ustxtxb_obs_1962_11_23_50_00003-00000_000.pdf

Slur on a Jew Reverses Case An item from the current human relations newsletter of the Houston headquarters of the Anti-Defamation League of B’Nai B’Rith: “The 10th Court of Civil Appeals excusable’ a Lufkin attorney’s jury argument in a civil damage suit in which the lawyer referred to a physician witness as ‘that Jew.’ Because of that reference and remarks impugning the integrity of an opposing attorney, the Court ordered the case retried. “During the final arguments, the injured man’s attorney remarked, ‘. . . he is an old hand at the job, that Jew is. Is he a good doctor, or is he looking for the $250 an hour on the witness stand? And trying to keep his name on the payroll of these insurance companies . . “Chief Justice Frank G. McDonald wrote in the Court’s opinion reversing the decision, ‘The argument was improper . . . it was an appeal to racial and religious prejudice in language clear and strong. Moreover, it tied racial and religious prejudice in with the charge that he [the doctor] would falsify for money.’ McDonald cited a higher court ruling which declared that ‘Cases ought to be tried in a court of justice upon the facts proved; and whether a party be Jew or Gentile … is a matter of indifference.’ ” THE TEXAS OBSERVER ‘Page 3 November 23, 1962 Regents Are Cc, For Koeningeris STATE C.D. CONFERENCE ‘Sir, Have a ti shot,’ pointed out that there is a good chance that. people won’t have anyor only a few minutes’ warning time,, in which case evac uation would be impossible. But if there were plenty of time, then the cities could be evacuated. In what kind of situation would there be several hours of warning time? Garner wasn’t sure, but perhaps a “strategic alert” would be given by the government when it became obvious that war seemed only hours away. He was also unsure where evacuated refugees would go. He admitted that there wouldn’t he enough shelters in the outlying areas to house local residents, much less evacuators. “Hopefully,” he said, “we would evacuate into an area without radioactivity.” He said that although it was his own opinion. and hadn’t been corroborated by experts, he felt the weather bureau could chart the direction and speed of radioactive fallout clouds, and people in cars could dodge about the country, keeping out of central areas to avoid fallout. Another common attitude among delegates was that any hope of disarmament was out of the question and that Civil Defense was the only answer to the dangers presented by the arms race. Bill Parker, director for Region Five, encompassing Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico, said, “This thing of Civil Defense is not just here today. It’s going to be here for all tomorrowsfor many generations to follow.” His advice: “Put your trust in God, but keep your pow High Noon At Hiccup “Amen!” someone yelled. Johnson stooped down and placed his hands upon the detonator. “You can’t outbluff me this time, Jones!” he said. Jones, in turn, clutched the handle of his detonator. “Don’t think I’m going to back down!” he said, his voice trembling ever so slightly. “He’s just bluffing,” one of the Johnson crowd scoffed. “Show him who’s boss!” a Jones man shouted. “Down with atheism!” someone else cried. “Give me liberty or give me death!” several people shouted in chorus. In the interest of historical accuracy, a group of scholars came to Hiccup a few days after the explosion to determine who had won the war. Of the town itself, little remained but a shallow crater. However, there remained at several miles’ distance from the crater an area in which the scholars found an occasional brick, a piece of steel, or a part of the human anatomy. All this debris was carefully collected and labelled, and after much investigation, it was decided that the remainder of the Jones faction had a clear edge over that of the Johnson faction. Of the former group, 21 pieces of buildings, 13 human fingers, three arms, a leg, and a 39-cent ball point pen remained. Of the latter, 14 pieces of buildings, seven fingers \(one with a smashed D.P. helmet were that was left. It was, happily, a decisive tory for the forces of God. der dry.” John Hickman, Jr., of Grand Prairie agreed with this. “Disarmament is out of the question,” he said. “Russia wouldn’t dare lay down its arms with Red China in the picture.” R. A. Simms of Terry County was less pessimistic, however. Although he felt that “we’ll have to concentrate on Civil Defense rather than disarmament,” he thought that the latter should be worked for seriously. The Shelterless Officials Glen McLaughlin of the Department of Public Safety spoke at length on the new emergency operating center under construction for D.P.S. use. It is an elaborate shelter designed to withstand the blast of a 20-megaton bomb at three and a half miles. It was pointed out, however, that the center would not house the higher echelons of the government. McLaughlin “understood” that plans were being considered for a similar center to house the governor, department heads, and other important officials, but no definite blueprint, he said, had been decided on. His own center will not be completed for another 15 or 18 months. One of Garner’s most distasteful tasks was announcing, with embarassing frequency, that important governmental figures who had been scheduled to speak to the conference had backed out. Austin’s mayor, Lester Palmer, was the first not to show. Then McLaughlin apologized to the delegates for his chief, Homer Garrison, who also could not make it. On Tuesday it was learned that John Winters, state welfare commissioner, was sick. Gov . Price Daniel had been unavoidably detained out of town. \(His substitute, Sen. Culp Krueger, was late, made a hurried extemporaneous S. Perry Brown, chairman of the Texas Employment Commission, sent a substitute and his regrets. Towns and the War Of all the problems to come up in discussion, the one that seemed to stir more emotion than the others was that of small towns and rural areas. There were several complaints that only the cities were getting any help in their programs, and the small towns were being by-passed. One delegate pointed out that before a building could be surveyed by the Corps of Engineers to decide if Wednesday morning, on page 20, adjacent to the want ads, the Austin American-Statesman offered its