REPAINTING THE LITTLE RED SCHOOLHOUSE: THE

TEXAS AMERICAN HISTORY REQUIREMENT

AND MCCARTHYISM

by

ANNA L. MORALES, B.A.

A THESIS

IN

HISTORY

Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Texas Tech University in

Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for

the Degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

Approved

Accepted

August, 1985

?t!:J rr T~ I reg'_;;-

1/c:JJ, rtf C..e>f· ~

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PREFACE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iii Chapter

I. POST WORLD WAR TWO BLUES . . . . . . 1

II. TEXAS CONSERVATISM: MADE FOR TEXANS BY TEXANS ..... . 26

III. MR. HALEY GOES TO AUSTIN . 50

IV. VICTORY AT LAST: A BILL BECOMES LAW 77

V. THE AMERICAN HISTORY REQUIREMENT: A PYRRHIC VICTORY? . . . . . . . • • • 10 0

BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... . . . 113

ii

PREFACE

In 1955 the Texas Legislature passed a law

requiring all students intending to graduate from state

supported high schools and colleges to complete six

hours of American history. In the decade preceding this

legislation, Americans and Texans alike witnessed this

country's second great red scare. From 1950 to 1955,

Senator Joseph McCarthy captured the attention of the

American public by accusing the federal government of

harboring communists. The public was aghast; if the red

menace had infiltrated Washington, where else might it

be lurking? Subsequently, state legislatures across the

nation passed countless laws to provide immunity from

the communist virus. The efforts of the Texas legisla­

ture echoed this concern. Would the Texas legislature

have passed the bill under examination if not for the

Cold War and McCarthyism? I hesitate to indulge in a

"what if" history lesson, but I believe that the anti­

communist hysteria from 1945 to 1955 was a conducive

atmosphere for this type of legislation. I hope the

reader concurs with my findings.

iii

During the research and the writing of this thesis

I became obliged to the archivists and librarians of the

Texas Tech University Library and Texas State Archives.

I am particularly indebted to the staff of the Southwest

Collection at Texas Tech University for their indefati­

gable and generous help.

I am especially grateful to those who read and

edited the many versions of this work. I must thank

Dr. Dan Flores and Dr. John Howe for performing this

chore, and of course, the director of the thesis,

Dr. George Flynn. I must also thank Vicki Pachall and

Joan Weldon for typing the many drafts. Mrs. Weldon

was especially helpful in typing the final manuscript.

Finally, I owe a tremendous debt to my very own

cheerleaders, my mother Judith Morales, and my wonderful

West Texan husband, Jon McPherson. Without their con­

tinuous encouragement I would never have completed this

task.

iv

CHAPTER I

POST WORLD WAR T~'VO BLUES

Last week, a second great anti-Communist drive was underway. But there was differences to be noted. . The 1919 note of hysteria was missing. The raids on radical headquarters, the mass deporta­tions that followed the first world war, were not in evidence. Instead the government was sponsoring what amounted to a campaign of education . . Americans

. had not outgrown their naivete. .1

Regardless of how confidently the popular press

wrote of the sophistication of the average citizen,

America in 1947 was slipping into another red scare.

True, the excesses of violence and hysteria failed to

equal those of the post World ~'Var One era. Yet, Americans

chose to sacrifice, for a brief period, some of their

most fundamental rights. Such actions endangered rather

than saved democracy. Theyresulted in a political climate

which encouraged the rise of such a reprehensible charac-

ter as Senator Joseph McCarthy. The infiltration of

communists into American government would as a political

issue rise precipitously then decline even more rapidly

from 1947 to 1955.

Having just fought and won a second world war in

1 Newsweek, April 7, 1947.

1

2

hopes of "making the world safe for democracy," Americans

were battle weary. It took a shocking series of events

both overseas and on the homefront to provoke them into

once again assuming a warlike stance. The enemy in this

battle,however,was a former ally, the Russians. During

World War Two the two sides reconciled ideological dif-

ferences to form a "popular front" to defeat the fascists.

Shortly after the war, the already tenuous alliance

between the United States and the Soviet Union broke down

completely. The allies entered the war with the express

purpose of restoring peace and stability in the world.

They stated this in the Atlantic Charter of 1941. 2 After

the war, the allies were unable to understand the Russians'

motivation behind their refusal to comply with the Yalta

accords. To the allies it vlas ludicrous that Russia

should even consider gaining territorial concessions upon

the successful conclusion of the war. 3 Stalin had no

intentions of fulfilling the Yalta accords which allowed

the regions surrounding Russia to be based on self-

determination. For centuries Poland had been the route

of invaders from the West; the Kremlin would never

2 Norman A. Graebner, Cold War Diplomacy American

Foreign Policy, 1945-1960 (Princeton, New Jersey: D. Van Nostrand Company, 1972), 13.

3John Lewis Gaddis, The United States and the Origins of the Cold War 1941-1947 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1972), 264-265.

3

surrender Poland and other areas of Eastern Europe because

they guaranteed to Russia friendly borders. 4 Stalin also

distrusted the Americans after he learned at Potsdam, 1n

the summer of 1945, of their use of the atomic bomb

despite its devastating consequences. The use of the

atomic bomb proved to be an enormous bone of contention

between the two powers. 5 By 1947 Americans were girding

themselves for 11 Combat 11 and preparing to win at all costs.

In 1945 the country was eager for demobilization,

lower taxes, and an end to rationing after fighting for

four years. However distrustful of the Russians, 1n 1945

Americans concerned themselves more with a return to

11 normalcy. 11 In the classical nineteenth century tradi-

tion, they shied away from European entanglements.

Americans balked at the idea of policing the world.

The longing for prewar isolationism manifested

itself 1n two diametrically opposing camps. A rather

small but vocal group of popular front liberals (those

who supported Roosevelt's policy of cooperation with the

Soviet Union) were still flush with their triumph over

the Nazis, and were especially reluctant to criticize the

Soviet Union and communism, and they were unwilling to

authorize the appropriation of funds necessary to 11 get

4 Graebner, Cold War Diplomacy, 11-13.

5Gaddis, Origins of the Cold War, 246-248.

4

tough with the Russians. 116

As the Truman administration began to doubt its

cooperative relationship with the Kremlin, the public

initially failed to rally to the administration's support.

Faced with Soviet duplicity in Eastern Europe and a

repudiation of the popular front idea by the international

communist movement, President Truman and other American

officials grew increasingly convinced that the Soviet

Union was determined to encroach upon the territory of

the United States and its allies. 7

The Secretary of Commerce, Henry Wallace, was

the leading spokesman for popular front liberals in

America. On September 12, 1946, before the National

Citizens Political Action Committee and the Independent

Citizens Committee of the Arts, Sciences, and Professions

at Madison Square Garden, Wallace advised Americans to

remain out of the political affairs of Eastern Europe,

which was Russia's sphere of influence. Wallace reminded

his own government that sword rattling at the Russians

would only encourage them to retaliate in kind, perhaps

even more vigorously. 8 President Truman resented

Wallace's criticisms of the Administration's new tougher

1946.

6 rbid. I 336-37.

7Ibid., 284.

8James Reston 1n the New York Times, September 13,

stance towards the Soviets. He especially resented

Wallace's reference to Winston Churchill's speech given

in Fulton, Missouri in March of that year. Truman fully

endorsed Churchill's speech, which presented a bleak

picture of the international situation, and introduced

the phrase, "iron curtain." 9 vlallace' s intrusion into

foreign affairs embarrassed Truman by placing the Presi-

dent in the uncomfortable position of having to explain

the contradiction over foreign policy within the govern-

ment. Unwilling to accept Wallace's intrusions, Truman

asked him to resign on September 20, 1946. 10

Even the aggressive Truman was unable to dismiss

an entire segment of the population, especially a voting

segment of the population. The average American refused

5

to accept the position of his country in the postwar world.

Most Americans placed their hopes for a peaceful world in

the framing of the United Nations Charter in 1945. For

many, the United Nations Charter ended America's "unnatural"

f . 1" 11 ore1gn po 1cy. Truman's reorientation of policy towards

Russia frightened Americans because it implied American

involvement which they were unprepared to supply either

with men or dollars. Despite efforts of the administration

9Gaddis, Origins of the Cold War, 308-309.

10 Graebner, Cold War Diplomacy, 23.

11 rbid.

6

and the military, Congress allowed the rapid demobiliza-

12 tion of the armed forces in Europe. Even more unpopular

was Truman's proposal to institute a universal military

training program of a year's training for all able

13 eighteen-year-old men. Since the days of the Revolu-

tionary War, this country had been hostile to the notion

of a larg~ peacetime army.

These same Americans exhibited their typical

xenophobia in the area of foreign aid. The Truman admin-

istration hoped to establish an elaborate economic recovery

plan for those countries devastated by the war fought in

their countrysides. Few Americans had forgotten that only

Finland had not reneged on its World War One debts. The

United States had provided funds for the allies long

before it entered the war. Surely that was sufficient

't 14 generos1. y. Undersecretary of State Dean Acheson

bemoaned the fact that Americans were existing in a

dreamworld. The United States had been thrust on to

the center of the world stage, and, as Acheson lamented,

II . We are in for it and the only real question is

12R. Alton Lee, "The Army Mutiny of 1946," Journal of American History 53 (December 1966): 557, 567.

13Gaddis, Origins of the Cold War, 262-263.

14 Ibid., 342.

7

whether we shall know it soon enough." 15

Still Americans were tired of tightening their

belts and they demanded a return to a peacetime economy.

The 1946 election returns echoed these sentiments. The

GOP won control over both Houses for the first time since

1930. They campaigned, in fine Republican tradition, on

the platform of cutting spending and taxes. By cutting

the budget, the Republicans, many of them vicious anti-

communists, actually stymied the efforts of the admin­

istration to curtail Soviet and communist activity. 16

Those Republicans, such as John Foster Dulles

and Senator Arthur Vandenberg, in sympathy with Truman's

policy towards the Russians tried to soften the blow of

their party's budget cutting axe. During the summer

prior to the election, John Foster Dulles had written an

article for Life magazine which he entitled "Thoughts on

Soviet Foreign Policy and What to do About it." Dulles

expounded his theory that the Soviets were attempting

world domination. Despite the alarming tenor of the

piece, or perhaps because of it, "Thoughts on Soviet

15 Department of State Bulletin 14 (16 June 1946) : 1047.

16Richard Freeland, The Truman Doctrine and The Origins of McCarthyism (New York: Alfred E. Knopf, 1972) f 6-71 74-77 o

F · P 1" " d t be popular WJ..th the publJ.·c. 17 oreJ.gn o J.cy prove o

As chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee

and President pro tempore, Senator Vandenberg managed

t T I b d t f • • • l8 o save ruman s u ge rom J.ncapacJ.tatJ.ng cuts.

The prospect of a continually hostile Congress

forced Truman to recognize that to maintain a wartime

budget he must convince the public of the "real" danger

of communist aggression. Truman and a number of other

politicians exaggerated Soviet action in Eastern Europe

to foster and manipulate public opinion in reference to

19 foreign aid to Europe. The President was fully aware

of the impending economic disaster J.n Europe. It was

8

unable to recover from the ravages of the war, and conse-

quently was incapable of maintaining the wartime levels

of importation from America. Hence, without European

recovery, the postwar boom that Americans were enjoying

would falter, and eventually collapse. Of course, if

America suffered in the marketplace, the President would

suffer at the polls. Such economic chaos provided

17Gaddis, Origins of the Cold War, 320; John Foster Dulles, "Thoughts on Soviet Foreign Policy and What to do About It," Life 20 (June 3 and 10, 1946): 113-126, 118-130.

18Gaddis, Origins of the Cold War, 344-345.

19Athan Theoharis in Seeds of Repression: Harry S. Truman and the Origins of McCarthyism (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1971) and Richard Freeland in The Truman Dictrine developed and argued this thesis.

9

American officials with another more alarming scenario.

Communism tended to (and still does) appeal to economi-

cally depressed countries and segments of the population.

Perhaps the Soviets would be able to make significant

. h 1 20 galns Wlt out any rea effort.

Truman was convinced that only a large foreign

aid package could deter the possibility of financial

disaster overseas. The President's fear of such a

disaster resulted in his pleas for Greco-Turkish aid

and the Marshall Plan or European Recovery Program.

The anti-communist atmosphere which Truman and

his administration created to secure passage of his

proposed foreign aid was to characterize American

national politics through McCarthy's censure in 1954,

21 and state and local politics for considerably longer.

vlhat Truman and his officials managed to accom-

plish was nothing short of a second major red scare mania.

However, the President was not fully responsible for the

irrational behavior of the American public; a number of

startling events both domestic and foreign lent vitality

and credibility to the administration's claims.

20 Freeland, The Truman Doctrine, 4-6; Gaddis, Origins of the Cold War, 188-189.

21william Prendergast, "State Legislatures and Communism: The Current Scene," American Political Science Review 44 (September 1950): 556-574.

10

Prior to any concerted effort on Truman's part,

Americans were already wary of the Soviets. Early in

June of 1945 the FBI discovered secret State Department

documents in the offices of Amerasia, a small left-wing

journal devoted to Asian affairs. 22 In February of 1946,

the Canadian government announced the arrest of twenty-two

people in connection with the theft of atomic bomb secrets.

Several days later on February 16, FBI Director J. Edgar

Hoover testified before a Senate committee that the

Soviets acquired valuable atomic secrets through this

espionage ring.23

Hoover's revelation "seemed to indicate

a link between Soviet espionage activities and the world

communist movement. .. 24 An opinion poll taken the

following month indicated that sixty percent of those

polled believed that America was being "too soft" in its

1 . d . 25 po 1cy towar Russ1a. By July of 1946, a Fortune poll

revealed that over half of the poll sample, regardless

of education level or familiarity with the topic, were

22 Stanley I. Kutler, The American Inquisition, Justice and Injustice in the Cold War (New York: Hill and Wang, 1982), 189.

23Gaddis, Origins of the Cold War, 301.

24 Ibid.

25Hadley Cantril and Mildred Strunk, Public Opinion, 1935-1946 (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1951), 963, 1060.

11

certain that the Soviet Union's goal was world domination. 26

Truman capitalized upon this latent fear on

March 12, 1947, in his delivery to Congress of the "Truman

Doctrine." His purpose in doing so was to coerce Congress

into passing a Greco-Turkish aid bill. In his speech he

appealed to anti-communist, anti-Soviet sentiment by

referring to

A second way of life . . . based upon the will of a minority forcibly imposed upon the majority. It relies upon terror and oppression, a controlled press and radio, fixed elections and the suppression of personal freedoms.27

Truman proposed that "the United States support free

peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed

minorities or by outside pressures ... through economic

and financial aid. ."to impede the onslaught of com-

munism. 28 The consequences should Congress decide not

to vote for aid would be "Collapse of free institutions

and loss of independence. .. 29

The veracity of Truman's world vision continues

to provoke debate, but the real issue pertains to his

manner of presentation. To obtain support for the aid

26M. Brewster Smith, "The Personal Setting of Public Opinions: A Study of Attitudes Toward Russia," Public Opinion Quarterly 11 (Winter 1947-48), 514-515.

534-537.

27 Department of State Bulletin (March 23, 1947),

28 Ibid.

29 Ibid.

12

program the President painted a bleak picture of commu-

nist betrayal and infiltration in Europe. He divided

his 11 Canvas .. into two distinct regions and employed a

black and white color scheme. Traditionally, Americans

have responded well to that type of reasoning. Gradually,

this dichotomous world v1ew evolved into a comprehensive

foreign policy based upon economic, political and mili-

tary encirclement of the Soviet Union. Euphemistically,

Truman .. got tough .. with the Russians, but soon his offi­

cials referred to this policy as 11 containment ... 30 Unfor-

tunately, a number of Americans began to think in terms

of 11 Containment 11 within their own borders. Evidently,

enough evidence had surfaced to cause the public to worry

about the possibilities of communist infiltration of key

government positions.

Again, Truman acted quickly to encourage an

atmosphere of suspicion. Only nine days after the Truman

Doctrine he issued an executive order to establish the

Federal Employee Loyalty Program. This program's objec-

tive was to eliminate disloyal employees from the national

government, and thereby inhibit the 11 future infiltration

of subversive individuals ... 31 There may have been some

30 . d 1. . 1 J t. M1chael R. Belknap, Col War Po 1t1ca us 1ce, The Smith Act, The Communist Party, and American Civil Liberties (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1977), 42.

31Freeland, The Truman Doctrine, 115.

13

real cause for worry as the Crime Records Division of the

FBI had ''identified" as potential subversives the follow-

ing Congressmen: Vito Marcantonio, Robert L. Condon, and

32 Senator Paul Douglas. Also, the Canadian spy ring

involved contacts in American government positions. The

program involved a number of thorough background investi-

gations and screening procedures for all federal employees,

present and future. The timing of the announcement was

quite appropriate because it alerted the public to the

extent of the President's determination to "fight"

communism at home. 33

Americans zealously assumed their duty as guard-

ians of democracy. Cogently, a Gallup poll taken during

March and the beginning of April in 1947 disclosed that

sixty-one percent of the respondents thought that member-

34 ship in the Communist Party should be forbidden by law.

The charge d'affaires 1n Moscow, George F. Kennan, inad-

vertently contributed to the anti-communist furor by

writing an article for Foreign Affairs entitled "The

32 Kenneth O'Reilly, Hoover and the Un-Americans, The FBI, HUAC, and the Red Menace (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1983), 94.

33 h . 115 Freeland, T e Truman Doctr1ne, .

34George Gallup, The Gallup Poll Public Opinion, 1935-1971, 3 vols. (New York: Random House, 1972), vol. 1, 640.

14

Sources of Soviet Conduct" and signed Mr. x. 35 Essentially,

Kennan linked Soviet ideology to its foreign policy goals.

Kennan's article p;;vided the intellectual rationale which

alerted the American public to the idea that the Soviets

were a very real threat, and that all possible resources

should be employed to impede their progress. Ironically,

public opinion contradicted Truman's own views about the

CPUSA (Communist Party in America) , because he considered

it "contemptible" but insignificant. 36 Frankenstein had

created a monster, and as in Mary Shelley's novel, the

monster turned upon its creator.

