ustxtxb_obs_1969_01_10_50_00010-00000_000.pdf

and third underwritings in keeping the fair from closing early also have to be con s i d e r e d. The first underwriters many relatively small businesses tied loosely to the fringes of the political and economic establishment would have had to pay a larger percentage of their pledges if the fair did not sell as many admission tickets as possible during the entire six-month run of the fair. If the fair remained open, then attendance, while not up to highest expectations, would at least, at 60 cents a ticket, reduce the loan balance of the first underwriters. The protection of the first underwriters became a matter of prime importance to HemisFair officials. Perhaps it was for this reason: San Antonio liberals have never been able to move into city government \(with the exception of Torrable to crack the solid financial and civic support enjoyed by the incumbent Good Government League. If the first group of underwriters should become significantly disenchanted with the HemisFair operation and the city administration which helped it along, some of their financial suppotr might conceivably go later to respectable anti-GGL liberals who might challenge city hall in this spring’s elections. THE SAN ANTONIO business communityparticularly restaurants, hotels, airlines and retail sales-obviously made money from HemisFair’s six and a quarter million visitors. Retail sales were up $163.6 million for the first seven months of 1968, as compared with 1966, and reached a total of $819.2 million, a 25 per cent gain.” Airline traffic was up from an average of 44,730 passengers per month in 1966 to 58,822 during the first six months of 1968. Bank deposits at $1.182 billion on June 29, gained $152.6 million from Dec. 21, 1965. The building boom generated, by HemisF a i r created jobs for skilled building tradesmen all over the state. San Antonio building trades unions, which pledged about $120,000 in fair underwriting, were at peak strength during the course of the fair. Average weekly earnings of industrial workers rose $10.55 from $88.61 in November, 1967 to $99.16 in Aug., 1968. .Zachry claimed that the city benefitted from $750,000 in additional sales tax revenue”, as well as “an estimated $100 million in nationwide publicity and advertising for San Antonio which will pay rich dividends for years and years to come.” Kemper Diehl, a reporter in the San Antonio Express-News, pointed out that the net gain in tax valuations in the HemisFair area alone would mean an additional $100,000 a year in taxes to the city. Diehl said that the city had also received $122,766 in a specially imposed hotel room tax by the end of August. Taxpayers, however, may be more concerned with their unexpected share of HemisFair’s losses. fl SOURCES 1.This figure was used by HemisFair Board member Bill Sinkin in the San Antonio Light, September 18, 1968. 2.Settlement Agreement, August, 1968, between contractors and San Antonio Fair, Inc. 3.Lease agreement ‘between city of San Antonio and Fair, Inc., April, 1964. 4.Interdepartment Correspondence Sheet, City of San Antonio, Report on Litigation from City Attorney to City Council, October 10, 1968. 5.Transcript of City Council Meeting, Nov. 14, 1963. 6.’Minutes of HemisFair Executive Board Meeting, Oct. 3, 1968. 7.Contract between city and Fair, Inc., Sept. 25, 1968. 8.All informatio4, on underwriters from San Antonio Fair, Inc. Analysis of Underwriter Subscriptions and Guarantors, July 18, 1968. 9.San Antonio Light, Sept. 18, 1968. 10.San Antonio Express/News, October 6, 1968. 11.Minutes of the HemisFair Executive Board Meeting, Oct. 3, 1968. Radicals Organize Defense Wimberley Texas radicals, concerned about what they deem to be the mounting repression of their movement, took steps here last month to form a legal defense organization. The Conference on Legal Defense for Political Dissidents, convened in the green, baked hills southwest of Austin might have been a quest quixotic in concept, but it seemed to produce at least the beginnings of an organization that could be a vital force to combat that repression. Some 150 persons attended the meetings, more than half of them Texas lawyers. Also on hand were a large number of New Left activists, representing the Students for a Democratic Society, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Killeen’s beleaguered Oleo Strut GI coffee house-as well as a group of law professors and students. Among those on the program were William Kunstler, New York City defense attorney whose clients include H. Rap Brown and other movement leaders; Chrales Garry, defense attorney for Black Panther leaders Eldridge Cleaver and Huey Newton; Harriet Van Tassel, who is associated with Kunstler at the Law Center for Constitutional Rights; and Bernardine Dohrn, formerly with the National Lawyers Guild and now interorganizational secretary of SDS. The writer has worked with the Amarillo daily newspaper and has published several previous articles in the Observer. 10 The Texas Observer According to Harvey Stone, editor of the Rag who served as one of the organizers of the meeting, there were five goals: “To counter repression of the [radical left] movement by getting lawyers to handle political cases; to develop creative and aggressive legal strategies for the movement; to discuss the need for ‘political’ defense of dissidents as in the Newton case \( the trial of a militant black in the shooting of an Oakland, Calif. policelawyers which might lead to their radicalization; and to create an organization Buck Ramsey structure to implement these goals.” The most immediate result of the conference was a commitment by some of the lawyers here to assist SNCC and the Oleo Strut people in their present crisis \(Obs., ton and Dallas agreed to help SNCC organizers Lee Otis Johnson of Houston and Ernest McMillan and Matthew Johnson, both of Dallas, who recently were given stiff jail sentences, punishment which movement leaders ‘believe was meted out because of the men’s political work. Lawyers pondered the case of Pvt. Bruce Peterson, the editor of Fort Hood’s’ underground paper, the Fatigue Press. Peterson was arrested twice on marijuana charges. The combined amounts of the narcotic that policemen said they found in Peterson’s possession was not enough to survive a laboratory test, so no evidence could be presented in court. As civilian courts can’t prosecute under such circumstances, Peterson has not been convicted there. However, a military court sentenced him to eight years at hard labor. Lawyers also agreed to support Larry Caroline, University of Texas at Austin professor whose contract has been terminated at the end of the current academic year. THE CONFERENCE staff said it would work in the next month to raise money and tie the group together. A central committee composed of representatives of SDS, SNCC, the Oleo Strut and the Southwest Regional Draft Counseling Assn.-will make political decisions for the organization until the next statewide meeting. The structure finally decided upon was a compromise, proposed by SNCC and the Oleo Strut. Originally, organizers of the conference had suggested regional boards as the essential groupings with governing boards made up of lawyers and activists, the movement people to have a 2-1 voting advantage. SNCC and Strut people were worried that a dispute over structure would exacerbate internal differences ‘present here and lead to their suggested compromise, which was approved. The conference was persistently threatened by dissension, the gathering being composed of lawyers \(many of them