The Charlotte News
Wednesday, May 15, 1957
FIVE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the President this date, at his press conference, said that if Congress trifled with defense spending, the country would be in trouble. He commented on reports that a House Appropriations subcommittee had tentatively decided to cut the Defense Department's request for new appropriations by 2.5 billion dollars, saying that he believed that the Department had taken the position that new defense appropriations could be cut by about a half billion dollars, but that if the subcommittee had gone beyond that point and made an additional honest cut of two billion more, he wanted to see how it had been done. A good portion of the press conference had been devoted to a discussion of the Administration's 71.8 billion dollar budget and the President's defense of the program in a nationwide television-radio address the previous night. He also said that he believed he was becoming more conservative in his political philosophy, after a newsman commented that some Republicans believed he had been moving somewhat to the left. Regarding "modern Republicanism", he reminded that he had interpreted his re-election the previous November as a victory for that type of Republicanism and as a mandate from the people in support of his program, that as the people would become informed of his objectives, they would probably support it, as it was that for which they had voted. He also said that he saw no objection to Israel sending a ship through the Suez Canal as a peaceful test for Egypt to allow free shipping again.
Douglas Cornell of the Associated Press indicates that the President this date had waved a truce flag at the South in the new battle over the battle of Gettysburg, telling the press conference that on the walls of his office were pictures of four men he considered to be about the four top Americans, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln and General Robert E. Lee. The matter had arisen out of his meeting with his World War II comrade, British Field Marshal Viscount Montgomery, who had spent the weekend at his Gettysburg farm, both having second-guessed the Northern and Southern Civil War commanders' actions during the battle, both having agreed that both General George Meade, leading the Union, and General Lee, leading the Confederacy, should have been fired for their mistakes. The President would not go as far as General Montgomery in saying that General Lee had done a worse job, remarking that he had to live in the U.S. and thus represent both North and South. Both agreed that General Meade had made a mistake by not following through and cutting to pieces the defeated Southern Army, and both also agreed that the Southern forces should have sought to circle the Union left flank instead of sending Pickett's brigade on its charge at the strong center of the Union line. Their remarks had touched off a furor in the South, and when the matter came up at the press conference, it had elicited a chuckle from the President. When asked whether as supreme commander of the Allied effort in Europe during World War II, he would have done some things differently in hindsight, he replied that he would have, but that it was hard to quarrel with victory or to say that another course would have brought victory earlier.
In New York, evangelist Billy Graham would open his Crusade this night to begin a six-week appeal to the conscience of New Yorkers at Madison Square Garden. The Crusade had been in active preparation for more than two years. It would be the first full-scale effort in the world's greatest city, with big stakes involved. Nearly 60 percent of the city's eight million people did not participate in any church or synagogue. The theme music before Reverend Graham would take the platform would be from the old hymn, "Blessed Assurance", sung by a choir of 1,500 members. Loudspeakers had been installed outside the arena, which sat 18,000, to pipe the service to any overflow crowd. In a brief ceremony the previous night, attended by ushers, choir members and other Crusade personnel, the Reverend Graham dedicated the arena to the service of God. He expressed the hope that it would bring a resurgence of religious dedication in the city, reviving faith and invigorating forces which influenced the entire nation. Through the previous night, marathon prayer meetings had been held in numerous New York City churches and others elsewhere, asking for divine guidance toward success for the Crusade. The Crusade was sponsored by the Protestant Council of New York, an interdenominational body.
In Buenos Aires, police said that a Peronist ring which had been setting off bombs in the city had been smashed with the roundup of 12 men, the police chief telling newsmen that the gang had hoped to stir up the population by planting bombs, distributing pamphlets and intimidating former Peronists who had informed on followers of deposed El Presidente Juan Peron.
In Columbia, S.C., a mother of nine children who admitted setting her husband on fire with kerosene had been convicted of assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature, with the judge postponing sentencing until the following day. The defendant had claimed self-defense, indicating that her husband had come home drunk as she was cooking supper and cut her with a pocket knife. She said she had some kerosene to start the fire in the stove and so stepped back, grabbed the kerosene and poured it on him.
