The Charlotte News
Wednesday, February 27, 1957
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that Senator John McClellan of Arkansas stated this date that the brother of a key witness in the opening session the previous day of the Senate rackets investigation had been threatened with death, and that the FBI was investigating the matter. The man in question was Carl Elkins, of Phoenix, Ariz., brother of James Elkins, of Portland, Ore., the latter an admitted bootlegger and gambler who was presently testifying before the select committee investigating rackets. The Senator had called the threat a challenge from the underworld "to law and order and the power of the government of the United States." He said that it was a challenge which the subcommittee would accept. It was the start of the second day of hearings in which the subcommittee was investigating alleged gangster and racketeer infiltration of labor unions and industry in the Portland area. James Elkins had stated, after the Senator's comment, that his brother was not in the rackets and that they called him "square". Carl Elkins had told police in Phoenix that he had received a telephone call the previous night in which a voice he could not identify told him: "Have that brother of yours quiet down. Frank and Dave don't want him to talk anymore." He said that he had cut off his caller with "some good, old-fashioned muleskinner language." When the Senate subcommittee had convened during the morning, Senator McClellan held a whispered consultation with fellow members and then announced: "Since the witness testified yesterday afternoon the FBI has advised us that his brother, Carl Elkins, who is in Arizona, has received another—this is not the first—anonymous telephone call threatening his life if he should testify or if Mr. Elkins, the witness present, should continue to testify." The previous day, James Elkins had described dealings with Teamster officials and with the Portland District Attorney, William Langley, saying that he had helped swing Teamsters Union political support to Mr. Langley in 1954 in return for what he called a "flat-footed" pledge from the latter to protect the gambling joints operated by Mr. Elkins. The witness said that he was under about two dozen state and Federal indictments, some of which had been brought by Mr. Langley at the local level. Mr. Langley had also been indicted in the Portland scandals. Other witnesses had testified that the Local 690 of the Teamsters in Spokane, Wash., had loaned more than $50,000 to gamblers and saloon keepers in Seattle and Spokane.
—Yeah, Bob, did you catch that part about the $18,200 loan balance which was still outstanding until February, after having been loaned out by the Teamsters in 1950 with no due date? That Bobby Kennedy is getting just a little too close.
—Yeah, I know. Action may be needed. How about some of Hoffa's contacts.
—Oh, Checkers? Checkers is fine, still hanging in there. We can always haul her out again if needed. Why the hell did they not at least pay off a couple of more thousand so that it would not be quite so transparent. You get some of these accountants in there following the books...
—Oh, yeah. That's right, there are no books to follow.
—Good, well, you keep on it, Bob, and keep me apprised of important developments.
—You, too, same to you.
Julian Scheer of The News
reports that the Teamsters Union Local 71 of Charlotte owned no
saloons, bars or other so-called citadels of entertainment. The head
of the local in Charlotte offered a free inspection tour for all, in
the wake of the allegations in the Washington Senate investigation.
He said that anyone who wanted to see their books or investigate the
way they operated was more than welcome. The newspaper had taken him
up on the invitation and had examined the books and the operation
this date. Charlotte Police chief Frank Littlejohn had stated that he
had turned over to the McClellan subcommittee information on the
local, which was affiliated with the International Brotherhood of
Teamsters. In the Carolinas, there were four local subsidiaries, the
Charlotte local, Local 509 in Columbia, S.C., Local 391, in
Greensboro, and Local 55, in Asheville. (We recall in our younger
years, when passing by the headquarters of the Greensboro local,
going to and fro football games in Chapel Hill on Saturday mornings
and evenings, wondering why it was that they allowed gangsters to
operate out in the open like that. Perhaps, we were too attentive to
the news
The names of persons involved and the witnesses to a February 8 altercation between two organizers of the Teamsters and truck drivers at the North-South Motor Lines on Tryon Street in Charlotte had been sent to the McClellan subcommittee in Washington. Chief Littlejohn said that the names, plus information of a street disturbance involving a Teamsters official in September, 1955, had been provided on Saturday to Representative Charles Jonas of North Carolina, who had turned the data over to the McClellan subcommittee. The February 8 fight was scheduled for hearing in City Recorder's Court the following Friday, after two postponements. Chief Littlejohn said that he had no indication that Charlotte might be an investigation site during the probe of the Teamsters across several cities of the country. He said that the subcommittee had only told him to cooperate with them in every way, which he was happy to do.
