The Charlotte News
Wednesday, January 6, 1954
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that in Panmunjom, a U.S. diplomat, Kenneth Young of the State Department, said in an interview that he and the Communists were "still feeling around" in secret negotiations to try to get the Korean peace conference started. He said that the moves were being initiated through an intermediary nation, not identified. He said that he did not know whether it would be possible to get the conference started. The Armistice had provided that it would begin by October 28, 90 days after the signing of the Armistice. But complications had arisen when the Communists had demanded that neutral nations be allowed to participate, whereas the U.S. had demanded that only the belligerents be allowed to participate, with Russia allowed at the table if the Chinese Communists and North Koreans so assented, a position adopted in late August by U.N. resolution.
The Neutral Nations Repatriation Commission had indicated that it expected no formal reply from the Communists until the next day regarding the stance of the U.N. allies that the 22,000 non-repatriating prisoners of war would be released on January 23, the Communists opposing that release date.
The 83rd Congress convened this date its 1954 session, following a five-month recess, and there was a general sense that the accomplishments of the ensuing six months would go far toward determining whether the Republicans or Democrats would control the Congress for the last two years of the President's term. The present composition of the Congress was 219 Republicans, 215 Democrats and one independent in the House, whereas the first session of the 83rd Congress had begun with 221 Republicans, 213 Democrats and one independent, with the Democrats picking up two seats in special elections to fill vacant seats in New Jersey and Wisconsin during 1953. The Senate had 48 Democrats and 47 Republicans, but because independent Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon, formerly a Republican, had committed to voting with the Republicans whenever there was the potential for a one-vote Democratic majority and for organizational purposes, the Republicans still had effective control. At the beginning of the 83rd Congress, the Republicans had a one-seat majority, but because Governor Frank Lausche of Ohio had appointed a Democrat, Thomas Burke, to replace deceased Senator Robert Taft, who had died at the end of the prior July, the one-seat shift had occurred. There was the possibility that both houses would adjourn quickly out of respect for the late Chief Justice Fred Vinson, who had died September 8 while Congress was adjourned. The Senate still had to confirm the recess appointment of Chief Justice Earl Warren. The President would provide the following day his State of the Union message to Congress in person.
Chief Justice Warren and a number of other high officials joined more than 50 members of Congress this date in a special Holy Communion service to mark the beginning of the new session of Congress, held at the National Presbyterian Church, of which the President was a member.
Senator Allen Ellender of Louisiana said this date that he would invite Senator Joseph McCarthy to tell the Senate whether he used "rehashed, plagiarized" information in his claimed exposure of Communists in the Government. Senator McCarthy, without mentioning the plan of Senator Ellender to cut down the funds allocated to the Government Operations Committee, chaired by Senator McCarthy, said that if the Democrats succeeded in the move, it would be "the most Pyrrhic victory they ever won", one in which they would destroy themselves. Senator Ellender said that he would oppose all Senate committee chairmen who asked for increased funding. He had long advocated limiting the funding to $95,000 per committee, which was given at the start of each Congressional session. During 1953, Senator McCarthy's Investigations subcommittee had a budget of $200,000 and he said that he would seek an unspecified increase in 1954. He said the previous day that a published story was a lie that he had agreed, after urging by Administration officials, to taper off his subcommittee's Communist hunting activities and place more emphasis on other fields of inquiry. The New York Times and Herald Tribune, the Washington Post and Evening Star, and the Baltimore Sun had all reported the story, but the Senator said that "either the reporter was lying or he was lied to", that he assumed it was most likely the latter scenario. He assured that when his subcommittee found a Communist or espionage agent in the Government or in a defense installation, they would expose him. He said that if the Democrats blocked his request for a larger budget, he would label them "the party that wants to cover-up and whitewash treason".
Senator Walter George of Georgia said this date that he had let the Administration know that he would go along with a reasonable increase in the national debt limit if necessary, the debt having reached 272 billion of the 275 billion debt limit at the time of the Congressional adjournment in early August. Senator Ralph Flanders of Vermont, in a separate interview, said that he was also inclined to vote for raising the ceiling by as much as ten billion dollars, as he was convinced that the Administration was trying hard to cut Federal spending. Senator Harry F. Byrd of Virginia, however, remained adamantly opposed to raising the debt ceiling.
