The Charlotte News
Monday, February 13, 1956
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the President would receive from his doctors the following day a new medical report which he would study in making his decision whether or not to seek re-election, that in advance of the report, the physicians who had examined him on Saturday would be joined by the Boston heart specialist, Dr. Paul White, chief consultant on his case since his September 24 heart attack, for an analysis of the results of the tests. He had completed his medical tests at Walter Reed Army Hospital on Saturday during a 70-minute period, the first exhaustive tests taken since mid-December other than a daily check of his pulse and blood pressure. The examination had included X-rays, a broad chemistry study and an electro-cardiogram. The President had told a press conference the prior Wednesday that he should have enough information by March 1 to make his decision. Around midweek, the President would fly to Thomasville, Ga., to spend several days at the 600-acre plantation of Secretary of the Treasury George Humphrey.
In London, it was reported that Prime Minister Anthony Eden had said this date that he and President Eisenhower presently were convinced that their countries could go ahead with testing of hydrogen weaponry without danger to the human race. In a report to the House of Commons regarding his recent talks with the President in Washington, the Prime Minister said that he had discussed with the President "the possible regulation or limitation of nuclear weapons tests", saying that both governments shared "the conviction that the radiation dose to human beings arising from the testing of megaton weapons at the present rate is insignificant compared with the radiation dose received from natural causes."
New York Governor Averell Harriman, an "inactive" candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, said the previous night in a radio interview that he favored barring of Federal grants to schools which resisted desegregation, while former Governor Adlai Stevenson of Illinois, actively campaigning for the nomination, said in Portland, Ore., that it would not help reduce race prejudice to cut off Southern states from "the means of improving the educational standard of all their people." He said further that it was "essential" that the segregation issue be kept out of the presidential campaign. The difference of opinion in the candidates had developed out of a proposed amendment to the school construction bill offered by Representative Adam Clayton Powell of New York to prohibit allocation of Federal funds to school districts resisting integration of public schools. That amendment was opposed by the President.
Meanwhile, RNC chairman Leonard Hall said that he hoped that the Democratic nominee would be picked by former President Truman "because I want the American people to have a choice between what they now have and what they had under Mr. Truman." He also said that he was operating on "the absolute, definite and positive theory" that the President would seek a second term.
Before the special four-man Senate committee investigating the offered and rejected $2,500 campaign contribution to Senator Francis Case, to determine whether it had been intended to influence his vote on the natural gas deregulation bill, the oil company lawyer who had offered the contribution testified this date that he had made no contributions during recent months to any personal campaign funds of a Senator, other than the one to Senator Case. After the testimony, the special committee closed its public hearings. Senator Thomas Hennings of Missouri had resigned from the Senate Elections subcommittee, of which he had been chairman, because he believed that the subcommittee could not undertake a broader inquiry of the natural gas lobby as long as he remained as its chairman while a candidate for re-election. Senator Albert Gore of Tennessee was next in line to become chairman of that subcommittee, and Senator Gore had repeatedly urged a broader inquiry into efforts to influence votes on the gas bill. The special committee, chaired by Senator Walter George of Georgia, had limited its hearings strictly to the incident involving Senator Case, and had closed its hearings after less than an hour of testimony this date. The first witness this date had been a sheriff in Nebraska who had accompanied the man who offered the contribution in January, and testified that the man had left 25 $100 bills with a friend of Senator Case as a campaign contribution. The man who offered the contribution had testified the previous week and was then recalled by the subcommittee to testify this date on whether he had made any such contributions to other Senators since the previous October. Senator George said that as far as the committee was aware, there would be no further testimony at the present time.
A House Agriculture subcommittee this date killed a proposal that flue-cured tobacco acreage quotas would be cut by another 8 percent, the subcommittee determining that the cut, on top of a previously ordered 12 percent reduction, would cause "economic shock" and "distress to many producers." The chairman of the subcommittee, Representative Harold Cooley of North Carolina, had introduced the proposal and said that he did not believe a further cut would be warranted but that he had offered the legislation at the request of some tobaccomen merely to give growers an opportunity to express their views. The chairman of a 15-member committee from flue-cured areas had urged the additional cut, saying it was needed to keep tobacco stocks in line with demand. The subcommittee disagreed.
