ustxtxb_obs_1961_05_27_50_00007-00000_000.pdf

Ato iftwillos001111110011111111/04001M , ‘Ownership Without Responsibility’ A Teacher Examines the American Crisis in terms of ownership-for example, Of real estate or of a share in a large organization. What we fail to see is that property inevitably means some form of power.” Despite what we say about our democracy’s meaning that each man has one vote and may own something-and particularly may own a great deal-“inevitably it means that one man has more power than another.” THE FIRST SENTENCE in the Encyclopedia Britannica under capitalism reads: “A society is called capitalistic if it entrusts its economic process to the guidance of the private businessman.” Here in the United States we take for granted and do not question the premise that the private businessman, who owns, or is a proprietor, is capable of directing the economic process for the greatest good of society. “The seat of the trouble,” Shattuck said “is in this: that ownership means power, but there is a great deal of ownership which today does not require that we take responsibility for our power, for our property.” Again referring to the price-fixing scandals, Shattuck said that even a very large stockholder could not have done anything about them. Here was an example of property being used without the owners having the responsibility for their ownership. Ownership without responsibility has been institutionalized in our society in the form of the corporation. “One incorporates in order not to have responsibility for the property one has. A corporation is a legal fiction; it sets up an imaginary individual who is responsible for the conduct of that corporation. And every other individual, those who really own it, have a very limited liability, both financially and even morally.” In Shattuck’s view, as the corporation grows, the profit motive drives it in opposition to what it tries to present , as its public image-the goal of public ‘service. In illustration, he mentioned the telephone companies, which give a choice of color in telephones; but seldom the chance for lower rates or better service. “I am willing to believe that those who run our corporations have the best intentions and are acting in good faith in believing that the profit motive can be and must be combined with public service,” he said. “But I doubt if this situation will resolve itself in our favor. What this kind of ownership without responsibility leads to is a whole series of influences.” The first kind of influence is that of lobbies on governments. Secondly, “and what is very real in Texas, is the influence of property on education.” There are numerous groups set up specifically to make sure that the profit motive, that this concept of property, is taught and defended in the elementary schools, “along with,” Shattuck said, “not very much.” The third effect of this form of ownership is on our foreign policy. Referring to South America, he said that our whole foreign policy there has been to protect American property interests “rather than local freedoms.” “This system-capitalism-has been enormously successful . . . \(in its material, technological asof literature and language, I wonder if ‘it is equally capable of producing a culture.” Shattuck claimed that not only is the system hazardous, it also suffers from a lack of questioning. “There must be some correctives,” he said. “I would, in the face of this situation, advocate public ownership of all utilities, railroads, atomic power, and surely of American Telephone and Telegraph, which is the greatest enormity of our system-in other words, modified socialism. . . . It would seem to me that in certain segments of our economy where there is no competition we should not undergo the pretense that there is competition.” He stressed the necessity of recognizing the authenticity and “workingness” of other economic systems, like the ones in Western Europe, which “combine private enterprise with public ownership” and of searching for a “solution beyond what we take as the final answer, the profit motive and free private enterprise.” Mentioning such American endeavors as co-operatives and TVA, he suggested that something like the BBC should be studied-“a cultural but separate corporate endeavor set up under the state.” And he argued that such issues should be studied on the college campus. “A university is a kind of cultural pocket. Nothing is quite real. There is a simulation of its being real, but the fact that it isn’t quite real should be not only an opportunity but a responsibility.” Both students and faculty should “take advantage of the privileged estate we have; we are, after all, protected.” He strongly urged his student audience to carefully examine and try to understand our society and all its implications now before becoming more involved in it, because later might