ustxtxb_obs_1955_01_24_50_00008-00000_000.pdf

The IC? Insurance Company HOME OFFICE: Dallas, Texas llnJack Case, Prastclat Owned by Union Members Building a Better America 320 fiNIMIN . Roy Beitel said that censor “is a matter for definition.” Mrs. Beitel is chairman of the ry’s book committee, and she told The Texas Observer that committee is not ordering the rchase of books by authors nose names appear in the indexes f California and U.S. House legisative reports o n un-American activities. Mrs. W. A. Turnbull, president of the Minute Women of San Antonio, said she was opposed to book burning, “but I am not opposed to selection.” Mrs. Turnbull, a member of the book committee, has an ear “finely attuned” to the names of authors who have been “cited” in he un-American reports, Mrs. Bei 1 now says. tioard member L. A. Winship said at that February meeting: must censor.” Harris himself, charged by Mrs. Beitel and Leo Brewer, now the chairman, with failing to buy books from the lowest bidder and with high-handed conduct, resigned as chairman. When he got wind that Mayor White was not going to reappoint him, he resigned from the Board after 35 years of service. In May, White did not re-appoint most of the other pro-Harris members. By September, the “new group” had free rein. As Mrs. Beitel says, “When we got control …” Harris continues firing away at the Library Board from his office in the Express tower. He and Tomme Call, editor of the News, promise a campaign to unseat White and other like-minded Councilmen in the April elections. Mrs. Turnbull’s tireless work has been largely responsible for the acquisition by the library of a steady flow of right-wing literature. On Jan. 29, 1954, she said at a Board meeting: “For the last six months the Nation and the New Republic have been on the magazine rack in the lobby. I make a motion the U. S. News and World Report and other substantial magazines replace them for six months.” In August, she moved that Miss Julia Grothaus, the library director, “be requested to subscribe to the U.S. News and World Report, the American Mercury, and the Freeman, two subscriptions of each for each branch of the Library; and that she acquire two copies of the Jenner Committee Report of July 30, 1953, for each branch of the library.” The motion carried unanimously. A reliable , said she saw Mrs. Beitel and Mrs. Turnbull standing in front of the magazine rack in the lobby one day, surreptitiously moving copies of conservative magazines to the front where everybody could see them. This reporter also saw a member of the staff move copies of liberal azines to the front of the same check of the rack one evening showed the following availability of politically oriented magazines: U. S. News and World Report, eight; American Mercury, two; Freeman, two; Reporter, two; New Republic, two; Nation, one. In October, Mrs. Turnbull proposed another unanimously-adopted motion that the Library Board request Miss Grothaus to order nine copies of all available reports of the California Legislature’s “Fact-Finding Committee on Un-American Activities” and nine of its “Investigating Committee on Education.” Olon Rogers The Minute Woman official moved on Nov. 23 that the library director be ‘instructed” to have the un-American activities reports bound. Then, said Mrs. Turnbull: “I move that the library director be instructed to have 10 by 12 inch posters prepared for the Main Library and each of the branches listing all available un-American Activities Reports and to have these prominently displayed on or near the desks at all times.” On Mrs. Belies second, the motion carried unanimously. The order was carried out. Mrs. Turnbull recommended purchase of a private edition of the Jenner Report on un-American activities because it carried the words “Red Plot” on the cover. At her insistence, copies of this flamboyant document have been displayed on the magazine rack in the main lobby. The full title of the pamphlet is: “Sensational Disclosure of RED PLOT in U.S. Government.” The words “Red Plot” are in red ink, two inches high. On a frontcover blurb, The New York Daily News calls the report “a swell whodunit.” Inside, U.S. Nationalist Press, publisher of the document, advertises John T. Flynn’s “The Road Ahead,” which attacks the New Deal; “The Iron Curtain Over America,” the book by John Beaty that has been attacked as antiSemitic; “The Twenty-year Revolution … abetted by treason within Government,” by Chester Manley, and “Perpetual War and Perpetual Peace,” by Harry Elmer Barnes, advertised as a book about the time when Roosevelt “turned to armament and war as the most effective means of prolonging his political tenure.” Then, in a special advertisement by U.S. Nationalist Press, the question is asked: “Are You Ashamed to Say You Are For America First?” In the course of the advertisement’s answer, these steps are recommended: Abandon all ties with the United Nations; Do not draft anyone “to serve or fight on foreign soil”; “Cease being Santa Claus to the world,” since “our hardearned dollars are syphoned down the rat holes of Asia and Europe”; Adopt a constitutional limitation on taxes; Abolish the income tax law feature that “compels an employer to collect taxes”; and “Purge all Communists and Internationalists and their sympathizers in public service.” The ad concludes that those who “wittingly or unwittingly