The Charlotte News
Saturday, February 25, 1956
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that Secretary of State Dulles appeared confident this date that the country and its allies could defeat Russia's new "united front" strategy of world conquest with little change in activities, but members of Congress disagreed. The Secretary told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee the previous day that Russia's post-Stalin leaders were scrapping 30 years of Soviet policy based on violence and intolerance and were seeking to devise new plans because their old programs had failed. He said that they had made very little progress in their attempts to take over the world and that their new efforts to employ economic aid and similar measures to penetrate foreign countries meant that they were playing the American game, at which the U.S. and its allies could beat them. But members of the Committee, Senators Mike Mansfield of Montana, Alben Barkley of Kentucky, and Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota took issue with those assertions of confidence, and Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon said at the conclusion of the hearing that he did not share the optimism of the Secretary at all. Senators Humphrey and John Sparkman of Alabama called for a change in U.S. policies to meet the Soviet maneuver, with Senator Humphrey saying that Russia's change of policy was "a clear indication we should change ours," and Senator Sparkman calling it "tragic" that the U.S. had not shown sufficient change to meet those developments. Senator Allen Aiken of Vermont said that Democrats had tried without success "to find a weakness" in the policies of Secretary Dulles, and Senator Leverett Saltonstall of Massachusetts found that the Secretary's testimony "made sense". The meeting with the Secretary had primarily been called to discuss the sale of 18 light tanks to Saudi Arabia and the refusal thus far to sell 50 million dollars worth of arms to Israel, with the Secretary arguing repeatedly that though he understood Israeli fears of Egypt's growing power, the security of Israel could not be assured by its engaging in an arms race with the Arab bloc.
Black leaders across the country had called for a one-hour work stoppage on March 28 by all black people throughout the country in support of the boycott against segregated buses in Montgomery, Ala. Representative Adam Clayton Powell of New York the previous day had asked for the general work stoppage and said that it would be coupled with a day of prayer. A black spokesman in New York said that prolonged national work stoppages and mass fastings by black people in the country were possibilities if the racial crisis in Alabama were not resolved, saying that members of all races and faiths would be urged to join with the demonstration. Congressman Powell, a pastor of a 15,000-member New York congregation, said that the demonstration on March 28 would be designated "National Deliverance Day of Prayer" and that no black person of any age would attend school or work for one hour during the mid-afternoon. Another spokesperson said that it might be a forerunner to a possible "National Mahatma Gandhi-type movement," in terms of his passive resistance program of fasting and nonviolent opposition to British rule in India.
Meanwhile, black citizens of Montgomery walked the streets in a mass 24-hour pilgrimage to prove their willingness to walk if necessary to carry on their 11-week old boycott to protest segregation on the municipal buses. Ninety persons walked to the courthouse in Montgomery for their arraignment on the anti-boycott indictments returned by a grand jury the prior Tuesday, and all pleaded not guilty, with their trial set to begin March 19. A court officer said that ten more warrants were outstanding, bringing the total number of defendants to 100. They included Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who had been one of the principal leaders of the boycott. Defense attorneys filed demurrers contesting the indictments, which charged violation of Alabama's law against "illegal" boycotting, which carried a maximum penalty of six months in jail and a $1,000 fine.
In Thomasville, Ga., the President ended his eleven-day vacation and returned to Washington, likely having made up his mind as to whether he would seek another term. There was still, however, no hint regarding whether he had reached a decision. He had previously stated he would make his decision by March 1, and might disclose it at a press conference the following Wednesday. The President had subjected his physical stamina to a rigorous test while on the vacation, having engaged in more outdoor activity than at any time since his September 24 heart attack. He had spent five weeks since January 9 resuming basically the full duties of the Presidency. During his vacation, he had hunted seven or eight times for quail and wild turkey, spending from 2 to 9 hours in the fields each day when he pursued that activity. The previous day, he had gone out for nine hours and he and Secretary of the Treasury George Humphrey, whose plantation he was visiting, had shot 12 quail, the legal daily limit—whether any being rustled out of the bushes by their black bush-whackers in tow, as the previous week, not being disclosed this time. Eight days earlier, he had played his first round of golf since the heart attack, nine holes, and subsequently played two 18-hole rounds, after the second of which, engaging in hunting for two hours, then stayed up playing bridge until after midnight.
