The Charlotte News
Tuesday, February 18, 1958
TWO EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that FCC commissioner Herbert Sharfman had told a special House investigating subcommittee this date that there had been no question in his mind that he had arrived at the right decision in voting against the award of a Miami television channel to a subsidiary of National Airlines, an award which was approved by the majority of the Commission. He was one of five witnesses called from Miami regarding the contention that $2,650 had been paid to FCC commissioner Richard Mack in the case, a claim Mr. Mack contended was false, claiming that the money paid to him by a Miami attorney was only a loan. Mr. Sharfman had recommended in 1955 that the channel be given to radio station WKAT, but the FCC, in February, 1957, had granted it to Public Service Television, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of National, an award which was presently being contested in the courts. Mr. Sharfman said that the radio station was the best qualified of the four applicants.
Republican leaders in Congress had agreed with the President's key Cabinet officers this date that it would not be wise to cut taxes as a business stimulus at the current time. After a breakfast conference at the White House, Senate Minority Leader William Knowland of California told reporters that the decision was subject to review before Congress adjourned in late July or early August. He said that tax reduction had been the subject of discussion, along with the question of whether the Government ought launch a major public works program to counter the recession. Both the Administration and the Republican members of Congress agreed that unemployment would start declining in March and that business would turn up fairly soon thereafter without an artificial stimulus. The Senator said that if the anticipated improvement did not take place before the middle of the year when Congress neared adjournment, public works would get serious consideration.
In New York, the U.S. Attorney said that confessed Russian spy Jack Soble had attempted suicide by swallowing a quantity of rivets, nuts and bolts shortly before being brought to court for further questioning on espionage. Mr. Soble had undergone a two-hour, 20-minute operation at Bellevue Hospital for removal of the objects from his stomach and was reported to be doing very well. He had been brought to New York from the Federal prison at Lewisburg, Pa., where he had been serving a seven-year sentence. The U.S. Attorney said that Mr. Soble would be returned to a cell at the Federal house of detention in four or five days to await call before a grand jury which was investigating espionage. Mr. Soble had been working in the Lewisburg warehouse where he had access to the hardware. On Sunday afternoon, he had complained about being sick and was taken to Bellevue Hospital and X-rayed, where it was discovered that surgery would have to take place to save his life. He had been sentenced to prison the prior October 8 after pleading guilty to espionage charges, and had helped Federal authorities trace an espionage ring he had headed for a decade.
The Air Force told Congress this date that it was working on rocket engines to produce as much as 1.5 million pounds of thrust to propel vehicles into outer space.
In Tullahoma, Tenn., an airflow of 32,400 mph or twice the speed required to place a satellite into orbit, had been reached in a wind tunnel test at the Arnold Engineering Development Center.
In Havana, the Cuban Army moved planes, tanks and troops into Oriente Province this date, apparently in an attempt to trap a major force of Fidel Castro's rebels in the northern fringes of the Sierra Maestra.
In Seoul, South Korean police said this date that they had evidence that at least seven Communist agents had boarded a commercial airliner which had flown to Communist North Korea the prior Sunday.
In Nashville, Tennessee Governor Frank Clement's top political lieutenant, Agriculture commissioner Buford Ellington, had announced this date that he would be a candidate for the Democratic nomination for governor in 1958.
In San Francisco, it was reported that early the previous Saturday, 21 desperate South American prisoners had swept over a yacht cruising in Ecuadorian waters and commandeered the 100-foot vessel owned by a Los Angeles attorney. The attorney told the Associated Press that it had been terrifying, calling the AP shortly after the convicts had been put ashore at a beach, describing them as "desperate men" who had held him, his wife, a man from Seattle and four crewmen as hostages for three days from 3:00 a.m. Saturday until shortly before dark on Monday. He said that the armed convicts had escaped from a prison camp on Isabella Island in the Galapagos group, 650 miles west of Ecuador, that they had looted the ship and mistreated the group, but had not physically harmed anyone. They had left the ship at a beach 5 miles northeast of Point Galera on the northwest coast of Ecuador. The couple's daughter, who lived in Palo Alto, Calif., said that her parents had purchased the converted sub-chaser a year earlier and in January had set out for Acapulco. She had received a letter from Costa Rica saying that they would go to the Galapagos and then return to Acapulco by March 1. She said that the previous summer they had cruised around Alaska. The attorney told the AP that though the yacht was low on fuel, food and water, he was heading for Panama and expected to be there in a day or so. He indicated that the prisoners had gotten to his ship by stealing two fishing boats and holding their owners as hostages. He had been told that 40 to 50 other prisoners had taken over the Isabella Prison island.
