The Charlotte News
Saturday, December 20, 1958
FIVE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page
reports from Yates McDaniel of the Associated Press that "America's
pride of the heavens soared high around the world today ready to send
anew a presidential yuletide message of good will." The jubilant
architects of the four-ton Atlas ICBM launched on Thursday evening
said that it would be early afternoon before they decided whether to
retrigger the talking satellite to broadcast tape-recorded words from
the President. The next step, when the scientists decided they had
enough initial data, would be to erase the initial message and then
send up another to be released by remote control as the Atlas
continued to orbit the earth. That second phase of the pioneering
project, dubbed "Operation Score", promised to point the
way to a revolution in communications, the mass transmission of sound
and pictures to anywhere on earth through a satellite network. In the
hours following the launch from Cape Canaveral in Florida, statesmen
assessed the increase to U.S. strength in the East-West struggle
occasioned by the launch. Atlas had struck another propaganda blow
for the country in mid-afternoon on Friday when, while speeding
17,000 mph over the Cape, it had rebroadcast, as scheduled, the short
message from the President recorded on Tuesday and carried aloft in
the nosecone. The piece provides the verbatim message. The President
had joined reporters in the office of White House press secretary
James Hagerty to hear his voice on a Pentagon-supplied recording of
the signal reaching the Cape. The President said that though one
sentence had come through garbled, that had not hurt the message. He
said that perhaps television
In Chicago, a strike by some 1,500 pilots this date had slowed down American Airlines, grounding the second of the nation's major air carriers on the eve of the holiday travel rush. The Air Line Pilots Association had struck the previous midnight. Negotiations had broken down with American and, according to a spokesman for the ALPA, it looked "like a long, hard strike". Stemming from an 18-month dispute, the strike posed a handicap for Christmas travelers. Eastern Air Lines flight engineers and machinists had struck over wage demands on November 24 and, in consequence, that line had been tied up for 26 days. In New York, company spokesmen said that the pilots, one hour before the strike deadline, had renewed a demand for a 75-hour work month instead of an 85-hour work month for pilots on jet aircraft. The president of American said in a statement: "No responsible airline could agree to the present demands of the Air Lines Pilots Association. The demands are arbitrary and unjustified. There is no good reason for reduction in hours. At this time, some of the pilots are flying ten days a month, with twenty days a month off, and it would be difficult to improve these working conditions." The airline announced that all flights had been canceled through the following Friday, the day after Christmas. A complete embargo had been placed on all air freight and air express until further notice. The company said that it would keep open ticket and reservations offices to help passengers secure alternate travel arrangements. An American Airline spokesman said that as much as one-third of the nation's daily air travel had been affected by the strikes at American and Eastern. American had a daily passenger load of 24,000 and claimed to be the largest carrier. A pilots union official said in Chicago that the strike could last for as long as six months, and accused American of "extreme stubbornness", but an American spokesman said that its offer had been "the best in the industry". The chief mediator and chairman of the National Mediation Board, Leverett Edwards, said: "I thought we had enough on the table to reach an agreement, but an impasse has been reached on working conditions. It does not look like a quick settlement will be effected." The ALPA said that American had offered a contract which equaled the Eastern settlement agreement in terms of money for both jet and piston-engine operations, but that offers regarding working conditions did not equal the Eastern contract. The pilots contended that the current American pay scale, ranging between $400 and $1,602 monthly, was lower than wages of other airlines. An American spokesman, however, said that top pay for pilots would jump from $1,602 per month to $2,334 if the American offer were to be accepted. In the Eastern strike, the machinists had submitted a settlement to membership vote, but the dispute between Eastern and the engineers remained in mediation.
