ustxtxb_obs_1960_01_22_50_00006-00000_000.pdf

Generations of Debt NEW INDICTMENT IN SAN AUGUSTINE got to be created on the Government’s credit, that the people should not have to pay interest on that money that is so created. That is it in a nutshell, Mr. Disney.” Patman then defended his bill to authorize the Federal Reserve Banks to issue non-interest bearing bonds to finance the part of the war that would otherwise be financed by the Federal Reserve and the commercial banks on interest-bearing government bonds. Patman was simply saying that the Government was giving the banks its credit and then paying the banks interest for the use of its credit. Congress, under the Constitution, has the right to coin money and regulate the value thereof. Some new money must be created: let the government create it, and inflation will be retarded by the amount of interest the government does not have to pay. “Why should we burden the taxpayers on a $300,000,000,000 debt, when we know they will never be able to pay more than just the interest on it?” he asked. “That means a perpetual debt of $300,000,000,000. That means that any inflation that we have in that $300,000,000,000 will remain indefinitely, whereas if you adopt a plan of saving the interest on a substantial part of that money, you can reduce it each year by as much at least as you would pay in interest, and then you reduce the inflationary condition each year instead of having it remain the same each year.” Mr. Disney’s Retort The committee chairman, R. L. Doughton of North Carolina, asked Patman how “the banks” could be induced to lend the money without getting paid interest. Patman told him, in effect, he just did not understand. The government-controlled Federal Reserve Banks would furnish the money. “Suppose the Federal Reserve Banks balk?” “They can’t balk. They are \(Continued from Page welfare burden and tolerate an ever increasing percentage of its citizenry living at a barely mar ginal level of existence which is guaranteed by the government.” The report also recommends: Raise the Texas age limit for aid from 14 \(the lowest limit in students to stay in school; Create House and Senate committees on public welfare; Exempt from present limitations the earnings of “any child of an ADC family” to encourage children to take part-time work, provided they stay in school \(at present such earnings are subDon’t tell the ADC families in advance of caseworker visits “Workers should visit homes unannounced and observe family situations as they really are”; Locate deserting fathers, who are now encouraged to desert when they. cannot find work, because unless they desert their children are not eligible for aid; The wife should “always be left with the impression that she is responsible for supplying the department with any information she receives about her husband” \(the maximum penalty for deserCreate five new positions for the work of father-finding. 56c a Day Upheld The League’s report expresses indignation that on the average, the one-fourth of the father’s of ADC children who contribute anything to their children’s support “paid about . $10 per dependent an agency of the Congress,” Patman told him. Patman recited testimony in which Marriner Eccles, head of the Federal Reserve, agreed that what the government does anyway is “create” money to buy government securities. “That is what your money system is,” Eccles had said. “Why should the Government borrow its own credit?” Patman pleaded. “If we spend $300,000,000,000 on this war, it will cost about eight or nine billion dollars a year to pay the interest …. In all probability, this is all the taxpayers of this country will be able to pay, and will, therefore, be unable to make any payment on the principal of the debt each year. That being true, all the money that will be raised in taxes to pay on the national debt will go to the people who are using the credit of the Nation absolutely free, and who have had farmed out to them the use of the idle gold free, and the people will therefore be caused to pay a debt that is useless, wasteful, extravagant, and unnecessary.” “The people do not have the money and we have got to create it,” Patman said. “I don’t want the taxpayers of this Nation to pay interest for the next two or three hundred years. That is the point I am trying to make.” Doughton was not disposed to effect any sudden reforms. “This is a rather sweeping change,” he said, “and the committee could hardly be expected to come to a satisfactory decision until it heard all the facts from the people who wish to be heard.” The charge of “greenback” minting and “funny money” was suggested by Rep. Harold Knutson of Minnesota. He recalled that he had been in Germany after World War and had to pay 1,250,000 marks for ham, an egg, and coffee he could not drink. “I am not saying you haven’t got a plan, because I don’t know enough about it,” he said. per monthor 34 cents per dependent per day!” \(exclamation In discussing whether to raise the present state grant, the League says, “The present ADC grant allocates about 56 cents per child per day with no funds given for any child above a limit of four.” The League remarks about this situation, “It is easy to look at these payments and say that the grants are not enough to maintain a decent standard of living. On the other hand, it is possible to take the schedule of payments, low as it is, and show where all too many ADC families never had an income as great and steady prior to their receiving ADC assistance.” In conclusion on the point, the League opposes “across-the-board increases” and says “any additional money” should be used for “specialized intake,” that is, a better screening of applicants; for specialized caseworkers; better training in job skills; more case work with unwed mothers; and a fund for “specific grant” supplements. In an interesting discussion on illigitimacy, the League noted that one-fifth of the ADC children were born of unwed parents. \(As of 1958 there were 110,000 illegitimate children 14 and under in Texas, of whom 4,640 were on the “The highest proportion of illegitimacy is among the Negro ADC cases,” the report says. This is attributed to the facts that higherincome whites “have more abortions”; social attitudes among Ne Patman said the reason Germany had such inflation was their small gold reserve. “It does look to me as though we should be able to find a way of working out this thing without placing too great a strain upon our economy,” said Mr. Knutson. “I can’t say you haven’t got a good plan, Mr. Patman, because I don’t know.” “We don’t have to go to Germany to find out about money or currency,” Patman rejoined. “Go to the Confederate States of America, after the War between the States, and you will find currency just as worthless …. That is all that is behind money, the integrity of the nation, the ability of the people to pay taxes.” Mr. DisneyMr. Wesley E. Disney, Congressman from Oklahoma was heard from, too, the transcript of the hearing, smelling of stockrooms