The Charlotte News
Saturday, January 4, 1958
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that Congress, when it would start its new session on Tuesday, would begin grappling with problems which had loomed since it had adjourned the previous summer. Prime among them would be the Russian satellites, with their grave implications of breakthroughs in rocketry and missile warfare, with a primary topic in Congress to be how much the country could afford to pay to match the Soviet scientific effort. The President would deliver his half-hour State of the Union message to a joint session of Congress the following Thursday. It would deal primarily with the condition of the nation's defenses and the improvement needed. On January 13, the President would present his budget proposals, reportedly amounting to 74 billion dollars, another peacetime record for the coming fiscal year. Administration officials indicated that the budget would be a balanced one, but likely just barely, with military and other defense needs expected to push domestic projects into the background. Defense spending apparently would be around 40 billion the following year, compared to the current level of 38.5 billion. The Administration also would seek another billion dollars for defense for the current fiscal year. Congress would be asked to approve a four-year, billion-dollar aid to education program stressing science and mathematics. It being a midterm election year, with 32 Senate seats at stake in addition to the entire House, political infighting was likely not to diminish. Few members were expected to give up their pet domestic projects without a fight. The pressure to keep up with the Russians had all but eliminated talk of a tax cut for the year. Civil rights and the subject of presidential disability, two of the primary topics in the previous session, would probably receive short shrift in the coming year.
In Gettysburg, the President had arranged a schedule mixing work with relaxation at his farm this date, the last weekend before Congress would reconvene.
In London, it was reported that Albania had promised to release this date a British cargo plane which its jet fighters had forced down on Tuesday on a charge of violating the Communist nation's airspace.
In Hong Kong, it was reported that Communist China's boss Mao Tse-Tung had carried out a purge in his native Hunan Province, firing the vice-governor and removing a noted female legislator from the National Parliament.
In Jakarta, radio reports from the north Celebes said this date that the area would be declared a separate province in defiance of the central Indonesian Government.
In Saigon, it was reported that Prince Souvanna Phouma, Prime Minister of Laos, said this date that he planned to visit friendly Western countries, including the U.S., to explain his policy of taking the Red-tinged Pathet Lao into the Government.
In New York, Howard Rushmore, former editor of Confidential Magazine and anti-Communist writer, had shot and killed his estranged wife the previous night and then killed himself, climaxing an argument in a taxicab. Mr. Rushmore, who had once been the film critic for the Communist Daily Worker but had broken with the party and the newspaper in the 1930's, had moodily told a female friend on Thursday night that he was "feeling low" because his wife had left him two days before Christmas. Mrs. Rushmore had been a former newspaperwoman and had two children by a previous marriage, one of whom, 20, quoted her mother as saying that Mr. Rushmore had threatened her several times with death, that if he could not have her, no one would, and that a psychiatrist had warned her against staying with him. She said that both her mother and stepfather were under psychiatric care. She indicated that two days before Christmas, he had chased her mother and her sister, 16, out of the house with a shotgun.
Daddy Grace, also known as Bishop C. M. Grace, according to his attorney in Washington, was "a target, a sitting duck, for all kinds of claims." He made the statement the previous day in U.S. District Court in Washington when a second woman claimed to have been wed to the 74-year old evangelist. The attorney said that he received a lot of letters from women who called him their "spiritual husband" or "heavenly husband", that women moved into his home and he had to throw them out. He was a defendant in a nonsupport suit filed by a retired Georgia school teacher, 57, who claimed he had married her in 1923 and was the father of her daughter, seeking support for her and the daughter. Mr. Grace had denied having married the woman. The court had received a letter from a woman purporting to be the real Mrs. Grace, indicating they had been separated for many years but had never been divorced.
In Vandreuil, Québec, four children had died early this date in a fire which had destroyed their home.
Ann Sawyer of The News reports that Jerry Ball, an Esso public relations man and piano player, had been lifted into the air on a 600-pound platform to raise money for the March of Dimes, despite the temperature being in the 20's. He had first begun performing piano-thons for polio victims while being lifted by a crane in 1950. His main stunt had occurred at noon when he was strapped by his heels and hoist to the gallows for his rendition of "Dixie".
