-Caveat Lector-
from:
Our Sovereign State
Robert S Allen editor
Vanguard Press, Inc�1949
NewYork
419 pages
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TEXAS * * *
Owned by Oil and Interlocking Directorates
HART STILWELL
ONE hundred and fifteen years ago, William B. Travis drew a line with his
sword on the ground inside the Alamo, and asked all willing to join him in
fighting to the death for the freedom of Texas to cross it. All crossed.
In the spring of 1949, State Senator Fred Harris drew an imaginary line down
the center of the chamber and asked all willing to stand up for the rights of
Texas children against the Humble Oil Company to "step across" the line by
voting for a bill be was sponsoring.
Fourteen Senators stepped across. Fifteen did not.
Texas has gone far since Travis and his men died at the Alamo. But the
direction is doubtful in the light of the principles for which those early
Texans fought. For Texas today is the largest and most profitable colony in
the world�a distinction that became hers automatically the day India achieved
independence. Wall Street has done with money what men with swords and guns
could not do.
It has been a long battle, one that is still raging. The issues were clearly
drawn in 1946 when Dr. Homer P. Rainey, deposed president of the University
of Texas, sought the governorship. He lost. But others carry on, and the
outcome of their struggle will determine the path that Texas, and much of the
rest of the Southwest, will follow during the next generation�a people's path
or a colonial path.
Oil is the master of present-day Texas. And as Texas oil is owned by Wall
Street, Wall Street dominates Texas. Most Texans know this, but few care to
discuss it. When R. W. Calvert slipped and admitted it at a luncheon in 1947,
when he was chairman of the Democratic State Executive Committee, the cry of
anguish could be heard from the Gulf of Mexico to the Rocky Mountains-that
is, across Texas.
Calvert said, "It may not be a wholesome thing to say, but the oil industry
today is in complete control of State politics and State government."
This foreign ownership is admitted in other quarters. In State and Local
Government in Texas, a textbook used in some colleges, appears this
statement: "The grip of foreign�controlled monopolies upon much of the
State's basic resources will become a potent issue as the people generally
awaken to the realization of the facts."
Seventy-five per cent of Texas oil is owned by Wall Street, in the broad
sense of that term. Owners of the other twenty-five per cent must sell to the
owners of the seventy-five per cent, who possess the pipelines and
refineries. And the ease with which the oil industry exercises its rule of
Texas is demonstrated by the fact that one and one-half per cent of the oil
companies operating in Texas own ninety-eight per cent of the oil production.
Getting oil interests together in Texas amounts to little more than getting
representatives of the various long arms of Standard Oil (Humble, Magnolia,
etc.) into conference.
The controlling pressure may be exerted in circuitous and unexpected ways.
For example: Humble Oil and Refining Co. (Standard of New Jersey), largest in
Texas, doesn't even have a lobbyist at Austin. But Humble is a dominant
factor in the Texas Mid-Continent Oil & Gas Association, which keeps two
lobbyists at Austin during legislative sessions.
The result? In the "line-drawing" episode, the bill under consideration would
have moved venue in a tidewater land suit from Kenedy County, where
three-fourths of the county's 180 qualified jurors are employed by or
otherwise connected with the Kenedy Ranch, to Travis County, in which Austin,
the State capital, is located. Oil leases amounting to more than $2,000,000
are at stake, and the chances of the State winning (the revenue would go into
the school fund) might reasonably be considered slightly better in Travis
than Kenedy County.
But Humble held the lease on the Kenedy Ranch. So the Senators did not cross
the line.
It is easy to bring powerful pressures to bear in Texas because the
industrial and financial structure of the State is actually one huge maze of
interlocking directorates. If unraveled and put in a straight line, the
ramifications of these corporate tentacles would reach to Mars and back.
Here is a graphic example:
Jesse Jones's National Bank of Commerce in Houston is linked, through
outright ownership or through interlocking directorates, with the Houston
Chronicle, Radio Station KTRH, the Rice Hotel and several others, the Houston
Deep Water Land Company, and the Gulf Oil Corp., which is owned by the
Mellons, who also hold a big slice of Texas Gulf Sulphur, which is under
Morgan management.
Continuing through the maze (hold your hat), Texas Gulf Sulphur is tied up
with The Texas Company, and through it with The Freeport Sulphur Co., the
other half of the sulphur monopoly and one in which the Rockefellers are
heavily interested. Connections extend on to The Neches Butane Products Co.,
the First National Bank of Dallas, the Frost National Bank of San Antonio,
American General Life Insurance Company, Seaboard Life Insurance Company, the
Dr. Pepper Company of Dallas, and the Houston Lighting & Power Co., which in
turn was controlled until recently by the National Power & Light Co., a
subsidiary of giant Electric Bond & Share.
That still isn't all. Through directorates extending in other directions,
Jesse Jones's bank is linked with Houston's big law firms, and through them
with Dillon, Reed & Co., the Missouri Pacific System and other railroads,
Anderson, Clayton & Co., world's largest cotton brokers, and Wesson Oil &
Snowdrift Company, which owns the South Texas Cotton Oil Company, with mills
and refineries all over the State. Through these ties, the connections extend
to Oriental Textile Mills, the Great Southern Life Insurance Company, Kirby
Petroleum Company, and Carr P. Collins of Dallas, the man who started
"Pass-the-biscuits Pappy" O'Daniel on his way.
The list is almost endless. A few other connections are Hughes Tool Company,
Transcontinental & Western Air, Gulf Bitulithic Company, Longhorn Portland
Cement Company, Union Producing Company, and United Gas Corp.
The above is just a segment of the intricate and complex story of who owns
and rules Texas.
More light was shed on this all-powerful control during the progress of a
bill introduced by Representative Charles McLellan in the 1949 Legislature.
The measure proposed increasing the tax on natural gas from one mill per
thousand cubic feet to one cent. This would have produced close to twenty
million dollars' revenue a year, instead of the twomillion-dollar pittance
the State now gets from this great natural resource. But McLellan's bill did
not pass.
