ustxtxb_obs_1960_10_07_50_00003-00000_000.pdf

UESDAY, OCT. 11 IN LIVING COLOR NBC-TV A WONDERFUL EVENING OF SONG AND DANCE! THE DONALD O’CONNOR SHOW STARRING DONALD O’CONNOR MITZI GAYNOR ANar i g NiviN WITH SIDNEY MILLER UNITED STATES BREWERS FOUNDATION BREMOND SCHOOL… timony. As board chairman Joe Kotch said, the board could hardly be expected to disapprove its own policies. But Baker and Kotch agree they will revise anything held to be wrong. Baker believes the case will never be heard in a courtroom: he means the board will give ground if state officials say they should. They have, in fact, already done so. Baker, a blunt, vigorous man, told the Observer in his office at the high school here this week that the religious emblems are all gone from the school, the buses let the children off at the school now \(they can and do then go to catechism on “free time” with their parents’ written permishave been removed from the school library. Otherwise the situation is basically the same: the nuns teach in their habits in a school topped by a cross and attended by Catholic , students. A large sign, “Bremond Elementary School No. 2,” has been placed in front of the school. “St. Mary’s School,” of course, is still carved on the front of the school. The Background How did this situation come into being? “Nobody can understand thiS thing unless they understand the background,” Baker says. Since he has been superintendent since 1939, he knows it. Through 1865 “this was just a damn prairie,” Baker said, but after_ the war people began moving in. Train tracks were pushed up from Houston and stopped where Bremond is now for about a year in 1869: the workers started living here. In 1870 the first Polish Catholics arrived. Many of the new farmers brought common labor with them. They liked the land and sent back to the old country for their mothers, brothers, and cousins. After a few years they built their first Catholic church. . “As time went on,” Baker says, “a dual system of schools, one Polish, the other Protestant,” developed. “It was a desirable thing. They went shoulder to shoulder and hand in hand.” Public school buses also serviced the Catholic children, who used public school books, too. In 1947 this was stopped, but Bremond cantinued to be a region 60% Polish Catholic, and in some areas 80%. When the St. Mary’s School was set up as a public school, Baker says, the townfolk thought nothing of it, and no one ever protested to the board, though there was some talk in the town. When the Catholic priest agreed to close the Catholic ‘school, he specified no conditions about religion, Baker says. “We weren’t even thinking about religion, we were thinking about dollars,” many of which they would have lost through the reduced applicability ‘of the state rural aid program then in force had the public system lost the credits for books and buses for Catholic students, he says. Why had the board decided, in effect, to let the parents sort out the students by religion? “We didn’t even give it a thought, because every student in that school was a Catholic. Every one is today. We naturally assumed they would go there, but we were not requiring them to do so,” Baker responded. We wanted it definitely known that if a child in that so-called Catholic school wanted to go to that other school, he could.” “We never dreamed we’d be sued! We never thought of church and state,” Baker said. State authorities had approved all the arrangements back in 1947. The nuns were hired, he said, because they were qualified and available at a time when teachers were very short. As for what they do with their salary, “the point is silly as hell. I don’t know what a vocational ag teacher does with his salary. I don’t give a damn, it’s an American right to do what you want to with your earnings,” Baker said. Anyway, he understood that all the nun’s earnings eventually accrue to their personal benefit. “We’re just trying to run a school program to the best of our ability,” said the harried superintendent. Joe Kotch Joe Kotch is a sincere, worried man. He was born in the block he lives in now. He has a country grocery store and filling station on the edge of town. He has three children in school in Bremond, a girl at the University of Dallas, and a boy studying to ‘be a mortician. Secretary of the Bremond chapter of the Polish National Alliance, \(which has 300 memmany of its national conventions and was elected sergeant-at-arms in the last one. Perhaps they were remembering 1951, when, he says, “I threw a communist out of the meeting. He was a reporter! I got a lot of publicity on that.” He was chairman of the Bremond school board in 1947, and now he has the job again. “If we’re wrong the state department shouldn’t okay it,” Kotch said at his store. “Of course we want to go according to law. We don’t want to violate any law.” He believes a lot of Protestants in Bremond feel the way the Catholics dothat the system is all right. Further Discussions One of the local plaintiffs in the suit and protesters to the board is Rev. R. W. Terry, pastor of First Baptist Church in Bremond. He lives in a plain frame house in the town. The school was St. Mary’s to everybody until the suit was filed. Then the sign went up, he said. Baker had admitted not knowing who actually owns the school building. Terry said the ownership “would go right on to the Vatican . . The papers would be helt by the Vatican in ultimate terms.” Catholics are moving in on schools and politics, and Kennedy is “implicated in that,” Terry said. “The Vatican seeks control of church and state.” Tour of the Dead The tour Catholic buildings, all tan brick, orthodox structures, stand in a row across railroad tracks from a highway through the town: the school, the convent, the rectory, the -church. Across a road is the ‘ Catholic cemetery. On the headstones are the names of Muzyka, Gorski, Zan, Kubiak, Troyanowski, Dudek, Kwasnica, a n d Andrzejewska. Crosses of flowers and a glass chalice adorn some of the graves; Julia and Stash Glowski’s stone records, “They Request Our