The Charlotte News
Tuesday, January 21, 1958
TWO EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the House Appropriations Committee this date had voted an emergency "time-buying" 1.4 billion dollar fund to speed missile programs and give more punch to the retaliatory power by the Air Force, 40 million dollars more than the President had requested two weeks earlier in his budget message. The addition was all for the Army, to bolster its missile programs. A last-minute revision doubled the proposed increase by allotting 20 million dollars for the Pershing project, aimed at developing a solid-fuel successor to the Army's 200-mile range Redstone rocket. Of the total, 1.25 million dollars was new cash and 150 million was authority to transfer funds already available, with the 40 million dollar increase in the transfer funds. The House would consider the Committee's action the following day and there were indications of a strong drive to provide even more money. The new money would be made available to the Defense Department immediately, to finance space-age weapons programs which were developing faster than anticipated. In a report written by Representative George Mahon of Texas, chairman of the subcommittee which drafted the measure, the Committee said "our military strength as of today, in the overall, is superior to that of the USSR", although in the radical areas of space satellites and ballistic missiles generally, behind Russia. The Committee had added that in those vital areas, the country could not afford to be in second place. It said that the present superiority of the U.S. over Russia was the result of striking power of the Strategic Air Command, the long-range bombers which were presently a deterrent to aggression but would not continue in that position against an aggressor equipped with a substantial stockpile of operational missiles. The Air Force share of the new funds was 910 million dollars, earmarked for dispersal of the fleet of nuclear bomb carrying planes, among other things.
In Washington, Chester Nimitz, former top Navy officer, had proposed this date that the Joint Chiefs be reduced to three members.
Alton Blakeslee, Associated Press science reporter, explores the the huge potential of space for both good and evil, referring to it as "tomorrow's cradle of fantastic new human boons." It could bring better forecasting and even control of the weather, secrets of stars, the moon and Mars, worldwide television, totally unpredictable comforts and powers. It also could become the battleground of a savage, silent war between spaceships and rockets coursing at unimaginable speeds. It would be silent because space had no air in which to transmit vibrations to communicate the sound of exploding bombs or guns. Eminent scientists, Americans and Russians alike, predicted that men would fly into space aboard space cruisers or platforms circling the earth. What they would do there could cast the die for peace or war, as outlined by rocket and scientific experts. Space platforms could be launching ports for rockets making discoveries of sister planets or the moon. From those same platforms, rockets with hydrogen bomb warheads could be shot down to hit any spot on earth with pinpoint accuracy. They might also discover new sources of energy within the galaxy or the universe. Or the telescopes could peer down on earth as spies observing every troop, airplane or rocket movement of a potential enemy, obliterating any threatening move. Television eyes for peace could, however, chart cloud movements around the world, detect the birth of hurricanes and storms, vastly improve weather forecasting to aid farmers, picnickers, ships and planes.
In Kansas City, the season's worst snowstorm had virtually paralyzed the city and large sections of Missouri and Kansas this date. Depths in the border areas of the two states ranged between six and fourteen inches, as the blizzard continued, with winds whipping up drifts which blocked major highways. The snow depth had reached ten inches in Kansas City by mid-morning, and blowing snow and fog obscured visibility and added to traffic hazards, with thousands of workers having been late to work and traffic arteries snarled with stranded vehicles. No serious accidents had been reported thus far and the Highway Patrol said that motorists were traveling too slowly to cause any serious mishaps. Schools in many areas had been closed. In most of the area where the storm had hit, the temperature was in the low 20's.
