ustxtxb_obs_1962_09_28_50_00001-00000_000.pdf

NISONIV%/NINIVV 1%1N/IIV The Unitarians Host a Bircher The Texas C9’*97qr\(DtxcuT.s Z, Ikeitkry tal0a tiOGrl Volume 54 TEXAS, SEPTEMBER 28, 1962 15c Per Copy Number 26 An Independent-Liberal 1 A Window to t___ Second in a Series EL PASO “You couldn’t call me an isolationist,” said Felix Nakovic, El Paso electrician and AFL-CIO vice president, in a recent conversation with the Observer. His narrow bespectacled face clouded as he pondered the dilemma. “I don’t hate these poor Mexicans who are undercutting our jobs and keeping us from organizing. They are doing the only thing you can expect them totake any job they can get at any price.” Nakovic was referring to the alien commuters whose presence has helped depress the border wage scale so drastically over the years. He continued: “I’ve always been for an internationalist foreign policy. But until the time comes when all international barriers are dropped, each country must be responsible for the welfare of its own citizens. As things stand now, our government is not providing its labor force on the borders the right to a decent wage. And the result is that nobody is benefiting from the situationnot even the alien commuters.” Nakovic’s words seemed to reflect the consensus of other labor officials throughout the state: If the present policy is continued that of allowing Mexican immigrants to maintain their residence in Mexico and work daily in the U.S.there will be no hope of AUSTIN Time: 10 a.m., Sunday. Place: Auditorium, Austin Unitarian Church. Event: The weekly forum, which precedes the Sunday sermon. Featured guest speaker: Dr. James W. Lassiter, Austin anesthesiologist and vocal John Birch Society member. Subject: “Operation Correction versus Operation Abolition,” presented from the House Un-American Activities Committee’s view. The week before, Dr. W. R. Dunkelberg, a psychiatrist and staff member of the Austin State Hospital, had defended the American Civil Liberties Union’s viewpoint concerning the two “Operation” films, both of which purport to tell what happened in San Francisco on May 13, 1960, when riots occurred in protest of HUAC hearings. “Operation Abolition” was the HUAC version of what happened, and “Operation Correction” was the ACLU version, the latter purporting to show why the former did not present an accurate account of events. Shortly before ten, Lassiter drove up to the church in his light-colored Corvette which sported a Cox sticker on the rear bumper, walked with assurance into the Unitarian lions’ den, and after a short but affable conversation with Mr. William Kuhat raising the chronically depressed wage scale which exists in El Paso and in other border communities. “The commuters earn a higher wage than they would in Mexico sure,” another labor man said. “But it’s still a slave wage, and the worker stands no *chance of getting any of the other workers’ benefits that a labor union could secure for him. And moreover, he prevents the American worker from being able to organize.” Labor’s position is, then, that the present AFL-CIO suit against the Department of Justice which would cut down on the number of commuter aliens in competition with domestic workers is not simply a selfish manifestation of protectionism. It is hoped that it can aid the plight of the commuter as well as that of the domestic laborer. The suit would require that immigration officials interpret literally the present clause which qualifies ‘immigrants as “permanent residents.” It is now interpreted to allow immigrants to maintain their residence in Mexico and cross the border daily to work. Henry de la Garza, executivesecretary of El Paso’s Central Labor Union, even sees the effects of a commuter ban as directly beneficial to the commuters themselves. “Most of these cornmuters aren’t going to give up their jobs when the government schek, the forum chairman, commenced his apologetics. Lassiter, a respectable-looking man with a pink, cherubic face and rimless glasses, read his argument from a sheaf of papers. He spoke calmly, refraining from any display of histrionics, and exhibiting no noteworthy grammatical or syntactical flaws. The argument itself was noteworthy, however, in that of the 25 minutes Lassiter devoted to it, approximately a third of the time was spent reading quotes of people who believed the San Francisco riots were communist inspired; and the remaining twothirds of the time was spent in reading quotes of people who believed the ACLU was a communist organization. At no time did Lassiter touch on the specific features of either film in question. By way of preface, Lassiter quoted Pope Pius XI, who, he said, made a statement in the ‘thirties lambasting “atheistic communism” and decrying “the conspiracy of silence on the part of the press” in most of the known world. Next the audience was informed that plans were now under way in Washington to turn our armed forces over to the United Nations; that the Russian cosmonauts’ performances were “fakery”; and that a red flag had recently been hoisted in Kansas City over a monument to the American war dead. COLLEGE STATION A cleavage of public opinion has surrounded Texas Agricultural and Mechanical College all its life: intense loyalty on the one hand, condescending laughter on the other. In some respects the place merits both. On September 13 a special committee of 100 Texans issued a report intended to show how A&M might improve itself during the next 14 years before the one-hundredth anniversary of its founding. Included on the committee, which called itself “the Century Council,” are such well-known Texas personalities as former Gov. Allan Shivers; Mrs. Oveta Culp Hobby, president of the Houston Post; Clint Murchison Jr., Dallas multi-millionaire industrialist; Ed Clark, Austin lawyer and the state’s foremost lobbyist; and A. R. Luedecke, general manager of the US Atomic Energy Commission and a former Aggie. The A&M board of directors will respond to the report from the committee at a “Century Study Convocation” ori the campus November 16. In general, the report prompted two responses: former students, imbued with the loyalty of all