The Charlotte News
Tuesday, February 26, 1957
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that Senate Minority Leader William Knowland of California said this date that he believed the Senate would approve civil rights legislation in the current session, despite the inevitability of a filibuster by Southern Democrats. House Minority Leader Joseph Martin of Massachusetts said at the same time that there was "no question" that the House would pass similar legislation. The two expressed their views at the White House following the regular Tuesday morning conference of Republican legislators with the President. Senator Knowland said that he expected the civil rights legislation to come up for debate after final action on the Middle East resolution, proposing that the President be given authority to use U.S. forces, including ground forces, if needed, to repel aggression in the Middle East, and to spend up to 200 million dollars in the ensuing year for financial aid for nations of that region. Senator Knowland, when asked about his pending bill to revise Senate rules to make it easier to effect cloture of filibusters on such issues as civil rights, said that the measure was still within the Rules Committee and probably would not be acted on in advance of the showdown on the Administration's civil rights bill. Mr. Martin said that he hoped the legislation would be ready for House action by about March 15 and that it would only take about two days to pass. Meanwhile, Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, testifying before a House Judiciary subcommittee at the conclusion of its hearings on the civil rights bills, called the effort a form of "tyranny" which should not be "foisted on the American people."
An investigation by the Senate Labor rackets subcommittee, chaired by Senator John McClellan of Arkansas, opened this date with testimony from two Portland, Ore., newspapermen who stated that a gangster-union combination had "tried to take over our city government." Wallace Turner and William Lambert, reporters for the Portland Oregonian, had published a series of stories on alleged connections between gangsters and officials of the Teamsters Union in Portland, winning in the process the 1956 Heywood Broun award of the American Newspaper Guild. Senator McClellan, in his opening statement, promised that the subcommittee's revelations would be "stupendous", investigating generally the alleged gangster infiltration of labor organizations and industry. He stated that he expected the hearings to last a year or more, that investigators already had leads on alleged illegal or improper practices in some 29 cities. Robert F. Kennedy, subcommittee counsel, said that the initial phase of the hearings would examine matters in Spokane, Wash., as well as in Portland. The two newspapermen read prepared statements relating what they called a "conspiracy" between Portland officials, Teamsters Union officials and "gangsters", to organize gambling and prostitution in Portland. They named Portland District Attorney William Langley, international organizer for the Teamsters, Clyde Crosby, and a Portland "racketeer", James Elkins, as among those involved and said that they had been indicted in connection with the "conspiracy". One of the reporters said that Mr. Elkins, who would confirm himself as a racketeer to the subcommittee, provided the two reporters with the original leads. The reporter said that while he abhorred the rackets which Mr. Elkins had operated, the latter had during the previous year provided information in the public interest which went toward wiping out a criminal conspiracy. He said that repeatedly, the reporters had been visited in secret places at night by honorable working men who complained of their inability to take action to stop the improper activities of their union leaders and that without exception, they were in terrible fear that their visits with the reporters might become known to their union bosses, with fear of retaliation being one of the most potent weapons to silence criticism from within the Teamsters in the Pacific Northwest. Both reporters said that various local and state authorities had been unable to run down and punish participants in the alleged conspiracy, that Congress was the only body with sufficient power to do so, their experience having made it clear that there was need for new Federal legislation in the field of labor to reduce the opportunity for racketeers to attain and hold positions of unbridled power within the labor movement. Doris Fleeson on the editorial page this date further addresses these hearings.
The Army and National Guard this date had agreed on a compromise to end their dispute over active duty training for new Guard recruits, receiving the endorsement of a House Armed Services subcommittee, chaired by Representative Overton Brooks of Louisiana, who said that the agreement would go to the full Armed Services Committee at its next meeting, probably the following week. Approval in that Committee was virtually certain, ending the dispute, as no new legislation was required. The subcommittee was understood to have approved the compromise with only one dissenting vote, with Mr. Brooks, in advance of the closed meeting, having announced full agreement between the Army and Guard on the compromise. The heart of the agreement, as outlined by Mr. Brooks, was that the Guard would be given the rest of the year to recruit youths between 17 and 18 1/2, with the understanding that they would be required to take only 11 weeks of active duty training, but would have to enlist in time to complete the 11 weeks before the following January 1. For new recruits over 18 1/2 with no prior military service, six months of active duty training would be required, corresponding to the minimum requirement in other reserve programs. The current 11-week training program of the Air National Guard would not be affected. The Army had pressed for six months of training for everyone.
