The Charlotte News
Tuesday, March 12, 1957
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that Portland, Ore., Mayor Terry Schrunk had said the previous day that he had called off a lie detector test which he had requested of the Senate Select Committee investigating racketeering and organized crime influence on the Teamsters Union, focusing initially on Portland, as a means of bolstering his denial that he had accepted a bribe to call off a raid of a nightclub in Portland in September, 1955. He testified this date that the reason for his changed position on the lie detector was that he believed the Secret Service had prepared "a fishing expedition lined up with some very tricky questions" in the administration of the test, having asked him "loaded" questions which had not been asked during his testimony the prior week before the Committee. He sought to testify again and have the pertinent questions asked of him during testimony before taking the test. Committee chairman Senator John McClellan of Arkansas said that they would consider his request after review of another document, not specifying what that document was. Meanwhile, also this date, Clyde Crosby, the Oregon boss of the Teamsters, told the Senators in a brief appearance that he had new and "very important evidence" to impart regarding the allegations that he and some other union officials had "muscled in" on the Portland rackets, saying that it was sworn and documented evidence and that he sought permission to read it. Senator McClellan temporarily barred the proffered document until the Committee had an opportunity to investigate it. Mr. Crosby, in accordance with instructions from the Committee, had turned over nine wire recordings, which Senator McClellan said had been seized from a private home in Portland under a search warrant which was "fraudulently and illegally issued." He said that the wire recordings would be reviewed by Committee staff.
In Tallahassee, Fla., segregationist John Kasper, called a "professional agitator" by a member of the Florida Legislative Investigating Committee, was scheduled to give additional testimony this date, having told the legislators the previous day that he had once mingled with blacks "socially and without distinction" and that he had only become a segregationist during a visit to Alabama in April, 1956, when his eyes had been opened. He was now the executive secretary of the Seaboard White Citizens Council of Washington. State Senator John Rawls, after listening to nearly four hours of his testimony, made the accusation that he was a professional agitator "using this as a means of a livelihood", to which Mr. Kasper responded with a denial. He said that he had attended mixed parties and danced with young black women while operating a bookstore in Greenwich Village in New York City and that a black girl who had worked sometimes at the store had taught him a West Indies dance called the shango, that he still thought she was a "fine girl" and had sent her a Christmas card from Tennessee the previous December. He said that he, the black girl and another white man had gone by train from New York to Washington to see poet Ezra Pound, whom Mr. Kasper said he admired very much, and that he had sat in the train seat with the black girl. He said that the bookstore "was an integrated situation" and was used as a meeting place for the two races. He testified that he had been anti-Semitic for many years but that he had never given segregation of the black race much thought until he had come to Alabama in 1956 to help the campaign of retired Admiral John Crommelin for the Senate. He stated that he had then seen "genuine respect between the races" which he had never seen in the North and noted that the South "under the separate but equal doctrine had built better schools for the Negroes than many of the Northern schools." He was in Florida conducting a speaking tour, at the request of Bill Hendrix of Clearwater, an official in the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. The Committee had been set up to investigate organizations considered detrimental to the state, with its original target having been the NAACP and then having branched out to inquire into the Seaboard White Citizens Council after one member, Fred Hockett, and three other men had been arrested by police for trying to burn a cross on the lawn of a Miami home of a black person in a white section, with the four persons having been convicted of unlawful assembly and fined the previous week. Mr. Kasper had been a central figure in the race disturbances which had followed integration of the schools of Clinton, Tenn., the prior August and September, and had been arrested for inciting a riot, though acquitted. He had also been found in contempt by a Federal judge in Knoxville for having violated the Court's order to refrain from interference with the process of integration, had been convicted of that offense, sentenced to a year, and it was presently on appeal. Mr. Kasper appears to have been a thinking man's racist.
It might be noted that this was the first anniversary of the "Southern manifesto", signed by most of the Southern members of Congress in protest of Brown v. Board of Education, vowing to use all lawful means to resist it, though notably not signed by the leadership, Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson and House Speaker Sam Rayburn, or by such notable members as Senators Estes Kefauver and Albert Gore of Tennessee, among others.
In Tabor City, N.C., it was reported
that a Federal grand jury was set to initiate an investigation into
charges of corruption within the Horry County, S.C., sheriff's
department. Editor Horace Carter of Tabor City, whose accusations the
previous week had triggered a county investigation which was still
ongoing, had told the News this date that he had been
subpoenaed to appear on March 25 in Aiken, S.C. A Federal official
confirmed the report that Mr. Carter and others had been ordered to
appear before the standing Federal grand jury. Mr. Carter said that
he was informed by Federal agents that the grand jury would be
probing an alleged conspiracy in the county sheriff's department to
aid the white liquor traffic within the county. The Pulitzer
prize-winning
In Weston, Mass., the Boston College seismograph this date had recorded a "very strong" earthquake in the early morning hours, probably located in the Aleutian Islands, with the head of the laboratory indicating that it was one of the strongest earthquakes recorded at that laboratory in the previous two days, among 46 the previous day and four this date. Some sources on the West Coast had considered it an aftershock from a larger quake which had occurred the prior Saturday, with the Boston College laboratory director agreeing.
