The Charlotte News
Monday, August 1, 1955
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from Tokyo that a broadcast by Peiping radio stated that Communist China had announced this night that it was releasing the 11 American airmen whose conviction for "spying" had been a major cause for friction with the U.S. The broadcast did not say when or where the airmen, who had been shot down during the Korean War, would be released. China had earlier released four other similarly situated airmen and they had walked free almost immediately after the announcement was made, released the following day in Hong Kong. The story provides the names of the 11 airmen, whose sentences had ranged between four and ten years each. They had been the crew of a B-29 which had been shot down on January 12, 1953 on a routine leaflet dropping mission over North Korea. Communist China had charged that they had flown over Manchuria on a mission for "the U.S. secret intelligence service." They had been convicted and sentenced the prior November by a Chinese military court on espionage charges.
The President said this date that the announcement of the release was cause for nationwide relief and joy.
In Geneva, the U.S. and Communist China this date agreed to concentrate their private negotiations first on the problem of repatriating civilians, including about 40 Americans detained by the Communist Chinese. Ambassadors representing the two countries met for 45 minutes in the opening session of their negotiations on ways to reduce tension in the Far East, meeting shortly after the announcement had reached Geneva that the 11 American airmen would be released.
The plans to adjourn the session of Congress had been delayed this date by disputes over public housing and pay raises for Congressional employees, with other major legislation also still pending. Leaders in both houses stated that this night was their new goal for adjournment. Many Senators and Representatives had already left town for home or on trips, such that some indicated it might be difficult to establish a quorum by midweek. In addition to the public housing bill and pay raises for the employees, the Defense Production Act extension of several powers requested by the President in the mobilization program was also delayed.
About 100 Senators and House members had called on the President this date and asked him to take up at the Cabinet level a "positive" new cotton program, indicating after the meeting that the President had given sympathetic consideration to the proposal. Senator Walter George of Georgia led the group of 35 Senators and more than 60 members of the House. The unusual conference followed the previous week's introduction of a bill by 63 Senators aimed at selling on the world market surplus cotton held by the Commodity Credit Corporation, that bill's principal sponsors being Senators James Eastland of Mississippi and Strom Thurmond of South Carolina. It would instruct the CCC to use its present authority to encourage export sales of such quantities of the present surplus as would reestablish for the U.S. its "fair historical share" of the world market, and would direct Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson to limit cotton textile imports to a figure not exceeding 50 percent more than the average annual quantity of such imports during a representative two-year period.
In Baltimore, the two children who had been abandoned, as reported initially on Saturday, one in Baltimore and the other in Wilmington, Del., had been identified but complete details of their background had been withheld at the request of New York police. An aunt of the children had identified them the previous day. The girl had been found the prior Wednesday in a downtown Baltimore dime store and several hours later her brother had been found in the Episcopal Cathedral of St. John in Wilmington.
In Roseberg, Ore., a race had ended early the previous morning in that town, 75 miles from the starting point at Eugene, between horsemen and a train, with the horsemen changing mounts about every mile. Seven women riders had been among the 75 or so who had donned Western garb for the modern-day pony express run, attempting to show up the Southern Pacific Railroad after it had proposed to abandon service on that branch line because the run was losing money. The horsemen wound up losing by seven minutes. The Roseberg Chamber of Commerce and other groups who had designed the contest were a little disappointed at the outcome and there had been cries of foul from both sides, the horsemen complaining that the mail-express and passenger train had whizzed by at least one regular stop, while train crewmen were dismayed when would-be passengers demanded to be picked up at tiny whistle stops along the line. The engineer, 67, who was retiring in a few months after 42 years of service, told newsmen before the race that he thought it was a lot of foolishness, but was proud of his train afterward.
In New Orleans, it was reported that tropical storm Brenda was 25 miles off the mouth of the Mississippi River early this date and the Weather Bureau said that if it continued its current movement, it would course inland this night along the Louisiana coast between Grande Isle and Point Aufer. It was not yet of hurricane force, with its highest winds estimated at between 50 and 60 mph near the center, with gales extending out 50 to 100 miles to the east.
Emery Wister of The News indicates that August had gotten off to a warm start in Charlotte, with the prospect of a 90-plus degree day, but with thunderclouds threatening to reduce the temperature to the high 80's. The previous day, the temperature had hit the 90 mark for the 25th day during July, and the only reason a new record had not been set in that regard was because the month had run out of days. The record had been established in July, 1939, which had 26 days of 90-plus temperatures. There had been only six days in July which could be considered cool. There was also plenty of rain, 4.91 inches recorded in the Charlotte area.
