The Charlotte News
Thursday, February 14, 1957
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from the U.N. in New York that Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., this date, in an address to the Steering Committee, had called Russia's latest complaint against the U.S. "a gigantic cock-and-bull story" designed to head off the Eisenhower doctrine for the Middle East. His statements followed a demand for urgent action from Soviet Deputy Foreign Minister Vassily Kuznetsov, to prevent the threat of a new world war which he said was stemming from U.S. policies. Ambassador Lodge said that he would not oppose a full airing of the Soviet charges in the General Assembly, and countered with a sharp attack on Soviet actions in Hungary, the Middle East and other parts of the world. He said it was a thinly veiled attack on the President's proposed Middle East doctrine because that policy would prevent Soviet subversion of the sovereignty of all small states in the region. The Russian delegate had charged in the debate that the Eisenhower doctrine was "designed not to relax international strains but to make them more acute." Ambassador Lodge had said that the U.S. accepted the challenge and that the debate could take place, with the assurance that the Soviets could not confirm one single charge. He stated that the U.S. looked forward to debating the matter "so that we can take up all of its many ritualistic ponderosities and solemn mendacities and expose them for the crudities that they are."
Secretary of the Interior Fred Seaton had said this date that the Government had no authority to seize the oil industry or to seek a voluntary agreement to hold down oil prices. He said that he was personally happy that a Federal grand jury was reviewing the possibility of antitrust violations in the pricing field. He denied, in testimony prepared for a joint hearing by the Senate Antitrust and Public Lands subcommittee, that he had ever told a subordinate not to answer questions of a Congressional committee. The joint committee was investigating the emergency program for oil to free Europe following the closure of the Suez Canal and the domestic price increases on gasoline and fuel oil which had ensued. The Department of Interior's office of oil and gas was supervising the emergency supply program being carried out by a group of major oil companies with international connections operating under the name of the Middle East Emergency Committee. Antitrust rules had been relaxed for purposes of the overseas supply operation to permit such things as pooling of transport and interchange of oil stocks. Meanwhile, the House Commerce Committee had called the Assistant Secretary of the Interior, Felix Wormser, for questioning about the effectiveness of the emergency supply program. Secretary Seaton had told the Senate group that their overriding problem, at the time of the crisis, was to get as much oil to Europe as they could and as fast as they could, that because of the absence of any law permitting seizure of the oil industry, the Government had to rely on the existing voluntary agreement and on the provisions of the Defense Production Act of 1950, as amended. He said that the best European sources had estimated that for the first three months of the program, Europe had received 80 percent of its normal requirements of all types of petroleum fuels, emphasizing that it was normal demand and not the restricted requirements imposed by rationing.
In New York, optimistic statements from both sides had raised hope for a speedy settlement of the longshoremen's strike which had idled ports from Maine to Virginia, with the chairman of the New York Shipping Association, the employer group, having stated after the bargaining session of the previous night that with any reasonableness on the part of the union, they could reach a contract this date, and the counsel for the International Longshoremen's Association having stated that he also felt optimistic that matters would be resolved shortly. The director of Federal mediation confirmed to newsmen that the parties were "not very far apart". The strike of some 45,000 dockworkers had begun on Tuesday after an 80-day Taft-Hartley injunction cooling-off period, invoked by the President, had expired. By late the previous day, the walkout had idled some 150 general cargo ships and some smaller passenger vessels. Prior to the strike, the ILA and the employers were in general agreement on a 32-cent hourly wage increase over three years in the basic wage of $2.48 per hour, with a dispute over fringe benefits holding up final agreement. Outgoing ships would leave with empty holds, and cargo, often perishable, would begin piling up on the piers during the strike. Thus far, 45 outbound ships had been caught in New York Harbor alone. Some passenger liners continued to arrive in New York, docking and undocking without the aid of tugboats, while supervisory personnel helped passengers unload their baggage. Cruise ships were expected to get away without too much trouble. Only military cargo was being handled in the struck ports.
Operations at the Port of Wilmington in North Carolina were normal this date, despite the strike, with the North Carolina Ports Authority at Wilmington reporting that while the longshoremen were members of the ILA, the Ports Authorities of Southeastern and Gulf States had separate contracts with the ILA members, contracts signed the previous September, with the result that longshoremen at those ports were not involved in the Northern port situation, the Southeastern agreement of the ILA also being applicable to Morehead City, N.C., and at Charleston, Beaufort and Georgetown, S.C.
