ustxtxb_obs_1961_04_29_50_00003-00000_000.pdf

O C iT Votes on Depressed Areas Sales Tax Notes ‘Big Boys Tax’ Debate Due i Rep. Lloyd Martin’s anti sit-ins bill was reported favorably out of House state affairs after amendments protecting blind persons with seeing-eye the original fine range from $100$500 to $50-250. vir When seven Russian ex change students, watching the proceedings of the Texas House, were introduced by Rep. Franklin Spears of San Antonio, Charles Wilson of Trinity, stroll Political Intelligence ing past the desk of veteran San Antonio conservative Marshall Bell, said: “Marshall, there are communists and athiests in the balcony!” V The daily press continued to praise the House for passing the two per cent sales tax. The Houston Post said, “A veto would mean an indefinite continuation of a legislative wrangle that has become more than wearisome to the people of the state.” The Fort Worth Star-Telegram: “If anything, the House action showed the lawmakers are willing to think for themselves, and to do something on the vexing tax problem, even if it turns out to be wrong.” The Corpus Christi Caller: “The two per cent tax passed by the House is a fair tax, justified both by the needs of the state and the condition of our economy.” V The Texas Research League estimated the . sales tax would raise $137.5 million a year, $10.5 million more than proponents said. f o of Stuart Long, writing in the San Antonio Light, said one of the keys to how the Senate will vote on the tax was in the House vote itself. “All 31 senators will be up for re-election in ’62, so they will be checking the House roll calls . . . to see if the representatives who are -thinking about running against them voted for or against the sales tax.” V “What happened to pass the sales tax?” Texas Businessman, weekly advisory, asked. “Daniel’s early-session maneuver, recommending a payroll tax then withdrawing it unsponsored, brought the biggest push . . . The long-overblown animosity of ‘the public’ proved more fiction than fact. Most important, business went to work. That was the ballgame.” vir Sam Kinch in Fort Worth Star-Telegram, citing vacancies and possible races for the state Senate in 1962, reported Sens. Hubert Hudson of Brownsville and R. A. Weinert of Seguin will definitely retire. Sen. Henry Gonzalez of San Antonio has also said he may not run. Reps. Bartram of New Braunfels and Fletcher of Luling are rumored as aspirants for Weinert’s seat, De la Garza of Mission and former representative Jim Bates of Edinburgh for Hudson’s. 14 be te s t u s t o s c 0e11 lo o t V The U.S. House approved Pres. Kennedy’s $394 million depressed areas bill, after the Senate had passed it . last week. The Texas delegation voted 13-8 against the administration. Against the bill: Alger, Burleson, Casey, Dowdy, Fisher, Ikard, Kilgore, Poage, Mahon, Rogers, Rutherford, Teague, and Thomas. Voting for it: Beckworth, Brooks, Kilday, Patman, Young, Thornberry, Thompson, and Wright. V Sen. Ralph Yarborough said from Washington he would support all six major proposals of the Kennedy administration. “It is judged that these programs will mean $90 million more in purchasing power in Texas in a year,” Yarborough said. With 239,000 unemployed in the state, he said the programs would also help create new demands for jobs. vor The president of the Amer ican Medical Assn., Dr. Vincent Askey, told the Texas Medical Assn. in Galveston that Kennedy’s medical care for the aged is a form of socialized medicine and said “. . . at least the socialist party is telling the truth on this particular issue of terminology.” V The final and official re turns of the Senate race: Tower 327,308; Blakley 191,818; Wright 171,323; Wilson 121,961; Maverick 104,992; Gonzalez 97,659. Tower and Blakley got 518,126, the others together 539,998. The majority of -the voters in the May 27 run-off will be choosing between two candidates they voted against. V Texas Businessman report ed that early private and unpublishable polls show Blakley in the lead over Tower. “Blakley is out front comfortably if labor and liberals don’t stay home.” g o or TRB in the New Republic wrote : “Blakley is a rich, racist dim-wit. If we lived in Tekas we should vote Republican.” V Hugh Russell Fraser in the Los Angeles Times said “the liberals” in Texas “made a comedy of the primary by running against each other . . . Liberals as well as moderates should now get together and revamp the primary system of Texas on the California pattern, choosing the party candidate by the county convention delegate system.” g o of Top Dallas Democrats held a closed-door “unity” meeting in a drive to put Dallas County back in the Democratic column on May 27. County Judge Lew Sterrett presided and solid backing was given Blakley. Dallas News said the meeting was called “in the face of growing Republican strength in Dallas.” Ed Drake, former county chairman and now Blakley’s county campaign manager, told the group that because the GOP has been growing, the Democrats will have to follow a “party loyalty line to compete.” AUSTIN The House, having passed a $2.5 billion spending bill this week, will have another chance Tuesday to decide where the money is coming from, besides out of the sales tax. This time debate will be over a proposed corporations tax, the bill being sponsored by Rep. Charles Wilson of Trinity, thz. same unlucky young man who last week made, his mark in history as the first successful sponsor of a sales tax in the Texas House. n’s proposed corporations tax would raise an estimated $50 million a year. There are speculations that unless the legislature passes something like the corporate tax, to hit the moneyed interests in the state, Daniel will feel obliged to veto the sales tax if it passes the Senate. The sales tax bill is in the Senate state affairs committee, where hearings are expected to begin Wednesday -if they are not deferred because of the continuing the admission of the University of Houston to the state system. Although