The Charlotte News

Wednesday, February 20, 1957

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the President had discussed with Congressional leaders this date the Middle East situation and the question of sanctions against Israel for failing to withdraw from Egyptian territory, about which he would make a report to the American people this night via all major television and radio networks. About 20 Congressional leaders of both parties had talked with the President, Secretary of State Dulles and U.N. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., for two hours and 20 minutes, and had come away grave and with some apparent differences in their views regarding the conclusions which could be drawn from the meeting. Senator Thomas Hennings of Missouri said that his impression gleaned from the President was that the Administration was prepared to support the U.N. if it imposed economic sanctions on Israel. But Senator William Knowland of California, the Minority Leader, told reporters that no decision regarding possible support of sanctions had been finalized. Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson, when asked whether he supported sanctions, replied that the Administration was "well advertised as being able to speak ably, fluently and abundantly for itself." He said that the meeting had been "constructive and helpful". Reporters had asked Secretary Dulles whether the U.S. would support sanctions against Israel and he had stated that he expected there to be something about it later in the afternoon from the President and that there had been a full exchange of views during the conference but no unanimity had been reached, and so he could not say whether a conclusion had been reached.

In Washington, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said this date that there was no critical national shortage of classrooms and that it regarded Federal aid for school construction "unwise and unnecessary." The Chamber position was presented to the House Education subcommittee by the chairman of the Chamber committee on education, saying in prepared testimony that it was the consensus of business in the country that the states and their communities were responsible for the development of the school systems required by the citizens and able to finance them. He indicated that Federal help would lead inevitably to the transformation of public education from a state and local function to one increasingly directed by the Federal Government. The House subcommittee had before it an Administration bill which would provide for 1.2 billion dollars in Federal aid for school construction over the ensuing four years, with other proposals also under consideration. The Chamber committee head said that a report by the U.S. Office of Education had stated that 63,000 new classrooms had been built in the year ending the previous fall and that about 49,000 of those would have taken care of the report's estimated enrollment increase of a million and its estimated figure of 14,000 abandoned classrooms, finding that it provided a surplus of 14,000 classrooms for pupils in excess of enrollment capacity.

In Concord, N.H., the Manchester Teachers Guild this date asked the New Hampshire Supreme Court to throw out a lower court injunction which halted an unprecedented two-day teachers strike in Manchester. They indicated that courts ought not interfere in labor disputes without the "clearest showing of imminent danger to the community", and that there was nothing inherently illegal about a strike of public employees for higher wages. The Guild included 332 of Manchester's 365 public school teachers. The Guild also contended that a temporary injunction issued by a Superior Court judge had violated the due process clause of the 14th Amendment. In the brief filed by the City, the solicitor had contended that teachers were public employees and did not have the right to strike, that both public policy and common law denied public employees the right to strike against government. He said that the strike, being illegal, could not be considered reasonable conduct on the part of the teachers and that the temporary injunction was properly granted. The State Supreme Court had scheduled oral arguments for this date. All 365 Manchester teachers had stayed away from their jobs on February 4 at the climax of a months-long wage controversy with City officials. The City closed its 24 public schools and 9,217 students had been given an unexpected two-day vacation, which they had been forced to make up on Monday and Tuesday of the current week, normally a mid-winter vacation.

In Montgomery, Ala., two white men, one of whom City detectives indicated had been photographed wearing Klan regalia, had been freed under bond this date on charges of dynamiting on January 10 the home of integration leader, Reverend Ralph Abernathy. His wife and young child had been asleep in the house when the blast occurred, but were unhurt. The two men had surrendered to the sheriff the previous day after a grand jury had indicted them for the bombing. The police chief said on February 10 that the dynamiting of the Reverend Abernathy's home and at least three other blasts out of the seven in Montgomery recently had been perpetrated by members of the Montgomery branch of the Klan. Under Alabama law, dynamiting an inhabited dwelling was punishable by death. The trial of the two men was expected to begin on May 27 or later. They had also been charged with bombing public buildings. Two other white men had been arrested on Sunday on other indictments, scheduled for trial on February 28 on charges of bombing two black churches and a black taxicab stand. The police chief said that statements of some of the accused had supported the charge concerning the Klan. Neither the defendant who had been photographed wearing Klan regalia nor his attorney would comment on the photograph. The police commissioner said that one of the detectives had provided the break in the cases, spotting some people he recognized in a car at the scene of a bombing on January 27, and several hours later having arrested one of the two defendants, who worked for his father's plumbing company and had also been indicted in one of six ambushes involving gunfire directed at a racially integrated city bus, though no one was hurt in the particular attack, while in another, a young black woman had been hit in both legs by a .22-caliber bullet.

In Camden, S.C., the county grand jury had refused to indict four men of Camden charged with aggravated assault and battery on former Charlotte bandmaster Guy Hutchins, band leader at the Camden high school. No true bill had been handed down on two of the men charged with conspiracy to violate civil rights. Mr. Hutchins had allegedly been attacked on December 27 several miles north of Camden when he stopped to change a flat tire and was approached by the four men in a car, who then kidnaped him, took him to the woods and flogged him with switches and boards, claiming that he had made pro-integration statements at a Lions Club auxiliary meeting, a contention which Mr. Hutchins had denied. Four of the men were charged with simple assault, presumably misdemeanors not requiring indictment.

