The Charlotte News
Tuesday, January 28, 1958
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from Cape Canaveral, Fla., that a Jupiter-C missile was poised on its launching pad this date, ready for launching of a 30-pound satellite into space, with the launch expected the following day or the next. It was an opportunity which the Army had long awaited, having claimed it could have fired a satellite into orbit as early as 1955, long before the Russian Sputniks of the previous October and November, respectively, if it had not been ordered to stand aside and let the Navy do the job with its Vanguard rocket. In the wake of the Navy's latest failure to get the Vanguard launched, there was furious activity around the Jupiter-C firing platform. The weather was perfect at the Cape and the tall Jupiter tower stood in bright sunshine while workmen swarmed over it, visible from the beaches outside the top-secret firing range. Nobody talked officially, but optimism was running high. Many experts had expressed the opinion that the Jupiter-C, a creation of Dr. Wernher von Braun, had a better chance than the Vanguard to put the first American satellite into orbit. The first attempt with the Vanguard had blown up on the launching pad on December 6 after an immense published build-up. The previous week, a four-day effort to launch a second Vanguard had ended in failure, blamed on bad weather and mechanical difficulties. Following that attempt, the Vanguard was dismantled and there appeared no chance that it could be put back together and readied for launch for at least several days, clearing the way for the launch of the Jupiter-C. Maj. General John Medaris, chief of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency, told a Senate committee after Sputnik I had been launched in October that the Army could have done the same thing in 1955 had the Navy not been given exclusive operating rights regarding satellites. The Jupiter-C satellite would weigh 29.7 pounds, nine times more than the little aluminum sphere which the Vanguard had sought to launch.
In Ankara, Turkey, it was reported that the Baghdad Pact council of ministers this date had approved long-term plans for a strategic system of roads, ports, airfields and radio telecommunications, that if carried out, would cost billions of dollars over a period of several years.
In Caracas, Venezuela's ruling junta won the support this date of the civilian group, the "Patriotic Junta", which had sparked the overthrow of dictator Marcos Perez Jimenez. The group issued a new manifesto declaring that it had confidence in the national unity and was fully backing the new regime. Order was being restored quickly and only a few scattered rifle shots had been heard in the capital the previous night. The armed forces earlier had promised their all-out support of the ruling junta.
In Amman, the Jordanian parliament this date unanimously adopted a resolution asking U.N. Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold to intercede with France on behalf of an Algerian girl sentenced to death.
In Lisbon, seven deaths had been reported this date from violent storms throughout Portugal during the previous 36 hours. The toll included two girls who had leaped from a ferryboat in panic after being caught in the swollen currents of a river.
In Kansas City, it was reported that the President would fly to the city on Wednesday for funeral services for his eldest brother, Arthur.
In Paducah, Ky., what was believed to have been an earth tremor was reported in the city and nearby parts of the state, southern Illinois and eastern Missouri the previous night.
In Miami, Riddle Airlines said it had a report that the Esso refinery in Havana, Cuba, was on fire and that it was preparing an emergency flight to rush in foam to fight it, a spokesman for the airline indicating that they were trying to scrape up every bit of foamite around.
In Havana, Tessa Kennedy and her newlywed husband, who had been foiled by her father in efforts to marry in Britain, finally had been wed the previous night.
In Kobe, Japan, Japanese divers this date found the sunken hull of a ferryboat in 120 feet of water in the inland sea, and six bodies drifting in the area believed to be from the missing 170 passengers and crewmen, after the boat had been lost in storms on Sunday and Monday, causing 311 deaths or missing persons in 23 known shipping tragedies. The Japanese Coast Guard had said that 22 other vessels had been lost, damaged or sunk along the Pacific and inland sea coasts. The ferryboat had radioed on Sunday the single word "danger", and then had disappeared in an 85 mph wind storm.
