Saturday, May 30, 2009

Short Stops: What the People Are Saying

The following is from a series written by James P. Newcomb appearing on 30 and 31 December 1900 in the San Antonio Light. Newcomb spent most of his life as a newspaper man.


He began his career at about age fourteen, when he was orphaned in San Antonio; his family having moved here from Nova Scotia, Canada. He was a staunch Unionist during the Civil War, a Republican during Reconstruction and after, postmaster here for a while, a farmer, and a founder of the Light.


Although they appeared originally in December, because of the recent local elections, it was felt that they might be of interest as a look at antecedents to the current City Council.



Short Stops


What the People Are Saying


During this season of peace on earth and good will, it may be churlish to criticize the many foolish and harmless acts performed by ordinarily sensible people. To those who have abundance much is given, well illustrated by the case of President McKinley and in a smaller way by our own local executive, Mayor Hicks.


A “Mutual Aid” club, reputed to be composed of city employes, who draw their substance from the tax payers’ purse, presented through their president a portrait of the mayor to the mayor as a Christmas gift.


In presenting this portrait our Republican street commissioner, Mr. Scott, gave utterance to the laudation that Mr. Hicks was the only mayor San Antonio ever had.


This assertion, no doubt, applies very aptly to Street Commissioner Scott and the club he spoke for, but there has been a long line of city executives dating back to the year 1837, in whose memory it would be appropriate to say they were all, or nearly all, good citizens, worthy officials and honest men.


John W. Smith, the first mayor, served from September 19th 1837 to March 9th 1838. He served a second term from January 8, 1840 to January 9, 1841; and a third term from April 18, 1842 to March 30, 1844. John W. Smith was an able, upright mayor, and conducted the city government well, especially considering the trying times of Mexican and Indian invasions. He was the grandfather of the Tobin boys. It cannot be said of him that he was not the mayor of San Antonio, notwithstanding the assertion of Street Commissioner Scott.


William H. Dangerfield was mayor from January 8, 1839 to January 8, 1840. Mr. Dangerfield seems to have been a man well approved by his fellow citizens, although no portrait has been preserved of him.


S. A. Maverick was mayor from January 8, 1839 to January 8, 1840. Mr. Maverick was a distinguished citizen, a man of wealth, culture, and refinement; and a patriot. He served in trying times. He had no mutual admiration club to tell him that he was the only only, but he cast his lot here and stood by the town to the end of his long, honorable career.


Juan N. Seguin was mayor from August 17, 1841 to September 7 1841. Colonel Seguin was a distinguished Texan patriot, and a man of ability. His descendants are still among us.


Edward Dwyer was mayor from March 30, 1844 to February 18, 1845. He served a second term from February 18, 1845 to January, 1846. Mr. Dwyer was not only a leading citizen in his day, but a man of marked character and there is no doubt that his fellow citizens appreciated his [word illegible] worth. His grandchildren and a numerous relationship are here today, and need feel no slight to his memory if they are told that our present may or mayor is the only mayor our city has ever had.


Bryan Callaghan, the father of our distinguished ex-mayor Bryan Callaghan, was mayor from January 1, 1846 to January 1, 1847. I remember Mr. Callaghan well. He was a bluff, sturdy Irishman, a man of strong character and business ability; he was of the type of men who build up new countries--the pioneers of the world. There is no doubt of his being one of the mayors of San Antonio.


Bryan Callaghan, Sr., was succeeded by Charles F. King, from January 27th 1847 to January 1, 1848. Mr. King served a second term from April 1848 to January 1849. He was a courtly, educated gentleman who had served in the Mexican War.


We might here close the first chapter of mayors, as distinguished from their successors in office. All these men served the city as patriots with little or no remuneration. Politics such as we know of today, were unknown. Things gradually became different as the city began to grow, and greed for office and the ambition for place took the foreground.


Sunday, April 26, 2009

Fiesta and Pearl Brewery: 1968


Fiesta 1968 program front and back covers.

