The Charlotte News
Wednesday, January 9, 1957
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that at the U.N. in New York, Egypt appeared to be planning this date to place the Suez Canal dispute before the General Assembly, where large blocs of countries supported the Egyptian claim of sole control of the waterway. The Egyptian information director said that Egypt would not negotiate directly or indirectly with France and Britain on future control of the canal, that it would only discuss the matter within the framework of the U.N. Israel was reported to be seeking U.N. assurances of free navigation for its ships through the canal and the Gulf of Aqaba, along with a guarantee against a new Egyptian military buildup in the Sinai Desert before Israel would withdraw its forces further from the Sinai. The Egyptian information director rejected a plan for U.N. Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold to act as intermediary between Egypt and Britain and France regarding the canal, stating that Egypt could not overlook what had been committed against its ports and territory and could not resume talks with Britain and France in any form, directly or indirectly. A U.S. Embassy spokesman in Cairo said that Ambassador Raymond Hare would leave for Washington the following Saturday for talks with State Department officials, but added that the trip had been planned for some time. After Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser had nationalized the canal on the previous July 26, his Government had asserted that the operation of it had to be wholly controlled by Egypt and that any plan for international control would infringe on Egyptian sovereignty, that any international board set up for the canal could act only in an advisory capacity. The problem of the rights of Israel in the canal and in the Gulf of Aqaba had provided the center for a round of diplomatic conferences at the U.N., as Golda Meir, Israeli Foreign Minister, had met with representatives of various countries to outline Israel's position, prior to her leaving for Jerusalem to inform her Government on the talks. Egypt had never permitted Israeli shipping to pass through the canal, despite repeated U.N. recommendations and reminders that the 1888 convention called for the canal to be open to all shipping in war and peace. France was said to be increasingly disturbed about the outlook for a settlement unless the U.S. used its influence.
Representative Thomas Gordon of Illinois said this date that developments at the last moment were causing a slowdown in the House Foreign Affairs Committee action on the President's Middle East resolution. Mr. Gordon, chairman of the Committee, stated that hearings on the resolution might last through the following week, a week later than he previously anticipated, because of the number of witnesses to be called. He believed it would still be possible, however, to get the resolution passed by the House by the end of the month, a target date set by Secretary of State Dulles during his closed session of testimony with the Committee the previous day. The proposed plan sought authority to use U.S. troops, if necessary, to assist in defending the Middle East against Communist aggression for any nation seeking that assistance, as well as authorizing up to 20 million dollars in military and economic aid to the region. It had also been learned that a one-sentence substitute resolution, omitting mention of economic aid, was being circulated among the Committee's Democratic members. Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn stated that the substitute made sense to him and had been sent to him by "a prominent American" whom he declined to identify. He did not state what action he believed the Committee would take regarding the substitute. One Democratic member of the Committee said that there was going to have to be economic aid to the Middle East, but other members said that the aid proposals could be worked out later in separate legislation. Two Committee members said that Secretary Dulles and Joint Chiefs chairman, Admiral Arthur Radford, had made clear during their appearances before the Committee the previous day that the Administration did not plan to set forth publicly the countries which would be embraced by the resolution. Congressmen Clement Zablocki of Wisconsin and John Vorys of Ohio said that the two witnesses had defined roughly the countries to be affected, but had indicated a belief that keeping the public guessing as to the specific nations might prove more effective in dampening any Communist plans to attack elsewhere. Representative Wayne Hays of Ohio had walked out of the hearing at the start of the session with Mr. Dulles, in protest of the closed hearings which, he said, exempted the Secretary from answering embarrassing questions publicly while binding Congressmen to secrecy on what Mr. Dulles had stated. Congratulations were wired to Mr. Hays by V. M. Newton, Jr., managing editor of the Tampa Tribune and chairman of the Freedom of Information Committee of Sigma Delta Chi, professional journalism fraternity.
In Stockholm, it was reported that Sweden would soon have a 30,000-kilowatt nuclear research and materials-testing reactor, one of the largest atomic-powered facilities in the world, the enriched uranium fuel for which would be provided by the U.S.