In Raleigh, legislation to reapportion the State House and Senate to bring them into line with the 1950 census had been rejected this date by the House Committee on Senatorial Districts. Despite pleas from sponsors to accord the mandate of the State Constitution, to reapportion after every decennial census, to reassign seats in line with population changes, the Committee gave an unfavorable recommendation to two bills dealing separately with House and Senate reapportionment.
Emery Wister of The News reports that a huge power dam, to produce 350,000 kilowatts and which would cost 54 million dollars, was planned by Duke Power Co. on the Catawba River at Cowan's Ford, about 16 miles northwest of Charlotte and seven miles southwest of Davidson. The application to build the dam had been filed with the Federal Power Commission in Washington this date.
The dam would be built on the site of a little-known but significant Revolutionary War battle. In January, 1781, a handful of North Carolina militiamen had crouched along the Catawba River banks at Cowan's Ford, holding off Lord Cornwallis and his invading British troops long enough for General Daniel Morgan and his troops to escape to the north. General Morgan had beaten the British at Cowpens, S.C., a few days earlier. The confrontation at Cowan's Ford had been little more than a skirmish, but had far-reaching effects. After briefly delaying the British crossing, the North Carolina militia had fled when the Redcoats had reached the east bank of the stream, with one of the militia members later recalling that the part-time soldiers had run so fast that they made "straight shirttails". The exact area of the fight was not known, but Duke Power officials said that they did not believe the battleground would be covered by the dam's waters. The historical marker, itself, they assured, would not be flooded.
Julian Scheer of The News reports that the executive committee of the Charlotte United Community Services this date had voted to accept the withdrawal of the Charlotte Rescue Mission and to continue United Appeal funding to the Mission until the end of the fiscal year on September 30, with the understanding that monthly audits of the Mission's books would be submitted to the UCS. The action agreed with the request of the Mission, itself, apparently ending the tumultuous relationship which had existed between the two agencies for many months because of claims of mismanagement of the Mission.
Ann Sawyer of The News indicates that City Council member Martha Evans this date had blasted the reappointment of City Recorder's Court Judge Basil Boyd and revenue collector John Mills, also suggesting that someone be groomed to replace the City Treasurer and Police Chief Frank Littlejohn because of their age. Her criticism of Judge Boyd and Mr. Mills had been answered by her male colleagues, several of whom said that she was out of order. Mrs. Evans did not object to the appointments during the informal session at which Council members had discussed the matter.
In Los Angeles, police had taken an eight-month old girl to Juvenile Hall after booking her mother, 19, and two men on suspicion of robbery, officers indicating that a pistol holster had been tucked into the baby's diaper.
On the editorial page, "The
Urge To Purge Is Unsettling" indicates that the urge to purge
was present again in some South Carolina legislators, fearing the
"corrupting influence" of the new movie, "Island in
the Sun"
It finds it unsettling to learn that the legislators could be won over "to some of the cozier aspects of integration", when no such anxiety had ever been admitted publicly before. It wonders why, if an idea were repugnant, free people could not be depended on to reject it.
"The requirement that ideas expressed in a motion picture must conform to some norm prescribed by an official smacks of an ideology foreign to our system of government." It finds it to import a constitutional issue, as the Supreme Court, in the 1952 case involving the film "The Miracle", overruling a 1915 precedent, had determined the movie industry to be a member of the press, subject to the protections of the First and 14th Amendments, the latter making the First Amendment applicable to the states. Beyond fraud, libel, slander and obscenity, freedom of the press could be limited only under very special circumstances, and could never be subject to prior restraint. On the basis of that decision, the Supreme Court had subsequently reversed a New York ban on the film "La Ronde", on the ground that it was immoral, a ban by Ohio on the film "M", on the basis that it promoted crime, and a ban by Texas of the film "Pinky", premised on it inciting racial tension.
It thus finds it clear that only censorship for obscenity, as defined by the courts, would be tolerated.