In early 1948, the issue of communist subversion

gained even more impetus. On February 25, the government

in Czechoslovakia fell and was replaced by a communist

regime. This was a Soviet inspired coup, and it appeared

to many Americans that the Russians were on their way

37 westward. The coup also dashed any possibility of

cooperation between the two nations.38

The Soviets did

nothing to discourage such views, and in June of 1948,

they instituted the Berlin Blockade. Naturally, this

35Mr. x., "The Sources of Soviet Conduct," Foreign Affairs 25 (July 1947), 566-582.

36Belknap, Cold War Political Justice, 44.

37Freeland, The Truman Doctrine, 269.

38Gaddis, Origins of the Cold War, 354-355.

15

only bolstered the increasingly prevalent opinion that

the West was imperiled by Stalin and his Red Army. The

public and the politicians, responding to the atmosphere

of suspicion, began to link foreign defeats to subversion

within and without the American government.

This emerged as an issue in the 1948 campaign.

Truman was satisfied with the response to his Doctrine

and loyalty probe because they lent credence to his pleas

for the European Recovery Program. Nonetheless, he was

unprepared for the furor his policies had created. By

the 1948 elections, the word "communism" almost guaranteed

an interested electorate. His adversaries, office hungry

Republicans, enthusiastically manipulated the issues

against Truman. Conservative Republicans resurrected

their anti-New Deal rhetoric and hurled accusations of

communist infiltration against the government, substi-

39 tuting "Truman" for "Roosevelt." The Republicans and

world events forced Truman to profess a rabid hatred of

Stalinism and to resolve to fight communism wherever he

encountered it. 40 He increasingly relied upon his

dichotomous world view.

39Peter H. Irons, "The Cold Crusade of the United States Chamber of Commerce," in Robert Griffith and Athan Theoharis, eds., The Specter: Original Essays on the Cold war and the Origins of McCarthyism (New York: New Viewpoints, 1974), 83-84.

40 Belknap, Cold War Political Justice, 42-43.

16

After Truman's narrow victory in the 1948 elec-

tion, new world events agitated Americans. In 1949, .

Chiang-Kai-Shek, the leader of the Nationalist forces in

China, retreated to Formosa. It was only a matter of

time before Mao-Tse-Tung, the leader of the communist

forces, triumphed. The defeat of the Kuomintang (Chiang's

regime) came as little surprise to the Truman administra-

tion. Truman and his advisors were fully aware of the

corruption 1n Chiang's government and his unpopularity

within his own country. Acheson prepared a "White Paper''

detailing the problems with Chiang's regime, and the

United States's inability to prevent the loss of China to

the communists. Truman reluctantly released this state-

ment in August of 1949. The American public was shocked,

as they had been led to believe that all was well in

China. Acheson hoped that the American people and Repub-

lican politicians would recognize the complexity of the

situation and the necessity of recognizing the new China.

The Truman Doctrine and rhetoric, however, presented an

uncomfortable and formidable barrier to public

41 acceptance.

Simultaneously, the Republicans revived their

charges of subversion in the American government (the

Truman administration and Democratic Party) . The loss

41 Kutler, The American Inquisition, 183-189.

of China was due, Republicans charged, to a government

cover-up of espionage activities. They blamed Owen

Lattimore, a scholar and advisor on East Asian affairs

to the American government and "Old China Hands." 42

More importantly, a number of Americans firmly convinced

17

themselves that the Truman administration was infiltrated

by communists. The Republican's allegations assumed new

dimensions when compounded with news of Soviet testing

of atomic weapons and the arrest in 1950 of scientist

Klaus Fuchs in London on the charges of passing high-level

atomic secrets. The conclusions drawn were inevitable.

For Republicans, 1950 was a very good year. Indeed, Alger

43 Hiss started it out perfectly.

Since its designation under the Rankin Resolution

as a standing House Committee in 1945, the House Un-

American Activities Committee had accomplished little.

In 1947 the committee held seven sets of hearings and

published four reports. The most publicized and flam-

boyant set of hearings were those on communism in Holly-

wood. The committee is largely remembered for its

assault on Hollywood, its encounter with "unfriendly

witnesses," "Fifth-Amendment communists," and the

42 Ibid., "Old China Hands," refers to the term applied to contemporary China Experts.

43 Freeland, The Truman Doctrine, 346-347.

18

subsequent blacklisting which deprived Hollywood of some

. 'f' 1 t 44 s1gn1 1cant ta en .. In 1948, however, Elizabeth Bentley,

a former courier for communist agents, named before the

committee a number of federal employees who transmitted

secrets to the Soviets during the war. She first con-

tacted the FBI with her story in 1945, but offered no

corroboration for her alarming accusations. 45 Aware of

the issues potential for the 1948 election, the committee

brought in Whittaker Chambers, another former communist

and current employee of Time magazine, to corroborate her

testimony. Not only did he affirm Bentley's story, but

he accused Alger Hiss of being a member of the Communist

Party during his tenure at the State Department, and later

d . 46

broa ened the charges to spy1ng.

Alger Hiss was "the symbol of almost everything

most Republicans, particularly in the Midwest,

despised. .. 47 He was a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of

Johns Hopkins and Harvard Law School. Hiss had served

44 Robert K. Carr, The House Committee on Un­Arnerican Activities, 1945-50 (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1952), 55.

45Allan Weinstein, Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978), 5.

46 h . t u Am . Carr, T e House comm1t ee on n- er1can Activities, 1945-50, 98-99.

47Thomas c. Reeves, The Life and Times of Joe McCarthy (New York: Stein and Day, 1982), 212.

19

as a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell

Holmes before he joined the ranks of the New Deal in the . ' .... s1

Agricultural Adjustme~t Administration. In 1936 he began

a career in the State Department. He eventually served

as an advisor to President Roosevelt at Yalta and as

principal advisor to the American delegation at the United

Nations Charter Conference in San Francisco. In 1947, at

the age of only 42, he became President of the Carnegie

Endowment for International Peace. 48 The committee and

the Republicans were excited because they knew that if

they could discredit Hiss, they could discredit the New

Deal, and Truman's administration. The Republicans struck

a mother lode.

The impact of the Hiss case on the nation at large

was tremendous. Suddenly all of the Republican's criti-

cisms and accusations against the New Deal and the Demo-

crats appeared to contain some veracity. Americans began

to question, in earnest, the loyalty of all of their

leaders, because "If a man of Hiss's background, achieve-

ments, and reputation for character had spied for Comrnu-

49 nlsm, who could be trusted?"

Hiss vehemently denied the allegation ln a calm

48 Ibid.

49Eric Goldman, The Crucial Decade--And After, America 1945-60 (New York: Alfred E. Knopf, 1966), 36.

20

but forceful manner before the committee. HUAC was so

impressed by his assertion of innocence that they almost .: .1\ .

dropped the case. But Representative Richard Nixon,

armed with FBI leaks of information, doggedly pursued his

quarry. Nixon's persistence paid off in November of 1949

when Whittaker Chambers produced the infamous "Pumpkin

Papers" (named for their hiding place in a hollowed out

pumpkin) which proved that Hiss had lied about his activi-

ties during his years in the State Department. On

January 21, 1950, a Federal Court returned a verdict of

guilty of perJury against Hiss. The statute of limita-

t . h d t . 50 1ons a run ou on esp1onage.

By 1950, the country was embroiled in a full

scale red scare. In the preceding year, sixty-eight

percent of the respondents to a Gallup poll believed that

the Communist Party should be outlawed (fifty-four percent

51 of college educated persons agreed) . Many Americans

truly believed that the communists were infiltrating all

levels of government, the schools and the entertainment

industry. This fear was understandable as the public

had been buffeted by Soviet aggression, tales of high-

level espionage and the discovery of communists in their

own backyard. Furthermore, President Truman had fostered

50weinstein, Perjury, 186-188.

51 Gallup, vol. 2, 873.

21

these ideas to maintain an ideal political climate for

his foreign aid programs. Eventually, Truman was a

victim of the atmosphere he had labored to create.

Another group of people had also furiously

worked to achieve a similar goal, but for a much differ-

ent reason. J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI also affected

the thinking of many Americans. The Cold War was

advantageous for the Bureau's political objectives, so

J. Edgar Hoover decided to cultivate a political climate

susceptible to the demands of the anti-co~~unists. As

early as 1946, the FBI began to

Aid those who hunted subversives, . . hound the hunted subversives, . . hound the hunted and .. influence the debate ... between 'First Amendment extremists' and Cold War liberals who believed Com­munist party members were not entitled to traditional Constitutional protections.52

Ultimately, the FBI was responsible for the overall tenor

of the red scare years because it funneled so much infor-

mation to HUAC, the American Legion, and anyone else who

pledged to fight domestic subversion.

Hoover used the HUAC and other groups as front

organizations for his activities. HUAC failed to uncover

anything unknown to the FBI, but rather .it served as a

mouthpiece for the Bureau. Hoover secretly acknowledged

that the:

52o'Reilly, Hoover and the Un-Arnericans, 6-7.

Committees of Congress have served a very useful purpose in exposing some of these activities which no federal agency is in a position to do, because the informatiorr.we_ obtain . . is either for intelligence purp~~es or for use in prosecu-tion. .53

22

In public, Hoover spoke and acted under the guise of non­

partisan ship to preserve the benevolent image of the

Bureau. His strategy successfully led many Americans

to admire rather than oppose him, as they eventually

54 would oppose McCarthy.

The figure most commonly associated with the

red scare is Joseph McCarthy. Ironically, McCarthy was a

latecomer in the game of red-baiting and red hunting.

Yet, it was he who epitomized the period, thereby inspir-

ing journalists and historians to label the tactics of

the time 11 McCarthyism ... The story of McCarthy's entrance

onto the scene is a familiar one. On February 9, 1950,

in Wheeling, West Virginia, the senator announced to a

surprised Lincoln Day audience, and an even more startled

press, that in his hand he held .. a list of 205 11 communists

working in the State Department. McCarthy pulled these

numbers from a three and a half year old letter. He mis-

quoted the letter and changed his mind several times as

the press pursued him across the country. By this time,

53As quoted in O'Reilly, 41.

54 Ibid., 130.

Americans were ready to believe him, even though his

charges were wild and unsubstantiated. 55 Much to .: "'· .

McCarthy's delight, th.e Senate Foreign Relations Commit-

tee on February 22 embarked upon an investigation "as to

whether persons who are disloyal to the United States

56 are or have been employed by the State Department."

Obviously, the issue was an old one, but McCarthy had

breathed new life into it, and the public demanded yet

another inquiry.

The Tydings Committee, as the investigation was

known, quickly discovered that McCarthy's charges were

old and without credibility. But he, realizing the

enormous political potential of the communists-in-

23

government issue, now turned to a more timely charge,

the loss of China. 57 McCarthy accused Owen Lattimore of

58 being a "top Soviet espionage agent." The senator went

on to garner headlines and infamy for himself with his

grandstand tactics. McCarthy rarely possessed any hard

evidence so he relied upon the concepts of guilt by asso-

59 ciation and the audacity of the charges themselves.

55 Reeves, Joe McCarthy, 220-229.

56 As quoted in Kutler, Inquisition, 191.

57 Ibid.

58 rbid., 183-189.

59Freeland, The Truman Doctrine, 359.

The 11 Chilly climate 11 1n America only contributed to his

courtroom repertoire. Eventually, McCarthy discredited .: ;'i

himself in the Army-MciCarthy hearings by maligning the

armed forces and even the beloved Dwight Eisenhower.

For five years, however, McCarthy hurtled accusations

at almost everyone who happened to disagree with him.

This same tactic soon proved to be popular with state

24

d 1 1 t d . . 60 an oca governmen s, newspapers, an average c1t1zens.

The red scare on the Federal level reached its

zenith in the early 1950s, and by 1954, when the Senate

censured McCarthy, the intensity began to ebb. President

Eisenhower felt little affection for McCarthy; subsequently

61 Ike's popularity worked against the senator. But a

number of states, Texas among them, had created mini

HUACs of their own, and passed many items concerning

anti-communist laws. One contemporary historian wrote:

Quantitatively, last year's output of state laws against subversive movements surpassed that of any other year in our history except 1919. It was a rare hopper which did not receive at least a sprinkling of bills of this sort.62

60Byron Abernethy, Interview with the author, Lubbock, Texas, February 6, 1985. Abernethy was the victim of red scare tactics. In 1957 he was .. let go .. from Texas Technological College. See Byron Abernethy File at the Southwest Collection, Texas Tech University.

61 stephen Ambrose, Eisenhower, 1890-1952, val. 1 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983), 548.

62 Prendergast, 11 State Legislatures, .. 556.

25

Texas was well-known for its history of reaction-

ary politics. The forerunner of HUAC was the Dies Com-.: j'

mittee, a one-man show- headed by Texas representative,

Martin Dies. He pioneered the unsavory tactics of HUAC.

In 1949 Beauford Jester, the moderate (by Texas standards)

governor of the state, died of a heart attack. His sue-

cessor was the more conservative Lieutenant-Governor,

Allen Shivers. Shivers admired McCarthy and attempted

. . 1 . 1 . . h. t 63 to enact ant1-commun1st eg1s at1on 1n 1s own s ate.

The conservative establishment around the state responded

favorable to Shivers's overtures, so the groundwork was

laid for a McCarthyite atmosphere in Texas politics.

63George Norris Green, The Establishment in Texas Politics: The Primitive Years, 1938-1957 (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1979), 122.

CHAPTER II

TEXAS CONSERVATISM: ~1ADE FOR TEXANS

BY TEXANS

Texas was not always the bastion of conservatism

that it is today. Indeed, the early political history

of the state reflects even agrarial radical and liberal

influences prior to the waning years of the New Deal. In

1890, the dominant force of the state, the farmers, formed

the Southern Farmer's Alliance to demand relief from the

depression they were experiencing. The People's Party was

also active in the late 1890s, and East Texans responded

favorably to the speeches of Socialists in the early years

of the twentieth century. The Social Darwinism of the

Gilded Age, however, prevailed for the two decades after

the Civil War as Southern, white, anglo-saxon fundamen-

talists dominated Texas settlement. Later during the

early 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan infiltrated the Texas

Legislature. 1

1George Norris Green, The Establishment in Texas Politics: The Primitive Years, 1938-1957 (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1979), 12-14; James R. Green, Grass-Roots Socialism: Radical Movements in the Southwest, 1895-1943 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State

26

27

Texas was not the only conservative state in the

nation, but right-wing politics flourished there from the .: ·\,··, .. ··-

Rolling Plains to the Piney Woods to the Permian Basin.

Conservatism became a Texas state of mind.

One of the reasons for the healthy condition of

conservatism in Texas over the past thirty-five years is

that Texans have always been very av1are of the "importance"

of their state. Some have labeled this "Texanism" or

"Super-Americanism." Traditionally, Texans have consid-

ered their state as the best and the biggest in the

nation. The battles of the Alamo and San Jacinto, promi-

nent events in early Texas history, have assumed legendary

proportions in the minds of Texans, and in the pages of

history textbooks. 2 Texans still talk of secession, and

constantly remind themselves (and anyone else who happens

to be listening) that Texas was the only state that was a

Republic before being annexed by the United States.3

This incredibly exaggerated form of patriotism has led

University Press), 351-353; See also Norman D. Brown, Hood, Bonnet and Little Brown Jug: Texas Politics, 1921-1928 (College Station: Texas A&M Press, 1984).

2Texas History Movies (Dallas, Texas: Magnolia Petroleum Company/Mobile, 1956), 128. This is a small "comic book" put out by Magnolia Petroleum which depicts the "glorious and heroic" history of Texas. Although very interesting and sometimes amusing, it is a bigoted and chauvinistic view of Texas history.

3 George Fuermann, Reluctant Empire (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1957), 54-55.

28

Texans to believe that there is a legitimate political

difference between their own state and the rest of the ... j. ~·

nation. The Federal G6vernment was (and is) viewed as

an enemy, a foreign invader, who, over the last century,

has attempted to deny the state its sovereignty in the

matters of education, labor, and segregation. States'

rights has always been a popular issue among right-wing

. 4 extrem1sts.

Ironically, a second factor that produced a con-

servative environment in Texas is the convergence of its

three distinct cultures. Texas is home to the traditions

of the Old South, the Frontier, and Latin America. How-

ever, instead of promoting tolerance or cosmopolitanism,

the meeting of the three traditions has bred racism,

bigotry and an unjust political system. The Mexican-

Americans of South Texas have participated little in the

electoral process, but instead they have become victims

of the manipulative patron system, in which "Jefes,"

local Mexican leaders in the five South Texas counties

of Duval, Jim Hogg, Webb, Starr, and Zapata, deliver

thousands of votes to the highest Anglo bidder, similar

4Betty Chmaj, "Paranoid Patriotism: The Radical Right and the South," Atlantic r-:1onthly 210 (November 1962), 96; White, "Wealth and Fear," 35; Fuermann, Reluctant Empire, 27-28.

to the political machines of Chicago and New York. 5

Mexican-Americans ~emained outside of the true bastions ,: J \, ~. .:~':'

of power because of their inability to speak English,

lack of formal schooling, low economic status, and

ignorance of Anglo-Saxon governmental institutions.

Therefore, they were excluded from statewide political

contests, leaving a vacuum \<Thich more established,

politically powerful interest groups eagerly filled. 6

29

Another of the Texan cultures, the Old South heri-

tage, promoted extremism through its legacy of fundamen-

talism, racism, and hatred of the North. The extreme

right-wing in Texas politics of the 1950s appealed to

this 11 eternal triangle 11 of the Southern mind. 7 The corn-

munist replaced the dreaded Yankee of the immediate post

civil war decades. Texas politicians of the 1950s, espe-

cially Governor Shivers, elaborated upon this triangle

by using the language of laissez-faire economics. Busi-

nessmen realized that they could benefit from connection

between communism, desegregation, Federal interference,

5v. o. Key, Jr., Southern Politics in State and Nation (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1949), 272-274; Geo. Green, The Establishment, 10; Theodore Y.lhite, .. Texas: Land of vlealth and Fear, .. Reporter 10 (June 8, 1954): 37.

6Key, Southern Politics, 273.

7chrnaj, "Paranoid Politics, .. 95.

d . . 8 an un1on1sm.

Up through the 1952 national election, Texas re­.:j~ >

rnained a one-party st~te in the hands of the Democrats.