and yellowing with age, reveals. “I have heard it suggested that would put the Government in the banking business. I have heard that statement in connection with Mr. Patman’s bill,” he said. Ex-Sen. Robert L. Owen, chairman of the Senate banking and currency committee at the time of the passage of the Federal Reserve Act in 1913, replied: “The Government should leave the banking business to the banks, most emphatically, and the banks should leave the governing business and the exercise of sovereignty to the Government,” he said. Patman’s bill never passed. Today the national debt is only a few billiOns short of $300,000,000,000. The annual interest charges, paid out of taxes, have attained $9,000,000,000 a year, the second largest item in the federal budget. There is no immediate prospect that the necessities of taxing and spending will permit the reduction of the principal of the debt anytime soon. If Patman was right, something is wrong. R.D. grocs do not subject unwed mothers to “risks” which obtain in the white community; housing, employment, and fatherless situations among Negroes “can give rise to unstable, promiscuous mothers of illegitimate children”; finally, “Only a small fraction of the Negro children who are or might be available for adoption have been adopted,” and the unadopted children cannot be sent to a state foster home for Negroes, since there isn’t one. Critics who advocate cutting aid off to illegitimate children “do not explain how the children would be cared for, or what would happen to them,” the League says. If the mother is forced to support them “she will increase her income through the attentions of men,” and the cycle continues. “Girls who mother illegitimate children are emotionally unstable, have usually been deprived of a normal family life while they were growing up, and are seeking in promiscuous sexual relationships the attention and affection they have never had,” the League said studies have shown. “To break this pattern will require ‘something more than either taking away a monthly welfare payment or granting one.” 4- Advocated: “complex and expensive professional services,” requiring males responsible to pay child support \(only Alaska, Virand relying on “the responsibility of the school, church, and the press to create proper attitudes . . . Until this is done, no law can stem the tide.” A’ prominent white insurance man, Hugh Sparks, 37, has been indicted now for murder with malace as well as murder with a motor vehicle in San Augustine. He stands charged with intentionally running down a 15year-old Negro girl baby sitter after he had been to a New Year’s Eve party. The sheriff said tests ruled out the possibility the girl had been raped. Trial will not be held before March 21. The sheriff said the man admitted he had been drinking and does not re The Week in Texas member what happened. “This is a very prominent family involved. Everybody is sorry this thing happened. All the people here feel that way,” the sheriff said. Edinburg and Donna cham bers of commerce have protested a national park on Padre Island because of federal plans for an 88-mile section. “We feel the greater good would be served DAINGERFIELD E. B. Germany, president of Lone Star Steel, has served angry notice that he will fightand that he expects Atty. Gen. Will Wilson to fightan “agency shop” provision in the new national steel settlement. The agreement signed by the major U.S. steel companies, Germany wrote in his column in regional newspapers, “The Way I See It,” includes a requirement that non-union steel workers in states which do not allow unionsecurity provisions pay “a service charge” equal to union dues and assessments. “It is a sly, underhanded, shrewd effort to evade the laws of this state, and we pay our attorney general to enforce the law. MONAHANS Oi r f’City dwellers who cannot believe that West Texas is inhabited’ should not spend much time at “Avary’s Antique Shop” if they want to overcome their suspicions. San Antonio has the Alamo, Dallas Neiman’s, Austin the capitol, Fort Worth the courthouse with the neon flag, and Houston the ugliest skyline north of Reynosa; Monahan people take visitors immediately to the little house on the highway from whence only dark and silence proceed. From the back of the place cluttering sounds respond to pounding, however, and the owner is not taken back by beer cans. In fact he seems to perk up in their sight, for the visitors might be revelers, and revelers like what he has: a nickel, a dime, a quarter a tune from the ancient musicmakers. They say that when the owner, a man 35 or 40, was in high school in Monahans he was a talented musician. His daughter is All The cases are concentrated in East and South Texas where the two major ethnic minorities are concentrated. The four largest counties \(Harris, Dallas, Bexar, cases and 35 per cent of the total population. The state average of the eligible population on ADC is 2.6 per cent, and of the 46 counties that have five per cent or more of their eligible population on ADC, 27 are in East Texas, six are in Central Texas, and 13 are in South Texas. ment,” the Edinburg chamber said. The staff of the Atomic En ergy Commission has warned, in its report considering a Houston company’s program for dumping radioactive wastes into the Gulf, that impaired foreign relations “might have political, economic or military consequences which gravely affect the common defense and security.” Mexico and the U.S. State Dept. have protested. The board of councilors of the Texas Medical Assn. heard and then rejected Dr. Abel J. Leader’s appeal from his censure by a board of his Houston colleague on a charge of using “intemperate language” in criticizing a political position of the Harris County Medical Society. The Associated Press sur veyed liquor prices in some Texas cities and concluded that prices are artificially held high in Dallas. The charge was denied by some Dallas retailers and wholesalers. How well he does it only time will tell,” Germany wrote. The provision says that in states where the contract’s union security provisions cannot be legally enforced, each steel worker who fails to maintain voluntary union membership “shall be required as a condition of employment” to pay to the union each month “a service charge as a contribution toward the administration of this agreement and the representation of such employees.” The charge is equal to dues and assessments. “If the steel companies attempt to inflict upon Texas workers the terms of the new contract,” Germany said, “they will be in clear violation of our law . . . it will become the solemn duty of the attorney general to uphold the rights of the oppressed.” State trombone. Now he collects, displays, and sells his relics, corresponding with his few fellow specialists in the country and traveling some, for he has found his finds in an old ‘sawmill, in basements, and hanging from chains in a church. Gathered in a gloom, the automatic pianos, the Civil War Drum with 27-inch steel discs playing a