The RNC had a list of about 5,000 persons who wanted jobs in the Eisenhower Administration, but there were only 200 political jobs open. There had been a record 5,000 job placements already in the previous year since the beginning of the Administration, not counting the hundreds of additional jobs provided through Republican Senators and Representatives. There was also a complaint that there were too many contributors to the Democratic Party campaigns still on the Federal payroll.
The Secret Service this date detained a Maryland man whom they described as a fourth suspect in the New Year's Eve theft of $160,000 worth of new $20 bills from the Bureau of Engraving, after an earlier report that they had recovered $31,700 of the money. The previous day, a Bureau employee, his wife, and a flagpole painter had been arrested on a tip provided by the father of the woman. The flagpole painter admitted driving the couple to a farm in Virginia to stash $95,000 of the money. Officials said that the Bureau employee had admitted stealing 8,000 new $20 bills from their paper coverings and stuffing plain paper in their stead, the discovery of which had not been made until New Year's weekend was over. He had led Secret Service agents to an additional $32,000 stashed in a dark corner of the Bureau building.
In Detroit, the Wayne County prosecutor had charged four persons with assault with intent to kill and conspiracy in the 1948 attempted killing of CIO president Walter Reuther. The prosecutor said that a similar attempt in 1949 against Victor Reuther, the brother of Walter, remained a mystery. One of the four arrested men had been frequently questioned in the matter earlier and had been a witness accused by the Kefauver Crime Committee, which had held public hearings in 1950 and 1951, as being a "gang-leading strike breaker and enemy of organized labor".
In Florence, S.C., the trial of an escaped North Carolina convict accused of beheading, postmortem, a teenage girl of Pamplico and shooting to death her date for the evening in December was postponed until March, so that the defendant could be observed by authorities at the State Hospital in Columbia, the judge, however, denying a defense motion that the defendant receive a mental examination. The court noted in granting the continuance that it was having difficulty obtaining lawyers willing to defend the accused. One lawyer had been appointed by the court the prior Monday, but two other lawyers had refused to accept the case. The previous day, however, two lawyers were found by the local bar association who were willing to accept the defense.
Ann Sawyer of The News indicates that the Mecklenburg County Sheriff continued the search this date for two men who were considered to be the star witnesses in the preliminary hearing scheduled for the following day in the case against Police Chief Frank Littlejohn, against whom four presentments had been made in December by the Mecklenburg grand jury. At the request of the Solicitor, a hearing would be held to provide further specificity on the charges, to try to establish enough evidence to go forward with indictments against the Chief on charges involving malfeasance, misfeasance and non-feasance in the discharge of his official duties, the most serious charge having been that he had allowed illegal gambling to take place in the city.
In Bladenboro, N.C., the Beast of Bladenboro had jumped at a human the previous night and was observed by another person, but remained a mystery. The local police chief said that he wanted to get the thing stopped, that he had been up all night with a posse and was on duty again this date, but would have to return to the pursuit this night. The Beast had been described as looking like a cat and was involved in bloodsucking, with seven dogs having been attacked, all at night. A man had seen a strange animal skulking in his yard, which he described as being 3 feet long, 20 inches high and with a tail 14 inches long, leaving him "plumb spellbound". A woman investigating a noise on her front porch had told police that the Beast had charged her, but that her scream plus the arrival of her husband at the front door had startled the thing away. This night, according to the police chief, eight mixed-blooded dogs would join the chase. He expected to have a posse consisting of at least fifteen local citizens. It's them thar Martians again.
In Edinburgh, Scotland, a runaway heiress to a Bolivian tin fortune had appealed this date a court order temporarily banning her marriage to the son of a London hotel operator, the appeal to be heard the following day by Edinburgh's Court of Sessions. Lawyers for the 18-year old and her fiancé, 20, entered the appeal against the order obtained by her father, a tin magnate. The couple had fulfilled Scottish residential requirements for marriage, but the would-be bride's multimillionaire father claimed that his daughter was too young for matrimony. The fiancé's brother asserted that the would-be bride had six suitors of royal descent lined up by her father, the real reason for the effort to block the marriage. That is an extremely newsworthy story.