In Lincoln, Neb., in shabby outbuildings behind a small home, on the door of which had been a hand-printed sign warning visitors to "stay away", the bodies of a father, his wife and their two-year old daughter had been found the previous night. Marion Bartlett, 57, and his wife, Velda, 36, had been shot in the head, and their child apparently had died of a skull fracture. The three bodies had lacerations which examining physicians said could be stab wounds. There was no report on the time of the deaths. A general alarm was put out for Caril Fugate, 15, a daughter of Mrs. Bartlett by a former marriage, and Charles Starkweather, 19, a friend of Caril. Caril had lived at the Bartlett home. She and her friend were believed to have left Lincoln, headed south in a black car. When the husband of a daughter of Mrs. Bartlett and a brother of Charles had arrived at the modest home for a visit, they found the hand-printed sign on the door, saying: "Stay away. Everybody is sick with the flu." When they knocked, there was no answer, and the son-in-law went around the house to a chicken coop, thinking that someone might be there, finding the body of Mr. Bartlett wrapped in paper. He next had peeked into an outhouse a few feet away and saw the body of Mrs. Bartlett wrapped in rags. He ran to a nearby house to telephone police, and searching officers then discovered the body of the child stuffed in a cardboard box stacked in the building with other cartons. Police had revealed that the previous morning, the mother of Mrs. Bartlett had gone to the house to visit but had been refused admission by Caril. The woman, fearful that something was wrong, told police of the refused entry. Two detectives had gone with her to the Bartlett home, finding the door locked and then entered the home through a window. They found no indication of violence within the house and all three had left. At the time, there had been no sign on the door. Mr. Bartlett had been a night watchman and had not reported for work since his employer had been informed by a telephone call that he was ill. Something seems off there. If you see a black car with two teenagers aboard, it is probably best not to approach. (The three misspellings in the eight word note, corrected in the AP account, had to have been penned deliberately that way, we trow, as no one could be that stupid at ages 15 and 19, respectively. "How do you spell 'a way' and 'every body'?" Thus, it is likely that the CIA, the Defense Department, the Joint Chiefs, and, possibly, State were all involved in composing the note, as a way to get everybody to look elsewhere for a few days than at the missile gap on the minds of many in the wake of the Sputniks, to buy time until the Army was able to get the Jupiter-C finally off the launching pad and prove that the country was not so far behind the Russians after all, the only explanation. Charles and Caril were just a couple of happy-go-lucky teenagers in love until they got involved with military secrets somehow, probably through the job Charles had as a trash collector.)
In Sanford, N.C., a Lee County grand jury this date indicted Frank Wetzel for the slaying of Highway Patrolman J. T. Brown, on November 5. He had already been found guilty of first-degree murder in the slaying of Highway Patrolman Wister Reece in Richmond County and sentenced to life imprisonment, that murder having occurred on the same evening about an hour earlier. The grand jury had returned the indictment after hearing five witnesses, one having been a woman whose role in the case remained a mystery. The solicitor declined to say what connection the woman had to the case. One of the witnesses had been the passenger who had testified in the first case in Rockingham earlier in the month, having said that he had been a hitchhiker in Mr. Wetzel's car at the time of the first murder and left the vehicle when Mr. Wetzel grabbed a gun from the glove compartment after the traffic stop, and then heard a shot as he hid in a nearby ditch, at which point the car sped away. The murders had occurred within an hour of each other and both victims had been shot with a high-powered pistol after stopping a speeding motorist. Mr. Wetzel had escaped from a mental institution in New York State.
In Lumberton, N.C., the trial for Klan leader James Cole and his fellow Klansman, James Martin, set for the following day, would be postponed, as the solicitor stated this date that the trial for inciting a riot would have to be delayed unless Mr. Cole were brought into court by the following morning. Extradition proceedings, however, could not be completed in Marion, S.C., where Mr. Cole lived, in time for the scheduled trial, as Mr. Cole was planning to fight extradition. A hearing in the extradition matter would likely be scheduled for the following week. Mr. Martin had already been convicted of public drunkenness and carrying a concealed weapon for his role in the Klan rally near Maxton ten days earlier, in which local Lumbee Indians had chased the Klansmen away, after they had been harassed by Klansmen earlier in the week with two cross-burnings at or near Indian homes. Mr. Cole, who claimed to be a Free Will Baptist minister, said that he was fighting extradition because he feared that he could not receive a fair trial in Robeson County, with the final decision on extradition being up to South Carolina Governor John Bell Timmerman, Jr. Mr. Cole said that he planned to attend a North Carolina Klan rally scheduled near Burlington on February 8. A Klan rally which had been scheduled near Burlington for the previous Saturday night had not materialized, apparently the Invisible Empire having turned invisible. Mr. Cole had said before that rally the prior week that he had not planned to attend, but believed it would be one of the biggest Klan rallies ever held, refraining nevertheless because he had been threatened by the solicitor in Robeson County with arrest if he set foot in North Carolina.
