The first article I analyzed was from the May 17, 1958 issue of the Houston Chronicle and titled “Dowling Statue Deserves Display.” The article appeared on the front page and it advocated the memorializing of Dowling. According to the article, the statue had been in storage for about a year at the time the article was written, but that it was going to be placed in Hermann Park soon. The article goes on to explain Dowling’s role in the Battle of Sabine Pass, why he is an important figure for Houstonians to remember, and advocating the value of a public display for him.
To be honest, the placement of the Dowling article on the front page strikes me as a little bit odd. It is sort of news because it announces that a display for Dowling will eventually be erected in Hermann Park, but the rest of the article is almost an editorial about why Dowling deserves to be honored. It’s located under a heading called “Our City” though, so I imagine that the article might be part of a series featuring local news. Nonetheless, the article seems like it would be more suited for the opinion page than the front page since it advances such a distinct viewpoint.
Some of the other articles I took note in the same issue of the Chronicle were about the Algerian Crisis and Charles de Gaulle’s return to politics in France. As a political science major, I found that particularly fascinating because I remember learning about how the May 1958 crisis eventually led to the establishment of the Fifth Republic in France. Slightly more pertinent to the Dowling statue, I found an article about how a student committee had passed a resolution supporting the desegregation of every aspect of campus-life at the University of Texas. Certainly, the conflict over desegregation in that period might have influenced people’s opinions about honoring a Confederate hero. Unfortunately, there was no byline on my article, so I couldn’t try to find out if the author had some sort of agenda in pushing for Houstonians to honor Dowling.
The second article I analyzed was from the August 22, 1937 issue of the Houston Post. It was a story recounting two historical events that occurred during the Civil War and highlighting the heroics of the Confederate soldiers and officers involved. The first part of the article talked about the sinking of the U.S.S. Hatteras by the CSS Alabama near Galveston in January of 1863. The author of the article was apparently a child living in Galveston at the time and the account was rather one-sided. It basically talked about how the Confederates beat the odds to sink the larger Hatteras and commended them for their heroics and valor. The second part of the article discussed the Battle of Sabine Pass when the Confederates again beat the odds to score a victory against the Union. Dick Dowling is mentioned in the article, but a lot of attention is paid to the other Confederate officers involved. It gives a very detailed account of events on the Confederate side leading up to the conflict.
This article was clearly written from a pro-Confederate point of view and paints the Confederates as heroes fighting against difficult odds during the Civil War. I’m not sure if the general population of Houston was pro-Confederate at the time the article was published, but the author clearly is. However, since the author remembers the Civil War, he must’ve been quite old at the time the article was published and his views might not have been shared by most people. The fact that these accounts were published in a mainstream publication though supports the idea that holding pro-Confederate views in 1937 wasn’t totally frowned upon in Houston. I thought it was interesting that the article made no mention of why the South was fighting the Civil War. There was no mention of slavery or states’ rights. Instead the events recounted in the article were treated as an underdog story of victory.