On the editorial page, "Ike Sails under High-Flying Standard" indicates that the President's speech on Monday night, broadcast on tv and radio nationwide, recapping his first year in office, had given no preview of his State of the Union message to Congress on Thursday, but had outlined the Administration's philosophy of government, a return to the middle-of-the-road, a position he had staked out during the 1952 campaign. It indicates that the Republican ultra-conservatives in Congress would find no satisfaction from the speech, as he gave no suggestion that there would be an ultra-conservative tilt within his program, no suggestion of laissez-faire economic policy or a diminution of the role of government, no longer capable of realization in the 20th Century, as it had been in the 19th Century. To the contrary, the President appeared to have accepted some of the basic principles of the two previous Democratic Administrations, proposing to use every means available to the Federal Government to sustain prosperity and help to eliminate injustices which penalized everyone, "'the slum, the outdated highway, the poor school system, deficiencies in health protection, the loss of a job, fear of poverty in old age.'"
At the same time, the President did not intend to pile up great "'monuments of bureaucracy'" or engage in "'timid unwillingness to act'". He proposed that local communities would have a larger role in the administration of the programs than in the past. He had re-emphasized his goal of staffing the Government with public servants of "'brains, conscience, heart and integrity'" whose work would be "'unimpeachable in honesty and decency and dignity'", giving the people "'an example of solvency and efficiency for all America to follow'".
It suggests that those were lofty goals which would inevitably be sullied in the confrontations with Congress, but that it was good to have an Administration enter its most important year with such high standards, and it awaits further revelation of the Eisenhower program with the hope that it would measure up to the broad philosophy which he had set forth in the speech.
"The Nursing Shortage Is Critical Indeed" indicates that the nursing shortage in North Carolina, as measured against the national need, was so great that it was alarming. Across the country, 409,700 nurses had been employed in 1950 and 554,200 were estimated to be needed by 1960. But in North Carolina, there were only 5,824 practicing nurses in 1950, whereas the need by 1960 was estimated at 13,270. Medical authorities estimated that 1,200 nurses had to be graduated annually in the ensuing ten years to meet the need in the state. During the week, the auxiliary of the Mecklenburg County Medical Society had conducted a drive for nurse recruitment, stressing the opportunities for qualified young women with talents and interests intrinsic to the profession.
It points out that Charlotte had become a great medical center and that one out of every three of its hospital beds was occupied by a resident from outside Mecklenburg County, with average occupancy of Charlotte hospitals being 14 percent above the average of all private and public hospitals in North and South Carolina. Many new hospitals and health centers had been built during the previous decade in the state and to staff them adequately, nurse recruitment had to be increased.
"On Homicides and the Cheapness of Life" indicates that a panel of experts assigned the task of analyzing Charlotte's homicides in the prior year, dominated by homicides committed by blacks against blacks, would probably suggest several reasons why life was regarded so cheaply by many blacks. It suggests that the educator on the panel might say that better education would reduce crimes of passion and violence, that the minister would likely say that there was a greater need for spiritual and moral instruction, that the economist might lay the blame on a lack of economic opportunity for those in poverty, that the sociologist would place responsibility on poor housing, inadequate recreational facilities and a casual family relationship, that the political scientist might suggest that blacks had only recently come into their political rights, that the policeman on the panel might complain that light penalties for crimes encouraged further criminal impulses, and that the anthropologist might conclude that "the restraints of civilization have but lightly touched many Negroes."
It indicates that all of those experts might be right to one degree or another, but that they would make no difference in the homicide rate among blacks unless their advice was acted upon by society. So, it suggests a continuing struggle against the conditions, traditions and prejudices which had made it so difficult for black citizens to achieve their full share of the free society. "The time will come, in the span of many of us, when the life of a Negro will be held just as valuable as that of a white man, by members of both races. But that time is not here yet."
