The Eyes of Texas

Since Barbara Louise Smith, 19, has the best soprano voice of anyone in her class at the University of Texas' College of Fine Arts, it was only natural that she should win the starring role in the college's annual full-dress opera. Last October she was cast as Dido in Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, rehearsed conscientiously. Then, only a few days before last week's performance, she was summoned to the office of the dean and told that she must get out of the cast. Dean E. W. Doty was very sorry, but certain legislators in session right there in Austin had objected to having a Negro girl play a romantic lead opposite a white boy.

Over the months Barbara had already received as many as three threatening, anonymous phone calls a week. But it was not until last month that a segregationist legislator named Jerry Sadler blasted the "octopus on the hill" (i.e., the university) for mixing "whites and blacks in an opera." Later another segregationist. Representative Joe Chapman, phoned the university's President Logan Wilson to discuss the matter. Though he denies threatening Wilson, the fact remained that the university's appropriations were about to come up before the legislature. Result: President Wilson suddenly decided that Dido must be white.

Apologies & Effigies. Hurt and shaken, Barbara Smith managed to swallow her pride. "The ultimate success of integration at the university," she said, "is much more important than my appearance in the opera." With that Barbara kept mum --and university officials were ordered to do the same. But last week a series of events proved that integration had achieved a far greater measure of success than Barbara--or anyone else--had realized. Seldom had the university been the center of such a storm of indignation.

In a letter of apology to Barbara, eight legislators regretted that some of their colleagues "have lost their sense of values, are more interested in personal advancement and the applause of the folks back home than they are in Christian principles of right and wrong." An effigy bearing the names of Sadler and Chapman dangled on the campus; another hung from the rotunda of the Capitol. Eighty student members of the Young Republicans and Young Democrats adopted a resolution condemning the university's action as a "flagrant" violation of the "principle of an equal chance for everyone."

Who's a Loyal Texan? Though the student president and vice president tried to excuse the university administration by insisting that its motive was merely to protect Barbara, the student assembly met to "reaffirm its belief that all bona fide students should be given an equal opportunity to participate in campus activities." The presidents of the two leading service organizations, the Cowboys and the Silver Spurs, recommended that students boycott the opera. "We wonder," said the presidents, "if, in order to qualify as one of Representative Chapman's 'loyal Texans,' we must abandon our religious heritage as Christians and Jews, and our political heritage as Americans." Meanwhile, angry letters flooded the student Daily Texan. One alumnus wrote that he was "deeply ashamed." Said another reader: "It makes me sick to my stomach."

At week's end President Wilson had yet to abandon his "no comment" policy. But the eyes of Texas were upon him, and Texas appeared to be shocked by what it saw. When Dido and Aeneas opened, the audience filled less than half the auditorium, and from the flagpole in front of the university's main building hung a swastika flag with the words "No Comment" on it.

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