In Lumberton, N.C., James Cole, Grand Wizard of the Klan in the Carolinas, had failed to appear in Robeson County Superior Court this date after having been indicted the previous day by a grand jury for inciting a riot the prior Saturday night, when he led the Klan in a rally at a site between Pembroke and Maxton, resulting in an affray with several Indians who had taken umbrage at the fact that the Klan had burned crosses on the lawns of at least two Indians, one for moving into an all-white neighborhood, and the other for allegedly having "an affair" with a white man. Both incidents had occurred a week earlier on Monday. Mr. Cole, a Free Will Baptist minister who lived in Marion, S.C., had been ordered to appear in court this date to post a $1,000 bond. He said he hesitated to go to Lumberton, however, believing that his life had been threatened if he entered Robeson County. Legal action continued to pile up against members of the Klan, as the following day in the Maxton Recorder's Court, an Indian judge would preside at the trial of a Reidsville man, the only Klansman arrested during the Saturday night fracas, having been found, allegedly drunk, in the bushes by Highway Patrolmen after the crowds had fled from the Klan rally, charged with public drunkenness and carrying a concealed weapon, a .32-caliber automatic pistol and a shotgun. Mr. Cole had said that he would initiate a civil action against Robeson County Sheriff Malcolm McLeod, claiming that the latter had violated his First and Fourteenth Amendment rights by depriving his followers of the right of peaceable assembly by not affording them protection. He said that his lawyer was handling the legal details of the exact form of the action and that when it would be filed was uncertain. (Generally speaking, nonfeasance of a peace officer or other government functionary is not an actionable tort, unless the person acting under color of state law has an affirmative duty imposed by law to act, such as in the case of a jailer or prison guard charged with the responsibility of protection and safety of a prisoner in his or her charge and acts with reckless or callous indifference to Federally protected rights.) Sheriff McLeod would be the State's main witness in the case charging inciting to riot, having appeared before the grand jury the previous day.
Julian Scheer of The News
reports of Mr. Cole and the Klan rally having made newspapers across
the state, the nation, internationally and even in Russia. (One of them surely must have thought to say, following Sunday night television, that now the cards
In Greenville, S.C., 11 white men were standing trial this date, charged with flogging a black farmer in upper Greenville County six months earlier. The courtroom was jammed with about 300 spectators, and numerous other persons had gathered outside. The solicitor had called the cases to trial after indictments had charged all 11 defendants with conspiring to commit assault and battery and conspiring to housebreak, and five of the defendants with assault and battery and housebreaking. The solicitor and the defense attorney began selecting jurors for the trial immediately after the case was called, each prospective juror being questioned about any relationship to any defendant, attitude toward the trial and other matters. (Maybe one was addressed asking whether they generally flogged their own children, and, if so, whether, if white, they pictured the child on those occasions as being black.) Two early prospective jurors had been excused because of relationships to one or more of the defendants. It was expected that selection of the jury would take quite a bit of time. The victim was a 58-year old farmer, landowner and deacon in his Baptist church. About 15 men had allegedly broken into his home on the night of July 21 as he and his wife had cared for the seven children of a white neighbor while their father was at the hospital visiting his wife, confined with kidney trouble. The farmer and his wife had owned their 100-acre farm about ten miles north of Greenville for about 25 years. The white neighbor, a partially disabled truck driver, had rented a house on the farmer's property. Police said that one of the defendants had told them that he headed a Greenville County Klan organization and that other defendants acknowledged membership. The farmer's wife had said that when she turned around, she saw the house full of white men, hollering and talking about them trying to mix with white people and keeping the white children, which they had not liked because the farmer and his wife owned so much land.
In Dallas, two teenage bandits had
held up and terrorized three pedestrians before they were captured by
police the previous night, netting from their crime spree 37 cents.
