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Thurmond a Keynoter Controversy Continues Over Army’s Role this week that the Fourth Army is jointly supporting the program with the Jaycees. Asked if there have been any official reprimands from Washington, he said: “Not to my knowledge. If there had, we wouldn’t be in it.” Thisler .also confirmed that Captain Jim Lunz was recalled to active duty for a month for the specific purpose of assisting with arrangements. Arthur Sylvester, assistant secretary of Defense, told the English-Spanish newspaper La Prensa that Washington authorities had looked into The situation. He said the Fourth Army is “lending administrative assistance, not cosponsoring the seminar.” He said Major Gen. Quinn, chief of information for the U.S. Army, “has assured the Defense” Department that the Fourth Army is not and has never been a co-sponsor of the seminar.” Thisler, asked if the Fourth Army was co-sponsoring the program or merely giving assistance to it, replied, “Either way you want ico-sponsoring or supportingit means the same thing.” time for the American people to decide who is going to run this country patriots or pinks.” The San Antonio Light, a Hearst paper, also backed the seminar in an editorial: 44. . professional politicians, they have leveled their attacks on officers of the Fourth Army. “That these dedicated men who have sworn to defend the constitution of the United States from enemies within and without should be singled out for abuse is disturbing. “It is especially disturbing when one considers that San Antonians have enjoyed such harmonious relations with the military here for more than a hundred years. “The motives of those supporting the seminar are open and above board. One fact stands out: These men are patriotic Americans. They seek to educate San Antonians, who after all are American citizens, to a keen awareness of the dangers of communism.” Differing Sentiments Opposing sentiments have been expressed by Negro leaders in the city mainly protesting Sen. Thur’Mond’s appearance. The , local NAACP passed a resolution criti 7 cizing the city council for “lending its office and prestige to a so-called Americanism seminar,” calling Thurmond a “race-baiter”, and criticizing other speakers as “either members of the Birch Society or sympathetic thereto.” G. J. Sutton, a Negro leader, said that instead of a seminar on Americanism the meeting would feature a “Birch, Thurmond, Eastland philosophy.” He denounced Thurmond as the “worst race-baiter that anyone knows.” In a stormy session of the city council Wednesday, Sutton and Ernest Bennett of the Bexar NAACP presented the resolution and queried the council on statements made by proponents of the seminar that the council had ac tively endorsed it. Council members denied they had formally approved the program. Mayor McAllister said the council had not endorsed the seminar or Its speakers but had on July 26 approved a resolution “commending” the Jaycees for staging the event. Asked by the Observer about the controversy over the seminar, McAllister said, “I give everybody the right to his opinion. The only people I grow impatient about are these bleeding hearts. I have no sympathy at all with them. “I think it’s high time we in America started stimulating our nationalism a bit,” he said. “It’s time we learned that Russia and communism are our enemies.” As for the conservative complexion of the speakers, the mayor said, “I’m a conservative. Are people who feel like I do to be ostracized? I say a conservative is a person who believes in Americanism above all else. I’m anything but a socialist, mister, if you want to know how I feel about it.” McAllister confirmed he would introduce Thurmond. “I respect him,” he said. “I consider him a first-class American: a fine governor of South Carolina, a dis tinguished war hero with five battle stars and 16 decorations, with a distinguished record in the Senate. I’m sorry we haven’t got more men like him.” On the participation of the Fourth Army, the mayor said he would be “one of the first to say I don’t want the military to participate in politics. But when it comes to a question of Americanism and of fighting Russia and communism, then I’m all for it.” Rep. Franklin Spears, senior member of the Bexar delegation to the Texas House and a member of the Jaycees, says he favors the principle ‘behind seminars on Americanism and believes the Jaycees initiated the program with good intentions. “But I understand three of the speakers have tie-ins with the Birch Society,” he said. One man originally invited was a national director of the Birch Society, he said, but his invitation was later withdrawn. “With the type of speakers they have,” he said, “I don’t see how this program is going to do a good job.” The Jaycees do not wish to sponsor a Birch-type affair. he said. “If they’re getting used, they won’t find out about it until after it’s all over.” Army reservists in the Bexar County area received a communication this week from Lt. Col. Ira L. Beard saying they would receive point credits for attending the seminar. “Personnel from this office,” the letter stated, “will be available at the Municipal Auditorium to assist individual reservists in preparing DA Form 1380 for the award of point credit.” Beard requested reservists to give the program “wide publicity.” ‘Patriots or Pinks?’ Other sponsors of the seminar, besides the Jaycees and the Fourth Army: the Shavano Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, the Alamo Chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution, several American Legion posts, the Reserve Officers Assn. of .U.S. Army Officers, and the South Texas Chamber of Commerce. South Texan, official publication of the South Texas Chamber of Commerce, editorialized on the seminar this week: “It becomes harder and harder to get the truth about socialism and communism across to the American people. Systematically, ‘liberals’ have sought to close down and silence every source of information of radicalism . . . “In recent months a subtle campaign has been waged in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, The Nation, The Reporter, The New York Times, and other left-ofcenter journals to discredit leaders of the armed forces who are vigorously anti-communist . . . “The liberal-leftists won another victory when Maj. Gen. Edwin Walker . . . was admonished for telling his troops the facts of communism and state socialism. Leftist pundits gloated over this as a victory for the cause. The latest sneaky deed by the ‘liberals’ is a private memorandum by Sen. Fulbright . . . sent to the Defense Department. Echoing the line of the leftist press of New York, the Arkansas senator objected to military sponsorship of anti-communist meetings . . . “These liberal leftists may not be communists, but they had just as well be. If they are not stopped, they are going to deliver us into the hands of our enemies. It is THE TEXAS OBSERVER Page 2 Sept. 22, 1961 “If there is a ‘machine,’ ” Holloway reports, “the leader may pass the word to the Negro organization en masse. \(Footnote: In one county it is said the Negro leaders working with the whites now pass on this information in a night meeting the day before the election to avoid giving the other candidate a chance to raise a hue and cry about Negro bloc Old Negroes may be especially solicited. In small counties they do not even have to register to claim their exemption and are therefore “an especially convenient pool of potential voters.” The absentee vote, Holloway says, is “easily abused.” In a recent lawsuit growing out of an East Texas election in which evenly balanced white factions had solicited Negro votes, one Negro witness explained his abstention: “I said all of those people down there, I live with them, and they all I got, and I knovved I couldn’t vote but one way; knowed if I voted for one, would have to go against the other one, and I have to go to all of them for everything, and I didn’t want to fall out with none of them ; I had rather went to the field to plow.” Another Negro witness, according to the transcript provided Holloway by one of the two dozen East Texas informants upon whom he relied, explained his reaction to the whites’ solicitation of his vote: II. . . and I told this white fellow, I don’t want you all to feel that I have got smart and trying to take over you all’s business .. . I said I wouldn’t care to sign any more or say any more about it.” If usual means of manipulation fail, Holloway writes, “activity which is neither illegal or close to the line of legality opens further possibilities. The role of corruption in controlling the Negro vote is difficult to establish, but rumors circulate constantly . . .” He first reviews some out4ted reports of such corruption: “Both \(V. \( ~Donald San Antonid Negro leader of earlier years who, according to local tradition, had 3,000 poll taxes that he kept in his safe to be’ distributed on election day to ‘trustworthy’ voters. “In the present day two Austin Negro leaders have described with scorn the system of control extant some years back by which city-hall politicians used the Negro leader of that day to deliver votes.” Then Holloway touches, with a gingerly vagueness on reports of present corruption he heard during his investigations: “A Houston Democratic leader, respected for his knowledge of the Negro vote, had said that much