In London, the Daily Telegraph said this date that the late Joseph Stalin had been on the verge of plunging the Soviet Union into war with the West at the time of his death in March, 1953. Correspondent David Floyd reported that he had recently been told in Moscow by a high Communist source that Stalin's fatal brain hemorrhage had been the result of rage at the signing of the Balkan Treaty between Greece, Turkey, and Yugoslavia by Marshal Tito. He was informed that in 1950, Stalin had deliberately provoked the Korean War with the intention of engaging the Americans in the Far East while he conquered parts of Europe, and that by 1953, the preparations for war were obvious, with all in high positions around Stalin being convinced that he would go to war by spring or summer of that year. Tito had signed the treaty on February 25, 1953 and news of it had reached Stalin on March 1. That same night, according to the source, he had suffered the stroke which led to his death a few days later, resulting from the rage over the treaty. Mr. Floyd said that his informant was sincere in his belief that "a miracle" had thus intervened to prevent a third world war.
In New York, a milk withholding scheme was reported this date to be spreading among New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania dairy farmers seeking higher prices because they claimed to be going broke at their present prices. A few plants had indicated willingness to pay more since the boycott had begun, all according to the Reverend John Dorney, a Congregational clergyman of Baleville, N.J., the executive secretary of the Tri-State Master Dairy Farmers Guild, which had initiated the campaign the prior Sunday. Turmoil had quickly followed, resulting in gunfire, arrests, milk dumping, picketing, fistfights and a dynamite blast. Pickets had ringed many milk receiving plants in an effort to shut them down, but reports on the success of the moves had been conflicting. Some milk loads had been spoiled by dumping kerosene into them while in other instances, groups of men had halted trucks, opened valves and spilled the milk. The previous night, six men had been arrested near Monroe, N.Y., after a milk tank truck had been punctured by a rifle bullet, causing the milk to spill out. Other tank trucks had been fired upon in Sussex County, N.J. A member of the United Milk Producers Association of Trenton said that a dynamite blast had been set off on the lawn about 60 feet from his home, but had caused no harm. New Jersey and New York had ordered extra State police on duty. Thus far, consumers had not been affected because supplies of milk already on hand were sufficient for a day or two. The Reverend Dorney predicted that the public would begin to feel the pinch shortly, however, asserting that some 25,000 dairy farmers would be participating in the boycott by Saturday. His claim had been disputed, however, by spokesmen for other organizations. The disgruntled dairy farmers wanted a price of $5.75 per hundred-weight, amounting to 46.5 quarts, for their milk, presently receiving about $4.67.
In Lumberton, N.C., trustees of Consolidated Presbyterian College this date picked a team of top administrative personnel for the proposed institution at Laurinburg. Hector McLean of Lumberton, chairman of the trustees, said that Dr. Marshall Scott and Dr. Louis LaMotte would would serve as permanent vice-presidents, with the former as acting president, while continuing in his current position as president of Flora Macdonald College at Red Springs. The new school was to be a merger of Flora Macdonald, Presbyterian Junior College at Maxton, and Peace College in Raleigh. The president of Peace was also offered a vice-presidency, but had not yet accepted the position.
In Memphis, Tenn., a 49-year old woman was in critical condition this date after being impaled for three hours on a sharp willow sapling near a busy street, but below an embankment and hidden from view, the woman able to do nothing but wave weakly with one hand while clutching the three-inch sapling with the other. The sapling's point had pierced her throat, fracturing her jaws and the base of her skull. She was semiconscious but unable to call for help when found. An ambulance crew had sawed off the stump a few inches below her chin and transported her to a hospital with the willow limb still protruding from her throat. Her brother said that she had fallen down the embankment while seeking willow cuttings to plant on her lawn.