In Hong Kong, Rev. Billy Graham had stepped from a plane in Manila this date, waving to 400 persons who greeted him, telling newsmen that he had come to teach the Bible, not to discuss international politics. He would hold a mass rally the following Wednesday and leave the following day for Formosa, Japan and South Korea. He had preached the previous night to an overflow audience of more than 25,000 persons in a football stadium in Manila. A Roman Catholic archbishop had discouraged attendance by Catholics, but there had been many in attendance.
In Toledo, O., as four men had started their day's duties in a downtown meat wholesale house this date, one had flicked his cigarette lighter and the whole place had gone "boom", the explosion having demolished the three-story building, burying all four men in the rubble. One body was recovered and rescue workers had saved one of the men, who was burned on his head and hands, the man who had initially lit the lighter. Rescue crews were still searching the rubble for the other two men. Another man, walking through an alley behind the building on his way to work as a laborer, had been buried in the debris and suffered internal injuries. The survivor of the explosion said that he had smelled a strong odor of gas in the air afterward. Damage to the structure had been set at more than a million dollars, including that to three adjacent stores which were leveled.
Donald MacDonald of The News reports that Charlotte Police Chief Frank Littlejohn this date had urged the help of "an aroused public" to stem the acts of vandalism being committed against several Charlotte businesses, schools, churches and recreation facilities in recent weeks. His statement came in the wake of the arrest of two teenagers, charged with burglary and property damage, as reported further in a separate story below. He commended the Youth Bureau officers and said that they might not have had to work so hard had citizens and parents given them more help. The chief said that after the arrest, the Youth Bureau officers had learned that at least two citizens could have helped tremendously had they contacted the Police Department, with one person saying that he had seen the two arrested boys leaving the Harris Supermarket on the night of the burglary, but had not wanted to take the trouble to testify as a witness in court. In all, 25 warrants had been signed against the two boys.
An 18-year old youth who had quit school in the eighth grade had told a News reporter that he had been "after money" when he had entered Harding High School, Harris Supermarket, the Latta Park Center and three other businesses the previous week, committing acts of vandalism, saying that he wanted "to have fine clothes" like his friends. He blamed most of the destruction of the property on an alleged accomplice in the crimes, with both youngsters having admitted under questioning that they had broken into the Latta Park Center, but the accomplice having denied any part in the other burglaries admitted by his friend. Youth Bureau officers, however, said that loot taken from the laundry and supermarket entry had been found in the room rented by the accomplice, who had dropped out of Harding in the ninth grade, having worked until his arrest as an engraver. The other boy had been employed until the previous Tuesday as a dishwasher at a local restaurant, making $25 per week. That boy, fighting tears, said from his cell during the morning that he was "sorry about all that" he had done. He said that he had told his accomplice while they were in the laundry that it was his last job, and hoped that his friends would not be mad at him, that they would understand that one could always make a mistake.
What was going on with all the candy
spilled all over the place? It appears as the actions of a four-year
old, having a temper tantrum. Didn't you get enough candy as a kid?
Ann Sawyer of The News tells of Solicitor Basil Whitener having stated this date that he would ask the grand jury to indict a white woman of Paw Creek on charges of assaulting her 3 1/2-year old stepdaughter, the beatings having allegedly taken place over a period of months before the child had died the previous Christmas Eve. The woman was accused of assault by stuffing paper in the child's mouth, running hot water over her, tying her in bed, and beating her head against a bathtub. The indictments climaxed seven weeks of investigation by the County police, the solicitor and assistant solicitor. Since the child's death, neighbors had stated that the alleged mistreatment had been reported to the City Police by one woman and to an officer of the Youth Bureau by another, several weeks prior to the death of the girl, and had also been reported to the local Department of Public Welfare, at which time an investigation had been conducted.
