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- \-- FOE ..- • EDITORIAL • ...=:::'- - \AI- HE PEOPL „ _ - $ ,_,_ , c- _-_- tP _ c---, P144C)RIE _ ____ a,m , — ion. p 1 ii , / _ The President's pivi ...„..._ ..,.._ ,___ ...... 74e, ------Z ---- -1.4 / n o __ , 1 i t — ----- 411 ' 1'11 ' III' 1 11111i1 -s----"--- ' — ' i lil l'il gli jr , Nose -1-_---- - ,:--- .1.-1

_..:.. ..._ 7, ___,.. - _ ...._ HEN, ON AUGUST 24, President Reagan told an Atlanta radio station that South Africa has "eliminated the segregation that we once had in TEXAS W sERvER our own country," a bemused national press began asking

© The Texas Observer Publishing Co., 1985 what the President had meant. What was he saying when he said "the type of thing where hotels and restaurants and places Vol. 77, No. 18 7-42-. F September 13, 1985 of entertainment and so forth were segregated — that has all Incorporating the State Observer and the East Texas Democrat, been eliminated"? Surely this contradicted all empirical which in turn incorporated the Austin Forum-Advocate. evidence. Enter White House spokesperson, appropriately named PUBLISHER Ronnie Dugger Larry Speakes, to tell us what the President really meant — EDITOR Geoffrey Rips that in major cities there had been "a step in that direction ASSOCIATE EDITOR Dave Denison to remove barriers of apartheid." CALENDAR EDITOR Chula Sims This is not, of course, what the President had said, but EDITORIAL INTERNS: Dawn Albright, Hanno T. Beck, Richard Kallus this is what we are told he had meant to say. This sort of EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD: Frances Barton, Austin; Elroy Bode, Kerr- ville; Chandler Davidson, Houston; Bob Eckhardt. Washington. D.C.; Sissy thing has happened before, but coming on the heels of Reagan Farenthold, Houston; Ruperto Garcia, Austin; John Kenneth Galbraith, Cam- crony Jerry Falwell's "Tutu is a phony," it met with a press bridge, Mass.; Lawrence Goodwyn, Durham, N.C.; George Hendrick, Urbana. resistance unusual for the Reagan years. Once the press, III.; Molly Ivins, Dallas; Larry L. King. Washington, D.C.; Maury Maverick, Jr., San Antonio; Willie Morris, Oxford, Miss.: Kaye Northcott, Austin; James however, had pointed out the glaring discrepancies between Presley, Texarkana, Tx.; Susan Reid, Austin; A. R. (Babe) Schwartz, Galveston; the situation in South Africa and Reagan's assertions, even Fred Schmidt. Tehachapi, Cal., Robert Sherrill, Tallahassee, Fla. after doctored by Speakes, they never returned to consider CONTRIBUTING WRITERS: Warren Burnett, Nina Butts, Jo Clifton, Craig why Reagan had said what he'd said. Clifford, Louis Dubose, John Henry Faulk, Ed Garcia, Bill Helmer, James Harr- ington, Jack Hopper, Amy Johnson, Rick Piltz, Susan Raleigh, John Schwartz. Michael Ventura, Lawrence Walsh. CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS: Alan Pogue. Russell Lee, Scott Van The Administration apparently believes Osdol; Alicia Daniel. CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS: Mark Antonucci°, Eric Avery, Tom Ballenger. Reagan's ability to deliver a line will Jeff Danziger, Beth Epstein, Dan Hubig, Pat Johnson, Kevin Kreneck, Carlos Lowry, Miles Mathis, Joe McDermott, Ben Sargent, Dan Thibodeau. make almost any assertion palatable, A journal of free voices no matter how nonsensical. We will serve no group or party but will hew hard to the truth as we find it and the right as we see it. We are dedicated to the whole truth. to human values above all interests, to the rights of humankind as the foundation of democracy; we will take orders from none but our own conscience, and never Reagan's South Africa statements point out all too clearly will we overlook or misrepresent the truth to serve the interests of the power- that on most major issues the President knows not one iota ful or cater to the ignoble in the human spirit. whereof he speaks.. He begins with a simplistic worldview Writers are responsible for their own work, but not jr anything they have about Communist aggression (if there is trouble in the world not themselves written, and in publishing them we do not necessarily imply that we agree with them because this is a journal of free voices. it must be Communist inspired) and U.S. supremacy (which approaches a divine right), and into this near-vacuum dribbles Managing Publisher Cliff Olofson the kind of information probably received by Texas House Advertising & Development Director Dana Loy Speaker Gib Lewis in the country clubs of South Africa or Subscription Manager Stefan Wanstrom by Jerry Falwell while praying with the white leaders of Consultant Frances Barton Pretoria. Editorial and Business Office Reagan's "Ich bin ein Afrikaner" statements are clearly 600 West 7th Street, Austin, Texas 78701 the work of chief White House propagandist Pat Buchanan, (512) 477-0746 filtered through the dark recesses of Reagan's understanding.

The Texas Observer (ISSN 00404519) is published biweekly except for a three-week inter- Apparently the belief in the Administration is that Reagan's val between issues in January and July (25 issues per year) by the Texas Observer Publishing ability to deliver a line will make almost any assertion Co.. 600 West 7th Street. Austin, Texas 78701, (512) 477-0746. Second class postage paid at Austin. Texas. palatable, no matter how nonsensical. This time, with so much Subscription rates, including 5 1/8% sales tax: one year $23. two years $42. three years media time and money already invested in the South Africa $59. One year rate for full-time students, $15. Back issues $2. prepaid. Airmail. foreign, group. and bulk rates on request. Microfilm editions available from University Microfilms Intl., 300 story, it didn't work. So Larry Speakes was rushed in for N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106. one last try to sell the Reagan position in its somewhat modified Copyright 1985 by Texas Observer Publishing Company. All rights reserved. Material may form and limit any damage. not be reproduced without permission. It was much the same situation with the President's nose, POSTMASTER: Send form 3579 to: 600 West 7th Street, Austin, Texas 78701. wherein Speakes initially said that a growth was removed with

2 SEPTEMBER 13, 1985 no basis in fact, and Reagan probably doesn't know that. But that doesn't matter. He can say these things with such conviction and with tangible, all-American details — dining rqom table, 6 feet high on a football field — that to question him would be a cynical act. Instead, the press waits for Speakes to come on to explain that Reagan has a very large dining room table. "In July 1980," Dugger writes, "Howell Raines of the New York Times asked Reagan incredulously: Had he really once said the progressive income tax was spawned by Karl Marx? 'Well it was,' Reagan replied. 'He was the first one who thought of it.' " Can the advocacy of so-called tax reform by a man believing this receive much credence from the media? It does. As governor of California, Reagan told wood producers, "A tree is a tree, how many more do you need to look at?" A lie, a distortion, a fabrication is a lie, distortion, fabrication. The media might be asked: How many more do you need to see before making informed disbelief the proper position from which to analyze the President's nose? G.R. from "Washingtoon"© 1985, Mark Alan Stamaty. Reprinted from The Village Voice with permission of the artist. CONTENTS no anaesthesia, then blamed the doctors for his inaccuracy and corrected his earlier statement, obviously intended to portray the operation as minor and the President as Rambo.

HERE IS a loose cannon in the White House. It is FEATURES a propaganda machine with little concern for the truth. 2 The President's Nose Geoffrey Rips T It has always been present in that strange conjunction of the affairs of State and Ronald Reagan. The question is, 4 Observations Ronnie Dugger why does the press so rarely call Reagan's bluff? 6 Enjoined Endeavor Banning Lary The most cursory gambol through Ronnie Dugger's On Reagan (McGraw-Hill, 1983) reveals decades of Reagan 7 Invasion of the Classroom James Ridgeway bluster and no understanding. In 1968, upon the death of 8 Post-Industrial Texas Dave Denison Martin Luther King, Jr., Reagan said that King's death "was a great tragedy that began when we began compromising with 10 Beaumont Health Strike law and order and people started choosing which laws they'd Has Broad Implications Regina Segovia break." (Undoubtedly, had Larry Speakes been around, he 13 The Second-Class Care would have explained that Reagan meant that if King had Stephen Phillips stuck to weddings and funerals he would still be alive.) of Medicare and Jennifer Stoffel 17 The Sanctuary Movement How many more lies must the President tell Defense Richard Kallus before the press regards his every word with skepticism? DEPARTMENTS 5 Dialogue Following disturbances at the University of California at Santa Barbara in 1970, Reagan told a meeting of California 15 Political Intelligence growers that militants want to "prove this system of ours, 21 Social Cause Calendar faced with a crisis, will not work. If there's going to be a blood bath, let's get it over with." To which Speakes would have added: "The President wanted to show these young Books and the Culture: people that the system does work." 19 From Plantation Hollywood Michael King In 1979, Reagan said, "The waste from one nuclear plant in a year would take less storage space than a dining room table. The truth is, all the nuclear waste now on hand and Afterword: yet to be accumulated between now and the year 2000 could 23 Through a Mug Darkly Bill Helmer be stacked on a single football field, and the stack would be only 6 feet high." Now, these assertions have absolutely THE TEXAS OBSERVER 3 • OBSERVATIONS •

crat Phil Gramm has been trying to run anybody really believe that 'Jim High- Not a the Texas GOP, former Governor Bill tower, who may be the most gifted Clements announced that he will run, populist rhetoritician since Huey Long, Closed Book too. will be a pushover next year? How likely Loeffler said Clements's entry will is it that Texans will reach down to the San Antonio not derail his own candidacy, and Hance level of the state treasurer's race to ONSERVATIVE DEMOCRAT responded: "Clements's entering the throw out the first woman to hold publicists and pollsters like race doesn't change anything. I feel I statewide office in 50 years, Ann C George Christian and George have the best chance of being the next Richards? C. Shipley expend a good deal of their Republican governor." But Clements's The free-for-all for the Republican energy trying to persuade Eastern decision changes a lot, and specifically nomination against White is a good thing journalists that there is no future for the for Hance. for the Republicans not only because it traditional liberal Democrats, people Senator Phil Gramm, bidding to shows that the nomination is worth like Kennedy and Cuomo, in Texas. become the state's GOP king-maker, has having, but also because it means "This is not a liberal state," Christian become a mess-maker, instead. First he excitement in a political landscape that told Robert Reinhold of the New York set up the congressional opening in the is altogether too boring. Perhaps the Times. "Democratic primaries are be- First District by arranging a judgeship Democrats will come up with some coming more liberal because many are for the incumbent; then he campaigned excitement in their primary, too, but if leaving the party. It is going to be more hard for Republican Edd Hargett, a they do not, more conservatives will be difficult for conservative Democrats to football star. Hargett spent three times attracted into the Republican voting win primaries." as much as the Democrat, Jim Chapman, places — away from the Democratic "Most disturbing for Democrats," and was handled by the top Republican ones. Next year's Texas politics is anything but a closed Republican book. Shipley chimed in helpfully, "is an political consultants, campaigned for by Vice President Bush, and backed up by increase in Republican Party allegiance among younger white voters." Reagan TV commercials. Yet Chapman won. Christian is right about the trend in Port A. Democratic primaries. The question is Now Gramm has a larger problem than the failure of his scheme for the whether he and Shipley are right about Goos First District. Ron Calhoun, the Texas, and the question about the Dallas Times Herald political writer, reports As we sat at the back of the boat, question is whether it can be settled by trolling in the Gulf for kingfish, the any one election (such as Reagan's 65- that Gramm "has said publicly that he would feel obligated to support Demo- captain, holding our direction from his 35 victory in 1984 or the liberals' sweep driver's seat, cursed . . . he had seen in 1982) or rather is simply the basic crat-turned-Republican Kent Hance for governor next year because he talked a large dark slick, out behind us, gooing political question of the next decade or onto our lines. We were ten miles from two. Either switcher Kent Hance is Hance into switching to the GOP. . . . If Hance runs, as he has said he will, the mainland, six or seven from the right, that the Democrats are now beaches at Port Aransas, but when we nominating liberals who are bound to that in effect would pit Gramm against Clements." walked along those beaches the next lose in November, or Texas politics has afternoon we had to pick our way now broken into a real two-party White beat Clements before and may be regarded as the favorite in the event through glistening gobs of goo. Oil warfare where anything can and does pollution is now so common on the happen. of a rerun, but taxes and state fees have been going up, and people notice that. Texas beaches, it's part of the condition For instance, Hance and Congress- report in the local papers, as in this man Tom Loeffler thought they had the Suppose Clements wins the GOP nomi- nation and then beats White. Where will report in the South Jetty: "The beach 1986 Republican gubernatorial primary is fairly free of debris but tar balls dot contest all locked up for their two-way that leave the Republicans' ex-Demo- cratic U.S. senator, Phil Gramm? the water's edge. Driving conditions race. But traveling around East Texas vary since a lack of moisture is leaving and fuming against the way ex-Demo- Trying to stare down his state's Republi- can governor. some areas of soft sand. . . ." Just as likely, though, White will fight Tony Amos wrote in Port A's Island off whoever the Republicans nominate News last month: "Near the sea-buoy, East Dallas and win his second term. Christian and we passed through an area where thick Shipley may convince outlander journal- blobs of crude oil were 'bleeding' into Printing ists that Texas is a Republican book that the surrounding water to create a typical is closed, but 1986 remains to be seen, oil slick. We had passed an inbound and so does 1988, 1990, 1992. . . . tanker a few minutes earlier and I Company believe that this vessel was responsible Jim Mattox is pundited as for the slick. Unfortunately, I failed to Full Service "vulnerable," but how vulnerable would 1) get the name of the tanker; 2) Union Printing he be if Hance blinked and dropped photograph the slick; and 3) collect a down two levels to run against him? sample of the oil. This lapse was (214) 826-2800 Imagine the fun Mattox would have with unfortunate because the only way to get Hance's declarations of his passionate a conviction for such an act of pollution 211 S. Peak • Dallas, Tx 75226 love for the Democratic Party ; just is to have this kind of evidence. Next before he became a Republican. Does time. . . ." R.D. 4 SEPTEMBER 13, 1985 • DIALOGUE •