It indicates that it was not the business of the government to suppress ideas and was impudence to suggest that the citizen was not fit to hear ideas discussed, see movies and read books about ideas and judge those ideas for themselves.
Our idea is that the title song of the movie sounds strangely familiar
"The Senate Rejects a Cuckoo Law" indicates that the State Senate had voted the previous day 32 to 2 against subjecting women having two or more illegitimate children to sterilization, finding that the vote could have been improved only by unanimity.
The two votes in favor of the bill had been, however, unimportant. What mattered was that the Senate had rejected a "dangerous and ridiculous piece of legislation", and for all the right reasons, one reason having been that the proposal was wrongly related to the purpose of reducing welfare support of illegitimate children, and that the measure was condemned as unfair, possibly unconstitutional, and smacking of police state methods. It finds the action to serve as a meritorious precedent for future Assemblies.
"Don't Take a Chance—Pen Fido Up" indicates that residents of the southern portion of Mecklenburg County would be doing a favor to themselves, their children and their pets by observing strictly the Health Department's dog quarantine, to prevent dogs from running at large in the area, where a dozen or more infected animals had been found and a number of children had been bitten.
It urges that temporary confinement of the family pet until the danger passed could save the animal's life and also perhaps that of some child, that while confinement might seem cruel, it was not nearly so cruel as rabies.
"The Ballot Must Be above Suspicion" tells of the so-called "get-Jonas" ballot law, referring to the only Republican member of the North Carolina delegation to the Congress, Representative Charles R. Jonas, dying of suspicion. The State House had repudiated it and the State Senate's good judgment surely would compel it to follow suit, indicating that repeal would restore much faith in the integrity of the ballot and of the General Assembly.
The system of tabulating ballots which would replace the law had little or no more merit, as a ballot marked in a party's circle and for an individual candidate on the opposing slate was contradictory and ought be thrown out, but the "get-Jonas" law had arbitrarily assigned the ballot to the party. The substitute system would obey the apparent wishes of the voter to vote for everyone under the party's circle except where the voter had selected an individual opposing candidate.
It indicates that what was killing the bill was not its basic defects, but the widespread suspicion that the Legislature had enacted it to cheat Republican candidates. It finds that, however, reason enough, as the integrity of the ballot had to be above suspicion. It was sufficient reason for repeal of the law, and it finds that it should have been sufficient reason to prevent passage of it in the first place.
"Let the Voice of Truth Be Heard" indicates that the notion that Congress could appease the economy bloc by wrecking the U.S. Information program was destructive nonsense, as seldom had there been a greater need for telling the truth about America to a world oppressed by doubt, fear and quite a bit of cynicism.
It finds that while USIA was not perfect, as a sounding board for truth, it was an invaluable instrument of U.S. foreign policy. Yet, few agencies had suffered so much abuse as it had, along with its right arm, the Voice of America. Bullied by the McCarthyites and cut by the economizers, it had nevertheless contributed greatly to a better understanding of U.S. policies and intentions in every potential place of disaster on the globe. Originally, the Voice of America was an improvised adjunct of the propaganda effort during World War II. At present, it spoke in 43 languages over a worldwide network of 78 transmitters, and was widely recognized as an asset wherever American interests were involved, practically everywhere in the world.
But USIA accounted for only a fraction of the effort which the Soviet Union was expending to tell Russia's story to the world. Reducing it therefore to a mere flicker might represent economy to some members of Congress but it finds it a false economy, with the risk involved in surrendering the field to the Soviets not worth the few dollars which would be saved. The agency's program, it urges, ought be strengthened, not crippled, and in the words of the President, "The voice of truth must be more clearly heard."
A piece from the Jackson (Miss.) Daily News, titled "How To Stay Young", indicates that New York State Senator Thomas Desmond had advised middle-aged and older people that if they wished to stay young, they should not let other people place them in a social straitjacket, to be themselves and start living their own lives. In the Journal of Lifetime Living, he had said, "Don't mind being called eccentric, if your eccentricities make sense to you."