In Council Bluffs, Ia., a fire had enveloped a three-story rest home killing 14 patients the previous day and requiring treatment of 13 other patients and employees, with one patient listed in critical condition. Many of the 13 found dead in the debris had died in their beds, with the 14th victim having died in a hospital. Firemen had answered the alarm within four or five minutes after it was sounded, and described seeing one woman kneeling in prayer in her bed as flames swirled over her. The firemen could find no survivor who could immediately inform of the source of the fire, and this date, fire officials were digging through the debris in search of the cause. The rest home was operating under a license suspension, having already suffered through one blaze which had killed one person in 1942. A State inspection on January 30 had resulted in non-renewal of the license pending certain needed corrections, but a local inspection the previous month found that the home met the requirements for fire safety and that an automatic fire detection system had recently been installed. The flames had swept the building suddenly, according to witnesses.
In Elmdale, Kans., a pastor had revived the Elmdale Christian Church and more than trebled its membership during his nine months in the pulpit, but now was in jail, after the FBI had discovered that his record showed that he had been convicted 26 times on felony charges. He had acknowledged to the local sheriff that he had been in prison most of the previous 20 years. The town was flabbergasted, with parishioners indicating that he had been the best preacher they ever had and that they had gotten their value received, that he had not taken a cent from them. A farmer and insurance agent, who had loaned the preacher $125, said that he figured he was not out anything as the man had balanced the scales by all of the good he had done, suggesting that it might be a case of split personality or some kind of insanity, that the man was very pious. The man had appeared nine months earlier saying that he had been a Presbyterian preacher. The church was made up of self-governing congregations who did not demand credentials of their ministers. When the sheriff intervened and arrested the preacher, he was instructing a class of 15 who planned to confess their faith and join the church on Easter. He pleaded guilty on Monday to a charge of illegally marrying a couple in early December and was sentenced to six months in jail. The sheriff had begun to suspect him after hearing one of his stirring talks to local service clubs about being a prisoner of war in Korea, indicating that he had lost his discharge papers and could not obtain duplicates, a claim which the sheriff knew was not true. His FBI records stretched back to a boy's industrial school in Ottawa, Canada, when he was 14, having been subsequently committed to a Montréal insane asylum after conviction of forgery in 1935, escaping three months later, eventually serving prison terms in Arizona and Minnesota for theft, escaping from jail in Boston in 1945. The U.S. and Canadian armies and the U.S. Navy had desertion charges against him.
In Hartsville, S.C., the Society for the Prevention of Cigarette Smoking was to be organized this night, with its temporary president assuring that it was not an organization designed to abolish smoking, being located in the heart of the flue-cured tobacco-growing country, but was a group of people who wanted to stop smoking and just had not found the way to do it, with the new club imposing five-dollar fines as an incentive, that for every cigarette smoked, up to and including five, there would be a five-dollar fine, to go into the club treasury, with more than five such fines resulting in the member being expelled. Membership would cost five dollars. The president of the club said that the average smoker spent $100 per year on cigarettes. He said that the fines collected for the club would go to charity and other drives such as the Crippled Children's Society, the March of Dimes, and so on. We suggest a substantial contribution to the American Cancer Society.
In Carthage, Tex., two men who had telephoned for fish in the Sabine River had gotten on the wrong party line, with the game warden having answered. The men had been using an old-time telephone generator which, when cranked and with wire terminals dropped into the water, electrocuted the fish, with the result that they were fined $117.50.
In Los Angeles, when examiners for the Department of Motor Vehicles had asked an 81-year old man to show up for a driving test, they had not imagined he would drive onto their lawn. Police said that he had struck three cars before his car smashed into a fence near a branch office of the DMV during part of the examination, with examiners indicating that he had not returned to finish the test.
In Athens, Ga., it was reported that it being Valentine's Day, it was a good time to disclose that a certain pigeon was "that way" about a Southern Airlines pilot from Atlanta. About a week earlier, the pigeon had begun flying alongside the airliner as the pilot brought it in on morning flights from Charlotte. The pigeon also circled around the cockpit as the plane taxied for takeoff, peering fondly at the pilot until the plane outpaced it. This date, the pigeon had perched on the plane's wing in the interim between landing and takeoff. We recommend to the pilot not being a pigeon, as that bird wants something.
On the editorial page, "A Lonely Apprehension in the South" finds that at the present time of year, there was always a special kind of "lonely apprehension" settling on the land in the South, neither winter nor spring, but something "compounded from an incongruous clash between the two in the middle of February."
