The Charlotte News
Saturday, March 1, 1958
FIVE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that Russia, in a surprising policy reversal, had now agreed to an East-West foreign ministers conference to decide on the agenda and participants for a summit conference. The U.S. and its allies probably would counter with a demand that the foreign ministers discuss at least some of the subjects which would be taken up in the later summit meeting, with the purpose of the preliminary discussion being to determine whether such a conference would have any prospect of success, a demand consistently made by the President and Secretary of State Dulles as preliminary for any summit conference. It had been learned that the Russian Government, in notes handed to Western ambassadors in Moscow the previous day, had proposed that the foreign ministers meeting occur in about two months. The Soviets said that the purpose of the foreign ministers meeting would be to prescribe the subjects for a summit conference and determine what nations would participate. Authorities in Washington confirmed that the Soviets were calling for a foreign ministers conference of limited purpose in about two months and there appeared no doubt that Moscow took the same line in its notes to all of the Western powers, the contents of the Soviet message having come to the West via a French Foreign Ministry spokesman in Paris. Previously, the Kremlin had resisted any plan for a preliminary foreign ministers conference, the Russians maintaining that some foreign ministers had "biased" attitudes and that getting them together would more likely hinder than help the prospects for a summit meeting. Secretary of State Dulles had been advised by some of his Soviet experts that if the West insisted, the Kremlin would agree on such a preliminary meeting. The Secretary had said only a few weeks earlier, however, that he did not regard a foreign ministers meeting as essential to the preparatory work for a summit, widely interpreted as a concession, though actually not one, as he had taken earlier the position that preparations could be made either through lower diplomatic channels or a meeting of foreign ministers.
In London, it was reported that Dr. Vivian Fuchs had radioed that he was within sight of his goal to become the first expedition to cross the Antarctic continent over land.
In Lima, Peru, a strong and prolonged earth shock had been felt in the capital and surrounding communities in the wee hours of the morning, with no reports of property damage or casualties.
In Tokyo, 6,000 pro-Communist Koreans had marched through the city this date chanting demands for withdrawal of U.S. forces from their divided homeland.
In Passau, West Germany, U.S. Army soldiers and German police this date searched the Danube River for the bodies of five U.S. soldiers missing and presumed drowned when two Army trucks had plunged into the river near the town within about 20 minutes of one another.
In Prestonsburg, Ky., a mother whose three children had been among the victims of the nation's worst school bus tragedy, said that all they had was gone. Her family was one of three families in the county who had lost all of their children when a school bus had plunged into a tributary of the Big Sandy River carrying 23 children and the bus driver to their deaths. The mother was a teacher at a rural school in the area and said that all of the children lost, several of whom she had taught, had been good students. She and her husband had lost two sons, ages 12 and 11, and their daughter, age 9. The 11-year old son had fallen off a rock cliff two years earlier and had to have his left arm amputated just below the elbow. The mother said that they had nearly lost him then, but that the Lord had spared him. The father operated a store and said that one of the survivors had notified him of the accident, after having helped rescue several of the children. The father said that the boy had come to the store and he had known something was wrong, having been informed by the boy that the bus had gone into the river and that all of his children were still in the bus. The mother said that the children had previously attended another school in a nearby town but had transferred to Prestonsburg during the current year because the other school was overcrowded. The two boys who had been killed had recently joined the Boy Scouts, according to the parents, and the younger would have received his second class rank on Thursday night. The little girl who had died was a piano student and was outstanding in music, according to her mother. She said that they were a very close family and that all three of the children had been reading by the time they were five years old. She said the hardest thing now was to know what to do with themselves.
