The Charlotte News
Friday, March 22, 1957
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from Tucker's Town, Bermuda, that the President had called in his top military and diplomatic advisers this date to shape plans for assuring Prime Minister Harold Macmillan that the U.S. would help Britain develop a streamlined Army with atomic-striking power. The President and the Prime Minister had turned to the problem of bolstering Britain's atomic military capability after reaching what had been called a "gratifying measure of agreement" on the whole range of Middle East problems. U.S. officials stressed, however, that for the moment the U.S. was backing U.N. Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold fully in his Cairo talks with Egyptian Premier Gamal Abdel Nasser and that no final decision would be made until the Secretary-General had reported to the U.N. The Middle East part of the discussion, covered in the previous day's opening sessions of the conference, had included consideration of a suggested formula for resolving the immediate problem of the Gaza Strip by getting U.N. Emergency Force troops placed at key points on both sides of the Israeli-Gaza border, and would include making the UNEF responsible for security inside the Strip, with Egypt retaining civilian administration. Israel in the past had refused to agree to proposals for putting U.N. troops on its soil and had insisted that Egypt could not be allowed again to use Gaza as a base for guerrilla raids into Israel. The President and Prime Minister had also agreed that a joint committee of experts would be appointed to study a British proposal for promoting construction of an Iraq-Iran-Turkey pipeline, with its prime purpose being to reduce the dependence of oil-producing and consuming countries on the Suez Canal, with a proposal for a U.S.-British treaty with those three Middle East countries to guarantee permanent freedom of movement of oil from the area. Also discussed had been steps which might have to be taken regarding payment of Suez Canal tolls, a prime issue in the talks between Secretary-General Hammarskjold and Premier Nasser. Western nations using the canal had proposed that half of the tolls would be paid to an international agency for development and maintenance of the waterway, to which Premier Nasser had replied that Egypt demanded all of the money but might be willing to put some of it into a development fund.
Frank Brewster, West Coast Teamsters boss, had pleaded not guilty to a charge of contempt of Congress during his arraignment in U.S. District Court this date. Along with him, Einar Mohn, an executive vice-president of the Teamsters, had also pleaded not guilty to the same charge. Two lesser union officials had been scheduled for arraignment, one of whom had shown up and the other had not. The one who had appeared also pleaded not guilty, and a bench warrant was issued for the other individual. The trial dates were set by the judge for May 20 for Mr. Brewster, and June 3 for Mr. Mohn. All of the defendants had refused to testify before a subcommittee the prior January investigating corruption within the Teamsters, that investigation having now been taken up by the Senate Select Committee chaired by Senator John McClellan of Arkansas, before which Mr. Brewster had been testifying during the week. Mr. Brewster, through his attorney, had contended that the original subcommittee had no authority to explore labor union activities. The Select Committee had been created with that specific purpose in mind.
This date, after the Select Committee had, during the morning session, explored more of the Western Conference of Teamsters' finances with Mr. Brewster,
planned, according to its counsel, Robert F. Kennedy, to hold an
executive session during the afternoon to hear testimony from Paul
Dorfman, secretary of a Chicago Waste Handlers Union, and Allen
Dorfman
In Tokyo, it was reported that one of the largest air-sea searches ever conducted in the Far East entered its second day this date, looking for 67 missing Americans from a U.S. military transport plane which had disappeared just before reaching Japan. The search included more than 70 aircraft and about a dozen Japanese and American ships, criss-crossing thousands of square miles of the area southeast of Tokyo, where the plane was believed to have gone down early Friday. Thirty-foot swells hampered the rescue ships. The search area was to be expanded this date to cover approximately 75,000 square miles. The plane, a four-engine C-97 military version of the Boeing Stratocruiser, had left Wake Island the previous afternoon for Tokyo on the last leg of a flight from Travis Air Force Base near San Francisco.
