ustxtxb_obs_1959_04_25_50_00005-00000_000.pdf

Page 4

by

The Lion and the Oxon In union, there is strength. The fable of the Lion and the Oxen illustrates this lesson very forcibly. As long as the three Oxen stayed together, the Lion dared not attack. But ‘the king of beasts’ sowed dissension and jealousy amongst N. his adversaries, and they separated. It was then easy for the Lion to attack and destroy them une by one. In Sun Life, also, there is strength. ANO/1 444/04, When you become a policyholder of this great international company, you become one of a group of farsighted men and women the holders of two million policies and group certificates in 25 countries who protect their families and themselves against an uncertain future through the medium of life insurance. Why not discuss your life insurance problems with me today? You soul be under no obligation. MARTIN ELFANT 201 Century Building Houston, Texas CA 4-0686 SUN LIFE OF CANADA Horseplay Is Now The Play AUSTIN Why did H. B. 727 squeak past a House of Representatives which, at the week’s outset, gave it almost no chance of passing? The answer proceeds from a Sunday strategy caucus to an adaptation to “a negative House mood” to the successful emasculation of H. B. 727 and thence to its sudden unexpected usefulness to conservatives who no longer trusted the House majority to write a broad-based tax. Reps. Bates, Turman, Pipkin, Hinson, Korioth, Kennard, and Eckhardt met with Gov. Daniel Sunday to plan strategy. In general it was agreed that Daniel’s package about half business taxes and half sales taxeswould be offered as a substitute after the tax committee’s bill had been worked over by the members. This plan changed immediately Monday morning when Speaker Carr \(contrary to what Daniel and the liberal leaders thought the abandoned bank accounts bill ahead of the tax bill. The defeat of the bank bill resulted in a new decision to “let them stew in their own. juice”that is, let those opposed to Daniel vote down the tax committee’s plans and perhaps exhaust their negative mood. Coalition on a Limb Monday afternoon it was well known on the floor that Gov. Daniel did not have the votes to pass his substitute. Rep. Harold Parish, Taft, remarked, “They say Daniel’s got 50 votes, Carr’s got 50, and 50 are against everything.” Rep. Bob Hughes, Dallas, 7 Hostility, even distrust, are v now strong between Gov. Price Daniel and Speaker Waggoner Carr. In accepting the role once filled in state government by Gov. Allan Shivers, Carr veered off from Daniel’s more middle course. On the other hand, Daniel works daily with a coalition of liberals and moderates; he relies more and more on liberal counsel. This is a natural consequence of his own decisionsto fight for a natural gas tax, the dormant accounts bill opposed by the ‘bankers, and a franchise tax increase opposed by many business lobbyists. Any semblance of co-operation between Daniel and Carr was eradicated this week when Carr said publicly Daniel had not answered his request they both back the House tax bill, and when Daniel accused Carr of breaking an assurance that the tax bill, not the accounts would be laid out first thing Monday morning. / Likely the most succinct summary of the public reaction to H. B. 727, the tax bill cut to pieces in the House this week, was the eight-column news headline in the Tyler Morning Telegraph, “Voters Hot Over the Big Tax Bill.” Jon Ford said in the Express that the House tax committee advanced the bill “with red faces and downcast eyes.” Dallas News said it was “visibly unpalatable.” / El Paso Herald-Post ebjected v to Gov. Daniel’s considering a 20 percent raise in “the sales tax on gasoline,” asked: “Why haven’t you considered the 4.6 cent tax on crude oil? Why impose on the people and let the oil producers off for nothing.” There is a report that Gov. Daniel dropped a friendly reference to the Eckhardt bill graduating the tax on the first signer of the Daniel substitute, said he would not support it because there was not enough backing. The “soda pop tax” could not get 20 votes, he said. Practically no one expected H. B. 727 to pass at this point. Debate Monday and Tuesday was lackadaisical; members paid little attention and voted without interest. Said one Daniel man: “We don’t care how they vote at this point. Just make a good record.” This confusion resulted in the open situation in which H. B. 727 was gutted by amendments. Speaker Carr came onto the floor in the afternoon and said to an Observer reporter: “If we don’t face up to it, the only alternative is to recall the appropriation bill and make it fit. If we want to open the schools in September, if we want to feed the people in the hospitalswe have to work it out.” The Daniel liberal coalition pulled down all their amendments to H. B. 727 Monday, fully expecting to get “runs” later on the Daniel substitute. Reps. Bob Eckhardt, Charles Hughes, and Don Kennard polled the House and found so little sentiment for passing 727 they didn’t even count the votes. 