The Charlotte News
Wednesday, February 19, 1958
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from Thomasville, Ga., that the President, still on vacation, had asked the Congress this date for 3.9 billion dollars in foreign aid, indicating that any sharp cut in it would lead to a massive defense spending increase, higher taxes and heavily increased draft calls. (Take note, stupid, little, short-sighted Trumpies who have never met a history book they liked other than Mein Kampf.) In a special message cautioning against threats from the Soviet Union and Communist China, the President had also said that deep reductions would leave the country eventually beleaguered in a world dominated by international Communism. He called the foreign aid plan a deterrent to general nuclear war, saying, "For the safety of our families, for the future of our children and our continued existence as a nation, we cannot afford to slacken our support of the mutual security program." Some members of the House and some Senators wanted to make sharp cuts to foreign aid, particularly economic aid. Fully aware of that opposition, the President pushed especially hard for enactment of his proposed program, which entailed 2.6 billion dollars for military aid and related defense support, with the balance mainly for economic aid. In pushing for economic assistance for newly independent countries, the President noted that the Soviet Union and the Communist bloc nations were seeking to lure those countries with offers of aid.
In Nashville, Tenn., efforts by the local School Board to use a three-school, parents' preference plan in the state's new pupil assignment law in school desegregation, had been denied in Federal court.
In Jakarta, Indonesia, the Army's chief had banned political and military organizations in central Sumatra and other rebel points seeking the overthrow of the Jakarta Government, a decree not expected to have much effect.
In Naples, Italy, ground patrols reached the wreckage of a U.S. Air Force C-47 transport plane on Mount Vesuvius this date and reported by radio that all of its 16 passengers were dead.
In Norfolk, it was reported that 27 crewmen who had abandoned a sinking Italian freighter had been pitched into the stormy Atlantic when their lifeboat had capsized the previous night as a rescue ship sought to bring them aboard. Three of them had been saved and 24 were swept away by 20-foot seas. Throughout the night, a passenger liner and three Navy destroyer escorts, plus a French steamship, had searched in vain for the missing men, made more difficult by poor visibility. The freighter had carried a cargo of manganese and when first reached by the passenger liner, had been reported to be still afloat "but down by the head, with numbers one and two holds flooded." The message had said that it might be possible to tow the freighter to port if it remained afloat and the weather was moderate during the day.
Near Chicago, five men had been killed and another was reported missing after a violent explosion and fire early this date in the Reynolds Metals Co. plant in suburban McCook.
In Hopewell, Va., a quarter million dollar fire had burned a small hotel and drugstore building this date before being quenched by the efforts of some 40 firemen.
In Seattle, it was reported that the mothballed aircraft carrier U.S.S. Tinian had bucked out of the control of a Navy tugboat on the stormy Pacific for more than two hours the previous night before the tugboats and a Coast Guard cutter had brought it to heel again. The carrier was being towed to San Diego with a skeleton crew.
In Nice, France, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill remained in bed at his Riviera vacation villa this date after what was described as a slight chill. His secretary said that he was "perfectly comfortable".
The season's coldest and stormiest weather in the Eastern half of the nation appeared easing in some sections this date, but the overall picture was still not good. There was no relief in the task of snow removal in the storm-battered Northeast and other areas hit by record snowfall over the weekend. Business and industry were seeking to restore operations to normal while relief work continued for the countless thousands who had suffered misery and inconvenience from the weather, with reports of isolated rural villages, marooned farmers, fuel and food shortages, while transportation was hit hard. The economic loss was expected to run into the millions. Although temperatures had moderated somewhat in central parts of the country, the longest stretch of cold weather had persisted in most of the Eastern half, with a light snow and wind gusts hampering snow removal from Michigan and the lower Great Lakes region eastward through much of New York and Pennsylvania, into interior sections of New England. The latest death count attributed to the weather was 209 across 23 states, including Missouri, Iowa, and Alabama, plus the Eastern states. In Washington, thousands of Government workers who had been off the job Monday and Tuesday after the city's worst snowstorm in 22 years, were expected to return to work this date.
