ustxtxb_obs_1974_11_29_50_00006-00000_000.pdf

taken by his friend George Parr, who won a presidential pardon in 1946 with the help of then-prominent Texas’ politicians. But Manges was unsuccessful in his efforts to obtain a pardon. Very little is known of Manges’ personal life. He is apparently in his late 40’s, has less than high school education and has a year-old daughter born in Kingsville named Dawn Duval Manges. In the meantime, the matter of Cloyce Box’s contribution to Briscoe’s re-election campaign \(see Obs., causing about $10,000 worth of stink. As the Observer reported, on Dec. 29, 1973, a messenger from Box delivered $10,000 in cash to Jess Hay, a wealthy Dallas investment executive who was the manager for Briscoe’s Oct. 30, 1973, fund-raising dinner. That same $10,000 in cash later appeared on Briscoe’s campaign financial report, filed with the secretary of state on April 3 of this year, as 100 contributions of $100 each. The 100 individuals named as the donors of $100 all had the same address in the campaign report a Dallas post office box belonging to Cloyce Box’s OKC Corp. But none of the 100 individuals listed at that address even lived in Dallas. OTHER STATE newspapers have taken up where the Observer left off. Turns out that the dinner committee headed by Hay filed a supplementary report on Oct. 29 of this year. No one quite knows why they felt impelled to file such an amplificatory report, but it was filed six days after Hay’s deposition was taken by attorneys for Sissy Farenthold. During the course of that deposition Hay was questioned at some length about the Box contribution and Farenthold’s attorneys also made it clear that they wanted to question Box and all of the alleged 100 donors. Hay’s supplementary report states “for the first time” that Box advanced the $10,000 from his personal funds to 100 employees and officers of his OKC Corp. Hay said the committee had been told that individual donors were approached personally or by telephone to obtain their authorization or approval for the advances for their respective contributions. Hay further said that as far as the committee knew, Box had not been reimbursed by any of the 100 individuals “as of any date certain.” The scenario thereafter became curiouser and curiouser. The Houston Post tracked down two of the alleged donors who said they’d quit their jobs with OKC before the date they were reported to have given their authorization for the $100 contributions. Another ex-employee of OKC had gotten so ticked off about having been listed as a donor when he hadn’t donated anything that lie had asked the FBI to investigate the matter. Still another OKC man, still with the company, said he 6 The Texas Observer had recently been told to repay $100 for a contribution he’d never authorized. OKC employees willing to talk to the Post said they had started getting calls from Dallas at the end of Octobei urging them to repay their “loans.” Those employees who backed Hay’s version or who refused to discuss the matter were management level or engineering officers, according to the Post. Some of the lower-level employees said they’d never been informed that they had agreed to take out $100 loans with the proceeds to be donated to Briscoe. “No way!” said Billy Geerdes of Woodward, Okla. He said he couldn’t afford such a donation on his salary. One Richard L. McGoon, another Woodward truck driver, said he’d known nothing of the contribution given in his name until a secretary called him from Austin Our election newspaper clippings now have a whole corner of the office to themselves. There they sit, screeching, “Briscoe Leads Statewide Demo Sweep,” and “Incumbents Breeze,” an _d “Landslide Helps Democrats.” There’s no use kiddin’ around. It wasn’t even a one-cheer election for liberals in Texas. It was maybe a half-cheer year. Think of it this way: if you liked the guy who was the incumbent anything before this election, chances are between excellent and dead certain that he’s been elected again. Conversely, anyone you didn’t like who was in office is also highly likely to be in office still. But there is good news. A wrong-headed county judge named Lew Sterrett lost. Jose Angel Gutierrez was elected county judge in Zavala. Bullock won and 0. C. Fisher was replaced by a moderate Democrat. A black man was elected county commissioner in Nacogdoches. And District 57-C is back in Democratic hands. May we present, from the people who brought you the last two years, the next two years. Or four. ON ELECTION night, the TV networks were counting defeated Republicans. If Texas had had more Republicans to offer up, we might have been mentioned on the tube. As it was, the GOP lost an incumbent U.S. House member, Bob Price of Pampa, and very nearly lost another, Alan Steelman of Dallas. The party had another close call in State Sen. Betty Andujar’s race for re-election. In the state House, Republicans suffered a net loss of two seats. Most of all, the statewide Republican ticket got buried. After three rounds of running in the Dallas late last year and told him it was a fait accompli \(actually, he didn’t say that, the secretary had told him at the time “not to worry about it” but that on Oct. 29 of this year he and others were instructed to write $100 checks payable to Box and to give them to theirforeman in Woodward who would then forward them to Box. McGoon told the Dallas Times Herald, “I paid Mr. Box back. I’m done. I’m through with it. I’ve had my fill of it. I made him out a check for $100, and they said they probably would cash it. I need to work. I work for the man and he owns Oklahoma Cement as far as I know. So out of the generosity of my heart I gave a contribution to Dolph Briscoe. I’ll tell you, I didn’t even contribute to any Oklahoma candidates.” M.I. 45-percent range, Republicans could only scrape up 30 percent of the vote for this year’s nominee, Jim Granberry, despite his energetic campaigning. Ordinarily the party’s gubernatorial choice runs well ahead of the rest of the ticket; this year, Granberry ran behind Bob Holt, who became the umpteenth victim in Jesse James’ 33-year string of winning elections for State Treasurer. The real pitched battles for Republicans this year were three Congressional elections. In the 13th, State Sen. Jack Hightower, the conservative Democrat from Vernon, whipped Republican Price. As expected \(see Obs., split into rough halves, with the southern end going for Hightower by margins like four to one. In the Panhandle counties, which should have been Price country, Hightower ran stronger than expected: Price’s home county gave him only a small edge. Not only did Hightower overcome the odds against beating an incumbent, he defied the first law of political gravity, that the candidate spending less sinks to the bottom of the vote totals. Price out-spent the winner by almost two to one. Hightower people are crediting Watergate and the state of the economy \(about which the farmers and cattlemen of northwest Price’s campaign, handicapped by his decision to remain in Washington until the end of Congress’ last session, never got off the ground. In the 5th District of Dallas, U.S. Rep. Alan Steelman held off former State Sen. Mike McKool, who had what seemed like every advantage except incumbency. The district has been made more Democratic since Steelman won there .two years ago; McKool had represented large chunks of it Election wrapup