ustxtxb_obs_1961_08_18_50_00006-00000_000.pdf

Commies Inspired ‘Shave’ . . . ‘Castro’ Demonstrations, Probers Report Classification and Assignment More than 50 pages of the committee’s report was given over to the sit-in demonstrations in Marshall in March of last year, demonstrations in which students _, from Bishop and w a-, olleges 1,,,.44..,:pated, and Curry’s alleged position in regard to the sit-ins is frequently referred to. The committee report further implied that many “Negro leftists” are subsidized by white philanthropists through college scholarships. “Many leading Negro agitators,” wrote the committee, “both here and in Africa, have lived their entire adult lives on the largesse of white philanthropists and leftists, and as a result have no real conception of the problems of any working man, either Negro or white.” Nor did the National Association for Advancement of Colored People escape the committee’s spleen., The NAACP was accused of “frequently” violating a 1957 injunction issued by a Tyler judge against its encouraging or financing lawsuits in which the NAACP does not have a direct interest. Attorney General Will Wilson indicated he would be slow to take up the cudgel at the instigation of the committee, though he would “look into” their charge that the court order had been violated. He said he didn’t want to discredit their study, but “we’ve found some of their other work to be unreliable” and “the last thing we need in this area is demogoguery.” In the Marshall flare-up, arrested students retained NAACP attorneys, but Clarence A. Laws, Southwest field secretary for the NAACP in Dallas, this week explained that relationship by saying, “If a person feels that his constitutional rights are being abridged, and if he seeks counsel from the NAACP, then the NAACP, being concerned with removing racial inequalities, becomes concerned in his situation.” Laws said he sees no conflict with the court order arising from giving legal help that is asked for. ‘Straight to Russia’ To the House committee, the desegregation efforts appear to strike at Americanism, law and order, and morality. They warn: “The trust and respect which had been increasing between the two races for over 80 years is being obliterated by agitators…. The demonstrations in line with Communist objectives, did a great deal to create not only disrespect for law and order among Negro students but actual antagonism and hatred toward law enforcement officials, personally and in general.” Rallying support for maintenance of social tradition, the committee admonished “citizens of Texas” to stay alert “to possible agitators and those who would stir up trouble among races that have lived together in comparative peace and friendship for nearly a century.” To make certain no one misunderstands the report, the committee flatly asserted that “the conspiracy behind the sit-ins and racial agitation exists not only on a national scale but reaches straight to Africa and Russia.” The report stops short of details in support of such allegations. The committee urged that the federal government return to the states the power to prosecute for subversive activities, a power which the committee feels has been taken from the states by recent Supreme Court decisions. B.S. FORT HOOD Civilians, we do not realize. The camps and air bases lie out in the country, or in the suburbs of the target cities, behind barbed wire ; our closest touch with them is the -nAds around them. Lt. Col. E. H. Kyle, putsli, information officer at Fort Hood, says 2,500 boys are processed through the induction reception center there every month. The basic training there has been moved elsewhere and the base given over entirely to combat training. The total military strength is about 20,000; the Second Armored Division itself, about 8,000 “strength in cadre,” that is, ready for war. Maj. Daniel S. McMonagle runs the reception center. The morning after President Kennedy’s speech on West Berlin, the major became aware of an order that all volunteers within the Selective Service System the last five or six months be instantly processed for duty. The average number converted from sloppy civilian life to the natty khakis of the Army increased from 80 a day, to 250 a day. The boys shuffled in from Memphis, Albuquerque, Little Rock, Amarillo, San Antonio, Laredo, worked through the lines, and were soldiers. The medicals at Fort Hood are perfunctory; the boys have already been gone over thoroughly, and, said Major McMonagle, \(a boy’s got two arms, two legs, and a head, he’s in.” First