Gradual warming had brought some cheer to North Carolina after it had suffered since Saturday its worst general freeze in 50 years. For the first time since the weekend, Charlotte's temperature rose above freezing, and Mt. Mitchell recorded its first reading above zero for the same time period. The cold wave had caused 11 deaths in the state, had set an all-time low temperature mark for the state of 23 below zero at Mt. Mitchell, and had closed schools in 40 of the 100 counties. At noon this date in Charlotte, the mercury had risen to 32 while the morning low had been eight. The forecast low for the following morning was 15, to be accompanied by 40 in the afternoon. After that, the temperature would rise, thus ending the coldest weather in the city in 18 years. The Weather Bureau predicted a gradual warming, with little or no precipitation through the following Monday. The 8 degrees of this date had set a new low record for the date, eclipsing the 14.5 degrees set in 1900. Mecklenburg County schools had been closed this date as they had been the previous day, but City schools were operating normally. It had been 23 in Charleston, S.C., during the morning, 17 in Wilmington, 13 at Cape Hatteras, 10 in Hickory, 12 in Greensboro, and 13 in Winston-Salem.
In Greensboro, N.C., a U.S. District Court Judge this date had denied a defense motion for a directed verdict of acquittal in the case against Junius Scales, former leader of the Communist Party in the Carolinas and Tennessee, on trial for violation of the Smith Act, that is teaching or advocating the overthrow of the Government by force or violence. His counsel had argued that the Government's evidence had been insufficient to enable the case to reach the jury. The defense said it hoped to complete its case, which would be comprised mainly of the reading of various documents into the record, late this date.
Dick Young of The News reports that the Zoning Board of Adjustment was out of adjustment and apparently would stay that way for awhile, the result of appointments made the previous week by the City Council.
Jerry Reece of The News reports that the Charlotte Jaycees had joined the Charlotte Optimist Club in a drive for a park to be situated next to the Public Library, the move having been announced the previous night in a special Jaycees board meeting.
In Fayetteville, N.C., where it had been seven the previous day and 15 during the current morning, two employees were on duty at the Colonial Ice plant at 3:00 a.m. when a man, wearing a mask, entered with a pistol, saying it was a holdup and that he wanted all the money from the cash register. One of the employees turned to the register and its open drawer, pointed to the empty till and announced in a strong, emphatic stage voice: "There ain't none." The bandit took small amounts of change from each of the men and exited, cursing dirtily, into the freezing night. They should have at least offered him a block of ice for his trouble.
On the editorial page, "Approve Welfare Board's Salary Plan" indicates that the State Merit System Council wanted to know what the County Commission thought about the County Welfare Board's proposal to raise salary limits in the Mecklenburg Department of Public Welfare.
It indicates that there were other agencies, committees and officials which had a say in the matter. The Welfare Board sought authority to provide the superintendent, Wallace Kuralt, with a raise of $3,000 per year, but it was actually only to raise the maximum salary permissible for the position and did not mean that it wanted necessarily to raise Mr. Kuralt's salary by that amount. It believed, however, and the piece agrees, that Mr. Kuralt deserved a raise on the basis of services being presently rendered, as his responsibilities had increased and would likely increase further in the future.
The issue was to give the Board and Commission more room to retain the services of an official or a successor, with the responsibility of spending 3.75 million dollars of public funds annually, approximately half of which came from County funds. It finds it unrealistic to maintain a state salary limit preventing local superiors from paying the superintendent what they thought he was worth.
Welfare expenditures were large and increasing while the supply of qualified administrators was small, and, if anything, decreasing. Only the three largest urban counties in the state, including Mecklenburg, were denied discretion in setting their welfare superintendent's salaries once the current limit was reached. Smaller counties were permitted to pay superintendents within the limits assigned to them or to pay within the next higher range. Thus superintendents with a much smaller caseload and responsibility could receive the same salary as was paid by Mecklenburg, Forsyth and Guilford Counties, where the volume of welfare work was highest. It imposed an unfair handicap on the large counties in procuring and maintaining qualified superintendents.