be too late. TURNING to the “private half” I of his comments, Mr. Shattuck said that his personal and professional commitment is to language and literature. He asked if this might be just anther form of property-an Inner or spiritual property-and granted that literature might be so viewed when hidden away in libraries and vaults. But, he said, “I want to say what I think literature can be-not alone, but as one element of our culture, representing most of the other forms of art. Literature is a mode of existence, in the present as well as for the past”; it gives a durable shape to our experience, present and past, so that it is available. Its study can become, in us, “a means of second sight, or second wind. A literary work can be a new organ forming in us, enabling us to reach experience in a new fashion, to come at it with a new set of perceptions.” “There is another way in which literature, or this form of culture, becomes a new organ for us to use in reckoning with experience. “I think one learns,” Shattuck said, “that to live once is not enough.” One must live each moment twice before it has been lived at all. A first encounter with an experience doesn’t usually register in our minds, in our innermost selves; to give a meaning to any experience it must be lived again. “Every moment is in a sense a rehearsal for what is to come after and a performance of something that has already occurred.” Literature can never be sufficient unto itself. “The arts, then, or literature, exist as a form of preparation for experiences to come; they exist as a submission to us of certain experiences which, when we come upon them ourselves, we may then recognize. “Literature puts a frame around experience and insists that we see it in a certain way so that it may happen to us again. In that case, we shall not have had to go through the thing twice. It is in itself a form of economy, but also a form of learning from the experiences of others.” C.B.M. MARTIN ELFANT Sun Life of Canada Houston, Texas CA 4.0686 AUSTIN The YM-YWCA at the University of Texas has recently pre’sented a series of talks by outstanding University professors asked to discuss the things that “mean the most to them,” the things they would like to say if it were their “last chance.” Last week Roger Shattuck, professor of Romance Languages and author of The Banquet Years, found himself in this “hypothetical extreme situation,” as he described it. Shattuck cited three recent occurrences which he said had given him much concern and for which he tried to give some explanation: the revolution in Cuba, the conspiracy of electrical companies to fix prices in restraint of trade, and our belated success in putting a man ‘in space. America’s position today, because of such crises, is more serious than it has been in the past 100 years, he said. Shattuck said he had tried to discover some theme that might take us to the heart of our general problem. His first thought was American education, the prolonged and entrenched weakening of the educational process. This, he felt, went far as a beginning explanation; many of us, he said, have become aware that we have had too little, too late. “You in college are facing this lack and should be most concerned to do something about it.” If this were the real core of the problem he might suggest state exams, or perhaps even national ones, to determine accreditation for high school diplomas. To Shattuck, however, the plight of American education was a symptom rather than a cause of the central crisis. The second possibility that occurred to him as the real cause of our present dilemma was the breakdown of the American twoparty system. The image of American politics gleaned from reports in foreign newspapers makes clear the fact that there is little significant division on issues; that the “great debates” were not really debates at all, since the two presidential candidates were so closely aligned ideologically; and that one could not watch Blakley and Tower as candidates of opposing political parties and believe that differences in party philosophies are genuine. But the political failure was also an inadequate explanation. What seemed to him to be the answer came to him during ‘a recent flight back from Michigan. It embraced “a value or institution that we almost never question,” one that was “not thrown over by the French Revolution but rather was established by the French Revolution and has existed ever since-the institution of private property.” He said he knew of “only one professor on this campus who thinks deep thoughts perhaps dangerous thoughts-on this institution, and he believes it hasn’t really been touched on since Marx.” Do You Think Some Friend Who Thinks Might Want The Observer? THE TEXAS OBSERVER Page 7 May 27, 1961 LEGALS CITATION BY PUBLICATION THE STATE OF TEXAS TO W. P. Moore, Also known as Wm. P. Moore or