Charles Kuralt of The News, in the third and last of his series on moonshining in the state, reports that ABC enforcement chief Henry Severs had asked a man caught in a raid at a local bootleg establishment why he drank the terrible stuff and broke the law when he could go to an ABC store and get better liquor at a cheaper price. The man had responded that if he bought a bottle and went home, his wife would not let him drink it, that if he drank it anyway, she would complain about it, whereas, "Down here, I get a dollar's worth of bad liquor and $500 worth of good conversation." Camaraderie in back rooms was just one of the pleasures which lawmen had to combat when they went out to beat the bootleggers at their profitable game. Bootleg whiskey was cheap, as whiskey prices went, with the idea being to produce a beverage with "the kick of a mountain mule" minus the stiff taxes imposed by Federal, state and local governments. By the time transporters, wholesalers and retailers had added their profits, the consumer often found the price higher than the bottled-in-bond variety of alcohol which could be purchased in Mecklenburg ABC stores. For a six-gallon case, the still operator might charge $20 if the demand was high, with the wholesaler reselling it for $40, and the retailer obtaining five dollars per jar in the current inflationary times, or $60 per case, and the purchaser who bought it possibly able to resell it at a dollar per drink. It was a pretty high price for a brew which was aged for perhaps 24 hours and had been run through a felt hat to strain out the dead birds and flies. In the Brooklyn section of Charlotte, they had once called the stuff "Joe Louis" and with considerable logic for its punch, with perfectly reasonable people still heard to claim that they liked clear corn liquor because "it has no after-effect", which Mr. Kuralt indicates was something like saying there was no after-effect to getting hit in the head with a baseball bat. An Alcohol Tax Unit agent of the Treasury Department said that unloading white liquor was a science in itself, that the guys who did so from the car or truck which brought it never knew exactly when it was coming so that no one could tip the authorities. It generally arrived after midnight into the Brooklyn or Greenville sections, with the person standing around on the corner talking, as the car then pulled up and stopped, allowing them to unload it in a matter of seconds, and then vanished. It happened so fast that a person could stand and watch it and not know what was taking place. The man who brought it would collect later or perhaps had already collected, but did not wait around, wanting to unload it and leave. Hiding the white liquor was another subtle art of the trade, with officers in recent months having found the stuff in milk cans, in jars behind secret panels in houses and in hidden compartments in dressers. A classic hiding place had been discovered in Gaston County by sheriff's deputies the previous week, finding a complete water system dispensing the stuff, including a pump, a well, a spigot and a sink.
In New Bern, a man, 73, was a great-grandfather and also the father of a daughter, reported, along with her mother, 40, to be doing nicely in the hospital. The man had been married eight years earlier and the couple had named their daughter after the mother's mother and the husband's first wife, who had died several years earlier. The newborn had a half-sister 47 years old and a half-brother 37 years old, had become a great aunt upon her birth. At least they are not moonshining, though appearing as messed up as a family as the Cartwrights on the Ponderosa.
The first annual News Southern Cookbook was distributed in this date's issue of the newspaper in Section C, 48 pages long, full of the favorite recipes of hundreds of readers of the newspaper. We no provide you that. Too expensive. You want? You send $90,000 to Charlotte News, General Delivery, c/o Mr. J. R. Hoffa, Stadium Concrete. No checks or credit cards accepted, only cash.
On the editorial page, "Practice Makes Perfect in a Disaster" indicates that Charlotte and Mecklenburg County schoolchildren had to be prepared for the same kind of emergency which had befallen the pupils of Mount Airy's Flat Rock School the previous week, when it had burned down very quickly, killing one third-grade student.
It finds fire to be a threat even to modern "fire-resistant" buildings and should never be minimized. While fire drills might seem dreary to students and teachers, they were absolutely necessary, and the recommendation of the Charlotte Fire Department's fire prevention bureau, that they be held once per week for pupils in the primary grades and twice per month in other schools, was not far-fetched. It indicates that panic was one of the chief dangers when a fire would break out, and one of the surest antidotes to that panic was knowledge, training and leadership, with teachers being drilled as well as the children to undertake the proper reaction. Frequent practice was the only way to instill in the children the patterns of behavior necessary for such an emergency.
It finds that fire was not the only menace in the era of nuclear weapons and intercontinental bombers, requiring at least some acquaintance with a variety of perils. Thus the old-fashioned fire drill might be better for the student than he or she might realize.
While State regulations required only one drill per month, it finds it not enough for primary grades and urges that the requirement be tightened.
"Pity the Poor Professor Who Walks" finds that the rewards of teaching might be only dimly apparent to UNC's "patched-pants academicians" but not to coach Frank McGuire, "dapper tutor of several muscular young men who give their all for the University of North Carolina on the basketball court." He was driving a new Cadillac, a gift of admiring alumni and friends, "a reward for pedagogical excellence in a vast, high ceilinged classroom known as Woollen Gymnasium."
