The Charlotte News
Tuesday, January 14, 1958
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page
reports from Havana that rebel leader Fidel Castro
In London, it was reported that the
new British Commonwealth nation of Ghana
In Paris, it was reported that Spain and Yugoslavia this date had signed a ten million dollar trade agreement, the first accord of the Government of Generalissimo Francisco Franco with Yugoslavia and its second with a Communist regime.
The Administration this date asked Congress to raise the 275 billion dollar national debt limit to 280 billion. Secretary of the Treasury Robert Anderson had asked for the increase in letters to both Democratic and Republican leaders of the House Ways & Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee. Secretary Anderson submitted a draft of suggested legislation which would make the increase effective on a temporary basis from the date of enactment through the end of fiscal year 1958-59. The national debt limit presently stood at 274.25 billion on January 9. The President, in his budget message to Congress the previous day, had indicated that the Administration would ask for the increase. The message had said that the present limit was too restrictive in view of the rising defense expenditures and of the need for more flexibility to permit efficient and economical debt management.
Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, Senator James Eastland of Mississippi, said this date that the Committee would act "very promptly" to schedule hearings on the nominations of the new Civil Rights Commission members. He declined to say whether he expected any fight to block any or all of them from confirmation. There had been reports that the nominations might go through the Committee and to the Senate for action with far less controversy than some sources had initially expected. Senator Sam Ervin of North Carolina, reserving the right to change his mind subsequently, had told a reporter, "I am inclined now to feel they might as well be confirmed." He had been a key figure in the fight by Southern Senators the previous year against the 1957 civil rights bill, one provision of which had created the Commission to study civil rights problems. The President had submitted the nomination of Dr. John Hannah, president of Michigan State University, to be the chairman of the Commission, along with the nominations of five other members. Senator Ervin said that the President, "largely on account of Little Rock, has given the South more representation" on the Commission than he had expected, referring to the nominations of former Governor John Battle of Virginia, former Governor Doyle Carlton of Florida and SMU Law School dean Robert Storey.
At the U.N. in New York, more than 9,000 scientists of 44 nations had petitioned the body for an international agreement to stop nuclear bomb tests immediately. The petition stated that "each nuclear bomb test … causes damage to the health of human beings all over the world … and a number of seriously defective children that will be born in future generations." It was circulated by Nobel Prize winner, Dr. Linus Pauling, who said he felt it represented the opinion of the majority of scientists of the world. Some U.S. authorities had questioned the scientific accuracy of the petition when it was first made public the previous June 3 as an appeal by 2,000 American scientists, later signed by scientists of nations abroad. Dr. Pauling, head of the Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, had submitted the petition with 9,235 names to U.N. Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold. The U.N. made such documents available to its 82 member nations on request, but took no action on them as a body. Scientists included 36 Nobel Prize winners, 101 members of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, 216 members of the Soviet Academy of Sciences and 35 fellows of the Royal Society of London. The signatures represented individuals rather than the organizations. The petition said that as long as only the U.S., Russia and Britain had nuclear weapons, "an agreement for their control is feasible", but that as other nations developed them, the danger of "a cataclysmic nuclear war" would increase.
Senator Richard Russell of Georgia, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, had said this date that a "two-fisted Secretary of Defense" could straighten out the nation's missile program without creating any new agencies. He took issue with colleagues who had advocated reducing the power of the Joint Chiefs and placing the missile-satellite programs under a single head. He also added in an interview that he was "favorably impressed" thus far by the speed with which Secretary of Defense Neil McElroy had made decisions, but was not passing final judgment until more changes were made. A new political storm had clouded Congressional consideration of how to put the U.S. in the lead in the race for rockets and manned satellites. Senator William Knowland of California, the Republican leader, and Representative Joseph Martin of Massachusetts, the House Republican leader, had stirred up the storm by blaming former President Truman for any lag behind Russia in the development of missiles. They were replying to former President Truman's statement in New York that he did not think President Eisenhower was "a good policymaker nor is he a good budget maker." They addressed an unusual "public memorandum" to the former President, saying that the nation had "rested on our oars during the lost years of your administration while the Russians went to work. If today we are behind the Soviet Union in some respects in the race to perfect the weapons of the future—guided and ballistic missiles—a considerable part of the blame lies on the doorstep of your administration." In New York, Mr. Truman had first stated that the Republicans "always have to have somebody to pass the buck to." Later, he added, "The facts are not as stated."