It concludes that the County Commission should endorse the proposal of the Board to raise the salary limit.
"The Issue Will Be a Little Late" indicates that the fire which had destroyed the home, library, office, files, subscription lists and all other physical appurtenances of the Carolina Israelite, published by Harry Golden, was hardly reason for him to call it quits. He had said: "I'm destroyed. All my years of work are lost."
It wonders how indeed a paper was to stay in business when it had lost the names of its subscribers, particularly when those subscribers were scattered across the country and the world, not pretending to know. But then, they also could not know how an immigrant from New York's East Side could succeed in establishing in Charlotte a provocative journal of personal opinion which performed gentle battle with some of the area's prevailing attitude. It finds the answer wrapped up in the genial personality and remarkably perceptive mind of Mr. Golden.
"The Israelite is a reflection of that personality and mind, and the mechanical paraphernalia involved in producing it is the least part of it."
It finds grief not to become Mr. Golden, not even when it resulted from the destruction of his beloved books, letters from the great and unknown, and notes made from innumerable hours of reading, saved against the day when he might need an idea for a new article or book. It indicates that the next issue of the Israelite would be a little late, but that the next issue was always late, and it would expect to see it even if it was printed on wrapping paper with the stub of a lead pencil.
"A Merger?" indicates that after announcing that the North Carolina Klan was "going underground", James "Catfish" Cole, its Grand Dragon, had declared that he intended to begin holding "evangelistic" services instead of rallies.
It finds that it had been temporarily heartening until they noticed that Mr. Cole did not specify whose gospel he intended to evangelize. "There is considerable religious belief that an 'underground' kingdom already exists, and that it has evangels a'plenty. Has Mr. Cole engaged in another merger?"
"Hound's Teeth Need Some Brushing" indicates that during the 1952 presidential campaign, General Eisenhower demanded that his running mate, Mr. Nixon, come "clean as a hound's tooth" of any corruption charges lodged against him, and had also spoken of a "crusade" to restore high standards of morality and integrity to the Government.
The President had given evidence on several occasions since that time that he was without cynicism in those remarks, having accepted and perhaps requested the resignations of several high officials tainted by charges of impropriety.
The previous week, the White House had spurned any association with the $100,000 Republican campaign fund solicited from Texas oil men for the purpose of securing passage of the natural gas bill, and the RNC had quickly followed suit.
But the House Republican Campaign Committee and the Senate Republican Campaign Committee had failed to see anything improper in accepting all they could get of the money from the fund, effectively holding that the President's standards were too exacting and that there was nothing wrong with wealthy men shopping for a special piece of legislation.
It finds it distressing to see Republican Congressmen turning loose of the President's coattails on which many of them had ridden into office, and suggests that it would be interesting to see how many of them would campaign during the current midterm election year on the basis that the President needed them to uphold his program.
"Meantime, the hound's teeth in the congressional jaw of the GOP look a mite dingy."
Johnny Ringo, it appears, agreed
A piece from the Mattoon (Ill.) Journal-Gazette, titled "What about Left Field?" indicates that the question facing major league baseball fans during the year was not who was on first but "What about left field?" The left field in question was in Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, home of the former Brooklyn Dodgers, just moved to Los Angeles "to find gold but discovered only headaches."
The Coliseum's foul line measured 250 feet and the Dodgers said that the fence at that point would be topped by a 40-foot screen. But other National League pitchers and some baseball fans said that such a barrier was insufficient to stop major league homerun hitters. Meanwhile, the right-handed batters in the Dodgers lineup just stood around and grinned.
The shape of the ballpark had raised the old argument regarding standardization of all major league parks, so as not to favor the home club or left-handed or right-handed hitters. The present rule said that 250 feet was the minimum distance which a homerun ball had to travel, but to many major league sluggers, that distance was only a good putt.