727 Becomes Useful What changed the situation? Rep. Tony Korioth, Sherman, had spent 40 hours studying 727 and had prepared and distributed a careful, lengthy summary of the bill’s contents and flaws. He was therefore well equipped for the task he undertook Wednesday afternoon: he removed selective sales taxes by amendment after amendment until little was left. the oil majors up to 7.5 percent. While he may have the lobbyists in mindletting them know it can get worse if they don’t cooperate to some extenthe is also said to be impressed that the Eck Political Intelligence hardt bill lowers the tax on all Texas producers. J”The Texas Businessman” said H. B. 727 as reported to the House was “a satire on a general sales tax and so meant,” with 134 taxes on the public and 29 on business. Kibitzers have been labeling different tax bills \(said the Stinger,” the “Bloody INaniel,” the “Ramsey Julep,” or Mid-Continent on the Rocks.” JSen. Ralph Yarborough has started a broadcast series on 20 TV stations and 120 radio stations in which he interviews leading government figures on controversial questions. The first guest: Sen. John Kennedy, on the labor rackets bill. Observers re . marked on the skilfulness of this idea: Yarborough is heard from often, becomes associated with national leaders, but, as the interviewer, does not have to take stands. 7 Houston Post is crusading to v convince the Houston School Board it should participate in federal school lunch programs. Texas schools will get $6 million worth of surplus food under the federal programs, but not Houston schools, the paper reported, even sending a reporter to Louisville to show how much cheaper But perhaps, he felt later, he went too far when he cut out the luxury taxes. He had made the bill so innocuous, it had become useful to the Carr-Burkett group. By the end of the day, from the liberals’ point of view the bill was much improved, but the Burkett anti-tax group perceived that it had become less objectionable to them because so little tax was left in it, and the Carr group for taxes, but “broad-based” ones, conceived the idea of passing the shell of the bill to the Senate, which could devise a broad-based tax the House would never originate. Then the final bill would be written by the conference committee appointed by Carr and Lt. Gov. Ben Ramsey. From these somewhat different motives Carr and Burkett entered into a coalition to pass 727. Wednesday night the work began to get a majority. Thursday there was talk of from 80 to 87 hard votes to pass it out, and the Daniel-liberal group accepted this talk pretty much at face value. had been prepared by Rep. W. N. Woolsey, Corpus Christi, embodying what was to be left in 727 and some compromise additions, and the Daniel substitute were both withdrawn from Carr’s desk, leaving only 727 to be acted upon. had better run with their amendments, as they would not get another chance if 727 passed. Daniel’s package did not come to a House vote, and will not unless 727 is defeated on final reading Monday or Tuesday. Even in that eventuality some other cornpromise might be worked out, possibly involving the Eckhardt oil tax. R.D. Louisville school children get their school meals because the system accepts the federal aid. In objecting to “federal control” of the schools, the school board, said the Post, is “governed more by fear than by facts.” 