Texas could perform near miracles in developments if the State would
adequately tax the exploiters of its fabulous natural resources. A forthright
income tax would perform wonders. Examination of the income of one Texan
illustrates the point.
According to Life magazine, which certainly cannot be accused of unfairness
to the rich, Haralson Hunt of Dallas has an oil income of $1,000,000 a
week�$52,000,000 a year. The total revenue the State of Texas gets from oil
flowing from its soil is less than $80,000,000 a year.
It is a simple fact that the combined incomes of the twenty richest oilmen in
Texas would pay the State's total operating cost, around $350,000,000 a year.
The Constitution of Texas empowers the Legislature to levy an income tax. But
such a tax is not even mentioned at legislative sessions. In 1949,
Representative Marshall Bell of San Antonio sought to make such a tax
impossible by introducing a constitutional amendment forever barring it. He
quickly lost interest when his bill was amended so that its provisions
applied only to incomes up to $5,000 a year.
Texas taxes oil at the rate of 4.5 per cent of the market value at the well,
gas at the rate of 5.25 per cent, and sulphur at the rate of $1.27 a ton. A
high official of Texas Gulf Sulphur once said, "We're prepared to pay as much
as $5 a ton if we must." When he said this, he was talking privately to a
friend. For public consumption, the business tycoon screams confiscation at
the suggestion of a higher tax.
Immense as oil and gas income is (sixty per cent of the State's total
wealth), it might not be such a dominant factor except for a provision of the
federal income-tax law exempting twenty-seven and one-half per cent of oil
income from taxation as depletion of capital assets. This gravy-train
provision was put into the law largely through the efforts of that pompous
Major Hoople of the U.S. Senate, Tom Connally. Many Texans draw amusement
from the fact that Speaker Sam Rayburn has repeatedly scared the oil, gas,
and utility boys out of trying to defeat him, as they would dearly love to
do, by threatening to plug up this loophole if they so much as "put one dime
in my district against me."
Under this provision Haralson Hunt, as one example, can charge off
$14,300,000 of his annual income as depletion of capital assets. Since there
is no State income tax, he thus pays no tax on that at all. Also, Texas
oilmen are not slow when it comes to taking advantage of other loopholes,
Fewer things eat up profits, if managed properly, and whittle down Income tax
quicker than a big ranch. It has become the practice for Texas oil
millionaires to acquire large ranches, stock them with expensive cattle, and
parade around in handmade cowboy attire. Strangely, the wealthy cattlemen are
still the socially elite of Texas. They look disdainfully down their
sunburned noses at the Johnny-come-lately oil rich.
Because of these tax loopholes, it is possible for oilmen to spread large
sums of money among candidates for public office as freely as low-grade mash
is spread among bogs. Almost any candidate can get some oil money. As an
illustration: In the 1946 Democratic primary, four of the five leading
gubernatorial contenders were acceptable to the oilmen. But they hesitated
choosing among the four for fear of making an enemy who might win. The
situation became critical when Dr. Rainey, who definitely was not acceptable,
began forging ahead. The oilmen decided to settle on one man and shoot the
works.
They selected the late Beauford jester, former attorney for Magnolia Oil
(Standard of New York) and State Railroad Commissioner. The Railroad
Commission regulates the oil industry. Two weeks before election, jester
started gaining.
He finished like Citation, leading in the first primary and defeating Rainey
almost two to one in the run-off.
At least $100,000 is necessary to make even a modest race for Governor in
Texas. It is generally agreed that a minimum of $300,000 is necessary to
assure election. Obviously, few candidates not backed by oil have a chance.
Texans are becoming aware of this brutal fact, as well as others. Change is
in the air. Since the day blatant Representative Martin Dies took one good
look at the way union labor was prepared to knock the props out from under
him and quit without a fight, the "other side" of industrialization is being
beard from. Texas is in a period of transition. Its economy has forged
rapidly ahead, but, as so often happens, its legislative and social progress
has lagged. Today the State might well be compared to the East during the
latter days of the Robber Barons.
Like the Robber Barons, most of the Oil Barons are uncouth, domineering, and
repulsively ostentatious. Their attitude toward educators, scientists,
writers, artists, musicians, etc., is, "If you're so damn smart, why aren't
you rich?" A Houston newspaperman, weary of the ancient wheeze, turned it on
one Oil Baron by asking, "If you're so damn rich, why aren't you smart?"
Of course the answer to that is, "If you are as rich as an oilman, you don't
have to be smart."
Insatiable craving for conspicuous display has led to startling exhibitions
in the U. S., but few surpass the potlatches staged by Texas Oil Barons. The
widely fanfared opening of Glenn McCarthy's Shamrock Hotel in Houston in 1949
is a graphic example. A onetime oil-well rigger, McCarthy determined to show
the world he was as good as anybody else, maybe a little better. He
practically moved Hollywood to the Shamrock for the occasion. All was
splendor, down to the newsboys in full dress. Also all was confusion,
including a drunken orgy that stopped a national radio show, and a mob at the
door that barred the way to a courier who had flown all the way from Ireland
with shamrocks.
Three weeks before the opening, five newspapermen were fired from the chain
of suburban weeklies owned by McCarthy-in the interest of economy.
That is the gaudy, material side of the transition. The human side may not be
too far off.
Texas is switching from an agricultural to an industrial economy, and the
confusion is almost as great as it was at the Shamrock opening. The political
life is changing from that of a small town ruled by a banker to that of a big
city ruled by corporations. The economic life is changing from that of the
frontier-dog eat dog-to that of an industrial system where the sheer
concentration of labor compels recognition of conditions that the isolated
farm worker endures in solitude.
Many factors are working toward these changes. To understand them clearly, it
is necessary to grasp what Texas is today and how it got that way.
The State contains 169,000,000 acres of land and 2,000,000 acres of water
surface. Roughly, it is 800 miles across in any direction. It spans almost
the entire range of climate in the nation, and most of the range of
agriculture, from wheat in the Panhandle to citrus fruit in the Lower Rio
Grande Valley.
