The Charlotte News
Friday, February 28, 1958
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that a member of the House subcommittee investigating the FCC had told commissioner Richard Mack to his face this date that the greatest service he could render would be to resign from the Commission. He made no immediate response to the suggestion by Representative John Moss of California, occurring during the second day of questioning of Mr. Mack surrounding the charge of influence having been exerted on him to vote for the award of a television channel in Miami. Mr. Mack had insisted that he had done nothing wrong and told reporters the previous day that he would not resign. Under questioning by Mr. Moss, Mr. Mack had testified that he had taken the word of the Miami attorney, his childhood friend, as to arrangements which the attorney had made to provide him with an interest in an insurance agency in Miami and with the sole ownership of a holding company, indicating that he did not question or check the amounts paid to him due on the participating interest he owned in the insurance agency.
The New York Times said that the Air Force had received approval the previous day for a new project to produce an advanced type of ballistic missile, the range of which could be varied between 500 and 5,500 miles.
In Tokyo, a Japanese Air Force general this date confirmed testimony before a U.S. Congressional committee that the U.S. had sent Japan more Sabre jet fighters than Japan had pilots, but predicted that Japan would have enough "crack jet pilots" by 1960.
In Singapore, delayed reports this date said that eight persons, including three children, had been killed and that 24 had been wounded the prior weekend when Indonesian Air Force planes had bombed Menado, the capital of the rebellious North Celebes government.
In New York, U.S. Steel Corp. this date described the report on steel industry prices by Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee and the majority of the Antitrust subcommittee he chaired as "a thoroughly biased and distorted view of the testimony."
In South Bend, Ind., the head of the AFL-CIO ethical practices committee said this date that organized labor had gone further than business or other segments of American life to establish "standards of ethical behavior".
In Prestonsburg, Ky., a school bus carrying some 40 youngsters had collided with a truck, sideswiped an automobile, then plunged into the rain-swollen Levisa fork of Big Sandy River this date, with State police indicating that more than 20 children and the bus driver might have died in the accident. Ten of the youngsters had escaped by climbing through the rear door before the bus had sunk. The last girl out of the bus managed to save herself by grabbing the foot of a man on the bank. State police quoted one of the rescued children as saying that at least 19 children and the bus driver had still been on the bus when it submerged. The bus had been carrying students to elementary and high schools in Prestonsburg from an area in the southern part of the county, a mining community. The State police said that the bus had skidded to the edge of the bank, then rolled into the water. Rescue workers had begun dragging the river but had been unable to locate the bus, which had sunk in about 30 feet of water. The principal of the high school said that the bus driver, about 28, had been with the county system for more than five years.
In Easton, Md., an explosion and fire had rocked a barge unloading gasoline the previous night, killing three men and injuring another, with a fifth man having escaped injury.
Rains, tidal flooding, heavy snow and strong winds had sliced through the North and North Central portions of the country this date, with some families having been evacuated from their homes along the Connecticut shoreline, and a number of coastal roads having flooded. New York City had more than 3 inches of rain during the previous 24 hours, compared with an average of 3.13 inches for the whole month of February. The downpour was accompanied by rising temperatures, coming just as the area had been recovering from a heavy snow and a protracted cold wave, with rapidly melting snow adding to the flood dangers. Four feet of water in a Brooklyn subway had forced rerouting of Fourth Avenue local trains. The New Haven Railroad reported that 35 cars of a 121-car freight train had been derailed near the Newtown-Brookfield Town line in Connecticut during the storm. (Don't tell the nut out in Austin, Tex., about it, or he will, no doubt, regard it as a Government conspiracy concocted by President Obama, still in office.) Blizzard conditions from the western Dakotas southward through western and central Nebraska and into western and central Kansas had been reported, with snow depths reaching more than a foot in some areas. Near-zero temperatures added to the discomfort of the snow and stiff winds in some sections, with readings ranging from near zero in western North Dakota to the teens in northwestern Kansas. A school bus with an undetermined number of children aboard had been reported missing for a time the previous day near Tacoma, Kans., about 30 miles north of Russell, where more than 7 inches of snow had fallen.