As many fans who had gone to Chicago's Comiskey Park to see the Yankees play were aware, the White Sox had a symmetrical field which was a ball yard designed for major league performers, with each foul line measuring 352 feet and the center field fence, 415 feet away from home plate and just barely visible above the horizon. White Sox fans claimed that their favorite players were at a disadvantage when at home, where a homerun was a real feat, while on the road, the home team capitalized on the oddities of their local park. They claimed that it was one reason the White Sox had not won a pennant since 1917.
In view of the 250-foot foul line in Los Angeles, a move to standardize major league parks, it asserts, appeared worthwhile.
Or, to equalize things, you could allow NBA franchises to raise their goals or lower them at will, such that some venues would have six-foot goals, while others would have 14-foot rims, and, in the NFL, allow franchises to play on fields of their choice as to area and distances, with some measuring 350 yards by 10 yards across, others 33 yards by 45 yards across, and with varying measurements also for kicking field goals, with some crossbars being placed a hundred feet off the ground at one end of the field, while at the other, being only a foot off the ground. No one could complain, as each team would change sides of the field at halftime.
Drew Pearson indicates that Jack Porter, the Texas RNC member who had bragged about the $100,000 political fund to get the natural gas bill passed, had caused various headaches for the White House. He had first entered the headlines in 1952, when Senator James Duff of Pennsylvania had gone to obtain Eisenhower delegates for the Chicago convention, and his friendly relationship with Mr. Porter had caused Congressman John Bennett, another early Eisenhower booster, to call Senator Duff on the phone, asking whether the Senator was in Texas to obtain delegates or to put Mr. Porter on the front pages, to which the Senator replied that Mr. Bennett was in Washington and he was in Texas, ending the friendship between the two Eisenhower supporters.
Mr. Porter had gotten into the news again when General Eisenhower had written him a famous "Dear Jack" letter promising that tidelands oil would go to Texas. Oilman Sid Richardson had made a special trip to Paris to sell the General on tidelands oil, a cue for Texas oil millionaires to contribute large amounts of money to the campaign in 1952. Later, they had reason to gripe because the Justice Department under the President had not gone along with the entire tidelands giveaway.
Mr. Porter had continued in the good graces of the President and he had even talked to Helen Reed, then publisher of the New York Herald Tribune, about the campaign to make Mr. Porter national committeeman from Texas in opposition to Henry Zweifel.
But eventually, Mr. Porter's propensity for writing letters had begun to worry the White House, as the recent letter seeking the $100,000 from a testimonial dinner for House Minority Leader Joseph Martin of Massachusetts, for the purpose of passing the natural gas bill, had not been his first letter-writing faux pas. Mr. Porter had also written every postmaster and Federal job-holder in Texas in 1954, asking them to contribute to the Republicans for the cost of "processing" a job, many considering it to have been a violation of the Hatch Act, though the Justice Department had done nothing about it.
Close to Roy Cullen, the big Texas oil man, Mr. Porter had splashed money all over the country for various candidates and it was never fully known whether he was contributing for himself or for Mr. Cullen. One of his most famous contributions had been $5,000 to the Senatorial campaign of John Butler of Maryland when the late Senator Joseph McCarthy had helped Mr. Butler defeat incumbent Senator Millard Tydings with a composite photograph showing the latter with a former head of the American Communist Party.
Mr. Pearson notes that at the 1956 inaugural of the President, Mr. Porter, upset over the Justice Department's backtrack on tidelands oil and unhappy over other matters, had not come to Washington to see his old friend sworn in for a second term.
John Ashton had resigned as president of the Men's Republican League when other Republicans invited Gerald L. K. Smith to be the Lincoln Day speaker at the League's luncheon in San Diego, saying that Mr. Smith's anti-Semitic views were out of harmony with those of former President Lincoln.
General Julius Klein, the Chicago lobbyist, had been boasting that he could deliver Congressman Emanuel Celler of Brooklyn and had gotten Mr. Celler to insert a laudatory remark on Mr. Klein in the Congressional Record to prove it.