Texas takes in more than $1,000,000,000 a year from farm and ranch produce,
with livestock income slightly ahead. Cotton is still king, although no
longer reigning in solitude; less than half of farm income is from cotton.
Oil production is usually held to around 750,000,000 barrels a year, or 44
per cent of the nation's total. The State's oil reserves are estimated at 12
billion barrels, 55 per cent of the nation's total. Gas production
approximates 1,700,000 million cubic feet, 44 per cent of the nation's total.
Sulphur production is slightly more than 3,000,000 long tons.
Approximately 250,000 wells have been drilled in Texas, more than 70 per cent
producers. Of the 254 counties, 172 are producing oil or gas, and land in
every county is under lease for oil exploration.
Development of the oil industry on a large scale began in 1901, with the
discovery of oil in the Spindletop Field, near Beaumont. Chaos reigned during
much of the development, and a prolonged battle between independents and the
big corporations drove prices down to as little as six cents a barrel. In
1938, there were 155 refineries in the great East Texas field, most of them
independently owned. By 1941, there were only three refineries, owned by the
majors. They had won the fight and now control Texas oil.
Texas is first in so many fields of production the mere listing becomes
monotonous-oil, cotton, beef, gas, goats, mules, turkeys, sulphur, grain
sorghum, and so on and so on. Most of the firsts are due to the immense size
of the State. But in the spheres relating to advancement in the art of living
comfortably and happily, Texas does not rank so high, Most Texans prefer to
ignore this. Some data reflecting unfavorably on the State are not to be
found in The Texas Almanac, published by the Dallas News. However,
comparisons are made at times, such as the following, compiled several years
ago by Dr. Dan R. Davis of the Texas Agricultural and Mechanical College:
First in cotton 48th in pellagra control
First in beef 45th in control of infant mortality
First in wool 38th in school systems
First in mules 47th in library service
First in turkeys declining rural church facilities
First in goats �... inadequate rural recreation
First in grain
Sorghums inadequate rural medical facilities
Not all the figures on the right are now correct. For instance, Texas ranks
24th in school systems, and will soon rank still higher. But the figures are
accurate enough to shed a new light on all those "firsts" of the State.
Texas was settled in the early days of the past century, won her independence
from Mexico in 1836, came into the Union in 1846, and fought with the
Confederacy in the Civil War, enduring the trying ordeal of Reconstruction.
The Reconstruction Era ended with the adoption of a new Constitution in 1876.
Records of the constitutional convention make fascinating reading. judging
from some of the speeches, public education was viewed as dangerous a threat
to democracy as medical insurance is today. As finally adopted, the
Constitution, in the words of a present-day Texas editor, "is a document that
it is difficult to revere." In addition to a Bill of Rights and provisions
for a State government, the Constitution embodies a tremendous mass of
material that rightfully belongs in the field of statutory law.
Texans were afraid of strong men then. They still are. There is not a strong
man in the public life of Texas today. The Constitution specifically sets out
the powers of all officials, down to Hide and Animal Inspector. If the Hide
and Animal Inspector wants to inspect goat hides when the Constitution
provides only for inspecting cowhides, a constitutional amendment is
required. Ninety-five have been enacted so far, and each Legislature submits
a batch of new ones.
Part of the Constitution deals with public lands. On en-tering the Union,
Texas offered her public lands, sixty per cent of the total acreage, to the
federal government in exchange for assumption of the State's debt of
$10,000,000. Washington declined. So the State gave 32,000,000 acres to
railroads in the form of subsidies, traded another 3,500,000 acres for a
Capitol building, and set aside 52,000,000 acres for the public schools, with
2,329,000 acres allotted to the University of Texas.
>From the sale of school lands, and from oil leases and royalties on lands
still held, a school fund of $100,000,000 has been created. In addition, the
University of Texas has about the same amount from lease and royalty money,
with an income of $15,000,000 annually.
Railroads and insurance trusts were the first to make a bid for Texas. A
champion equal to the occasion came to the front and fought the State's
battles. He was James Stephen Hogg. Governor from 1891 to 1895, he put
through laws curbing the power of monopolies, reducing interest rates,
regulating the issue of stocks and bonds, and establishing a Railroad
Commission to regulate the carriers.
But there was also a dark side to the Hogg administration. A Jim Crow law was
spread on the statute books.
Hogg was almost a man-mountain in size. Huge and rotund, he swept Texans off
their feet when he hefted his bulk into a farm wagon and drove through the
streets behind six white oxen to ridicule an opponent in a fancy carriage
drawn by six white horses. Hogg was a rich man. Yet he fought the people's
battle (except the downtrodden Negro's), and won.
The fight Hogg started lasted for years. Suits against the Waters-Pierce Oil
Co., charging monopoly in kerosene oil distribution, were finally settled in
1906 in favor of the State, which recovered $1,623,000. Before the
Waters-Pierce case ended, the first gusher at Spindletop blew in,
inaugurating the era of oil in Texas.
Twice since the days of Jim Hogg, Texans have flocked to the standards of men
promising to fight the battle against vested interest. One of these men was
undoubtedly sincere in much that he said and tried to do. The other was pure
phony. The sincere man was James E. Ferguson. The phony was W. Lee O'Daniel.
Ferguson promised to help the tenant farmer and other poor. He proposed
regulating by law the amount a landlord could take from a tenant's crop.
Ferguson also advocated limiting dispossession and providing State
warehouses. Similarly, he was going to do great things for the "little red
schoolhouse at the forks of the creek." Ferguson was an orator of the old
school, and a good one. He swept the poor off their feet with his rousing
speeches, concluding one with the astounding pronouncement, "I'm for the
HOME. If that be treason, make the most of it!"
in sharp contrast to "Pappy" O'Daniel, Ferguson earnestly tried to make good
his promises. He did get attention focused on rural schools and improved
conditions somewhat.
He also passed some laws to help tenant farmers, although reactionary courts
later invalidated parts of them. He did other things. He fought prohibition
tooth and nail, at a time when it was. becoming a power. And in his fight for
the "little red schoolhouse" he slashed funds for other institutions on the
ground that 11 too many people are going hogwild over higher education."