The pair surrendered a blank pistol to a patrolman, who arrested them
as they drove an old model car. The older of the two, 19, told police
that the robberies were staged "just for kicks because we got
tired of movies and had nothing else to do." The younger boy
said they needed cash to pay for traffic tickets. In the hour before
their arrest, police said that the boys had terrorized three men, two
of whom had been taken for gangland-style rides at gunpoint and then
freed. (Look for movies wherein such things occurred as their
inspiration, and perhaps as part of their sentencing, require them to
attend a media clinic designed to enhance understanding of the way
movies are made, that they are not continuous action filmed on camera
but are rather carefully prepared, scripted, discrete scenes shot,
painstakingly, bit by bit, committed to film, then carefully edited,
sound added for dramatic effect where necessary, rendering carefully
prepared dialogue, little or none of which is spontaneous, and
usually resulting in great boredom on the television and movie sets,
the reason why the actors and actresses have their own trailers to
which to retreat in between takes, with one, short scene often taking
a whole shooting day, especially if waiting on a particular formation
of weather to occur, to achieve continuity or atmosphere in a
particular scene. If you have ever witnessed scenes from a movie or a
television show being filmed, you know that most of the time is spent
in pure boredom, with people standing around, adjusting lights,
microphones, buffing and rebuffing down shines on the actors and on
any shiny parts of the set, such as cars, and getting the right lines
finally recited on camera, usually having to be stated multiple times
from various angles, even when recited correctly, hardly the stuff of
excitement. The editing room is where all of the creative energy is
finally generated as the whole picture develops there, that is,
unless your name happens to be Ed Wood, in which case
We have long been an advocate and
remain so for such courses to be taught in the public schools,
starting in about the third grade, and progressively becoming more
technical and involved as the students progress through junior high
and high school, then into college. It appears to be required now
more than ever, at least judging by the inane comments which pop up
on YouTube below various videos of excerpts from movies and
television shows. "Oh, that actor is always great! So iconic and real, just like life." You
have to understand film and how it comes to be to discern the
difference adequately between reality and fantasy, that the reason it
is a movie or television show is precisely because, in reality, it is
aberrant conduct typically being depicted. You have to stay tuned, as
appreciating that "Leave It to Beaver" episode, "Party
Invitation", airing the prior Friday, in which there was a
subliminal message suggested that the Beaver had gotten his "party
doll" as a door prize at the all-girl party. But whether the
doll could run its fingers through his hair was highly doubtful.
Perhaps, in time it would become his "April Love"
In Topeka, Kans., film star Gene Tierney had been admitted shortly before the first of the year to the Menninger Foundation as a psychiatric patient, according to a spokesman for the Foundation. Details of her illness had not been specified.
Near Birmingham, Ala., two small children had burned to death and their mother had been left in serious condition this date when fire had destroyed their home in the Pratt City area.
In Nassau in the Bahamas, a general strike which had turned the tourist center into a virtual ghost town had gone into its tenth day this date with no settlement in sight. Pickets had been marching in front of shops, but no disturbances had been reported.
In Yokosuka, Japan, a Philadelphia Marine sergeant was convicted this date of nine charges of cruelty and one of assault against brig prisoners under his supervision. He had testified that he had only slapped them around occasionally.
In East Berlin, an East German newspaper reported this date that a 46-year old locksmith had been convicted of gathering information about Soviet troops for U.S. intelligence and had been sentenced to five years in prison.
In San Francisco, economist Wilson Wright had predicted this date that the nation's gross national income would decrease by ten billion dollars in 1958.
In Chicago, Representative Albert Rains of Alabama had this date suggested the possibility of lower down payments and reduced interest rates on FHA home loans as a means of stimulating the nation's home-building industry.
In Caracas, Venezuela, the embattled Government of El Presidente Marcos Perez Jimenez braced itself this date for a threatened general strike which opposition leaders warned could bring bloodshed. (The present El Presidente in Washington here in 2025, starting his new term much as he did his last in 2017, with a series of ridiculous, mostly illegal or frivolous "Golf of America" executive orders, good for the oligarchs and bad for the human population generally, such as his reversal, performed with childishly vindictive relish, of the Biden Administration policies designed to ameliorate, to the extent possible at this late juncture in the planet's continuing angry reaction to its human inhabitants' indifference, the adverse effects through time of climate change, should be reminded rather quickly, as during his previous abjectly failed attempt at the job, that breaking the spirit of the country by undertaking to do only what he, as self-designated autocrat and princeling who would be king, and his little oligarchic buddies want, will ultimately lead, if not to his deposition yet again, a sitdown strike of sorts yet again in which the whole country will suffer, taking then again years from which to recover, if ever, this time around the wheel
The Senate Select Committee investigating misconduct on the part of unions and management this date sought in hearings to show what had occurred when self-styled "reformers" seized command of the Operating Engineers Union's big San Francisco Local No. 3.
