APPENDIX G Distribution of income after Federal taxes for families and unattached individuals Projected number of households and after-taxes income distribution, 1950–65 APPENDIX I Mr. E. A. EVERSBERG, Executive Director, Housing Authority, EIGHTIETH DISTRICT COURT, Houston, Tex., December 28, 1952. Houston, Tex. DEAR MR. EVERSBERG: In response to your request that I withdraw or apologize for a remark, made by me on November 19, 1952, to a litigant in the trial of a case involving the custody of a young child, that San Felipe Courts was not a proper place to rear a child which she proposed to keep there, and your subsequent acts, permits me to say in limine, that it is with regret that I quote from the criminal records of this county, because this will revive old memories that can only serve to reflect upon the San Felipe Courts but by your actions in the matter, you leave me no other choice. Let me also say here, that I am not opposed to public housing, neither do I have any enmity toward the courts or anyone in it but when it becomes necessary to pass upon the custody of a child, I care nothing about what you or any group of persons say or think of my ruling, and do not propose to submit to any pressure or intimidation by anyone. So far as I am concerned, the remark was true and I neither apologize nor retract it. I have told many couples in the past, including some from San Felipe Courts, that their homes were not a proper place for their children and none ever became enraged at this but rather did they seek to improve such conditions. It remained for you to work up such emotion of anger that you completely lost your temper and balance and have sought to make a public issue. On November 25, 1952, you staged a supposedly spontaneous mass meeting after the San Felipe Courts were thoroughly covered by you with written circulars, a copy of which I now have, calling your tenants to action. Your exhortations and language at this meeting would lay a soapbox radical to shame. You evidently accomplished the result you were aiming for, and that is to stir up the emotions of your tenants and fan the flame of class hatred which produced subsequent veiled threats of personal violence to me. You got the publicity you desired and made a hero of yourself for a day. So fearful of the effect of your actions in this matter were some of your superiors that they rushed to your rescue. The mayor says: "It is unthinkable that anyone would make that kind of statement about San Felipe Courts." I wonder if he has forgotten the scandals involving your immediate predecessor and the many accounts appearing in the daily newspapers of crimes emanating from San Felipe Courts over a period of years. His memory is, to say the least, exceedingly convenient for you in this controversy. Mr. Redfield, one of the housing authority commissioners, seems to be similarly weak in memory. The newspapers quote you as saying you might take this matter to Washington. For your information, permit me to say I have no fear of Washington. If you think Washington has any authority over a State district judge, you are grossly ignorant. If you were bluffing, I will relieve you of this task. I shall report it to Washington myself. I hope you are not afraid of losing your fat juicy job from Washington. The last report I had was that this political plum was dropped in your lap and pays $12,000 per year without any requirement as to experience or qualification therefor. Your net salary exceeds mine by $375 per year and it took 25 years of hard work on the bench for my salary to reach this figure. Even at $12,000, your salary is $3,000 less than your predecessor's. And now, as Mayor Holcombe says "facts will tell." Let us see what the official criminal records of Harris County, disclose. The figures quoted herein are not complete because I was unable to locate all the records due to lack of time and opportunity, but I think these will suffice. These records are from the police department, the crime prevention bureau, the probation department, the sheriff's department, and a few from the morals division of the police department and disclose the following: Cases handled by the crime prevention bureau: 1943 to Dec. 1, 1952, total__ 899 2,078 16 For the past 10 years, the yearly total of cases are as follows: I made no effort to obtain such cases for previous years. 8 27 The total of cases from all these divisions for the period of 10 years is 3,028. This amounts to an average of 302 cases per year. These cases consist of crimes, murder, rape of little children, sodomy, aggravated assault, burglary, theft of automobiles, other felony thefts, and numerous misdemeanors such as shoplifting, stealing, affrays, disturbance of the peace, drunkenness, sex crimes, child delinquency, prostitution, possession and sale of narcotics, and many others. During the year 1951 and 1952, the drunks totaled 56. In 1951 and 1952, 14 women from San Felipe Courts were arrested for prostitution and narcotics. On July 5, 1952, a girl aged 14, was prostituting on the streets and her delinquency started while living in San Felipe Courts. On May 6, 1952, a girl, aged 15, who lived at San Felipe Courts was arrested for associating with prostitutes. On October 10, 1952, a woman was arrested in San Felipe Courts for vagrancy and prostitution and there are now 12 felony charges pending against her. During 1951 and 1952, at least 4 people in San Felipe Courts were arrested for the possession and sale of marihuana, 2 of these are now in the penitentiary. On November 11, 1952, a girl, aged 16, who was reared in San Felipe Courts, was tried by me and convicted of prostitution in Galveston County and was paroled to her relatives. On December 2, 1950, several girls were ordered to the reformatory for having sex parties on the lawn of San Felipe Courts. A certain girl, known as a call girl in the trial of the Lyles case in the Federal court, gave her address as the San Felipe Courts. On June 8, 1951, a 10-year-old boy who had been chained to his bed with a cow chain around his ankle for a period of 3 days was released by the police. On September 25, 1951, 2 girls were sentenced for 2 years in the Criminal District Court for theft in the racket known as the phone game. One of these girls lived in San Felipe Courts. On February 22, 1951, it was disclosed in a divorce suit that a wealthy Houston industrialist lived in San Felipe Courts with his bride from September 1944 to December 1945. On May 31, 1948, a certain member of the city council became engaged in a fight with a 22-year-old divorcee