In Atlanta, black ministers this date began a "love, law and liberation movement" to end racially segregated seating on municipal buses in Atlanta, a stronghold of segregation. The plan was given its name the previous night at a mass meeting at the Wheat Street Baptist Church. The first step was delegated to some 100 black pastors. The wife of one of the leaders, pastor of the Wheat Street church, Mrs. William Holmes Borders, said the effort had begun as scheduled at around 10:00 a.m. The ministers agreed to start from their individual homes and take seats previously reserved for whites only, tempering their action with prayer, courtesy and nonviolence. Reverend Borders, chairman of the movement, said that he had boarded a bus near his home at the scheduled hour and that others had done likewise. Instructions to the ministers were similar to those issued at Montgomery, Ala., just before segregation had ended on the buses there the previous December. Desegregation campaigns had also begun in Birmingham and Tallahassee, Fla., as violence occurred sporadically in all three of the cities. The Atlanta City Attorney, Jack Savage, said that segregation on the buses was decreed by Georgia statute, requiring municipal authorities to enforce it and giving bus drivers police powers of enforcement. Governor Marvin Griffin said that he had received word of the desegregation movement and had conferred with State Attorney General Eugene Cook on the matter and had been informed that an attempt had been made by black riders of the buses to occupy front seats at Five Points, the business center of Atlanta. The Governor said that he was told that a busload of people would come to Atlanta from Montgomery and Birmingham to help with the effort at integrating the buses and that if he caught anyone trying to incite people to riot or violence, he would attempt to "nip it in the bud." He said that as Governor, he was charged with the responsibility of preventing trouble and that it did not mean waiting until it started. The Atlanta police chief declined to state in advance what enforcement steps he might take. The president of the Atlanta transit system said that the company planned to carry on its business the best way it could. The Atlanta Daily World, a black newspaper, said, in reporting on the Wheat Street meeting, that participants in the desegregation movement were committed "to complete nonviolence in word and action, observing the ordinary rules of courtesy and good behavior." It had been reported the previous day that the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., who had led the successful year-long Montgomery boycott, had initially announced the Atlanta meeting.
In Camden, S.C., it was reported that rumors were rampant in the town this date concerning the alleged flogging by six men of a high school band director for having made statements in support of racial integration, with reports in the previous few days having been that there was strong sentiment in favor of the six accused men, including one man who, according to the wife of the band director, had been his close friend. Rumors also had it that prosecutors might ask that the trial be moved to another county because of the strong sentiment in favor of the accused, while other rumors suggested that a jury venire would come from another county to hear the case. The solicitor of Columbia, however, told The News this date that he had faith in the people of Kershaw County and felt that they would help in providing a fair trial, that he did not like the impression that they were unlawful people. Either the prosecution or the defense could seek a new venue.
In Vermillion, S.D., a University of South Dakota coed, 21, and her former fiancé, 20, a sophomore at the University, had been found dead this date after authorities said that he had shot her and then himself at her home the previous night. They had been engaged to be married until a month earlier when she had broken off the engagement, according to the family priest of the young woman. Her fiancé had roomed at the family home until a month before Christmas. The priest said that he had mistreated her, but did not elaborate. The University dean of men said that the young man had an "emotional problem" and had been advised to go home before Christmas. The young woman's mother said that he had telephoned her daughter four times the previous day and had then gone to their home at about noon, where the mother had told him that he could see her once more if he promised not to bother her again. She said that she was in an adjoining room when she heard her daughter ask her former fiancé the previous night where he got a gun, and before she could act, heard the fatal shots fired.
In Miami Beach, Jake LaMotta, former world middleweight boxing champion, along with two women and another man, had been arrested this date on various charges involving a 14-year old girl. Mr. LaMotta, 34, was charged with maintaining a place for lewdness and prostitution, encouraging a minor to engage in prostitution, and permitting a minor to be served alcohol. He was released on a $6,000 bond. A lieutenant of the Miami Beach Juvenile Bureau said that the 14-year old girl had told police officers that she had picked up men in Mr. LaMotta's bar and taken them into an apartment listed in the name of another man, receiving a minimum of $20 from each man. The occupant of the apartment was charged with having sexual relations with a minor and permitting a minor to use his apartment for prostitution. Two women, ages 22 and 36, had given the same address as the latter individual and had also been arrested. The older of the two women had been charged with encouraging a minor to engage in prostitution and the younger woman, who told police she formerly had worked as a stripper in Tampa, was charged with disorderly conduct. They were also released on bond. According to the police, the 14-year old girl had told officers that the older of the two women had set her up in business, and the police lieutenant said that Mr. LaMotta apparently knew about the operation. The arrested should probably count their lucky stars for the intervention of the girl and the police before some taxi driver got wind of the set-up and, dreaming nightly of achieving hero status in print, decided to become a one-man vigilante squad.
