The Charlotte News

Monday, January 14, 1957

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from the U.N. in New York that the U.S. had submitted a five-point disarmament plan this date, which would include a ban on further stockpiling of nuclear weapons and also a call for international control of space missiles, to go into effect only after an ironclad system of controls and inspections had been established to guard against violations or evasions. The plan was put before the General Assembly's 80-member political committee by U.S. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., as the committee opened its general debate on the disarmament problem. The five major points were that an agreement should be reached under which all future production of fissionable materials would be stockpiled exclusively for non-weapons purposes under international inspection; that nuclear test explosions be limited and later banned, provided an agreement would be reached to control the stockpiling of fissionable materials, and that pending such an agreement, the U.S. would be willing to work out a system for advance notice and limited international observation of such tests; that the armed forces of the U.S. and the Soviet Union would be limited to 2.5 million men each and that those of Britain and France, to 750,000 each, provided the nations concerned could agree on progressive establishment of an inspection system, including aerial inspection, as proposed by President Eisenhower at the July, 1955 Big Four summit meeting, and for ground inspection at key points, as had been proposed by Premier Nikolai Bulganin of the Soviet Union; that the testing of all space missiles, including earth satellites and space platforms, would be placed under international control to ensure that their future development was limited to peaceful purposes; and that an international inspection and control system would be installed progressively to guard against surprise attacks, supervised by an international agency which would be established concurrently with the beginning of the overall program.

The Army this date, defying strong opposition from the National Guard, ordered compulsory six-month active duty training for all new Guardsmen. Secretary of the Army Wilber Brucker announced that the new policy would become effective on April 1, as recommended by Army chief of staff, General Maxwell Taylor, over the non-concurring view of the National Guard Bureau. The National Guard Association, which spoke for the 405,000 members of the Guard units in the states and territories, the previous week had denounced the Army training plan.

In Fairbanks, Alaska, nearly 50 persons had escaped a midday fire the previous day, in which one man had died and 14 others had been injured, including two women whose spines had been fractured as they leaped into fire nets, with the others having been overcome by smoke or suffering cuts. They had escaped by leaping into nets or climbing down shaky ladders in 51 below zero weather. More than 300 persons had been trapped in the new nine-story building. Although the fire, itself, had been confined to the basement, heavy clouds of smoke had swept up elevator shafts and stairwells, filling the halls and seeping into the apartments. The only known death was of a man who sought to escape by climbing to the building roof, only to find the door locked, dying on the stairway. One woman had tossed her heavily bundled six-month old baby seven floors to a net below and then jumped after her, both escaping serious injury. About 700 people occupied the 220-apartment building, but nearly half of the tenants had left to attend church or to go to work. Damage was estimated at between $10,000 and $15,000. No cause of the fire is indicated.

In New York, four small children, ranging in age between two and six, were in a welfare home after having been abandoned in a church by their mother, who said that she was "going away with the man I love." Police said that the 32-year old mother had been separated from her husband and was living on relief. She had left the children on Saturday night, along with a note, in the back pew of the Roman Catholic Church of Christ the King, in Queens, the note having been signed by "a heartbroken mother" who told of being "kicked around" all her life, indicating that she was getting a divorce and would remarry the man she loved. The note was tucked inside the pocket of the eldest child, 6. It promised that she would return for her children in about a year, that she had not abandoned them and wanted them back as soon as they could have a good home like other children. She asked that they be kept from being separated as she loved them very much. The children were taken to the New York Children's Shelter. After reading about the matter, the mother's brother contacted police, indicating he would take the children, but was turned down, at least temporarily. Police were seeking a boyfriend of the mother described by her brother as a 19-year old auto mechanic and nighttime law student, the police issuing a several-state alarm for him, focusing on Texas, as the youth reportedly had talked of seeking employment in the Texas oil fields.

In Hollywood, actor Humphrey Bogart died this date at age 57 of esophageal cancer. As late as the previous Saturday night, he had been talking optimistically with friends between customary scotches, giving no sign that the end was near. But Sunday morning, he had sunk into a coma from which he never revived. His wife, actress Lauren Bacall, was at his bedside at his death. Their two children, ages four and eight, were asleep nearby. His doctors said death was the result of the spread of the original malignancy. Unlike most victims of throat cancer, his voice had not been affected. He had been comfortable in his last days after a recent operation had removed some scar tissue on a nerve and afforded him much relief. He had recently told the reporter of the story, James Bacon, that he was "a better man than I ever was", never admitting publicly that cancer would beat him. If he knew that he was going to die, he had never let on to friends, though it had become a cocktail-hour topic around Hollywood. A New York newspaper recently had printed that his death was imminent, and when other newspapers and wire services had called his home to check on the story, Mr. Bogart had answered by saying: "What are the ghouls saying about me now?" Though he talked on-screen and off like a gangster, he had actually been born on Park Avenue in New York and his father had been a physician and his mother, a noted magazine illustrator. He had attended Andover Academy, one of the nation's finest prep schools, and had gotten into the theater early on Broadway. Mr. Bacon indicates that it was hard to imagine that he was the originator of the famous line: "Tennis, anyone?" He had started out as a patent leather juvenile, complete with blue blazer and white flannel pants, and still carried in his wallet his first notice, written by the late Alexander Woollcott, which read: "The performance of Humphrey Bogart could be described mercifully as inadequate." Mr. Bacon opines that perhaps his greatest stage success had been as Duke Mantee, in "The Petrified Forest". Mrs. Bogart asked that contributions be sent to the American Cancer Institute in his memory.

