The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 80, July 1976 - April, 1977 Page: 176

Southwestern Historical Quarterly

to play on the fears of the average, uninformed citizen. Ebey's chief op-
ponent was the Minute Women organization, an active interest group
composed mainly of individuals connected with special economic interests.
The Ebey Affair was Houston's major event of the Red Scare and the
Minute Women represented its McCarthyistic pressure group. Both the
event and the behavior of the participants typified much that occurred in
the United States in the first decade following World War II. While its
intensity certainly increased in the early I950s, the intolerance which
marked the era of McCarthyism was traditional, with deep roots in the
American past. This was particularly true in Houston, Texas. Interest
groups manipulating the symbolic issues in the Ebey Affair were engaged
in the practice of one aspect of "politics as usual." Cold war anti-Com-
munism only provided a new way to do it.32
32The Ebey Affair caused moderates in Houston, who had previously refrained from
attacking the Red Scare pressure groups, to become active. Led by the Houston Post
and by an NEA investigation of Houston's schools, moderate elements succeeded in
reducing the Red Scare tensions in the city. The Minute Women suffered a decline
shortly after the Ebey Affair. McComb, Houston: The Bayou City, 229, 236; Fuermann,
Reluctant Empire, i45-147.

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