ustxtxb_obs_1962_11_23_50_00005-00000_000.pdf

41 RAVI_ HERE A QL10TE FRoM AMBASSADoZ STEVEI4Sal…* IDEALISTS AND A FREE MOVIE Mississippi Dereliction MARSHALL As with most riots, the casualties of the Oxford, Mississippi, outbreak of September 30 far outnumber the two men who lost their lives and those who were injured. The latest victim is the dignity of the Mississippi judiciary, as embodied in the person of Hon. Walter M. O’Barr. Use of the charge to a grand jury as a political implement is not new. We have known it in this country at least since the times of the alien and sedition laws, when partisans such as Judges Addison and Iredell toured their circuits spewing venom and Hamiltonian doctrine in this very guise. Some judges in Texas use it upon the opening of most terms of court as a poorly camouflaged plug for their own political fortunes. No matter the low esteem in which Judge O’Barr holds the President and his “stupid brother Robert Kennedy,” he charged his grand jury in language that was designed to exculpate the rioters at expense of those who tried to enforce the law. When he told his inquisitors that “Any man . . . who is responsible for creating a situation, the ultimate outcome of which is the killing of a human being in direct violation of law, should be indicted and tried,” he lumped the gun manufacturer, the innocent victims of the mob, and officers of the law with the assassins. This is not the law, even in Mississippi, but it was not surprising when it turned out that the grand jury so charged indicted a marshal instead of a murderer. When some hungry shyster is caught chasing an ambulance, one sees the organized bar rise righteously and cry for his scalp, if not his head. In times past the insurance companies were ready to furnish investigators, or even direct money contributions, to advance such praiseworthy defenses of legal ethics, nor has the bar, in every instance, refused the aid. If an attorney reflects upon the dignity of a court, he is fast on his way to jail. If he includes scandalous or scurrilous matter in his pleadings, it is stricken, likely as not with an emphatic thump on his noggin by a dignified judge. Why, then, should a judge be permitted to refer to the Kennedy family as did Walter Mr. O’Barr, circuit judge, and go on to say that the Constitution had been “shorn of all meaning by a diabolical political Supreme Court made up of political greedy old men who are not qualified to serve as a judge of any court”? The Mississippi bar has as much power to discipline a judge for misbehavior as it has to punish one of its ordinary members. The judiciary has its own code of ethics; it is inconceivable that this code would not condemn Judge O’Barr’s conduct in this instance. Why, then, has the Mississippi bar failed to protest it? Why, for that matter, was it necessary for businessmen and others not members of the legal profession first to protest the action of lawyer-Governor Barnet? The crime of silence on this subject outweighs the impropriety of Judge O’Barr’s comment. To what low estate a once noble profession has fallen ! FRANKLIN JONES An item that keeps popping up in the back of our head as we listen to the worldwide reports of the mounting crisis: We will keep remembering the words of President Kennedy at that White House luncheon we attended 11 months ago along with 18 other Texas publishers. The President had sat white faced and unmoving as Ted Dealey, publisher of the Dallas Morning News, read an insulting tirade against the Kennedy administration in general . AUSTIN Fourteen members of the Christian Faith and Life Community at the University of Texas two weeks ago attended a showing of “The Manchurian Candidate” as guests of Interstate theaters. In doing so, they left behind two Negro members, Mary Simpson and Jim Shelton. After the viewing there was an “art-form discussion” in which the movie was considered in light of its relevance to modern Christians and their ethics. News of the Community episode caused a minor stir among U.T. student integration leaders because of the Community’s almost 100 percent participation in the theater stand-ins in 1960-’61. Miss Simpson, before moving to the Community, had been a leader in that movement. The standins began at the University-area theaters and resulted in their integration. The downtown theaters, at one of which the “Candidate” viewing occurred, were left out of the negotiations when Interstate asked for time to make progress without pressure. So far, none has integrated. The Rev. Robert Bryant, resident Community minister, made the decision to attend the segregated showing after consultation with students and staff. “I thought to check only at the last minute to see if the Negroes could go, and they couldn’t,” Bryant said. “Of course this does not mean a change of racial policy at the Community. It was 6:15; we had a group ready to go with guests present and with all our plans made.” Bryant called Pericles Chris of Interstate, a former participant in Cornmunity lay affairs who had extended the invitation for the free move. Chris told Bryant that the downtown theaters were still segregated and thus not open to Negroes in the group. Miss Simpson was the only Negro planning to attend the showing. Shelton, like many of the 33 white residents of the Community, had made other plans. However, none of the white students planning to go changed plans when told that Miss Simpson was being left behind. Jacksonville Daily Progress: Stanley Woods, legislative representative of the Texas Landowners and Independent Oil and Gas Producers Association, had this to say: “We are being made the Number 1 goat of the nation because we are made to bear the brunt of the foreign oil imports.” He says if the state doesn’t do something about it, the federal government will be forced to act. Recent revelations in the slanted oil well inquiry have caused many to be concerned about the Texas Railroad Commission as a whole. There is the general feeling that the commission, instead of representing the interests of the people, is concerned only with the welfare of the oil and gas companies and the railroads. Actually the Railroad Commission was created to represent the people, to keep the railroads in line. The oil industry was added, but often it appears the interests of the people generally are overlooked as the commission seeks to follow whatever