ustxtxb_obs_1961_02_18_50_00008-00000_000.pdf

Do You Think Some Friend Who Thinks Might Want The Observer? Governor, Bankers On Escheats Law Disappointment Sirs: The manner in which you endorse Maury Maverick, Jr., sickens me. I do not question your right \(although I doubt Maverick, if you do so because you think he is the best candidate. I resent your attempt to sell calico for silk. Prior to the National Convention, when liberals of the stature of Adlai Stevenson, Hubert Humphreys, Wayne Morris, and Jack Kennedy were available choices for the Presidency, your “liberal” Mr. Maverick was promoting the candidacy of the Great Compromiser, Lyndon Johnson. What more glaring contempt for liberalism could he show than his endeavor to limit our choice to two candidates of the caliber of Johnson and Nixon? Your condescending reference to Gonzalez’ candidacy as a”drama of oppressed immigrant . . . the relentless desire to break through old bonds .. . a man in whom the Latins of our State should rightfully take pride” infuriates me. Why should Latins be more proud of him than you or I? Was President Kennedy’s candidacy a “drama of oppressed immigrant?” I suspect the Gon1 zalezes have been in this country longer than the Kennedys, if that means anything to you. Why this sudden DAR binge? This editorial is a departure from the lofty ideals expressed so regularly by you in the past which have lent courage and a sense of accomplishment so desperately needed by liberals. I am disappointed, disillusioned, and enraged. Cordye Hall, 5835 Ellsworth, Dallas 6. Slovenly Sirs: I find it difficult to express my surprise and disappointment at your editorial of February 11. The rhetoric and sentimentality with which you endorsed your candidate, the casual labeling of the life and work of Henry Gonzalez as only the cry of the oppressed Latin American, is far afield from the superior writing and editorial responsibility which has always characterized the Observer. Please do not mistake my riticismI uphold your right to endorse any candidate you choose, but I do object strenuously to the slovenly, thoughtless, and harmful method with which you put forth your endorsement. Gwen Gardner, Austin. Pro-Gonzalez Sirs: As State Democratic Executive Committeewoman from Bexar County I feel compelled to take a position in the dilemma in which liberal Democrats find themselves embroiled concerning the Senate race. More compelling than taking a position is the need to express my reasons, after much thought and painful fact finding, for the final decision to back Senator Henry B. Gonzalez. MARTIN WANT Sun Life of Canada Houston, Texas CA 4-0686 First of all, since I em secretary to Commissioner Albert A. Pena, Jr., \(State chairman of MAPA Mexican Americans for Political Actionrecently organized statewide group endorsing to make it patently clear that Commissioner Pena has from the beginning not influenced me in anyway whatsoever as to my decision. He has assured me that I am absolutely free to choose as I think best. Secondly, to my many labor friends, I am well aware that some of you may look upon me as a traitor to the labor movement. It was largely through the efforts of local COPE that I became Committeewoman from Bexar County. This I have not forgotten, and, consequently makes my taking the position against you more painful. However, I can’t seem to forget that five of the six delegate votes from Bexar County to the State COPE meeting were cast for Henry B. Gonzalez. I can only say that in talking with the delegates at the COPE meeting, I learned that the true sentiment of a majority of the voting and non-voting delegates present was, by far, for Henry B. Gonzalez. When I say true sentiment I mean preference for. Henry based on his qualifications and ability to win. You may ask, and justly so, why, then, did the majority vote for Maverick? There were many reasons but the simplest explanation, I think, can be made by repeating what one of the delegates said to a small group gathered before the COPE meeting opened, “I am for Henry Gonzalez, but my vote will frof This is the week the House general investigating com mittee will be organized, says Rep. Charles Ballman of Borger. po r Those earnest “Citizens for a Sales Tax” have three new members on the executive committee: George Sandlin, Austin; DeWitt Hicks, Waco businessman; J. V. Hammet, Lampasas attorney. V A recent Belden poll alleg edly revealed, without saying how many people were questioned, that voters named their first choice U.S. Senate candidates in this order: Tower, 23 percent; Blakley, 20; Wilson, 15; Gonzalez, 9; Wright, 6; Maverick, 2, with the rest scattered. The poll showed Blakley beating Tower in a run-off. g o of U.S. Rep. Jim Wright of Fort Worth claims 22 members of the Democratic central committee are for him. 1, Following a challenge by Wright, a series of television debates between Wright and can didate John Tower seem assured. V El Paso Mayor Telles has been offered the $17,500 ambassadorship to Costa Rica. At this writing his acceptance was being predicted by the El Paso Herald-Post. v The Corpus Christi Caller Times editorially branded as a “tragic miscarriage of justice” the sentencing to life imprisonment of a Sterling City boy for a murder he committed as a legal juvenile, four years ago. He had been kept in Gatesville, the authorities waiting until he came of an age that he could be tried as an adult offender. It wrote: “The distinction between juvenile and adult offenders is an es be for Maverick because we can’t embarrass our leaders.” Why would endorsing Gonzalez embarrass our leaders? Could it be that they had already committed _COPE? Or were the pressures from Washington too great? Maury Maverick, I hope, is still my friend. I told him on the day that Henry Gonzalez filed that I would probably support Henry would not get into the race. Nevertheless, I continue to look forward to working with Maury as my fellow committeeman from Bexar County on the State Democrate Executive Committee. Sarah A. McClure, 1620 W. Mulberry, San Antonio. From Gonzalez Sirs: Thank you for approving of mefor Latin Americans. Henry B. Gonzalez, State Senate, Austin. Re-evaluate Sirs: I was quite overcome by the article in the Observer February 11 by Ronnie Dugger on a state income