The Charlotte News
Friday, March 1, 1957
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that before the Senate Select Committee investigating racketeering and organized crime infiltrating the Teamsters Union in Portland, Ore., Stanley Terry had testified this date that the minutes of a meeting of the Oregon State Pinball Operators organization had been altered to "make them more factual" prior to a grand jury seeing them. Mr. Terry had been indicted as a pinball machine operator in Portland, and questioned the accuracy of the account in the minutes of one of his conversations, telling the Committee that the minutes had been altered by Alvin Brown, secretary of the Pinball Operators. Members of the Committee did not immediately question Mr. Terry about his testimony the previous day that he had told a Portland gambler of paying $10,000 to Frank Brewster, head of the 11-state Western Conference of Teamsters, to obtain approval to resume pinball operations in Portland. The Committee, in its fourth day of public hearings, was examining charges that there had been an alliance formed between some West Coast Teamsters Union officials and underworld figures to "organize and control" vice and other rackets in Portland. Senator John McClellan of Arkansas, the chairman of the Committee, and Robert F. Kennedy, counsel for the Committee, had questioned Mr. Terry, who denied that he had personally altered any minutes of meetings of the organization known as "Coin Machine Men of Oregon", indicating that he hoped it was a non-profit organization. He blamed Mr. Brown for removing pages of the minutes and retyping them. He did not say when that had occurred but said he had encountered Mr. Brown en route to handing over the minutes to a grand jury, pointed to the book of minutes and asked Mr. Brown to let him see it, whereupon he began reading through it, finding that statements on several pages were attributed to him, suggesting then to Mr. Brown that it appeared he had been doing a lot of talking at the particular meeting, or even all of the talking. He testified that he had then asked Mr. Brown whether he was certain that he had made all of the statements and Mr. Brown had replied that he was not, adding: "All right, I'll change it. I'll make it more factual."
In Bellmawr, N.J., the FBI became involved in the hunt for a missing four-year old girl who had disappeared the prior Monday, believed to have been kidnaped from the yard near her home. Two specially trained and equipped six-man crews of the Bureau entered the case, following a request for their assistance from the Bellmawr police chief the previous night. The FBI could get involved in such cases after three days, based on the presumption that a person missing for that long had been kidnaped and had been taken across state lines. The FBI agents had concentrated on questioning a 43-year old man of Glendora, N.J., held on charges that he had molested another girl in the same area. He denied that he had ever seen the missing girl. The parents had still not received any ransom note or other answer to their published plea for the return of their daughter, with the father having resumed his individual search this date, touring the Bellmawr area in his car. A banquet in the town which was seeking to raise $10,000 for a 15-year old newsboy who had been injured by an automobile two days before the prior Christmas, had been postponed because of the missing girl. The City Council had initiated a reward fund for return or information leading to the return of the little girl.
In Venice, Italy, the trial for manslaughter in the death of Wilma Montesi, a 20-year old woman whose body had been found on a beach near a hunting lodge owned by a wealthy playboy, continued this date with the same witness, the so-called "Black Swan" described in the story the previous day, having testified further, as lawyers cross-examined her on her accusations of drug rings and sex orgies within the high society of Rome. The cross-examination caused her to squirm, fidget and stutter during her testimony, especially when the defense attorneys confronted her with a police report from 1953, which said that she was exasperated at being abandoned by her lover, the playboy, and that all of her charges were the result of her fantasy and were not supported by proof, "obviously inspired by the desire to wage a long vendetta." The witness had looked at the floor and twisted her gloves nervously, saying that it was absurd to claim that she was waging a vendetta against her former lover, testifying uneasily about drug traffic. She had been the star witness during the preliminary investigations into the death, after the body had been discovered in April, 1953. The prosecution claimed that the young woman had died following a wild party at the hunting lodge. A jazz pianist, son of a former Foreign Minister of Italy, was charged with manslaughter in the case and the playboy, along with the elderly and ailing former chief of Rome's police, were charged with aiding and abetting the pianist in trying to hush up the case.
