ustxtxb_obs_1967_08_18_50_00005-00000_000.pdf

Catholics “in the better-heeled northside parishes,” who were big contributors to the Archdiocesan Development Fund. He believes the “northside bill payers began to wonder about the prudence of contributing to a mechanism that seemed intent on wiping them out.” If this is true, the psychological pressures were every bit as great, according to one of the dissenting priests. He said this kind of pressure took the form of pointing out the bad public relations resulting every time a priest was involved in another labor dispute or arrested, as in the Valley. The church would seem to be dividing the community, and thus getting a “bad name.” Strangely enough, this has become a powerful argument against dissent in San Antonio, which, since HemisFair, has become as imageconscious as Dallas. ONE OF THE priests out of favor with the archibishop said, “The immediate flare-up should be seen in the wider context of building pressures on the archbishop as a result of MexicanAmerican unrest in the Southwest and the role of priests who promote it. It ex tends to Austin, maybe even Washington.” There is some indication that this may be true, since Father Smith was silenced earlier this year after he made a page-one speech critical of Gov. John Connally. Although the archbishop’s relations with President Johnson have always been friendly, he and the President were even affectionate toward each other in an ap : pearance in San Antonio when Lucey said mass for the visiting Latin American ambassadors. It was at this time that Lucey embraced the Johnson policy in Vietnam, causing Father Joseph Dean to say after he had been suspended, “If he could be so definite in his Vietnam standwhich to many is very difficult to support morallyit is very unreasonable that he would not grant the same privilege of being critical to his priests.” The position of the archbishop vis-a-vis Father Smith may be the key to some of the larger issues. AS Smith, once close to Lucey and considered an influence upon him, began to lose favor, the church began to restrict its more liberal activities. Smith, second only to .,Lucey, is undoubtedly the most widebkilown Catholic in South Texas. And it may simply be a coin cidence that each one of the priests involved in job changes, banishments, and suspensions was extremely popular and exerted personal influence over sizable groups within the church. San Antonio would not be the first place where personality and policy have become entangled in the church. Explanations have not been forthcoming from the Catholic Chancery. The only public statement came from Msgr. J. L. Manning, vicar general of the archdiocese, who wrote in the diocesan newspaper earlier this year, “Many innocent people, priests, religious and laity, have suffered deep anguish by what they have read and heard. No human family or institution concerned for the welfare of its members desires to have its private affairs discussed in public. It is for this reason that both the Archbishop and other Chancery officiaN-have thus far remained silent. Is it too much to expect that we be permitted to work out our problems within our own household?” But when that household contains almost half the population of San Antonio, is the family squabble purely a private matter? “Fort Worth’s War on Poverty . Fort Worth Fort Worth’s establishment took a beating last month. Through a combination of local initiative and federal government insistence on adherence to the Office of the war on poverty here, after almost two years of muddling around, may be on the right track. Rumblings of discontent have been like distant thunder for several months now, especially among Negroes, who were supposed to benefit from the program, but were not. They were becoming convinced with every passing day that the establishment-controlled group running the poverty war were -waging less than a holding action. Members of the professional staff were moving on to greener pastures; fel,V replacements were being made. Expensive equipment was purchased at special prices by the health department and the city school system under the auspices of the poverty program, but many people doubted the poor would ever see the equipment, much less get any use out of it. Rumors were rampant that the program would not be refunded. Then in April the Tarrant County Community Council, the United Fund agency that was administering the poverty program through a group called the Comthe 93-member C.A.P. board to nine members, five of whom were on the community council. A howl came up from several directions. The Tarrant County Democratic Women, who had been conducting a study of the effectiveness of the poverty program, called for an investigation by the O.E.O., charging that the smaller board violated guidelines set up to insure representation of all segments of the community, and especially the poor, in run Sue Horn Estes ning the program. A suit was filed in 96th District Court by a local attorney charging the same thing. MEANWHILE, A loosely-organized group of people had discovered an obscure federal program funded in 1966 which allowed groups to apply for poverty money independently of the locally run poverty war for high priority projects such as neighborhood organization. As a was born, a private, non-profit organization aimed at seeking funds for establishment of multi-purpose neighborhood centers in one Latin-American and one Negro neighborhood in Fort Worth with special emphasis on participation by the adult poor in solving their own problems. The uniqueness in the program lay with its board, four-fifths of which was to be composed of residents of poverty areas and one-fifth from other areas in Tarrant county. Every adult over 18 who lived in the poverty areas served by the centers was to be a member of N.A.I. A Negro physician was elected president of N.A.I. and the five other nonpoverty members of the board were picked. Election of poverty area members was planned as soon after funding as possible. Application for some $250,000 in funds was made. As required by OEO, copies of the application for the money must go to the local poverty war officials for comment, but they have no say about whether a program is funded. When the application hit the Community Council headquarters, panic broke out. The powers-that-be and their control were challenged. It had long been known that O.E.O. was dissatisfied with the way the Fort Worth program was set up and particularly with the United Fund agency’s control over it. Such organizations are considered to have a “vested interest” in maintaining poverty. The local papers began to pipe the latest establishment tune that the whole thing was a plot by the Tarrant County Democratic Woman’s Club to gain political control. \(Editor of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Jack Butler, was a member papers cited as evidence the fact that the lawyer who filed incorporation papers was the husband of the club’s president. While the establishment was playing its song in the papers, so-called radical liberal elements who would seemingly be natural supporters of such a program were whispering the same tune through the grassroots level of the Negro and Mexican-American communities. When the charge of “politics” played out, the next step was to accuse N.A.I. of duplicating already existing programs for neighboorhood centers. The papers began to burst at the seams with stories August 18, 1967 5