The Charlotte News
Thursday, January 24, 1957
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. note: The front page reports that Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas had demanded this date that Secretary of State Dulles submit an official "white paper" justifying his conduct of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon had backed the move as a means of forcing Secretary Dulles to explain more clearly to Congress why special military and economic authority was necessary to deal with Communist threats in that region. Senator Fulbright had voiced his demand as Senators were questioning Mr. Dulles on the Administration's proposal. Secretary Dulles had pleaded particularly that Congress provide the President a free hand to spend 200 million dollars on military and economic aid to the region. Pressed by Senator Richard Russell of Georgia for more information on how the money would be spent, the Secretary said that if they had to pinpoint everything they proposed to do, the program would not serve its purpose, that if Congress was not willing to trust the President to the extent he sought, they could not win the battle. He said that the Middle East situation could end in "a great disaster to the United States" were the President not provided the military and economic powers for which he asked. He had sought authority to send U.S. troops, if necessary, against any overt Communist aggression in the region and approval for spending up to 200 million out of available funds during the current year on economic aid. Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota said that Senate opposition was beginning to disintegrate, despite "grave doubts" which some of the Senators had about the Administration's proposal. Senator George Aiken of Vermont said in a separate interview that support for the Administration's resolution had been building up steadily since the Russians and Communist Chinese had released their joint communiqué threatening to defend the Middle East against aggression from the West. Both Senators Humphrey and Aiken were members of the Foreign Relations Committee. Meanwhile, the House Foreign Affairs Committee was moving toward completion of its work on the resolution, with indications that the finished product would follow closely the Administration's proposals. It appeared that prospects were good for completing action on it by nightfall. The previous day, the Committee had tentatively drafted a stipulation that the proposed economic aid would go to any nation or group of nations in the area which desired the assistance, the original version having not included such a provision. The Committee had also discussed some 15 amendments, but had taken no action on them.
The New York Times reported this date that Gordon Gray, a Democrat and longtime officeholder, had been selected to replace Arthur Flemming as director of the Office of Defense Mobilization. The New York Herald Tribune had printed a similar story. Formal White House announcement of the appointment was expected soon, according to the Times. Mr. Gray, former president of UNC, had been Secretary of the Army during the Truman Administration and was presently Assistant Secretary of Defense for international security affairs. The Times said that with the appointment, Mr. Gray would become one of the few Democrats to attain high office in the present Administration. The post to which he would be appointed, while not formally a Cabinet position, had Cabinet rank, as the defense mobilizer sat in on Cabinet meetings and was, by law, a member of the National Security Council. Mr. Gray, a native of Baltimore, had been raised in North Carolina and was educated at UNC, receiving his law degree from Yale.
In Rome, N.Y., it was reported that an Air Force tanker plane, missing since the prior Tuesday night with seven men aboard, had been found this date in the Adirondack Mountains with State Police reporting that there were no signs of life. A rescue party had set out in the hope of finding survivors after a helicopter had spotted the plane about 40 miles north of Rome. The plane had been on a training flight when a control tower at Griffis Air Force Base had told it by radio to leave the approach pattern over the field to let another plane land first, after which there had been no further contact with the tanker plane.
In Cranford, N.J., the body of a nine-year old boy had been recovered from the Rahway River this date, just 500 feet downstream from the spot where his frozen sister and a playmate, both 7, had been found the previous night. They had disappeared on the way home from school on Tuesday afternoon. The river was covered in ice. They had apparently fallen through a soft spot in the ice near a dam a quarter mile away from where their bodies were found, and had been carried downstream by currents, according to police.
In Chicago, police were checking a restaurant owner's report this date that about three weeks earlier, she had seen two teenage girls, who had subsequently been killed, with one of the dishwashers employed at the restaurant. The sisters, ages 13 and 15, had disappeared from their home on December 28, and their nude bodies had been found on a road the prior Tuesday, with a five-hour examination of the bodies the previous day having failed to determine a cause of death. A police lieutenant said that a taxi driver had told him that he had seen the girls in the restaurant on January 6 and had provided the information to police as soon as he learned of the death of the girls. He said that they were with a male at the time and that the younger of the two girls appeared sick as if from liquor or narcotics, that she had said, upon leaving the restaurant, that she did not want to go. The chief pathologist of Saint Elizabeth's Hospital had said that it was one of the roughest cases he had seen in his years with the coroner's office, finding that the murderer had been "diabolically clever", using a method that they had been unable to detect, perhaps having been trained in chemistry, with knowledge of unusual poisons. The head of the FBI office in Chicago said that a demand note, sent to the mother of the girls, was being investigated, the FBI having entered the case on January 7 after the mother had received the first of nine such notes concerning her daughters, then listed as missing.
