Daily Sun. Monday, August 5,1974 SANITATION CREWMAN (L-R) LARRY BRACKEN, LARRY JACKSON, AND ROBERT YORK pick up and haul off 16,000 pounds of trash a day Garbagemen Deserve Praise of Community There's a good psychology professor we know who says the value of human worth shouldn't be decided on the "glamor" we attach to a particular job, but by the actual amount of service rendered. He illustrates by asking class members what city employe the class would want most if they were just allowed one city worker, and the answer he hopes to draw out of somebody is not the city manager, or city attorney, or tax but the garbageman. His conclusion may be oversimplified, but he's right in the lesson he draws: the garbageman is an important fellow in the City of Corsicana, just as he is in Ennis, and Fairfield, and in every other city in the nation. As vital a service as they perform, nobody ever mentions the bageman when its "Man of the Year" time.
Nobody ever mentions a National Garbageman's Day, with all the mayors in the country signing proclamations. Nobody ever puts pictures of the garbagemen in city hall for residents to see. Whether those ideas are really feasible or not, there's no question that the garbagemen have a tough job and perform a vital service that none of us can do without. Summer is one of the toughest times for these fellows. They have their customary amount to pick up, but they have to do it in temperatures reaching up to 103 and 105, as it has been here within the last 10 days.
Besides, it's watermelon season. Garbagemen hate having to fool with watermelons. Way too many of us have old trash cans which have little holes in the bottom. So, as Earl Hellner, the sanitation superintendent in Corsicana puts it, the watermelon juice will leak out, and the garbageman who's picked up a can full of watermelon and watermelon juice "will dump it down his neck and the rest on his head." The amount of garbage these men pick up is simply staggering. A truck like the one in the picture above hauls about 16,000 pounds of trash a day.
The driver doesn't do the collecting himself, so each of the other two men will each pick up about 8,000 pounds of trash a day. There's a lot of work to do in blazing heat, especially when you take into account that the beginning salary in the department is about $400 a month right now. Apparently, some Corsicana residents recognize the I led "sanitation crews" the work they do. Hellner says a number of the local residents remember the sanitation employes at Christmastime with gifts, just as they do the postman, the newspaperboy, and the the minister. We're glad they do.
As far as the psychology professor's question, we'd hate to make a choice if we could afford just one city employe. The policeman, the fireman, the street maintenanceman and numerous others perform vital roles, and we wouldn't want to omit any of them. But it is true that the garbagemen rarely get the credit from the community which they deserve. Ray Cromley High Technology Suffering WASHINGTON (NEA) Businessmen are paying premiums as high as 20 to 30 per cent over posted prices to assure delivery of supplies they need to fulfill contracts over the next 15 to 20 months. More and more suppliers are demanding that buyers sign contracts with open-ended pricing which means the buyer pledges to pay whatever the price may be in the future, depending ori the rising costs.
These escalator clauses force the buyer to demand similar promises from his own customers. The current super-high interest rates are being factored into more and more contracts, both short and long-term ones. But woes do not stop here. Shortages of both skilled men (spot welders, anodizers, engineers) and materials (special alloys, railway cars, steel casing) are spreading rapidly. What are the results of all these problems? One of the most significant is the impact on high technology firms.
These are the companies whose products are necessary for developing new energy sources and energy-saving devices, for automating operations in which skilled men are scarce, for producing techniques and equipment to attack pollution, for speeding transportation and for increasing output per man hour in order to hold down costs. These firms are being driven to the wall by the high cost of money, their inability to secure funds the small society at almost any cost and by the growing profitability of high-risk ventures. Worst of all, the businessmen this reporter talks to have become afraid of what the government will do next. And they mean both Congress and the Administration. What all this means to you and me is guaranteed, continuing inflation for a long time to come.