7 Houston Press reports that v a sister-in-law of Lt. Gov. Ben Ramsey has been appointed $8,000-a-year dean of women at Stephen F. Austin State College at Nacogdoches, of which C. Smith Ramsey, the Lieutenant Governor’s brother, is one of the nine Regents. The college president said she is well qualified and no politics is involved. ‘SINGLE-SHOTT’ER’ AUSTIN With all 31 senators co-sponsoringthe first time this has happened in the memory of a lady who has been working in. the Senate enrolling room since 1933 the Texas Senate received, considered, and passed to the House in jig time a bill to give Sen. Lyndon Johnson two places on the Texas ballot in 1960 if he wins both the presidential nomination and senatorial renomination. “This,” said Sen. Dorsey Hardeman, San Angelo, as he introduced it, “is a bill to permit Lnydon Johnson to run for president.” He also calls it “the Lyndon Johnson for President bill.” The measure simply provides that if a nominee for a statewide office is nominated for president or vice president, he may be named as a candidate for both offices on the Texas general election ballot. Hardeman said he was advancing the bill because he did not want the Johnson issue attached to other changes in the election laws. Rep. Marshall Bell, San Antonio, has sponsored a bill setting up dates of primaries eleven weeks, abolishing second-round convention’s in presidential years, and also letting Johnson appear on the ‘ballot twice. Rep. Harold Parish, Taft, carrying Hardeman’s stripped down measure in the House, obtained quick ten-to-one approval from the privileges, suffrage, and elections committee and is ready to move to suspend the rules for final passage. House opponents of the Bell bill expressed some relief, because they believe the Bell bill will be weakened by the removal of the Johnson issue from its provisions. Rep. Dean Johnston, Houston, cast the only no vote in committee. “It’s obvious that it’s a single-shotterthe state aid to Lyndon bill,” he said. “Apparently a lot of people look upon this as an acceptable substitute for a worse bill. I can’t help but concede that one evil is better than a dozen. I don’t believe this is as ‘bad as the Bell bill.” Behind the scenes, Johnston’s intention to criticize Sen. Johnson during House debate of the Bell bill has led to negotiations for a compromise between him and the forces of Sen. Johnson. Cliff Carter of Bryan represents Johnson with the legislators. Johnson himself has not appeared personally in. these backstage maneuvers. R e p. Jamie Clements, Crockett, a liberal in the House who favors Johnson for president, said Johnson has not contacted him on the matter, “hut those of us who are supporting Johnson are interested in it, of course … There’s no question but that Lyndon is interested in the passage of the bill.” Parish intends to run both with the Hardeman bill and the Bell bill. He says he has not received any firm offers for a compromise on the Bell bill. He says of the Hardeman bill, however, “First things first. That of course is the big thingthe least we could do. I would be for any man in Texas who had a chance to be president … While they have attempted to handicap Lyndon on the national level, we want to remove the handicap on the state level … Those unfavorable parts of the Texas law that somewhat handicap him should be improved to give him his strongest position, since he has a chance to get the nomination.” Rep. Tony Korioth, Sherman, says of Hardeman’s bill, “It’s a single-shot bill. That’s all it’s for.” He said he understands Sen. Ralph Yarborough, who has opposed the Bell bill with letters and telephone calls to legislators, is not opposed to the Hardeman bill. BRAINPOWER IS OUR MOST VITAL RESOURCE! You can’t ig education out e the earth. There’s only one place where business and industry can get the educated men and women so vitally needed for future progress. That’s from our eelleges and universities. Today these institutions are doing their best to meet the need. But they face a crisis. The demand for brains is increasing fast, and so is the pressure of college applications. More money must be raised each year to expand facilities bring faculty salaries up to an adequate standard provide a sound education for the young people who need and deserve It. As a practical business measure, help the colleges or universities of your choicenowt The returns will be greater than you think N you want to know what the college crisis means to you, write for free booklet toe HIGHER EDUCATION, lox 36, Times Square Sadao, NM York 36,, New .Shaw ‘Transportation Company, Inc. R.. P. SHAW, PRESIDENT Houston,, Texas THE TEXAS OBSERVER Page 5 April 25, 1959 Carr, Daniel Split Is Deepening TWO BALLOT PLACES FOR LBJ ADVANCED