John Kilgo of The News reports that police had said this date that some North Carolinians were purchasing 1958 auto tags in South Carolina, where they were half the price and where there was no liability insurance requirement. But City and County officers warned that they were keeping a sharp lookout for those "tag-jumpers" and, they said, the law provided stiff penalties which would be promptly invoked if they were caught. A City police lieutenant said that two young men, who had the cash for new cars but not for the insurance required of North Carolina drivers, had already been arrested with South Carolina tags on their vehicles. Plates cost only six dollars in South Carolina, but police indicated that it would not be much of a bargain if a person were caught. The two who had been cited for the offense had posted $13 bonds, which were forfeited, and they had to purchase the North Carolina tags which they should have bought in the first place.
On the editorial page, "UNC Must Reassert Its Leadership in a Region Torn by New Turmoil" indicates that Dr. Robert Hutchins had stated that universities had ceased to be "centers of independent thought and criticism." He said that decadence had been so pronounced that "it would be simpler and more hopeful to establish new institutions … than to try to reform the universities to the extent that would be required."
He had made the remarks not at the Fund for the Republic, which he headed, but on the campus of UNC, "that most hallowed of all southern centers of independent thought and criticism." It suggests that despite his disclaimers of exclusion of present company, he had made a point which ought trouble Chapel Hill as deeply as, for instance, Ann Arbor, Berkeley or Cambridge.
UNC still enjoyed worldwide respect as a center of Southern enlightenment, with its reputation being a rallying point for reason and social, economic and racial inquiry being without equal in the South. But the plain fact was that the University had made its reputation during the turbulent Thirties, at a time when much of the country was stricken with a social conscience. In recent years, it had not bolstered that reputation with anything resembling the noteworthy accomplishments of those earlier days of courage and candor.
It was not to say that the University was no longer a great university or even that it was no longer a leader in what was occasionally referred to, pleasantly, as the Southern renaissance. It was all of those things and more, but no longer demonstrating the same dauntless attitudes and intellectual curiosity about the New South of the late 1950's, as it had about the old New South of the mid-1930's.
The University lacked a strong figure around whom to rally, as it had when the late Howard Odum had been present along with UNC president Frank Porter Graham. Dr. Odum had, with talented and dedicated associates and the aid of Rockefeller money, carried on a monumental series of studies of the South, culminating in the publication in 1936, by the University of North Carolina Press, of Southern Regions of the United States. At Chapel Hill, sociologists dared to undertake studies of blacks, their psychology, as well as their sociology, of the sharecropper and his plight, of the cotton farmer in general, of cotton altogether, of the wasted resources of the South, and of the historical myths which blocked the region's progress and prosperity.
It was after that trailblazing research and bold leadership that the late W. J. Cash had been able to write in The Mind of the South, "...that a decisive breach had been made in the savage ideal and the historical solidity and rigidly enacted uniformity of the South—that the modern mind had been established within the gates, and that here at long last there was springing up in the South a growing body of men—small enough when set against the mass of the South but vastly large when set against anything of the kind which had ever existed in Dixie before—who had broken fully or largely out of that pattern described by Henry Adams in the case of Rooney Lee and fixed by Reconstruction; men who deliberately chose to know and think rather than merely to feel in terms fixed finally by Southern patriotism and the prejudices associated with it; men capable of detachment and actively engaged in analysis and criticism of the South itself."
It indicates that it was easy to argue that the principal battles had been won during the Thirties, that the University's inspirational leadership provided the breakthrough and that forces of sense and sanity had risen up all over the South to establish a new order based on a realistic appraisal of real and imagined problems. But that was to say that the South's house was in order, that no new hobgoblins of the spirit had replaced those of the Thirties, that a massive social and economic crisis hardly existed at all. It finds that was not the way, however, which the world worked and was not the way the South worked.
"Festering in Dixie today are problems and issues of terrifying complexity. They involve the status of the Negro, the future of agriculture, the effect on the economy of a sudden post-war wave of industrialization, the terrible necessity of regional planning, the continuing waste of great natural resources, the lingering poverty of many of the South's people, the strengths and weaknesses in southern institutions and folklore, the social and economic frontiers still to be penetrated, the swift changes in the regional culture that war, depression and finally prosperity have brought about and, most important, a new and realistic inventory of the actualities of what is to be done."