Even Richard Nixon ran a more honest Party caution, and again I thank Geof- Immigration draft than either John Kennedy or frey Rips for his comments, and who Lyndon Johnson. I am no fan of Nixon was raised right by a good father and Baloney and was in his first campaign on the mother here in San Antonio. Re: Louis Dubose's article on "The side of Jerry Voorhis while a law student Maury Maverick, Jr. Politics of Immigration," if Dr. Jorge in California. (Jerry died a few months San Antonio Bustamante is, indeed, "Mexico's lead- ago; Godalmighty but he was a good ing expert on migration . ." then fellow.) Tired of certainly any and all U.S. solutions to Why do Democrat leaders let the "outmigration" (I love the cute terms Republicans provide socialism for the Me-Too Democrats liberals can conjure up to replace reality) bankers on their bad Third World loans, It is distressing to read the comments are "doomed to fail." but fear to stand up for democratic of such people as Curtis Rhodes Bustamante maintains that amnesty socialism for the poor? If my old friend, (Observer 12 July) and Stephen W. provisions in U.S. proposals "would Ann Richards, wants to call it "Jesus Spurgin (Observer 2 August 85). have Mexicans admit guilt when they Capitalism" or whatever then that's fine have broken no law." Baloney! Any with me, but substantively she and other What these people don't seem to illegal alien has broken a law--you can such leaders have to start telling the understand is that the country and the argue the virtues of the law, but that truth. Democratic Party are in the shape they are in because the liberals and Demo- doesn't erase the crime while it is on Why does the leadership of my party crats are not radical enough. Why do the books. remain forever silent about our country you suppose such a small number of the relentlessly and endlessly offending one The good Dr. says guest-worker eligible voters voted, and why was there billion Moslems in this world because provisions would make Mexicans pay such a relatively small number of people of Israel? I am a member of a leftwing taxes "to a system of social welfare who took the trouble to make themselves Israeli organization and know that there programs from which they would re- eligible to vote? Simply that the masses are vibrant debates in Israel, but why ceive no benefit." I can't believe he said of people did not see that the Democrats can't there be one in the Democratic that! Or believes it. He ought to check presented any real alternative. Party? Our country is in trouble; the how many Mexicans or their families Mondale's proposal of higher taxes are on welfare rolls in this country. truth must be told. certainly did not endear the Democratic As for the rest of the obvious anti- Why are so many Democrats in party to people on welfare, those U.S. tone of the article, why doesn't Congress voting for measures which struggling just to get by, etc. more and more tend to drive Nicaragua Mexico just be honest and come right The high point of voter turn-out came in the direction of the Soviet Union and out and admit she is never going to during the New Deal years, when it was away from Thomas Jefferson and Frank- forget or forgive San Jacinto. But then evident that what was being done was honesty is a very rare trait down lin Roosevelt? for the benefit of Joe Blow and Jane there. . If the Democratic leadership, national Doe. Thomas E. Turner and state, is going to abandon its historic We can see this in the efforts to get Waco sense of justice and understanding of this black voters out. The rejection of Jesse world in revolution, then it deserves Jackson by the party certainly alienated Third Party opposition, both in Texas Losing for the blacks, and the results of my wife's and nationally. activities in voter registration showed Wrong Reasons When I was a little boy during this. As far as I am concerned, Geoffrey Depression days, I remember going with No, what we need is to be bold, to my father, Maury Maverick, to cam- Rips hit the nail on the head when he tell it like it is, denounce the Republi- paign among the poorest of the poor recently complained of national and cans and repudiate the Me-Too Demo- Mexican Americans. They sent him to Texas Democratic Party leaders trying crats. Then at last we might get some Congress and years later they sent me to make their party "more moderate and voter turn-out. • to the Texas House of Representatives. Main Street." Harry G. Campbell Yes, it is bad to see the Democratic Papa had a saying that the Mexican San Antonio Party lose across the country and in Americans knew about. "Hey, Maury, Texas, but what is worse is to see it tell us what you are for" they would not only lose, but lose for the wrong cry out. It was time for him to do his reasons. act. OPEN MONDAY-SATURDAY 10-V AND OPEN SUNDAY 10-4 During the Vietnam War I think it "Liberty and groceries, that's what is the truth to say that I was among the I'm for," he would begin, and then add, top three lawyers in the country who "but you can't fill the baby's bottle with WATSON & COMPANY represented the most conscientious ob- liberty. You have to have groceries. But jectors. After about five years of groceries alone are not enough, you watching blacks, browns, and poor have to have liberty. God bless Franklin BOOKS whites being sent to Vietnam while Delano Roosevelt." Then my old man privileged kids went to college, it finally would do a kind of Indian war dance on the stump crying out over and over 604 BIANCO STREET (PECAN SQUARE) 472.4190 f-• dawned on me that my party, the I. •No Democratic Party, was the one which again, "Liberty and groceries!" • • -o- 40,te" vw was getting the "little people" killed. Well, I'm tired of all this Democratic THE TEXAS OBSERVER 5

morappritalirl000miome), required a few brief strokes of the censor's pen. The Post article said the Joint Endeavor cost too much and that the print shop was overburdened. The Walls Enjoined Endeavor Print Shop, as efficiently managed as it is, is always overburdened and By Banning Lary maintains a work flow of hundreds of jobs all of the time. Important jobs always get printed first, and it was a standing rule that the Joint Endeavor As of September 7, the Joint Endeavor, the smoldering controversy about what wait for an opening on the big remains suspended. TDC spokesperson is really happening inside Texas prisons, Heidelberg press to constructively Phil Guthrie told the Observer that and Vines is all but obsequious in utilize a slack period. No one has ever Director Lane McCotter will rule on its presenting his views. The same article minded. In fact, last year the magazine fate in the next few weeks. — Ed. was scheduled to be printed in Vol. 10, was consolidated into a quarterly No. 2, of the Joint Endeavor, an issue schedule from bimonthly in the hope of Austin that apparently will never see print. coming out on time. HEN THE administration of But why should TDC officials tolerate "All printing costs are covered by the Texas Department of a publication that might sometimes advertising revenues and W Corrections (TDC) decided it present a perspective contrary to their subscriptions," said Editor-in-Chief was time to close down the inmate liking? After all, the producers of this John T. Sullivan. "And the books are criminal justice magazine, the Joint publication are just inmates, aren't they? kept in order should there ever be a Endeavor, they did so very quietly. The They have been convicted. And they are question." But when the books were editors and writers for the award- serving prison sentences for their presented for evaluation, the only word winning quarterly knew something was crimes. to trickle back involved intended amiss when ready mechanicals were John Adams, the second President of reimbursement for what was to be detained for two months without a word. the United States, had an interesting unfilled subscription and advertising But it wasn't until they read their epitaph view of the press. He said, "The agreements. in the Houston Post (6/27/85) that they preservation of the means of knowledge realized their ten-year publishing history Last year, in the American Penal among the lowest ranks is of more Press Competition held by the School had come to an abrupt and unexplained importance to the public than all the end: "The Texas Department of Correc- of Journalism at ,the University of property of all the rich men in the Southern Illinois at Carbondale, the tions confirmed Wednesday that the country." system has canceled publication of a Joint Endeavor magazine walked away magazine produced by prison inmates with 17 individual certificates of merit, . . . Joint Endeavor, a slick quarterly the most of any prison publication in publication, was killed by TDC officials Why should TDC officials the United States. The Joint Endeavor who claimed it was costing too much." also placed third overall in the magazine tolerate a publication that category behind first place WYNOT The ensuing publicity, however, magazine, another publication put forced new TDC Director Lane McCot- might present a perspective together through the dedicated efforts ter to reconsider his earlier decision. As contrary to their liking? and hard work of Texans behind bars. this story goes to press, TDC staff is reviewing the status of Texas pride penetrates even into the dark Joint Endeavor. recesses of prison. Besides "costing too much," TDC Idealistic? officials had cited "the fact that the TDC The people putting these publications Of course. Mr. Adams was well together do so mostly on their own time print shop was overburdened." The Post aware of the significance of grassroots reported, however, that editor Michael with no reward other than the sentiment, and his notion nobly satisfaction that comes from writing Vines, known within TDC as an embraces all citizens—including those articulate analyst of apparent inequities, something of value and seeing it in print. errants who, are paying for their mistakes If the TDC administrators don't want "indicated the magazine was canceled in prison. To exclude them would be because prison officials did not like what a story to run, all they have to do is to undermine the entire concept of censor it. No sane inmate will deny the the writers were reporting." Vines's freedom of the press as it has been recent two-part article in the Observer, right of censorship to the management interpreted in this country. of the institution in which he is "A View From Inside" (5/31 and From Thomas Jefferson we may 6/28/85) was just the latest addition to incarcerated. observe a straightforward and practical What is wrong with poetry, fiction, standard: "Printing presses shall be encapsulations of printed news from Banning K. Lary, U. T. journalism subject to no other restraint than other sources, humanistic and reform- graduate and former writer and art liableness to legal prosecution for false minded articles expressing ideas that director for the Joint Endeavor, served facts printed and published." may be necessarily provocative? These for 15 months as editor of The Echo, So, was the Joint Endeavor are the subjects that comprise Joint the inmate newspaper of the Texas responsible for publishing false facts? Endeavor's format. It seems that men Department of Corrections. He has won No complaint of this nature (or any in prison should be lauded for their several American Penal Press Competi- other) was ever brought before the efforts with the pen rather than tion awards as well as being co- winner editors, and had there been a question chastized. Writing has long been known in fiction in PEN's 1984 prisoners' about any of the material slated for to be an effective and constructive outlet writing contest. publication, it would have simply for tensions and energies that could

6 SEPTEMBER 13, 1985 otherwise be channeled into violence inmates, whose work culminated in a But the basic issue remains the and destruction. It would seem logical short film and published book. "Lions, Constitutional rights of free speech and that any enterprise with hope of reducing Parakeets and Other Prisoners" was a free press —as long as the material prison violence would be expanded by first place winner among educational presented is responsible to the truth. the administration, not curtailed. films at the American Film Festival in Should these rights be denied, even to The best example of a successful New York last year. Writer's Block, a those errant citizens serving time in the writing program inside TDC were the Texas prison anthology, has just been state penitentiary, truth and justice can writers' workshops sponsored by the printed and will soon be available in hardly be considered as having been Windham School System and Texas book stores around the state. These rightly served. As former U.S. Supreme Commission on the Arts and organized projects result from properly directed Court Justice Hugo L. Black stated in by Austinite Grady Hillman, who served inmate energies, projects that bring the July 2, 1945, New Republic: as TDC's writer-in- residence. This two- favorable recognition to Texas and "Freedom to publish means freedom for year program involved hundreds of Texas prisons. all and not for some." Invasion of the Classroom By James Ridgeway

