The Charlotte News

Saturday, March 15, 1958

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that Senator Harry F. Byrd of Virginia had said this date that he believed most Democrats in Congress preferred a sound public works program instead of tax cuts to combat the business slump. He stated in an interview that he would favor more spending to tax reductions should the economy not turn upward soon. He stated: "To some extent there will be wasteful spending in accelerating public works. But I am confident the majority of Democrats in Congress would rather follow that course than to reduce taxes now." The President had delayed any decision on taxes, asking Congress the previous day for an emergency appropriation of 125 million dollars to speed river and harbor projects and 46.2 million for hospital construction. White House press secretary James Hagerty said that the request for the funding, to be spent in the ensuing fiscal year, was aimed at helping lift the level of employment. Congressional approval of the increased funding was regarded as a foregone conclusion. Amid indications that the President would postpone any final decision on taxes until sometime in April, Senator Byrd had said that it was his understanding that any reduction proposals would be advanced on a bipartisan basis. He said, however, that he had gained the impression that Secretary of the Treasury Robert Anderson was opposed to a tax cut at the present time. The Administration was withholding any decision on tax reduction until it could find out whether the unemployment situation would improve during the current month and until it could determine whether anti-recession measures already undertaken were having the desired effect. Meanwhile, the Senate had turned back a drive by some members for quick cuts in personal income and excise taxes, with those Senators having contended that the cuts were the fastest way to revive the economy.

In Moscow, it was reported that Russia was proposing this date the creation of a U.N. organ for international cooperation in outer space, suggesting that it be considered at the proposed summit conference. The plan was part of a four-point program for that conference, including a ban on intercontinental missiles and the liquidation of U.S. bases ringing the Soviet Union. The program was essentially the same as the Soviet position outlined previously by Premier Nikolai Bulganin and Communist Party Secretary Nikita Khrushchev, this proposal coming directly from the Kremlin. The statement had been issued at a press conference after Mr. Khrushchev, in a speech the previous night, had pressed again for a summit meeting but sharply rejected Western proposals for a discussion of the status of East European nations, warning that Russia would block any attempt to tamper with Eastern Europe. The Kremlin statement accused the U.S. of seeking control of outer space and trying to ban ICBM's while refusing to discuss the abolition of foreign bases. The Kremlin stated that the ICBM of Russia threatened the U.S., while U.S. nuclear weapons and foreign bases threatened the Soviet Union. It said that under those conditions, the only solution would be the simultaneous prohibition of both. The proposal included "adequate international control" of the provisions of the agreement.

Elton C. Fay, Associated Press military affairs reporter, reports from aboard the nuclear submarine U.S.S. Seawolf, indicating that somewhere in the sea around the submarine might be lurking a Soviet submarine off the Atlantic Coast. The submarine had been given the job of trying to find that Russian sub if it was there. It was the first time that the Navy had ordered an atomic undersea craft to conduct what was very much like a war patrol. When the Seawolf started out from port, it was headed on a routine training cruise, but an order, radioed to the submarine a few hours after it had sailed, converted its mission into a hunt for an unidentified submarine or submarines believed to have been sighted in that area. There would be no great surprise if the search eventually identified the reported unidentified submarine as Russian, as the submarines of all of the major powers roamed far from home ports. If they remained outside territorial waters of a nation and committed no hostile act, it would be difficult to drive them away or take action against them. Since about 1950, there had been repeated reports of sightings of unidentified submarines off the East and West Coasts of the U.S., in recent days there having been a fresh flurry of such reported sightings. In Washington, the Navy said, without elaboration, that naval vessels had been sent out to check on the reports. The Seawolf was not working alone, serving as command ship of a search force, directing ships and aircraft. Cmdr. Richard Laning, skipper of the Seawolf and a man who knew undersea warfare from Pacific campaigns of World War II, sat at the nerve center of the search. An atomic submarine had built-in, natural features needed in anti-submarine work, capable of high speed under water, the ability to dive far deeper than most conventional submarines, able to stay down for weeks, rigged with elaborate new detection gear and armed with target-seeking torpedoes. For reasons of security, Mr. Fay reports that the details on how the hunt for the submarine had progressed to the present point or of the precise methods being used could not be disclosed. For days, the search had been long and painstaking, there having been a few possible contacts, faint tracings on sonar screens which may or may not have been a submarine, the images being "soft" and not susceptible to being classified with certainty. The submarine had planed up near enough to the surface to use its radio and from the air had come a search plane's report that it had glimpsed something, causing the submarine to submerge again at flank speed. Atomic power was poured in and the submarine was "like a huge, swift fish, boring swiftly through the water." It had been running deep when a new command came for it to run deeper, to dive to hundreds of feet in depth, and then there was silence on the boat, with men speaking softly amid stillness except for the electronic voice of the hunter, the pinging sound of sonar impulses questing into the black depths. An editorial note explains that it was the first time that a reporter had taken part in such a venture. Let us hope that it will not be the last.

The Senate-House Atomic Energy Committee this date released a report absolving the Atomic Energy Commission of any intention to deceive Congress or the public with an erroneous press release regarding minimizing of underground atomic tests.

House investigators of the Investigating subcommittee planned to hear some members of the FCC regarding allegations of improper conduct after finishing its probe of alleged pressures in the award of the Miami television channel to a subsidiary of National Airlines, which had resulted in the resignation of FCC commissioner Richard Mack amid charges of undue influence exerted on him in voting to award the channel to the National subsidiary.

In Cairo, it was reported that the Saudi Arabian Government had placed extra guards around the Egyptian Embassy in Jeddah after reports that the local population had threatened to attack it, according to Radio Mecca this date.

In Richmond, Va., Judge Simeon Sobeloff of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals had granted a 20-day stay of a lower court order requiring four white Arlington County schools to admit seven black students.

