ustxtxb_obs_1969_02_21_50_00012-00000_000.pdf

building at Giddings disturbs me. There’s an imbalance here that’s going to continue until we start getting better personnel up there.” “We’re 10% overcrowded at each building at Gatesville,” Turman said. “Shouldn’t we maybe put money into probation and maybe start a juvenile court system so that maybe many kids will never reach these institutions?” Kennard asked. Turman answered, “But we have these boys now. We have too many kids now.” “What you’re saying is that you’ll leave it to us in the Legislature if we want to do all these things [establish a juvenile court system and improve the probation system] , but what you’re primarily interested in is the kids you already have,” Kennard said. The senator asked if the 1970 budget of $132,000 for psychiatrists is adequate. Turman reluctantly admitted it was not. He then asked if the proposed 47 proba Austin The Department of Public Safety is keeping track of nationally known “agitators” and others engaged in “subversive activities” in Texas with a force of elite intelligence agents, the director of the department revealed recently in two appearances before legislative committees. Without being asked to define his terms, Col. Wilson Spier told the Senate Finance Committee his department maintains “45 narcotics agents, 29 intelligence agents, and 62 Texas Rangers,” and he made it plain he wants more Rangers around. Spier said the intelligence agents are keeping track of “subversive activities” and are “trying to keep up with groups that are credited nationally and are credited nationwide with being agitators.” And, he con i,12 The Texas Observer Personal Service Quality Insurance Alice Anderson”Bow” Williams INSURANCE & REAL ESTATE 808A E. 46th, Austin. Texas 465-6577 MARTIN ELFANT Sun Life of Canada 1001 Century Building Houston, Texas CA 4-0686 II tion officers were sufficient. Turman said that the number would force each officer to handle about 60 cases a week while the recommended case load is 40. Kennard: “Why didn’t you ask for more probation officers?” Turman: “We’re using an awful lot of volunteers . . .” Kennard: “The only thing that bothers me is that you administrators anticipate what the Legislature wants to hear instead of just coming here and telling it like it is. I’m frankly concerned about your approach to institutionalizing people rather than treating them.” Turman: “You know I can’t take them home with me.” Kennard: “You’ve got to take them home with you.” Kennard advised the senators that the final version of the TYC budget should be drafted after the Youth’Affairs Committee finishes its report on the council.K.N. tinued, the agents “keep records on known agitators.” In response to a question from Galves”what kind of training do they have for this counter-espionage work,” Colonel Spier said the men are recruited from the uniformed services but do not come from the ranks of the Rangers. He said the investigators share a $45,000 annual expense account in addition to being assigned a car and being paid at the rate of a uniformed sergeant. “It costs us about $12,000 to equip and maintain a uniformed man and about $15,000 for a criminal investigator,” he said. “We would like to have some more men.” He said his men do “lots of surveillance work.” Spier said the DPS is tied to a national teletype system that feeds news of crimes and criminals \(and presumably nationally a result between 75 and 100 extra arrests are occurring each month in the state of persons wanted elsewhere. Spier was quizzed closely by senators Austin Soliciting private donations to build state parks is a common practice in Texas. Although this method of funding usually goes unnoticed, the state’s daily press raised questions of propriety when anonymous gifts were used to partially finance the Lyndon Baines Johnson State Park, adjacent to the Johnson Ranch. There were reports that some gifts were made only after political pressure was applied. Editorialists wondered in print who might be about operation of the DPS’ “air force” of five twin-engine planes, and before a much friendlier House Appropriations Committee, whose chairman, Rep. W. S. Heatly of Paducah, is said to be one of the most frequent users of DPS planes in his travels to and from home. Schwartz, who sent word to the Capitol press room he was about to ask Spier some “embarrassing questions,” grilled the state’s top cop closely about purchases of aircraft in the past year after the colonel disclosed the DPS purchased two used Cessna 411 twin-engine planes to go with the Cessna 310, Cessna 311 and Lockheed were purchased for almost $155,000, “luxuries” Schwartz said he found hard to justify when faced with having to appropriate money to help feed Indian children in other parts of the state. But the colonel replied that the planes were a “good buy” and added to the DPS’ ability to provide service when and where needed in the state. Among the services the planes now are being used for, he said, are ferrying film from West Texas to Austin to be processed for new drivers’ licenses. “I am overwhelmed by this,” the senator said. Schwartz used Spier’s appearance to renew his attacks on the Rangers, particularly Capt. A. Y. Allee. The senator asked whether DPS was conducting a training course in race relations for its meri and whether Rangers were required to take it “including Ranger captains and sergeants?” “I want to be absolutely sure that no one in your department is omitted from your course in race-relations,” Schwartz replied to Spier’s comment that he was “doing the best we can” in that field. “I interviewed Capt. Allee there is no question who I am talking about and I wouldn’t want him to represent me to a minority group,” the senator said. “He gets along well with felons, but not all of these are felons . . . his testimony in federal me as a Texan.” Asked what his statements had to do with DPS’ budget requests, Schwartz said they dealt with the expenditure of state money and he “might be interested in giving them some more instructors in race relations.” trying to curry favor with the president. They demanded that the donors and the amounts of their gifts be made public, but the men who collected the money refused to divulge the names. Anonymous gifts are helping to build a museum in House Speaker Gus Mutscher’s district, but the daily press is not making an issue of it. When Mutscher mentioned in a recent press conference that $75,000 had been raised for construction at the Washington-on-the-Brazos State Park, a re Fighting Subversion Another Park Puzzle