The one great rule We will serve no group or party but of composition is to will hew hard to the speak the truth. truth as we find it and the right as we —Thoreau O'rxa,9 Olitstrurr see it. An Independent Liberal Weekly Newspaper VOL. 46 MARCH 21, 1955 AUSTIN, TEXAS NO. 49 2 Legislators Houston's Hofheinz Dallas Museum From Dallas Is Criticized He Plans a Modern City But Runs for Governor in Puzzling Ways HOUSTON tionally than any other city in this years as Mayor I opened a total of In Land Deal If he's running for Gov- region," he says. "In my first two 13 new swimming pools, parks were For 'Pink' Art ernor, Mayor Roy Hofheinz illuminated for night-time playing. King Sold, Pool Bought; of Houston is certainly going We doubled playgrounds and youth Nonobjective Painting about it in a strange way. programs. We will have four new Price Defended as Fair; branch libraries finished by the end And 'Red' Artists Portion of Deal Stalled First he comes out for the of next year." Hit by Clubwomen two-cent gasoline tax raise, Well, it's true, he said, the roads AUSTIN wihch few observers give a are not too good, "but you've got to DALLAS Two Dallas legislators took part chance of passing the house. remember Houston contains 165 A group of Dallas club- in a four-veteran block land deal Predictably, snuff - sniffin' square miles." One of his objectives women have attacked the last year under the veterans' land Jerry Sadler, the beer-taxing is to top the roughly 600 miles of Dallas Museum of Fine Arts streets of dirt, shell, or gravel. program, The Texas Observer has representative from Percilla, for "overemphasizing" futur- learned. says, Well, now, I declare, if He does not mention it at the istic, modernistic, and non- moment, but he has also opened the objective paintings and stat- Representative Tom King sold Roy Hofheinz is running for Governor on a sales tax, cityls municipal golf courses to Ne- uary and for "presentation of four 20-acre tracts of Dallas County about the only votes he'll get groes. the art and concepts of Com- land to the Veterans' Land Board in my county is those whose What makes this fellow go? munists." for $7,500 each. On short acquaintance, the most pencils slip •. striking thing about him is the Jerry Bywaters, museum direc- The land was then bought from Next Hofheinz says he is opposed phrases he uses. tor, has replied that "we are not the State by four Dallas veterans, to the Trinity River Authority, a sponsoring the work of known of whom Representative Joe Pool He does not talk like the mayor Communists." The club members, plan involving the welfare of the of a "status quo city" but flashes was one. entire Trinity Valley and the com- he said, "are attacking one thing through the progress plans stored they dislike—contemporary art— Other veterans' land develop- peting economic interests of the in his brain with such phrases as ments are summarized later in this railroads and surrounding areas. and linking with it another thing story. Sure enough, along comes Zeke ROY HOFHEINZ (Continued on Page 4) they dislike—Communisth." Originally there were twelve Zbranek, the representative from Half a dozen Dallas art clubs veterans in the King deal. The ap- Hull-Daisetta, distressed by the have endorsed the clubwomen's plications were first filed in June, Mayor's "unneighborly attitude." Only Four of 16,000 Students resolution. Several of these groups 1954. Four of the sales were ap- And in Houston itself,- the Mayor also add the complaint that the mu- proved in October as a "compan- has entered into a bitter wrangle seum has been "ignoring Dallas art- ion deal" with a joint appraisal. with the City Council. He has de- Compete in Houston UN Tests ists for years." Jerry Harwell, the The other eight were caught in the clared Houston needs a 20 per cent A United Nations contest for The contest was sponsored by curator of the museum, says on this general "freeze" on group land ad valorem tax raise and the Coun- Houston high schoolers — 16,000 of the local UN Council. It first point that the museum has "a deals imposed after the investiga- cil is opposing him. them—drew only four contestants planned to have the contest admin- larger collection of Texas art than tions into the widespread scandals Very pleasant in an efficient sort here last week. istered by high school teachers, but any museum in the state." in the program started in Novem- of way, Hofheinz works behind a The reason: Conservative forces that proposal brought such a flood The Public Affairs