In Miami, Fla., it was reported that the striking Eastern machinists had voted the previous night on a new contract but had kept the result secret pending the company's settlement with the flight engineers. The engineers also disputed a company proposal that they take basic pilot training to serve on jet airliners, expected to begin operation in 1960. Meanwhile, six airlines had said that "no show" reservations were hampering their efforts to take up the slack in Florida-bound traffic caused by the Eastern strike. A spokesman for Delta Air Lines said that planes were carrying only an average of 70 percent of their capacity because many travelers made multiple reservations for a seat and travelers who sought seats on a standby basis almost always got aboard. Delta and five other airlines, Capital, Northeast, Northwest, TWA, and National, predicted a total inbound Florida passenger volume of 176,160 for December. Eastern claimed that it normally handled 177,000 passengers to Florida in December. Negotiations between Eastern and the flight engineers were stalemated. A Federal mediator was attempting to get the sides to come to terms. Eastern's pilots charged the previous day that the engineers had abused them, complaining that threats had been made, a complaint which the engineers had denied. In a resolution, ALPA said that Eastern's pilots had been "publicly castigated by the Flight Engineers International Association and its members, threatened with physical violence and otherwise abused.
At least, with airline travel
limited at Christmas, there will be fewer opportunities onboard
aircraft for a repeat performance of "strangers on a plane".
Of course, strangers on a train or on a bus, or from a hitchhiker
picked up alongside the road, could still prove problematic, and so
beware those overly ingratiating who might share an adjacent seat
In Salisbury, Md., it was reported that a police lieutenant, a police officer and an 18-year old New York youth had been shot and wounded early this date during a high-speed chase through two Eastern Shore counties. None of them had been seriously wounded and the injured youth and his companion had been held on charges of assault with intent to kill. The State police said that a sergeant of the Salisbury police had stopped a speeding automobile on U.S. 13 in the wee hours of the morning in the town of Salisbury and that as he approached the car, one of the occupants had shot him with a 12-gauge shotgun. The first shot had pierced his hat and the second had hit him in the face and knocked him to the ground. Meanwhile, the car sped away southward out of the town. State police, notified of the shooting, set up roadblocks south of the town and some 45 minutes after the initial stop, a State police commander spotted the speeding car on Maryland Highway 12, turned his car around, gave chase and forced the other vehicle to the side of the road about a mile northwest of Snow Hill in Worcester County. The operator of the car had then jumped out and shot the State officer in the leg. The latter had then returned fire, hitting the youth in the face. The wounded youth and a companion were taken into custody. The two 18-year olds were identified as coming from Staten Island, N.Y.
In Charlotte, a small girl from Shelby clung to life at Memorial Hospital this date, unaware that her brother, 9, had been killed by the same automobile which had injured her. They had been struck by an automobile driven by a 21-year old young man of Lawndale the previous morning while waiting for the school bus with another brother and sister. Her killed brother had been carried 180 feet by the car and had been rushed to the hospital in Shelby, but had never regained consciousness before dying this date.
Also in Charlotte, it was reported that for the second straight year, the Dilworth Rotary Girl Scout Glee Club had entertained shoppers at Belk's Department Store while they shopped for Christmas. Filling the steps to the mezzanine, the 75-voice choir sang Christmas songs and carols to the shoppers. They were connected to the stores intercom system and their voices were heard throughout the downtown store during the half-hour program. It was the penultimate Christmas performance for the girls who would sing to the Charlotte Lions Club on Monday. In their eighth year, the Girl Scout Glee Club had given ten performances in the current year, including another in the present week at the Orthopedic Hospital in Gastonia. During those eight years, 300 girls, ranging in age between 11 and 18, had been members of the group and in the current year, the girls had come from 25 City and County schools in the community. During the eight years, they had appeared on the United Appeal Telethon, the Singing Christmas Tree and had made other special guest performances. Their accompanist in the current year was Judy Westmoreland. A joint committee from the Girl Scouts and the Dilworth Rotary Club managed the schedule and other details for the girls, whose names are listed.