So, why does The News continue to plump for continued segregation in the public schools?
We might note that the appalling display of unrestrained and uncivilized conduct at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, in utter disrespect of the simple, ministerial proceeding of counting the already certified electoral votes of the states, showed not a single black person engaged in the mob conduct, which included invading the Capitol and forcing their way into both the House and Senate chambers, sitting in seats reserved for lawmakers, and even invading the offices of several members of Congress, including that of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Undoubtedly, these thugs and creeps, who were encouraged minutes earlier by the occupant of the White House in his final days, will be caught and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Federal law, and sentenced to active time in jail for their felonious conduct. But it remains a question mark as to whether the White House occupant aiding and abetting that conduct, as well as the commission of many other crimes while in office, will ultimately be prosecuted and punished or allowed to pass because his name happens to be Trump.
Reminiscent of the scenes depicted in "The Birth of a Nation", the racist D. W. Griffith film of 1915 based on two Thomas Dixon novels, these lunatics can perhaps resort to only one defense, that Donny made them engage in the donnybrook and that, therefore, being under the sway of a delusional crazy man, they were temporarily out of their goddamned minds. That might convince some compassionate judge to mitigate their sentences, but it should be all the more reason why the ultimate perpetrator of the conspiracy to invade the Capitol in such a violent and unruly manner ought not go unpunished criminally.
If the current occupant of the White House is not prosecuted for his many crimes while in office, not to mention those which have been discovered since coming to office and which occurred in the late stages of the 2016 presidential campaign, then there is something fundamentally wrong with our democratic republic, possibly beyond repair simply by the exercise of the franchise—as Georgia proved in their Senatorial elections of January 5 is still alive and well in this country, despite repeated attacks on its viability by the nut currently occupying the White House since the 2015-16 presidential campaign and prior to that in his crazy attacks on President Obama on the false and debunked basis that he was not actually born within the United States and thus did not meet the qualifications for the presidency.
Into the future, losing presidential candidates might follow the modern examples of Vice-President Al Gore, Senators John Kerry and John McCain, and then-former Governor and now-Senator Mitt Romney, while losing incumbent Presidents might follow the examples of former Presidents Jimmy Carter and George H. W. Bush, and leave aside all recognition of the current occupant of the White House as even being regarded as a former "president", a man who has thoroughly disgraced himself and the nation for the previous five and a half years since he first entered the race for the 2016 presidential campaign with absolutely no political experience of any kind in his past. Come January 20 at noon, good riddance.
Normally, we do not
wish anybody ill vis-à-vis the criminal justice system,
but when you tamper with the basic mechanisms of American democracy
and also refuse to the last to show any humility, any recognition
that you might be wrong, any suggestion to loyal followers that they
would be wrong to follow your example, then you deserve nothing less
than jail for commission, in plain view, of crimes, subject to
Federal and state prosecution. Indeed, we extended that ordinary deference even unto this jackass
The followers of this nut need to sit down and adjust themselves to reality, wean themselves from the brainwashing techniques utilized by him, a glorified salesman, employing sales techniques to try to get ahead throughout his business career, after being given his start by a one million-dollar gift following graduation from college from his slumlord father. Why anyone in their right mind would have ever entrusted the leadership of the nation to such an individual will never cease to amaze. Why anyone in their right mind would have ever voted for this charlatan after four years of experience with his consistent lying and incompetence is beyond understanding, even in any practical sense of "getting things done". He got things done all right. There are now 365,000 Americans no longer living because of his complete incompetence in handling the worst pandemic to hit the nation and the world since 1918.
Let it never be forgotten that you cannot entrust the leadership of the nation to a rank amateur at politics.
Those who understood that basic concept said so loudly and at length in 2016, and those of you who did not listen, write down the lesson for yourselves and never forget it. Trump = 365,000 Americans dead, and counting, more than 3,860 having died on January 6, and 135,000 just since election day on November 3, during which interim the causative agent, through misfeasance, malfeasance and non-feasance, fiddled in the White House, claiming falsely that he had been robbed of the election, just as he said so yet again even on January 6, not only before the rioting and electoral college certification, but also afterward, expressing disappointment that his Vice-President would not violate his Constitutional duties and oath of office by overthrowing the results of the election—which, had it been done, would have been an immediately impeachable offense, over which both houses could then retire, with the House immediately able to vote an article of impeachment for failure to accord the oath of office and then the Senate could forthwith vote by two-thirds majority for removal from office and appointment therefore of the president pro tempore of the Senate to act in his stead in the electoral college certification.
