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Probed Nazi, Red SubversivesEx-U.S. Rep. Martin Dies Is DeadLUFKIN, Tex. (AP) — Martin Dies Sr., who hunted subversives in government during seven stormy years as the first chairman of the House Un-American Activities Committee, is dead at 71.His death Tuesday night was attributed to an apparent heart attack. Dies first suffered such an attack five years ago.The burly, blond, cigar-smoking Texan spent more than two decades in Congress, and during that period he voted against all foreign aid bills.Since his retirement in 1958, Dies had stayed largely out ofpublic view, although he wasoften called upon to speak at meetings of patriotic tone.Besides his widow, he leaves three sons—-Martin Dies Jr. of Beaumont, Tex., now judge of a state civil appeals court and formerly a Texas secretary of state; and Robert M. and Jack Dies, both of Lufkin.Funeral arrangements were incomplete.After shifting the focus of the committee from investigation of Nazi subversives to probing communism in the late 1930s, Dies often stirred controversy and commanded newspaper headlines.Boy, With Rare Disease,Has About 8 Months to LiveGREEN BAY, Wis. (AP) -It all began in 1967 when Mr. and Mrs. Dick Staniske of suburban Ashwaubenon noticed their 5-year-old son Jeff was “unusually clumsy..uncoordinated.”Now, five years later, the Staniskes are preparing themselves for the inevitable, because this may be Jeff’s lastChristmas.The bright, attractive youngster is afflicted with a rare terminal disease. A form of ataxia, it’s a particularly vicious ailment which attacks the cerebellum portion of the brain and causes it to slowly degenerate.Jeff’s initial clumsiness has gradually given way to paralysis. He is confined to a wheel chair and has little use of his arms or hands. His speech is slurred.The family’s major goal now is “to try and make Jeff as happy as we can.”“He’s so bright,” Mrs. Staniske said. “He knows he has a problem. Yet it takes so little to please him.”And the Staniskes are making an effort to do just that. But financial problems due to Jeff’s long illness burden them with additional worries.if it ItStaniske left one job in order to collect the profit-sharing funds he had coming because he needed the cash to meet expenses. Now he’s working as a salesman.Mrs. Staniske worked until she had to devote all of her time to Jeff.But the high cost of hospital stays, tests and doctors have continually been one step aheadPresident Franklin D. Roosevelt and many Cabinet members openly disapproved of Dies’ tactics, but he gainedpublic support as the world weighed implications of the Russo-german non-aggression pact of 1939.“Communazis!” Dies bellowed, calling them unnatural bedfellows.The son of a congressman from East Texas, Dies first became a member of Congress as its youngest member in 1931.He began his congressional career with the introduction of a 1932 bill to expel alien Communists from the United States. The measure won House approval, but failed to clear the Senate.Before he was named to head the initial work of the Un-American Activities Committee in 1938, he gained a seat on the powerful House Rules Committee.In its efforts to track down subversive influences, the new committee became a person-fication of Dies and frequently was called simply the DiesCommittee.Dies remained in Congressthrough 1944, then retired because of poor health and an expressed desire to return to the practice of law in Lufkin.But he returned to politics in 1952 and won election as a congressman-at-large from Texas.Six years later he retired from Congress a second time, after an an unsuccessful race in 1 9 5 6 against Ralph Yarborough for the U.S. Senate seat left vacant when Price Daniel elected to seek the governorship of Texas.
Newspaper Details
Ironwood Daily Globe
Ironwood, Michigan, US
Wed, Nov 15, 1972
Page 11
Full Page
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MA, USA 06 Aug 2020
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