In New York, Police commissioner Stephen Kennedy conceded that it had been an employee of the Consolidated Edison Co., not one of his detectives, who had turned up the documents which had led to the arrest of the "mad bomber", who had planted 32 bombs in the city during the previous 16 years, 22 of the bombs having exploded, injuring 15 persons, but none seriously. He said that he had not personally examined the documents until Monday morning, although he had been notified on Friday afternoon of the contents of the discovery. George Metesky had been arrested on Monday night at his home in Waterbury, Conn., by New York and Waterbury police, based on the clue coming from the Consolidated Edison files, and had subsequently admitted planting the bombs. Consolidated Edison credited a 25-year old employee with finding the file of letters which had led to the arrest. Mr. Metesky, as the files showed, had complained that the company had not treated him properly for his pulmonary tuberculosis contracted after having been gassed while an employee in 1931. He told police that it had been the reason he began planting the bombs, originally at Consolidated Edison properties, though later expanding to places not connected with the company. At stake in determining who had provided the vital clue leading to his arrest was a $26,000 reward offered in the case. Mr. Kennedy would determine who provided the clue. Meanwhile, the prosecutor said that if psychiatrists found Mr. Metesky insane, a grand jury indictment would be filed with Bellevue Hospital, to which he had been sent for eaxamination, to act as a detainer. He said that his office would begin presenting evidence to a grand jury the following Monday. Mr. Metesky was charged with felonious assault, violation of the Sullivan anti-weapons law and malicious mischief. Results of the ongoing psychiatric examination at Bellevue would determine whether he would be put on trial or committed to a mental institution.
Near Bellefonte, Pa., a power shovel operator had been found crushed to death this date under tons of stone which had buried him almost 20 hours earlier when the 75-foot high walls of a quarry had collapsed. His body had been found by a dozen workmen who labored through the night in a rescue effort which had required the removal of nearly 1,000 tons of stone and earth. Another worker had died shortly after he had crawled from beneath the rubble which had collapsed the previous afternoon.
In North Wilkesboro, N.C., a man told police officers he had been lured from his home this date, robbed and shot in the arm, chest and leg. He was reported in fair condition at the hospital. He told a deputy that a man had come to his home in the early morning, claiming that his car was stuck nearby, the victim having told him he would help pull him out after finishing breakfast. He said that as he approached the car, two or three men, one holding a pistol, had stepped out and ordered him to throw his wallet on the ground, with which he complied, and then one of the men had shot him and they had then driven off. The Highway Patrol had put out an alert for two men in a 1940 model automobile, describing one as 5 feet, 6 inches tall, weighing between 135 and 140 pounds and wearing a gray suit and shirt. If you see such a man, in a 1940 car, not a 1941 or 1939, be sure and call the Patrol.
In Los Angeles, the local chapter of the National Secretaries Association said that the ideal qualifications for a boss were that he or she would always remember that the secretary had the boss's best interests at heart, that the boss would turn his or her back when the secretary came in late, thinking of all of the hours she had worked overtime, that the boss would not shout, would not ask her to work on her day off, as she probably needed the rest, that when dictating, the boss would not shave, have his hair cut, shoes shined, chew gum or smoke a cigar. Above all, the boss would take her to lunch once in awhile, as she could not afford to eat on her salary.