In Windsor, N.C., a 16-year old boy, whom police said had admitted slaying his girlfriend the previous Tuesday, had been transferred to the State hospital in Raleigh for mental examination. The boy was the son of a State Highway Patrol sergeant and was president of his junior class in high school. He would undergo 60 days of observation.
Freezing weather still gripped the Eastern section of the country, which was still digging out from the weekend's heavy snowfall. In Lebanon, N.H., the temperature was 29 below zero, in Newport, Vt., 27 below, and 25 below in northern New York. At least 182 deaths across the nation had been attributed to the snow and cold weather. No immediate relief was in sight from the cold spell, presently in its tenth day. At the Newark, N.J., airport, the thermometer had not been above freezing since February 8. In Washington, the cold spell was the worst in 16 years, the temperature dropping to five following a 14-inch snowfall on Saturday. Government workers had another holiday and schools were closed for the second consecutive day. Zero temperatures were reported in the north Georgia mountains, and a shortage of natural gas caused hundreds of schools and industries to close in that state. Some parts of Virginia, Tennessee and North Carolina had below zero readings. Northern Indiana was hit the previous night by a new blizzard which added 20 additional inches to the already snow-plagued area, bringing the total in South Bend to 35 inches.
The head of the Park and Recreation Commission in Charlotte warned that ice-skating was prohibited on Freedom Park Lake because the ice was too thin and police had been asked to keep people off of it. He said that telephones at his office had been ringing constantly with inquiries about skating and sledding on the lake.
Jerry Reece of The News reports that several public-minded businessmen had some tips to help people do something about the cold weather, for heating problems, automobile troubles and water pipe difficulties. A well-drilling contractor and pump dealer for 36 years had hints for persons who had their own water supply, indicating that the weather had caught a lot of people napping, as was shown by the number of service calls. He said it was very important that persons with pumps left a spigot running at night to keep the pipes from freezing and pumps from becoming inoperative. He said that well water had a constant temperature of about 60 degrees and that by leaving a faucet open, pump owners could keep pipes free of ice because of the flow of relatively warm water. An auto service manager said that his department was swamped with service calls the previous day by people having trouble with frozen emergency brakes, frozen radiators and ice-clogged gas tanks and lines. He said that people had antifreeze in their radiators but not enough and advised owners to put more in, that the price of antifreeze was cheaper than having a cracked engine block or cylinder head. He said that it would be best if owners did not engage their emergency brakes when they parked as water collected and when the temperature dropped, the brake would freeze. (Should you be traveling through Wyoming and encounter a teenage motorist apparently stopped on the side of the road trying to get his emergency brake unstuck, you probably ought call the Highway Patrol or closest sheriff's office and let them handle it.) He had little advice for those with water in their gas tanks or lines, except to hope that the water did not freeze. Fuel companies reported that their sales were up about 25 percent during the previous few weeks, to be expected during the winter. The Weather Bureau had shown that January had been an average of 5 degrees colder than the previous year, in addition to wind velocities being in excess of normal, meaning that the average fuel burner could expect to have a 25 to 40 percent rise in the amount of fuel being used, according to a local heating expert. He urged householders to take the increase in stride and not regard it as a sign that the heating source was in disrepair. All of the persons offering hints urged the public not to become too alarmed over the unusual weather condition as it might get worse before it got better. The end of the world is at hand, as the Martians are upset about the three satellites. Plain as day.