In New York, a gunman armed with three weapons had robbed a Hollis, Queens, savings and loan association the previous day, and had fled with $11,899, captured minutes later after a running gun battle. Police identified the 34-year old man as an ex-convict from Chicago who had arrived in New York on Wednesday by bus, with records in Chicago showing that he had been sentenced to seven years in prison in 1946 out of Minnesota for being AWOL from military duty, had subsequently escaped and then been caught in 1948 after being charged with robbery. He had just been released from the Federal prison in Leavenworth, Kans. Following the holdup, he had fled on foot, pursued by the bank manager who had a permitted gun, and the two men had exchanged shots as some 40 police officers joined in the chase. The windshields of two patrol cars had been shattered by bullets during the chase, but there were no injuries. The robber was cornered in the backyard of a residence, after one police bullet had struck and shattered the gun he held in his hand. Police said that they found another gun nearby, and had recovered all except one $50 bill of the stolen loot, with that bill having been found a block away in a bag the gunman had used to scoop up the cash. The previous February 13, three masked gunmen had escaped with $30,000 from the same savings and loan office, but the robber this date had still been in prison at that time. Police quoted him as saying that he had left the subway at the end of the line, had just started walking, came to the bank in question, and that "it looked like a good one to knock off."
In London, in the trial for murder of a doctor who allegedly had administered drugs to an ailing elderly woman patient to induce her death in the hope of benefiting from her will, a nurse who had witnessed the death of the woman testified that she had provided to her an injection, based on her own decision, an hour before the woman's death, admitting that there was a "serious breach of duty" on that night, and that it was "quite inexplicable". The nurse said that she had received the equivalent of $840 from the 81-year old woman's will.
In Raleigh, the General Assembly was asked this date to provide funds to enable provision of free Salk polio vaccine to indigent persons over age 20, with a bill introduced to appropriate $125,000 to the State Board of Health for the purpose. One of the three sponsors of the bill said that it was introduced at the request of the State Board of Health and the state's Polio Advisory Commission, and that in the meantime, Federal funds were available to continue the program of free vaccine for those under 20 until the end of June, expressing hope that Congress would provide additional funding for the program.
In Statesville, a multi-million-dollar whiskey ring, with supply lines reaching to Washington and New Orleans, extending throughout the South, was established by Alcohol and Tobacco Unit witnesses testifying this date in Federal District Court in the trial of ten men charged with conspiracy to violate liquor laws. An agent for the ATU had traced the movements of two trucks allegedly used by the ring in 1954, carrying approximately 800,000 pounds of sugar from a feed and grain company in Atlanta, with sugar being a basic ingredient of moonshine. He said that the sugar trucks were often registered in fictitious names and had been stopped on several occasions by officers in Georgia, Tennessee and North Carolina, with the sugar sales records having been maintained by the Atlanta firm in cooperation with the ATU. The previous day, testimony from a man, who had pleaded guilty to being a driver for the ring, indicated that a payoff of $350 per month had been made to a sheriff and his deputy of Biloxi, Miss., for protection of the ring. Another agent had introduced into evidence account records seized in a raid on the home of one of the ring leaders in Taylorsville, N.C., on August 28, 1954, testifying that the records contained names of several of the 31 defendants on separate pages, appearing to be accounting of sales or receipts. The alleged ring leader was one of 18 defendants who had pleaded guilty to charges of conspiring to violate liquor laws. The ring had allegedly operated between January, 1951 and January, 1955, doing an estimated 2.5 million dollars worth of business from a center near Taylorsville, the indictments having charged the ring with distributing bonded whiskey obtained in Washington and New Orleans, along with some moonshine liquor.
In Charlotte, Martha Evans of the City Council announced that she would seek re-election in May. She was completing her first full term of two years in the office.
