The Charlotte News

Friday, February 7, 1958

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that Russia's new Ambassador to the U.S., Mikhail Menshikov, had acted with unusual speed this date in seeing Secretary of State Dulles and clearing the way for a talk with the President. The State Department announced that the new Ambassador, who had arrived in Washington only late the previous day, had conferred with Mr. Dulles during the morning. Diplomats said that he would undoubtedly follow up with a meeting with the President in the ensuing few days, his primary purpose being to present his credentials. Meanwhile, U.S. Ambassador to Russia Llewellyn Thompson had gone to the White House while a Cabinet meeting was underway, reporting to the President and Secretary Dulles. On Wednesday, he had reported on conditions in Russia and the possibility of arranging a summit meeting. Speculation was that the President had asked him to return to talk to the Cabinet. Ambassador Thompson planned to spend the weekend in New York before taking off for Moscow on Monday, expected soon to meet with Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko to find out how the Soviet Government wanted to proceed on negotiations for a summit meeting. Premier Nikolai Bulganin had advised the President in a message the prior Sunday that the Soviet Union agreed to an exchange of ideas through diplomatic channels to prepare the way for a summit meeting. The President had insisted that very careful preparation, offering hope of positive agreements, was essential before such a meeting could occur. Although the Soviet Union and Western powers were deadlocked on such major issues as the future of Germany and basic disarmament, some officials were known to believe that prolonged negotiation eventually might make some headway toward initial arms control and measures to prevent a surprise attack.

Secretary of the Air Force James Douglas said this date that the first operational U.S. unit armed with an ICBM would be at its post by the following December, relating the information to the House Armed Services Committee. The missile would be the Atlas, designed to carry an atomic or hydrogen warhead 5,500 miles. His testimony, partially made public in prepared form, had provided official confirmation of reports that the Air Force was approaching the point of declaring the Atlas a battle-ready weapon. While Secretary Douglas had not disclosed where the Atlas unit would be stationed, it was considered certain that it would be based near Cheyenne, Wyo. The only other ICBM base, at Camp Cook, Calif., was principally a training center. Secretary Douglas told the Committee that the Air Force would be able to build its ICBM-ready strength earlier than had been anticipated because of the military construction bill which Congress had passed the previous day, including 128 million dollars for the Atlas procurement and base construction. The Atlas had been flight tested four times from the Cape Canaveral Missile Center, according to Secretary Douglas, and the "last two of limited range, were completely successful." It had been reported unofficially that the Atlas had flown about 600 miles in the latter tests. The Air Force did not attempt to reach the full range of the rocket. Mr. Douglas said that testing would continue at an accelerated pace.

J. A. Daly of The News reports that the Hercules missile, capable of carrying either an atomic warhead or high explosives, was being produced at present for the Army at the rapidly expanding plant of Douglas Aircraft Co. in Charlotte, according to an official report which said the plant was operating at "full speed ahead". Previously, the plant's military missile production had involved the Nike Ajax, the Hercules being a member of the Nike missile family. Since 1945, when the massive atomic bomb had been dropped from a B-29 over Hiroshima, the atomic warhead had been reduced in size so much that it could be accommodated in the Hercules, a relatively large missile, but tiny in comparison with the B-29. Douglas Aircraft, with the knowledge of the Department of the Army, had also disclosed that the new Douglas Nike Hercules missile would go into operational status at four selected bases the following June, which would be the first to establish Hercules firing facilities, at New York, Washington-Baltimore, Chicago and Philadelphia. Launching sites for the Nike Ajax missiles would be converted to meet the requirements of the new Hercules. Douglas Aircraft had said that construction at those four Nike-protected areas was the beginning of a nationwide program of converting the Army's surface-to-air missile sites to the dual capability of firing both Nike Ajax and Nike Hercules missiles. The official report said that the Hercules missiles provided the Army air defense missiles family with a weapon "of far greater capabilities for the destruction of possible raiding enemy air forces." Hercules was not only larger and faster than the Ajax missile but "with its atomic capability could destroy whole formations of enemy planes." Numerous firms were large-volume suppliers of components for the Hercules and other missiles, including electronic components produced at North Carolina plants of the Western Electric Co.

The House Appropriations Committee this date had shunted aside a White House request for $750,000 to finance the six-member Civil Rights Commission created by the 1957 Civil Rights Act, signed into law the prior September. But it had approved in full the President's request for 43.4 million dollars to pay unemployment compensation to jobless veterans and former Federal employees out of work. The Committee's action was in two separate appropriation bills to be sent to the House floor for a vote the following Monday. The Committee said that it had deferred action on funds for the Civil Rights Commission because the request was "prepared by persons not associated with the Commission and, in fact, there is not as yet a staff director employed." The money had been requested for the fiscal year starting the following July 1, and a separate request for $200,000 to finance the Commission in the meantime was still pending, the Committee indicating it would not approve that allotment either until the Commission was more firmly organized and staffed. Meanwhile, the Commission was being financed out of the President's emergency fund. The Commission had to make its final report to the President and Congress by September 9, 1959, two years after the signing into law of the Act. The Commission's members had been appointed the prior November 7, but had not yet been confirmed by the Senate, serving under recess appointments. The Committee had been unanimous in its approval of the unemployment compensation allotments for jobless veterans and the Federal employees who had lost their jobs through reductions in the workforce. In requesting the amounts, the President had said that funds on hand would be exhausted by February 15 because claims for benefits had been running higher than anticipated.