In Charlotte the temperature reached
the high 60's this date with sunny skies, and birds chirping in the
early morning, such that it was suddenly spring, at least for a
little while. As the accompanying pictures suggest, it permitted the children to go outside and busy themselves with nothing to do
Donald MacDonald of The News reports that a war on "chasers", soft drinks used with, or after, whiskey, was shaping up in Charlotte this date as the latest feature of the ABC director's "letter of the law" crackdown, with drive-in restaurant operators whose curb boys had in the past served customers soft drinks caught in the middle, such that they could not even serve a cup of ice anymore, according to one drive-in restaurant operator. He said that they had been told that any consumption of whiskey on the premises meant that their beer license would be revoked and they did not know for sure whether a person was going to mix whiskey with a Coke or ginger ale or ice, and so they could not risk the chance. In a telephone survey conducted by the newspaper, it was found that none of the ten drive-in operators wanted to be quoted on the matter, but that the situation was generally the same at most major "curb service" restaurants. The ABC Malt Beverage Division inspectors had visited most of the drive-ins and had issued a stern warning, and the operators indicated that loss of "chaser" or "set-up" business was not as drastic as loss of a license to sell beer. Two of the city's bottling companies were included in the survey, but only one had been reached for comment, indicating that their business had not yet been affected but might soon be.
Dick Young of The News reports that the first move for a new Southern Railway passenger station off North Tryon Street just north of Keswick Avenue had occurred this date at a conference in City Hall, where instructions were issued by the vice-president of the Southern Railway for preparation of tentative floor plans for the new station and of a track layout to serve the station, with City Manager Henry Yancey leaving the conference shortly before noon to make an announcement to the press of the first official, even though tentative, plans to relocate the "Gay 90's" station on West Trade Street to the new location. Mr. Yancey said that the new station would not be "another Grand Central Station" but would be attractive, of modern design and adequate for the needs.
In Hollywood, actress Sharon Lee said that she would not except Tony Vito's $500,000 trust fund offer if she decided to marry him, indicating that she did not want that kind of publicity or the money. Mr. Vito, a fruit grower with reportedly extensive holdings in California's San Joaquin Valley, had said Wednesday that his marriage proposal had included the trust fund offer. Meanwhile, in Medford, Mass., a woman claimed to be the wife of Mr. Vito and that his real name was Orlandella. The mother of two children said that she and Mr. Vito had been married in a Boston Catholic Church ten years earlier, and that despite four years of separation, there could be no thought of divorce because of her religion. Mr. Vito had responded that he was prepared to renounce his Roman Catholic faith to obtain a divorce and marry Ms. Lee, if she would have him. He said that he believed in all the teachings of the Catholic Church except those on divorce and birth control.
In Copenhagen, a man's farm home had burned down the previous night after the fire engine he had sent for had a short circuit, caught fire and burned.
In Chicago, a businesswoman told police this date that she had discovered that she had paid $101.25 for a two dollar taxicab ride from The Loop to her North Side home, having given the driver what she thought were to one dollar bills for the fare, plus a 25-cent tip.
On the editorial page, "Ike's Disability Scheme Is Defective" indicates that as long as the Administration kept secret the details of its "understanding" with the Vice-President and others in the White House as to what would happen in the event of another disability of the President, the plan had to be regarded as without merit, even though in fact it might have great merit.
Commendably, the President had refused to take a blind eye to the implications of his three illnesses since his heart attack of September, 1955, and the fact that there were three years still remaining in his term. He had asked Congress to prescribe for the constitutional vacuum regarding the steps to be followed to maintain executive power function in the event that the President could not function for himself. In the face of Congressional inaction, the President, the Vice-President and "others around" the President had reached their own understanding, but the Administration plan, whatever it was, had the defect that the understanding was confined to the White House, when there was a basic need for legislation or a constitutional amendment to establish a universal understanding and thus acceptance of a system for transfer of executive power in such events.
