The Charlotte News

Friday, May 10, 1957

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from Bogotá, Colombia, that dictator Gustavo Rojas Pinilla had been swept from power this date amid scenes of wild jubilation in which 30 persons had been crushed to death, as he turned over his presidency to a five-man military junta. He had been overthrown by a combination of opposition from the Roman Catholic Church, the business community and the people. In a broadcast from his San Carlos Palace during the morning, he had stated: "It would be impossible that I, who gave the country peace, should cause the country useless bloodshed." Crowds had begun to assemble in Bogotá in anticipation of the announcement, jamming streets in the Plaza Bolivar in front of the capitol building, with at least 30 persons having perished in a stampede when troops cleared the plaza during the morning. The dictator declared that he had given command to "a military group. The armed forces continue in command of the country." He said that the junta would have "the mission of calling popular elections." Thousands of joyful people swarmed into the capital shouting demands for a civilian as president, crying "Libertad!" Two days earlier, the dictator had maneuvered himself into a second term as El Presidente, due to start in 1958, a move which had crystallized the opposition. The news that he was quitting became known just before dawn, prompting Colombians to run through the streets, shouting the news, followed by automobiles filled with youths circulating the news, sounding three short horn blasts, followed by the shout for liberty. Sleeping residents of Bogotá then crowded onto balconies and joined in the jubilation, many going to the street in their nightclothes. Police and soldiers, who had maintained heavy patrols and had cracked down on demonstrators for a week, had been confined to barracks. Only a few hours before the decision of the dictator to step aside, his Government had threatened criminal action to crush a series of business strikes paralyzing Colombia's major cities. The dictator had been sent into exile with his family, according to Colombian sources in New York, and the new military junta had placed him on a Colombian Air Force plane which had reached Jamaica early in the morning, with the junta promising in a radio message to establish a civilian government.

Before the Senate Select Committee investigating racketeering and organized crime influence within labor unions and management, investigators said this date that Teamsters Union president Dave Beck and a mortgage banker had split $11,565 derived from handling a fund raised by unions for the widow of Mr. Beck's "best and closest friend." A Seattle mortgage banker, Donald Hedlund, testified this date that Mr. Beck had handled the transaction for Mrs. Ray Leheney, the widow of the man whom Mr. Hedlund had testified was Mr. Beck's best friend. He said that Mr. Beck had handled the deal as trustee for "The Ray Leheney Memorial Fund", for which about $80,000 had been collected from unions after the death of Mr. Leheney, formerly the head of the union label department of the AFL. The story backed up earlier testimony that Mr. Beck had collected a third share of something over $20,000 in brokerage fees on the investment of union funds in the mortgage market. Senator John McClellan of Arkansas, chairman of the Committee, called the payments to Mr. Beck a "kickback". Mr. Hedlund had testified that Mr. Beck and the Teamsters Union lawyer, Simon Wampold, had received the brokerage fees through a company called The Investment Co., which, in effect, was an intermediary in the union's purchases of mortgages through the National Mortgage Co. of Seattle. The Teamsters were said to have advanced the money to purchase $71,000 worth of mortgages, held by Mr. Beck and Mr. Hedlund for several months during which the mortgages were retired to the extent of about $10,000, and then were sold to the Leheney Memorial Fund for some $61,000. Robert F. Kennedy, counsel for the Committee, said that Mr. Beck had led other Teamsters officials to believe that the money advanced from the Union treasury had gone to purchase the mortgages ultimately sold to the Memorial Fund. He said that actually, however, Mr. Beck had merely borrowed the union money, purchased the mortgages, sold them to the Memorial Fund at a profit, and then returned the original mortgage-purchase sum to the Teamsters treasury. The Committee had difficulty obtaining the exact amount which Mr. Beck might have received from the scheme, but Mr. Hedlund had responded affirmatively to Mr. Kennedy's summation that a total of $20,425.27 had been split in 1954 among the three of Mr. Hedlund, Mr. Wampold and Mr. Beck. To fill in, for the unitiated, the missing part, it is against the law for a fiduciary, in this case, the trustees, to engage in self-dealing to obtain profit, as that corrupts the independent judgment of the fiduciary to act solely for the benefit of the trust, at least insofar as the law allows. Hence, the questions to Mr. Hedlund by Senator McClellan. Remember that Senator Kennedy's younger brother was only 31 years old, still, therefore, putting it all together. (The figures are a bit off, perhaps because the reporter had a rough night back at the O.K. Corral the night before at the copy desk, following police calls or whatever, or maybe had to digest some raw eggs with the morning coffee to get over the dog bite, anyway leading the critical reader into some folie à deux as to what it all meant to Alfie. The actual figure in the lead line of the coffin story ought be $11,585.04, not $11,565.00. You may ask, all you want, what difference does it make regarding just $20.04. But, as they say, when you are trying to follow the money through the transcript with the search engine in play, it is very frustrating to find an unreliable pen in the hand of the reporter taking notes in the hearing room in 1957, making the renderer later appear a little short-sighted or just plain confused as to what the guy had just said. ("What'd he say? Oh, well, nobody'll understand this stuff anyway.") And besides, if you come up short with the money, even by a skimption, especially with the Gomers and Goobers managing the island, the collections manager might call in Ray Barboni from Miami to finish collecting. You know what we're sayin', heyeh? "Money speaks; worthy words and smithies listen." Those, anyway, we have it on good authority, were the famous last words of Mr. Barboni...)

