The Charlotte News
Friday, January 25, 1957
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from New York that the FBI this date had cracked down on another alleged Russian spy ring, arresting a woman and two men, hinting that the roundup might involve others, including "Soviet officials". Those arrested had been identified as Jack Soble, 53, a native of Lithuania who had entered the U.S. in 1941 and become a naturalized citizen in 1947, referred to as a one-time boss of other Communist agents who was believed to be attempting to flee the country when arrested; his wife, 52, Myra, a native of Russia who had come to the U.S. a few days before her husband and also had become a naturalized citizen; and Jacob Albam, 64, born in Lithuania and foreman of a Brooklyn tea and spice company, who had entered the country in 1947 on a visitor's visa, married an American woman and had since been seeking citizenship. The FBI agents making the arrests carried with them a quantity of paper boxes with undisclosed contents and a quantity of material described as "papers". They also had a metal box, about a foot square and four inches in height. The agents said that the three would be arraigned later this date. The arrests had first been disclosed in Washington by FBI director J. Edgar Hoover. Each of the three was charged with conspiracy to commit espionage and conspiracy to act as a Soviet agent without registering with the Secretary of State. Evidence would subsequently be presented to a grand jury against the three.
In Washington, Robert Shelton, a 30-year old copyreader for the New York Times, was sentenced to six months in jail and fined $500 for contempt of Congress. He was allowed to remain at liberty under a $1,000 appellate bond. He had been convicted in U.S. District Court a week earlier by the judge on two counts of a three-count indictment stemming from his refusal to answer certain questions when he had appeared before the Senate Internal Security subcommittee in January, 1956, one of the questions having been whether he had ever been a member of the Communist Party.
Following a midair collision of two Air Force Stratajet bombers off Cuba the previous night, the family of an Air Force captain of Rock Hill, S.C., awaited anxiously word today on his fate, while another crew member, from Sumter, S.C., was also among the three airmen still missing. The families hoped that they might be picked up in the South Atlantic. The two B-47's had six men aboard. Three men had been rescued from a life raft in "good condition" the previous night. The crash had occurred during a practice mission of six intercontinental bombers training in refueling maneuvers. Surface craft of the Cuban Navy were participating in the search.
In Birmingham, Ala., three more persons had been arrested the previous night by officers investigating a shooting at a Klan meeting Tuesday night, in which a Citizens Council leader was already charged. One of those arrested was charged with two counts of assault with intent to murder in the shooting of two men at the meeting, after one of the victims had objected to the organization being subject to "one-man rule", the shooting having occurred at the headquarters of the Alabama Citizens Council, a theater in which the head of the Council said he had permitted the Klan to meet because it was not booked otherwise, though he denied being present at the time of the shooting or being a member of any Klan organization. One of those arrested was a woman alleged to be an accessory after the fact. Detectives conducting the investigation were checking reports that witnesses were being intimidated. An officer said that about 12 men who were believed to have attended the Klan meeting had been questioned, but would admit nothing, not even that they were members of the Klan.
In Venice, Italy, a game warden, one of the defendants accused of providing false testimony regarding the death of a 22-year old woman in April, 1953, who had been found dead on a beach at the time of a party at a wealthy playboy's hunting lodge, a case which had nearly upset the Government when it had come to light about 2 1/2 years earlier, testified in the trial this date. The game warden, who managed the hunting lodge, said that one of the lawyers for the playboy had passed word that if he confessed to manslaughter in connection with the woman's death, he would be able to get off with three years in jail and "much good later". He testified that the playboy had one of the game preserve locks changed and had obtained the keys so that he could come and go at will. At the mention of the key, the playboy had stood up in court and declared that he possessed the key only for a short time, so that he would not have to disturb the wardens. The game warden responded that he was a liar, that he had the key for more than a year. The session had been the most "violent" since the trial had opened on Monday. The playboy was charged with aiding a jazz pianist, the principal defendant, charged with manslaughter in the death. He claimed, however, that he had been a long distance away at the time of the death and had at least two alibi witnesses to corroborate it. During the session, the prosecutor read a letter from a self-described occult scientist, who had written that the deceased, the police chief, also a defendant, and the playboy, as well as the playboy's former mistress, had all come to his office together in Milan in April, 1953, when both the police chief and the playboy had testified that they had never met the young woman. The letter had said that the young woman had provided "grave confidences" which the occult scientist had maintained in secret but now felt obliged to reveal in testimony, the prosecutor indicating that he would call him as a witness.
