The Charlotte News
Friday, December 19, 1958
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page
reports that the President had announced at a White House diplomatic
dinner this date that the U.S. had successfully launched into orbit
around the earth the previous night a more than four-ton satellite,
the size of a Pullman car, the largest man-made satellite launched to
date, over 5,000 pounds heavier than the Sputnik III launched by the
Soviets on May 15. It came close to or surpassed the bulk of the
Soviet carrier rocket which had gone separately into orbit but
plunged back to earth on December 7. To scientists, even more
significant than its size was that "Operation Score", as it
was dubbed, carried two-way communications which promised untold
practical benefits for the future. It was pointed into its orbital
path by an internal guidance system rather than being sent on a
preset course as with a bullet, which was a long step toward true
space navigation. American scientists began talking optimistically
about putting a man aboard another such vehicle and sending it to
Venus or Mars. (Woh, horsey. One step at a time.) The President
called it "a distinct step forward … [which] opens new
opportunities to the United States and all mankind." The
Pentagon echoed his remarks, accenting the peaceful aspects of
launching a satellite of such great size. Comment from members of
Congress suggested stress on its military significance. Even in
Moscow, celebrating the 3,000th orbit of Sputnik III,
man-in-the-street reaction was favorable. American reporters, bereft
of any official comment, approached a cab driver who said: "Good.
It gives us competition." The President broke the news
dramatically at the state dinner for diplomats and White House press
secretary James Hagerty and Pentagon officials quickly spread the
word to reporters and the world. The Atlas ICBM carrying the
satellite had been launched at 6:02 p.m. on Thursday from Cape
Canaveral in Florida and the entire rocket, 85 feet long and 10 feet
wide, had gone into orbit. It weighed at least 8,700 pounds. The President reiterated his announcement
In Charlotte, the local satellite tracking team would be looking for the new orbiter this night behind the Mint Museum, according to Forest Selby, the veteran leader of the local "Moonwatch" team. According to the Associated Press, the satellite would be visible in the U.S., particularly in the South and at dusk.
In Boston, it was reported that
millionaire industrialist Bernard Goldfine had been convicted in
Federal court this date of criminal contempt for failure to comply
with the court's order to produce records of one of his textile mills
in a tax probe. At about the same time the judge was filing his
decision in Boston, the 67-year old Mr. Goldfine, close friend of
former White House chief of staff Sherman Adams, was entering a not
guilty plea in Washington to an indictment charging him with contempt
of Congress for failing to answer a series of 22 questions revolving
around the Goldfine-Adams issue of benefits to Mr. Adams in exchange
for the latter's influence in favor of Mr. Goldfine's firms with the
Federal Trade Commission and the Securities & Exchange
Commission, in which both men had claimed no wrongdoing, indicating
that the gifts and travel and lodging expense for Mr. Adams had been
merely tokens of longstanding friendship. Judge John Sirica, later to
become well known for his presiding over various Watergate
In Denham, England, the U.S. Air Force master sergeant being tried before an Air Force court-martial for murdering his wife with arsenic and for adultery with his alleged 23-year old mistress over whom the prosecution claimed he had committed the murder, had been found guilty the previous night and was sentenced this date to life imprisonment at hard labor. Minutes later, one of his defense counsel announced that they had new information concerning the dead woman's private papers which they might wish to produce when the court-martial's findings were reviewed by higher military authorities. The 14 officers of the court-martial had taken 114 minutes to render their sentence, read by the court's president from a torn sheet of yellow paper. The defendant was ordered to be dishonorably discharged and to forfeit all pay and allowances. The defense officer, a captain, told newsmen about the new lead just as the court had closed, saying, "If what we're trying to find turns out to be true, we shall have grounds for further proceedings within our military system of law." The defendant had joined his mother and 14-year old son in an anteroom after the court had adjourned, embracing both and weeping. His defense counsel said that as far as he knew, the defendant's three children, two twins aged 14 and a nine-year old son were provided for. He said that the defendant's mother and his son would be staying in Britain during Christmas and, depending on the provost marshal, would be visiting the defendant during that time. The 14-officer court-martial convicted the defendant the previous night and reassembled during the morning for its decision regarding sentence.