In Raleigh, a State House Judiciary Committee this date heard arguments for and against a bill to allow judges to decide whether to suspend a driver's license and for how long, with the committee then delaying action on the measure for two weeks. State Motor Vehicles commissioner Ed Scheidt opposed the measure, which would apply in cases where the Department presently either was required to suspend a license or could do so at its discretion. He defended the present law, which he regarded as uniform, stating that the revocations and suspensions were not "punishments but withdrawal of privileges designed for the safety of the public and not to penalize the licensee." He said that he believed the pending bill would weaken the state licensure program, which he found to be the "best in the nation". He believed that the bill would permit persons to take chances on the highway, with everyone at present knowing the law, serving as a great deterrent to prevent many from driving recklessly and under the influence of alcohol, thereby endangering lives.
Ann Sawyer of The News reports that a group of safety-conscious school parents this date had said that Mecklenburg County school officials had not completely followed safety recommendations contained in a 1953 report, the parents expressing concern about depending on "luck" for the safety of the school children. Since a fire at the Flat Rock School in Mt. Airy two weeks earlier, which had caused the death of a crippled boy and a teacher, the group had been studying the recommendations of the school consulting firm regarding safety measures. They said that it was easy to get excited when a tragedy occurred, and rush into a burning school to rescue children, but that it was more difficult to become excited about the 1953 survey and its recommendations and say in good conscience that the community had done everything it could to ensure the safety of the children before a fire started. The recommendations of the 1953 report had included not using some second floors and the installation of panic bolts at a number of the schools, a panic bolt being a type of device used on exits, with a child only needing to open the locked door from the inside by pushing a horizontal bar.
In Berkeley, Calif., art circles were a bit tense this date over Betsy, the Baltimore Zoo's finger-painting chimpanzee, raising the question whether the seven-year old ape ought be invited to display its abstractions at the ensuing annual sidewalk art show, scheduled to begin outside Sather Gate of the University of California on June 28. The idea had been broached the previous day by the director of the show, who had read that Betsy's paintings were fetching between $25 and $50. The president of the Sather Gate Merchants Association, which sponsored the art show, found nothing in the bylaws which required exhibitors to be human, and so drafted a telegram extending the invitation to Betsy's art, but held up the invitation until the artists at the exhibition would decide the matter at a meeting on Thursday night. Charles Modecke, one of the most prominent abstractionists in the Bay Area, said that he would not exhibit his work if Betsy were allowed to do so. His work was represented in galleries under such titles as "Reflection of the Unconscious" and "The Sought-after Reality". He said: "We painters in the non-objective medium get so little public support as it is. People are always saying how their children could do better. But chimpanzees?" He said that he had no problem with exhibiting his work on the sidewalk accompanied by crafts, to which some of the artists objected. Betsy would be represented at the meeting by Davy Crewcut, a local monkey who had taken part in the show in previous years as a strolling entertainer with its owner, who said she would take Davy to the meeting.
Betsy had a British counterpart, Congo, shown here
Two photographs taken by Tommy
Franklin show the impact of spring-like weather the previous day in
the area, with workers going to lunch in the downtown section in
shirt sleeves, youngsters playing hard in the sun in schoolyards, and
love
On the editorial page, "Rep. Love's Postage Prepaid Agreement" indicates that its "American Museum of Political Gimmicks" would soon receive their copy of State Representative Jack Love's "annexation postcard", in which he had announced to county residents that he was opposing the annexation measure pending before the Legislature to expand Charlotte's city limits.
It indicates that it was in favor of annexation and that Mr. Love had wanted only replies from those of his constituents who opposed it, and so there had been no reason to return the postcard. It failed in its attempt to determine the political function of the postcard, not part of any poll being conducted by Mr. Love, and there was no prepaid return postage to express any opinion at all.
It hopes that the Representative would spare the General Assembly and the public any assertion that postcard returns would represent any significant reflection of public opinion on annexation. It indicates that its Museum had two displays of political postcards, one showing the cards used by politicians in bona fide polls, titled: "How Right Am I?" and the other containing Mr. Love's card, titled: "How Right I Am!"