But two powerful, organized factions were prevalent

within the one party, the result of a split that emerged

during the New Deal years. Texas's one-party politics

bred a virulent strain of "political hatred which few

states can surpass." 9 The new groups that formed during

the thirties produced "three times ... shrill, well-

financed third parties--the Jeffersonian Democrats in

1936, the Texas Regulars in 1944, and the Dixiecrats in

1948--in an effort to defeat Roosevelt and Truman." 10

This factionalism within the party developed a special

brand of extremism, as each group tried to outdo the

11 other. There was no real "liberal" faction, but one,

8chmaj, "Paranoid Politics," 96; Long, "Sacred Honey," 23, 26; Geo. Green, "Some Aspects of the Far Right Wing in Texas Politics," in Essays on Recent Southern Politics, ed. Harold M. Hollingsworth (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1970}, 62-64, 84-85; Dallas Morning News, May 12, 13, 1955 (hereafter known as D~lli}; J. Evetts Haley, Platform for Governor, 1956, J. Evetts Haley File, Southwest Collection, Texas Tech University.

9Geo. Green, "Right Wing in Texas," 81.

10Quoted in D. B. Hardeman, "Shivers of Texas, A Tragedy in Three Acts," Harper's 213 (November 1956}: 51-52; Roger M. Olien, From Token to Triumph: The Texas Republicans since 1920 (Dallas: SMU Press, 1982}; Geo. Green, The Establishment, 160-163; ~vhite, "Wealth and Fear," 35; Olien, Triumph, 84-85.

11 Geo. Green, I!Right Hing in Texas, 1' 82.

30

31

the Democratic party loyalists, was loyal to the national

party of Roosevelt and Truman.

Perhaps the most salient characteristic of the

Texas profile which most decisively explained the con-

servative nature of state politics was the drastic change

in demographics and economics in the state over a time

span of only thirty years. The discoveries of new oil

and natural gas fields in the 1920s and 1930s prompted

an unprecedented rate of growth in the cities of Texas.

The city of Houston alone experienced a population in-

crease from 290,000 to over 1,000,000 people during that

same period. Dallas emerged from this period as the

financial capital of the Southwest. 12 The new wealthy

were concerned about the preservation of their rapidly

acquired wealth. They viewed forces within society

such as unionism, internationalism, and Civil Rights as

subversive forces determined to deprive them of their

very comfortable life styles: "The American system was

being attacked by subversives; nowhere had that system

reached a finer flowering than in Texas; nobody had more

to lose should the attack succeed. The politics

12 Ibid., 86.

13charles J. V. Murphy, "Texas Business and McCarthy," Fortune 49 (May 1954): 101; Stuart Long, "'Sacred Money' Wins an Election in Texas," Reporter 11 (October 21, 1954) : 23, 26.

of extremism enabled the new captains of industry to

preserve the status quo.

These then were the major factors which produced

the unique and forceful brand of conservatism in Texas:

''Texanisrn," the convergence of its three cultures, the

Old South legacy, one-party politics, and the drastic

demographic and economic changes that assisted the rise

of the nouveau riche.

During the 1930s, however, Texas was still

primarily a rural state; urban Texans comprised only

41 percent of the population:

Texas still had a colonial economy; its livelihood carne from crops, livestock products, minerals, and other raw materials, the surpluses of which it traded to the outside business world for most of its consumer goods. Texas, moreover, was still an agrarian state with the traditional agrarian dis­trust of Wall Street capitalisrn.l4

Therefore Texans warmly accepted Franklin Roosevelt and

the New Deal, and Texas Congressmen Lyndon B. Johnson

32

and Morris Sheppard voted for many of the New Deal pro-

15 grams. Simultaneously, however, another smaller group,

the oil and natural gas interests, voiced dissatisfaction

with those same programs.

The discovery of the enormous East Texas oil field

14 Seth Shepard McKay, Texas and the Fair Deal 1945-1952 (San Antonio, Texas: The Naylor Company, 1954), 206-208.

15 Seth Shepard McKay, Texas Politics, 1905-1944 (Lubbock: Texas Tech Press, 1952), 398.

33

on October 5, 1930 by "Dad 11 Joiner combined with the

1920s West Texas discoveries gave great impetus to the

. s of th T . 1 . t t d . 1 1 . . l 6 r1 e e exas 01 man 1n s a e an nat1ona po 1t1cs.

As drillers and operators flocked to Texas in hopes of

entering the ranks of the very rich, the industry sub-

merged into a chaos of overproduction. Initially, the

major producers welcomed and even requested federal

controls to stabilize the dangerous situation. As the

drillers pumped more and more oil out of the ground,

prices fell drastically. 17

The major producers chose Harold L. Ickes,

Roosevelt's Secretary of the Interior, as the man to

watch over the industry. But a number of influential

Texas oilmen, such as J. R. Parten and Clint Murchison,

opposed federal controls. They allied with Texas gov-

ernment officials, Railroad Commissioner Ernest 0.

Thompson and Attorney General James V. Allred who were

1 . . . 18

a so 1n oppos1t1on. This group explained their objec-

tions to federal controls to the powerful Texas congress-

man, Sam Rayburn. Through his position as Chairman of

the House Committee on Interstate and Foreign commerce,

16 James Presley, A Saga of Wealth: The Rise of the Texas Oilmen (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1978), 134.

17 Ibid., 146.

18 Ibid., 147-148.

34

Rayburn was able to halt the federal control bill's

progress when it reached his committee. A long battle

ensued, but the anti-federal group emerged as the victors.

That defeat in 1934 encouraged the major companies to

doubt the "wisdom" of comprehensive federal control of

th . d 19 h d . e 1n ustry. T e tren cont1nued as the oilmen turned

away from Roosevelt, Ickes, and the New Deal.

Joining the oilmen were the local ruling elites,

bankers, merchants, and small businessmen who had always

resisted federal intervention into their "spheres of in-

fluence." In the summer of 1936, a group of attorneys,

small businessmen, and one scholar, J. Evetts Haley, met

at a small convention of "the Constitutional Democrats

of Texas." By the end of the summer, the "Jeffersonian

Democrats" as they now called themselves, presented a

declaration of principles to the public, in which they

stated that America was a "united, stable, industrious

and pacific State, combining the centralized concert of

a Federal system with local independence .. They

further stated that President Roosevelt's New Deal ·jeop-

ardized that delicate balance with the introduction of

19Robert A. Caro, The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Path to Power (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1982), 612-616; Barbara Sue Thompson Day, "The Oil and Gas Industry and Texas Politics, 1930-1935" (Ph.D. disser­tation, Rice University, 1973), 271.

20 McKay, Texas Politics, 407-408.

35

a "collectivist state" complete with the tenets and teach­

ings of "a blended Communism and Socialism." 21

Anti-New Deal sentiment rallied around the issue

of Roosevelt's Supreme Court packing scheme, and resent-

ment towards the Agricultural Administration Act and other

farm legislation. Henry Wallace, Secretary of Agriculture,

embittered Texas farmers because of his farm policies of

production control which entailed the destruction of live-

stock and the plowing under of 10,500,000 acres of cotton.

Cotton was no longer king. Texas cotton farmers blamed

Secretary Wallace for the decline of the state's primacy

in the industry. Prior to the A.A.A. restriction program,

which restricted exports, Texas cotton farmers exported

90 percent of their crop. Wallace's enforcement of the

program severely damaged the industry. The annual income

of Texas cotton farmers during the 1920s exceeded

$400,000,000, whereas under Wallace during the 1930s,

it declined to less than $150,000,000. As a result of

the production control policies and restriction program,

rural opposition to the New Deal began. Gradually,

. . . h 22 Texas politics were shlftlng rlg t.

Roosevelt's Supreme Court packing scheme in 1937

21 Ibid.

22 rbid., 424-425; Geo. Green, The Establishment, 15.

36

exacerbated the emerging split within the Democratic party,

on both the national and state level. Southern conserva-

tives (this included Texans) had always reluctantly voted

for New Deal programs largely because they were confident

that the Supreme Court would declare such measures uncon-

stitutional, so the prospect of a Roosevelt Court was

1 . 23

a arm1ng. Also, the CIO strikes in Detroit, an anti-

lynching bill, and a wages and hours bill all coincided

with the Court packing scheme. The Southern wing of the

party interpreted these events as a northern, liberal

24 plot to gain more power. Subsequently, the debate

over passage of the wages and hours and anti-lynching

bill became the battleground on which to decide sectional

fl. 25

con 1cts. Southern conservative democrats rallied

around Roosevelt's Vice President, the Texan John Nance

Garner, as he was opposed to both measures. The Court

packing scheme and the two bills ruined the reputation

of the New Deal in the eyes of many Texans, and hastened

the death of a moderate political influence within the

state. 26

23J. B. Shannon, "Presidential Politics in the South," Journal of Politics 1 (Hay 1939): 148-150.

24 Ibid.

25Editorial in the Nation 145 (August 7, 1937): 144; Geo. Green, The Establishment, 16.

26shannon, "Presidential Politics," 148.

37

The career of the extremist congressman, Martin

Dies, also contributed to the weakening of the moderates.

Dies was a representative from the Piney Woods region in

southeast Texas, and was initially supported by the

extreme right-wing. He continued the represen~ation of

the policies of his father (a former congressman) , against

progressive legislation and for white supremacy and iso-

lationism. Like his father, Dies linked the demise of

white supremacy to the rise of communism. When first

elected in 1931, he lent his support to New Deal legisla-

tion that curbed giant corporations, but he considered

"any government that tried to abolish poverty and unem-

ployment . . . a dictatorship." 27

In 1938 Dies garnered the chairmanship of the

House Un-American Activities Committee and he retained

it until his temporary retirement in 1944. The committee

was supposed to investigate all un-American activity but

Dies concentrated on alleged communist infiltration into

the New Dea1. 28 In 1941 the Texas House attempted unsuc­

cessfully to create its own HUAc. 29 Despite this failure,

Texas politicians and extremist forces benefited from

27william Gellerman, Martin Dies (New York: The John Day Company, 1944), 16-17, 31, 34.

28 Caro, "Path to Power," 567.

29House Simple Resolution 12, Bill File, Texas State Archives.

the experience. Eventually, Dies's heavy-handed tech­

niques and unfounded accusations drove his constituency

temporarily to vote him out of office. But the Dies

committee and its offspring demonstrated that the com-

38

munist issue was a popular one and commanded the attention

of the press. His retirement revealed a lull in the red

scare in Texas and the nation, but the issue lay dormant,

30 not dead.

Texas's conservatism also triumphed in the battle

over public service programs. Although his contribution

to the development of such programs was far from exten-

sive, Governor Allan Shivers did engineer the passage of

a $35,000,000 mental and tubercular hospital building

program and an increase in funding of patient care, in

195o. 31 However, Shivers's achievement pales when compared

to the rampant neglect of social and educational services.

Upon his departure from public office, Shivers left the

state with a dismal prison system, and vastly underfunded

aid programs. In 1957 Texas ranked 42 among the states

in aid to dependent children, 36 in aid to the blind,

and 37 1n old age assistance. The state ranked 46 among

the states in weekly unemployment benefits ($17.91), and

next to last in maximum worker's disability benefits

30Geo. Green, The Establishment, 75-76.

31 Hardeman, "Shivers of Texas," 52.

39

($25.00) .32

Texas's credentials as a conservative state

were outstanding.

Of course, the conservative nature of Texas poli-

tics would have failed to develop without the growth of

an equally conservative press. Although a number of

liberal newspapers existed in Texas, they were primarily

located in small towns. Their influence and audience

reflected their small town status. The larger, metro-

politan newspapers neglected to cover the really centro-

versial events because most of them espoused the politics

of the established elites, especially the oilmen. Accord-

ing to one contemporary observer:

The dailies simply do not comment on the identity of interest between state agencies and the industries they regulate, and their positions on issues and elections affecting their principal advertisers have been predictable and uniform.33

After the war, the Texas press, especially the Dallas

Morning News, the Houston Chronicle, and the Lubbock

Avalanche-Journal accused Franklin Roosevelt of favoring

communism, the Supreme Court of aiding communism, and

the Senate's censure of Joseph McCarthy as a boon to

communism. Only a few moderate voices were audible

amidst this cacophony, such as the Texas-Observer and

32R . D onn1e ugger, 214 (March 1957): 74.

33 Ibid.

"Nhat Corrupted Texas?" Harper's

40

th A . . 34 e ust1n Amer1can-Statesman.

Nowhere did Texas display its conservative

credentials more proudly than in the state politicians'

attitude towards organized labor. The very mention of

the word labor was an anathema to politicians and the

public alike. Texas congressmen had been instrumental

in the defeat of the regulation of hours and wages

legislation before Congress in 1938, and postwar Texas

legislators passed a number of anti-labor measures. In

1946, Texas "suffered" through a number of strikes includ-

ing a highly publicized action against the Consolidated-

Vultee Aircraft Corporation in Fort Worth. The city's

police forcibly ended the strike by arresting the

participants. A majority of Texans believed that the

f . . . 35

labor unrest was a consequence o comrnun1st act1v1ty.

Subsequently, the Fiftieth legislative session

in 1947 enacted nine pieces of legislation to limit the

effectiveness of labor activity. Most of the measures

dealt with the right-to-work issue and the regulation

of mass picketing. Such bills outlined the liability

of labor organizations for damage during picketing,

prohibited picketing on public utility property, and

34 Geo. Green, The Establishment, 10; Fuermann, Reluctant Empire, 54-55.

35 McKay, Fair Deal, 41.

outlawed secondary strikes, boycotting and related

. 36 h . act1ons. T e Flfty-first Legislature ignored labor

completely, much to the chagrin and dismay of labor

leaders hoping to recoup some of their losses of 1947. 37

The legislature in the 1950s continued the anti-

41

labor and limited government tradition. The decade began

harmlessly enough as Lieutenant Governor Allan Shivers

succeeded to the post of Governor left vacant by Beauford

Jester's death in July 1949. Shivers was thoroughly

familiar with the workings of the Texas legislature and

state government, having been a legislator from Jefferson

County since 1936 and Lieutenant Governor since 1947.38

When the first called session of the Fifty-first Legis-

lature opened on January 31, 1950, he was in complete

control. At first the new governor confused the estab-

lished elites by demanding the passage of an appropria-

1 . . . 39

tion bill for funding the state menta 1nst1tut1ons.

But he quickly redeemed himself by supporting oil and

natural gas interests during the infamous "tidelands"

affair.

36 rbid., 150-151.

3 7 Theodore t'Vhi te, "Texas: Land of Wealth and Fear," Reporter 10 (June 8, 1954): 32.

38 Geo. Green, The Establishment, 1937; McKay, Fair Deal, 307.

39 McKay, Fair Deal, 309.

42

The Truman administration, 1n the interests of

national security and conservation, desired direct access

to the oil-rich tidelands along the Texas coast. The

"Tidelands" were actually unexposed seabeds which State

Attorney General Price Daniel claimed for Texas under

the 1845 statehood agreement specifying 10-1/2 mile

ff h . h 40 o s ore property r1g ts. Truman rejected the claim

on the basis of a number of Supreme Court decisions up-

holding the Federal Government's jurisdiction over

offshore property. In the interests of his political

career, Shivers defied the President.

Basically, the issue was a matter of economics.

If producers developed offshore oil under Federal juris-

diction they paid a 37.5 percent royalty fee to the

Federal Government because of its public lands status.

If the land was under Texas jurisdiction they paid only

a 12.5 percent royalty to the state. The oil producers

b . h . 41 soon ecame state r1g t1sts.

To arouse public sympathy and support, Shivers

resorted to the states• rights ploy embellished with

"Texanism." By the fall of 1951, he was accusing the

President of attempting to nationalize the oil industry.

This was only the beginning in a series of developments

40Geo. Green, The Establishment, 147.

41~vhi te, "Wealth and Fear, " 3 6.

that ultimately led to Shiver's leading the bolt from

the Democratic Party to support Dwight Eisenhower, the

Republican candidate, in his bid for the presidency in

1952. 42

The Governor had already aroused suspicion about

43

his party loyalty by signing a bill earlier in 1951 allow­

ing the crossfiling of candidates in general elections. 43

He also refused to take a party loyalty oath as a Texas

delegate to the National Democratic convention committing

his vote to the convention's nominees. By January of

1952, Shivers was working with the Dixiecrats to bolt

the Democratic ticket. He realized the political profit-

ability of the tidelands issue if he chose the right side.

Shivers also realized that the Democrats would fail to

1 • • 44 nominate a candidate who would refute Truman s pos1t1on.

Predictably, Shivers was one of the three southern gov-

ernors to endorse Dwight Eisenhower. A record turnout in

Texas, close to two million, overwhelmingly elected

Eisenhower to the presidency. Shivers also glided com­

fortably into office for his second term. 45

Shivers and the conservatives were triumphant.

42 Geo. Green, The Establishment, 142.

43 House Journal, Fifty-second Legislative Session, 1951, 1201.

44 Geo. Green, The Establishment, 145.

45D~m, November 5, 1952.

44

Texans voted for Eisenhower at the polls, but

they financially supported another Republican outside of

the state. The Texas conservative elites and, to a lesser

extent, the general public, were enamored of Joseph

McCarthy. The Dallas Morning News wholeheartedly sup­

ported McCarthy with front page articles and favorable

editorials, as did many of the newspapers around Texas,

with the notable exception of the Houston Post. 46

Overall, Texans admired his style.

McCarthy especially captured the attention of

the Texas rich. As he rose to national fame, .HcCarthy

became a regular visitor to the state, often at the

behest of Texas's prominent citizens. The Texas Repub-

licans honored him with the second $100-a-plate

dinners in Texas history, and the Sons of the Republic

invited McCarthy, a Catholic northerner, to be guest of

47 honor and keynote speaker at San Jacinto Day. The oil

magnate, Hugh Roy Cullen, called McCarthy ''the greatest

man in America." According to a Fortune poll his pres-

tige among Texas businessmen was higher than in any other

section of the business community with the exception of

46 Fuermann, Reluctant Empire, 157; See also DMN, March 1, 1953; April 2, 1954; Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, August 11, 1953 (hereafter referred to as A-J).

47 Hurphy, "Texas and McCarthy," 100.

45

Chicago's.48

His attack on the Army in 1954 reduced

some of his following in Texas, but only by a small

amount.

