ustxtxb_obs_1969_09_12_50_00013-00000_000.pdf

TEXAS’ LEADING BUMPERSTRIP SIGN MAKER 1111FFUTURA PRESS i., 1714 SOUTH CONGRESS P.O. BOX 3485 AUSTIN, TEXAS Phone 512 / 442-7836 hardest at Texas business’? Why could we not pass a two-factor franchise tax?” Noting that the two-factor tax would ease the burden on firms that do most of their business in Texas, Moore asked, “Are we not traitors to Texas?” “They say we have to preserve a good business climate. … Why worry about that? Texas taxes business the lowest of any state in the union. . . . Once, while in the company of some business lobbyists I asked what was the concern about the Texas business climate. They just laughed, took another drink of their highballs, and said, ‘Why, we have to have some story to sell to the dumb-dumb vote’ and they’re still fooling the dumb-dumbs.” If Texas passed a corporate income tax, where would these corporations go? Moore asked, noting that 42 other states have such a tax. He also criticized the House for not imposing a higher natural gas tax, noting that that tax dropped 2c in 1959 and has not been raised since. The attitude of favoring business to the detriment of individual people “is epitomized in the fact that we have imposed more taxes on cigarettes than on all the great corporations of Texas,” Moore said. “You go home and explain that to my people; yours might buy it.” He said that he believes the business lobby is pushing hard to impose the tax burden on consumers because redistricting after the 1970 census will mean a new type of Legislature. “This is the last time they have to rape Texas for the benefit of Illinois, New York, and Pennsylvania, and the other financially well-off states,” Moore said. “The state of Kentucky was raped by the out-of-state coal interests, just as Texas is being raped today,” Moore said, adding that legislators should consider Kentucky’s situation today. The bill then was passed to engrossment, 79-58, three members voting present. The rules were suspended, 112-23-3, a number of members who opposed the bill voting for the suspension to expedite sending the bill over to the Senate. Final passage was 77-59-2. G.O., K.N. A Story of Thailand Bangkok, Thailand In Bangkok last March I got into conversation in the bar of the Arawan Hotel with a man called Arthur Janzen. Over the next few days I had drinks with him on several occasions. Once Arthur took us to dinner at a very good Thai restaurant which otherwise I could not have found. Another time, after I had talked at length about the spirit-reviving quality of Tex-Mex food, Arthur drove us to a Tex-Mex restaurant of merit owned by an ex-GI from South Texas. Arthur told us he speaks 11 languages and does crossword puzzles in six. He said English was his third best language, but in conversation there was never a feeling that he was searching for a word or a meaning. I have been thinking about Arthur lately because events have reminded me of a question that he asked. Arthur was in Bangkok awaiting the arrival of the president of Gump’s Department Store from San Francisco. Although Arthur is a former Dutch consul general to Thailand and is married to a close relative of the Thai king, and so has some degree of financial comfort, he has gone into the craft of making rare celadon pottery in Chiang Mai, the old imperial capital of Siam, about 500 miles north of Bangkok in the mountains near the Burmese border. According to a 600-year-old formula which Arthur claims to have rediscovered and improved upon, the pottery is molded of the proper mixture of lignite, ashes, and clay and is fired in teakwood kilns, each piece to be Mr. Shrake, who lives in Austin, is on the staff of Sports Illustrated and has had two novels published. Personal Service Quality Insurance Alice Anderson”Bow” Williams INSURANCE & REAL ESTATE SOU E. 46th, Austin. Tons 465-6577 finished by hand by Arthur himself. “I doubt we can make enough of it to satisfy Gump’s,” Arthur said. “Out in the country we don’t have air-conditioning and we take it easy. Chiang Mai is very different from Bangkok. We do have our American air base, of course, where people rush around. But the rest of us are not in such a hurry. I don’t make pottery to get rich.” HOWEVER, Arthur owns a large and elegant home in Bangkok as well as his place in Chiang Mai. His home in Bangkok is comparable to the famous Thai house Edwin Shrake now open to tourists on guided visits of Jim Thompson, an American who disappeared mysteriously in the Cameron Highlands of Thailand two years ago. Though Thompson was in the business of selling silk spun by workers in houses along the canal beside his home, it was widely reported that he worked for the CIA. Some say his disappearance was a political assassination. Others say Thompson became a buffet for a tiger. Janzen’s theory is that Thompson was kidnapped by bandits who were frightened to discover what an important person they’d grabbed and decided to dispose of him and keep quiet about it. As to whether Thompson was involved in espionage, Arthur shrugged. “We were good friends, but I wouldn’t know about that,” he said. But Arthur admitted that he had himself been a secret agent for the Dutch. Arthur said his family had to flee from Tashkent during the Russian Revolution and that after much wandering he eventually became a Dutch citizen. During World War II, he said, he made seven parachute jumps into German-occupied Europe as a Dutch spy. For that service he was rewarded with the consul generalship to Thailand, a post he later resigned rather than be transferred. \(In Hong Kong I inquired about Arthur and was told by a wire service correspondent who had spent years in Bangkok that Janzen was indeed as he represented himself and had in fact been in line to be Bey of Tashkent, a terrific thing A handsome, gray-haired man in his 50s, Arthur does not apologize for Thailand’s monarchy. Rather, he approves of it. “The Thais are very fortunate in that there’s a fantastic amount of food available with little effort,” he said. “Nobody starves here. A man can earn $50 a month driving a cab in Bangkok and support a major wife September 12, 1969 13 MEETINGS THE THURSDAY CLUB of Dallas meets each Downtown YMCA, 605 No. Ervay St., Dallas. Good discussion. You’re welcome. Informal, no dues. CENTRAL TEXAS ACLU luncheon meeting. Spanish Village. 2nd Friday every month. From noon. All welcome. 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