Washington will.concentrate on state universities and colleges to begin with, according to EED IRVINE, president and Irvine, in part because AIA auditors founder of Accuracy in Media won't stand out in large classes that (AIM), Inc., is launching a new R consist of students of all ages. group called Accuracy in Academia (MA) to root our "disinformation and Malcolm Lawrence, a 60-year-old misinformation" in the college class- retired foreign service officer who room himself ran a private secondary school While MA doesn't say so, the hope in Switzerland and now is an education call up university newspaper editors. We of its founders is to save students of a activist on the right, is to be AIA's will get reading lists from a number of liberal bent from the clutches of Marxist president. He is the author of the professors, where these are available. professors with their fake postulations "Parental Consent Letter," a form letter Essentially the appeal is for people who and secret agendas. Students and senior that parents can send to local school are located in university towns who have citizens are to be recruited across the boards stipulating that the parent must the time and the inclination and who country to take or audit liberal arts give his or her consent before the school want to support AIA to look into courses at nearby colleges, then send in curriculum can include any one of 35 whether they can audit courses free of to MA tape recordings or notes of a different issues, including evolution, charge." professor's statements. If MA deter- family income, sex attitudes and beliefs, "Will the auditors challenge the mines the information is incorrect,. then or even courses on world hunger. Two professors?" Magraw asked. it will directly approach the professor million copies of his form letter have been distributed by various right groups "They would," Lawrence said. asking for a rectification. If refused, the "Let's say an ex-foreign service officer group will publicize the "errors" in since January. The Moral Majority, existing campus publications or in its Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum, and Pat own newsletter. Robertson's 700 Club all have distrib- AIA will probably tap into a growing uted the letter. Currently he cohorts a conservative student network, compris- two-hour weekly radio show concerning ing 50 or more college newspapers and education on the Contact Radio Net- various student activist groups, includ- work, an affiliate of Christian Broad- ing the College Republicans and Stu- casting Network. He was a consultant (TARP N INN) dents for a Better America. for the Department of Education, suc- cessfully lobbying in Congress for the "Since young students may not have Hatch amendment, which requires pa- STAY ONE NIGHT AND the knowledge or the time to carry out rental consent on a range of subjective this function as carefully as would be issues from politics to religion. THE NEXT NIGHT IS desirable, we are asking mature adults to volunteer to enroll in courses near "How will you recruit students and HALF-PRICE auditors?" my colleague Katherine their homes to serve as auditors for except Friday & Saturday Accuracy in Academia," says the blurb Magraw asked Lawrence in a recent for the new project, adding, "If funding interview. "Person to person," Law- permits, we will pay expenses, including rence replied. "And we will probably (512) 749-5555 tuition, for the volunteer auditors." MA work . . .with some young groups on P.O. Box 8 campuses. We might hook up with the James Ridgeway's columns are a regu- Young Americans for Freedom. And Port Aransas, TX 78373 lar feature of the Texas Observer. there are other groups. We might just THE TEXAS OBSERVER 7 is taking a course for full credit in Lawrence continued, "If, for exam- political science and has worked for 30 ple, a professor can use certain data to Editor's Note years as a political officer in half a dozen prove that the Communist system is The August 27 Daily Texan carried posts around the world, and he doesn't better than American democracy and a story in which Greg Davidson, believe something he has just been told. that we should tear up our constitution executive director of the Young He can challenge the professor in class. and follow the model of some of the Conservatives of Texas, says mem- Now, if he doesn't win his battle, he Eastern European countries, then we bers of his organization "will monitor may get a D or flunk the course. He might question the basis for some of various classes to determine whether would go into the course with the full these conclusions." the presented material is knowledge that he is going to try and "I would think this would get tricky `unbalanced.' " They will later re- get an honest discussion going. If he since the role of a teacher is to port unrectified unbalanced teaching finds 50 or 60 incorrect statements made interpret," Magraw said. "I would to Accuracy in Academia. in the course of a month or so, he may suspect that most of the complaints you What is meant by "unbalanced" ask for coffee with the professor and get aren't about facts, but are about and "accuracy"? "Marxism is a then tell him he is auditing or monitoring interpretation." fallacious lie," Davidson explained the course for AIA. .. . "We can quickly weed those out," to the Daily Texan. "If they're in "Reed Irvine has said there may be Lawrence replied. "I mean, Reed Irvine there teaching Marxism, they're 10,000 or more Marxist professors on is on the board and he has been dealing teaching a lie." campuses around the country," Law- with the media for 16 years. I think he On August 28, Davidson and rence continued. "The source for that has avoided lawsuits in all that time. We another representative of Accuracy in know that we can't just go after is U. S. News & World Report, and I Academia were scheduled to appear don't know what their source was. We someone's interpretation of something, on the Access program of the Univer- do know that there are some self-avowed but if it's an out and out misstatement sity of Texas radio station, KUT, Marxists. Somebody called me today of fact ...I mean we aren't going to with Jim Harrington, legal director and said Angela Davis is teaching at the go chasing anybody." of the Texas Civil Liberties Union, University of Virginia." Lawrence said AIA currently is and me to discuss the Accuracy in soliciting support from conservative Academia agenda. Davidson and (There is an assistant dean of students foundations. Contributions from Accu- colleague refused to appear, saying called Angela Davis at the University racy in Media supporters (35,000 sub- they had not been told that other of Virginia according to the university, scribers receive the newsletter) is ex- viewpoints would be represented on but she is no relation to the activist pected to help. So far $20,000 has been the program. G.R.

Angela Davis.) raised. ❑

Farther up the road, workers in the Panhandle city of Hereford have seen a vital industry leave their town, too. Swift Independent Packing Co. of Post-Industrial Texas Chicago closed its slaughter plant June 15, "terminating" 490 employees. The company has no plans to reopen in By Dave Denison Hereford — Swift is reeling from the decline in the red meat industry and the shrinking of the nation's cattle- herds to Austin ple. And, in the end, the town was left a 23-year low. "Economics has closed OR SEVENTY YEARS the West to get by on its own, the way many it," Swift spokesman Bill Dillman says Texas town of Post was an "Rust Belt" towns in the Midwest have of the Hereford plant. "We never did F industrious and generally pros- been left over the last few years. make any money with it." perous place, running pretty much, one "It's a pretty hard blow when you The Swift layoffs caused a two-point might imagine, the way C.W. Post have 403 people receive dismissal jump in the county's unemployment envisioned it. Using part of the fortune notices in a town of 4,000," says Lewis rate, according to Mike Carr of the he had made in the cereal business, Post Earl, the manager of the local Chamber Hereford Chamber of Commerce, who built a town in the heart of his quarter of Commerce. Earl, who worked for the says that between 75 and 100 workers of a million acres of ranch land and set Department of Labor in the Johnson are still looking for a new job. The up a cotton mill to give the town a strong administration, admits he may not be Texas Employment Commission (TEC) economic base. a typical Chamber of Commerce leader. says unemployment in Deaf Smith But ever since the cotton mill closed He has a difficult time hiding his County is at 14.9 percent. two-and-a-half years ago, the town's disapproval of the way Burlington The ills in Post and Hereford are taste of model industrialism has gone Industries left Post. He even wonders shared by much of West Texas, as the a little sour. C.W. Post's aversion to aloud if the plant might still be open oil industry and the farm economy unionism carried over to many succes- if the workers had been unionized — continue to suffer, and as the bad times sive generations of Post workers, yet, maybe they would have been more in the meat and textile industries when an out-of-town company decided "alert" to what was to come. What has compound the problem. But there are to close the mill in early 1983, some happened in Post suggests to him that signs that unemployment in Texas is workers resented not having a voice in Texas is not immune to layoffs and now becoming more than a regional the matter. To one, it was like a break- shutdowns and runaway plants. "As we problem and that the crunch other states up of a family. To another, it indicated become more industrialized, we may as have felt since the 1980 recession has a corporation's tendency to see its well get used to the fact that these are caught up with Texas — perhaps for workers more like machines than peo- things we can be expecting," he says. good. The Texas unemployment rate 8 SEPTEMBER 13, 1985 went higher than the national rate this Nottommimmuswaimmowdwmpr summer — the first time that's happened 11■11■111.1111111111111111111/MWAVAVAI since 1970, when Texas unemployment wimilonammiffirmvArr rose to 4.4 percent. Texas faced 7.7 percent unemploy- ment in July (the figure is not seasonally adjusted) compared to a national rate of 7.4 percent, according to Tarrance Trayland, an assistant chief of economic research at the TEC. Trayland says the occurrence was "a seasonal blip" in 1970, but that the rise in the rate "indicates something more substantial now." One way it is more substantial is in the number of places it is hitting. The traditionally depressed Rio Grande \ • Valley is worst off, with unemployment at 21.1 percent. But the Gulf Coast "Golden Triangle" area has, over the last few years, joined the Valley in chronic economic doldrums. Texaco laid off 1,400 workers from its Port Arthur refinery last spring. Levingston Shipyard, once the largest employer in Orange County, now sits idle, having sent several thousand workers packing. Armmisisialrat*r.), Dresser Ideco, a drilling manufacturer don't think a lot of these industries that if the North Carolina-based company in Beaumont, is down to 350 employees are laying off will ever employ to the made every effort to find alternatives from a 1982 high of over a thousand, levels they did before," says Randall to closing. "I think they could have kept and the company plans to close the entire Keeling, an assistant chief of economic it open," says Larry Don Johnson, a Beaumont operation by the end of this research with the TEC. "They are former supervisor of the sewing and year. Many of the jobs lost in the oil having to get lean and mean. This is packing operations. "I think they could industry, especially in refining, are not something that is going to be with us have made a transition over to something expected to come back. from now on." else." Lewis Earl, the Chamber of The hard times in the oil industry And just as some industries have been Commerce manager, says that in the reached deep into East Texas in 1982, lured to Texas by low wages, they can years before the closing at Post the new when Lone Star Steel laid off 3,000 easily look elsewhere in times of technology that was going into workers because of reduced demand for economic contraction. Haggar Apparel Burlington's operations was being put their primary product: steel pipes for the Co. closed its two mens' slacks factories into the North Carolina textile mills, at oil industry . The steel plant is now in Waxahachie and Corsicana on August the expense of the mill at Post. "These operating at half strength; meanwhile the 29 at the cost of 400 Texas jobs. To kinds of decisions can always be made unemployment rate in the nearby Long- compensate, the company intends to by non-home-owned companies," Earl view-Marshall area stands at 10.6 increase the output of its apparel plants says, suggesting that one of the problems percent. in South Texas, Mexico, and the at Post was that the key decisions were And now the cooled-down economy Caribbean, company president Joe made far away from the community they has put a chill into the high tech Haggar, Jr., told the Dallas Times affected. industries. The Dallas area has been hit Herald. The newspaper reported that the Earl is one of five board members with 5,300 high-tech layoffs this year, average hourly rate for apparel workers of the Post Economic Development including 2,600 at United Technologies' in the Caribbean is 50 cents, compared Corporation, a non-profit group that is Mostek Corp. in suburban Carrollton to the $7 hourly average in the U.S. seeking a new corporate tenant for the (500 more were cut off in late August). plant. There are problems. The "needle Dallas-based Texas Instruments an- URLINGTON Industries still op- trades" all seem to want to stay near nounced layoffs earlier this year„ and erates a textile plant in Sherman, Dallas, Earl says, and "the companies National Semiconductor in Arlington B but as far as the operation in Post that I'm after that are doing expansion has been slowing down production, as goes, the company is gone — and gone are doing it in Mexico." City manager the slump in the semiconductor industry for good. Although most textile indus- W.G. Pool says the city tried to get wears on. tries are claiming that foreign competi- General Motors interested in locating its Texas is by no means seeing the kind tion is doing them under, a Burlington Saturn plant in Post, but the plan didn't of economic decline that has visited spokesman says that was only a "slight" get far — and neither have some other some parts of the Midwest. Despite the factor in closing the Post mill. The attempts to lure smaller businesses. A high tech layoffs in Dallas, for example, primary reason was a reduced demand recent disappointment was seeing a new the unemployment rate there is still low for the muslin sheets and pillow cases Walmart moving into Plainview, a town at 5.2 percent. But it is undeniable that that were made in Post. The newer to the north of Post. "We had contacted the depressed oil industry has altered the polyester products have crowded the those people, too. We didn't land 'em face of the Texas economy and raised muslin products out of the market. — Plainview got 'em." Earl says the new questions for Texas workers. "I But some former mill workers wonder cotton mill closing has at least made Post THE TEXAS OBSERVER 9