and the police were called. On another occasion, a man living in San Felipe Courts was sentenced to 6 months in jail for assault upon a boy. On December 2, 1952, a mother living in San Felipe Courts left her 4 children, aged 8 months to 4 years, at home alone and remained out until about 1 o'clock in the morning and on December 2, she was reported as being drunk, disturbing the peace, and the children as being neglected. On December 2, 1952, in San Felipe Courts, a mother with 3 children was reported as being an alcoholic and remained out until 12 o'clock at night and created a disturbance when she came home. The youngest child, 11 months of age, was sent to Jefferson Davis Hospital as being undernourished. On February 18, 1949, in cause No. 61,025, a resident of San Felipe Courts was convicted with assault with intent to rape his own daughter and was sentenced to 75 years in the penitentiary. During the year 1949, a man and his wife who resided in San Felipe Courts, made a written confession to the offense of a sex party held in their home with six little boys present and of unnatural sexual acts performed by them and by some of the boys of a nature so base, vile and horrible as to be unprintable. The cases cited above are but a very few of the many criminal violations occurring in San Felipe Courts and by residents of San Felipe Courts that space does not permit giving the details. Now, Colonel, when you talked with me sometime ago, you stated that since you had taken over the courts some 3 months previously, things had gone through a decided change and it was now a model, moral, decent place. As to a great many of the people who now live there, you are probably correct because I know there are many good people, living in San Felipe Courts but let us see what the records disclose as to some of the others. During the months, September, October, and November, 1952, the records of the county show 83 cases from the courts of which 8 were drunkenness, 1 was a sodomy case and 1 was a case where a man raped a 42-year-old little girl in his home in the San Felipe Courts. San Felipe Courts is not known in Houston alone, but the officers in the city of Galveston are likewise acquainted with it. During the year 1952, one girl who had lived in San Felipe Courts was arrested for prostitution there. Three boys were arrested for stealing out of automobiles and one of these boys in 1950 was charged with shoplifting at a store in Houston and was placed on probation at that time. A boy, 19 years of age, was arrested in a stolen automobile with several young boys in his company. These cases are from the police department records in the city of Galveston, and the records were not checked prior to 1952. The records from which the figures above were obtained are now in my possession and if you or any member of the housing authority or the mayor wish to check them over, they will be available to you at your pleasure. And now, Colonel, since you have taken such a great offense at my remark about the San Felipe Courts and claim that it is an insult to the people there, I wish to call your attention to the next paragraph and when you read it, I think you will admit it is not I, but you, who have insulted the good people out there and blacken the fair name of the San Felipe Courts. In the issue of December 15, 1952, of the Houston Press, appears an article by Mr. Carl Victor Little in which he copies verbatim a decree issued over your official signature to the residents of the Houston Authority in Houston (which includes the San Felipe Courts) you used the following language: 66 * * In the face of the acute need for adequate housing for large numbers of the city's population and the growing resentment of the public that we are giving shelter to some illegitimate families * * * "*** the Housing Authority of the city of Houston has felt the need to adopt a firm and positive policy regarding illegitimate motherhood of persons living in our projects. "As of January 1, 1953, the following will be the policy of this authority: "Cases of illegitimate motherhood of any member of a family living in any of the projects of this authority will be cause for immediate eviction of the family. This applies to all cases of illegitimate pregnancy occurring after January 1, 1953. ***We feel that we cannot condone such practices." What greater insult could anyone heap upon a father living in San Felipe Courts than this. It comes as a great surprise to me, your statement that there is growing resentment of the people about you giving shelter to illegitimate families. I had never heard of this and I am shocked to learn it, and I doubt the truth of your assertion. You and the commissioners of the Houston Housing Authority should be ashamed of taking this kind of a position. If there does exist some illegitimacy in your courts, it occurs to me that such a harsh remedy as this need not be indulged in. A more desirable result could certainly be obtained in a more humane, sympathetic, and kindly policy of quietly requesting any such persons as you mentioned to remove themselves from your sacred precincts. The attitude displayed in your letter is indeed a backward step. It takes us back to the Dark Ages when unfortunate girls were branded and cast aside. The more modern method is to treat such cases humanely, with kindness and sympathy and no notoriety. You would by this method of yours put the stamp of shame upon some unfortunate girl whose only sin was that she had loved not wisely but well. If this method of which you speak in your letter is followed, you will place upon the tearful and sad forehead of this unfortunate girl the scarlet letter of shame, you will cast her out of your housing project to the wolves in the cold and cruel world and condemn her to a life of shame, to live the life thereafter of disgrace and make her an outcast forever. I think Mr. Carl Victor Little deserves a vote of thanks from all well-meaning people for having exposed in the public press this terrible outrage, and when a copy of this letter which I shall send to Washington reaches the hands of an executive, I am very much afraid that it will write finis to whoever is responsible for its creation. I close this letter with a hope that you or someone else in authority in the Housing Administration will withdraw this letter of indictment and substitute in its place a more humane, kind and sympathetic approach to the subject thereof. Very truly yours, ROY F. CAMPBELL, Judge, 80th District Court. APPENDIX J Examples of privately constructed low-cost homes (1952-55) |