The Canadian Record (Canadian, Tex.), Vol. 73, No. 4, Ed. 1 Thursday, January 25, 1962 Page: 2 of 16
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PAGE TWO
THE CANADIAN RECORD, Canadian, Hemphill County, Texas
THURSDAY, JAN. 25, 1962
One solid accomplishment
|T BEGINS to appear that Governor Price
Daniel may have been right in calling
the current special session of the Legislature.
The Governor and the legislature, will have
some solid accomplishments to show for the
session.
Maybe it has been worth the $220,000 which
it cost the people of Texas . . . and certainly
the lawmakers will have more to show the
folks back home than they've had after some
longer sessions.
One accomplishment alone which may make
the special session worth the time and ex-
pense is legislation finally setting up some
sensible long-range policy for farm-to-market
and state highway construction.
It is in the form of a bill by Senator Ne-
veille Colson of Navasota and Rep. Grainger
Mcllhaney of Wheeler, and it includes a
sense-making provision permitting use of part
Back to one horse?
of the farm-to-market road funds each year
for the maintenance of farm-to-market roads
already built . . . freeing an equal portion of
state highway funds for construction and im-
provement of secondary and primary state
highways.
The policy of using all available farm-to-
market funds for new construction and pro-
viding none for maintenance has been cre-
ating an ever-growing problem . . . tying up
state highway funds which might otherwise be
used for needed construction in a mainten-
ance pool for F-M roads, and at the same
time creating miles of new F-M construction
while older roads have been allowed to go to
pot and to pot-holes.
The Colson bill should solve these problems
without halting construction, either of Farm-
to-Market roads or of equally • needed state
highways.
City manager plan
is being clobbered
■PHE Council-Manager plan of government in
Canadian is on trial for its life right now
. . . and it's in a fair way to be tried, con-
victed and crucified by a stubborn minority
on the City Council unless a substantial num-
ber of Canadian citizens are interested enough
and concerned enough to back up a Council
majority and demand that the terms of the
charter approved two and a half years ago by
the voters be carried out.
It is an unhappy fact that Mayor O. G.
Riley, who leads a two-man minority, can in
all probability prevent the effective operation
of the Council-Manager plan even though he
is out-voted on the Council . . . for the simple
reason that it is going to be extremely diffi-
cult to find a qualified applicant who will
take the job in the face of virtual certainty
that his authority is going to be undermined
at every turn by the city's Mayor.
It is also going to be difficult to keep qual-
ified citizens on the Council in the face of the
kind of dissension which has been becoming
increasingly obvious in recent meetings.
Bob Jamison, who became Canadian's first
City Manager after the April 1959 election in
¡¡EWSPAPIp
THE CANADIAN RECORD
Canadian (Hemphill County) Texas
BEN EZZELL Editor
NANCY EZZELL Editor of Woman's Pages
TED ROGERS Foreman
Entered as second class matter December 20,
1945, at the Postoffice at Canadian, Texas,
under the Act of March 3, 1879. Published each
Thursday afternoon at Canadian, Texas, by
Ben R and Nancy M. Ezzell.
SUBSCRIPTION RATES
In Hemphill and Adjoining Counties:
One Year . _ _ $3.50
Elsewhere $4.50 per Year
which the charter amendment was adopted,
served for two and a half years until he re-
signed last December to take a better-paying
post at San Antonio. He did a good job, undf.r
sometimes difficult circumstances. His long-
range planning is paying dividends for the
taxpayers, and should pay more in the fu-
ture. But the increasing difficulty of manag-
ing city operations without sufficient author-
ity was responsible, in a considerable meas-
ure, for his search for another job ... a search
which began several months ago, shortly after
the 1961 city election.
Since his departure on December 15, the
city operations have been without central di-
rection of any kind . . . and the results of
that, too, are becoming apparent.
If Mayor Riley has his way, the city is go-
ing to continue to operate without effective
central direction . . . except, possibly, his own.
But the city charter was amended nearly
three years ago, by majority vote at a public
election, to provide for the Council-Manager
plan. This mandate from the people has not
yet been revoked. It was in effect when the
Mayor and all members of the present City
Council took their offices. It is still in effect,
and we believe it should bo carried out . . .
to the letter.
If the Mayor opposes that mandate, and is
unwilling to permit the city to operate under
its terms, then he should step aside and, if
he chooses, carry his appeal to the people by
seeking a recall election.
