LETTERS

The Old School Tie



In your article “The SMU Connection” (December), you failed to mention the real reasons for the success of so many: the quality of education at SMU and the personal qualities of its graduates.

In almost two generations as manager, general partner, senior vice president, and director of Merrill Lynch, I employed dozens of graduates of universities from Harvard to the smaller schools. The most successful among them were from the SMU School of Business.

E.O. Cartwright

President

The Cartwright Company

Dallas



How about William P. (Bill) Barnes (’42), Chief Executive Officer, General American Oil Company, Dallas?

William H. Harrison

Fort Worth



Juvenile Justice

“Kids Who Kill” is a credit to your magazine and to journalism in general. It is one of the most honestly written articles on this subject that I have ever read. My congratulations to Mr. Atkinson.

I sincerely believe that your article may provide the citizens of our state with good reason to improve our juvenile justice system.

Harry R. Tanner

Execitive Director

Community Council

of Greater Dallas



Court-Appointed Attorneys



Thank you for your November article, “Poor Man’s Justice.” I was very moved by the injustice meted out to William Garner, and distressed at the attitude of glib indifference by court-appointed attorney Roberts and Judge Kirby Vance. What a disgrace!

Frida Milone

Dallas



A Dissenting Vote

Re your article promoting the new Dallas Museum of Fine Arts (“Great Art for a New Museum,” November): I subscribe to your magazine to find out what’s going on in my home town and your tactics, considering the influence of your publication, bothered me a lot. These are the things that worry me most:

The timing of the article, when the vote was November 6, left no room for arguments against moving the museum. Not fair.

Nowhere did Mr. Dillon mention the present art museum being in the middle of a black neighborhood.

Nowhere did Mr. Dillon talk about the possibility of building on to the present museum, though he did say it was only 75 years old. Not to mention the numbers of black school children who are within walking distance (which means no bus fare) of the present museum.

Nowhere did Mr. Dillon let the public know what the surrounding museums at Fair Park thought about the move of the art museum and the consequences for the success of their own enterprises (the ballet, the opera, the summer musicals, the museum of natural history, the science museum).

Nowhere did he speak of the possibilities of out-and-out racism. In other words, the thinking of the contributors, dealers, etc., was never questioned. Why the condition of giving contributions only if the museum has a new location?

And, alas, nowhere in the article does Mr. Dillon tell us what’s to happen to the present museum’s building.

Great art for a new museum? Maybe. Maybe, too, big money has, again, bought what it wanted.

Lucy Curtis

New York



Mr. Dillon responds: “Great Art for a New Museum” was about what it said it was about – art. Were the private collections pledged to the new museum any good? This was the cornerstone of the museum’s case to the voters, yet few people had ever seen the art. We critiqued the private collections and concluded that their acquisition would be a coup for the city. We pressed for passage of the bond issue on those grounds, as well as many others. The fact that we were for something and made the case as strongly as when we’re against something shouldn ’t surprise anyone.

Your letter charges that racism motivated the move from Fair Park to downtown. You might have been correct if you had said that racism motivated some voters, because it probably did. But we doubt racism had anything to do with the decision of museum and city officials to relocate. There are simply so many other problems with Fair Park that race recedes as an issue. The park is difficult to get to from practically everywhere, impossible for visitors or conventioneers to enjoy, overshadowed by a midway, and except for two weeks in October, virtually deserted. Anyone who thinks that Fair Park is still the spiritual hub of the city should drop by some afternoon. Moving the museum from Fair Park to downtown, where it will be accessible to more blacks as well as more whites, hardly seems like the action to take if you ’re out to snub the minorities. Had city officials and the board tried to move the museum to North Dallas, the racism charge would have some validity. And we would have made it ourselves.



Look, Ma, I Can Dance



I have just read Willard Spiegelman’s perceptive article on the Dallas Ballet in your November issue and agree with him that if this company is to progress, a change in direction is needed – a change from the bad posture of too many of its dancers and the “Look Ma, I can turn and jump” demonstrations with which the company seems possessed.

Magdalena linger

Irving



White Rock Creek



My compliments on the remarkable article on White Rock Creek (“Time and a River,” October). This is solid research, serious, but never becomes a drag or loses sight of the fact that it is essentially entertainment in depth. It is a fine talent that David Dillon possesses.

My question has to do with a creek, but not White Rock Creek; it is connected only deviously through the Trinity River. As best I recall, it began somewhere in the now sadly depleted Arden Forest, in the southwest corner of the SMU campus. The stream then ignominiously disappears under Hillcrest and somehow meanders underground, reemerging at the southwest corner of Byron and Drexel. From here on it winds between Drexel and St. John, past Armstrong School – in it, near here, I caught many a woebegone crawfish – continues on past the Highland Park City Hall, and runs inconspicuously into Turtle Creek south of Armstrong. The question is, what is the name of the creek? The name does not appear on the U.S. geological map, and no one I know in Dallas knows a name for it. Its one claim to fame may be that it is the only stream to rise, flow, and end entirely within the Park Cities.

John L. Briggs Jr.

New York



Editor’s Note: According to the staff of the Highland Park town hall, the creek you refer to is known as Hackberry Creek.



From the Fans of Buster Price



I protest the utter humiliation of Buster Price during the visit to Dallas of Governor Jerry Brown (“Manners,” November). He suffered the indignity of forceful removal from his home. That shouldn’t happen in the USA, let alone Dallas. Where was the ACLU?

Dick Rioux

Dallas