In Phoenix, a bartender had fired a few shots at a prowler the previous night, missing him, but cutting a main power line, throwing half of north Phoenix into darkness. The bartender told reporters that he would like to tell all about it, but had a bar full of customers and a bar full of liquor, "and man, it's dark in here." The prowler had escaped in the darkness.
In San Diego, it was reported that
Dr. Paul White, the President's heart consultant, was seeking to
obtain an electro-cardiogram from a gray whale, but had been unable
to do so in three attempts, saying that the information gathered on
methods might ensure success on the next attempt. He was leading an
expedition sponsored by the National Geographic Society
On the editorial page, "Charlotte, Catfish and Country Clubs" asks when the last time the reader thought that Charlotte was a Southern city, a question posed without an answer by a South Carolina newspaper columnist recently, also raising a corollary question of what determined the Southern quality of a city.
Geographically, Charlotte was north of Montgomery, but south of Richmond, and its clay would compete in redness with anything found in South Carolina.
Economically, cotton was the base, as Charlotte bought it, stored it, manufactured and shipped it.
Politically, Charlotte liked Ike, as had former Governor James Byrnes of South Carolina in 1952.
In terms of mores, Charlotte had a complement of blue laws, probably more than those of Tuscaloosa or Macon.
Regarding tempo, Charlotte was as lazy as a person wanted to be, but most residents seemed to want to get a great deal done, but, it observes, J. E. B. Stuart also had not been a foot-dragger.
In terms of food, stores sold more collard greens than Cornish hens, and also offered cracklin's, brains, liver pudding, souse meat, pig feet, mullet fish and water ground meal, with crowder peas and cornfield beans, in season, plus catfish.
In terms of religion, Charlotte was mostly Protestant, with the churches being full of them.
As to recreation, the usual Southern types were present, ranging from creek fishing to country clubbing in tie and tails, that the recent hockey game at the Coliseum, while a departure from normal fare, had an organist playing "Dixie", as the fans had cheered the Yankee players.
Regarding fashion, there was plenty of seersucker and organdy in summer, as well as panama hats, and in winter, wool hats, just as in Georgia and South Carolina. Charlotte had Montaldo's, but Houston had Neiman-Marcus, and even Montaldo's sold cottons.
The population of Charlotte was a Southern mixture of Scotch, Irish, Jewish, black and German, with "a Yankee yeast welcomed in traditional Southern hospitality."
Housing in Charlotte was becoming short of shanties, but the Southern exposure was wonderful in the thousands of contemporary dwellings being erected.
It concludes that Charlotte qualified as a Southern city on any of those factors, and that the citizenry was enough Southern "to get hopping mad at any side-winding implication that their town is something other than a Southern city."
"Getting the Backfires out of ABC" tells of Governor Luther Hodges having decided to take some of the backfires out of the administrative machinery of the State Alcoholic Beverage Control Board, needed, it offers, since the Board had blindly fired one of its best inspectors on a trumped-up charge, only to reinstate him a few days later with an apology. After another firing, charges had been made that the chairman of the Board, Tom Allen, and some of his staff members, had accepted favors from liquor companies, denied by Mr. Allen but admitted by a liquor company which had paid expenses for the latter and a staff member on a two-day business trip to New York.
It indicates that there been no proof of dishonesty on the Board and it does not believe that the Governor would countenance such behavior for a moment, that, moreover, the Board members were men of solid reputation. But the mistaken firing and the expense-paid business trip provided evidence that the Board lacked full comprehension of fundamental practices required to discharge its proper duties.
The Governor had said that the Board had been muddling along with "no clear-cut policy" and had often "dealt in personalities" in handling its affairs. He intended to correct that situation and had sent the Board an outline of a suggested policy to guide it in dealing with the beverage industry and the public, with rules set down for favors and gratuities.
It concludes that of all State agencies, the ABC Board should be above suspicion and that the Governor, being aware of that necessity, was doing something about it with commendable forthrightness.