In Yuba City, Calif., which had been
ravaged by floods starting on Christmas Eve, two Santa Clauses had
come to town with some belated cheer and presents. During the
flooding of the entire town, 39 were killed, some of whom had drowned
while in their automobiles, and 16,000 acres of farmland south of the
town remained inundated. Governor Goodwin Knight addressed a crowd of
several thousand townspeople, stating that the state had to build a
large dam on the Feather River to prevent future flooding. Meanwhile,
loudspeakers broadcast Christmas carols along with a tune called
"Reindeer Rock", as the children rode for free on the
ferris wheel. (Just how such a joyful Christmas tune went over with the recovering townspeople generally in late February is not disclosed
In Seoul, South Korea, the Rev.
Billy Graham arrived this date from Tokyo and said that "hungers
for God" prevailed wherever he had gone during his nine-week Far
Eastern tour. He said that it was terrible that Korea was divided and
expressed confidence that it would eventually be united again soon.
He said that one out of every 18 people in South Korea was Christian
and that much of the leadership was also Christian. He stated that he
had not planned to come to Korea but had changed his mind, it being
his second visit, having also come during the winter of 1953 while
the Korean War was still ongoing, visiting the front-line trenches
inhabited by hundreds of American soldiers. He had also visited
India, Thailand, the Philippines, Formosa and Japan during his
current trip. He would hold seven meetings during his day and a half
in South Korea and would visit front-line troops and hold two revival
meetings for U.S. servicemen the following day before returning to
Tokyo
Near Berlin, at least 32 persons had been killed and 40 seriously injured in a train wreck this date in Saxony, according to the official East German news agency. The accident had occurred near a railroad station 100 miles south of Berlin, caused when a fast freight train with two locomotives slammed into the side of an express passenger train coming from Dresden, with all three locomotives being derailed, and one of the cars being demolished and several others badly damaged on the passenger train.
Tornadoes in southern Illinois and dust storms in four Southwestern states had killed at least 12 persons and injured an undetermined number of people this date.
Julian Scheer of The News reports that Welfare Department head Wallace Kuralt had said this date, in response to a Superior Court judge's uncomplimentary remarks about the Department's handling of the case involving the woman convicted of assaulting her three-year old step-daughter, that, "The spectator on Monday morning is always smarter than the coach on Saturday." The judge had made the criticism while sentencing the defendant to between two and four years in Women's Prison for assault with a deadly weapon on the girl. He said that the reason the mistreatment had gone on for so long was because of the negligence of the Welfare Department for not conducting a proper investigation when the child had been placed with them and when it was first reported that there was something wrong in the home. The child had died on Christmas Eve. The jury had deliberated for only 49 minutes before finding the defendant guilty of assault for pouring hot or boiling water on the child, for banging the child's head against the bathtub, for tying the child to a bed, inserting paper in her mouth and spreading human waste on her face and mouth. Mr. Kuralt said that the woman's treatment of the girl was an "insidious sort of thing", not apparent in any of their investigations of the home, that none of the charges against her in court had been made to the Welfare Department as far as he was aware, that the investigation showed every evidence that it was a good home. The judge also issued warrants on charges of fornication and adultery against the woman and the father of the child, with whom she was living but to whom she was not married. The woman had filed for divorce from her estranged husband. The defendant filed a notice of appeal.
A new adventure comic strip, "David Crane", by J. Winslow Mortimer, would begin in the newspaper on Monday.
