ustxtxb_obs_1959_04_04_50_00003-00000_000.pdf

/ Conservative alarm at the v turn of affairs now evidently in the hands of a Daniel-liberal House coalition was manifest in “The Texas Businessman” business advisory: “Conservative control over statehouse affairs is being destroyed. Business is being made, incredibly, into a full-scale scapegoat … Labor-liberals can hardly believe it. Their delight is unconcealed.” / Marshall Formby, ex-highv way commission chairman, tcld the AP in Plainview he’s slimming down to 200 pounds for his 1960 governor’s race … Enthusiasm is picking up in liberal circles for Walter Hall for governor, it is the Observer’s impression … There’s talk in Austin political circles of a “Shivers for the Senate” movement out of East Texas, but it may be an antiJohnson plant …. Feelers indicate Tom Moore, Waco, may be Political Understandings Poll Tax Sale Limitation Bill Starts Dispute AUSTIN The Senate, in a most lackadaisical week, passed, on local calendar, a bill to let people convicted of D W I obtain occupational drivers’ licenses. Another bill approved by the Senate prohibits selling cars on Sunda y. Sen. Charles Herring, opposing, asked: “If this is justified, why don’t we prohibit the sale of anything on Sunday?” The Senate also debated Sen. Krueger’s bill to cut out the first week of unemployment compensation and raise the weekly payments from $28 to $33 a week. Friday the Senate defeated an effort by Sen. Herring to restore the first week of eligibility, raised the Krueger proposed weekly maximum from $33 to $35, and passed the bill over to the House. / While many conservative V sources sought to work out a rationale for a sales tax program whether by that or another name tonio Express backed Gov. Daniel against a general sales tax and for selective sales and gas taxes … San Antonio Light doubted if Daniel could get even a minority report out of the House revenue and tax committee for his natural gas tax and added that Daniel keeps alive the possibility vof a sales tax by refusing to say outright he would veto it … El Paso Herald-Post slammed Daniel for suggesting a one-cent gasoline sales tax hike, arguing that threefourths of Texas gasoline goes out of state on which Texas gets no income. “Non-Texans get it \(gasWho sticks them? THEIR OILOWNED GOVERNMENT,” the HP said in bold face type; ” ‘To hell with Texans,’ seems to be the slogan of the legislators and officials …” The AFL-CIO newspaper cornmended Daniel for “effectively and strongly” stating the case against the sales tax, reprinting his March 16 statement in full as a guest editorial and also said the tax question is whether Texas people pay the whole bill or nonTexans share it. Although there does not seem to be intensive interest in the House-passed limit on big-city representation over on the Senate side, only eight votes have been counted firmly against it, and eleven would be required. Should it approach passage, a filibuster would be possible. The eight are Baker, Houston; Gonzalez, San Antonio; Parkhouse, Dallas; and Willis, Fort Worththe four bigcity men; Phillips, Angleton; Se Registration Bill Defended, Version OK’d AUSTIN It became clear this week \(if there was any doubt beWilson’s decision that party registration i s unconstitutional for primaries was a decision for which he will pay a considerable political price when and if he runs for governor. Creekmore Fath, s e c r e t a r ytreasurer of the Democrats of Texas organization, which holds its annual state meeting in Austin May 23, issued an emphatic brief to counter Wilson’s opinion which clobbered the Clements party affirmation as a condition of voting in primaries. A bill restricting participation in party conventions cleared House committee this week after Rep. Dean Johnston, Houston, further criticized Wilson for the decision and presented Fath’s brief. Rep. Tony Korioth, Sherman, moved to accept the committee substitute for conventions, contrary to Rep. Johnston’s wishes, and the convention half of the bisected bill was reported to the floor. Friday the House passed the bill to third reading, 90-40, with hardcere conservatives opposing. Rep. James Cotten said the bill was aimed at preventing Lyndon Johnson from running for president, which sponsor Jamie Clements, saying he’s for Johnson for president, called a ridiculous Fath’s brief cited these cases, among others: U. S. Supreme Court, in Ray vs. Blair: tests of party allegiance for candidates in direct