The Charlotte News

Wednesday, February 6, 1957

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the President had said this date at his press conference that the Government would have to institute some form of inflation controls if business and labor failed to deal with the problem adequately on a voluntary basis, not specifying what type of controls he had in mind. He also said that he believed that Israel had a decent respect for mankind and would comply with U.N. demands that it withdraw its troops from the Gaza Strip and the Gulf of Aqaba area. The President made no direct reply to a question as to whether the U.S. would go along if there was a U.N. call for economic sanctions against Israel, but said that the U.S. was committed to support the U.N. Israel thus far had refused to comply with U.N. demands that it withdraw its forces completely from Egypt. Regarding inflation, the President was reminded that in his January State of the Union message, he had called on both business and labor leaders to cooperate in a voluntary drive to check inflation, this date indicating that when he brought up that point in the message, he had in mind the long-term best interests of everyone concerned, then making his statement about controls. In response to a question, the President said that he now felt as good as he did prior to his September, 1955 heart attack. Regarding defense, he formally announced that Arthur Flemming, chief of the Office of Defense Mobilization, was resigning and would be succeeded by former UNC president Gordon Gray, presently an assistant secretary of defense.

The President also said that the Federal Government might have to step in unless the flow of oil to Europe was maintained at a maximum level, indicating that Europe could not be left flat on its back for lack of oil. He said that the Government had certain powers under which it could move into the field of state proration of oil production and control of other activities of the industry. He said, however, he did not want the Federal Government to disturb the economy in that way, but added that it was to the long-term interest of business as well as to the country that Europe not be forced economically to its knees. He said that the goal would be to supply all of the oil which transportation facilities could handle, including the filling of all tankers which could carry oil to Europe from all parts of the world as well as from the U.S.

In the meantime, a Congressional committee was hearing testimony that U.S. investments of nearly 50 billion dollars in economic and industrial aid provided to Western Europe since World War II might be lost if the area did not receive enough fuel. Assistant Secretary of the Interior Felix Wormser, who handled oil and mineral matters, discussed that danger before investigating Senators, telling them that the threat had led to the emergency plan for supplying Western Europe after the Suez Canal had been nationalized by Egypt the previous July 26.

In Reno, two persons had been killed and 41 injured in a series of explosions and a fire which destroyed five buildings along Sierra Street the previous day, with damage estimated in excess of two million dollars. Five persons remained missing. The series of blasts had begun at 1:03 p.m., minutes after an employee of a clothing store had reported smelling gas in the basement.

Quick thinking by a gas company troubleshooter had saved the community from a greater loss of life, after he had been called out in response to the gas odor. Realizing the danger, he started an evacuation. The fire chief said that otherwise there could have been hundreds killed or hurt. The troubleshooter had smelled a thick concentration of gas inside a store and quickly ordered everyone outside, and proceeded down the block to every shop, telling everyone to evacuate. The warnings had been issued at a time when store employees normally were returning from lunch and shopping was on the increase. The first explosion had occurred shortly afterward, believed to have emanated from a basement boiler, with the troubleshooter having been knocked down, indicating that he staggered up again and was knocked down a second time, managing to crawl out of the fire and debris, not remembering anything else until he reached the back door. His face and legs had been burned but he required only emergency treatment at a hospital. The hospital treated 41 persons, 16 of whom remained there during the morning. The owner of a destroyed shoe repair shop was hunting through the hospital, saying that he did not know where his brother was. The brother was found an hour later crushed under a car in front of the shop. The manager of the shoe store said that a large slab of concrete had landed on him and he could not lift it off, then saw a fireman who came to his rescue. Two little girls, covered with blood, called for their mother from emergency tables at the hospital. The mother was in serious condition with head cuts and other injuries, and their father was a doctor. A building which had contained a number of shops and offices had disappeared, leaving only smoke, steam and rubble. Another building's walls remained standing, but its interior was ruined. Only empty shells remained of another building and the largest department store in Reno.

In St. Louis, police sat down the previous night with two teenagers to play a tape recording from another teenager's tape recorder, found in his bedroom at home. The latter boy, his father and older brother collected guns, according to investigators, and the two teenagers being questioned and the boy who had made the tape recording often played with some of those guns in the latter boy's bedroom, often flipping on the tape recorder in the process. The tape revealed sounds and words recorded the previous afternoon: "When I pull the trigger… [Click of pistol]… When I pull the trigger this time, duck … [Voices]; Boom-boom-bang… (Laughter, all talking at once]... I don't play fair… No, we both shoot the same gun… [Shouts]; Boom-boom-boom… I'll tell you what, I'll go in the back bedroom and you'ns come back and try to get me… [Loud blast, like a door slamming, shouts, screams]… Don't run!… Don't run, Jerry!… Stand still!… I'll call the police…" The 15-year old who owned the tape recorder had then run through the house out onto the sidewalk, collapsed and died of a bullet wound in the chest. Police said that the hammer had slipped after a 17-year old boy participating in the game had cocked one of the pistols and then tried to reseat the hammer. Police ruled it an accident. The third boy involved was 16.