In New York, State troopers patrolled highways this date in sections of New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, in an attempt to curb further violence in a milk price strike, presently in its third day. Reinforced State police detachments had been ordered out as the strike had grown in its momentum. The strike thus far had been marked by sporadic outbreaks of gunfire, dynamiting, truck stoppages, picketing, fistfights and milk contamination. A thousand tons of milk had been spilled on the ground or otherwise had been destroyed, as a small group of dairy farmers pressed their demands for higher prices for raw milk. Only an estimated 3,500 of the tri-state area's 45,000 dairymen supplying the New York City Metropolitan milkshed were said to be involved, with the strikers being members of the Tri-State Master Dairy Guild. The Milk Marketing Administration said that about 10 percent of the metropolitan area's milk supply had been withheld the previous day, but had not caused any hardship to consumers. The City Health commissioner said that it had no effect on the fresh milk supply in the city, indicating that many dealers were filling their fresh milk needs by diverting milk normally used for cream, condensed milk and ice cream. The Mutual Federation of Independent Cooperatives in Syracuse said that all responsible dairy farmer organizations in the milkshed were opposed to the strike. The United Milk Producers, claiming a membership of 1,900 in New Jersey, said that it would take no part in the boycott. The Guild was demanding payment of $5.75 per hundredweight of milk, or about 12.4 cents per quart. The leader of the effort, a Congregational minister, said that the new price would barely cover the cost of production. The present price per hundredweight was $4.57, or about 9.8 cents per quart.
North Carolina Attorney General George Patton this date, in his prepared statement to a Senate Judiciary subcommittee, sharply assailed what he described as a "spirit of vindictiveness and animosity" in the proposed civil rights legislation, finding that it could only have the effect of "agitating and stirring up a situation which is already agitated and stirred up enough." He asserted that it would cause dissension and probably even violence for years to come, and that there appeared "less and less room for calm consideration of racial matters." He said that on the one extreme, they were confronted "with the blatant cries of the NAACP and other pressure groups" which asserted that they "intended to attempt to practice a little political blackmail", and that black votes would be "granted or withheld in accordance with which political party could meet the highest bid". He stated that in his opinion the actions of the pressure groups indicated that they would ignore the "most important person in this whole matter … the child of school age who needs an education." He said he was not impressed with a schoolhouse which was "ringed with guns, troops and tanks", in an atmosphere which could damage a child psychologically. He attacked the legislation, which would create a commission on civil rights, provide for an assistant attorney general to handle civil rights matters and amend the present civil rights laws. He said that one of the amendments would eliminate the longstanding principle that a person must exhaust administrative remedies under state law before appealing to the Federal courts, pointing out that it could affect operation of North Carolina's school assignment law. He said that the Federal District Court and the Circuit Court of Appeals had upheld the school assignment law, but that the NAACP, in three school cases, had made "every attempt to ignore our assignment statute, and in doing so, they have ignored the decisions of the Federal courts."
In Bellmawr, N.J., a four-year old girl had been missing since Monday, but meager clues bolstered hopes this date that she was still alive and had been kidnaped by a person who liked children. The grieving parents pleaded with anyone holding their child to leave her at the nearest church. There was no evidence of kidnaping and no ransom notes had been left, but police, like the parents, clung to the kidnaping theory because a puppy with which the little girl was playing shortly before she disappeared was also missing. The father indicated that it might be a far-fetched possibility but that because the dog was also missing, they believed that the person who had taken their little girl was someone who liked children. Otherwise, said the father, he would have kicked the dog aside and taken the girl alone.