Representative August Andreson, 67, of Minnesota, had died early this date in Bethesda Naval Hospital, having been first elected to the House in 1924. He had been a member of the House Agriculture Committee.
In Cairo, it was reported that two tankers had run aground this date in the Suez Canal, 20 miles north of Suez, blocking the waterway.
In Oban, Scotland, it was reported that swirling fog this date had hidden the fate of the 750-ton British Naval vessel Barcombe, believed to have run aground on a desolate island off Scotland's west coast.
In Lienz, Austria, 12 mountaineers and a skier were reported missing in the Lienz Dolomites this date as Austrian weather stations warned constantly of avalanche dangers. The mountaineers had gone to look for the missing skier.
In Patuxent, Md., it was reported that a four-engine Super Constellation Navy transport plane had crashed while making practice instrument landings at the local Naval Air Station this date. The Navy said that all nine crewmen had been killed. A base spokesman said that the plane had fallen into a wooded area, missing by only a few hundred feet a housing area for married enlisted personnel. The spokesman said that the plane had sheared off treetops for a quarter of a mile.
In New York, it was reported that after more than 35 years of service at the "Little Church Around the Corner", the Reverend Dr. J. H. Randolph Ray would retire as rector a few days before his 72nd birthday on June 11.
In Encino, Calif., actor John Wayne's wife had been burned on the arm, but had saved herself and her baby from further harm in a spectacular early morning fire at their $250,000 residence this date. Two servants and three dogs, including a dachshund, the hero of the fire, had escaped unhurt. The actor was in Japan making a picture and the family had sought to reach him by telephone after the fire was brought under control. Mr. Wayne's brother, producer Fred Morrison, had told a reporter that damage to the 14-room home might run close to a million dollars, including the gutting of the second floor, loss of valuable antiques and personal belongings, and water damage to the ground floor. His wife and infant daughter had taken refuge in the house of the caretaker, where a doctor treated the burn on Mrs. Wayne's right arm and gave her sedatives for shock. She said she had been asleep, and the baby was in her crib in the same second-floor bedroom, when "Blackie", the dachshund, had awakened her in the wee hours and she found the room on fire. She had grabbed the baby and taken her to safety on the ground floor and then returned to the second floor, using a hand extinguisher in a futile effort to put out the fire, at which point her arm had been burned. Her maid had called the fire department and she and her sister had escaped with the dogs.
In Morganton, N.C., a 77-year old woman sat in stunned silence beside the body of her husband, a 72-year old farmer, who had been fatally shot in the face with a .12-gauge shotgun. The sheriff's office, which had rushed deputies to the scene, said that the woman was in such a state of shock that she could not speak a word about what had occurred. Eventually, the story was pieced together that the deceased had a 16-year old boy from South Carolina staying at the house, helping him with the harvest of crops, but that the boy had begun to get rowdy and cause trouble, at which point the man had called the boy's father to come and pick him up as he could not be managed. But on Monday, when the boy's father had arrived, he had found the elderly farmer shot to death and his wife sitting speechless on the floor beside the body. The house had been looted of several hundred dollars in checks and money and some guns had also been taken. The farm truck was also missing. The truck was eventually located by police in Blowing Rock, N.C., found abandoned, inside of which was a .12-gauge shotgun, a 30-30 rifle and a .22-caliber rifle. A taxi driver in Blowing Rock had told officers that two teenage boys, one of whom had matched the description of the 16-year old in question, had been driven in the taxi to Boone. The deputies and State Highway Patrolmen had checked the Boone area and eventually located the boy, with another youth, 14, at the bus station, taking both into custody after a search of their clothing produced about $100 in $20 bills, a .22-caliber pistol, and two knives, one of which was a switchblade.