Fresh waves of polar air was likely to bring the shock of an arctic winter back to Charlotte this night, but the Weather Bureau predicted the back of the cold wave might be broken by the following afternoon, with the temperature rising from a forecast low of 10 up to 35. During the morning, the dead body of a 58-year old man was found in the rear seat of a car in which he had been sleeping on North Tryon Street. Police said the man was accustomed to sleeping inside the car and was "frozen stiff and blue". The County coroner said that there was no evidence of foul play. He had been dead since the early morning. Several empty beer cans were found outside the car, a 1939 Oldsmobile, and a number of beer cans and whiskey bottles were inside the car. Investigation indicated he had gone into the car when the temperature was at ten degrees, and it had dropped a few degrees further by early morning. The victim was fully clothed and wearing a jacket. The official low of five had been recorded at the Municipal Airport just before sunrise, beating the previous day's low of seven, the lowest since January 27, 1940 when it had been three below zero. The low was 1 degree in Greensboro and 2 in Winston-Salem. On Mt. Mitchell, the temperature was 19 below zero, four degrees above the record of 23 below reached the previous day. A 70 mph wind had swept over the peak.
In New York, the Chinese celebrated the "Year of the Dog", 4,656, beginning the previous midnight in Chinatown, the start of a week-long celebration. The neighborhood reverberated with sounds of fireworks, drums, cymbals and gongs. Three make-believe lions and a 75-foot dragon pranced through the snow-covered, narrow, twisting streets, accompanied by costumed dancers, banner carriers and musicians. There appeared Chinese Nationalist flags and also banners proclaiming good luck during the new year. After the procession, families visited one another and partook of traditional drinks and delicacies.
In Waukegan, Ill., 13 teenage boys, suspended from school for failure to comply with a "good grooming" code, were ordered to take trips to a barber and a clothing store after the suspensions had been ordered by the dean of boys at the local high school. The dean said that the boys had defied a new school rule for proper dress and grooming which had gone into effect the previous day, indicating that they would be readmitted when they trimmed their long "ducktail" haircuts and wore pants which were not too tight or too droopy. He said that they had set up the rule when they learned that boys who dressed like cowboys tended to act like cowboys and those who dressed like students acted like students. He said it was encouraging to note that only one percent of the school's 1,300 boys had failed to comply with the new code, drawn up by the faculty. He said that, generally, they were very proud of their students. Efforts to counsel the offenders had failed to obtain results during the course of a semester before the rule had been imposed. The rule applied only to boys, as they had no trouble with their 1,100 girls, according to the dean. "They are all proud of being young ladies and they look very sweet and charming." He said that the girls were generally "much more mature" than the boys. Just wait. Soon enough, those girls will be wearing short-shorts.
On the editorial page, "In Plotting the Future of Midtown, a Common Denominator of Danger" provides two diametrically opposed opinions of midtown Charlotte business, as related the previous day by citizens on the sidewalk. One found it to be gloomy while the other had stout confidence concerning present conditions but some uncertainty regarding the future. It suggests that the truth lay somewhere in both reactions, rendering a common denominator of peril.
It finds that downtown Charlotte was in remarkably good health for a city with an exploding postwar population, providing a picture of health when compared to some other cities. But streets had been designed for buggy traffic and were thus jammed with cars during rush hours, with increasing competition for available parking spaces. Some of the buildings appeared to be increasingly crawling with roaches by the minute and slums bordering on the heart of the city contaminated whole areas. Yet, it was not so bad when viewed as a whole.
It questions what would occur in the future if nothing were done about the downtown area, indicating that it would become a chronic invalid and the decay would spread until it threatened the social and economic well-being of the entire community.
The Institute of Government in Chapel Hill had taken a long look into the common denominator of peril and during the week had issued a challenge to North Carolina cities, which fit Charlotte very well: "It is time for Main Street to wake up to the need for action." Ruth L. Mace, one of the Institute's research associates, in the first two reports on downtown decay in the state, had said that businessmen's investment and continuing profits were at stake, that a substantial portion of the cities' tax base hung in the balance, along with their investment in public improvements in the downtown areas. All of the residents of the city and its hinterland benefited from a conveniently located focal point, a downtown center where they could shop, play or attend to governmental or private business. Too many people had a stake in the continued vitality of the downtown areas to allow them to die. She had also said that conversations with city officials and planners around the state indicated that almost all of them found a current lack of awareness among merchants and business leaders of the need for an organized program of action to guarantee the future prosperity of the central business district.