Another report from Prestonsburg states that search boats had radioed this date that they might have pinpointed the school bus 200 yards downstream from where it had plunged into the rain-swollen river. The boats reported that the object was about five feet beneath the surface of the swiftly running river and that grappling hooks contacting the object had produced yellow paint, the color of the bus. Army engineers had immediately begun floating downstream a barge from which divers would descend in an attempt to anchor the bus until it could be dragged to the surface. Earlier searchers thought that the bus might have been only 50 yards from where it had made the plunge. There was confusion over the names of the 23 dead children and the 16 who had survived. The school superintendent listed 24 dead and 16 survivors and State police had said there were 24 dead and 14 survivors, with the names of the dead and the survivors conflicting. Mountain men with axes had been cutting away brush and trees along the bank of the river to make a path to drag the bus from it. The river was running about 20 to 30 feet wider than normal. Once the bus was recovered, the bodies would be removed to the armory for identification. The bus had struck a wrecker and an automobile and had careened off the road, slipping down a 30-foot embankment into 20 feet of water. The driver of the wrecker said that all of the children could have been saved but that they had jammed up in the door, screaming.
In Dallas, Tex., fire had routed a dozen families from two old apartment houses, resulting in the death of one woman and injuries to two men early this date, with the fire department controlling the blaze after two hours.
In Dekalb, N.Y., seven members of a family had been burned to death early this date when fire had destroyed their two-story home. Five other members of the family and a house guest had escaped, and two other members of the family had been away at the time. A fireman responding to the scene had also been hospitalized, suffering lacerations to his forehead. Sheriff's deputies said that they believed the fire had begun in a chimney in an upstairs bedroom occupied by four of the children of the family. The parents had been in another bedroom on the upstairs portion of the home. All of those who had escaped, except one child, 19, had been in the downstairs section of the house, and the latter had jumped 16 feet to safety from a second-floor window. The father operated a farm in the rural, hilly section of northern New York, and also worked in a milling company in Dekalb.
In Sanford, N.C., the stage was being set during the weekend for the second murder trial of Frank Wetzel, accused of shooting Highway Patrolman James Brown the prior November 5. The solicitor would be seeking the death penalty, after Mr. Wetzel had been found guilty in another county of murdering another Highway Patrolman, Wister Reece, the same night, in that case, the jury having recommended mercy, resulting in a life sentence.
In New York, it was reported that Myron Cohen, the "peripatetic parolee", was back in jail, probably good news to Sol Cohen, Sam Cohen, and Emanuel Cohen, no relation to Myron. The prior July 15, Myron, 52, a four-time loser, was being held without bail on a forgery charge, with four felony convictions mandating life imprisonment pursuant to state law. A guard had called "Cohen", meaning Sol, 47, another prisoner whose bail of $500 had just been posted by his brother, Emanuel. Sol had not heard the guard but Myron had and he walked out of Brooklyn's City Prison a free man, hitched a ride with Emanuel, who did not know who Myron was. Myron gave police a Brooklyn address before leaving the jail and detectives rushed to it, only to be confronted by Sam Cohen, no kin to Myron. The previous night, in the garment district, two detectives had spotted Myron and had taken him into custody, and he was presently back in his cell, booked on an additional charge of escape.
In St. Louis, patrons of King's Bar were getting plastered in a way which did not help the proprietor's business, explaining in circuit court that he was the only tenant remaining in a five-story building being wracked, that chunks of plaster, loosened by the wrecking crew, had been falling from the ceiling onto his customers. The judge granted a temporary restraining order halting the wrecking crew until an eviction suit against the bar's proprietor could be settled.
In New York, the death toll from wood alcohol had risen to 19, with 15 other persons under treatment in hospitals, the highest toll in the city from bootleg whiskey since the days of Prohibition.
In Lancaster, Pa., Schick, Inc., manufacturers of electric shavers and lighters, had dropped their fair trade price policy, saying that the action had been taken to be certain that Schick distributors and dealers were competitive.
On the editorial page, "Keep Toll Collectors off the Parkway" tells of North Carolina officials plotting to prevent another effort by the Administration to impose tolls on the Blue Ridge Parkway, able to cite substantial arguments such as administrative costs and difficulties in collecting tolls on a roadway having some 600 entrances along its 300-mile length, that the Parkway had been established as a free road on land donated primarily by citizens of North Carolina and Virginia with no understanding that tolls were ever to be imposed, that the loss of good will by North Carolina and the National Park Service would outweigh any benefits from the toll, that tourist business built on the assumption that the Parkway would remain toll-free would be crippled, and that the Parkway, which drew more visitors than any other National Park Service area of the nation, would become just another park area.