Bill Hughes of The News reports from Rockingham, N.C., that Richmond County had spent an estimated $9,000 to try Frank Wetzel, convicted of first-degree murder of Highway Patrolman Wister Reece and sentenced to life imprisonment the prior Friday. Adding the expenditures by Federal and State governments, the cost would top $10,000. A similar amount would probably be necessary for the defendant's second trial for the first-degree murder of another Highway Patrolman, J. T. Brown, killed less than an hour later in another county. That trial would possibly commence in early February.
In Charlotte, a mother and her seven-year old daughter had been burned during the morning when a gas stove in their apartment had exploded, shooting flames all over the living room. The two had been rushed to Memorial Hospital during the morning immediately following the explosion. Hospital officials said that the little girl had received only minor burns and would be released during the morning, while the mother would be admitted to the hospital for further treatment, having received burns on her chest, face and hands. A member of the Fire Department said that they were not yet sure whether the woman had been trying to light the stove when it exploded or whether there was a leak in the gas line. He said that when they arrived on the scene, they could smell the odor of gas all over the front yard of the apartment building.
Julian Scheer of The News reports that there was a sharp difference of opinion developed this date between the City and County School Boards over the possibility of consolidation by 1960. Members of the County Board had taken a dim view of immediate action, while members of the City Board generally were in agreement with a 20-page Chamber of Commerce report recommending consolidation.
Donald MacDonald of The News advises that the best advice to provide youngsters who felt the urge to build and fire rockets was to tell them to forget about it, that failing that, there were safety precautions which professional rocket engineers and chemists offered. Amateur rocket builders were becoming more prevalent since Charlotte's Jimmy Blackmon had built one in his basement, upsetting the Army so much that it had brought him and the rocket to the Redstone Arsenal in Alabama to launch it, until it was deemed not safe enough and the launch was canceled. In response to a Science Service survey in the current week's "Science News Letter", engineers and chemists said that there should be close supervision from a competent person who was a chemistry expert; that each project had to be planned carefully in advance of the firing date, giving neighbors plenty of time to clear out; that stove, water and gas pipes for rocket casings were no good, that only seamless pipe could be used; that a distinction had to be drawn between explosives and rapid-burning fuels, that the solid propellants in military rockets were rapid-burning fuels, even though they appeared to act explosively; that the rocketeer should always fire even "safe" rockets by remote control from behind barricades and make sure that all persons in the area were sheltered; that a safe range for the firing had to be located; that the launcher should make sure that local laws permitted rocket firing; that actual rockets should never be used for clubroom or classroom demonstrations of rocketry principles, and the use of homemade rockets in projects should be avoided wherever possible. "In other words, forget it."
On the editorial page, "Shoot Down the Bulganin Peace Dove" suggests that the U.S. ought shoot down the peace initiative of Soviet Premier Nikolai Bulganin, finding it another Russian phony peace proposal, timed strategically by the Kremlin, as further explored by Drew Pearson below.
It indicates that it was well for Secretary of State Dulles to denounce the Soviet letters as propaganda, with the latest note of the Premier suggesting a meeting at which the NATO nations, the Warsaw Pact nations, Communist China and a group of neutral nations would come together in a summit conference and settle such issues as German reunification, the Middle East conflicts, disarmament, nuclear tests, form a nonaggression treaty, etc.
It finds it to be a ridiculous proposal, as had Mr. Dulles, but to identify them as propaganda was one thing and to dismiss them as such was quite another. For what appeared as patent propaganda to Mr. Dulles, appeared to millions of untrained eyes as a real desire for peace being put forward by the Soviets. Even the Secretary recently had said that it was likely "the Soviet camp is articulating a bad policy better than we are articulating a good policy… They have developed their propaganda to a much higher degree than we have…" But the Secretary was not prepared to do anything about it, pointing out that a dictatorship was ideally suited for practicing deceptive propaganda, and expressed doubt that the West could do much, other than to plug away for its own proposals to counteract the phony Russian offensive.