Among the general public, McCarthy's popularity

was somewhat less, but he enjoyed substantial support

from a few avid fans. One such token of their affection

was the gift of a Cadillac on the occasion of his mar-

riage in 1953. A group of small businessmen solicited

donations from the "ordinary'' people of Texas. Within

a short time, they raised over $6,000 dollars, three-

quarters of it from Texans. E. M. Biggers, the organizer

of the scheme, decided that McCarthy who was ''helping his

country so much, who was being so fiercely criticized

49 . needed some help and encouragement." When the

Senate convened the special session in November of 1954

to consider the McCarthy censure resolution, the Texas

senators received hundreds of letters urging the defeat

f h 1 . 50 o t e reso ut1on.

Another way in which Texas right-wingers conveyed

their enthusiasm over McCarthy was their imitation of his

methods. Perhaps the most pertinent example of this

behavior was the crusade of the Minute Women in Houston

48 rbid.

49 As quoted in Murphy, "Texas and McCarthy,'' 208.

50A-J, November 8, 1954.

46

to rid the school system of the 11 evils" of communism

and socialism.

Suzanne Silvercruys Stephenson, a Belgian emigr~,

began the group in Connecticut in 1949. Stephenson was

an adoring fan of McCarthy's and treated a letter that

she received from him as a religious relic. The ideals

of the group appealed to the wealthy, conservative oil­

men's wives in Houston; they founded a chapter in 1952. 51

The Houston chapter followed the lead of Stephenson by

organizing a telephone network and massive letter writing

campaigns, inviting anti-communist speakers, distributing

52 propaganda and heckling liberal speakers. Their meet-

ings were highly secretive. The chapter operated under

the ever vigilant eyes of Stephenson; they had no consti-

tution, voting rights, or elections. Stephenson chose

all of the officers because she feared possible communist

. f'l . 53 1.n 1. trat1.on.

In Houston, the Minute Women reached their zenith

in a controversy over the deputy superintendent of the

school system, George Ebey. Ebey had the misfortune to

have compiled an impressive list of "liberal" credentials

51 oon Carleton, "McCarthyism in Houston: The George Ebey Affair," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 80 (October 1976): 166-167.

52 Fuermann, Reluctant Empire, 142-147.

53Geo. Green, The Establishment, 124.

that made him an attractive target for the McCarthyites.

As a young teacher in Hawaii during the 1930s, Ebey .: .s). .

joined the American Friends of Spanish Democracy, advo-

cates of the Loyalists in the Spanish Civil War. Also,

he had objected to mandatory teachers' loyalty oaths.

After service in World War II, Ebey actively partici-

pated in the American Veterans Committee, a liberal

alternative to the American Legion. Upon his move to

Portland, Oregon, in 1948 to work as an assistant super-

intendent of schools, he joined the Urban League, a

group devoted to harmonious race relations in school.

If that was not enough, Ebey was also a graduate from

47

1 b . . . h h f . d t. 54 Co urn ~a Un~vers~ty, t e orne o progress~ve e uca ~on.

Upon his arrival in Houston from Portland,

Oregon, his welcome was a pamphlet entitled "We've Got

Your Number, Dr. Ebey," condemning him as a "liberal,

controversial educator who advocated dangerous social

II d • 55 programs, such as esegregat~on. Eventually, the

Minute ~~omen, the American Legion, and the Harris County Re-

publican ~vomen • s Club accused Ebey of being a communist

and exerted enough political pressure to force the school

56 board to drop the educator's contract in July of 1953.

54 Carleton, "The Ebey Affair," 166.

55 Ibid., 171.

56 Ibid., 174.

48

The Ebey Affair demonstrated the successful use

of McCarthyite techniques, and the power of various ... J\ ..

right-wing groups in Texas during the 1950s. The well

organized, wealthy, conservative groups constantly manip-

ulated the fears, prejudices, and cultural baggage of

57 the average Texan. H. L. Hunt's Facts Forum, a highly

controversial, propagandistic radio and television

1 . d h . d. 58 program exp o~te t ose same preJU ~ces.

~vhile the Minute Women eradicated communism in

Houston, Governor Shivers and the Legislature devoted

considerable time, energy, and debate over the same

issue, for the rest of Texas. In previous years the

Legislature had passed a number of loyalty oath bills,

but in 1953 it definitively defined communism, and

rewrote the loyalty oath for state employees. As of

March 23, 1953, those persons who refused to file an

oath stating that they had never been a member of the

Communist Party were to be denied their salary. Neither

could the State Board of Education allow the purchase

of any textbook written by such persons for use in the

state schools. 59

57 Fuermann, Reluctant Empire, 100; Murphy, "Texas and McCarthy," 212.

58 Carleton, "The Ebey Affair," 175-176; Geo. Green, "Right Wing ij Texas," 68.

59vernon's Civil Statutes, 53rd Legislature, Regular Session Laws, 1953, 51.

This measure failed to satisfy Governor Shivers.

In 1954 he lobbied tor the passage of a bill to make . ' '# .J ~

membership in the Communist Party a crime punishable by

60 death. The Legislature refused to act upon that mea-

49

sure, but eventually outlawed the Communist Party. Break-

ing this law resulted in a fine of $20,000, or a prison

term of up to 20 years, or both. 61 Texas officially

declared itself out of bounds for communists, or in the

words of one prairie newspaperman dismayed by the law,

"anybody the rest of us don't like .. .. 62

At the close of 1954 the United States Senate

censured Joseph McCarthy, and the Red Scare gradually

subsided throughout the nation. But Texas legislators

continued to wrangle with the issue of communist

activity. Now they were most interested in its effect

on the school system. How could they insure the safety

of the young minds of Texas? Conservative interest

groups responded with a plan to use the school system

'd 63 to prevent the spreading of those dangerous 1 eas.

60 nr.tN, April 1, 1954; Austin American Statesman, April 1, 1954.

61vernon's Civil Statutes, 53rd First Called Session, 1954, 9-11.

62 Murphy, "McCarthy and Texas," 214.

63 DMN, April 4, 1954; Houston Chronicle, June 3, 1955.

. ( ··'

CHAPTER III

MR. HALEY GOES TO AUSTIN

Writing in 1923, on the behalf of the creation

of a West Texas University, T. U. Taylor, the Dean of

the College of Engineering at the University of Texas-

Austin, posited the following:

The Texas Declaration of Independence promulgated the doctrine for the first time in the history of the civilized world that the failure of the mother country to provide an adequate system of public edu­cation was a sufficient cause of revolution .. Education is the foundation stone of democratic institutions, and they will not survive without it.l

Texans have continued to rely upon education as the

protector of democratic traditions and institutions.

In the first few decades of the twentieth century,

the Texas Legislature voiced confidence in its school

system. In 1917, the lawmakers enacted a law requiring

the teaching of Texas history in all public schools for

at least two hours a week. The following year, they

decided that all public schools should create a daily

program comprised of "at least ten minutes for the

1Lubbock, "The Hub of the Plains," Texas Techno­logical College Brief (Lubbock, Texas: Chamber of Com­merce, 1923), 39.

50

51

teachings of intelligent patriotism. The Ku Klux

Klan dominated legislature of 1923 tried, unsuccessfully,

to pass a measure req~iring the teachings of the United

States and Texas constitutions in public schools and

colleges. The bill bassed the House, but died in the

Senate Committee on Education. An almost identical mea-

sure progressed through both the House and Senate in 1936.

On September 1, 1937, all students entering State sup-

ported institutions of higher learning were required to

complete three semester hours of government coursework.

(The 53rd Legislature in 1953 added three more hours to

that requirement.) 3 Imbued with this image of education

as the aegis under which democracy survived and flour-

ished, many Texans looked toward their own school system

as the solution to the problem of communist subversion.

While a minority of right wing extremists

clamored for attention in every sizable town and city

in Texas, Houston's ultra-conservative fanatics dominated

the state scene in the domain of academic controversy.

Although liberal minded in the cultural arenas of art

2vernon's Texas Statutes, 1936 Centennial Edition (Kansas City, Missouri: Vernon Lawbook Co., 1936), 1603.

3 Norman D. Brown, Hood, Bonnet: Little Brown Jug: Texas Politics, 1921-1928 (College Station: Texas A&M Press, 1984), 147; Senate Journal, Forty-fourth Regular Session, 1935, 642-643; Bulletin of Texas Technological College 13 (June 1937), 57.

52

and music, Houston's citizens reveled in educational

conflict. One 1950s observer claimed that citizens .~ s~

.•"·

viewed the Houston School Board as "the city's main forum

for debating larger issues: the welfare state vs. free

enterprise, the United Nations, federal aid to education,

racial segregation." 4 The School Board regularly banned

books based on the testimony of such groups as the Minute

Women, the Houston Committee for Sound American Education,

and the American Legion. 5

According to one of the city's newspapers, the

Houston Chronicle, a group of concerned Houstonians had

begun in the late 1940s to agitate for a compulsory

American history course 1n state-supported high schools

6 and colleges. These unidentified citizens had complained

that the elective course system in colleges and schools

(referred to disdainfully as progressive education) was

allowing students to graduate without the benefits of an

Am . h" 7 er1can 1story course. They sought to remedy this

lapse in the curriculum.

4George Fuermann, Reluctant Empire (Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company, 1957), 142.

5see also \'Villie Morris, "Houston's Super Patriots," Harper's 223 (October 1961): 48-56; Don E. Carleton, "McCarthyism in Houston: The George Ebby Affair," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 80 (October 1976): 163-176.

6Houston Chronicle, 4 April 1955.

7 Ibid.

53

Despite the efforts of these concerned Houston-

ians, the "movement" (if it can even be designated as ··-

such) progressed slowly. The issue might have died

amidst the mass of red scare legislation if not for the

work of one man, J. Evetts Haley. Haley rejuvenated

the movement with his dynamism, his unwillingness to

accept defeat, and his invaluable political connections.

With Haley at the helm, the movement was guaranteed, at

the least, a hearing before the public. In an interview

with the author J. Evetts Haley diminished his role in

securing the passage of the requirement. The documentary

evidence, however, proves the contrary.

Haley's career is the story of many passions--

two of them, American history and right-wing political

activism, earned him both the adulation and hatred of

Texans. He was born in the central Texas farming com-

munity of Belton in 1901, but he grew up in the West

Texas oil town of Midland. Gradually, his family

acquired 30,000 acres of ranch land in the then sparsely

populated Loving and Winkler counties.8

As a youth Haley

earned a living as a ranch hand but at the insistence

of his mother, Julia Haley (an early director of Texas

8chandler A. Robinson, J. Evetts Haley, Cowman­Historian (El Paso, Texas: Carl Hertzog, 1967), 5; Walter Prescott Webb, ed., The Handbook of Texas, 2 vols. (Austin, Texas: Texas State Historical Association, 1952) 1 2: 89, 924.

Technological College), he finished high school in 1920,

and graduated with a B.A. in history from West Texas .: •\; ~ .··-

Normal College in Canyon. A few years later, he entered

the University of Texas at Austin to study under the

eminent Texas historian, Eugene C. Barker, earning a

Master of Arts in History in 1926. 9

Even if Haley had remained out of the political

arena, literate Texans would recognize his name as he

was a talented and prolific historian of the Texas fran-

tier. Shortly after his graduation from the University

of Texas, the Capital Reservation Lands Company commis-

sioned Haley to write a history of the XIT Ranch; the

resulting book is recognized as a standard in the fields

54

of Texas and ranching history. Haley continued to publish

throughout his career, but the work best-known nationally

10 was A Texan Looks at Lyndon. His political proclivi-

ties, however, assured his own name a controversial place

in the state's history.

9J. Evetts Haley, Candidate for Governor of Texas, 1956, J. Evetts Haley File, Southwest Collection, Texas Tech University (hereafter referred to as SWC).

10Among Haley's works are: The XIT Ranch of Texas, and the Early Days of the Llano Estacada (Chicago: The Lakeside Press, 1929), Fort Concho and the Texas Frontier (San Angelo, Texas: San Angelo Standard Times, 1952), Life on the Texas Range (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1952), A Texan Looks at Lyndon, A Study in Illegitimate Power (Canyon, Texas: Palo Duro Press, 1964) 0

55

During the Depression, Haley numbered himself

among those Texas conservatives who rejected Roosevelt's .: j~~ .•

. ' .• ;·7'

New Deal, especially the production control policies of

th A . 1 t 1 Ad . . · 11 e gr1cu ura m1n1strat1on Act. As a rancher,

Haley subscribed to this sentiment because, in his own

words, "Roosevelt repudiated the Democratic platform

one of the best, one of the most honest, one of the

briefest to the point of bluntness after the election." 12

Speaking before the Council of Alpha Chi, an honorary

fraternity, at their annual meeting in Austin in 1935,

Haley vilified the Roosevelt administration before the

group for foisting "a spurious economic philosophy of

regimentation upon a confused and sickened industriali-

zation" and assaulting "all bankers, good and bad, . ..

13 for "foolishly and needlessly abandoning the gold standard."

But speeches failed to satisfy the political appetite of

the disgruntled Haley and he became actively engaged in

politics as chairman of the Jeffersonian Democrats in

11 See Chapter 2 for additional information on Texas Politics in the 1950s.

12Gerry Burton, "Controversial Historian to Appear in Midland," Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, 4 July 1981, J. Evetts Haley Reference File, SWC.

13J. Evetts Haley, 11 Casual Comment on Current Trends," Address Before the Council of Alpha Chi, Austin, Texas, 1935 (Reprinted from Proceedings of the Fourteenth Annual Meeting of the Council of Alpha Chi), 4.

14 Texas.

At this juncture, the learned rancher embarked .: .t'·

. . .. ~. on his career as a political activist, eager to wrangle

56

with the 11 evil forces of liberalism." From 1929 to 1936,

the University of Texas employed Haley as researcher to

collect primary Texas history materials. As he became

increasingly involved in politics, Haley was forced to

compromise himself in both endeavors. In 1936 he

requested a leave of absence to devote his energies to

the upcoming 1936 elections. The University claimed

that it was financially strapped and unable to maintain

the budget for Haley's appointment. 15 Haley charged the

administration with firing him because of "his vigorous

fight against the insidious invasion of socialistic

Federal power." 16

Afterwards Haley returned to "punching cows" and

nurtured both his wounds and enmity towards the liberals

around the state. Although he assumed the duties of

general manager of the Zeebar Cattle Company (300,000

14Robinson, Cowman-Historian, 12; Haley, Candidate for Governor.

15J. Evetts Haley, The University of Texas and The Issue (Canyon, Texas: Miller Publishing Company, 1945), 32-33; Robinson, Cowman-Historian, 12.

16Kent Biffle, "An Individualist in a Rugged Land, 11 Dallas Morning News, 2 April 1981, J. Evetts Haley Reference File, SWC.

acres of rangeland in the Southwest) , he continued to

participate in the political debates ranging within the .:•\ ' .. ·, 17

Texas Democratic Party. In 1945, Haley printed a

pamphlet in which he excoriated Homer P. Rainey, the

recently fired President of the University of Texas,

for his inability to administer the University according

to the sound principles of old-fashioned education and

18 his insubordination before the Board of Regents. The

following year Haley engaged in a fist fight with a

supporter of the then gubernatorial candidate, Homer P.

Rainey.

57

As a result of his friendship with a former Texas

Technological College President and fellow conservative,

Clifford B. Jones, Haley reentered the academic environ­

ment.19 The Chairman of the Board of Lubbock National

Bank, C. E. Maedgen, established a trust in 1952 to pro-

vide funds for a "department .. at Texas Technological

. f . . 20 College dedicated to the preservat1on o Amer1can1sm.

17Robinson, Cowman-Historian, 15.

18 Haley, University and the Issue, 30-31.

19Jane Gilmore Rushing and Kline A. Nall, Evolu­tion of a University, Texas Tech's First Fifty Years (Austin, Texas: Madiona Press, Inc., 1975), 111.

20J. D. Halsell, Lubbock Chamber of Commerce, to E. N. Jones, President, Texas Tech University, 17 December 19 52, Institute of Americanism Reference File, S\'JC (here­after cited as IOA File); Ruth Horn Andrews, The First

58

At the exhortations of Jones, Maedgen appointed J. Evetts

Haley as director of the Institute of Americanism, which • c

Maedgen endowed la;isfity ($20,000 the first year) . 21

Maedgen stipulated the exact objectives of the Institute

in the Trust. He specified that the "department" was to

"teach and emphasize . . the American way of life" and

to stress "those fundamental concepts of our founding

fathers under which and by which this country has pros-

pered to an amazing extent." This included "in particular,

the sanctity of property rights and the encouragement of

thrift and economy in government as well as in individuals. 11

Maedgen also designed the department to uncover "any and

all forms of state socialism or communism. .. 22 A

number of business concerns such as Gulf Oil, the Lubbock

Chamber of Commerce, and the Scripps-Ho-vmrd Newspaper

Chain, endorsed with both kind words and donations, the

efforts of Maedgen and the presence of J. Evetts Haley

• h d • I h • 23 1n t e 1rector s c a1r. In contrast, the faculty

Thirty Years: A History of Texas Technological College, 1925-1955 (Lubbock, Texas, Texas Tech Press, 1956), 89-90; Rushing and Nall, Evolution of a University, 112.

21 Rushing and Nall, Evolution of a University, 110-111.

22 "Institute of Americanism," Pamphlet 1n IOA File, swc.

23Mrs. Walter Ferguson to E. N. Jones, 15 April

1954; J. D. Halsell to E. N. Jones, 17 December 1952; E. N. Jones to Robert Johnson, 23 September 1952, IOA

59

resented the introduction of a new department on campus

and they questioned the wisdom of installing Haley as its .: i.: •1,

chairman. They were·:. ~'onfused about the purpose of an

Institute of Americanism and feared that the new depart-

24 ment would encroach upon other departments.

In the first sentence of Section III of the Trust,

Maedgen spelled out his intentions for the venture:

The Establishment and maintenance of a Department of Americanism at Texas Technological College . . . which

. shall teach and emphasize to a large portion, if not all, of the students of said college, both male and female. .25

In the summer of 1952, at the end of Dassie M. \"liggen' s

tenure as President, Wiggins, Haley, Clifford Jones and

Dr. W. C. Holden of the History Department, decided that

compliance with that sentence of the Trust would be six

hours of American history as a degree requirement for all

students taking any degree from the college. Accordingly,

President Wiggins offered to propose to the Board of

Directors that they make the requirement mandatory:

File, SWC. Mrs. Walter Ferguson wrote on behalf of the Scripps-Howard Newspaper chain. Robert Johnson was a representative of the Gulf Oil Company.