In Charlotte, Eastover School students would resume their studies the following day in sections of the building left undamaged by a two-alarm fire the previous evening, as all except six rooms of the school could be occupied. The City School Board this date passed a resolution declaring an emergency at the school, thus bypassing the time-consuming process of seeking bids on repairs, which would start immediately. It was the first local school fire in several years. Three churches had offered their buildings and homes for temporary use by the school's 725 pupils, and the Board thanked them, as well as the fire department, whose fast, expert work had been credited with preventing one wing of the school from being consumed. As it was, damage was estimated at between $20,000 and $30,000, much of which had been caused by smoke and heat which would require redecoration of many of the rooms. The fire had been confined to the principal's office, the office of her secretary and a small section of the corridor outside those two offices. When firemen had initially arrived on the scene the previous evening, flames had been shooting through the window of the principal's office, extending 75 feet into the air. The assistant chief said that the building was about to go up in flames when the firemen had first arrived and that if one fireman had made a mistake and opened a door onto that corridor, there might have been nothing left but some ashes to sweep up afterward, as the saving grace had been the lack of a good draft.
In Memphis, Tenn., Elvis Presley had received a 1-A physical rating by the local draft board following his recent pre-induction examination by the Army, according to a captain who was commander of the Army's recruiting station in Memphis. He said that Mr. Presley's mental rating was about average. But did they check the twitches of his lip and pelvis and whether they might be the result of a mental tick which could prove confusing in the face of an enemy or involuntarily reveal secret plans if he were ever caught during combat?
In Miami, Fla., it was reported that it was best not to be caught stooping over in present times. Weeper, a psychotic duck, was on the loose and it liked nothing better than to catch someone stooping over, a target it could not resist. The duck was regarded alternately as a cherub and a scoundrel and was being harbored by an unsuspecting host who had found Weeper at the University of Miami Lake a few days earlier and was taken in by its wacky ways. The host family had four young boys. The former owner of the duck had stated that she was crazy about him as he had been fine with their two-year old daughter, but had not gone over so well with her husband, that they had bought him at a feed store when he was a baby the previous July. She had released the duck at the University Lake when it became clear that it was either the duck or her husband who would leave. But the duck did not get along with the other ducks in the lake and she stated that she did not believe the new family would be able to keep him very long either, as he disliked certain people, especially those stooping over or taking a sunbath in a canvas chair. The duck had chased away the former owners' best friends and had once pecked a visitor through the bottom of a canvas camp chair. When the duck did not like a person, it would come at the person with bill bared and webbed claws flying. He did not like cars either, according to the former owner, chasing them like a dog but flying around them and zooming at the driver like a dive bomber. She said that her husband's legs had been left almost in shreds by Weeper. The rule around Weeper would likely be well advised for Elvis entering the Army, also.
In Little Fort, British Columbia, a local gunsmith thought that false teeth cost too much and so he shot a buck deer, fashioned a set of teeth from its teeth, then ate the deer.
On the editorial page, "A Tar Heel Day of Desperate Digging" indicates that the time was approaching for figuring Federal and State income taxes, that some people had laid away money for the latter purpose, while most had not, requiring that April 15 would be a day of desperate digging.
At the time, only 11 states had established withholding of income tax from paychecks, similar to the withholding plan for Federal income tax. Iowa was in the process of considering it and Minnesota had a special citizens committee which had recommended it.
It finds that state withholding in North Carolina would afford taxpayers convenience and prevent tax dodgers. Withholding had been endorsed at one time by the State commissioner of revenue and there had been claims in the State Senate that withholding would produce nearly 20 million dollars in taxes evaded under the present system. It urges adoption of the withholding plan by the 1957 Legislature.
"In Saving the Park Property, a Duty" finds that the Charlotte Park & Recreation Commission, in having salvaged the fate of Bonnie Brae municipal golf course the previous day by opening it to black golfers, had saved the park, even if there would be social discomfort and a breaking of a long tradition in the process. It finds that opening the course to black citizens had only been a byproduct of the action taken by the Commission, as the courts had already determined that segregation of such municipal facilities could not continue to exist under the 14th Amendment.
Under the reverter clause, a condition was imposed by the donor of the property to the City that it remain for the use only of white citizens or be returned. It finds that the Commission had seen its duty properly and negotiated purchase of the reverter rights from the donor for $17,500, not an exorbitant price given the amount of land in question. It concludes that it was the only reasonable solution to a tortured situation and that the Commission had done its duty.
"To Charlotte, Sprawling on the Plain" tells of the new Wachovia building at Church and Trade Streets in Charlotte having wrought a profound change in the face of the city, with a quarter block of Trade being a little less bright at noon on a winter's day, as the sun could not pass over its height.