It indicates that throughout history, the great men and women had been those who dared to challenge senseless taboos and cared nothing about keeping up with the Joneses. Louis Pasteur had not adhered to the traditions of the Joneses regarding science. Henry Ford had ignored the business practices of the Joneses in commerce. Frank Lloyd Wright had achieved success by ignoring the "stick-in-the-mud" architectural conventions.
Many older people were often made "elderly" simply because they had allowed themselves to be cast into stereotyped roles commonly associated with age. It suggests that some taboos might have a basis because they were designed to help protect an older person's health, safety or well-being, but that many, if not most, such stereotyped conventions and restrictions, were simply remnants of the Victorian era.
Senator Desmond had said: "My plea is not to play the fool at 50 or 60 or 80. It is simply not to be hogtied by unreasonable taboos. Examine the restrictions on your activities, your way of life, and your way of thinking imposed by others. Then start living your own life!"
Drew Pearson indicates that the President had to win in his television broadcasts the obvious battle of the budget and the battle, which Republican leaders understood better than the President, for control of the Republican Party. If he were to lose with Congress regarding foreign aid and the budget, then the "regular Republicans" would take over the party. They were aware of that fact and that was why they were fighting so hard and did not wish the President to fight hard. It was also why the President's advisers were trying to get him to fight hard, as they had been telling him that if he lost the current round, "modern Republicanism" would be dead, ending his effort to remake the Republican Party in his own image.
The White House staff had begun telling the press and members of Congress, even while the President had been vacationing in Augusta, that he was going to battle for the budget, perhaps having done so before informing and consulting with the President on the matter, as at that time, he was still being very friendly with Secretary of the Treasury George Humphrey, who had first pulled the rug out from under the President's budget. The White House staff knew better than the President that when one big battle in Congress was lost, the rest of the battles were likely to be lost for the ensuing four years.
Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona, the most vociferous of the "regular Republicans", had telephoned the White House recently, saying that he liked the President but asked that they not let him go on television as the people were not for him regarding the budget, and that the reaction would "break his heart." Almost as soon as he had hung up, Senator Goldwater began cussing out the President, indicating that he believed that in 1958, the Republicans would gain control again of Congress, with most of the Republican Senators up for re-election being conservatives and only two or three being "modern Republicans", and, looking further ahead, believed that they would capture control of the White House with Senator William Knowland as their nominee in 1960. He referred to the backing which regular Republicans were organizing for Senator Knowland for the presidency in 1960. Regular Republicans were already working to replace Senator Knowland when he retired from the Senate the following year, with conservative Senator Everett Dirksen of Illinois as the leader, determined not to have an Eisenhower Republican as the Senate leader.
When Republican leaders had called on the President for their regular weekly meeting, they had cautioned him not to attack the sincerity of Congress when he appeared on television, urging a temperate talk, not seeking to go over the heads of Congress directly to the people, as had FDR. Mr. Pearson suggests that they were thinking of the party battle, not the President, for the only way the President could win was to call on the voters to retaliate against members of Congress who placed economy ahead of the nation's welfare.
White House chief of staff Sherman Adams, who knew what the score was, had been giving just the opposite advice from that of the Republican leaders, but he had a hard time keeping the President in line, as the President did not like to tangle with Congress.
The President had been eloquent, however, at the recent meeting with Congressional leaders of both parties, delivering the longest talk ever given to Congressional leaders, with some Democrats calling it "spirited", "impassioned", and one regular Republican describing it as "humdrum—so doggoned monotonous I didn't pay much attention."
The only real controversy had been raised by Senator Richard Russell of Georgia, who objected to the President's proposed 500 million dollar cut in foreign aid as a "paper cut". Senator Russell claimed that foreign aid was not being cut but simply being transferred to the defense budget, charging that the same military equipment was still being readied for shipment overseas, paid for out of defense funds, not foreign aid funds.
Doris Fleeson suggests that it might not be likely but that it was possible that there would be no further hydrogen bomb tests conducted by the U.S., as proposals to ban the tests were gaining ground at high levels in the Government, representing a considerable change from six months earlier when then-Democratic presidential nominee Adlai Stevenson had called for cessation of the tests, only to have the suggestion brusquely dismissed by the President.