In Selma, N.C., a woman who was a librarian at a black high school in the town had been shot to death shortly after classes had begun this date, killed by a fusillade of shots fired from a .22-caliber pistol. The Johnston County coroner said that a science teacher of Goldsboro had fled after the shooting, surrendering to officers about two hours later in Raleigh. The coroner said that the shooting had occurred in the school library in the early morning, and that a 17-year old female student had witnessed the incident, informing the coroner that she was told that the deceased had been going with someone else and was engaged, and that the science teacher had been jealous. She recounted that the librarian had been seated at a desk talking to the science teacher when the latter suddenly started shooting, and that she had run from the room before the firing ended. The principal of the school said that he had heard five shots and then saw the science teacher flee in a car.
In Oklahoma City, four brothers and sisters, ranging in ages from 1 to 6, had suffocated early this date in the bathroom of their home after fleeing from a fire they had started while playing with matches.
In Ogden, Utah, a man did not know why his Social Security checks had stopped coming after July, thinking maybe that someone had been picking them up at the general delivery window at the post office, denied, however, by postal workers. He had asked the Social Security office to put out a tracer, but nothing had been found. The man then ran out of money and friends had offered him some but he refused it, despite being 69 and crippled. He checked out of his room in a hotel when he could not pay the rent. Two boys found the former cook's body on Sunday in a crude shelter along the banks of a river, where he had frozen to death in a bed of grass and old newspapers. His Social Security check for January had been waiting for him at the post office.
In Charlotte, service station signs proclaiming dropping prices on gasoline had, according to City Manager Henry Yancey, to remain back from the sidewalk under a local law barring signs and other obstacles from the sidewalk. Mr. Yancey said that repeatedly many service stations had been warned about infractions regarding violation of the ordinance. A captain of the City Police Department had issued a warning about it.
Also in Charlotte, three Hawthorne Junior High School boys had been injured in a rock-throwing melee after a basketball game between Hawthorne and Wilson Junior High School the previous Thursday night, according to County police. After the game, a group of boys, according to police, had started throwing rocks at a bus occupied by players of the Hawthorne team. A 14-year old boy had been hit in the forehead with a rock and another 14-year old boy had been hit in the face with glass, while a third 14-year old boy had gotten a piece of glass in his eye. The coach of the Hawthorne team said that the group of about 20 boys had gathered around his team's dressing room at halftime of the game and said, "There's going to be trouble if Hawthorne wins the game."
In Los Angeles, Dr. Richard Klemer, associate general director of the American Institute of Family Relations, indicated in an interview that going steady at a too early age could hurt a girl's chances of getting married, that it stunted her intellectual and social growth. He suggested that if she did not marry the boy with whom she was going steady since grammar school, she would be far less intellectually and socially equipped for marriage than girls who had been dating lots of boys. He said women should not be angry or upset about other girlfriends whom their sweethearts or husbands may have had in the past, as those former sweethearts had "polished that diamond in the rough the woman now loves". He added that after a girl passed her early twenties, going steady was desirable if she wanted to get married, that after that age, if she was still "flitting from one casual acquaintance to another, it could indicate she is unable to develop the deep emotional relationship needed for marriage." He may have been watching "Maverick" the previous Sunday night.
On the editorial page, "An 'Aid-to-Education' Plan That Isn't" indicates that the President's aid-to-education program would make more sense and attract more support as an aid-to-the-military program, that essentially it was a military program, a scheme designed to produce a larger quantity of science and mathematics graduates who, it was hoped, would supply the defense effort with new ideas and inspiration. If steps could be taken to produce quality as well as quantity, there would be much to recommend it as a military measure. But even as a military measure, the program had a significant defect.
