The Charlotte News
Wednesday, October 15, 1958
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the President, at his press conference this date, angrily characterized those responsible for the bombings of places of worship as hoodlums of the Al Capone and Babyface Nelson type. He spoke out in particular against the dynamiting of Jewish temples in Atlanta and Peoria, Ill., after a reporter told him that some of those responsible apparently had been privately identifying themselves as members of a "Confederate underground". The President said that from his time as an infant, he had been taught to respect the Southern Confederacy of Civil War days, but that for hoodlums to describe themselves as any part of the Confederacy was a complete insult, then referring to them as the Capone and Nelson type. Regarding foreign policy, the President said that it should be kept out of partisan debate in the current Congressional midterm campaign, indicating that another man who had been President, referring to but not naming former President Truman, also had taken the position that foreign policy be left out of partisan politics. He made the remarks when a newsman asked him whether he subscribed to Vice-President Nixon's campaign statement made in reply to Democratic criticism, that "the Acheson foreign policy resulted in war and the Eisenhower-Dulles policy resulted in peace." The President said he had not heard that quote before, but subscribed to the idea that foreign policy ought be kept from partisan debate. He said further that the country's long-term interests were better served if that sort of thing was not indulged in. On a related matter, dealing with the country's position regarding defense of Quemoy, he said he did not decry any intelligent criticism of any particular point, but when it came to policy, it should be kept out of the debate.
In Atlanta, it was reported that a "fat cat" backer of anti-Semitic terrorism figured in the police investigation of the dynamiting on Sunday morning of the Jewish temple, resulting in $200,000 in damage. The man in question had provided money to a fanatical hate-mongering ring, and had been mentioned in one of two letters seized by police when they raided the homes of five persons held for questioning about the dynamiting. A detective described the other paper as a penciled draft of a letter addressed to an Atlanta Jewish leader before the temple dynamiting, saying, "You will soon witness a terrifying experience." The detectives did not say precisely where either letter had been seized or whether the one to the Jewish leader was ever actually mailed, or what the name of the Jewish leader was. The other letter, according to the detective, had been mailed from Arlington, Va., just before five men had been arrested in Atlanta in July for an anti-Jewish demonstration in front of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution building. That letter had said: "Thanks to one man, one 'fat cat' financier, we can now do the things we've been planning to do." The letter had not identified the man in question but the detective said that the name of a man once prominent in public affairs had turned up repeatedly in the bombing investigation. The letter referred to the wealthy backer as having "put his dollars where his mouth is—God bless him." It also mentioned a "big blast" and added: "The boys from New York will be coming down. There is no guts in the local citizens." The officers said that they were attempting to locate five other men in addition to the five already held and stated that an unidentified sixth man, resident of Detroit, had been subjected to questioning "when he began to spout off" while in jail on another charge. The detective said that a "veneer of arrogance" evident at the start of the grilling of those held was beginning to wear off and that they were getting "down to business". He listed the fifth man arrested for questioning as Wallace Allen, indicating that he and George Michael Bright, 35, also held, had helped to plot the temple bombing at a meeting the prior May, as had been disclosed by an unidentified informant. Mr. Allen, crippled, told arresting officers: "If it's the bombing you're interested in, I don't know anything about it. I've never even seen a stick of dynamite." Detectives said that they found pencil drawings of a Nazi swastika and anti-Semitic literature in Mr. Allen's home. Also under arrest were Robert Bowling, 25, Luther King Corley, 26, and Kenneth Griffin, 32, all of Atlanta. Rewards for information on the perpetrators had climbed to $15,000.
In St. Louis, it was reported that the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals had taken under advisement this date a request by the NAACP to make permanent an injunction barring the use of Little Rock, Ark., high schools as private, segregated institutions. The three-judge panel gave no indication as to when they might rule on the case. In the meantime, they extended the temporary restraining order in effect against leasing the public high school buildings in Little Rock to a private corporation. Arguments on the matter took less than an hour. Thurgood Marshall, general counsel for the NAACP, argued the principal case for the plaintiffs, charging that the Little Rock School Board's motive in leasing the four public high school buildings was to bring new parties into the case, that which the NAACP was seeking to prevent.
At the U.N. in New York, members pledged money this date to funds totaling 100 million dollars to help underdeveloped nations improve their lot.
In Berlin, it was reported that Communist East Germany this date had virtually begged hundreds of its doctors who had fled to the West to return to their practices.
