Religion: Deep in the Hearts of Texans

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With a proud and somewhat hurt air, a group of Texas oillionaires gathered last week at a ground-breaking ceremony for the Houston Museum of Fine Arts' $860,000 building-expansion program. There to wield a special silver shovel were Donors Nina Cullinan (daughter of Texas Co. Founder Joseph S. Cullinan), who is putting up more than $430,000 for a new, ultramodern, Mies van der Rohe-designed museum wing, and Mrs. Olga Wiess (widow of Humble Oil Co. Co-Founder Harry Wiess), who with other Texans, including the Jesse Jones family, contributed enough for remodeling and air-conditioning the present galleries.

It was Museum President Francis Coates who spoke what was deep in the hearts of the Texans. Said Coates: "To quite a few of us who are still a little hot under the collar, this program may mean the time when certain well-known novelists who have partaken of Texas hospitality [e.g., Edna Ferber, author of Giant] and certain self-styled smart-chat writers for such magazines as Esquire and Holiday [e.g., Author Cleveland Amory] who have pointed out the crudities of certain Texans in tiresome, monotonous repetition, will remember to mention what Texans have done for institutions like this and for the humanities generally."