The President had emphasized its emergency nature, effectively apologizing for recommending Federal action and possibly serving as a goad for getting Congressional approval. But the contest with the Soviets in weaponry and space vehicles was not likely to terminate with the President's program after its planned four-year run. The "emergency" which now appeared so evident had been going on for many years and would continue for many more.
The U.S. educational establishment was deeply involved in the contest with the Soviets, not only in the sciences, but with the task of schools to produce intellectual leadership in all areas of life.
In one of his post-Sputnik speeches, the President had referred to the need for more Jeffersons as well as more Einsteins, but there was no such emphasis in the message on education to the Congress. The President had restated the essentially local responsibility for education, but it suggests that most of the individuals and groups he had listed were looking to Washington for some signal regarding the scope of the new effort needed and for some description of the overall task confronting schools.
The President's "aid-to-education" program did not touch on the real deficiencies of U.S. schools and colleges, nor would it solve them. Its acceptance at face value by the Congress might aid the military establishment, but such acceptance also would create a false impression that the schools thus had been equipped to discharge their diverse responsibilities to the future.
It suggests that Congress ought explore the overall needs of the U.S. educational establishment before voting 1.6 billion dollars to provide a short-term, four-year supply of graduates who might be able to aid the defense effort, and ought not vote the money in the belief that it was aiding education generally.
"Pay Television's Allure Is Deceptive" finds that seldom had such a minor issue as pay television attracted such expensive attention from vested interests on both sides. In the end, it might have to be decided by the most important vested interest of all, the public, which would have to purchase the receiver equipment despite the addiction to free television being great, strengthened by the addition of seven million households with televisions since 1955.
Spokesmen for pay television had promised almost everything to almost everybody and had made the usual bow to culture, while opponents had attempted to frighten present owners of television sets with previews of exorbitant fees for popular programs in addition to the expensive equipment necessary.
It finds that to say there was room for improvement in the medium was to understate a fundamental fact, but the question was whether pay television was the answer, which it seriously doubts. It suggests that after an initial run, pay television would become not very different from free television except that the viewer would be paying to see favorite programs, that it was a fact of elementary economics that the entertainment world's best performers would go where the money was. Spokesmen for pay television were already boasting that they could outbid free television for attractions not on the screen, and so, it stood to reason, could outbid free television for attractions which were.
The inexorable law of the box office
would have something to say about the presentation of cultural
programming, and it suggests that the results would be that pay
television would cater to the majority of the audience just as did
free television at present, devising ways to make more money rather
than less, offering viewers more of Elvis Presley than of Maria
Tallchief
Meanwhile, if the box office were to become the sole arbiter of television tastes, the public service programming which was presently a byproduct of advertising-sponsored television, would be lost. Without the income from the popular shows, individual stations and the networks would be unable to afford the bill for sustaining the finer cultural programs. Free television, it finds, actually provided most of the fare promised by pay television and would provide more as it matured as an entertainment medium, while indicating that it was doubtful that its maturity could be sped up by forcing the public to pay for a service which traditionally had been free.
"Claude Cochran Served His City Well" indicates that attorney Claude Cochran, who had died during the week on the eve of his 74th birthday, had broad interests, sensitivity and a capacity for energetic leadership, which made him one of the community's most valuable builders. Civil service had been as much a part of his life as the law, and he practiced with as much genuine enthusiasm.
He had championed the Auditorium and Coliseum, having served as chairman of the commission which led to its construction and had been prominently identified with the earliest movements to obtain for Charlotte adequate facilities for cultural and recreational activities. He left behind other less obvious monuments, things big and small which through the years had become a part of the worth of the community. It concludes that he had served his city and its people well and that he would be missed by a saddened community.
A piece from the Christian Science Monitor, titled "Honest Silence", tells of author Homer Croy having just returned, according to the Associated Press, a novel to a friend, Ray Denslow, from whom he had borrowed it when they had been fellow students at the University of Missouri 50 years earlier, with no note of explanation accompanying the book.
It suggests that what he might have said was that he found the book so absorbing that he could not put it down or that every time he had seen his friend or passed his house, he had thought of the book but never had it with him. He could have said that it was buried under a pile of mail and magazines and that he had just never come across it. Or he could have said that he enjoyed it so much that he loaned it to a friend who had just returned it.
