The Charlotte News
Saturday, January 19, 1957
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the winter's coldest blast had spread into northern Florida this date, but a shift in the wind had stalled the cold wave before it could reach the central and southern sections, where the fruit and vegetable crops were located. Orlando and Tampa had reported overnight lows of 36, while Miami had a low of 48. This date's forecast was for rising temperatures. Winds reaching 50 mph in gusts had hit the Florida coast the previous day and this date, sinking three boats and driving at least six others aground. A British Honduras banana boat had gone down early this date, 120 miles west of Key West following a battering by heavy seas. Two shrimp boats had sunk the previous day 70 miles west of Key West. New York was ending its coldest week in history, having recorded an all-time low in the state of 55 below zero at Bonnville. A fresh snowstorm off Lake Erie threatened to dump 6 to 8 inches on Erie County, in the western part of the state. It had been 21 below zero at Old Town, Maine, this date.
In Charlotte, the low this date was 19, with a low of 24 forecast for the following day, with the high expected to be 52 in the afternoon, after a high this date of 45. Greensboro had a low of 11 and Cherry Point, 20, with morning lows of 15 in Asheville, 18 in Winston-Salem, 13 in Raleigh and 18 in Charleston, S.C. It had been 20 at Cross City, Fla., but 27 at usually cold Cutbank, Montana.
It apparently was too cold for anyone to pay too much attention to the substance of the front page. Guess no news of substance is better than too much news of substance, which usually tends to be bad.
In New York, Ingrid Bergman had returned to the U.S. this date, saying that she felt fine. She would be in the country for only 34 hours after an absence of nearly eight years. She came to receive the New York Film Critics' Award as the best actress of 1956 for her performance in "Anastasia", and would return to Paris the following night to continue her role in a smash stage hit there, "Tea and Sympathy". She was planning to attend a matinee of the Broadway hit musical, "My Fair Lady", do a little shopping and visit with a few friends. She said, in response to reporters' questions, that she had no regrets concerning past actions in her life, having drawn considerable criticism in the U.S. when a son had been born to her and Italian film director, Roberto Rossellini, while she was still married to another man. Eventually, the two were married. They would be divorced, however, later in the year.
In Denver, a former bookkeeper who talked too much had been arrested the previous night by an investigator posing as his partner, and charged with a plot to kidnap and murder a wealthy businessman. Police said that the abortive plan had been quickly admitted by the man. A former convict had told a Denver newspaper of the scheme, indicating that the intended victim had been the vice-president of the Robinson Brick & Tile Co. of Denver. The man wanted to kidnap him and force him to sign $50,000 in payroll checks, which the man would in turn trade to the bank for a payroll and pocket the money, at which point the man had planned to take the kidnap victim out and shoot him.
In Fayetteville, N.C., the FBI alerted North Carolina and South Carolina police this date to be on the lookout for two prisoners who had handcuffed a U.S. marshal, a guard and a third prisoner to a tree and then escaped with the officers' car. Police were told to look for a 1956 Buick sedan, painted a light green over medium green, and bearing a Georgia license plate. The prisoners were being transported from Macon, Ga., to Virginia and Maryland the previous day, when they produced a pistol and commandeered the vehicle in which they were riding. If you see the Buick, let the police know.
In Charlotte, an unidentified man's report of seeing a hand protruding from the basement of a home had led police early in the morning to the crude common grave of two women. The bodies of a 37-year old woman and her 15-year old daughter had been found with their arms crossed over their chests in shallow graves under mounds of earth, rags and other refuse. Police said that the woman's husband had admitted killing his wife and stepdaughter on January 10 as the climax of a long series of arguments regarding discipline of his stepdaughter. He was being held pending two charges of murder. A detective said that he had beaten the victims with an iron mallet weighing about three pounds after his wife had struck him with a piece of iron and his stepdaughter had advanced on him with a knife. Police, however, had found no marks on him.
WSOC-TV had halted work on its transmitter building in Charlotte because it wanted to wait and see what the FCC would do regarding the request for rehearing on a decision awarding channel 9 to WSOC. Both Piedmont Electronics Corp. and Carolinas Television Corp., which had been turned down for the applications, had petitioned the FCC for rehearing.