It finds his description of the "understanding" as workable at his press conference two days earlier to be excessively optimistic in view of the struggles for advantage which inevitably occurred when the Presidency or any other position of power ceased to function. There had to be a clearly defined system of orderly discharge of executive power in reasonably foreseeable emergencies, prescribed by Congress in one form or another.
It finds that the chief benefit of the arrangement described by the President was that it might spur Congress to fulfill its responsibilities in the matter, to avoid crises at the time of a disability, three of which had occurred during the previous 2 1/2 years.
"Give Mack the Ear, Then the Boot" finds that there had been sudden righteous demands in Congress that FCC commissioner Richard Mack be ousted immediately unless he were to resign, which he had indicated refusal to do.
It has no doubt that Mr. Mack had to go, but wonders what the hurry was, as he obviously regarded his record as being defensible in the face of demands from both friend and foe that he was not fit to hold the office, suggests he ought be given every opportunity to defend himself, encouraged to elucidate the philosophy of public service which permitted him to borrow money from an attorney seeking to influence his vote on the award of a television channel in Miami. It finds it possible that he believed, as he had testified, that his judgment was beyond being influenced by such an entanglement.
Other members of the Commission, including the chairman, had indicated that their integrity was impervious to influence from television stations and industry associations which had paid them expense money and performed other favors. If that belief really existed on the part of those members, it ought be placed in the record as an instructive commentary on the flabby state of political morality in an immensely powerful agency, with the resulting record used as a basis for legislation to provide for legal proceedings against any commissioner who accepted favors from anyone even remotely connected with the industry being regulated.
It indicates that the regulatory agencies had to be placed not only above connivance but, insofar as possible, above suspicion. Having invited suspicion and defended his course in doing so, Mr. Mack clearly had no place on the FCC. But if getting his job was all House investigators had intended to obtain from the current probe, it was not worth it, as what had to be rooted out was the idea that faithful performance of the regulatory agency could rest on nothing more substantial than the sturdy protestations of piety and the right political affiliations of its members.
"Peckerwood" indicates that there had been a reference in City government to a local street being pitted as if a "peckerwood" had been hammering on it. It suggest that it should be explained that the expression had been handed down carefully from a misted past, that it was part of Southern Americana ranking with "A-model" and "widder woman".
"In fact, our fury at those who might chuckle at peckerwood leaves us tied-tongue."
"They Don't Write Songs Like Before" indicates that a distraught Chicago Daily News reporter had written: "Any doddering senior citizen whose own wooing was done with the aid of such tunes as 'Stardust', 'Moon over Miami', 'Moonglow', and so forth, can't help but draw a blank in the face of today's songs. Now popular songs are unintelligible to anyone over 21. Cupid talks straight gobbledygook in 1958."
It finds him correct, that they did
not write songs the way they once had. It recalls the "tender
strains" of "Flat Foot Floogie with a Floy Floy",
suggesting that it was entirely intelligible, as had been the "Hut
Sut Song", along with the meaningful lyrics of "The Three
Little Fishes" and "The Music Goes Round"
Then there were such gems of "simple
sweetness" as "Ja Da", "Voom Voom",
"Skid Da De Dat", "Wa Wa Da", "Wah-Wah
Gal"
It finds something especially touching about "Shimme-Sha-Wobble", "Piggly Wiggly", "That Da-Da Strain", "Zonky", "Nagasaki", "Tishimingo", "Wang Wang Blues" and "Beau Koo Jack".
It indicates that its favorite was
"The Heebie Jeebies"
A piece from the Wichita Falls (Tex.) Times, titled "The Malady of 'Getting Fired'", indicates that the Texas Medical Association had taken a scientific interest in the malady known as "getting fired". From an expert in the field, 480 doctors at a recent meeting of the Association had heard the formula that in nine of ten cases, the affliction was plain laziness, to one of incompetence, according to Dr. Kenneth McFarland, educational consultant of General Motors, former guest lecturer for Reader's Digest.
