The Charlotte News

Monday, October 6, 1958

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from Castel Gandolfo, Italy, that Pope Pius XII, 82, had suffered a paralyzing stroke this date, receiving Extreme Unction, the last rites of the Roman Catholic Church. He lay near death in a coma and a physician at his bedside stated: "All is in the hands of God." The Pope had weakened suddenly during the night after showing improvement from an attack of gastritis, complicated by hiccups, which had bothered him for several days before vanishing. Then, early in the morning, according to a bulletin from his physicians, he suffered a circulatory cerebral attack. Unofficial sources said that the Pope was paralyzed and could not be moved from his summer palace to Vatican City, where facilities for treatment were better. A specialist from Bologna was called to the Pope's bedside, underscoring the gravity of his condition. At around noon, according to unofficial reports, the Pope had emerged briefly from his coma, opened his eyes and murmured a few words. His immediate family, including his nephews and nieces, had been ushered to an antechamber of his bedroom. It was the second serious illness in four years for the Pope and it came in the 19th year of his reign, halting all administrative activity of the church at the Vatican. Sources at the Vatican said that death might come swiftly or he might linger for a long time. In the event of long incapacity, cardinals of the Church stationed in Rome would take over many of his duties. The Pope had become ill after carrying a heavy load of work and conducting daily audiences at the summer residence outside Rome. Four years earlier, he had been forced into a long confinement after recovering from a grave illness. He had been born Eugenio Pacelli in Rome on March 2, 1876 and became a Cardinal in 1929, elected Pope on March 2, 1939.

In Moscow, it was reported that the first anniversary was celebrated of the the first earth satellite sent aloft by the Soviet Union a year earlier on October 4, with predictions of further conquests of space. The president of the Soviet Union's Academy of Sciences, speaking on Friday night to a gathering of scientists to celebrate the anniversary, said: "The time is not very far distant when we will pass from earth satellites to rockets which make interplanetary flights." He said that the launching of the first Sputnik was equivalent in importance to the discovery of fire or the invention of the steam engine. The second Sputnik launch, on November 4, 1957, with the dog Laika aboard, had, along with the first Sputnik, later burned up in the earth's atmosphere. Poor Laika. The third Sputnik had made more than 1,935 orbits in almost five months aloft and was still circling the earth.

An Associated Press correspondent, aboard the U.S.S. Skylark, reports that the atomic submarine U.S.S. Seawolf had surfaced 15 miles south of Block Island late in the morning, ending a record 60 days underwater. It had come to the surface of Long Island Sound in calm seas for its 116-man crew's first contact with the earth's atmosphere since it had submerged on August 7. The hatches had been opened and two or three men had emerged, breathing deeply and waving. Nearby, another submarine, the U.S.S. Nautilus, was standing by and providing by radio congratulations to the Seawolf. Among the first to step from the submarine was the captain, Commander Richard Laning. The Seawolf had logged more than 13,700 nautical miles undersea, traveling nonstop within a 200-mile radius for the two-month period. The commander had radioed the Navy in advance of his return that he considered the voyage to prove the feasibility of protracted flights in "inner space". The submarine's crew had surpassed all previous records for undersea voyage, the earlier longest submergence having been 31 days, 5.5 hours, occurring the previous May by the sister nuclear submarine, U.S.S. Skate. The Skylark, an auxiliary submarine rescue vessel, loaded with newsmen and photographers, had sailed 40 miles from New London, Conn., to see the historic surfacing. Several Navy helicopters and a blimp had hovered overhead. A festive welcome for the Seawolf was set in New London for the afternoon.

In London, it was reported that America's Boeing 707, beaten by the British Comet in the race to be the first jet in commercial service to cross the Atlantic, had run into smoke trouble over the weekend. People living near London Airport complained that the four underslung jet engines of the aircraft emitted too much smoke upon takeoff, prompting seven municipal authorities in Middlesex and Surrey Counties to send a demand to the Ministry of Civil Aviation that Pan American Airways find a way of reducing its smoke stream.

In New Delhi, President Eisenhower appealed this date to the 66 member nations of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to increase their contributions to the two financial organizations.

In Paris, it was reported that Premier Charles de Gaulle had returned to his desk this date after a 2,500-mile political swing, including a stop in Algiers, faintly outlining his policies of his new Fifth Republic.

In London, it was reported that a compromise settlement of the Cyprus dispute had been virtually ruled out this date in the face of mounting demands for return to "get tough" tactics in the terror-ridden British colony.

In Washington, Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota said this date that Democratic candidates were "out in front" all over the country and that the President's campaigning would not be able to change a single vote. He was quite correct.

In Panama, it was reported that striking students holding Panama City's biggest high schools were under siege this date by National Guardsmen, with officers of the Guard indicating that they would provide the 30 to 40 high school boys and girls every chance to avoid bloodshed but would move against them if necessary.