Some of the television comic strips
On the editorial page, "No Ivy on Southern Bricks, Please" indicates that by 1965, if present trends continued, the South would have 30 percent of the nation's manufacturing facilities, but only four percent of the nation's basic research laboratories. It finds such an imbalance to indicate a house dangerously divided against itself and suggests that unless the South started shoring up its research foundation, the house might topple. There was also a critical shortage of technicians and professional engineers within the state, as Governor Luther Hodges had remarked recently.
The whole nation was suffering from the shortage, as the New York Times the previous Sunday had contained ten pages of advertisements from large national firms seeking scientifically-trained employees. Dr. James Killian, Jr., president of MIT, had gone on record with a blunt summation of the situation: "While the United States has experienced shortages of professional talent in the past … we have not in many years experienced so great an imbalance between supply and demand as we have in science and engineering."
The piece points out that in the South, which aspired to a new industrial revolution, the concern was especially acute, as of the 250 percent increase in per capita income in the region since 1930, at least 50 percent, perhaps 75 percent, was directly attributable to research. Engineering achievements by professionals in the region accounted for another large part of every Southern paycheck each week. Industry needed engineers and researchers to progress and it had to progress to stay alive, and its life depended on the personal income of everyone.
It indicates that in such basic Southern industries as textiles, tobacco, paper, apparel, furniture, chemicals, metallurgy, petroleum and machinery, there were many scientists and engineers needed.
It finds that those facts suggested that the region needed to get busy encouraging young people to enter careers in science and to train teachers and equip classrooms accordingly, eliminating some of the unreasonable views held by some students that scientists were "anti-social geniuses".
"Charlotte Building: Some Sounds Noticed" tells of the Charlotte building inspection division having issued 117 permits, authorizing 2.1 million dollars worth of new construction in just a single day, as much as was normally authorized in a month. A newspaper story on the matter had caused excitement among merchants, as the permits issued included 106 housing starts, meaning business for hardware stores and other building supply firms.
All of the activity, it indicates, created a substantial amount of noise in the community, despite the permits being issued as dry statistics, and it hopes that it would never have to notice those noises only by their absence.
"Khrushchev's Corner Isn't There" indicates that Communist Party Secretary Nikita Khrushchev claimed that the seven-hour workday was just around the corner for Soviet workers, that by 1957, they would have such a workday, cut to six hours in the coal and ore mines.
But the piece points out that in 1929, the commissars had ordered the seven-hour day instituted by 1933, and when the Soviet Constitution had been adopted in 1936, it had guaranteed the seven-hour day. But it had never come to pass and it finds it unlikely to do so in 1957.
The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions had recently found that a ten-hour day was the practice in every Communist-dominated country, and even that was violated at the expense of the workers, as overtime was compulsory and often without pay. On a railway in Czechoslovakia, crews worked a 16-hour, seven-day week, with no holidays, so that they could "fulfill the plan". In Poland, young people worked 14 to 16 hours per day in textile, clothing and labor factories.
There was nobody to enforce the guarantee of the Soviet Constitution of a seven-hour day or to prevent an engine factory from paying an eight-hour wage for a 16-hour shift. Trade unions had no control over hours, wages or working conditions, and there had not been a strike in Russia since 1920.
It concludes that Mr. Khrushchev's promise was part of "a long road that has no turning, or, at least, no corner hiding the seven-hour day."
A piece from the Sanford Herald, titled "And There You Stand", tells of a newspaper which had a hole chewed in it by the neighbor's dog, causing the reader to have trouble interpreting the stories.
Drew Pearson indicates that the latest wrinkle in the controversial shipment of 18 light tanks by the U.S. to Saudi Arabia was the question of whether they would be received by the Arabs, since they were being shipped on a Jewish-owned vessel, when previously, no such vessels had been permitted in Egyptian or Arab harbors or anywhere near such waterways. The ship in question had been chartered briefly by a Greek firm, but was owned by the family of Jacob Michael of New York under a complicated arrangement, which meant that the ship did not have to comply with American wage and safety standards, as it was sailing under a Liberian flag but was registered in Panama.
