The Houston Scare

"For a 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 too "controversial."

More 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). The Post's series brought the biggest avalanche of mail the paper has ever received, but its careful, unhysterical tone was a model of how a newspaper can effectively expose irresponsible vigilantism.

Garden Clubs The Post started on its series right after the school board dropped Deputy Superintendent of Schools George Ebey (TIME, July 27) as too "controversial," even though there was 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.

The 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 by a "telephone chain" system. One member called five others, who in turn made five more calls; thus within a short time the Minute Women could mobilize as many as 500 telephone callers and keep public officials on the jump 24 hours a day. At meetings of the entire group, there was, said the Post, "no parliamentary procedure, motions from the floor are prohibited, all [officers] are appointed." Such unparliamentary procedure, explained the Minute Women, is to prevent being taken over by the Communists, who have even "infiltrated . . . garden clubs."

"Controversial." The Minute Women's protests were remarkably effective. "Many public officials," reported O'Leary, "who might . . . defy a lone organization . . . would be loath to go against the wishes of 500 individuals." The Quakers' 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.

Minute Women printed and circulated a fantastic report that "troops flying the United Nations flag once took over several American cities in a surprise move, throwing the mayors in jail and locking up the police chiefs." One Minute Woman, the wife of an Army officer, indignantly pointed out that the report was preposterous and that it actually referred to a U.S. Army maneuver in military government with townspeople cooperating in the exercise. She was hastily ruled out of order. (Fifty members had previously quit after objecting to "the aura of mystery.") Minute Women boasted they had planted observers in University of Houston classrooms to watch out for controversial material and teachers. "A new meaning," wrote Reporter O'Leary, "has been given to the word controversial ... It now often becomes a derogatory epithet, frequently synonymous with the word Communist."

A Public Investigation. After the Post's expose, the paper ran pages of letters from readers congratulating the paper for its "courage" in unveiling the organization. "I feel that what the Post has done," said Houston Teachers Association President Margaret Bliel, "has been tantamount to a [public] investigation." Said Reporter O'Leary: "In America, everybody should have the right to freedom . . . I think the Minute Women had a perfect right to do what they did. But I just think people ought to know that they did it."

* Owned by William P. Hobby and his wife, Oveta Gulp Hobby, Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare.

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