Or, if he just wants to run the city himself,
he can resign and apply for the manager's
job. Maybe he could get it . . . and the au-
thority to go with it.
But he is wrong, as we read the rules, in
trying to undermine the plan from inside . . .
and he is performing a disservice for the
City, the taxpayers, and the council,
This is our considered opinion. But if the
citizens of this community are going to sit on
their rights and permit this to happen with-
out protest, then we're prepared to revise our
estimate to this extent: the Mayor may be
right in guessing that he can get away with
it. and if he is we may as well consign the
whole Council-Manager plan to the ash heap
and go back to being a one-horse town in
name as well as in fact.
The Santa Fe Chief, the AT&SFs crack Chicago-to-Coast
passenger train, stopped to take on a passenger at St. Francis
Sunday night . . . and thereby hangs a tale.
The Chief, which makes relatively few scheduled stops on
its swift cross-country run, normally doesn't even blow its
diesel-powered horn for St. Francis. In fact, In the normal
course of events, few freight trains and no passenger trains
at all stop at St. Francis these days, much less the haughty
Chief.
St. Francis, once a thriving community when Amarillo, ten
miles to the west, was still a fly-speck on the map, isn't even
a whistle stop for the Santa Fe any more.
The chain of events which brought the Santa Fe Chief to a
swift halt at St Francis Sunday evening involved a Santa Fe
trainmaster who is a former resident of Canadian, a St. Frands
resident who is a registered nurse, a Canadian woman sud-
denly and urgently in need of her services, and the chairman
of a Canadian Woman's Club committee which had been in
contact with the trainmaster about a totally unrelated com-
munity project Involving signal lights at railroad grade cross-
ings here.
When Mrs. Harry Wilbur sr. was taken to Hemphill County
Hospital Sunday after suffering a heart attack, the family
immediately wanted the services of Nurse Esther Klinke of St.
Francis, an old friend. Mrs. E. H. Morris, wife of Mrs. Wilbur's
physician, had been serving as chairman of a Canadian
Woman's Club committee recently in contact with Santa Fe
Trainmaster Kenneth May of Amarillo regarding crossing sig-
nals here ... a Woman's Club Community Service project.
Knowing that the Santa Fe's fast passenger train would short-
ly be leaving Amarillo, bound for Canadian by way of St.
Francis, and that Trainmaster Kenneth May was one man who
could arrange for the train to stop at St. Francis without de-
lay, Mrs. Morris called Trainmaster May to explain the sit-
uation.
Kenneth May, a former Canadian resident himself, lost no
time in issuing the necessary order and delivered it personally
to the engineer of The Chief in the Amarillo yards . . . then
called Miss Klinke at St. Francis to advise her that the train
was on the way and would stop for her.
Nurse Klinke's family accompanied her to the train station,
but her father, a St. Francis old-timer, was a little disbeliev-
ing. "If this train stops at St. Francis," he declared, "It'll be
the first time in twenty years."
But it did . . . and probably it was.
• • • • • —-
Probably a lot of "dormant" bank accounts are going to
become considerably less dormant since passage by the Texas
Legislature of the "Escheat Bill" which would forfeit such un-
claimed accounts to the State.
One indirect result has been to leave the Edward Abraham
Memorial Home Fund about $75 richer during the past few
days. Harry Wilbur Jr., chairman of the finance committee,
reports that three or four small dormant accounts at First
National have been signed over by the persons responsible
for them to the Memorial Home Fund.
These were remnants of long-forgotten special funds, col-
lected at one time or another for some special purpose, and in
the case of those turned over to the Memorial Fund, were still
carried in the names of local persons who had been "secre-
taries" or "treasurers" for these defunct organiaztlons. They
were only too happy to get rid of their responsibilities and
put the money to a good use.
Our guess is that quite a few deserving charities will come
into money from such funds over the state before Governor
Daniel's "escheaters" manage to get their hands on the dough.
jnldjn<|s
II RACE horse is an animal that can take
several thousand people for a ride at the
same time.
T
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Ezzell, Ben. The Canadian Record (Canadian, Tex.), Vol. 73, No. 4, Ed. 1 Thursday, January 25, 1962, newspaper, January 25, 1962; Canadian, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth184093/m1/2/: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Hemphill County Library.