Father and Three Hail Marys.” Wild flowers grew in great bushes among the monuments. “Takin’ inventory?” a lady watering carpet grass on a plot called out. Laughing a little, she added to another lady with her, “a tour of the dead.” The reporter was reading a headstone in a group of seven side by side when one of the ladies came up. Mrs tachwiak, perhaps her name was, said this was the plot for the World . War II dead. Her husband -was over there, in the World War I group. She took him over and showed him. She had four brothers, she said, all of them are dentists. R.D. can leader Peter O’Donnell both hailed Shivers’ endorsement. Carr assured his followers that there would be no confusion , between the two pro-Nixon groups. The Dallas News, Dallas Times-Herald, and Houston Post lauded Shivers,. the News editorializing “If the South had just 25 political statesmen with the guts of . . . Shivers it would not be the forgotten stepchild of the Democratic Party.” Shivers said the response to his speech corning in to his new Austin headquarters was “unbelievable.” Lodge in Texas GOP vice-presidential ‘candidate Henry Cabot Lodge spoke in San Antonio, Midland, and El Paso, drawing a crowd estimated from 3,000 to 5,000 in front of the Alamo. He spoke primarily of foreign policy and the U.N. The U.S. would not be “mousetrapped into a Hungarian situation” in its dealings with Cuba, he said. “America needs an ambitious program which requires seasoned leadership . . . such a leader as Richard Nixon.” This country must maintain military and diplomatic strength, friendship with underdeveloped countries, and the strength which comes from example. He said we must show the people of the world we believe in “justice between races and groups, regardless of region.” On the rostrum with Lodge at the Alamo were Bexar County Republican officials and candidates and three Democrats: John D. Wheeler, John M. Bennett Jr., and Charles Duke. Wheeler made the introduction. Lodge was accompanied across the state by Senate candidate John TowerSen. Johnson’s other opponent in November. Reporter Although the crowds greeting Lodge were enthusiastic, the size of them worried Republican leaders. A small number turned out to meet him at San Antonio airport, and the parade route downtown was virtually deserted. “Kennedy is running , for president, Lodge for vice-president. There’s a difference,” San Antonio GOP leader Joe Shelton said. Other Developments A group of Negro attorneys and businessmen from all over Texas met in Austin in the latest ‘of a series of meetings and voted 3-1 to endorse Kennedy and Johnson. The group will make efforts to get the state’s 241,000 eligible Negro voters to the polls. J. L. Thomas of Bryan argued that it would be wiser for Negroes to withhold endorsement of either ticket. He added, “The Democratic Party promises you turkey and cranberry sauce, but when you ask for chili and a cup of coffee, they refuse.” C. B. Bunk 111111111111111111 WWWWW WWWWWW IMIII1111111111111111 CLASSIFIED WANTED AT ONCE 2 men, ambitious, self-starters with a desire to advance in life. Car neces:;ary. Age 21 to 60. See Mr. Panne!. or Allen at 408 W. 15th St., Austin, Texas. Apply in person 9 a.rn. to 10 p.m. THE TEXAS OBSERVER Page 3 Oct. 7, 1960 ley Jr., a Dallas attorney asked, “What job would you ever hope to get through Bruce Alger, Allan Shivers, or Carr Collins?” .. The executive board of the Texas Farmers Union endorsed the Democratic platform, and said the Democratic Party “has clearly helped demonstrate its ability and willingness to help farmers.” Ted Kennedy, brother of the candidate, campaigned in Dallas, Wichita Faits, Abilene, Denton, Fort Worth, Arlington, Houston, and San Antonio. He spoke mostly to young voters and college students. Sen. Barry Goldwater of Arizona continued to campaign in Texas. At a fund-raising dinner in Fort Worth he attacked Sen. Johnson for running for two offices and said the “radicalism” advocated by the Kennedy-Johnson ticket would endanger the country. On the depletion allowance question, Goldwater said Johnson is telling oil men that the party platform “only applies to ceramics.” Ed Drake, Democratic chairman of Dallas County, who supported Eisenhower in ’52 and sat out the ’56 election, ‘discouraged rumors that he would resign his post, but said he did not intend to help the Democratic ticket “because of its socialistic leanings.” Drake sat at the head table during Shivers’ endorsement speech for Nixon. More Visits In the crucial closing weeks of the race, both parties will send in prominent speakersincluding President Eisenhower and former President Truman. Truman will make four campaign stops during a. three-day tour; He will arrive at Texarkana Monday, October 10, where he will attend a luncheon at Texarkana Junior College. Monday afternoon he will fly to San Antonio, hold a press conference at the Gunter Hotel, then take part in a fund-raising dinner at La Villita. Tuesday morning he will go to the Johnson ranch for a meeting with Democratic campaign workers and Tuesday night he will speak in Waco. From there he will go to Dallas to get a plane back to Kansas City. Florida Gov. Leroy Collins will speak at a fund-raising dinner in Houston October 10, sponsored by Harris County Democrats for Kennedy-Johnson. Thurston Morton, Republican national chairman, will visit San Antonio October 15. President Eisenhower is scheduled to deliver a “non-political” speech at Rice University October 24, but the state GOP hopes to capitalize on it. Thad Hutcheson, Texas GOP chairman, said, “We are hopeful he will be able to talk with some of our party leaders and candidates,” and Shivers said he hopes to travel with the President during his Texas trip. Two tentative appearances in Texasone this month and another in early Novemberare being planned for Nixon. He was in Dallas earlier in the campaign. Kennedy has already said he will return to Texas, and Johnson has announced he will close out the campaign in the large Texas cities. Truman Barnstorms This Week Texas Race Gets Hotter lcuuMb