The Charlotte News
Monday, February 11, 1957
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from Thomasville, Ga., that the President's headquarters announced this date that he would meet in Bermuda between March 21 and 24 with British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, and would confer in Washington on February 26-27 with French Premier Guy Mollet, with the meetings to underscore efforts to heal differences which had developed between the U.S., Britain and France as a result of the Suez Canal crisis, during which, in early November, Britain and France, without previously consulting with the U.S., had invaded the canal zone in Egyptian territory, following the nationalization of the canal by Egypt the prior July 26 and the failure thereafter of diplomatic solutions seeking internationalization of the canal, to be policed by the U.N. The formal announcement of the conferences, forecast some time earlier, had come as efforts continued to get Israel to withdraw its troops from the Gaza Strip and Sharm El Shiekh in Egypt. White House press secretary James Hagerty had said that the President and Prime Minister Macmillan, who had recently succeeded Anthony Eden, would meet in Bermuda at the President's suggestion, with Mr. Hagerty clarifying at a press briefing that the meeting was to be held at the behest of both the President and the Prime Minister. In December, 1953, the President had conferred in Bermuda with former Prime Minister Winston Churchill and then-French Premier Joseph Laniel. Shortly before the announcement, the President and Secretary of State Dulles had discussed the Israeli-Egyptian crisis by telephone for the fourth time since the President had arrived in Georgia the prior Friday for about ten days of quail hunting and golf, with the Secretary remaining in Washington. They had talked during the morning for about 20 minutes, with Mr. Hagerty indicating that the conference had dealt again with the U.N. efforts to try to obtain withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza and the Gulf of Aqaba.
Note in 2024 to Fox Propaganda: We would much rather have a chief executive who pauses briefly during a visit to an ice cream shop, as part of a one-time late-night talk show appearance, to take and respond appropriately to a serious question about the prospects of an imminent temporary cease-fire by Israel in the Gaza Strip, than some jackleg, jackbooted jackass swinging his way through the White House years on the golf course every damn clear day, flying off to Florida in the bad weather, wasting the taxpayers' money, while tweeting away his jackleg thoughts every day aimed solely at his fan base, the cultists, all for the sake of his precious vanity and brand name sported on his many buildings, so that his son-in-law, the liaison with the Middle East during the White House years, can receive his billions in payoff lucre from the Saudi Government, ultimately, no doubt, to become the bailee so that father-in-law won't have to lose or sell his buildings to pay his damages, while fighting to stay out of jail, on the run from the law in several jurisdictions, too many even to be freed from its long-arm grip by the most politicized Supreme Court in our history. But you have it your way and again cost the nation over a million deaths from an incompetent, irresponsible moron at the top counseling not to take the spreading pandemic seriously, exhorting, as a mindless cheerleader on the sidelines of a Roman gladiatorial bloodbath, that the nation would be open again for business by Easter, then by July Fourth, then..., crippling in the process not only the nation's health but also its economy, from which the present Administration has admirably enabled it finally to emerge, even as the MAGATs and Fox Propagandists have sought and continue to seek mightily to tear it down and prevent its recovery. It is plain why Fox Propaganda hates the country and its Government, as it can only survive by spewing traitorous bile nightly and daily against true democracy to its coterie of sycophantic viewers who seek not news but entertainment as an extension of and interlude to their nightly crap-watching on tv otherwise, who lap up with insatiable Lamarckian appetence, orectically, what they sat down to hear, that their, their parents' and their grandparents', whether actual or figurative, stupid notions of fascism and "America First" isolationism, and all that Nazi-sympathizing rot, warmed over generationally from the late 1930's, which inevitably follows with it, are quite apropos to the times, always were before the Commie-Socialistic New Deal came in to change everything they had learned in their relative rags to respect, Republicanism and the golden age of the robber barons, the Gay 90's—work for the Man and you, too, can eventually participate in the Man's Plan and share with His Highness at his Table his bread and libations, after which you may depart in the Man's tin can and its built-in obsolescence, loaned to you on the largesse of the Man's credit, hurl and whirl yourself in carefree abandon down the curvy road right into the river of time, washed downstream into the grasp of the roots of the tree to the eternity limited and defined by the Man—, all so that Fox Propaganda may thrive and earn for the bile-spewers their lush seven-figure salaries while laughing at the dog-lappers eating up every bit of the poison they put out on their doorstep every night, and then, impoverished of mind and soul, having to return for more, hoping, wide-eyed, sooner or later, to receive the promised sanctification from their masters, as with all such brainwashing schemes wrought upon a people by hucksters and Machiavellian demagogues.