It indicates that coach McGuire was a teacher and a good one, with his subject being basketball instead of English literature, American history or differential calculus. He was having an uncommonly good year with his students, who were undefeated in their competition thus far and had been the nation's number one team since January, following a loss by Kansas, with Wilt Chamberlain, knocking them from the top perch. It finds that the alumni were measuring their appreciation in horsepower. It does not begrudge the fact, as Mr. McGuire was a fine gentleman, a wonderful coach and deserved the recognition.
But it wishes that his less fortunate colleagues around Saunders Hall, then the history building, and its vicinity, the underpaid instructors who taught liberal arts, ought receive similar rewards. It says that it was stuffy enough to believe that the social sciences were every bit as important as dribbling and free throws—a couple of which would lead, 3 1/2 weeks hence, to a national championship, but we do not wish to get ahead of ourselves quite yet, even though we might look into our 2024 crystal ball and see a similar eventuating occurrence a little over two weeks hence. It wonders why a chemistry professor who was doing exceptionally well with his class should not be rewarded with a Cadillac by alumni and friends, or an English professor, who might have a young All-American poet in his creative writing class, at least a Volkswagen.
It indicates that it understood that Dr. James L. Godfrey was having an unusually good year in history, but it had not heard any rumor that he was about to be provided a new car, the same applying to Dr. Alexander Heard in political science, Dr. B. L. Ullman in classics, Dr. Werner P. Friederich in Germanic languages, Dr. J. P. Harland in archaeology, and any number of other successful University professors of both the past and present. Some, it finds, had never received so much as a bicycle for repeatedly fielding a team of champion scholars.
"For a Mr. Chips, the University is still an institution of higher learning. For the McGuires and the Tatums [the football coach], it's become an institution of higher earning."
We write this, having come upon it quite by unanticipated delay, on March 23, 2024, exactly 67 years to the day after that perfect season ended in Kansas City that late night, though we, unfortunately, slept through the whole thing, while our papa, a Boy Scout leader, and our older brother, a Boy Scout, were out on bivouac somewhere in the wild open spaces of a Boy Scout jamboree, beset by bears, tigers, gators and other beasties of the jungle, on a dark and rainy night, forced to listen via crackling radio, intermittently fading in and out, to the broadcast—all while we, having access to the den in the snuggly comfort of our downstairs immediately adjacent to the swamp which we usually habituated, allowed inside the house because of the inclement weather on that night, thus enjoyed the opportunity to snooze uninterruptedly through the proceeding.
That game went to triple overtime and did not conclude until nearly 1:00 a.m. Eastern time, having started at 10:00, well past our bedtime, even in the swamp.
The previous night, in the national semifinals, UNC had also been pushed to triple overtime by the Michigan State Spartans, the Spartans having won 74 to 70, pushing the Spartan record to 31-0. But again, we get ahead of ourselves because of the instant editorial, and will let the progression of editions chronologically pass in order before we fully attend to the matter at hand, here in 1957.
We merely point it out because, by pure coincidence, on this date, Michigan State again faces the Spartans, for the first time in a little while, in the second round of the NCAA Tournament. We make no predictions, as that is a fool's game, but UNC is the top seed in the West region and the Spartans are the number nine seed. Regardless of who might win, it is bound to be a Spartan victory in the end. If you do not understand the riddle, you have not paid attention to this website long enough. In any event, a splendid time is guaranteed for all.
And, we recall, Frank McGuire's
successor, Dean Smith, would receive a Carolina blue Cadillac at the
conclusion of the 1968 season, his second consecutive season during
which none of the students had an urge to hang him in effigy, as
before. Meanwhile, one of his better players up to that point, having
graduated in 1965, was making this advertisement
We shall reserve until the end of the season and return to it then, a very much needed upbraiding of a certain ESPN sportscaster who receives a lot of money every year to make consistently absurd comments on sports about which he apparently knows very little, at least in the details, a favorite pastime of regular ESPN sportscasters. This one in particular was heard last night commenting on the need for the University of Kentucky to part ways with coach John Calipari because of recent lack of success in the NCAA Tournament, including the unexpected loss to Oakland. The umbrage which we take has nothing directly to do with that subject, but rather with his rather absurd statement that the "blue bloods" of college basketball, "the Kentuckys, the Dukes, and, to a lesser degree, the North Carolinas and Kansas," would not accept such results on a recurring basis from a head coach.