iambOft I kij residents begin to think about in Durham, N.C., Redman says, and heart attack shortly before the closure, "managing our own destiny." "I don't Post workers ended up getting roughly says he holds no grudge against the expect us to ever get one industry that the same wages and benefits, without company and is happy with his retire- would dominate the whole town again." having to throw in for union dues. In ment plan. The shutdown at Post has slipped into time, most of the workers took the But Larry Don Johnson has a different the distant past for most of the state — attitude that "we can speak for our- attitude. He says his unit in the mill was it never gained much attention in the selves, what do we need a union for?" "like a family — we discussed every- Texas press — but it raises questions Redman remembers. Unionization thing," and the shutdown broke all that important to the future of industry in turned out to be "something that nobody up. "They had bitter feelings about it," the state. And if unemployment is here paid any mind to." he says of his fellow workers. "I'm kind to stay, perhaps it provides a glimpse In a similar way, talk of a worker of embittered about it myself." Johnson of the economic future. buyout of the plant in 1982 was easily says he was unemployed for a year and How long can Texas workers depend dismissed. "There was some talk about a half after he lost his mill job, and on general prosperity or the good will that here at one time before the plant finally ended up taking a job at a of a company to look after their shut down," says Redman. But the convenience store for $4.50 an hour — interests? How might they gain a workers, mostly management people about half of what he made in the mill. stronger voice in decisions that affect with roots in Post, saw little chance of John Redman detects something dif- their livelihoods and their communities? raising the $4 million the company was ferent in the attitude of some companies What is in store for a passive labor force asking. "It never did get off the toward the workers these days. in times of economic hardship? ground," he says. (But after the corpora- "Anymore, you're just a number. That's The cotton mill at Post was, of course, tion was unable to find a buyer, it ended getting more true every day," he says. not unionized. John Redman, a 28-year up donating the plant to the Post "They've lost the fact that you're a veteran of the mill, remembers only one Economic Development Corp., accord- person and not a machine." time when there was serious talk of a ing to Lewis Earl.) And yet the workers in Post — like union, and that was "back years ago Earl says Burlington was a "good many laid-off workers in Texas — have — I mean a lot of years ago." Stretching corporate citizen" in Post, albeit with accepted their economic fortunes his memory, he places it in the early a "paternalistic corporate attitude in stoically. "They didn't like it, but why 1960s, shortly before Burlington bought many ways." But still, he is surprised get mad about it?" asks Redman. the mill from the Eli Walker Company. there is not more ill feeling toward the "There wasn't anything we could do Burlington had a unionized textile plant company. Redman, who retired after a about it." ❑ absorb a beating just as the representa- tion wins are beginning to mount." Beaumont Health Strike The union hoped to find fertile ground in Jefferson County, which still has a pro-union reputation. But the timing was Has Broad Implications off. At the same time this union began organizing workers, Golden Triangle By Regina Segovia Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers and craft union leaders were meeting with Beaumont withdrawal," she said, "but we couldn't business leaders in Jefferson County. The established unions agreed to talk HE WOMAN'S eyes dart from live on what they were paying us. We couldn't take a cut." past contract deadlines, the idea being her co-workers, sorting through to keep strikes and picket lines off the T picket signs and meeting sched- These women, concerned with their news wires. When picket signs appeared ules, to Schlesinger's Geriatric Center, personal struggles to keep their yearly in front of the nursing home, the action where she worked until midnight on July salaries of just over $5,000, are also went against the grain of the program 1 this year. She is black, single and the taking a stand for nursing-home and started by the labor-business coalition, mother of three. She walked off her job health-care workers across the state. Planning for Economic Progress. at the Beaumont facility as a medication Theirs is the first strike at a state nursing aide because it was either that or accept home. The union sees Schlesinger Home and a cut in pay from $4.10 an hour to $3.85 five others in Beaumont, as well as "There is no doubt that the result will Baptist Hospital, as a springboard for an hour. "I work because I hate determine whether nursing-home work- welfare," Lisa Ceasar said. "That's the union in the state, despite the local ers will continue to be maintained at disapproval of its activities. The total why I work. I want to earn my own minimum-wage level, or whether pay." Texas membership of 1,500 is a small through our efforts we can raise them," percentage of the 385,000 members Rose Charles, a twelve-year said the local's business agent Rich Hall. nationwide. It includes membership in Schlesinger veteran, also on strike, said The Service Employees International homes in the northeast part of the state. that from her post under the picket tent Union (SEIU) began organizing nursing In a demonstration of its commitment she had listened to a man calling 'nurse' homes here in 1982. The largest health- for an hour. to organizing Texas, the union has care union in the country, with 875,000 embarked on an expensive media cam- "They're like babes themselves; members, is also the fastest growing paign backing the 160 striking workers. they're used to us, and when we left, union in the AFL-CIO. Union members have called on board I know some of them just went into "Let's put it this way. This is not members, patient relatives, and a fight we are prepared to lose," Hall churches. They have also passed out Regina Segovia is a former labor said. "Our union, just moving into leaflets in neighborhoods. In mid-July, reporter for the Port Arthur News. Texas and the South, cannot afford to full-page newspaper advertisements and

10 SEPTEMBER 13, 1985 radio spots, featuring workers telling Beaumont lawyer John Durkay defends prostitutes. But Durkay said that double- their own stories, began wooing the the Schlesinger board's request for pay digit unemployment in the Beaumont community. The union has flown in cuts with the argument that the home area has allowed the home to find a new support personnel from the North and lost $1.3 million. Durkay has made this qualified staff. East to help shape strategy. claim to the press but will not bring it "We put an advertisement in the SEIU Assistant Union Field Coordi- to the bargaining table because then he paper, and we had 900 applications nator Susan Eaton said it is no secret would face a full audit of the nursing within two days," he said. The state the union cannot afford a loss. Speaking home's books. health department confirmed that all from her Washington, D.C., headquar- "I can't defend the wages they ters, Eaton said, "We feel these workers make," Durkay said, "but we certainly The Texas Observer is are absolutely justified. They were brave didn't set the average for nursing-home saying they would take a wage freeze." workers for the state in Beaumont, prominently displayed Hall's brigade has organized a politi- Texas. In fact, Schlesinger paid above- for purchase at these cal action campaign, borrowing from the average wages historically. If answers civil rights movements of the 1960s, to questions of comparable worth and locations: courting black church and business racism have not been found in New Chameleons leadership. "Our union," Eaton said, York City and Boston, I can guarantee they won't be found in Beaumont, 607 Trinity Street "represents, for the most part, black Austin women. Women trying to care for Texas." themselves and their children. We see He said the wage cutback would Old World Bakery this as a test of comparable worth and eventually help the non-profit home civil rights. These women, earning just break even. Hall said the union would 814 W. 12th Street above $5,000 a year for almost full-time consider the poverty argument if it were Austin work, fall well below the federal poverty brought to the bargaining table. "We level. What we have here are the accepted a lower wage at Baptist Watson & Company Books working poor. The question for Texas Hospital, but they were cooperative. 604 Blanco Street and the South is, will they be allowed They showed us the proof that they were Austin to improve their lot?" hurting and we accepted wage freezes," Hall said. "They [Schlesinger] make Whole Earth Company "What we have here are the that argument in the press, that they are 2410 San Antonio Street losing money. But they don't want to Austin working poor. The question prove it. We wonder why." for Texas and the South is, Durkay says the "Northeastern" Whole Earth Company thinking and its application to Beaumont 4006 S. Lamar Blvd. will they be allowed to im- have caused what has turned into a Austin prove their lot?" stalemate between the union and the home. "We would have kept talking if Whole Earth Company they had not walked off the job," he According to SEIU's Bill Pasterich, said. "Their wages would not have been 8868 Research Blvd. the question of civil rights must be dealt affected until we signed a new contract. Austin with. He was sent to Beaumont from I can't understand why this union chose Cape Cod, Massachusetts. "One of the traditional union tactics, why they think Whole Earth Company significant things that strikes an out- they have to work against us when the 105 Boyett sider," Pasterich said, "is that the civil current thinking is that we should rights movement never happened here College Station cooperate." Durkay added that the work in the 1960s when it happened every- the nurse's aides do requires a certain Paperbacks y Mas where else. These women are viewed "mentality," but that "anyone could do by the power structure as not even 1819 Blanco Road it. . . . Let's face it, we are not talking San Antonio having the right to stand up for them- about skilled labor here." selves. What you have here is a legitimate union fight. We are not The home has replaced most of the Rosengren's Books talking about freezing the wages of striking workers. The union claims that 223 Losoya the replacements were pulled from a carpenters at $18 an hour. We are San Antonio talking about freezing $4-an-hour wa- halfway house and may include former ges. You can't compare it. We have joined with the churches in the black community and the workers, and we believe this will be a significant force." Paul Brown, head of the Beaumont chapter of the NAACP, conducted church services in front the home one Sunday. The union has visited and asked the support of the black churches in Beaumont. Pasterich said nursing-home Attorney General Jim Mattox workers' wages in the North and East got his MANDATE before the election. are at least $1 an hour higher than the current wage at Schlesinger. P.O. Box 140342 • Dallas, Texas 75214 • (214) 823-6803 In the other corner of the ring, THE TEXAS OBSERVER 11 replacements either had the proper On September 1, one thousand people out of the facility. certification to work in the home or were marched in a parade protesting the John Durkay is not impressed by the in the process of getting it. Schlesinger impasse. Because the union national support for the union. "We There have been at least seven considers the battle as much a civil rights aren't going to roll over and play dead inspections of the facility since the strike struggle as a labor struggle, key civil because the NAACP gets behind them began, according to state health depart- rights leaders were flown in for the or because they are a national union. ment spokeswoman Charliene Stowers. march. They included Atlanta City We have dealt with that before in "We have had no evidence of any Council member John Lewis, a founding Beaumont and won." problems," she said. "There has been member of the Student Nonviolent "No matter how it ends, it won't be no decline in care due to the strike." Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and clean," said Hall. "We are facing a Inspections are done by local health Joe Madison, the NAACP official in union-busting mentality. They attempt departments who are not allowed to charge of voter registration.Also on to compare these women to $18 an hour comment directly to the press. They hand were Richard Cordtz, secretary- carpenters who took wage cutbacks. But send in written reports to Austin. "We treasurer of the SEIU and Harry Hub- we are dealing here with the most basic don't actually do hands-on inspections bard, president of the Texas AFL-CIO. of problems — getting a living wage for of patients," said Stowers. "One of the During the march, the strikers an- our members. If they can walk back in staff takes an inspector around, and they nounced they were going to return to there with their heads up, then they've study charts. Any problem would show Schlesinger on September 3 and demand won, no matter what takes place at the up on the charts." their jobs back. At 7 a.m. on September bargaining table. If they walk back in In the two months since the strike 3, the strikers were met by the there with their heads down, well then

Schlesinger lawyer, who locked them began, the politics of the strike have that's another story." ❑ escalated. In late August, the members through the debris again and placed of the SEIU local collected 1200 valid him in the car. signatures to force a November recall election of Beaumont Mayor Bill Neild. Mr. Schles On to the home we wen, Neild's brother, John, is on the I took him up again, pla0 the warm-water tub, washed Turn as Schlesinger board of directors. The "There may come a day when union initiated the recall petitions be- best I could -- the worst part orphan asylums are no longer neces- refilled it and gave him a good bath. cause they said Neild was doing nothing sary, because people are becoming to get labor and management to the more and more interested in adopting bargaining table. Neild told the children, all the time But I have )'et Beaumont Enterprise that the union to find a case where anyone wanted , Schlesinger records that three activists "are creating ill will for their to adopt an old person." basically fine, well-meaning gen cause." He told the Associated press A. W. Schlesinger men" asked if he intendedpi that he would not act because the that "dirty , black WO National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) home. was considering decertifying the union. N THE FALL of 1946, a Beau- He replied: "Gentleman, ttsmay What the board did, in fact, was rule mont businessman rescued seven that you and all the~otheroesidents that there was enough evidence to file I old, forgotten men from a board- ing house so infested with lice that may see fit to 1 can a complaint against the center charging sure Mr. Medina an it with unfair labor practices. NLRB the parasites could be scooped up in handfuls. It was before Medicaid. here." He went on tc,. director Louis Balvodine told the never said another % Enterprise that he considered the union A.W. Schlesinger sold' $13,000 worth of bonds and built a nice in the home, as "fl: . work stoppage, which began July 1, "an would, perfectly reg dormitoi♦y for these men. It was the unfair stoppage because of the center's tented. bargaining practices." "If union mem- seed of the largest nursing home in bers ask to unconditionally return to Texas, which is now facing a strike "Mr. Medina was born work," Balvodine continued, by its employees. He eventually gave and came to this country at "management must allow them to return up his wholesale tobacco business early age, but never took out citizen or risk paying workers back wages for and devoted his life to the elderly. ship papers. But he did help to build refusing to employ them if the workers The following is taken from excerpts our great country through a long stint win their case." Schlesinger attorney from Schlesinger's journal, The Love of backbreaking work, laying cross Durkay told the paper he will not reopen Story of Mr. Schles (compiled and ties and rails for subsequent use by negotiations. "Definitely," he said, edited by Ben Woodhead, 1973). our vital freight and passenger trains. "the board is wrong." "We finally came upon Mr. Me- He had no known relatives." dina lying on the wet, dirty, cold Schlesinger picked up countless ANDERSON & COMPANY1 floor, fully clothed in khaki garments forgotten old people, one with face COFFEE and with a bowl full of cooked red cancer, others near death, and carried TEA SPICES beans sitting next to his face on the them with his own hands and bathed TWO JEFFERSON lifolITARE them. He did the work of a nurse's AUSTIN, TEXAS 78731 floor. Of course rats and nearly everything else had been running all aide. 512 453-1533 over it Mr. Medina was lying as if But the people who care for the Send me your list. he were dead. I got down, checked present residents at the home are poor Name him, and found that he was still alive. black women. They do the same I picked him up in my arms, and work the founder did but aren't paid Street while Mr. Cisnara led the way with as much for it as those who take care City Zip a flashlight we managed to squirm of the city's garbage. R.S.

