ustxtxb_obs_1970_04_03_50_00002-00000_000.pdf

it would come under the Bank Holding Company Act. If it had one more share, it would be required to divest itself of the bank or the insurance company operation.” At the time of the report, the company had 24.97% of the Edinburg bank stock and 41.28% of the stock of the First National Bank of Raymondville. The Raymondville stock may have been sold during 1969. The U.S. ‘ House recently passed Congressman Patman’s revised One Bank Holding Company Bill, and it is awaiting a hearing in the Senate Committee on Banking and Currency. If the measure passes, Lincoln Liberty Life may be required to get out of the banking or the insurance business. The new bill allows the Federal Reserve Board to break up bank holding companies when it can establish that a company controls a bank, even if it owns less than 25% of the stock. Jake Lewis of the House Banks and Banking Committee told the Observer that, if the Patman bill passes the Senate, the interlocking directorates among the Rio Grande Valley banks, Lincoln Liberty Life, and Lincoln Consolidated could lead the Federal Reserve Bank to conclude that the Bentsens do indeed control the banks. The boards of directors of the banks, the insurance company, and the parent company are saturated with Bentsens. According to the Texas Banking Redbook, Lloyd M. Bentsen \(it does not say whether it is junior or senior, but is presumably banks the first national banks of Raymondville, Mission, McAllen, and Edinburg, and the Security State Bank of Pharr. Both Lloyd Senior and Lloyd Junior are on the boards of directors of Lincoln Consolidated and Lincoln Liberty Life. Elmer Bentsen, a brother of Lloyd Senior, is on the boards of three of the Valley banks in which Lincoln Liberty has stock, and he also is on the boards of Lincoln Liberty and Lincoln Consolidated. Calvin P. Bentsen, Donald Bentsen, and Ted A. Bentsen are board members of both Lincoln Liberty and the McAllen bank. And R. Dan Winn is a member of the boards of both Lincoln Liberty and the McAllen bank. Bentsen told the Observer he will resign from Lincoln Consolidated if he is elected. “When I went to Congress before, I withdrew from my law firm and never accepted another legal fee again,” Bentsen said. “That’s the sort of ethics I think should be displayed,whei3 _you enter into public office.” Bentsen also has a financial interest in the U.S. farm subsidy program. Although the candidate has endorsed a limitation of $20,000 a year in cash subsidies to individual farmers for not growing certain crops, Bentsen was one of 331 farm owners in 1967 to receive more than $50,000 a year in crop subsidies. The government paid him $108,904 that year for reducing crop production on his property in Hidalgo County. In 1966, Bentsen received $152,352 in farm payments. The 1968 list of farmers in the over $50,000 category does not include Bentsen, and the 1969 list is not yet available. The day before Bentsen announced his candidacy, he quietly resigned from the boards of directors of Continental Oil, Panhandle Eastern Pipeline Co., Trunkline Gas Co., Houston’s Bank of the Southwest, and Lockheed Aircraft Corporation. Bentsen said he sold 1,000 shares of Lockheed stock at the time he resigned from the board. “I resigned because I wanted to make a total commitment to this race,” the candidate said. Bentsen told the Observer that his resignations leave him free from any conflict of interest. Still, he might be expected to be sympathetic to the problems of his former companies. His relationship with Lockheed might be particularly sticky, since the aircraft company is in considerable trouble over its $600 million cost overrun on the military contract for the C-5A jet transport. Lockheed, which is this country’s leading defense contractor, recently asked the Department of Defense for conditional release . of more than $500 million in contract disputes. Lockheed’s financial crisis will not be solved overnight. It is bound to be a topic of debate in the Senate next year, and so are crop subsidies, bank holding companies, insurance, oil, and gas. K.N. `Hard-Rock Democrat’s’ Turn Out for Yarborough Houston About 5,000 “hard-rock Democrats,” as Dickinson banker Walter Hall called them, heard Sen. Ralph Yarborough honored by three of his Senate colleagues, including presidential possibility Edmund Muskie, and then came to their feet roaring when Yarborough called on them to “beat the hell out of these reactionaries.” This happened here Thursday night last week at what the master of ceremonies, Fred Hofheinz, represented as the largest political dinner in the history of the state’s largest city. More than 40 wires of commendation and endorsement were announced from Yarborough’s Democratic colleagues in the Senate. The wires included a message from Hubert Humphrey that “I’m with him all the way” and another from Edward Kennedy that Yarborough is “a leader in the whole Senate on efforts to achieve a better life for all Americans.” Former 2 The Texas Observer President Lyndon Johnson did not send a message. Eugene McCarthy called Yarborough a good friend and an outstanding representative. Muskie of Maine, the Democratic vice-presidential candidate in 1968, spoke of “the Yarborough tradition” in the Senate “of compassion, dedication, commitment, and effectiveness.” He recalled that Yarborough “worked openly” for the Humphrey-Muskie ticket “when it wasn’t popular to do so.” “He’s a good man to have by your side in an uphill fight,” Muskie said. Yarborough, he said, had fought for the people’s good with grace and courage, and “he’s still ready for the fight. I’m here to say send him back to us next November.” Muskie was introduced by Sen. Barbara Jordan, Houston’s black senator, who said of Yarborough: “To the blacks of this state, Sen. Yarborough is a man with soul. When a man does well we simply say right on, brother, right on. That’s what we say to Senator Yarborough tonight.” ONE HEARD in the Yarborough circles contentions that Bentsen forces are spending large sums of cash to induce Mexican-Americans to work for his candidacy. State Rep. Lauro Cruz, Houston, introducing U.S. Sen. Alan Cranston of California, said he had been in touch with mexicano leaders statewide and it “ain’t so” that Bentsen would be taking some of the Mexican-American voters away from Yarborough. Cranston said his state has a Texas had one from Connecticut \(George of Texas wouldn’t trade a Yarborough in the hand for a thousand Bushes,” Cranston said. “Certainly the people of Texas wouldn’t hide Ralph Yarborough under . . . a Tower of a Bush.” Bush of Houston is running for the Republican Senate nomination. Cranston reviewed Yarborough’s role in federal aid to education, saying the Texan had “worked tirelessly” for each major