The Charlotte News
Tuesday, November 4, 1958
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that voting had been reported moderately heavy in many areas of the nation in this date's midterm elections for the new Congress and various state and local offices. Generally, the weather was good across the country. In early reports, there were a few indications to boost Republican hopes that their partisans were turning out in a way which could trump the advance of Democratic claims of a possibly unprecedented gain in both houses. In the non-urban areas of Michigan, for instance, traditionally Republican, there was very heavy voting, while in Democratic Detroit, the voting was running behind both 1954 and 1956. In Maryland, the early vote was heavier than anticipated, and in previous elections, a heavier vote usually worked to the advantage of Republicans in the heavily Democratic state. Pre-election estimates had been that 48 million voters would cast ballots. Hot fights in some states regarding right-to-work proposals had helped draw voters to the polls. A record midterm vote appeared in prospect for Ohio, where many polling places, particularly in industrial areas, had long lines waiting when they opened. The right-to-work proposals barred labor-management contracts which would require a worker to join a union to keep his job. In addition to Ohio, such proposals were on the ballots in California, Colorado, Kansas, Idaho and Washington. In New York, the gubernatorial contest between Republican Nelson Rockefeller and incumbent Governor Averell Harriman was drawing voters in apparently record or near-record numbers. As usual, there were a few small polling places which had received their ballots quickly from all of their eligible voters and had made their counts. The President was one of those who got in his vote early, having boarded a helicopter from the White House lawn to Gettysburg, where he was registered and voted in the morning, then returned to Washington. (Note to stupid Trump Republicans: See how much money could be saved in such instances by mail-in balloting for all, the taxpayers thus spared the expense of a helicopter ride plus the Secret Service detail accompanying it for the President to cast his ballot.) Democrats were forecasting gains in the Senate which would eclipse even the 12-seat gain they had made in the 1932 presidential election year, when FDR had first been elected, now forecasting gains of up to 14 seats, as suggested by Senator George Smathers of Florida, the chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign committee. Republicans still talked hopefully of a last-minute rescue by the voters from what appeared from all outward signs to be a possibly devastating string of Congressional defeats in both houses across the country. The final polling of grassroots opinion appeared to point to Democratic gains of between eight and twelve Senate seats, including that of Governor Edmund Muskie of Maine, who had already beaten incumbent Senator Frederick Payne in that state's early election on September 8. There had also been in that election a gain of one House seat for the Democrats. Substantial gains of as many as 40 or more House seats were also in prospect for the Democrats.
Alaska, in its first election after achieving statehood, would hold its election on November 25, and thus the new Congress in January would have 98 Senators, including 62 holdovers, and there would be 436 House members, with 219 necessary for majority control. Democrats presently controlled both houses, the Senate by a majority of 49 to 47 and the House by 235 to 200, not counting the results in Maine. To win back control, the Republicans would have to show a net gain of three Senate seats and 19 House seats. Counting Maine and Alaska, 34 governors were being elected. Democrats presently held 29 statehouses and Republicans, 19.
In the Tenth Congressional District around Charlotte, cool, cloudy weather greeted thousands of voters when the polls opened in the early morning, and early indications pointed to a large turnout, drawn by the race between incumbent Congressman Charles Jonas of Lincolnton and his Democratic challenger, David Clark, also of Lincolnton. Senator B. Everett Jordan, who had been appointed by Governor Luther Hodges to replace deceased Senator Kerr Scott, who had died the prior spring, was running to fill the remaining two years of the term against a token Republican challenger. Otherwise, 17 other state offices had Democrats running unchallenged.
In Havana, it was reported that former Premier Andres Rivero Aguero had won election by a wide margin to succeed his political sponsor, El Presidente Fulgencio Batista, based on incomplete returns this date. A light turnout plus bloodshed had marked the heavily guarded balloting in the revolt-torn nation the previous day, but lopsided early returns from the four-man race indicated a landslide for Sr. Rivero Aguero. Unofficial tabulations from 3,717 of the 8,521 precincts had the latter polling about 440,000 votes to just over 100,000 from his nearest competitor, Carlos Marquez Sterling, while former President Ramon Grau San Martin polled 68,650. Returns were not yet available for other races, but Government observers expressed the belief that most of their candidates for the Senate, House and six governorships, plus 126 mayoral races were being swept into office with Sr. Rivero Aguero. Hundreds of thousands of the nation's 2.87 million eligible voters, perhaps as many as 60 percent, had stayed away from the polls based on apathy and fear, despite it being required by law that they vote.