tax. Would it not be nice if some sort of a campaign were launched to get our worthy legislators to introduce a bill to create a state income tax? Possibly it is time for men of liberal bent to re-evaluate the caliber of the candidates, who can come up with nothing better than time worn policies and tired alternatives. The Democratic Party of Texas is a joke, perhaps our election system is also. We do not have leaders, but only mirrors, in the legislature. Kenneth J. Carey, Government Department, St. Mary’s University, San Antonio. sential one that must be preserved. The 57th Legislature now in session should act promptly to remove forever the barbarous provision which permits an adult to be tried for a crime committed as a child.” frof Dr. Robert Hausman, Bexar County medical examiner, protested Gov. Daniel’s bill to increase the minimum penalty for peddling dope from two years to five years, claiming it is the wrong approach and that drug addicts should be openly treated as patients rather than covertly hunted as criminals. He said lawmen pick on “west side” addicts while leaving alone the posh victims, such as seven physicians in San Antonio who are known addicts. v Sen. Ralph Yarborough told 8,000 rural electrification leaders in convention that every Democrat in Congress has voted 100 percent in favor of REA and that Bruce Alger, Texas’ only Republican, has voted 100 percent against REA. v State Rep. Franklin Spears said he was “chapped” by Bexar County Juvenile Officer James Lewis’s refusal to appear on behalf of Spears’ bill to lower the age at which juveniles can be prosecuted to 15, at the judge’s discretion. Lewis said he didn’t like the law and that “under no conditions could I testify in its behalf.” v The Dallas. News said Texas congressmen were “flooded” with mail from the John Birch Society calling for the impeachment of Chief Justice Earl Warren. The Society was founded by Robert Welsh of Boston, who accused Eisenhower of aiding the Communist conspiracy. hurt nearly as much as embez zlements in abandoned accounts. We’ve got a terrific. deficit. This would be a gift out of the, tax payers pocket to banks, oil and gas companies, and the rest.” Dewey Lawrence of Tyler, counsel for the Texas Bankers Assn., led off the opposition testimony. He said bankers are fighting the proposal “not from selfishness, but from a sense of selfpreservation and freedom of contract. We believe in preserving that delicate relationship between banker and depositor. 116,,N 4s8 age did OO St “The depositor leaves his deposit with us voluntarilyseven, ten, twenty years, it makes no difference. Simply because he gets out of pocket for five, ten, twenty years, he still should be able to get his money back when he returns.” Lawrence said the bankers were defending “the right of the individual. When he puts his money in our banks, he should be able to return and get it when he chooses.” In what he called “a show of unanimity,” Lawrence asked the delegation of bankers gathered in the courtroom for the hearing to stand. They did so. Rep. Tony Korioth asked Lawrence, “Didn’t you say last session you’d have no objection to a ‘true escheats bill’?” “Yes I did,” Lawrence replied. The bill had been improved from last time, he said, adding that what he had observed then “was a personal feeling” and that the bankers had turned out to present their own views. “Have you investigated those 36 other states to see if confidence in the banks have been destroyed there?” Korioth asked. “No, I haven’t had that privilege,” Lawrence answered. Rep. Franklin Spears criticized Lawrence’s testimony on the grounds that the “voluntariness” of the depositor in putting his money in a bank would be “obviated by death. What worries me is a man who dies, whose lfeirs don’t know anything about his account. You’ll keep that money until the bank folds.” Rep. Charles Wilson asked Lawrence if he thought the present proposal to be a “true escheats bill.” “Yes I do,” Lawrence said. It had been changed greatly from 1959, he said. “But that doesn’t remove the feelings we have as a segment of the economy.” Scott Hudson, a Sherman banker, testified, “Someone said this escheats bill was around a thousand years old. Let’s think just a minute who it was who started itthe king of England. Gentlemen, I don’t believe in the escheats law. “Since the depression in 1933,” he said, “every banker here has been trying to build confidence with depositors. You’re asking us to violate that confidence. “We’re in business to make money. We’re trying to do a service to the public for the benefit of the community. What if a guy tomes in to me and says, ‘Scott, where’s that money I put in here ten years ago?’ I’d have to tell him there was -some legal rigamarole and we had to send that money to Austin.” asked by Spears what he specifically objected to in the bill, Hudson said, “I object to violating confidences to every Tom, Dick, and Harry who runs around the state capital. If you give out information, you’re ‘violating a confidence. Questioned by Rep. Bob Eckhardt, Hudson said he further disagrees with the measure “on the grounds that it violates constitutional ‘rights.” “Then the present escheats law is unconstitutional?” Eckhardt asked. “It may be,” Hudson said. Eckhardt said the principle of escheats had been declared constitutional several times by the U.S. Supreme Court. “I’ll say this,” Hudson replied, “the Supreme Court has been deciding some cases here lately that makes me think about things.” “But this goes back pretty early,” Eckhardt said. “It goes all the way back to John Marshall, doesn’t it?” Gayner B. Jones, vice-president of the National Bank of Commerce in Houston, testified: “We’re opposing this bill as a matter of customer relationship.” The proposal “would allow the state treasurer and the attorney general to go on a fishing expedition” into bank accounts. Howard Cox, of the Capital National Bank in Austin, said the banking community “i3 based on qualities of stability and permanence.” The seven-year period, he said, “is too short for a bank deposit to be presumed abandoned.” He said he would prefer a period of 20 years. The reporting provisions under the proposals would not be effective, he said, because persons in other cities and countries probably could not be