The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 105, July 2001 - April, 2002 Page: 532

Southwestern Historical Quarterly

athletics, streaking, and the time in 1922 when the "UT Board of Regents
banned the student ownership of automobiles" (p. 23).
Arranged chronologically, the book's ten chapters draw upon official university
records, various manuscript collections, and especially from The Daily Texan to
highlight changes in printing technology, financial crises, and struggles to com-
bat censorship by university officials and state political figures. In some detail the
authors recount battles with legendary Board of Regents Chairman Frank C.
Erwin and Presidents Harry Y. Benedict, T. S. Painter, and William Cunningham.
For much of the century Texan editors and staff members tended to assume ideo-
logical positions to the left of university administrators and politicians, but often
in sync with out-of-state liberals. The authors do not explain how the student
newspaper survived and thrived while facing hostile and powerful personalities
who disliked The Daily Texan's content and management. "We do not fund any-
thing that we don't control" Erwin announced in 1972 (p. 96). One suspects that
equally influential Texans, including university alumni, extended their assistance
to the freedom and integrity of the press.
Photocopied pages interspersed throughout the book enable the reader to
observe the development of the newspaper and the university as well as the out-
side world. The authors might have indulged in a little more historical interpre-
tation by comparing The Daily Texan to similar publications outside of the state.
How unique is The Daily Texan? But they do append a chronological list, includ-
ing photographs, of all students who served as editors through the year 2000.
Many of these individuals have enjoyed distinguished professional careers in
journalism and other endeavors. Perhaps none is as famous as the late Willie
Morris, who wrote the foreword for this book. "I would take nothing for my
experience on The Daily Texan . . . and also the bone-wearying work, the late-
night deadlines, the arduous responsibility we all felt when we stood up to the
Board of Regents on censorship," he elaborated (p. vii). The Daily Texan: The
First zoo Years will serve as engaging reading for students of journalism and
Texas history as well as University of Texas graduates and followers.
Murray State Unverszty PAUL M. LUCKO
Notable Men and Women of Spanish Texas. By Donald E. Chipman and Harriett
Denise Joseph. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1999. Pp. xvi+359.
Preface, acknowledgments, afterword, notes, bibliography, index. ISBN o-
292-71217-0. $40.00oo, cloth.)
Long before the British founded their first permanent European settlement
in the Americas at Jamestown in 1607, Spanish explorers began to chart the
lands we know today as Texas. In an effort to illuminate some of the more signif-
icant Spanish figures in Texas history, Donald Chipman and Harriett Denise
Joseph have compiled several excellent biographical sketches ranging, in their
own words, "from near-saints to near total sinners" (p. ix). Drawing from prima-
ry sources found in the University of Texas Center for American History, as well
as archive collections in Coahuila, Madrid, and Seville, the authors have not only

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