In Washington, it was reported that Charlotte was formally applying to the Civil Aeronautics Board for authority to operate a helicopter travel service. The City attorney said that the city was the first in the nation to request permission to operate such flights and the first helicopter service applicant from the South. It would seek authority to operate helicopter flights carrying between 12 and 15 passengers plus mail and baggage to 23 towns in the Carolinas. The attorney said that a City-owned corporation probably would operate the service. Charlotte presently owned and operated the Douglas Municipal Airport. The various routes of the service being requested are listed. The attorney said that the plans called for two roundtrips daily on each route. He said that he did not anticipate opposition to the application from other regular airlines serving Charlotte, but that the Board might take a year or more to rule on the application. Several other applications for helicopter service had not been decided by the CAB. The application would inform the Board that all of the 23 towns to be served by the proposed service had expressed a willingness to support the service and provide landing and terminal facilities at their own expense. Those towns estimated that economically they would be able to furnish sufficient passengers, cargo and mail to bear their fair share of its cost. It was contemplated that the proposed service would serve as a short-haul feeder service to the airlines presently serving Charlotte. The attorney said that Charlotte and the other communities could show that the new service would make transportation facilities available to more than 1.5 million people residing within a 65-mile radius of Charlotte.
In Chicago, it was reported that the National Safety Council this date estimated that 620 persons would be killed in traffic accidents during the four-day Christmas holiday period which would begin at 6:00 p.m. on Christmas Eve and would end at midnight, Sunday, December 27. The Council said, "Those deaths need not occur and should not occur." Immobilize all the starters for the duration and there will be no deaths on the highways. Bring back Gort.
In Covington, Ky., a woman reported to police that someone had entered her home, dumped presents from gift boxes and then made off with just the empty containers.
In the ninth article in the series by prominent Charlotte residents presented by the newspaper regarding "The Christmas I Remember Best", Dr. Lawrence I. Stell, minister of the Charlotte Trinity Presbyterian Church and retiring president of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Christian Ministers Association, relates that Christmas Day had always involved for him the finding of the glory in ordinary things and relationships, indicating that his adult Christmases had meant more to him than his childhood memories. Two Christmases stood out for him, both associated with his own children. The first had been when his son was 18 months old, the first time he and his wife had ever experienced the happiness in preparing Christmas for a child and seeing their son's complete joy and surprise. He remembered especially the boy playing with a toy train which ran around a small circular track and trying to catch the cars as they came around. He remembered his smile when he finally learned to start his movement to grab for the train as it came around, finally actually able to catch it. The second memory had been three years later, right after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. His wife had been quite ill as they were expecting their second child, and friends had been very kind in helping them meet all the crises within their family, as the world's anguish pressed in on everyone. Against that background, the preparation for Christmas demanded by their love for their son and by his own tasks as a minister had forced them to see again the hope of the world still residing in the wonder of the birth of the Babe of Bethlehem, who became the Christ of Calvary. "As a result, the kindness of our friends—and the warmth of the love of the family—and the familiarity of the Christmas story and songs had an added meaning that helped give many of us courage to face the world that held the possibility of horrors to shake us to the rediscovery of the things 'that cannot be shaken.'"
In Chicago, it was reported that a woman's mother had died on November 8 and while on her deathbed had vowed to keep her 14 young children together. Her daughter had taken charge of her brothers and sisters, ranging in age from two months to 13 years, notwithstanding the fact that she had four children of her own, ranging in age between two months and four years. She was thus now playing mother to 18 children when she was only 22 years old. To a reporter who had visited her the previous day, she appeared as a high school senior. She said that to manage, she had to arise at 4:30 each morning, to get a brother off on his paper route and then prepare breakfast. She had previously lived in Atlanta and made biscuits for breakfast and cornbread for the evening meal. At supper time, she fed them in shifts, first the babies, then the schoolkids, then the grown-ups, who could then eat in peace. They had been living in a six-room basement flat in an old frame house in an old North Side neighborhood and had just rented the eight rooms on the first floor to give them a total of 14, with a combined rent of $120 per month. Her husband, 32, made $60 per week as a service station attendant and said that it took between $50 and $75 per week to buy groceries. The bulk of their family income was $414 per month for aid to dependent children, which went to her mother's widower who lived with the daughter's family. He was not working because of a chronic stomach ailment. The woman said, "I got love for my brothers and sisters and I can't see 'em livin' anywhere else." She said that her mother had promised watches for Christmas to one of the young siblings, a 10-year old girl, and to one of the three sets of twins, 11-year old girls, and now they came to her and asked, "We goin' to get our watches for Christmas?" She said that she had told them that "they'd probably get a little somethin' but don't build up no hopes." A picture of the family is included. Send them all a set of Bulovas.