In London, the British public had finally learned at breakfast this date about worldwide rumors of a rift between Queen Elizabeth and her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh. Breaking a three-day silence, the morning newspapers had published the reports, coupled with an official denial by a Buckingham Palace spokesman, the newspapers referring to the report of royal matrimonial trouble as a "silly rumor" and "baseless speculation". The afternoon papers had ignored the reports completely, devoting their front pages to a local murder, the Middle East situation, or the latest exploits of America's tv quiz winners. The Queen, Princess Margaret and Queen Mother Elizabeth were expected to return to London sometime this date following a short stay at Windsor. The Duke was at Gibraltar, finishing a four-month round-the-world-trip, and would be reunited with the Queen in Lisbon on Saturday, two days before they would begin a state visit to Portugal. There was little immediate reaction from the general public regarding the supposed rift, though it had been avidly read in countless homes by early morning commuters. The Laborite Daily Herald had published the story under a five-column banner which said that the "palace rumors are untrue." The independent conservative Daily Express, published by Empire-minded Lord Beaverbrook, had carried a front page article under the headline: "Queen and Reports Abroad", publishing the Palace denial and indicating that it would not reprint in its variations any aspect of the story. The pro-Labor Daily Mirror quoted the Palace denial and said that the denial followed widespread reports in American newspapers of "ridiculous and baseless rumors about the Queen and her husband…" Christ, you know it ain't easy, the way things are goin', they're gonna crucify you.
In Little Rock, Ark., an heroic father, who was a poor swimmer, had plunged into a lake the previous day and saved his three small children from drowning in a runaway car. He had to smash a window of his locked automobile to reach the children, pulling them from the car just before it had submerged. Two men who had heard the cries of the children for help had helped to bring the father and his children to shore. The father said that he and his wife had left the children, ranging in age between two years and two months, in the car while they had gone to inspect a house which was for rent, located about 100 feet from one of the Triple Lakes on the outskirts of the city, the parents having been in the house for only a few minutes when a man had run in shouting that the car was rolling toward the lake, prompting the father to speed to the water, dive in and splash to the still-moving vehicle, with its doors having been locked by his daughter from the inside, forcing him to shatter a pane with his fist to extract the two girls and then the infant boy.
In Norfolk, Va., it was reported that a search continued this date for a 33-year old New Jersey woman who had mysteriously disappeared from a yacht during the weekend off Ocracoke, N.C. A Coast Guard boat had dragged the area this date and North Carolina State Police and the sheriff at Ocracoke had been notified. A doctor from New York, the only other person aboard the yacht, had told the Coast Guard that on Saturday evening, the yacht had run aground and was re-floated without assistance, that because of poor visibility, they had anchored for the night, that he had dinner with the woman and then subsequently retired at around 8:00, leaving her on deck, that when he had awakened the following morning at around 7:30, she was not aboard. An extensive search had then been initiated. The woman's shoes had been found under the steering wheel of the yacht.
In Denver, the president of the City Council said that he would ask the Council this night to prohibit the local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution from sponsoring programs in public institutions, saying that it was because of a statement by a DAR official that she wanted "only American boys" carrying the American flag. A DAR-sponsored flag ceremony scheduled for the following day at the State Industrial School for boys, a correctional institution in nearby Golden, had been canceled, and the president of the Council said that he had notified the DAR chapter regent that he would seek the ban until the organization developed more democratic policies toward all racial groups. He was a black man. The DAR chairman of the flag program said that she would insist that "only American boys" carry the flag at Golden, indicating that at least half of the inmates were the offspring of parents who had come to the U.S. from Mexico, stating, "They are Mexican boys, not American boys." The chapter regent had called a meeting of the executive board of the chapter. The superintendent of the school said that the program had been canceled by mutual agreement, that the DAR had never shown any discrimination previously, and that most of the medals they had given their boys for good citizenship had been to Spanish-American boys.
