One for the Record

Texas newspapers last week played up front-page stories on the biggest political scandal in the state in years. The story of the scandal, involving a $100 million fund set up by the state to help veterans buy land, was also being hailed by big-city newsmen as "a bright page in the record of Texas journalism." But it was no big-city daily that broke the first story: it was the tiny (circ. 2,815) Cuero Record. Working entirely alone, the Record's Managing Editor Ken Towery, 32, had touched off a legislative probe of the whole program. In the midst of the investigation, Texas Land Commissioner Bascom Giles had suddenly decided to leave office. Last week, chiefly because of Towery's campaign, a grand jury at Cuero handed down 159 fraud indictments against six land promoters.

The Texas land scandal was not only the biggest story in Roland Kenneth Towery's career, it was almost the first real news story he had ever worked on. When he got his first tip, he had been working full-time at the Record for only about a month. A veteran himself, Towery was wounded and captured by the Japanese on Corregidor, got beriberi and tuberculosis in a prison camp. After he was freed, he spent about half his time in veterans' hospitals until 1951. Then he got a part-time job doing a farm column for the Record, was made managing editor last August.

Strange Party. Towery's first hint that something was wrong in the land program came when he heard that half a dozen prominent local businessmen had entertained a score or more of Negro and Mexican laborers at a bottle club. Said Towery: "Down in this country, white people just don't set up big parties for colored field hands." Towery found that the hosts had been signing up veterans to buy land under the state land program.

The program was set up after World War II to help veterans get land on easy terms (5% down; 40-year, 3% mortgages carried by the state).By talking to dozens of veterans, Towery learned that promoters had rounded up groups of veterans to apply for loans on adjoining acreage in tracts which the promoters owned or had options to buy. Promoters then took the loan applications to the Veterans' Land Board, which bought the land (ostensibly for vets) from promoters at higher prices than they had paid for it. One collected some $780,000 from the state by signing up 117 veterans. Sometimes veterans got $50 or $100 by signing, sometimes nothing. (Some thought they were signing up for a bonus.)

The Big Story. On his front page Towery splashed the story. But no other paper paid attention to it. Towery kept plugging, wrote about the scandal until other papers also began to dig into the mess and the Texas legislature got interested. The day Land Commissioner Giles was to take the oath of office for a new term last January, he announced that he would not take it after all.

As the Cuero jury returned its indictments last week, grand juries all over Texas were digging into the land swindles. The state has already filed suit to recover some $1,500,000, is expected to go after millions more. In reporting the scandals, the Houston Press said admiringly: "Without Kenneth Towery and the Cuero Record, the storm most likely would have blown over, and the slick money grabbers would have gone on their pious way . . ."

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