In Miami, Fla., a man who weighed 238 pounds and drank his whiskey straight, sought to prove in court that he could down 20 slugs of whiskey without getting drunk, while facing a drunk driving charge. It was still undetermined whether he would be convicted or acquitted, with the judge having delayed until the following day his decision. The defendant sought to prove that the drunkometer was not an accurate measure of a person's ability to drive a car safely while under the influence. He said that he liked his pint of alcohol every day. He had been arrested on December 15 with a blood-alcohol reading of .246, when a person who exceeded .150 was considered drunk within the meaning of Florida law at the time. The defendant and his attorneys challenged the accuracy of the device and the judge had agreed to the courtroom test, whereby the defendant came in with three pints of 86-proof blended whiskey and drank almost a pint and a half during a 4.5 hour period, having drunk it straight with ice water chasers, plus consuming several cups of coffee during the interim and half a sandwich at lunch. But he had never gotten legally drunk. The judge halted the test after the 20th shot, at which point the defendant took a test on the drunkometer, registering .122, short of the minimum for conviction and less than half the reading which the officers had reported on the night he had been arrested. At that point in the courtroom experiment, he was slurring his words and talking much louder, but was still able to navigate without stagger or sway, though with visual and reaction tests showing his efficiency had dropped in all phases except depth perception. The judge told the attorneys to get the defendant home safely, with someone else driving, the defendant indicating that he had brought a friend along for that purpose, to be on the safe side.
In Dallas, Tex., a man pulled up at a service station and told the attendant to "fill it up", tossing him a pillowcase while holding him at gunpoint, whereupon the attendant promptly put the contents of the cash register into the pillowcase, and the man fled.
In Danville, Ky., eight self-dubbed "veterans of jails and penal institutions across the United States" had rallied to the defense of their jailer, writing a letter to the editor of the local Advocate-Messenger, in answer to criticism of jail conditions made by the County grand jury. They said that he was one of the best jailers they had ever seen, that he did his job to the best of his ability and handled the prisoners with human respect, that it was one of the cleanest jails they had ever been in, that the food was a lot better than at the workhouse, where it was "so rough you have to wear gloves to eat it."
On the editorial page, "Dragons Cannot Be Slain by Rhetoric" finds that inflation was an amorphous foe of U.S. prosperity, that its disagreeable qualities were almost universally deplored. But it was already too pronounced to be greatly affected by verbal attack, appeals to business and labor to put "broad public interest" ahead of personal gain, or by minor improvements in unsuccessful tools. Nor would it go away and die a natural death.
It finds that the President's economic message delivered to Congress the previous day had correctly appraised the size and shape of the emergency, but offered nothing particularly new or hopeful in the way of a solution, that his 38 recommendations for action boiled down to a rehash of proposals bypassed in 1956.
Concerning the Federal Government's controversial "tight money" policies, the basis for the anti-inflation program, the President noted the existence of "public concern". It finds that such concern was justified, that the philosophy of present monetary controls was fairly simple and forthright, that by raising interest rates, thus reducing, or increasing less rapidly, the funds available for lending by banks, the Federal Reserve Board discouraged borrowing and investment. Economists explained the consequences by indicating that less investment, spending for capital goods and inventories, meant less demand and less pressure on prices, in principle also reducing consumer spending somewhat by reducing consumer borrowing.
But it also meant a slower rate of investment and of business expansion and thus a less dynamic economy. It encouraged big business and big borrowers at the expense of little business and little borrowers. When banks limited credit, they naturally protected their biggest, strongest and most reliable customers. The larger, stronger firms had resources more or less independent of loans, plus the market power to allow them to pass higher interest rates along to customers in the form of higher prices. Small businessmen and farmers received nothing but non-negotiable sympathy.
Meanwhile, prices were still rising at a slightly higher rate than was healthy. Inflation tightened its grip on the economy, and public services, schools, hospitals, churches, were feeling the squeeze, along with small businesses and individuals.
It finds that an inflationary future was not a bright one for the country, that the condition of the economy should be remedied even if it took fairly drastic measures. But the nation need not expect a drastic prescription from the White House, the best hope at present being the creation of an independent commission to study the nation's whole money and credit system, and it urges that Congress ought not hesitate to organize such a body for the purpose.
"A Quality Complex Grows in Charlotte" indicates that News sportswriter Sandy Grady had indicated that the "Coliseum complex" had made fans demand "the top excitement, the top teams, the top personality," and shrug with disdain at anything average in the way of fisticuffs or football. He found his proof in gate receipts.