It finds it slightly regretful for those who walked along Trade, and a motion by one devotee of Frank Lloyd Wright had asked Wachovia to see if it could not tilt the building just a bit to enable brightening of the corner, a suggestion rejected as unfeasible.
A reporter had asked a visiting VIP at the airport what he thought of Charlotte, with the response having been, "It has more trees than any city I've ever seen," having stated nothing regarding new factories, bank sites or budgets.
Indeed, Charlotte had a happy combination of tree shade in residential areas and a lack of building shade downtown. It suggests that downtowns should be sunny and would not mind if Charlotte began rising from the Piedmont plains instead of downtown.
But then it could not show off its skyline to arriving airline passengers, some of whom might be scouting corporate headquarters sites in the region. You can't have it both ways, advocating in editorials growth of the city while also wanting to preserve the rural underpinnings out of which it had grown. The solution through time to the dilemma seems to have been to locate prominently the NASCAR museum in the downtown area.
"The New South: Echoes of an Oration" finds the "New South" to be a slogan and catchphrase of the times, containing much hope, pride and vision. But the New South, it also finds, contained in many respects too many of the unfortunate realities of the Old South, such as dilapidated sharecropper shacks and still-eroding hills, plus low per capita earnings.
It suggests that the problem could also be heard in the words of Governor Luther Hodges in a statement the prior Monday to the State Conservation & Development Board, in which he had said that for too long, North Carolinians had dug things from the ground and put them in a container, shipped them northward for them to be graded, marketed, packaged and advertised, and then sold and returned to North Carolinians as a product at a price they would not recognize, based on what the farmer had received for his raw product.
It quotes similarly Henry Grady from almost a century earlier, saying much the same thing, also indicating that Mr. Grady had proclaimed the New South, but too soon.
It concludes that it would take all of the ingenuity and devotion of present leaders such as Governor Hodges to remedy the problem. His suggestion, it posits, that the Conservation & Development Board devise improved means of grading, packaging and selling of farm merchandise was a step along the way.
A piece from the Montgomery Advertiser, titled "Poor Camouflage", tells of a case out of Michigan in which a fawn had wandered from the Manistee National Forest, adopted by four children of one family. They had fed it and given it a home, only to discover that the law forbade caging of a deer.
As they prepared to release it, the hunting season had opened and the children realized that the animal, taught to love people, would be easy prey for hunters. They therefore dressed the deer, by then a full grown buck, in a red sweater. A few days earlier, the deer season had ended and the deer, still in its red sweater, was seen roaming the forests of the county.
It indicates that in all probability, the children had theorized that no hunter would shoot a thing so human in appearance, but finds that the survival of the deer in that single case did not prove the theory, as human fatalities had reached such an alarming rate among deer hunters shooting each other that the odds were in favor of the deer, which looked as little as possible like a deer hunter.
Drew Pearson indicates that it would be disastrous if the Congress did not vote for the "Eisenhower doctrine" proposal for thwarting potential Communist aggression in the Middle East. He provides events which backed up the assertion.
As he had previously reported on November 12, a day before the election, on November 5, there had been a hurried White House meeting called to consider a note from the Kremlin to England and France, threatening attack if they did not withdraw from the Suez. Herbert Hoover, Jr., then Acting Secretary of State while Secretary Dulles was in the hospital, was fearful that Russia would precipitate war and he reported various moves by Moscow, which had caused jitters among those present at the meeting, with urgent messages then rushed to Prime Minister Anthony Eden and Premier Guy Mollet, warning that the fate of Western civilization might rest on their agreement to an immediate cease-fire in the Suez. Premier Mollet was not concerned about the Russian threat, considered it a bluff, and thus refused to participate in a cease-fire. But Prime Minister Eden immediately agreed to it. Those events had been substantiated on December 12 when Ambassador to France Douglas Dillon stated that neither the U.S. nor the U.N., but rather the Soviet threats, had brought about the French-British cease-fire.
The view of U.S. hesitancy to use force was so widely and scornfully held that Prime Minister Eden, in discussing the proposed Eisenhower doctrine with a diplomat the previous week, had remarked that the President would not use U.S. forces unless "the Red Army was marching up Pennsylvania Avenue." Other incidents had contributed to that belief, including the President's statement before the Governors Conference in Seattle in 1953 in which he stressed the importance of Indochina, warning that the U.S. might be constrained to act, while later at the American Legion convention, Secretary Dulles had threatened "massive retaliation", aimed at Communist aggression against Indochina, and then later, in April, 1954, Vice-President Nixon, in addressing the American Society of Newspaper Editors, had stated that the U.S. would use troops to block Communism in Indochina. But Communist leaders continued nevertheless advancing, believing that U.S. forces would not be deployed. The consequence was that Indochina now was more than half Communist.
