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The Texas Book – Panel Discussion Videos - Richard A. Holland
Don E. Carleton:
Our first speaker tonight, Dick Holland, has been a friend of mine for almost twenty-seven years. Dick worked for sixteen years as bibliographer in the university's General Libraries. And his various duties included selecting books and other acquisitions for the Littlefield Collection in Southern History. Dick left the university to serve as the founding curator of the Southwestern Writers Collection at Texas State University. After his retirement from Texas State, Dick became a senior lecturer in the University of Texas Liberal Arts Honors program where he teaches courses on Texas culture, American music, and the 1960s. Dick contributed the introduction to this book as well as editing it and he also contributed three of his own articles; one on the fascinating and troubling and stressful relationship between George Brackenridge and George Littlefield; another on the infamous student humor magazine, The Texas Ranger; and the third is on, I started to say the infamous Frank Erwin, but I mean the late Frank Erwin. It is the latter subject, that is Frank Erwin, that Dick will now address in his comments to us. So please welcome Dick Holland. [applause]
Richard A. Holland:
Thank you. Tonight in the room, there is a wealth of knowledge about the university. I'm talking especially about the legendary Ralph Elder and Shirley Bird Perry and several other persons, most wise in the ways of the university including Bill Livingston, David Gracy, and Jim Nicar. I'm not such an expert and The Texas Book is not a chronological history, but I think the assiduous reader can piece together many parts of campus history and be instructed and entertained along the way. As the contents of The Texas Book began to fall into place, it became clear to me that something had to be done about Frank Erwin. The other major figure at the university in the mid-twentieth century, Harry Ransom, pervaded several of the essays. But it seemed to me that Frank Erwin of all people needed his own opportunity to speak. So, what to do? At first I looked for a previously published piece, half the book is new and half has appeared previously elsewhere, but there was nothing of the scope I wanted already published about Erwin. Then I gently inquired some historians and journalists about writing something fresh and they all gave me that, are you crazy, not me look. So I gulped a couple of times and volunteered myself. Why the turndowns and what accounted for my own reluctance? I think there are two things. First, the long shadow cast by Erwin and the long-lasting enmity of those who really disliked him and still resent his memory and the intense loyalty of those close to him. Second, is the complexity of his achievement and the weirdness of the public image he created for himself. You can say that the university never had a more skilled spokesman, particularly in an era where the legislature funded almost everything. And then you can say that the university never had a more skilled representative who also flamboyantly confronted students, administrators, and faculty all the while drinking quarts of Cutty Sark with his cronies at the Forty Acres Club as he played Frank Sinatra on the jukebox. A little later in the evening was when he got into his orange and white Cadillac and sometimes drove on the correct side of Guadalupe Street and sometimes did not. The next morning he would brilliantly defend the university's growing budget down at the capitol and then that night follow the same nocturnal routine at the club. It is surprising that he was regent's chair for only five years, but his dominance began before 1966 and went on to his death at the age of sixty in 1980.
We're sitting almost exactly where his most famous confrontation was, usually called "the battle of Waller Creek." It was in the fall of 1969. There was a championship football team after the famous victory at Arkansas. And there were secret plans to expand the stadium. Frank instructed the crew of tree cutters to get the big ones first since he was concerned about an injunction that had been obtained by environmentally minded students and other citizens. This happened about twenty feet just outside the windows right over there. Many think that this incident precipitated his decline as the regent's chair, particularly with his colleagues on the board. To show how far we've come, everyone now knows about the stadium's changes in progress and last weekend, an arborist carefully supervised moving trees from the north end of the stadium and re-planting them. He estimated their value at $30,000 each. They bought this tree last weekend, just right here. On the one hand, Erwin was a lover of classical music and got the Performing Arts Center planned in order to stage grand opera. Harry Ransom was Erwin's hero when he built the great library that put Texas on the high culture map internationally. On the other hand, when the regents voted to approve plans for the new Perry-Castaneda Library, he came out and told the reporters with a twinkle in his eye, "We're going to build us a library bigger than five K-Marts."
My essay is called "Thirteen Ways of Looking at Chairman Frank." In just the couple of weeks the book has been out, I have learned that thirteen is not enough ways. The main thing I've heard is that his friends or at least the ones who get in touch with me love to tell Frank Erwin stories. I must tell you about my favorite new acquaintance, a prominent attorney who lives in Washington, D.C., who last week called me three times for a total of five hours. A friend of his in Austin had sent him the book. In a not unfriendly way, he cross-examined me as to my knowledge, motives if any, and who the hell did I think I was anyway? He would say, "now that sentence in part six at the top of the page," and I would remember my reluctance to do this in the first place. His memories of Erwin were as fresh as if they happened yesterday and not thirty-five years ago. And I respected the intensity of his loyalty. By the time of the last phone call, I think I had passed the exam and my inquisitor had also read my introduction to the book and decided that I was, after all, a friend, not a foe. By the end, he said he was satisfied and would put the book out on the big table in the waiting room of his Washington law firm. He almost promised to make me an honorary Kappa Sig, but not quite. Of the stories he told me, I pass along one. Erwin was known for his close political connections to Lyndon Johnson, John Connolly, and Ben Barnes. But my Washington friend told that me that he was also friendly with Barbara Jordan and Ann Richards. This surprised him as a young political operative who worked for Barnes and then Bob Bullock. He said that he watched Erwin write a $500 check to the Ann Richards campaign when she was running for county commissioner and that he was surprised and asked Erwin why. Erwin's answer was pure Texas pragmatic politics. He said, "Because she's going to win, you dumb bastard." This is just a little of the feedback to the book I've gotten. I hope other authors are getting some as well. Thank you. [applause]