In Raleigh, Motor Vehicles commissioner Ed Scheidt told the State House Roads Committee this date that drag racing had become a problem of unprecedented seriousness and that persons who prearranged auto races were "criminals and should be treated as such." The Committee was discussing a bill which would designate as a felony "prearranged drag racing". Mr. Scheidt said that the idea of the bill was to "set up a deterrent which would be serious enough to discourage people from participating in drag races." The bill would provide penalties of at least $100 or imprisonment for not more than three years upon conviction, also designating spontaneous racing as a misdemeanor, subject to a $50 fine or two years of imprisonment. Under either classification, the convicted person's driver's license would be suspended for a year. One legislator also recommended that the bill include a provision for educating high school students to the terms of the law. Mr. Scheidt said that he had seen no decline in drag racing since it had been designated a misdemeanor by the 1955 General Assembly, indicating that during the previous two years, at least 28 fatalities could be attributed to the practice. A major of the Highway Patrol stated that the problem was not confined to one locality and was not a practice in which only teenagers participated. One legislator of Cleveland County expressed apprehension at "branding teenagers as felons", a stigma which would follow them the rest of their lives. The Committee had also briefly discussed a bill introduced by a Mecklenburg County legislator which would establish a 60 mph maximum speed limit on certain highways to be designated by the Highway Commission.
In Spartanburg, S.C., a man from Charlotte, charged with assault and battery with intent to kill and accused of kidnaping, had escaped early during the afternoon from the Spartanburg General Hospital, supposedly wearing hospital attire. He had not been under police guard and two men who had occupied the ward with him could not say how he departed. He was being treated for a gunshot wound in the shoulder, claiming to have been accidentally shot when a rifle in his car fell and discharged. An assault warrant against him had been signed in Charlotte the previous night by the man's wife, telling police that he had forced her at gunpoint to accompany him to his Spartanburg trailer where he held her prisoner for two days.
In Charlotte, Lance, Inc., was planning to move its peanut butter and cracker plant at South Boulevard to a new location on U.S. 21, a few miles south of the city limits, according to the company's president, who said that Lance employees were informed of the planned move the previous afternoon and that the plans were "long-range". Officials of the company had no comment about disposition of the present plant if the move to the new location was completed. The company's growth during the previous 20 years had been phenomenal and in a series of expansions since 1935, the original building had been surrounded by new, multi-storied structures, with the plant said to be the largest operation of its kind in the world.
In Dallas, Tex., it was reported that hundreds of residents of nearby Irving had been jolted from bed early the previous day by the noise of a gas explosion which damaged a duplex apartment and several houses. But a 15-year old girl asleep in the duplex had slept through the blast, had to be awakened by a friend who discovered that she was missing after the house had been evacuated.
Also in Dallas, three snuff-users had been arrested for illegal dipping, with two detectives indicating that the three had ordered snuff in three grocery stores and then dipped a total of $225 in cash from the registers while the cashiers had turned to fill their orders.
In Chicago a judge had been startled in traffic court the previous day when a defendant appearing before him had smiled and said that if he did not admit that he was "drunk as a skunk", he would be lying. The judge found the auto mechanic's acknowledgment of guilt "brutally frank", stating that it was unprecedented in his experience for a driver accused of being drunk to fail to claim innocence. The assistant corporation counsel, prosecuting the case, recommended that in view of the defendant's unusual candor, his fine should be $50 instead of the usual $100, with which the judge agreed, also dismissing charges of driving the wrong way on a one-way street and disorderly conduct.
In Montgomery, Ala., the State Supreme Court this date ruled that it was not up to the telephone company to stop another woman from making phone calls to a married man, affirming on appeal a sustained demurrer to the complaint of a wife who had sought to force Southern Bell Telephone Co. either to cut off her rival's telephone or monitor her calls. She said that the other woman had made "incessant" calls to her husband during a period of several years and that the calls had been made for the purpose of harassing her and alienating the affections of her husband. She had sought a court order to require the phone company either to suspend the other woman's telephone service or monitor her phone and maintain complete records on her calls to eight of the wife's relatives and friends. The circuit court had had said that the plaintiff had no legal complaint against Southern Bell, a position affirmed by the Supreme Court, indicating that the telephone was a passive, impersonal service and if it was used as an instrumentality for creation of a private nuisance, the responsibility for the nuisance rested with the individual who abused the service and not with the telephone company.
In Philadelphia, Mayor Richardson Dilworth maintained a "hate file" on his desk, where he stored all anonymous "drop dead" letters he received, showing them to people who wondered what it was like to be Mayor.
On the editorial page, "Labor's House Must Be Kept Tidy" finds that the Senate's investigation of racketeering in organized labor had already produced some sordid facts and that it was said that additional evidence of racketeering and corruption was on the way.