Ann Sawyer of The News reports that the city limits extension would save both city and county taxpayers thousands of dollars in interest on future bonds, according to Charlotte treasurer L. L. Ledbetter, in a statement before the County Commission this date.
Charlotte attorney J. Spencer Bell was sworn in this date as Mecklenburg County's new State Senator, replacing Jack Blythe, who had resigned the previous week for health reasons.
Julian Scheer of The News reports from Raleigh that the General Assembly was preparing to buckle down to the real work of the biennial session this night, with Governor Luther Hodges to provide an address before a joint session of the Legislature, outlining the broad picture of the state's economic and social status, plus a full report on fiscal matters. The major item of interest would be his support for the Tax Study Commission report, recommending sweeping changes to state income tax regulation. The Governor had asked for relief to corporations which would reduce by nearly 8 million dollars the annual state revenue, with individuals also to obtain some slight relief under the program. There would also be bills introduced during the week to implement a number of changes in the setup of State Government.
In Memphis, because a man had left a wife, six children and a legal tangle, hundreds of men who never knew him were working in an effort to prove him dead. Men with shovels had resumed digging this date in a great mound of damp earth which had sloughed off the 40-foot high bank of a drainage ditch near the man's home, in hope of finding his body. A disabled World War II veteran, the man had supported his family primarily on a $96 per month disability check, and unless his body could be found, the pension would end. His wife said that the Veterans Administration had told her that the pension could not resume until he was declared legally dead, and that without a body, the process would require a wait of seven years. He had disappeared on January 27 while crossing the ditch at his home, about 20 miles east of Memphis. Initially, the ditch had been dragged and since then, nearly 200 men had shown up daily to continue the search. The prior Friday, neighbors, friends, strangers and sailors from the Memphis Naval Station had worked with sandbags and a bulldozer, damming the ditch to cut the flow of water and allow the bottom to be examined, with the sailors having brought a heavy pump to speed the process. During the weekend, the ditch was checked all the way down its length of seven miles, but only the missing man's cap had been found. The last remaining hope, barring a recovery from the river, into which the ditch flowed, was a cave-in. After the dam had been built and while the water had receded, a section of the 40-foot bank had crumbled about 50 yards below the dam. The volunteers with shovels had worked until midnight the previous night, under the glare of floodlights, and then had taken a break until morning.
In Raleigh, an N.C. State security officer was in jail this date, accused of stealing property he had been assigned to protect. He said he did not know what had gotten into him, that he had done wrong and he was sorry. Police said that he had admitted a series of thefts which had baffled them for months, after he was caught on Friday night with marked money which had been planted in an effort to catch the thief. A detective said that one charge of breaking, entering, larceny and receiving stolen property had been filed against the man and that he was being held under a $5,000 bond, that there would be several other charges brought against him after further investigation. Police had records of about 35 thefts on the campus which the security officer had admitted, and he had admitted additional thefts of which they had no record. Police had also recovered at least some of the stolen property.
Heavy weekend rains had caused several creeks and rivers to flood their banks and had left scores of residents homeless this date in parts of West Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania. No casualties had been reported in the widening flood zone, but high waters the previous day had caused substantial damage to roads, bridges and many small towns bordering the Ohio River and its tributaries. The U.S. Weather Bureau at Cincinnati had predicted that the Ohio River would rise to within a half-foot of flood stage by Wednesday. Additional rainfall was forecast for the following night or Wednesday, which could send the river over its banks between Gallipolis and Louisville. In Pittsburgh, the high water was expected to cover parking wharves along the river this date, but no major flooding was anticipated. Communities along the Monongahela River between the West Virginia border and Pittsburgh were standing by for high water, and commercial navigation on the waterway had been halted.