It goes on seeking to provide some detail of what it meant to suggest about the time of year: "But spring gives legs to the South's old dreams of a fair and fruitful land. Scattered jonquils, planted by some forgotten hand, trail antic beauty across bleeding red gullies. Flowering shrubs soften the starkness of the countryside's solitary chimneys, long separated by quick flame or slow decay from houses and people. And before all the rickety shacks of poverty's poor estates stands some blooming emblem of fullness and fruitfulness."
"...And the southerner sees visions of the rich land that was said to be in the land he hopes to make it."
"The Pen as an Instrument of History" indicates that after a peek at the photographic coverage given the President's visit in Thomasville, Ga., a visitor from another planet might suppose that history was being made with his shotgun and putter, the implements much in evidence. But they had not challenged the mettle of the President half as much as haunting questions about the direction of U.S. foreign policy in a year of upheaval and crisis.
When the President had initialed his approval on plans for personal conferences for later in February and March with Prime Minister Harold Macmillan of Britain and Premier Guy Mollet of France, his pen had become the chief instrument of history, finding that the historical significance of those prospective meetings could not be overestimated, with the only regret being that they could not have been scheduled earlier.
It finds that critical situations had long been out of hand because of the sudden splintering of the Atlantic alliance between the U.S., Britain and France, as made evident by the invasion by Britain and France of Egypt the prior November 1 without first consulting the U.S. The damage had not been completely repaired and would not be until the meeting of the three leaders could take place to reestablish a working partnership, with proper review of commitments and shared responsibilities. All three nations were deeply involved in the Suez crisis, and France had additional woes in Algeria. Israel was showing new petulance and the Soviets, new boldness. There was also no monopoly on virtue in those areas.
It urges that there had to be fully restored confidence and communication among the Western allies, with joint policies for the Arab-Israeli dispute established, as well as coordination of joint policies inside and outside the U.N. to serve the best interests of all. A unique opportunity faced the three allies to dig beneath the surface of their own individual woes and discover their mutual interests, and it suggests that the opportunity ought be seized bravely and without cynicism.
"Remembering Lincoln: Any Day Will Do" finds that the birthday of Abraham Lincoln belonged to contemporary politicians who had made it their own with "thousands of ill-conceived and insensitive speeches dedicated to milking the martyred President's memory for the nourishment of their own stature." It did result in a tribute, however, and could thus be excused, provided that some of Mr. Lincoln's wit or simplicity graced the execution. But amid the stale oratory, it found no noble utterance. "Republican orators lurched about in their own semantic jungles, defining such indefinables as 'real Republicanism, modern Republicanism, Eisenhower Republicanism,'", and in the words of Representative Richard Simpson, "the Republicanism of Lincoln and Taft." It suggests that what the late Senator Robert Taft was to Lincoln or Lincoln was to Taft was quite beyond it, and also Mr. Simpson.
It finds that Mr. Lincoln had left no political blueprints by which present-day political carpenters could be judged, having left fragments of greatness floating in the mainstream of American life, lodged in all Americans, regardless of party, "in a national morality far removed from the specific philosophical cleavages of contemporary politics."
It finds the same to be true of Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson, that their contributions could not be shaped into endorsements of present-day political positions.
It also finds that birthdays were poor times for eulogies, as Mr. Lincoln's birth had only the prospect of poverty, but with the gifts he added to his birth, he had given many days of grateful reflection to Americans, such as in his Gettysburg Address on November 19, 1863, or when he had written to Mrs. Bixby, or when he had made one of his homely comparisons whose cutting edges were sharp enough to dissolve pretension and deflate delusions of grandeur. It finds that any day would do to honor Mr. Lincoln.
"For it was the sum of all his days that produced the beautiful plainness of his face, the inspired eloquence of his words and the certainty and right of his actions."
A piece from the Tampa Morning Tribune, titled "Never Mind the Batteries", states that among the contributions to the good life which American ingenuity had promised for 1957 was the electric wristwatch, powered by a battery the size of a cuff button and guaranteed to last at least a year, costing $89.50, with a replacement battery available for $1.75.
It finds it a good trick, but indicates that it was sufficiently old-fashioned to think that a fellow who was too lazy to wind a wristwatch did not deserve one. It was much more impressed with the genius behind the jumbo toothpaste cap, as big around as a quarter and about half an inch thick, affording something for a man to get his fingers on, even in the early morning hours when he was not seeing too well, not able to hide in bathroom corners even if dropped or escaped down the drain, as did smaller caps.
