The Petal Paper

At Christmastime-

THE SPIRIT DOTH DWELL IN DALLAS

by Ronnie Dugger

"Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of Heaven."

It is now an accepted truth in Texas that if Jesus were alive today, he would not only stand four-square against the importunate doings of the Inferior Race, he would be his precinct organizer for Goldwater and get in as many licks as possible at Indignation Rallies, Freedom Forums, Junior Chamber of Commerce Barbeques, and Criswell's block-long Baptist Church.

In Christian Dallas recently a big movie house was showing the latest and most sweeping of his film biographies, a vistavision technicolor extravaganza called "King of Kings." The theater had sent out literature offering tickets to Christian youngsters at reduced prices.

One of the circulars made its way to a Cub Scout troop in Fort Worth, composed of Negroes. They took a special bus over to Dallas for a noon showing, got off, and went to the ticket booth. They were refused admission. Who, one might ask, did the little rabblerousers think they were? The bus by this time had gone and wasn't coming back to get them for another two or three hours, so they sat on the sidewalk in the cold, in front of that impressive marquee, and they waited.

All over Texas this Christmas season, the DAR's, the John Birch Society, and other related offshoots of the Greater Order of the Hookworm Belt Boobs, are conducting a quiet, thoughtful campaign to wreck that latest and most pernicious project of the bolsheviks, the United Nation's Children's Fund.

Warnings are duly out not to buy the Christmas cards sold to help refugee children.

The national defense committee of the DAR has issued the challenge: "This plan to associate the United Nations with Christmas and have it replace the religious aspect of Christmas is believed to be part of a broader Communist plan to destroy all religious beliefs and customs so that one day we shall awaken to find that Dec. 25 is being celebrated as one world peace festival instead of the birthday of Christ."

Poor, deluded Inez Robb commented in a frenzy of ill-temper: ". . . lest a penny be used to succor a starving infant in a land not in rapport with the total doctrine of isolation." Jesus, in Christian Dallas to promote a movie, was not available for comment.