"The Waste of a Capable Ambassasdor" finds that the State Department was about to achieve another malfunction, for which it was noted, in the transfer of Ambassador to Russia Charles Bohlen to the Philippines.
Four years earlier, the Administration had wanted Mr. Bohlen so badly in Moscow that it had been willing to push for his confirmation despite resistance from Senator McCarthy, considering him the best qualified person to succeed George Kennan, who had been so perceptive of Soviet strategy that Joseph Stalin had declared him persona non grata.
The reassignment of Ambassador Bohlen came from his own desire for a less oppressive post after four difficult years in Moscow. The Department agreed that he deserved a change. But it finds that it was virtually a consignment to retirement and a waste of his experience and abilities acquired through 26 years of diplomatic service, that he would be better utilized in a sensitive listening post such as Vienna, but that ambassadorship was being reserved for a "deserving Republican".
Other non-career men had already been picked for the ambassadorships to England, France, Italy, West Germany, Belgium and The Hague, any one of which would have been a good appointment for Mr. Bohlen, with his perceptive observations of Russian affairs.
It concludes that he was being provided a spot in the thoroughly friendly Philippines, which would be ideal for a well-mannered, non-career "deserving Republican".
"A Morality Play in One Angry Act" suggests that when Charlotte residents ventured to Raleigh on Thursday to thank the Joint Appropriations Committee of the Legislature for its generosity in funding the community colleges, they might be in for some suspicious stares from legislators not accustomed to being thanked, producing outrage in response, thinking that they were being made the object of sport. It suggests that the salons might even ask for reconsideration of the budget to reduce it and then ask the delegation what it was again that they wanted to say.
"From Sniffles to a Code in the Head" tells of an article in the newspaper this date telling of a new medical nomenclature being used by more than 85 percent of the nation's hospitals, giving every ailment known to man a number, enabling patients to transfer between medical facilities utilizing the system, with his or her malady identified while still being treated.
It fears that in the age of electronic gadgetry and computers, there would be produced a garble, with a short circuit or burned-out tube perhaps producing the wrong number with the consequence that the patient would have the problem misidentified. It had found no such garbles yet, but was still finding the new nomenclature alarming.
Have you ever thought on a day when you cannot think of much substantive to fill the space, of simply leaving it blank and white, as a refreshing change for your readers? It would be okay. Give your fingers a rest.
A piece from the Durham Morning Herald, titled, "'Drops of Rain'", quotes John Galsworthy as having regarded "apple trees in spring" as being among the "drops of rain that keep the human spirit from death by drought". It finds a blossoming apple tree to be one of the loveliest sights to delight the eye.
"The apple tree burdened with fruit this fall makes the promise the blossoms next spring will bring the more assured."
Drew Pearson finds it no accident that conservative Republicans had held a reception for former RNC chairman Leonard Hall in the Senate caucus room where it would attract maximum publicity. And he thinks it also no accident that the President, the same morning, had said, in response to a question at his press conference, that "if a suitable post" opened for Mr. Hall, he would consider him. For some time, Republican leaders had been increasingly upset with Mr. Hall, who had been the person who had initially maneuvered the President into running for a second term, despite his health problems of 1955-56, and for maintaining the ticket intact with Vice-President Nixon. Mr. Hall had met with the press after the President's September, 1955 heart attack and, without knowing whether he would ever recover, told the press that there would be no change in the ticket.
Mr. Hall had confessed privately that he was acting out of sheer nerve and knew the First Lady was opposed to the 1956 run, but he had gradually built up self-confidence in the President and a feeling that it was only natural for a heart attack victim to run for the Presidency.
Senators William Knowland of California, Styles Bridges of New Hampshire and former Speaker Joe Martin of Massachusetts had seen four months pass without Mr. Hall having been appointed to an office, one reason for the gala reception for him, inviting the President to attend. But the advisers to the President had cooled toward Mr. Hall because of testimony before the House Government Operations Committee regarding Mr. Hall's influence of Government contracts. That Committee was now reinvestigating the testimony that Mr. Hall had held up the Government contract for the Nicaro nickel plant in Cuba until officials of the interested company contributed $7,000 to the Republicans, against the law. Mr. Hall had been asked to testify by Congressman Jack Brooks of Texas but he had so far been too busy.
The White House had also learned that the brother-in-law of Mr. Hall, Malcolm Dowsey, had been indicted in Potsdam, N.Y., on a charge of forgery, based on his alleged forging of his wife's name on a $2,500 mortgage and a bond in the same amount. With guilt by association having been made popular by Congressman Nixon and Senator McCarthy, it was feared that the Democrats would make the most of the issue, even though not reflecting on Mr. Hall.