It finds that the Coliseum would make a suitable and eminently Southern hallmark for other phases of Charlotte community life, including education, government and the arts. It finds the "Big Dome" to have been blended from fresh civic ideas, architectural originality and a striving for perfection. It had taken three bond issues to get the Coliseum built correctly.
But it had been the support of individuals, not the relatively small appropriations, which had made the Children's Nature Museum a distinctive and highly useful community institution. Whereas a "Coliseum complex" could accommodate Charlotte, quality abounded in Southern people, and it looked good in institutions, too.
"UNC's House Will Remain at Home" indicates that retiring chancellor of UNC, Robert House, when stepping down during the year, would eschew farewells, as they would be inappropriate because he was not going anywhere other than right across campus to a classroom.
It finds it fitting that the "rough-hewn humanist who has become one of North Carolina's foremost educational philosophers" would shun the pasture and join the University's English faculty, enabling many underclassmen to become exposed to his wit and wisdom in times to come. For Mr. House, it would be the realization of a 40-year dream, and for the younger generation, it would be an invitation to enjoy "one of the most civilized minds of our time."
It finds that there was something of the rustic in Mr. House, and he had exploited that quality to the fullest in a lifelong campaign to prove that art and beauty were neither sissy nor useless. He had waged an effective battle at Chapel Hill against the solemn academicians who had been divorcing literature from life and the aesthetic from the practical. He had once written: "My thesis is that the humanities are utterly practical. Poetry, the mother of all arts and sciences, and the soul of the humanities, has taken care of the fundamental emotional, intellectual and volitional concerns of the human race from the times of the Bible and Homer to those of Robert Frost. Insofar as the health and the wholeness of man is an issue, poetry is as practical as plowing… Without the language of beauty there can be no language of science. The first stage is intuition; the second, concept; the final step is art as expression. Science is the art of knowing; art is the science of expressing."
He entertained the stuffiest of gatherings with uninhibited harmonica playing and a rich store of down-home humor. He liked to tell visitors that, "During the Civil War, a company of Union cavalry, from Michigan, came to Chapel Hill, and they quartered some of the horses in the library, which is now the Playmakers Building. The library shelves made excellent stalls for the horses. In due time the Yankees and their horses departed. Ever since that time Michigan horses have been noted for their intelligence and Carolina students have been recognized for their horse sense."
It suggests that the source of any horse sense among UNC students was not Union cavalry mounts, but probably chancellor House.
A piece from the Washington Post & Times-Herald, titled "The Three-Leafed Blues", indicates that a news item claimed that poison ivy was the only major vexation aboard the Navy's first atomic-powered submarine, the Nautilus. Before going to sea, the captain had contracted poison ivy and his subsequent writhings had been the only medical disturbance which the Navy doctor aboard had reported to the Association of Military Surgeons.
It indicates it could speak with some sympathy and feeling on the subject, as poison ivy was the "consardest, cussedest stuff ever touched by man" and there was great profusion of the three-leafed plants around Washington. It appeared to spread when merely looked at or thought about, although medically, one had to brush against it, supposedly, to come in contact with the oil of the leaves before being afflicted by the pernicious little blisters. Many nostrums were on the market which were supposed to relieve the itching, and it suggests that possibly some of them worked, but it knew no one who had the fortitude to keep the lather unmolested long enough to find out. It suggests that if running true to form, the scratching alone was probably enough to power the Nautilus.
Drew Pearson tells of resigning RNC chairman Leonard Hall having pressured the FCC to grant a multi-million-dollar television channel to the Boston Herald and Traveler, though he was not supposed to be meddling in the agency's business. Secretary of Commerce Sinclair Weeks and Senator Leverett Saltonstall of Massachusetts, who also had nothing to do with the FCC, had added their political pressure as well, and it now appeared that the FCC commissioners, most of whom were Republican appointees, would succumb to the pressure.
That meant that they would not only overrule the FCC's veteran chief examiner, James Cunningham, but would violate one of the FCC's own rules, to diversify control of public channels of expression. The Boston Herald and Traveler not only operated two large metropolitan newspapers, but also controlled Boston's largest radio station, WHDH. The television station they were seeking to add would be worth an estimated 20 million dollars. In the past, the FCC had usually denied television licenses to newspapers, especially if they already owned radio stations. Lately, however, powerful Republican newspapers achieved success with their applications. The Herald and Traveler were both Republican newspapers.