After Mr. Pearson had done several hours of research into ownership of the ship, a spokesman for Mr. Michael had called to say that he did not presently own the vessel, had sold it and that his attorney would speak for him. The attorney said that Mr. Michael had once owned it but had sold it in March, 1955 to a party whose identity could not be revealed by Mr. Michael to save that party embarrassment. But the records of the Maritime Administration were conclusive, showing that he had sold or transferred the ship only to his wife. There was no record of any other sale or transfer.
Harry Golden, in an address at Davidson College during the current Brotherhood Week, had posed a question and phrased a provocative answer, condensed on the page, suggesting that emphasis should be placed on the principle of a pro-American idea, which included the basic principle of American fair play. He elects to emphasize the part which the majority of the population of the society played in molding the society, taking as his theme the contributions of Presbyterians to the American idea—Davidson being a Presbyterian college.
He begins with the Rev. William
Tennent of South Carolina, whom he says had been for the most
important principle, separation of church and state, at the
Constitutional Convention—actually the constitutional convention of South Carolina in 1777. He was informed by several of the
delegates that he had nothing about which to worry as it was the age
of the Enlightenment, and with men such as Alexander Hamilton, Thomas
Jefferson, James Madison and James Mason around, no one had to worry
about a state religion. But the Rev. Tennent believed that things
could change through time and that it would be better to place in the
document the idea of separation of church and state. The
Presbyterians established the principle that differences of religion
could not become the basis for anger and division. (We remind once again, for the adherents to the nonsense that the Constitution says nothing about separation of church and state, that the First Amendment forbids Congress from establishing any religion, operative on the states through the Fourteenth Amendment, and that if the state cannot establish a religion, there is, by simple deduction, separation between church and state. The body of the Constitution, in Article VI, Clause 3, also forbids religious tests for public office, in furtherance of that concept. Of course, we now have the latter-day adherents also to the notion that the Constitution permits secession of any state so desiring, but such people, as with their forebears of 1860-61, are nitwit nuts, and so... They need at least to learn how to putt around the greens, avoiding along the way the trees, rough and traps. While perhaps affording a start, basic understanding of the game and even proficiency at it does not necessarily ensure broader understanding, the zen aspects of the game, if you will, as we once had an aunt who participated in the LPGA tour and was a confirmed Republican, removed to Pennsylvania in her adult life, who despised Harry Truman, as she once commented in our presence when his name came up as the inhabitant once upon a time of the Presidential suite at Old Point Comfort, Va., in which some of our relatives were staying as part of a family reunion. But we forgave her for that misapprehension of the Fair Deal along the fair way. Such is America
Mr. Golden suggests that there had been an over-emphasis on the "equality" of men, which he says could never be in fact, when the basic American idea actually meant acceptance of all men for what they were, including their differences, weaknesses, strengths and the potential creative development in every man.
He indicates that the Dutch did not produce FDR, nor the Irish, Alfred Smith, nor the Germans, the 20th Century humanists, such as Wendell Willkie and Robert Wagner. When the ancestors of such men had established themselves in the country, they had brought with them the various cultures which composed the fabric of the country, and America was nothing except a combination of all of those various cultures, whether Nordic, Mediterranean, or African.
He says that it was no coincidence that the Jewish people had made the greater contributions to civilization after the ghetto walls had been destroyed. In the dark ages, when millions of people lived and died without ever having seen the printed word, nearly every Jew could read and write, and yet it had not been until the door was opened upon the distractions of the world and problems of human relationships, that the Jews had produced such people as Spinoza, Felix Mendelssohn, Benjamin Disraeli, Louis Brandeis and Albert Einstein.
