ustxtxb_obs_1971_01_08_50_00011-00000_000.pdf

-.07-4.4*N044,11. :ate There is no evidence that the parents of the State Sen. Joe Christie announced his intention to introduce a bill creating a full-time juvenile court and to “run with” whatever legislation might be necessary to effect change. “From what I have read and from the statements of Texas Attorney General Crawford Martin reprinted in the Times series, [the procedures involved] certainly do not appear to meet constitutional requirements.” He was supported by State Rep. H. Tati Santiesteban. A sergeant of the El Paso Police Department was further quoted: “The kids are getting the short end of the stick. And when it’s all over and we put [them] back on the street, in many cases there’s no way ever to put the pieces back together again.” A judge of the juvenile board reacted. \(In charge of operations at the home, the board is composed of seven judges paid $325 a month in addition to their regular court records show there was a hearing in cases where there wasn’t one, that sounds bad.” He said that on a recent visit to the home he had seen a child with a puffy, inch-long cut which might have been infected; only mercurochrome or iodine had been applied to it. Already, some effects of Payne’s and Bercu’s disclosures have been felt: The cans which were used for toilets at the home are gone. Orders have been given that court forms will now accurately reflect what happens in each case. But too much remains the same. Importantly, the efforts of attorney Bercu to release two youths on writs of habeas corpus, alleging violation of due process, have been denied. The matter is under appeal. An ’eminent local psychiatrist specializing in children and adolescents offers the following enlightened guidelines for correction of the dire situation: The setting up of a full-time juvenile court presided over by a judge familiar with juvenile problems; the need for recreational activities in the home and its maintenance by fully qualified personnel in an atmosphere that does not suggest the crippling ambience of a prison. In an imaginative and bold proposal that would cost the county nothing, he recommends that qualified psychology majors from the University of Texas at El Paso, on ‘a volunteer basis and perhaps for college credit provide psychological testing to juveniles in trouble, while sociology students, in conjunction with existing social agencies, work with the parents involved. Thus the juvenile court judge would have at his disposal a psychological and sociological evaluation to enable him to handle each case individually. To this might be added the need of a psychiatrist available to the youths. Will all or any of these conditions be changed? Will the furor fade into familiar apathy? Though neither Bercu nor Payne have retreated, the El Paso Times, which bravely and prominently presented Payne’s series and Bercu’s allegations, now sadly gives indications of withdrawing. A young girl, an ex-inmate of the home, makes the following forthright point: “I’d rather be dead than go back to the detention home. The way they treat you, all it does is make you hate.” January 8, 1971 11 Archer Fullingim Is Smartening Up He Doesn’t Want a National Park, Either In answer to Messrs. Mewhinney, A. D. Folweiler, and R. E. Wagoner who advertised that “the Big Thicket is little more than a gullible state of mind,” I say who wants a national park in the Big Thicket? Not anybody I know. What we want is to save at least 100,000 acres and put a high fence around it, enclosing no roads, no buildings, permitting only trails and primitive camping . . .” Archer Fullingim, in the Texas Observer, December 25, 1970 I It would appear that the sagacious and scholarly editor from Kountze is beginning to catch on. That study team from the Department of the y nterior which made a tentative report in February of 1967 did not want a National Park, either. Instead, it suggested what would be classified as a National Monument which would be a good deal less fancified and dudish. This National Monument would consist of nine units of forested land, some of them in Hardin County and some of them would be no tourist hotels inside the nine units, no restaurants, no dude campgrounds equipped with electric lights and hot and cold running water, no gasoline stations, and no booths selling picture postcards. True enough, the study team suggested only 35,500 acres instead of the 100,000 that the editor appears to consider the irreducible minimum wherein he can flee from the effete and sybaritic refinements of Kountze. But the other 64,500 acres might eventually be arranged, perhaps even in Nacogdoches County, which is higher and drier than Hardin County and a much better place for camping out. Hardin County, as I said once before, is low, flat, swampy, mosquito-bit, and full of crawfish. II It somehow seems to have escaped the attention of the editor from Kountze that the Texas Forestry Association \(for which he ‘35,500-acre woodland refuge, precisely as suggested by the gentlemen from the Department of the Interior. The Association sent several of its members to that Senate sub-committee hearing in Beaumont last June to support the proposal. The Association still supports the proposal. I myself would go even farther than that hardy frontiersman Fullingim in keeping those dudes with their automobiles and transistor radios out of the Big Thicket. I suggest these tentative rules: Nobody can enter except on foot or on horseback. Not even a wagon drawn by mules will be permitted. No canned goods, no bottled goods, and no pieces of paper may be brought in. \(This will eliminate beer cans; and that is only in five-gallon wooden kegs. When the keg is empty, just put it on the campfire. These rules will be remarkably effective in preventing litter. IV One point remains to be clarified. The editor from Kountze says he does not know anybody who wants a National Park in the Big Thicket. He must not be getting around much lately. Ralph Yarborough, George Bush, and Bob Eckhardt have all introduced bills for a National Park at one time or another. Mr. Fullingim never met any of those three? H. Mewhinney Secretary, Sam Bass Garden Club Route 3, Cleveland