Dick Bayer of The News reports that this was the sesquicentennial of the birth of General Robert E. Lee, and he had gone in search of anyone on the streets of Charlotte who could remember the date, finding that out of 13 people, only six tried to answer and the rest refused to make an attempt, especially after being told that the following Saturday was a memorable date in Southern history, asking them whether they knew why that was. One man said it was the day the hockey arena burned down in Baltimore and ice hockey had headed south. A female office worker, after some deliberation, declared that it was the inaugural ball. Another female office worker asked whether it was President Eisenhower's birthday. It sounds like progress to us.
Julian Scheer of The News reports from Laurinburg of the city having been named an All-American City and celebrating its award in a major way the previous day, with Roy Johnson, executive vice-president of General Electric Co., having said in the keynote address that it was the spirit of the "New South". The big event had been a parade observed by thousands lining the main streets. The bitter cold had not chilled the spirits of those who came to watch the big show. Miss America of 1956, Marian Ann McKnight, had been the unofficial queen of the parade, with several other beauty queens helping out. Governor Luther Hodges sent greetings. Senator Sam J. Ervin and Representative Paul Kitchin took part in the activities.
Mr. Scheer also reports separately on state politics.
On the editorial page, "The U.S. Senate: A Peculiar Genius", an editorial book review of William S. White's Citadel: The Story of the U.S. Senate, finds that he had characterized the Senate as an institution of stubborn peculiarities, not the least of which was that it was the home of minority views in general, and of the minority South in particular.
The South at the time was not only in command of most of the body's important committees, but had provided from the inception the leitmotif, "the continuity of its attitudes and intellectual processes." The body had its "Inner Club" dominated by Southerners, who, without publicity or much regard for popular opinion, shaped and nourished the traditions and prejudices of the Senate and its standards of personal conduct.
Thus, Senator McCarthy, who had his day for a time, was eventually censured when the Inner Club decided to consider the complaints against him in 1954. They considered, not whether he had abused individuals and democratic processes, but whether he had abused the Senate's sacrosanct reputation.
The Senate was answerable to the public, but sought to disregard it as much as it could within the confines of elections. It regarded itself as a refuge of objectivity and scholarly consideration, with judgments insulated against fierce popular impressions and hysteria. Sometimes, it yielded to jealousy of the power of the executive branch, coupled with faith in its own wisdom.
It recognized no peer in government, with the possible exception of the Supreme Court, which it regarded, as it did itself, as a continuing body concerned with precedents and fundamental principles. It would tolerate a weak executive because the Senate was essentially backward-looking, and would suspect a strong executive whom it would eventually hamstring, as it had blocked all of the social legislation of President Truman, and all except the early such legislation of FDR.
It finds that a clear image had emerged of the Senate in Mr. White's book, accumulated from his ten years as chief Congressional correspondent for the New York Times. It was a place of fierce individualism and minute attention to perquisites and precedents, of almost tedious respect for differences of opinion, of determined accommodation and compromise of views, of scholarly debate and concern with fundamental issues, while showing irritation with trifling matters. Mr. White both loved and understood the body and presented it with anecdotal humor and sureness of knowledge, while exposing its faults. The body appeared to justify his essential admiration for the "complexity and simplicity and virility of something unique and fundamentally changeless in American life."
It finds, in sum, that the Senate was a place where no reminders were needed that the U.S. had been founded as a Federal union and republic.
"General Lee: A Suitably Ironic Salute" tells of the U.S. being complimented by the request that it restore the citizenship of General Robert E. Lee. It indicates that such a Federal gesture, 90 years too late to do him any good, did not enhance his "stainless-steel legacy of courage and virtue", which it finds had never been limited to the late Confederacy.
Just as many Southerners had found inspiration in the life of Abraham Lincoln, so had Northerners marveled over the military genius and personal gentleness of General Lee. While he had never been fully understood, he had never been seriously misunderstood either, unless by his own lieutenant, James Longstreet.