It insists that something would have to be done if the West was not to lose what the President liked to call the "war for men's minds", that efforts to make the free world militarily and economically secure would count for little if those nations were to be successfully portrayed as warmongers by Soviet propaganda. It finds that the Secretary had made a too modest estimate of Western resources in imagination and articulation. The "open skies" proposal advanced by the President at Geneva in mid-1955 had driven Soviet propagandists from the field for a time, even if it was no more than a propaganda move by the President, with no assurances that Congress would ever ratify any such agreement had it been reached.
It finds that the President's belated response to the notes of the Russian Premier had yielded some propaganda advantages to the West. The President agreed to an East-West summit meeting, attaching conditions which the Kremlin would not likely meet, leaving it thus to the Kremlin to say "no" to the peace proposals it had initiated, an important move in a world hungry for peace.
"Goodbye to a Man Who Built a Paper" tells of the recent death of Lee Weathers, publisher of the Shelby Daily Star, "a paper of integrity, industry and influence." It finds that building it had required those qualities on the part of Mr. Weathers, converting a county weekly into a strong afternoon newspaper dedicated to the area it served.
He had also served his community and the state in numerous other capacities, having been an alderman and mayor of Shelby, a State Senator for four consecutive terms, during which he had sponsored a hospitals building program, increased school appropriations, pushed for a state ban on firecrackers and a grace period for buying automobile license tags. Under Governor Clyde Hoey, from Shelby, Governor between 1937 and 1941, he had been secretary of the North Carolina Railroad Commission, and in the ensuing Administration of Governor J. Melville Broughton, he had been a member of the State School Board and the State Board of Conservation. He was also a leader in Shelby's civic activities, director of a bank, president of a building and loan association, a deacon in his church and a trustee of Gardner-Webb College in Boiling Springs.
It finds that his influence for the good of his community and state had been great and would live after him. "But it will not be the same. As an individual Mr. Weathers was a dynamic part of the strength of the North Carolina press and of the state as a whole. Thankful for his lasting influence, we still will miss him sorely."
"Ike Must Defend His Security Budget" indicates that there was no doubt that the large budget proposed by the President the previous day would be cut by Congress, and that it needed cutting in some categories. It finds that the Administration would have been lacking in political grace if it had not included some amount of fat, the slicing off of which would provide headline victories for the economy bloc in Congress. Some agencies had inflated their requests in an effort to make certain that their minimum needs were met, and thus there would be the usual pattern of Congressional reaction despite the existence of an obvious crisis.
Everyone wanted economy but it was difficult to define what it was. The Congress was strongly inclined to equate the terms "unpopular" and "wasteful", with foreign aid being unpopular, along with Federal aid to education. Yet, the President said that deep cuts in either of those programs would be false economy, that failure to invest in them would force larger spending later.
It finds that he could make a case for that argument, as had Democratic Presidents before him, and suggests that he had to make it if he was to get the money. A belated attempt the previous year by the President to defend the amounts proposed for foreign aid and defense had failed, after Congressional claims that foreign aid was a giveaway program had gone unchallenged for too long. It finds that the President had shown more conviction and concern for the current budget, indicating that it was essential to the national security.
But the fact remained that some of the amounts he considered essential to national security were the very amounts most likely to be cut, indicating that he would have to work diligently to save them.
A piece from the Raleigh News & Observer, titled "'Sunday-Go-to-Meeting'", indicates that the old, un-psychoanalyzed home had been on every Saturday night "a spirited barbershop, a shine parlor, a pressing club and a tailor shop." The Sunday-Go-to-Meeting clothes were taken from the closets and prepared for the weekly pilgrimage to the church. Cuffs were altered, waists let out, collars turned, ties de-spotted, and shoes "arraigned like obdurate prisoners at the bar to be massaged with polish and to yelp aloud with the flagellations of the popping rags."
Family pride was a banner crying the triumph of spit and polish when they then marched into the church. Immediately after church, all of the children put their Sunday finery back into the closets, while the father kept his on all day. "The troops put on battle fatigues to grapple with tadpoles, but the general, with his enormous moustache and his imperial Baltimore stick pin, sat in the parlor all afternoon in immaculate austerity, a grandee in an alpaca coat preserving the sainted family honor against any highfaluting interlopers who might come snooping."