Ferguson became Governor in 1915. In 1917, the bitter conflict between him
and the Legislature came to a climax when he vetoed the appropriation for the
University of Texas. He was impeached and barred from ever holding State
office again. Many charges of misconduct were burled against him, but the
chief basis for his removal was a $156,000 loan from breweries. Ferguson
claimed be bad repaid the money.
A decade later his wife, Mrs. Miriam A. Ferguson, served two terms as
Governor and another term from 1933 to 1935. Texans elected her the first
time rather than stomach a man with Ku Klux Klan backing. They elected her in
1932 when the State was in the grip of the Hoover depression. The poor
figured "Ma" would give them bread. She did. The State issued $20,000,000 in
"bread bonds."
Throughout all of Mrs. Ferguson's terms, her husband was the real Governor.
All the terms were distinguished by fierce conflict, wholesale convict
pardoning, and by threatened and real investigations and suits. Dan Moody,
Attorney General during Ma's first administration, recovered several hundred
thousand dollars from highway contractors in overpayments, and rode into
office as Governor on that record.
Nothing was done about wholesale pardoning (except to tell jokes about it)
until the Fergusons were out of office, Then a constitutional amendment was
voted prohibiting the Governor from issuing pardons except on the
recommendation of a Board of Pardons and Paroles.
Most of the New Deal-type legislation now on the Texas statutes, old-age
pensions, child welfare, unemployment assistance, etc., was enacted during
the administration of James Allred, 1935 to 1939. Allred was not an
outstanding Governor, but he was a towering giant compared to what followed
him.
"Pappy" O'Daniel came out of Fort Worth waving a flour sack in one hand and a
copy of the Decalogue in the other. He promised to give pensions to all old
people, drive the politicians out of Austin, industrialize Texas, and perform
other miracles-all, apparently, without increasing taxes. He swore he would
fight a sales tax to the bitter end.
>From the beginning, O'Daniel had big money behind him' some of the most
reactionary big money in the State. Carr P. Collins, millionaire Dallas
insurance man, was his sponsor. Soon other rich men lined up behind him,
after Collins convinced them they had nothing to fear from O'Daniel. He had
the solid backing of those who later were active in supporting the Christian
Americans, a Jew-baiting, Negro-baiting, New Deal-baiting, labor-baiting
organization.
To watch O'Daniel and listen to him was an extraordinary experience. In a
completely toneless voice, and his strangely staring, coldly expressionless
eyes fixing the audience, he would attribute the most despicable motives and
practices to opponents and critics. It was weird. Seldom has so much
terrifying venom been evinced by one human being. And seldom were so many so
cruelly deceived as were the poor and the aged of Texas by O'Daniel.
Almost immediately after he was elected, he tried to ram a sales tax through
the Legislature, calling it a "transactions" tax. A group in the House, who
came to be called "The Immortal Fifty-six," headed by Price Daniel, later
Attorney General, blocked the measure.
Using the prestige be acquired by his feat of sweeping to victory in the
first primary, O'Daniel did wangle through a labor law making picket-line
violence a felony. The law lists shouting "scab" as an act of violence.
Under O'Daniel, old-age pensions went down instead of up. He blamed the
Legislature and was re-elected. With O'Daniel having generated so much beat
for increased old-age assistance, the Legislature tossed him the ball. An
omnibus bill was adopted taxing gas, sulphur, and oil, and imposing a sales
tax on cosmetics, automobiles, radio sets, and playing cards. There was
nothing for O'Daniel to do but sign.
Shortly thereafter he was elected to the Senate in a special election and was
re-elected in 1942. The belief was general in Texas that big money backed him
for the Senate to get him out of the State. It is certain O'Daniel still bad
big money behind him. But when be came back to Texas in 1947, to check on the
prospects for re-election, even his stanchest backers wanted no more of him.
He didn't even attempt to run.
Coke Stevenson, O'Daniel's successor as Governor, followed almost the same
path. Stevenson was considered a more enlightened man, partly because he
seldom said anything. But he loaded up State agencies with the same type
O'Daniel had named, the most reactionary millionaires and their lawyers.
However, there is one basic difference between Stevenson and O'Daniel.
Stevenson is a reactionary with a rural background, probably the last of the
cracker-barrel philosophers to play a dominant part in Texas life. O'Daniel
is a reactionary with a background of industrial strife. Stevenson's
conservatism stems from affection for a way of life -the poor boy who worked
bard and became rich. He was never filled with bitter hatreds and urges to p
unish. O'Daniel evinced almost hysterical hatreds and driving punitive urges.
But despite their disparate motivations, the results of their regimes were
the same. Stevenson completed what O'Daniel began, putting Texas in the bands
of the interlocking directorates. Under O'Daniel and Stevenson, the major oil
companies took over Texas.
This policy was continued by Jester. But he got such a shock when two
relatively unknown candidates polled forty-eight per cent of the vote in the
1948 primary that he worriedly set about to regain his prestige. Jester was a
different type from both his predecessors. He wanted profoundly to be liked.
He gloried in friendship, good will and praise. There was nothing petty or
mean about him. But unfortunately he lacked the understanding to grasp the
full meaning of such intangibles as academic freedom. Also, the advice of
friends and his staff, who made most of his decisions, was often bad. jester
was influenced by public opinion, but his advisers were able to convince him
that the wishes of the Real Estate Board of Texas were the wishes of all
Texans.
On the whole, his administration represented an advance, especially after he
set out to regain his prestige, His appointments, with the exception of some
on educational boards, were markedly better than those of O'Daniel and
Stevenson. Jester picked conservatives, but many of them were enlightened and
reasonable men. Also, in his second term, be worked bard for a halfway
liberal civil rights bill, for improvement in State hospitals, and for other
progressive legislation.
Before Jester's sudden death in July, 1949, the Legislature voted a
$5,000,000 appropriation for soil conservation, established a retirement
system for judges, and put committees to work on a revision of the criminal
code. Also, a constitutional amendment for annual legislative sessions was
submitted to popular vote.