We could interpret his statement, if we were to listen to it again, as possibly meaning that UNC and Kansas and their respective fan bases would be more tolerant than Kentucky or Duke and their respective fan bases to such recurring failures in the early rounds of the NCAA Tournament, or, quite absurdly, that he meant that Kentucky and Duke were the preeminent programs in the country, and "to a lesser degree", North Carolina and Kansas.
Assuming for the sake of argument the latter meaning, let us take a moment to educate this person, who needs a new almanac by his side to consult often before making such outlandish statements. For it is the case that in the last 46 years, since 1978, Kentucky has won four NCAA championships, in 1978, in 1996, 1998, and 2012, under four different head coaches, Joe B. Hall, Rick Pitino, Tubby Smith, and Mr. Calipari, respectively.
In the same time-frame, starting in 1982, UNC has won five NCAA championships, in 1982 and 1993, under Mr. Smith, and in 2005, 2009 and 2017, under Roy Williams. They came within an eyelash of winning two others, in 2016 and in 2022, the latter under current head coach Hubert Davis—not to mention 1977 when, but for a host of injuries, including a broken finger of star Walter Davis, the uncle of coach Davis, they might have beaten underdog Marquette, under an emotional boost from the fact that coach Al McGuire was ending his coaching career that night.
In the same time-frame, starting in 1991, Duke has won five NCAA championships, in 1991, 1992, 2001, 2010, and 2015, all under Mike Krzyzewski, having never won another before that time, though having had several great teams in the Sixties under coach Vic Bubas, not to forget several more in the latter Seventies under coach Bill Foster.
In the same time-frame, starting in 1988, Kansas has won three NCAA championships, in 1988, under Larry Brown, formerly a player and assistant coach under Dean Smith at UNC, and in 2008 and 2022 under current head coach Bill Self, having come within an eyelash a couple of other times under former coach Roy Williams, especially so in 2003, his last year coaching at Kansas.
Thus, one has to conclude by the facts, which would also include the number of final fours in which each of the schools has participated, which we won't even begin to chronicle right now, that Kentucky, among these "blue bloods", trails up at nearly the rear, certainly behind UNC and Duke, behind all three when controlled for the last 25 years, with UNC, overall, since the advent of the NCAA tournament in 1939, having six championships, Kansas, with four, including 1952 when Dean Smith was a member of the squad, while Kentucky, admittedly having won four under Adolph Rupp, in 1948, 1949, 1951 and 1958, has thus, in all, eight, therefore winding up in the aggregate second to UCLA, with 11, 1964, 1965, 1967-1973, 1975 and 1995. But...
While not discounting the earlier championships prior to 1976, everyone knows that the tournament, itself, as well as the game of college basketball, has changed markedly in the interim. It was in 1976 that for the first time conferences were allowed more than one entrant, previously a bar to many of the better teams in the country, especially in the ACC, for want of winning the conference tournament championship, with only the ACC and Southern Conference then determining their champion and thus qualifier for the NCAA Tournament by means of a tournament. Also at that time, for the first time, teams were allowed to be placed in different regions from their geographic origin, previously a major benefit to UCLA, who had very little competition in the West in the 1960's through the mid-1970's when they reigned supreme. In addition, in those days, teams from major conferences, which had byes in the first round, had only to win four games to become national champion. That is why no team will ever accomplish the feat which UCLA did in that earlier time. And, of course, except for conference experimentation during the regular season in the early 1980's, there was no shot clock in college basketball until 1985-86 and no three-point shot until 1986-87, dramatically changing the game.
Thus, we find this commentator's remark, if he meant to suggest that the "blue bloods" started with Kentucky and Duke, before UNC and Kansas, to be backwards, unless one wants to go back to the latter 1940's, 1951 and 1958, to take into account those four early Adolph Rupp-coached championships, not to be discarded, but also hardly consonant with the modern game of basketball. Indeed, because of the presence of Wilt Chamberlain in the 1957 championship game, we can make a much better case for that championship being much more in line with the modern era of basketball than any of the early Kentucky championships.
And, of course, UNC has the most final four appearances of any school, at 21. Kentucky pulls in at third, at 17, behind UCLA, with 19.
The commentator in question did not reference UCLA or the University of Connecticut, which is why we leave those aside. You Bruins and Huskies can write him about those snubs.
