ustxtxb_obs_1962_05_19_50_00002-00000_000.pdf

It happened ZOO ‘YEARS ago The oldest incorporated trade association in the country, the United States Brewers Association, was organized in 1862 .. the same year that .. ….. . IN TEXAS .. the entire state waited, with hopes and prayers, for news of Terry’s Texas Rangers, beloved for their courage, daring and skill as fighters. With Albert Sidney Johnston in Kentucky, in and out of Tennessee with Nathan Bedford Forrest, into Georgia with Fighting Joe Wheeler .. where there was a battle to be won for the South, the Rangers were there! And then, as now, beer was the traditional beverage of moderationlight, sparkling refreshment that adds a touch of Southwestern hospitality to any occasion. Texans have always enjoyed the good fellowship that goes with every glass. TODAY, in its centennial year, the United States Brewers Association still works constantly to assure maintenance of high standards of quality and propriety wherever beer and ale are served. exas Division UNIT. ED SIALI S BPI I’ll PS ASSOCIATIUN, INC. rop-.tm BUSINESS FORTUNES PROFOUNDLY AFFECTED The Federal Center Controversy in Dallas \(Continued From Page which would be afforded the Federal agencies in Dallas and to the public they serve.” There was, of course, another side, which proponents of sites removed from downtown did not hesitate to emphasize to G.S.A. Traffic in downtown Dallas is fierce. Parking is fiercer. Sewage facilities from the downtown are overloaded. But these considerations did not overbear those Gen. Wallace recites and the syndicate’s guarantee that the site would not cost the government more than a million dollars. On January 27, 1959, two years after the Santa Fe site’s approval, Cmsr. Wallace became a director of the Bank of Services and Trusts across the street from the Santa Fe Bldg. This bank is just down the block, across the street, from the approved site for the new federal center. Wallace Transferred That same month, January, 1959, Wallace was transferred from Dallas to Washington and became the regional G.S.A. commissioner for Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia. Later in 1959 he became commissioner of the public buildings service, with responsibility for G.S.A.’s nationwide real property programs, the position he presently occupies. The Bank of Services and Trusts has revealed its plans for a handsome new skyscraper that is to be named “Bank of Services Building.” “I am convinced,” Cmsr. Wallace told the Observer in a written review of some of these facts, “that there has been no conflict of interest between my public service responsibilities and any considerations of a private nature.” The location for the proposed federal center was used as an argument in favor of a new circircumferential expressway looping the Dallas downtown, the Griffin Street Expressway. Upon the recommendation of the Central Business District Assn. of Dallas, THE TEXAS OBSERVER Page 2 May 19, 1962 the Griffin project received $1 million in the Capital Improvement Bond Program approved by Dallas voters in 1958. Three members of the ten-member executive committee of the Central Business District Assn. were among the 14 who guaranteed the government’s maximum price on the federal center building. Three members of the association’s board of directors were also among these 14. One of the three major proposals for the site in 1957 was advanced by Maurice Carlson, insuranceman, Republican leader in the county, and friend of many Republicans in Washington. Neither Carlson nor his associates in the offering had financial interest in the site they advocated, Carlson has asserted. In September, 1957, a legislative assistant to then Vice President Nixon wrote a letter telling of his conversation with the commissioner of public buildings service at that time, F. Moran McConihe, about the site Carlson was advocating. McConihe assured Nixon’s man that it was “still under consideration.” Democrats, too, had motives for blocking the approval of the federal center’s financing. Dallas Cong. Bruce Alger is a Republican who votes against the social security and school milk programs. It was no secret in Washington that the late Sam Ray burn blocked the authorization for the federal center. But it was more complex than that. Jack Brooks, the congressman from Beaumont, was contacted by Jayson, the aggrieved property owner heretofore mentioned, and conducted an investigation after which he angrily concluded that the government had been a party to a real estate speculation at the expense of other businessmen. Brooks so said. Alger accused the Democrats of partisan politics \(Alger, by the way, never having taken a stand for or against any of the proFort Worth declared that the million-maximum guarantee the government had accepted was a “quite improper” procedure that should not be repeated in other transactions. In a letter to Brooks, reported in 1960, Comptroller General Joseph Campbell acknowledged that “the syndicate or its individual members may stand to realize some indirect profit by the Goverment’s acquisition of one of the sites forming the basis of the guarantee proposal.” Jayson Persists Jayson has not rested in his campaign to get the decision reversed. In 1961, for example, he wired the President, the Attorney General, and various congressmen. He exhibits a letter from J. Edgar Hoover, director of the F.B.I., dated October 10, 1961, in which Hoover says: “Your letter of October 3, 1961, to Mr. Theodore Sorenson, Special Counsel to the President, has been referred to the Department of Justice. “In accordance with your suggestion, Mr. Edward Brooks, Jr., Staff Administrator, Committee on Government Operations, Washington, D.C., will be contacted for information concerning the alleged improper acquisition of a site by a Government agency. “You may be assured that appropriate attention will be afforded to this matter, and your interest is indeed appreciated.” Jayson’s business friends chide him for taking on the mighty group of 14. He is a small businessman, a realtor and a partner in a dress-making concern. He dons an apron and works on the dresses at the long tables in his own shop. These are the 14 men in the Overton-Murchison syndicate who guaranteed it would not cost the government more than a million dollars if the government would condemn Jayson’s and eight other property owners’ property for the Santa Fe site: W. W. Overton, Jr., son of W. W. Overton, board chairman of Texas Bank and Trust; Leo Corrigan, president, Corrigan Properties, and one of the first property men in Dallas; John Murchison of the Murchison family; E. V. McCright, head of McCright Industries, Inc.; and C. A. Sammons, R. W. Baxter, M. E. Moses, Eugene Kahn Sanger, Cecil M. Higginbotham, Drake McKee, Trammell Crow, Justin S. McCarty, L. D. Lowry, Jr., and Sam