Aggies, thought it redundant, because they felt the college was already perfect. Many others, especially University of Texas graduates who view A&M as a cow college whose students are “onion-pickers,” wondered why they bothered. A&M is situated 100 miles from Lassiter then said that he was going to pretend he was a lawyer, and he asked the audience to pretend it was a jury. As “witnesses,” the doctor introduced his numerous quotes. Samples of the evidence that “Operation Abolition” is not a spurious document: Someone saw a student named Carey McWilliams Jr. at the riots. As everyone knows, the doctor said, McWilliams’ father is editor of The Nation, and has been a participant, he alleged, in the communist movement. J. Edgar Hoover thought the riots were communist-inspired. The mayor of San Francisco at the time of the riots, who said “I was an eyewitness to most of the scene,” thought they were communist inspired. One of the founders of the ACLU said he had read the Communist Manifesto in 1905 and “accepted its social analysis ever since.” John Pemberton, president of the ACLU, advocates abortion and infanticide, claimed the doctor. An investigative committee once said “90 per cent of the ACLU’s efforts are in behalf of communists.” Another such report said the ACLU was a communist front. Another such report claimed the ACLU had Stalinist leanings. Summing up, Lassiter claimed anywhere: 100 miles from Houston, 100 miles from Austin, 100 miles from Waco. It is situated at College Station, a post-office town with faculty suburbs. Four miles away is Bryan, a drab town that was always moribund and which died away when the federal government pulled its airbase a couple of years ago. ‘Post Oak’ Land The terrain is level and monotonous. The main campus is on what is called “post oak” land, a belittling judgment that it is too poor to grow anything but post oaks. From a distance of half a mile the campus buildings resemble very literally a thriving honor farm. Critics sometimes refer to its as “Sing Sint. , on the Brazos.” Except for one or two buildings constructed recently including the chapelwhich show some architectural imagination, the lines of most of these buildings are square and utilitarian, sometimes referred to as “early W.P.A.” Centering the campus is the socalled academic building, topped by a dome that looks very much like half of a giant toilet float. On top of the dome isnot a statue or flag pole, but a bare light bulb. Aggies used to periodically shoot this light out, but they have tired of the sport in recent years. Inside, the academic building is painted penal gray. On the third floor, occupied by the English department, bad prints of old “masters” line the walls. For many years these were literally scotch-tapedfrom the frontinto their frames, but recently they were re-framed, and look tolerably well, except that some Aggie has circled the penis of Adam in a Michaelangelo print, and a heart and arrow has been penned onto the buttocks of a fat goddess in another print. One of the central classroom buildingsBagley hallwas originally an old textile school. The outer brick walls are sturdy enough, but the walls between classrooms are not, and one classroom wall still shows the place where a professor kicked a sizeable hole in it to protest the professor in the next room talking so loud. Pigs Over People The Missouri Pacific train that goes right through the campus will stop for a load of pigs or horses or cattle, or merchandise, or to unload them. But human beings must travel 20 miles, to Hearne, to catch a train. But Aggies, after their detractors finish laughing, would remind them that not many of the more polished schools of the land can boastas A&M cana cam pus large enough to include an eighteen-hole golf course and a commercial airport. Continental Airlines lands there four flights a day, two each way. \(The College Station campus covers more than 5,000 acres. The college owns a plantation in the next county of more than 3,000 acres. Other holdings, including the experimental station, bring A&M’s acreA&M owns a new IBM 709 digital computer which, with a companion analog computer, is said to surpass facilities of that kind at any school in the nation except M.I.T., the University of California, and the University of Washington. Also, A&M possesses, in terms of budget and personnel, the largest activation analysis research laboratory in the country, headed by 30-year-old Dr. Richard E. Wainerdi, who now has under developmentand due to go into operation within a montha new activation analysis system. It is the first of its kind ever built, and potentially it will be able to analyze up to one million samples a year. And this year A&M takes under its direction the recently established Gulf Coast Maritime Academy. A&M is thus a strange amalgam of the out-of-date and the very new. Among the more striking aspects of its out-of-dateness is the fact that, though supported by state funds, it bars its doors to the female half of the population. It is reputedly the last major land San Antonio Jaycees List Forum Speakers SAN ANTONIO The San Antonio Junior Chamber of Commerce has announced the speakers for its “Let’s Look at America” forum September 29. They are: Ezra Taft Benson, former secretary of agriculture; W. Cleon Skousen, author of “The Naked Communist”; Fulton Lewis Jr., radio commentator; and Col. Victor J. Fox, author of “The Pentagon Case” and “The Welfare Staters.” The purpose of the forum, the Jaycees state in advance literature, “is to enlighten as many people as possible to the threat we face to the sovereignty of our nation, it’s basic freedoms. The threat, of course, is imperial comreach across the face of the earth, even to our own beloved country.” The literature advises: “If you have children of school age, this is a wonderful opportunity to let them return to school with a knowledge of how the communists operate.” This year’s forum has provoked a considerably smaller controversy than last year’s, when active participation of the Fourth Army brought the project national publicity. ‘WE’RE NOT ISOLATIONIST’ Labor Stake High In Alien Dispute TEXAS A&M FOREVER Army Life on the Brazos