24what the Teachers Think of Education: A Survey of Faculty Opinions at Texas Technological College (Lub­bock, Texas: c. E. Maedgen Foundation, 1956), 15.

25 C. E. Maedgen, Sr., to E. N. Jones, 26 March 1954, IOA Files, SWC.

The Course . was to emphasize: 1) the rise of the Jeffersonian tradition; 2) The Development of free enterprise; 3) Individual initiative and the American tradi ti,on; 4) Respect for the Consti tu­tion.26

Wiggins also volunteered to request from the Legislature

additional appropriations to fund the necessary extra

sections of American history. 27 This violated the trust

60

because Maedgen wanted to fund the whole venture himself.

But Haley went his own way. He refused to coop-

erate with the new President, E. N. Jones in establishing

the Institute of Americanism (so named by Dr. Wiggins)

as a department of the college. Although it operated

with its own funds, Maedgen had deliberately intended

28 the Institute to be a part of the college. Haley

ignored this provision and isolated himself completely

on campus. 29 He described the Tech faculty as "a little

pink," and preferred to remain separate and distinct from

the college. 30 He did, however, maintain a lifeline with

the History Department through his friendships with

26Memorandum written by Dr. Curry Holden, IOA File, SWC; Memorandum, E. N. Jones to Board of Directors, 21 June 1954, Presidents Office Papers; E. N. Jones, SWC.

27 Ibid.

28c. E. Maedgen to E. N. Jones, 26 March 1954, IOA File, SWC.

29 h' Rus 1ng

30 Ibid.

and Nall, Evolution of a University, 111.

Dr. Curry Holden, Dr. William Pearce, and Dr. Carl Coke

. 31 R1ster.

Haley concentr.ated on two major tasks during his

brief stint as Director of the Institute: the launching

of the First Grass Roots of Liberty Forum, showcasing

61

captains of industry and their amateur historical research,

and the passage of a university-wide requirement of six

h f . h. 32 ours o Amer1can 1story. The Institute of Americanism

sponsored a series of speakers for the forum from American

political, business, and professional life. The lecture

series started in February of 1954. Among those who

accepted an invitation to address the students at Tech

were Palmer Bradley, director of Trans World Airlines;

Lamar Fleming, Jr. of Anderson-Clayton; Lucia Ferguson

of the Scripps-Howard newspaper chain, and R. Wright

Armstrong, the Vice-President of the Fort Worth and

Denver Railroad. All of the speakers were leading busi-

f . 1 h' . 33 ness figures instead of pro ess1ona 1stor1ans.

31 . 11 . . t . . th th Dr. W1 1am Pearce, 1n erv1ew w1 au or, Lubbock, Texas, 6 February 1985.

32 "The First Grass Roots of Liberty Forum," Pamphlet, IOA File, SWC; Memorandum, E. N. Jones to Board of Directors, 21 June 1954, Presidents Office Papers, E. N. Jones, SWC.

The

33 . . . Franklin Reynolds, "Inst1tute of Amer1can1sm

Announces Lecture Slate," Big Spring Herald Sun,. . 14 February 1954, IOA Reference File, SWC; Dr. W1ll1am Pearce to History Department, 7 February 1954, IOA Reference File, SWC.

62

lectures were poorly attended, and then only by Lubbockites

as professors refused to dismiss classes to allow students

to attend. 34 Even students without duties stayed away.

Undaunted, during the Fall of 1952 Haley devised

a survey to solicit college faculty opinion across Texas

on the state of education. Haley sent out this form in

February of 1953 on stationery headed by the statement

11 at the request of the Governor of Texas ... The survey

consisted of only six questions, all of them relating

to the topic of educational reform. Haley was most

interested in courses that overlapped or duplicated one

another. In this vein, he asked 11 What other fields might

be cut without serious detriment to the cause of educa-

tion? 11 and "What trends have you noticed constituting

departure from sound educational policy?"35

Disgruntled

faculty members at the University of Texas queried Gover­

nor Allan Shivers about the implied sponsorship, which

he denied. Shivers admitted that Haley only consulted

36 him about the survey to obtain unofficial approval.

Predictably, the faculties of most of the state colleges

34 Rushing and Nall, Evolution of a University, 111.

35 h J. Evetts Haley, 11 At the Request of t e Gover-nor of Texas," Survey, IOA Reference File, SvlC.

36Memorandum, Logan Wilson to University of Texas Faculty, 19 February 1953, Presidents Papers, E. N. Jones, swc.

resented Haley's unofficial and suspicious probings into

the teaching profession, under the dubious auspices of

the Institute of Americanism. The final tabulation of

37 the surveys revealed only a ten percent response rate.

Haley's intent in circulating such a question-

naire remains cloudy. He may have been attempting to

"document" the problems of a "progressive," unstructured

curriculum 1n state universities, and the necessity of

63

the return to "sound educational policies," whatever they

might have been. 38 As an American historian himself,

Haley considered the teaching of American history to be

within the realm of 11 sound educational policy."

That same spring Haley began in earnest to per-

suade the "new" President, E. N. Jones (as of September

1952) 39 to consider the advantages of a six hour American

history requirement. President E. N. Jones responded

with a gesture to establish advisory committees to study

the suggestion. Haley acknowledged President Jones' ges-

ture with a conciliatory letter in June of 1953. But in

the letter, Haley constantly referred to his "agreement"

37Andrews, The First Thirty Years, 90; What the Teachers Think.

38 "At the Request of the Governor of Texas," IOA Reference File, S~·JC.

39J. Evetts Haley to E. N. Jones, 6 June 1953, Presidents Papers, E. N. Jones, SHC.

64

with Dr. Wiggins during the previous summer. He insisted

that the "original plan proposed by and agreed upon with

President Wiggins," the plan to institute the require-

ment at once, was the superior one. He disliked Presi-

d t J I 'bl 40 en ones s more sens1 e approach.

Haley wanted to meet the obligation imposed by

the Trust "just as Dr. Wiggins originally proposed,

through a required six hour course above and in addition

to the requirements in Government, and preferably at the

Junior and Senior levels." 41 Anticipating Jones's pro-

tests over the additional expense of such a program,

Haley reminded the President

I know of a number of states in which this study is required, and the University of Texas, by appropriate action of its Board of Regents, requires six hours of American history, in addition to Government of every graduate . . since that institution gives every degree that we give here . . this difficulty can be resolved.42

Haley believed that the University could "experiment"

with the history curriculum over the 1953-54 academic

year before the Board of Directors passed it as a re­

. t 43 qu1remen .

As the summer passed and the fall semester began

without the initiation of a history requirement, Haley

complained of the neglect of his idea to Clifford Jones.

Haley refused to abandon his proposal. The prospect of

40 Ibid. 41 rbid. 42 Ibid. 43 rbid.

Dr. William Pearce, a close friend, serving as chairman

of the History Department over the 1953-54 academic year

encouraged Haley's faith in the eventual passage of the

44 measure.

During the fall of 1953 Haley kept himself busy

with his ranching affairs and the Institute of American-

65

ism's Grass Roots of Liberty Forum. He also continued to

work on behalf of the six hour requirement. According to

Pearce, Haley went directly to the Board of Directors of

the College with the idea. He took it upon himself to

inform the Board about the proposal because of what he

perceived as neglect of the issue by President Jones. The

composition of the Board of Directors was extremely con-

servative; the majority of those serving were wealthy busi­

nessmen. 45 These were men whom "he knew and could go to. "46

In the spring of 1954, the Board of Directors

directed President Jones to conduct an informal verbal in-

. 1 . 4 7 quiry of the faculty concerning the poss1b e requ1rements.

44J. Evetts Haley to E. N. Jones, 17 September 1953, Presidents Papers, E. N. Jones, SWC.

45Rushing and Nall, Evolution of a University, 108-110; Dr. William Pearce, Interview with author, Lubbock, Texas, 6 February 1985.

46Dr. William Pearce, Interview with author, Lubbock, Texas, 6 February 1985.

47 Dysart E. Holcomb, Dean of Engineering at Texas Technological College to E. N. Jones, 25 May 1954, Presidents Papers, E. N. Jones, SWC.

Haley continued his pressure on Jones, alerting him to

the possibility of the passage of a legislative require-

ment, and added that "it would be nice if Texas Tech

could initiate it before the course might be made

48 compulsory by state law... He was already working

through several other historical organizations to lobby

the legislature on behalf of a statewide requirement.

He hoped to provoke Jones into action with this reve-

lation.

Finally after a series of 11 discussions 11 with

President Jones, Dr. Holden and Dr. Pearce, Haley wrote

in June to Windy Watkins, a member of the Board, to

instruct him on how to introduce the proposal.

66

It is the opinion of everyone most concerned with the subject with whom I have talked here that our own proposed course in American History should be launched next year. . The only way this can effectively be instituted is by mandatory board action. . For Dr. Jones's own protection and to keep down the snip­ing, the resolution by the board should be drawn so carefully that there is no possibility of misunder­standing and evasion.49

By mid June of 1954, Haley completed the work behind the

scenes; now he awaited the approval of the proposal. His

expectations, however, were not to be met.

48 J. Evetts Haley to E. N. Jones, 21 May 1954, IOA Reference File, SWC.

49J. Evetts Haley to Windy Watkins, Member of the Texas Technological College's Board of Directors, 12 June 1954, IOA Reference File, SWC.

67

On June 28, 1954, the Board requested the Presi-

dent to instigate a formal study of the curricula of

each major Department on campus to determine the feasi­

bility of the introduction of a new degree requirement. 50

Upon notification of the outcome of his carefully laid

plans, Haley expressed disappointment, but was still

hopeful that the 11 matter 11 could be 11 Worked out in the

not too distant future ... 51 Unfortunately, a continued

drought that had affected his ranch tore Haley away from

his duties at the Institute. 52 The drought also pre-

vented him from focusing his complete attention on the

course requirement.

In August of 1954 the Board approved a recom-

mendation made by the College administration that

In lieu of a six hour (6) hour American History requirement: 1) Require six (6) hours in the American Heritage in conjunction with the govern­ment requirement, the whole to be worked out by the faculty. .53

50Excerpt from Board Minutes, 28 June 1954, Re­quirement for Six Hours of History Folder, Presidents Papers, E. N. Jones, SWC (hereafter cited as Six Hours Requirement).

51J. Evetts Haley to E. N. Jones, 22 July 1954.

52Leslie Hewes, The Suitcase Farming Frontier: A Study in the Historical Geography of the Central Plains (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1973), 119-121.

53 Excerpt from Board Minutes, 21 August 1954, Six Hours Requirement Folder, Presidents Papers, E. N. Jones, SWC.

Haley had sought a six hour American History requirement

to be taught according to the principles he discussed 1n

the summer of 1952, with Wiggins, Holden, Pearce, and

Clifford Jones. An American Heritage requirement was

not what he envisioned. Undaunted by the compromise,

Haley decided to concentrate on securing the passage

of a state law. 54

Mother Nature provided Haley with a convenient

and graceful exit from the "battle" for the university-

wide requirement. In the early fall of 1954, he took a

leave of absence due to the increasingly dangerous

d h d . . 55 1 h h d h . roug t con 1t1ons. A t aug name to t e Amer1can

Heritage Committee created at the behest of the Board,

Haley failed to attend any of the meetings and neglected

the Institute as we11.56

c. E. Maedgen, like Haley, grew disheartened by

the apathy, and even antipathy exhibited by the faculty

and students toward his venture, and voiced his concerns

54 · 11 . I t . . th th Dr. W1 1am Pearce, n erv1ew w1 au or, Lubbock, Texas, 6 February 1985.

55J. Evetts Haley to E. N. Jones, 16 September 1954, IOA Reference File, SWC.

68

56American Heritage Committee Minutes, Presidents Papers, E. N. Jones, American Heritage Committee File in General Office Papers, SWC; G. E. Giesecke, Vice­President of Texas Technological College to J. Evetts Haley, 11 November 1954, J. Evetts Haley to G. E. Giesecke, 5 December 1954, American Heritage File, Giesecke Papers, Presidents Papers, SWC.

to President Jones. 57 Jones informed Haley of Maedgen's

displeasure. On January 27, 1955 Haley resigned his

position as director. Maedgen then withdrew all finan-

cial support for the Institute on February 9, 1955. It

had really ceased to function after Haley's departure

from the college early in the fall semester of 1954. 58

Haley's attention was now focused on statewide legisla-

tion. His commitment to the passage of a state law,

requiring six hours of American history of every student

attending state-supported institutions, was evident as

early as January of 1953. The wording of an early ver-

sion of a state requirement, dated January 21, 1953 is

very similar to the wording of the Trust establishing

the Institute itself. Haley began to lobby on behalf of

the measure well before his official departure from Tech

in 1955.

The banner year for organizing patriotic, civic,

and conservative groups interested in endorsing the

movement was 1954. Texas was fertile ground for the

69

philosophy of McCarthyism and the red scare. Haley recog-

nized the power of a few loud, influential voices clamoring

57 C. E. Maedgen to E. N. Jones, 23 August 1954, IOA Reference File, SWC.

58 J. Evetts Haley to E. N. Jones, 27 January 1955, E. N. Jones to J. Evetts Haley, 1 February 1955, C. E. Maedgen to E. N. Jones, 9 February 1955, IOA Reference File, SWC.

70

to rid their beloved state of communism disguised as

"progressive education." He garnered substantial support

from those persons who wanted to return to the old methods

f d . 59 o e ucat1on.

As one of his contemporaries described him,

"Evetts always had about six balls rolling." 60 In the

midst of his Grass Roots of Liberty Forum and his troubles

with the drought, he managed to obtain endorsements of his

bill from interested groups around the state. Fortunately

for Haley, the Grass Roots Forum afforded him the oppor-

tunity to procure desireable endorsements.

One such endorsement came in the form of the

noted historian, Allan Nevins, of Columbia University.

The Institute of Americanism and the Texas Tech History

Department co-sponsored Nevins' visit to the college on

April 2, 1954, to lecture on the "Grass Roots Liberty

Forum." Haley encouraged the department to suggest to

Nevins that he incorporate into his lectures, the

importance of American History in the curricula of

59J. Evetts Haley, "Patriotism in Our Hour of Decision" (Reprint of the address presented at the Panhandle-Plains Regional Meeting of the Natural Gaso­line Association of America, Amarillo, Texas, 20 Novem­ber 1951), 1.

60Dr. William Pearce, Interview with author, Lubbock, Texas, 6 February 1985.

h . h d . 61 1g er e ucat1on. Carl Coke Rister, the Distinguished

Professor of History at the College, wrote to Nevins in

January 1954 to inform him of the situation: 11 We're

trying here to promote this idea before our legislature,

asking for such a law and thought that if you could give

62 us a boost for the same it would be very helpful."

Nevins granted Rister's request by including a plea for

71

history in the college curriculum. As a nationally-known

historian, Nevins approving comments probably commanded

wide publicity.

An active and prolific historian, Haley enjoyed

membership in several historical organizations, including

the Texas State Historical Survey Committee (TSHSC) . In

1953, the 53rd Legislature had created the TSHSC to in-

vestigate the means of preserving shrines, documents and

h I h • 63 other material important to t e state s er1tage.

Governor Shivers appointed Haley in September of that

year as a member of the Survey. He served as a member

of the TSHSC's Committee on Education. By January 9,

61 T. ~v. Bridges, "Noted Biographer Gives Away 'Trade Secrets' in Talk Here," Lubbock Avalanche Journal, 2 April 1954.

62carl Coke Rister, Texas Technological College, History Department Faculty Member to Professor Allan Nevins, Columbia University, 7 January 1954, Letters in C. C. Rister Collection, Box 2, SWC.

63 H. Bailey Carrol, "Texas Collection," South­western Historical Quarterly 58 (Spring 1955), 160-176.

72

1954, Haley and the two other members of the Education

Committee convinced the TSHSC to adopt unanimously a

resolution to ally itself with the Texas State Historical

Association and the Texas Education Agency to

work actively ... with the State Board of Education in urging the passage of a law requiring a course in Texas history of every high school graduate and another in American History as a prerequisite of all degrees in all colleges and universities.64

Also by January, Haley had compiled a list of

organizations and individuals willing to cooperate with

the Education Committee in the drive to secure passage

of such a law, including the Sons of the American Revo-

lution, the Daughters of the American Revolution, the

Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum, the Sons of the

h 1 • • 65 Republic of Texas, and the State Teac er s Assoc1at1on.

Haley was a busy man during the fall of 1953.

Haley was also a member of both the Texas State

Historical Association (TSHA) and the Panhandle-Plains

Historical Museum. As a fellow of the TSHA since 1929,

he occupied a position of some prestige. Probably at

64The Texas State Historical Survey, "Report of the Committee on Education," Austin, Texas, 9 January 1954, J. Evetts Haley File, Personal Correspondence, Clifford B. Jones Papers, SWC.

65Haley to c. c. Rister, Letter with List of Organizations and Individuals Cooperating with the Education Committee of the Texas State Historical Survey, 15 January 1954, TSHSC File, c. c. Rister Collection, Box 5, S\-'IJC.

Haley's request, Fred Cotten, the vice-president of the

Association, presented a resolution, identical to the

one that the TSHSC, adopted, to the TSHA in the spring

of 1954 at its annual meeting. The organization quickly

adopted l.·t. 66 H 1 h' d th a ey ac J.eve e same success as a mem-

ber of the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum through

his influence with the Director, C. B. McClure. McClure

also agreed to lobby teachers' groups and regional his-

67 torical associations on behalf of the measure.

Haley's best resource was his many influential

73

friends. Once again, Clifford B. Jones placed a few well

chosen words in the right places. This time he promoted

the idea of the requirement amongst his colleagues at

the Texas Society of the Sons of the American Revolution.

In February of 1954 the Texas Tech chapter adopted a

resolution endorsing the history requirement. In a

similar wave of patriotism, the Dallas chapter adopted

68 a resolution endorsing the same endeavor. According

66 "Affairs of the Association," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 58 (Spring 1955), 143-160.