In Charlotte, Police Chief Frank Littlejohn said this date that it appeared that someone had beaten officers to the $10,000 which a convict had said was buried under a house eight years earlier after he had committed a robbery in 1949 for which he had been sentenced to 21 years in prison in South Carolina. He said that the missing $10,000 out of the total $41,500 taken in the robbery of a grocery store had been left in a gallon Thermos jug and buried under his sister-in-law's home located in an alley just off Potters Road in Charlotte. The chief and captain of detectives had spent the previous day leading a group of officers in search of the money, but it was not recovered. The chief said that only two other people in addition to the man in question had known where the money was, and that they knew who those two people were. He said that he believed that they would get at least some of the money back before it was over. The chief said that there were two small holes under the house where the Thermos bottle could have been buried and one of the officers said it appeared that someone had been digging in one of the holes recently. The chief believed that the man was telling the truth about where the money had been hidden. He may have been reading TV Guide.
George W. Dowdy, executive vice-president and general manager of Belk Brothers Co. of Charlotte, was scheduled to be elected president of the National Retail Dry Goods Association on Wednesday and was departing for the convention in New York this night. He would succeed Atlanta's Richard H. Rich as president.
Julian Scheer of The News reports from Flat Rock, N.C., of a visit with Carl Sandburg at his antebellum home of the previous 12 years, to celebrate his 80th birthday the following Monday. He found him sitting in a vast front room, with a quilt around his legs on a cold afternoon and talking "in a low, throaty voice of life and death and youth and poets and men—and, most of all, America." Around him were book manuscripts of friends, the previous day's newspapers, photography magazines, the new The Sandburg Range and a paperback called The Race for Space. He said: "It's a hell of a note that Russia is setting the pace in scientific achievements. What does this country need? Awareness—a break with traditions—and dedication." He believed it was found in men such as physicist Edward Teller, for whom he expressed only love and admiration for "the intense solemnity with which he tries to arouse the people to the gravity of the crisis." He believed that only the men of science would equal Russian missiles, planes and submarines, that only the men of science were discoverers and inventors. He also expressed confidence in the youthful generation.
In Santa Monica, Calif., it was stated by a University of Illinois professor to the College Physical Education Association that there was not any physical benefit to golf, bowling, volleyball or social dancing, that muscles were not developed to higher strength unless they were two-thirds or more overloaded or worked long and hard to the point of real stress and fatigue.
On the editorial page, "Free Trade Is a Nice Ideal But…" indicates that the Administration was requesting from Congress a five-year extension and liberalization of the President's authority to cut tariffs under the Reciprocal Trade Agreement Act. It had been billed in advance as the forthcoming battle between protectionists and free traders.
Like single-tax advocates and world federalists, free traders had exerted a great amount of effort for about 170 years, but had not gotten to first base on the issue and no one politically powerful had seriously suggested that tariffs ought be abolished completely. Traditionally, Republicans had been more inclined to make them stiffer and Democrats less so. At present, the nation could not even depend on those established orthodoxies, but protectionist doctrines existed to some extent in both major political parties.
Nevertheless, the oversimplifications persisted, as they had since the earliest days of the republic. The founders had framed a Constitution which forced Connecticut to take down its tariff barriers against New York and provide free trade between the states, but externally, the nation had always had tariff duties on many commodities and could thank Alexander Hamilton and his 1791 "Report on Manufactures" to the House for the scriptural line on the subject.
It suggests that it was likely that for many years to come, the country would be prisoner of a tradition that was bigger than all of the people. Trade, however, was a two-way street, something which Americans had not always been willing to admit, that if one nation wanted to sell something, it also had to buy something, and high tariffs, indefinitely applied, posed long-range economic problems in result.