It suggests that there could hardly be a better token of national unity than a Southern request for restoration of the citizenship of General Lee. It finds in his legend great irony, not the least of which Stephen Vincent Benet had phrased in his reference to the General: "Who had, you'd say, all the things that life can give/ Except the last success—and had, for that,/ Such glamour as can wear sheer triumph out…"
A piece from the Atlanta Constitution, titled "Rome's Eternity Challenged Again", tells of it having been a big year for the natives of Rome, that in addition to the record-breaking tourist trade, all kinds of things had been occurring. Recently, a caravan of more than 100 crazy Americans had arrived in house trailers, a thing new to Italy. Shortly before that, Rome had witnessed the opening of its first supermarket, with Romans being accustomed to small shops specializing in a single article.
It suggests that those who feared that Rome would be ruined by all of the American modernity could relax, as it had survived many things, including the Caesars, the Goths and Vandals, and had been overrun and sacked by half the conquering heroes of Europe. "The city that can take King Farouk, Elsa Maxwell and visiting Hollywood notables in its stride can take anything."
Drew Pearson indicates that few voters realized how one vote on a Congressional committee could mean either construction of schools or lack thereof for their children the following school year. Fifteen House Democrats belonging to the Committee on Committees had met behind closed doors to assign new members of Congress to their committees. There had been one important vacancy open on the Education and Labor Committee, which the previous year had hamstrung legislation to fund school construction. Southern members, fearing that Federal aid to education would be tied to integration, wanted a fellow Southerner to fill the vacancy, finally proposing freshman Congressman Alton Lennon of North Carolina, a strong segregationist. He had preferred to be appointed to the Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee, but had been drafted for Education and Labor, primarily because of his strong racial views. It gave the conservative Republican-Southern Democratic coalition another vote to help block school aid.
But Minnesota's vigorous Congressman Eugene McCarthy, who would run for the Democratic nomination for the presidency in 1968, mentally counted votes and discovered that Northern members outnumbered Southern members 8 to 7 on the Committee on Committees, and the next day, suggested a reshuffle, that Representative Lennon be given a chance to go on the committee of his choice, the Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee. The eight Northern members supported the move and the seven Southern members voted against it, winding up with the appointment of Mr. Lennon to the latter Committee, his original choice. Freshman Congressman George McGovern of South Dakota, who would also gain some prominence in 1968 as a presidential candidate, eventually becoming the Democratic nominee in 1972, was assigned the post on the key Labor Committee.
Senator McCarthy was still seeking to investigate Brig. General Ralph Zwicker, who had precipitated the sensational Army-McCarthy hearings in the spring of 1954 by refusing to kowtow to Senator McCarthy. Now that the General was up for promotion to two stars, Senator McCarthy had written to the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, Senator Richard Russell of Georgia, demanding an investigation.
Congressman Keith Thomson of Wyoming was so unpopular with his staff that they had all walked out on him.
Senator George Smathers of Florida, chairman of the Democratic Senatorial campaign committee, had promised Ken Holum a job which would maintain him in the limelight to run against Senator Karl Mundt of South Dakota in 1960.
Joseph Alsop, in Moscow, tells of finding the Kremlin a much brighter place than its stark, grim, grey reputation had portrayed it. "In fact, the Kremlin really looks like a particularly gay decoration by Bakst for one of Diaghilev's earlier ballets, rather than the dark citadel of the world's imagination."
He says that he had also found surprises inside the Kremlin when he had attended a party in honor of East German Premier Otto Grotewohl and his colleagues. Earlier in the afternoon, the Soviets had welcomed Communist Chinese Premier Chou En-lai at the airport with elaborate ceremonies, including interminable speeches and long lines of goose-stepping guards of honor comprised of young Russians. Almost immediately afterward, there had been the formal signing of the new Soviet-East German accord, after which the members of the Presidium had led their foreign guests to supper tables in St. George's Hall, a legacy of the Czarist era, which he proceeds to describe in detail. The room had been decorated for daily children's parties which took place in the Kremlin in the current season, in the manner of Christmas. But the feast for 1,500 people had a curiously cozy effect because the crowd had gathered around the food and drink with cheerfully visible enthusiasm, and because the masters of the Kremlin, who were no less enthusiastic about eating and drinking, had also exhibited hospitable gentility.
Premier Nikolai Bulganin, Communist Party Secretary Nikita Khrushchev and former Foreign Minister V. M. Molotov, along with other senior rulers of the Soviet Union, were all very short men, as the late Joseph Stalin would have no tall men around him. Mr. Alsop found that the short, smiling men, working hard to get the party to "go", did not look like the stern masters of the greatest empire in history.