67Haley to c. C. Rister, 15 January 1954, Box 5, SWC.

68Temple H. Morrow to J. Evetts Haley, 14 Febru­ary 1954, J. Evetts Haley to C. B. Jones, 9 April 1954, J. Evetts Haley File, Personal Correspondence, Clifford B. Jones Papers, SWC.

74

to Haley, he especially profited from "patriotically-

minded" women, especially the "Daughters of the Revolu-

tion." They were prepared to undertake the less glamorous

work, such as envelope stuffing and the writing of letters

to state senators, as well as the adoption of resolutions

and presentations of awards. 69 Haley appreciated support

from the general public, but the patronage of elite groups

assured the attention of those who mattered--the

1 . 1 70 eg1s ators.

The measure probably engendered some general

public support. A number of contemporary observers

mentioned the existence of a movement "sweeping the

nation." 71 This resulted from a decade of red scare

politics and subsequent fears of communist subversion,

and a general wariness of "progressive" education. The

. . 11 . 1 72 1deas of John Dewey were st1 controvers1a . But

public sentiment lacked the intensity, focus, and orga-

nization which Haley achieved through his manipulation

69J. Evetts Haley, telephone conversation with author, 25 February 1985.

70 Ron Duggers, "What Corrupted Texas," Harper's Magazine 214 (March 1957), 68-73.

71carl Coke Rister to E. N. Jones, 29 October 1954, Letters in c. C. Rister Collection, Box 1, SWC.

72 "Textbook Criteria for Young Americans," (Dis­tributed by Texans for America, Fort vJorth, Texas, 1961) I

Correspondence Folder, J. Evetts Haley Reference File, swc.

75

of conservative interests.

By the opening of the regular session of the 54th

Legislature on January 11, 1955, Haley had convinced

Senator Dorsey B. Hardeman of San Angelo to introduce a

bill before the Senate. Less than a year before the con-

vening of the session Hardeman had been a featured speaker

in Haley's lecture series for the Institute. 73 The

senator reflected Haley's political viewpoints; both men

spoke the same language of West Texas conservatism.

The 54th legislature faced a number of problems

and the session promised to be lengthy and a difficult

one. For the past five years the state had experienced

both drought and flood conditions. Water was the first

concern amongst many of the legislators, especially those

from semi-arid v~est Texas. Second, the Supreme Court had

ordered the desegregation of schools; Texans were resist-

ant to this new policy. Shivers, like many southern

Governors, portrayed this issue as a battle for states

rights. Third, Shivers proposed a tax increase to help

balance the budget. Water, desegregation, and taxes--

these three issues preoccupied the legislators for most

of the session. The history requirement bill, S.B. 254,

73Reynolds, "Institute Announces Lecture Slate,"

State Senator Dorsey B. Hardeman to C. C. Thompson, Chairman of the Texas Technological College Board of Directors, 22 April 1954, IOA Reference File, SWC.

proved to be one of the few opportunities for a blessed

consensus amongst the solons. In the spring of 1954

the legislature began to examine the proposed history

requirement. Without Haley's political savvy and effi­

cient direction of his band of conservative elites, the

six hour requirement would have remained just an idea

76

or a proposal in a dusty file in the stacks of an archive.

Contrary to the belief of Haley, Rister and other

historians, no groundswell of public opinion delivered

the measure into the laps of the legislators. Neither

did the students happily volunteer to enrich their cur­

ricula with a course in the humanities. A few well-chosen,

well-connected, well-spoken members of patriotic groups

and historical organizations mobilized their resources

to insure that Texas and United States history became a

required course in every Texas college student's curricu­

lum.

Once the deed was done, the engineering, the busi­

ness administration, and the home economics colleges awoke

to the intrusion into their curricula. Perhaps communist

subversion was a threat, but what did that have to do

with training of a good engineer or businessman? Opposi­

tion to the bill emerged before its passage, but the

battle was over its practicality rather than its ideology.

CHAPTER IV

VICTORY AT LAST: A BILL BEC0!-1ES LAW

The history requirement bill's uneventful passage

through the Texas House and Senate was due to skillful

politicking, careful working of its text by J. Evetts

Haley and Senator Hardeman, and weak opposition. What

legislator could oppose a measure devoted to the preser­

vation of the American way of life and expect to survive

the wrath of the patriotic Texan voters? The underpinning

of the bill's success was the contemporary social and

political climate.

Public demand for the teaching of American history

in college had reached its zenith much earlier in the

aftermath of the Pulitzer Prize winning survey by the

New York Times in 1943. After surveying 7,000 freshmen

from 36 different colleges, the Times discovered that

the average student exhibited an abysmal lack of basic

American historical knowledge. 1 A large majority of the

freshmen were unable to "identify such names as Abraham

Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, or Theodore

1New York Times, 5 April 1943, 1.

77

Roosevelt," only 6 percent could name the original 13

colonies, and the sample as a whole was "only slightly .: .t\'#·~·.

78

acquainted" with the Bill of Rights and the Constitution.

Of the group only 12 percent were studying American his-

2 tory in college. Congressmen and leading educators

debated the possible solutions available, compulsory

American history in college being only one of them. 3

A number of educators rejected the idea of a compulsory

course. After all, before the survey 26 states already

required American history to be taught in either high

4 school, college, or both. Despite the headlines and

academic outrage, the furor gave way to complacency

until the Cold War years.

A "movement" emerged on a national level in the

1950s, but it was geared to the introduction of more

humanities courses into college curricula, rather than

just American history. 5 Many educators emphasized the

benefits of a liberal arts education which included the

2A Resolution attached to the Texas State His­torical Survey, "Report of the Committee on Education," Austin, Texas, 9 April 1954, J. Evetts Haley File, Personal Correspondence, Clifford B. Jones Papers, Southwest Collection (hereafter cited as SWC).

6: 17.

3New York Times, 5 April 1943, 13.

4rbid.

5rbid., 18 January 1954; 5, 22 March 1954,

79

teaching of history (European and American) , and a number

of colleges adopted humanities requirements. 6 Contrary .: ,, ' .

to the claims of the b'ill's advocates, no such public

opinion existed solely in favor of the introduction of

compulsory American history courses. 7 Nonetheless, the

threat of communist subversion in the government and

schools remained a real and enduring threat for Texans.

The editors of the Dallas Morning News seemed to think

so; and in April of 1954 they wrote to their readers:

11 What probably is wrong with our youngsters who swallow

communism is that they are weak in . . . their knowledge

of the history of the United States. 118 Perhaps an Amer-

ican history requirement would inhibit the development

of dangerous philosophies.

Amidst the Cold War climate, items once consid-

ered harmless or even as beneficial, were attacked in

the 1950s as harbingers of Communism, 11 0ne-worldism, ..

or socialism. Concerned patriotic citizens began to see

6see 11 Topic of the Times," New York Times, 17 May 1953, 4: 10; Benjamin Fine, 11 Mr. Dodds Says Public School System Fails to Meet its Duty in Education for Maturity, .. ibid., 8 May 1953, 30; "Progress Report on Ford Sponsored Plans for Liberal Training of Adults in Test Cities," ibid., 18 July 1954, 4: 9.

7carl Coke Rister to Dr. E. N. Jones, 29 October 1954, Correspondence in Carl Coke Rister Collection, Box 2, SWC (hereafter cited as CCR Papers).

8Editorial in Dallas Morning News, 2 April 1954.

the taint of Communism wherever they looked. In March

of 1955, a group of Dallas art clubs attacked the Dallas

Museum of Fine Arts for emphasizing "all phases of

futuristic, modernistic, and non-objective paintings and

statuary and coll"ecting the work of artists who have

known communistic affiliations." 9 The Public Affairs

80

Luncheon Club, the originator of the controversy, claimed

that it derived evidence for these charges from the

Congressional Record and committee reports. Most of the

Club's evidence came from a House Report of .f).larch 17,

1952, which had labeled some artists as "communist affil-

• t II b f h • 1' k • • 10 1a es ecause o t e1r 1n to Commun1st Russ1a. Six

additional art clubs in Dallas also endorsed the resolu-

tion. "Degenerate art" became another of J. Evetts

Haley's crusades in the 1960s.11

One area which Texas's patriotic groups considered

to be a hotbed of subversion was textbook selection. The

mid-fifties were the beginning of the great textbook

debates. 12 In 1952 the Daughters of the American

9Texas Observer, 21 March 1955, 1.

10 Ibid.

11 see J. Evetts Haley, "Painting and Prejudice; A Comment on the Nature of Cultivated Degeneracy," (A critical paper read to the annual dinner of the Coppini Academy of Fine Arts, San Antonio, Texas, January 1961).

12 Jack Nelson the Schools (Boston: 120-121.

and Gene Roberts, The Censors and Little, Brown and Company, 1963),

Revolution began to complain about the content of a

popular high school civics book, American Government.

Frank Abbot Magruder, an obscure textbook author, wrote

the book in the 1920s, and the Texas schools first

adopted it in 1928. 13 During the 1950-51 school year,

74 percent of Texas school children studying civics used

the book. Regardless, the DAR labeled the author as a

subversive and pro-communist writer who subscribed to

the "New Deal-Fair Deal-Socialist line." 14 These

patriotic women further countered that the popularity

of the book was due to the pro-socialist educators in

the state. 15

Eventually, they managed to w1n a major conces-

sian. Beginning in the summer of 1955, the State Text-

book Committee was required to hold hearings for any

81

persons wishing to object to any book on the state's

textbook list. 16 The usual targets of these self-employed

censors were books in which they found references to the

United Nations, "one-worldism," progressive education,

and other subversive influences.17

They demanded that

American history be taught only one way--their way.

13Texas Observer, 13 June 1955, 6.

14 Ibid. 15 rbid. 16 rbid.

17 "Textbook Criteria for Young Americans" (Dis­tributed by Texans for America, Fort Harth, Texas, 1961), Correspondence Folder, J. Evetts Haley Reference File, swc.

82

Indeed, Senator Hardeman expressed a viewpoint similar

to this after he introduced the history bill into the

Texas Senate:

It is my earnest hope that only history will be taught and not colored by what some professor may interpolate or think about our history. It speaks for itself--it is glorious and deserves the re­spectful consideration of every American-especially every Texan.lB

These were the voices of the extremists, the vocal

right-wing faction in Texas politics, ready to purge the

school system and cultural scene of any impure influences

and install real Americanism in their place. Yet,

extremists were joined, in this instance, by the forces

of moderation. The moderates comprised those people

with a genuine interest in American history, history pro-

fessors and teachers worried about the average student's

ignorance of historical knowledge, and hoping for in-

creased enrollments, and a few members of the general

public who believed the bill would inhibit the spread of

communism and help to instill patriotism and loyalty.

These moderates were willing to ally with the extremists

1n hopes of securing the passage of a history requirement.

One prominent voice of moderation was that of a

history professor, Carl Coke Rister, the Distinguished .

Professor of History at Texas Technological College and

18Houston Chronicle, 2 June 1955.

83

Chairman of the Texas State Historical Survey Committee's

subcommittee on Archives, Papers, and Documents. He .: J'

supported Allan Shivefs and approved of the Governor's

opposition to Trumanism, "creeping socialism," and deficit

d . 19 . f. spen 1ng. R1ster 1rmly believed that communists had

infiltrated important government posts in American gov-

ernment, but, despite his conservative leanings, he

abhorred McCarthy and his techniques. As a professor

of American history, he held his own discipline as the

superior alternative to censorship or red-baiting.

The communists-in-government issue occupied

Dr. Rister's attentions throughout 1954 and early 1955.

As mentioned earlier, Rister approached Professor Allan

Nevins about lecturing on the subject of American history

in college curricula. 20 Rister's interest in the sub-

ject, however, progressed far beyond the scholarly

level. In February of 1954, Parker May, a relative of

Dr. Rister's and assistant chief of the Information

Agency in the State Department, asked the professor to

compile a list of dependable books, depicting the general

history of the United States and its traditions, for 104

of the overseas United States Information Center Service

19carl Coke Rister to Allan Shivers, 15 January 1954, CCR Papers, Box 4, SWC.

20 See Chapter 3.

~;,

l "b . 21 1 rar1es. After consulting with fellow faculty mem-

bers, and J. Evetts Haley, Rister recommended thirty .; ~., .

dependable volumes . .::_.,., By providing the list, Rister

considered himself a patriot "thoroughly committed to

the American way of life and to . . . winning the cold

. c . 1123 war aga1nst ommun1sm. Also, in a letter enclosed

with the list, Rister commented on the vicious way in

84

which McCarthy continually subjected the State Department

to the charge of communist subversion. Rister believed

that "Communists like Alger Hiss deserve what they have

received," but he acknowledged the demoralizing effects

of "putting honest, capable, federal employees under a

1 1 d f . . 1124 genera c ou o susp1c1on. If winning the Cold War

meant subverting the principles of democracy then it

would be a hollow victory.

The prospect of Americans subscribing to tactics

reminiscent of a totalitarian regime bolstered Rister's

conviction that education--the introduction of American

21 Parker May to Carl Coke Rister, 4 April 1954, CCR Papers, Box 2, SWC.

22carl Coke Rister to Parker May, 12 April 1954, formal, CCR Papers, Box 2, SWC. Dr. Rister wrote two letters to Mr. May, one formal one for the office and one informal, personal one, both the same date.

23 rbid.

24carl Coke Rister to Parker May, 12 April 1954, informal, CCR Papers, Box 2, SWC.

history into the curriculum of all college and secondary

school students--could remedy the current malady affect-... ,., .,-_

ing society. .. -.1 •.• ·:·

Throughout the year, Rister continued to support

the idea of a compulsory history course and defended the

proposal from its detractors. In a letter to President

E. N. Jones, Rister recognized that the proposal alarmed

a few people because ultra-conservative groups endorsed

its passage, but he added that the respectable organiza-

tion that the State legislature created, the Texas State

Historical Survey Committee, counted itself among the

supporters of the measure. He also cited "a strong

movement sweeping the nation for requirements in all

American colleges and universities for American history

to point up those movements which have made America the

25 great nation it is today... Rister explained to Jones

that the recent movement was due to 11 the present criti-

85

cal stage of world affairs." He asserted that a populace

without a basic knowledge of its heritage was 1n danger

of falling prey to Communists who "slant their ideas, a

practice which they have used so effectively in other

nations ... 26 Despite what opponents may have charged,

25carl Coke Rister to E. N. Jones, 29 October 1954, CCR Papers, Box 1, SWC.

26 Ibid.

86

Rister obviously interpreted the bill as a moderate rather

than extreme measure . . :l\,-

After Senator Hardeman finally introduced the

bill into the Texas Senate, Rister wrote to the Chairman

of the TSHSC, Judge James E. Wheat, urging him to write

to the governing body to encourage them to pass the

measure. Rister assured the Judge that such action was

imperative "nov1, when the nations of the friendly world

are in deadly combat with Communism." 27 Rister then

issued what was to be his final plea for the passage of

the bill in a report to the Governor and 54th legislature

on the activities of the TSHSC since its creation a year

previously. He reminded the legislators that the

Tragic incidents of the present seem to prove that a broad knowledge of our historical background . . . is essential to an understa'nding, an appreciation, and the perpetuity of our liberty and the American way of life.28

Dr. Rister died, unexpectedly, on April 15, 1955, so he

29 missed the bill's transition into law.

The Chairman of the Tech History, Anthropology,

27carl Coke Rister to James E. Wheat, 22 March 1955, CCR Papers, Box 4, SWC.

28Texas State Historical Survey Committee and Texas Historical Foundation, "Report to the Governor and 54th Legislature," Austin, Texas, April 1955, Xeroxed Copy, CCR Papers, Box 4, SWC.

29obituary in the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, 16.

and Sociology Department, Dr. William Pearce, echoed

Rister's concern for America's future. Yet, Pearce also

recognized an additio~al benefit from the American his-

tory requirement. In an attempt to convince President

Jones of the value of such a course requirement, Pearce

described a frightening scenario: "week-by-week, it

becomes apparent that this country must stand alone and

. we cannot forever buy the alliance of people

abroad. What to do about this situation?

Pearce suggested that everyone should be exposed to a

good dose of American history. Of course, as Chairman

of a History Department, the prospect of increased en-

rollments may have also swayed Pearce's opinion on the

31 matter.

While not addressing the Texas law specifically,

The Social Studies, a journal for history and civics

87

teachers, editorialized in 1955 on the validity of teach-

ing "old-fashioned patriotism." Referring to a recently

published history text, the editor described the book as

an edifying "propaganda for America," a type that he

30william Pearce to E. N. Jones, 5 July 1954, American Heritage Folder, Presidents Papers, E. N. Jones, SWC.

31 Dr. William Pearce, interview with author, Lubbock, Texas, 6 February 1985. Dr. Pearce remembered that the Government Department objected to the bill. He found this ironic, since it benefited from a requirement.

88

heartily endorsed as a necessity during that troubled era.

The teaching of American history provided the foundation .:)\ .

in which the heritag·e ·and tradition were firmly rooted;

without this foundation the American public "became

1nsecure, irresponsible and a prey to every wind that

blows."32

In 1952, the journal had rejected the notion

that history teachers should propagandize on behalf of

the "American way." This 1955 editorial indicated a

1 f . . 33 reversa o op1n1on. Texas history teachers agreed,

and cooperated with the TSHSC to promote the passage of

th . t 34 e requ1remen .

For these educators, a compulsory American his-

tory course was preventative medicine: anticipating and

alleviating the problem of subversion before it emerged.

They preferred that education instill and preserve

patriotism, rather than have Joe McCarthy act as a

watchdog over America.

Already, in the state of Texas, the law required

all students who intended to graduate from a state-

supported institution of higher learning to complete six

semester hours of government (political science). Three

32 "As the Editor Sees It," The Social Studies 46 (December 1955): 2.