In short, we suggest to the commentator in question that he get his data from some place other than some bar down around his alma mater in Winsen-Salem or perhaps his lucky-mood watch, and stop discounting, as he is wont to do, UNC basketball in favor of Kentucky and Duke, benefiting thereby their recruiting every season for years, in the vain hope, no doubt, that his anathema in Chapel Hill will somehow fall by the wayside in college basketball. Think again, sport, as it makes you look about as knowledgeable of the game of major college basketball as of some of the headstones in the Old Salem Cemetery, over near your alma mater. And to avoid confusion, we are not referring to the University of Reynolda Gardens.
In any event, the editorial makes a
valid point
"The Legislature's Mangy Shortcoming" indicates that North Carolina remained a "have not" state, no matter what publicists or pride proclaimed, as it had no state dog, and unless there was a change in the attitude of the General Assembly, it never would have one.
It finds it the result of a tail-between-the-legs timorousness and unwillingness to face up to a root cause of lagging economic growth on the part of past legislatures as well as the present one.
Connecticut was about to make the
beagle its official dog, which, when done, it finds, fat-cat
industrialists who rode to the hounds would move their plants to that
state, which appreciated the importance of dogs in the social
structure, and rich beagle-owners with taxable fortunes would move
there so that their hounds might associate with the very best
beagles. (Why not huskies?) Rich poodle-owners would move there to
protest and the movies would make a dog picture there. (They already
had made Sgt. Preston and King
It finds that it would be useless to
pretend that North Carolina legislators could summon the courage to
honor any one kind of dog, as it would encourage civil strife between
fanciers of coon hounds, rabbit hounds, possum hounds, fox hounds,
and lion hounds. Yet, it finds, a hound
A piece from the Gastonia Gazette, titled "Those Four-Layer Cakes", asks how long it had been since the reader saw a four-layer cake, the loving product of a cook of the old school, probably a grandmother or great aunt. Such memories had come back to the writer during the recent Christmas season, recalling that the writer's grandmother would make such cakes, taking time and care to do so, with a fifth layer added for outstanding festive occasions.
Its office expert on cakes and other cookery had imparted that the four-layer cake had fallen out of favor in the feminine scheme of things when the modern housewife had begun trimming her kitchen hours for outside interests, such that instant coffee, powdered cream, instant rice, frozen dinners and cake mixes had entered the accepted scheme of things. Now, because someone had decided that two layers were better than none for the housewife, they came in one package, saving time and effort, intended for eight-inch tins. The result was that the array of nine-inch tins which had been handed down to the present generation were no longer around, put away where they could not be reminders to the present housewives of how their mothers had labored over the mixing bowl. "Ah, but the cakes."
You can still lick the icing bowl, though. We did so many times after our grandma finished, with our help, icing the cake. We scarcely recall how many layers there were, probably three, but that really did not matter, as long as we got our share of the icing, the best part, the cake, itself, being for fat squares.
Drew Pearson indicates that when French Premier Guy Mollet would begin his long postponed talks with the President and Secretary of State Dulles, he would be setting two near records, one being that he would have been in office longer than any other postwar French premier, provided he lasted until March 15, having already been in office for 13 months, longer than his closest competitor, Premier Henri Queuille. His other record, more important, was that he was coming to Washington at a time when France had no problems with Germany for the first time in a century. Three wars had started on the Continent because of French-German rivalry, the Franco-Prussian War, and World Wars I and II. Now, all questions between France and Germany had been settled and Premier Mollet and Chancellor Konrad Adenauer of West Germany genuinely liked each other.
That led to the two principal points which Premier Mollet would emphasize in his talks with the President, a united Europe and Eur-Africa, as he called it. For years, the Premier had been preaching a united Europe, the seeds for which had been planted when he had been a small boy in Arras near the Belgian border during World War I, witnessing his town being bombarded and beaten to a pulp, first by the German armies, then by the Allied armies, and then again by the Germans. Later, he had become mayor of the town, and then chairman of the European assembly at Strasbourg, as well a member of the European Coal and Steel Community, which had laid the foundation for European economic unity.