It finds Charlotte's apathy peculiar, as it was not complete, with an awareness of some aspects of the problem, including slums, overhanging signs, and a government plaza, but lacking in organization and integration. What was needed was a comprehensive, long-range approach to the whole problem, a coordinated public and private effort to remove completely the possibility of peril. Ms. Mace had suggested a "'bold, inspiring scheme, designed to capture the imagination and the business of people who will shop in the new downtown.'"
It suggests that the specifics of a total plan would have to include adequate parking, relief of traffic congestion and the elimination of hazards to pedestrians inside the shopping area, elimination of inappropriate land uses, replacement of ugliness with beauty, and protection of adjacent neighborhoods. It finds that while the problem might seem to lack urgency at present, the disease was only in its incipient stages and the luxury of apathy was comfortable, but to wait was to invite peril, and it reiterates the cautionary alarm from the Institute, that it was time for Main Street to wake up.
The answer, of course, would be that suburban malls would take over as the shopping area of the city, as well as the bulk of the theater-going public, and the downtown area would gradually die away, leaving very little behind for a long while, until some level of gentrification would begin with the development of condominiums downtown and large corporate office buildings. Through it all, however, Green's Lunch persisted, at least until mid-2023, when it closed after 97 years in business, a victim of Covid.
"New England Blizzard, Go Home!" indicates that Senator Kerr Scott, who had once proposed rerouting hurricanes by blasting them with atomic bombs, had been strangely silent about the present cold wave.
The silence was not only present in the Senate, as it had heard nothing from those who were always insisting that the bomb tests were making the winters warmer. Nor had there been anything heard from senior citizens who recalled that when they were young, there were harsh winters.
"Mark Twain to the contrary, people not only are not doing anything about the weather. Some of them aren't even talking about it. But Twain did not err in his long-range forecast of New England weather: 'Probable nor'-east to sou'-west winds, varying to the southard and westard and eastard and points between; high and low barometer, sweeping around from place to place; probable areas of rain, snow, hail, and drought, succeeded or preceded by earthquakes with thunder and lightning.'"
It concludes that it was the way it was with New England weather, and it joins "all the silent people in wishing New England would call its prodigal blizzards home and, in the future, properly confine them to that area."
Whit Whitfield, writing in the Daily Tar Heel, the UNC student newspaper, in a piece titled, "In Praise of Conformity", indicates that in the previous few years, the favorite topic of writers in college newspapers had been conformity, to the point that people were sick of it. He wishes to defend conformity, saying that he conformed because he had to, that if he did not, he was dead. He asks how many non-conformists were successful, how many were well-liked, answering none. "How much chance does a beard, a ducktail, pegged pants, or dungarees have in a society of conformists? Right again. None."
He asks how far a person could go if he expressed opinions which were contrary to those of his peers, answering that he could venture to the next country if he was lucky. "So, we conformists are faced with self-preservation, the oldest of man's common laws. It's either conform or be annihilated, so if you can't beat 'em, join 'em."
He says that "Mr. Conformer or Mr. Averageman" was typically a person who went to the largest church in his neighborhood, read Life, Look, Time, the type of magazines in the dentist's office, read the sports section and the funnies, sometimes the rapes and murders if he had time, wore whatever was fashionable, regardless of how many old clothes he had in his wardrobe, had hobbies of hunting and fishing, had as favorite interests Channel 5, Channel 2, Channel 11, and poker, in that order. (What happened to channel 4?)
The conformist had never done anything and never would, and for that reason, the writers favoring non-conformity were constantly harassing him.
But he indicates that the writers on non-conformity always dressed like the rest of the population, as that person wanted to live, too. The person would watch television, go to the movies, or criticize the handiwork of Henry Luce. He had to enjoy the worldly pleasures also as he was human. "The fact that he is following the trend in college writing by writing on the same topic (and conforming meanwhile) doesn't bother him—he's a non-conformist. God Bless Conformity."