Bob Slough of The News reports of an eviction, lock, stock, and barrel, of a woman and her young son, whose husband had suddenly departed leaving her without any means of support. She had gone to work for $13 per week but the rent was $10 per week and she had to spend part of the rent money on food for herself and her son, which left no money to pay for the rent. On the same day she had been evicted, she had found a new apartment, but the same problem was sure to arise again because the rent was also $10. She had survived for a time at the previous apartment only because she had sold part of her furniture to help pay for the rent and when she had exhausted her supply of excess furniture, the back rent had piled up and she found herself on the street. For the present, she and her son were assured of a roof over their heads for at least another month, at least until after Christmas. There would be no presents under the tree, however, and it was unlikely there would even be a tree. He indicates that with the help of the Empty Stocking Fund, the little boy's eyes could sparkle with delight on Christmas morning. He urges sending contributions to the Fund, providing a list of recent contributors and their contributions, indicating that the total thus far received amounted to $14,951.97 to provide Christmas for needy families in the community.
In the tenth in the series of articles by prominent Charlotte residents regarding "The Christmas I Remember Best", Dr. Paul Sanger, a noted Charlotte surgeon, who had been with the Army Medical Corps as a lieutenant colonel during World War II, relates that his most memorable Christmas had not been one of joy or pleasantries, but rather his second Christmas overseas with the 38th Evacuation Hospital Unit which served as the forward-most field hospital supporting the combat troops at the Battle of Cassino in Italy in 1943, with its famous monastery dominating the scene. The enemy had been notorious for taking advantage of their holidays and weekends to conduct a strike, often catching them unaware. On Christmas Eve, the troops had been ordered to attack the previously impenetrable defenses of the Germans, resulting in many casualties among U.S. troops as well as the Germans. Being the forward hospital, their tents were quickly filled with battle casualties, many of whom were only 18 or 19 years old, the so-called six-week trainee wonders. He had found it heartbreaking to see so many of those youths still clutching their Christmas packages from home even though they had lost all other personal possessions. Many of those packages had been opened but some never were. The irony of the scene was that the prisoners of war also had on their persons Christmas gifts and recent pictures of home and the Christmas tree. After repairing the wounded and comforting them as much as they could, they walked through the ward tents and found it impossible to tell the American youths from the prisoners of war except that they were in different tents. "Their enthusiasm to live, the sadness of being away from home at Christmas, their appearance, and their human reactions were the same as they lay on the cots covered with U.S. Army blankets and bandages." The question they frequently had asked the youngsters was, "What are you fighting for?" And the most reasonable answer he had heard from U.S. soldiers was, "to take that mountain", whereas the enemy answer had been, "to defend that mountain". To those soldiers on that night, war was purposeless. As the streams of wounded diminished, a storm of tremendous furor moved in with a concomitant drop in temperature, snow and rain. The tent ropes pulled loose, the skirts of the tents blew open and the electric wiring was interrupted by the frigid, wet tornado. The tent poles snapped and the canvas collapsed on the wounded soldiers. What had been a nightmare became a reality and by 3:00 a.m., the entire hospital was a flattened bit of debris. All personnel, only partially dressed and half frozen, reassembled in the hospital area and began to unscramble the melee to help salvage and evacuate their capacity number of wounded. Patients had been placed in trucks and half-tracks and sent some 40 miles to the rear. Dr. Sanger says that whether there was a hell on earth could be asked that night, but by the middle of the following morning, they had been able to resurrect some 40 to 50 pre-cooked Christmas turkeys from the mud, wash them as much as possible and then ate them, rejoicing that there were no casualties as a direct result of the tornado.
In Boston, police had broadcast to
all points that their two Christmas trees had been stolen.
Headquarters said that the trees had vanished en route from a local
florist shop and neither the truck nor its driver could be found.
Look for a bomb
In Stamps, Ark., a woman's first grade pupils had listened attentively as she had told the story of Christmas, after which she provided time for questions and answers. One boy asked, "What makes cows give milk?"
Because 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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