In Bailey, N.C., a middle-aged merchant, released recently from a tuberculosis sanatorium, and his 36-year old wife, had died in a flurry of pistol fire at their home the previous night, the Nash County coroner indicating that the case had the appearance of a murder-suicide. The couple's young daughter had rushed into the police department and cried that her father was shooting her mama, imploring that they summon a doctor quickly. A deputy sheriff said that when he had arrived at the home, the husband and wife were found dead in the front yard beside the porch, with a .32-caliber revolver lying beside the man. The husband had been released several weeks earlier from the North Carolina Tuberculosis Sanatorium, ten miles west of Wilson. The wife had been employed in Bailey while her husband was hospitalized. She had been shot three times, twice in the right side of the back and once in the left shoulder, and the husband had been shot above the right ear. While officers were investigating, a fire had broken out in a bedroom where smoldering bed clothing had ignited the wooden floor, the fire being extinguished within a few minutes. Investigators said that the wife had apparently retired for the night, as she was found in her pajamas. A coroner's inquest was to be held into the deaths.

Dick Young of The News reports that an appeal to those who favored annexation by the City Government to express their views to Mecklenburg legislators had been made this date by members of the City Council, expressing the belief that there were many who were not opposed to annexation but who had remained silent. The delegation to Raleigh was being asked to pass a bill calling for an election on annexation. He provides statements by five of the seven members of the City Council.

Charlotte attorney J. Spencer Bell had made it clear that he would not fight for the vacant position of State Senator from Mecklenburg County, following the announced retirement the previous day by Senator Jack Blythe. Mr. Bell had submitted his name to the executive committee of the party with the understanding that he would not be the candidate of any particular faction, but developments the previous day and this date showed that he was opposed by State Representative Jack Love, leader of the majority faction of the Mecklenburg Democratic Party. Mr. Bell said that he believed he was independent of the fight within the party but had seen from Mr. Love's statement that he was not, saying that he had not previously participated in any of the factional fights within the party and unless he could go to Raleigh feeling that he could be free to represent all of the people in the county to the best of his ability, he would not want to go.

Julian Scheer of The News reports that State Representative James Vogler was also in the race for the seat. Mr. Love had stated that he had the support of the majority of the Democratic executive committee of Mecklenburg, either for himself or his second-line candidate, Fred McIntyre.

Mr. Love had told the newspaper this date that annexation had not been sold to him and he was not in favor of taking in the 300 square miles, including 38,000 people, until all services were offered before those people would start paying taxes. He said that he believed his friends in the Legislature would back him on the issue and almost any other issue which he favored.

On the editorial page, "Shufflings and Stompings of Old Pols Give Legislature a Sonorous Send-Off", a bylined piece by News editor Cecil Prince, writing from Raleigh of the start of the 1957 General Assembly, with the air rife, even before breakfast this date, "with the shufflings and stompings of old pols, the shouts of greeting, the whispered mischief, the professional folksiness of robust, redfaced giants who represent the branch-head boys."

He recounts that Henry David Thoreau, when informed that the Massachusetts Legislature was about to convene, had told a neighbor, "I must go downtown to buy a lock to put on my back door." In 1912, newsmen who covered the New York Legislature in Albany sang a ballad: "The Capitol's a funny place,/ Where statesmen congregate to legislate,/ They come to 'cure' the people's ills,/ And bring along a ton of bills;/ But when the real work comes along/ And the session's end is nigh,/ You see them flag the people's bills/ To let their own get by. For—/ Every honest statesman has some interests of his own,/ Every legislator wants his good things left alone;/ And all the hot air and agitation/ Over water and conservation/ And Niagara's illumination/ Has a meaning all its own."

He suggests that the General Assembly was probably no better or worse than its counterparts meeting in 42 states, the other six meeting in the spring or during even-numbered years, but he finds that Raleigh was perhaps plainer than others and less pretentious, less gifted in the art and science of Southern demagoguery, more given to elaborate sighs about "the poor, hard-working, God-fearing farmer," and more appreciative of the superiority of genuine mountain dew over store-bought liquor. But like all the other legislatures, it had its "code", that of being loyal to one's own class unless one wanted to be retired, and its own folklore.