The President said this date that there was no longer a "Solid South" controlled by the Democrats, and urged Southern Republicans to launch a political offensive in the party's drive to recapture control of Congress in the midterm elections of 1958. He said that there had been "impressive increases" in Republican strength in the South during the previous 30 years. He made the statement in a telephone message to party workers attending a regional Republican rally in Louisville, where representatives of 12 Southern and Border states had gathered for the session, the fourth of a series of such meetings being held around the country. The President said that it had been difficult to believe that in 1940, the Republicans had polled only 20 percent of the vote in the Southern states in the presidential election, and that since that time, each succeeding quadrennial election had seen an improvement in that ratio, such that in 1956, the Republican ticket had received 48 percent of the vote in the 12 Southern states and over 50 percent in six of them. He further said that the total Republican vote cast for Congress in all 12 Southern states had gone from 19 percent in 1952 to 26.4 percent in 1956, indicating that Republicans held nine of the 114 House seats from the South, a trend, he said, in the right direction. He urged Republicans to field good candidates in each Southern district. In the 1956 election, the President had carried five Southern states, Texas, Virginia, Florida, Tennessee and Louisiana, compared to four in 1952, when he had carried all of those states except Louisiana. He had also carried Kentucky, usually considered a Border state. Republicans had picked up no additional House seats in 1956, but maintained the number they had previously.

In New York, evangelist Billy Graham would start the following Wednesday night a 6 1/2-week series of meetings, expected to cost about $900,000, according to budget figures at his New York Crusade headquarters, making the series of meetings the most expensive crusade he had yet conducted. The costliest thus far had been the 12-week 1954 series in London, which had cost about $450,000. Spokesmen for Mr. Graham had stated the previous day that about $300,000 had already been contributed for the New York Crusade by business organizations, individuals and church groups. The most expensive item in the New York Crusade had been $360,000 for "auditorium-stadia rental and related expenses". Most of the appearances would be at Madison Square Garden. The story itemizes the remaining expenses, which included $255,000 in advertising and publicity expense. The Crusade headquarters had about 35 paid employees, according to a spokesman. Receipts to the New York Crusade included $250,000 from offerings, $45,209 from the Billy Graham Crusades in Richmond, Va., and Louisville, and other receipts to April 1 being $176,688, leaving the amount to be raised from contributions from individuals, foundations, organizations, partnerships and corporations to be $428,103. The budget noted that the salaries or honoraria for Mr. Graham and every member of his evangelistic team were to be borne by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association of Minneapolis, so that neither Mr. Graham nor any member of his team would receive any payment for their work in the Crusade. A spokesman for the Crusade headquarters said that his salary was $15,000 per year and that only his meals and incidental expenses to appearances would be paid by the Crusade, with the New Yorker Hotel, where Mr. Graham would be staying during the crusade, not charging him for his suite.

A raging forest fire which had threatened the heart of Plymouth, Mass., historic home of the Pilgrims, had been brought under control this date, with fire officials expressing fear, however, that the fire, one of many taking place in Northeast woodlands, might start again as temperatures rose and parched conditions continued. Thousands of firefighters had joined in halting the fire just short of Route 3, a main highway between Boston and Cape Cod. At Plymouth, more than 100 persons fled their homes and another 2,000 had been alerted to move out at a moment's notice. The fire had broken out Wednesday in the Myles Standish State Forest south of Plymouth and had consumed 50 homes and buildings and blackened some 14,000 acres. Another fire at Montague in western Massachusetts had since blackened two square miles of forest in an hour and a half. It was the fifth successive day of forest fires in the populous Northeast. From Pennsylvania through New England and into Québec and Ontario, fires had raged out of control, some of which having been brought under control only to have the wind reignite dying embers. Only prolonged, soaking rains could end the danger, but there was none in the forecast. In Pennsylvania, firefighters had battled forest fires at opposite ends of the state, one on Thursday having been about 23 miles west of Stroudsburg, sweeping over 1,000 acres, and another, also encompassing about 1,000 acres having been scorched by a series of ten fires in Jefferson and Clarion Counties in the western part of the state. Tinderbox conditions were reported in New Jersey, where 15 small fires consumed 125 acres on Thursday. In Maine, forest fires, fanned by tricky winds, had swept through more than 7,500 acres, destroying 30 buildings. The major blaze was at West Kennebunk, where fire had destroyed 13 homes and possibly six more as it hopped wildly over 4,500 acres of York County, including areas swept by disastrous fires in 1947. In Vermont, five forest fires had cut through the northeast section of the state, at Barton, Peacham, Lyndonville, Lunenburg and Kirby, near the New Hampshire border.