money was spent buying up small groups of Negro voters in the 1960 primary. “A liberal lawyer in an East Texas county reports the existence of a sheriff-controlled machine by which the liquor interests support the sheriff who keeps the county wet; and the sheriff in turn controls the bloc of Negro voters that gives him and his policies consistent majorities. To avoid control and even the actual changing of the ballots in this same county, it is said that Negroes vote the absentee ballot by as many as 600 votes in a total of about 5,000. “Such stories can be multiplied and are undoubtedly subject to exaggeration and distortion. But these and other reports are sufficiently frequent and widespread to leave an impression that votebuying and manipulation are by no means uncommon . . . “In another county it is said that control of the Negro bloc vote by a corrupt local official is causing rising resentment among the white community and is gradually increasing their vote.” Voting Analysis Holloway’s 30-page paper also analyzes the city Negro voters with care, concluding, “they form a surprisingly effective, cohesive, and stable bloc oriented toward the liberal Democratic candidate, especially if he is strongly procivil rights. And they decidedly favor candidates of their own race extraction.” Registration of Texas Negroes to vote has increased, Holloway says, in this pattern: 1940, 50,000 Texas Negroes registered to vote; 1942, 33,000; 1946, 75,000; 1947, 100,000; 1952, 181,916; 1956, 214,-00; 1958, 226,495. The poll tax deters not only Negro, but also poor white voters, he says. By and large it is the only obvious deterrent to Negroes voting, he agrees with another writer. In Austin, city political organizations of the Negro “do a good job of contacting and signing up . . . those willing to register.” Turnout varies but approaches 50 percent in most major elections, or much less in runoffs, local elections, and general elections. viously don’t bother to go to the polls.” In Austin and Dallas in 1952, Negro precincts gave Stevenson 92 percent of the vote for president, Holloway notes; the percentage was smaller in 1956, when Stevenson weakened his civil rights stand, but was still extraordinary. In 1956, returns in city Negro precincts show Yarborough defeating Daniel for governor about nine to one. In 1957, the Republican, Hutcheson, received 14 percent of the Negro vote in Holloway’s four Texas cities, compared to Yarborough’s 84 percent and Dies’ two percent. Although Gonzalez finished far behind Daniel for governor in 1958, he received 90 percent of the Negro precinct vote in these cities, compared to Daniel’s seven percent and O’Daniel’s three. Holloway says the Hutcheson vote indicates “a vote for the Republican Party alongside the Negroes’ otherwise notably liberal voting propensities.” He does not consider the protest factor against both Dies, a segregationist, and Yarborough, who irked some Negroes with a statement against forced integration. In an analysis of local elections involving Negroes, .Holloway suggests that Austin’s “city fathers” CORRECTION In the concluding paragraph of the comment on Awakened China last issue, the appearance of the word “lies” was a typographical error: the word was “lives.” changed the electoral system to prevent Arthur DeWitty, a Negro, from winning a seat on the city council, which 1951 returns indicated he might be able to do. “The Negroes appear to support a Latin candidate by large margins, but Latins are not similarly enthusiastic over Negro candidates,” Holloway also reports without elaboration. Negro leaders cannot deliver the Negro voters contrary to their own understandings of the issues, Holloway says. “They will not blindly follow the ‘liberal’ and/or Democratic candidate, particularly if they suspect a weakening of his civil rights position . . . they will not vote strongly for a Negro they consider a really poor candidate . .. Even as a bloc with low average education and income characteristics, they show sensitivity to candidates and issues and shift their vote accordingly, as in the case of Stevenson in 1956.” In support of his conclusion that rural Negroes do not vote like those in major cities, Holloway cites the evidence that “East Texas voters either did not vote at all or did not bloc vote for Gonzalez” in the 1958 governor’s election. On the other hand, he said, East Texas Negroes usually vote their own interests on elections for sheriff, a key man in law enforcement, and county commissioner, who has a lot to say about county roads. In addition, he said, there are exceptions to the pattern of manipulated Negro voters in the country. The Texas president of the NAACP, N. Y. Nixon, has local