Don't be too sure of the continued hypocrisy in seeking confirmation in conformity, as those who are now children viewing, while growing of age, the surrounding facades exhibited in masques by the adults, playing their accustomed roles before those outside the immediate family circle while behind closed doors, showing hair-down behavior inconsistent with the platitudinous ideal sought to be instilled in the younger in operating on the world at large, will learn to shed at least some of the accounterments of bourgeois living, while some of them, at given moments, will even shed all accoutrements altogether
Drew Pearson provides some facts about FCC commissioner Richard Mack and the payments he had received from an attorney in Miami, close to National Airlines, for the award of a Miami television channel to a subsidiary of National. He indicates that on December 30, Mr. Mack had written Congressman Morgan Moulder, who was then chairman of the investigating subcommittee looking at the FCC, indicating that neither he nor any member of his immediate family had received any honorarium, loan, or other payment, directly or indirectly, from the time of his appointment to the FCC on July 1, 1955, to that point in time, by or on behalf of any person, firm, corporation, association, organization or group having any interest, direct or indirect in any matters subject to the jurisdiction of the Commission. But a month later, Mr. Mack had admitted to Congressional investigators that he had received checks from the Miami attorney, that he knew the attorney had some connection with National, and that he was pledged to vote with the attorney for National on the award of the television channel. The letter that he had sent previously to Mr. Moulder had not been sworn under oath. Dr. Bernard Schwartz, then counsel for the subcommittee, since fired, had asked that the replies be sworn, but Congressman Oren Harris, chairman of the parent committee, refused to do so. The latter also refused to sign subpoenas to obtain FCC information.
The second fact he imparts was that the FBI had been supposed to investigate Mr. Mack thoroughly prior to his appointment in 1955. On May 27 of that year, before he was appointed, Mr. Pearson had predicted his appointment and called attention to his dubious record as a member of the Florida Railroad and Public Utilities Commission. The previous month, Mr. Mack had admitted to Congressional investigators that as a member of that latter Commission, he had received a payment from the same Miami attorney in connection with a "trucking company" matter, calling it a campaign contribution. The FBI, which had better means of investigating than a newsman, ought to have been able to ascertain that fact, but he notes that the FBI of late did not appear very interested in whether an appointee was honest.
The third fact was that members of the Moulder subcommittee had originally proposed cross-examining Mr. Mack in private, as proposed by Republican Congressman John Bennett of Michigan at a time when a majority of the subcommittee was seeking to hush up the probe. Later, when public pressure had become too strong, they rushed into an open session without Mr. Mack even being present to defend himself, at which time Dr. Schwartz protested that it was not a fair way to develop evidence. He was overruled.
The fourth fact he develops was that Congressmen John Flynt of Georgia and John Bell Williams of Mississippi had expressed surprise at the previous week's testimony showing canceled checks from the Miami attorney to Mr. Mack, acting as if they had not known about the case of Mr. Mack. Mr. Pearson indicates that it was hogwash as the fact was that they had been well briefed and that many of the facts had been published in Mr. Pearson's column on January 17 and both of the Congressmen read the newspapers. Indeed, Mr. Flynt had been busy writing to Georgia voters, trying to give himself an alibi for the facts published in the Pearson column.
The fifth fact which he develops was that before Mr. Mack was appointed to the FCC, it was circulated around conservative circles in the South that the White House was looking for a conservative "Eisenhower Democrat" for appointment to the Commission. McCarthy Downs, former corporation commissioner in Virginia, had been contacted and told that he could have the appointment, but turned it down. Under the law, the appointment had to go to a Democrat. All the Administration seemed interested in was getting a pro-Eisenhower Democrat who would go along with other Republicans on the FCC. There was no interest in the man's attitude toward the public or protection of the public. It had been in that framework that Mr. Mack had been picked. On the Florida Utilities Commission, he had gone along with heavy increases in phone rates, mileage rates for phone lines, and concessions for the railroads.