She indicates that the U.S. had probably lost the moral advantage of being the sole possessor of hydrogen bombs to halt testing pending a worldwide agreement. The Soviets had sought once again the previous week to gain such an advantage over the U.S. and Britain, when Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, in a speech to the Supreme Soviet, had given notice that the Russian proposals for banning the tests were still on the agenda of the U.N. Conference on Disarmament, currently meeting in London, indicating that banning the tests would be the first step toward a means of control. Mr. Gromyko warned that unless there was an agreement with respect to control of nuclear weapons, the Soviet Union would continue to produce them.
Ms. Fleeson suggests that the point of diminishing returns in the manufacture of such weapons had to have been reached or was approaching in both Russia and the U.S., as both had enough atomic bombs and hydrogen bombs to blow each other to dust.
The approaching British hydrogen bomb tests, which would take place on Christmas Island somewhere between the present and August, had caused a sometimes anguished discussion in Britain, but the Government of Harold Macmillan was proceeding with the test preparations. The British claimed that by withholding atomic secrets from it under the terms of the Atomic Energy Act, the U.S. was forcing them to learn the facts firsthand. She suggests that perhaps with thoughts of the divisions which had arisen between British and American policy over the Suez Canal crisis and the invasion of Egypt by the British and French the prior November 1, the British were refusing to depend on the U.S. as its sole possible source of the hydrogen bomb, being understandably sensitive about their decline as a genuine first-class military power and having the hydrogen bomb inevitably appear as a means of staying in the game with the major powers. So there would be no agreement to halt testing until Britain had detonated its first hydrogen bomb, and then there might be a chance.
She finds the important point to be that there appeared to be a willingness to consider the need for banning the tests, as well as seeking the means of doing so. The President's present cautious optimism appeared to reflect the reports that he was getting from his disarmament adviser, Harold Stassen, presently in London. If Mr. Stassen succeeded in his task at the disarmament conference, he would have a chance to revive his present low political stock, and since he would soon leave the Government, it might be his last chance.
Meanwhile, debate continued regarding the damage already done by the hydrogen bomb and atomic bomb tests, ongoing since the hydrogen bomb detonation in the Pacific in 1954 which had produced fallout beyond the anticipated zone, causing radiation poisoning to Japanese fishermen. Dr. Willard Libby, the scientific member of the Atomic Energy Commission, was finding that answering attacks by other scientists, such as Dr. Linus Pauling, and humanitarians, such as Dr. Albert Schweitzer, had become a nearly full-time job. Dr. Libby was being impeded by the fact that he had previously underestimated the danger from the hydrogen bomb tests. Less than two years earlier, as the Manchester Guardian had pointed out, he and Admiral Lewis Strauss, chairman of the AEC, were saying that test explosions were no more dangerous than a chest examination with X-rays, with the Guardian indicating that such a platitude had now been abandoned in the face of greater information about the rate at which strontium was accumulating in human bones as a result of tests.
Japan, geographically situated to catch fallout from the Pacific tests, was considering bringing before the International Court of Justice at The Hague the question of one nation's right to pollute every nation's air, with such a case potentially able to force abandonment of the testing should agreements not be reached otherwise.
On this date, Britain would attempt to detonate its first hydrogen bomb, but the attempt, while achieving detonation, failed to achieve thermonuclear yield. It would succeed the following November.
Robert C. Ruark, "somewhere-in-the-Elvis Presley Belt", says, "Oh, my heart is sick and my head is sore and I ain't got that gal no more and I loved her dear but now I fear I'm going to throw up if I hear much more of America's favorite music." He says that he had been driving alone since he had left New York and that every time he switched on the radio for company, it was not fabulous, "no matter what Mr. Presley and his nasal, grunting comrades sing. It is altogether the most nauseating effort we have made in popular entertainment—half hill-billy lament with a beat, and the rest plain suggestive calisthenics."
