• The one great rule We will serve no group or party but of composition is to will hew hard to the speak the truth. • truth as we find it oilr and the right as we —Thoreau ohgrrurr see it. 4ependent-Liberal Weekly Newspaper Vol. 49 TEXAS, FEBRUARY 28, 1958 10c per copy No. 48 WITH FERREE IN MEXICO Pupils Denied; (Sixth in a series) HARLINGEN For all the help Valley people have given Frank Ferree, encomiums for his work have come hard for them. Layoffs Grow He is introduced, now and then, to church congregations he visits. Lt. Eric Johnson, an outlander stationed here, proposed him for a An Inquiry Freedom Foundation Award in 1955, and the Split at TEC foundation responded with a medal, $50, and HOUSTON, DALLAS, AUSTIN a citation honoring‘him "for his aid to Mexi- FORT WORTH. AUSTIN Two weeks ago at a press can indigents." How many men are out of The most generous local acknowledgment of his work where? Without an ap- conference of the Texas Em- work came from the Harlingen Kiwanis proach to answers to this, the ployment Commission (Obs. which, on Nov. 20, 1956, honored him at a lunch and pyramid-point fact that 181,- Feb. 21), two reporters — gave him a scroll. 200 Texans were unemployed Stuart Long of Long News The scroll remarks on the "critical" situation of as of January 31 suggests lit- many migrant families in the border area and "of- Service and Lyman Jones of tle about the texture of the The Texas Observer—asked ficially designates" Ferree as "the good Samaritan recession seeping into the of South Texas." Ferree, it says, "without personal lives of the citizens. questions aimed at discover- funds, but with a big heart and a burning desire Most of the impact has been felt, ing TEC attitudes on pay-. to help, has, for the past several years, worked of course, in industrial areas, al- ment of unemployment com- tirelessly in providing a minimum of food, clothing, though plunging farm income has and medical care to these people." pensation to working college decimated, if less dramatically, students who lose jobs in The U. S. government has been officially friendly many small town economies, and toward Ferree, authorizing his Volunteer Border the multiplier is sending shock compensation law - covered Relief, Inc., to distribute surplus food from U. S. waves into all cities and towns, employment. farms and, so far, sending him seven freightcars- large and small. The questions were not answer- full. TEC's state office in Austin ed. But it was made plain that As long as he was working solely as an individual, said 77,784 persons were on un- the three commissioners—S. Perry his relationships with official Mexico were also employment compensation in Brown, chairman and public rep- cordial. During a 1952 outbreak of eye sickness Texas the week ending Feb. 20 resentative, Maurice Acers. em- along the border, the Mexican government shipped compared with 75,746 the week ployer representative, and Robert him 200 bottles of penicillin from Mexico City. On ending Feb. 13 and 43,558 the week F. Newman, employee representa- Sept. 23, 1952, Ignacio Vertti Suarez, a high-up ending Feb. 21, 1957. As of Feb. 1 tive—were split on the eligibility official in the department of health and assistance this year, TEC was paying out to of such workers for compensa- in the capital, wrote him: Texans in unemployment corn- tion, that Newman held one view "The government of Mexico in general, and the pensation $1,100,000 a week; the and that Acers and Brown held secretary of health and assistance in particular, figure for all of 1957 was $31 another. The opposing views, and thank you for the disinterested social labor unfold- million. the reasons for them, were not ing on behalf of our 'bracero' countrymen ..." 'EL SAMARITANO' The Observer has sounded out made plain. The Mexican consul in Brownsville, Gonzalo Or S,o the Mexicans Have Named Him various sensitive areas in the Obregon, wrote him a letter of introduction to of- state's two densest industrial ficials in Mexico City saying he matrixes in and around Houston had done "very meritorious acts Tamaulipas frontier our humble There had already been a few and Dallas-Fort Worth. Lyman Jones of philantrophy, so that he has people have received benefits of warning episodes. In 1953 Ferree Unemployment in the Houston been widely identified as a grand gifts of clothing, food supplies, took food to 600 needy -people at metropolitan area may be between The Observer this week friend of Mexico." On Dec; 20, and medicines. God grant and cir- Valle Hermoso. General Gonzalez 40,000 and 50,000 out of a work searched pertinent TEC records. 