In The News Spotlite Series, begun the previous week with the heartwarming "STARS OVER BETHLEHEM", which told of a modern-day pilgrimage to the site of the birth of Jesus, this week would feature "The Truth about Eddie and Debbie", the "inside story about one of this country's 'storybook' marriages—the marriage of singer Eddie Fisher and movie star Debbie Reynolds." The famous Hollywood "dream marriage" was now America's biggest matrimonial break-up, and an oft-mentioned "third-party" was glamorous actress Elizabeth Taylor. Debbie was blaming Liz and Liz was blaming Debbie and Eddie was blaming himself. "Who's right? Who's wrong? Who's to blame?" It promises that the reader would know the answer when they finished reading the five fact-filled parts of the story which would begin on Monday in the newspaper. Can't wait. Can't think of anything more apropos about which to read during Christmas week. Can you? Fortunately, here in 1958, we cannot read.
The News indicates that if the copy of the newspaper smelled like a Christmas tree, it was supposed to as the scent was balsam contained within the green ink in the Clark's Department Store advertisement on page 10A. The scent was a concentrated essence which came to the newspaper in oil form. It was mixed with the ink at the rate of one ounce of scent to a pound of ink and approximately 8 pounds of the essence was required. Thus, we suppose, if you have a printer which uses open-ink containers, you could make up your own with the concentrated essence of balsam, print-out page 10A and re-create perfectly the news of the day, replete with the redolent news of the season, even if Clark's no longer exists for your discount Christmas shopping. (We bought there in Charlotte our second purchased Beatles album, "The Beatles" on the Veejay label, in late July, 1964, the first having been, about a month earlier, "A Hard Day's Night" on United Artists, purchased for us by our older brother, along with a big bag of popcorn, at King's, another discount department store in Winston-Salem.) Or, you could just rely on a Christmas tree. But, under Trump prices this Christmas, we hope you have a place where you can cut down your own. We are purchasing our good coffee when it is on sale at the market, the sale price being about its former full retail during Presdent Biden's tenure, thus circumventing for the time being, at least, the Trump tariffs on that particular commodity, though it is inescapable that you are paying a lot more money for nearly everything this year, notwithstanding the crazy man's claims of "the greatest economy in the history of the world". Come to think of it, perhaps we could send him to Venus or Mars.
In Louisville, it was reported that Coalie had played on a woman's newly-delivered organ and she said that it sounded just horrible when she finally sat down to play it for the first time. So her husband rolled it away from the wall, and when she looked through the back slot she saw two green eyes staring back at her and nearly flipped. She grabbed the telephone and called the piano and organ company to report that it had a black cat inside it with bells on. The man at the other end sought to humor her, asking her when her husband would be home. She responded that she was a Methodist and was cold sober. She reiterated that there was a big black cat inside her organ and it had on a red leather collar with two bells on it. She said that her husband was already home. The music firm called the movers and it turned out that they had moved a piano for another family before delivering the organ, and the first family had a big black cat named Coalie which had jumped into the van and sat on the organ pedal which caused a flap to open, giving the cat ingress to the organ, or so the woman had theorized. The woman said that her two boys were crazy about the cat but the other cat they had would not fraternize with the new one. The cat was temporarily housed in the greenhouse until somebody came along with a permanent home for it. What happened to the family who owned it? Maybe the piano fell on them and killed them all. Bad luck.
In Laramie, Wyo., it was reported that a man would purchase his Christmas tree the following year after spending 26 hours on a trip to the mountains to cut his own tree, with car troubles along the snowy roads having cost him $286.30.
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.
Meanwhile, if you missed the Alfred Hitchcock movie of a few years earlier, comes this drama
Framed Edition
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