On the editorial page, "Charlotte's Roots Retain a Likeness" indicates that with energetic imagery, the Rocky Mount Telegram had framed an editorial snapshot of Charlotte from such phrases as "ever-growing, dynamic, sprawling, brawling and fabulously rich."
It finds that it sounded somewhat like Houston, Tex., as the Telegram had meant it to sound, as well as being more than a little like Atlanta, as it had suggested, "Charlotte is becoming the showcase not only of North Carolina, but of the entire Southeast—another Atlanta."
It suggests that downward comparisons also needed to be made, that the designation of Charlotte being in "N.C." was not yet ready to be dropped from its address to expect certain recognition, as if it were some new Southern Manhattan by virtue only of its name.
Charlotte drew its present strength and hope for future growth, as with other North Carolina cities and towns, from surrounding crossroads stores and country villages, and if it had lost by virtue of its size resemblance to other cities in the Carolinas, it retained, by its roots, the likeness, which ought be polished and remembered by Charlotte, its sister cities and by legislators suspicious of any metropolis boasting more than two gas pumps.
Houston and Atlanta were mighty urban giants, but to a large extent, they were alien to their landscapes, seldom winning such high praise from the home folks as the salute to Charlotte by the Telegram: "Charlotte as a manifestation of North Carolina's emergence from the ruins of Civil War, Reconstruction and the poverty of long economic depression is a source of strength and inspiration as well as pride to all of us."
"Washington Meets a Bit of the Press" wonders who spoke for the U.S. Government, as newspaper readers, radio listeners and tv watchers often did not know, with a majority of the Washington press corps often as baffled as the man on the street.
It cites as example a December 30 headlined item in the New York Herald Tribune, titled, "Eisenhower Proposes To Commit Us To Defend All Mideast against Soviets". But the President had not done so, at the time vacationing in Augusta, Ga., leaving readers to wonder whether it might have been Secretary of State Dulles.
As far as it knew, the assertion of Richard Strout in the New Republic, that the so-called Eisenhower doctrine had its origins in the home of Mr. Dulles, with a few privileged reporters present, had never been proven. But there was no doubt that Mr. Dulles had hand-picked his couriers to an unsuspecting world, thus obligating them to forgo penetrating questions, then waiting behind the wall of anonymity to see if it was safe to identify the Administration with what had been proclaimed, the Secretary's primary purpose having been to sway public opinion with a carefully tailored report rather than to inform the public.
It finds that such leaks were not new in Washington, but that what was new was that they were becoming the rule rather than the exception, particularly regarding foreign policy. Mr. Strout, Washington correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor, had said that the result was that officials avoided responsibility, that the stories were generally inflated, confusing the public, as arguing with Mr. Anonymous was like arguing with a fog, the device revealing a patronizing attitude toward the press as something to be used and manipulated.
It indicates that as the news leak had risen in importance, the Presidential press conference, which had been called the "counterpart in the American system of the question period in the British system," and Cabinet conferences, had declined. President Eisenhower's first Secretary of the Interior, Douglas McKay, had met the press only once in his tenure since 1953, and the President had held press conferences on an average of 25 times per year, compared with FDR's average of 83 per year.
While no official was obliged to meet the press, the reporter was the only conduit through which the public could question its leaders, and the press conference, where an official faced reporters from all parts of the nation, was the only instrument by which the press could add large dimensions of depth and perspective to government actions.
It opines that whether the press had been soft on the Eisenhower Administration was a debatable question, but without doubt, the practice of accepting major policy news without question and distributing it without identification of the source, was softening up the press. "The first 'W' of newspaperdom still stands for 'Who?'"
"A Little Girl Lost on a Silly Search" tells of a little girl lost in Chapel Hill on a wintry day the previous week, having been found a mile from home "looking for a whippoorwill". Her parents explained that it was a fascination left over from a summer night, on which the child had heard the bird crying sorrowfully from some hidden thicket and could not forget it, the sound lingering in her mind long after the bird had departed, and so had gone in search of it.
