ustxtxb_obs_1967_09_15_50_00014-00000_000.pdf

communities” is well commented upon in an editorial in the Times. Considering, along with the idea of “white civilizing committees,” the surrender by the National Students Association to dictation from black nationalists by adoption of a resolution speaking of “liberation by any means necessary” for Negro Americans, the Times said: “Morally, these concessions are inexcusable because those making them are insincere. A majority of the National Students Association does not believe that American Negroes have the right to seek something called ‘liberation’ by murder, arson, and other terror tactics, though this is precisely what the phrase ‘by any means necessary’ clearly implies . . . Practically, these surrenders to racist and extremist Negro blackmail discredit the oranizations involved and play into the hands of white extremists and reactionaries. If Negroes may use any means they deem necessary, why cannot the Ku Klux Klan and other criminal white groups continue to flout the laws against murder, arson, and terror with impunity?” Dictating the terms of coalition in Chicago the Black Caucus were condescending toward their ostensible colleagues; they were telling them, “We will use you exactly as we wish, and you can like it or lump it.” The others in Chicago who accepted the dictation, thereby at the least failing to object to violence as a method of proceeding, were condescending toward the Black Caucus, too, for one does not accept such arch behavior from friends except in condescension, and the whites were also both willing to be used and to use the Black Caucus by not confronting its demands on honest terms. For another thing, if _another were necessary, which it isn’t the ‘Student NonViolent Coordinating Coingiittee” mailed out last month a violence-promoting newsletter in which, as an aside, Zionism and Jews were roasted with a prejudiced fury. The New Politics Rally at Chicago condemned the “imperialist Zionist” war against the Arabs of recent date, as though there were no complexities, no dilemmas, and no balance in the rights and wrongs of that miserable matter. Merchants in the Negro ghettoes are Jews, \(as well as the existence of some anti-Semitism in the ghettoes is well known. Are we then to be told, \( with pretty verbal disclaimers 14 The Texas Observer FRIED CHICKEN STEAK Sun.-Thurs. 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Fri.-Sat. 11 a.m.-12 p.m. CLOSED TUESDAY Las Casuelas Restaurant “Specializing in Mexican Food” Los Mariachis El Trio Los Amigos Wednesday & Thursday Lee R. and Lucille Zamora, Owners 1816 South Lamar Austin HI 4-5827 certified as unprejudiced against Negroes, we must hate the Jews? To hell with that. We’ve been through that before, at Kiev, at Warsaw, at Buchenwald. In my opinion it is true, as the Times editorializes, that black nationalists are now using methods similar to those used by the Stalinists after World War II. The issue this puts to the New Left cannot be ducked. If acceptance of, or assent to, initiatory violence is the price of coalition with the black nationalists, which as of now it is, that coalition should not be sought or continued. One consequence of paying such a price would be the weakening of the best and most rational leaders among the Negroes. Martin Luther King is right to try to keep the New Left together but to refuse to accept the nomination of a coalition that, yielding to dictation, assents to violence. If American idealists of whatever color go along with this, and white racists then find and take their brutal counter-retaliatory opportunity upon the helpless, innocent, and already terribly exploited Negro citizens of the ghettoes and the South, who shall bear the blame? Not only those who in their rage advocate and commit violence, but also those who, in their anguished desire to do all they can, consent to work in league with the violent. For the same reasons, I am glad if it is correct that Gilbert Padilla of the farm workers’ union refused to participate in the march to the Texas Capitol in which a person alleged to be identified with the advocacy and practice of violence was an announced participant and speaker. The sooner the matter is faced honestly, the better. The longer it isn’t the worse. `Well, Hell!’ Last spring a full-page advertisement was placed in the Austin daily, signed by 150 University of Texas faculty members, asking President Johnson to stop the bombing. This had its impact, and Robert Schenkkan, professor and director of radio-television at the University, began a counter-move to sign up professors of opposite view. He enlisted two others, John Silber, professor of philosophy, and Donald Weismann, university professor in the arts. They did not like Schenkkan’s draft statement and wrote another one, which was agreed on. The letter they circulated was addressed to the President and was accompanied by a request for funds to finance a full-page ad in the Austin paper. It would have said: “Sir: “We, the undersigned individuals, all members of the faculty of The University ATHENA MONTESSORI SCHOOL The new approved school with board includ ing university faculty professors of educa tional psychology, linguistics and education. RED RIVER AT 41ST Call GL 4-4239 or GR 6-9700 of Texas, take for a positive fact your profound concern for a just peace in Viet Nam. Understanding the history of our involvement in Viet Nam we recognize that for us to withdraw would result in the debasement of our commitments not only in Southeast Asia but in Europe and other parts of the world as well. “Considering the complexities and diverse pressures which the Viet Nam war involves, we commend you for your sure sense of a middle course between excessive use of power as urged by those who fail to recognize the difference between pressure and annihilation, and cessation of military activity as urged by those who fail to recognize the character and value of our commitments. “We commend your refusal to be driven from a middle course by those opposing winds. At the same time, we commend you for defending the basic rights of citizens to disagree with the present policy in Viet Nam. “We wish to encourage you to continue the search for peace in Viet Nam in the way you have and which is consistent with our national commitments and our heritage of personal freedom.” The spring whiled into the summer and now it is fall, and no full-page ad. What happened? “Well,” Dr. Silber says, “we got about 95 signatures and money, but as you know we started about April, and by the time letters came back in any significant volume, a month had passed. In that time there had already been a substantial alteration of policy. That letter read that we commended the President for having resisted the hawkish pressures on him. That policy was . . . Well, hell! He’d accelerated that thing to the point of a wide acceleration of the bombing targets, and 200,000 more troops. That made the letter look pretty funny. I didn’t like it myself. We got five or six letters from people who had signed saying, ‘Don’t you think we’d better reword it?’ Don and I decided to junk the whole thing, Schenkkan said send it, and by then we were into summer. We had a disagreement on it. And so we sent the money back.” A lame excuse was given in returning the moneythat the letter to the President had already been published in the Texan, the campus newspaper. More would have agreed to sign the letter, Silber says, if it had been more hawkish in tone. It had been designed, he said, to support the right of the 150 who signed the first letter to do so, as well as to express contrary views. “I must tell you,” Silber adds, “that I still support the President’s policy and will until I can figure out a better viable alternative. Yet, I don’t like it at all. I have never been so horribly torn on a political issue.” He wished we would let the matter drophe hated to have it revived, as it opens woundsalthough of course he realized it was a subject of legitimate curiosiity. R.D.