12 SEPTEMBER 13, 1985 Meanwhile, Medicare patients are being released from hospitals earlier and The Second-Class Care in worse condition than in the days when they were welcome and profitable. Everyone over 65 who enters the hospital these days finds that Medicare of Medicare no longer guarantees equal treatment. "Anybody who has to go with Medi- By Stephen Phillips and Jennifer Stoffel care," says Maxinne Price bitterly, "has to go second class." Chicago tion was passed, President Lyndon B. Johnson proclaimed that it, along with Under DRGs, the hospital is paid AXINNE AND GEORGE Medicaid, would guarantee that all solely for one treatment, setting up a PRICE of Pryor, Oklahoma, Americans, including the poor and the dilemma: either the hospital picks up the M traveled 68 miles to St. elderly, would have access to the same difference for uncovered care or the John's Hospital in Tulsa for George's standard of medical care which was patient is discharged with untreated open-heart surgery. One day, as available to the wealthy . Over the last medical problems. Maxinne arrived for her visit, she was twenty years, this promise has been For example, if George Price were told her husband was being released. "I increasingly hard to keep. treated for less than the DRG allotment was totally surprised and unprepared to for his heart surgery, the hospital would take him home," she remembered Under the old system of payment, the Medicare Trust Fund was headed pocket the difference. By reimbursing angrily. Maxinne believed her husband hospitals this way, says Eugene Arnett, was too weak and too sick to go home. straight for bankruptcy by 1990. Medi- care was blamed for creating a classic president of Memorial Hospital of "I may not be a doctor, but I do have Taylor County in Medford, Wisconsin, a brain." After arguing with everyone example of market failure, encouraging doctors and hospitals to keep patients the incentive is clear — "getting them and feeling there was no other option, out the door." she drove her husband home. for long stays, to admit them for tests unnecessarily, and to operate eagerly — An 84-year-old Chicago man with George woke up the next morning in all because it was covered. When cancer of the tongue and diabetes had pain and unable to breathe. Maxinne Medicare began, only 9.4 percent of the his little toe amputated and was sent immediately brought him to the local U.S. population was 65 or older. In home to recover. "He wasn't allowed hospital's emergency room. After stabi- 1982, that number grew to 11.6 percent, to stay in the hospital. Now that toe is lizing her husband, the doctor explained and by 2000 it is expected to reach 13.1 draining and has been for four weeks that, although George should stay in for percent. There are also fewer contribu- because he wasn't allowed to stay in and observation, Medicare wouldn't allow tors per patient in the program. The ratio stay off that foot," explains the nurse it. The only hospital that could admit of taxpayers to elderly beneficiaries has who visits him. "That's the type of thing him, she was told, was St. John's. But, dropped from 4 to 1 in 1965 to 3.3 in you see now. Oh sure, you'd see it in what sounded like the health-care 1980 and will shrink again to 2.7 to 1 before, but not the number you see version of "Catch-22," if he were stable by 2000. now." enough to travel to Tulsa (which he Although Congress agreed that Medi- Nurses and social workers complain wasn't, said Maxinne), he would no care needed surgery, Democrats and there is not 'enough time, with patients longer be critical enough to qualify for Republicans couldn't agree on the in and out of the hospital quickly, to admission. "It didn't make a bit of sense procedure. What emerged was a stop- provide the care they used to. Fre- to me. Every time I turned around I gap measure that caps Medicare's quently, it is the noncritical care that heard Medicare this and Medicare that." reimbursements to hospitals by classing is omitted, they explain: the patient who patients into 468 illness categories, is supposed to be walked isn't and orders INCE 1965, Medicare has been called Diagnosis Related Groups for drugs and dressing changes are left reimbursing hospitals for what- (DRGs). for the next shift. "I wouldn't want to S ever was claimed as the cost of Under DRGs, illnesses are classified be sick, and I wouldn't want to be a each elderly patient's care. In a total according to organ systems and then patient in the hospital right now," said reversal, the federal health insurance broken down into distinct groups. The Dee Pierce, staff nurse, Bethesda Lu- program in 1983 changed reimburse- payment for each Medicare patient is theran Medical Center, St. Paul, Minne- ments to a system of flat fees covering based on a combination of the hospital's sota. everything from cataract surgery to historical costs, regional price, and the For many patients, discharge comes coronary bypass. national price assigned to the appropri- as a total surprise. "Someone shows up The shift in funding was made by the ate DRG. The Congressional Budget and says your number of days are up federal Department of Health and Hu- Office predicts DRGs will save $100 and it's time to go," says Steve Wolfe, man Services and Congress to control billion by 1995, but, by itself, the new supervising attorney with the Senior skyrocketing costs. In 1984 alone, scheme will only shore up the Trust Law Project in St. Paul. Although Medicare spent $62.4 billion on the 30.5 Fund until 1992. Medicare guidelines, as originally writ- million elderly and disabled Americans The new rules have successfully ten, do provide a 48-hour grace period, it covers, up from the original $3.4 shortened the number of days that billion it spent in its first year. Medicare patients are in the hospital. In When the original Medicare legisla- 1984, admissions overall fell by 4 percent, the largest drop on record, Jennifer Stoffel and Stephen Phillips are according to the American Hospital freelance writers living in Chicago. Association; the length of stay for Research for this article was funded by Medicare patients also fell from 9 to 7.5 the Fund for Investigative Journalism. days. THE TEXAS OBSERVER 13 hospitals have interpreted them loosely, patients are no different than anybody No. 127, "circulatory disorder, with according to Wolfe. "At the moment, else: they don't realize anything is heart attack, without complications; it all depends on their good intentions." different until they're in the hospital. discharge status, alive," there is a pre- And, he adds, most patients are unaware Then they start getting angry. Nobody set fee of $3,105. of any right to a notice or ability to asked them. " "I think it was a good idea to put appeal discharge decisions. Had the elderly been asked, they restraints on people who were abusing "Duluth calls at 4:30 p.m. on a would likely want more for their Medicare," says a Chicago nurse. "But Friday and says, 'I just discharged Medicare dollars, not less. As it stands, I think it's bad to put a price level on someone and sent them home 100 miles the beneficiary pays out $400 for each what it takes. to return a person to a north and they'll need to see a nurse,' hospital visit, up from the original $40 healthy state. Even though DRGs are " explains Rosemary Lamson, the only in 1966 (and expected to rise again to a guideline to prevent a lot of fraud, full-time public health nurse in rural $476 in 1986). Under the old system, the doctor is still going to get his money, Cook County, Minnesota. After 27 the deductible went a lot further — the hospital is going to get their money, years in health care, Rosemary describes patients could remain in the hospital but, in the long term, the patient is the her practice as "totally new" under until they were fully recovered. only one who has suffered." DRGs. Following her early morning The attitude that the hospital was the rounds through the 16-bed hospital in place to cure all ills is precisely what Grand Marais, she assigns her staff of HE DRG SYSTEM is set up to is blamed for putting the Medicare Trust work with large numbers and five part-time nurses to cover more than Fund in the fast lane to bankruptcy. 1500 square miles. Her nurses have been T average out: If one patient's Under the old payment system, not only 100 percent busier because these days, treatment costs more than the DRG was it easy for patients to get admitted allotment, in theory, the next patient she said, people are "going home with and stay, hospitals could and did charge catheters, IVs, the whole schmeer." should cost less. In the small, rural the government for whatever a doctor hospitals, the scheme breaks down, says Patient bitterness, surprise, and help- could justify. "We were living high off Arnett. "It's all numbers, and ours are lessness are all part of a larger issue the hog then," said Dr. Michael all small." for the elderly, as the Health Care Baldinger of Grant Hospital in Chicago. Redbud Community Hospital in Financing Administration (HCFA) has Treatment for a heart attack, for Clearlake, California, took their com- failed to educate them adequately on the example, might have cost $1,500 at one plaint to the top and sued Health and changes. "People are still under the hospital and as much as $9,000 at Human Services Secretary Margaret mindset that things are like the old another. And what some doctors justi- Heckler for placing the hospital in days," said Pat Hanson, discharge fied as a "different mode of treatment," financial jeopardy. When Medicare rates planner and consultant. "You don't get critics claim was overtesting, prolonged were set in 1983, the statistics used to involved in your auto insurance until observation periods, and general abuse calculate reimbursements were based on you've had an accident. Medicare of the Medicare system. Now, as DRG 1981 data, when the now 40-bed hospital was only about half that size, explains Virgil Edwards, executive director. Because of the hospital's new intensive care unit, pharmacy, and modernized emergency room, both operating and capital costs have shot up. Edwards Printers — Stationers — Mailers — Typesetters maintains, "This kind of scheme is killing us." High Speed Web Offset Publication Press — Public hospitals have joined Redbud in the lawsuit. Administrators believe Counseling — Designing their DRG rates should be higher to reflect their special patient populations. Copy Writing — Editing Several studies back up the claim that, because public hospitals serve the Trade — Computer Sales and Services - nation's poorest and most severely ill, their overall costs are higher. "We don't mind playing that role," says Larry - Complete Computer Data Processing Services Gage, president of the National Associa- tion of Public Hospitals, "but we'd like to get paid for it." *FUTURA "I was in the hospital seven days; on PRESS the fifth day they said I was going home; AUSTIN TEXAS they never told me why," says 76-year- old Chicagoan Mary Petrone. Mary explains that she has been in and out of the hospital four times so far this year with bronchial pneumonia. 512/442-7836 1714 South Congress This last time "was the worst," she says, "I wasn't ready to leave." P.O. Box 3485 Austin, Texas 78764 Mary's situation is average, says the nurse who visits three times a week. Mary's pneumonia bought her seven days in the hospital when before the 14 SEPTEMBER 13, 1985 DRGs she would have stayed until she Sunday Mary is lost of care. She doesn't and what qualified you for follow-up was fully recovered. When Mary was have anybody to come in and fix care, so they're getting cut twice." discharged in July, "she wasn't even anything for her. So if she eats, fine, While Faulkner believes that home able to get out of bed," says her nurse, if she don't, the hell with it because care is a good alternative and less who wished to remain unidentified. "If Medicare won't pay for it." expensive than the hospital, she is they left her in for a few more days, Diana Faulkner, home-care coordina- frustrated with Medicare's lack of I think she'd do better." At first, when tor at Northwestern University Memo- compassion. "You're telling me to get Mary wasn't even able to get out of bed, rial Hospital in Chicago, sees patients patients out faster and sicker, but you're the nurse came in on a five-day basis. every day who need an appropriate place giving me nothing to do it with," she "We give basic personal care: bathing, to recuperate. Ironically, guidelines on says. "Okay, I've compensated by preparing meals. But that was only home health care were tightened and taking the little old lady and gotten her covered for a short time," the nurse spending was cut at the same time that home, but you're telling me you're not explains. Right now, she adds, DRGs were instituted. "Medicare is going to pay for that either. So what "Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, and cutting back on both the length of stay are you saying, get sicker and die?" ❑ • POLITICAL INTELLIGENCE • is the fact, reported by Molly Ivins in the board of SEDCO, I wouldn't hire Bushwhacked the Dallas Times Herald, that so far this Mr. Clements to be its president, I year Bentsen has received $699,018 in would hire his son." (SEDCO was V A mailing went out last month to key campaign contributions, although his Clements's company until it was sold.) officials of the Texas Republican Party next race is three years away. Calhoun concluded that Leedom was alerting them to possible liberal tenden- i/ Bentsen has abandoned free trade insinuating that Clements is "too old to cies lurking within the soul of Vice with a program to penalize Japan, be running again for governor (he'll be President George Bush. Bush got him- Brazil, Taiwan, and Korea with a 25 69 next year). . . . " The newspaper's self in hot water with the right wing of percent duty on all their exports to the headline writer took one more step: the Republican Party when he accepted U.S. if they do not bring down their "Leedom: Clements over the hill." a "Republican of the Year" award from governmental barriers to U.S. products. the Ripon Society — a liberal Republi- His co-sponsors in the House are Reps. Gung Ho can group. Dan Rostenkowski and Richard Gep- The Fund for a Conservative Majority hardt. c, David Remnick of the Washington immediately sent notice of Bush's 6 6 . . . the world is taking advantage Post was present when Rep. Jack transgression to Republicans across the of us and following the example set by Brooks, D-Beaumont, met Paul Tibbets, country, and then in a separate mailing Japan," Bentsen said in an article on the pilot of the plane that dropped the to members of the Texas Republican his position. The 25 percent duty atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Remnick Executive Committee and to Republican proposal, Bentsen said, is, above all, reported what happened: county chairmen across the state. "necessary. " "CBS `Nightwatch' host Charlie Rose "After five years, a lot of Republicans introduces Tibbets to the previous guest, seem to have forgotten about the original No Switcher Rep. Jack Brooks (D-Tex). split between George Bush and Ronald " `So you're the one!' Brooks barks Reagan, and this is a kind of graphic V Reports continue to surface in the off camera. 'Damn glad to meet you. reminder of what that was all about," Dallas Times Herald that Kent Hance I was one of those Marines who would says Robert Heckman, chairman of the told associates he was not going to have been sent on the invasion of Japan FCM. Heckman, who says his group is switch from the Democrats to the GOP if you guys hadn't come along.' "friendly to Jack Kemp," says the shortly before he did so. According to "Tibbets smiles weakly. He has no mailings are already generating disaffec- the paper's "Tipoff" section, the switch reservations about the utility of the tion in Texas with George Bush. "I think "may have cost [Hance] a law partner." bomb, no guilt — 'I put those thoughts it's going to do him a lot of harm," Former Rep. Jack Hightower of Vernon out of my mind.' But he seems a bit he says. is leaving Hance's law firm and is embarrassed by Brooks' bolt of enthusi- V The Fund for a Conservative Major- quoted saying, "I'm not a switcher." asm. ity ranked the 31 first-year Republicans 1/' On the average, according to figures " 'Tell 'em about it!' Brooks shouts. in the House on the basis of 10 compiled by State Policy Research, Inc., `Give 'em hell.' Congressional votes this year and gave Texas paid $703 per person more in "On the show, Tibbets says, 'Please eight members a perfect score of 100 federal taxes in 1984 than was received, understand. I'm not for nuclear war. I'm percent. Three of those eight were from per person, back from the federal not even in favor of warfare if you want Texas: Dick Armey of Denton, Joe government. to know the truth.' " Barton of Ennis, and Tom DeLay of V State Sen. John Leedom of Dallas v Only two of the state's major dailies Sugar Land. The fund's analysis showed told Ron Calhoun of the Dallas Times bothered to take issue with President that "more conservatives are being Herald that even if Bill Clements had Reagan's fantastic statements about elected to Congress than ever before." asked him first, he would not have South Africa achieving V The Observer has good information supported Clements. (Leedom is for "desegregation." The Austin American- that Lloyd Bentsen will probably run for Tom Loeffler.) Raising the age issue, Statesman and the Dallas Times Herald re-election in 1988, despite the fact that Leedom said "the governorship should editorialized against the President, his wife is not fond of the idea. always be for eight years" (two four- pointing out that many of his facts were Tending to support this information year terms) and added: "If I were on wrong and that, as the Times Herald put THE TEXAS OBSERVER 15