In Philadelphia, detectives this date examined the possibility that the remains of an unidentified small boy, whose battered body had been discovered the previous day in a cardboard box, might have been a boy kidnaped from outside a Long Island, N.Y., supermarket in 1955. The boy's naked body, covered with bruises, had been discovered the previous day on a rubbish-strewn vacant lot in the northeastern section of Philadelphia. He appeared to have been four to six years old, consistent with the present age of the boy from Long Island, who had been 34 months old at the time of his disappearance in 1955. The boy had blue eyes and a small scar under his chin, as had the missing Long Island boy. Police indicated that they had sent the footprints of the boy to Nassau County in New York in an effort to establish identity, to compare them to footprints taken at the birth of the Long Island boy. The medical examiner in Philadelphia said that the boy whose body had been discovered the previous day had definitely been slain, with his body bearing a number of bruises, especially about the head and face. He had some old scars, one on his chest and another on an ankle, in addition to the scar under his chin. Homicide detectives said that the boy's legs had been too bruised to determine with certainty whether the right calf had a birthmark, which would have been consistent with the Long Island boy. The body had first been noticed by a student at La Salle College the previous Sunday, who said that he first believed the body was a discarded doll and so had given it no more thought, until he heard a radio account the previous day of the missing New Jersey girl and decided to notify police. The identity of the boy would not be established until December, 2022, accomplished through genealogical DNA. He was not the missing Long Island child.
In Raleigh, two legislative committees this date began consideration of measures to reorganize the State Highway Commission, but critical questions from lawmakers indicated opposition to some portions of the plan. Most of the questions dealt with the proposal to reduce the Commission from 15 to 7 members and to have them represent the State as a whole rather than a definite geographic area as they presently did.
In Winston-Salem, it was reported that a middle-aged schoolteacher whose heroic efforts had been credited with saving many of the 400 pupils trapped in a fire the previous Friday at the Flat Rock School in Mount Airy, about 30 miles from Winston-Salem, had died in Baptist Hospital. She had been a third-grade teacher and was the second victim of the flash fire which had destroyed the 30-year old brick and frame structure. The other victim had been a nine-year old third-grade student. The teacher had suffered burns over 50 percent of her body and had been listed in critical condition since her admission to the hospital. She had become trapped in the building after returning to try to find the boy who had succumbed, and she had been dragged out by the principal only seconds before the roof had collapsed. Before reentering the building, she had led many of the other children out, according to witnesses. Three of the estimated four youngsters injured in the blaze remained in critical condition at the same hospital.
The News indicates that it
would publish in its food section each Thursday a selection of
recipes sent by readers for inclusion in their Southern Cookbook,
but which had been omitted. It indicates that for those who wanted an extra
copy of the cookbook, printed in the previous day's edition, they
would be available at the offices of the News for a nickel
apiece, or by mail or phone at a dime apiece. Again, our offer stands
in 2024 just to send in $90,000 in cash c/o Mr. Hoffa, and you will
receive yours soon enough. You may think the price somewhat high, but
there are many secret recipes contained within those pages, for all
kinds of secret sauces with special herbs and spices, which, being so
rare, could make you a millionaire overnight if you are industrious
and inclined to open a little restaurant, being sure, of course, to
use only Teamsters to deliver the ingredients, or the owner might
find his Cookbook torn to little shreds, and any copies retained
burnt up in the fires at his home and restaurant, which would
be especially bad as he recovered from his broken legs in the
hospital. Deal only with the Teamsters
On the editorial page, "UNC: A Partnership of Ideas & Values" quotes Edmund Burke as having said, "The state is a partnership not only between those living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born." It finds that a great university was fundamentally the same, being a partnership of ideas and values held together by a succession of the sensitive educational leaders, with those ideals and values serving as a link between the past, the present and the future, with the university suffering if the link was broken.
It finds immensely qualified the men whom the UNC trustees had picked during the week to carry on a tradition of leadership at two member institutions. They had selected William B. Aycock as the new chancellor at UNC in Chapel Hill. He was a professor at the School of Law and would succeed retiring chancellor Robert B. House the ensuing July. They had also selected Dr. Gordon W. Blackwell, a distinguished sociologist and director of the University's Institute for Research in Social Science in Chapel Hill, to become the new chancellor of Woman's College in Greensboro, succeeding Dr. W. W. Pierson, who had been serving as acting chancellor since the resignation the previous year of Dr. Edward Kidder Graham.