33 Ibid., 43 (January 1952): 2

34 See Chapter 3.

89

of those hours had only just been added by the 53rd

1 . 1 . 35 eg1s ature 1n 1953. Yet another requirement only two .... J.~ .• .-_

years later seemed unreasonable and unmanageable to many

professors and students alike. Those who objected to

the law agreed that the maintenance of good citizenship

was an honorable endeavor, but balked at the suggestion

that the classroom was the best place to instill such a

value. Furthermore, the prospect of the additional

requirement caused some professor to worry that their

own curricula could be legislated out of existence. The

Dallas Morning News, which opposed state government

interfering with local government, recommended the

legislative intrusion into the school's curricula as a

necessary evil to sustain good citizenship and loyalty.36

Perhaps indicative of state-supported colleges

was the response of the faculty at Texas Tech to the

suggestion of an American history requirement. Except

for Arts and Sciences, all of the other Departments

rejected the proposal. Those in opposition claimed that

the College offered more vocational and business degrees,

and the proposed requirement would force each Department

to sacrifice valuable hours of technical coursework.

They refused outright to even discuss the alternative.

35 rbid.

36Editorial 1n the Dallas Morning News, 25 March 1955.

90

Opponents of the requirement also resisted the alterna-

tives of forsaking elective course credits or increasing

the total b f h . d f d . 37 nurn er o ours requ1re or gra uat1on.

The vague threat of communist subversion paled in corn-

parison to the reality of retaining control over curricula.

Vice-President G. E. Giesecke informed President

E. N. Jones of some practical consequences if the history

requirement was implemented. Many of Tech's students

were transfer students. The proposed requirement would

probably cancel out their elective hours from other

institutions. Giesecke worried more, however, about the

requirement's impact on those departments already suffer-

ing from low enrollment. He believed that the history

requirement would draw students away from these depart-

rnents and increase the "unhealthy 11 competition for

students. 38

Some faculty members expressed philosophical

objections, but they appear more as afterthoughts, and

again, were aimed at the proposed method of achieving

what was otherwise considered a worthy objective. An

anonymous Engineering department head alleged that

37G. E. Giesecke to E. N. Jones, Memorandum, 21 August 1954, American Heritage File, Giesecke Papers, Presidents Papers, SWC.

38 rbid.

The legislation of courses of any kind into any cur­riculum is a dangerous procedure that can usurp for alien purposes a right that has been traditionally vested, for saf~tyc against that very thing, in the faculties of the universities and colleges.

91

He added that the value of good citizenship was "imparted

by the instructor, not by a course listing." 39 The Dean

of the Business School, George Heather, passed on the

judgment of whether the requirement was educationally

sound, but he thought it unvlise "to take curriculum

requirements out of the hands of the faculty of the

college." 40

The Dean of Engineering, Dysart E. Holcomb,

viewed the proposal as an attempt to add more humanistic

or cultural subjects into the curricula rather than an

effort to impede subversive activities. Holcomb argued

that one could acquire culture outside of the classroom

but learning "Differential Equations" required a class-

room and an instructor. He insisted that:

We cannot legislate culture into the minds of the students, and if the requirement of six hours of History is put into effect this would simply present an opening wedge for other humanistic and cultural subjects to be required in all curricula.41

39 rbid.

40George Heather to E. N. Jones, 26 July 1954, Memorandum, American Heritage File, Presidents Papers, E. N. Jones, SWC.

41 Dysart E. Holcomb to E. N. Jones, 25 May 1954, Requirement for Six Hours of History Folder, Presidents Papers, E. N. Jones, SWC.

92

The engineering student who wished to broaden his educa-

tion would do so of his own accord, preferably after

earning his degree.

Obviously, these faculty members' opinions and

objections impressed President E. N. Jones. Once alerted

to the possibility of the introduction of Haley's bill

into the legislature, Jones wrote a number of letters to

"friendly" legislators requesting that they inform him

of the bill's progress. Jones wanted to present before

the legislature Tech's idea of a six hour American heri-

tage requirement which each discipline could adapt to its

. 1 42 own curr1cu a. For example, the Architecture Depart-

ment could teach "American Design," or Horne Economics

could offer an "American Textiles" course, and so on. 43

Vice-President Giesecke continued to solicit

opinions on the advisability of such a requirement, but

turned to educators outside of the college environment.

The Registrar and Director of Admissions at Tech, W. P.

Clement, provided for the Vice-President a summary of the

42 E. N. Jones to State Senator Kilmer B. Corbin, 18 January 1955, American Heritage File, Presidents Papers, E. N. Jones, SWC. Jones used a standard form letter for several of the legislators.

43 h · . . tt M. t . See t e Amer1can Her1tage Comrn1 ee 1nu es 1n the American Heritage File, Presidents Papers, Giesecke Papers, SWC. Over the course of six months, faculty from all over the College debated the meaning of "American Heritage," and proposed all types of courses.

personal opinions of Texas secondary school principles,

which he gathered at a meeting in Temple, Texas on April .: j~'

1-2, 1955. Clement discovered:

There is a definite feeling on the part of the high school people that we have too much direct legis­lation concerning the curricular offerings of the high schools and colleges in the areas of 'American History, American (Texas) History and Civics and American Heritage.' The high school people feel that the curricula is being heavily laoded in that such courses occur in junior high school, the senior high school and now a larger requirement in colleges and universities. It was felt by these people that all of these courses tend to be survey in nature and therefore a lot of repetition.44

There existed within the education cornmuni~y no general

consensus on the topic. Why did the secondary school

93

principals not voice any objection before the legislature

passed the bill? As "expert" witnesses their testimony

might have pr0voked a closer vote on the bill. Possibly,

they feared repercussions from ultra-conservative

groups, investigations into their own backgrounds or

school systems. The memory of the Minute Women's activ-

ities in Houston may have remained uppermost in Texas

educators' minds.

While the debate over the necessity and wisdom

of the bill continued within the academic community,

Senator Dorsey B. Hardeman introduced the bill, S.B. 254,

44 W. P. Clement to G. E. Geisecke, 14 April 1955, American Heritage File, Presidents Papers, Giesecke Papers, SWC.

into the Senate where it was referred to the Committee

on State Affairs. Only a week later, the Committee ~~ . ~

reported favorably, and on March 29, 1955 the Senate

94

passed the bill overwhelmingly by a viva voce vote. Aside

from a few amendments regarding word choice, the bill

passed the House just as easily. By June 2, it was on

the Governor's desk awaiting his signature. He signed

it June 15, 1955. The final version read:

State Colleges and Universities--History Courses Chapter 44922 S.B. No. 254

Be it enacted by the Legislature of the State of Texas:

Sec. 1. No person after July 1, 1956, shall be granted an undergraduate degree of any kind from any institution of higher learning supported or maintained by the State of Texas, or from any junior college re­ceiving state aid, except that he or she has taken and passed six semester hours in American history pro­vided that any student shall have the option, at his or her request, to substitute three semester hours of Texas History for three of the six semester hours in American History required by the terms of this Act.

Sec. 2. The provisions of this Act are in addi­tion to existing laws requiring the teaching of state and federal Constitutions in state supported colleges and universities in Texas.

Sec. 3. The fact that recent surveys have dis­closed a disturbing lack of knowledge and appreciation of the facts and significance of American history, with its bearing on the present and implications for the future, creates an emergency and an imperative public necessity that the Constitutional Rule requir­ing bills to be read on three several days in each House be suspended; and such Rule is hereby suspended, and this Act shall be in force and effect from and after its passage, and it is so enacted.45

45s.B. 254 Bill File, 54th Legislature, Texas State Archives, Senate Journal, 54th Legislature, Regular Session, 1955, 230, 1805.

95

S.B. 254 proved to be a dull item for the Texas

newspapers. Its passage lacked filibusters, fistfights, .:J\

shouting matches, bribery or even any hint of centro-

versy. The Houston Chronicle printed a number of edi-

torials on behalf of the bill, but the water and labor

bills before the legislature produced much better copy. 46

The other widely read newspaper, the Dallas Morning News,

offered only one mild editorial espousing the necessity

to study history because: "Texas . . . is something to

be proud of. The maintenance of this pride will help to

sustain good citizenship and loyalty not only to the state,

but to National Government. "47 Besides the chauvin-

istic appeal to Texas pride, S.B. 254 merited only a few

mentions in the "Austin Wire" column.48

The Austin-

American-Statesman granted the bill similar coverage.

The public appeared equally unimpressed with the

new piece of legislation. Once the bill became law,

Governor Shivers received only one complaint and that

was from a disgruntled senior geology student at Texas

Technological College. Hartley Scarbough wrote to the

Governor to add his voice "to the thousandsn who were

46see Clippings File--54th Legislature, Presidents Papers, E. N. Jones, SWC.

47 Ed' . 1 11 . N 25 '" h 1955 1tor1a , Da as Morn1ng ews, L'Larc .

48 Richard .lvlorehouse, n Austin ~'lire," Dallas .Horn­ing News, 25 February 1955; 13 March 1955; 22 May 1955.

upset by the passage of S.B. 254. He assured Shivers

that, as a good American, he agreed in principle with

the bill; his only obj~ction centered around the

effective date of July 1, 1956. As a member of the

class of 1956 planning to graduate in the summer, the

unlucky student would have to add six semester hours,

and his graduate date would be postponed by a semester

"just for 2 semesters of American History ... which

(he) took in Junior High, High School and God only knows

where else." He also assumed, naively, that the history

departments in all of the colleges were unprepared for

the sudden influx of students; and he demanded a Special

Session of the legislature be called "to prevent a great

injustice to the class of 1956." 49

Despite Hartley's complaint, the effective date

96

remained as July 1, 1956. The solons had decided in favor

of the American history requirement; the voice of one dis-

gruntled student would hardly persuade them to change

their minds. Besides, some legislators thought that one

history requirement was insufficient to insure both a

safe America and a safe Texas.

Two years later, Dean Holcomb's prediction of

"the opening wedge" almost carne true. The 55th legislature

49s. Hartley to A. Shivers, 16 August 1955, 54th Legislature File, Governor Allan Shivers Collection, Texas State Archives. This was the only letter addressed to the Governor pertaining to S.B. 254 in the file.

in 1957 debated Representative Frank McGregor's bill to

make six hours of Texas history a prerequisite both to

high school and state'college graduation in addition

to the six hours in American history and six hours of

Government. This time, a legislator, Representative

Alonzo Jamison, Jr. from Denton, spoke against the re-

quirement. Jamison warned his colleagues that a trend

was beginning, "to continually prescribe in the statutes

the courses to be taught." Aware of the precarious limb

on which he stood, Jamison added that he was in favor of

the traditions of the state; he only wondered "what pro-

portion of the degree program is it proper to write into

statutes?" 50

The prospect of yet an additional six hours of

requirements aroused concern in the academic community

and provoked Hugh Russell Fraser, the designer of the

New York Times history survey of 1943, to submit a guest

editorial to the Texas Observer. Fraser's main bone of

contention was the McGregor bill's "truck driver's

approach to education," forcing students to learn Texas

history, which made "difficult, if not impossible a

thorough teaching of the Constitution of the United

States and of the History of the United States. II

97

He charged that the salient facts of Texas history could

50 Texas Observer, 12 March 1957, 1.

be taught in a two-weeks course. If the McGregor bill

passed, Fraser was convinced that the Texas history re­

quirement would crowd out American history. He advised

that the McGregor bill be defeated. 51 That specific

bill failed to pass the legislature in 1957 and again

in 1959.

98

The intent of Haley's bill, to instill the values

of good citizenship and patriotism, combined with the

still prevalent Cold War climate in Texas, accounted for

the minimum of a truly organized and vocal opposition.

For all of their demonstrations about the difficulty of

incorporating the requirement into their curricula, some-

how the "vocational and professional" department heads

managed to do so. Was Texas saved from the communist

menace or did its institutions of higher learning begin

producing inferior business managers and engineers?

Ironically, neither side was able to prove its assertions.

The prime mover, J. Evetts Haley, moved on to accept the

chairmanship of another right-wing organization, "Texans

for America." This group included some of Haley's former

allies, members of the DAR, the American Legion, the John

Birch Society, and former Minute Women. They were all

dedicated to the eradication of any hint of communism

51 Hugh Russell Fraser, "Teaching Texas History," Texas Observer, 27 April 1957, 6.

from textbooks used in Texas classrooms. 52 Apparently

Haley himself did not expect the United States history

requirement to be enough to save America.

Unfortunately, while not ending the communist

threat, the new requirement created a cold war between

the liberal arts and the sciences on the Tech campus,

a tension already prevalent on the national level.

Despite its entrenched position in every Texas student's

curriculum, history would prove to be a casualty in that

cold war.

52 1 ° b J. Evetts Ha ey to Texas For Amer1ca Mem ers, 27 January 1961, Correspondence File, J. Evetts Haley Reference File, SWC.

99

CHAPTER V

THE AMERICAN HISTORY REQUIREMENT:

A PYRRHIC VICTORY?

The exact intention of the Texas State Legisla­

ture in voting for Senate Bill 254 can never fully be

determined. A fair assessment, however, of the political

and social climate of the 1950s, the language of the

bill, and the groups from which its authors drew their

support, leads one to conclude that the bill was designed

to fight communism. The series of frightening European

events, Soviet action in Eastern Europe, their testing

of an atomic weapon, and the fall of China to the commu­

nists, alarmed Americans. When combined with the dis­

cl~sures of espionage, including a Canadian spy ring,

Alger Hiss, and Klaus Fuchs, those events helped to

inaugurate a domestic as well as foreign cold war.

Americans fought a battle of conscience as McCarthy

raged in the United States Senate, and Congress and

state legislatures endorsed questionable measures to

halt what they perceived as the communist menace.

In this spirit in 1955 the Texas state legisla­

ture passed the rather gentle measure of an American

100

history requirement. The lawmakers hoped to alleviate

if not eliminate the possibility of communist subversion

by educating the youth of the state in their country's

history. Instead, the passage of the bill had little

effect. There never was a formidable communist threat

in the United States. The nation remained unconcerned

about its own history.

The threat of communist subversion or takeover

existed more in the minds and imaginations of Texans

and Americans than in reality. Between 1949 and 1956,

national membership in the Communist Party in the United

States dropped from 60,000 to 20,000 registered members.

Membership had already dropped from a high of 80,000 in

1944. 1 Historians generally attribute the decline in

official affiliation to the members' fear of reprisal

101

from an anti-communist American public and political com-

munity. These were the years of the trial of Alger Hiss,

McCarthy's anti-communist campaigns, and the McCarran

Act. 2 The party's presence in America was minute and

1witold s. Sworakowski, ed., _W~o_r~l_d __ ~C_o_mm __ u __ n_i_s~m~,~A Handbook, 1918-1965 (Stanford, California: Hoover Insti­tution Press, 1973), 464-465.

2The McCarran Internal Security Act, which among other provisions authorized the President to arrest and detain suspicious persons during an "internal security emergency" was enacted over President Truman's veto.

102

it was much less prevalent in Texas. 3 Even if all of the

members of the CPU SA resided in Texas in the 1950s, com-

munists in the state would still comprise fewer than one-

quarter of one percent. 4 From 1956-1960 membership

dropped to fewer than 7,000. The increasing disintegra-

tion of the party was a function of the party's general

disarray after Stalin's death. 5 Although harassed by

American politicians and the public, the party suffered

from other problems.

What has been the legacy of the American history

requirement? As previously indicated, some Texans

believed their youth to be a captive audience of com-

munists and their ideas in the school system. It was '

hoped that the enhancement of their American heritage

would tarnish the sheen of communist ideas and promises.

Senate Bill 254 was advocated as just one of the weapons

to fight communism.

A by-product of the American history requirement

3George Norris Green, The Establishment in Texas Politics: The Primitive Years, 1938-1957 (Norman, Uni­versity of Oklahoma Press, 1984, paper), 73. The author was unable to discover the number of CPUSA members in the State of Texas, but Green indicates that there was some activity at the University of Texas in the 1940s.

4Texas Almanac, 1984-1985 (Dallas: Dallas Morn­ing News, 1984-85), 338. The Almanac obtained its infor­mation from U.S. Bureau Census. The author obtained population statistics from the Almanac.

5sworakowski, World Communism, 465.

103

in high schools and colleges across the nation might be

a discernible improvement in the average college student's

awareness and retention of American historical knowledge.

In 1943 the results of the New York Times American his-

tory survey revealed that college freshmen exhibited an

appalling lack of knowledge about the history of their

own country. 6 The following year the Committee on Amer-

ican History in Schools and Colleges of the American

Historical Association (AHA) published a report entitled

American History in Schools and Colleges. The report

centered around a number of fundamental issues affecting

the historical profession, but especially the extent and

1 . 1 k 1 d f . h' 7 qua 1ty of popu ar now e ge o Amer1can 1story.

The first chapter of the report addressed the

issue of whether or not Americans knew their own history.

To determine this the AHA administered a "Test of Under-

standing United States History" to 1,332 high school

students in 22 states, 200 Social Studies teachers, 529

military students in various colleges, and a selected

group of 929 adults including an additional 107 persons

randomly picked from Who's Who in America. The combina­

tion of these groups' performances, the AHA believed,

6 See Chapter 4.

7Am . . . 1 er1can H1stor1ca tory in Schools and Colleges Company, 1944), viii.

Association, American His­(New York: The Macmillan

furnished "a reasonably significant index of popular

knowledge of American history." 8

According to the results of this test, did Amer­

icans in the mid 1940s know their own history? The AHA,

104

unwilling to incriminate their profession, tiotoed around

a definitive answer:

If by knowing history one means the ability to recall dates, names, and specific events, the answer is fairly clear: Americans in general do not know this kind of history. If by knowing history one means the understanding of trends and movements, the apprecia-tion of past events and persons, . . Americans in general do know a reasonable amount of American his­tory.9

Nonetheless, the scores were low among the high school

and military students and selected adults (minus the

10 Who's Who group). Upon consideration of the results

the AHA recommended that "Americans must repeatedly be

exposed to their own history in school, in college, and

in adult life if they are to use it and know it."11

But

they rejected the idea of required coursework in American

history for students. Apparently they believed that

legislation was not a solution to the problem.

8AHA, American History, 8.

9rbid., 1.

10 Ibid., 10. High school students, military stu­dents, and selected adults had median scores on the test, 22, 29, 29, respectively. Social Studies teachers had a median score of 45, and Who's Who in America had a median of 44 on a scale of 0-65.

11 rbid., 13.