- 1000141116111006111111001-, it on August 28, "A 'reformist adminis- authorized their Dallas attorney, Ivan vi Lino A. Graglia, UT professor of tration,' after all, would not have killed Irwin, to give the Wall Street Journal constitutional law, is being considered hundreds of South Africans in the information on their present financial by the Reagan administration for a seat streets, nor would it have jailed thou- situation in order to prevent inaccurate on the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court. Graglia sands without due process." speculation. The Journal concluded, on has been a leader in the fight against Turning the same day to find the view the basis of the information, that the court-ordered busing. In his book, of the Dallas Morning News, we find Hunts believe their trusts now have a Disaster by Decree (Cornell University silence on South Africa and, instead, a net worth of at least $2 billion and their Press, 1976), Graglia shows his hand. rant against Nicaragua's Sandinistas, personal holdings have a net worth of To wit: entitled "Spreading Cancer." The $600 million, for a greatly reduced "Compulsory integration of blacks editorialists profess to be perplexed overall net worth of at least $2.6 billion. and whites of the same age and grade about why Americans fail to realize that Falling energy and silver prices are said level almost invariably means, there- Nicaragua is trying to take over Central to have caused the losses. fore, the lowering of a school's aca- America. "Whether this blindness is Worse yet for the Hunts, the Journal demic standards, potential, and educa- moral or intellectual in nature, its reports further that the Hunt banks value tional results in proportion to the consequences for U.S. and Central the Hunt trusts at $400 million less than increase in the percentage of blacks — American interests are ugly," concludes the brothers do and that considering especially where, as is the rule in school the editorial. And on South Africa? claims which Bunker and Herbert face, systems operating under court order, ri Adjustable-rate home mortgages are the overall net worth figure may be "less ability grouping in separate classrooms often involved in the rising rate of than $2 billion." is also constitutionally prohibited be- foreclosures in the country, and these 1/ There may be trouble ahead for the cause of its inevitable 'segregative foreclosures are especially high in proposed constitutional amendment to effect.' Perhaps even more important Texas, especially Houston. allocate $950 million in state money for than the effect of compulsory integration For instance, Michael Carroll, the water projects, to be voted on Nov. 5. on a school's academic potential is its Austin representative for Mortgage The Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority effect on the maintenance of discipline Guarantee Insurance Corp., told the is expected to recommend damming the and on sheer physical safety. . . . There local daily's real estate writer, Kim Guadalupe River just north of Cuero to is little doubt that compulsory integra- Tyson, that during the first quarter of create two large reservoirs, covering tion is a contributing cause of school 1985 Texas led the nation with 635 perhaps 100,000 acres, from which disruption and violence. . . ." claims that his company paid, followed drinking water would be piped to San Graglia then goes on to cite a 1970 by California (330) and Florida (191). Antonio. In opposition, the DeWitt- New York Times article, quoting the Of the 635 foreclosures in Texas, 424 Gonzales River Assn. has collected 600 following: were in Houston. members and sees the Nov. 5th vote as part of the plan to take their river, river "A respected Brooklyn principal, V In 1980, after the three brothers, bottom, farmland, and water. The who didn't want to be quoted by name, Bunker, W. Herbert, and Lamar Hunt, opponents' president, Gene Finney III talked not of small minorities but lost about $500 million to $1 billion of Cuero, scoffs at an official estimate uncontrollable masses. 'What can you from speculation in the value of silver, that the first reservoir would cost $200 do,' he asked, 'when you have 1,000 they claimed a net worth of between $5 million. More like $3.5 billion, Finney blacks in your school, all programmed billion and $6 billion. Banks came forth told the San Antonio Light, adding: for special behavior and violence?' " with a loan of $1 billion to the Placid "This project might well be San Graglia says racial integration is Oil Co., held by Hunt trusts. Antonio's next South Texas Nuclear simply a guise for class integration. He Last month, however, the brothers Project." further argues that a court can oppose segregation but cannot mandate integra- r tion. All of this apparently grows out of some kind of Darwinist view that the existing economic, political, and social heirarchies are their own justification In a hurry for copies, and are not to be interfered with by government. This, of course, presup- collating, binding, printing, poses government neutrality in all things, market neutrality, a belief that or word-processing? all things are equal except ability. Writes Graglia: "Although the Court has never offered more than its obvi- ously fictional 'desegregation' rationale Call Ginny's. for compulsory integration, there can be no doubt that the basic impetus is the claim, or hope that it will somehow serve to close the enormous gap that has been shown to exist between the aca- demic performance of blacks and whites. This is presumably to be InnysCOPYING R ' accomplished by raising the academic g performance of blacks, but lowering the Austin • Lubbock • San Marcos performance of whites would undoubt- edly also be acceptable to some of L J compulsory integration's proponents. "El 16 SEPTEMBER 13, 1985 that you put that kind of an offer at his feet. Having done that, they proceeded The Sanctuary to make the case." Susan Yarborough, Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas, is willing to concede that, in fact, Movement Defense there was a lineup. But that's as far as she goes. As far as the government is By Richard Kallus concerned, she says, they were random arrests made during routine border Austin transporting illegal aliens, and that is the patrols. N FEBRUARY 21 in a federal bottom line as far as the government is "Regarding Elder and Merkt," said courtroom in Houston, Jack concerned. Yarborough, "it's been made O Elder and Stacey Lynn Merkt "This case was made because the abundantly clear that both of these took were convicted of conspiring to trans- cops decided they wanted Elder and place as cold hits. They were cold hits. port two Salvadorans illegally. That was Merkt," says University of Texas law It's the defendants who want to make nearly seven months ago. Meanwhile, professor Michael Tigar. "They wanted it political. We view them as common they keep coming: the "aliens," faceless Casa Romero, and within that they criminals. It's just another case to me." Central Americans — most dark- wanted Elder and Merkt." Perhaps. But, according to Tigar, skinned, wearing everyman polyester Tigar is one of a handful of highly Stacey Merkt wasn't anywhere near the and bringing strange stories of foreign rated defense lawyers across the country Brownsville area that day. In fact, she struggles. who have joined forces over the past wasn't anywhere near the state of Texas: And, despite the odds, the sanctuary few months to appeal the latest Elder- "Stacey's defense in this case is that she movement continues to grow. The Merkt decision. In a recent interview, wasn't there. On the day the aliens were Elder-Merkt decision is being appealed Tigar spoke candidly with the Observer transported, she was at a wedding in now. Government prosecutors, choosing about some of the questions surrounding Long Island. Seven witnesses said so — to disregard most of the stickier civil the case. they had pictures of her there. issues, are calling the case "routine." "Before you even get to humanitar- "The bus company, not an employee, Doing their best Sgt. Joe Friday ("just ian, international law, instruction of a but the ticket agency where the tickets the facts, Ma'am") deadpan, they argue bunch of statutes kinds of arguments, were bought, said that it wasn't Stacey that there is a criminal statute on the there are some very basic notions about who bought the tickets. Might have been books and that statute was violated. the fairness of this trial that have to be a blonde woman, might have been an The defense, meanwhile, is citing addressed," he said. Anglo woman, but it wasn't Stacey who everything from hysterical police mis- Like police conduct, for starters. The bought the tickets. The problem is that conduct to the Geneva Convention. government's eyewitness identification, the government couldn't account for Defense attorney Daniel Sheehan moved claims Tigar, was a product of "blatant that; they'd already gotten this eyewit- some jurors to tears during closing coersion and a manifestly sloppy photo ness identification by putting one blonde arguments in Stacey Merkt's first trial, show-up that was misinformed, Anglo in the show-up." when he likened Merkt to Mary trying misdirected, maligned, and deliberately Yarborough's statement echoes an to save the life of the baby Jesus from undertaken in violation of the elemen- INS advisory, dated June 8, 1984, King Herod. tary principles of how you go about detailing "guidance with respect to the Somewhere in the middle of all this getting a lineup. Administration's position on the you'll find Elder and Merkt. Jack Elder, "Elder-Merkt," he said, "is an `Sanctuary Movement.' " In a letter to a former high-school math teacher from extremely oddball case. One ought to Daniel Hedges, U.S. Attorney for the San Antonio, who became "full of fire" start with the idea that if the Southern District of Texas, INS Com- after visiting a refugee camp in Mexico government's going to convict you, they missioner Alan Nelson directs attorneys in 1982. Stacey Lynn Merkt, a 30-year- ought to prove it. In this case, they had to "continue routine prosecution of all old church volunteer from Colorado, to apprehended this family on the bus — violators of the smuggling, transporting whom "peace and justice have always the immigration agents. Now, they and harboring statutes where they have been priorities." Both were arrested on heard the word 'church' the first been apprehended in the normal course similar charges last year. Both were interview they had with them; as soon of business. . . . There has not been nor acquitted. The question a lot of people as they heard that, this case was will there be special targeting of such are asking this time around is — why? processed and handled differently than individuals or groups for prosecution." Why Elder and Merkt? any other case you can think of. Under guideline 4, Nelson goes on As one Immigration and Naturaliza- "They cut pictures out of the paper to suggest, moreover, that "consistent tion Service [INS] spokesman told the of Stacey and Jack, and they put those with past and existing policy, we do not Washington Post: "The issue here is not pictures in a notebook along with people enter into churches." sanctuary. The issue here is, did these who didn't look anything like Stacey or The same month that letter was sent, people violate U.S. law? You can bring Jack, and they got these eyewitnesses' a federal grand jury in Phoenix, Ari- in all the motives you want to and so-called identification. Now, not only zona, returned a 71-count indictment whether there is a higher law, but the that, but they promised these people against 16 sanctuary workers, naming point is they're in violation of statute." that, if they were good, they would let them co-conspirators for transporting Elder and Merkt were arrested in them go to Washington, D.C., and join Salvadorans in the United States. The violation of a criminal statute against their family — which is something you indictment was the result of a ten-month just never do, you never see that. Some infiltration of the movement by two INS Observer intern Richard Kallus is a alien who's on a bus down in the Rio agents, along with paid informants who freelance writer living in Austin. Grande Valley, it's very seldom indeed took concealed recording equipment into