It concludes that the only honest thing which he could have done was to do what he had done, return it with no comment, leaving his friend to forget his pique, if any, and wondering, as does the piece, what on earth happened.
Drew Pearson indicates that three potent Republicans had just been hired by the Haitian Government to handle its public relations, especially in the matter of the murder of an American citizen. They were John Roosevelt, youngest son of FDR and the only Republican member of the trio, hired at $150,000, Charlie Willis, the son-in-law of Harvey Firestone of the Firestone Rubber Co. and a former White House aide to President Eisenhower, hired at $50,000, and Douglas Whitlock, formerly of the RNC staff and organizer of the Eisenhower campaign train in 1952, also hired at $50,000. Wesley Roberts, former RNC chairman who had been dropped after an exposé of his lobbying activities in Kansas, was also doing some work for the Haitians, but not directly, working for his former assistant, Mr. Whitlock.
The primary work of the three Republicans was to soften the State Department's demands on Haiti for proper compensation, apology, and punishment for the brutal murder of an American citizen, Shibley Talamas. The latter had learned that the police wanted him for questioning and had checked in at the police station in Port-au-Prince, whereupon he was brutally beaten to death. What had made the murder worse was the fact that the American consul, knowing the trigger-happy habits of the Haitian police, had secured advance assurances that Mr. Talamas would not be mistreated. When his body had been found the next day, it was a mass of bruises from the neck down. Haitian military strong-arm man Antonio Kebreau, the real man behind the Haitian Government, had supported the Haitian police, claiming that Mr. Talamas had died of a heart attack while resisting arrest. Secretary of State Dulles, however, had made strong demands that the family of the victim be compensated and that the guilty be punished, threatening to cut off economic aid to Haiti until the demands were met.
The three Republicans were trying to soften the wrath of Mr. Dulles. Messrs. Willis and Whitlock had talked to the State Department, suggesting that the Haitian Government merely apologize and pay no indemnity, while Mr. Roosevelt had suggested the same. The latter had informed the column that he also advised the Haitian Government that their economic future was dependent on the good will of the U.S. Nevertheless, the State Department was remaining firm in its position.
It had not been true, as officially announced, that the Moulder Committee had decided unanimously to suppress the secret memo charging members of the FCC with taking gifts and free trips from the radio and television industry. After the column had published the verbatim text of the pertinent parts of the secret memo the prior week, Representative Morgan Moulder of Missouri had spoken to several members of the committee and all had agreed that there was no longer any point in keeping the memo confidential, Mr. Moulder then having mimeographed copies for a general press release.
Representative Oren Harris, the Arkansas Democrat who headed the parent committee and who was sponsor of the Harris gas bill, had stepped in, having received a 25 percent share in television station KRBB in El Dorado for only $5,000 and had then wanted to increase its power from 24,000 to 316,000 watts. Mr. Harris had also led the so-called "Penguin probe", the recent Congressional committee which flew over both the North and South Poles at taxpayer expense for no good reason except headlines. Mr. Harris demanded that Representative Moulder call a committee meeting and then 4.5 hours had been spent haggling over the question of releasing the memo, to which Mr. Harris was opposed. Representative Charles Wolverton of New Jersey had attended as ranking Republican on the full committee and supported Representatives John Moss of California and Peter Mack of Illinois, two Democrats who argued that the public had a right to know the contents of the memo. The final vote had been six to five against releasing it, with Representatives Moulder, Moss, Mack and Wolverton being joined by Republican John Bennett of Michigan in favor of the release, while those opposed were, in addition to Mr. Harris, Representatives John Bell Williams of Mississippi, John Flynt of Georgia, Joseph O'Hara of Minnesota, Robert Hale of Maine, and John Heselton of Massachusetts. Mississippi's Representative Williams had remarked during the debate: "We'll probably read all about this meeting tomorrow in Drew Pearson's column."