In Vatican City, it was reported that Pope John XXIII had been crowned this date in ceremonies investing him as the 263rd spiritual ruler of the Roman Catholic Church. A mighty roar had arisen from some 200,000 persons gathered in St. Peter's Square at the climactic moment in the coronation of the successor to deceased Pope Pius XII, the crowd not having been deterred by the threat of rain and an occasional sprinkle. Nikola Cardinal Canali, the pro-dean of the College of Cardinals, had placed the jewel-encrusted gold tiara on the head of the sharecropper's son from a small northern Italian village. There had been more than four hours of impressive religious rites inside St. Peter's Basilica prior to the coronation, which took place on the same central balcony overlooking the Square from which the new Pope had made his first appearance a week earlier after his election by the College of Cardinals. All the pomp and ceremony of the Roman Catholic Church had been mustered for the coronation rites. But there was also humility in the presence of the Pontiff's family. Three brothers, a sister and numerous nephews and nieces had been present, dressed in their black peasant Sunday best. They watched in awe, weeping with emotion, as their kinsman, the former Angelo Giuseppe Cardinal Roncalli, went through the coronation. The 76-year old former Patriarch of Venice had remained serene, often smiling benignly through the entire ceremony. His voice throughout the long Mass and in his greetings to the Catholic hierarchy of the world remained clear and resonant. The crowd had begun to roar as Cardinal Canali took the crown in his hands and prepared to place it on the Pontiff's head. The Pope adjusted the crown himself and look solemnly out into the crowd. He rose slowly and chanted his "urbi et orbi", the traditional blessing of the pontiff to the city of Rome and the world. The crowd remained silent throughout his recitation, delivered in a firm, loud voice. Locally, WBT radio would rebroadcast the coronation this night, having been recorded for rebroadcast in New York.
In Moscow, it was reported that Premier Nikita Khrushchev had said this date that if the West carried out atomic tests, "let them not think that we will meanwhile doze and wait while the imperialists build up their forces against us."
At the U.N. in New York, Russia's return to the U.N. Disarmament Commission was assured this date, following approval of a compromise enlarging the group to include all 81 U.N. members for the following year.
In Taipei, Formosa, Communist China this date accused the Nationalist garrison on Quemoy of firing poison gas at the Chinese mainland. The Nationalists denied that its forces had used gas and in turn accused the Communists of laying the propaganda groundwork to use poison gas themselves. The Communists claimed that the gas attack had occurred during the previous day's artillery duel, during which the Communists had hit Quemoy and its smaller neighbors with 39,162 shells in the course of 18 hours. The firing had subsided at midnight and the Quemoy area had been reported quiet this date, which was an even-number day of the month on which the Communists had voluntarily pledged not to attack to enable the islands to be replenished with supplies, with attacks to occur only on odd-numbered days. Peiping Radio claimed that 14 Communist troops had been "affected" by the alleged gas attack and said: "Should the Kuomintang troops dare to continue to use poison gas shells, our troops will reply with severe punitive action."
In Brussels, Belgium, Premier Gaston Eyskens this date tendered the resignation of his Social Christian minority Government to King Baudoin, following an agreement between the Social Christians and the Liberal party to form a coalition government.
In Portsmouth, England, it was reported that Argentina had formally taken possession this date of its first aircraft carrier purchased from the British. The Argentine Ambassador to England pledged that its use would be for the defense of the South Atlantic.
In Atlanta, it was reported that Georgia Governor Marvin Griffin, an avowed segregationist, had arranged for air transportation for 19 miners who had survived a mine disaster in Nova Scotia, buried alive, inviting them to recuperate from the ordeal on one of Georgia's "golden isles". An aide to the Governor said this date that everything had been arranged to care for the men, including a black miner, his wife and 12 children. See theya? He ain't prejudiced.
On the editorial page, Drew Pearson looks at presidential hopefuls for 1960, indicating that in the midterm elections, the people, without realizing it, might be selecting the next president, as the current day's elections would demonstrate the presidential polling power of leading candidates in both parties. He starts with Nelson Rockefeller, the Republican nominee running against incumbent Governor Averell Harriman in New York, while Vice-President Nixon apparently had failed to stem the Democratic tide in California, where a potential presidential hopeful, State Attorney General Pat Brown, was favored to beat Senator William Knowland in the gubernatorial race, while Governor Goodwin Knight was not expected to win against Representative Clair Engle. It meant that with the old Thomas Dewey machine ready to go, Mr. Rockefeller was a natural candidate for the Republicans in 1960, which was why Mr. Nixon was campaigning so hard, wanting to present an image of a tough, tireless, loyal party-worker to attract future delegates at the 1960 convention.
Two hot Democratic prospects, Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts and Senator Stuart Symington of Missouri, were running for re-election to the Senate against weak Republican opponents, and politicians would inspect and compare their victories for political portents.
Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson, another presidential contender for 1960, was not on the ballot, but he had kept the long-distance wires humming from his Texas ranch, offering money and advice to Democratic candidates, and those political debts could come due in the 1960 race for the presidency.
Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota also had presidential ambitions which were placed on the Minnesota election, although he was not personally running, with his fortunes possibly dependent on whether he could get Congressman Eugene McCarthy elected to the Senate.