Despite internal troubles in Indonesia, the popular Ambassador to the U.S. continued to run one of the most efficient embassies in Washington.
Sherman Adams, White House chief of staff, indicated that if he ever quit the White House, the presidency of a university was open to him, presumably Dartmouth in his native state of New Hampshire, where he had been Governor.
Norman Thomas, preaching at All Souls Church recently, had said: "It's easy to write profiles in courage about men who are dead. What we need is profiles of courage among men who are living." The author of the Pulitzer Prize winning book, Profiles in Courage, Mr. Pearson notes, was Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts.
Over 75 Congressmen from industrial areas, including both Democrats and Republicans, had signed a petition urging the President that he do something about rising unemployment.
Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona had made so many speeches against labor racketeers that he had placed three strong locks on the door of his apartment at the Westchester, afraid that someone would bump him off. (He was a member of the Senate Select Committee investigating misconduct among the unions and management, with special emphasis on the Teamsters.)
Stewart Alsop indicates that there was no question that there would be a major Administration-sponsored tax cut if the economic downturn continued, the question being how large it would be and who would benefit from it. It would mean not only a deficit but possibly the largest deficit in U.S. peacetime history and thus the President and his primary advisers were hoping that such a measure to revive the economy could be avoided, that the President's optimistic statements about the economy and a soft-money policy, plus some judicious pump-priming, would enable the economy to rebound. But the auguries for that were not good.
Immediately following the President's statement the prior Wednesday, the stock market had fallen again and Presidential optimism had usually proved ineffective. The President was pictured as determined to do whatever was needed to prevent a serious and prolonged economic downturn. And a major tax cut was in that category of things.
The President would rely on the advice of the National Economic Council in determining what such a tax cut would look like. The Council was led by Secretary of the Treasury Robert Anderson who had proposed it to the President, and other regular members were Raymond Saulnier, Gabriel Hauge and Federal Reserve Board chairman William Martin. The group met informally because of Mr. Martin's membership, as the Federal Reserve Board was legally independent of the executive branch and it had been a favorite charge of Republicans during the Truman Administration that the White House and the Treasury were attempting to dominate the Federal Reserve. For that reason, former Secretary of the Treasury George Humphrey had never met regularly with Mr. Martin and the President at the same time. But while the economic crisis was ongoing, the group was expected to meet at the White House frequently.
Secretary Anderson was the key figure in the group, as he would have the last word with the President, who had great confidence in him. He was a conservative and the prospect of presiding over a record-breaking deficit was therefore abhorrent to him. Yet, presiding over a major depression was even more abhorrent and he was known to believe that a tax cut would have a more immediate revivifying effect on the economy than any other measure. He was also known to believe that if there had to be a tax cut, it had to be done in a major way. Guesses were that it would range up to around 5 billion dollars.
The Democrats showed signs of proposing a tax cut of their own, but might hesitate to do so as the size of the ensuing deficit could then be blamed on their "fiscal irresponsibility", while the Administration could take credit for any resulting economic upturn.
The tax cut would likely be a compromise between that for individual taxpayers as a stimulus to consumption, as favored by Democrats such as Senator Paul Douglas of Illinois, and one to stimulate investment for business favored by Administration conservatives. Regardless of its type, it would mean a large deficit and the present forecast of a balanced budget was based on the assumptions of a continuing rise in national income.
The Democratic leadership in Congress was likely to insist on a sharp increase in defense spending of about 2 billion dollars or more, which, added to a 5 billion dollar tax cut, would make the deficits of the New Deal years pale. And yet the President would likely choose a large deficit should a serious recession appear as the only alternative.
Mr. Alsop indicates that the President might not be much of a student of history, but remembered what had happened both to the Republican Party and the personal popularity of President Hoover resulting from the Depression. He was reported to be determined that he would not go down in history as another depression President, another reason that a major tax cut appeared as the likely remedy.