Both men were youthful, vigorous educators with broad academic backgrounds and extensive classroom experience. Mr. Aycock was the grandnephew of the late Governor Charles B. Aycock, who had been a pioneer in bringing public education to the state at the turn of the century. He had served as acting dean of the Law School as well as an aide to Frank Porter Graham in 1951, when the latter was a U.N. mediator in the dispute between India and Pakistan.
Dr. Blackwell was a nationally known specialist in community organization and had been with the Office of Civilian Defense during World War II, working on community problems under stress of war. He was a Kenan professor of sociology at the University and had served as a visiting professor at Columbia and Oxford.
The trustees had also named Dr. William M. Whyburn as vice-president for graduate studies and research of the Consolidated University, giving two vital fields new impetus, and A. H. Shepard as business officer and treasurer of the Consolidated University.
It finds that all four appointments had added luster to the Consolidated University's new team and that all North Carolinians could share in a sense of pride and anticipation. It expresses confidence that the University's partnership of ideas and values would be maintained in all of its traditional strength and importance.
Mr. Aycock would remain as chancellor until 1966, succeeded by history professor J. Carlyle Sitterson. We were lucky enough to have the latter as a professor in our undergraduate studies regarding American history from the New Deal forward, and Mr. Aycock as a professor of a course in Federal jurisdiction, as well as of a course on antitrust law, the latter taken our last semester, and which we should never have taken, that being certainly no fault of the professor. It was spring, and the last spring of our institutionalization before being freed to the outside world. And so... Actually, it was a rather straightforward course, hinging primarily on two Federal statutes, the Sherman and Clayton Acts, but it was difficult to hinge to them at that time. We recall something about the vertical and horizontal, but both were out of whack in the Outer Limits. Federal jurisdiction, however, we found far more interesting the previous year.
"Release Brakes on Tar Heel Progress" indicates that in the State of the State message in 1955 of Governor Luther Hodges, there had been no mention of state minimum wage legislation. But less than a day later, the Governor had told a press conference that he would support a state minimum wage bill, similar to the ill-fated 55-cent proposal which had been offered in 1953. Yet little legislative enthusiasm could be mustered for it in 1955.
In 1957, the Governor had mentioned the problem in his biennial message, but it finds the three-sentence treatment hardly adequate, without a specific figure recommended.
Representative Jack Love of Mecklenburg had proposed a one dollar state minimum wage, prompting the Governor to state that he had never recommended any figure higher than 75 cents, indicating that an administration-sponsored bill would be introduced later in the session.
The piece finds a one dollar minimum, consistent with the nationwide minimum wage in jobs involved in interstate commerce, to be unrealistic politically and that a 75-cent minimum would serve as a more practical target, thus should be chosen by the General Assembly.
The present low wages in certain purely local industries acted as brakes on the wheels of progress, accounting in no small measure for the state's low per capita income relative to the national average. Substandard wages in the state meant substandard citizens and the state could afford neither. It urges the Governor and the Legislature to join hands in an effort during the current session to produce a state minimum wage law at a reasonable figure.
"Assembly Must Obey the Constitution" indicates that until State Senator Spencer Bell and other members of the Mecklenburg legislative delegation had spoken up during the week for reapportionment in the 1957 General Assembly session, the only idea which seasoned reporters could reasonably entertain was that the bill was almost already dead. There had been no indication that the Assembly would abide by the State Constitution's requirement of reapportionment after each decennial census, never having done so since the 1950 census. But the announced intention of Senator Bell and three State Representatives of the Mecklenburg delegation to fight for reapportionment encouraged friends of representative government.
It indicates that reapportionment should not be allowed to succumb to helplessness and that citizens who believed in proportional representation thought it worth fighting for against any odds.
The Raleigh News & Observer had stated succinctly the only issue involved in reapportionment questions, that being whether the State Constitution would be obeyed, and that the only answer was that it should be.
There was no likelihood that the growing urban areas would ever have sufficient power in the Assembly to dictate state policy, and reapportionment on the basis of the 1950 census would make only the slightest changes in that regard. A new reapportionment plan proposed by the Commission on Legislative Representation would guarantee rural areas a continuing preponderance of Assembly control.
