ustxtxb_obs_1960_12_02_50_00001-00000_000.pdf

The one great rule of composition is to speak the truth. Thoreau The Observer dependent-Liberal Weekly Newspaper A Window to the South 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. Vol. 52 TEXAS, DECEMBER 2, 1960 15c per copy No. 34 AUSTIN Just because the American Medical Association has vowed bloody-eyed resistance to the Kennedy .plan to tie medical care for the aged to social security does not mean the Texas Medical Association will join the opposition, said Donald M. Anderson, assistant executive secretary o f the TMA. “We don’t always go along with the national group,” he-said. “We . have complete autonomy, .contrary to what many people think. There is not the philosophical cohesiveness in this business that some think there is. “A good example of that is what happened to Medicare. The AMA still sponsors it. We threw it out.” Anderson predicted that when the strategy dust has settled, the TMA will be in a position much the same as right now: favoring matching-fund care for the .ndigent aged, with the emphasis on indigent. “Naturally we don’t want people to go without medical care just for lack of money, but we disapprove of the Kennedy proposal because it would be like making a federal pension available to everyone, whether they work for the government or not. It would make free medical care ‘available to everyone. “Now that’s silly. I don’t imagine Senator Kennedy’s father, Joe Kennedy, would need free medical care. I think ‘he could afford to pay for his own. Of course that’s an extreme example. But take my own father. He’s retired. As for earned income, he might be considered indigent, because it only comes to something like $1,000 a year. But he probably takes in $450 or so a .month in un-earned income; that is, from investments and property AUSTIN The state’s new land commissioner, Jerry Sadler of Palestine, has carried his objection to the sale of $12.5 million in veterans’ land bonds at 3.5 per cent. The veterans’ land board somewhat irritably acceded this week to his suggestion that they “walk their horses” until he takes over Jan. 1. They called off the bond sale scheduled Dec. 5. . Sadler argued that the sale should be postponed until the new Democratic, administration comes to power in Washington, because interest rates may decrease them. Texas voters Nov. 8 approved 3.5 per cent as the interest rate for the veterans’ land bonds, but Sadlder believes the “spread” between this rate and the rate charged veterans should be one full per cent. The veterans’ rate now is 4 per cent. He does not want to ask the legislature for a higher veterans’ interest rate, and he hopes and what not. He’s probably better able to pay for medical care than I am, but not judged on the basis of earned income, if you get my distinction. “The way Kennedy is talking, he would like to include my father and others like him in the freecare plan, and the TMA considers this unrealistic.” Military Dependents The Medicare program cited by Anderson as an example of the TMA’s independence is the method, operative in many states, for allowing military dependents to be treated by private physicians at government expense rather than force them to seek aid at frequently inadequate base hospitals. Under Medicare, the medical association of each state is the contracting agent between the Defense Department and the private physicians of the state, working out the fee rate and fixing the conditions under which the care will be given. It was a good example for Anderson to use to show lack of “philosophical cohesiveness” because the doctors of Texas were belligerently divided over the virtues of the program, which was finally thrown out in 1958 because the more vocal doctors saw Public Law 569, which created Medicare, as another wedge threatening the private practice of medicine. But not all doctors screamed “socialism” by any means. For instance, Dr. Milton V. Davis of Dallas, writing in the Texas State Journal of Medicine, said it was military dependents to use the shoddy facilities available at some bases, that without Medicare the burden on the military’ becomes. so great more doctors are drafted, and that voting down Medi to work out a way of avoiding it, he said. Sadler also sounded a significant warning about the state’s sale of its mineral leases. He said the school land board does not have adequate information to determine whether it is getting a fair price on its mineral lease sales. One such sale is scheduled in Austin next week. Sadler is expected to be in the city for the occasion. Outgoing’ land commissioner Bill Allcorn, explaining the cancellation of the Dec. 6 bond sale, said Sadler’s criticism had had “a very unfavorable effect on the market.” He regretted the delay, with more than 40,000 veterans awaiting inclusion in the land program. The state commander of the American Legion, Pete Turner of Midland, made a similar point in a telegram to Sadler. Sadler said the land office does not have the machinery and personnel to start processing land applications until about May. Blakley Announces For Senate AUSTIN Ex-Sen. William Blakley’s announcement he will accept the interim appointment to the U.S. Senate to replace Lyndon Johnson, then run for the job in the special election next year, confirmed for the race a conservative Democrat who voted for Eisenhower twice and Kennedy-Johnson. in 1960. If Ex-Gov. Allan Shivers runs he said he is still a prospective candidate after Blakley announced voters would be choosing between Blakley, an Eisenhower Democrat for Kennedy, and Shivers, an Eisenhower Democrat for Nixon. U.S. Sen. Ralph. Yarborough defeated Blakley for a six-year Senate term, 757,031 to 531,531, in 1958.. U.S. Rep. Jim Wright, Fort Worth, is the only other announced candidate for the 1961 election. Wright believes he and Blakley will offer voters a choice between a moderate and a conservative and hopes no liberal will announce. Liberal State Sen. Henry Gonzalez, San Antonio, said in San Antonio, “My decision is not definite yet, but it almost. is . . . I just want to alert by friends now to be sure to go out and pay their poll taxes.” Of Blakley’s’entry., he said, “The more the merrier.” In Austin, he