It means prices that are not going to come down in the forseeable future prices, in fact, that will go up at a rate businessmen themselves cannot predict. The future has become so filled with uncertainties, in fact, that industry is digging in for safety in ways which will slow the day of recovery. An inventor friend, president of a highly- successful firm, is putting his new ideas in a card file not bothering to patent or not seeking development as he would have a few years back, because costs are so great and Congressional pressure against profits so staunch that he afford to take chances. Most new concepts needed to bring this country out of inflation are high risk. Some succeed and some fail.
To attract needed capital there must be sufficient profit on the successes to make up for losses on the failures. This is not the situation today. So my friend files away his new ideas. getting by on old standbys, already-developed products which he can sell at almost any price he wants to ask. He and his associates are not hurting.
But the industries who constantly depend on new products are really behind the eight ball. by Brickman of I iH ONLY VtfTg, Published by Corsicana Sun, 405 E. Collin (Box 622) Corsicana, Texas 751.10 (214) 872 2551 ARTHUR J. KEENEY President-Publisher WILSON GRIFFIN Mgr BOB ARMISTEAD CHARLES HARDIN LELAND COOK Editor Production Mgr Circulation Mgr ORVILLE ROLAND GELENE ROLAND BETTY JEAN CLAY ELLIS SLAUGHTER Retail Adv Mgr Classified Mgr City EOiidr Photocomp foreman Daily Sun Opinion Page Death Results Feared HUNTSVILIJE, Tex. (AP) Texas prison director W.J.
Estelle Jr. had Fred Gomez Carrasco on his mind for 11 days. Now, with Carrasco and three others dead, Estelle worries about the future of Texas prisons. Estelle commanded prison forces during the long ordeal that ended Saturday when Carrasco, another armed convict and two women hostages were killed in an escape attempt. Now Estelle fears the drama that ended in death might discourage new recruits for the Texas Department of Corrections.
He also thinks the deaths of Elizabeth Beseda and Julia Standley, prison teachers who became hostages, demonstrate a need to give ployes salaries in line with the potential hazards of their jobs. years we have been trying to obtain a budget that would allow the Board of Corrections to compensate es for the dangers they are exposed to every he said. January we will go to the legislature with a budget proposal that will hopefully get officers out of a salary bracket where they must supplement the necessities of life with the use of food He said that one effect of the siege has been a 50 per cent decrease in recruiting interviews and an unusually high number of recruits who did not report for the latest officer training class, which began a few days after the capture of the prison library by Carrasco and two companions. Estelle said there will be some immediate changes at the prison unit but it is too early to determine exactly what they will include. He said they certainly will include some remodeling of the prison library.
What about the presence of women in the system exposed to the dangers which left two of them dead Saturday night? Estelle stared at his office floor. just handle that one right he answered. In reviewing events of the 11- day siege, Estelle said it was evident that any effort to storm the library would have created a perilious situation continued to indicate that we buy he said. After three days, he said, he decided that the three gunmen also were trying to buy time. Estelle said he sensed Carrasco and his cohorts were stalling when they demanded to talk at length with members of the press during the first weekend of the siege.
was only one reason for Carrasco to Estelle said, that was to wait for his plan to develop by some prearranged schedule. I think they planned to stay in the library as long as they Estelle said there were certain Carrasco weaknesses prison officials were able to take advantage of during the days of tension. had an insatiable ego which was dangerous in ON THE GO WITH GREEN By FORREST GREEN STATE REPRESENTATIVE 27TH DISTRICT ELLIS NAVARRO COUNTIES Those of you that are used to seeing this column each week during the Legislative Session and the Constitutional Convention may have missed the last couple of weeks. I failed to submit one for several reasons. The main cause for omission was a strong feeling of frustration and an agonozing soul search on whether to help kill a proposal that was part good, part bad; or whether to battle for a document that was labored over seven months and met with the majority approval of all the delegates.
I optioned out for the affirmative side; not with a great degree of gusto but with a confidence in the democratic system and a realization that the people should really have the It is history, sad history now that the new Constitution failed to be submitted to the people for the lack of three votes. About four million dollars of public funds are spent for which we will receive nothing. I am confident that many postmortems will be written, many excuses will be given and the blame will be placed on different causes. The margin of failure was so small that many things could have made the difference. I will list my observations.
