LETTERS

The West of the Story



I found Richard West’s article [“Why Priscilla Davis is a Celebrity And You’re Not,” April] very funny but I take offense at the blanket statement “.. .or off to the next Society Ball.. .entirely segregated from real life.. .useless.” While this is an accurate description of some women who attend “Society Balls,” it does a terrible injustice to the hundreds of women who volunteer thousands of hours to charities-long before they ever get to don glass slippers for their respective balls.

A lot of volunteer work is done in unpleasant, sometimes grisly circumstances; often providing services for the disadvantaged, the abused, the severely handicapped, and sometimes to the “throwaway” or undesirables of society. These women have the time, patience, resources, and commitment and add a different perspective to coping with some of the darker sides of life. And yes, they sometimes have a certain naiveté.

You are foolish if you think they are “powerless to affect life.. .” A profile of some of the most powerful people in Dallas would read: Park Cities, married, mother of two, drives her Suburban to Bible study/ cafeteria duty/volunteer center and, in one phone call, can raise enough money to feed dozens of homeless people or see that you spend the rest of your journalism career editing racing forms.

Be careful that you don’t accidentally stab yourself with the sour, deadly green venom of your poison pen, for you might awaken in an emergency or hospital room attended by some of those glittering ladies, sans tiaras, of course.

Claire Heymann

Addison



Questions About Cauble



Your recent article on Rex Cauble [“From Here to Obscurity,” April] jogged my memory and made me curious as to his current standing with the judicial system. The last we heard of Rex Cauble was that he was involved in a bribery scandal involving a guard at the Big Spring prison.

Cauble apparently paid the guard approximately $10,000 so that he could meet a prostitute at a nearby motel, The guard was indicted and received a five-year sentence for taking the bribe. Cauble, with the exception of being transferred to the federal prison at La Tuna, was let off scot free.

It seems quite ironic that a man in jail for one crime, and a large one at that, would go unprosecuted for committing a crime within the prison system itself. Are the convicted above the law while in jail or is this story missing a chapter? Rex Cauble may be old news but he obviously has a knack for keeping himself current with his antics. Why wasn’t Rex Cauble prosecuted for blatantly breaking the law within a prison?

Marion Andrews

Denton



Out of Africa?



Sally Giddens is to be credited for writing a balanced interpretation of a complex issue from a Dallas perspective [“The Selling of South Africa,” April]. It was, as it should have been, as much about Dallas as South Africa-even more so. But that is the real nature of the issue.

Both black and white attitudes in South Africa are shifting profoundly. Both are moving out of radical ranges into more realistic views. Sanctions are having the opposite effect intended by the proponents, and Boesak and Tutu are under searing attack from black communities-especially Soweto. The current crop of racial politicians in Texas (either black or white) will leave the South African issue when something better comes along-when (he realists do control that transition and. in doing so, effectively shut out (he ANC and other revolutionary elites-and we will all be better off because of that. Those American companies that are pulling out may not find it comfortable to return since the competition will have captured their markets and managers. Americans will, in my view, regret the exodus from Africa.

Donald Beck

National Values Center

Denton



Carpenter: A Man of Feeling



In the excerpt from The Accommodation [March], Jim Schutze referred to our father, John W. Carpenter, and his statements in 1950 concerning the use of the right of eminent domain to acquire private homes for the purpose of replacing them with additional homes. He identified our father with the following in parentheses: “(the land baron who was already planning to build an entire new city called Las Colinas on truly virgin land, his own empty acres in the rolling hills northwest of Dallas).”

The planning for the Las Colinas development was not initiated until 1969, All of the housing, office buildings, hotels, and other commercial improvements one sees in Las Colinas today have been placed on land that was not owned by the Carpenter family back in 1950. Surrounding the original Hackberry Creek Ranch is the land upon which the development of Las Colinas has taken place thus far, land that was acquired subsequent to 1950 and much of it subsequent to John W. Carpenter’s death in 1959.

It is apparent that you added your own mislabeling of our father to imply or insinuate that his position regarding the condemnation of private property for the construction of homes by others was motivated by some self-serving desire not to see the area recycled into new housing rather than because of the reasons he stated at the time. At that meeting in 1950 he was only restating a position he had taken many times before. While he recognized the importance of the condemnation of private property by public bodies for necessary public usages such as public water supply, essential utility services, and public thoroughfares, he was strongly opposed to the condemnation of private property by public bodies for resell for private use. He particularly felt that the preservation of private home ownership was essential to our society and should be applied to all private homeowners regardless of the social or economic status of the homeowner.

Too many members of the press today are too quick to conclude and too willing to imply that all leaders of the business community are motivated strictly by financial gain and the satisfaction of business objectives and have no compassion or feeling for our society as a whole. Such is not the case and our father was a clear-cut example of a man successful as a business leader, motivated in a multitude of endeavors by an unselfish desire to contribute to the creation of a better society for all its participants.

Ben H. Carpenter

Carolyn Carpenter Williams

Dallas