Mr. Cunningham, following FCC policy, had ruled against granting the license, his report favoring two television companies, Greater Boston Television and Massachusetts Bay Telecasters, in which cartoonist Al Capp was a stockholder. Mr. Cunningham had been with the FCC far longer than any of the commissioners who were about to overrule him. After the Herald and Traveler had lost on the merits, publisher Robert Choate began pulling political strings, coming to Washington to appeal the case, not before the FCC, but to Mr. Hall, Secretary Weeks and Senator Saltonstall.
It was no secret around Washington that the present commissioners were the most politically motivated in the agency's history, despite the fact that Congress had deliberately established a quasi-judicial agency independent of the White House to make decisions regarding the award of television and radio licenses. The commissioners were taking their orders from Republican superiors to the extent that they had made a farce of the hearing process, with most of the choice television licenses now being handed out as political plums. The FCC had so abandoned its legal duty of upholding the public welfare that members of Congress were now talking seriously of abolishing it.
He notes that Senator Saltonstall had reluctantly helped the Herald and Traveler in their application for the channel, following strong pressure from Mr. Hall and Secretary Weeks.
In Washington recently, Adlai Stevenson was being ribbed about his "future plans" by Charles Kress, a New Jersey Republican. He said that one more campaign would not hurt the former Governor, as he looked fit enough to take on Joe Louis, to which Mr. Stevenson replied: "From all I hear, Joe Louis is through with championship bouts. So am I."
Herman Abs, the German banker who was the director of the Nazi-controlled Deutsche Bank under Hitler, had just entered the U.S. to direct the lobbying campaign for the return of German property, especially that of AGFA.
Thomas L. Robinson, publisher of The News, in a condensed article which had appeared in North Carolina Press, the official organ of the North Carolina Press Association, of which Mr. Robinson had been head since 1956, an organization made up of the publishers, editors and personnel of the state's 40 daily newspapers and 175 non-dailies, discusses the role of a modern newspaper. He indicates his belief that few in the newspaper business were sufficiently critical of their own product, inclined instead to the notion that if their newspaper was making money and growing in circulation, that was enough. But he asserts that the test of a first-rate newspaper was whether it rendered the maximum amount of public service to its readers. There were some newspapers large in circulation, advertising and profits, which nevertheless appeared listless and apathetic to many civic and humanitarian problems.
He urges that it had to be remembered that a good newspaper should never settle into a rut, shying away from controversy and trouble. It had to wade into troublesome issues, which ought be resolved. "The virile and inquiring newspaper searches for the truth with enterprise, imagination and unrelenting energy…"
The abstract concludes that if the newspapers failed "to strengthen their position as molders of public opinion and welders of public conviction and action", they would "fail miserably to live up to their birthright and their God given responsibility."
A letter from Dr. M. B. Bethel wonders whether Phillips Russell had really said that North Carolina was the only state among the 48 which had no large city, referring to a recent editorial comment. He indicates that 16 states had no community as large as Charlotte, and whether it was large or small was irrelevant, as a 1,600 percent error by Mr. Russell removed him from the ranks of those competent to judge.
A letter writer indicates that the Legislature ought amend the law to disallow juries from delivering a guilty verdict with the recommendation of mercy for murderers, rapists, highway robbers and house breakers. He suggests that human life had no value, that there was a certain class of both races who would kill a person and think nothing of it, and it was to be hoped that the Legislature would make such crimes punishable by death, regardless of who the criminal was.
A letter writer, the public relations manager for Allstate Insurance Co., indicates that the news of the presentation of the Ernie Pyle Award to Charles Kuralt of the newspaper had been pleasant to the readers of his "People" column. "His remarkable insight into the drama of people who otherwise go unnoticed shows clearly in his columns and it was indeed pleasant to learn the recognition of his remarkable faculties for the expression of this drama has been extended to other outstanding journalists." He offers his congratulations to Mr. Kuralt.