But, of course, the entire Trump sales campaign since November 3, just as his sales campaign prior to November 3, has been geared toward distraction, in the hope that he will avoid, somehow, investigation and prosecution for his many crimes during the past four years. At minimum, he ought to be convicted of at least one felony to prevent him from running again for Federal public office. If he wants to run for dogcatcher in Florida, we suppose, provided you don't mind a lot of wild, rabid dogs roaming afoot, that would be fine.
A piece from the Newport News (Va.) Times-Herald, titled "No, We Shouldn't Be Proud of It", indicates that recently The News had published an editorial rebuke to Virginia and Texas and other states still possessed of the poll tax for continuing to make the right to vote contingent on payment of such a tax, with the editorial having expressed surprise that those two states had not repealed the requirement, as the other states in the group, Alabama, Arkansas and Mississippi, were regarded as "backward states".
It suggests as a possible explanation for Virginia retaining the tax being that Virginians, with the highest per capita income in the South, perhaps did not mind paying for the "privilege" to vote—perhaps not realizing that voting is a right and not a patrician privilege of white male real property owners. Or, perhaps it was the case that Virginians liked the opportunity to help education, to which the proceeds of the poll tax went, suggesting that other states might have better educated citizens if they followed the example. But, it nevertheless pleads guilty to a certain backwardness in retaining the outmoded tax and suggests that citizens of the state should not be proud of it, with many contending for its repeal and hoping for a repeal resolution to be adopted by the 1954 General Assembly and ratified at the earliest possible opportunity by the voters.
Drew Pearson indicates that Wall Street and certain conservative Republican leaders were talking as if FDR were still in the White House, resulting from liberal advisers to the President having great influence, representing the biggest change in the coming year in the Administration's program to be presented shortly to Congress. When the President began his term a year earlier, he had leaned almost exclusively on millionaire businessmen for advice, such as General Lucius Clay of Continental Can, Sidney Weinberg of the Goldman-Sachs investment firm, and Alton Jones of Cities Service, each of whom were business advisers in addition to being golfing partners of the President. Now he was still seeing big-business advisers, but was relying more on his more liberal White House staff. Even Secretary of the Treasury George Humphrey, considered to be the closest member of the Cabinet to the President, did not appear to have as much power as he had earlier. Mr. Pearson lists the men who were chiefly establishing the Eisenhower program for 1954, including Kevan McCann, president of Defiance College in Ohio, a liberal on domestic issues and one of the President's chief speechwriters and advisers; Dr. Arthur Burns, former Columbia professor and presently chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, who was New Dealish in his economic advice; Charles Moore, former liberal public relations counsel to the Ford Motor Co., who would help to stabilize the President's drooping popularity; C. D. Jackson, former publisher of Fortune magazine, who was chiefly responsible for the President's atomic materials pooling proposal and was also helping to shore up the President's popularity; Robert Cutler, a Boston banker with liberal Republican ideas and a close friend of Justice Felix Frankfurter, responsible for Mr. Cutler's appointment as secretary of the National Security Council, to which the President had assigned the duty of determining defense problems; and finally, Max Rabb, assistant to chief of staff Sherman Adams and adviser on immigration and minority problems.
Mr. Pearson indicates that an illustration of what the President was up against from reactionary Republicans and big business was his current backstage battle over old-age pensions, affecting millions of elderly people in the country, with the opposing factions being the White House, which wanted a liberalized Social Security bill with a $10 increase in old-age pensions, to be paid for by spreading the salary base on which the wage earner was taxed; and a faction in Congress headed by Congressman Carl Curtis of Nebraska, with the support of Congressman Dan Reed of New York, who wanted liberalized pensions, but under the U.S. Chamber of Commerce plan of paying for them from the already established Social Security trust fund, with the farmers and others who would benefit under the expanded program having their pensions therefore paid from the salaries of wage earners. That latter plan would reduce the general tax burden paid by business. But not even all Republican members of the subcommittee studying Social Security, chaired by Mr. Curtis, would accept the Chamber of Commerce plan. He provides detail.