Federal, state and local health authorities were seeking the cause of a steady rise in the number of deaths from influenza and pneumonia during the previous four weeks in 108 large cities. Surgeon General Leroy Burney of the U.S. Public Health Service had said in a statement this date that there was no evidence of any widespread increase in Asian flu cases throughout the country, despite the increase in deaths. He warned that the Asian flu could be smoldering throughout the country, urging second injections of vaccine for elderly persons and others in special risk categories. He noted that reported influenza and pneumonia deaths in the 108 cities had reached a peak of 887 during the first week of November and then had dropped to about 500 by the last week in December, but that since that time, there had been a steady increase, with a total of 745 fatalities reported for the week ending February 1. In a comparable period, November to February, for the three previous years, influenza and pneumonia deaths had averaged about 350 per week. He indicated that the precise cause of the increase was not yet known, that the Service's epidemiological surveillance unit was working with state and local health officers in an effort to determine the cause.

In Charlotte, it was reported that it was one of the 108 cities mentioned by Dr. Burney, and the previous month, Charlotte had reported ten deaths counted in the survey. The vital statistician for the City-County Health Department said that deaths from pneumonia and influenza combined and pneumonia only, ordinarily coded separately, had been lumped together for purposes of the survey. All ten of the deaths in Mecklenburg County the previous month, however, had been attributed to pneumonia and not to influenza and pneumonia. In January, 1957, four deaths from pneumonia had been recorded in the county, and of the ten deaths in the current year, eight had been in the city and two in the county. Four weeks earlier, the local health authorities had first noticed an increase in the incidence of "influenza-like disease" in a regular check of City and County schools, four businesses, the offices of seven physicians and the infirmaries of Queens and Davidson Colleges. The checking system had begun in mid-September in anticipation of an outbreak of Asian flu.

In Columbia, S.C., it was reported that James Cole, the Grand Wizard of the Klan of the Carolinas, had returned to North Carolina this date to stand trial on charges of inciting to riot at Maxton, N.C., on January 18, as his fellow Klansmen had been chased away from a rally site by Lumbee Indians, upset at the Klan having burned at least two crosses on or near Indian residences the prior Monday night. The sheriff and prosecutor in Robeson County had been the only witnesses at an extradition hearing of Mr. Cole, presided over by a a legal aide to Governor John Bell Timmerman, Jr. The purpose of the hearing was only to determine Mr. Cole's identity, whether or not he had been charged with a crime in North Carolina and whether he had been in that state on January 18. Because he had retained no attorney for the hearing, Mr. Cole was given the opportunity to examine the various legal papers, saying only that he had been told that the hearing would entail more than his identity and the other factors. After being told by the hearing officer that he could present evidence relating to any of the sections of the code under which he was charged and extradited, had provided him the sections at issue and a ten-minute recess so that Mr. Cole could study them, he said that he had nothing to say. The legal aide to the Governor then recommended the extradition. Mr. Cole was then turned over to the sheriff of Robeson County, and the solicitor said that he would be tried on the riot charge in the term of court beginning March 10, along with James Martin of Reidsville, a fellow Klansman, who had already been convicted on misdemeanor charges of public drunkenness and carrying a concealed weapon after he had been found by officers hiding in the bushes at the rally site.

In Karachi, Pakistan, Prince Aly Khan had gone to work at the Foreign Office this date to prepare for his new job as Pakistan's representative to the U.N. An aide said that the 46-year old playboy was anxious "to learn all about diplomacy and foreign affairs."

In London, it was reported that a driving snowstorm had swept across southern England this date and buried parts of Western Europe under the heaviest snow of the winter, with some villages in Bavaria near the Czech border being isolated.

In Nuremberg, West German authorities cracked down on Communist-front organizations this date for the second time during the week, with police flying squads arresting 29 suspected Communists.

In Hong Kong, it was reported via Peiping Radio this date that Communist Chinese antiaircraft artillery had shot down a Nationalist Chinese plane and damaged three others in two separate actions off southeast China's Fukien Province the previous Monday.

In Somerville, Tex., four children had burned to death in an early morning fire.

In Decatur, Ga., a woman was brought into court in a wheelchair this date for what likely would be the final day of her larceny trial, with the case expected to go to the jury this date. She had testified that all the money received by her in trust for her former employers had been accounted for, that they had placed the money in her bank account to keep from paying taxes on it, that the doctors had gotten every bit of it. She told the jury that she had nothing, that the clothes she was wearing were borrowed, that they had taken everything and burned all of her records, even had taken her daughter's christening cap and the storybooks she had as an infant. She said she did not take the money and was not guilty. (The truncated story appears to assume a good bit of missing information to be already in the possession of the reader.)