In Concord, N.C., facilities at the Cabarrus County jail were overtaxed the previous day after a mobile village of "gypsies" erupted into a family feud, prompting the arrest of 41 persons in quelling the pistol-packing, club-swinging group. One man identified himself as "King of the Gypsies", telling police that the fight had developed from an argument over whether his granddaughter was to remain in Columbia, S.C., in a hospital where she was a patient. The sheriff said that the men generally were employed as septic tank cleaners, while their wives were engaged in fortune-telling.
On the editorial page, "The Man in the Barrel Pays & Pays" indicates that while there had been much consternation over raising the minimum wage to a dollar per hour, with business lobbies complaining that some industries might be crippled as a result, it appeared now that everything would be all right as prices would simply be raised to compensate for the increased labor cost.
The National Association of Hosiery Manufacturers had announced in a press release of July 22 that "the new minimum wage law will increase the cost of infants' and children's socks by at least five cents a pair." But in a newsletter, circulated on the same date within the industry, the same organization reported the results of a survey of the new minimum wage law's probable effect on manufacturing costs and found that in the area of infants' and children's socks, the average increase in labor costs would be only 16.8 cents per dozen, less than 1.5 cents per pair.
It finds the gap to be a startling illustration of what was in store for the hapless consumer. "As usual, it's the consumer who pays—and pays and pays."
"Needed—Fair Play in Taxing Co-Ops" quotes the late Senator Robert Taft, who stated that cooperatives were as American as baseball, agrees with the concept but also states that baseball also needed umpires and an occasional rule change to preserve fair play. Congress served as the umpire for cooperatives in the country. Some powerful business organizations had lobbied for additional taxes on co-ops to establish some sort of tax equity between them and competing private business, but no major changes were made during the 1955 session. It indicates that the matter deserved a high priority in the next session, as there was too much tax favoritism toward co-ops.
Under existing law, co-ops did not pay Federal taxes on patronage refunds which were distributed to members, whether in cash, stock, certificates of indebtedness or an allocation on the corporation's books. Farm co-ops were exempt from taxes on dividends paid on outstanding capital stock, and co-ops otherwise paid the same taxes as private businesses. It indicates that the favoritism had dated back to 1913 when Congress imposed the first tax on corporations.
In 1951, the 82nd Congress had required co-ops to pay corporate income taxes on earnings which they did not allocate to patrons within eight and half months following the year in which the money was earned, permitting co-ops to retain cash and use it for expansion or other purposes without paying taxes on it.
The spokesmen for co-ops stated that earnings from the co-op actually were not profits and did not legally belong to the co-ops.
It indicates that whatever they were called, they permitted co-ops an unfair advantage over private business and that large businesses, by using the label co-op, were escaping the corporate income tax paid by competitors. It thus finds that it was only proper that co-ops should be taxed on the corporate level, before dividends were distributed to patrons.
"Do Unto Others" tells of Britain's Manhattan-born sculptor Sir Jacob Epstein having returned to the U.S. for a brief visit, being visibly upset about "intolerant criticism" of his statuary group, Social Consciousness, at the Philadelphia Art Museum. He had then promptly called famed Dutch painter Piet Mondrian "a faker" and stated that sculptor Reginald Butler, also of Britain, "has no conception of form."
It finds that Mr. Epstein had set a poor example such that the unschooled public could not be expected to practice tolerance in appraising new works of art when artists, themselves, had little or no tolerance.
"Not with a Bang but a Whimper" tells of there being an ancient Egyptian cat goddess named Pasht, who, according to legend, saw all, knew all and observed human affairs with the somewhat malicious humor inherent in felines. It finds that the goddess must be having a good laugh at the expense of some scientific types who had set out to develop stingless bees.
After some trial and error, they had come up with one, but the honey it produced tasted terrible. It finds it to have served them right for trying to tamper with nature.
Not so long earlier, a well-known designer had regarded the egg as the most beautifully designed object in the world, but a scientist complained that eggs rolled off kitchen tables too easily and began to work on a way to induce hens to lay eggs which were more square in shape.
It indicates that perhaps it was not entirely the fault of scientists, as the petulant attitude coupled with curiosity and the will to dominate was shared by just about everyone. E. B. White had said, "It is entirely in keeping with man's feeling about nature that when he suddenly notices his drinking fountain losing pressure he should ascend to heaven and beat a cloud over the ears." It finds that kind of dangerous nonsense to be that which had brought on the atomic and hydrogen bombs, nerve gas and the conditioned reflex.