In Sacramento, California Assemblyman Carlos Bee, a high school teacher, had introduced a bill to permit a child to drop out of school at age 14 or when the pupil had finished the eighth grade, Mr. Bee indicating that public schools ought not "be a baby-sitting agency for those students who are forced to go to school and are not willing to settle down." Present law required that students remain in school until they were 18 or graduated from high school.
In Grapevine, Tex., a couple of brothers from Fort Worth, ages nine and 13, who had said they did not want to be stopped, had led police on a 100 mph car chase the previous day, ending when their 1947 car quit running. A Highway Patrol officer said that it was a miracle someone had not been killed or hurt, indicating that the boys had covered a 45-mile stretch of busy highway in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, traveling at "fantastic speeds" through small towns. He said that the two boys had run away from home in Fort Worth in their father's car, that he and another police officer had been cruising three miles south of McKinney, 50 miles from Fort Worth, when they had seen a "driverless" car speeding southwest, eventually seeing a small head rise over the steering wheel and look at the officers as the car passed, prompting the officers to give chase at speeds up to 100 mph when they finally drew alongside the car. At that point, the 13-year old, who was driving, ran them off the road and kept going, with the nine-year old navigating for his older brother. They could see the latter's head bobbing up and down every now and then, apparently telling the driver how close the officers were and which way to swerve to run them off the road. One officer said that the older boy drove like a professional race driver, that they had never stopped him, that the engine eventually quit running on the old car. The boys had told the officers, "We just didn't want to be stopped."
In Lake Lure, N.C., a four-man search party had not returned early in the morning from an all-night search for a 35-year old man charged with the beating of two of his young sons, ages three and six, after he had allegedly become enraged following one of them having broken a window pane in their home. Bloodhounds were being used in the search for the contract lumber and pulpwood worker. Word of the beating had leaked when the oldest son, seven, had told a friend at school about it and the latter had informed school officials, who contacted police. The children were then taken to a clinic and examined, found to have suffered severe beatings but apparently no permanent injuries. The police then began an investigation late Wednesday night, discovering that the father had fled. They had offered protection to the family, but it was refused. According to the superintendent of the town, the oldest boy had told police that his father had beaten his wife and sons previously and that they feared him. He said that when they had gone to the family's residence the previous day, they were met by the mother, father and sister of the man accused of the beatings, who told them to leave, that it was a family quarrel and that they did not wish protection. The seven-year old boy had told police that in the Sunday midnight beating, the father had tied the hands of the two younger brothers with a dog chain and suspended them by their hands from the rafters of the room, had then taken a heavy leather belt and beat both of them, leaving them hanging by the chain for more than an hour. Officers said that they were seeking an early arrest as they feared that the father might return and harm the family.
The News had been the only North Carolina daily newspaper to win more than one first-place award in the North Carolina Press Association's annual competition the previous night, with editor Cecil Prince having won first and second places in editorial writing and reporter Charles Kuralt having won first and third places in feature writing. The awards were given out by Governor Luther Hodges at the Carolina Inn in Chapel Hill. Editorial entries had been judged by Edward Meeman, editor of the Memphis Press-Scimitar. Mr. Prince's first-place award had been for his series of editorials the prior July on the special session of the General Assembly, regarding legislation pertinent to school desegregation and the Pearsall Plan, which had ultimately put forward two amendments to the State Constitution, which had passed in a special referendum the prior September, one being to allow public funding of private school tuition for students who did not wish to attend an integrated school and the other allowing school units to close their schools on the basis of a popular vote. The series by Mr. Prince was found by Mr. Meeman to have been of "high intellectual quality" with understanding, sympathy and exhibiting excellent writing. Mr. Prince's second place winner had been an editorial written on June 2, at the time of graduation, titled "The Goodliest Land under the Cope of Heaven", the latter editorial having been found by Mr. Meeman to be "notable for its inspirational quality with optimism balanced by realism". Mr. Kuralt had won his first-place prize in feature writing for his "1946-56: A Decade of Progress", which had told the story of Charlotte's growth during the previous decade, written for the annual Business Review and Progress Edition of the newspaper. William Hines, Jr., national editor of the Washington Star, who chose the awards in that category, said that the entry had been selected "because it took what could have been a deadly dull statistical study of the city's growth and turned it into fascinating reading. It was that rare thing: A long feature that remained readable throughout." Mr. Kuralt's third-place winner had been a three-part series on "Daddy" Grace, a well-known evangelist of the time. Mr. Hines had said of the latter series that he would like someday to shake the hand of the writer, as he "must have done an exhaustive job of digging which, combined with a superb job of writing, gave readers of his newspaper far more than their five cents worth on the days when the series ran." In addition, Maurie Rosen of the Charlotte Observer had won a first-place prize in photography, and other winners from the Observer included Bunny Harris and Hoke May, winning second place for spot news for their series on the discovery of a surplus of funds in the audit of the Park and Recreation Commission, and Roy Covington, who had won an honorable mention in spot news for a series of articles titled, "Reporter Goes to Church". Ms. Harris had also won third place in spot news reporting for a series completed while she had been a member of the staff of the Raleigh Times. Pete McKnight, former editor of the News, now editor of the Observer, had won third place in editorial writing.