Charlotte and the surrounding area had an interest in the trade issue because of the local economy being based to a considerable extent on textiles. Foreign mills with very low labor costs flooded the country with cheap goods, against which mills of the Carolinas could not hope to compete. Consideration had to be given to the thousands who earned their living in textiles. In the interest of stronger, freer economies throughout the world, the battle for freer trade had to go forward. But for obvious reasons, the nation could not afford to commit itself to massive domestic unemployment to spread special favors around the globe.
By raising tariffs to unusually high levels, and imposing quotas without time limits, the nation would encourage the indefinite maintenance of protected business activities regardless of how efficient or uneconomic they might be. It finds that not to be the answer, that the more reasonable solution would be to establish a new system of escape-clause relief under which a finding of serious injury to a domestic industry would be the trigger for temporary tariff adjustment. Overall trade policies would be liberalized and the advantages of freer trade in most fields could be enjoyed. At the same time, certain other industries would be given time to adjust. Rather than unlimited "protection", those industries would be given time to develop greater efficiency and technological advances, eventuating in the closure of the custom houses, and perhaps, enabling the country to have its cake and eat it, too.
"A Difference between Harry & Charlie" indicates that twice within the week, former Defense Secretary Charles E. Wilson had behaved like a man with concern for the record he had left in Washington, having blamed both the President and Congress for cutting his military budget requests, then having shifted the blame to the complacent mood of the people, warning his successor, Neil McElroy, against proposals for ending inter-service rivalry by putting a bigger chief over the Joint Chiefs.
It finds it interesting as an example of Mr. Wilson's close resemblance to former President Truman, who, it reckons, was likely referred to still within Mr. Wilson's circle as "that vulgar little man from Missouri". It finds that the resemblance had been noticeable previously in the two men's shared fondness for attacking enemies with verbal broadswords, their lack of personal ostentation and in their earthiness. It finds them to be understandable attitudes of straightforward men trying to operate in the jungle of politics, as was their sensitivity over their records and their willingness to offer unsolicited advice to their successors. It finds that both men operated with a deep and intense interest in the affairs entrusted to them and that although they had left their offices, they had not lost that interest.
It finds, however, that in undertaking to blame the people for the inaction of Washington, Mr. Wilson was following the Republican Party line, not resembling Mr. Truman at all. It finds that it also did not bear much resemblance to the truth behind the U.S. lag in missiles and satellites. It suggests that the people's complacency would have been dissipated had a candid Administration confronted them with at least some of the facts it possessed, that Mr. Wilson's hindsight might soothe his own feelings but provided no comfort for the rest of the nation.
"Fasten Your Safety Belts for 1965" indicates that a reader had recently offered some predictions made in 1888 in Kensington, England, by James Stanley Little of the Imperial Federation League. He had said that by 1965, Ireland would have secured home rule, that England would have rid itself of its colonies, that the British Navy would be powerful, that the island would be an armed barracks and that marriage would be a terminable contract. He said further that the monarchy and the House of Lords would have been saved from extinction by their policy of acquiescence, that Canada and Mexico would have been absorbed by the U.S., that France would have disappeared into the German empire, that China would have been taken over by Russia, that Japan would be fighting for its life and that war would have broken out between Russia on one side and the English-speaking commonwealths of the U.S., Australasia and South Africa on the other.
It finds that so many of Mr. Little's predictions had either come true, almost happened or might well happen by 1965, that it wishes he had given some additional sign to indicate that the world would somehow bear up under it all, of which, at the moment, it was not so sure.
It does inadvertently make a sound prediction, that passenger automobiles would have required safety belts starting in 1965.
A piece from the Baltimore Evening Sun, titled "For Coin Collectors", indicates that Britain had not minted gold sovereigns for circulation in a long time, but was now going to produce them again. They would not, however, circulate in the sterling area, would probably go primarily to collectors. The sovereign had a face value of $2.80 but sold for around $10.36.
It would be bad news for counterfeiters who found that many people still wanted gold coins and that the counterfeiters could make a handsome profit by making the bogus money. More than five years earlier, a couple of Italian counterfeiters who had fled to Switzerland had escaped the law. A court held that since sovereigns, French "Napoleons" and Mexican $10 pieces were no longer permitted to circulate in Britain, France or Mexico, they were not, strictly speaking, money. The false money contained exactly the prescribed amount of the precious metal, however, and so the buyer was not cheated. Since the Italians had not tried to make Italian coins, they were not counterfeiters in their own country. But their counterfeits were sold at a premium.
