The Home Front
BOHN, WILLIAM E.
The Home Front By WILLIAM E. Bohn Academic Freedom in Texas October 21 this colon* koodoo* too world. A i i young Army officer reported on who* wu hapV-' pening in tho colleges of Texas. <¦...
...Nor cas the research be limited to physical science...
...But Wanda Wassielevska was not present...
...By murray EVERETT Inside and Out Morconfonio...
...After a fight gets started all sorts of arguments are dragged in...
...For the present everythini seems to depend on the decision of (Governor Coke K Stevenson...
...But the reason given inside Russia is that she is "oversexed and hysterical...
...They glory in whet they are doing...
...No holds are barred and no punches pulled...
...Banners and placards bristled with referenca to Hitlensm The president of the Student Association warned the swarming crowd to observe all the rules of good order...
...The clergymen of Texas are standing by him...
...The Amalgamated officials told him that they had created and supported Amalgamated ALP clubs and that they would not pay further for the upkeep df these clubs...
...I was pessimistic...
...Curran, well known to take stock in praying, rose to speak in favor of political action...
...headache...
...One of the first men to speak up on his behalf was his pastor, the Rev...
...and the ALP The American Labor Party has sent out a letter to the autonomous Amalgamated Clothing Workers Clubs ordering them to dissolve and join the regular district organisations of the ALP...
...Hillmon...
...The pastor objected strenuously to having the freedom of such a man interfered with...
...This action, taken with Hillman's consent, we are told, signifies that Marcantonio and Hillman have come together again and are seeking to solidify their forces for the mayoralty elections...
...Anything else seams ridiculous to them...
...But the fellows on the other side—our side—are real Texans too...
...ronng Texas Takes a Hand b UT it is the young Texans who especially rouse my admiration...
...They here good organisation and strategy glrtofaj by good sense...
...And here is a surprise for you Northerners...
...This means that its credits would not be recognized by the other educstional institutions of the country...
...They don't try to sneak round and hide their progressive Opinions...
...It must lead education, sat only through its high professional training and 'li#ialw of collected knowledge, but by reaching out and fiaftat new and untried ideas and knowledge...
...A university they explained, is not just a professional training --heal or a glorified highschool...
...I have just been reading the (He of the Dotty Texan, the students' newspaper...
...They go into this fight for academic free speech just as they enter rodeos, football games, and the Woodier battles la Europe aad out on the Pact*, They carry on with a triumphant whoop...
...They attended the meeting and sat quietly while labor was lied about...
...The Religions Angle One of the first charges made against President Rainey was that he talked too much...
...But ttw floor mike was poorly adjusted, and it kept slipping down...
...Some of them resigned after President Rainey was ousted...
...Governor Stevenson is responsible for the others...
...They were told that the general office of the ACWA would continue to contribute to the ALP...
...The regents not long ago took the backbone out of their tenure clause...
...Sociological, economic and governmental methods must be examined for their efficiency in the world of today and tomorrow— not the world of yesterday...
...What th* Urgent* meant wa* that the Preiident was saying thing* which they did not want him to Bay...
...Here you have the issue...
...J. Frank Dobie returned from a year as visiting professor at Cambridge University, England, just in time to get into the fight...
...Thoae things, then—tbs research, and the teaching, the finding and the telling-make up a university...
...said that the Regent* were trying to build a Maginot Lin* round th* Vnivertity to keep out idea...
...And he did it with loud cries and a vocabulary that is just about the best in the country...
...Then, over the public address system, just loud enough to be heard, came the soft voice of the CIO president: '"Tell 'im to get down on his knees!'" • ? • The Wandering Wanda TllIS story was first revealed by Edgar Ansel Mowrer, but it bears repeating...
...Then a delegation of leaders of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Joint Board reached Hillman and reminded him of his promise that they would work with the ALP only during the Presidential election...
...And this has put the democratic-minded Amalgamated officials in a dither, for it puts the ACWA membership under the jurisdiction of the Communist leaders in the local ALP clubs...