Charles Kuralt of The News reports that a group of west side citizens in Charlotte, unhappy because the city would not give them a park, were preparing to make a park for themselves. A community recreation committee had been organized at the Seversville School the previous night to promote supervised play on the grounds of that school after school hours and during summer vacation. A member of the Park & Recreation Department had met with the parents at the previous night's PTA meeting, and on April 6, he would offer them definite suggestions regarding how to put a school-community recreation program into operation. The principal of the school said that City school officials had approved plans to pave a portion of the schoolyard and develop it into a basketball-volleyball-bowling-skating area. (Bowling on a paved area? You had better obtain some old balls which would not be made the worse for the inevitable wear.) The report of an independent recreation survey undertaken in the community had recommended that school grounds would make ideal community recreation centers, supplementing a fewer number of large parks. The parents in Seversville were undertaking to implement that recommendation. Revolution is in the air…
In Tokyo, it was reported that for the prior 12 years since the end of the war, Japan had been bombarded by the American language, such that phrases such as "hubba hubba", "okay", "changey changey", and "hallo" were heard almost every day from Japanese citizens. "Never hoppen", "bye-bye", and "yeah" were only slightly less common. Sometimes, they were mixed with a Japanese equivalent, such as "ton demo nai", meaning "never happen", coming out as "ton demo hoppen". English-speaking foreigners had long earlier become accustomed to unusual billings of movies, such as "Liver of No Return", restaurant menus listing "mashroom soup", "balled eggs", "flied eggs" and "bubergers". Every Tokyo streetcar carried a warning, "Keep out from drivers seat". A "helth senter" operated near the U.S. Embassy, and suburban Shibuya had a "beauty saloon". In Kyoto, a hotel brochure cautioned guests to "check your valuglebes in the saf." A street sign in the same city advertising a bar said, "80 beautiful mooses waiting to serve you". In Otsu, a sign stated, "Girls, whiskey, beer—all cheap". We might note that some of those same sorts of signs might be seen in some rural back areas of North Carolina as well, and likely in most other states.
Bob Quincy, sports editor of The News, again reports from Kansas City on this night's semifinals games in the NCAA basketball Tournament, the first game, starting at 8:30, to be broadcast by WBTV locally, to be between UNC, number one in the nation at 30-0, against number 11 Michigan State, to be followed by number two Kansas, with Wilt Chamberlain, pitted against defending national champions from 1955 and 1956, though currently unranked, the University of San Francisco. Kansas and UNC were favored to win each game, and it looks like by the predicted five to eleven-point victory margin, UNC will cruise tonight to an easy 31st victory over the Spartans. Nothing to worry about. Might as well get to bed early, to prepare for a late night on Saturday, with the finals not set to start before 10:30 local time.
On the editorial page, "Council Must Justify Its Majority Rule" finds that the City Council had properly defended the statutory status quo in its relations with the City-County Planning Commission, that there had been no compelling reason to require a two-thirds vote of the Council to overturn a decision of the appointed Commission, thus opposing the plan put forward by State Senator J. Spencer Bell.
But in reaching that conclusion, it finds that Mayor Philip Van Every and the Council had blurred the outlines and engaged in over-simplification of a difficult problem. The people in the perimeter area of the community had no recourse against the City Council, as they did not vote for the members, though having representation indirectly on the Planning Commission.
It believes that the zoning statute as drawn was sound and that the Council, being the most representative body of the total population of the community, was the logical place to vest appellate jurisdiction in zoning contests. The Council had vigorously defended its majority vote and it suggests that it now should justify that position by scrupulous fairness and strict attention to the general welfare of the community.
"This Is What the Park Board Needed" indicates that the City Council had filled a vacancy on the Park Board with Mrs. Robert Howerton, after considering a number of worthy candidates. It finds the selection particularly commendable, after more than ordinary care had gone into sifting and scrutinizing the qualifications of prospective appointees, important for all municipal boards and commissions.
Mrs. Howerton was an active career woman, was principal of the Ashley Park School, and had already demonstrated an enlightened interest in community problems, having been active in civic affairs for a number of years. She would bring a fresh viewpoint to the Park Board, for instance, believing that its emphasis on spectator sports had gone far enough and that it was time to concentrate on family recreation, which it finds to be an area where a woman's touch would prove helpful.