There were 120 members of the House and 50 Senators, with everyone ambulatory present to sit in judgment of the political destiny of Governor Luther Hodges, for whom the session would be an acid test. A State official, who preferred to remain anonymous, said that this time, the Governor had bitten off more than he could chew.

Mr. Prince indicates that he had an ambitious program to place before the Legislature, nothing like the previous summer's special session regarding the response to the requirements of Brown v. Board of Education, with a pre-determined outcome, as responses to governmental reforms were not so predictable as to racial issues in the state.

The Governor had proposed several reforms, a complete overhaul of the corporate tax structure to make the state more attractive to new industry, a complete reorganization of the State Highway and Public Works Commission to eliminate district commissioners and stress statewide planning of road construction, separation of the prison system from the Highway Department, and general governmental reorganization per ten separate reports. There would also be much safety legislation submitted, and recommendations for teacher pay increases, a state minimum wage law, legislative reapportionment and the perennial statewide liquor referendum.

It would be impossible to have a perfect score on the Governor's proposed legislation, but many were predicting that he would not score well at all, though perhaps underestimating him. It was only the second Legislature the Governor had faced since becoming Governor in November, 1954, in the wake of the death of Governor William B. Umstead. He was aware of the toil and trouble lying ahead and knew that he had been the recipient of extraordinarily good fortune previously and that luck alone would not save him from the political wolves forever. "If he goes down swinging, he will at least spank up an awful lot of dust."

"Omit Dictation in Choice of Senator" indicates that the selection of a successor to State Senator Jack Blythe, who had announced his resignation, would have to be undertaken with care and discretion, with the new Senator having to be willing and able to conduct a disinterested and continuing battle for the best interests of the most populous, and often most abused, county in the state, requiring a citizen of rare tact, determination and proven leadership ability.

It suggests that neither Representative Jack Love nor former Senator Fred McIntyre possessed those qualifications in sufficient degree, with Representative Love perhaps having enough control of the Mecklenburg Democratic executive committee to dictate appointment of either of his two favorites for the post, himself or Mr. McIntyre. It indicates that disinterested deliberation, not dictation, was the only basis for wise selection.

In the previous May primary, Mr. Love had run a poor fourth, polling only 3,538 votes, behind the third-place Frank Snepp, and in the general election, had missed being defeated by a Republican, Charles Coira, by only 575 votes. Thus the executive committee would serve neither the party nor the community by placing political allegiance ahead of the need for effective and responsible public service in the State Legislature.

Among those mentioned for the post were attorneys J. Spencer Bell, Fred Helms and Robert Lassiter, each with long and distinguished careers, and it ventures that the interests of the community would best be served by appointment of one of them, or some other citizen whose devotion to public service was more notable than the person's political ambitions.

"Sen. Jack Blythe Bespoke Us Ably" tells of State Senator Blythe having served loyally Mecklenburg County for three terms, having earned the respect of his colleagues swiftly and maintaining it through crucial years of political change and realignment. His resignation, at a time when Mecklenburg and all of the major metropolitan centers of the state needed his influence most, had been a shock, and it indicates he would be missed. His influence could not dissolve all of the rural prejudices held against metropolitan areas of the state, led by Charlotte, but it nevertheless had soothed the inherent fears which had upset urban aspirations for decades.

It concludes that his role would not easily be filled and wishes Mr. Blythe well, expressing deep regret that his poor health had made his resignation necessary, wishing him a speedy recovery and many more years of service to the community.

Drew Pearson indicates that one of the healthiest recent decisions of the Senate was to investigate U.S. policy in the Near East, dating back to the Truman Administration, the decision having been reached after a closed-door debate. For some time, Republican Senators had argued, both privately and publicly, against any probe of Secretary of State Dulles's policies. Senator George Aiken of Vermont had argued that such a probe would be dangerous and would destroy the Secretary. Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas, who had initiated the idea, argued that if such an investigation would destroy the Secretary, then his policies were seriously deficient. In a closed-door session, Senator Richard Russell of Georgia, who had not said much before, had asked his colleagues whether they wanted the country to believe that they did not want the people to know about the conduct of foreign affairs and whether they wanted it to be a strict party vote against any investigation. A sudden hush had fallen over the Republican side, followed by whispers, and the Republicans suggested a delay of 48 hours, then 24 hours, obviously to consult with one another, finally agreeing to return the next morning, at which time they had voted unanimously to proceed with the full investigation of foreign policy in the region through the previous 11 years.

