Bonus for the Boys

At 54, Bascom Giles was a prosperous businessman and a durable politician, well known all over Texas. A nourishing real-estate operator, he was past grand master of the Grand Lodge of Texas, Ancient and Accepted Order of Freemasonry, and a prominent and popular figure in the state government at Austin. Texas' land commissioner for 16 years, he was re-elected for the eighth time last year, but disqualified himself and astonished his friends when he refused to take the oath of office. Last week in a courtroom in Austin, Bascom Giles was convicted as an accomplice to the theft of $6,800 and sentenced to three years in the penitentiary.

Open Invitation. The tribulations of Bascom Giles are part of the vast and complex land scandals which have rocked the state (TIME, March 7) and cost the taxpayers an estimated $10 million. The scandals revolve around the Texas land program, a 1946 amendment to the state constitution that authorized $100 million in public funds to enable veterans to buy land. Under the program, qualified veterans could purchase ranch or farm land for a 5% down payment, with 40 years to pay off the balance. The state furnished the unpaid balance and held title until the veteran had retired the loan.

In land-proud Texas, the program (conceived and largely written by Bascom Giles) seemed a fine policy, enabling many a young man to become a landowner, and providing a much more enduring bonus for war service than cash. But the loosely written law and the $100 million were an open invitation to racketeers and grafters.

Soon, land promoters and dishonest public servants were waxing fat at the expense of the veterans and the taxpayers, with an ingenious racket. The racketeers 1) got options on land at market prices, 2) duped veterans into signing the necessary papers, 3) with the aid of crooked officials, got the land appraised at several times its actual worth, 4) put on pressure to get state loans on it, in the names of the bamboozled veterans, and 5) pocketed the profits made in the jacked-up prices for the land.

The Veterans Land Board, composed of Giles, Governor Allan Shivers and Attorney General John Ben Shepperd, eased the way by hastening its approval of the hot transactions, often acted so expeditiously that the promoters were able to pick up the options with the state's money. The fact that Shivers and Shepperd rarely attended board meetings undoubtedly helped Giles work out his plan. Usually the ex-servicemen had no idea what they were signing. Many thought the papers were some sort of application for a cash bonus.

Unclosed Case. At Giles' trial, witnesses told how B. R. Sheffield, a professional promoter and former business associate of Giles, had bought Rosenow Ranch, a scraggly, 10,114-acre tract in Kinney County, Texas for $162,500, sold it to the state a year later for $353,000. Giles admitted he had raised the state appraiser's valuation of the land $5 an acre. L. V. Ruffin, a Brady real-estate dealer, testified that he had traveled in Sheffield's Cadillac to California, Mexico, Chicago and New Orleans to get signatures of eligible veterans who had moved out of Texas.

The conviction of Bascom Giles is only the beginning of the scandals trouble for Texas politicians. So far, 21 people, including Democratic Congressman John J. Bell, have been indicted. Governor Shivers and Attorney General Shepperd have been rebuked by a state senate investigating committee for negligence and, no doubt, will feel the scandal's sting politically. As for Bascom Giles, he will go on trial again Aug. 15 in San Antonio for taking a $30,000 bribe, and still faces three other indictments charging him with taking bribes totaling $59,000.

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