the sales tax bill as passed calls for a two per_ cent levy, there is nothing to prevent future legislatures from upping the tax. Rep. Don Garrison, Houston conservative, lost his try this week to bring to the House a proposed constitutional amendment that would put a permanent ceiling on the sales tax at two per cent. In what appeared to be the last round of a running fight, Rep. was counted out when the House by a vote of 70-55 agreed with Rep. W. S. Heatly’s motion to send Berry’s HB 777 to the interstate cooperation committee. The House concensus is that the bill won’t reappear this session. HB 777 calls for a referendum on legalized parimutuel, betting. It would be a non-binding sampling of public opinion on horse racing for Texas. From Our Houston. Correspondent HOUSTON As the Houston Independent School District completed its second of five lectures on socialism and communism for all or mostof its history, civics and economics teachers, there were three new developments last week which kept the controversial lectures in the news. A young Rice University stu dent asked that his party the Socialistbe allowed to present a series of lectures on communism and socialism “in an academic atmosphere and in an objective manner.” Houston’s Downtown Rotary Club withdrew an invitation for George Roberts to speak before the club. Roberts again got into the news when an assistant school superintendent announced at the first school-sponsored socialism-communism lectures that those teachers who are reserve officers, or who have attended the George Roberts Citizenship Development \(sometimes called the state’s largest industries back financially, would only have to attend two of the school lectures. Superintendent John W. McFarland presided at the second of the school lectures. Unlike the first lecture, teachers were not made to sign their names at the meeting. McFarland said the teachers would not have to sign into future meetings. Retribution? Heatly has fought Berry all the way. On a previous motion to rerefer the bill to committee, Berry won. There is some speculation that he lost vital support from some sections of the House because he voted for the sales tax. Another loss was counted by the Bexar delegation this week when Rep. Franklin Spears, San Antonio, tried and failed to amend the general appropriations bill to increase from $210,000 to $1,100,000 the amount marked for building the first part of the medical school in his home city. The House passed and sent to the Senate a proposed constitutional amendment, sponsored by Rep. Ben Jarvis, Tyler, that would allow garnishment of a father’s wages for court-ordered support of his children. Up to 50 per cent of a man’s salary could be attached for this purpose._ AUSTIN The legislature’s concern for separation of church and state, which shows itself with caution on bills unfavorable to the church, this week came speedily . to the fore, but on legislation beneficial to the church. Not only was the measure \(HB veston, and Lloyd Guffey, El Campo, approved by the tax and revenue committee, it was even voted an exemption route past the subcommittee and straight to the House floor. The bill would free church schools from the present requirement to buy licenses for their buses and other vehicles, it frees them from paying a sales tax \(if purchase price of such vehicles, and it gives the church schools refunds on state gas taxes. Stewart laid it on the line: But the House balked at adding chiropractors, veterinarians and optometrists to the list of persons exempt from jury duty. The proposal was voted down to the cry, “Why not add midwives to the list?” The House conservation and reclamation committee approved and sent to the floor a bill that would set up a nine-man water pollution control board that would guard against improper disposal of waste matter. Violation of the board’s regulations could bring fines from $100 to $1,000. Among the bills Gov. Daniel signed into law this week is one which would require that injection wells for disposal of industrial and municipal waste could not be drilled without a ‘permit from the Board of Water Engineers. The measure was sponsored by Sens. Frank Owen of El Paso and George Parkhouse of Dallas. “The question here is whether we really believe in the separation of church and state. The state shouldn’t be required to keep up the churches, but neither should the churches be required to keep up the state through the payment of such taxes.” Guffey estimated the state would lose between $100,000 and $200,000 a year revenue if the bill passes, but he argued that it saves between $30 million and $40 million a year through parochial schools’ taking some of the educational burden and that the parochial schools should be treated kindly by the state. Rep. James Cotten, Weatherford, jested: “When this bill hits the floor, it will move like it was greased. Who could vote against the church? Well, maybe Tommy Shannon. We’ll give Shannon a chance to get back in good with the churches.” Henry said, “It is unfair to say that socialism and atheism are the same thing. Socialism is a political and economic philosophy, not a religion.” On another front, Chet Brooks, president of the Young Democrats of Harris .County, said the executive committee of the young Democrats has proposed that the faculties of Bice University and the University”together or separately, we don’t. care. We just know it needs doing”present a series of leetures on not only socialism and communism, “but all types of political and economic thought and isms we have been faced with.” The Harris County Democrats, the Houston Association for Better Schools, and the Harris County AFL-CIO Council have all objected to the school lectures, and particularly to the Roberts course. With its ear to the first rumblings of community controversy, Houston’s Downtown Rotary Club canceled a luncheon address by Roberts. The Roberts course, as the consultant himself said, is frankly a conservative political action movement.