primaries “protect’ … a party from intrusion by those with adverse political principles.” Also, in the same case, “In facilitating the effective operation of democratic government, a state mght reasonably according to party affiliations.” Westerman vs. Mims, Texas Supreme Court, on the party pledge on the ballot: “The integrity of the primary … is a matter of constitutional concern … A reasonable law … cannot be considered as any abridgement of the right of suffrage.” Fath says in his seven-page brief: “Complying with the terms a voluntary act of the individual voter. He is not barred, discriminatorily, from participating in party conventions or primaries, but the voter must assert his membership in the political party of his choice affirmatively or decline to so state … The voluntary assertion of membership can in no sense operate as an additional qualification or abridgment of the voter’s right to suffrage.” Wilson ruled that the Texas constitution sets up qualifications for voters, the legislature cannot add to these, and requiring a voter to affirm his party connection before letting him vote in a primary would be such an addition. Wilson affirmed in an Observer interview last year that he does not believe in two-party politics in Texas and prefers the nonpartisan system. The committee substitute pro-Vides that persons may participate in a party convention if they have voted in the party’s primary and had their poll taxes so stamped, or if they have not voted in another party’s primary and their unstamped poll tax so attests. Wilson’s ruling applied only to primaries. “Under this bill,” Johnston said, “a voter could still go to a Republican convention in May and then vote in the Democratic primary in July.” ,AW seriously considering a second race for attorney general. If so it might be Moore vs. Waggoner Carr. 7 Sen. Henry Gonzalez, San Antonio, now has a regular Sunday morning TV report in San Antonio. Conservative editor Charles Guy, Lubbock Evening Journal, recently wrote a column saying he’s a Gonzalez admirer. “I respect gentlemen with guts, regardless of differences on public issues,” Guy wrote. Gonzalez continues to get a chilly treatment from his home-town San Antonio Express and News. 7 The Jacksonville Daily Prog ress front-paged a review of the Observer’s story on Rusk state mental hospital …. The Austin American’s star reporter, Anita Brewer, this week began a series of articles on Gatesville state training school for boys. 7 Fort Worth Star-Telegram endorsed Rep. Isaacks’s bill to let school boards hire BA’s as teachers without education courses as a “simple and sound” Political Intelligence bill to break the ” ‘professional’ educationists’ … stranglehold on education.” The El Paso HeraldPost reprinted this approvingly. / Ernest Joiner, Ralls Banner V editor, called for passage of the bill to abolish capital punishment, saying “yet another murder” is no solution. “Progression from the dagger and heart roasted over an open fire to the electrical barbecuing of the entire body is known as Christian civilization,” he wrote. / Houston Post again dunned v tine legislature to pass a public defender measure to defend “the rights of the individual against governmental tyranny” and to protect “the right of every person accused of crime to competent legal. counsel and to present the best defense that he can.” / A 36-member committee that v Lubbock mayor Lennis Baker said “may mark the opening of a nationwide battle against Cornmunist efforts to under mine American character and integrity” has been formed in Lubbock crest, Temple; Reagan, Corpus; and Fuller, Port Arthur. The House heard a spirited exchange in which Gov. Daniel was accused of inconsistency in advocating ability-to-pay taxes and the higher gasoline sales tax idea. Rep. Dugas, Orange, condemned Daniel’s “new one cent tax on the little man.” Rep. Strickland, San Antonio, agreed, saying it was time to quit “heaping inequity on inequity” with such taxes. Rep. Green, Fort Worth, said Daniel is inconsistent in pointing to the gasoline tax when he has come out numerous times against a general sales tax. Green suggested the difference between a general and a special sales tax is “political expediency.” The House refused, 73-65, to instruct state affairs to report out the REA bill to protect co-ops in annexed areas. Subsequently the committee sent the bill to subcommittee. Another vote may be called for. Much significant legislation lies in