Mr. Pearson indicates that he would be delighted to suggest to the Senators where they could get some important information, some of which had lain dormant within their own files. He says that an important fact was why the U.S. airbase in Saudi Arabia had actually been established. The President had discussed with King Saud the previous week a renewed lease on that base and it had been reported that the King wanted a large amount of American arms in return. Senate records of the old Investigating Committee, chaired by former Senator Owen Brewster of Maine, showed good reason to believe that the base was originally established, not because it was of any military value, but to please the U.S. oil companies which already had reaped a fortune from Saudi Arabia. A report was in the files from Brig. General Donald Booth, assistant to the Undersecretary of War, dated 1946, which was classified as secret. General Booth had attached a warning indicating that it was believed particularly important that the classification be respected and that if any part of it should be desired for declassification and publication, it was requested that the matter be referred to the War and State Departments first for clearance.

Mr. Pearson indicates that he could reveal that General Booth's report showed that the British, in July 1944, had blocked the U.S. base until May 5, 1945 on the basis that the British already had four bases in Saudi Arabia which the U.S. could use. On May 5, 1945, a day before the war in Europe ended, it had been decided to go ahead with the Dharan base on the belief that it could cut off air miles in flying from Cairo to Karachi. A week later, the war in Europe having ended in the meantime, the War Department had suddenly reversed course and wanted to cancel the Saudi Arabian base, seeing no reason for it. But the State Department argued otherwise, wanted to go ahead and build the base, with the reason understood to be the protection of American oil companies, though not actually stated that way.

Stewart Alsop indicates that it was likely that two of the three most powerful Cabinet posts, those of Secretary of the Treasury George Humphrey and Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson, would be vacated by mid-summer, with the possibility that Secretary of State Dulles, following his recent cancer operation, would also join them in retirement.

Both Secretaries Wilson and Humphrey had been behaving of late as employees who knew that they were leaving soon, with Secretary Wilson having commented that during the Korean War, the National Guard had been a haven for draft-dodgers, then not backing off from that statement when it had generated controversy with the Guard commanders. Mr. Alsop comments, however, that his statement that the Guard did not provide adequate training was correct.

Secretary Humphrey had recently commented that the Federal budget was entirely too large and would only get larger, with his major goal having been to lower Federal spending.

Neither Secretary Humphrey nor Secretary Wilson had made any bones about their eagerness to leave the Federal Government for good, and soon. Presidential pressure, however, might lead them to remain for awhile.

It was not clear whether Secretary Dulles would soon leave. He had recovered well from his illness and obviously loved the job he had dreamed of holding since he had been a very young man. The attack by Democrats on him had caused the President to rally to his side, just as President Truman had rallied to the side of Secretary of State Dean Acheson under similar circumstances vis-à-vis the Republicans. The Democratic attack, far less forceful than the Republican attack on Secretary Acheson, might tend to solidify Mr. Dulles in his position. He could not be forced out by the Democrats if the Secretary wanted to remain and the President wanted him to do so, any more than the Republicans could force out Secretary Acheson. But because of the health crisis of Secretary Dulles, his circumstances were different.

Moreover, Secretary Acheson had not protected his rear, sometimes appearing to go out of his way to alienate members of Congress and the press. Mr. Dulles, by contrast, had undertaken major efforts to avoid that controversy, which was why, until very recently, he had managed to remain immune from the types of attacks which usually beset secretaries of state. But while protecting his rear, he had failed to protect his front, as he was now almost universally distrusted by the nation's allies abroad, especially Britain and France. It was not, Mr. Alsop assures, a statement of criticism of the Secretary but merely a statement of fact, verifiable by any objective foreign observer. Such a Secretary, distrusted by the major allies, could not be effective, thus posing a reasonable guess that, in time, Mr. Dulles would retire. If he did so, there would be a clean sweep at the top of the Cabinet within the year, provided Secretaries Humphrey and Wilson also retired as expected.

A letter writer from Greenville, S.C., congratulates Julian Scheer for his article titled "To Tarheelia with Love", finds his inclusion of Confederate monuments to be heartwarming, says "Lest we forget" had not been an idle phrase, but "an illuminating characteristic of the personality of the body public." She says that recently, in Abbeville, S.C., a monument had been used as the base for a Christmas tree, to the distress of many Confederate descendants, of whom she was one, says that she wished the reader lived in Abbeville. She says that she had seen the sun rise in Wilmington and out of the ocean during an Easter dawn celebration. "Just as the first red tip appeared a sweet sounding bugle sounded the Risen Christ. I have never seen anything more thrilling. Please see it some day."

