The Nameless Advertiser

In Texas, scandals in the insurance and real estate business have given newspapers one Page One story after another. Last week the Texas papers had a new scandal to print, and this one was embarrassing. It concerned the press itself. In Waco, a grand jury indicted Vern Sanford, general manager of the Texas Press Association (60 dailies, 525 weeklies), on charges of violating the state's law on political contributions. Maximum penalty: a $5,000 fine and five years in prison. Said District Attorney Tom Moore of Waco, who presented the case: the press association has been used as "a blind drop for big political contributions."

The indictment was the result of digging, not by a newsman but an aggrieved politician, C. T. Johnson, 45, who was roundly beaten in the 1954 primary for lieutenant governor by Ben Ramsey. When Johnson checked heavy newspaper advertising for Ramsey, he found little of it listed in the candidate's sworn statement of campaign expenditures. Under the Texas election code all political contributions must be cleared through the candidate or one of his campaign officials, who are required to list them. When Johnson checked further, he found that the Texas Press Association had placed at least $11,000 of Ramsey ads--about $1,000 more than Ramsey had reported spending on his whole campaign.

Poor Memory. Johnson sued the lieutenant governor, the Texas Press Association and Sanford under a law entitling a defeated candidate to damages double the amount of money illegally spent on a political campaign. He also laid his evidence before an Austin grand jury. The jury brushed him off. Then Johnson went before the Waco grand jury, headed by a man with a special interest in the election law. The foreman, Dean Abner V. McCall of the Baylor University School of Law, rewrote the law in 1951.

When the grand jury summoned Sanford, he proved to have a poor memory. He admitted accepting $11,000 to pay for Ramsey advertising in Texas Press Association papers, but he insisted that he could not remember where the money came from. Did Ramsey pay for the ads? "I am quite sure he didn't," said Sanford. Did anyone authorize the ads? "Well, I don't exactly know . . . I don't recall who may have prepared [them]." In a sworn deposition Ramsey said he could not remember paying for, authorizing or even seeing the ads in the papers.

Loyal Support. After the jury indicted Sanford, the district attorney said: "You can't tell me a man's going to lay $11,000 in your hand, and you not remember it. And when you'd donate it, you'd tell the candidate you did it." At week's end Sanford was getting support from Russell Bryant, president of the T.P.A. and publisher of the Italy (Texas) News-Herald, who pooh-poohed the charges as political. Said Bryant: "Certainly we'll back him up. He didn't do anything wrong."

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