R. Bloom. Jayson is an intense, nervous sort of fellow; he has rather enjoyed his battle, but he takes it so very seriously that in 1960, during a discussion of the matter on the floor of the House of Representatives, he rose in the gallery a nd started shouting out his case and had to be removed by the guards. He says he ran into Sam Rayburn on an airplane after that, and Rayburn asked if he wasn’t the fellow who was thrown out of the House. He says he told the late Speaker: “Yes, I’m the man. That’s right, sir, I just couldn’t sit there and listen to lies on the floor of Congress when I had the truth and could expose everything and I can’t be heard.” Unfair Prices? Jayson believes he has received a most unfair price for his property. The matter has been settled in the courts. Some of his animus proceeds from his sense of grievance on this score. But he also resents “political influence” he believes paved the way for the deal. In an affidavit filed with a House committee in August, 1961, however, Jayson also plumbs, in his angry way, some of the deeper questions involved: “This scheming syndicate guaranteed that the Government would not have to pay more than $1 million for the siteif it chose the site which the syndicate specified but did not own. The syndicate, however, does own virtually everything surrounding the site it specified. The value of the surrounding area is certain to increase immensely in value with the construction of a big, new federal building in its midst. “In effect, then, my government went into partnership with this private syndicate to exercise the federal right of eminent domain at my expense. “Never before have I heard of a case like this one. It sets an ugly precident . . . I will give up my inalienable right to private ownership only at my government’s demand. It is a terrible thing to see my rights trampled Into dust as the government twists the right of eminent domain to suit the get-richer scheme of private interests who will profit at my expense. It is even more terrible to think that if it happened to me, it can happen to anyone.” Jayson’s belief that the syndicate’s plans for a “get-richer scheme” are quite different from the tone of the group’s presentation of its plan for west downtown April 29. The Central Business District Assn. announced that Overton Jr., and businessmen he represented had financedwith scholarships, supplements to faculty salaries, costs of materials, and plane fares a study of urban downtown planning conducted by the School of Architecture of Columbia University. This plan was predicated on the redevelopment of 9.75 acres of west downtown, of which the AROUND TEXAS The TV debate issue from the governor’s race and Billie Sol Estes were injected into two secondary statewide contests this week, while a legal question was tossed at both candidates for congressman-at-large. Attorney general candidates Tom Reavley and Waggoner Carr exchanged charges of Estes association. Carr, a Lubbock attorney, declared that Reavley “has had a relationship as lobbyist for two big finance companies who helped finance Estes’ operations.” He called this “shocking.” Reavley blasted back by quoting from a Houston Chronicle article stating that Carr’s Lubbock law firm is representing one of Estes’ companies. “Carr’s firm has taken the side of the Heller Company, a Chicago money-lender, against Texas farmers who claim to have been defrauded by Estes and the Heller Company,” Reavley, who trailed Carr in the first primary, said. Reavley challenged Carr to a TV debate and Carr refused, saying, “. . . the purpose of challenging a political opponent to debate is to illuminate the trailing opponent rather than the issues.” An unidentified complaintant challenged the right of both runoff candidates for congressmanatlarge to appear on the Democratic ballot June 2. The challenge was based on the allegation that both Woodrow Wilson Overton-Murchison families own 85 percent. The idea is that all 60 blocks downtown west of Akard will revive with the renovation of this ten-acre “catalyst area.” The plan calls for the conversion of an abandoned railroad tunnel to a truck tunnel; the construction of a plaza and promenade nineteen feet above the street on which pedestrians could shop and relax without concern about traffic; and the reservation of the street level for cars, taxis, and buses. There would be no retailing at street level. A spokesman for the association has emphasized to the Observer the point of view that the motives of the backers of this venture, while of course containing elements of self-interest, are primarily the service of the public good. Profoundly Affected He said Thursday of this week that the promoters of the project do not contemplate the use of city, county, or federal funds, nor do they plan to solicit the use of the city’s power of eminent domain against the owners of the 15 percent of the tract who have so far held out against the syndicate’s offers. What if one or several or all of the remaining 15 percent refuse to join their property to the plan? Will the Murchison-Overton interests give up the whole idea or try to avail themselves of the municipal power of condemnation as they once before availed themselves of the same federal powerC Can a large section of a major American city be completely done over without the powers of government? The appearance, the life flow, and the business fortunes of downtown Dallas will be profoundly affected by the answers. So also may be the future of American cities. R.D. Bean and Joe Pool filed their first primary expense statements after the statutory deadline. First Asst. Atty. Gen. Leonard Passmore said no ruling was made for the runoff because ballots already have been printed and absentee voting has started. “The courts have held that when an election is in progress the question is moot and the election is in progress when absentee voting begins,” Passmore told the Houston Chronicle. He said both candidates told him they mailed expense statements prior to the deadline and added that the legal question of whether mailing before deadline constitutes compliance with the election code is being studied. Meanwhile, Bean challenged Pool to a TV debate and Pool declined. Bean, former El Paso county judge, soft-pedaled the issue of his failure to file income tax reports for ten years by saying, when asked about it, that he and the internal revenue people were “trying to settle everything amicably.” Things were relatively quiet in the lieutenant governor’s race. Both James Turman, former state House speaker who led the first primary ticket, and former state senator Preston Smith spent most of the week on hand-shaking tours and conferring with campaign leadci .s. The Republican State Executive Committee met in San Antonio and announced they would not have any run-off races. Estes, Reavley, Carr