It also finds that her interest in the long-range recommendations of an independent report on recreation would be welcome at a time when park-planning had to be shaped to meet the challenge of an expanding community. It finds that the previously all-male Board had been less than enthusiastic about many sound improvements suggested in the independent survey, some of which would not cost much money to implement. The "school-park" concept, which would convert many school playgrounds to community recreation centers, was an example of the type of innovation which Mrs. Howerton could be expected to support.
It commends the Council for having reached a happy ending to an exasperating controversy in the appointment to the Board.
"Why Consolidation Is So Necessary" favors the consolidation of the City and County school systems, the study of which had been approved during the week by the County Commission, with it indicating that the most profound arguments yet offered for the consolidation having been in the previous week's report by the Chamber of Commerce regarding annexation, the report having demonstrated the type of needless complexities which separate school systems maintained.
Any area which would be annexed to the city did not automatically become a part of the City school system, with a separate vote required. The Chamber's study committee had discovered that district lines could not be shifted from one place to another without raising operational difficulties in both school systems and substantial inconvenience to some of the pupils and their parents. For instance, there were eight County schools within the perimeter area to be annexed, but none of those was a high school, with the high school pupils living in those areas having to attend different high schools located within the present city limits. There were three County schools closely adjacent to the proposed annexation line and those schools would lose approximately half of their present pupils.
In addition, 43.7 percent of the total taxable value for support of the County school supplement lay within the perimeter area, with the income from it to be reduced from $320,000 to $180,000 through annexation, while, within the same area, the County system would lose only 33 percent of its pupils.
The Chamber's study committee had concluded that a common school system for all of Mecklenburg County would eliminate all of the problems which they had encountered in their study, and allow the most efficient utilization of all school buildings, administrative staff and teachers, providing also State bus transportation for all pupils living more than 1.5 miles from their school, and would be generally more efficient and less costly than the present two separate systems.
It finds that the case for consolidation had thus been made even more convincing, and that it was time to provide educational uniformity for the entire metropolitan area.
A piece from the Reporter, titled "Probing Device", indicates that the Optical Society of America had recently described an instrument which would help astronomers see through the interstellar dust clouds which obscured the center of the Milky Way, a "flattish disk-shaped aggregation of a hundred billion stars", while governments were "flattish, amoeba-shaped aggregations of career officers and civil servants", both radiating.
It points out that the Milky Way sent out a visible white light scattered by dust clouds, and an infrared light which the new instrument would pick up, and that the Government emitted speeches and dollars, arms and good will, also subject to scatter by dust clouds, the center sometimes becoming obscure. "Perhaps the astronomers' instrument could be redesigned and … but this is wishful thinking. Anyhow, the Milky Way is far easier to understand. It is a hundred worlds, while ours is only one."
Drew Pearson indicates that the President could look back at a long period of ups and downs in Anglo-American relations as he conferred with Prime Minister Harold Macmillan in Bermuda, looking back to the summer of 1944 when he had lived in a pleasant headquarters camp outside London and spent long hours planning the invasion of Normandy, and to the crowds in the streets of London which provided him a hero's welcome as he returned from the wars, with Londoners standing for hours to catch a glimpse of the man who had run the Nazis from Europe, standing on the Guildhall balcony beside unsmiling Winston Churchill, promising that the U.S. and England would build peace together, forever.
He could also look back to pleasant trips to Scotland for grouse-shooting after the war, when he had been stationed in Germany, with the Scots having provided him part of a castle where he could relax any time he wanted, a gift for life from the grateful people. He could also look back to the day when he marched with other dignitaries to receive an honorary degree from Oxford University, as well regarding a myriad of other pleasant associations with the country grateful to a soldier.
When he was about to become President in 1953, he began to receive messages from his old friend, Prime Minister Churchill, as well as trans-Atlantic phone calls. Mr. Churchill had kept up a steady stream of correspondence across the Atlantic with FDR, with winning the war having become a sort of partnership or joint enterprise between them, at a time when the Anglo-American alliance had never been stronger. Relations had simmered some under President Truman and Prime Minister Clement Attlee. The latter did not camp out in the White House with the First Family as had Prime Minister Churchill with the Roosevelts, climbing up and down the stairs of the White House in his bedroom slippers, his crimson and gold kimono half-draped around his naked and cherubic torso.