Union labor struck about fifty votes. This was the big clubbing. It was tied to a rather weak option for separate vote hardly justifying their adamant stand against the whole Constitution. Most delegates deny their vote against the Constitution was tied to labor. The voting record of these delegates resolves any doubt.
The few that switched on the last vote almost without exception did so by apologizing for breaking their commitment to union labor, even to the point of one calling to the labor lobby in the gallery for pardon. Another soft spot was the office. Any guidance or direction from him was totally absent. In fact the only indirect indication was from two of his closest legislative friendss that voted without apparent reason. In retrospect the biggest mistake in this entire fiasco is having the Legislature sit as a Constitutional Convention.
This type of delegate is too closely attuned to the pressures of politics and the influence that special interest can exert. Maybe with this expensive lesson before us, we can go forward in some future years toward obtaining the basic document of government that we need. loday in History By The Associated Press Today is Monday, Aug. 5, the 217th day of 1974. There are 148 days left in the year.
highlight in history: On this date in 1963, the United States, Britain and the Soviet Union signed a treaty outlawing nuclear tests in the atmosphere, in space and under water. On this date: In 1858, the first trans-Atlantic cable was completed. In 1861, the U.S. government levied an income tax for the first time. In 1884, the cornerstone of the Statue of Liberty was laid at the entrance to New York harbor.
In 1914, Austria-Hungary declared war on Russia. In 1949, an earthquake in Ecuador killed 6,000 persons. In 1962, movie star Marilyn Monroe was found dead in her Angeles home. Ten years ago: The United States argued before the U.N. Security Council that U.S.
bombing of North Vietnamese torpedo boats and their facilities was an act of defense against attacks on U.S. warships in the Gulf of Tonkin. Five years ago: Three U.S. war prisoners released by North Vietnam arrived by plane in from Hanoi. One year ago: The U.S.
General Accounting Office said the Defense Department had spent $24 million not included in its 1972 public affairs budget. birthdays: The first man to set foot on the moon, Neil Armstrong, is 44. Movie director John Huston is 68. Thought for today: There is no substitute for hard work Thomas Edison, American inventor, 1847-1931. one sense and yet could be turned to our Estelle said.
One way Estelle said he played on ego was by granting small concessions to buy time such as bringing him newspapers and meals from restaurants. He said another weakness was tendency to underestimate departmental determination that he would not be released under any circ*mstances. all Estelle said, media helped to con- tribute to his But Estelle said he feels per cent of the news media performed well, showing great patience and sharing the concern for the making noncritical minor he said, were able to make the situation for the hostages easier. We were really concerned with playing up to the egos except to make conditions tolerable for the hostages. He said there were two occasions during the seige when he came close to ordering an assault on the library.
The first was when they were told falsely that hostage Ron Robinson had been shot. He said the second time was last week when seven shots were fired from the library. On both occasions, Estelle said, restraint was used and he feels it averted a situation he theorized Carrasco would have liked to provoke: a storming of the library by TDC which could have been an excuse to slaughter the hostages. Hostage Says Carrasco Was Prepared to Die CONROE, Tex. (AP) Ronald Robinson, one of the surviving prison hostages, says Fred Gomez Carrasco was prepared to die yet appeared confident of escape moments before his death.
said hundreds of times he would either go free or Robinson said. Robinson, 35, grief stricken from the terrors of the 11-day ordeal, commented at his modest home here where he was reunited with his wife, Jeanne, and their children, Jimmy, 8, and Sheryle, 11. He was handcuffed to the outside of a crude blackboard enclosure with seven other hostages. Robinson said a sudden blast of high pressure water, turned on them by prison guards knocked him and the other hostages tied to each side of the blackboard shield down. He was on the opposite side of the blackboard shield from officers challenging the escap- RONALD ROBINSON alive ing inmates and said he had no fear of the shots he heard.