...Rainey is...
...Added to this, the Curtis Publishing Co...
...From the Detroit Wag*-Earner: "The CIO is chuckling over an incident which occurred at the Chicago convention, involving Joseph Curran, noted pro-Communist president of the Maritime Union...
...This was no mob...
...The trouble really stems from the dsyi when Psppy O'Daniel occupied the governor's chair, lie appointed some of the backward-looking regents...
...But freedom of speech about labor problems is one of the things basic in this struggle...
...On the basis of this series of events the Association of University Professors entered the picture...
...As a result, its paper has been slashed so hard that it probably will be off the newsstands for three months here...
...And it is true that the reasons why the board is fighting President Rainey are various and complicsted...
...The professors are excited...
...The faculty and the president stood up for the right of free speech...
...Rainey was not hurt last night: Democracy was dealt a body blow by as bloody a bunch of fascists as ever waved a swastika or boiled Hitler...
...That's where the fun comes in...
...Two professors of economics decided that this lie was a bit too raw...
...But the poor fellow appears to tie badly scared by the dilemma he is in...
...Blake Smith, Minister of the University Baptist Church...
...Professors With feckfioaes You can see that I like this fight...
...In October they editorialised on What /• a Univiriityt And thn went right to the bottom of the business...
...If he had been boosting the Chamber of Commerce or the Manufacturers Association, they would have raised his salary...
...Rubber plsnt, the elections were boycotted and a pro-Communist elected...
...The preliminary publicity played up the idea that labor was working only 40 hours a week while soldiers were fighting and dying without sny time-limit...
...When this business started I said to myself: This is just another of thoae old stories about the professor and the board...
...They wrote a letter to the papers exposing it...
...Th» students are fighting the regents because they want this kind of university...
...The congress charge that both men are completely unfamiliar with the problems...
...In March, 1942, the anti-labor fanatics were carrying on a campaign throughout the state...
...The regents asked the university faculty to investigate...
...The present status of our democracy is not good enough...
...The New England Fsrm, Labor and Small Business Congress, in which the CIO and AFL are represented, has attacked the President's nomination of former Governor Hurley and Lt...
...For months before the actual showdown the stadsst editors ran articles explaining the issues...
...the board always wins...
...I have taken an interest in a dosen or more of such sob-stories of American education...
...Th* students are fast gaining the support of the graduates...
...and the Esquire Publishing Co...
...H« talked pf professors of Economics sad Sociology who were boa tea and cowed and turned into harmless and hopeless pedagogues...
...But that hat all...
...It contains heartening staff...
...It is open and above-board...
...Hillman reproached them for taking the "Social Democratic line...
...But, having read what the students and ex-students have done, I feel fine...
...The Lobar Angle It is strange that the labor press has paid so little sttention to this thing...
...One of the professors writes me thst the faculty is supporting the president unanimously...
...That is, the governor will settle the whole matter by appointing reactionaries or liberals to the board What he will do 1 cannot pretend to know...
...Dr...
...And it appears thst she is in momentary disgrace with Stalin...
...The regents are the booses...
...Suvorov, she reminded the Soviet Marshal, was the Czarist general who put down the Polish independence movement in blood, and the order of Suvorov was an insult to any Polish patriot ,Stalin, displeased at this protest, ordered Miss Wss-Vielevska into political eclipse...
...have filed suits charging infringement on copyright...
...Tho whole affair has become national news, and the greatest—or, at any rate, the largest—state in the anion is roused from one end to the other...
...On November 2 eame the news that President Homer Price Raincy ef the University ef Tessa bed been fired by the Board of Regents...
...Telegrams and letters are coming in a growing stream -—especially from university men in the armed forces...
...Wanda Wassielevska, the first head of the Uniojfcof Polish Patriots in Moscow, has been strangely absent in the last months from th» activities of the Lublin Committee...
...I came up from reading it with a new picture of the great touthest state...