In Scranton, Pa., a general alarm fire had swept a four-story apartment house early this date killing two women and injuring five other persons, none seriously. Police had listed one man as missing but said that he might not have been at home. A doctor had escaped without injury. The fire had developed like an oil-soaked bonfire, burning through the roof and for awhile threatening 2,000 gallons of gasoline stored in a next-door garage. When the flames had subsided, the burned body of a woman was found in a third-floor window, and a retired nurse had been trapped in another third-floor window, the latter having grabbed for a ladder directed by firemen who had been driven back by the flames, but missing the ladder and falling to her death on the street. One man had been brought down via a ladder from the third floor and a woman had jumped to a fire net from the same floor, both suffering from smoke inhalation, shock and minor injuries, as had most of the other survivors. A dentist on the second floor, the one person not injured, had been awakened by an explosion which had blown out his windows, indicating that he had walked into the hallway, had seen that fire blocked the stairway and groped through dense smoke to a second-floor window opening onto the roof of an adjoining building. A woman and a couple also had climbed onto the roof to safety. Several hundred firemen from 20 companies in Scranton and nearby communities brought the fire under control after about two hours, then began searching for the missing man.

In Eugene, Ore., a Southern Pacific passenger train had been derailed in heavy snow at the summit of the Cascade Mountains early this date, with rail officials indicating that at least 27 persons had been injured.

In Raleigh, it was reported that the Utilities Commission was expected to announce a hearing date soon on Southern Railroad's petition for authority to discontinue passenger trains 111 and 112 between Greensboro and Goldsboro, the railroad wanting also to abandon sleeping car service between Raleigh and Asheville, citing heavy financial loss in the operations.

Also in Raleigh, it was reported that police stated that a snarling Raleigh man had visited his estranged wife during the morning, axed her 1951 automobile into a total wreck, torn up the furniture in her bedroom, threatened her and forced her to take refuge in a basement storm vent. The 34-year old man was brought under control and asked why he had gone on the rampage, replying, "That's personal." Domestic troubles had been cited by the police as the reason for the tantrum. He was charged with damage to property and assault with a deadly weapon, then released under a $2,000 bond. The arresting police officer said that it had taken a long time to calm him down, that when he finally did control himself, his wife had come out from the basement. The arresting officer said that although he had never struck his wife, his threats constituted an assault. The police said that he had also forced her into the storm vent earlier in the year in another such rampage.

In Oklahoma City, a branch YMCA announced that enrollment was starting for two new night courses for adult women, "Ladies' Judo" and "Fundamentals of Babysitting". The estranged wife in Raleigh might wish to consider enrollment in one or both.

In Belmont, N.C., a Cramerton textile worker, who had stopped to investigate an unfamiliar roadblock the previous night, had been held up by two armed men, according to police, and was robbed of $202. The man, about 60, told police that the men had tied and blindfolded him, driven him to a hosiery mill parking lot off Wilkinson Boulevard and warned him not to notify anyone for at least a half hour. Employees of the mill had found the man after about 20 minutes. He might also consider entering one or both of those courses.

Near Mooresville, N.C., a vehicle, out of control, had overturned on U.S. 21 about four miles south of the town the previous day, killing a 50-year old man from Cornelius.

In Mount Holly, N.C., because of the town's cleanup campaign being run "like a dictatorship in the Russian style", a resident was suing for $2,000 in damages which he claimed had been done to his property by town workers. The lawsuit said that City bulldozers had knocked down valuable water oaks and "left behind a pile of rubble" on his property. An ordinance had been passed the prior November ordering property owners to clean up their land, including vacant lots, or have the City do it at the owner's expense. The mayor said that the claim was ridiculous and that the City had spent $40 in partly clearing the man's lot, but did not finish because the man had barred the work crews from the land.

In Charlotte, it was reported that Solicitor Grady Stott of Gastonia this date had announced as a candidate for the 14th Solicitorial District, subject to the May 31 Democratic primary. Mr. Stott had been appointed to the post to succeed Representative Basil Whitener, elected to Congress in 1956, and had begun his duties at the beginning of 1957.

Julian Scheer of The News reports that State Representative Jack Love, a two-time member of the State House, had announced this date that he would run for the State Senate, the position presently held by Senator J. Spencer Bell. It set up a battle for the Democratic nomination in May. There was also a strong possibility that a third candidate, former State Senator Fred McIntyre, would enter the race. Mr. Bell had been named by the Mecklenburg County Democratic executive committee a year earlier to the Senate vacancy created by the death of Senator F. J. Blythe. Mr. Love had been elected to the 1955 General Assembly in his first political campaign and had won re-election in 1957.

In Charlotte, the Weather Bureau predicted a second straight night of freezing temperatures, calling for a low of 30 degrees to match the morning's cold 29. But a warming trend, brought by the domination of a high-pressure ridge over the Central and Eastern sections of the country, would bring relief from the cold. The previous day's high of 52 was seen as creeping to 55 this date and 58 the following day. By Tuesday, the sun was expected to have warmed temperatures to the mid-60's. Rain was a possibility by late Tuesday or Wednesday, with skies being clear until that time.

In Los Angeles, as told by a caption of a photograph, actress-heiress Marjorie Durant Waller had been acquitted by a jury the previous night of drunk driving following a 17-day trial, setting a record for its type of case. The jury had deliberated for 14 hours. It might be noted that some 24 years later, the record for such a case in San Francisco would be set in People v. F. Lee Bailey, also resulting in acquittal after a trial lasting 14 days with seven hours of deliberation.

On the editorial page, "St. Patrick Never Had It So Good" indicates that in Charlotte it was Erin Going Bragh this day, notwithstanding the fact that St. Patrick's Day did not occur until Monday or that it was an Irish celebration.