Doris Fleeson indicates that Republicans who had recently had their troubles with fund-raising dinners could relax, as the Democrats were about to surpass them. Governor Orval Faubus of Arkansas had notified the DNC that he and friends would be on hand on Saturday to help pay tribute to Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson and Harry Truman at the annual $100 per plate dinner in Washington.
Former President Truman, DNC chairman Paul Butler, Governor Averell Harriman of New York and practically all Democrats had reacted as if they already believed they had been bitten by a poisonous snake, as they would not sit at the same table with Governor Faubus or acknowledge his presence. They were aware that his presence would focus attention on the civil rights divide within the Democratic Party and detract from their assault on the opposition. The Governor was placing on the spot every Southerner who wanted to be loyal to the party and pursue moderation. Yet all of the established protocol of politics dictated not only the Governor's right to attend the dinner but also protected his gubernatorial prerogatives. Some governors, such as Governor Harriman, could sit with Mr. Truman at the head table on the sound basis that they were prominent members of his official family. The remainder, by established practice, would receive equal respect regarding attention, seating position on the floor and related honors.
The personal motivations of Governor Faubus were entirely clear. He wanted to break the third-term jinx which had hitherto prevailed in Arkansas and was taking the opportunity to pose as a great white supremacy knight being challenged, insulted and mistreated by Yankees. He was already under attack by State Attorney General Bruce Bennett, a hopeful rival for the gubernatorial nomination, for being an expedient, temporary segregationist, charging the Governor had only become recently a convert to white supremacy, a cause to which Mr. Bennett said that he had been dedicated since infancy.
The record showed that nothing helped a bloody-shirt Democrat in the South more than assaults from the Eastern press and Yankees generally. The late Senator Theodore Bilbo of Mississippi should have picked up the check for the New York dinners given to denouncing his life and works, she suggests. The more Governor Faubus was cold-shouldered in Washington, the more it would probably help him at home, and it appeared to be the only reason why he was attending.
Managers of the dinner were hoping that the Governor was bluffing and would not face the coldness of fellow Democrats in Washington where no one had raised a voice in defense of his actions during the prior fall at Little Rock's Central High School, deploying the Arkansas National Guard to prevent the admission of nine black students, until the President had federalized the Guard and brought in Army troops to enforce the Federal District Court order to proceed with integration. If no other reason existed, the adverse impact of Little Rock on foreign policy ensured that Governor Faubus was bad news in Washington. She concludes that there was still no evidence, however, that he would not appear on Saturday.
A letter writer indicates that former Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson had become famous by saying that what was good for General Motors was good for the country, and that the letter writer had come up with an idea for something good for both G.M. and Charlotte, to cut down all the trees and hedges in front and on the west side of the post office, then pave the entire area, make entrances and exits on West Trade Street, South Mint Street, and West 4th Street, then provide parking space for about 63 automobiles. He suggests that if Postmaster General Arthur Summerfield would borrow one of the President's helicopters and fly to Charlotte, hover over the post office early in the morning, he would see an awful traffic situation, as all types of businesses sought to get into the post office to obtain their mail from their boxes.
A letter writer from Southern Pines indicates that it had been on the brink of the "little Lumbee at the close of a woeful day," that "Catfish Cole and his one hundred Klanners quietly slipped away." They were faced with 2,000 "braves" and had "wailed, shirked, and bled for such was the call of Robeson County, when the Kluxers met the reds. Of the Kluxers, there were one hundred skunks under the sun. But of the braves, there were two thousand and warriors every one."
Actually the number of Lumbee Indians had been estimated at 200 rather than 2,000. The letter writer, it should be further noted, obviously meant no disrespect by using terms which are no longer in vogue with regard to American Indians or, if you prefer, Native Americans. The terms, as with all such terms which have become offensive to many, have to respond to context of both time of use and the manner in which they are used before becoming racially charged. In the above context, he meant them, obviously, respectfully. The Lumbee Indians, historically, being of mixed blood, have always been among the more pacific of those who racially identify as Indians. The Lumbees remain unrecognized, however, as an official tribe by the U.S. Government, and thus not entitled to the same benefits and protections as other tribes.
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