He finds that where there was resistance to the freedom of human relationship, the resisters lost as much as the resisted. "The interchangeability of ideas, and the opportunity for all to burgeon out for themselves all that is within them, has nothing whatever to do with joining the private garden or luncheon clubs or demanding admission into homes without an invitation."
Society had discovered that the Fundamentalists and William Jennings Bryan had not been the enemies after all, once concentration camps, savagery and massacre came to the fore in the 20th Century, that the real enemies were the likes of Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin. It was discovered also that the elimination of prejudice against people with common characteristics was the only true validator of the American idea.
Nearly 3,000 years earlier, it had been written in the Torah that there were no fixed limits, that a person must leave grain at the corners of the field for the poor and retire to one's home so that neither the leaver of the grain nor the poor would be embarrassed when the grain was gleaned.
Mr. Golden concludes with the question: "Who, during these three thousands years has improved on that lesson in human relationships?"
Joseph Whitney, who provided the "Mirror of Your Mind" advice column to the newspaper, in the sixth and last of a series of articles on growing up, discusses teenagers' plans for the future when they finished school, indicating that they would begin to think of such plans around the last year or two of high school, moving steadily toward adult status through participation in various school extracurricular activities, though still having a long way to go in terms of the deeper manifestations of adulthood, still being unsure of themselves in terms of choosing their life's work.
Studies had shown that between 25 and 40 percent of college students overestimated their intellectual ability and failed to make the grade, that of those who sought employment right after high school, many became misfits because they assumed they had manual dexterity which they actually lacked or other talents which were beyond their reach. The teenager had to find the right compromise between goal and ability which would achieve career satisfaction without weakening the person's faith in him or herself.
Sometimes parents handicapped their children in choosing realistic goals. Fathers sometimes got a vicarious thrill from the burgeoning manhood of the teenage son and often became determined that the son would not make the same mistakes the father had made in youth, thus sometimes pushing the young person into areas of no interest to him, leading to conflict between respect for the father's wishes and the young person's own wishes. Sometimes, that resulted in the boy entering the armed services to avoid having to make a choice immediately.
Observant parents often discovered the interests and aptitudes of their children by the time they reached high school, and their guidance, as long as it was not domineering, was usually a healthy, directional influence toward realistic goals. There were batteries of psychological tests designed to uncover hidden talents and interests of young people, and an IQ test to indicate mental advancement, with aptitude tests showing the areas in which the person could learn with greatest facility. There were also interest tests and personality tests. Many high schools provided those tests and some had career guidance counselors who provided advice on the basis of vocational tests, along with helpful information about different careers.
Mr. Whitney concludes that if the reader were a teenager who had no clear idea of the vocation or profession the person wanted to pursue, then pressure should not be applied to the person, as most students, even in college, did not know what they would do for a living after they graduated. The vast majority knew that they were training themselves to become useful, intelligent, productive citizens, and that was a worthy goal in itself.
A letter writer responds to a letter appearing on February 16, which had taken to task this writer's letter appearing February 11, and so he wishes to respond regarding the 13-year old white girl who was attending an all-black high school in Asheville. He says that what had amused him about the previous writer's comments was that he had not pointed out why her attendance at the school was a "deplorable situation". He says that the part of the Constitution which provided that slavery would be settled at another date was in Article I, Section 9, Clause 1, saying that no law could be passed by Congress restricting the importation of slaves prior to 1808—even if the nitwits will take issue with the notion that it only referred to "Persons", whereas slaves were considered generally at the time to be chattel or as three-fifths of a person for representational purposes in the House, the greens fees perhaps representing the other two-fifths to become a member of the Club. He joins in the plea for moderation and in the sentiments concerning Adlai Stevenson, whom he hoped, as did the previous writer, would become the next President.
A letter writer congratulates the newspaper on its editorial treatment of the Hoover Commission reports, finds it a well-written editorial.
A letter from a physician thanks the newspaper on behalf of the Tri-State Medical Association of the Carolinas and Virginia for the excellent publicity given their recent meeting in Charlotte.
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