Joseph Alsop, in Paris, looks at the causes of the Franco-Tunisian crisis, finding it to be ultimately the result, as with Britain's lesser difficulty in Cyprus, of the least studied great change in the era of great changes, only occurring among the Western democracies and without past precedent, that being the advent of the distaste by the Western democratic empires for expedient massacres to put down any hint of dissidence, a primary reason for the end of democratic imperialism. Another was the notion that the new nationalism of the modern age could not be defeated. But that notion was silly nonsense as anyone could see after the Communists had put down the revolt in Hungary in fall, 1956. Any nation which had the power to do so and was willing to commit a massacre when necessary could still hold another nation in subjection in the present age as in the past.
But a nation could not hold another in subjection if it was only willing to make war on its subjects "legally" and according to a set of rules. The dissidents might be a small minority, as the French maintained the Algerian rebels were. Great forces might be deployed against the rebels, as the French had done, but no amount of force or toughness or determination would bring success as long as the mere pretense was maintained that "law-abiding subjects" were safe. As long as that was the theory, the rebels, or at least enough of them, could not be located and killed and thus the rebel organization survived. The rebels meanwhile had no qualms about killing anyone and thus a few thousand rebels might inspire more fear among the inert masses than a vast imperial army. In the end, even the most "loyal" members of the subjected people, fearing the rebels more than their masters, would wind up serving the rebels in secret, and under those circumstances, no rebellion could ever be finally suppressed.
Mr. Alsop regards those as the hard underlying facts of the present situation of the Western nations which had grown great as empires. Because the facts were cruel, they were not being faced. Westerners were too soft-spoken at present to say forthrightly that they wanted to keep the peoples in subjection and commit an occasional massacre to do so, and if they did not want to do so, the peoples had to be set free. The failure to face those facts always had led to highly irrational and immensely costly compromises, and because those compromises were costly and irrational, they produced such episodes as the Franco-Tunisian crisis.
A letter writer from Patrick Air
Force Base in Florida responds to a letter of February 12 from a
Mecklenburg high school student, complaining about the
standardization process of education in the country, producing
children who were unoriginal and were no longer taught how to think
but rather what to think. The writer finds that he had missed the
point. He was a graduate of Myers Park High School in Charlotte and
says he thought pretty much the same way as the letter writer when he
had graduated, that it had taken the Air Force's basic training to
show him that what was needed was a series of set forms to go by at
first, with basic training designed to make a "Tin Soldier"
out of the individual, but that if the individual remained "uniform"
in thought and action, he would soon be forced out of the service,
with the person with initiative being the one who got ahead. He finds
it the same in civilian life, citing the great men of the country,
such as Abraham Lincoln, who had attended a school denounced by his
father as being a "Blab School", where everything was
taught by rote and rod. In the British public schools, everyone
marched in straight lines to and from everything, and the privileges
were strictly limited. In private schools all over the world,
discipline was like nothing encountered in U.S. public schools, and
yet those schools had produced many great men. He suggests that the
men who were "uniform" because of the training they
received and who then turned that training to their own use, made
"their mark on the Big Board
Well, what the hell do you know, then? Why are you advising this high school student, Mr. Air Force? You haven't even been to college yet. Go take flight…
A letter writer from Rock Hill,
S.C., says that man was the eternal tourist and that lucky was the
family who could close down the furnace, call the delivery boy to
stop the paper, plan to slow down the food purchases to lighten the
icebox, do a little travel cost computing and head for the warmth of
open breezes and clear, sunny skies of Florida. But the cold wave had
also hit Florida and he says that his thoughts returned to the Lumbee
Indians around Lumberton and Maxton and what the Seminoles would have
done to a white-sheeted meeting in the Everglades. "Ruined
fruit, the sad face of a luckless grove owner who was less worried
about the loss of thousands of boxes of citrus than the possible
permanent injury to his brown and lifeless orange trees. The ruined
truck farms geometrically stretching as far as the eye can see passed
by." He says that soon they headed back toward the snow of the
Carolinas hoping that Helios would beam some other February over the
hibiscus and neon lights of the hotel-crowded shores
Framed Edition
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