Drew Pearson indicates that Secretary of State Dulles, almost 70 and miraculously having recovered from a serious cancer operation, had begun the year by laying before the President his resignation, which Mr. Pearson regards as having been "a sincere, courageous, but personally pathetic gesture." Becoming Secretary had been his crowning ambition, having looked forward to it from the time he was a small boy, wanting to follow in the footsteps of his grandfather, John Foster, Secretary of State under President Benjamin Harrison, and having been an assistant to his uncle, Robert Lansing, Secretary of State under President Woodrow Wilson.
The first thing he had done upon being named Secretary of State had been to call all personnel of the Department together and tell them that he was following the footsteps of his grandfather and his uncle. Since then, Mr. Dulles had shown flashes of personal brilliance. Diplomats who had talked with him said that he had a great personal grasp of foreign affairs. But he had failed to achieve teamwork in the Department or to build its morale, paying more attention to Republican isolationists in Congress than to leadership abroad. Slowly, American prestige had sunk to one of its lowest points in history.
As the Secretary had gone to see the President, French Foreign Minister Christian Pineau had been telling a group of Americans that U.S. policy would be based on "quicksand" as long as Mr. Dulles remained in office, that the biggest contribution the Secretary could make to allied unity would be to resign. The Secretary had not known of that statement, but he did offer to resign at the start of the year, telling the President that he would be 70 in a few months and had been Secretary for five years, that now that the Russians had launched the Sputniks, according to friends who quoted him, he knew that the Democratic attacks on him would increase, thus advised the President that he might want to look for someone younger who would not be a liability to the foreign policy. The President had responded that he considered Mr. Dulles to be "the greatest Secretary of State in history." According to the friends of Mr. Dulles, the President had added that no one was going to force him to fire him and that he did not know where he would get another Secretary. Thus, Mr. Dulles had finally agreed to continue in the position, but told the President that if his health became worse, he would quit at the end of the current session of Congress. (Mr. Dulles would remain in the position until his death in May, 1959.)
Some people had wondered why White House press secretary James Hagerty had broken the story of plans for an American satellite in July, 1955, when it was supposed to be a secret. Just at that time, a member of the Cabinet, Secretary of the Air Force Harold Talbott, had been under Senate investigation for conflict of interest and the White House needed competing headlines to drown out the Senate probe. More recently, the President's second "chins up" telecast had been moved forward to November 7 because White House strategists wanted him to be able to answer the Russians if they broke any major news on that date, their 40th anniversary of the Revolution.
But now, the Kremlin was reversing those tactics. Just as the President had been preparing to leave for the NATO summit conference in December, Premier Nikolai Bulganin had sent European nations a series of peace notes, partially undermining U.S. plans for the missile-armament of Western Europe. Then, on the day the President was to deliver the State of the Union message, Premier Bulganin had dropped another note, proposing a nonaggression pact and enclosing the proposed text of that pact. The Premier's timing had been perfect, with his note grabbing more headlines in Western Europe than did the State of the Union. While the President had been proposing "works not words", Premier Bulganin had sent the draft of a concrete treaty.
Marquis Childs indicates that seldom had a returning Congress seen such buoyant optimism about election prospects as the Democrats, almost without exception, were presently displaying. They continually told themselves, however, that it could not be as good as it sounded. But Republicans, when they talked privately, tended to confirm the rosy outlook of the Democrats, with slim majorities in both houses.
The pessimism of the Republicans was reflected in the fact that some Senators and House members were not seeking re-election, reflecting also the dissatisfaction of the right wing of the party with the President's leadership and the huge peacetime budget.
While it was still ten months to the midterm elections, if they were to be held at present, the consensus was that the Democrats would gain a minimum of 30 House seats, with as many as 60 possibly gained, while the 21 Republican seats at stake in the Senate out of the total 33 could gain as many as 5 to 10 for the Democrats to provide them a comfortable working majority. But a great deal could happen in the interim.
If the President were to assert firm leadership against the background of his once great popularity, the situation could change. But even in 1956, when he had won a second term by a near-record vote, carrying all except seven states with a majority of more than 9 million popular votes, he had failed for the first time in a century to carry with him majorities in the two houses.