"Charlotte's Red Peril: Congress Is Late" indicates that with all the journalistic clatter over the subcommittee of HUAC coming to Charlotte in March for three days of hearings, an unsuspecting man from Mars might develop the impression that the Red Peril was hovering just overhead, when it was not.
It says that Charlotte had not had a Red Peril worth mentioning in 27 years, since 1929 when Fred Beal's Communist-controlled National Textile Workers Union had muscled into the Gastonia strike. At that time, Charlotte had been little more than an active spectator, as the staging area for the "Red brawnies" who had been rushed to the scene and as the setting for the trial which followed the slaying of Gastonia Police Chief O. F. Aderholt.
Mr. Beal had been sentenced to 17 years in prison for conspiracy in the murder of the chief but had jumped bail and fled to Russia, then returned thoroughly disillusioned four years later, served four years of his sentence and then was paroled, spending the rest of his life preaching against Communism, before dying of a heart attack in November, 1954. It indicates that Communists had not started the labor dispute in Gastonia, but that when it had exploded, they had rushed to take charge, eventuating in the death of the police chief, slain during an attack on the strikers' tent city, as well as the death of a woman when gunmen in a speeding car had fired into a truck in which she had been riding, plus other casualties.
It quotes from the late former associate editor of The News, W. J. Cash, in The Mind of the South: "Rebellion—I heard the word in North Carolina at the time from the mouths of all sorts of people, ranging down from the most powerful political personages of the state to farmers and clerks and little grocerymen. And what was plainly contained in it was the idea of rebellion both against the State (in the generic use of the term) and against all social order."
The piece, borrowing its entire outline of the matter from Cash, indicates that Communism had become a nightmare in the state at the time and when the most powerful newspaper in the state had editorialized that, since Communists wanted to destroy the existing government, they were not entitled to protection under its laws, a mob of masked men had immediately thereafter raided the hut in which the Gastonia strikers and their Communist leaders had maintained a headquarters and destroyed it. It indicates that the calmer voices of men such as Harry Woodburn Chase, president at the time of UNC, and William Louis Poteat, president at the time of Wake Forest College, had insisted on the civil liberties of the strikers being respected.
The strike had ultimately failed, being doomed when the Communists took it over. The AFL hastened onto the scene, but it was too late, and for years, labor unions plus strikers equaled Communists in the minds of many Southerners—an equation taken from the same page of The Mind of the South from which the above quote comes, albeit extending further to include atheism + social equality with blacks, "and so to join to the formidable list of Southern sentiments already drawn up against the strikers the great central one of racial feeling and purpose; and, in fact, to summons against them much the same great fears and hates we have already seen [in the book] as giving rise to the Ku Klux Klan." (The equation might have predicted the violence to come in November, 1979 in Greensboro.)
By contrast, it posits, the present Communists around the state were "a singularly weepy, ineffectual crew". It predicts that all they would do before the subcommittee in Charlotte would be to pound the table militantly, suggests that the members of the subcommittee were 27 years too late, having missed the main event.
For an earlier take by Cash on the violence at Gastonia, much closer in time to the events, read "The War in the South", one of his pieces for the American Mercury, published in February, 1930.
A piece from the Nashville Tennessean, titled "In Defense of the Cane", says that the cane had just about gone the way of the blunderbuss, but an orthopedic surgeon had called for propaganda to counteract prejudice against the cane, which he regarded as being responsible for the change, and the piece wants to lend a hand.
The medical argument was potent, pointing to the many people with physical infirmities who needed a cane but refused to use one because of public perception of it as a sign of physical deterioration. It indicates that it had not been long since the cane had been both dapper and fashionable, with young bloods having sported a "stick" on occasions for effect, as well as utility. The habit prevailed when people had gone out for a walk, which they now appeared not to do very much anymore.
It places ultimate blame on the automobile, discouraging leisurely strolls, and leaves the orthopedic aspects to the experts, but believes that any stigma attaching to use of a cane ought be combated. It indicates that cane models did not change, that the ones treasured by one's grandfather still would have attraction if given half a chance, that whether gold-head or black thorn, an unprejudiced trial could be educational and revealing.