Friday, April 24, 2009

Fiesta and Pearl Brewery: 1958


In honor for Fiesta week, here's another example of the close relationship between Fiesta and beer: the 1958 Fiesta program's front and back covers.

Drink responsibly this Fiesta Week!!

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Fiesta and Pearl Brewery: 1956


1956 Fiesta program, front and back covers.

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Fiesta and Pearl Brewery: 1954

In honor of Fiesta week and the most popular Fiesta beverage, beer, we will feature a different bit of Fiesta & beer nostalgia everyday this week. It seems that throughout the 1950's, 60's and 70's Pearl Beer was the primary sponsor of the Fiesta programs, because each year's Fiesta program from that era features a big Pearl Beer back-cover ad.

Enjoy these blasts from the past, and please enjoy Fiesta 2009 responsibly!!



Monday, April 20, 2009

Fiesta Programs, Then and Now

Here is just a sampling of the material in the Texana/Genealogy Dept.'s Fiesta archival collection. Take a glimpse at the evolution of the Fiesta program over the years and share your favorite memories from Fiesta.






Monday, April 13, 2009

Facebook beat us to the punch

The purpose of this blog is to collect stories and memories from San Antonio's past. The San Antonio Public Library's Texana/Genealogy Dept. has a wealth of local historical material, including oral histories and personal journals, but we want more! We want to hear what you remember about your San Antonio childhood or about your favorite trip to the Riverwalk if you're not a native.


Well, it seems we are not alone in our desire to gather these anecdotes and stories. We just discovered a Facebook group devoted to the very same thing.
"Classic San Antonio:1950-1999" is an online group forum started and maintained by John C. Harrison and Pete Elias.
From their site:

"Here is where people can share thoughts and memories of SA and the many facets
that make up this wonderful and diverse city. If the subject relates to SA,
feel free to share it here. Discussions may relate to a variety of subjects
such as Playland Park, HemisFair, Captain Gus, the Hertzberg Circus Museum,
Wonderland Mall, Joe "Godfather" Anthony, the BIG snow of '85 or the Spurs
first championship in '99. With that kind of history, it's nice to have a
home online where we can visit and reminisce. So, if you ever took a school
field trip to the Butter Krust bakery, celebrated a birthday at Kiddie Park
or been hardware shopping at Handy Dan then this is the group for you.Please
feel free to post as many SA-related photos and videos as possible here.
Personal photos are also welcomed. Let's try to make this group THE on-line
home for 20th Century SA history."


http://www.facebook.com/posted.php?id=65016292019&start=20&hash=b530291b4c29ac188c5e50e13a75675d#/group.php?gid=65016292019

Follow the link above to scroll through the hundreds of old photos and videos group members have uploaded. If you grew up in San Antonio during the "Classic" era, you owe it to yourself to take this trip down memory lane. Albert Flores' Color the Weather and the old VIA bus ads were two blasts-from-the-past that tickled me today as I went through some of the videos.

Enjoy! But don't forget to return here to share your newly-stirred memories with us!

Sunday, March 22, 2009

San Antonio Public Library: The Final Chapter of Censorship



Soon the library board dropped its support of Channel 9 educational television. Librarian Julia Grothaus and the library had been one of the earliest and strongest supporters of Channel 9. The board ordered library staff to stop all purchases of educational films and records. Library meeting rooms were to be closed to public meetings. The library was only to furnish books, pamphlets, periodicals, and other printed matter for circulating or reference. Library employees were ordered to arrange displays and reports on anti-subversive committees, while limiting space for important literature. The board ordered a great number of extremist right-wing periodicals and books. Gerald Ashford noted, “Many of them echo the Nazi propaganda line that U. S. participation in World War II was the result of a Communist plot…”



Again this was too much for the citizens of San Antonio. The San Antonio Ministers’ Association filed a complaint that the board was destroying progress and reneging on its responsibilities to the community. Maurry E. Boone, superintendent of then Northside Rural High School District, requested City Council prevent the “abolition of the visual aid department…” The Delta Kappa Gamma society wrote to the board not to curtail library services. The San Antonio Teachers’ Council and the Council of Parents and Teachers protested the library board’s actions. More and more individual citizens and local organizations filed protests with the library board and City Council.

