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Holy World War Against Poverty ‘FRANTIC PREPARATION’ Dr. Paul Boller, author of This Is Our Nation and a major target of J. Evetts Haley’s Texans for America, spoke before a Dallas women’s study group last week and characterized Haley’s attacks as a “vicious and unprincipled campaign against me and my textbook.” To its credit, Boller, an SMU history professor, said the state textbook commission resisted pressures from the Haley group and included his book on the first ballot as one of the five recommended history texts for high school seniors. The committee asked for only minor changes. Having lost out on the state level, the Haleyites are now moving their activities to the communities, Boller said. An anonymous four-page letter repeating the same charges made by Haley before the state textbook committee is being circulated over the state declaring that under no circumstances should This Is Our Nation be adopted and threatening to hold local indignation meetings if the local school boards do approve it. As a result of these efforts, Boller feels the book has not had a chance to be considered on i 4-own merits, and consequently has not been adopted by any Texas school board, although it is in use in other parts of the country. Boller said that while he had a definite point of view, as do all teachers and writers of history, he had attempted to present both sides of controversial issues in American history. His point of view, he said, emphasized in an affirmative way the unique characteristics of American history the Bill of Rights; the supremacy of civil over military authority; self-government; avoiding the concentration of power in any one group whether political, economic, or social; and the cultural contributions of diverse segments of the American population. Boller took up Haley’s charges one by one. The Haleyites argued that the Salem witch hunts were overemphasized in his book and that it was only theory that Cotton Mather was the instigator. They objected to the listing of various groups during the Revolutionary periodslaves, indentured servants, and merchantsand complained that placing people in classes follows the communist class-warfare line. They objected to the mention of Crispus Attucks, a Negro who was the first to fall in the Boston Massacre. They objected to a cartoon reproduced from a newspaper in 1867 when Secretary of State Seward was negotiating the purchase of Alaska from Rusian because the cartoon used the phrase “Russian America” instead of Alaska. This, they said, would leave an undesirable image in the minds of students. The Haley followers further objected to Boller’s statement that recognition of the USSR by this country in 1933 was supported by public opinion. “Not true,” said the Haleyites. Boller, who has done concentrated research on the subject, said that at the time a majority of American businessmen and two-thirds of the daily newspapers, including the Dallas News, favored recognition. THE TEXAS OBSERVER Page 2 March 30, 1962 DALLAS Old Conformity, New Rebellion MONEY TO KEEP AUSTIN What would happen if the United States and Russia go to war over Berlin, the stately, white-haired man asked? He quickly answered his own question: both sides will lob nuclear weapons at each other and ruin both countries. The result: “A Berlin uber alles.” Norman Thomas, six-times the presidential candidate for the Socialist Party, addressed a “Picnic for Peace” at Austin’s Zilker Park Sunday. With biting wit and sharp, staccato delivery he castigated the arms race. Neither the United States nor Russia can be trusted in the race, Thomas said, because of the “attitude of the military. “Accident, passion or the cold designs of men” would lead to war and utter destruction because the world has a new God known as “national military sovereignty. “It is strange optimism to say countries would save weapons they have spent millions of dollars for,” Thomas said. The arms build-up, he said, is the result of a military-industrial complex that was “revealed to the Republicans” and which the Democrats will soon discover. Some 900 persons, mostly young adults, crowded into the park’s sunken gardens to hear Thomas, a parade of folk singers, and several “conversation” groups. The Dallas Morning News said in its Sunday edition liberals and conservatives were expected to clash at the “picnic,” but all was quiet. Uniformed and plainclothes policemen were on hand just in case. Thomas kidded the News as “one of my favorite” newspapers, and predicted his Texas visit would provide the editors with fodder for new. comment. His wit kept the crowd laughing. His observations had them nodding in agreement. He said further: The arms build-up”That 700 percent profit-for-patriotism.” On resuming nuclear testing “Putting a Santa Claus with a bag full of bombs on Christmas Island.” Preparedness “The grimmest sort of arms race the world has ever seen.” MARTIN ELFANT Sun Life of Canada Houston, Texas CA 4-0686 Subscribe to The Observer Name Address City State Send $5.10 to The Texas Observer, 504 W. 24th St., Aladin, Texas Big business”They will stir up issues if necessary to keep the arms race going.” Vietnam”It is folly and morally wrong to have some of you fellows go fight a political war where the French couldn’t do it.” Russians “The Soviet people are probably more sincere \(about suffered more from war.” Cuba–‘Our halfway military intervention was political folly and morally wrong.” Red China”It’s preposterous to think we can deal with the problems of Asia and not recognize Red China.” Thomas deplored President Kennedy’s decision to resume nuclear testing, although he said the President probably made the decision against his will. The United States, he said, has never made a full-fledged attempt to obtain a disarmament treaty, but has offered only first-stage treaties. “We are under a terrible delusion that we are a nation of almost perfect liberty standing for righteousness,” Thomas said. “We stand for power and profit.” He reminded the crowd the United States broke the Potsdam agreement by re-arming West Germany, “at first against her will.” He added: “Germany has too many of Hitler’s officers in her army for my taste.” Conservatives, Thomas said, have come to regard true Americans as “free and equal, noncommunists.” He said Sen. Barry Goldwater was unwilling to trust a government that would spend money for education and public welfare, but was all for a government that would spend millions for arms. The solution is not unilateral disarmament, he said, but people should not believe that countries insane enough to get into war “would be sane enough not to use nuclear weapons, especially that side which thinks it is losing.” He criticized the fallout shelter program. “I don’t say there is no deterrent force in terror, for a time. But we cannot continue frantic preparation for war without having it.” Rightists, he said, want everyone to be like Patrick Henry. “You know, ‘give me liberty or give me death.’ He didn’t go to the front. But that was all right, he was too old.” Thomas said a peaceful alternative to the arms race should be waged around universal disarmament to a police level, an effective international organization to give law instead of war, and total disengagement. Then, Thomas said, the world should wage a “holy war against povertya peace race substituted for war races.” The world has a hard time understanding a nation which will spend $120 billion in one year for arms while millions live on the border of starvation, Thomas said. On the Thursday preceeding the picnic, Rev. W. S. Arms, pastor of the University Baptist Temple, registered a complaint with the Austin city council about the use of a city park. The picnic, he charged, would “confuse and promote chaos.” Another minister, Rev. Brent Fisher of St. Luke’s Methodist Church, suggested that the coun cil “not impose restrictions on use of the park. The American people have enough good sense and edu cation not to suffer from the et. forts of fringe groups,” he said. R.P. \(Continued From Page of quiet desperation?” Boiling it down to a sentence, the reason these new young Texas Republicans seem to have gotten into politics is to try to promote a governmental philosophy which will let them keep more of the money they earn, or plan to earn. To the charge that this is a selfish motive for entering politics, a 34-year-old North Texas Republican, whose wife is an active Junior Leaguer, told The Observer: “This country was built and made wealthy by men who worked hard and long for one purpose to make things better for their families. It was built on the principle that man will extend maximum energy and initiative only to protect or better the condition of his loved ones and himself. If this is selfish, then this country was made great by selfishness. Even the Kremlin has been forced to recognize the power of individual incentive. Take away a man’s initiative and he becomes a vegetable, waiting to be fed by the government.” Previously Too Busy Most new Texas Republicans are taking active parts in politics for the first time. Most have been too busy until recently chasing success to attend precinct meetings. Most have been lifelong Democrats by heritage. And, probably because of their own aggressive personalities, most have had little respect for the average county and state politician. They were inclined to take the attitude: “What difference does it make who gets elected? They’re all bums.” This outlook began changing sometime in the past five or ten years. It has been a subtle alteration, originating among the bright, young, bourgeois-bred on the nation’s college campuses. In New York, in recent years, one heard rumors of “a conservative revival” cn the nation’s campuses which resembled the “liberal movement” of the ‘thirties. Young conservative organizations held a few so-called conventions in Madison Square Garden. William Buckley Jr. rose in prominence and was seen more and more often on discussion panels on educational television programs. Psychologists began “explaining” the baby phenomenon in phrases much like those they used to explain the rise of rock-and-roll and Elvis Presley. It was something to comment about at cocktail parties between long and intense discussions on the sex problems of suburbia and other lifeand-death matters. Then this New York City resident began noticing the presence at these gatherings of one or two outspoken advocates of this enigmatic movement, still rated by most established Manhattan intellectuals somewhere below Herman Wouk as a potential boatrocker. The bolder advocates of conservatism were allowed some time to speak before they were shrugged aside as harmless eccentrics. Soon this temporary Manhattanite motored south and west toward Texas, visiting friends along the way. On this trip the belittled “conservative revival” began to show its substance. We discovered that the New York manifestations of the “revival” were, indeed, misleading. At the core of the almost silent preparation for a conservative re bellion were serious young men and women who were as weary of the old-style, hard-shell, petproject conservative as the liberal had been for decades. The closer we got to Texas, the more evident this weariness became and the more those who suffered from it were inclined toward action. About this time, a not-so-young Carolina newspaperman named W. D. Workman inserted in his column a heretical observation which had crept about unwanted, and therefore unrecognized, in the minds of a lot of young Southerners for years. Ordinarily Mr. Workman, whose column is bought by a number of Southern and Southwestern dailies, spends most of his energies defending the Southern Way of Life \(sometimes stalwart gentlement sent to Congress by the great white Southern electorate to defend SWOL at any cost. But on this particular day last summer Mr. Workman stopped flailing “The Northern Press” and “left-wing, pinko, do-gooders” long enough to write: “The carefully cultivated pretense that Southern Congressmen form a conservative bloc . . . is one of the great political hoaxes . . . Only when legislation touches on such regionally sensitive matters as race relations do the Southern members band together . . . masquerading as conservatives.” Final Disillusionment Regardless of why Workman made such a daring departure from the SWOL line, he expressed the final disillusionment which is pushing so many young conservatives in the Southwest and, in smaller numbers, the South, across party lines. “The old time, baggy pants Southern politician, free-wheeling under the banner of conservatism, has made `conservative’ a dirty word,” a 32-year-old West Texas rancher complained. “It has nothing to do with segregation or integration, as I see it. It has to do with common-sense government economics, that’s all.” After talking with many young Republicans in various parts of the state, we would sum up their thinking on the leading GOP Presidential potentials like this: Barry Goldwater Good instincts, good personality, honest but not big enough for the job. Would be crucified by those dirtyfighting Kennedys because he’s too nice. Nelson Rockefeller A possible much too liberal. Richard NixonDefinitely not. Among other things, he botched