He indicates that what was not "doleful ballad or love-fatigued shortness of breath" appeared to be calypso, and that they had even fouled that up. He says that his acquaintance with West Indian music went back to Papa Houdini and the Lion, which had been some time earlier, finding that some of it was great but that what America had done to it would create a scandal in "Trinidad, dad".
He had been partying with the
students at UNC in his old fraternity house and had noted the
contents of the jukebox in the bar, finding that, with perhaps one
exception, it offered only "corn-pone and sweet 'tater pieces",
whereas 20 or so years earlier, girls had been "necked to the
tune of the stuff which you find in the better albums today—stuff
by Arlen, Porter, Rodgers, Hart, Gershwin." He says that they
were smooth enough in those days to consider "Love for Sale"
as sad rather than suggestive, and that when Ray Noble played "The
Very Thought of You"
He finds that there might be some hope for the future, as the Dixieland, New Orleans-type noise was still clinging grimly to a small sector of the music-loving population. In the Phi Kappa house, they had held a party to celebrate the arrival of the ice-making machine which he had donated to the fraternity, and had two bands playing, one a black rock 'n' roll band from Greensboro and the other, a local New Orleans-style group. One played a "real cool horn" and he could see the New Orleans-type band members "gaining gradually over the sufferers with the backwoods beat." He found that to be the triumph of the evening.
Word had spread around the campus and all of the homeless members of Delta Kappa Epsilon, Sigma Alpha Epsilon, Chi Psi, Sigma Chi and Alpha Tau Omega had dropped by, bearing jugs. Old graduates had come from Raleigh and Durham, via Mr. Ruark's invitation, and they had all performed together, including a grown woman who cut a fine rug and a dignified editor of a dignified magazine, whom he hoped had found his hat. "It's a wonder the brothers didn't throw us all out."
He had called on an old friend from Greenville recently and endowed an all-girl scholarship in his friend's name, and an all-boys scholarship in his own name, in that way able to choose the candidates for the all-girl scholarship and he and his friend would nominate each other for the all-boys scholarship, indicating that his 18-year old companion on the venture was being considered for one of the all-girl scholarships, although it might change when their two wives returned to town.
He concludes by saying that the column had started as a "dissertation on the degeneracy of American musical taste, but, as usual, it has wound up back in the kitchen with a jug."
He needs to go visit with Snooky Lanson.
A letter writer indicates resentment after reading on the front page two days earlier of Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery's remark, that he would have fired General Robert E. Lee for his maneuvers at Gettysburg, indicating that military conditions had been quite different at the time, with the Confederacy being behind in financial wherewithal and the manpower "hired from all the world" arrayed against him. He says that his father had been a soldier under General Lee from the beginning of the war until the end of it.
A letter writer from Monroe indicates that if the recommendations of the theater owners of the Carolinas at their recent meeting in Charlotte were carried out, moviegoers in the area would not be able to see "Island in the Sun", as it was said to deal with the theme of interracial romance, and thus would be deemed unsuitable for public viewing in the theaters of the Carolinas. He finds that banning the film would not serve the cause of understanding or enlightenment, regardless of its content. He believes that no two actors were more capable of rendering a sensitive portrayal than Joan Fontaine and Harry Belafonte, stars of the film.
A letter writer from Dillon, S.C., indicates that when he had read Drew Pearson's May 7 column about the "late, great Joe McCarthy", he felt nauseated, believing that Mr. Pearson was not worthy to mention Senator McCarthy's name. He said he had followed the Senator's career through the Congressional Record and that only a few people knew his greatness, suggests that 30 percent of the people did not read the facts and 50 percent did not care. He predicts that the day would come when the Senators who voted to censure him would be "unforgotten and censured by an awakening public since the death of McCarthy."
Well, prominent among the special committee appointed to investigate and make recommendations on the censure resolution had been Senator Sam J. Ervin of North Carolina, and we do not seem to recall him being censured at any point, though just what he means by "unforgotten" we do not quite comprehend.
A letter from a realtor praises the newspaper for its editorial of May 10, advocating the need for a real estate licensing law, showing both thought and study of the problem as it existed in the state.
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