It asserts that the battles had not been won, that all around were guardians of the status quo, practicing, "with windy evocations of the past, the same old immutability, the same old obstinance. There is a terrified truculence toward even the evolutionary changes common to a dynamic society because these changes are either misunderstood or distrusted." That condition confronted UNC with a clear and present challenge to reassert its leadership in Southern thought and inquiry. The University could no longer afford to live in the glow of past triumphs. It had an obligation to mobilize its forces and act, to rise above complacency and illusion. Exploration of the socioeconomic condition of the South at present would require fully as much courage, candor, independent thought and constructive criticism as had been the case in the Thirties. If anything, it would require more, "for certain aged-in-anguish orthodoxies have not been recently challenged in North Carolina. They have grown wild and weedy for a decade."
It asserts that the leadership in that great adventure would come from a young, eminently promising but still untested inheritor of the mantle of Mr. Graham, the University's newly installed president, William C. Friday.
"The Klan Has Plenty of Places To Meet" indicates that the ragtag assortment of Klansmen who had been run out of Robeson County by angry Indians reportedly had decided to turn "the other cheek", for which it thanks goodness that the cheek was being turned from a safe distance.
"Any further meddling in the affairs of a peaceful community by bed-sheeted buffoons almost surely will invite the tragedy that was so narrowly averted near Maxton last week. It is something of a miracle that more injuries and some deaths did not result from the armed encounter in a dark field."
It indicates that the violence which had occurred was deplorable and yet the Klan had earned none of the sympathy and martyrdom which it sought to salvage from its fight by its talk of Christianity and persecution. It was due only contempt for having provoked a situation which endangered innocent people. The only violence which it intended to commit on Saturday night was to the cross, which would not have interfered with its right to assemble peaceably. But there was such a thing as covert violence, the wounding of the pride and sensibilities of the community, which the Klan had already done in Robeson County by cross-burnings and arrogant "warnings" to the Indian residents not to associate with whites.
It indicates that the Klan could not dissociate itself from the threat of violence, as the organization had committed crimes and atrocities throughout the South. "Individuals who don its regalia also have to assume the burden of being suspected by reasonable people of having an intent to injure people."
There were plenty of empty caves and isolated forests where Klansmen could "mumble their mumbo-jumbo, flit about in bedsheets and prostrate themselves before their kleagles." It finds it a pity that they were unwilling, to use one of their phrases, "to stay in their place".
A piece from the Reporter, titled "We Do Not Choose To Run", says that Macy's was running a "We Love New York" contest which offered, according to the full-page ad in the newspaper, "100 prizes … and Togetherness, too." All one had to do was to describe why one's family loved New York in 25 words or less and they would win some of the 100 prizes.
The 101st prize, it appeared, was a free one which cost Macy's nothing to give but the value of which was precious beyond price, the "spirit of Togetherness".
It indicates that what it liked about New York, in contrast, was its incredible "Apartness." In five crowded boroughs, inhabited by nearly eight million people, most of whom it found both interesting and likable and a few of whom were dear friends, it could take human beings pretty much on its own terms, "without all that promiscuous neighborliness which always makes us long for the quiet and peace of Manhattan whenever we spend a weekend in suburbia. Even the minister of our church is discreet enough to telephone before he makes his pastoral visits."
Drew Pearson indicates that House Speaker Sam Rayburn, having made a plea to the House for a quarter of a million dollars to investigate the FCC plus other regulatory agencies, had now given his official approval to a whitewash. When the committee he had created had unearthed conflicts of interest within the FCC, of which Mr. Rayburn's nephew, Bob Bartley, was a commissioner, the Speaker had agreed that the probe ought be diverted to other channels.
The column had done some probing of its own and found out which operations the Speaker did not want investigated, one being FCC chairman John Doerfer, a Republican of Wisconsin, who had taken his wife on a cross-country trip to Oklahoma City in 1956, then to Spokane, Wash., and then back to the nation's capital. The first leg of the trip had been paid for by Oklahoma City television station KWTV, and to cover the balance of the expenses, the National Association of Radio and Television Broadcasters had handed Mr. Doerfer $575. The FCC was supposed to be impartial and judicious in deciding who should receive radio and television licenses worth millions of dollars and whether those licenses should be renewed. It was not supposed to become obligated to any one television station owner or association of owners, any more than a Federal judge ought take expense money from a litigant. Mr. Doerfer had not only done so but had gone further, compounding the impropriety by charging the taxpayers for his own travel from Oklahoma City to Spokane, then from Spokane back to Washington. He had also turned in vouchers to the Government for $12 per diem expense money.