The Congressional Quarterly tells of there having been 892 sessions of the 83rd Congress in 1953 closed to the press and public, as set forth in the Daily Digest to the Congressional Record, plus another 465 such meetings of the House Appropriations Committee and its subcommittees not listed in the Digest, for a total of 1,357, or approximately 44 percent of the 3,105 committee and subcommittee meetings held during the year. In addition, there were another 80 meetings which the Quarterly had been unable to classify as closed or open. It provides a tabulation of the House, Senate and joint meetings disclosed in the Digest.
It indicates that the House Appropriations closed sessions probably had been mostly legislative in nature, accounting for 518 of the meetings, with 122 having been on nominations, 73 on organization and 240, on general matters, including investigations. The subjects of 29 could not be determined. While closed meetings were within the rules of both houses, there had been a running debate on the issue of public access to the people's business for the entire history of the nation.
The President had relaxed a 1951 order which permitted some Federal agencies to withhold information from the press and public.
In a report of August 12, a special committee of the American Society of Newspaper Editors could not fully agree on whether Senator McCarthy's Investigations subcommittee had endangered freedom of the press in twice questioning New York Post editor James Wechsler in closed sessions, but all members had agreed that such hearings should be open to press and public unless they involved matters requiring secrecy in furtherance of national security. Sigma Delta Chi, the national journalistic fraternity, on November 14, had stated that secrecy in government which could not be justified in the public interest constituted a threat to the American way of life.
In 1952, Congress had established an Anti-Censorship subcommittee of the Government Operations Committee, chaired by former Senator Blair Moody of Michigan, a former longtime correspondent for the Detroit News. That group had determined that some Government officials had shown a tendency to over-classify security information.
Article I, Section 5 of the Constitution stated: "Each House may determine the rules of its proceedings…" The piece indicates that those rules, however, should accord the fundamental rights recognized by the Constitution, such as freedom of the press, despite being only rules rather than law.
James Marlow indicates that Senator Eugene Millikin of Colorado and other Republican Congressional leaders who emerged from a three-day White House conference with the President in December regarding the legislative agenda for 1954, had refused comment to the press, with Senator Millikin colorfully stating, "No spikka da English." The previous day, the President had conferred with Democratic Congressional leaders regarding defense and foreign programs, and they, too, had refused for the most part any comment to the press. That latter meeting had been viewed as a bid for bipartisanship, necessary for the President to accomplish his program in a closely divided Congress, with narrow majorities in each house, in the Senate only a nominal majority for the purpose of organization, with the Democrats holding an actual 48 to 47 edge, following the appointment of Thomas Burke, a Democrat, to fill the seat of deceased Senate Majority Leader Taft, Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon, formerly a Republican turned independent in the fall of 1952, having decided to vote with the Republicans to establish a tie in any close vote and for organizational purposes. Since it was an election year, it was unlikely that the Democrats had promised blanket support for the President's program and by the time the 1954 session was two months old, the gesture of goodwill by the President, posits Mr. Marlow, might be forgotten and count for nothing.
Press secretary James Hagerty had explained the general topics of discussion but nothing about particulars.
After the State of the Union message to Congress the following day, the agreed confidentiality would disappear.
A letter writer is consternated over the fact of the great outpouring of protest and sympathy regarding the executions the previous June of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg while there had been no such suggestion of any sympathy for the two kidnapers and killers of six-year old Bobby Greenlease, executed December 18, less than three months after the September 28 kidnaping and murder.