In New Jersey, Governor Robert Meyner's presidential hopes could also be tied to the success of the Democratic Senatorial candidate, Harrison Williams. The Governor had placed his prestige on the line to elect Mr. Williams in a tight race.
In Michigan, Governor G. Mennen Williams was campaigning vigorously for his sixth term, and an overwhelming victory for both him and his candidate for the Senate, Philip Hart, would enhance his presidential stature.
As the campaign had ended, the Vice-President was barely speaking to the President, as Mr. Nixon bitterly resented having to carry the primary load of the election campaign with only an occasional assist from the President. He felt that if the President had started campaigning earlier, the results of the election could have been very different. What especially had upset Mr. Nixon was an incident in Colorado while the President was en route to California, whereby after stumping for weeks by Mr. Nixon, he was ordered to bed by his doctor to rest for two days at Colorado Springs at a time when the President was visiting Denver, and yet the latter had never bothered to phone Mr. Nixon to ask how he was or how the campaign was going. Any other President, for instance, former Presidents Roosevelt or Truman, would have been eager to obtain their Vice-President's views and provide and return his own views, realizing that the future of the Administration and the party was at stake in the midterm elections. But the President did not seem to care and Mr. Nixon considered it proof that the President was politically unconscious and might wind up wrecking instead of saving the Republican Party.
Joseph Alsop examines the controversy in Moscow regarding Nobel Prize laureate Boris Pasternak, received for his novel Doctor Zhivago, banned in the Soviet Union and published only in the West for its controversial content vis-à-vis the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 and its aftermath. Mr. Alsop finds him to have been one of modern Russia's two true poets, while the other, Anna Akhmatova, might also suffer at the hands of the Kremlin. Being a true poet, Mr. Pasternak had never prostituted his pure talent in the state's service, but in every other way had been a good, obedient citizen.
In the novel, he had tried to sum up his own experience in the long, terrible years of Russia's Communist transformation. The novel was a rich human document, full of life, truth and compassion. Sir Isaiah Berlin, the only competent judge known to Mr. Alsop who had read the book in Russian, further described it as a great and authentic work of genius. For it, Mr. Pasternak had been awarded the first Nobel Prize ever given to a Soviet author, and the immediate result had been a storm of menace and abuse almost equal to the storm which had been caused in Moscow by the announcement of the Truman Doctrine in 1947, that is, economic and military aid to nations threatened by aggression from outside, specifically with respect to Greece and Turkey.
Mr. Alsop finds himself asking why that had been, finding that the public indignation was insanely disproportionate to the actual novel's contents. But the leaders of those who were at the forefront of the criticism had not been the official leaders of the Soviet state or their official thought-controllers, but rather other Soviet writers, because Mr. Pasternak had been honored by the outside world. He finds their feeling to have been foreshadowed by a series of interviews with Soviet writers published as "Conversations in Moscow", appearing in an English magazine, Encounter, with the two key interviews having been with the official "grand old man of Soviet letters", Ilya Ehrenberg, and the secretary of the Soviet Writers' Union, Alexei Surkov. Both had talked at length about Mr. Pasternak and in a way which was tragically, ironically revealing. Mr. Ehrenberg, whom he finds might have been a good or even great writer had he not preferred the rewards of prostitution to the Soviet state, had made his conventional bow to art and truth, indicating that Mr. Pasternak was a "great poet" and a writer of "great prose, always full of poetic images." But he had bitterly added, "Boris Pasternak is the most egocentric person I know." It suggested that, knowing what he might have been had it not been for him becoming a prostitute, he hated himself for his own surrender and most hated the man who had never surrendered. He finds that the term "egocentric" better befit Mr. Ehrenberg.
Mr. Surkov, a writer of no talent at all, "a dreary, loud-mouthed party drudge, who earns his handsome pay and extensive perquisites by dragooning real writers into the party line", appeared to be a person who hated them all, even Mr. Ehrenberg. But above all, he hated Mr. Pasternak, who had the greatest talent and had not been dragooned, and already feared the dreadful blow which was to come, saying: "They say he may even be nominated for the Nobel Prize! They say he may even get it!" The interviewer, Gerd Ruge—who had earlier in the year interviewed Mr. Pasternak—, had said: "The idea of a Nobel Prize for Pasternak seems to annoy him deeply. My ears were no more than half-a-yard from his mouth. But Surkov spoke as though he were addressing a plenary session of his Union."
The reason for the bitterness of the latter toward Mr. Pasternak was the same reason that he was a shining, secret hero to 90 percent of the younger men whom Mr. Surkov was charged with keeping in order. "To the literary trollops, in truth, Pasternak's prize must indeed be a bitter personal humiliation. The row over Pasternak proves how right Plato was, when he outlawed all pets as dangerous subversives in his design for a totalitarian state."
As we have fallen behind, there will be no further notes regarding the front page or editorial page of this date, as the notes will be sporadic until we catch up.
There are eight million stories in the Naked City
Framed Edition
Links-Date — Links-Subj.