Mr. Churchill had expected the same kind of cozy relations with President Eisenhower, having been eager to come to see him two weeks before he was sworn in as President. The new President-elect was cordial, but the relationship was different from the halcyon days right after the war, with Mr. Churchill no longer providing suggestions to a military man, rather talking to a President. At the time, Mr. Churchill was pushing 80 years old and becoming quite deaf, and it was a strain to talk to him. He had a great ambition, to hold a Big Three conference with Russia to patch up the peace of the world. The President-elect did not like the idea, however, but Mr. Churchill continued to hammer on the idea until finally inducing the President to meet him again in Bermuda in December, 1953 for further discussions.
Mr. Pearson indicates that the President would also be looking back at that time when he met with Prime Minister Macmillan. But the President might not have known that he had left Mr. Churchill in tears in late 1953, as the latter had planned a dramatic session which he would dominate. Instead, the President had cut the session short to fly to New York to address the U.N. on his "Atoms-for-Peace" initiative, the proposal to exchange between nations research and technology regarding the peaceful uses of atomic energy. That latter proposal had taken the headlines away from Mr. Churchill, who by then was a fading, aging Prime Minister.
The President could also look back on the night of the previous November 5, the night before the election, when he had telephoned Prime Minister Anthony Eden, asking him to remove his troops from the Suez. It had been reported in London that he had used barracks-room language, a report which was denied by the White House, with Mr. Pearson indicating that the fact, however, had been that he had.
A letter writer offers a "scathing"
reply to Robert C. Ruark's column of March 19 regarding the "world's
worst brats" running wild within the U.S., with New York and
Washington youth being the worst of the lot. She says that she was
originally from New York, was proud of the fact, was Irish and mad,
that her mother had taught her at a young age not ever to say "mad",
but rather "angry", as only dogs got mad. But she was still
"plain mad!, mad!, mad!" She believes the column by Mr.
Ruark was unfair and prejudiced, indicating that she had been raised,
not by a razor strap, but by the good old-fashioned weapon of the
palms of her mother's and father's hands. To this day, she regarded
"no" from either of their mouths to be as respected and
adhered to as one of the commandments of God. She says that neither
of her parents had ever gazed at her through a martini haze, as
suggested by Mr. Ruark was part of the problem with modern parenting,
that while liquor was not taboo in their home, they were taught
temperance at home and in society "as the good Lord meant it to
be." She had been taught that a cocktail before dinner in a
public restaurant was good for the health, rather than whiskey
sneaked from a paper bag from under the table into a paper cup. They
had never roamed amid highballs and cigarette smoke around their
parents, that when adults came to visit her parents, they were sent
to bed, where they were expected to remain. Her mother was too tired
after entertaining and feeding her guests to do handstands in the wee
hours, as suggested by Mr. Ruark, something which she believes was
unheard of in the South. As for necking in the garden, there had been
just one tree in Brooklyn, as the book had said, and it was "too damned cold" in
any event to neck outside. She goes on quite a way in that vein, says
that she had always said at night that God should bless her mother
and daddy and keep her good, that it was a gift from God all over
"this wonderful land of ours that makes life worth living."
She recommends to Mr. Ruark that he "go back to Europe, with
its communism, and war and starvation and greed and disease and all
the rest. You don't deserve America, much less children, and from a
still married mad
A letter writer from Great Falls, S.C., expresses his dissent to the proposed idea to lower the voting age from 21 to 18 on the notion that if a person was old enough to fight for his country, he was old enough to vote. He suggests that the only requirement for fighting was to be physically fit and be willing to obey rules and discipline of the military, whereas to vote, a person had to have intelligence and be somewhat familiar with current events. He believes that at age 18, with some exceptions, very few people had reached maturity sufficiently to exercise the franchise, or had not shown an inclination or interest in politics, with not too many being familiar with foreign affairs problems or even aware of who their representatives were. They were very familiar with rock 'n' roll, however, how to twist and turn in some sports, and in the funny papers. He thus finds that it would be an injustice to place such a burden on them, which could be badly misused. He finds that some politicians who did not deserve to be elected would seek to influence them for their votes, winding up as a disservice to the community. He favors permitting those who would serve their country for about two years and had been honorably discharged to be privileged to vote, for those young people had an opportunity in the service to become mature.