The Geneva summit conference of July, 1955 had been preceded by a month by a report from Ambassador to Egypt Henry Byroade that Prime Minister Nasser planned to purchase Russian arms through Czechoslovakia. Yet, nothing was done at the Geneva conference to stop the arms transaction, despite its certainty of upsetting the peace in the Middle East. Administration officials explained that the Kremlin had informed the President at Geneva that the arms deal was purely a commercial venture, and apparently the President had taken their word for it. But two years later, enough arms had been found in the Sinai Desert by the Israeli Army to equip several divisions of the Red Army, sent there to be used by Russian volunteers when the time was ripe.
An additional reason for passage of the President's Middle East plan was the ineffectiveness of recent U.S. warnings, one of the primary reasons the President had gone to Congress with a special request to give him power which he admitted he already had as commander-in-chief.
Robert C. Ruark, in Singida, Tanganyika, says that he does not wish to bore the reader with the story of how he and Professor Frank Bowman had shot a long-horned kudu bull and how he had kissed the dead carcass, but rather would tell the story of how John Selby, the "great white hunter" who was leading their safari, had the mumps, which was never supposed to happen to a white hunter. He had contracted the malady from his 2 1/2 year old son, Mr. Ruark's godchild.
He then concludes with the story of how he and Dr. Bowman had shot the kudu bull, "about 200 feet high, and couldn't have weighed more than 10 tons." So after waiting 300 years, at the direction of Dr. Bowman, he shot it, "inexpertly, but fatally."
A letter writer indicates that he had read an article recently in the newspaper which had recommended installation of governors on automobiles to regulate their speed. He had been in the automobile business for 50 years and indicates that installation of governors would cause cars, limited to going 45 mph, to have trouble on mountain highways and would lead to congestion. He had heard that South Carolina had implemented a minimum speed limit on arterial highways. He encloses testimony from a man in charge of the engineering staff at GM to the House special subcommittee on traffic safety. He says that he was not defending accidents and was not in favor of high-speed driving, believed in lowering of speed limits, that he was enclosing the testimony for the newspaper's further insight.
The editors note that the charts he had enclosed illustrated that although there had been increases in horsepower, there was not any particularly great difference in maximum speed of the highest horsepower cars compared with those of lower horsepower.
A letter from a police officer's wife says that after reading that the Charlotte police chief had made his report to the City Council regarding pay for police court time, she had not seen any follow-up story on the outcome and wonders whether the City Council had taken any action on the subject. She wants all police officers to get behind the chief and get action on their salaries so that the Council would not continue to find various excuses for not doing so.
A letter from the president of "The Over 40 Club" expresses the club's appreciation for those who had helped their organization since its founding in June, 1955. They had started with 64 members and now had 440, and had the cooperation of businessmen and ministers in the community. They had received letters from people in 15 of the 48 states, expressing interest in their club, wanting to know how to organize one in their communities.
A letter writer from Gaffney, S.C., indicates that Dr. Herbert Spaugh, in his December 15 column titled "Scapegoat Still with Us", had said, "If you want to read about the ancient Hebrew practice, turn in your Bible to Leviticus 16." The writer finds that while it told of that practice, it was very different from what Dr. Spaugh had explained, having said that the Hebrew holy service commanded by the Lord when the Levitical priesthood had been instituted had been a strange ritual involving the use of a goat. But the Bible said two goats were involved, one of which had been slain and the blood offered for an atonement for the sins of the people, while Aaron would lay both hands on the head of the live goat and confess all the sins of the people, putting them on the head of the goat, which was called the "scapegoat", sending the goat into the wilderness bearing all of the people's iniquities into a land not inhabited. The writer indicates that the scapegoat was typical of Christ bearing the sins of the people. Dr. Spaugh had said that the goat had been led into the wilderness and killed.
What in bloody hell are you trying to say? What about the newlywed groom of the couple from Charlotte who had walked out of the Piedmont Air Lines door into oblivion the previous June, falling into a church cemetery near Shelby, where he died, while he was looking for the door to the restroom? Was he a scapegoat as a lesson for those who imbibe too much of the fermented French grape at their wedding receptions?
Incidentally, the proper answers to the "Better English" quiz of December 15 is: 1) He suffered a painful incident when he failed to take heed of the duck coming from behind; 2) phantom, and it is also mispelt; 3) illegibility; 4) When your face muscles run out of gas and begin to sag because of city stresses; 5) padrone.
Framed Edition
Links-Date — Links-Subj.