Yet, the rural areas still labored under the misapprehension that their control of the Assembly would be threatened. It indicates that they were entitled to that misapprehension but not to refuse the mandate of the State Constitution. It concludes that it would be proud to hear the Mecklenburg delegation speak first and often on the matter.
A piece from the Richmond News Leader, titled "Cat Mentality", tells of a friend who owned both a cat and a dog reporting that she thought she had come up with the answer as to which of the two animals was the smarter, or, as some put it, the less stupid. Her cat was four years old and had always had a reputation for being a fairly smart cat, as cats went. She had found, however, that the cat did not go far enough in the brains department.
Her cat was fed on the washer-dryer located next to the gas range, because the dog, whose appetite was far greater, could not reach up that far to eat the cat's dinner when the cat left some behind for later. She had come into the kitchen recently to find the cat lying calmly on the washer-dryer, next to the gas range, with the cat's tail reposing on the open burner, flaming away. The woman snatched the cat's tail away from the fire and found that three inches of hair was singed. Had another minute passed, the tail would have been in flames.
The friend also reported that it had taken the cat several hours to notice something different about its tail, only discovering it when it began to clean itself, finding the tail had an unpleasant taste. Since that time, the cat had been going about with its tail dragging, while the dog had been wearing a smugly arrogant expression on its face.
Drew Pearson indicates that while visiting the Middle East the previous year on September 16, he had predicted that an isolated war would break out, with the participation of England and France, but that it would not develop into a world war. He points out that the prediction had not required great reading of a crystal ball, as it was easy to see what was coming, with U.S. diplomats able to see it as well as a newspaperman because of the half billion dollars worth of Russian arms stored away as a virtual Russian base in Egypt just across the Israeli border. The situation had almost been the same as that between North and South Korea in 1950 just before the North had invaded the South to begin that war in June.
War also had to come between Egypt and Israel unless the U.S. or the U.N. stepped in first, with the cause in each case having been indirect Communist aggression. The primary difference between Israel and Korea was that in the latter, U.S. intelligence had not foreseen the incursion, while in the Middle East, Israeli intelligence had detected the Russo-Egyptian combine at work. Another difference was that Israel had cleaned up the problem in four days while the Korean War had dragged on for three years. A third difference was that a long war in the Middle East probably would have dragged the U.S. into it, while the presently proposed Eisenhower doctrine was aimed at helping nations threatened with Russian aggression, with the Russian arms stored in Egypt amounting to indirect Russian aggression.
But since Israel had taken the first step and in four days cleaned up what would otherwise have been a long war, the U.S. now found itself in the position of being sanctimonious about hailing Israel before the U.N.
Mr. Pearson notes that it was only a half hour by jet fighter from Egypt to Tel Aviv, the primary city of Israel, which could have been bombed to bits by Russia's large fleet of new MIG's sent to Egypt, before the handful of Israeli fighters could have taken off.
U.S. Ambassador to Russia Charles Bohlen had returned to Washington after four years and had asked to be reassigned to another post. Secretary of State Dulles, who had never liked Mr. Bohlen, had offered him a minor post in Latin America. Being an expert on Slavic languages with no knowledge of Spanish meant that Mr. Bohlen would likely resign.
A letter writer from Evergreen comments on an editorial of February 23, which had expressed support for the action taken by a group of Charlotte teachers in refusing to go on strike after being encouraged to do so to attract a better wage from the Legislature, finding that they would have only hurt their position vis-à-vis the Legislature were they to do so. She finds that the editorial had implied that a walkout would not be ethical, but asks whether the editors had stopped to consider how ethical it would be to stand aside and do nothing while the whole public school program for the future was at stake, for if the salary schedule was not made more attractive to persons who might teach, the children would suffer. She indicates that to make the Assembly aware of the consequences, it was sometimes necessary to take drastic action. Many members favored their program, but many also did not. She says that she fully understood the action of the small percentage of Charlotte teachers who chose to speak for the entire profession, being in a much better financial position than most of them, receiving a large supplement and thus able to attract enough teachers to their system. But there were countless thousands of other teachers who did not obtain that supplement and would not enter the profession were salaries not higher. She suggests that the teachers had been continuously antagonized by the Assembly, rather than the reverse, and in having ignored the teachers' plight for so long, it was possible that they had been the cause for teachers considering a walkout to obtain fair treatment.