"A few more gaudy experiments like this and man, nature, Pasht and all will go up in smoke some stormy morning."
A piece from the Richmond News Leader, titled "The Scientific Method", indicates that in times of atomic reactors and gigantic laboratories, a refreshing note had come from Australia, where, for some time, it had been the opinion of cattlemen and farmers that the cow was the only mammal which did not perspire in hot weather. Australian agricultural scientists decided to test that theory and built a hot box, placing a cow in it, and after awhile, observed beads of sweat forming on a small area of shaved skin on the cow, concluding that cows did, in fact, perspire.
It finds it heartening as it had been somewhat suspicious about science as it was presently being practiced, and so found it pleasant to reflect on the fact that in the experiment, no one had injected atomic tracers into epithelium or counted the gamma rays, had just placed the cow in a box and the cow had begun to sweat.
Drew Pearson tells of the President having been planning to fire Air Force Secretary Harold Talbott at his press conference the prior Wednesday, until Secretary Talbott had called him early in the morning and presented such an argument that the President finally agreed to delay the action until he had examined the record further. Mr. Pearson proceeds to present the record for the President.
He indicates that in a letter which had already been made public but without the story behind it, Mr. Talbott had written on Air Force stationery on May 20, 1953, to his partner Paul Mulligan, that he had not forgotten the Ford matter but was a little worried about the best approach, had not come to any decision, referencing a friend who became the subject of cross-examination of the Secretary by the Senate Investigations subcommittee the prior July 21, with Mr. Talbott indicating that he was in investment counseling work of some kind, essentially shrugging off his supposed acquaintance with the man. Mr. Pearson indicates that the first incriminating fact was the note that Mr. Talbott had included in his letter to Mr. Mulligan, which was to Mr. Talbott from his friend indicating that Mr. Talbott had introduced him to Mr. Mulligan a few months earlier and he had said that he thought the friend could be of some assistance to Mr. Mulligan, and Mr. Talbott had told him that he would get in touch with the friend by telephone, but the friend had heard nothing since that time, still believing he might be able to assist Mr. Mulligan.
Mr. Pearson indicates that the friend was a person who was close to Maj. General Harry Vaughan, a military attaché to President Truman whom Mr. Pearson had exposed during the prior Administration. He finds it thus fair to examine closely the activities of the friend in connection with Secretary Talbott. After the friend had used the Democrats, he turned on the Democrats and contributed heavily to the Republicans, contributing through Mr. Talbott about $5,000, Mr. Talbott being a principal Republican fundraiser. The friend operated an investment counseling service and ran Resort Airlines of Delaware, which owned 80 percent of Resort Airlines of North Carolina, the airline specializing in "packaged touring" or charter flights to and from vacation areas. That airline had gotten into the domestic freight business in 1954 with some help from Mr. Talbott, a year after the latter had introduced him to his partner, Mr. Mulligan, when the friend had promised to be of some assistance to Mr. Mulligan. The airline was the low bidder on a Navy cargo contract in July, 1954, but had bid on the contract prior to obtaining any cargo planes, thereafter being able to lease six Air Force C-46's practically overnight at a time when it was against Air Force policy to lease those planes to private airlines, the policy, however, having been quickly changed.
On January 1, 1955, the airline obtained a so-called log-air contract from the Air Force to carry jet engines between Air Force installations. The friend had sent over an assistant to meet with Mr. Talbott, who then introduced him around the Secretary's office, hinting to associates that he was a "very good friend" and that the Air Force should take care of any problems he might have.
Mr. Pearson concludes that despite those facts, Mr. Talbott "had the nerve to testify under oath" that he did not know much about his friend, "the man he helped so generously."
S. H. Hobbs, Jr., in an abstract from the UNC Newsletter, prepared by the Institute for Research in Social Science, analyzes trends in North Carolina's population since the first census of 1790, indicating that at that time the population of the state was about 394,000, third largest of the states, behind only Pennsylvania and Virginia, that by 1850, the state ranked tenth in population and at no time since 1790 had it ranked lower than 16th, ranking tenth in the 1950 census. Except for the two decades of 1830 to 1840 and 1860 to 1870, the rate of population growth had been fairly constant in the state. A small increase in the former decade had been the result of migration from the state largely to Indiana and adjacent states and to the new cotton states to the south of North Carolina, with the small increase in the latter decade having been the result primarily of deaths from the Civil War.
Practically no persons from foreign countries had come into the state for more than 120 years and in no state was the ratio of foreign-born lower than in North Carolina. The state, however, had supplied to almost every state of the country more people than it had received from those states, with the one exception of South Carolina.