Luncheon ber. glass-topped, bed-sized desk in an in Harris County, definitely anti- of protests that the idea was Club adopted a resolution stating . King discussed the deal with The impressive office in City Hall. Big UN, raised so many objections to dropped. "There has been increasing evi- Texas Observer by phone from "progress boards" cover three the contest that it became, in the The reason given was that the dence in the museum of a tendency Dallas over the weekend. He said walls. "These Projects Spell Prog- words of Houston newspapers, sponsors "didn't want to see the to overemphasize all phases of fu- that he had owned the land origin- ress for Houston"; "Projects Since "controversial." schools made into an improper bat- turistic, modernistic, and nonobjec- ally. (It is in the Tom King subdi- Jan. 2, 1953" and so on. They tell of As a result, only 18 students tleground of established United tive paintings and statuary and to vision of the Elisha McCommas $300,000 spent for a Gulf freeway bought 50-cent information kits to States policy." Mrs. T. H. Tennant, exhibit, promote, and acquire the survey in Dallas County, ten miles to Wheeler, $100,000 for miscellane- prepare themselves for the examin- chairman of the contest committee, work of artists who have known southwest of Dallas and one mile ous traffic signals, $700,000 for an ation on the UN. Of the 18, only 12 called it a "strategic withdrawal communistic affiliations." from the community of Cedar Hill.) interchange, $2,600,000 for the pur- said that would take the exam after from strength." The museum, said the resolution, He stated that Pool "had no inter- chase of a water reservoir site, looking the kit over. Two of the four contestants will should "direct their endeavors to est in the land at all except to buy $232,000 for four new fire stations, Then only four showed up for the receive local prizes of $50 and $25. encourage, promote, and exhibit it as a veteran." ' $755,000 for the airport terminal, exam, the last question of which They will also be able to enter the works of artists worthy of their at- Pool stated from Dallas that he $42,000 for a branch library .... was to write an editorial on "What national contest, which offers free tention ..." was an "innocent party," that the "Aesthetically we have more the United Nations Means to Me trips to Europe and Mexico and Listed among the artists appar- , (Continued on Page 6) park areas inside the city propor- as an American Citi7prc college scholarships as prizes. ently not "worthy of their atten- tion" were Pablo Picasso, Diego Galveston Island—II Rivera, Joseph Hirsch, Max Weber, 3 Jo Davidson, George Grosz, and Chaim Gross. Apparently choosing not to dis- pute the ladies' resolution on the Police Chief Defends Brothels issue of whether art-by-commun- ists is art, Bywaters said the Mu- (Second of a series) ships are coming into Galveston This was too bad. Johnston has on Police and Fire Commissioner seum possesses a nude painting by GALVESTON wharves these days. been the object of numerous seri- Walter L. Johnston." Grosz, a large figure painting of The politicians on Galves- "I ain't gonna tell you nothin'," ous charges, yet he would not give The grand jury said it had ques- nine men washing up after work by the police chief responded. "I don't a reporter a chance to get his side tioned Amelio to find out whether Hirsch, and a portrait of Dr. Otto ton Island are disarmingly of the story. he had knowledge that Johnston candid sometimes. One of the have to be dictated to by you or Ruhle by Rivera. He added that anybody else. If you don't like the Bill Kugle, head of the Galveston "had illegally received a sum or none of these paintings have been chief law enforcement offi- way I do my job that's your busi- reform committee and a former sums of money as a bribe to in- exhibited since January. The mu- cers recently had several ness. You do your job and I'll do state legislator, told The Texas Ob- duce him ... to permit and sanction seum does not have any of the thousand campaign blotters mine." server: the open operation of bawdy works of the others, he said. houses." printed with this motto on We sat looking at each other for a "The complicity of Walter Johns- Mrs. F. R. Carlton, Public Affairs them: minute or so. There didn't seem to ton with the operators of the Amelio died five days before he Luncheon Club past-president and "Honesty is no substitute be anything else to say so I walked bawdy houses is patently obvious. was to come to trial.