A letter writer indicates that success or failure of the U.N. in the Middle East depended largely on the role played by the U.S. She finds that the critical events of the previous few months had demonstrated that a threat to the security and existence of Israel could produce repercussions throughout the world and that the West, with the Soviet Union seeking every means to exploit the Middle East situation, had to seize the initiative for peaceful settlement if another and greater conflict was to be avoided. She says that it was difficult to determine the reaction of the entire population to the President's nationwide address on television and radio on February 20, but many had expressed shock, surprise and disappointment. Israel's faith in the ideals of the U.N. had not been shaken when it was invaded on the day it was established in 1948, with five Arab nations participating, including four members of the U.N., Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria. Then, neither the General Assembly nor the Security Council had done anything to come to Israel's aid or to rebuke the aggressors. An armistice had been signed in 1949 between Israel, Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria, with Saudi Arabia and Iraq, though having participated in the invasions and having been defeated, having refused to sign the armistice. Yet, Israel had still suffered disappointments in the international sphere. All of the Arab countries, under the leadership of Egypt, had organized an economic boycott against Israel as well as against international companies in various countries engaged in commerce with Israel. In violation of the Constantinople Convention and international law, Egypt had imposed a blockade on Israel in the Suez Canal and later in the Straits of Elath. Egypt defied the Security Council's resolutions and continued the blockade of Israeli ships. None of the bodies within the U.N. took any action to enforce compliance with international law by Egypt or with the resolutions. When the Arab countries had seen that they could act with impunity, they initiated acts of armed hostility by sending bands of saboteurs into Israeli territory. The U.N. had declined to take action, but, she indicates, when Israel, in desperation, had sent troops into the Sinai Peninsula, they were condemned repeatedly. Israel had asked the U.N. to guarantee it against such threats to its security. Its stand in the Gaza Strip and the Gulf of Aqaba was dictated, she concludes, by its conscience and its right to existence.
A letter writer suggests that some readers had taken unwarranted pot shots at the Reverend Herbert Spaugh for his recent article on the crown of thorns which the Romans had placed on the head of Jesus prior to his crucifixion. He says that he was not seeking to prove or disprove that version of the event and that the incidentals were not of the slightest importance. His pastor was Dr. Spaugh and he suggests that he had a greater reserve of knowledge and wisdom than all of those who would criticize him. He concludes, however, that there were also those who attempted to belittle Jesus for laying down patterns which helped to make the present-day civilization tolerable.
A letter writer from McColl, S.C., writes on the same topic, saying that he believed that Jesus had been forced to wear the crown of thorns, basing his belief on the Book of John. He agrees with the letter writer who had said that Roman courts had been models of formal dignity, but indicates that as conquerors, the Romans had two sets of laws, one for themselves and another for their subjected people, with the Romans regarding themselves as the master race and their subjects as dirt beneath their feet. The letter writer had said that Pontius Pilate would have been angered by such a sight as a crown of thorns placed on the head of Jesus. But he was inclined to believe that Pilate could be pretty nasty when he wanted to be. "So what reason have we to doubt that this brutal colonial over-lord would object to the torture of members of a subjected nation when they had been charged with rebellion?"
A letter writer writes on the same topic, responding particularly to a letter appearing on February 23 on the matter, reminding that writer that not one but three of the four gospels recorded that Jesus had been crowned with thorns. The previous writer had cited a number of modern commentators who had disputed the notion, but finds that the writer had been denying the Scriptures. She wonders whether it would have been any more undignified to place a crown of thorns on the head of Jesus than to have slapped him and spat in his face. She reminds that Pilate had freed a thief and murderer and allowed, by his own testimony, the crucifixion and murder of a holy man. She also reminds that the Scriptures had been given by the inspiration of God.
Framed Edition
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