provoked this Republic into the Korean fiasco” … “should be swiftly brought to an accounting before a court of justice. The lawful punishment for treason is DEATH!” This same shrill tone calling for a reversal of the policies of the American democracy for the last 22 years is the motif of other specialorder book purchases by the “new group” under the guidance of Mrs. Beitel and Mrs. Turnbull. An instructive instance was the order of 88 books on a special list drawn up by the two women from two sources: an American Legion “checklist” of books on communism published in the August, 1953, American Legion Magazine, and a list of books published in the Congressional Record by then-Senator Richard Nixon of California. On August 26 last year, Mrs. Beitel presented these 88 books listed as “suggested titlesadult,” in her Ch. 2879 report for the book committee. The books were ordered automatically, At the next meeting, however, Tanner Freeman, vice-chairman of the book committee, complained that this list had not been considered by the book committee in accordance with established procedure. Evidently Mrs. Beitel and Mrs. Turnbull had decided that it didn’t need to be approved. Freeman complained that the list included Beaty’s “I r o n Curtain Over America,” and in the course of listing his objections to that book, he made some interesting remarks about his standards of book purchasing. The Beaty book, he said, is “offensive to many citizens and wholly unsuitable for a tax-supported Public Library.” There are many books in the library “that are offensive to many, many others of our citizens,” he said, and this he regretted “as much as any other genuinely fairminded citizen who has respect for the sensibilities of all segments of our citizens.” He concluded that Board -members “can object when we regard as unsuitable.” The position that books should not be in a library unless they do not offend the sensibilities of citizens is contrary to the position of the former chairman, Harris, and of the American Library Association. YOUR LOCAL AGENT-6 Freeman withdrew his paint about the Beaty book. The question of how the 88 extreme right-wing books got on the approved book committee list has never been answered publicly. Most of them can be accurately described as isolationist or anti-New Deal. When we called Mrs. Turnbull for an interview she said come on. out, but when we arrived at her home she had changed her mind and preferred not to say anything. We tried again later by telephone, but she replied: “I am not talking. I have nothing to say. I don’t trust what you’re going to say and I’m not going to talk to you.” She hung up. \(Next week, the series will conclude with a discussion of the movement among some members of the Board against educational television and visual education through the library and of the conflicting opinions of Harris and Brewer on SCHOLARSHIPS OFFERED AUSTIN, Jan. 24 The Texas State Federation of Labor is offering $2,100 in scholarships to Texas high school graduating seniors for the best essays on a series of listed subjects. Written examinations will also be given. Students graduated in the past year who have not attended college are also eligible. Page 8 January 24, 1955 THE TEXAS OBSERVER `Mixed’ Boxing Upheld by Court AUSTIN, Jan. 24The Texas Supreme Court has indirectly declared unconstitutional a Texas law which prohibits unsegregated boxing. By finding no error to sustain a reversal, the Court upheld a decision by the Third Court of Civil Appeals in the case of I. H. Harvey, San Antonio Negro. The appeals court found the law in conflict with the Fourteenth Amendment to the U. S. Constitution. Harvey contended that he was prevented from making as much money as he might and from holding the state title by the law. The appeals court found that the police power is limited by the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection of the law to all citizens, that there was no evidence that unsegregated bouts incited disturbances, and that it was true that a Negro boxer’s earning power suffered because of the law. Harvey’s attorney is Rep. Maury Maverick of San Antonio. In Tyler, a U.S. District Judge, Joe Sheehy, decided to “hold over” a case brought by Negro students alleging refusal by Kilgore Junior College to admit them. Judge Sheehy said he will wait until the U.S. Supreme Court delivers its final decree on school segregation. ANTONIO -lily Politics Influence Book Choice RENT-A.-TOOL CO. Mobile Public Address Equipment Commercial Paint Sprays Sales Rentals ^-titman Houston, Texas Chances are you already know the local agent for your own union member-owned ICT Insurance Company. If you do, then you’re already familiar with his personal service to you and your community. Perhaps you know him as a neighbor even as a close friend of your family. But in case you don’t know your ICT agent, there is a still greater reason why you should meet him. Not only is your ICT agent a good citizen and your friend, he is your partner as well. Ai a representative of your company, your ICT agent shares with you its growth, success and stability. His success as an ICT agent contributes to your success as an ICT owner-customer. It’s lust good business to do business with yourself. If you haven’t met your ICT agent, call Western Union operator 25. It’s time you met your partner in progress. flowdyjattned IU 1