At the December 1954 library board voted to remove films and records from the library. All the while the board refused to allow people to speak at the meeting. It adopted a committee report by trustees Leo Brewer, Sam Fly, and L. A. Winship that defined the public library as basically a collection of printed matter. This report was based on legal decisions in New York, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, Kentucky, and Fort Worth. The most recent case appears to have been the one in Fort Worth from 1938. Nothing was mentioned about “new” media of the 1950s and the role they played in libraries across the country. In opposition to City’s Lilly Master Plan of 1951 and Wight Library Survey of 1952 which called for expansion of the main public library building and creation of more branch libraries, the board recommended closing some branches and curtailing bookmobile service. The library’s book budget had remained at $60,000 for three years as San Antonio’s population skyrocketed and no additions were requested.


In February 1954 library trustees Brewer and Tanner resigned. With the 1955 City Council election the “Good Government League” came into political control. A new library board was appointed and the two-year siege of intellectual freedom came to an end.

San Antonio Public Library: City Council vs. Library Board


In a closed meeting on 5 June the City Council replaced all but two of the fifteen members of the library board. By the middle of June the entire nation was watching San Antonio. The Washington Post published an editorial supporting the library and condemning those Americans who “have departed from the fundamental beliefs on which this country grew and prospered now has come from San Antonio…” Even President Eisenhower in an address at Dartmouth College on 14 June brought up the issue.

“It isn’t enough to say ‘I love America’ and to salute the flag and to cheer as it goes by. Don’t be afraid to go to the library and read the books…That’s how we will defeat Communism-by knowing what it is. We’ve got to fight it by doing something better, and not just by hiding it.”

On 11 February 1954 the new Library Board of Trustees sought to end the controversy by adopting the American Library Association’s “Bill of Rights for Public Libraries.” The vote was six to five.


In May the City Council again ousted all but two library board members. By September the library board was split again. This time the issue was the titles of books to be purchased for the library. Tanner Freeman objected to the purchase of Iron Curtain over America as being anti-Semitic. Book committee chairwoman, Mrs. Roy Beitel, admitted that committee members had added 88 titles with strong right-wing slants to the proposed purchases recommended by library staff. Ramon Galindo asked, “Are you speaking for thought control or freedom of information?”





San Antonio Public Library Book Censorship



The San Antonio Connection

The fireworks began at a pre-City Council meeting on Thursday, 14 May 1953. Mayor Jack White:
“I would like to put a thought to the council that they should be looking into the matter of stamping books in the public library by known Communists.”

Acting City Manager Wylie Johnson:
“I think they should be burned instead of stamped.”

City Librarian Julia Grothaus was called in to clarify the library’s position.
“Of course the library has always had books on controversial subjects. … The library has never dictated to the people what they should have and what they should think. We do have material that will give people the information on both sides of the question. That’s the policy of my library serving the people.”

Later that same day library trustees met to discuss the proposals of White and Johnson. The unanimous decision announced by M. M. Harris, board president and a thirty-three year member of the board, as well as editor of the San Antonio Express, was that the library would not censor books. He said,
These are the very tactics which the Russians are using to fight us. … It is ironic that here in San Antonio, which prides itself on its freedom to think and act, that we shall run up against a sample of Communistic tactics.”

Johnson immediately called for the removal of all fifteen board members.

The City Council held a closed meeting on Friday May 15th. The Council was divided on stamping or burning the offending books. Councilman Henry B. Gonzalez called the burning of books “Hitler tactics.” That same day County Commissioner A. J. Ploch vowed to cut county funding if the library board was ousted.