ustxtxb_obs_1978_10_06_50_00022-00000_000.pdf

TIC. . . from page 6 requirements on the legislative agenda. TIC’s own agenda leaves little room for such an effort, however. The commission’s highest priority seems to be to get more money for its international division, particularly for its Mexico City office. International division? Mexico City office? Sure enough, it seems there’s a TIC representative who occupies an office in the swanky Hotel Maria Isabel Sheraton in the Mexican capital, and he is rumored to be on the lookout for export opportunities for Texas businessmen. Now, this may well be important work, but there do seem to be more urgent matters to attend to here at home. So what’s going on here? Apparently the Legislative Budget Board had the same doubts about TIC’S budgetary wisdom, because on September 22 it recommended cutting the entire appropriation for the Mexico City office out of the commission’s budget. In fact, the LBB treated the whole budget request rather disrespectfully, urging that TIC spending be cut back 16 to 18 percent during the next biennium. What to do? It’s about time somebody turned a critical eye on the work of this agency, and perhaps the LBB action will be the catalyst. As it now stands, the TIC is a waste of taxpayers’ money, primarily serving non-Texas corporations that don’t need its help in the first place, and paradoxically working against the interests of those Texas firms that could use a hand. Senator Schwartz, no fan of TIC, has this comment on its current work: “We don’t need the commission to advertise Texas any more than we need someone to advertise clean air and sunshine. They’re useless. They beat their drum about something that would have happened even if they had been chartered in Hong Kong.” Which is not to argue at all against the need for an industrial commission \(or department of economic development, call for something measurably different from and more productive than what we’ve been getting. What’s needed is to get hold of TIC, give it a good shake and aim it in a proper direction, investing its money and staff time in the real strength of Texas: our own small businesses, cooperatives, family farmers, minority enterprises, and workers. Several opportunities for reform of the agency present themselves in the near future. The first chance is November 7, when Texas voters can and should reject the wrongheaded constitutional amendment creating an industrial development bond authority in Texas. Then comes the next session of the Legislature, when TIC will plead for its budget request this is a time for some embarrassing questions, and more embarrassing follow-up questions, to be asked of Harwell and his crew. The Legislature ought to cut back on TIC’s silly and nonproductive promotional schemes and rechannel the money into the minority business program and other areas where genuine economic progress can be made. Perhaps the best opportunity for change will come on February 15, when the terms of four of the 12 commissioners expire, giving the new governor a dramatic and early chance to make his mark on the commission and to set the pace for its future work. Another four appointees come up in February of ’81, so for a governor who really wants to take the national lead in developing a workable state program of democratic industrial growth, it would be possible to have a two-thirds majority on the commission in just two years. And if none of this works out, meaning that it’s just business as usual down at the TIC, it is good to remember that the commission comes up for sunset review in 1982. Texan Celia Dugger is a Harvard University undergraduate who writes for the Harvard Crimson. TEXAS German Artist on the Texas Frontier Friedrich Richard Petri By William W. Newcomb, Jr. Friedrich Richard Petri immigrated to Texas in the 1850s, and though he died a scant seven years later, he left behind a legacy of sketches and paintings portraying pioneer life in and around Fredericksburg. This volume presents his work along with a rich body of interpretive background material. 258 pp.; 35 color and 102 Ik-w plates; $19.95 Mier Expedition Diary A Texan , Prisoner’s Account By Joseph D. McCutchan Edited by Joseph Milton Nance Nineteen-year-old Joseph D. McCutchan was among the 300 Texans who attempted their own invasion of Mexico in the disastrous Mier Expedition of 1842. Joseph Milton Nance, the acknowledged authority on the hostilities between Texas and Mexico during the era of the Texas Republic, has transcribed, edited, and annotated McCutchan’s vivid firsthand account. 304 pp.. $15.00 A Journey through Texas Or, a Saddle-Trip on the Southwestern Frontier By Frederick Law Olmsted Foreword by Larry McMurtry The young Frederick Law Olmsted sets down his observations of a horseback trip along the Old San Antonio Road from the East Texas piney woods to the western prairies. ‘I . . . an intelligent, lively, readable book., packed with keen observation and lightened by a delicate strain of humor.”Larry McMurtry 562 pp.;$5.00,paper;S12.00,cloth Coronado’s Children Tales of Lost Mines and Buried Treasures of the Southwest By J. Frank Dobie Foreword by Frank H. Wardlaw Illustrations by Charles Shaw A new edition of the Dobie classic recounting the tales of the gold seekers of the Southwest. “. . . they follOw Spanish trails, buffalo trails, cow trails; they dig where there are no trails; but oftener than they dig or prospect they just sit and tell stories of lost mines, of buried bullion by the jack load.”J. Frank Dobie 384 pp.; 30 line drawings; $4.95, paper; $9.95, cloth. University of Texas Press Box 7819 Austin, Texas 78712 22 OCTOBER 6, 1978