It wishes to suggest to the unsung inventor of that cap some other projects which would contribute materially to the good life, such as a jelly jar top which, if carefully pried off according to instructions, would fit back on, a cereal box which would actually open on the dotted line, ice trays which could be extracted from the freezer without the use of an alpen-stock, medicine cabinets which did not dump contents into one's lap when the door was opened, dress shirt studs which a man could insert without calling for the help of wife or children or going out looking as though he had rescued the shirt from a large dog, a checkbook holder for wives which would not release the check until its date and amount had been entered on the stub.
It concludes that there were others it had intended to list but had cut the list short, as it had just noticed that its watch was ten minutes slow, as it must have forgotten to wind it.
Drew Pearson tells of the Groundhog Lodge of Quarryville, Pa., every year going through a ritual to ascertain what the real groundhog thought about the prospects of a mild or cold winter, or an early or late spring. Several distinguished citizens had participated in the ceremony and become Honorary Groundhogs, including former President Truman and Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson. U.N. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., had received the invitation this year, but had responded through his secretary that he had made it a principle since becoming the representative at the U.N. not to accept membership in any organization, even honorary membership, if he could not devote to its activities a portion of his time and energy, and so had declined appearance.
The President had emphasized to a secret meeting of Republican Congressional leaders recently that he wanted the school construction bill passed during the current year. When Republican leaders reminded him that the bill might be derailed by a fight over segregation, he had stated that he thought the program could be put through without major change, that he would make no more concessions, and that it appeared that the best way to proceed was to get the bill taken up first by the Senate, enabling it thus to be in better shape to head off the anti-segregation amendment inevitably to be proposed again by Congressman Adam Clayton Powell in the House, a move which had stalled the bill the previous year. Senate Minority Leader William Knowland interjected, amid laughter, that there was only one thing wrong with that approach, the Democratic leadership. The President responded that they should work it out the best way they could.
Marquis Childs finds that Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser was in possession of a sufficient poker hand, not to win the game, but at least to run a bluff on the West, especially the U.S. Egypt's Army had been routed by the Israelis in the attack of the previous late October, and most of the arms furnished by the Soviet Union had been lost. The Egyptian economy was also severely pinched.
Nevertheless, the preliminary negotiations on use of the Suez Canal, which had been seized by Egypt the prior July 26, was reportedly to provide Egypt with such a large degree of control over traffic and tolls that the proposal could not possibly be considered, resulting in nothing having been accomplished, although the canal would be cleared for at least partial movement of traffic within the ensuing few weeks.
The refusal of Israel to withdraw from the Gaza Strip and the Gulf of Aqaba without sufficient guarantees from the U.N. enabled President Nasser to make a show of virtue by doing nothing, with the hitch being Israel's demand for a statement of non-belligerency from Egypt, which the latter would not provide. For if the Egyptian dictator were to grant that demand, Israel would insist that the transit of Israeli ships through the canal would be a matter of right. U.S. policymakers were frank in saying that President Nasser would not make any agreement which would concede the right of Israeli ships to pass through the waterway, closed by the Egyptian action at the time of the attack. It would be necessary for Israel to take the issue to the Court of International Justice at The Hague. After a presumptive ruling that the Suez treaty provided the ships of all nations, including those of Israel, the right of passage, President Nasser could use that decision as a face-saving device, a measure of the veto power which he continued to exercise.
All aid of any sort, direct or indirect, had been cut off by the U.S. to Egypt and it continued to refuse to unfreeze Egyptian balances held in the U.S., which had been frozen when the canal had been nationalized in July. U.S. officials responsible for policy pointed out that the Egyptian economy was primitive and could therefore withstand a long siege. President Nasser had asked the U.S. for wheat and his request had been turned down. Subsequently, the Soviets had supplied the wheat, and some additional economic help might be forthcoming from the Soviets, but in small quantity.
The extent of arms shipments which continued to go to Egypt from the Communist bloc was not known. Ships had been unloaded recently with great secrecy. Regarding petroleum products, where the pinch was severe since kerosene was the common fuel of Egypt, the Soviets were believed to have responded to Egyptian pleas in a limited way. Some oil was being supplied by Cal-Tex, an American company, at the request of King Saud of Saudi Arabia, who was presumably paying the bill. For several years, King Saud had sent sizable sums of money to Egypt to further the political objectives he shared with President Nasser and the army clique which virtually controlled Syria. King Saud's money had helped to finance the plots and counter-plots dividing the Arab world.