On the editorial page, "City Shows Good Faith on Annexation" indicates that the City was making earnest and intelligent efforts to take the perimeter area into the corporate limits of the city and to consult with suburban dwellers on the subject, as had become clear following the lessening of the Mayor's and City Council's reluctance to submit its annexation plan to the people. The City wanted to schedule a series of town hall meetings in response to a negative reaction of Mecklenburg legislators to the Council's request for quick approval of the annexation package. Thoughtful plans had been framed at Council special sessions during the week, and, it indicates, the showing of good faith ought diminish the ogre-like image of annexation and clear the way for sensible discussion of the real and urgent factors involved.
While the City would come to the meetings prepared to talk about its own need for extension of the city limits and the need of the suburbs for City services, it wonders whether suburbanites would attend at all. For if progress toward legitimate aspirations of both groups could not be made in such an elemental framework of democracy, the prospects of future progress for either the suburbs or the city were poor and both would suffer from continued separation.
It indicates that attendance at the meetings would not commit suburbanites to anything more than informed consideration of the needs and the future of the metropolitan area in which their stake was large. It concludes that the City was at long last ready to make its case and it deserved an attentive and sympathetic hearing from the people.
"Trouble in the Schools: A Vignette" finds that a researcher had discovered that a century earlier, scuffling in a North Carolina school had brought four lashes, while doing any mischief had brought seven, and climbing every foot over three feet up a tree, one lash per foot. The vignette had been making the rounds in the press far and wide.
It posits that the story naturally appealed to parents and proved the superior wisdom of moderns in making sharp revisions to rules governing the deportment of youth.
It finds, however, another, more pertinent vignette to be the topic of talk in the state at present, that of every 100 children who entered the first grade in the state, 75 failed to graduate from high school, causing the state to rank last in the nation in percentage of per capita high school graduates. In one school year, nearly 1,000 North Carolina teachers had left the profession for other states or other occupations. While the national average of annual teacher salaries had risen $700 since 1954, the average in North Carolina had risen by only $100. While needing a minimum of 2,602 white teachers from its colleges the previous year to meet the increasing numbers of pupils entering school, the state had provided only 1,047, and almost half of the newly graduated teachers had gone to other states or other professions. Less than half of the state's school administrative units had any sort of supplemental tax to broaden educational opportunities or improve their schools.
It indicates that those figures represented only a small segment of a troubled educational scene in the state, with public neglect being behind it. Citizen and State administration leaders were trying to arrange for a complete, continuing showing in the upcoming legislative session in Raleigh. One of the leaders was Dr. Charles Carroll, State superintendent of public instruction, who had said that he had once been refused funds for an information program about the schools on the basis that if people were informed about their schools, there would be a tremendous demand for improvements. The piece finds in that negative statement the only positive hope for the proper training of North Carolina youth.
"It's Those Crazy Mixed-Up Masters" says that it had been its suspicion all along that civilization was going to the dogs and now it found that dogs were the unwilling inheritors of the civilization, getting them down in the process, with the result that the neurosis of civilization had become the neurosis of the civilized dog trying to live with its own and human nature.
According to Joanne Bourne of the New York Times, a tranquilizing drug was being developed solely for neurotic dogs, called Paxital, remarkably similar to the "happy pills" taken by their masters.
It finds it small wonder, as dogs were supposed to protect the premises but not chase newspaper boys or postmen, were invited to romp on the sofa as puppies but banished from the house for the same stunt when grown up, had to "speak" on command, but were shushed when barking of their own volition, were chastised for bad manners for getting sick on the rug after being fed table scraps, were urged to pursue rabbits but not to harm the neighbor's cat, were hit with the newspaper when not housebroken at the age of six weeks, when they could not possibly be until reaching the age of three months, were sent out to "play" in the rain, but constrained from tracking mud back into the house.