The latter had said that a survey showed that 90 percent of the people who got fired lost their positions for reasons which did not remotely pertain to know-how, with laziness leading the list, occurring for people who did not get to work often enough, did not get there on time often enough and did not do enough work after they got there. Several types of characteristics marked the people who lost their jobs, not for lack of qualifications or ability, but under the broad classification of laziness. Some of them had poor health, poor personalities, or bad dispositions. They talked too much, were careless, unreliable, untidy and intemperate. Indifference to the job, unwillingness to put out the requisite effort, made up the common denominator.
The medical consultant added that immorality was another cause of vocational failure, "a basic breakdown of character", with disloyalty also ranking high in the reasons, with its expression occurring through the whole range of "symptoms of job indifference, physical and mental laziness."
It concludes that maybe the doctors would come up with a vaccine for the laziness virus, with production then being needed on a substantial scale.
Drew Pearson indicates that the recession weighed heavily on much of the Midwest, that in a quick trip through parts of Indiana, Ohio, and West Virginia, Mr. Pearson had seen men lined up in the cold outside the Indianapolis unemployment relief office in the early morning with over an hour to wait before the office opened, and by the time it did, the line had stretched half a block long. The General Motors Allison plant at Indianapolis normally employed about 18,000 men, but those with up to 12 years of seniority had been laid off and its current number employed was retained in secret. Machine shops, previously busy with orders from the airplane factories, were having a tough time as the airplane industry was waiting to see whether planes would give way entirely to guided missiles. The Ohio River Valley, from Pittsburgh through Wheeling, was studded with factories which were now only working part time. A worker from Wheeling Steel, laid off after eight years of seniority, had been cheerful, though indicating the pinch was beginning to hurt. There were anxious inquiries from a man with 16 years of seniority who had been laid off by a Wheeling building and supply firm. A West Virginia coal miner had asked Mr. Pearson whether the President was right when he said that business would pick up in March, and when Mr. Pearson told him that many economic experts disagreed with the President and felt that the upturn would not come until midsummer, he had remarked: "What's a man going to do between now and midsummer? There are a lot of meals between February and midsummer." He sadly turned and walked away.
The President's Council of Economic Advisers was so unhappy over the recession and the manner in which its reports had been ignored that some of the advisers were talking about resigning the following month. Raymond Saulnier and colleagues had seen the recession coming a long time earlier and had warned the President repeatedly of it, making recommendations to head off the slump, but the White House had refused to act. As professional economists, they had now been placed in an embarrassing position. The outside world did not know, and more particularly their colleagues in the economic world did not know, the inside facts about their warnings, thus leading to the possibility of resignations.
Walter Lippmann discusses the issue of the constitutional amendment to clear up the confusion surrounding the determination of the incapacity of the President, the manner of succession and then the elimination of the incapacity, as had been requested by the President, himself, in the wake of his health issues. He indicates that there was an Administration bill drafted by the Department of Justice introduced in the House the prior spring, but Congress appeared hesitant to act on the delicate matter.
He suggests that in dealing with the problem, the assumption had to be that the Government would be populated in its highest offices by honorable men who were honest, especially regarding the highest matters of importance. He divides the matter into two parts, the first being the situation of incapacity of the President by a temporary disability declared by the President, and the second, when a disabled President either refused to admit the disability or was physically unable to do so.
In the first instance, most agreed that the Constitution provided for the assumption of the duties by the Vice-President until the disability passed, with Congress able to provide legislation to clarify any ambiguities. But in the second case, there was no guidance as to who should decide when the President could not perform his duties.
Mr. Lippmann believes the Cabinet and the White House ought raise the issue of disability in that event, with Congress having the final power to resolve the matter. The Vice-President ought then go to Congress to communicate the facts of the disability and seek a vote on the Vice-President's assumption of the powers, with the legality to be tested in the courts promptly based on the first appointment by the Vice-President acting as President. He suggests that without Congressional action on the proposed legislation or an amendment, something of the kind should be the procedure.
The 25th Amendment would be sent to the states in 1965 and ratified in 1967, resolving the issue.
The editors note that Mr. Lippmann would begin a four-week overseas holiday, visiting Sweden, Poland, Austria, Germany, France, Tunisia and England, resuming his columns in early April.