In Paris, Premier Charles de Gaulle's Government had ruled this date that neither the Algerian Communist Party nor the rebel National Liberation Front could participate in the November 23 Algerian elections.
In Tunis, the Government this date broke diplomatic relations with the United Arab Republic, led by Premier Gamal Abdel Nasser, consisting of Egypt and Syria, after a series of political battles between Tunisia and the UAR.
In Oslo, Norway this date unveiled a new, compact anti-submarine weapon system small enough to be installed in ships down to 500 tons. The system was developed by the Norwegian Defense Research Establishment.
In Vatican City, it was reported that only a handful of visitors were in St. Peter's Basilica this date during the fifth of the nine daily requiem masses being said for Pope Pius XII.
On the editorial page, "How the Jollity Ended Rather Abruptly" indicates that as long as the lunatic fringe "cavorted harmlessly in bedsheets and merchandised their malice according to the rules of 'polite prejudice' nobody worried." It finds that on occasion they had even provided "a soft chuckle here and there. It is easy for bigotry to dissolve into buffoonery when it is based on the rankest twaddle."
"But when the buffoons put away their toys and took up dynamite the jollity ended rather abruptly." It finds that hate-merchants who bombed schools and houses of worship were not funny, and if there had been any lingering amusement, it had been quickly replaced by a sense of revulsion and outrage when the previously integrated high school in Clinton, Tenn., and the Jewish temple in Atlanta were bombed.
"What we're dealing with now is not polite prejudice but a fateful progression toward active hate. The resulting disruption in the human family is menacing." It finds that the kindest thing which could be said of the "bully-boy terrorists" was that they were mentally deranged, clinging to reality by their fingertips and when anxieties built up faster than their small minds could absorb, slipping into "a world of wild fears and strange compulsions." It indicates that there was no place for them in an orderly society, as they endangered the whole community and not just the objects of their "weird fantasies".
It regards it as primarily a police problem and that the terrorists who had been responsible for the bombings in Clinton and Atlanta had to be given firm and speedy justice. But it finds it also a social problem of broader implications. "There can be little doubt that the extreme agitation in racial matters over the past few years has created a climate of profound unrest, disquietude and bitterness. Violence has not been actually encouraged but conditions have certainly been such that it could erupt with enormous naturalness and ease at almost any given moment. Surely the problems before us can be solved with a bit more softness of tone and delicacy of touch. A calmer approach might very well have a medicinal effect on the moral pygmies among us. Otherwise, the dynamite stick may go down in southern history as the classic symbol of man's inhumanity to man."
Unfortunately, it was only the beginning of the violence and dynamiting, which would culminate in the dynamiting of the 16th Street Baptist Church on a Sunday morning, September 15, 1963, in Birmingham, which killed four little girls, and the murder of three civil rights workers on June 21, 1964 outside Philadelphia, Miss. The bodies of the three civil rights workers were discovered, ironically, on the "Old Jolly Farm", buried in an earthen dam.
And, in between those two events, we include the assassination of President Kennedy as another reactionary act, which had at its source likely several intertwined cords of hate twisted tightly together, including racial and religious hatred, built on a standard modality involving ascription of Communism to civil rights and civil rights leaders, all coalescing in the single most dastardly act of the 20th Century, surpassing even the attack on Pearl Harbor, as that had occurred in the midst of an already ongoing world war, though it was only the beginning of formal participation of the U.S. in World War II.
"The Poets Converted Us to Poetry" indicates that it had decided to place the reader into a big huff by being cynical about poetry on this date, World Poetry Day. With everyone being nice to poets, it questioned whether they could be nasty and had provided as its aim the response: "What beasts!"
It was going to quote T. S. Eliot, who had once said "with the oracular perception of which he is master that the only difference between prose and poetry is that 'poetry saves space.'"
But when going over what poets themselves had said about poetry, it decided against a cynicism, seeing how beastly poets had been about poetry.
It provides samples. Lord Dunsany had said: "Modern poets are bells of lead. They should tinkle melodiously but usually they just clunk."
Don Marquis had said: "Publishing a volume of poetry is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo."
It finds the unkindness cut of all, however, to have been a couplet from Alexander Pope: "Pensive poets painful vigils keep./ Sleepless themselves to give their readers sleep."
It indicates that it thus ended up on the side of the poor slandered poet, which it finds appropriate, after all.
As we fallen behind, there will be no further notes on the front page or editorial page of this date, as the notes will be sporadic until we catch up.
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