The Premier would also outline to the President plans for putting European cooperation to work in Africa, a program which he called Eur-Africa. Recent French oil exploration had shown vast oil deposits in the Sahara, enough to make Europe independent of Saudi Arabia and the Middle East. He wanted to develop those deposits in cooperation with Germany, Belgium, Italy and Western Europe. He would likely argue the point with the President that Premier Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt had to go, that there could be no peace in the Middle East while he remained to stir up the Moslem world. He would likely also point out that Cairo Radio was the only radio station reaching all of the Middle East all the time in 32 languages and dialects, constantly preaching distrust of the West and friendly relations with Russia.
Joseph Alsop, in Novosibirsk, Russia, opines that the travel books of the Victorian age were superior to any others because they always sought to tell what a place was actually like, and he cannot resist the "frivolous impulse" to imitate that example in conveying his impressions of his Siberian journey "with almost no dull moments".
He begins with the hazards of Siberian travel, which were considerable, for example the lack of working modern plumbing in all the 1,250 miles of steppe and taiga which separated Kuibyshev and Barnaul where he had traveled. The hotels in that new western Siberian frontier were more like barracks than anything usually called a hotel. Though the climate was supposed to be Siberia's worst terror, it was in fact not a serious hazard, provided one bought along a coonskin coat, enabling its wearer to remain warm even at 42 below zero, even if standing out amid the populace. Siberian hospitality was delightful but rather overwhelming.
He relates of calling on the mayor of a town in the late afternoon, just before he was planning to go out to dine with a young Kazakh newspaperman. But as he was rising to leave, the mayor pointed to the next room and announced that they first had to have one glass of vodka "to drink the health of our two countries." In the next room, there had been a table covered from end to end with vodka bottles, glasses and plates full of Russian hors d'oeuvres. He observes that the settlement of Siberia would hardly have been possible without vodka, but if one were going to drink many toasts of it, one also had to eat a great many hors d'oeuvres. That evening, the toasting and hors d'oeuvre-eating continued without pause for 2 1/2 hours, until at last he had tottered off to his dinner engagement, which, by then, was superfluous. By the time he finished, he had been at table for just under five hours.
"Yet any traveler who has the necessary equipment—reasonable intellectual curiosity, an ironclad digestion and a willingness to go unwashed—is almost guaranteed to enjoy a Siberian journey under friendly auspices." The mere process of the rapid growth of the region, however strange and hostile the system was which promoted it, was still fascinating and exciting to observe. The people he and met were mostly very good, as the Russians of western Siberia were wonderfully welcoming, showing no trace of fear of contact with strangers, "and the iron system they live under does not prevent most of them from being vital, resilient and generous hearted fellows."
He recalls several scenes he had encountered, for instance the poetically inspired face of a young engineer, stimulated by a passing mention of Turgenev's "Sportsman's Sketches", or a lyrical description of the steppes in spring time. He recalls the hard-bitten, dirt-grimed but gay faces of three young boys comprising "a wandering brigade" of construction workers who had described their rough lives with cheerful unconcern. And he describes others.
"Not all the faces were friendly. Not all the scenes were pleasant. But as I write these last words on the corner of a table in the big Novosibirsk airport restaurant, just before taking off again on the long trip to Moscow, I'm still inclined to recommend tourism in western Siberia."
Marquis Childs finds that the startling statement by nuclear authority Edward Teller that the U.S. had already lost the lead in science to Russia ought shake the complacency which assumed that prosperity and new automobiles evidenced superiority. Dr. Teller had confirmed that which many scientists and educators had long suspected, that the extraordinary push of Soviet technical and scientific education had achieved in a relatively short time the leadership position which the U.S. had held since mid-1945 with the first detonation of an atomic bomb.
Its preeminent position was threatened not only in the field of science, but in many fields where the rate of growth in Russia was exceeding that of the U.S., one of which was the development of electric power production. Recent estimates made by specialists showed that from 1951 through 1955, Russia's installed hydroelectric power capacity had increased at the rate of 80 percent, while the rate in the U.S. had increased by only 29 percent. Those were rough estimates, but they provided a general idea of the difference in the growth of that vital resource for the development of industry, technology and science. Soviet power production at present was still only a fraction of that of the U.S., which had 42 percent of all of the installed capacity of the entire world, according to a study by the International Cooperation Administration. But if the Soviet rate of growth continued at 2 to 3 times more than the U.S., then one day the Soviets might surpass the U.S. in that area also. In power produced from coal and natural gas, the rate of growth for Russia during the same time had been 63 percent, against 30 percent for the U.S.