It finds that on the basis of "one congressional peep show", it would be unfair to suggest that the whole house of organized labor was haunted, but that the current probe indicated how scrupulous the labor movement had to be in its housekeeping if it was to retain the enthusiastic public support it had previously enjoyed.
Never had U.S. labor been so strong in membership, power and funding, and yet seldom had it been in a more precarious position. The courts had replaced the ancient doctrine of laissez-faire, of which business and management had been the beneficiaries, with one equally challenging to public authority, benefiting organized labor and its leadership. But it finds that there was mounting evidence of public disenchantment with big labor in general and big labor leaders in particular, that if rank-and-file members valued their unions, they would ensure that their officials wielded their new power wisely in accordance with the traditional goals of workers, social recognition and democratic self-determination.
It finds that much of the responsibility for keeping labor's house in order rested on the national leadership of the AFL-CIO, but also recognizes that its powers were limited after contamination had already occurred, that while it could withdraw an undesirable union's charter, the action did not necessarily dissolve that union. It cites the example of the Longshoremen's Association, which had been expelled four years earlier but was still functioning. There had also been instances of smaller, Communist-dominated unions flourishing to the embarrassment of the AFL-CIO, after they had been kicked out and denounced.
It thus finds that the public had responsibility to help keep unions honest through the normal policing powers of governmental agencies, and that if the current hearings were conducted with care, wisdom, forbearance and restraint, they could contribute something valuable for the common good of both the public and organized labor.
"Congress, Unfortunately, Has the Colic" finds scowls on the faces of ordinarily amiable members of Congress, such as Senator George Aiken of Vermont, upset because the President had nominated a Democrat as Ambassador to Germany. But he had made no such fuss when other Democrats had received appointments from the Republican President, such as former Senator Walter George as Ambassador to NATO, former Congressman James Richards as special Ambassador to the Middle East, Gordon Gray as defense mobilizer, Justice William Brennan to the Supreme Court, and Ellsworth Bunker as Ambassador to India.
Nor had Senator Aiken fretted much when Democrats had appointed many Republicans, including President Truman's appointment of General Eisenhower as head of NATO and John Foster Dulles as a delegate to the U.N. The former President had also appointed Republicans as Secretary of Defense, Ambassador to the U.N. and a couple as foreign aid administrators.
It concludes that notwithstanding those facts, Senator Aiken appeared to have a case of bipartisanship colic.
Senator Olin Johnston of South Carolina appeared to be suffering the simpler but more virulent malady of partisanship colic, having stated, "Our foreign policy under the President and Secretary Dulles is bankrupt in its principles and purposes."
It indicates that administration of foreign policy had left much to be desired, but the "principles and purposes" were largely based on Democratic Administrations more to the liking of Senator Johnston.
In the House, following Agriculture Secretary Ezra Taft Benson having been labeled a "bloodsucker" by Minnesota's Representative August Andresen, Clare Hoffman of Michigan had demanded cessation of such statements unless a quorum was present to hear it. Soon it was being contended that Secretary Benson had claimed divine blessings for his administration, while the views of Joan of Arc on flexible farm supports were heatedly argued, with Representative Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota observing that "Joan of Arc was not canonized for advocating flexible props."
It finds that only Representative Thomas Abernethy of Mississippi had appeared to have risen on the right side of the bed, saying that while he had not taken part in the discussion, that if and when the gentlemen got time at some later date to discuss the agricultural program from the religious angle, he wanted to represent the Methodists. It concludes that Congress needed more of the humor of Representative Abernethy or a good spring tonic, "minus the sulphur, of course."
"Optimism" indicates that on a warm afternoon during the week, five boys had walked to a bridge on Seneca Place and tossed fishing lines into the notorious tributary variously known as Little Hope and Big Stinky Creek, concludes that some optimists were incurable.
"Let's Keep Sylvan Dreams Uncluttered" indicates that the City Council had contained itself admirably on learning that it had created an idle dreamer in the City Tree Commission, which had no business before it and so was at liberty to devote its energies to dreaming big dreams for the future.
The Commission had an idea for a large boulevard connecting the city with the North 29 bypass, with specimens of every tree in the state planted alongside it. It finds it a pleasant idea, especially since the Commission did not need to concern itself with building the boulevard, something which was within the province of the City Council. It says that the Commission was to be congratulated for not messing up the dream with talk of bond issues and engineering surveys, but urges that it quit thinking about putting up a big neon sign saying, "See Charlotte", among all the pretty trees. "While we're dreaming, let's keep the forest uncluttered."