THE TEXAS OBSERVER 17 Bible-study classes and prayer services illegal aliens is no longer the offense. themes in America's history — welcom- in churches suspected of involvement The trial judge, Judge Vela, didn't give ing homeless refugees to our shores. It with sanctuary workers. Charges against the jury any guidance on this as to how gives statutory meaning to our national four of those named in the indictment they were supposed to decide it. The commitment to human rights and hu- have since been dropped. The case jury has to be given some guidance." manitarian concerns. . . ." against the remaining twelve goes to trial Another subject overlooked by Vela Passed in 1980, the Act guarantees on September 17. in his instructions to the jury is some- asylum to anyone in the United States The Justice Department has decided thing called "specific intent." "When who is "unable to avail himself or to make alien sanctuary cases a prior- you're charged with a crime," explains herself of the protection of [his or her] ity," said Tigar. "As far as Elder and Tigar, "you're permitted to make your country because of persecution or a Merkt, the evidence is overwhelming defense, and one of the defenses you're well-founded fear of persecution on that they were singled out. You name permitted to make is that you didn't have account of race, religion, nationality, me another case in which the police a specific intent to violate the law. The membership in a particular social group, behave that way. It's a little difficult to judge has to instruct the jury that if the or political opinion." find one. They are using the criminal evidence of lack of specific intent raises That definition, says Jack Elder, law as a means of actively discouraging a reasonable doubt, that they have to applies especially to the people of the sanctuary movement, including, in acquit him. Central America. "Essentially, I see it Arizona, infiltration and all the rest of as an obligation that we have, as a it. country and a people of faith, to take Recently, Federal District Judge Earl "This case was made care of the victims, victims of violence, Carroll has ordered that tapes introduced because the cops decided violence which is being supported, by prosecutors in the Arizona trial must sponsored by our own government in be transcribed. To do that, says Tigar, they wanted Elder and Central America." will cost the government close to a Merkt ... they wanted The State Department, of course, sees quarter of a million dollars. "That's how things a bit differently, regarding Salva- badly the government wants to get the Casa Romero." dorans entering the U.S. as "economic sanctuary movement. migrants" rather than as political refu- "I don't understand why the Adminis- "There are limits. But, at the very gees. In December of 1981, former INS tration is paranoid about this. But the least, they should be able to say, 'I director Peter Larrabee was quoted in sanctuary people are a visible, sympa- believe that these people are entitled to Forum magazine as saying that Salvado- thetic, articulate focus of concern on a remain in the United States,' because ran nationals are presumed to be particular issue. Why did they single out the statute is very clear about that." "peasants who are coming to the U.S. the vocal nonregistrants in the draft? Specifically, 8 U.S.C. Sec. 1324 re- for a welfare card and a Cadillac." Why did they prosecute Dr. Spock in quires that a person must know that the the Vietnam War, as opposed to any An article in the August 1985 alien being transported is in the United Progressive reports, "Compared with other representative who was probably States "in violation of law" and must just as vocal or whatever. It's the refugees from other countries, particu- transport the alien "in furtherance of larly those from Eastern Europe, few exercise of prosecutorial discretion. such violation of the law." The statute They're trying to scare people." Salvadorans are granted asylum. They further states: "Each crime defined by face an approval rate of about 2 percent, [the code] involves an alien who is .. . as opposed to a 29 percent rate for Polish . E VEN THE barest of facts in this not lawfully entitled to enter or reside applicants, 44 percent for Romanians, case are a matter of some within the United States under the terms and 78 percent for Soviet applicants." dispute. More speculative still is of this Act or any other law relating to All this points to the fact that the the question of whether what may or the immigration or explusion of aliens." Administration has found itself in a basic may not have happened is necessarily "Now, what does that mean?" asks conflict of interests, concludes Tigar. against the law. The government's Tigar. "It means that you have to "One could make a constitutional claim, for instance, that transportation specifically intend to violate this provi- argument that a country that was of the Salvadorans constitutes a violation sion about transportation, knowing that founded by refugees, many of them from of statute presupposes that they are the alien is not entitled to remain. And armed conflict, ought to hesitate a long illegal aliens to begin with — a status if you have a belief that under the time before it interprets its own laws that has yet to be established in court. Refugee Act and so on that this is a as denying refuge to people who are Tigar points out that "when you get person entitled to remain, then it would fleeing conflict. -And you could make down to the trial of the case, there's be our position that you couldn't prove a constitutional argument that there is a motion filed by the government that intent. a due-process problem in making says that you can't say 'refugee.' You • "Merkt and Elder's position is not choices that prefer one group of refugees couldn't call these people 'refugees.' that they're ignorant of the law; their that are coming from certain armed Why? Because that's a legal conclusion. position is that they know it. They know conflicts we're in favor of, as opposed Well, 'alien' is a legal conclusion; it and they believe that their conduct is to others who are in armed conflict we `illegal alien' is a legal conclusion — right — within legal bounds — that they deny exists. you can call them that. believe they're acting lawfully." "There is armed conflict in El "The concepts of international law In 1979 in a report to the Senate, the Salvador and everybody knows it. Now, should be used to define who is an illegal Committee on the Judiciary explained why does the United States say differ- alien in this case. And, if these are not the purpose of the Refugee Act: "The ent? Because we have a policy. And illegal aliens, given the principles of Refugee Act of 1979 establishes for the American policy is to support the international law and the treaties to first time a comprehensive United States government of El Salvador, provide it which the United States is a party, then refugee resettlement and assistance with arms, munitions, and so on. It is this case fails because their status as policy. It reflects one of the oldest to overthrow the government of Nicara-

18 SEPTEMBER 13, 1985 gua; to support the terror in Guatemala; Christian concern as it is a movement at the level of American foreign policy." in short, to do everything we can to led by a politically selective network of Judge Vela expressed the terrible make sure that nothing in Central activists running an aggressive offensive conflict of emotions stirred by this case America upsets well-established power against U.S. foreign policy in Central when he said: "I am a person who relationships and threatens interests that America." agrees with the sanctuary movement, but the United States' present administration Indeed, sanctuary workers stress that I'm going to reassure people that the identifies as its own. That's their story change is the logical goal of the integrity of the legal system will be and they're sticking to it. That's all. sanctuary movement. In the end, that preserved." "So it doesn't matter what the facts means changing U.S. foreign policy in Michael Tigar sees the integrity of the are, right? The decisions are made. I Central America. And they see nothing legal system another way: "The people mean, this is an administration that can inconsistent about that. who founded this country came here certify human rights progress in Chile, "From both a political and theological because they lived in a place in which you know! Or El Salvador. Or Korea. perspective," says Tigar, "seeking to the government wasn't willing to toler- Any place they have to certify it to send identify the causes of the problem that ate some minor inconvenience in order them more guns or money or whatever you're working with, and then saying to accommodate the views of people the hell they want to. There is this you've identified them, and then going with different religious and political deliberate painting of the world in a after them and lobbying for them and views. certain way to meet certain preconcep- speaking about them and trying to These are not people who for gain tions. Well, the Administration feels, change the system, makes a great deal are engaged in any kind of exploitive apparently, that it cannot acknowledge more sense than thinking that you can conduct. They are engaged in exercising what is going on because to do so individually minister to every refugee. their religious convictions — their profoundly undercuts policy decisions The reason that we have this flow of deeply held religious convictions in a that have already been made." refugees at this point in the United States humanitarian activity. And it's not Similar arguments expressed by sanc- is because of the American foreign enough to say 'well, yes, but it violates tuary workers prompted the Wall Street policy in support of a certain govern- the law.' Not enough at all. A lot of Journal to charge in an editorial April ment in El Salvador. Therefore, if there conduct has to be tolerated in the name 17 that ". . . what we have here is not is to be any long-term solution to the of maintaining an open society. so much a spontaneous outpouring of whole refugee problem, it has to come There've got to be open places." ❑ • BOOKS AND THE CULTURE • arrow. Rambo is a desperately racist film, psychologically as well as politi- From Plantation cally, for it is an attempt to win back in mythical terms the white American male fantasy of invincibility, lost on the Southeast Asian battlefields. One need Hollywood only witness the Reagan administration's cynical manipulation of By Michael King the MIA issue to realize how important that fantasy is to a large part of Reagan's EAR THE close of this little more than a realistic portrayal of support, and Rambo plays the same summer's most popular film, the creation of rock by divine right, the chords. But Rambo is only the latest in N Back to the Future, the young music of the white suburbs. Rock radio a series of great-white-hunter movies, time-traveler, in the course of his stations in most of the country and the contemporary versions of anti-Japanese improbable and amusing adventures, ubiquitous MTV have been honkified to WWII films. This latest wave began invents rock-and-roll. By convenient the point that black music and black with Michael Cimino's The Deer accidents, he has found himself playing musicians have been placed once again Hunter, whose evil Vietnamese lacked lead guitar in a black rhythm-and-blues in nearly the marginal status they only wire-rim glasses to be central- band at his future parents' senior prom, endured in the '50s. casting Nipponese. and he launches into a frantic version In films, black and minority cultures Whatever their apparent melodra- of Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode" have been even further ghettoized. With — a song not yet conceived by its matic genre — combat, detective, few exceptions, in the white suburban western, adventure — one of the composer. By filmic coincidence, the dream world where most contemporary functions of the great-white-hunter film band leader is Berry's cousin. The rest American films take psychological if not is to construct a white male fantasy is pop history. literal place, third-world characters, if object around whom the action — and It's an offhand and whimsical moment they appear at all, provide occasional by extention the world — turns. Rambo in a movie full of such light touches, local "color," exotic villainy, and is an explicitly imperial version of the but it struck me that for most contempo- cannon fodder. revived male adventure fantasy, a la rary white audiences — particularly the The centerpiece of the 1985 racial Indiana Jones or Luke Skywalker, which teenagers who are now the heart of the paradigm is Sylvester Stallone's Rambo: this summer received a miniature treat- American film market — it might seem First Blood Part II, in which hundreds ment in Stephen Spielberg's The of caricatured commie gooks, helpless Goonies. Predictably, among the Michael King, now living in Houston, without their white Russian masters, are sidekicks for that film's white-boy hero reports on matters cultural for the handily and photogenically slaughtered is an ingenious Asian, whose father likes Observer. by one white man with a bow-and- to take snapshots.

THE TEXAS OBSERVER 19 The great-white-hunter syndrome exist as people but as simple or elaborate he is convincing as the ordinary man shows up often in detective narratives, plot devices and establishers of tone, caught up in extraordinary circum- particularly on television, where it is much as models in a Sunday supplement stances — not just in this movie, but only conventional to have a white heroic ad spread. Grace Jones, of course, in in the way many of us feel much of the island amidst a roiling sea of shorter and her self-created image of black time. Neither hero nor schlmiel but lesser humanity, female or black or dominatrix, has made a very savvy resilient everyman, Pryor too deserves Hispanic. Hill Street Blues, with its career by playing upon the elaborations the sort of scripts that will allow him embattled Captain Furillo at the helm of sexual fantasy at the heart of popular to diversify from his original type, of of an always sinking multi-racial ship, culture. the black comic. is a stationary version of this genre. The Another black actor to watch is Eddie summer film that most exemplified the Murphy, whose Beverly Hills Cop mode was Burt Reynold's lamentable The great-white-hunter dominated last summer's films, a detec- version of Elmore Leonard's Stick. In syndrome shows up often in tive thriller which also used as a running the novel, Leonard gives complication context the differences in white and and some depth to his Colombian and detective narratives .. . black style, here seen as the differences Puerto Rican characters, but in where it is only conventional between poor Detroit and rich Califor- Reynold's redaction, they are simply nia. Murphy is still very much a foils or satanic opposites, complete with to have a white heroic island television actor — he can't resist voodoo torture rituals, to Reynold's amidst a roiling sea of mugging and is yet incapable of a serious noble and solitary hero. His Ernest scene without obvious irony, but, like Stickley has a couple of temporary and shorter and lesser humanity, Pryor, he turned an otherwise disposable Hispanic friends, who are in female or black or Hispanic. unremarkable script into a running awe of their Anglo comrade and his parody of the battle between individual- lordly obsessions: "Steeck, you want, ized black directness and uptight white how you say, re-venge?" And Reynolds HERE WERE two large and institutional, financial, and criminal takes directly from Leonard's novel the important exceptions to this power. It's a curious, disguised class black chauffeur as a willing but cynical T summer's generally stereo- conflict, with the color oppositions Uncle Tom. Only white hunters value typical use of black character: Danny implicitly standing for every other class pride over money. Glover in Silverado and Richard Pryor division in American society, only Michael Ritchie's otherwise inoffen- in Brewster's Millions. Glover plays a openly expressed by members of the sive but pointless Fletch has Chevy black cowboy hero, in itself something black underclass. Chase donning a fantasy Afro-wig to of a cinematic landmark, despite the Both the Pryor and the Murphy play hoops for the Lakers, with Kareem historical fact that a very large percent- personae suggest something about the Abdul-Jabbar doing a cameo commen- age of cowboys were black or Hispanic. general conventions surrounding black tary on Fletch's athletic prowess. Just In the opening scene that establishes his characters in popular films: that they as Chase has yet to make a film in which character, he defends himself against persistently reflect certain class assump- he is not simply mugging a very thinly racist bullies who would deny him a tions about the society as a whole, veiled version of his television schtick, drink in a white bar. Race is otherwise perceived in the popular imagination as so Abdul-Jabbar seems doomed to do not an issue in the script, and the whole consisting of a white upper class (rich basketball variations on O.J. Simpson's film is so badly shaped that Glover's white folks), a middle class (the remain- and Jim Brown's ex-football heroes — presence is largely wasted, but he is ing white folks), and poor people (black despite his announced intentions to do much the strongest actor and, as such, folks and others). That this fantasy only "serious" roles. If he were shorter and may begin getting scripts with broader very remotely corresponds to the actual less famous, there would simply be no and more contemporary black roles — class makeup of the society does not room for him in the script. although there are many fine young seem to matter for its hold upon the On another hand, Grace Jones (A black actors (as Martin Ritt's A Soldier's popular culture or even, indeed, on View to a Kill) and Tina Turner (Mad Story amply confirmed) who might turn social policy: the notion of "middle- Max Beyond Thunderdotne) did star blue waiting for that to happen. class taxpayers" has a stranglehold on turns this summer as exotic black Furies Walter Hill's remake of Brewster's the thinking of most politicians and who provide sinister erotic interest for Millions deserves some acknowledgment much of the electorate. Roger Moore (is there a whiter shade as well for the casting of Pryor in the So it seems that, in films at least, one of pale?) and Mel Gibson. Both actresses central role, for race here is also not of the few ways that issues of class play exaggerated versions of their much an explicit issue: it is mentioned conflict enter into the atmosphere is in already well-established pop-vamp per- in passing for a couple of laughs, but a racial guise; black or other minority sonae (although it is hard to imagine, is otherwise lightly embodied in the class characters are perceived as outsiders by in fact, an exaggerated Grace Jones), parable of the film, which is the story definition, and as outsiders they can and their awesome cinematic sexuality of how an ordinary working stiff (Pryor show rebellious antagonism to the social is overwhelming and therefore untouch- plays an almost washed-up minor league order as a matter of course. In the white able — except of course by James Bond, pitcher) must spend $30 million in 30 teen films that are glutting the market, who is impervious to dark female days in order to win his full and the rebel teenagers have somewhat the powers. These are comic-book roles enormous inheritance. The inner battle same license, but it is assumed, of played with outsize delight and ele- becomes a matter of upper-class (read course, that teenagers grow up. Non- gance, yet they illustrate by their very white) pretensions vs. lower-class white characters are seldom allowed to outrageousness the archetypal boxes (black) sincerity and authenticity, with "grow up" in American films, for they placed around non-white characters in the latter finally triumphant, winning are too valuable as difficult children. many films. Like the "Libyan terror- both the money and the girl. It's pop- They allow a largely white audience to ists" who set the hero spinning into the comic romance, but Pryor's emotional imagine rebellion as entertaining, self- past in Back to the Future, they do not range and nervous energy are such that contained, and inevitably Other.