In Clinton, Tenn., it was reported that the principal of the previously integrated Clinton High School, which had been wrecked the previous day by three bombs expertly set off in early morning fog, had said this date that classes would be resumed the following day. The principal, W. D. Human, said that classes would be held in the undamaged gymnasium, the National Guard Armory and church school facilities until the following Thursday. After that point, the entire student body of 850 white and 11 black pupils would be transported by bus to a vacant school building in nearby Oak Ridge. Eight black female students, five of whom had walked from their homes in Clinton and three others had arrived by bus from rural areas, had been seen entering the gymnasium for this date's student assembly. Officials tentatively estimated that the damage to the bombed building amounted to $300,000. The brick structure had been built in 1927 and 16 of its 20 classrooms had been reduced to rubble by the explosions. Clinton, a town of 4,000, was 20 miles northwest of Knoxville. Five Anderson County officials had flown to Nashville on Sunday to confer with Governor Frank Clement, who promised them full state aid in continuing classes and finding the perpetrator of the bombing. Agents of the Tennessee Bureau of Identification and the FBI had arrived in Clinton to investigate the matter. Two bits of spent fuse had been picked up for laboratory testing, but no other clues were reported. Clinton police, who could see nothing through the predawn fog at the school across the street from the police station, said that the three blasts had detonated at precise three-minute intervals, at 4:21, 4:24 and 4:27 a.m. The explosives had been placed within the school, in contrast to other recent Southern bombings, at the Hattie Cotton School in Nashville the prior September, and at Jewish centers in Nashville, Miami and Jacksonville the prior spring, where the explosives had been set outside the buildings or in entrance ways. A TBI agent from Knoxville said that one blast in Clinton was set off in the boiler room, demolishing it and an entrance way leading to the separate gymnasium, and wrecking an adjoining science room. Another charge had blasted out a wall in the center of the building.

The Supreme Court would begin its regular fall term this date, expected to produce important decisions in race relations and business regulation. Following tradition, the Court would limit its first meeting to brief opening formalities, with the Justices spending the remainder of the week discussing various appeals in closed conferences, and would announce their first decisions the following Monday. Major cases in both racial and business fields were included in a pending docket of nearly 700 cases, covering a wide variety of issues. Twelve appeals involving racial questions faced the Court, which only a week earlier had conducted a special session, rendering an opinion on September 29 in Cooper v. Aaron, regarding Little Rock's Central High School, ordering desegregation, begun the prior fall, to continue in the current school year, and finding efforts to circumvent the order by engaging in various "evasive schemes", such as closing the public schools and trying to reopen them on a segregated basis as private schools by leasing the buildings to a private corporation, to be equally violative of the 14th Amendment Equal Protection Clause because the practice still involved state and local officials, thus state action, in discriminatory conduct against black students seeking admission to schools to which they were qualified to attend by their area of residence and grade admission. Other cases involving desegregation were expected to come before the Court during its nine-month term, as Southern opponents of its prior decisions sought ways to continue to conduct classes on a segregated basis. Among the 12 pending appeals was one from Governor Orval Faubus of Arkansas, seeking that the Court declare invalid an injunction issued by a lower Federal court to halt the use of the Arkansas National Guard at Central in September, 1957. Other appeals involving desegregation and civil rights pertained to Alabama's school placement law, North Carolina's literacy test for voters, and Tennessee's bus segregation law. The Court could grant or deny hearings on those appeals, but had already agreed to review the contempt conviction of David Scull, a Quaker of Annandale, Va.

In Washington, Soviet Ambassador to the U.S. Mikhail Menshikov had formally protested this date against a television show, which had aired September 25 on "Playhouse 90", regarding the death of Joseph Stalin, calling it "a filthy slander against the Soviet Union."

John Kilgo of The News, in the first of a series of reports, indicates that a high school student in Charlotte had picked up his date one night several weeks earlier and taken her to a dance at a local community center, after which, he and his girlfriend had walked out the front door, finding in front of the center a gang of teenage hoodlums, one of whom shouted an obscene remark at the boy and his date, to which the boy responded, "What did you say?" One of the thugs had then jumped up and pounded him in the face while his gang stood close by, daring the boy to hit back. The boy had been beaten unconscious and had to be taken to a hospital where he was provided emergency treatment. The incident was symptomatic of a situation which had alarmed Charlotte police and other local officials. The small group of teenaged hoodlums had led a local judge to comment the previous week: "I'm through letting these hoodlums off with fines. I'm going to start sending them to the roads. Maybe that will teach them something." Youth Bureau director J. R. Hall had said with pride, "Ninety-five percent of our teenagers are law-abiding kids." But he admitted that the knife-carrying, beer-guzzling group, though small by percentages, presented a problem which could someday grow into that which plagued many metropolitan cities. The previous month, a house party had gotten underway late on a Friday afternoon and when it had broken up nearly 12 hours later, police had arrested five young boys after a girl said that they had beaten her up. The boys were tried in City Recorder's Court and one had been set free, two had been fined and two sent to the roads. As the prosecuting witness was leaving the courtroom following the trial, a girl who was seated on the front row said, "I hope you're satisfied, you old ——," presumably "bitch". The judge had found that girl in contempt of court and had her locked up in jail for a short time, finding it then necessary to impart to the crowded courtroom that he would punish anyone bringing threats against the prosecuting witness in the case. Several months earlier, at one of the community centers, a young tough, well-known to police, had started acting out of line. The center director had run the boy from the building. Several minutes later, a boy ran in and hollered: "Come out here. There's a boy with a knife." The director had gone out front to see what the trouble was and the boy he had run out of the center had a knife in his hand and warned the director, "Try and take it away from me." Other boys standing around outside told the director to stay away from the boy, one indicating that the boy would cut the director's throat. Some of the other boys then proceeded to take the knife from the boy making the threat. At another community center on the other side of town, a young, handsome high school student had walked into the restroom to comb his hair. Although the boy would not talk about it, witnesses told police that two boys had grabbed him and held him while two others beat him to a bloody pulp. The injured boy was taken to the hospital where he was treated for serious injuries of the head, eye and mouth. One community center director said recently, "When I was a boy, you never saw a knife pulled in a fight. Now, some of them cut each other and think nothing about it."

On the editorial page, "These Are Charlotte's Young Primitives" continues the front page look by John Kilgo at Charlotte's juvenile delinquents and the efforts to remedy the situation.