It indicates that one hunted for whippoorwills, or rain crows or July flies, in spring or summer, not during the winter, when one never looked for anything unless it was a peeper, which made noises, but could not be seen. If one looked for a peeper in winter, it would not be strange.
Some of the little girl's rescuers, it suggests, must have teased her, or they would when she appeared to forget her odd mission years later, then reminding her of having undertaken a ridiculous search.
"And they, meantime, tied to
the safe, familiar scene, will continue their own missions—looking
in books, bottles, or medicine chests—and travel books, poems
and sermons—looking for something they have not seen.
"They are not the little girl, of course. There is a difference.
"What the child was looking for
has a name
A piece from the Greensboro Daily News, titled "Male Plumage", indicates that the cardinal was not the only male who cheered the drab winter with its conservative spouse, that during recent holiday parties, supposedly conservative gentlemen had been wearing bright red vests, loud plaid Ivy League shirts, picture neckties which served as a convenient conversation piece, and sport coats which "would frighten a racehorse."
The American male was no longer the formally dressed crow in dark and somber clothes, but was a bird of paradise, though inclining toward charcoal gray flannel suits for business, even so, lightened by pink, blue, gray, green or even lavender shirts, with oversized cuff links for French cuffs, which were either loud, abstract enamels or made up with miniature automobiles, locomotives, bears, birds, flowers, Greek statues or nude figures, he lounged around the house or in the backyard in a veritable riot of color.
Russell Lynes, managing editor of Harper's magazine, said: "For some reason food seems to taste better to him if he has on blue canvas shoes, brick-red or canary-yellow slacks, and a pastel sports shirt which hangs free, like a young matron's maternity smock, outside the pants." The piece adds that if one had X-ray vision, the viewer would probably discover that his undershorts were no longer a solid color but either loud stripes or garishly decorated in bathing beauties, old-fashioned automobiles, workshop tools, swooping seagulls or Walt Disney animals.
Psychologists suggested that the urge for eccentric clothing in modern times was the result of modern man living in an age of anxiety and seeking to keep up his spirits with loud apparel, while disgruntled wives maintained that he was seeking to steal the public spotlight from them. Market experts said that it was because women presently purchased 70 percent of their men's clothing and proved their point by showing that men's clothiers presently advertised in Harper's Bazaar and Vogue to reach their target audience.
Mr. Lynes had said that no matter what the reason, it was obviously true that "the average man, his personality given wings, darts like a fruit fly from plum to raspberry to peach."
Drew Pearson indicates that with ten million Americans operating in the stock market and with the stock market in prolonged doldrums, a lot of people were taking a look at the Securities & Exchange Commission, set up to protect the public from stock market manipulation. It appeared, however, that the SEC was looking the other way.
He provides an unpublicized illustration, uncovered by Jim Sibbison of the Associated Press, who had come across the names of Thomas Dewey and Adlai Stevenson as investors in a Wall Street firm's "privately" handled four million dollar bond issue for the Crowell-Collier Publishing Co., prompting the reporter to inquire about the two. SEC officials had known about them all along, but had brought them out in a public hearing after it had been called to their attention by Mr. Sibbison, revealing that Mr. Stevenson had purchased 500 shares of stock in Collier's on the open market as any other investor, receiving no privilege or inside position, having purchased the stock in November, 1954 prior to the time the debentures presently under investigation had been sold. But Mr. Dewey had invested privately in the new debentures in July, 1955, through an inside advantage provided to him by his neighbor, with Mr. Dewey's name not appearing on the list of participants of the so-called "private" issue of the stock. His neighbor had a chance to purchase $60,000 worth of the private debentures and let Mr. Dewey in on the deal, with the latter having sold the stock eventually at a profit of $3,850. Once the SEC attorneys had been put on the spot, they had done a good job of cross-examining a broker, but had not summoned Mr. Dewey to testify, as his friends had been pulling wires with the SEC to prevent his appearance. He provides the verbatim cross-examination of the broker by the assistant director of the SEC's division of corporate finance, who said that Mr. Dewey had been careful to keep his name off as many lists as possible so that it could not be improperly used, that he was a friend whom he held in high esteem and the neighbor had indicated that it was his desire and that of the unnamed person, revealed as Mr. Dewey, to have it handled in the way he had mentioned.