A letter writer finds that to promote safety on the highways, the laws should be enforced as written by men of the highest character and integrity, that a law should be passed to prohibit the sale of any motor vehicle in the state which would travel faster than a certain speed prescribed by law, that all vehicles should be inspected by licensed inspectors, that all mechanics should undergo examination to obtain a license to work on any vehicle, and that all owners of vehicles which traveled on the highways would be required to have insurance before they could obtain their license plates. He also offers conclusions on politics, that a machine would be defined as any combination or mechanism for utilizing, modifying, plying or transmitting energy, and that a political machine was an organization within a political party, controlled by practical politicians, in which the discipline and subordination were maintained chiefly by the use of patronage, wondering how there could be a government by and for the people when there was such a machine in every state, usually controlled by one man who was controlled, in turn, by a group of special privilege seekers or lobbyists. The result was legislation without representation. He favors getting rid of the machines and the lobbyists, finds that State Senator J. Spencer Bell had been selected recently without the aid of either, and that there were many more persons of the same caliber who would be available to serve at all levels of government. Such persons did not seek office because they were too honest to pay more to obtain the office than they would get from it. He favors putting people in office on the strength of their record instead of on the basis of a machine and money.
A letter writer from Pittsboro indicates that it was the time of year when people were asked to contribute to the Red Cross, the Heart Fund, the March of Dimes and other such charitable organizations, as well as to institutions of higher learning. For several years, he had received such requests, but had ignored them. He did not like the trend and atmosphere at UNC in Chapel Hill. He says he believes in segregation of the races and thus should not be aiding an institution which was a "veritable integration incubator". UNC had integrated Morehead Planetarium long before any pressure had been brought upon the institution to admit blacks to classes. He finds that it had been an invitation as well as an indicator. He says there had been a formal fight against integration, with the institution's heart, however, not being in the fight. He says that he was not contending that the University was the only institution in the state welcoming integration, tells of Woman's College in Greensboro having had its faculty polled and being on record in favor of integration, that many if not most of the denominational colleges of the state were likewise in sympathy with integration, that the Free-Will Baptists were the only ones of whom he knew who were not in favor of it. "This new one-race-one-blood doctrine is essentially an amalgamation doctrine. With its acceptance, amalgamation of the races is inevitable, and the victimized student of today is asking the logical question, why the delay?" He says that the fact that the white race comprised only one-fourth of the world's population had led political leaders to cast their lot with numbers, that the U.N. was trying to equalize the peoples of the earth, and the Protestant Church was trying to outdo the Catholic Church in the quest for members. He believes that 90 percent of the world's progress in material things and human welfare was the result of the white man's activity. He says that he accepted God's plan to keep the races separate. He says he exulted in the fact that he had financed two black girls and one black boy through college, and the latter had the right to grow into competition with the white man in the arts and sciences, the right to participate in the government and to make of himself a citizen without artificial restrictions. "If the NAACP would eschew all claim to racial amalgamation, indeed prohibit it in its fight for the Negro's right in the sum, I would join it in spirit and contribute to its treasury."
A letter writer comments about the proposed new health center in Charlotte, with the City Council entertaining a proposal to utilize a section of Independence Park for the purpose. She thinks that the original purpose for the land should not be thwarted, as the new health center would entail a large amount of traffic, and that it would tend to discourage other generous-minded people from providing land to the community dedicated as a quiet park. She thinks a better site for the health center would be the block behind City Hall.
Framed Edition
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