The Charlotte News
Friday, December 12, 1958
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from Atlanta that the chancellor of the Georgia University system, Dr. Harmon Caldwell, said during testimony in U.S. District Court that regulations for admissions were not adopted to exclude black applicants from State institutions presently attended only by whites. The testimony was in the context of a lawsuit brought by three black women attempting to break through segregation barriers at Georgia State College in Atlanta. Dr. Caldwell said that after talking to students of both races, he was convinced that "both white people and the vast majority of good Negro citizens want segregation" in the public schools. John H. Calhoun, the former president of the Atlanta branch of the NAACP, said that his organization was financing the lawsuit of the three students. State Attorney General Eugene Cook told newsmen that he thought Mr. Calhoun's testimony showed that the plaintiffs were not actually interested in attending Georgia State College, but were only performing a function for the NAACP.
In Denham, England, it was reported that 14 U.S. Air Force officers this date had sat silently reading love letters written to a master sergeant who was on trial before a court-martial for murdering his wife. The series of letters had been written by a British woman, 23 years old, with whom the sergeant, of Hobbsville, N.C., had an affair after telling her that he was divorced, according to her testimony. The 14-person court-martial had heard evidence that the sergeant had poisoned his wife with arsenic and had committed adultery with the young woman. During the course of their reading of the love letters, there was silence generally in the courtroom except for occasional sobs from the young woman and the rustling of paper, plus a few objections raised to some of the letters by defense counsel. By noon, 56 letters had been submitted into evidence, one having been withheld by the court's law officer, with still an unread stack on the prosecutor's desk. Each time one was submitted, the young woman identified it as genuine with affirmative nods. The letters were not read aloud and were passed around among the officers in groups of five. The prosecution introduced the letters to try to establish a motive for the murder of the sergeant's wife, who had died in a hospital on June 9. The prosecution claimed that the sergeant had an overwhelming passion for the young woman and that she had been his mistress for two years.
In Pinebluff, N.C., it was reported by the State Highway Patrol this date that a 14-year old boy had been killed the previous night during a snowstorm when he fell from a sled on Highway 1 and was crushed beneath the wheels of a tractor-trailer truck. The patrolman said that the youngster was sledding with other children at 8:45 p.m. on a well-lighted stretch of the road which passed through the town, when the accident occurred. The driver of the truck, from Huntington, Pa., was held for a coroner's inquest.
In Greensboro, a 30-year old Florida man, who had spent nearly two hours half-buried in a snow bank, was hospitalized this date after rescuers found him beside Highway 70 East. Authorities at Moses Cone Hospital said that the man was suffering from exposure but was in good condition otherwise. He was employed in nearby High Point. He told rescuers that he had been a passenger in a car which left the highway and skidded into a creek, that the others had left him to obtain help and that in a dazed condition, he apparently had lost consciousness. He was found by three truck drivers who noticed him as he lay nearly buried beside the roadway. He was taken to the hospital via ambulance.
Emery Wister of The News reports that the Carolinas were digging themselves out of the worst December snowfall in years this date, but that a new cold front which moved the snowstorm out to sea promised continued sub-freezing temperatures through the weekend. A new storm, caused by a low pressure area near Cuba, had threatened to deposit more snow on South Carolina as well as to bring a few flurries to western North Carolina. The predicted low for the following day was 15 by morning, two degrees above the low of this date, with a high predicted of 35 during the afternoon and 38 the following day. The morning low had been the lowest since February 19, 1958, when 8 degrees was recorded. The temperature had dropped to one degree above zero in Greensboro and 200 miles to the south, Columbia, S.C., recorded a reading of four.
The third entry of a series by prominent Charlotte residents regarding "The Christmas I Remember Best" this date is by Harry Golden, editor and publisher of the Carolina Israelite, recounting that in a recent speech before the North Carolina English Teachers Association in Chapel Hill, he had told the story of teacher Myra Kelly and Christmas on the Lower East Side in New York. Although her students had been children of Orthodox Jews, they participated in the spirit of Christmas by bringing their Christian school teacher a present, with cups and saucers being standard and soap a close second. Other gifts had piled up on the teacher's desk, including a dozen buttons which read "Save Alfred Dreyfus" and a few khaki belts which read "Remember the Maine". As the last boy in the class was approaching her desk, carrying neither cup nor saucer nor a bar of soap, he had told the teacher in halting English that he had asked his mother for a nickel for a Christmas present for the teacher and that his mother had begun to cry and kissed him saying, "Maybe tomorrow," but she had never given him the nickel and he was terribly worried until the previous night when his father had come home and given his mother a present. "My mother was so happy that she cried, and out of Jewish said to my father, 'Thank you', and my father, out of Jewish said, 'You are welcome'." The boy had then asked his mother if he could take the "special present for ladies" to his teacher, at which point the young immigrant handed his teacher a rumpled piece of paper and quickly returned to his seat. Late that night, the teacher had sat in her room and reviewed her gifts, seeing that they were very touching, very numerous and very precious. But above all the rest, she had treasured a frayed piece of paper, crumpled and soiled, because it held the love of a man for a woman and a little child and the magic of the home, for the little boy's "Christmas Present for Ladies" was a receipt for a month's rent for a room in the top floor of a crowded tenement.
Only in America, Mr. Golden's best-selling book, was slated to become a play on Broadway the following fall, as it had been announced this date that contracts had been signed for producing the play. The production would star Sam Levene, well-known stage and screen actor remembered for his leading role in Guys & Dolls. Jerry Lawrence and Robert E. Lee would write the play. They had adapted the novel Auntie Mame for the stage and also had written the play Inherit the Wind, starring Paul Muni. Mr. Golden said this date that Mr. Levene and the two writers would come to Charlotte in February to "soak up atmosphere" and become familiar with the city, as the play would be built around the city.
In Holland, Mich., a six-year old girl decided to try to imitate "a lady on television" by jumping from a second-story window, intending to fly to the house next door. Instead, she had fallen 25 feet into a deep snowbank, but was uninjured.
In Canton, Conn., firemen were attempting to rescue a cat, which remained stationary for 72 hours staring at them from its 80-foot perch atop an elm tree. The firemen had tried everything, but their ladders would not reach and so they tried to tilt the cat a little with a stick, hoping to get it to drop into a blanket. But that did not work. Neither had it reached for some food they raised to its perch, but rather just sat there, shivering in the cold. Finally an order came to shoot the cat down with water. But a 24-year old former tree surgeon from West Hartford then entered the picture, crawled up the tree with hooks and ropes, and retrieved the cat eight minutes later. It was now home to spend the holidays by the fireplace.
It sounds like it was all a vicious
circle
As we have fallen behind, there will be no further comments on the front page or editorial page of this date, as the notes will be sporadic until we catch up.
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