Marquis Childs tells of Lt. General James Gavin, who had recently retired from the Army at age 51 because of his disagreement with the approach of the Administration on economy in missile development, having refused hundreds of requests for interviews in the press, radio and television on the basis that, being under subpoena by four Congressional committees, he believed it was best to remain silent publicly. He believed that his recent appearance before the Senate Preparedness subcommittee, during which he said that he probably would feel compelled to retire to speak freely about what he was convinced were the grave deficiencies in the Army, had been blown out of proportion and beyond his personal control. It had been compounded by a news story, which the General said was never authorized as an interview, making it sound as though his judgment had been warped by his own emotional preoccupation. While he could not conceal his belief in the damage done by economy to the Army's research and development program while he had been in charge of it, and particularly in the area of missiles, he had decided to state his own case in his own way.
Even though he intended to try to be as objective as possible, the articles he would write would cause a sensation, likely to intensify the political controversy regarding where the blame lay for the missile lag and whether the right measures were being taken to overcome the Russian lead. The General was convinced that the full development of the missiles planned by Dr. Wernher von Braun at the Redstone Arsenal in Alabama would have long since enabled the U.S. to place a satellite in orbit if a contrary decision had not been made. The Jupiter 1,500-mile IRBM would have been by this point in full production, with missile battalions established on bases ringing the Soviet Union. He said that he could not stand by and see the slippage in America's preparedness, and so had retired.
Two years earlier, the Army's research and development team had developed the concept and plans for the anti-missile missile, growing out of the work on the Nike-Hercules, a missile with a nuclear warhead to be used against clusters of bombers. General Gavin had set the limits for the scientists with the Jupiter, limits which would hold them to a specific objective, without which the tendency would have been to follow through "the state-of-the-art" with lengthy exploration. But the state-of-the-art regarding the anti-missile missile was the goal, while the General had seen the program repeatedly cut back. He said that they needed up to 100 battalions of Nike-Hercules missiles, but at present, had programmed less than half that number.
The General had said that when he let a contract for 150 million dollars, he knew the effect it would have on the stock of a particular company, and wondered what would occur if someone in his position were playing some "funny business" in the stock market. Yet, one of his anxieties had been how to find the money to educate his four young daughters while living in Washington and working for the Army. Mr. Childs indicates that those were some of the troubling complications which had resulted in the loss to the military of one of its most valued men.
A letter writer advocates filling holes in the sidewalks of the city, says that he had talked to more than 100 citizens and that all agreed that the sidewalks were a disgrace, indicating that on any rainy day, one could walk two blocks in any direction from Independence Square without boots and one's feet would get wet.
The editors respond that a Chamber of Commerce sidewalk improvement campaign had been successful in getting many of the worst stretches repaired, but that more work still needed to be done.
A letter from J. R. Cherry, Jr., indicates that he had enjoyed the editorial, "Eleanor Roosevelt: Laughter & Love", appearing in the January 16 edition, laughing for ten minutes at the label which columnist Westbrook Pegler had applied to Mrs. Roosevelt years earlier, "big mouth". He says he had always called her "Seabiscuit" for the famous racehorse, not bothering to explain why. He believes that Mr. Pegler's name was genuinely classic in contrast to his, as it was accurate as to both physical and personality traits. He thinks that the fact that Mrs. Roosevelt had, for the 11th consecutive year, been voted the world's most admired woman showed that world intelligence was permanently going to pot. He thinks Mr. Pegler, more than any other single man or woman in the world, had made her famous, and that she would be remembered by any rational posterity as "big mouth", catapulted to fame by the defamation of Mr. Pegler, "just for the independent, individualistic hell of it all."
A letter writer from Richmond, Va., executive associate of Union Theological Seminary, thanks the newspaper for the editorial, "UNC Must Reaffirm Its Leadership in a Region Torn by New Turmoil", appearing January 21, finding it to be the finest analysis of the current situation and challenge for the future in the state which he had seen in a long while. He says that he had lived in North Carolina for a good many years until the previous July and was also deeply concerned about developments in recent years.
A letter writer says that his four grandchildren were vociferously telling him and his wife goodbye after a wonderful Christmas together, and, realizing that it could be the last time they were together, the words had come to him in reference to how children impacted grandparents: "They shall renew their youth like the eagles!"
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