ustxtxb_obs_1961_01_14_50_00001-00000_000.pdf

The one great rule of composition is to speak the truth. Thoreau 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. The Texas Observer An Independent-Liberal Weekly Newspaper A Window to the South Vol. 52 TEXAS, JANUARY 14, 1961 15c Per Copy No. 41 Hot Words in Austin LBJ and the Reds TURMAN WINS, 83-66 Moderate-Liberal Candidate Beats Spilman AUSTIN Robert Nesmith, head of a Houston engineering firm and a Constitution Party candidate in the last election, charged that socialists control the Democratic Party and challenged Senator Lyndon Johnson to a fight at the Austin Freedom Rally this week. Nesmith was invited to speak at the rally by the Austin Anti-Communism League, an organization which has enough influence in city hall that it helped persuade city officials to proclaim an AntiCommunism Week last year and a Freedom Week this year. Nesmith also said, either from the platform or afterward in a foyer argument: . The present government in this country is “communistic.” Franklin D. Roosevelt was “a communist.” All liberals are communists. Republican Senator Jacob Javits of New York is a communist. Urban renewal is “right out of Karl Marx.” Distributed free of charge at. the rally, which drew an estimated 400 people, were pamphlets which contained such charges as this: “If Dwight D. Eisenhower were an open and avowed collaborator in the Khrushchev Plan for world conquests, it is doubtful if he could more effectively aid in the overall objectives.” Jack H. Sucke, general chairman of the Austin Anti-Communism League, followed Nesmith’s speech by saying, “We’ve been suffering through socialism and commun6ni” under both Republican and Democratic administrations. No Connection The invocation was given by gard of Bergstrom Air Force Base. AUSTIN Conclusion The American Medical Association is a staunch foe of all federal intrusion into the medical field, yet a strong case can be made that medical progress in such states as Texas has come about largely through the support of the federal government. In the two areas most in need of progressive financinghospitals and medical schoolsTexas probably could not survive without federal aid. Bob Sherrill Nationally, 26 per cent of the cost of running medical schools is borne by the government. Moreover, most of this goes directly to the faculty doctors, in the form of grants for research and teaching. While Texas medical schools don’t benefit to that extent, they are not unaware of federal largess. For instance: Of last year’s budget of $11, He appeared in civilian clothes. The Observer asked Col. J. 0. Gray, commandant of Bergstrom Air Force Base if Major Haggrd’s appearance in any way indicated approval by Bergstrom officials of the Austin Anti -Communism League’s activities, and he said no. “As a matter of policy, the Air Force has no restrictions against members of the military attending meetings of social or civic organizations except those which are included on the communistfront listing,” said Col. Gray. Nesmith remarked about Senator Lyndon Johnson, “I wouldn’t vote for Kennedy for dogcatcher, because he would either socialize the kennels or ship them overseas. As for Lyndon Johnson, I’ll say right here publicly Lyndon Johnson is nothing but a drunk. “I’m 47, he’s 53. I’ll take him on. I’ve fought 100 aerial fights and 123 amateur fights and 67 professional boxing matches, so he doesn’t worry me.” His charge echoed ironically in this hall which only a few months ago city officials hung with bunting for a giant Johnson-for-President rally. Roy LeMond, a doctor of chiropractic medicine, who describes himself as “one of the founding fathers” of the Austin:V. -Ai-Com munism League, later told the Observer that the league had not expected Nesmith to make these remarks and that he had “breached the ethics of invitation.” He said Nesmith was supposed to talk only about the income tax. Nesmith closed by reading from a prepared statement. Excerpts: “The socialists are communists without the firing squad. Socialists control the Democratic Party. The Republican Party is responsible too, since it has done nothing about it. Senator Javits is a so 706,682 for the Galveston medical branch of the University of Texas, $904,069 came from the federal government. At the M. D. Anderson Hospital and Tumor Institute, $426,382 of the $6,276,335 came from the federal government. At Southwestern Medical Schools, $679,412 of the $3,363,509 budget came from the federal government. These figures do not include federal scholarships or loans to students. Texas hospital growth has development from an even more dramatic contribution. Before the Hill-Burton program helped Texas in its pressing hospital problems in 1947, hospitals depended largely upon private contributions for construction and financial solvency. Since then, the federal government, through this program, has spent more than $75 million in Texas on the hospital building programabout one-third of all that has been spent in the state to this purpose. AUSTIN Drawing his support from the broad moderate-liberal coalition in the Texas House, Rep. James Turman the self-described “less conservative” of the two candidates for the Speakershipwon 83-66 in the opening session this week. Turman’s victory, giving him an immensely powerful position from which he will appoint committees and committee chairmen and set the pace for House activities, ended a rugged campaign marked by alternating claims of a pledges-majority and charges of economic, psychological, and political pressure. The Turman delegation arrived in the House chamber from a breakfast Tuesday morning wearing red “victory” buttons. Most of them scorned the voting booth set up under the House rostrum where they came Individually to cast the ballots, marking their ballot in the open. The Spilman camp had asserted in the closing weeks of the race that their candidate would win