Advocates for public power production believed that the policies of the Administration were preventing the construction of large-scale projects which only the Government could build, insisting that doctrinaire opposition to giant projects built during the 1930's in the Tennessee Valley and on the Columbia River, and to some extent in the late 1940's, was holding the country back in power production. Public power development had been a conspicuous feature of both the New and Fair Deals, and had figured prominently in the most recent election campaigns within the Western states, including those in which the Democrats had scored unexpected gains. One of the last recommendations of the Department of Interior under former President Truman had been for a nationwide power grid linking both public and private power resources to get the utmost from all projects.
But when former Secretary of Interior Douglas McKay came into office in 1953, the concept was quickly vetoed and a study recommending it was shunted aside. But from areas where power shortages were acute, there was evidence of dissatisfaction with that veto. Mr. Childs indicates that it should not be too much to ask that politics be put aside at least long enough to look at the realities of future power development in the country.
Doris Fleeson indicates that a
luncheon, at which Senator John McClellan of Arkansas, chairman of
the Senate subcommittee on racketeering, and the subcommittee's
counsel, Robert F. Kennedy, had played host to AFL-CIO president
George Meany and his counsel, future Supreme Court Justice Arthur
Goldberg, had been an Alphonse-Gaston
She finds that the circumstance spoke for the wariness with which both the subcommittee and labor were approaching the hearings, it being understood that the subcommittee intended its hospitality as a tacit invitation to Mr. Meany to make any suggestions about the hearings or offers of testimony which he wished. If so, the subcommittee was either too subtle or Mr. Meany was not in the mood to make common cause with them. She suggests that an opportunity appeared to have been thus lost.
Mr. Meany had great prestige and the hearings would obtain maximum coverage. As the first witness, he could have effectively pledged the same cooperation and reviewed the resolutions enforcing it upon union members which had recently been approved in Miami. That would have given a chance for him to stress that only a small percentage of labor was involved in the scandals about which the subcommittee would be investigating, a fact which could get lost in a long investigation, which the racketeering probe promised to be.
She observes that most investigations of the type made or broke particular Senators as well as witnesses. She indicates that within the subcommittee was at least one candidate for the presidency in 1960, Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts, who had been placed in the spotlight at the 1956 Democratic convention the prior August when he was nominated for the vice-presidency, eventually narrowly defeated in the convention by Senator Estes Kefauver after presidential nominee Adlai Stevenson had left to the convention the matter of the vice-presidential selection. She says that Senator Kennedy would therefore be closely watched during the course of the hearings.
Half of the subcommittee would face re-election in 1958, including Senator Kennedy and Republican Senators Irving Ives of New York, Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin, and Barry Goldwater of Arizona—though Senator McCarthy would be dead within a couple of months, while Senator Goldwater, in the wake of the November, 1963 assassination of President Kennedy, would go on in 1964 to be the Republican presidential nominee, overwhelmingly defeated by President Johnson in the general election. She indicates that Senator Goldwater had resigned from the minimum wage subcommittee of the Labor Committee to devote all of his time to the racketeering investigation, having long been deeply exercised over labor's political activities.
Also on the committee was union labor's Senator, Pat McNamara of Michigan. But the Southern Democrat on the subcommittee, Senator Sam J. Ervin of North Carolina, was being looked to by many labor leaders for assurance that the hearings would be conducted with complete fairness. Senator Ervin, who had been appointed to his seat in 1954 by then-Governor William B. Umstead, in the wake of the death of Senator Clyde Hoey, was a former Superior Court judge and member of the North Carolina Supreme Court, at least "moderately conservative". He had impressed his colleagues with the clarity and vigor of his views on judicial and constitutional issues, beginning with his time on the special committee recommending censure of Senator McCarthy in December, 1954, and appeared to be in line for at least a portion of the unused mantle of retired Senator Walter George of Georgia.
Senator McClellan was a question mark vis-à-vis labor, labor having supported his opponent, former Governor Sid McMath, in the last election.
A letter writer tells of three
monkeys dining in a coconut tree, discussing some things they had
heard, one saying to the other two that it could not be true that
humans had descended from their pure race, as he had heard, as no one
had ever heard of a monkey deserting his wife, leaving a baby to
starve and ruining its life, or of a mother monkey leaving its child
with strangers
The abstemious monkey appears to be missing a beat in his last lines, with "few" and "spree" not in keeping with the scheme of rhyme. Should it not be something like "get on a carousel
Framed Edition
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