Beatrice Cobb, writing in the Morganton News-Herald, in a piece titled "Tar Heel, Tarheel or What?" finds that there was no chance of early agreement or settlement of the question about how to write the nickname for North Carolinians, whether "Tar Heel, Tar heel, Tarheel, Tar-Heel, or Tar-heel."
She says that every time she wrote the phrase or word that she always hesitated, asking herself whether it was one or two words, hyphenated, or whether both words were capitalized or only "Tar".
Recently, the North Carolina Department of Conservation had issued a new descriptive booklet entitled, "North Carolina, The Tar Heel State", and on the inside had quoted a story, attributed to General Robert E. Lee: "God bless the Tar heel boys." She says that it might be argued that since any word in the title, including "The", would have been capitalized, the lower-case "h" in the text was not necessarily a discrepancy.
She indicates that the quotation from General Lee was the most popular version of the origin of the nickname, but that historians Hugh Lefler and Albert Newsome, whose recently published history of the state was highly prized, had recorded that the name had dated back as far as the early production of tar in the eastern part of the state.
But the spelling of the nickname was still a major question, with researchers having found that it was "Tar Heel" in Lefler and Newsome's history, "Tar-heel" in Richard Creecy's Grandfather's Tales of North Carolina, "Tar-Heel" in the index to Blackwell Robinson's North Carolina Guide, but "Tar Heel" in the text, with North Carolina newspapers generally using "Tarheel".
She concludes that readers could take their choice as there was good authority to back up any way one might choose to write it.
As to origin, as we have commented
previously, it seems perfectly evident that the shape of the state
and the fact that its "heel" had once been the greatest
tar-producing region in the world, determined the name, despite
popular claims of origin from Gettysburg or from the Revolutionary
War and an incident near New Bern. We trow that author Joseph
Mitchell, hailing from Robeson County within that heel, must have
agreed
Drew Pearson tells of Ambassador to Belgium Fred Alger having been forced to resign from his position and being angry about it, having contributed $1,500 to the President's re-election in 1956 and therefore not expecting to be shelved. It also had come in the middle of the Belgian fair, which Mr. Alger had worked hard to organize insofar as American exhibits. He blamed his ouster on Postmaster General Arthur Summerfield, a power in Michigan politics, where Ambassador Alger had run unsuccessfully for governor against G. Mennen Williams. Mr. Alger had confided to friends that he was going to see that Mr. Summerfield's political power in Michigan was curtailed.
Mr. Pearson speculates that Mr. Alger's political demise might have been due in part to the fact that he was not a heavy contributor, when compared to the $60,000 which Ambassador to Italy Clare Boothe Luce and her husband, Henry, publisher of Time, Life and Fortune, had contributed, or when compared with the $62,000 from John Hay Whitney, Ambassador-designate to England, or the $36,000 from Douglas Dillon, retiring Ambassador to France.
He tells of another case of backstage wire-pulling at the Federal Communications Commission, this time involving Congressman Alvin Bush of Pennsylvania, who partly owned the radio station for which he was pressured, WWPA of Williamsport, operated by the Williamsport Radio Broadcasting Associates, in which Representative Bush owned 400 shares of stock. The company had wanted to build a new radio station in nearby Milton and the granting of the FCC permit to do so was being vigorously opposed by competitors in Williamsport and Milton on the basis that they could not survive against a two-station operation servicing roughly the same area. Multiple ownership of radio or television stations serving the same area was barred by FCC regulations, unless there were special reasons for granting an exception. But the FCC had granted the permit for the new station in October, 1955, without hearings and without explaining why it had provided the exception. Competitors of the new radio station subsequently had protested, leading to oral arguments before the full Commission in December, 1956. At that point, the manager of Williamsport Radio Broadcasting Associates had written to his fellow stockholder, Representative Bush, asking that the Congressman and Senator Edward Martin of Pennsylvania intercede with the FCC chairman, George McConnaughey. Despite having a financial stake in the outcome, Mr. Bush readily complied, having a staff member contact Mr. McConnaughey's office by telephone, and then following through, himself, with a letter to the chairman in early January, 1957.
Mr. Pearson concludes that whether Mr. Bush's intercession influenced the final FCC decision was not as important as the fact that a Congressman had exerted pressure on a supposedly independent regulatory body in favor of a radio station in which he was financially interested.