readers the head shown above and the story reprinted in full below: “Directors of Texas Civil Defense turned homeward Tuesday night after concluding one of the most vigorous civil defense planning conferences since the annual conventions began three years ago. “Some 500 persons from every major geographical location in the state attended the two-day session at Stephen F. Austin Hotel. “Directors heard a number of state and federal civil defense experts and attended lengthy discussion groups relating to key areas of civil defense. “Those attending heard Dr. J. E. Peavy, state health commissioner, say Tuesday that Texas is probably ‘better prepared for dis it could be designated as a shelter and stocked with provisions, it had to have a “protection factor” of at least 20 \(that is, it would allow inside only one-twentieth of the radiation that would building in our town that even qualifies to be surveyed,” he said. “What about us? Can’t we get any help?” The discussion leader said that the answer was no, at least for the present. It was also suggested by some delegates that the whole program in Texas was topsy-turvy. The cities have buildings in their downtown area designated as fallout shelters and the small communities have none, but in a nuclear attack most probably the cities would be targets and hence the shelters would be useless, while in the small communities, where a shelter program would conceivably be of value, there would be no shelters. A delegate was afraid that the 1,000-calorie-a-day diet which a fully-stocked shelter would provide would not be considered sufficient by a lot of people. “And a lot of them would undoubtedly try to get more than their share. Have you ever tried to diet on 1,000 calories a day?” “Take the case of a building shelter,” another man said. “In the basement, you have a protection factor of 100. Fine. You’re stocked with food for two weeks. But up on the sixth floor, which is also designated as a shelter, the proctection factor is only 40, so it’s not stocked. Before long, the people upstairs are going to be trying to get into the basement to get some food. Are we going to keep them out?” A booklet handed out at the conference contained examination questions for a medical self-help training course. It succeeded in picturing some of the real problems a nuclear war would entail. Among the remarks and questions were these: “To treat an abdominal wound, where the intestines are protruding, the proper procedure is” “If an infant is vomiting, you should” “During the first three days following a nuclear attack, what would be the best procedure for disposing of human waste?” “A first consideration in treating a penetrating chest injury, where air is being sucked in and out through the wound with each breath, is” C.D. refugees from surrounding states in case of war. “The current biologics stockpile specifics for prevention and treatment of all types of diseases that might follow in the wake of nuclear blasts or other types of attack is adequate for any known disaster, Dr. Peavy said, but added that in his opinion the stockpiling must continue for some time to come.” The commander of the Army Air Defense command was in Dallas this week and declared that “The United States has no defense deployed today against a missile attack.” The commander, Lt. Gen. William W. Dick, Jr., was interviewed by the Dallas News Wednesday on his arrival to tour batteries of the 4th Missile Battalion that has batteries at Alvarado, Terrell, Mineral Wells, and Denton. Gen. Dick, who returned recently from the Pacific where the The legislature was asked to give college teachers the same legal protections for their political activities as citizens which the legislature gave public school teachers in 1961. Koeninger attended the censure session but had no comment. He was not a delegate, though the T.S.U. chapter of T.A.C.T. was represented and joined in the censure vote. The delegates from Sam Houston State wanted the censure of Dr. Lowman, their president, deleted. Making the motion, Dr. Elton M. Scott, professor and director of Sam Houston’s department of geography, said for the Sam Houston T.A.C.T. chapter, “We are loyal to Dr. Lowman.” Dr. David Miller, professor of philosophy at the University of Texas, obviously spoke the concensus of the delegates when he replied that as a member of the professional standards committee of T.A.C.T., he had thought a great deal about whether to inelude Lowman in the censure and concluded: “I feel very strongly that Dr. Lowman was derelict in his duty and that he should have stood between his faculty and the board Death Pen& Foes Tell Plan AUSTIN The legislature will be the scene of another drive to abolish the death penalty in 1963, according to the Texas Society to Abolish Capital Punishment, which also announced that its membership “more than doubled” in 1962. The society Saturday in Austin re-elected John Silber, professor of philosophy, chairman and Dr. Robert Hausman, Bexar County medical examiner, vice-chairman. It was announced that a team of lawyers has drafted a new abolition bill that will include “particularly strong provisions for natural-life confinement of prisoners not responding to rehabilitation processes. “Those serving a substantial minimum term could be considered for parole only after thorough testing and careful examination of prison records and recommendation by a board of prison officials. The Board of Pardons and Paroles could then consider a parole application and, as now, would have final determination,” the society said. Silber said he has noted a close correlation in the states between educational and mental rejections for military service, on the one hand, and the rates of homicides, on the other. Dr. Rupert C. Koeninger, professor of sociology at Texas Southern University, gave a report on research on the death penalty in Texas he is doing on behalf of the society. anti-missile missile, Nike-Zeus, is being tested, predicted that this weapon could knock down jet bombers of the kind the Russians are withdrawing from Cuba but predicted that it will “be some time” before an effective system of knocking down enemy missiles will be operational. “It’s not something that will come tomorrow.” Gen. Dick said of the danger of a nuclear war starting accidentally, “That possibility is not suffi ciently probable to give me any worry