Jester's death was probably a setback to liberalism in Texas. By no stretch
of the imagination could he be called a liberal.
But he was sensitive to public opinion, and he was a kindly man. There was
nothing of the power-hungry schemer about him. His successor, Lieutenant
Governor Allan Shivers, is a distinctly different type.
Forty-one years old, and married to one of the multimillionaire fortunes of
Texas, he is acutely ambitious, ultraconservative, and aggressive.
As presiding officer of the State Senate in the last two Legislatures,
Shivers' record is one to give Texans much food for thought. Among other
things, be showed himself a smooth and agile operator who was aiming for the
governorship as a stepping-stone to the United States Senate. Even before
Jester's death, Shivers was already a leading candidate for Governor.
His appointments in the Senate were uniformly loaded on the side of vested
interests. Similarly, he exerted himself constantly to block legislation
opposed by these interests. An example of this was his frustration of an
effort to raise the $35,000,000 constitutional limitation on the amount the
State can spend on its needy aged. Similarly, he played a leading role in
forcing through legislation that requires old people who receive a pension to
give the State a lien on their few remaining possessions.
. As presiding officer of the Senate, he came much nearer to being the boss
of the chamber than any other Lieutenant Governor in many years. As Governor,
there is every reason to anticipate he will attempt to make himself the boss
of Texas. One thing is certain: The cause of liberalism can expect nothing
from him.
While Texas Governors have given direction to the State government,
powerfully influencing policy through their proposals and appointments, it is
the Legislature that actually runs the machinery.
The Texas Legislature consists of two chambers: a Senate with thirty-one
members and a House of a hundred and fifty members. Senators are elected for
four years, House members for two. The Legislature meets in January of each
odd numbered year, and a regular session is one hundred and twenty days,
during which members receive ten dollars a day. If the Legislature remains in
session longer, the pay drops to five dollars a day.
There have been numerous attempts, the last in 1949, to amend the
Constitution and increase legislator salaries. Big business interests
vigorously oppose that. It is much easier to pressure poorly paid legislators
than well-paid ones. And the people are not sure they're getting their
money's worth as it is. They raised the Governor's salary from $4,000 to
$12,000, and look what they got.
Twenty-five of the thirty-one Senators are lawyers. Usually, about
seventy-five per cent of the House members are lawyers. Young lawyers seek
the office for prestige; older lawyers, because clients want them to. Many
members of both chambers have among their clients sulphur, oil, gas, and
other big corporations. There is no way of knowing the extent of such
representation, as the information is not required for public record.
But aside from this, the Legislature does not truly represent Texas, as there
has been no redistricting since 1920. The Constitution requires this every
ten years, and there have been tremendous population shifts in the past three
decades. But every move to redistrict has been defeated, with the result that
the big cities are denied fair representation.
The rural Representatives, with big-business backing, have not only blocked
redistricting, but they put through an amendment providing that no county
could ever have more than seven Representatives. Houston, Dallas, San
Antonio, and Fort Worth now have twenty members in the House, whereas they
should have about forty. Under the Constitution they can never have more than
twenty-eight.
Whether redistricting, now guaranteed by a new amendment, will bring an
improvement is a moot question. As things stand now, the Representatives from
the four cities make up a solid bloc of reaction, particularly on labor
legislation. That may seem strange, but a study of the situation explains it.
It is in the cities that organized labor is making its strongest bid for
representation, and the fiercest resistance centers there. So far big
business has been able to defeat labor. However, some rural Representatives
are beginning to realize that they have much in common with labor.
Representative Don A. Lewis of Midlothian, which has little organized labor,
supported a fair labor bill in the 1949 session.
Marshall Bell of San Antonio and four Dallas Representatives have led the
battle against labor in recent years. With the exception of Carlton Moore of
Houston, practically all the other big-city Representatives have gone along
with these five leaders.
The four antilabor leaders from Dallas are Sam Hannah, W. 0. Reed, George
Parkhouse, and Douglas Bergman. Parkhouse, Hannah, Reed, and Bell were the
ramrods behind nine highly restrictive and punitive labor bills passed in
1947. With Bergman, they formed the bloc that defeated the Timmons bill in
1949. This measure, sponsored by Blake Timmons of Amarillo, would have
repealed the 1947 acts and substituted a reasonable labor law.
The operations of the antilabor clique have been simplified by the fact that
most of the Speakers of the House in recent years have been union foes.
Speaker Durwood Manford, of the 1949 Legislature, authored the Manford Law of
1943, which required, among other things, that labor organizers be licensed.
He named sixteen antilabor men to the twenty-one-man House Labor Committee in
1949.
Yet, labor put up a surprisingly effective fight in the last session. The
showing was indicative of changing times. Led by Otis Lee of Port Arthur (a
CIO member), labor mustered sixty-three votes, against sixty-six for the
Timmons bill. The best count in 1947 was thirty-three votes. Among those who
aided Lee were John B. Rogers of Austin, Miller Walker and Jack Brooks of
Beaumont, Don A. Lewis of Midlothian, and Deno Tufares of Wichita Falls.
In the Senate, labor has no hope at present. A few mem-bers try to be
fair if it doesn't cost them too much. But labor has no outspoken champion as
it has in the House. The list of bitter labor foes is headed by Jim
Taylor-most influential man in the Senate until his resignation recently�R.
A. Weinert of Seguin, Carlos Ashley of Travis County (elected over a liberal
partly through furious efforts of the Medical Associa-tion), Walter Tynan of
San Antonio, James Phillips of Angle-ton, A. M. Aikin, Jr., of Paris, and
Fred Harris, the Senator who made the dramatic line-drawing gesture for the
children of Texas.
The attitude of a Texas official on labor, or on any other issue, cannot
always be taken as a complete indication of his over-all attitude toward
progress. Some men who have voted consistently against labor have been
leaders in efforts to better education and State hospitals, to improve the
treatment of Texas-Mexicans, increase pensions, and raise corporation taxes
on natural resources. An official may fight valiantly for the rights of
Texas-Mexicans, then turn around and strenuously oppose granting the same
rights to Negroes. Attorney General Price Daniel has done exactly that. Yet,
when in the Legislature, he was fair to labor.