It finds also that the Administration's argument was not without substance, regarding the proposed toll as a fee to be paid by those who used the Parkway, thus lessening the tax burden on those who did not use it. But its own view was that the toll plan ought be withdrawn because the tourist industry, the major industry of western North Carolina, would be dealt a severe blow and the unemployment rolls lengthened considerably at a time when business was bad enough. It suggests that the one fact should be sufficient to force the Administration to have second thoughts about the imposition of a toll, reminding that the Parkway had been built during the Depression to create work for the jobless and that surely it ought not be used during another depression to put people out of work.
It concludes that there would be plenty of time for resolution of pro and con arguments on the toll issue after the corner, around which prosperity was allegedly lurking, took place.
"Col. Nasser's Pure Political Appeal" indicates that from all appearances, the political appeal of Egyptian Premier Gamal Abdel Nasser was purer than Ivory soap, indicating that the Premier had achieved victory as chief of state of the new United Arab Republic by capturing 99.994 percent of the 7.4 million votes cast in the Egyptian-Syrian plebiscite.
Running for president of Egypt in 1956, he had received only 99.784 percent of the vote, suggesting that he had been grateful at the increasing evidence of adulation and so joined the multitudes whooping it up in Cairo after the plebiscite was completed and Syria had committed national hari-kari with marvelous enthusiasm.
It indicates that the feature of the celebration had been the chanting by the multitudes of the new Republic's anthem, "O Allah, We Won by Your Will". It suggests that, without meaning to disparage Allah, one had to observe that such near unanimity at the polls generally required the energetic assistance of an unsanctified breed known as ballot-box stuffers.
Either that or poll watchers looking over the shoulders of the voters to ensure their compliance to His Majesty's will, else sure to suffer the sanctions of corporal or capital punishment often meted out to those who were insistently rebellious.
"Puzzler" indicates that before House investigators had fired Dr. Bernard Schwartz as counsel for the subcommittee investigating the FCC, the latter had raised many questions about the award of the Miami television channel to a subsidiary of National Airlines. It finds that obtaining answers to those questions would take considerable time, but when they could get around to it, it wished the Congressmen would explain for the record why any airline ought be awarded a television channel, as it was puzzled by it.
"Obviously, a Matter for the DAR" indicates that it had received recently by stage a copy of the Fauquier (Va.) Democrat, advising that a bill to rename Virginia's historic Little River turnpike for Col. John S. (Gray Ghost) Mosby had been tabled by the roads committee of Virginia's House of Delegates, the action having been taken, according to the newspaper, after committeemen had been advised that the United Daughters of the Confederacy opposed the measure "because Mosby became a Republican after the war."
It fears that another rescue from the hosts of darkness was in order, reminding that Virginia had been named for Elizabeth I, the Virgin Queen, who was not only no Republican, but, worse yet, had been a "r-o-y-a-l-i-s-t".
"Flashback" indicates that a long, white envelope from New York's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel had come in the mail recently to the newspaper, amid reports regarding rising unemployment and falling stock prices, clearly marked on the outside: "Press Release—Address by Herbert Hoover. 'Some Observations On Business Slumps & Recessions,' before New York Chamber of Commerce."
It indicates fear to open it.
A piece from Charlotte Central High School's Rambler, titled "The King and His Wonderful School", indicates that in the year 1658, a certain king had decided to build a school for all the children of the kingdom, to be the grandest in all the land. He called all of his royal messengers into the great hall and told them of the plan which would make his kingdom the most famous, asking the messengers to go among the loyal subjects and obtain all of their gold and silver which would in turn be used to educate their children.
The rich had given their jewels and the poor had given all they could so that their children might be educated. After gathering all of the riches and storing them in the treasury, the king had gathered the greatest designers of the time and told them what he wanted, foremost in his instructions having been that the building had to be beautiful. The architects had created a modern structure far ahead of its time and presented their plans for the king's approval, which he had readily given, with construction having begun immediately except for the king's indecision on a suitable location, until he finally approved of a high hill where the whole kingdom could see the gleaming gold roof.
