ustxtxb_obs_1955_10_12_50_00003-00000_000.pdf

ly yellow hordes,” but when came the turn of the ensign from Texas, he told. ’em they were THE TEXAS OBSERVER’ talking nonsense; Page 3 October 12, 1955 Interpretive By E. Maims 06servor AUSTIN Mark Adams told me this story: One of the “Progressive Demo :. crat’S” of pre-war University of Texas days was at loose ends and enlisted in the Navy. He was an ensign at Pearl’ Harbor the day the Japanese attacked, and he was the first man to return fire. He was awarded a medal for gallantry in action on December 7, 1941. Not long after the attack, the naval officers at the base held a special Meeting. Speaker after speaker rose to condemn “the coward Idealism’s Strange Obscenity to act as a member of his tribal group. When he put truth ahead of tribal loyalties, they decided he was crazy. In the sense of normal-equals-sane, he was crazy.” After a minute Mark said: “He was the only man I knew in the war who had a perfect war record, was retired on a pension, and still was not hurt.” to Which the Tribe Requires and the Tribe Taketh Away While willing to act in a personal way with the tribe, he was not willing to speak a falsehood for it. He became functionless, except to himself. THERE IS a certain obscenity in idealism. The idealist prefers his judgment to .his tribe’s, even at the risk of incurring a blunt and summary wrath. He spurns the knowers of the ideal who have decided that the best way to serve it is to mitigate it. it is an obscenity to which young people are given ; but not only young people. The ideal-knowers tend to say of the obscene idealists that they are Divine Succession [re the Editor : I have been reading -a copy of your paper which a friend of mine has, and I would like to say here. and now that it seems to me that you want old Ralph Yarborough to be our next governor. Ihappen to know that neither Yarborough or this man Senterfitt or any other. ConserVative or Liberal can be the next governor of Texas without the consent of our wonderful Governor. Allan Shivers. Allan Shivers is “Mr. Texas” in my opinion. Some say he promoted oil and gas interests .and the interests of the “big shots” in fighting for the Tidelands, but that just isn’t so, and he should be -the one to name who should be next governor. Personally, I hope he gives the nod to U.S. Senator Price Daniel, who could certainly come back to Texas and with Governor Shivers’s support and the money of his many friends, including the MediCal Doctors and the Oil ad Gas Interests of our great state, could be elected without much trouble. Why should people who never put much money. into political campaigns or who are never active as civicminded citizens have any say-so as to who should run for governor, Allan Shivers is the man who should decide! Besides, if Senator Daniel runs . for governor, then after he is elected \(but resign out of the Senate, then Governor Shivers could resign asGovernor, placing Ben Ramsey in as Governor, and I’m sure Ben Ramsey would be happy to appoint our great Governor Allan Shivers to fulfill the unexpired term of Senator Daniel. Answer me why this wouldn’t work out fine for the peciple of Texas and why they should fool with anybody like Yarborough or Senterfitt, who simply aspire for a high place that they don’t deserve, when everything -cotild be worked out so good by .Governor Allan Shivers, Senator Price Daniel; and Lt. Gov. Ramsey. Can you answer this ? J. W. MIZE 2201 King Ave., Fort Worth \(No, -but if you’ll subscribe we’ll Ah Egghead Stung To the Editor : I was stung by your recent remark that there are no intellectuals in Texas at least, none with $4. Since I read it some six weeks ago, rye taken in. washing, done without lunch and carfare in order to save up. I’ve now amassed not $4, but $8, and I’ve decided to be generous and send my brother the paper. Which proves he’s more intellectual than II’m quite sure he’ doesn’t have $8. You’re putting out a fine paper. MRS. FRED GIPSON Mason Best, Last Hope To the Editor: There were seven Observers waiting for me when I reached home three days ago. All of thse issues are really great, telling the ‘naked, nasty, plain, unvarnished truth. Thanl< God for such a paper in Texas that is not afraid of the Devil -and all his cohort's. Especially am I sickened and saddened.by that article, "Citizens' Council Raises Cash in Fort Worth," where Robert A. Stuart said that he had just returned from New York where "I had to hold my nose while I toured the United Nations Building." -:. . Just a week ago, I toured the U.N. building for the third time. It is composed of 60 nations. . . . It is the one best, last hope for peace of all nations of the world. . MRS.. T. M. JONES 709 N. Main, Temple AUSTIN Is anyone here the least bit annoyed by .all these .campaigns to take away the oil depletion allowance? That's the ,27.5 percent of gross _income oil operators are allowed taxfree, and it seems here. that these radicals who regularly rail against the loOpliole are going about it in the wrong way. - The thing to do is get yourself your own depletion allowance. I'm not going to tell you . any more because I'm too busy trying to get one for newspapermen, specifically this one. You'll just have to get your own, and you might begin by writing your csmgressman. The oilman's . theory, of course, is that oil removed from the ground is depleted and gone, a natural asset reduced, as