we went to the air conditioned testing center, where they take the examinations that largely determine what they do in the Army. Arithmetic, English, radio code, mechanical aptitude, and what do you think of yourself? are you better described, say, by “generous” or by “kind”? They sit in straight chairs at their little plyboard test stalls, the staff sergeant on the stage snapping them instructions. \(“Pick up your pencils. Read the instructions. now and then telling them in a friendly way, “Can the chatter, fellas, can the chatter.” Negro and white sit side by side, drumming their fingers on the crowns of their crania. The second day the boys go through three stages, “classification and assignment,” “records and processing,” and clothing issue. The first stage is the worst for them; it is the interview. They sit glumly in batches of 10 or 15, waiting the signal to go back to the partition-office and sit across from the mousy looking interviewer, answering his questions without knowing just why. They are tense here, and seem to know, as Major Kyle said, that this has more to do with their lot than any of the tests. In records and processing, their records are processed. The military looking woman in charge said, “The 201 files are first fixed up here. We prepare their partial pay of $7, and ship out records.” The last day the boys get clothing inspection, altered clothing, shots, and final orientation. Then they start basic. WE WALKED around a good deal, just looking. A ser geant in the barn like a cavernous New York store explained that each boy there gets shorts and socks, two pair of boots and one pair of low quarters, three shirts, two green uniforms, hat, belt. A fattish Indian lad from New Mexico struggles with his boots; James Daigle, Groves, Texas, 17, gets tangled in his. Robert Stratmann, Corpus Christi, 22, buttons his khaki shirt collar for size. They work their ways around the inside arc of the counters, the supply men fitting them carefully, taking the time, slapping the shirts on the wood. They stuff their duffel bags and drag them along, whites, Negroes, Latins, Indians, tall, skinny, stocky, lithe, pimply, manly, attenuated, athletic”all shapes, sizes, and coltit 1%4 Kyle says with a chuckle. Out of 25,000 boys processed the last ten months, the major said on the way to the polio shots, there have been only three AWOLs during the reception pe riod. “We don’t leave ’em time to think,” he said with an amiable smile. Hypodermic needles are old fashioned now, like two-wing planes and conventional bombs. The Army uses a “hypodermic jet injection apparatus, automatic,” a gun that shoots the serum through the skin. More blood, less pain; “they only feel it if they flinch,” said Sp.5 Jerry Price of Roanoke, Ala. Only one of a dozen winced; a Negro boy, who showed a wide-eyed fear again when his finger-pad was pricked for the blood test. In the pay line, where they were getting their $7, the paymaster was giving them the money and saying, “Count that and give me $3 back.” The $3 was for the nametag, haircut, and marking kit, a rubber stamp of your name, marketed by a local entrepreneur. While we were there, none of them declined to buy the merchant’s marking kit. In the barbershop they slumped around on chairs and the floor, waiting for their shearings. One AUSTIN Citizens: Are you ready? When the hydrogen \(or cobalt, or neuplodes over your town, if you can still do anything, what will it be? Will you take to the hills with a .22, a pocketknife, and a can of beans? Will you listen to conelrad and await your rescue? Will you trim your windows with Elmer’s Glue and pray in the closet? Or, fore-prepared, will you calmly drop the lead sheeting over the windows, gather the clan within your shepherding arms, and retire to your fallout shelter? The owner of two Austin hardware stores, Charles P. Davis, is prepared. When he was supervising the excavation for the basement of his home, a neighbor dropped in and said why not build a bomb shelter there? So he did. It would have cost an extra $6,000 retail, but Davis, owning the stores, could get a lot of it for himself wholesale. The shelter is two rooms, separated by a partition of 24 wooden lockers. In the kitchen he has a table and chairs, an electric stove and one that will work with propane if the electricity fails; an electric refrigerator; two garbage cans; a transistor radio; a 120gallon tank of water; and emergency cots. The lockers are stocked with boy from Jackson, Miss., Jimmy McKinney, 17, had certainly worn his blonde, wavy hair a foot