Both of these tests were administered during

World War II, a period of national emergency. That the

105

abysmal results aroused a furor and controversy reflected

the tenor of the times. America was sacrificing men and

material, supposedly to preserve democracy, the nation's

heritage. Yet the results of both tests indicated that

the average American lacked a thorough familiarity of

that heritage. After the war, an awareness of escalating

hostility between the Soviet Union caused Americans to

question the loyalty of a number of institutions in

American life. The unfamiliar and confusing "cold war"

not only helped to promote illuericanism institutes, heritage

foundations, but provoked the legislation of mandatory

American history courses in schools. William Robertson

Coe, a New York businessman endowed in 1950 an American

Studies program at Yale University. Once again in 1954,

he loosened his purse strings to endow a William Robertson

Coe Chair of American Studies at the University of ~vyoming

at Laramie. Harding College, in Searcy, Arkansas,

created a school of American Studies.12

Given the inten-

sity of patriotic emotions and action of the cold war

12 f . f See New York Times, 2 May 1976, 65 or 1n orma-tion on the impact of the surveys on curricula. See also the "William Robertson Coe Program of American Studies at University of Wyoming" and "Freedom Forum," Institute of Americanism Folder, Presidents Papers, E. N. Jones, SWC.

climate it is logical to expect the average American's

historical knowledge to increase in the following

decades.

During the bicentennial year of 1976, once again

the New York Times conducted an American history survey.

Four prominent historians, Bernard Bailyn of Harvard,

C. Vann Woodward of Yale, William E. Leuchtenburg of

106

Columbia, and Benjamin A. Quarles of Morgan State College,

assisted in the preparation of the test. The Educational

Testing Service administered it in early 1976. 13

The nationwide test, g1ven to 1,856 freshmen on

194 campuses, demonstrated once again that students were

familiar only with the high points of American history.

Their knowledge of the facts and the context of these

epoch events was superficial. On the average, the stu-

dents answered correctly only 21 of the 42 questions on

the survey. Social Science educators indicated that

college bound seniors should be able to answer correctly

at least 30 out of the 42 questions. Twenty leading

citizens, ranging from academics to composers, scored an

average of 19.5 out of a possible 24 points on the basic

portion of the test, almost 50 percent better than the

13Edward B. Fiske, "Times Test of College Fresh­man Shows Knowledge of American History Limited," New York Times, 2 May 1976, l.

107

14 freshmen. The Times commented that the student's level

of historical knowledge equalled the 1943 group, but the

latter "took a 'rimes history test that demanded much

more detailed factual knowledge than the new test." 15

Despite the increase of required American history

courses in high schools following the 1943 survey, (see

Footnote 12) students in 1976 showed no improvement. One

of the advisors to the project, Dr. Leuchtenburg, lamented:

"The main conclusion one must draw is unmistakable: that

this group of students knows remarkably little American

hsitory." 16 Similar sentiment found expression in maga-

zine articles, reports, and newsletters in the mid 1970s

through the early 1980s.

Within the same month that the Times concluded

its story, the popular magazine, Saturday Review (SR)

examined the same topic in a series of articles under

the heading, "The Generation That Isn't Learning History."

All four contributors, Edwin O'Reischauer of Harvard

14Edward B. Fiske, "High Schools Cut Priority for Teaching United States History," New York Times, 3 May 1976, 43.

15Fiske, "Times Test of College Freshman," 1.

16Jonathan Friendly, "Scores Followed Normal Curve," New York Times, 4 May 1976, 24. It is interest­ing to note that Friendly reported that the students at the University of Texas at Arlington made the best group showing of any of the 194 colleges with an average of 28.5 correct. (Other schools in Texas did participate in the survey.)

108

University, Emmet John Hughes of Rutgers University, Fred

Hechinger of the SR, and John Cass, SR's education editor,

concurred that American students were emerging from

school with little or no knowledge of the history of

their own country. Reischauer blamed the stifling para-

chial nature of the history curriculum in the average

college. He believed that students would learn new

aspects of American history if it was compared to "as

much as possible of the total experience of mankind."17

Hechinger critiqued the general malaise of the histori-

cal profession and its impotence to transcend "waxworks

history." Historians were unable to make the past come

1. 18 a 1ve.

The two remaining contributors, however, probed

the American character to explain the obvious neglect of

American history. Hughes related his experiences with

political science graduate students which left him "un­

nervingly uncertain whether they could distinguish

between World War I and World War II unless the Roman

19 numerals gave them the clue." He concluded that the

17Edwin o. Reischauer, "Expanding the Limits of History," Saturday Review 3 (29 May 1976): 20.

18Fred Hechinger, "Waxworks in History," Saturday Review 3 (29 May 1976): 27-29.

19 Emmett John Hughes, "President Hoover of the FBI," Saturday Review 3 (29 May 1976): 26,

average American's cavalier attitude about his own

country's past was in keeping with American tradition.

Several generations of Americans, he argued, have

exhibited a dearth of historical knowledge and perspec­

tive because they have been (and still are) immersed in

the future. Cass agreed with Hughes' thesis, but added

his own observations. Americans have always been ahis-

torical people, because they continue "to see themselves

as making history, not studying it." 20 ~vhether because

of the unhappy state of the historical profession or an

inherent national character flaw, Americans in 1976

remained painfully unlearned in the past of the nation

whose birthday they clamored to celebrate. 21

109

Although certainly not as conclusive as the Times

survey, evidence of the problem has continued to surface

in the 1980s. While critiquing the fragmentation of

historical scholarship, Eric Foner in Commonwealth

20John Cass, "Does the Past Have a Future?" Saturday Review 3 (29 May 1976): 29. In 1984 French edu­cators administered a test similar to the New York Times survey, and discovered that French students were, indeed, learning their history. Some commentators thought that the results indicated that the French indulged in nostal­gia for the place France once had in the world. See E. J. Doinne, Jr., "To the Battles of France, Add That over History," New York Times, 24 April 1984, 32.

21 For a detailed report on the malaise of the profession, see Richard s. Kirkendall, "The Status of History in the Schools," Journal of American History 62 (September 1975): 557-570.

110

inadvertently commented upon the disturbing fact that

Americans have persisted in remaining woefully uninformed

about their country's past. In explaining what he terms

the paradox of academic history suffering a depression in

the midst of a "minor boom" in popular history, Foner

revealed the ultimate irony. According to Foner, the

bicentennial celebration, the ''Roots" television series,

and the new profitability of collecting Americana were

all manifestations of the "boom." Despite all of the

festivities, television and financial motivation, Foner

conceded that the American student remained "bereft of

any sense of historical understanding" (which he attrib-

d h . ) 22 ute to poor teac lng .

Since the demise of the student movement of the

1960s, increasing numbers of colleges and universities

have divested their curricula of graduation requirements,

American history courses included. 23 The AHA opposes

this trend (a reversal of its 1944 position) because

historians continue to doubt the average student's pre-

. h b. 24 paredness ln t e su Ject. But if after thirty years

22 Eric Foner, "History in Crisis, .. Commonwealth 108 (18 December 1981): 723, 726.

23 John Cass, 11 Does the Past Have a Future?" 30.

24 Gerald G. Eggert, "Historians Organize to Defend History Requirements in Pennsylvania Schools, .. Persoectives 22 (October 1984): 16.

111

of American history requirements the state of students'

historical knowledge has failed to improve, what defense

is left to justify the required status in the curriculum?

The study of American history, and history in

general are easily justified. More than forty years ago

the AHA answered the question, 11 Why study history? 11 with

four major reasons:

History makes loyal citizens because memories of common experiences and common aspirations are essen­tial ingredients in patriotism. History makes intel­ligent voters because sound decisions about present problems must be based on knowledge of the past. History makes good neighbors because it teaches tolerance of individual differences and appreciation of varied abilities and interests. History makes stable, well-rounded individuals because it gives them a start toward understanding the pattern of society. .25

It is certain that each historian, professional and

amateur, possesses a list of his or her own. There is

no doubt that history is a valuable discipline. A stu-

dent forced into a classroom, however, is an unwilling

participant, hostile to learning, and may resent rather

than respect the subject.

J. Evetts Haley and his 11 Little band .. of legion-

naires, Daughters and Sons of the American Revolution,

and the Minute Women expected unattainable results from

the American history requirement. They demanded that

it provide immunity from the communist virus supposedly

25AHA, American History, 14.

112

infecting American society. If taught honestly, American

history may help the student to understand this nation's

heritage. Such teaching should provide an immunity from

propaganda and cultural chauvinism. Hopefully, this

develops into a healthy patriotism, critical thinking

about this country's heritage, and hence a more thorough

understanding.

Unfortunately, the evidence appears to indicate

the contrary. If patriotic groups have been disappointed

in their expectations then so have history teachers. The

1976 New York Times survey disclosed that high school

students seem unfamiliar with the pertinent details of

their country's past. Even if indirect and fragmentary,

the evidence may indicate an even greater disappointment,

an entire nation unaware of its past.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Sources

"Affairs of the Association." Southwestern Historical Quarterly 58 (Spring 1955): 143-160.

"As The Editor Sees It." The Social Studies 46 (Decem­ber 1955), and 43 (January 1952): 2.

Bulletin of Texas Technological College 13 (June 1937).

Cantril, Haley, and Strunk, Mildred. Public Opinion, 1935-1946. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1951.

Carrol, H. Bailey. "Texas Collection." Southwestern Historical Quarterly 58 (Spring 1955): 160-176.

Department of State Bulletins.

Dugger, Ronnie. "~vhat Corrupted Texas? 11 Harper's 214 (March 1957): 68-74.

Dulles, John Foster. "Thoughts on Soviet Foreign Policy and What To Do About It." Life 20 (June 3 and 10, 1946): 112-126, 118-130.

Haley, J. Evetts. "Painting and Prejudice: A Comment on the Nature of Cultivated Degeneracy." A critical paper read to the annual dinner of the Coppini Academy of Fine Arts, San Antonio, Texas, January, 1961.

Hardeman, D. B. Acts."

"Shivers of Texas, A Tragedy in Three Harper's 213 (November 1956): 50-55.

House Journals. Austin, Texas: Texas State Legisla­ture.

Long' Stuart. II I Scared Money I v7ins an Election in Texas." Reporter 11 (21 October 1954): 23-26.

113

.. Lubbock, The Hub of the Plains ... Texas Technological College Brief. Lubbock, Texas: Chamber of Commerce, 1923.

Murphy, Charles J. V. 11 Texas Business and McCarthy." Fortune 49 (May 1954): 100-101, 208-216.

Nation. Editorial. 145 (7 August 1937): 123-124.

114

Prendergast, William. "State Legislatures and Communism: The Current Scene ... American Political Science Review 44 (September 1950): 556-574.

Senate Journals. Austin, Texas: Texas State Legislature.

Smith, Brewster M. 11 The Personal Setting of Public Opinions: A Study of Attitudes Toward Russia ... Public Opinion Quarterly 11 (Winter 1947-48): 507-523.

Texas History Movies. Dallas, Texas: Magnolia Petroleum Company/Mobile, 1956.

Vernon's Civil Statutes. Kansas City, Missouri: Vernon's Lawbook Company.

Vernon's Texas Statutes. Kansas City, Missouri: Vernon's Lawbook Company.

What the Teachers Think of Education: A Survey of Faculty Opinions at Texas Technological College. Lubbock, Texas: C. E. Maedgen Foundation, 1956.

White, Theodore. 11 Texas: Land of Wealth and Fear ...

Mr. X.

Reporter 10 (8 June 1954): 30-38.

11 The Sources of Soviet Conduct ... Foreign Affairs 25 (July 1947): 566-582.

Interviews

Abernethy, Byron. Interview with author, Lubbock, Texas, 6 February 1985.

Haley, J. Evetts. Telephone conversation with author, 25 February 1985.

Pearce, William. Interview with author. Lubbock, Texas, 6 February 1985.

115

Manuscript Collections

Bill Files. Legislative Collection. Texas State Archives, Austin, Texas.

Giesecke, G. E. Papers. Presidents Papers. Southwest Collection, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas.

Haley, J. Evetts. Correspondence, J. Evetts Haley Refer­ence File. Southwest Collection, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas.

Institute of Americanism Reference File. Southwest Collec­tion, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas.

Jones, Clifford B. Personal Correspondence, Clifford B. Jones Papers. Southwest Collection, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas.

Jones, E. N. General Office Papers. Southwest Collection, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas.

Rister, C. C. Letters. Southwest Collection, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas.

Shivers, Allan. 54th Legislature File. Governor Allan Shivers Collection, Texas State Archives, Austin, Texas.

Newspapers

Austin American-Statesman.

Houston Chronicle.

Lubbock Avalanche-Journal.

New York Times.

Texas Observer.

Secondary Sources

Ambrose, Stephen. Eisenhower, 1980-1952. 2 vols. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983.

American Historical Association. American History in Schools and Colleges. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1944.

116

Andrews, Ruth Horn. The First Thirty Years: A History of Texas Technological College, 1925-1955. Lubbock, Texas: Texas Tech University, 1956 .

. : 1,_. .

Belknap, Michael R. ·Cold War Political Justice, The Smith Act, The Communist Party, and American Civil Liberties. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1977.

Brown, Norman D. Hood, Bonnet and Little Brown Jug: Texas Politics, 1921-1928. College Station: Texas A&M Press, 1984.

Carleton, Don. "McCarthyism in Houston: The George Ebey Affair." Southv1estern Historical Quarterly 8 0 (October 1976): 163-176.

Caro, Robert A. The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Path to Power. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1982.

Carr, Robert K. The House Committee on On-American Activities, 1945-1950. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1952.

Cass, John. "Does the Past Have a Future." Saturday Review 3 (29 May 1976), 29-31.

Chmaj, Betty. "Paranoid Patriotism: The Radical Right and The South." Atlantic Honthly 210 (November 1962): 91-97.

Day, Barbara Sue Thompson. "The Oil and Gas Industry and Texas Politics, 1930-1935." Ph.D. dissertation, Rice University, 1973.

Dionne, E. J., Jr. "To the Battles of France, Add That Over History." New York Times, 24 April 1984, 32.

Eggert, Gerald G. "Historians Organize to Defend History Requirements in Pennsylvania Schools." Perspec­tives 22 (October 1984), 16-17.

Foner, Eric. "History in Crisis." Commonwealth 108 (18 December 1981), 723-726.

Freeland, Richard. The Truman Doctrine and the Origins of the Cold War. New York: Alfred E. Knopf, 1972.

Fuermann, George. Reluctant Empire. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1957.

·<:r

Gaddis, John Lewis. The United States and the Origins of the Cold War, 1941-1947. New York: Columbia University Press, 1972 .

. : -'\. ':

117

Gallup, George. 3 vols.

The Gallup Poll Public Opinion, 1935-1971. New York: Random House, 1972.

Gellerman, William. Martin Dies. New York: The John Day Company, 1944.

Goldman, Eric. The.Crucial Decade--And After, America 1945-1960. New York: Alfred E. Knopf, 1966.

Graebner, Norman A. Cold War Diplomacy: American Foreign Policy, 1945-1960. Princeton, New Jersey: D. Van Nostrand Company, 1972.

Green, George Norris. The Establishment in Texas Politics: The Primitive Years, 1938-1957. Westport, Connec­ticut: Greenwood Press, 1979.

11 Some Aspects of the Far Right Wing in Texas Politics ... Essays in Recent Southern Politics. Editor, Harold M. Hollingsworth. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1970, 59-94.

Green, James R. Grass Roots Socialism: Radical Movements in the Southwest, 1895-1943. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1983.

Hechinger, Fred. 11 Waxworks in History ... Saturday Review 3 (29 May 1976), 27-29.

Hewes, Leslie. The Suitcase Farming Frontier: A Study in the Historical Geography of the Central Plains. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1973.

Hughes, Emmett John. 11 President Hoover of the FBI ... Saturday Review 3 (29 May 1976), 26.

Irons, Peter H. 11 The Cold War Crusade of the United States Chamber of Commerce ... In Griffith, Robert, and Theoharis, Athan, editors. The Specter: Original Essays on the Cold War and the Origins of McCarthyism. New York: New Viewpoints, 1974.

Key, v. 0., Jr. Southern Politics in State and Nation. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1949.

Kirkendall, Richard s. 11 The Status of History in the Schools ... Journal of American History 62 (September 1975), 557-570.

Kutler, Stanley I. The American Inquisition: Justice and Injustice in the Cold War. New York: Hill and Wang, ~9.82 . ... . \ ~ . ":"

Lee, R. Alton. "The Army Mutiny of 1946." Journal of American History 53 (December 1976): 555-571.

118

McKay, Seth Shepard. Texas and the Fair Deal, 1945-1952. San Antonio, Texas: The Naylor Company, 1954.

Texas Politics, 1905-1944. Lubbock: Texas Tech Press, 1952.

Morris, Willie. "Houston's Super Patriots." Harper's 223 (October 1961): 48-56.

Nall, Kline A., and Rushing, Jane Gilmore. Evolution of a University: Texas Tech's First Fifty Years. Austin, Texas: Madiona Press, Inc., 1975.

Nelson, Jack, and Roberts, Gene. The Censors and The Schools. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1963.

Olien, Roger M. From Token to Triumph: The Texas Repub­licans since 1920. Dallas: SMU Press, 1982.

O'Reilly, Kenneth. Hoover and the On-Americans: The FBI, HUAC, and the Red Menace. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1983.

Presley, James. Oilmen.

Reeves, Thomas C. New York:

A Saga of Wealth: The Rise of the Texas New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1978.

The Life and Times of Joe McCarthy. Stein and Day, 1982.

Reischauer, Edwin 0. "Expanding the Limits of History." Saturday Review 3 (29 May 1976), 20-22.

Robinson, Chandler A. J. Evetts Haley, Cowman-Historian. El Paso, Texas: CArl Hertzog, 1967.

Sworakowski, Wi told S. , ed. ~'Vorld Communism: A Hand­book, 1918-1965. Stanford, California: Hoover Institution Press, 1973.

Texas Almanac, 1984-1985. Dallas: Dallas Morning News, 1984-1985.

Theoharis, Athan. Seeds of Repression: and the Origins of McCarthyism. Quadrangle Books, 1971 .

. :lt···-:· ,•_ ~·I .,

Harry S. Truman Chicago:

119

Webb, Walter Prescott, ed. The Handbook of Texas. 2 vols. Austin, Texas: Texas State Historical Association, 1952.

Weinstein, Allan. New York:

Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case. Alfred E. Knopf, 1978.