In Kansas City, a fat boy, 15 or 16, stood outside a bookstore, inside of which were five boys and three girls, all between the ages of 12 and 15, plus a woman and her mother who managed the store, which was a block from a junior high school and two blocks from a senior high. The store had a jukebox and a soft drink counter. School had just let out and the fat boy had strolled into the store, accompanied by three fellow students, lounging near the door. The jukebox was playing, "You Bug Me, Baby". The proprietor said to her mother that they should go in the back room to get away from the kids. Her left eyelid was puffed and discolored. She had called the police the previous night and asked them to come by during the morning. They had come, but had left too soon, as she explained how a boy had hit her, and that she had hit him back, scratching one of the kids on the face. The police had arrested two boys, a 16-year old from the senior high and a 13-year old from the junior high. She said that she was going to prosecute them, as someone had to stop the troublemaking kids. She had told one of them to get out of the store during the morning and he said in response, "Lady, you're going to need a new door on this place and you might need a new face, too." She described him as "one of the filthy-minded kids we have to put up with. They spit on the floor and they spit on each other." She pointed to her right cheek and said that one of them had spat in her face the previous day, and after the boy had hit her this date, one of the girls standing nearby had said, "You shoulda knocked her teeth down her throat." The mother and daughter had called the police again in the afternoon, and they had come by but it was too late, according to the daughter, that the minute they called the police, everybody cleared out of the store. The two women returned to the front of the store and eight boys and three girls had clustered about the fat boy. The daughter said that the police would stop them eventually, that they had better do so before it got like New York City. One of the boys had said that she could not do anything to them, that they were under 16 and she was over 21. They then laughed. She said that they would find out, for she would prosecute the two boys. The fat boy said: "You ain't gonna prosecute nobody. We got 2,000 kids who will say that you hit first." He then cursed. She told him to leave the store, and he responded, "You can go to hell." The older woman then rushed out from behind the counter and he swore again. She told him to get his "filthy talk" out of the store. He said, "You know what you can do with this place," and then told her. The daughter ran at the boy, saying that he could not talk to her mother that way. The fat boy then cocked his fist and swore at her, as bystanders grabbed both. The fat one cursed again and his followers led him away, as three times he turned to shout obscenities. A boy who remained behind said that the fat boy was tough, that they had kicked him out of one school and so he had gone to another until they had kicked him out of that one, too, was now hanging around the bookstore. (He was probably just upset that they had this one also on the jukebox, perceived as mocking of his corpulence, in need of an offsetting anodyne to reverse his harmed, insecure feelings.) It was now quiet again in the bookstore, and the proprietor said: "It's his kind that'd like to think they can drive us out of here. Well, we aren't going to leave. If we left, they'd figure they could drive anybody they wanted to out of this neighborhood."

The world is coming asunder, and it does not help that the children are being lured to watch such a program as this one airing this night, promoting the idea that a baby girl would seek to go to the bathroom to find "Mary Jane", no doubt something the little girl had heard her profligate mother say at one of the adult parties she had been forced to attend, afterward becoming "carsick", no doubt, from the secondary inhalation, making light of this outrageous behavior by the parents. This is Hollywood at its nadir, indoctrinating children early to go upstairs to seek "Mary Jane", something which would no doubt stick with the little children unconsciously for decades hence. It is an abomination. The little girl was desperately seeking Ho Chi Minh.

In Panama, evangelist Billy Graham was reported to be planning to go ahead with his crusade in National Stadium this night despite a strike threatened by taxi and bus drivers. The transport workers said that they would walk out in sympathy with printers who had closed down the newspapers and shops since the prior Saturday with a demand for higher wages. The Typographers Union said that the Bakers, Bartenders and Sales Clerks unions had also pledged sympathy walkouts. Organizers for the Graham Crusade, which had been traveling through the Caribbean area, said that they were considering setting up carpools to bring people to the 14,000-seat stadium, and had also tripled their radio publicity. Reporting on the progress of his tour, the Reverend Graham said on his arrival in Panama the previous night that 1,000 persons had turned out at 15-minute impromptu meetings he had held at airports in Venezuela and Colombia on his way from Tobago. His earlier itinerary had included Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago. He said that he had experienced the same good response in the Caribbean as in Europe and Asia. He reported that some Catholic priests in Puerto Rico had carried signs on their cars advertising his rallies. But in Panama, Catholics had been warned by a pastoral letter against attending the Protestant evangelist's meetings.

On the editorial page, "Local GOP Should Field Full Slate" hopes that the local Republicans' announced intention to seek County Commission seats was a harbinger of more announcements along the same lines to come, as nothing less than a full slate of Republican candidates for both local and state offices would provide the county's sluggish political system with the competition it needed.