Word: houston
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...large American city," said the Houston Post (circ. 184,461), "Houston is remarkably free of Communist influences . . . which, from all indications, just do not exist in the city." Schoolteachers have uncomplainingly taken non-Communist oaths; no Houstonians have taken refuge behind the Fifth Amendment before a congressional committee; Houston has neither Red-tinged bookshops nor locally published pink magazines. Nevertheless, said the Post, a "miasmic fear of Communism . . . has permeated Houston." In whispering campaigns, patriotic clergymen, educators and schoolteachers have been denounced as Reds, and meeting halls have been closed to visiting speakers on the ground that they were...
...than two months ago, the Post* decided to find out who was responsible. City Editor Harry Johnston assigned Rewriteman Ralph O'Leary, 42, to "take your time, and find out all you can about this thing." Last week the Post completed an eleven-part series that blamed the Houston Chapter of Minute Women of the U.S.A., Inc. for much of the "large-scale Red scare in the community." The 200-odd Minute Women compose "the most powerful organization of its kind in Houston in more than a quarter century" (i.e., since the death of the local Ku Klux Klan...
...never any evidence that he was a Communist or any question of his loyalty. Postmen knew that much of the protest against Ebey came from local women who had once helped prevent Pasadena's ex-Superintendent of Schools Willard E. Goslin ("A very controversial figure") from speaking in Houston. They had also helped force the schools to ban a U.N. essay contest. But when Newsman O'Leary began his spadework, he found the digging hard...
...Minute Women, founded in 1949 in Norwalk, Conn., and spearheaded by a Belgian-born sculptress, Suzanne Silvercruys Stevenson (sister of Belgium's Ambassador Baron Robert Silvercruys), had one of its biggest and most active chapters in Houston. The Minute Women insisted that they did not act as a group, rather as "individuals." When they first saw Newsman O'Leary, they tape-recorded the interview, and one ex-member even demanded that an FBI man be present for another interview. O'Leary was asked: "We're 100% pro-American. Are you?" Much of their work was done...
...American Friends Service Committee was refused one meeting hall after a protest that "Alger Hiss attended a . . . Quaker meeting." Dr. Rufus E. Clement, president of Atlanta University and the first Negro ever to become a member of the present Atlanta Board of Education, was invited to lecture at a Houston Methodist church. Minute Women joined in a loud protest that he was too controversial. The University of Houston eliminated history programs from its education TV broadcasts, to head off protests that they were also being controversial...