long all his life; it could not have grown so full in less than 17 years. It was the kind of hair girls muse about, and then decide emphatically No or most emphatically Yes. Let it be said that it was a challenge to the barber, that hair, and did not come off in -af’w looping passes with the buzzing razor: it had to be thinned, and thinned, then edged into, thinned some more, and finally sheared away. Jimmy held up a vagrant strand above -his head, locked his eyes under his brows to see it, and said, “Ain’t much to look at.” Released, he peered into the mirror and said, “Ah doan lahk it!” The major explained the principal reason for these shearings is cleanliness. There was also something about all of them looking alike; only difference then is tall or short, fat or skinny. WE DECIDED to drive over to the National Guard encamp ment at North Fort Hood. In the general’s shack a few summertime officers discussed whether many would survive the next war. Out in the field, under the tents erected on the brick slabs, were encamped about 9,000 two-week troops, 65 percent of the strength, under war conditions, of the 36th National Guardbetter known as the Texas Division, or the T Patchers. Major Jess T. Garrett of Freeport, executive officer, 2d Medium . Tank Battalion, 124th Armored, spit and polish, shiny helmet and laced-up boots, said the troops were ready for whatever. “The general opinion,” he said within the circle of his officers, under the tent, near the walky-talky, “is that it’s high time we did something before they do it. Nobody’s looking forward to a call, but I don’t think there’s a man here that thinks what’s been done isn’t justified.” His junior officers assented by a grave silence. When it was clear Major Garrett had retired from the circle, one of them remarked that the night of the Kennedy clothes, bedding, food \(including General Motors’ $2.75 multipurpose food for one person for two lights, batteries, Kleenex, and other emergency supplies. Davis sells the multipurpose food and the radiation kit at his stores. The concrete ceiling is 22 inches thick, reinforced by two steel mats; the concrete walls are 13 inches thick. The wood door is four inches thick; its purpose is not to keep out the radiation, which is blocked out by a concrete wall in the basement, but to keep out people. You see, in an emergency of this kind, panic can be expected. Many people will not be prepared. They will have read about Charles Davis’ fallout shelter. However, it only accommodates seven people. Every extra person reduces the supplies for Davis’ family; obviously at some point of overcrowding, the shelter would do no one any good, and everyone would die. “If I was down at the office and they’d get in ahead of us before I could get here,” Davis said, “I have a way of gettin”em out with tear gas. They might get in, but I’d get ‘ern outs there.’ ” He displayed his .38 tear gas pistol. Six or seven tear gas bul speech, \(the troops in the field huddling around transistor radios “Castro.” The M-48 A-1’s, Patton tanks, are fierce, growling things with 90 millimeter cannons, seven or eight large wheels turning the broad metal treads. On the tube of one of the cannons the boys had painted “Berlin Bound,” and on tho ennorstnicture, “Castro Canners.” A little pennant was flying, an up-ended rectangle with a shallow V cut along its flapping side, half the white cloth painted red: no formal insignia, but the troops’ own device, “the Red-ass flag.” Crew, hosing the wheels and superstructure: Sp. 4 Joe Henneke, Columbus, Texas, 22; Pfc. Ernest Peikert, Columbus, Texas, 20; Sgt. Melvin Peikert, cousin to Ernest, Columbus, Texas, 21. Crew, riding the Castro Canner in deafening splendor, grinding under a hackberry sapling in the way: Driver, under the gun, Sp. 4 James Bishop, Freeport, Texas, 22; tank commander, 1st Lt. Albert Rickaway, Brazoria, Texas, 32; gunner, Buck Sgt. Melvine Angell, Clute, Texas, 23; inside, out of sight, the loader, Pfc. J. C. Ward, Angleton, Texas, 23. Crew, riding tank with “Castro’s Honey” chalked on the tube, and on the hatch, “We Stay Ready Frauleins Berlin,” driver, Pfc. Le roy Schroeder, Hallettsville, Tex as, 20; tank commander, P. Sgt. Earl Jones, Eagle Lake, 25; gun ner, Pfc. William Shaw, Weimer, Texas, 20; loader, in the tank, Pfc. Eugene Raabe, Weimer, Texas, 19. Back at the clothing issue barn, the boys were still passing through. Billy Kirkpatrick, 18. Eupora ; Miss., stuffing his rain coat into his duffel bag. Raul Or tegon, 23, Laredo, a little fellow, buck naked waiting for his shorts