20 SEPTEMBER 13, 1985 CHAVEZ IN AUSTIN University, Waco. The conference will Friends of the United Farm Workers will consist of formal papers and panel discus- host a reception for UFW presider*, Cesar sions on the nature of oral history and its Chavez, September 14, Austi Opera place in the social studies, American studies, House, 200 Academy, folklore, libraries and archives, and in p.m.. to promote the table grape, biographical writing. The $30 registration For more information c fee includes a buffet luncheon and banquet; reduced air fares and hotel rates are available. For further information, call (817) 755-3437.

MAGICAL FABRIC The Greater San Antonio Quilt Guild will eseq "Fabric Magic -- Pleasures become iii*,,:*es," September 20-22, Centro de del Mercado, at Santa Rosa and 4#,Tce Streets in downtown San Anto include a quilting bee, mini- aliiisiikfOp.s, showings of the film "Quilts sales of quilt-related rkshops conducted by famous.. foximately 2(X) quilts, wall OBSERVANCES .d quilted garmets will ne September 16, 1940 — Congress judged. For more information, enacts first peacetime draft. to Joan Henarie, 314 Sutton September 22, 1919 — 365,000 r e, Siff Antonio 78228. steelworkers across the country strike *SCAN ART EXHIBIT unsuccessfully for union recognition. _ September 23, 1973 — Pablo Neruda mo's Museum of Art will ns efrri9t nM, x isccje ouopentivneeasms bAiNsHiit u dies twelve days after the overthrow of ,w ys the Popular Unity Government of Chile and the murder of President Salvador Allende. i.7-cwidude3se3t others who ha September 25, 1957 — Nine black isto irecettl,a:f Mexican art duriggive'' students enroll at Little Rock Central cars. General museum infori* Se ember High School with help of federal troops. . with le by calling (512) 226-5544.. prgrams, and designs if CE IN THE GARDEN dtins, touring companies,' SPEAKING OF THE PAST i0#0:iosjustice group has formed exhibit coincides with the Baylor University will host "The Past essa area. For information Edgar Manry's Curtain Calf, IS the Present: A Symposium on Oral tomes and programs, write or call of Theater in Austin. For more '1 - story," October 7-8, Jones Theater, ace and-Justice Coalition, Box 295, call (512) 472-5433. Heoper-Schaefer Fine Arts Center, Baylor ;;.:19758, (915) 369-9253.

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THE TEXAS OBSERVER 21 (Advertisement)

A Public Service Message from the American Income Life Insurance Co.—Waco, Texas—Bernard Rapoport, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer Part III Feeding the "Trillion-Dollar Rat Hole" By Tristram Coffin

This is the third in a series of reprinted from Tristram The Washington Post noted that "General Dynamics has Coffin's newsletter, The Washington Spectator, describ- paid no Federal income tax since 1972 by making use of ing the Pentagon's extravagance and mismanagement various tax deductions. A study by Citizens for Tax Justice of military contracts. found that the company, while reporting $930 million in earnings from 1981 to 1983, was one of several defense contractors that paid no Federal income tax during that period."

LIVING HIGH ON THE HOG Actually, reports Sojourners, five of the largest military A study of 12 aerospace firms by the General Accounting contractors paid no Federal taxes for the years 1981, 1982, Office found that executive pay, salary and bonus, averaged 1983. Grumman and Lockheed paid no taxes at all; General 42 percent more than that paid by firms of comparable size Dynamics, Boeing and General Electric received cash refunds in other military business. The labor force, by comparison, on other tax breaks. The five companies earned profits totaling earned just slightly more than the average nationally. $10.5 billion in the three-year period.

The study included such firms as Boeing, General Dynamics, WHO PAYS THE PIPER? Grumman, Lockheed-Georgia Co., LTV Aerospace and The Center on Budget and Priority states that the "military Defense Co., McDonnell Douglas Aircraft Corp., Northtrop, spending has exploded" during the Reagan Administration. Raytheon, and TRW. "Approximately $30 billon a year, in effect, has been transferred from social program's the Pentagon ... Overall, Rep. Jack Brooks (D-Tex.), chairman of the House Federal support for low income Americans has declined by Government Operations Committee that commissioned the 16 percent since 1981, after adjusting for inflation, and will report, concluded that top pay on the aerospace business is decline further if President Reagan's 1985 budget proposals "bloated." are enacted . . . In the coming year, more than half of the average American family's income tax dollars — or more than He reported that the executives "also received non-cash $3,500 per family — will go for military programs." perquisites, including stock options, the use of automobiles, social club membership and free travel for spouses. Most if Another authority, Prof. Louis Rene Bares of Purdue not all have been paid at the taxpayers' expense." University, points out, Spending on nuclear weapons preempts resources that might otherwise be directed to improvements A St. Louis Post-Dispatch report of social activities by General in housing food production energy sources and public health. Dynamics, investigated by the Defense Contract Audit Agency, Spending on nuclear weapons is at a profound cost to private reveals that the military contractor charged Uncle Sam for capital use. Diverting limited private capital into weapons entertaining top Pentagon brass and Congressmen and for production hastens deterioration of the American industrial personal use of corporate jets. plant.

The entertaining took place at Las Vegas casinos, the "By encouraging a corrosive transfer of capital from the Kennedy Center, Washington's Maison Blanche restaurant and civilian to the military sector, the Reagan Administration famous gold resorts. General Dynamics, the report claimed, sacrifices productivity, competitiveness and innovation. It does also charged the Pentagon for membership fees at the this via massive Federal intervention in the economy. Congressional Country Club, Burning Tree Club, Army Navy Country Club and the Capitol Hill Club. "Spending on nuclear weapons is a dead-end business. Dollars spent on missiles and bombers return much less to Items questioned by auditors include: taking guests to Pine the economic system than dollars spent on consumer goods. Valley golf resort in New Jersey and an Air Force ball in New Spending on nuclear weapons creates a debilitating shortage York; a $17,000 initiation fee at Old Warson Country Club in of professional talent in the civilian sector, as the military claims St. Louis; meals and drinks at Desert Horizon Club in Palm 30 to 50 percent of all scientists and engineers in America." Springs; and $22 million for executives' flights on company jets. Several flights were to Aspen, Colo. the ski resort, and There is no end in sight. The American Society of Mechanical to West Palm Beach, Fla. Also in dispute is $320,000 for 76 Engineers notes, smugly, that the President's "Star Wars" flights by a company executive to Albany, Georgia, where he program, with a $26 billion research budget, will be "state- maintains a family farm, reports the Washington Post. of-the-art cornucopia" for contractors.

Reprinted by permission from the April 1, 1985 issue of The Washington Spectator, Tristram Coffin, Editor. A one-year subscription (22 issues) is $10, from P.O. Box 442, Merrifield, Virginia 22116.

American Income Life Insurance Company BERNARD RAPOPORT Chairman of the Board and ARe EXECUTIVE OFFICES: P.O. BOX 208, WACO. TEXAS 78703. 817-772-3050 Chief Executive Officer

22 SEPTEMBER 13, 1985 • AFTERWORD • more of the many dumb things large and bureaucratic institutions do to harass and annoy people for no good reason. So I signed it out of principle. The principle Through a Mug Darkly was, "When dealing with fools, do whatever is necessary to make them happy and get them off your back." By Bill Helmer The fact is that I had no particular quarrel with government and had no NTIL MY informants get back doesn't fall for the kind of rabble- desire to overthrow it violently or with details, we can't be sure rousing nonsense that liberals are always otherwise and figured that in any case U just how serious is this plot to putting out, but anti-establishment poli- I lacked the resources. But after learning destroy Scholz's, the cradle of Austin tics had an outlaw quality I still find at Scholz's that the oath was an liberalism. appealing, and in those days that intolerable infringement on freedom of All I know at the moment is what I automatically meant liberal politics. In association and a variety of other read in the papers and that's pitifully short, I left Pharr, Texas, at age 18 with liberties guaranteed under the Constitu- little. The Austin American-Statesman no more politics than a sense of tion, I began to experience outrage more headline read, SCHOLZ GARTEN PUT ON contrariness, went to the big state or less in direct proportion to the amount MARKET BY TAVERN OWNER, with every- university in Austin, and at Scholz's fell of beer consumed. thing but an exclamation mark. But the in with .a bad crowd. Well, the birds-of-a-feather principle, front-page lead story in the local section I had already learned how to get away plus a certain shared pleasure in told us only that Larry Bales, who is with drinking beer underage by sitting disreputability (about that time someone owner or lessor or something of a at one of the tables in the "garten" out in the legislature defined a Texas liberal business entity called Scholz Garten, back mit meine upperclassman gefriends as "morally depraved and fiscally may or may not be trying to sell it, lease and their one-dollar pitcher and letting irresponsible"), drew me gradually, it, sublease it, sell his lease or otherwise my mug set in front of an empty chair table by table, into contact with famous upset the status quo as pertains to the whose missing occupant was presumed liberal journalists like Ronnie Dugger state's most interesting beer-drinking to be 21. And it was under those and Billy Brammer and Willie Morris, establishment, and if he runs into too circumstances that my consciousness who early on constituted the Texas much grief over the fact that Scholz's started being raised. The impressionable Observer circle. And it happened that has state and federal landmark status, young brain was shaped (some would I was a journalism student, which made he's going to get even by screwing say warped) not only by beer but by it just about inevitable that I would one around with the tacky fixtures and the the graffiti on the Scholz men's-room day start sending stuff to the Observer. cheap prices and rum everthang! wall. But since I could never keep straight Not that Scholz's has much of a The restroom wall at Scholz's was the who were the good guys and the bad liberal clientele these days. The old- city's principal bulletin board for the guys in Texas politics, and wasn't in timers I know will go there only if I propagation of literary, artistic, politi- town half the time anyhow, I stuck to (1) threaten to sulk or (2) promise to cal, and sexual sentiments. There were the issues, like the Baptist conspiracy pay. This is because Austin liberals many issues in dispute, including who to end economical brown-bag boozing measure their self-worth by how long was queer and who put out, but the by intentionally failing to defeat the it takes them to change the character of political topic of the day was the liquor-by-the-drink bill. some new old joint and affect the University of Texas loyalty oath which Looking back, it could well be that political content of the men's room had to be signed in order to register for liquor-by-the-drink was what divided the graffiti. Every so often they return to class. I confess here that I had been once close-knit Austin liberal commu- Scholz's for old-times' sake, but only signing that little three-by-five card for nity, ultimately weakened it, and left it when it's temporarily outre with the about three semesters without giving it vulnerable to the schisms of the hippie college crowd. a thought. It was just one of maybe a and Vietnam eras when liberalism Scholz's was outre enough to be dozen silly cards one had to contend with became unfashionable and all but impo- attracting the Austin liberal crowd when because if you didn't sign it. . . . Well, tent as a cohesive political force to deal I stumbled onto it, as a U.T. student, probably if you didn't sign it nothing with Reaganism. in the middle Fifties. What attracted me would have happened because nobody I seriously doubt that Scholz's owner, was the sensational Sunday lunch spe- would have even noticed, or if they did or lessor, or whatever Larry Bales is, cial: For a single paper dollar I could notice they wouldn't have known what has given a whole lot of thought to that get a bacon-wrapped filet mignon about to do about it, or if they did know what or much gives a damn that Austin the size of a sqwushed marshmallow, to do about it they would have decided liberals have left their ancestral home. a golf-ball-sized baked potato, several you were stupid rather than disloyal and But I'm wondering if maybe Scholz's peas, a heaping tablespoon of peach that telling anyone was just going to itself cares, in some metaphysical way. cobbler, a diced lettuce leaf, and a nice make trouble for themselves. Even if Maybe that fine old institution is using big glass of iced tea. Now, with a fine you signed it "Josef Stalin" you prob- Bales, intentionally placing itself in meal like that in the belly one normally ably couldn't have gotten anyone to pay jeopardy in an effort to reunite factions attention without calling a press confer- and generations. It could be trying to Longtime Observer contributor Bill ence. do for the local liberal community sort Helmer spends a lot of tune looking for In short, the loyalty oath was to me of what the Luftwaffe did for London. the Austin he once knew. and to just about everyone else only one

THE TEXAS OBSERVER 23 Postmaster. If undeliverable, send Form 3579 to The Texas Observer, 600 W. 7th, Austin, Texas 78701

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24 SEPTEMBER 13, 1985