Premier Bulganin had opened the formal proceedings with the first speech and the first toast, toasts being celebrated at the Kremlin "almost in the Danish manner that Hamlet complained about." Thereafter, the speaking and toasts had continued for nearly three hours, as a representative from each of the "parties" which formed the East German "coalition" had to be provided an opportunity to speak. But the speeches did not prevent those at the party from chatting and drinking the while, including Chou En-lai.
After the speeches had concluded, the famous ballerina, Plisetskaya, had briefly appeared. There was singing and music, and a young man from the Bolshoi Theater Troupe had danced the famous Gopak "in a way that would have been hard to imitate, even at a dictator's behest."
Eventually, after a light show resembling the aurora borealis, the party came to a happy end. "By then, one had almost forgotten the language of the speakers, who had sounded again the old notes of the cold war. Indeed one had all but forgotten the young dead in the streets of Budapest."
A letter writer says that she liked television and most of its programs broadcast in the Charlotte area by WBTV, channel 3, mostly originating with CBS. She believed, however, that another channel should broadcast, to afford a choice of programs, with channel 9 having been fought over for a long time, finally awarded to WSOC in mid-December, that station having been the second oldest and second largest on radio in Charlotte. They had immediately begun work on their broadcasting facility and announced that they hoped to have it open for broadcast by late April, and that they would be affiliated with the NBC network. Everyone in the public was pleased, but now at the last moment, the two competitor firms who had been turned down by the FCC for the license to channel 9 had filed appeals in Washington. She asserts that the two firms were disserving the public by doing so and she hopes that the FCC would quickly decide against them.
A letter writer asserts that the present was an age when man was seeking to improve on the revealed will and mind of God as found in the Bible and that Christians ought realize that there was a greater power than even the Supreme Court, that disobedience to God's revealed will could only bring "chaos, confusion and evil." He says that God's word had indicated that men should work six days and rest on the seventh, but that men had decided that five days were better, that God's word had said that women should stay at home, establish the family altar and raise the children in a Godly way, but men had decided that women could leave their children to roam the street or be raised by a babysitter while they sought a good time, that Christ had announced "Come unto Me" but the world had changed that to, "Come to church." He also finds that men had changed the Golden Rule to "Do the other man before he does you." He next gets to what he was really concerned about: "God set apart the various races and nationalities and in His infinite wisdom spread the nations over the earth by races and tongues. At the Tower of Babel, we find that the people decided to all live together, work together and build together. God put a stop to this by changing their language into many languages, in order that each group would go off into their own class and dwell together. Man is seeking to amalgamate the races and his interference with God's plan gives us the mongrel and half-breed races. It is for the best interest for all races to prevent the mixture of the races through intermarriage. A mongrel race is contrary to God's will and is looked upon with disdain by full blooded colored and white folks alike." He regards integration as the "first step which will lead to intermarriage of the races which is communism's evil plan to destroy the white and colored races with the latent qualities, distinctive in those races."
He may have listened once too often a few years earlier to dragon Flagon.
A letter writer indicates that more noise had been made regarding the opening of the six miles of crossline railroad than when the first train had run out of Charleston, S.C., on Christmas Day of 1830. "In reference of the eastside bottleneck, there may be many bottles in this movement, but there will be lots of necks to be cracked on the eastside jamboree." He wants to know where the outstanding balance due on the short line would come from and when, as the State Government had denied the amount needed.
A letter writer from Minneapolis presents his lines written after a visit to the grave of Captain Francis Bradley, in Hopewell Cemetery in Mecklenburg County. It is rather long and so you may read it for yourself. Sample: "Here lies a Revolutionary sire,/ Who boldly dared the monarchs higher./ To tyranny he never bent to knee,/ But sought to make his country free." He concludes: "This lowly grave where he was laid away/ Becomes a shrine—and there I pray/ Each time I look upon that modest stone/ That such a faith may be my own."
It causes us to recall that in the
fifth grade, we, together with our class, were forth made the
Declaration's signers to portray for the gentle ladies of the DAR,
which, it turns out, though unknown then as a fait,
had their meeting house not very much afar from where "Poor
Ellen Smith"
Framed Edition
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