He said the shield was bulletproof because the inmates had fired test bullets into the heavy law Will Shootout Generate Song? By ROD DAVIS Associated Press Writer DALLAS (AP) Bloody battles with outlaws are usually remembered years afterward in song rather than newspaper account. Just as the 1971 Attica, N.Y. prison riots generated a widely known folk-song, so, in all likelihood, will the Texas prison shootout at Huntsville in which narcotics lord Fred Gomez Carrasco, fellow convict Rudy Dominguez, and hostages Mrs. Julia Standley and Mrs. Elizabeth Beseda were killed.
Although the Attica and Huntsville ordeals were different, they were alike in being long, tense and deadly. The emotions and feelings of the Huntsville hostages may not be known until someone writes a poem or song. For those who survived the long ordeal, parallels might be found in a famous song about Attica by folk-singer Tom Paxton, who felt there would have been no bloodshed if prominent men instead of ordinary prisoners and guards had been involved. Part of the lyrics were: let take the governor, hold him for a couple of days; who goes in shooting to set him free. open every jail in the country, send them on their way.
never do to him what the governor done to song was as seen through the eyes of one of the Attica prison guards who until the final shooting I knew the At Attica, a total of 43 persons were killed in a five day revolt. The toll included one guard and three inmates when the revolt broke out. Then 29 inmates and 10 hostages when state police stormed the prison after hearing an erroneous report prisoners had slit their throats. Autopsies later showed all the hostages died in the gunfire and none had their throats cut. No one is sure what a Huntsville song might include.
Carrasco, a dope pusher, is an unlikely hero. Perhaps a Huntsville song, like that of Attica, will eventually deal with whether the shooting was necessary. The aftermath of the shooting has seen no immediate criticism of prison strategy- But during the Huntsville deal, several hostages pleaded with prison officials and state politicians to do all necessary to avoid bloodshed. Prison guard Bobby Heard, a hostage, once said, think there is any price too big to pay for a human life. Other people seem to think there Prison director W.J.
Estelle said the shootout was unavoidable and that prison rules specify employes taken hostage in an escape attempt cannot be used as barter for convicts to get freedom. Estelle said there was never any plan to let Carrasco or his hostages leave the prison area. Ron Kooinson, a teacher who was a hostage, said during the first week, those of us up here are killed, I want Mr. Estelle and Gov. Briscoe to come to the funeral of all of us and I want them to tell our wives and children why they would not the requests of these After the shootout, Briscoe said in a statement he extended to the families of the slain hostages.
books taped around it while still in the library. The water knocked him down. When he looked up he saw officers with flashlights looking through a window. motioned to them to come and help and pointed to the he said. He said they came out and cut the rope and led him and two others to safety.
my opinion it was a rescue job that was as professional as could be done by any group of men under similar said Robinson, a doctoral student in criminal justice at Sam Houston State University and a teacher in the prison school system. He described the ordeal for the hostages as a game of were caught in the he said. He described the Rev. Joseph one of the hostages shot in the escape attempt, as a during the stay under the guns of their captors. volunteered to stay with us, even after Carrasco had offered to let him Robinson said.
There were reports from the library that Robinson had been shot on the first morning of the siege. He said what happened was that Rodolfo Dominguez, one of the convicts killed Saturday night, fired a shot past his head and he (Robinson) fell to the floor. He said Novella Pollard was on the telephone at the time trying to get prison officials to negotiate with Carrasco. She cried, my God, killed Mrs. Robinson said.
Carrasco apparently thought it was necessary to continue the story. Robinson said he had no choice but to go along with the story in order to protect himself and the rest of the hostages. Congress In vestigates Federal In vestigators WASHINGTON (AP) Congressional investigators have been asked to determine the amount of federal funds spent on government investigative and intelligence units. Sen. Charles H.
Percy, said the agencies are proliferating to the extent that they threaten basic liberties of 1974 by NIA, Inc Young man, you are not allowed to jump across the Grand Canyon!".