in a secret ballot. Spilman rose after the decision had been announced to congratulate his opponent, adding that he would support Turman on those programs upon which the two agreed and oppose him on those upon which they did not. Their differences, he said, were “very real.” Honeymoon Period Turman is considered relatively liberal on economics and taxation questions and on many welfare issues. On race he is a staunch conservative. His voting record in the last legislature was ana lyzed by the state AFL-CIO as 14-10. The liberal-moderate coalition that elected Turman speaker now enters a “honeymoon” period during which votes on issues which might divide them will be avoided. Meanwhile, some of the losing Spilman conservatives have formed a “make-ourselves-felt” minority caucus similar to the one the liberals had as recently as 1957. Turman’s 83 votes removed most doubts about the assertion \(as advanced, for example, in the Obwhat more liberal this year than in 1959. However, liberal members were not sure what Turman will do now. They, and the rest of the House, are waiting with some eagerness for Turman’s committee appointments. Turman has close friendships among the group sometimes char Jim Turman and Houston areas in particular, are hard pressed, permitting at times the existence of clinic facilities which Hurst summed as “abominable.” About eight-ninths of the people in Texas last year avoided having to go into a hospital, and many of them probably were continuing such a stretch of healthiness that they forgot the “hospital problem”a problem that witnessed 1,185,454 admsions to hospitals, with the average stay stretching out to 6.2 days, and an average expenditure of $29.35 a day, not including doctor’s fees. The average hospital patient, then, paid. about POO for his room and board and anesthetics, or enough to put a serious crimp in a middleclass pocketbook, and therefore enough to generate a swelling criticism about hospital fees. But, says the Texas State Department of Health, the average daily bill is still nearly $2 under the daily operating costs of the average voluntary short-term hospital, which comes to $31.16 per acterized as “the East Texas pop ulists” in the House, that is, the segregationists from the east who are liberal on many economic is _ sues. He also leaned heavily upon, and received his first bloc of committed votes from, the House liberals. Who will receive the principal plums on the committees, the “populists” or the liberals?that was one question. Turman, in accepting the liberal bloc’s pledges at the end of the 1959 session, made a promise that the committees would be representative of the House as a whole. This was taken as an assuraniae that none of the major committees would be so constituted that a bill which a substantial portion of the House. favored would fail to get enough favorable votes in committee to be reported to the floor for debate. Turman’s interpretation of this understanding will be apparent when he announces his committee’s a week from Monday, or perhaps later. Rep. Ray Bartram’s motion to raise legislators’ salaries only to $3,200 instead of $4,800 was seen as a move by the conservative caucus. It was, of course, foregone that the motion would lose, as it did by more than two-to-one, but the insistence on a record vote had political ramifications for the summer of 1962 which were lost on none of the members. \(The pay raise measures goes to the Senate, Some Turman leaders now believe that Turman’s agreement should mean that the liberal-moderate ‘coalition will have a majority on all the committees, and the Spilman conservatives enough strength for “minority reports” \(which permit floor debate on bills not recommended by the Turman’s committees will at least provide liberals a minority sufficient for a “minority eport.” Members of the House were extremely jumpy late this week about key committee jabs like chairmen of taxation, spending, and state affairs committees. The liberals caucused after Turman’s election and agreed whom they would push with Turman for various posts. They also tentatively agreed on a course of action designed to put the Senate under early pressure about taxes. The premise of this course is the suspicion, or analysis, that the Senate, bracing itself against the more liberal House, will seek delay on taxes until the end of the regular session, thus causing special sessions and pressure for some action, whatever it has to be. Tentatively the liberal-moderate coalition in the House will seek quick enactment of a tax bill to raise $70 or $80 million to retire the general fund deficit \($85 million this week, said Treasurer Jesse James; $63 million by the end of the fiscal year, said Compwould be sent to the Senate early, before the appropriations wrangles begin in earnest, and then the Senate would be bearded almost \(Continued on But despite federal ,contribu-I tions, Texas still has problems. The hallways in some Houston hospitals tell the story: patients are bedded down in public corridors because there is no room space for them. Statistics limn these problems. Ray Hurst of the Texas Hospital Association says that in 480 Texas hospitals, occupancy is currently at the rate of about 70 per cent. This, however, is just about as heavy an occupancy as a hospital can stand and operate as it should. When occupancy hits as high as 80 per cent, major problems arise, Hurst pointed out. Just because a bed is vacant doesn’t mean it can be occupied by the next patient to enter the hospital. For instance: maternity patients are -usually kept separate. If a hospital has 20 per cent vacancies, but these vacancies are all in the maternity ward, where does it put the patient who comes in with diphtheria? This does not mean that all sectIons of Texas are short of hospital beds. But the metropolitan areas generally, and the Dallas In Cities, Shortage of Hospital Beds No Overall Program For Indigents