Don't worry, a new television series
titled "Bat Masterson" will premiere in two or three years
and re-popularize the cane among the younger set. We had one,
ourselves, at a fairly young age, replete with a silver plastic top
with all kinds of fancy gilt-work pressed into it, which we learned to
twirl with all the mastery of Bat
Drew Pearson indicates that the more one dug into the $2,500 lobbying fee offered to Senator Francis Case of South Dakota by Superior Oil to influence his vote on the bill to deregulate natural gas—against which he had ultimately voted—the more one understood why so many Senators were upset with Senator Case and why Senator Lyndon Johnson and others were so determined to confine the probe of the gas lobby only to that particular instance.
He indicates that in digging through his files, he had found that Bill Keck, head of Superior Oil, had been a great friend of Senator McCarthy and that the private airplane of Superior Oil had carried the Senator around the country on various junkets, on one occasion, in the fall of 1953, having carried the Senator from California to New York. He notes that Senator McCarthy had voted for the bill. He had also discovered in his files, from his column of January 2, 1954, a notation that Senator McCarthy's greatest asset at that time was the cash which came from H. R. Hunt and other Texas millionaires from certain oil companies in California, such as Superior Oil and Mr. Keck, the result of which was that Senator McCarthy had more political money to spend than any other member of Congress and would spread it around among various less fortunate Republican candidates in the following fall elections of 1954.
He also finds it significant that the lobbyist for Superior who had provided the $2,500 contribution to Senator Case had registered as a lobbyist before the Nebraska Legislature, but not in Washington, having therefore violated the lobbying law by trying to influence members of Congress without proper registration.
He indicates that in the wake of that victory by the lobbyists, another major lobbying battle was shaping up in the House, regarding the highway construction bill and the pay-as-you-go plan put forward by Representative Hale Boggs of Louisiana for financing the construction, rather than through bonds. He indicates that if that bill passed, owners of passenger cars would have to pay a half billion dollars per year in new taxes over the course of 15 years. He informs that the highway bill which had been rejected by the House the previous year, would have taxed truckers at a higher rate than automobile operators, on the ground that the heavy trucks were responsible for the heavy wear on superhighway systems. But in the last session, the trucking lobby had gone into action and had defeated that bill and persuaded Congressman Boggs to write a new bill, lowering the tax rate on trucks and shifting an additional 1.5 billion dollars onto passenger car owners, with most of that coming from a new tax on tires. The American Trucking Association's lobbyists had spent more than $33,000 in just three months between July and September, 1955 to defeat the previous bill, and now had persuaded one group of Congressmen that the truck operators who made a profit from using the public highways should pay no higher rate of tax than ordinary motorists. The American Trucking Association had done such a good job in lobbying that there was virtually no opposition in Congress to the Boggs plan at the present juncture.
White House aide Jack Martin, however, had warned a representative of the American Trucking Association that the Administration would not allow the truck owners to get off that easily, and Secretary of Commerce Sinclair Weeks wanted the truckers to pay more, as did Treasury Secretary George Humphrey.
A letter writer says that as a newcomer to the South, he was horrified at the attention which segregation received among Southerners, that it would not be so bad if the people doing all of the talking knew what they were talking about, as most of the people he had encountered insisted on dealing with the problem only in terms of prejudice. He says that it was not only the segregationists but the integrationists as well, who were just as bad, that both sides had done so much talking or shouting that each had lost the ability to deal with the problem objectively and unemotionally. He urges less talking and more thinking. "Maybe if everybody would stop babbling for a moment, the problem would work itself out."
A letter writer says that he had read news reports and letters in both Charlotte newspapers written by individuals jeering at the segregationists for the small turnout of people on two different occasions, and wants to know how many "scalawags" and "carpetbaggers" would show up for an integration rally.