Edgar Bell, manager of KWTV, had been asked by the column how much Mr. Doerfer was paid to come to Oklahoma City, and he had responded that he would tell the column the same thing he had told a Congressional committee, that it was none of its business. When asked whether he considered it none of the business of Congress that Mr. Doerfer was cheating the taxpayers, he responded that he would not even give Dun & Bradstreet the information, that he considered it a matter between the station and Mr. Doerfer. Pressed further, Mr. Bell had declared irritably: "I don't want to argue with you over the phone."
When Mr. Doerfer had been phoned for comment, he avoided the call. On a second call, his secretary was told what the inquiry entailed and was asked whether Mr. Doerfer wished to provide any explanation, to which the secretary made it clear that he did not want to comment.
Stewart Alsop discusses the statement by Secretary of State Dulles before the National Press Club recently that a proposal to control "outer space for peaceful purposes" would be a central point of U.S. policy in the coming months. The question had arisen as to whether it was merely a political-propaganda move or was a matter of serious and secret negotiations.
The proposal would mean control of ballistic missiles, and the answer to the question appeared to be that it was both a propaganda move and a matter for serious negotiation. There had been tentative talk, for example, of convening a special session of the U.N. General Assembly to be addressed by the President on the subject. Other possibilities were a major speech or series of speeches by the President on the proposal, another letter to Soviet Premier Nikolai Bulganin on that subject only, and letters to all heads of government, etc. However it might be dramatized, the point was that Mr. Dulles and his advisers unquestionably saw the proposal as a means of seizing the initiative and placing the Soviets on the defensive, ducking the charge of "negativism".
Mr. Alsop finds that it was not unfair to suggest that the domestic political advantages of such "waging of total peace" had also not been overlooked. The proposal, in the President's mind and apparently in that of Secretary Dulles, was more, however, than just a propaganda gimmick.
As with the President's atoms-for-peace plan, the outer-space proposal had, to some degree, placed the cart before the horse. The idea had first been suggested by Harold Stassen about a year earlier and had been somewhat languidly put forward from time to time since then. Secretary Dulles, when drafting the President's responsive letter to Premier Bulganin, desperate for counter-proposals, had seized on the idea and placed great emphasis on it, putting even more emphasis on it before the Press Club.
But until the present, it had only been an idea rather than any plan. Now, serious studies were going forward both in the Defense Department and in the State Department's policy planning staff, and the inevitable papers were beginning to pile up. As far as the liquid-fueled ballistic missiles were concerned, those studies confirmed the statement of Secretary Dulles that "at the present stage of the art … we have something which is readily subject to be controlled." Given what he had called "even the most superficial form of inspection from the air," the ballistic missiles in their present stage of development could be easily detected and thus controlled. But since serious study of the problem had begun, many difficult questions had arisen.
There were air-breathing missiles, for example, or solid-fueled missiles, which were much more difficult to detect and control. There were also shorter-range missiles, with short-range, air-breathing missiles capable of being fired from submarines to destroy U.S. coastal cities. There was a question of how any international space agency would actually operate. Those questions, however, were at least being seriously examined at present.
Another indication that the proposal was serious was that Secretary Dulles intended to launch private diplomatic talks with the Soviets, probably both in Moscow and Washington, regarding the U.S. proposal. A kind of preliminary feeling-out process at secondhand had already occurred. The results were not encouraging. The Russians had asked the obvious questions as to whether the forward bases of the Strategic Air Command could also be inspected and controlled and why the Soviets would abandon a weapon in which it had a commanding lead. Just because those questions were so obvious, the odds were probably a hundred to one that the space control proposal would come to nothing. But he regards the attempt as worth making, for anyone who believed seriously about the nature of the weapons had to ask whether a free society could survive in the era of the ballistic missiles.