may be the wishes of the big corporations. Texas needs to take a careful look and in particular the action taken thus far against Cuba. His voice hot with anger, the President replied: “If you think I’m going to sit here in this chair with the lives of 180 million people riding on my shoulders and not explore and exhaust every avenue that might avoid pushing the button you have another think coming. And if you don’t like it, Mr. Dealey, you had better find yourself another President.” James Roberts in the AndrewsNews Bryant, after talking to the students planning to attend, then took the decision to Mary Simpson. “I was about to finish my dessert when Bryant called me outside,” Miss Simpson said. “He talked awhile about integration in general and how everyone at the Community felt. He also said that he didn’t think Mr. Chris went along with segregation personally. He told me that I would be unable to go along but they thought it would not do any good to take a stand since we were invited at no charge and it would not hurt the theater anyway if we protested.” Miss Simpson said she did not feel it was up to her to suggest a boycott of the showing. Miss Simpson indicated that at first she feared this represented a charge in the Community’s attitude toward segregation. But every member of the Community interviewed felt that this was not the case. At a discussion following the incident, John Glen, a student, said that one just could not object to the Friday night program. “We have a covenant to participate in those programs,” he said. Terry Weldon, another student, said it would not have been proper to object to the program with guests present. “We shouldn’t show our dirty linen to our guests,” Weldon said. Bryant stressed that as far as integration was concerned, attendance was an individual decision. A student who wished to remain anonymous then added, “If we were going on a Saturday hike and one member of the Community had a physical disability and couldn’t go we certainly wouldn’t cancel the hike.”. But he added that “the analogy of physical disability cannot be carried all the way. It would be a cruel comparison.” The Rev. Jack Lewis, Community founder and the man who opposed Mathews, said the segregated program would not happen again. “The staff has already decided that. The decision to go was made at the last minute,” Lewis said, “and it was just an isolated incident.” Have organizational changes at the at the Railroad Commission and its scandal-ridden history. A new system, something like the Texas Highway Commission, is needed. The Texas Highway Commission has never particularly considered itself as the commission to see that highway contractors make the most money, but to see that good roads are built at fair prices without waste or graft. A railroad commission which would take the same viewpoint would be helpful in Texas. For too long the allowable for oil has been based on what the oil companies of Texas want, not a fair share of the nation’s demand. It is pointed out that while Texas has 57 percent of the nation’s discovered oil, it does not get that percentage of the production. Conditions of the world being what they are, it is natural that companies having both domestic and for Community affected its zeal on social issues? The firing last spring of the Rev. Joe Mathews and the subsequent resignation of six other members of the Community’s collegium of minthe result of internal stress caused only by Mathews’ avant garde theology. When Carol Darrell, a student in the Community, was asked if the Community’s attitude toward social action had changed, .she said it had. “Last year there was a stress on involvement in every area of our living. You took a stand and you let it be known. There was a much greater sense of need to redeem our culture,” Miss Darrell said. A girl from East Texas, who said she feared economic reprisals against her parents if her name was used, said, “The difference is that this year no one is jumping up to tell us we have an obligation to march for peace.” Did the staff do this last year? “No, mostly students. We don’t have those kind of students this year,” she said. Miss Darrell said the staff used to act in a different way. “They simply brought the matters up for question, particularly Mathews and Warren. There’s none of that this year,” she said. “But mainly it’s the students. They are more interested in academics. In fact, they are more representative of the average college student.” When asked if any of this was a conscious revision on the part of the present staff, she replied it was. “For one thing none of these staff members has ever been a student here. They can’t be as involved. Bryant told us last week that we should not be interested in P. T. Barnum stuff but in a consistent study program. Involvement is not primary but tangential,” she said. Practically every member interviewed emphasized his support of the new program. Most agreed they wouldn’t be going to any more segregated movies as a group, however. H.W. eign supply would want to get all they can from foreign production, while keeping domestic production low or in reserve. This, however, is unfair to the royalty owners and the small independent operators. It is unfair to the tax structure of Texas, too. From the Jacksonville Daily Progress, Nov. 20. Wrong Direction The decision of the Texas Commission on Higher Education recently to ask the legislature to double tuition at state colleges and universities is a not unexpected move. We hope all politicians concerned with higher education in Texas will adamantly oppose it. In a democratic society desperately in need of all the trained talent it can get, the trend should be in the other direction lower tuition rather than higher. Doubletake A shrewd point in the Bowie County News: “Former Vice President Richard Nixon ought to be having some second thoughts about newspapers after his televised political burial by Howard K. Smith, Alger Hiss and others on the controversial ABC program. [He] ought to reflect again on the following remark from his embittered valedictory: ” ‘It’s time that our great newspapers have at least the same objectivity, the same . fullness of coverage, that television has: And rcan only say thank God for television and radio for keeping the newspapers a little more honest.’ ” . And Not to Forget Mr. Dealey… Majors Prevent Texas Production