The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 63, July 1959 - April, 1960 Page: 174

Southwestern Historical Quarterly

The phenomenon of rapidly growing urbanization is declared
to be a major cause of the new Texas liberalism. The conflict of
this with the rural-dominated State Legislature is obvious. Yet,
there is a cleavage in the urban trend itself as Fuermann shows
in his comparison of Houston and Dallas. Houston leads the lib-
eral trend in state politics, though it is itself troubled by internal
conservative-liberal differences, especially in the field of educa-
tion. Dallas, on the other hand, is the stronghold of state conser-
vatism but is more "Yankeefied." Houston has more gusto, as the
author says: "Texas sees the two cities as un-Texan; visitors see
Texas in Houston's character." The theme of religious zeal is well
covered also, especially in its relation to the problem of racial
prejudice. The dominant position of the "hard-shell" fundamen-
talist Baptist Church has been largely responsible for the state's
conservative mores. A more liberal attitude toward racial integra-
tion has been taken notably by leaders of the Protestant Episcopal
and Roman Catholic faiths, but many members of even these
denominations are personally opposed to their churches' official
stands. Finally, Fuermann deals with the Texas intellectual scene.
Emphasis in this category is placed on the writings of Texas' "Big
Three"-Walter Prescott Webb, J. Frank Dobie, and Roy Bedi-
chek. The diversity of these varied themes is an indication of
the essence, for the author, of the mind of Texas.
George Fuermann thus details the struggle of Texas to free
itself of its heritage of myths, ruralism, and conformity while
still maintaining its traditions and obvious individuality. This
individualty has unfortunately become so enlarged by the public
actions of some Texans that it has reached the state of sheer non-
sense, as the author describes it in a chapter entitled "The Texas
Neurosis." But Texans are finally learning to laugh at themselves,
and Fuermann hopes Texas' bad reputation brought on by the
above can still be retrieved. The faults of Texas, thus approach-
ing the status of a national joke, are said to stem more from its
youth, size (more of a region than a state), and cultural com-
plexity than from the more usually given concentration of oil.
Texans are compared to new Americans anywhere faced with the
enlarged opportunity of a frontier environment. Fuermann here
would seem to follow the interpretation of Walter Prescott Webb's

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