ustxtxb_obs_1970_10_16_50_00024-00000_000.pdf

populism and soft-pedal your militant stand on race.” What militant stand on race? When the Observer too frequently uses the Kluxers’ six-letter profanous word for Blacks. Although it may describe Uncle Toms and shufflers it is used too much. . . . Sidney Craft, 4655 Travis, Dallas, Tex. Shapiro concurs Sen. Charles Wilson’s letter in the Sept. 18 Observer is entirely correct in declaring that he was not “slipping advice” to the Democratic Rebuilding Committee. All that Senator Wilson did was call me. and encourage us to issue a press release on the firing of Dean John Silber. This was two days after the Dallas Morning News of July 30 had carried in a page 1 article our release stating that the Silber dismissal was “typical of the purge tactics which go hand in hand with the one-party system.” As Senator Wilson noted in a letter which he sent me, “the Rebuilding Committee does not want or need assistance from sell-out, establishment liberals such as Wilson.” Dave Shapiro, Democratic Rebuilding Committee, P. 0. Box 1782, Austin, Tex. 78767. Author responds It was no surprise that Sylvia Meagher \(Obs., “Investigation of a Homicide The Murder of John F. Kennedy,” since she is known to be a violent critic of the Warren Report and of anything which supports its conclusions. But it is assumed that The Texas Observer seeks objective criticism, and Mrs. Meagher’s closed mind obviously disqualifies her from such a position. I challenge her statement that my book is “an unvarnished apologia for the Dallas Police Department.” The inference is that I 24 The Texas Observer was asked or commissioned to write the book as an “image builder” for the Dallas police, which is completely untrue. In fact, the Dallas Police Department refused any official cooperation or assistance. My sole purpose in writing this book was .to give a reporter’s account of an untold story in the assassination the story of how the Dallas police, who had full command of the investigation, found the man who shot the president and built their case against him. In so doing, I chronicled their mistakes as well as their accomplishments. If they sound like heroes, as Mrs. Meagher suggested, it is the facts which produce that interpretation, not any editorial puffery on my part. Her nitpicking about what she calls “errors” hardly justifies comment. Everything in my book is based on accounts given me by the individual police officers who were involved. Since they were there, I believe they know better what happened than do Mrs. Meagher, the other critics of the Warren Report, Lyndon Baines Johnson and, yes, even the Warren Report itself. Judy W. Bonner, McClain, Fletcher and Bonner Public Relations, 1726 National Bankers Life Bldg., Dallas, Tex. 75201. Liberal Fault I found your lead article on “KERA’s Newsroom” to be interesting, well-written, heartfelt, and a masterpiece in terms of insight to the liberal mind which is often incapable of organizing priorities and, after all the rhetoric is over, truly despises the masses \(who, ironically, compose a substantial segment of “life” that the liberals love to gush on about, as per Elroy True, it appears that the Establishment was at work in the KERA incident, but, Lord, liberals try to cover the waterfront on every discrepancy in human affairs, and thereby so diffuse their efforts that they are unable to focus any meaningful attention on an individual matter and get something done. A six-page article on a closed meeting of the Dallas County Commissioners Court where admittedly nothing of consequence occurred is an example of disproportionate attention to a matter that most people just will not accept as significant relative to the multitude of other more urgent public problems. And in the last segment of the article, the author really has a breakdown in his frantic, frustrated and sweeping condemnation of all of us poor sinners who inhabit this country and globe. Alfred E. White, Jr., 3105 Tangley Rd., Houston, Tex. 77005. Abandoning system As I no longer believe in the system of electoral politics as a viable method for solving mankind’s problems, I have chosen not to endorse that system even to the extent of renewing my subscription to The Texas Observer. Please invite me to resubscribe when politics enables me to transform the people who really affect my life that is, the military generals, the police, the members of the local employment commission, the welfare bureaucracy, teachers, and the profiteers. Keith Finlayson, 1202 Park, Baton Rouge, La. 70802. San Angelo integration The courtroom was full the day the Justice Department and HEW came to San Angelo. The school system had a lawyer paid with our money to speak for them. Well and good, for it was the school that was on trial. The session quickly went behind closed doors and when they came out three days later Carver school was closed and “Texas’ most integrated system was integrated,” according to J. B. Wadzek, school superintendent. True, three chicano schools had been virtually untouched and one Black school True, closing Carver had put the heaviest burden of transportation on those who could least carry it, and little 6 year olds were faced with 1.9 miles of freeway, railroads, and drainage ditches. Citizens came out to pool the kids to school and parents screamed to the school board. The school board promptly passed the buck to the court order that forbade bussing, but they failed to mention that it was they who had forced the no bussing order. It was they who had opposed the sharing of the difficulties of integration by refusing to accept the government’s plan to pair eight schools. When informed by one lady that “it is just as far one way as the. other,” Mr. Parrett, school board president,’ replied, “Can you imagine how many parents , I would have on my back if we had paired the schools?” He must’ve also realized that those parents would have been white and influential. The school board was asked, “But don’t you think there are any problerris with the racially unbalanced schools as they are now and something should be done about it?” No came the reply. No when blacks and browns hover in scared little groups at Central High School and mingling is rare. No, when there are , still two senior dances, one for the chicanos and one for the seniors. No, when blacks and browns drop out of high schools like flies, maybe because their schools are different. But such is the reply we can expect from a school board that had allowed a “free zone” so that white children would not have to go to black Carver. Larry Underdonk, 2613 Yale Ave., San Angelo, Tex. 76901.