In Fayetteville, a brick mason accused of beating his 85-year old mother-in-law and then washing her off with a garden hose, had been arrested this date on a charge of assault. Police said that they found the elderly woman lying unclothed in bed and crying feebly for help. Hospital attendants later described her condition as serious. She had been beaten about the head. The arrested son-in-law was found asleep in an adjoining room. Police said that he had been arrested twice on complaint by his wife for beating her but that she had declined to testify against him. The police had been called to the home the previous night on a complaint by the wife that her husband had beaten her and her mother, leaving, however, after the wife indicated that she was only trying to scare her husband and refused to sign a warrant.

Julian Scheer of The News tells of State Representative Jack Love having introduced a one dollar state minimum wage bill in the General Assembly this date, to cover all labor with the exception of agricultural, domestics, commission salesmen and those customarily working for gratuities and tips. The previous day, he had introduced a bill calling for a 15 percent pay increase for State employees, having earlier introduced a bill for a 20 percent increase for teachers. Governor Luther Hodges had told the General Assembly in his biennial message on February 11 that there should be a state minimum wage to raise per capita income and thereby consumer purchasing power. The prior Sunday, the Governor, in a television interview in Durham with Representative E. K. Powe, said that he favored a 75-cent minimum wage for the state. A state minimum wage bill had been defeated in the 1955 General Assembly. The Federal minimum wage was one dollar.

In Raleigh, Robeson County State Senator Cutlar Moore said that he was "eating crow" with a bill he introduced in the Senate this date, calling for repeal of a law passed by the 1955 Legislature requiring State Highway Patrol cars to be painted in distinctive black and silver colors, a bill which Senator Moore had introduced in 1955 and "worked like hell" to get passed. The bill had been enacted over the strong objections of Patrol officers and Motor Vehicles commissioner Ed Scheidt, who asserted that the Patrol needed to have a few cars not painted the distinctive colors to enable the catching of lawbreakers. Senator Moore had now introduced a bill to repeal that law, to correct his error. He said that racing taking place on the highways made it impossible to catch the culprits or eliminate the practice with black and silver cars. He said that in 1955, only a few teenagers had been racing, but now there were "a bunch of grown-up damn fools in souped-up cars and planned races." He was now convinced that the Patrol had to have some unmarked cars. Well, in early 1955 when the Legislature was in session, "Rebel without a Cause" had not yet been released. And it will likely only get worse once "Thunder Road" comes out next year.

In London, Jaime Ortiz-Patino, 26-year old heir to a multi-million dollar Bolivian tin fortune, testified this date that he lived openly as husband to former New York debutante Joanne Connolley Sweeny from the day she had agreed to their engagement. He said that he had pursued her and obtained her agreement to marry. He was suing the London Sunday Graphic for libel, seeking damages from the newspaper for a story which contained his estranged wife's contentions about their marriage. He testified that she did everything for money. The couple had been married in April, 1954. She had been considered New York's most beautiful debutante in 1948. He said that they had been engaged on January 29, 1954 but that she had run off with a married man, who had to be "cleared out of the way" before she would return. He said that she had become his mistress from the engagement date but that he had not given her a ring until April 5, 1954, explaining that at the time it had been impossible for him to pay for it, that he knew that when the marriage proved successful, his mother would pay for it.

In Hollywood, Columbia Pictures director George Sidney had told reporter James Bacon recently of a problem in finding a dog with a kosher appetite, needed for his upcoming movie, "Pal Joey", the script of which required that Frank Sinatra's pet dog would eat the same kosher diet as the character, including lox, bagels, cheese blintzes and all of the other delicatessen delicacies. Mr. Sidney's plight had become an Associated Press item the prior Monday, after which he had become convinced that every dog in the country ate kosher instead of horse meat. When he reported for work the previous day, his phone lines were tied up, telegrams were stacked in bundles of 100 and his waiting room was filled with barking dogs. He had left town this date. Mr. Sinatra's office, "already up to its hind legs with Rex Harrison slappings and Marilyn Monroe raids," had gotten the same response, with Mr. Sinatra having left for Palm Springs. Mr. Sidney said that many of his phone calls from all parts of Canada and the U.S. had been made collect. One Columbia executive reported that the item practically had disrupted the whole studio operation for 24 hours as important business calls and messages could not get through. All of the telegrams and letters boasted of dogs with kosher appetites, while many had other talents. One man from New York City claimed that his French poodle would yodel in Yiddish. A woman from Baltimore claimed to have a dog which could open pistachio nuts. A couple from Gary, Ind., had a black cocker spaniel which would "eat anything except Sinatra. Likes beer, too." A man from Pennsylvania said that he had both a kosher eating dog and a kosher eating cat. We didn't even know that Frank was Jewish. Maybe, that's why Sammy converted.

On the editorial page, "How N.C. Can Save More of Its Youth" indicates that it does not know whether or not the Governor's Youth Service Commission had in mind the lofty ideal contained in the Children's Charter, that every child in conflict with society had the right to be dealt with intelligently, was society's charge, not society's outcast, with the home, the school, the church, the court and the institution, when needed, shaped to return the child whenever possible to the normal stream of life, when the Commission had recommended sweeping reform of the state's "weak and outmoded" juvenile court system the previous week.