The firm belief of U.S. policymakers was that King Saud, in his new manifestation as a friend to the U.S., would exert a tempering influence on President Nasser. He would tell President Nasser, if that assumption were correct, that President Eisenhower was a good friend of the Arabs who could be trusted. The King would also tell President Nasser that he must be reasonable or he would risk another blowup and the danger of a Communist takeover in Egypt. It had been impressed on the King during his visit in the U.S. that if Egypt were to come under complete Communist domination, the whole Middle East would be in grave jeopardy. That warning was said to have struck home.
But whether President Nasser could be reasonable was a grave question which no one in Washington was prepared to answer. Thus far, he had been able to run his bluff with great success. Having been saved by the intervention of the U.N., coupled with the threats of the Soviets against Britain and France at the time of the attack on Egypt, President Nasser now behaved like a conqueror. He effectively had dictated the terms of complete withdrawal by the Israelis from the remaining territory they held in the Gaza Strip and the Gulf of Aqaba. Standing athwart the area which linked East and West, President Nasser exerted a divisive power even greater than he had when he had nationalized the canal.
Doris Fleeson indicates that Senate Minority Leader William Knowland had laid the basis for his campaign for the presidency for 1960, being based on an argument that the U.N., as presently constituted and as resorted to by the Administration, was a hindrance to honest and effective American leadership in foreign affairs. It was possible that he had raised an issue which might reach the imagination of the American people, as the U.N. had proved helpless to deal with the aggression of Soviet Russia, the one powerful enemy of the U.S.
The previous week, Senator Knowland had condemned a "double standard" of international morality by which U.N. sanctions would be applied against Israel for aggression in Egypt but not against Russia for aggression in Hungary, evoking immediate response. U.N. Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold now said that sanctions against Israel would be unrealistic. The Senate appeared to be following the lead of Senator Knowland.
He had provided a major address on the subject of the U.S. and the U.N., taking a long look at the U.S. placing most of its foreign policy objectives in that body. The Administration might respond, asking for an alternative. Democrats were preparing to argue that the principal fault lay with the President and Secretary of State Dulles for following and not leading at the U.N. The experts would also dissect Senator Knowland's arguments, timing and motives, but the immediate reaction among politicians in Washington would be that the Senator had found an issue resonating with the American people.
The Senate saw Russia as getting off scot free at the U.N. while such U.S. allies as Britain and France, and its creation, Israel, were buffeted about, leaving an emotional resentment which was finding expression.
The President still had the country's great confidence, but events were moving fast. It had taken the Senate only a few days to ensure that there would be no U.S. sanctions against Israel while Russia, India and Hungary went without sanctions. Each day saw the President's Middle East resolution under powerful attack, while Senator Knowland's great debate was underway.
A letter writer from McBee, S.C., indicates that anyone could grow citrus trees in their own living room, states that he was growing so many trees in his back yard and in his living room that his wife was complaining that if he could possibly grow trees in his ears, he would. He says that every week, he made a regular trip to purchase weekly groceries, looking over the citrus fruits and picking only the best ones, then saving the seeds and placing them in an old Mason jar filled with water, leaving it for about a week, then pouring the water out and de-pulping the seed by removing the white pulp, then placing the remainder in a Mason jar filled with water and a dash of water-soluble, well-balanced fertilizer, then leaving it for about two weeks. The fertilizer was then saved and the seeds were placed in a pot filled with plain sand, about a half-inch deep, with the fertilizer from the solution sprinkled over the seed, then maintaining it at a constant temperature of between 65 and 70 degrees. The seed should be occasionally sprinkled when the need arose and the tiny seedlings given some additional water-soluble fertilizer when needed. He says that he did not know whether the resulting trees would stand local winters but he planned to try them after the last frost during the coming spring and the following winter when the trees were about a year old, would then let the readers know. He says that a particular man had a seedless orange tree growing alongside his home in Cyprus, S.C., and that he had cuttings from the same tree which he was rooting in sand in his back yard.
Be sure to refrigerate the concentrate or wind up like Mr. Nixon.
A letter from the chairwoman of the Junior League "Follies" expresses thanks to the newspaper for its support of the Follies, making "Angels' Revue" a great financial success. She also expresses thanks to Paul Buck, manager of the Charlotte Auditorium, and the union stagehands who had cooperated. Thanks to the success of the program, they would be able to contribute to the Reading Center and the Girl Scout Camp.
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