Now, it indicates, the ground would be cut out from under such people, and those outside England in the sterling area who still enjoyed owning gold money would be able to do so, acquiring it at cheaper rates than through counterfeiters and with the satisfaction of knowing that they had purchased genuine coins. Even those who were not collectors might welcome the news that at least a country which had abandoned gold coins long earlier was reviving them, if only in a limited way.
Drew Pearson indicates that a group of top American businessmen, including Paul Hoffman, former head of the Marshall Plan and chairman of Studebaker-Packard, had met in New York recently because of their worry over the rapid decline of the U.S. as a leader of the free world. All of the businessmen were Republicans, most of them having been original supporters of President Eisenhower and some of them having been his close friends and advisers. They had expressed the private belief that the present foreign policy under Secretary of State Dulles was deadlocked. Among other things, they had examined the note to the President from Russian Premier Nikolai Bulganin sent just before the NATO conference, and believed that several of the Premier's ideas offered avenues for further discussion, one being his offer of a free neutral zone between the West and Russia, another being his offer of a nonaggression pact with the U.S. and a third being his offer to ban all arms shipments to the Middle East.
The group believed that Secretary Dulles was so rigid in his refusal to talk to Russia that some way had to be found to circumvent the Secretary. They considered the idea of getting West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer to break the ice by talking to Premier Bulganin, and also considered getting a special U.S. negotiator to talk to the Russians, possibly Harold Stassen, though he had been discarded on the basis that Secretary Dulles disliked him, as did Vice-President Nixon and various other Republican leaders.
A confidential delegation was sent to meet with the President, intent on persuading him to circumvent the policy of Secretary Dulles. But the President had turned a deaf ear, saying that the more he saw of Mr. Dulles, the more he was impressed by him and considered him the greatest Secretary of State which the country had ever had.
Before Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion had sought to get arms from West Germany, he had written two urgent letters to Secretary Dulles pleading for U.S. support to counteract the growing Arab power along Israel's borders. In the first letter, the Prime Minister had given Israel's side of the border dispute with Jordan, noting that the U.S. had shipped arms to Jordan while banning arms shipments to Israel. He then followed with another strong letter asking for an American guarantee that it would defend Israel against any attack by Arab nations, pointing out that Russia was openly siding with the Arabs and supplying arms to Egypt and Syria, leaving Israel with no place to turn for help other than the West. Secretary Dulles had refused to give the Prime Minister any guarantee of American aid, but assured him sympathetic support.
Not many big businessmen were as frank as Ralph Lazrus, president of Benrus watches, who told a Senate subcommittee that the value of jeweled watches after 17 jewels was chiefly "eyewash". He was being questioned by Senator Paul Douglas of Illinois who had asked whether the addition of more jewels really added to the efficiency of the watch or was designed to promote sales, to which Mr. Lazrus replied with his admission.
Stewart Alsop provides his reply letter to his brother Joseph from two days earlier, in which he says he agrees, that for the first time he was afraid that the U.S. might be defeated, a feeling he never had during World War II.
He says that a few days earlier he had been leafing through some of their old columns and came upon one published in May, 1954 in which they had predicted "first tests" of "guided missiles of intercontinental range … in 1957-58." He indicates that they had also noted that the Soviets were "ahead of the United States in the immense task of guided missile research," and had pointed out that "the question is raised whether the Soviets may not be the first to achieve an intercontinental missile with hydrogen warhead."
He indicates that the column had been written by Joseph and had stood the test of time better than most such efforts at prediction. They had always assumed that such an obvious warning of a clear and present danger to national survival as a first Soviet ICBM test would have been a signal for great outpouring of American energy and inventive genius, spurred on by the country's leaders. Instead, when he had reported the first Soviet ICBM test the prior June, the report was downplayed by the Pentagon, and when it was confirmed a few weeks later in Moscow and Washington, all of the leaders, from the President on down, had joined in telling the country that it changed nothing and not to worry. The country did not like to worry and so obliged.