Eventually, a one-story structure was built, and official polls showed that resulting convenience for the students in relief from overcrowding had reduced absenteeism by almost 50 percent and insurance premiums had dropped also, saving untold amounts of money. Installed in the new circular reading room had been lounge chairs with adjustable page turners. In the cafeteria, a new system had been devised called "controlled confusion", meaning that one could not enter the cafeteria until a whistle was blown, after which it was every person for themselves. The final order before the grand opening had concerned the painting of a large sign urging all visitors to bring their cameras and not to leave donations.
Finally, the big day had arrived and the children for miles around had flocked to the new place of learning. But since so much time had elapsed between the dreaming and the completion, with the population having increased in the meantime so rapidly, the school proved very inadequate for the poor citizens who had built it.
Presumably, there is a hidden message relating to the construction of Central High School. Guess you had to live in Charlotte at the time.
Drew Pearson indicates that few Cabinet members in history had taken a rougher time from their own party than Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson had received from Congressional Republicans recently. But the Secretary was a religious man who was accustomed to adversity and sincerely believed in following the Christian admonition to turn the other cheek. When Republican farm Congressmen had initiated their latest move to oust him about three weeks earlier, Representative Page Belcher of Oklahoma, member of the House Agriculture Committee, looked at the Secretary and coldly remarked: "Mr. Secretary, the farmers in my district do not like your policies. Neither do I. Every time you issue a statement or make a speech against price supports for agriculture, I lose a quart of blood. I practically have been bled dry."
More recently, after an anti-Benson "protest" meeting by about 35 Republican House members from Northern farm states, two emissaries from that meeting, Representatives A. L. Miller of Nebraska and Walter Judd of Minnesota, had been only slightly less blunt in urging Mr. Benson to resign "for the good of the party". Mr. Miller had suggested that just as with the election during the Depression in 1932, the midterm elections were dependent on the current depression in farm income and that the connection was fixed in the minds of farmers as they faced another election. He said that if the Secretary's order to lower dairy support prices were to go into effect on April 1, the conditions would become worse.
But at the Republican meeting, the rhetoric had been even worse, with Republican House Leader Joseph Martin having difficulty maintaining order as facetious shouts arose to the effect, "Let's take that guy for a ride," and "Let's give Benson a one-way ticket on a slow boat to China". Among those who had been heard above the tumult was Representative H. R. Gross of Iowa, who asserted: "This is not a question of politics with me. It is a question of right and wrong. Benson is wrong. And President Eisenhower was wrong in appointing him. I said so back in 1953." Iowa's Representative Ben Jensen said: "When I first came to Congress, Iowa had the reputation of being a Republican state. It still has that reputation. But if Ezra Benson is still the Secretary of Agriculture next November, Iowa may not have a single Republican Representative in the House."
Joseph Alsop, in London, finds that London hardly seemed the "same wounded hero of a city" which it had been for so long after the war, with the "outward surface being more prosperous than ever and the magical London combination of green open space and crowded avenue, of intimacy and public splendor, of double polished glossiness and carefully preserved patina of age," also "more magical than ever, because it is so unchanging in a fast changing world." He finds London "more than ever the most agreeable of all the great world cities for a foreign visitor."
While admitting that the observations were more for the average tourist than a reporter, he regards it as necessary to place in perspective the "fairly brutal thing" which also had to be said, that London was presently a city which "all but stinks of defeat." During the postwar period, he had visited London at least once each year and had found that whether under Labor Governments or Conservative Governments, the essential London drama had been the same, that of the British people struggling to maintain Britain's historical role as one of the great world powers following the tragic losses of World War II.
But now there were too many signs of disarray which, in every army, foretold the acceptance of defeat. He finds changed, for example, the feature of British political life which had always most amazed him, the fact that at any given moment, almost everyone from the Prime Minister down, at every level and in every sphere, had struck the same note, whereas now there was a discordant variety of notes to be heard from the different leaders of the two major parties, from civil servants and the ministers and even among the higher permanent staffs of single ministries. The source of the discord, he finds, was that Britain was now confronted with at least a half-dozen major problems which it, alone, did not have the means to solve.
