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Get Them Out of There Hybrids Abound in Our School Texbooks AUSTIN America is the greatest civilization of them all and it is getting greater all the time, as we should all be taught in our grammar schools, Sunday schools, civitan clubs, and fraternity lodges. We should all therefore welcome, with exuberant tumbles and right-side flips, the startling revela. , tions of Admiral J. Evetts Haley, one of the finest and least vulnerable Yanks of them all, and a choice cross-section of his Texans for America. They warned the state textbook committee the other day of some dire goings-on in our public schools. They included a’ Dallas real estate man, a Latin teacher from Conroe, and a Lamar County veterinarian. Admiral Haley himself is a widelyread historian whose lusty prose can only be compared with the extemporaneous after-dinner speeches of the late Thucydides when abetted by sevreal extra pebbles. He has done much to preserve that exciting center of learning Texas Technological College from the occasional self-appointed oracle of American imperfection. In ‘Canyon, Texas, the rear admiral has earned his reputation as the definitive civilized citizen of our land, and rightly so. T HE GOOD ADMIRAL told the textbook committee it should ban certain books which mentioned such hybrid American types asexamine this roster, my friends, and see for yourself what the state of Texas is trying to do to our children Carl Sandberg, Allan Nevins, John Gunther, Albert Schweitzer, Louis Untermeyer, Dorothy Canfield Fisher, Stephen Vincent Benet, William Rose Benet \(the Benets had a vicious with suspiciously Slavonic surnames: The good Admiral himself, with his usual derring-do, described one of these hybrids as “a semblance of an American.” The real estate man from Dallas, who has apparently retained his own integrity and individuality in that reckless and fermenting city, warned that many of these textbooks do not emphasize patriotism and instead emphasize family conflict, rebellion against parents, and an undue amount \(Responding to the Observer’s special report on the House Speaker’s contest, the Corpus Christi Caller editorialized that the job puts a “price tag on power.” The Caller’s editorial .1 I A lull has come to the alternating cries of “Victory!” from Rep. Wade Spilman of McAllen and Rep. James Turman of Gober in the House speakership race. The cultivation of a deep silence on the subject between now and January would be deeply appreciated. The speaker of the House is perhaps the most poWerful individual in the legislature: He appoints all committees. He can control, through his appointive power, the whole direction of vital legislation, most importantly in the field of taxing and spending. He can, as some have done, practically kill a bill by putting it in his pocket. He can control debate by recognizing only those favorable to the cause he supports. An indication of the importance of the office was suggested by the re of group action. The real estate man vigorously complained that some books promote class conflict. He cited one of them which suggested under “good books to, enjoy” a book about Jackie Robinson, written by some semblance of an American named Roeder. With the steady bead and unerring verse of his calling, the real estate man warned that this book pictured “this Negro as downtrodden.” Referring to the textbooks only, the real estate man said some “beanballs” are being “tossed at the schools.” The high school Latin teacher from Conroe warned that schools should emphasize ideas which tend to stress the strength, greatness, and nobility in American life ; and that capitalism, free enterprise, personal initiative, and profits should be unabashedly brought back into classroom vocabulary. “The very young are not entitled to the impartial presentation of both sides of controversial questions which involve the traditional values of American civilization,” she declared. “Children and adolescents are too immature to comprehend such controversies and too limited in knowledge to form opinions on important questions.” MARSHALL Can it be that the T.V. screen that has been so kind to Messrs. Eisenhower and Nixon in the past will prove the nemesis of Mr. Nixon? The faithful Old Guard must yearn for the good old days when Robert Montgomery could fluff and powder the President up, so that he could get on with one of his innocent crib-side chats ; and when Checkers was young and full of pluck. What a terrible awakening they must have had when they saw their own Mr. Nixon over the telewaves on September 26 last. All now agree that he looked like a ghost that had been eating green persimmons. The cream of an ironic jest is that the cameras played him false; and this because he wanted to be made up to look mature and exnerienced. When horror-stricken Nixonites saw their leader with perspiration dripping from his palled chin, they concluded at once that a foul traitor of the Democratic persuasion had slipped past the guard and made up Dickie as a ghoul. R. NIXON looked much better the second time, but in both instances he had .been shorn of his most effective weapon. In all other campaigns he has been able to raise cent statement of Turman that he had spent about $20,000 on the race and estimated that his opponent had spent about $60,000. Since the race for speaker does not come under the campaign contributions reporting law, no disclosure of the sums spent, and by whom, is required. \(A move to close up this loophole in the law is expected during the next session of As a general rule the House speaker races have been conducted quietly behind the scenes. Since 1958, however, the race has become something of a public spectacle. Candidates and their friends may spend two years drumming up support among representatives. In some cases campaign contributions and other