A letter writer says that the CIA had reported that the Soviets would lead the U.S. in science graduates by one-third during the current decade, and that the National Education Association had said that by 1960, the number of required science teachers would be six times the newly certified teachers available. The Labor Department had joined the church schools in an appeal to recruit teachers. As a veteran teacher, the writer wonders what they could hold out to new prospects, with it being better to have the salary of an ace in the college athletic gambling den than that of a professor. One trustee in one college in another state where the person had previously taught, provided as much as $1.25 for a paperbound copy of what remained of largely out-of-print publications, twice as long as the average novel and indexed by the Library of Congress cards as an authority on the Battle of Cowpens, "the most brilliant tactical victory of the Revolution." He says that was the sum total of financial aid they had received from any trustee of any of a number of colleges in which he had worked in five or six states. In many cases, "Christian college" salaries were shamefully below secular public school grade teachers. Decent insurance was impossible, and if the teacher had a family, the person was pushed out on a Social Security dole smaller than the per capita expenditure in the county home. Some of their students were paying $6,000 for a mere bachelor's degree. With scholarships, their teacher might have gotten four degrees, including a Ph.D., for as low as $1,600. He indicates that it was time for careful reappraisal in certain educational "appeals".

A letter writer thanks the newspaper for its dog story each week, informing the public of desirable pets available at the local dog pound, finds it a fine community service and hopes the newspaper would continue to make the information available.

A letter writer says that the trying times had gotten the best of them, that he had been reading of some world-shaking problems in the letters column, with people either trying to find singer Betty Johnson a home or expounding on the gyrations of an illiterate hillbilly from Tennessee—apparently referring to Elvis Presley, though not naming him. He challenges every sentence of a letter writer from Pittsboro, whom he finds living in the past "in a time when his 'white thoroughbreds' reigned supreme through force and terror", a day which was nearly over in North Carolina. He says that he is Caucasian, born in North Carolina, 24, and endorsed the words of John Brown: "I think, my friends, you are guilty of a great wrong against God and humanity. I pity the poor that have none to help them. My sympathy is with the oppressed and the wronged, that are as good as you, and as precious in the sight of God. I want you to understand that I respect the rights of the poorest and weakest of colored people." He says that it was how it was with him, and realizing that the letter writer from Pittsboro was of another time and another South, he looks to Henry David Thoreau, whose writing had inspired the current writer, for a parting word from his generation to that of the previous letter writer: "Age is no better, hardly so well qualified ... as youth, for it has not profited so much as it has lost. What old people say you cannot do, you try and find that you can."

The only problem being that when you get some dumb fascists in Congress, as we have plentiful numbers of them today, people who have not studied history at all, obviously, at least not beyond the superficial versions available in movies, tv, and conservative comic books, are dumb enough to believe that isolationism and "America First", hearkening back to the very policies which gave rise with impunity to Hitler and all the hell which followed with him in World War II, will work in a modern world, one after World War I and the coming of age of the airplane, their finding out that they "can" means only demagogic lying to their constituents who are likewise without any understanding of history, who think that Joseph McCarthy was some kind of martyred folk hero for the ages and seek mightily therefore to emulate him. Such people want to erase 125 years of history and return to a time in the late 19th Century, which they fancy was a lot better than today because of things they have seen in tortuous visions of history represented in Hollywood movies, visions of misled writers and directors getting their "history" from the back of cornflakes boxes and other equivalent media. You are a dumb fool if you vote for any of these cretins. Get rid of them and then you will be going about really "draining the swamp". Of course, most of the Trumpies are so dumb they just don't get it, spouting off slogans which their grand poobah utters at their neo-Nazi rallies, without having the foggiest notion contextually as to where those slogans fit into history, just thinking that they sound really cool, awesome and iconic, the only adjectives they know. They need to read a book sometime, and one above the level of third-grade literature, beyond Harry Potter mysteries, obviously the fare of most of them, it being plain that the Gomers are not able to read much at all, in need of adult remedial reading, as is sadly made evident by that crazy woman from Georgia who has to use her finger to follow the lines every time she reads text, just like a first-grader. And that woman has the audacity to suggest that the President lacks mental competency, obviously lacking gauge for same, as she has no mental compass and little more moral compass than a cat, emblematic, however, of the Gomers, the principal of whom, the "chairman", being a big proponent of hemp farming, for rather obvious reasons.

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