they say. That is a true and good and beautiful theory, and I know of no group more deserving of such an allowance than newspaper peoplemuch more so, one would think, than oil producers. These people are daily depleted, although "dissipated" might be a better Word for it. A newsman's natural assets are continually being reduced, particularly if he. should sit down too hard on that half pint in his hip pocket. We here on the Observer, for stance, are terribly depleted at the moment: We have lost a good deal of our initial momentum. Our enthusiasm at the onset of this experiment has been diilled by too many speeches, too many scandals, and, perhaps, too many crusades against the oil depletion alloWance. When you have driven the ,moneychangers from that temple at 10th and Congress it is you,. not the moneychanger, who is depleted. You can lay bare the sham and foibles of society only once or twice a year. In between you lie depleted, thinking beautiful thoughts and hoping some churl doesn't come around and lay you bare while you're storing up natural resources. This happened to us just th'e other day. The Dallas Morning News, a terribly vast enterprise to be picking on little old us said that we here right here on this here Observer are "youthful progressives . . 'kept' by fat-cat liberals." The News also called us "sad." As. a matter of fact, we were feeling pretty . depressed about everything, downright depleted and all, until the News came around babbling about a feeding their egos with unqualified service to an ideal instead of serving a specific case, the subject of an ideal, by adapting the action dictated by the ideal to the real conditions of the case. The strongest case against the obscene idealist, however, is the argument that a mature idealist is pre pared to suffer the personal injury of sacrificing the ideal in order to advance the specific and immediate possibility. The case of the obscene idealist is that the sacrifice of the ideal is actually its destruction, and that while nobody knows the ideal, he wishes to follow his conception of it. In a given case, the obscene or pure idealist may also argue that the idealkriawers are mistaken in believing that the tribe will not respond to the content of a consistent idealism. E KNOW most obviously froin people in compromised positions that what a man says about what he does is often a self deception.. The slum landlord who says he is conduct :ing his business: in a reasonable, normal, profit-making way has mo.. ments of truth when he knows he could install a flushing toilet,_ reduce the humiliation, disease, and suffering of his tenants, and still make a fair profit. Is it also plausible that the idealist is deceiving himself ? Certainly be may be. If he denies. that he is feeding his ego in hewing to an ideal,'he is. mistaken; but to encompass all idealists, such a statement must admit self-respect into the chamber of ego. There are also many hypocritical idealists who affect righteousness about compromise becauSe they have themselves made compromises they= didn't believe in. But the obscene idealist is not nied every prospect of justification. It may be reasonable to 'say that an idealist is a person who is more . strongly motivated in his -Acts by desire . to serve , an ideal than by desire . to be satisfied by serving an ideal. This leaves the 'question up to the indivi& nal, and a matter',for introspection; a but it is, I believe, suggestion of the form of idealism that is not fatuous. 'hen the ensign insisted that the Japanese are . normal human beings, and that the war was really nationalistic or a matter of competitive ecohe being selfish or idealistic or both? 'Was he trying to prove himself morally superior to his comrades ? Did he love the truth?, Only the ensign can say, and perhaps he cannot. R.D. MAKING ALLOWANCES That Old Depleted Feeling weekly newspaper. It should be under_ stood that once a working newspaperman becomes depleted beyond all human endurance, he either goes into public relations or becomes an editorial writer. It's difficultto decide what that old. depleted editorial writer meant by "youthful progressives." Youthf ul, yeshe hit us -right where we live but progressive? I'm afraid not. Of course I wouldn't want to impede progress, but I'll certainly try to get out of the way of it if at all possible. This business of being "kept" by fat-cat liberals is also going a little too far. If nyone's keeping me, it's my creditors, and perhaps they could qualify for some kind of depletion allowance,. or at least back me up in my request for one. Going on a newspaperman's note is mightly like drill. ing an oil wellyou might collect on one out of nine times you go looking. The creditors, of course, would have to move even faster should we get a ,depletion allowance. I mean I'd 4 be living pretty high if I. could get a cool $27.50 a week tax-free. I might even pour it all in on a football card and declare a capital gain. B.B. he was in love with a. Japanese girl in Honolulu, and she was like other human beings ; they should be discussing the real causes of the war instead of whipping up emotion about it. The officers put the ensign in the brig and debated long what to do about him. At last they sent him back to a psychiatric ward in the states. He vas discharged.as a casualty. Of this story Mark said : "They simplycould not understand him. In this society a man is expected or