The 1850 census showed that of the total white population of the state, 95.7 percent had been born in the state, 3.8 percent outside the state but in the U.S., with the remaining half percent foreign-born. At that time, the state had the highest ratio of native-born whites among all the states and the smallest ratio of persons of foreign birth. The 1920 census showed that the state still had the highest percentage of native-born inhabitants, with only .3 percent having been of foreign birth. In 1950, about a half percent of the white population were not native-born.
In 1920, there had been 444,000 persons born in the state but living in other states, while the inhabitants of the state born in other states numbered 158,000. Only five states had contributed more people to North Carolina than they had received from North Carolina. In 1930, there were about 315,000 people living in the state born in other states, the prior decade of progress having perhaps been the only decade since 1790 during which more people had migrated to the state than had left it.
The 1940 census showed that there were 120,000 people living in other states who had been living in North Carolina five years earlier, and 105,000 persons living in the state who had been living in other states five years earlier. Of the net loss of about 15,000 people, a little over 5,000 were white and 9,900 were nonwhite.
By the 1950 census, the state had lost a net of 261,000 people to other states in the prior decade, and that rate of loss had continued upward through 1955.
Both the white and black population of the state had shown considerable increases in every decade since 1790. At the time of that initial census, the white ratio was 73.2 percent, and between 1790 and 1880, the black population increased in ratio in every decade except between 1830 and 1840. But since 1880, the reverse had been true and the white population had increased in ratio in every decade. In 1880, 62 percent of the state's population was white, and by 1950, the ratio had increased until 73.4 percent of the state's population was white. Despite the black population having increased measurably in every decade, the rate of increase had generally been declining vis-à-vis the white population.
The 1950 census showed that the urban population of the state comprised 1.368 million or 33.7 percent of the state's total population, who were living in 107 urban places, those having above 2,500 inhabitants, as well as in areas included in the urban fringes of the six urbanized areas of the state. More than 70 percent of the urban population lived in 31 urban places of 10,000 inhabitants or more. The 1950 census used a different definition of "urban" from that of prior censuses, defining it as a place of 2,500 inhabitants or more, or an urban fringe area, defined as being around cities of 50,000 or more, or those living in unincorporated places of 2,500 persons or more outside any urban fringe area. The remaining population was classified as rural.
Based on the old definition, the urban population of the state rose from 187,000 in 1900 to 1.38 million in 1950, with the highest rate of growth in that period occurring between 1900 and 1910, when the increase was at the rate of 70.5 percent, with the largest numerical increase having occurred between 1920 and 1930. The increase in the decade prior to 1950 had been 264,000 or 27.1 percent. In 1900, the population was 9.9 percent urban and in 1950, under the new definition, was 33.7 percent urban. The number of incorporated places of 25,000 or more people had risen from none in 1900 to ten in 1950, having a combined population of 634,000.
There were six urbanized areas within the state in 1950, Asheville, Charlotte, Durham, Greensboro, Raleigh and Winston-Salem, ranging in size from Charlotte's population of 141,000 to Asheville's 59,000.
In 1950, the population classified as rural was almost equally divided between people living on farms and people not living on farms, the latter population becoming increasingly important within the total population of the state. By 1930, the rural nonfarm population represented 24.1 percent of the population of the state and in 1950, was 32.4 percent. The rate of growth had been roughly equal to that of the urban population.
The rural nonfarm people were those who did not live in a town or city, incorporated or unincorporated, with as many as 2,500 people, or who did not live in what the census regarded as the urban fringe of cities of 50,000 or more. A farm was defined as three acres or more, if agricultural products amounted to a value of $150 in 1949, or where less than three acres, if as much as $150 worth of farm products were sold in 1949. Thus, though 69.5 percent of the population of the state were classified as rural, only about half were actually rural farm people.
The Spectator of London indicates that the Russians were the most unpredictable of liars because it was often impossible to trace any connection at all between the lies they told and the truth those lies were intended to conceal. It observes that the Chinese at least had an existing connection of that type, "however tortuous and abstruse it may be. The Germans, like the Japanese, lie readily and methodically but with only a clumsy cunning. The English, though capable of producing accomplished liars, forsake the truth with a bad conscience and a resultant lack of conviction; they have a dangerous but characteristic weakness for retaining, as a sort of talisman, little scraps of truth in a fabric of falsehood. Only the Irish lie in what may be called a lyrical way, soaring up from the truth like larks into the clear, pure air of fantasy."
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