assistance are available for representatives who pledge their vote. Candidates issue victory statements from time to time. The campaign for speaker probably has come into the open because of the increasingly liberal tinge of representatives. Today the most important single issue of the campaign in conservatism versus liberalism. HOW LONG, fellow Americans, have we stood silently in the wings while that synthetic American, Sandburg, circulated his six fat volumes on the ace revolutionary and amalgamation ist, the long-bearded Abe Lincoln ? Look what Steven Vincent Benet has done as John Brown’s P.R. man, Albert Schweitzer with that German Bach on longplaying decca, Dorothy Canfield Fisher with the fishy unAmerican beatnik, Walt Whitman. Every time I try to read their pernicious prose or poetry I wish to yell loud-lunged to the skies: “Get out! Get out! You represent everything that’s been wrong with America for the last 184 years.” In this quintessential civilization of ours, let us grasp the cudgels of truth and, as the Latin teacher from Conroe now advises, cease giving our youngsters “both sides of controversial questions which involve the traditional values of American civilization.” This sort of thing worked pretty well in Germany after 1934, in Spain after 1938, and for that matter in Russia nowadays. By such time-tested techniques, the real estate man’s class conflicts will most assuredly be kept to a min’inum. unjustified inferences and innuendos that worked well their’ damage against against helpless opponents. His was the campaign of the political Iago, with the electorate playing a victimized Othello to the part. He made no direct accusations, but befouled his oppoents always with somewhat questionable tactics, such as the pink slips he circulated against Helen Gahagan Douglas, the better to suggest she was a Red. ‘ In the 1958 campaign for congressional seats, Gov. Stevenson had justly warned of our shrinking economy and the upsurge of the Soviet economy. Typical of his usual hit-andrun tactics, Mr. Nixon said at Beverly Hills : “Whatever Mr. Stevenson’s purpose may be, such statements of praise for the Soviet economy do the cause of the free world much damage. His dislike for our own economic system is his own business, but when he links such severe criticism with praise of rapid growth of the Soviet economy, he is performing a grave disservice to the rest of the free world.” The insinuation of Gov. Stevenson’s preference for the Soviet over the American economic system was, of course, wholly unjustified, but this did not restrain Mr. Nixon. ‘Now on T.V., with Jack Kennedy on hand, the time-tested method of false innuendo can’t be effectively used. One gets the impression that if the elusive standard-bearer of the Republican Crusade of 1960 tries similar insinuations on the air, Mr. Kennedy will not only say that he is “totally inaccurate,” but perhaps call him what he really is. In 1956 and 1958 the Grand Old Party conceived the idea of sending a band of determined contradictors around the land under the unlikely name of the “Truth Squad.” It does seem that the Eisenhower administration’s bungling of the U-2 incident made Baron Munchausen look like a rank amateur in the art of truthbending. This year the Old Guard has sent the squad out under the cap Ramifications DALLAS A Catholic, Frank Crowley, GOP Congressman Bruce Alger’s assistant for four years, is running for county commissioners’ court. Currently making the rounds: “Elect him ? What’s that matteryou want the Pope riding around YOUR county on a road grader?” The Admiral must not overlook others, however, who have not only not always emphasized patriotism, but have often been too strong on class conflict, rebellion against parents, and group action. I am thinking, of course, of William Faulkner, Thomas Wolfe, Sinclair Lewis, Ernest Hemingway, Edgar Allan Poe, Mark Twain, T. as well as F. Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Charles Beard, Richard Hofstadter, H. L. Mencken, Lincoln Steffens, J. Frank Dobie, and Walter P. Webb. Writers of various unor non-American tracts as the Talmud, the Koran, the Communist Manifesto, the Merchant of Venice, and Oliver Twist must also be excluded in any forthcoming round-up, if we are to satisfy the high standards we have set for our kids. The textbook committee, it is rumored, did not heed the Rear Admiral and put four or five of the irascible textbooks on their new list. Though this is failure, let us all take heart that good Admiral Haley, as indigenous to West Texas as the duststorm, the cactus, and the drought, has struck a mighty blow against that incorrigible sifting and winnowing of the truth idea preached by that freethinking red-head from piedmont Virginia. W.M. taincy of Sen. Roman Hruska, whose name must be pronounced like a violent attack of hay fever. An alert chairman of the Democratic national committee has already caught the Truth Squad considerably below the standards they set for themselves on twelve occasions. A FAR MORE spectacular answer to the problem came from a bunch of Democrats in a Cincinnati audience that the squad sought to set aright. The audience proposed to give a lie detector test to the Squadsmen:, but Capt. Hruska, while granting the right of disagreement to the proponents, refused their offer because, “They should not come in here and try to break up our meeting with a lie detector test.” What is needed is a lie detector machine for each of the candidates on the T.V. debates. The contraptions could be wired up, and a huge recording board be erected in the background for each candidate. This way we could get some lively reaction from the viewers. The LincolnDouglas debates would be pallid in comparison. FRANKLIN JONES Baldy in The Atlanta Constitution “With you, Jack, we may even, carry the South.” The Speaker’s Race A Suggestion for the Debates