ustxtxb_obs_1965_04_16_50_00015-00000_000.pdf

Since 1866 The Place in Austin GOOD FOOD GOOD BEER 1607 San Jacinto GR 7-4171 Campaign Cards & Placards & Bkm -iperstrip & Brochures & Flyers & Letterheads & En elopes &Vertical Posters & Buttons & Rib} ons & Badges & Process Color Work & Work & Forms & Newspapers K. rioting & Books& Silk Screen Work & sines & Car Signs Novelties & Pictures IFFUTURA Hickory 2-8682 Hickory 2-2426 1714 SOUTH CONGRESS AVENUE P. 0. BOX 3485 a AUSTIN, TEXAS Mi s & Silk Screen Work & Political Printing Novelties Rz Mimeograph SUpplies & Conven on Badges & Advertising Campaigns gZ Stati PRESS IN C. nt tIC un rs ds to, In Dallas, Unpleasantness Dallas The team that governs Dallas in general consonance with the wishes of the Dallas power structure crushed all but one of a group of challengers in the city election here April 6. Matters became extremely unpleasant. “Remember that Dallas is big business and needs business people,” said a radio advertisement paid for by the Citizens’ Charter Assn., backing Mayor Erik Jonsson and eight city council candidates. The voters of Dallas agreedat least they did not take offensefor they elected Jonsson, the president of Texas Instruments, 59 to 21 thousand, over City Councilwoman Elizabeth Blessing. With Jonsson they also elected to the council the chairman of the board of Oak Cliff Savings & Loan Assn.; the vice-president of American Bank & Trust Co.; the vice-president of W. H. Cothrum & Co.; a former Dallas Jaycees’ “Young Man of the Year”; the president of Tom Thumb Stores, Inc.; the wife of the vice-president of the Dallas County Medical Society; and a general contractor in commercial, industrial, and institutional fields. “We can always argue methods, but never principles,” said one CCA newspaper ad. Jonsson at one point, the Times-Herald reported, said that the city of Dallas is a $100 million-a-year business and asked, “When you have such a big business, who should direct its policiesone who has directed a successful business or one who has never succeeded at any kind of business at all?” The Citizens’ Charter League, backing Mrs. Blessing and her ticket, showed no inclination to be excessively polite. Maurice Carlson, the league’s president, charged that CCA president Tom Unis’ law firm “has a record of receiving fat fees for slim work from the treasury of the city of Dallas.” Mrs. Blessing struck hard at closed meetings of the city council and of a committee of which Jonsson is a member that has been holding closed talks on the future of Love Field and a Dallas-Fort Worth regional airport. Jonsson replied, as to the MEETINGS THE THURSDAY CLUB of Dallas meets each the Downtown YMCA, 605 No. Ervay St., Dallas. Good discussion. You’re welcome. Informal, no dues. MONDAY LUNCHEON CLUB meets on 3rd floor, McFarlin Auditorium, S.M.U., Dallas, each Monday at 12:00 noon. Join us if you are in town. WORK PARTIES every Sunday afternoon in Austin, 2:00 p.m., Texas Society to Abolish Capital Punishment, 3014 Washington Square. ITEMS for this feature cost, for the first entry, 7c a word, and for each subsequent entry, 5c a word. We must receive them one week before the date of the issue in which they are to be published. airport talks, that they were closed to obviate land speculation. On March 31, Mrs. Blessing reported that Jonsson owns $8.5 million worth of Braniff stock ; that the Braniff lease expires in 1975, exactly ten years from now; and that, “however coincidentally it may be, Mayor Jonsson asked for a ten-year period of time before moving to the new regional airport site ordered by the CAB.” Jonsson condemned “mud-slinging” and denied any conflict of interest. “My only selfish interest as far as Braniff is concerned,” the Dallas News quoted him, “is a selfish interest for Dallas to do whatever I can to keep this fine Dallas-based company based in Dallas.” If this seemed rough, it was just the start. Mrs. Blessing acknowledged a charge that the Teamsters’ Union pension fund had made a definite commitment to finance some property she and her husband were interested in ; in fact the financing came from local sources, she said. Unis then charged, at a CCA rally, that the Blessings had been sued for unpaid debts 17 times in recent years and that a jury in a civil suit found that Mrs. Blessing’s husband “knowingly made false statements to Mr. [Ralph C.] Reinecke concerning [a] home in question and that he knowingly concealed material defects in the construction of the house from Mr. Reinecke” and that Mrs. Blessing “knowingly took advantage of the false statements made by her husband and derived benefit from them.” Mrs. Blessing acknowledged she had had debts, but said no judgments were outstanding against her. She said it is a shame when one cannot challenge the Dallas Subscriptions for $4 Subscriptions to the Observer can be bought by groups at a cost of $4 a year, provided ten or more subscrip tions are entered at one time. If you belong to a group that might be in terested in this, perhaps you will want to take the matter up with the others. MARTIN ELFANT Sun Life of Canada 1001 Century Building Houston, Texas CA 4-0686 “oligarchy” without having one’s feet cut out from under one. In the course of a press conference, a Dallas commercial photographer, Squire Haskins, confronted Mrs. Blessing with an unpaid bill for $84.66, outstanding since 1963. She very angrily accused him of political motivation in so presenting the matter to her. Mrs. Blessing, meanwhile, said Texas Instruments, of which Jonsson is board chairman, was fined $15,000 in federal court for “conspiring with nine other electronic firms to fix and maintain uniform prices on the sale of three electronic products to commercial producers and the armed forces.” Mrs. Blessing said that Joel T. Williams, president of the First Federal Savings & Loan Assn., offered to back her in a firstclass real estate business if she would not run for re-election to the city council or run for mayor. Williams said the event in question occurred shortly before the first of this year, that the Blessings asked him for a loan, and that he told them they could make money if they would work at it “and not expend their time and energies in politics.” Williams said he told them he would “back them financially” if they would “devote their time to operating [the real estate business] properly.” Williams said he spoke only for himself and his suggestion “had no connection with city poli April 16, 1965 15