In London, it was reported that seven American fliers were en route to Gibraltar this date after being rescued from a life raft in excellent condition several hours after their plane had belly-landed in rough Atlantic seas. Three of the four engines of the Air Force tanker plane had sputtered out 200 miles off the Azores the previous day on a flight from Europe to their home base at Lockbourne, O., with the pilot landing the Boeing KC-97 plane on the sea. The crew had then transferred to a rubber life raft while U.S. airbases in Europe, North Africa and the Azores responded to their SOS signals sent while the plane had been still aloft.

In Miami, Fla., two men who allegedly had hired a third to kill a Washington, D.C., attorney and later planned to murder a New York attorney and a Miami laundry executive, were being held this date on charges of conspiracy to commit murder and attempted murder. The prosecutor had identified the two men, both of Miami Beach, one being a gambler who had admitted under questioning that he had a criminal record and claimed he was the former editor of a Greek-language newspaper in New York. Both men had been arrested late the previous day after a Miami man, hired as a supposed killer but actually working as an undercover operative for the police, had led authorities to a payoff meeting. Prosecutors had questioned the two men throughout the night, indicating that both had made statements but that the nature of the information would not be disclosed until the investigation was completed. A woman who had appeared at the courthouse in a bathing suit to inquire of the whereabouts of one of the men was being held as a material witness.

Near Asheville, N.C., two truck drivers had died in a fiery pile-up of three big tractor-trailer rigs ten miles north of the city on U.S. 25-70 early this date. State Highway Patrol headquarters tentatively had identified the two dead drivers, one of Thomasville and the other of Winston-Salem, both bodies having been burned to a crisp in a three-hour fire which had consumed two of the trucks. Patrolmen said that two Roadway trucks had been traveling south and a northbound ET&WNC truck had sideswiped the leading southbound truck, breaking the trailer loose from the leading Roadway truck and throwing it into the path of the trailing one. The resulting fire had destroyed the tractor believed to have been occupied by the two dead drivers. Three other persons had been injured in the wreck.

In Raleigh, the State Senate this date passed a bill to appropriate up to $95,000 to N.C. State College for the renovation of the Gaston Technical Institute property in Gastonia, operated by the State College Extension Division. Under the bill, the Governor and Council of State would be authorized to allocate a maximum of $95,000 from the 1956-57 contingency and emergency fund to renovate the property, and the College would be directed to sell other property and repay the fund all of the proceeds of the sale.

Emery Wister of The News reports that Army officials this date had defended their action in transferring main production of the Nike-Hercules missile from the Douglas Aircraft company's plant at Santa Monica, Calif., to its unit in Charlotte. They had indicated that production at the Charlotte plant was the maximum consistent with training of personnel, with the manager of the plant in Charlotte saying that they were not behind schedule. The statements had been made this date after a hearing before a House Appropriations subcommittee the previous day, in which the low rates of production at the Santa Monica plant had been criticized, with the Army chief of research and development testifying before the subcommittee that the reason the Nike-Hercules program was behind schedule was that the Army had failed to utilize the Santa Monica plant as a prime source for unknown reasons, with the Charlotte plant able to be utilized as a prime source, to result in maximum production output through fiscal year 1957, with no gain to have been made in the number of missiles available by utilizing the Santa Monica plant as a prime source. He had told the subcommittee that it was all he could inform regarding the Charlotte plant. He said that personnel there would be gradually trained so that the workers would not have to begin from scratch. The manager of the Charlotte plant said that they had presently slightly fewer than 1,000 persons employed there, with employment having leveled off to some degree as conversion of two buildings for Hercules production was still underway. He said that some employees from the Douglas Tulsa plant would be transferred to help fill the need for experienced technical personnel.

In El Monte, Calif., it was reported that a mother had raised her son from infancy twice, the second time having not been without its unhappy and even weird moments. But the mother had said that her son was "coming along well" after having again reached the age of 10. His chronological age was 32. On October 3, 1951, he had injured his brain in a fall, which had almost proved fatal. He had stopped breathing at one point, but doctors had revived him by massaging his heart. The accident had thrust him back into infancy, his mother stating that she had to wash, dress him, and change diapers. She said it was one thing with a baby, but with a full-grown man, it was something else. The son spent much of his time at a Veterans Administration hospital and had no recollection presently of most of the things which had happened to him in his first 27 years of life. Doctors said he had been developing well and had attained the age of 10 mentally. His mother said that he played ball with the youngsters around the hospital, singing, and sometimes was quite witty.

On the editorial page, "Real Estate: An Ounce of Prevention" indicates that few legislative proposals had been subjected to as much close scrutiny and suspicious poking as a bill to create a real estate licensing board in the state, the avowed purpose of which was to establish fair and reasonable professional standards among real estate brokers and salesmen for the protection of the public.