"Then, in a moment of self-conscious heroism, man invents a pill which will quiet Fido's nerves. But it's not Fido who's psycho. It's those crazy, mixed-up masters."
Vernon Sechrist of the Rocky Mount Telegram, in a piece titled "A Rebel in the Squirt Age", says that he had always been for progress, having cheered the first radar scope and when they had first harnessed atomic energy and equipped an underseas craft with it, at the same time pointing out its unlimited potential. He had cheered for several new gadgets, but finds the "squirt age" about to get him.
The full impact of the age had come home to him one night recently when he was reviewing the compact items in his camp kit, which included a tiny vial of sweetener, the equivalent of about ten pounds of sugar, and a new spray which eliminated sniffles in one squirt. At the time, his nose was stopped up and he could hardly breathe and so he grabbed the camp kit which remained unpacked in a closet, took out the squirt bottle and squeezed it three times and sniffed, instead receiving sugar up his nose.
He indicates that it was one of several such calamities which had occurred to him in the squirt age. The previous summer, he had mixed up two other squirt bottles and sprayed shaving lather onto his strawberry shortcake instead of the whipped cream. He had also sprayed mustard on his boat because it was contained in a can similar to one containing green spray paint. He had also squirted roach powder into his shoes instead of the spray-type Foot's-Ease.
He concludes that he thought the spraying and squirting devices were fine or he would not have so many around, but believes that the same scientific world which had produced the sprays ought also provide some means of controlling and filing them.
Drew Pearson tells of Teamster head Dave Beck having indicated two years earlier that they had placed the union headquarters in Washington, within eyesight of the Capitol, so that they could keep an eye on Congress. He says that Mr. Beck would not, however, make the same comment now, as Congress had reversed things and was keeping an eye on the Teamsters. The Senate Investigating Committee had heard from a long line of Teamster regional chiefs who had taken the Fifth Amendment. Mr. Beck had not done so because he had not appeared, claiming to be sick.
Mr. Pearson describes the plush headquarters building from which Mr. Beck operated, indicating that not many within the labor movement felt sorry for him or the Teamsters, as he had thumbed his nose at too many other labor leaders and crossed swords too frequently with AFL-CIO president George Meany, as well as having raided too many other unions, even loaning money to firms engaged in locking out other unions. There was also a lot in the record of both Mr. Beck and his second in command, Jimmy Hoffa, which should be investigated for the good of union honesty.
Senator John McClellan of Arkansas, who was chairman of the Investigating Committee, had earlier been entrusted with the probe of the gas-oil lobby after a lobbyist for Howard Keck and Superior Oil had attempted to bribe Senator Francis Case of South Dakota by offering him $2,500, ostensibly for his vote. Senator McClellan had been given the job of investigation after Senator Thomas Hennings of Missouri and Senator Albert Gore of Tennessee had sought to do a forthright job but were removed from the Committee chairmanship by Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson, close friend of the gas lobby. Senator Johnson knew that Senator McClellan would be a safe investigator, and he had been. He had announced at the close of his alleged investigation that they had done "everything possible to secure the cooperation of the press, the public, and the Executive Branch of the Government", but that the facts obtained in response to those efforts had been "negligible".
Mr. Pearson indicates that he had personally gone to Senator McClellan's office and urged his staff to probe a $5,000 check paid by Mr. Keck to the Eisenhower Dinner Committee at the same time the gas bill was being debated, and he had presented a photostatic copy of the check. While Senator Case had refused the $2,500 and had reported it, the Eisenhower Committee had accepted twice that amount from the same source, and yet Senator McClellan had refused to investigate the latter situation and also claimed that the press had not cooperated.
Mr. Pearson indicates that Senator McClellan was correct about investigating the Teamsters, but had been woefully negligent in not fully investigating the gas lobby, the big utilities, and Vice-President Nixon's friend, Murray Chotiner. Senator McClellan's law firm in Arkansas represented both oil companies and utilities, and if he did not want to investigate their lobbying, he urges that he ought step aside and let someone else conduct the hearings.
Marquis Childs indicates that the Texas oil millionaires were being handsomely rewarded for their generous contributions to the re-election campaign of President Eisenhower, as in his budget message, he lived up to the pledge he had earlier made to try again to remove Federal regulation from natural gas, having vetoed the first bill which had passed the Congress the previous spring, on the ground that the lobbying effort behind it had been tainted by overreaching with the attempted bribe of Senator Case. He had given the pledge to top oilmen the previous year following the veto. If the gas bill were to be passed at the current session, with Democratic leadership in both the Senate and House behind it, the value of gas reserves would increase by billions of dollars and the rate paid by Northern consumers would inevitably rise as well.