There was an economic problem which kept Britain on the permanent brink of disaster, indicating that approximately 22 percent of Britain's life blood, the hard currency revenue of the Sterling area, was coming from two unstable ex-colonial countries, Ghana and Malaya. The loss of the Middle Eastern oil sources, presently in never greater danger, would add a billion dollars per year to the debit side of Britain's national balance sheet, and a single individual, the Sheikh of Kuwait, contributed nearly ten percent of the new capital annually available in the Sterling area, desperately short of capital.
There was also Britain's strategic problem, insoluble because of the economic problem. He cites as example the so-called support costs which the Germans had been paying for the British divisions in NATO, amounting to less than 130 million dollars. But because the Germans were refusing to pay those costs, the British Government was considering a cut in its NATO contribution beyond the point of acute danger, which could prejudice all of Britain's relations with the new Europe, regarding a sum hardly larger than the British pig subsidy.
There was also the Middle Eastern problem, which was becoming desperate. He cites as example the old Iraqi strongman, Nuri Pasha, having recently been in London to repeat his warnings that the Kremlin would soon play the anti-Israeli card, which would in turn take every trick in the Arab pack. The leading British experts were presently reluctantly convinced that Nuri's warnings had probably been well-founded, but in all the British Government, Mr. Alsop could not discover anyone with any positive idea about parrying this prospective Soviet maneuver, which would be a dagger thrust at Britain's very jugular.
He indicates that he could continue the recital of problems almost indefinitely, covering foreign policy involved in the approach to the proposed summit conference between Russia and the West, the domestic political problems revealed by the Conservative Party's defeat in a by-election and so forth. But he finds that he had said enough to illustrate the point he was seeking to make, which was tragic for both Britain and the U.S., as Britain's defeat would almost surely mean the West's defeat. The U.S. would have its own share of the blame for the tragedy, for vigorous, imaginative and courageous American leadership was presently the most essential ingredient in the solution of almost all of its allies' problems and especially that of Britain. "And this essential American ingredient has been utterly lacking for the last five years."
Doris Fleeson indicates that the
President was in a losing streak well known to horse players where
the "gee-gees" did not run for the bettor
In the presence of unprecedented private and public criticism, the President and the First Lady were carrying on as usual with ample and frequent vacations interspersed with sporadic bursts of leadership and White House ceremony. White House public relations had correspondingly deteriorated, with formerly wide praise for press secretary James Hagerty having been replaced with the comment that "good ball players make great managers." The White House staff was getting its wires crossed in a manner suggesting that Mr. Hagerty was not the only one losing his head under pressure.
Once it had seemed to politicians that the President had a built-in antenna regarding the mood of the American people, but they did not now understand why he was not being more responsive to the unemployment figures and Soviet successes, some believing that he knew the facts but was stubborn at the wrong time, while others suggested that his staff had sheltered him so long from the political and economic realities that they had difficulty presenting him with hints that a change was in order.
She finds as an example, that reporters at the scene believed that Mr. Hagerty had blown his top on the Arizona trip, initiated by the First Lady to attend an Eve Arden slimming salon, because he had tried and failed to dissuade her and the President from going. He had already had a bad week and there was so little work and activity in Georgia that it proved impossible to maintain the impression that a "Georgia White House" existed, with the President in touch with daily events. Mr. Hagerty had been successful in creating that impression previously, sometimes when the grounds for it were quite nebulous, but now the press, along with the country, had turned to a more questioning temper.
The White House staff work was embarrassingly exposed by the National Food Conference developments in Washington, when Mr. Hagerty had told reporters in Georgia the previous week that the President was breaking his date to speak at the Conference breakfast because his plane might be delayed by bad weather. But the man who was presiding over the Conference angrily told reporters that Sherman Adams, White House chief of staff, had broken the longstanding date the previous Thursday on the basis that the President had very urgent matters to which to attend upon his return to Washington. But after the President returned, it was discovered that matters were not so urgent after all and he had gone to the Conference at noon to try to make amends, taking the form of a "chins-up" lecture with a call for courage and commonsense. Such homilies had been falling flat when addressed to general audiences and that one, addressed to an audience of food producers, processors and retailers, a group deeply sensitive to the problems of American agriculture, had fallen especially flat.