In answer to the letter writer's question, one reason for the difference in response was the fact of the belief that the sentence of execution for the Rosenbergs was a punishment too harsh for the crime of conspiracy to provide atomic secrets to the Russians, in violation of the 1917 Espionage Act, when the Russians had been the allies of the United States during World War II, and the alleged time frame of the offense had taken place during that period. Another reason was the tenuous nature of proof against Ethel Rosenberg, consisting only of testimony that she had typed a copy of the secrets to be delivered to the Soviet intermediary, with no direct proof that she knew of the nature and significance of that which she typed. In addition, there was also the great disparity in punishment between that of the Rosenbergs and the 15-year prison term provided to Ethel Rosenberg's brother, David Greenglass, who, as a soldier stationed at Los Alamos in 1945, had been able to pilfer the secrets in question, ultimately receiving leniency in his sentence in exchange for the testimony he had provided favorable to the Government in the prosecutions of his sister and brother-in-law. Yet another reason for the sympathy and protest was that the secrets in question, as most atomic scientists of the time believed, gave the Soviets, at most, a two-year head-start on development of their atomic bomb detonated in August, 1949, with the basic physics having been generally known among physicists for several years prior to World War II, with only the need for development of the device, itself, and the ability to have a ready supply of fissionable uranium, which the Soviets had as a result of their acquisitions during the war, reportedly mined by slave labor. Thus, whether the secrets in question really made any real difference in the Cold War was quite speculative, and the speculation at the time of the sentencing of the Rosenbergs that they may have cost millions of lives of Americans were there to be an atomic war with the Russians, was purely in the realm of hypothesis, one which, fortunately, never materialized. While there was a deterrent effect exacted by the sentences in question, there is no reason to believe that an adequate deterrent would not have been provided also by life sentences.
The brutal murder of a six-year old, by contrast, accomplished only minutes after the kidnaping, prior to any demand for a ransom, by an admitted drug addict and alcoholic, did not cry out for a great deal of compassion.
As pointed out, parenthetically, since July, 2020, there have been as many executions in the United States by the Federal Government, under the direction of the Trump Administration, as there were during the entire period from the execution of the Greenlease murderers in 1953 through mid-2020. There were ten in that long interim, eleven if including Ethel Rosenberg on June 19, 1953; there have been ten since July. To anyone who believes that such a bloodbath in the last six months, during a pandemic, is in any way admirable or serving the ends of justice, you need badly to adjust your humanity and realize, in a practical vein, that studies have shown that the death penalty, versus life in prison without possibility of parole, serves absolutely no deterrent effect on persons who are bent on murder anyway. Indeed, there have been instances, as in the notorious 1976 case of Gary Gilmore, where suicide by the State is the ultimate aim of the individual in committing an act of murder.
A letter writer, a captain in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, thanks the citizens of Charlotte for their gifts contributed to their Christmas "Toys for Tots" program, indicating that the children who had received the toys had been most appreciative of them, and had the drive not occurred successfully, those children would have been quite disappointed on Christmas Day. He indicates that the organizations participating in the collection drive had been the Salvation Army, the Amateur Radio Operators Club of Charlotte, radio stations WBT, WAYS, WIST, WSOC, and WGIV, plus WBTV. He also thanks The News and its staff and management for cooperating in the drive.
A letter writer says that as a young boy he would listen for hours to the adults talking about their experiences in attending old-time revivals, such as those conducted by Billy Sunday, "whose voice could be heard for miles and when he would hit his rostrum, it would shatter into a thousand pieces." They also had told of Cyclone Mack McClendon of the sawdust circuit. He wonders whether television would end that appreciation. He says that he had once seen a young preacher hit his rostrum, but it had not shattered, rather making such a deep gash in the preacher's hand that it left "a rather gory trail up and down the platform". Another time, he had seen a six-year old in a cowboy suit deliver a sermon "complete with kneeling, screeching and trombone playing." The writer proceeded then to gag for about ten minutes, then having to leave, "but with an uncontrollable urge to take him out and teach him baseball", the original pastime of Preacher Sunday. "If television doesn't intervene, I'll continue looking for another Billy or Mack."
Rest assured, notwithstanding the deluded, it is not charlatan Trump.
The Day of the Epiphany: Democracy wins in quietude and solemnity where loud autocracy loses in brash bluster.
Framed Edition
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