The Charlotte News
Thursday, October 16, 1958
FIVE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from Little Rock, Ark., that the School Board this date faced the threat of legislative action to force it to release teachers from their contracts to teach in private, segregated schools. Governor Orval Faubus accused the Board of blocking progress on the private education plan by refusing to release the teachers from their contracts. After conferring with the Governor, a State Representative of Perry County said that if the Board continued its refusal, the Legislature would enter the matter and release the teachers by abolishing the school district completely, adding that other legislators agreed. A member of the Board replied to the Governor's charge by saying that the Board had not attempted to tell teachers what to do. The teachers had been advised by Board attorneys not to participate in any private school plan, based on the Federal court's temporary restraining order issued the prior month, and presently taken under submission by the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals as to whether it would become permanent, forbidding use of public school facilities by a private corporation leasing the buildings. The order had since been broadened to include not only the Board but all others who might try to avoid integration through the corporation, as integration had been undertaken pursuant to Federal court order during the prior school year. Six black students had enrolled at the closed Central High School for the current year. All four Little Rock high schools, including the sole black high school, had been closed by the Governor pursuant to a new state law providing for same to prevent integration. The Supreme Court had determined unanimously on September 29 in Cooper v. Aaron that integration had to proceed immediately and that any efforts undertaken through agents of the state to sidestep integration remained state action and thus was subject to the Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection Clause, forbidding segregation in public schools.
In Los Angeles, the Air Force, the
Navy and NASA had exhibited to the public the forerunner of a future
space vehicle. Vice-President Nixon called the new rocket-powered
X-15
In Vatican City, it was reported that the stove used to signal the outcome of votes of papal conclaves in the Sistine Chapel was missing. The meeting to elect a new pope was just ten days away, and workmen had looked everywhere in the Vatican warehouses and outside, but had been unable to find the stove. It had been used as long as anyone could remember for burning the ballots, with the smoke escaping through its chimney thrust through a window signaling whether or not the College of Cardinals had yet made a decision during the balloting. If they failed to agree, a little wet straw was mixed with the ballots, producing gray smoke, but if more than two-thirds voted for a single person, then the ballots were burned without straw, producing white smoke. To the crowds in St. Peter's Square, therefore, the color of the smoke would be important, but thus far, there was no stove and no one knew what had happened to it. It was used only during conclaves and otherwise was taken from the Sistine Chapel and returned to a warehouse, last used in 1939 when the late Pope Pius XII had been elected. A Vatican official said it was hard to believe that someone might have stolen it. Officials were looking around in Roman shops for a new one, but could find only a modern electric or gas heater without the old-fashioned stovepipe which the missing one had. They might have to have one made. Centuries earlier, the ballots had been burned without a stove and the smoke was permitted to escape from the Sistine Chapel without a chimney. That had worked, but the famed "Last Judgment" painting by Michelangelo had been smudged, and so a stove had to be found.
In New York, a telephoned bomb threat to St. Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan had caused police and firemen to respond.
The Commerce Department announced this date that the nation's population had reached an estimated 175 million, according to a census clock which did not pretend to be exact in its constant estimate of the nation's population, though census officials believed that it was not more than 24 hours off in either direction. The results of the last decennial census in 1950 showed that the clock was 70,000 short of the actual population, 151 million, at that time. The population tally increased by one every 11 seconds on the clock.
In Taipei, Formosa, four Communist planes had flown over the tiny Wuchiu Islands this date, raising speculation on Formosa that the Communists might try to seize those Nationalist outposts, midway between Quemoy and Matsu, to offset their failure to invade Quemoy.
In Fuerstenfeldbruck, West Germany, more American troops had returned this date after 2 1/2 months of special duty in Lebanon. The advance party of the first Airborne Battle Troop of the 24th Infantry Division had flown into the West German air base aboard a Globemaster.
In New York, it was reported that two of television's top quiz shows, "21" and "The $64,000 Question", might be dropped shortly because of probes into alleged rigging of the shows.
In Fayetteville, N.C., police opined that a fire which had badly damaged a classroom in an elementary school had been deliberately set, the fire having been discovered on Wednesday morning.
On the editorial page, "Foreign Policy: Fair Game for Debate" comments on the President's statement at the previous day's press conference that foreign policy was out of bounds for debate in the midterm elections campaign. When asked about a statement made by Vice-President Nixon as to whether he agreed with the latter's remark that the "Acheson foreign policy resulted in war and the Eisenhower-Dulles policy resulted in peace," he said he had not heard about the statement but that foreign policy ought be kept out of the debate.
In Chicago, Mr. Nixon had said that he did not claim that the Eisenhower policy had been perfect, but that Democrats were peddling the "same defensive, defeatist, fuzzy-headed foreign policy," then making his statement comparing the two policies.
It doubts that Democrats would become very upset about Mr. Nixon's campaign style, as they had seen much of the same from him already. But aside from that, it looks at the President's and former President Truman's statements that foreign policy should not be a part of the campaign debate. It suggests that in the past it had been the way the issues had been presented and not the issues themselves which had wrought havoc, finding that foreign affairs, as with domestic affairs, were fair game for political debate. Republicans had indulged in it heavily in the past even as Mr. Nixon sought to cash in some old chips in November, as had the President. "Partisan campaign debate about foreign policy is merely unfashionable this autumn in administration circles. The Democrats hold all the aces."
An even more pointed statement by the Vice-President had been uttered at a Republican fund-raising dinner in San Diego on October 1, stating, in reference to Democratic criticism of Administration foreign policy: "The grave danger is that the enemy might well believe this clap-trap and make the mistake of launching war against us."
It reminds of Trump's recent statement in November, 2025 that six Democratic members of Congress ought be tried for seditious conduct as traitors and hanged for exercising free political speech in the form of an advertisement advising military personnel that they can and should resist unlawful orders which are contrary to the Constitution and laws of the United States, the supreme law of the land, even above the ad hoc ukases issued daily by His Highness. Would it were that the Justice Department would apply to him the same standards they apply to anyone, especially Democrats, who would dare utter anything similar, a potential threat of death, as certainly the chief magistrate's statements ordinarily would have gravity behind them, except for the current buffoon to whom few beyond Magaville, USA, actually pay any attention, thus providing him his ubiquitous defense: "I was just joking." Thus, we assume it is why he will face no consequences from his lawyers masquerading as heads of the Department and the FBI, probably the dumbest, most corrupt and openly politically biased coterie of individuals ever charged with those responsibilities, for his plainly threatening statements to members of Congress, which if uttered by anyone regarding His Highness or even MAGA Republicans in Congress or good MAGA Republicans at any level, would likely result in Federal indictments for uttering "terrorist threats", subjecting the person to 20 years in Federal prison. But, not so, when the target is a Democrat, for they are inimical Communist-Fascist-Marxist-Terrorists, as long as they oppose, that is, His Highness and his Excalibur.
To those who are accused of any such threats by this Justice Department, the defense to be argued before any jury should be that if it's okay for the chief magistrate in the White House to say it, then, except under a royal, totalitarian monarchy, it should be okay for the average citizen—and, by the way, it was only a joke. God bless Magaville, USA.
As we have fallen behind, there will be no further comments on the front page or editorial page, as the notes will be sporadic until we catch up.
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