The noncomittal words of the President, in response to whether Mr. Hall might be appointed to a post, had made the Republicans in Congress the more concerned. Warned of that reaction, the President had made a point to praise Mr. Hall in a statement at the Congressional reception, but, significantly, indicated his support for him to run for governor of New York against Governor Averell Harriman, not promoting him for a job within the Administration.
Joseph Alsop, in Paris, indicates that for the Soviet citizen, the gradual evolution of Soviet society had to be of passionate concern, and should also be of great interest to Americans.
That evolution, however, which had begun with the death of Joseph Stalin in March, 1953, had neither softened nor deflected Soviet foreign policy. While the new leaders were "considerably more supple" than had been Stalin, they were also more adventurous, with Mr. Alsop indicating that he was convinced that a new generation of Soviet leaders would probably need to come to power before there would be any real change to the meaning of "peaceful coexistence" with the West.
The Western problem was therefore unaltered except in the details. In the satellite nations of Central Europe, the Soviets had recently suffered a setback, though by use of ruthless military force had recovered much of the losses, at least for the time being.
The West had also suffered setbacks, especially in the Middle East, but those losses had not been recovered, and the West had found no effective way to exploit the Soviet setbacks, while the Soviets were exploiting the Western setbacks adroitly.
The Soviet strategy was threefold, presenting first a firm military front with respect to the U.S. while seeking bilateral negotiations, but only on Soviet terms, second, with respect to the Western semi-colonial interests, seeking to exploit the native nationalism to make it a weapon against the West, an effort in Stalin's era aimed at the Far East, now being aimed at the Middle East, where Stalin had only conducted feints toward Azerbaijan and then retreated, and third, using the economic gains to be made by exploiting Middle Eastern oil, driving apart the Big Three Atlantic alliance by destroying or weakening the economies of Britain and France and exploiting the right wing's tendency in those countries to blame the U.S. for their setbacks in the Middle East, while also exploiting the left's tendency to view the alliance with the U.S. with doubt, hoping to make gains out of the resultant confusion via the fear which inspired wishful thinking and poor judgment, eventually enabling them to brandish their new military arms, with it likely that they would soon make a public showing of an MRBM with an atomic or hydrogen warhead attached, striking fear into the Western European allies.
In his talks with Mr. Alsop, Communist Party Secretary Nikita Khrushchev had openly stated active Soviet support for nationalization of Middle Eastern oil, from which flowed the economic vitality of Britain and Western Europe. The Soviets did not seek satellites in the Middle East, only Soviet-backed anti-Western Arab governments which would nationalize the oil and undertake other similar steps. That meant that Britain would be ruined economically, that France and other Western European powers would be weakened, knocking out the primary NATO partners from the power game.
Secretary Khrushchev had hinted in the interview with Mr. Alsop that they would engage in the approach he had outlined to strike fear in the Western European allies, and had predicted confidently that the U.S. bases in Europe would eventually be liquidated.
Through those means, the Soviet leaders hoped to organize an upset of the world balance of European power which had occurred in the Thirties. He finds the approach, when viewed objectively, far from stupid or weak, but "prudently bold, well adjusted to the means at their disposal, and on the whole well calculated to attain the aims" the Soviets had set. The strategy left only the question of how the U.S. would react to such an upset of the balance of power.
Robert C. Ruark, in Palamos, Spain, again addresses the start of spring training in baseball, reminiscing of earlier times in the sport—and you may read that for yourself, as he covered more or less the same ground around the bags the previous day, and once around per season is enough for us. Baseball is not our sport. And basketball season is not over here in 1957. He should be writing about his alma mater's undefeated, number one team in the nation and not about drunk sportswriters and whacky baseball players and managers.
Speaking of which, this night in Madison Square Garden, UNC would play its first round game in the Eastern Regional of the NCAA Tournament, against Yale. And nobody better be taking odds on Wilson
A letter writer indicates that the first thing he looked for on Thursday evenings in the newspaper was "The Dog of the Week" column, not only because he was a dog lover but also because he appreciated the generous gesture on behalf of dogs and because animals made fascinating photographic subjects, pictures of which he enjoyed seeing. He finds the pictures increasingly appealing each time they appeared and that it was no wonder that the County dog pound was swamped with calls. He suggests that every now and then, they might also run some cats and kittens, and hopes that the pictures would continue for a long time.
A letter writer says that she was sure that many boys and girls and men and women had made many mistakes in the world, that people would point their fingers and say that they had awful character. She was certain that no matter how low and sinful a person became, they could repent and change their way of living by coming back to God and rebuilding their names by living a Christian life. She finds that in present times, many people were drifting away from God, never knowing when their lives might end.
She does not want people tripping on the way out.
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