"The missiles are ideal weapons of surprise attack, requiring an automatic, instantaneous and totally undemocratic response. By their very nature, they thus present the unfree society with a crushing advantage. Which is another reason why the proposal, however seriously advanced, will doubtless come to nothing in the end."
Robert C. Ruark, in Palamos, Spain, indicates that once or twice per year, because he was an incurable sentimentalist, he was apt to dash off a column about air travel, indicating that he was really in love with airplanes. He had traveled some 2.5 million miles by air and had not yet encountered a fatal accident, was encouraged when the captain came on the loudspeaker to report on weather, wind, time elapsed in flight and the anticipated time of arrival.
He indicates that it had come to mind more or less as a result of pitcher Don Newcombe having become hypnotized sometime earlier to cure himself of fear of airplane travel. He had been about to give up baseball when he encountered an hypnotist who said he could cure him of his fear of flight.
Mr. Ruark indicates that, instead, all one needed to do was to purchase a shoulder bag, place within it a couple of fifths of a benevolent beverage of one's preference and a carton of cigarettes, a pocket book or two by Mickey Spillane, unless they were out, in which case Erskine Caldwell would do, or anyone who sold novels for a trade price of $5.95. He also suggests a couple of candy bars, some matches and at least two newspapers, Time, Life and Newsweek, and one's shaving kit. If a man, one would case the airplane for the prettiest girl who was going to the same destination, with the next prettiest girl as a second choice, and if a woman, for the handsome fellow with the mustache and the shoulder bag. Then one should follow closely on, and as soon as one or the other settled into his or her seat, swoop down into the spare seat.
"The way they overwork the stewards and stewardess, a gentleman who can offer you the papers, a news magazine, a slug from a bottle of Old Whatever, and a leg shave, if necessary, is not to be spurned, especially if he can turn on a fascinating bunch of lies to keep you amused." He advises that one should never think of flight in terms of miles or time, because the time ran short one way and long the other, that it had to be thought of in terms of what one did. He viewed a trip from Barcelona to New York as a good dinner in Barcelona, a couple of snorts of something in Lisbon, and a night's sleep with breakfast in New York. A flight from Nairobi to Barcelona represented lunch in Nairobi, an orange crush in Khartoum, breakfast in Rome and lunch in Barcelona. "From lunch to lunch is not a very protracted period if you have Old Doctor Ruark's handy-dandy overnight kit."
He also recommends getting on board last, as then one had the pick of the least loathsome person as a seatmate and, finally, if possible, always to check the pilot, and if he was gray or bald, relax. There were bald pilots and old pilots, but no old, bald pilots. He assures that if the traveler followed those rules firmly, the person would not need an hypnotist.
You might, however, need a lawyer after you were arrested at your destination for harassing a passenger while drunk on the airplane. But, we suppose, in 1958, that was less of an issue, as people were willing to put up generally with more obnoxious conduct in their presence.
This basic change in attitude is what we gather those idiots mean when they wear their little caps which say, "Mek Amurica Grater Agin".
A letter writer says that she was waiting for the Defense Department to send her a medal for her foolproof idea which would enable the U.S. to take the lead on the Soviets in the race to the moon. She indicates that the South had all of the ingredients necessary, that only the shell of a large rocket, one Klansman and one Indian were necessary, placing the rocket shell on a launching platform and letting the Indian chase the Klansman into the rocket shell, with the Klansman having enough momentum to reach the moon with plenty to spare. She indicates that the moon would then have to be deodorized, but what was important was beating the Russians to it. "Just think. We'd also insure 'white supremacy' on the moon by getting a Klansman there first." She says she was aware that the moon had no atmosphere but that a group of Klansmen could create one of hot air very easily. While colonization of the moon would result in an intellectual level of the "'kolony'" being low, the "'kolonists'" would be white.
A letter writer indicates that the reception given the Klan the prior Saturday night by the Lumbee Indians had been the greatest contribution to American life since Washington had crossed the Delaware. "If the Catholics, Jews and Negroes greet them similarly hereafter the hate merchants will soon disintegrate."
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