The Charlotte News

Thursday, September 30, 1954

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that in London, at the nine-power conference regarding rearming of West Germany and granting it full sovereignty, a German spokesman said this date that the conference had approved a compromise plan for establishing and controlling a European arms pool, dividing responsibility for safeguards against unfettered German rearmament between a new seven-nation European pact, consisting of Britain, France, Italy, West Germany and the Benelux countries, and the 14-nation NATO. Previously, France had insisted that the seven-nation pact exercise controls, while Britain and the U.S. wanted NATO to have exclusive supervision. The compromise was put forward by Belgian Foreign Minister Paul-Henri Spaak. The German spokesman said that the compromise had the approval of West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and French Premier Pierre Mendes-France, as well as the other delegations. Helping to finalize agreement was the pledge by British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden the previous day that British troops and air forces would be maintained on the European mainland indefinitely, provided the conference succeeded in its goals. Secretary of State Dulles had also said that he would urge the President to renew the U.S. pledge to maintain troops in Europe, provided a rearmed West Germany would be brought into NATO. Chancellor Adenauer predicted that the delegates would finish their work this night, leaving details to be worked out by experts.

At the U.N. in New York, it was reported that Soviet delegate Andrei Vishinski might unveil new atomic proposals to the General Assembly during the afternoon, probably to be another demand for a ban on nuclear weapons. Most delegates believed that he would reiterate his Government's refusal to join President Eisenhower's atoms-for-peace plan, a proposed pooling of nuclear resources for peaceful development of atomic energy. Secretary of State Dulles had previously rejected a Soviet condition that such a pooling arrangement be tied to a declaration outlawing nuclear weapons, because it did not contain any provision for international inspection.

Attorney General Herbert Brownell announced this date that the Justice Department's antitrust division had disapproved the proposed merger of Bethlehem Steel Corp. and Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co., saying that the two, ranking second and sixth, respectively, among "fully integrated" steel companies, carried on substantial competition between them regarding a number of products, and that permitting the merger would be violative of the policy expressed in the Clayton Act, favoring "arresting trends toward concentration in an industry." The Department said that a merger did not necessarily have to result in a Sherman Act monopoly to be illegal, and that the Clayton Act, as amended in 1950, had been designed to reach monopolies and restraints of trade in their incipiency, while outlawing acquisition of stocks or assets where the effect, in any line of commerce or section of the country, of such an acquisition could substantially lessen competition or tend to create a monopoly. Assistant Attorney General Stanley Barnes, head of the antitrust division, said recently that the Department had been concerned about the large number of mergers which had been transacted or projected among the large companies during recent months. He had strongly advised that projected mergers be discussed with the Department before action was undertaken, noting that his division only advised and that anyone could proceed at their own risk. On the New York Stock Exchange, stocks of both steel companies had dropped, with Bethlehem down a dollar per share from the previous day's close, and Youngstown down two dollars.

In Atlanta, negotiations for a new contract covering 50,000 non-supervisory workers for Southern Bell Telephone Co. had been recessed this date until Monday, with no reason being given for the recess. The vice-president of Southern Bell said that the Communications Workers of America had refused to accept the firm's no-strike demand, the only issue holding up signing of a new contract, that the union had been inclined to accept the wage proposal calling for an increase of up to $2.50 per week.

A U.S. airlift of relief supplies for flood-ravaged northwest Honduras swung into full operation this date, as transports from Albrook Air Base were loaded with emergency rations, medicine, water purifying equipment and dismantled helicopters. One report said that between 1,000 and 2,000 flood victims were marooned on rooftops and in trees, the floods having come from heavy rains which had been unrelenting since hurricane Gilda had struck the prior Monday. The waters continued to wash through vast banana plantations and a number of villages had been flooded and isolated. Loss of life was described as light, as most had fled to higher ground.

In Philadelphia, a 12-year old Dutch girl said that she did not like living alone but managed to stay occupied enough to prevent boredom and loneliness. She arrived in the country less than three years earlier and had an apartment in a central Philadelphia hotel, where she cooked and maintained house for herself, when she was not in school. She had been living there alone since her father, an electrical engineer, had returned to the Netherlands for a visit more than a month earlier and then had found himself barred by immigration rules from immediate re-entry to the U.S. The girl had attended camp during the summer and returned to Philadelphia on August 21, since then living alone, with the female hotel manager keeping a motherly eye on her, saying that she was very independent and self-sustaining. She attended a private school run by Quakers and had made many friends during her three school years, passing part of her time with them and devoting many hours to reading and studying. Her father had been in the U.S. for eight years, having originally entered as a first preference classification because his services were urgently needed by an American firm. He returned to Europe without the knowledge of his employer, and an extension of the first preference classification had been rejected because the firm had advised immigration officials that it was no longer interested in his services. Immigration officials said that he could return to the country under a first preference classification based on employment with another American firm declaring his services to be urgently needed or could come back under the regular quota system. He had written to his daughter that he was trying through both Dutch and American officials to effect his re-entry.

In Bettendorf, Iowa, a seven-year old girl, who had leukemia and was not expected to live until Christmas, received an early Christmas with Santa Claus visiting her the previous night at her family home, with friends and neighbors stopping by to help boost her spirits. The room was filled with packages and gifts from all over the country, and there was a Christmas tree which the girl had helped to decorate. Santa gave her a lovely birdcage with a live parakeet inside, her second bird. One neighbor had brought a doll for her and another, a cake with a doll resembling the little girl. Her parents had not told her or her two younger brothers that she would die, with the early Christmas being explained by telling her that she might be in the hospital when Christmas arrived. She wondered to a neighbor if she would get so much at the next Christmas, to which the neighbor did not reply. We suppose it is to be hoped that she could not read at age seven.

Don Whitehead of the Associated Press continues with the second article of a series regarding the history of the Weather Bureau, telling of it developing a new forecasting method to predict tornadoes, of which 530 had hit the nation the previous year, primarily in the Midwest and Southwest. Unlike hurricanes forming out of the Gulf and the Caribbean, with hurricane watchers able to track them for several days before danger struck, tornadoes often appeared with no warning, creating a path of destruction, disappearing as quickly as they had formed. Part of the solution could be recognition of a "pressure jump line" or "squall line", which advanced before a cold front smashing into a warm, moist mass of air. Meteorologists had known for some time that when the cold and warm fronts met under certain conditions, there was the likelihood of tornadoes over a wide area.

In New York, Whitey Lockman of the New York Giants, originally from Charlotte, competing in game two of the World Series this date, after his team had won the first game the previous day 5 to 2 over the Cleveland Indians, tells of it having been a great day for the Giants, who had won the game on a three-run homer by pinch-hitter Dusty Rhodes in the 10th inning, but that had it not been for manager Leo Durocher's hunch, more runs might have been needed to win. He recounts that in the top of the 10th inning, the Indians had runners on first and third, with Bob Lemon at bat. Mr. Lockman had been playing first base tightly, and Mr. Durocher signaled for him to play behind the runner, at which point Mr. Lemon swung at the next pitch and lined it right to Mr. Lockman for the third out. That meant the game, ultimately, but had he stayed where he had been playing, it would have been a base hit, with at least one run scoring and possibly setting up more. He says that he believed they had won because of their underestimated relief pitching and the wind.

On the editorial page, "Protecting Charlotte's Tree Life" indicates that trees had always been a part of the charm of the South, lining the streets of the smaller towns and villages. To remove the oaks, magnolias, pines and willows of those towns would leave many communities as bare as Tucumcari, N.M.