ustxtxb_obs_1966_06_24_50_00014-00000_000.pdf

Subscribe to the Observer Subscribe for a Friend The Observer “is the conscience of the political community” in Texas. Andrew Kopkind in the New Republic, Nov. 20, 1965. The Observer “has a stable of gifted writers and kindred spirits who .contribute to its pages.””Copies find their way to the desks of the mighty and even into the White House.”St. Louis PostDispatch, July 25, 1965. “Despite its shortcomings, the Texas Observer is needed in Texas. Texans would miss .its publication . . .”Texas AFL-CIO News, Nov. 15, 1965. “Although we disagree completely . . . we strongly recommend the Observer as one of the best sources of state political news available.” –Official Publication of the Young Republican Clubs of Texas, 1965. Send $6 for each year’s subscription to Sarah Payne, Business Manager, The Texas Observer, 504 W. 24th St., Austin, Texas. NAME ADDRESS CITY STATE Zip Code NAME ADDRESS CITY STATE …… Zip Code theme this summer. Lt. Gov; Smith is for “substantial” salary raises. Rep. W. S. Heatley, an old member of the in-group, said that part of the problem is the federal government’s high wages. Highway Crnsn. chairman Herbert Petry Jr. said the Highway Department’s low wages have created an annual employe turnover of 30%. The governor’s budget office and the Legislative Budget Board began closed summer hearings with agencies supported by state money, and a third force is on the scene: the Planning Agency Council for Texas, PACT, headed by Terrell Blodgett of the governor’s staff and financed by a $165,000 federal grant. What PACT is doing, wrote Garth Jones of Associated Press, is checking up to see if the agency heads have any idea of their true longrange needs. V Rep.-elect Don Gladden of Fort Worth, speaking out against what he expects will be a drive for more sales taxation to pay for such higher state employee pay, declared: “We have a production tax on sulphur. We should also have a production tax on chemical plants which extract alu minum, magnesium, and other elements from our soil and water. We will also offer a pipeline tax which would be constitution 14 The Texas Observer tor While Barnes was telling teachers there will be an “objective” look at their pay next session, Leon Jaworski, the chairman of the Governor’s Committee on Public Education, dropped a hint that his panel frowns on a raise. Intoned Jaworski: “Our endeavors, difficult and controversial as they inherently are, could be greatly hamperedperhaps even destroyedby the activities of any group or groups who confuse limited goals with the overriding objective of improving standards in our state’s program of public education.” He added it is unrealistic to expect his committee to reach “sound overall conclusions” before 1968. V One educator who is well-paid \($40, executive head of the education superboard, says he is studying the history of higher education in Texas in preparation for writing a master plan for state education. A spokesman for the Southern Regional Education Board told the Houston Post that Williams apparently was unique in the South in having $17,000 of his salary supplied by private sources \(which the superStuart Long did some checking and found that ten state college presidents get their salaries supplemented by their individual governing boards, plus free homes, such as the mansion in which Dr. Phil Hoffman, president of the University of Houston, now resides. V National Democratic committeeman Frank Erwin, Jr., a lawyer, went to the Highway Cmsn. on behalf of his client Prismo Safety Corp. and accused the agen cy of writing stop sign requirements which give Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing a monopoly in the field. A Prismo executive said all 50 states are using M.M.M. signs and specifications, but he picked Texas to crack the market because this state is such a big user. Erwin said tests by the South west Research Institute have proved that Prismo signs are just as good as M.M.M.’s, except when subjected to a steady stream of water. V The Houston Post editorialized that the “public is due an answer” on what is happening at the Merichem Corp. in that city, a company named twice by a county health officer, Dr. Walter Quebedeaux, as “polluter of the month.” Merichem president John T. Files was named to the state air pollution control board by Gov. John Connally and has remained unavailable to Post reporters, the newspaper said. V/ Good evening, Mr. and Mrs; Texas and all the ships at sea : Walter Winchell writes in a column this month that “Bill Moyers of the White House hopes to become governor of Texas one day.” With the cancellation of the $4 million HemisFair tower-construction contract to which Cong. Henry Gonzalez had objected because a high HemisFair official got the contract, prospects for federal financing of HemisFair looked up. V Failure of a loan to materialize is given by the newsmagazines as the reason why John Mecom has dropped out of the running for the Houston Chronicle’s ownership. When the Observer asked Chronicle Editor Everett Collier if there was any doubt about Mecom’s becoming the paper’s owner, Collier indicated there was none: he stressed Mecom had sgined a contract to buy. But Mecom is out, leaving the paper in the hands of the Houston Endowment and still under Wright Patman’s baleful gaze. V The organized realtors’ campaign against the open occupancy legislation pending in Washington has been highly visible in Texas in many full-page newspaper ads. S.D.E.C. on Switchers V/ The state Democratic executive com mittee did not decide whether to press an appeal from Dist. Judge Lewis Goodrich’s ruling that the votes of 71 persons in the June Democratic runoff who had also voted in the May Republican primary should be counted. These votes had a decisive effect in the runoff for county judge of Gray County. Goodrich ruled that people could switch primaries if they were willing to pay the $100 to $500 fine the law exacts for doing so. Atty. Gen. Carr told the S.D.E.C. he will have “a tough time” against Carr, and S.D.E.C. chairman Will Davis said he would like the state September convention to be a send-off meeting for Carr. Paul Thompson says in the San An tonio News that Cty. Cmsr. 011ie Wurzbach’s remark that “Mexicans voting for a Mexican” was the reason John Alaniz did so well running against Wurzbach has led to the formation of “Mexican-American Democrats,” initials MADS, and that their purpose is to vote for Wurzbach’s Republican opponent, John O’Connell, and for John Tower. V President Lyndon Johnson named S. M. Nabrit, Negro president of Texas Southern University at Houston, to the Atomic Energy Cmsn. and Gov. John Connally to head the U.S. delegation to the inauguration of the president-elect of Guatemala this summer. MARTIN ELFANT Sun Life of Canada 1001 Century Building Houston, Texas CA 4-0686 #*.