subcommittees to which it has been consigned with knowing smiles. For example, the loan shark legislation, Rep. Criss Cole’s plan for state regulation as well as the bill by Reps. Don Kennard, Tony Korioth, and Franklin Spears to set a 36 per cent annual interest limit, still lies prostrate in a five-member subcommittee headed by Rep. James Turman, Gober. It has been there a month. The Bell “state aid to Lyndon” bill to let Sen. Johnson be renominated for the Senate before the 1960 presidential conventions has now been in subcommittee more than two months. Rep. Ronald Bridges, Corpus Christi, says he plans to seek a compromise to get the bill out. A hearing is set Wednesday. In an interview, Rep. Louis. Anderson, Midland, defended his $150 million a year tax bill of a three percent corporate income tax, one percent individual income tax, and one percent general sales tax. It would derive about equal amounts of money from each source, he said, adding the bill attempts to trackthe “only sound method of taxing, ability to pay.” Senate committees killed a strict jail standards act; approved a bus license fee cut; killed the Parkhouse bill to let free games be registered on pinball machines; approved \(without permitting to testify waiting witnesses, includrequire teaching Texas history in state colleges; approved bills to make it easier to prosecute panderers and fix the maximum penalty for burglary at night at life in prison; cleared 9-6 the state tourism bill over Sen. Parkhouse’ charge it’s one of the stupidest pieces of legislation ever; approved an underground water district in the Edwards limestone; killed a bill to give the Railroad Commission more authority over pipeline companies. House committees okayed Rep. Kennard’s new tuberculosis law code, outlawing property taxes on motor vehicles, and letting the highway department set speed limits, and subcommitteed Rep. Jimmy Day’s bill to let wages be garnished 20 percent. Page 3 April 4, 1959 with businessman Guy C. Victory the chairman … “Texans for America,” J. Evetts Haley, chairman, hag mailed out the “Dan Smoot Report on ‘Inflation’.” The cover letter shows Mrs. Edward Driscoll, Midland, as the state secretary, and Giles E. Miller, Dallas, vice chairman, with the “state policy board” made up of Boyd Anthony, C o m a n c h e; Dudley Dougherty, Beeville; Oliver Fannin, Sr., Fort Worth; R. A. Kilpatrick, Cleburne; Neely G. Landrum, Dallas; Douglas Marshall, son-in-law of the late Hugh Roy Cullen, Houston; Dr. Joe McAlister, Odessa; Dean Abner McCall, Waco; Mrs. Marrs McLean, San Antonio; Olin McWhirter, Greenville; George Schaumburg, Beaumont; D. R. Segal, Brownsville; former House speaker Reuben Senterfitt, San Saba; ex-Lt. Gov . John Lee Smith,, Lubbock; W. L. Williams, Texarkana; and Paul Wise, Houston. Texas members of the “For America” national policy committee, apart from the above, are Dr. Ernest Anthony, Fort Worth; Carlton Beal, Midland; Elwood Fouts, founder of “Freedom in Action,” Houston; Clifford E. Jones, Lubbock; Dan Smoot, Dallas; and E. E. Townes, Houston. JA push will be made in the House for the Hughes industrial safety bill. “Texas Businessman” has condemned the measure on grounds it will let hundreds of inspectors, usually pro union, wonder through plants, demanding “that this practice be modified, this equipment replaced, this job changed, etc. The cost is exorbitant.” Sponsor Charles Hughes says industrial accidents cause 1,000 deaths and 400,000 injuries in Texas each year. / Democrats of Texas organizav tion convenes in Austin May 23. Horace Busby writes in “Texas Businessman” that DOT “by many reports has fallen onto dismal times.” Creekmore Fath, secretary-treasurer, replied when apprised of this he hadn’t noticed, had received 150 letters in the preceding four days. Busby said leadership is passing from the “negative” DOT to labor leaders, who he said are “not of the strongarm variety.” Rural Bloc’s Plan Faces the Senate AUSTIN A measure to restrict the sale or collection of poll taxes and thereby reduce the number sold to members of various organizations, including unions, Negroes, and Latin-Americans, and civic and veterans organizations, ran into trouble in the House counties committee Wednesday. The committee sent House Bill 732, by Rep. Raymond Russell of San Antonio, to a subcommittee where it will get magnifying glass inspection. Russell told the committee the bill was designed to “cure abuses and inequities in voting” and