Robert C. Ruark, in London, tells of the British newspapers being full of U.S. juvenile delinquency problems, including the gang wars, killings committed by teens and the terrorism in the schools. He heard daily the question by Britons as to what was wrong with America that its youth had gone mad. He says he could not answer it but could counter with the question as to what was wrong with England such that its people committed some of the most grotesque crimes without reason.
England had its teddy boys, corresponding to U.S. young thugs, attacking fun fairs and terrorizing trams and buses with bicycle chains, clubs and knives. "These young bums wear the uniform, the shaggy hair, the exaggerated Edwardian stovepipe pants and suit coats, and they are just as pimply and fierce and unwashed as our little cuties." They had their girls, or molls as they would be called in the U.S., "frowzy, blowzy, dirty-necked young women." He finds that they were just as painful as the bobby-soxers who followed the young candidates for eventual actual electrocution in New York. The U.S. had its problems with newly arrived and unassimilated Puerto Ricans, whereas in London, the problem of the West Indian population was rising daily, as well as a problem with the East Indian population and "all the strange races which infest Soho and the East End."
He finds that there were areas of London which he would not frequent at night, just as there were areas of New York he would not enter without a gun. He would match the bad of London with the bad of America. America's prostitution was more or less subtle and confined to the house and telephone calls, but on Curzon and Voer Streets in London, "the tarts patrol the sidewalks like policemen, and an innocent lady of virtue has been known to have her face slashed by a prostitute who wrongly believed the innocent woman was cutting in on her territory." Piccadilly Circus, once the stronghold of female prostitution, had now more or less been resettled by the male prostitutes and perverts, as had the tube stations, it being difficult to stroll through Piccadilly after dark without being accosted.
England was very firm on its legal drinking laws, which he finds utterly ridiculous, but for a pound or so payable at the door of any number of after-hours drinking establishments, one could obtain drink.
He finds that the "fruitiest divorce cases of the universe" occurred in England, at least judging by the press, as did "rather charming mass killings, and so do the rather accepted flagrant homosexuality cases amongst the elegant."
"I know we are accepted as rather a tough piece of furniture here—we crude Americans—but frankly I don't think us Yanks have a patch on the mother country for downright overall rottenness of behavior. And, finally, the wildest of our sensational press pales beside what the average British newspaper plays on its first three pages as news."
A letter writer from Rock Hill, S.C., indicates that he was awaiting a letter writer critical of the recent action of the "liberal" Georgia House of Representatives for its having killed a bill requiring that whole blood for transfusions be labeled by race. Though the anti-liberal Georgia Senate had passed the bill 35 to 0, the House, by a shout of approval, had answered a move to table the bill indefinitely. Georgia medical authorities had opposed the measure and he urges letter writers to communicate their thoughts on this "terrible deed".
A letter writer indicates that in recent years, countless governors, legislatures, committees, commissions, associations, organizations, groups and individuals had devoted much of their time and most of their efforts toward the goal of finding a plan to circumvent the 1954-55 Brown v. Board of Education decisions. Many schemes and proposals had emerged from those efforts in the South, but none of them gave much promise of success. Many of those who were participating in the plans had paid salaries and expenses from the taxpayer. He wonders how many realized the toll being taken annually by the gallows, electric chair and gas chamber, "the countless thousands of lives wasted away in prison in every state, county and city of our country—frequently their families subsisting on welfare—because they, too, tried to devise some plan to circumvent some law of our land, or some ruling of its courts". He doubts whether any law was painless to everyone, especially the tax laws, but the country was great "because the majority of us comply with the laws, and the rulings of our courts." He urges that it would be much more economical and simpler to comply with the laws and the rulings of the courts, "and to just try to be good Americans."
A letter writer finds that the Rev. "Catfish" Cole, self-proclaimed Grand Dragon of the Carolinas Klan, was very aptly named, as most people in the region skinned catfish. He indicates that the Lumbee Indians in Robeson County had almost scalped him, and the old-line true Southerners were going to do the skinning, with decency to prevail with Chief of Police Frank Littlejohn in their midst in Charlotte.
Framed Edition
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