peals voted 2-1 to uphold a 15-year sentence against stripper Candy Barr, convicted of possessing marijuana, with Judge Lloyd Davidson dissenting, saying the search warrant used to search her apartment and to take the marijuana from a bottle in her bosom was illegal. The State Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments Feb. 11 on the isue whether a former Galveston plumber, H. N. Borden, can sue his former union for damages of $19,000 because a union official allegedly kept him from taking a job in Dallas. OSeven University of Texas professors joined the protest against the magazine ban in Austin, saying the methods of the newsstand advisory committee were “contrary to the best traditions of a free society.” OA grand jury said it found “no evidence of brutality” after a man charged with conspiring to murder his wife repudiated a confession he said a Texas Ranger and other officers obtained from him in the process of beating him. Sen. Lyndon Johnson was the main mover as the U. S. Senate rejected the motion from liberals to end Senate filibusters by majority vote. Only 22 voted for the motion. \(This matter will e San Antonio voters approved, 19,299 to 4,868, a $1.75 million revenue bond issue to pay part of the $3.7 million cost of the bus company the city is buying. The rest will be paid by revenue bonds. The city is scheduled to take over the buses in about two months. AUSTIN Three years and four months after the Observer reported the situation to its readers, the Senate investigating committee elicited from Coinptroller Robert Calvert the fact that he accepted thousands of dollars in. cash from his state employees between 1949 and 1956. “Gifts to Comptroller Bared,” said the eight-column Dallas News headline after the hearing in Austin last week. “Gifts to State Official Bared,” bannered the Amarillo Daily News. In its issue for Aug. 24, 1955, under the”heacling, “A New Carand Cashfor Calvert,” the Observer reported at length on the lush Christmas gifts Calvert had received from the 425 people he hires and fires for the state. He would not volunteer anything in 1955; but charged with receiving $28,000 by the Senate investigators in 1959, he admitted perhaps he had taken $15,000. There was no testimony about the new 1949 DeSoto automobile he accepted from his employees in 1949, as the Observer also reported in 1955. There was talk about inviting him to go before the grand jury in Austin this week, but he had not done so at week’s end. He was very busy making the official estimates of the state’s financial situation. As for his own financial situation, the Observer reported in 1955: That he admitted he had received cash and a new car from his employees. A division head estimated the cash was $1500 one year; several employees thought it was $2000. \(In Austin last week, Calvert told the investigators he had received $3000 for three That two days before Christmas, 1952, Calvert, whose salary was then $6000 a year, had paid $3000 down on a $20,000 home in FORT WORTH A district attorney who refused to join Atty. Gen. Will Wilson in his crackdown against loan companies has become a lawyer for one of the firms. When Wilson filed suits Dec. 10 accusing 17 Fort Worth companies of collecting illegal interest, D. A. Howard Fender refused io sign the petitions. He also ordered members of his staff to take a “hands off” attitude. Fender’s term ended Dec. 31 and he returned to the private practice of law. Now he is defending Trinity Investment Co., one of the firms which Wilson sued. Trinity Investment is operated by Mrs. Marie Shelton. She’s the wife of Bill Shelton, a former deputy sheriff who served as an investigator on Fender’s staff. Fender said he had not known when he refused to sign the petitions that he would represent the company. He said he refused to join Wilson because the Attorney General didn’t consult him when preparing the slits. Fender said he also suspected Wilson was “putting on a show” to get publicity which would help’ him in a race for governor. Then, adding another angle to the matter, attorney and Rep. Don Gladden, who represents eight other loan companies sued by Wilson, asked district judges to throw out the suits because they don’t bear Fender’s signature. Gladden, who ran with strong liberal backing, becomes a msmber Austin which he told the Observer was “just a little cottage.” \(Last week he said of the money he had received, “I used a helluva lot of it in the interest of the deThat in 1950 campaign funds for him had been raised among his employees. Calvert said he did not know what the money was used for; that it was separate from his campaign. \(Last week he denied any such political collections had That his chief clerk, Gus Farrar, had received an expensive saddle and a coat from the office employees \(not brought out last That when asked what he had accepted from his employees for Christnias in 1955, Calvert said “I ain’t gonna tell you,” and -that only after three interviews, and under direct questioning, had he admitted the receipt of cash and the car, and that in this final interview he also admitted, “It’s a bad practice.” \(He told the Senate investigators last week that he “put his foot down” in 1957 That his employees were not “assessed” contributions for the gift. \(The senators read into the record a sworn affidavit from a former employee that employees who received a pay raise in 1951 contributed seven percent of the annual increase for three years. They recorded, too, a letter dated June 12, 1950, signed Sam. Kim berlin, head of Calvert’s motor fuel refund division, suggesting cash amounts from employees for Calvert of $12.50 for those making more than $450 a month, and scaling down to $3.50 for those earning $270 to $295 and “optional” for One thing Calvert told the Observer in 1955 he did not repeat to the Senate investigators: “I voted the straight Democratic ticket, I always have … I voted for Stevenson.” of the legislature this month. He told newsmen that, although he