said the ony thing that would keep him out would be “conflict with my duties as state senator.” Another liberal possibility for the race, Maury Maverick Jr., San Antonio, said of Blakley’s announcement, “I welcome into the race Mr. Blakley, who speaks of the horrors of the federal government but who tried to get all the federal subsidies he can for his Braniff Airways.” Maverick said in a statement that he cannot decide at this point whether to run and thinks Gonzalez should go ahead with his plans without regard to his, Maverick’s, decision. Gonzalez had said he would run if Maverick did not. Now Maverick says he will support Gonzalez unless he, Maverick, is a candidate. LBJ Fellowship AUSTIN Senator, Vice President elect Lyndon B. Johnson last year established a $1,000 Lyndon B. Johnson fellowship for nine months of graduate work in Mexico. He did this in honor of a visit to Texas by Mexico’s president, Adolfo Lopez Mateos. Johnson also set up the Adolfo Lopez Mateos fellowship to provide graduate study in the United States for a Mexican student. Thursday the University of Texas ExStudents’ Association, administrator of the fellowship, announced that the first recipient will be Bruce Underwood, chairman of the University of Houston’s journalism a n d graphic arts department since 1953, who will use it to finish his doctoral disseration. Republican Protests AUSTIN The Republicans will have their full hearing before the three Democrats who are the State Canvassing Board, Gov. Price Daniel, Atty. Gen. Will Wilson, and Secretary of State Zollie Steakley, early next week. “Absolutely shocked” that the board did not set the hearing Dec. 5 and specified Dec. 8 at the latest, the Republicans’ attorney, Hardy Hollers, will be on hand further to specify what their petition filed Tuesday calls “numerous and widespread frauds, irregularities, and illegalities in the physical and mechanical arrangements at many voting places, the conduct of numerous election judges and -other persons in and about the polling places, the method of marking the ballots, and the procedures for counting and tabulating the ballots and the canvassing or purported canvassing of the election returns.” The Democratic electors for Texas are not entitled to be declared the recipients of the most votes Nov. 8, the petition alleges, maintaining also that “the procedures followed by the election judges \(most of whom are Demoprecincts were varied, non-uniform, irregular, unjustifiable, and without consistent logic, rhyme, or reason.” Seeking to back up these words, the GOP contestantsfighting along with their compadres in Illinois for the reversal of returns which would upset Kennedy as president-electnamed totals and precincts in their petition. Some answers were forthcoming from officials concerned. Side arms were carried by judges and others in precinct 2, Duval County,. so that voters were “intimidated and coerced,” they said. \(Duval went for Kenfirst returns gave the four major GOP candidates all 284 votes; the GOP raised a question about this; the official returns then gave lesser figures for GOP candidates for senator and governor, they alleged. \(Starr went for Kennedy, Hollers asked the board to take personal custody of Starr and Duval returns. He was told by Steakley that the district judge in the area had already impounded them in advance of the election. The GOP wants 238 counties’ returns impounded for recounting. Some judges counted, some disqualified, and some illegally altered and then counted mismarked ballots, disfranchising more than 100,000 voters. In precinct 23, Angelina county, returns showed 86 voters, but 147 voted for Kennedy and 24 for Nixon. \(The judge said a tabulator erroneously totaled the separate votes for Kennedy and Johnson into 147, and for Nixon and In Dawson pct., Navarro County, the poll list showed 479 voters, 315 for Kennedy, 219 for Nixon. \(The judge said the total should have been 314 for Kennedy, 129 varro, the poll list showed 36 votes, but 45 were reported..\(The judge said only 36 were certi’In pct. 15, Lee County, 39 voters were on the list, but 64 voted; pct. 3, Marion County, 91 on the list, 97 voted; in pct. 10, Marion, 103 on the list, 120 voted. \(In Jefferson, Marion County, an official made the point that elderly voters exempt from the poll tax are not Thad Hutcheson and Albert Fay, GOP leaders in the state, welcomed state Democratic chairman J. Ed Connally’s statement that his own check indicated a recount might give Kennedy another 50,000 Texas votes. They took this as evidence that an error of at least 50,000 votes “has been made.” Connally charged the Republicans with “haggling for headlines” and failing to bring forward “any specific facts that would change the election results” before the Tuesday petition was filed. The GOP lost an attempt to force a Wichita County recount in an Austin district court. If rebuffed by the canvassing board, they could still go to federal court on constitutional grounds that voters were deprived of their rights. Steakley explained that under the law, the full hearing could not Observer Decision 2 Weeks Deferred AUSTIN The Observer’s subscription campaign will continue through Dec. 15, at which time ,a decision will be reached with respect to the continuation of publication. Deadline for receipt of subscriptions to match the “library fund” offer of a Dallas foundation to buy 500 subscriptions for every publiclysupported Texas municipal and college library will also be Dec. 15. Monday night, Nov. 28, Observer workers in the Harris County area met with members of the Observer staff in Austin and Houston. Thursday night, Dec. 8, Observer editor Ronnie Dugger will meet with Observer workers in the Dallas area, Carl Brannin and Mrs. Cordye Hall announced. It is especially important, Dugger said, that friends and supporters of the Observer send in subscriptions for the library matching fund by Dec. 15. “An important secondary benefit of the successful matching of the 500 library subscriptions may exceed the library fund in financial importance if we bring the library matter to a successful culmination,” he said. Medical Legislation TMA, AMA Disagree? Sadler to the Attack Hearing Set On Election