A letter writer tells of Bud Powell
A letter writer from Monroe indicates that a view of contemporary Spain had been provided by the book reviewer in the newspaper on February 23, reviewing Pagan Spain by Richard Wright, who stated at the outset of the book that he had been born into the "absolutistic racist regime in Mississippi", and had "lived and worked for 12 years under the political dictatorship" of the Communist Party, thus wondering in advance of his visit to Spain what he had to worry about with its totalitarian regime, finding it, according to the reviewer, to be a pagan land, uncivilized, with a "prevalence of sin, sex, ignorance and poverty," the people being kept in ignorance by the church and the state, and in poverty by the wealthy landholder-industrialist. The writer finds another view of contemporary Spain, however, contained in the November 6 column of Robert C. Ruark, concerning the worldwide teenage problem, having written that "terrorism of neighborhoods by young thugs seems universal with the possible exception of Spain, where juvenile misconduct is almost unheard of. The good deportment of the young Spaniard poses another question: Why in a country once wracked by civil war, which makes heroes of bullfighters, which was bone-poor until recently, which still has much poverty in certain areas, has honesty, decency and politeness at a higher level than any country I know?" The writer wonders whether Mr. Wright's or Mr. Ruark's view was the correct one.
With the weekend bullfights from which to obtain vicarious release of the aggressive tendencies prevailing in some repressed adolescents, and a totalitarian regime ready to crack down with harshness at the first signs of adolescent violence, what would one expect? Youth have a tendency to be well-behaved under totalitarian rule, at least until the repression becomes so total as to explode into organized student revolt, bringing out the tanks and troops to quell the rioting with bullets—a faint glimmer of which the U.S. witnessed in the first years of the Nixon Administration.
A letter writer comments on the vehicle inspection law in the state, which had been in use for two years before being abandoned, a renewal of which was now being sought by the current Legislature, with a more efficient means of obtaining the inspections, problematic in its trial run. This writer finds that it had been a farce and that a new such law would prove likewise, finding that trucks and buses had never been inspected and that automobiles ought be inspected by the owner's mechanic.
A letter writer says that she was reading that liquor prices were rising and asserts her belief that there was nothing more destructive in homes than whiskey, that there was a need for more saved people to pray more for the people who were to blame for the problem. She recalls that when she was young, a minister had been holding a revival meeting in her town where whiskey was being made and sold and causing many people unhappiness, that one night, the minister had gotten down on his knees and prayed that God would in some way destroy the barroom and still in the town, that on that night the still and the bar had burned down. She urges that people had to live close to God and have faith and pray for the end of liquor-selling. She recommends turning out church members who drank and lived in sin, says that no one could go to heaven by just being a church member, that one had to be saved and be ready to meet God and have one's name on God's record.
A letter writer expresses appreciation to the newspaper's music critic, Edwin Bergamini and his fine articles, finding his reviews always informative and fair and that his wide experience and education in the musical arts were needed in Charlotte. She indicates that his Fine Arts Calendar published weekly in the newspaper was helpful to those who were interested in cultural events.
A letter writer indicates that she believes teachers were foolish in Charlotte to get cold feet at the last minute and call off their proposed strike, as it was the only way they could show the Legislature that they were in need of a salary increase. She recommends a walkout if they did not receive their pay raise.
A letter writer from Pittsboro finds that the scene in the Legislature was without precedent, with a billion dollar budget, a two-day inauguration featuring "political pomp and military power and a spirit of free-wheeling in the use of the people's money." He believes that a political party worth the support of honest people ought exhibit leadership with social morality and political probity, finds that the Democratic Party in the state was at the bottom in worthiness, admitting that he was a part of the mess because he primarily voted the Democratic ticket in state politics. He does not like the fact that the Legislature had voted itself an eight dollar per day increase in salary, equating to $720 for each member over the course of the 90-day session or $122,400 in all. He also does not like the raising of the salaries of members of the Council of State by $2,000 per year, which he finds to violate the State Constitution which prevented an increase in salaries during the term of office for which the officials were elected. He says that in the face of that record, he advises the teachers and State employees to stand firm in their demands for an across-the-board pay increase of 20 percent. He finds that Governor Luther Hodges had set the example when he had permitted "the rape of the Constitution in the case of the Council of State", when opposition to the scheme would have killed it. "It's his bad baby and he can't escape responsibility for the mischief it does."
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