Actually, the word "liberal" has little concrete meaning in Texas.
On the whole, the 1949 Legislature was much better than any other in recent
years. It faced issues and did things, some good, some questionable, others
unfortunate. It faced the need for reform of the prison system and passed a
bill to overhaul the physical plant. It approved a constitutional amendment
giving women the right to serve on juries. It adopted an effective
secret-ballot law. It killed a proposal to remove franchise tax exemptions
for co-operatives. And in a far-reaching step, the Legislature reorganized
the public school setup.
The new plan is complex. It transfers control from an elected State
Superintendent to an elected twenty-one-man board, and grants increased State
aid with the use of an economic index to determine the amount to be allotted
each county. This will mean heavier taxes in some rural areas, but in the
past many counties levied no school tax at all. The bill also raised the
salary minimum for teachers from $2,000 to $2,400.
The reorganization shifts control of education from rural areas to the
cities, part of the industrial swing. And it definitely increases the amount
to be spent on education.
The Legislature also accepted in part the challenge presented by jester in
his diluted civil rights bill (there was no mention of fair employment or
removal of segregation laws). It passed an antilynch bill and agreed to
submit a constitutional amendment eliminating the poll tax. Also, additional
funds were granted Texas State University for Negroes, a practical step in
the fight to keep Negroes out of the University of Texas.
On the other hand, a bill was passed wiping out Jim Hogg's antitrust law as
it applied to oil fields, under the trick heading of "unitization," and the
real-estate lobby put through a measure to decontrol rents.
In the closing days of the session the lawmakers battled frantically over
revenue, and once more put off the inevitable�new taxes. If the major part of
the 1949 program is carried out, the State will wind up $150,000,000 in the
red. That means there must either be economizing, new taxes, or a
constitutional amendment, as the State now operates on a cash basis.
A fair, sound, and permanent solution is an income tax. But the pressures are
too great against that. Meanwhile, the big-business interests are setting the
stage to ram through a sales tax, thus piling a major share of the burden on
the shoulders of the poor.
Many of these decisions, as well as those resulting in the passage or defeat
of other measures, were influenced by., special interests. High on the list
of those exerting these pressures was Ed Clark, Austin attorney. Clark
represents Herman Brown, several utilities companies, and Southwestern Bell
Telephone. Brown is a millionaire contractor, owner of the "Big Inch"
pipeline and other properties, and the largest employer of nonunion labor in
Texas. He began to loom large when he got the contract to build the huge
Naval Air Base at Corpus Christi. Brown has continued to loom larger each
year. He was a big backer of U. S. Senator Lyndon Johnson, and of State
Representative Pearce Johnson of Austin. He was a moving force behind the
vicious labor laws passed in 1947. Ed Clark was the brains that directed the
job.
Clark also was a guiding band in determining the destiny of much vital
legislation in 1949. Texas lobbyists do not confine their efforts to their
own pet bills. They pitch in and help other lobbyists with similar objectives.
Next to Clark, D. F. Strickland and Ike Ashburn are probably the most
influential lobbyists in Austin. Strickland, a lawyer, represents Karl
Hoblitzelle, owner of Interstate Theatres (spread throughout much of the
State) and leader in the fight to blot out academic freedom in Texas. Yet,
amazingly, Strickland worked hard for the school reorganization program at
the 1949 Legislature. Strange things happen in Texas politics.
Ike Ashburn has spent much of his life as a Chamber of Commerce man. He
represents the Texas Good Roads Association, which represents Texas cement
interests and some oil interests. Ashburn lobbies for big highways requiring
lots of concrete construction. At the 1949 session, he and his friends
succeeded in diverting attention from a real rural road bill to a so-called
"farm-to-market" highway program. Little concrete is used in rural roads.
Another potent lobbyist is Charles Simons, formerly with the Good Roads
Association and now publicity director of the Texas Mid-Continent Oil & Gas
Association. Regular lobbyist for the Association, controlled by Standard
Oil, is Andrew Howley. Simons was a lobbyist for Texas cement interests while
secretary of the Executive Committee of the Democratic Party, at the time the
so-called Texas Regulars tried to steal the State's electoral vote from
Roosevelt.
Two other lobbyists much in evidence are Ed Burris, secretary of the Texas
Manufacturers' Association, and Jack Harris, representing utilities companies.
Most of the other lobbyists are "one-shotters." They come to Austin to work
for a bill, then go home. Many are former members of the Legislature, such as
Claude Gilmer, a member of the committee that drafted the school
reorganization plan. He returned to Austin as lobbyist for Karl Hoblitzelle
and worked for the legislation.
There are also a few lobbyists on the "other side."
Robert Eckhardt, attorney for the Communications Workers Association, lobbies
for labor and liberal causes. So do Jeff Hickman of the CIO, Harry Acreman
and Paul C. Sparks of the AFL, and Mrs. Marion Storm of the Texas Social and
Legislative Conference. Their lobbying consists largely in rounding up
witnesses to testify at hearings. It is not of the beefsteak variety. They
have no money.
During the beat of a session, the lawmakers are pampered like prize cattle,
and with prize beef. On their lean ten dollars a day, which drops to five
dollars late in every session, they can eat juicy steaks, at the expense of
lobbyists, as long as "steak bills" are up for consideration. The extent to
which this beefsteak business goes is unknown to the public. One reason is
that a corporation can retain a lawyer without explaining the nature of the
service. A majority of the Representatives are lawyers. Another factor that
makes "beefsteak" legislation quite simple has to do with oil. An oil company
can lease a man's land for exploration and the rate of pay is their own
business.
Much of the administration of the government of Texas is transacted by
boards. Texans love to shout derision at federal bureaus. But there are more
than one hundred separate boards in Texas. In the words of the authors of
that textbook, State & Local Government in Texas, ". . . the State's
administrative machinery, taken as a whole, is a sort of historic museum. It
consists of vast collections of agencies floating around loose, with
responsibility running in all directions, with endless duplications and
overlapping of functions, and with no means of working in unison."