The previous week, Midwest farmers had registered their present mood by nearly electing a Democrat in a Minnesota House district which had been solidly Republican for 68 years.
A comment that the President sounded as Herbert Hoover was one of the more strained reactions from some in the audience at the Conference.
Ms. Fleeson notes that Mr. Hoover's public relations sense also seemed awry, as he was boasting the previous weekend at Valley Forge that he had delivered virtually the same chins-up speech which he had delivered there in 1931 during the depths of the Depression.
Water, water everywhere and not a drop
If her recap of the Washington scene sounds a little vaguely familiar and you are experiencing déjà vu all over again by the current Washington scene in 2025, even if far worse in the latter case for the attendant effort utterly to stamp out free speech while pretending to be the "Administration of transparency", transparent only in the sense of showing to all its intent to be a dictatorship irrespective of law and irrefutable fact, such as the actual outcome of the 2020 election and that there is a convicted felon for the first time in U.S. history in the White House, in all other eras to have been long ago laughed out of politics by a majority population which then had sense enough to understand the difference between a crook and an honest public servant truly serving the public's interest, the essence of political office, even if, from time to time, such as during the McCarthy-era, having veered away from that course in individual cases, then you are not alone.
But at least no one in the Eisenhower Administration, not even the Vice-President, sought to take a moment either on the White House lawn or at a hamburger joint to try to produce commercials for commercial establishments, always earlier thought to be a definite ethics violation for any public servant to perform. But not now, not under Trump, the biggest grifter in U.S. history ever to get near politics at any level, as no Senator, Congressman or any presidential candidate in American history has ever previously won political office as a convicted felon, especially on charges of fraud, none of which were brought by the Biden Administration or by a "weaponized Justice Department" "full of criminals" or represented manifestations of any of the other absurd lies being told presently by the present Administration's Trump boot-lickers.
Incidentally, do not go to "Steak
and Shake" and expect to be served "healthy" food.
Study
We, quite candidly, are sick of the daily lies. It appears that every last Republican in the Congress is now caving to His Majesty, and the country must rely for salvation from a royal establishment of autocratic and plutocratic rule of the most cruel type on the courts to rein in the reign of Trump, the convicted felon. Those who cave to this lunatic will be remembered by history and by the voters of the country, we predict, two and four years, respectively, down the line. And history and the voters will not be on their side, any more than Germany since the end of World War II has ever promoted Hitler as a hero or the swastika as a sigil representative of making Germany great again. Those little red caps will go down in history as America's brief bow to Nazism and Fascism warmed over from the 1930's, scapegoating immigrants and "Biden" for all of the nation's problems, compounded immeasurably by Trump's incompetent handling in 2020 of the nation's and the world's worst pandemic since that of the 1918 flu pandemic.
As for Mr. Kennedy, he should take a leaf from the training manual offered in the early 1960's by his uncle
A letter writer from Fairmont suggests that the name of the Rev. James Cole, self-proclaimed "Grand Dragon" of the Carolinas Klan, who had sought to stir up racial trouble in North Carolina, would be "cold" if substituting a "d" for the "e", finding cold to be the condition of the hearts of the critics who placed themselves before God, patted themselves on the back and called police officers names for only enforcing the law. He believes that the officers would do well not to have any more supportive thanks for their efforts from "their self-pitying, self-styled, backbiting fellow men…" He says that he loved God and his fellow man and did not believe in any form of violence, that it took more than what could be forced on a person to make him a good citizen and that others had to prove their lives superior to those of the Klan. "Shall we imply the same type of justice as Mr. Cole is advocating or wait for the court to decide?"
A letter writer from Clinton, S.C., says: "And speaking of old-timers: Who remembers the family of 11 children and only one wad of gum?"
Well, who? We do not know and give
up. Is the answer on "To Tell the Truth"?
Framed Edition
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