1954, Mexican customs officials at cumstances permit that you go on Cantu, commander , of the Mata- farce of 435,000. Ordinarily there The records showed that Newman Matamoras and Reynosa were in- with your humanitarian labor...." moras garrison, was, according to would be, at this time of year, repeatedly in recent months has structed to let him enter freely press reports, removed from his about 10,000 claims for unemploy- charged Brown and Acers with The governor did not write with "medicines, edibles, clothes, post and char,ged with sending ment compensation filed from the misconstructions of unemployment without cause: Ferree was running and other effects" for the needy. soldiers along with Ferree's bus, area, but the figure is 24,000 now. compensation law and with re- He had an especially cordial contrary to orders. Again, a friend Where is the Houston unem- versals of legislative intent in connection with Horacio Teran, along with Ferree had photo- ployment? Labor union officials, cases involving student compen- governor of the Mexican state of Ronnie Dugger graphed a Mexican accepting contacted by Al Hieken, the Ob- sation claims. Tamaulipas. In 1955 Teran and a food. Mexican officials destroyed server's correspondent there, indi- The three-man commission sits large entourage came to Harlin- into resistance at the customs- the film, and Ferree was barred cated that a substantial amount from time to time as a quasi= gen to present him a gold medal, houses. Perhaps Mexico had from Mexico for a short time. has developed in the building judicial "court of last resort," re- the government of Tamaulipas's learned, from Washington or the The surplus food deliveries be- trades and in steel plants, chemi- viewing, among other matters, "Honor Al. Merito Civico." Teran Valley, that the U. S. International gan in December, 1956. Ferree cal plants, oil tool companies, and decisions of lower TEC echelons wrote him a letter Feb. 6, 1956, in Cooperation Administration was took over large quantities him- railroad carshops. Lesser amounts of officials denying compensation which he said, in part: about to approve him as a distrib- self, but he turned forty tons of also were reported in bakeries, eligibility. In many such cases "Your uplifting philanthropic utor of surplus foods. To a nation red beans over to the Red Cross furniture factories, meat packing heard by the commission in De- labor on the altars of necessity proud as Mexico, the friendly ges- for distribution: "They wouldn't plants, and a variety of other cember last year and January reveals a highly commendable tures of a kindly old man are one let us give it to 'em any more." types of manufacturing establish- this year, all involving aptleals by human attitude. ... But not only thing, and accepting food from Early last year the president of ments. To some extent it has af- student claimants, Newman wrote were your sentiments manifested the rich and suspect Collossus of the Reynosa Chamber of Corn- fected almost every industry. severely-worded dissents to ma- ... also along the length of the the North is quite another. (Continued on Page 8) Among the plants where largest j ority opinions by Brown and numbers of layoffs were reported are Sheffield Steel, Hughes Tool, Acers finding against the students. Dow Chemical (in Freeport), Following, telescoped from TEC Rheem Manufacturing, Brown & records, with claimants' name de- Sales or Income Tax Root, and Phillips Chemical. leted, are recent cases in which American Oil in Texas City has SAN ANTONIO survey shows that the officers (which at the Dallas meeting rec- Newman dissented from the (Continued on Page 5) Stripped of supporting ver- and directors of our organization ommended a tax on net corporate Brown-Acers majority findings biage, the opinions of the (115 businessmen in 93 South income) : "To suggest adding a (Brown and Acers not citing rea- sons for their major witnesses appearing be- Texas cities or towns in 52 coun- general sales tax or any further findings): fore the second hearing of ties) ... favor retention of the regressive taxes to the present SEWELL MIGHT present system of limiting the tax picture outrages the sensi- the Texas state tax study AUSTIN cost of state government to an- bilities of anyone dedicated to commission chaired by Sen. Dist. Judge Jim Sewell of A student at East Texas State ticipated revenues, oppose new or fair and ,just taxation." William Fly of Victoria (the Corsicana says he will decide College, Commerce, for 14 or 15 increased taxation, and advocate Walter S. Curlee of Fort Worth, commission's first meeting whether to run for governor months attended school full-time more stringent economy and chairman of the legislative com- was at Dallas ; Obs. Jan 24) in about two weeks. and worked full-time in a fac- greater efficiency in state gov- mittee of the Texas Assn.