Mr. Pearson asserts that what had made Mr. Dewey's role particularly interesting was the fact that as a top lawyer, he should have known of the SEC's requirement that an unregistered "private issue" had to be held by a small number of known investors, and yet his identity had been concealed. He also should have known that the debentures were convertible to common stock at the bargain price of five dollars per share. Other investors promised in writing that they would not convert their debentures to stock right away for speculative sale on the market, but Mr. Dewey had not, though the broker, under cross-examination, claimed that Mr. Dewey had made such a promise to his neighbor. But that promise was not proven, and even if so, it would have been meaningless.
He indicates that the SEC was now belatedly fixing the blame for what appeared to have been an illegal issue of debentures, that under SEC law, all public sale of stocks and bonds over $300,000 had to be registered with the SEC.
Marquis Childs indicates that the logic of the forces within the Administration and the Republican Party indicated the selection of Attorney General Herbert Brownell to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court left by the impending retirement of Justice Stanley Reed, with Deputy Attorney General William Rogers to succeed as Attorney General, Mr. Rogers having played a more important role in the Administration than had been generally realized, a close associate of Vice-President Nixon, with the two having been an effective team both in politics and government.
He finds that the Administration, however, had an exceptional fear of controversy and so might hesitate to name Mr. Brownell to the vacancy, as it would be a controversial appointment, unlike the three prior appointments to the Court, those of Chief Justice Earl Warren in 1953, Justice John Harlan in 1955, and, most recently, Justice William Brennan, a recess appointment not yet confirmed, in 1956.
The appointment of Mr. Brownell would be controversial because of his attack on former President Truman at the height of the anti-Communist frenzy in November, 1953, having accused Mr. Truman of sheltering pro-Communists in the White House despite a warning from the FBI to that effect, having made the charge in a speech in Chicago and subsequently before a Senate committee, in the process having taken an unprecedented step of making public confidential FBI documents to try to establish his case.
Mr. Brownell had been the campaign manager for former Governor Dewey in both of his two unsuccessful campaigns for the presidency, in 1944 and 1948. In his four years as Attorney General, he had not, aside from the attack on former President Truman, taken a vigorous part publicly in politics, but in the primary campaign of 1952, had infuriated the wing of the party supporting Senator Robert Taft for the nomination by charging a "steal" of Texas delegates to the convention.
Another point of controversy was geographical representation on the Court, with Justices Harlan and Brennan being from New York and New Jersey, respectively, and Chief Justice Warren, hailing from California. Mr. Brownell had grown up in Lincoln, Neb., but had lived in New York, his voting residence, and would be the third appointee from the Eastern seaboard.
It was nevertheless believed that he could be confirmed despite some protest. The Judiciary Committee, chaired by Senator James Eastland of Mississippi, was heavily weighted on the ultra-conservative side, with members including Senators William Jenner of Indiana, Everett Dirksen of Illinois, John McClellan of Arkansas and John Butler of Maryland, who would not be overly concerned about pressing Mr. Brownell for his motives regarding the deliberate smear of Mr. Truman. Nor was the civil rights legislation currently being advocated by Mr. Brownell calculated to inflame the Southerners, although it did provide much stronger safeguards for black voters.
The Brownell recommendations for judicial appointments to the Federal courts at every level had been of a higher standard than those of the Roosevelt or Truman Administrations, with fewer political judges named to the Federal bench. The Department of Justice had worked hard to end the congestion in the Federal courts, which had made delay a form of injustice in itself, the special assignment of Mr. Rogers.
In 1949, President Truman had named his Attorney General, Tom Clark, to the Supreme Court, an appointment which was widely condemned. In later years, several efforts had been made by Congressional committees to bring Justice Clark before them for questioning about transactions during his time as Attorney General, but he had refused on the basis of being part of an equal and coordinate branch of the Government.