In Eastbourne, England, a doctor was accused this date of enslaving a wealthy 81-year old widow by turning her into a drug addict, then killing her with overdoses after she changed her will in his favor. The prosecutor stated to the court at a hearing that the defense might suggest that the doctor was merely easing the death of a woman already dying, as the doctor had stated to a detective of Scotland Yard on December 10 during the investigation of the death of the widow that "easing the passing of a dying woman is not all that wicked", that she had wanted to die, that it could not be murder, that it was "impossible to accuse a doctor." The prosecutor said that he had given the widow massive quantities of morphine and heroin, and had a "lively personal interest" in the will of the widow, who was known as an eccentric grower of dahlias. The doctor had received a Rolls-Royce and a valuable chest of antique silver under the will, and the prosecutor contended that he had been seeking to get her to leave him a safe deposit box full of jewelry which she kept at her bank. She had died on November 13, 1950 in a lonely mansion, the grounds of which were patrolled by a watchman and a dog. Her death certificate said that she died of cerebral thrombosis, and her body had been cremated, with the ashes, by her will, scattered over the waters of the English Channel. The town had the highest death rate in Britain.

The Memphis Press-Scimitar reported in a copyrighted story this date that a Drew, Miss., woman had been told by her doctors that she soon would give birth to quintuplets, probably four boys and a girl, the story indicating that the woman would enter a Memphis hospital, possibly this date, and that the multiple births were expected later in the week, perhaps by Thursday.

Julian Scheer of The News reports from Camden, S.C., in the first of two articles, telling further of the flogging over two weeks earlier of the high school band director, Guy Hutchins, on the night of December 29. His wife spoke hesitantly about the matter, only after a reporter had shown his identification, as she said she did not want to take any chances. Mr. Hutchins was a former resident of Charlotte who now taught at the Camden High School and played in the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra each Thursday night. Following a television appearance of the orchestra, he had driven back to Camden via Highway 521, whereupon, at Westville, about 15 miles north of Camden, had a flat tire, and as he was fixing it, was accosted by six hooded men, carried off to another part of Kershaw County, where he was tied to a tree and flogged. He was told that he was being whipped because of views he had expressed against segregation before a Lions Club meeting. He had told his assailants that they had the wrong man, that he had made no such comments, but one of the men had said that they knew him and called him by name. (Earlier, it had been reported that his wife stated that one of the men charged in the assault was her husband's friend.) A week later, the six men had been arrested and were later released on bond, with a trial set for the next session of court starting in February. The case had left a deep impression on Camden and some said that the town was gripped by a "reign of terror" and that the community had been seized with "fear", while others said that the case had done "no such thing". Some said that they believed race relations had nothing to do with the flogging, but many responsible citizens, including Mayor Henry Savage, said that the incident was but one of a series of related events which could be traced back to racial tension arising the prior July. In the early days of July, an interracial conference of white and black boys and girls had met on the campus of Mather Academy, a private black secondary school in Camden, sponsored, along with Browning Home, by the Woman's Society of Christian Service of the Methodist Church. The national WSCS organization had arranged the conference. White youths had lived and studied on the campus during the week-long conference, with the youths having come from Texas, Tennessee, Louisiana and West Virginia. But there was a South Carolina law against such an integrated meeting at a private institution, leading to tension. Some citizens nevertheless brushed aside the flogging incident as "personal" and indicated that other "events" had nothing to do with the flogging, that the incidents in the previous few months were unrelated, blaming the press and some citizens for blowing the situation out of proportion.

Emery Wister of The News reports that Piedmont Electronics & Fixture Corp., which had been a losing applicant for the long-sought television channel 9, this date had asked the FCC to reverse itself and award to it the channel, which had been provided to WSOC on December 13. George Ivy, Jr., chairman of the board of Carolinas Television Corp., the other losing applicant, said that he did not know whether attorneys for his firm had filed such an appeal, but indicated that they would likely do so, this date being the last date for seeking the appeal. The president of Piedmont said that his firm's action would not delay the airing of channel 9 as it was not seeking to have the FCC order WSOC to halt construction of its new station between Hickory Grove and Newell, which was in an advanced stage, with the station hoping to be on the air by late April or early May. The president of WSOC said during the morning that Piedmont's action would likely, however, delay the beginning of service.

In Detroit, a man heard a noise at the side door of his home, investigated and found that the door was gone, then saw a man running down an alley with it. Given the near-zero weather, the man said he was anxious to obtain the return of his door.

On the editorial page, "Sages & Seniority: A Strange Breach" tells of freshman North Carolina Congressman Basil Whitener, in a letter to the newspaper, having stated that a friend had sent him the News editorial page of January 7, with a cartoon by Hugh Haynie showing how seniority worked at the bottom of the Congressional totem, indicating that as the cartoon, reprinted with the editorial, was reproduced in Washington, the four new Congressmen from North Carolina had been standing around just as depicted, awaiting their committee assignments, "any decade now".