William Pinckney Moore; B. W. Preston also known as Barbara W. Preston; Francis Brichta; Frank V. Brichta; Amelia Brichta; Robert Brichta; Augustus Brichta; Louisa 8. Galpin; Sarah Mathers; Harriet Hales et vir Thomas D. Hales; Elizabeth ‘Roberts; Cecelia Brichla Townsend also known as Cecelia B. Townsend also known as C. B. Townsend; G. A. Bahn; Wiley Hudson; Burgess Haydon et ux M. H. Haydon; W. H. Hudson et ux Ann E. Hudson also known as A. E. Hudson; S. H. Milum; Thomas Sylvester also known as T. H. Sylvester et ux Jane E. Sylvester also known as Jane E. Silvester; E. Toungate et ux Ann C. Toungate; Joseph Williams et ux Emeline Williams; J. A. Hudson also known as Joseph A. Hudson et ux Trophena Hudson also known as Tropenie Hudson; J. H. Milum et ex Tennessee Milum; Henry Hudson also known as H. G. Hudson et ux D. A. Hudson; C. F. Merwin et ux Nell Clough Johnson Merwin also known as Nell Clough Johnson; C. Wendlandt also known as Carl Wendlandt; Mrs. Sophie Wendlandt; Charles Wendlandt, Jr., if living; and if dead, the legal representatives of each of said Defendants, and the unknown heirs of each of said named Defendants; the legal representatives of the unknown heirs of each of said Defendants, if the unknown heirs of said named Defendants are dead; the unknown heirs of the unknown heirs of said named Defendants or, if dead, the legal representatives of such unknown heirs of the unknown heirs of the named Defendants, Defendants in the hereinafter styled and numbered cause: by commanded to appear before the 126th District Court of Travis County, Texas, to be held in the courthouse of said county in the City of Austin, Travis County, Texas, at or before 10 o’clock A.M. of the first Monday after the expiration of 42 days from the date of Issuance hereof; that is to say, at or before, 10 o’clock A.M. of Monday the 3rd day of July, 1961, and answer the petition of plaintiffs in Cause Number 121,385, in which Louis C. Page, Louis L. Southerland and George ‘M. Page are Plaintiff and Henry Wendlandt, Emma Savage nee Emma Wendlandt, et vir Fred Savage, Edward Wendlandt, Theodore Wendlandt, Alvin Wendlandt, and the hereinbefore named defendants are Defendants, filed in said Court on the 16th day of March, 1961, and the nature of which said suit is as follows: Being an action and prayer for judgment in favor of Plaintiffs and against defendants for title to and possession of the following described land, to-wit: Beginning at an iron pipe at fence corner post on North side of Farm Road 620, for a corner of that certain tract conveyed to Frank W. Jessen, et al by deed recorded in Volume 1033, Page 185 of the Deed Records of Travis County, Texas, said point being in the North line of the Leonard Eck Survey and the South line of the Wiley Hudson Survey, for a corner of the tract herein described from which a rock mound found at the Southeast corner of the Wiley Hudson Survey bears S 60 deg. 59′ E. 273.15 ft., and S 60 deg. 24′ E. 292.65 ft.; Thence N 60 deg. 54′ W a distance of 1053.40 ft. to a fence corner post for the Southwest corner of this tract; Thence N 26 deg. 49′ E. a distance of 624.9 ft. to an iron pipe set for the Northwest corner of the said Jessen tract in the 715 ft. contour line along the margin of Lake Travis; Thence with the 715 ft. contour line with the courses and distances as follows: N 77 deg. 34′ E. 79.4 ft., N 85 deg. 36′ E. 175.4 ft., N 73 deg. 34′ E. 77.4 ft. to an iron pipe set 1.0 ft. Northeast of the centerline of the “H”-Frames for a corner of this tract; Thence S 34 deg. 34′ E. along a line 1.0 ft. Northeast of the centerline of the said “H”-Frames, a distance of 543.7 ft. to an \(iron pipe set for a corner of this tract; Thence along the North side of the said gravel road with the courses and distances as follows: N 37 deg. 31′ E. 95.5 ft., N 54 deg. 15′ E. 205.2 ft., N 74 deg. 09′ E. 209.9 ft., N 88 deg. 31′ E. 124.0 ft., S 73 deg. 18′ E. 84.1 ft., S 49 deg. 25′ E. a distance of 469.75 ft. for a corner of this tract; Thence S 64 deg. 15′ E. a distance of 254.32 ft. to an iron pipe set at corner of rock wall for a corner of this tract; Thence along the East edge of the said rock wall N 29 deg. 15′ E. a distance of 495.3 ft. to an iron pipe for a corner of this tract; Thence S 60 deg. 45′ E. a distance of 33.0 ft. to an iron pipe for a corner of this tract; Thence N 29 deg. 15′ E. a distance of 140.6 ft. to an iron pipe for a corner of this tract; Thence S 60 deg. 45′ E. a distance of 27.0 ft. to an iron pipe for a corner of this tract; Thence N 83 deg. 40′ E. a distance of 434.15 ft. to an iron pipe for an angle corner in this tract; Thence S 65 deg. 17′ E. a distance of 100.0 ft. to an iron pipe found, for an angle point in this tract; Thence with fence, S 40 deg. 34’ E. a distance of 100.0 ft. to an iron pipe found for a corner of this tract; Thence with the fence N 48 deg.