Mr. Brownell was 53 and until being appointed Attorney General, had been with the large New York law firm of Lord, Day and Lord since 1929. If he were not appointed on this occasion, Mr. Childs suggests that it would be likely that he would be on a subsequent occasion during the Eisenhower Administration. If so, he would remake the majority of the Court, which, with the single exception of Justice Harold Burton, appointed by President Truman, had been for a long while, since 1937 at the time of the first appointment by FDR, made up of people who had a background in the Democratic Party, Justice Burton having been a Republican Senator prior to his appointment. (That is not entirely accurate. Justice Harlan Stone, elevated by FDR in 1941 to replace retiring Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes, had originally been appointed to the Court by Republican President Calvin Coolidge, from his position as the then-Attorney General, and Justice Felix Frankfurter, appointed by FDR in 1939, had been a Harvard law professor, not ever active in Democratic Party politics. Moreover, Chief Justice Warren had been the Republican Governor of California, prior to which he had been the Republican Attorney General of the state and before that, District Attorney in Alameda County, never involved in Democratic Party politics. Justice Harlan also was more aligned with Republican politics than with Democratic politics. But as the suggestion of Mr. Childs is limited to the majority of the Court being so aligned, the statement was basically true. FDR had appointed two of his Attorneys General, incidentally, Robert Jackson and Frank Murphy, to the Court, and, in addition to Senator Black, had appointed Senator James Byrnes of South Carolina, who only remained for one year, resigning in 1942 to become the "assistant President", the economic stabilizer and then the war mobilizer. President Truman, in addition to Senator Burton and Attorney General Clark, had appointed to the Court former Representative, former Circuit Court of Appeals Judge and then wartime economic stabilizer and Secretary of the Treasury Fred Vinson as Chief Justice, and former Senator Sherman Minton, appointed first to the Circuit Court of Appeals by FDR.)
It might be noted, especially by the MAGATs among us, that it took exactly 38 days for Mitch and his Sing-Along Gang to receive the appointment, hold hearings and, by a narrow partisan vote, confirm the replacement for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg upon her death on September 18, 2020. Now, the Supreme Court has announced that it has granted the Trump petition to be heard on his absurd absolute immunity claim, and provided 54 days for briefing before oral argument on April 22, 2024, 16 days longer than was deemed necessary by McConnell and Company to hold hearings and confirm a Justice, to beat the 2020 election, after having, in 2016, refused even to hold hearings on President Obama's nominee following the death in February of Justice Antonin Scalia, then-Judge Merrick Garland, after his March appointment, on the made-up, unprecedented contention that presidential election year vacancies must await the election before being filled by the successor, a rule as quickly ignored and abandoned by McConnell when the shoe was on the other foot in 2020, despite the death of Justice Ginsburg having come seven months closer to the election than that of Justice Scalia, and that rushed appointment and confirmation any time after the nominating conventions in a presidential election year being also unprecedented in U.S. history, and in the process shifting markedly the balance of the Court by the filling of the two vacancies in that manner, such that now, the Court has its four votes to grant cert. and its five votes to grant in the interim the stay of the D.C. case against Trump, delaying same, for, among other things, fomenting the January 6, 2021 storming of the Capitol in an attempt to stop the mere formality of counting and affirming the already state-by-state certified and determined electoral votes, an unprecedented act in American history, one not even occuring at the counting of the 1864 electoral votes during the thick of the Civil War in 1865, or at the onset of Southern secession in 1861. Neither Senator Stephen A. Douglas nor General George McClellan went to Lafayette Park and exhorted their respective supporters to "fight like hell" to take their country back, to proceed to the Capitol on the day the electoral votes were being formally received from the states. Had either, even the most rabid of Confederates in 1961, that is, 1861, would have likely yawned over their jugs and laughed heartily at the "Little Giant" on the rostrum, and, in 1865, the Yankee soldiers formerly under the command of the "Young Napoleon" would likely have arrested him and confined him to quarters, the while the Confederates on the other side of the Potomac cheering the action, for seeking to become the "Dictator" he had confirmed to himself he would not in 1861, as with Caesar before him, eschewing thrice on the Lupercal the calls from the rabble that he accept the crown as Emperor.