There was a general consensus of opinion that the two Soviet Sputniks and the consternation they had caused in the country, demonstrating that the Russians had the lead in missiles and satellites, had done more than anything else to undermine the President's reputation. While it had long been believed that he was deficient in many areas, it was generally accepted that his military background ensured the country's superior military position, a perception shattered to a great degree by the Sputniks.
Thus, much reliance had been placed on the President's State of the Union message of the previous Thursday to correct that situation, too much, however, to expect from a single speech. It had failed to convey the inspiration that the President's advisers had expected.
In addition, the recession or readjustment economically had soured many businessmen on the Administration, having five years earlier placed great trust and confidence in the first Republican Administration since that of Herbert Hoover, which ended in 1933. They now spoke with the bitter disillusionment of a jilted lover.
Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota, who had spoken to many business groups in recent months, had said he had rarely heard such hostility, even when those same critics had been at their height in the hate-Roosevelt frenzy.
Another factor hurting the Administration was the continuing decline in farm prices. By lowering supports for dairy products, Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson had caused new resentment, with many Republicans in open revolt. The following fall, there was expected to be a near-record crop of hogs, with a drop in prices to the farmer, expected greatly to diminish Republican chances in the Midwest.
Mr. Childs concludes that, whether unjustly or justly, it added up to a Democratic outlook brighter than at any time since the mid-1930's. The Democrats believed that they would take Senate seats in Wisconsin, West Virginia, Arizona, Pennsylvania and Nevada, and possibly in New Jersey, Connecticut, Michigan, Ohio and Indiana. Democrats in the West were even daring to suggest that they might be able to deny the California governorship to Senator William Knowland—as they would with State Attorney General Pat Brown. The Senator was giving up his seat to run for governor, after his supporters had convinced popular Governor Goodwin Knight to seek the Senate seat instead of seeking re-election as he had wanted to do, said to have caused widespread resentment in the state among Republicans. But if there would be an upturn in business by the middle of the year, it could mean an increase in the Republican stock.
Look around at the new crop of cars
and you will see why that will not come to be. The designers had
forgotten a key point: adjust
Robert C. Ruark, in Palamos, Spain, says that he was sorry he did not have the courage to return to New Orleans anymore as it had been a town he loved more dearly than any other in the world. But death had made it impossible as everyone he had loved was dead. The New Orleans he had known was not that of the Mardi Gras or the tourist attractions. "It was when I lived on Royal St., briefly as a naval officer, when I lived in a flat later on Bourbon St., over the Old Absinthe House, that I got into the town and the town got heavily into me."
He says that there were two or three of his old acquaintances still remaining, but most were departed, describing those in some detail.
He says that it had been the most illegal town he had ever known, with crap-shooting going on in Jefferson Parish, but no one had ever seemed to get hurt by what the squares had called corruption, and no one ever seemed to be mad at each other except in a very friendly way. He believed that among his remaining friends still around, they would understand why he was not returning as they had known it the way it was and he did not wish to break the only heart he had.
A letter writer from Monroe says that repeatedly in the previous few months it had been said that "Americans do not have proper respect for our scientists." He contends that few efforts had been made to determine why that was so, suggests that one of the reasons had been touched upon in an editorial recently, when it stated that "almost all of the major scientific organizations in the nation" had either sanctioned or recommended fluoridation of public water supplies. He views fluoridation as both illogical and undemocratic, illogical because it did not attack the known cause of tooth decay, and undemocratic because it placed a physical burden on all people to "secrete or store the diluted poison fluorine", without compensation. He views it as a program of expediency which showed "evil effects in the increasing number of fluorine-poisoned teeth appearing in the mouths of children living in communities whose water supplies are fluoridated." He says that there were scientists who had fought with all their ability against the "unnatural program", having halted the attempt to fluoridate the water supplies of New York City some months earlier. He congratulates them and hopes that the proponents of fluoridation would receive "their just and evident rewards."
He probably consumes only straight vodka.
Framed Edition
Links-Date — Links-Subj.