...In their final statement they were joined by Fagg Foster...
...On June 28, the regents fired the three men...
...Just after Dr...
...They can hire or fire at will...
...When I read that I began to wonder whether time is standing still...
...It falls far short of satisfying the aspirations of the human heart...
...This was denied them...
...Trouble is brewing in the Rubber Workers Union again...
...Matt Smith's MESA has moved in, adding a jurisdictions...
...They advertised a "We Want Action" meeting in Dallas...
...He explained in a radio broadcast that the university president is "practically a clergyman himself," that he teaches a Sunday School class and is devoted to church activities...
...All night they had been busy over their plans...
...This is the reason: Stalin decided to decorate General Berling, the head of the Polish auxiliaries to the Red Army, and stated that he would be awarded the Order of Suvorov...
...To them university professors are nothing but hired hands...
...The terms of three others come to an end very soon...
...At the recent CIO convention, Mike Quill and Joe Curran cornered Hillman and asked him about the rumor that he was pulling out of the ALP...
...Afterward they sent to the papers a statement in which the whole crooked business was laid bare...
...On November 3rd, 6,000 of them marched on"thi State House...
...There is no such mumbling hypocricy as wa often see here in the East...
...Heller to the Surplus Property Board...
...With the mat*, rial changes in the manner of living must come, aha, the non-material or social changes, the changes of attitudes and feelings and customs...
...And, pointing his finger unmistakably, he continued: "There is a big capitalistic element in this country . . . that has its" eyes in the back instead of in the front of its head...
...The whole demonstration was carefully planned and carried through...
...It would be impossible to calculate how many times this statement has been made about wide-awake and lively university men during the past forty years...
...They state their case plainly...
...They are not taking anything lying down...
...Then they asked for a chance to address the meeting...
...That is the sort of Christian democrat Dr...
...The immediate upshot of these stirring events is still hanging in the balance...
...He stated flatly that he was not...
...Rainey spoke of a revolution going on in connection with the war and then explained: "This revolution is the result of a set of powerful ideas which, in the last 150 years, have been received and accepted by the masses of the peoples of the world as the objectives and goals of modern life...
...My qusetion is: What does labor have to say about this affair...
...The particular speech which the regents could not (stand wss delivered here in New York on September 20 at Christ Church...
...Whether President Sainey goes or stays, in the end the new Texas will lick the old Texas...
...President Rainey and most of the other university men involved were born and bred out there...
...Rainey was trod—that was on November"!—Blake Smith said: "Dr...
...Because wildcat strikers were disciplined in the Detroit U.S...
...fa Me Labor World The UAW is scheduled to begin its no-strike referendum shortly and thfe predictions are that the rank-and-file will vote to rescind the pledge...
...Its secretary, Ralph e. Himstead, announced that if the three men were not reinstated the university would be placed on the blacklist...
...Chairman Philip Murray, eyes twinkling, stood patiently waiting while Curran vainly struggled to fasten his mike at a point level with his face...
...These ideas are the promises contained in the basic tenets of Christianity, Democracy and modern science...
...Miss Wassielevska, hearing of this, went to Stalin and made a vehement protest...
...Don't the AFL and the CIO care what happens to men who are on their side...
...Recently, according to an issue of Pravda received here, a Congress, of Polish Writers nas, held in Moscow with 100 writers present...
...The leading regents are unblush-ingly reactionary...
...Capsule Headache tlie pocket monthly Magazine Digest which started out in slam-bang style to compete with the Reader* Digest has run into a concentrated capsule of trouble...
...They trumpet them out boldly...
...These two men who went about their fight with so much restraint and composure were Wendell Gordon and W. N. Peach...
...The monthly, which prints in Canada, although 80 percent.of its 400,000 circulation is in the United States, was fined $10,000 by the Canadian Price Board for violating its paper quotas...
...One crack after another is delivered straight to the jaw...
Vol. 27 • December 1944 • No. 51
