Page 8 Summer Session Kansan Tuesday, July 30.1957
Young Executive Doubles As Slacks Maker And Actor
By DOC QUIGG
(United Press Staff Correspondent)
NEW YORK—(UP)—Robert J. Evans gets to work at 8 a.m. in an office 33 stories above his native New York and doesn't leave until 7 p.m. He eats lunch in the office, barking orders apace into a squawk box on his fancy semi-circular desk.
He's in love with his business. He's in ladies' slacks, a thing which is getting bigger all the time. The women's slack business is anything but slack.
"I started seven years ago with one pair of slacks," he said. "Now the business is several million a year. (Dollars, he means.) We claim to be the largest better-slack firm in America."
Whither slacks?
"Becoming more tapered—but not skin-tight," Evans says. "Just the tight pant has lost its chicness—the type that hugs your leg. But they've got to enhance femininity. Right after the war, they used to be bell-bottomed trousers and men got the wrong idea that they masculined a woman."
The big impetus for slacks, he says, has been the movement toward suburban living, with emphasis on casual attire.
Evans, at 27, is in a skirts manufacturing firm as vice president in charge of its subsidiary which makes slacks, shorts, and active sportswear. A pertinent question right now is—whither Evans?
A Vice President at 27
"Every buyer who comes in wants to know the whole story," he says. "They ask me: 'You gonna stay in business?' I can't answer. Right now, if I had to make a choice between movies and skirts, I'd choose skirts. I feel more secure here, where I can make decisions, have control over myself."
During the last half year, Evans has been leading a divided life. Part slacks, part movie actor. Hollywood drafted him entirely by accident, he says. There he was, last November, at the pool of the Beverly Hills Hotel, barking business
about slacks into a poolside telephone. Norma Shearer watched him project and decided he closely resembled her late husband, Irving Thalberg, who was a movie executive at age 21.
Little Interest in Hollywood
"I told her I had little interest in being a movie actor, that I was in business in New York," he says. "But she persuaded me to come for a screen test, and I think the movie bosses there sort of resented it—a dress man coming to play in a picture."
Evans as a youngster had been in radio plays. He tested out fine and played Thalberg in the Lon Chaney life story, "The Man With a Thousand Faces." Not long afterward Darryl Zanuck saw him in a New York nightclub and picked him for a starring role as a matador in "Death in the Afternoon."
Both pictures will open in New York next month. Evans doesn't know what the garment industry will think of him then.
"Ive been away from my business four of the last seven months," he says. "While I was sweating off 17 pounds being a movie bullfighter in April and May, the buyers were converging on New York—the worst time I could have picked to be away. But when I got back, business was better than last year."
Bare Foot Is The Only Clue
FAIRFIELD, Conn.—(UP)—Police who found a shoe at a burglarized service station later arrested the 15-year-old culprit whom they spotted driving a truck, with a bare foot dangling out a window.
Can the State of Kansas set the price of natural gas? Can it say how much oil any well can produce each day? Was Kansas among the first to adopt the "doctrine of correlated rights" and pioneer in the oil and gas conservation movement?
Mineral Resources Book Available
The answer to each question is "yes," as can be learned quickly from a 45-page survey published by the University of Kansas Governmental Research Center. Mrs. Marcene Grimes, senior analyst, is the author of "Minerals," the second in a series on "Government and Natural Resources in Kansas."
Copies of "Minerals" and the first report, "Water," may be obtained upon request at the KU Governmental Research Center. Other pamphlets yet to come in the 4-part study deal with land and recreational resources.
In simple language, Mrs. Grimes surveys the basic "A, B, C's" of minerals produced in Kansas, the oil and gas conservation program, and government's role in the development of mineral resources.
Among Top 10
In 1955 mineral production in Barton county hit $40,907,000. Ellis and Russell counties topped $30,-000,000. Butler, Rice, Grant and Rooks counties were above $20,000,-000. In the $10-$20 million category, in descending order, were Stafford, Greenwood, Cowley, Graham, McPherson, Stevens, Allen and Cherokee.
Among Top 10 For several years the Kansas mineral crop has outvalued the wheat crop, writes Mrs. Grimes. For a quarter century Kansas has been among the nation's top ten mineral producing states, and most recently has been ninth. In oil and gas production it ranks fifth.
The mineral fuels, oil, gas, and some coal, account for 85 per cent of the dollar value. Two metals, lead and zinc, contribute 2 per cent. Thirteen per cent comes from the nonmetallic minerals.
The doctrine of "correlative rights" forbids one producer to overpump oil or gas so as to drain the reservoir underlying the land of other producers. The State limits oil production, writes Mrs. Grimes, not only as a conservation measure to
assure orderly and efficient production from a field, but to keep supply in relation to demand.
Prevents Early Depletion
Prevents Early Depletion In the case of natural gas, the Corporation Commission goes a step farther and sets the wellhead price per 1,000 cubic feet-11c since 1953. This authority tends to prevent excessive use of natural gas, a high grade fuel, for purposes that could as well be served by coal, and thus bringing an early depletion of natural gas supplies.
Government does produce minerals in Kansas. The federal government is the sole producer of helium, which now has numerous uses other than as a lifting gas. The State and some counties produce stone, sand and gravel for roadbuilding. Second and third class cities can produce oil and natural gas for a municipal utility. Since 1945, third class cities in a natural gas field can acquire sites, drill wells, produce and sell natural gas to commercial channels. However, the proceeds must be used for governmental purposes, and can reduce or eliminate taxes.
The State is the owner of all minerals in the beds of navigable streams. In 1956 the State Department of Administration collected $32,222 in sand and gravel royalties.
Oil and gas production is taxed by the counties as personal property. The royalty owner pays the property tax on his share of the value of the leasehold (usually $1/4th) and the remainder is assessed to the producer.
Severance Tax Added
The 1957 Legislature added a severance tax. A severance tax is levied for the privilege of severing or taking irreplaceable natural resources from the ground, the theory being that all of the people in the State are entitled to share in the proceeds of this natural wealth.
The Kansas severance tax law imposes a tax of one per cent on the value of oil and gas produced in the state each month. The tax is charged against the producers and the royalty owners in the proportion of their ownership at the time of severance. Thus the royalty owner usually pays $ \frac{1}{8}$th. The severance tax levied by the State is in addition to the property tax collected by counties.
In recognition of the inevitable exhaustion of oil and gas and other mineral resources, Mrs. Grimes writes, both federal and Kansas income tax laws permit a depletion allowance to be taken in computing the tax due on income from minerals. The depletion allowance provides capital to encourage exploration for more oil and gas.
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