McConnell and Trump, however, could not resist the call of the rabble likewise, instead egged on the rabble to its fatal ends. And yet, now, that gamed Supreme Court, the majority of which has already lost the respect of most Americans for its heavy-handed politicized rulings, catering alternately to the big corporations and the rabble, especially since 2010 and its Citizens United v. FEC decision, has effectively delayed the case against Trump in D.C. by at least two to four months. When done, assuming the Court ultimately rejects the absurd claims of Trump, the District Court, on remand, ought order the matter to trial as expeditiously as possible without regard to the political situation at hand by that time, as the timing will have been brought about exclusively by Trump's dilatory tactics, special prosecutor Jack Smith having sought last December expeditious review of the same issue and the Court then having rejected it in favor of first allowing the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to hear the matter.
Robert C. Ruark, in Palamos, Spain, suggests that some sort of national ovation ought be rendered for the principal of Christopher Columbus High School in the Bronx for a daring piece of prohibition, his decree that his 3,700 students would no longer be admitted to classes if they showed up in dungarees, T-shirts, kerchiefs, jeans or pincurls. He believed that careless appearance was reflected in poor behavior and attitude.
Mr. Ruark believes that sloppy dress went deeper, regarding it as one of the first factors in a way of thinking which had made an army, with a uniform to match, of the nation's young. "It is one of the things which has reduced them to a mass, rather than a collection of individuals—a mass that has come to believe that it is entitled to special privilege."
He goes on quite a way regarding this rather ridiculous premise, saying that when he had been a youth, they did not regard themselves as an army or as a problem, or as rebels without a cause, that a minority had become carried away by causes, while the majority had been highly individualistic in thought and action. "Perhaps we were old before our time, because we were depression youth and lassies at a time when there were few jobs for adults and none for youngsters. A college boy who got 10 bucks a month for an allowance was a plutocrat."
He perceives present youths to have found bluejeans to be a sort of symbol of rebellion against the adults and the world. He says that he objects to any form of regimentation, but especially to sloppy regimentation, "and there has never been a sloppier-looking generation than this current crowd of teeners."
We suppose it was somewhat fortunate that Mr. Ruark would die from his overindulgence in alcohol in 1965, and not live to see the full flower of the Sixties generation of youth, who, in many instances, made bluejeans seem like a business suit by comparison to their standards of dress otherwise, colored, as it were, by the anomie engendered by the Vietnam war and the commensurately stepped-up call-up for the draft as the involvement steadily increased.
A letter writer indicates that it had been with considerable interest that he had read Charles Kuralt's feature titled "Precinct Chairmen Kings for Day", that had a precinct other than number nine and a precinct chairman other than Jeff Place, been the subject of the article, he would not have been greatly surprised at the characterization of precinct politics as apathetic. But he finds the article to be lacking in accuracy, which he could not attribute to Mr. Place. Nearly two dozen Democrats of that precinct had attended a meeting held in late April or early May, 1956, and they had elected at the meeting a precinct committee, including Mr. Place as chairman and the writer as committeeman. He says that while party politics in Dilworth might not engender the enthusiasm of a Chicago rally, the situation was not so listless as Mr. Kuralt had described it in his feature article.
Well, you would not wish, in any event, party politics to become quite so overwrought as a political rally in Chicago, at least one taking place a bit over 11 years hence.
A letter writer asks what course
ought be taken to give the west side of town some consideration as to
the grade crossings, proceeding into the west side plan in some
elaborate detail, which you may read if you are particularly
interested in the subject. It looks to be a bit tedious and we trow
that, 67 years on, unless you are an historian for the west side of
Charlotte, or maybe the east side, you, too, might be resistant to
going into the subject more deeply than we have already previously
allowed letter writers to do in our summaries, not to suggest thereby
that railroad crossings backing up traffic in metropolitan areas is
at all acceptable or trivial to those stuck in the traffic jams,
which could impede commerce and create early heart attacks and other
untoward results, including murder
Framed Edition
Links-Date — Links-Subj.