The Texas Book: Profiles, History, and Reminiscences of the University (Focus on American History Series,Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin)

265 Pages·2006·5.33 MB·English

by  Richard A. Holland

THE TEXAS BOOK
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FOCUS ON AMERICAN HISTORY SERIES
Center for American History
University of Texas at Austin
Edited by Don Carleton
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PROFILES,
HISTORY, AND }
The Texas Book
REMINISCENCES
OF THE UNIVERSITY
EDITED BY RICHARD A. HOLLAND
University of Texas Press Austin
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Copyright © 2006 by the University of Texas Press Requests for permission to reproduce material from this
All rights reserved work should be sent to:
Printed in the United States of America Permissions
First edition, 2006 University of Texas Press
P.O. Box 7819
Publication of this book was generously supported by the Austin, TX 78713-7819
Jess and Betty Jo Hay endowment at the University of www.utexas.edu/utpress/about/bpermission.html
Texas Press.
∞ The paper used in this book meets the minimum re-
“The Week James Michener Died,” by James Magnuson, quirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (R1997) (Permanence
reprinted with permission from the December 1997 issue of Paper).
of Texas Monthly.
“The Search for William E. Hinds,” by Walter Prescott LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Webb, copyright © 1961 by Harper’s Magazine. All rights
reserved. Reproduced from the July issue by special per- The Texas book : profi les, history, and reminiscences of the
mission. University / edited by Richard A. Holland.— 1st ed.
p. cm. — (Focus on American history series)
Selections from North Toward Home reprinted with Includes bibliographical references.
permission from JoAnne Prichard Morris and David Rae ISBN-13: 978-0-292-71429-8 (cloth : alk. paper)
Morris. North Toward Home, Houghton Miffl in Company ISBN-10: 0-292-71429-7 (cloth : alk. paper)
(1967); reprinted by Vintage Books (2000) and University 1. University of Texas — History. 2. University of Texas
Press of Mississippi (2000). at Austin—History. 3. University of Texas—Biography.
4. University of Texas at Austin—Biography. I. Holland,
“Remembering Texas” (1984) by J. M. Coetzee. Copyright © Richard (Richard A.) II. Series.
by J. M. Coetzee, 1989. All rights reserved. LD5333.T49 2006
378.764’31—dc22 2006004520
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Contents
Introduction 1
RICHARD A. HOLLAND
PROFILES
J. Frank Dobie: A Reappraisal 11
DON GRAHAM
The Woman Who Ran Ransom’s University 21
HAROLD BILLINGS
Some Blues for a Trio 35
CHAD OLIVER
A Particular Friend of Shakespeare’s 41
WILLIAM HAUPTMAN
On Richard Fleming: Tribute to Richard T. Fleming at Memorial Services,
March 16, 1973 45
JOE B. FRANTZ
Thirteen Ways of Looking at Chairman Frank 53
RICHARD A. HOLLAND
Américo Paredes and Rancho UT Austin 73
JOSÉ LIMÓN
The Week James Michener Died 79
JAMES MAGNUSON
HISTORY
George W. Brackenridge, George W. Littlefi eld, and the Shadow of the Past 85
RICHARD A. HOLLAND
When the Poor Boys Ruled the Campus: A Requiem for B. Hall 105
DAVID DETTMER
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vi } THE TEXAS BOOK
Campus Architecture: The Heroic Decades 125
LAWRENCE SPECK
Blacks Challenge the White University 139
MICHAEL L. GILLETTE
“Going Towards a Great Library at Texas”: Harry Ransom’s Acquisition
of the T. E. Hanley Collection 153
RICHARD W. ORAM
The University Interscholastic League and the Integration of
Texas High School Athletics 159
BOBBY HAWTHORNE
The View from the Tower 173
JOHN SCHWARTZ
Desegregation, Affi rmative Action, and the Ten-Percent Law 177
DOUGLAS LAYCOCK
REMINISCENCES
From Cottonwood to the Capital: The University Years 195
MEADE F. GRIFFIN
The Search for William E. Hinds 201
WALTER PRESCOTT WEBB
From Mississippi to Texas and Back 211
WILLIE MORRIS
Hairy Ranger, Wonder Wart-Hog, and the Sweet Young Thing:
Interviews with Texas Ranger Editors Frank Stack and Pat Brown 223
RICHARD A. HOLLAND
The Times They Were A’ Changin’ 231
BETTY SUE FLOWERS
Remembering Texas 237
J. M. COETZEE
The Last Bastion 241
JULIUS WHITTIER
Conviction Values: Two Speeches 249
BARBARA JORDAN
Acknowledgments 255
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THE TEXAS BOOK
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RICHARD A.
Introduction
HOLLAND
The University of Texas is celebrating its 125th birthday, and by most mea-
sures of excellence it ranks as a worldwide success in higher education.
The competition to enter the University is intense, yet approximately
thirty-nine thousand undergraduate students enroll in a given year, with
another eleven thousand students enrolling in UT’s one hundred seventy
graduate programs. The faculty and student body includes winners of the
Nobel Prize, the Pulitzer Prize, the MacArthur “genius award,” and Rhodes
and Marshall scholarships; many have become members of state, national,
and foreign learned societies. The athletic programs are thought to be the
best overall in the country, and the libraries and archives are lauded in
every educated part of the world. Texas alumni have left their marks in
law, engineering, geology, business, journalism, and all fi elds of the sci-
ences, arts, and entertainment.
Yet if one looks back over its history, the institution has frequently not
been at this level of prosperity and accomplishment. In fact at some junc-
tures in the past the University’s integrity as a center for higher education
has been deeply compromised, and more than once its very existence has
been seriously threatened.
The University of Texas refl ects the state of Texas, and that can be com-
plicated. Texas has always been perceived as a setting for action, not book
learning, and a robust frontier spirit of anti-intellectualism has existed
since Sam Houston served as president of the republic. On the other hand,
no single place in the United States has the richness and diversity of the
cultures of the Lone Star State, located as it is as the western-most part of
the South, at the bottom of the Midwest, as the gateway to Mexico, and as
the place where the West begins. Add to this a certain native competitive-
ness and ebullience and you have traits that in a university produce excel-
lence not only in sports but also in academic fi elds as rarefi ed as classics
and biochemistry.
As the University has matured, some of these considerations may seem
a bit dated—after all, a century and a quarter after its founding UT receives
less than 20 percent of its funding from the legislature, foreign students
in Austin number over four thousand and come from a hundred diff erent
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