A letter from J. R. Cherry, Jr., comments on an editorial appearing January 26, urging Governor Hodges to scorn interposition, the editorial having stated that an "honorable means" could be found to meet the challenge of Brown v. Board of Education, the writer concluding that the newspaper regarded interposition as a dishonorable means. He says that in the nearly two years since the May 17, 1954 decision, the Southern press had not put forward such an "honorable means" for meeting the challenge posed by the decision. He finds that The News particularly had concentrated almost completely on the negative aspects, rather than the positive aspects of meeting that challenge, by disparaging the idea of abolishing public schools as a possible solution and having reacted only in a lukewarm fashion to the idea of Governor Hodges of voluntary continuance of segregation, plus scorning the doctrine of interposition "to a degree far beneath its proper dignity and place in the history of our country", and having expressed horror at any outright defiance of the Court's decision. He regards the newspaper as having stated repeatedly that the decision had to be respected and followed by the people and that to evade it would be alien to constitutional government and un-American. He finds further that two years of "double-talk" on the issue was enough and that it was time for the newspaper to level with the people, that the newspaper might sympathize much more than it had with the principles embodied in the cause championed by what he regards as the majority of Southerners "and take to task those ballyhooed by the forces arrayed against us." He urges the newspaper to come forward with positive, honorable suggestions for meeting the challenge and that only then could readers understand what it meant, assuming that it did not mean that the people "must capitulate to the insidious forces endeavoring to exterminate southern culture and obliterate the Tenth Amendment."
A letter writer from Buies Creek, the faculty member of Campbell College who had been reported in the newspaper recently as having informed it that he had received a subpoena to the special subcommittee of HUAC, to start hearings in Charlotte on March 12, wishes to inform his friends and people of the state that he would not reveal to the subcommittee his own political beliefs and associations or those of anyone else. He opines that such committees, wherever they had held their hearings, had attempted to "terrorize the people into giving up their constitutional rights, to become suspicious of their friends and neighbors, to lapse into a 'safe' silence, and to refrain from any activity which might displease the investigators." He urges that the people of the state should not suppose that only the Communist Party, labor unions, "left-wing" groups and the University would be under attack, that Campbell was Baptist-sponsored and that if the nondenominational schools became subject to harassment by the subcommittee, then the churches and ministers would not be far behind—actually, insofar as attacks by Senator McCarthy and his former Investigating Committee, having already taken place. He quotes from the rules of procedure of the subcommittee, that the participation of counsel would be limited to advising the witness as to legal rights, and that the rules of evidence, including cross-examination, would not be applicable. The rules had stated that the confidential relationship between husband and wife would be respected, except when a majority of the subcommittee determined otherwise. He imparts that nowhere in the rules was an accused given the right to a bill of particulars, to present defense witnesses or to see or know the identity of his accusers. He thus finds the sum of it to be hypocrisy and asks whether any self-respecting person could consider seriously cooperating with it, that if a witness answered one germane question to the topic under investigation, it could rule that he had waived his right to refuse to answer other questions about himself or others. Taking advantage of that technicality, the committee had been known to force a witness to refuse to answer "the most fantastic charges" and that the people had to understand that silence under such rules did not necessarily imply guilt.
A letter writer from Durham encloses an editorial from the Durham Sun which had appeared on February 10, which had lamented the death in the Duke University community of J. Foster Barnes, director of choral music at Duke, indicating that the Duke Glee Club had attained national prominence under his direction and that, in association with his wife, he had developed the Duke choir to its present eminence and excellence. He had won friends wherever he walked and had been especially helpful to Durham, arranging and providing music for its public events and had participated in its civic clubs, was a man of highest character, personal diligence and had a deep sense of responsibility, leaving behind a record of constructive service to Duke, the state and the ideals of the nation.
A letter writer from Raleigh, the president of the North Carolina chapter of the American Association of Hospital Accountants, thanks the newspaper and its staff for the excellent coverage of its Winter Institute meeting at the Presbyterian Hospital in Charlotte on February 8. He indicates that the chapter served as an important medium in fostering greater understanding and closer cooperation between hospitals and associated health interests, that it was their aim to cultivate harmonious relationships between hospitals and hospital-minded organizations and to promote uniformity and efficiency in hospital accounting by providing worthwhile adult educational programs.
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