Still, practically every Legislature creates new boards.
In 1933, during the lean years, the firm of Griffenhagen and Associates was
employed to study the State government and recommend reorganization in the
interest of efficiency and economy. In its report the firm said, ". . . the
financial condition of the State as a whole is not known; there is no way of
establishing the amounts owed either to or by the State; future estimates are
but guesses; the first principles of expenditure control are not even
understood, much less applied."
That condition remains unchanged. In 1949, there was a difference of
$38,000,000 in estimates of the Speaker of the House and the State Auditor on
anticipated revenue.
On the basis of the Griffenhagen report, a bill to streamline the State
government was introduced and passed by the House. The measure proposed to
merge the boards under nineteen State departments, with the heads of fifteen
of the departments to be appointed by the Governor, constituting a sort of
cabinet over which be bad control. But the Senate, stronghold of the Blue
Chip Boys, killed the bill.
The Texas judicial system functions independently. All judges are elected.
The greatest need is a sweeping overhauling of procedure in trial courts and
improvement in the caliber of judges. Criminal cases involving wealthy
defendants sometimes are dragged out for years, ending with acquittal in a
different jurisdiction. Similarly, civil cases are protracted indefinitely,
depending on the money involved.
Members of the bar usually select the judge. Lawyers in Texas are extremely
conservative and, naturally, they pick conservative judges. They also incline
strongly to mediocre choices, as few able lawyers care to go on the bench-exce
pt on the higher courts for prestige-at the salary Texas pays.
But in this field, too, there has been a change in recent years. The two
highest tribunals, the Supreme Court and the Court of Criminal Appeals, have
been enlarged, with the result that they now keep abreast of their calendars.
A decade ago, the Supreme Court was four years behind in its work.
Also, despite the underlying conservatism of the nine Supreme Court justices,
they have displayed an increasing awareness of the importance of human rights
as against property rights-with one exception. This is the right of Negroes.
This generally broadened viewpoint may be due to reluctance of the Court to
continue making decisions it knows will be thrown out by the U. S. Supreme
Court. There is no question that that tribunal's edicts have had profound
effect. However, some of the Texas justices are broad-gauged men. It is a'
fact that a number of Texas tycoons have been astounded at decisions handed
down by justices St. John Garwood and James Hart. Garwood is the son-in-law
of cotton multimillionaire Will Clayton; and shortly before Hart went on the
bench, be was attorney for the AFL in its court battle against the 1947 labor
laws. Both jurists are conservative, but enlightened and fair.
Significant of the trend in the Court was its invalidation of some of the
worst features of the labor laws. The antipicketing clause and the
requirement that labor organizers obtain licenses were ruled
unconstitutional. Recently, the Court rocked the oil moguls by upholding an
order of the State Railroad Commission that oil companies end the wasteful
practice of flaring gas at wells.
This was a tremendous departure from the past.
The press of Texas must bear its share of the blame for the evils in the
State government.
Texas newspapers run the gamut from conservative to reactionary. They are far
behind the people, yet look down on them. The average Texan is neither a
yokel nor a hidebound reactionary. The press assumes he is or tries to make
him that way.
The Bible of many Texans is the Dallas News. For reasons highly amusing to
literate Texans, the News is sometimes likened to the New York Herald.
Tribune. This may stem from a similarity in typography, or from the News's
excellent book and music departments. Otherwise, the paper is the most
reactionary in Texas, and that is saying a lot. The News is violently against
organized labor, State and federal power developments, co-operatives,
academic freedom at the University of Texas, and freedom of the press for The
Daily Texan, a student newspaper of the University.
Not only does the News voice its virulent opposition editorially, but it does
so in its news columns. There are frequent instances of biased and "angled"
news handling.
Most of the other large Texas newspapers follow the News in their political,
economic, and social thinking. Some, such as the Houston Post, are equally
venomous, although not quite so articulate. But few carry their editorial
opinions over into their news pages as does the News. The Houston Chronicle
and Houston Post are notably fair in their labor reporting.
Another serious charge against Texas newspapers is that they are dull and
mediocre. Much of this is due to the low salaries paid editorial staffs.
There is little inducement for quality newsmen to remain in Texas.
There is practically no behind-the-scenes reporting of consequence in the
State press, even by columnists. It is almost impossible to get an accurate
picture of what occurs in the State Capitol, though the Associated Press
Bureau in Austin is scrupulously fair and thorough. It is simply that
reporting is deadpan and "Straight." As that sparkling little publication,
The Texas Spectator, once put it, "If O'Daniel says it is raining and Allred
says it is not, the reporter is not supposed to have enough sense to look out
the window and see for himself."
There. is no probing for motives and pressures. Lobbyists and their
operations are seldom mentioned, unless they represent such groups as labor
and school teachers. The business connections and holdings of public
officials are rarely reported. And if a pathetic delegation of deaf children
calls on the Governor to complain about being beaten and mistreated, the
Texas press makes no effort to expose the shocking situation.
About the only way it is at all possible to learn what is going on behind the
scenes in State affairs is to read the weekly confidential letter issued by
Stuart Long and John McCully, liberal free-lance newsmen in the Capitol.
Some of the smaller papers are moderately liberal. Among them are the Corpus
Christi Caller-Times, Wichita Falls Wichita Times and Record-News, San Angelo
StandardTimes, Gladewater Times-Tribune, Temple Telegram, the Sherman
Democrat, and the McAllen Valley Evening Monitor.
The only papers in the State that are consistently and aggressively liberal
are two little weeklies, the State Observer and the Houston Informer. The
State Observer is published in Austin by Paul Holcomb, one of the truly great
men in Texas life. The Houston Informer, a Negro paper, is published by
Carter Wesley, an able and fearless American.
The Texas Spectator made its appearance in 1945, and it was a tremendous shot
in the arm to Texas newspapermen. A weekly published in Austin by C. Badger
Reed, Harold Young, and Hubert Mewbinney, the Spectator was lively and
stimulating. It ribbed the great and near-great, the Oil Barons and other
tycoons. "Fear no more the frown o' the great" was the slogan that flew
bravely from its masthead. But the little paper got no advertising and folded
in three years.