Because of the Suez Canal crisis, oil producers had received another bonanza, as the price of crude oil had been raised by an average of 12 percent, the increase having been initiated by the Humble Oil and Refining Co., a subsidiary of Standard Oil of New Jersey, on the theory that it would enable the company to obtain additional supplies needed for export to Europe. The increase would mean a substantial increase in the price of petroleum products for Americans. The increase had been the first substantial one since 1953 and would contribute to the pressures on inflation.
He points out that the Texas Railroad Commission controlled, under Texas law, the volume of oil to be taken from Texas wells, accounting for more than 40 percent of U.S. production. But the Commission had no control over demand or price. The blockade of the Suez Canal had sent the demand up sharply and the pressure had continued to be acute. Leading petroleum purchasers had asked the Commission to increase the "allowables" in January by 10 percent, but it had been opposed by independent producers whose wells were inland and who could not benefit, for lack of pipeline connections, from the increased demand. The Commission refused to raise the level and one consequence had been that the ration for fuel oil for heating and industry in Western Europe would almost certainly be reduced.
A major problem was the transportation of oil available inland. Since the increased demand was bound to be short-lived, the industry could hardly afford to invest in pipelines, and in any event it would take time to build them. The Commission, which exerted extraordinary power over world affairs at the present time, was as independent of outside pressure, including pressure from the Federal Government, as was King Saud in his oil principality. The previous week, the Commission had granted a relatively small increase, the equivalent of 92,000 barrels per day, for 15 days in February. The Department of Interior had been intimating the importance of an increase of 200,000 barrels per day.
While the pinch grew tighter in Europe, tankers were being used to bring 100,000 barrels of oil per day from the Middle East to refineries in New York and New Jersey because those refineries could not get enough from the Gulf of Mexico. It was, as European sources had indicated, an appalling waste of tanker space.
King Saud had immediately issued an edict following the attack on Egypt by the British and French on November 1, that no Saudi Arabian oil would go to either country. En route to the U.S. for a good will visit, the King had stopped in Cairo to join President Gamal Abdel Nasser in signing a pact which Premier Nasser intended as an obstacle to the path of the so-called "Eisenhower doctrine" being sought from Congress, whereunder the President would be accorded authority to use ground troops, if necessary, to arrest any overt aggression by the Communist countries and to pay up to 200 million dollars in economic aid during the current year.
The King had agreed to join Syria and Egypt in providing Jordan with an annual subsidy of about 30 million dollars, which formerly had come from Britain. All of Saudi Arabian oil revenue amounted to somewhat more than 300 million dollars per year, virtually the only source of income in that country, coming from the Arabian American Oil Co., which was owned by large U.S. oil companies.
High officials in the Administration professed to be deeply concerned about the plight of Britain and France as a result of the oil shortage. But they had to know that the rise in price of petroleum would seriously complicate the problems faced by those two principal Western allies. Inflation was an imminent threat in Britain and the action taken by U.S. oil companies would only increase the spiral.
He concludes that perhaps there was nothing the Government could do about the oil pinch and its disastrous consequences, but in any event, there was no sign that anyone in Washington intended to do anything about it. "And so the fabulous prize of oil to run the world is vied for in the old fierce, relentless ways."
Robert C. Ruark, in Ikoma, Tanganyika, again tells of his continuing safari, which you may read on your own if you desire.
A letter writer from Mount Holly responds to a previous letter writer who had voiced disapproval of renewing the G.I. Bill of Rights to enable attendance of college for those servicemen who were now serving in peacetime, though not having objected to the original G.I. Bill which had been extant for ten years following the war. This writer finds it evident from the previous letter that "not all imbeciles have attended, or are attending college under the G.I. Bill of Rights". She says that while there were some who had taken advantage of the training formerly granted under the G.I. Bill, there were many who would not have otherwise been able to attend college but for the program. She indicates that income taxes paid to the Federal Government from the increased earning capacity of those men had already more than repaid the Government for the money spent in training them, and those who had received their college degrees under the program would receive benefits for the rest of their lives. She concludes that if needless waste in Government spending could be cut, it should not be done at the expense of young men who had the schedule of their lives interrupted to spend a part of their time in the armed forces for two or four years after being drafted.
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