A letter writer from Pittsboro indicates that he had been accused by an anonymous correspondent of being pro-Russian for saying that he thought the Hungarian blood-letting had been partly attributable to the Voice of America. He acknowledges that he might be wrong, but that it was his opinion, urges the correspondent not to attack him anonymously. He finds the armed forces ill-equipped to meet the danger to peace in the world, to which the President had laudably pledged himself during his second term. He suggests that perhaps the country would have been better off had a few bombs been dropped upon it during World War II, as then it would have had less taste for war. He suggests that Russia was unlikely to surrender any of its buffer territory in Central Europe as long as the U.S. Army was in Western Europe, that from what had just occurred in Poland, Russia was not averse to giving the buffer territory local autonomy, but would not surrender the right to maintain its armies there. He urges negotiation to get Russia to withdraw from Central Europe, and that it should be begun by the U.S. agreeing to withdraw from Western Europe and demilitarization of Germany. He wonders whether anyone could count on the slightest aid from any Western ally in the event that Russia and the U.S. were to become engaged in a nuclear war, and believes they would not permit the U.S. to use airbases and military installations in Europe, Asia or Africa, for permitting that use would cause them to become enemies of Russia and subject to the same treatment.
A letter writer wonders whether the News, once courageous and righteous, had become "a mediocre, fence-straddling tabloid that panders to the bandwagon of chauvinism". He finds it ironic that the newspaper, especially during the time of widespread racial animosity, was expending its talent assailing the black contribution to American culture in a negative atmosphere "permeated with Daddy Grace and a series of blood-curdling murders." He finds it obvious that the newspaper did not care to portray blacks in a desirable sociological role. He comments specifically on a January 19 editorial in which the newspaper had "espoused a move to whitewash and glorify a fanatic rebel who betrayed the Godliness inherent in democracy," referring to Robert E. Lee and the effort to restore posthumously his citizenship. He finds that the newspaper had rightly acclaimed General Lee as a military genius, but indicates that the "road to hell is paved with military geniuses who embrace the cause of tyranny." He finds it approximating sacrilege to attempt to place Lee on the same pedestal with President Lincoln, a "universal symbol of unswerving democracy". He indicates that if Southerners had found inspiration in the life of Mr. Lincoln, as the piece had suggested, it was because they loved democracy, and if Northerners had found inspiration in the life of Lee, as the piece had also suggested, so had some Americans who had an aversion to democracy found inspiration in the lives of Hitler and Stalin.
A letter writer says that he was
just watching the "Ed Sullivan Show" on television and had
seen Betty Johnson
A letter writer from Zirconia indicates that for centuries past and to come, racists had come up with arguments, such as that advanced by Hitler in Mein Kampf: "A camel does not go with a chicken, so a German should not marry a Jew." She indicates that racists would always seek to base their statements on the Bible, while the Bible never mentioned race as such. They would talk about inferior "mongrels" while those mongrels were among the slender athletes representing the U.S. at the Olympics or attaining fame as great singers or in other respects. She says that racism had no basis other than hatred, that one of the most impossible arguments ever attempted had been when a previous letter writer had sought to explain how God confused the builders of the Tower of Babel because they decided to live, work and build together. She indicates that the reason that God had confused those people had been because of their motive, that in their pride they had wanted to immortalize themselves. She finds that people who were really concerned about the human race should think about mental, physical and spiritual health, that statistics showed that all three were in alarming shape, responsibility for which was not the so-called "mixing" of the races.
While we have not found the precise quote referenced by the letter writer from Mein Kampf, the translations of which perhaps having been at variance, the point she makes is well taken, as Hitler did write, or cull from others as the case may be, that "every racial mixture leads, of necessity, sooner or later, to the downfall of the mongrel product, provided the higher racial strata [sic] of this cross-breed has not retained within itself some sort of racial homeogeneity", just as the previous writer had more or less paraphrased in his proclamation.
A letter writer says that she was sad because of the passing of a dear friend, but was comforted by the fact that she was heaven's gain, as she had been a good woman. She says that for many years, she had not been without a pain, but the world did not know of it because she carried her troubles to Christ, and that if people would live for Christ, troubles could be endured through the strength Christ gave them, that if Christ became one's partner, the person would always be happy and never walk alone.
Framed Edition
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