He echoes the sentiments of CIA director Allen Dulles, however, when he testified before the Senate and, in effect, had said "Thank God for the Sputniks," as they had finally awakened the country. Especially after Sputnik II, which was still orbiting the earth, "carrying the bones of its pathetic passenger", the country would not tolerate any further downplaying of the matter. The atmosphere of the country had changed and now everyone was writing about missiles, becoming something of an obsession.
The obsession, however, would not avert the dangers which had been outlined in his brother's letter, as what was needed was bold, imaginative, energetic executive leadership to exploit the country's new mood. Since the belt-tightening efforts of former Secretary of the Treasury George Humphrey and former Defense Secretary Charles E. Wilson, a new mood had taken hold of the Administration also, with a lot of good and new men having been brought in, including new Secretary of Defense Neil McElroy.
But he finds the change only to be half-way, with the country being ahead of the Government where the attitude remained that the budget could not afford the price of survival. Secretary of State Dulles stubbornly still believed that he alone possessed the key to national salvation. Whether the President, a good man but old and sometimes ill, had the energy to lead the country in the direction it wanted to be led remained a great question.
But he believes it too early to discard the theory that the U.S. would always do what it can't not do, and finds that the ensuing few months or few weeks would tell the tale.
Doris Fleeson indicates that Democrats hoped to find in 1958 the issues and candidates for the presidential election of 1960. They had bright prospects for strengthening their control of Congress in the midterm elections, underscored by the announced resignations of five Republican Senators and six Republican Representatives. Active and well-financed Democratic Congressional campaign committees were already in the field and were aiding in the search for candidates where attractive possibilities appeared lacking, promising Congressional cooperation to the state organizations.
But no such clarity and sense of direction existed regarding 1960, perhaps the absence of which, she finds, causing Democrats to pursue with unity of purpose their present Congressional aims. It was generally agreed that no Democrat was ahead of any other for the presidential nomination and no one could yet be sure what the overriding issues would be. No one candidate was far enough in front of the rest, or likely to be, such that he would not be challenged to a test of strength in different parts of the country.
Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee, who had been the primary pacesetter of 1952 and 1956, had to run for re-election to the Senate in 1960, and Tennessee Governor Frank Clement was already threatening him with a primary contest. In consequence, Senator Kefauver would have to devote himself to shaking hands at home if he was to survive politically.
The turn of events abroad had led to a revival of sentiment for Adlai Stevenson, but if his candidacy were to materialize, he would not enter primaries. Nor would Governor Averell Harriman of New York, whose potential had also been enhanced by present developments abroad.
She finds that the chances were overwhelming that the primaries would be left to favorite son candidates instead of furnishing the decisive outcome as had California in 1956. The candidates most talked about for the nomination appeared to be strengthening their positions with each passing month.
She finds that likely to be true also of the Republicans, where Vice-President Nixon had unusual opportunities to keep himself in the public eye.
Where Democrats gathered, it was more common to find dissatisfaction with the names of those known to aspire to the nomination, along with a feeling that the candidate to suit the times had yet to emerge. The same search was going forward in groups allied to the Democrats. Labor had no one favorite or even several favorites, its leaders indicating that they would settle for almost any proven vote-getter and take their chances on influencing him afterward. Even the intellectuals, who insisted on being heard in Democratic councils, were presently confused, knowing much more about those they did not want as the nominee than about where to turn for the winning person.
A letter writer from Lincolnton responds to letters from A. W. Black, finding that he had challenged anyone to prove there was a God. This letter writer instead challenges him to prove there was not. He says that he could not see the wind but discerned its passage, could not see electricity flow through a wire but could feel and see the results. He asks Mr. Black to explain how creation of life had occurred if there was no God and how the conditions on earth were exactly right for life to thrive. He says that he knows there was a God because he could feel his power in his life and observed the results in the lives of others.
Eleventh day of Christmas
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