At present the most interesting newspaper is The Daily Texan at the
University of Texas. It has been consistently liberal, facing issues
intelligently and courageously. But the paper is frowned on by University
officials, and its days of freedom may be numbered.
One of the great forces for progress in Texas was being forged at the
University before it was taken over by the Blue Chip Boys in 1944.
Decision to do this was made at a secret meeting of a half-dozen
multimillionaires in Houston in 1940. It is generally believed O'Daniel, then
Governor, took part in the meeting. It is a fact that he carried out the
conspiracy, and Coke Stevenson, his successor, finished the job.
In a remarkably short time an interlocking directorate came into existence
that took control of education in Texas.
Maco Stewart, Galveston multimillionaire, became chairman of the State Board
of Education. His attorney, Lewis Valentine Ulrey, head of Christian
Americans, became adviser in the selection of textbooks. Karl Hoblitzelle, of
Interstate Theatres, became a director and eventually boss of Texas Tech.
Hoblitzelle's lobbyist, Strickland, became a regent of the University of
Texas, along with Orville Bullington, multimillionaire and onetime Republican
candidate for Governor, and Dan Harrison, oil multimillionaire and
Republican. Lon C. Hill, Jr., president of Central Power & Light, became a
regent of Texas A. & I., as did H. E. Butt, wealthy chain-store operator with
oil holdings. Robert Briggs, millionaire contractor, was made a regent of
Texas A. & M., and Gibb Gilchrist, State Highway Engineer and friend of
Briggs, became president of A. & M.
Thus the interlocking directorate of wealth and reaction took over.
Never did the newspapers of Texas look shoddier than when they permitted all
this to happen, including the discharge of Dr. Rainey as head of the State
University, without making any effort to inform the people what was going on.
The fight came into the open when Strickland, Bullington, Harrison, et al,
set out to "get" Rainey. He brought their attack out into the open, and,
finally, a Senate investigation aired a part of the plot.
Dr. Rainey ran for Governor and was defeated.
Today in his place at the University of Texas sits Dr. T. S. Painter. When he
took over, he gave the faculty his solemn word that his only intent was to
"hold things together" until the conflict was resolved. But as soon as he was
sure of the backing of the regents, Painter inaugurated a "get tough" policy.
Under his petty and deadening hand, the lusty spirit of the University began
to wither. The University is on the blacklist of the American Association of
University Professors, and many of its best young teachers have left. Painter
and the regents changed the University's rules on leaves especially to get
rid of J. Frank Dobie, one of Texas's most eminent literary figures.
The University of Texas has ceased to be the center of a free and aggressive
spirit of progress.
What makes political advance so difficult in Texas is the one-party system.
There is a Republican Party, but it belongs to R. B. Creager, ultra
conservative Brownsville lawyer. Few in Texas know anything about the Party,
except when the time arrives to select delegates to the national convention.
Then Creager picks them.
He has headed the Party for more than a quarter century, and be must look
back with longing to those plush HardingCoolidge-Hoover days when be cut a
wide swath. Then be made federal judges, postmasters, customs collectors, U.
S. district attorneys, U. S. marshals, and other officials. During the days
of his glory Creager's prestige was such that many corporations, particularly
those seeking to build bridges across the Rio Grande, were eager to have him
as counsel. He was for years active head of the Gateway Bridge Company at
Brownsville.
Most Texas Republicans are in the Democratic Party.
Extent of this Republican participation was strikingly displayed by the
violent opposition of big-city legislators to a bill passed by the 1949
Legislature requiring voters to register and confine their voting to their
own party in the primary. One San Antonio Representative said the bill would
cost him fifteen thousand Republican votes and he would be defeated.
The encouraging feature of the struggle for progress in Texas is that
minority groups are, at last, organizing and working together.
Union labor is becoming politically alert, even though many members were
completely baffled when labor backed Coke Stevenson for the U. S. Senate.
Admittedly, in view of Lyndon Johnson's Taft-Hartley record, there wasn't
much choice. But, still, there is an underlying world of difference between
the two men. There are 380,000 union members in Texas, and now that the AFL
and CIO have stopped fighting each other, they are becoming a factor in
political affairs.
The Texas-Mexican is also waking up to realities. He is breaking away from
domination by Anglo-American bosses and, under the dynamic leadership of such
young men as Gus Garcia of San Antonio and Dr. Hector Garcia of Corpus
Christi, is becoming an active and progressive political force.
Similarly, the Negro offers high hope. Negroes can now vote in primaries, and
the politicians are becoming very conscious of them. The Negroes have
established their own Democratic organization and are beginning to move
forward.
In the past there was no medium through which the efforts of these groups,
and the efforts of the independent liberals generally, could be co-ordinated.
Now there is. It is the Texas Social and Legislative Conference, which came
into being largely through the efforts of Mrs. Minnie Fisher Cunningham,
probably the outstanding liberal in Texas today, the late Dr. A. Caswell
Ellis, and Mrs. Marion Storm.
This organization operates realistically, pinning its hopes on educational
work and electioneering on the precinct level. If it can win the support of
such groups as rural mail carriers, tenant farmers, teachers, and the like,
it may prove a big factor in turning the tide. Already labor, Negro, and
Texas-Mexican elements are affiliated with the organization.
There is hope for a better day in Texas. But the power and greed of oil
cannot be underestimated. It operates in devious and unceasing ways,
polluting and discoloring many things it touches. The grim struggle to free
Texas from control by oil is not an easy one.
HART Stilwell is a native Texan. He was graduated from the University of
Texas and is the author of a number of books, including Border City and
Uncovered Wagon. His latest book, State College, dealing with life in a state
university, will be published in January, 1950.
-----
Aloha, He'Ping,
Om, Shalom, Salaam.
Em Hotep, Peace Be,
All My Relations.
Omnia Bona Bonis,
Adieu, Adios, Aloha.
Amen.
Roads End
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