The Charlotte News
Tuesday, March 18, 1958
TWO EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from Cape Canaveral, Fla., that three U.S. satellites were now orbiting the earth in company with the sole surviving Sputnik, the one which had been launched on November 4 as the second Soviet satellite, given less than a month of remaining life on its batteries. The Soviet Union was now at a numerical disadvantage in the international space fight competition for the first time since it had entered it the prior October 4 with the launching of Sputnik I. The Navy Vanguard satellite had been launched early the previous day into an orbit which had pushed new frontiers to the unknown. The announced orbit ranged from 400 miles above the earth to an apogee of 2,500 miles, the highest altitude yet attained by a man-made satellite. The Vanguard represented not only one but two satellites, the actual satellite which was a sphere measuring 6.4 inches in diameter and weighing 3 pounds, about the size of a grapefruit, with its 50-pound third-stage rocket orbiting close behind at 18,000 mph, the stage being 5 feet long and 20 inches wide. The Navy estimated that the satellite, itself, would remain in orbit for between five and ten years. (At last report, it was still up there, still ticking, though long since dead as a doornail. We saw it just last night fly past our window. Didn't you?)
The President would discuss with a group of state governors the following day his proposal for an extended jobless payment plan before he sent it to Congress. It had been reported that the plan might entail lending Federal money to the states to pay unemployment compensation benefits for a maximum of 39 weeks, instead of the 26 weeks most states presently paid, plus a form of relief or dole for idle workers not covered by the unemployment compensation system. The plan was still subject to change and reportedly was encountering some opposition from within the Administration. Some legal problems also remained.
Senator Edward Martin of Pennsylvania had reported this date that a White House conference had canvassed the possibility of cutting taxes, but had reached no decision. The talk had concerned withholding taxes on individuals, excise taxes and levies in which a cut might spur investment of venture capital in business. The Senator had been the first to emerge from the regular Tuesday meeting with the President, a session which he said concentrated for half an hour or more on the tax question. He told reporters that the conference had looked over the possibility of tax reductions which would have an immediate impact in stimulating purchasing power as well as those which would beome operative in a year or two, and that there had been no conclusions reached. He said that Secretary of the Treasury Robert Anderson, who was present, had not leaned toward one or more of the tax alternatives, and neither had there been any indication when a decision might come. Congressional Democrats were drafting a proposal for $40 lump-sum tax cuts to boost the economy. As outlined by a responsible official who did not want to be quoted by name, the proposal would involve a $40 rebate on tax withholdings in the pay periods immediately after passage of any such bill, indicating that it was aimed primarily at putting into the hands of those who filed 48 million tax returns enough money in one sum to encourage immediate expenditures. You ought to get more than $40 for filing 48 million tax returns.
Democrats and Republicans had split sharply this date over a Senate report that "consumers have fared badly" under fast tax write-offs granted to electric utility companies.
The U.S. and 14 other nations were reviewing trade controls under conditions foreshadowing a substantial easing of restrictions on shipments to the Communist bloc nations.
In Seoul, South Korea, two U.S. Army men would be court-martialed on charges of assaulting a young Korean who had been beaten, nailed in a box and flown 25 miles, according to the Army this date.
In Saigon, South Vietnam, seven Vietnamese newsmen had disappeared in the previous few days, according to informed sources this date, believed to have been arrested in a new crackdown by the Interior Ministry on "Communist elements".
In Osaka, Japan, it was reported that the U.S. Air Force this date had returned control of Itami Air Base to the Japanese Government, the base being 25 miles north of Osaka, to become that city's civilian airport.
In Jackson, Miss., it was reported that a million dollars in public funding with no strings attached could be given to the pro-segregation citizens councils under a bill passed in the State Senate and sent immediately to the State House.
In Raleigh, it was reported that a "very powerful eye" to detect and track severe storms in the area had been placed in operation by the U.S. Weather Bureau at the Raleigh-Durham Airport, with the chief meteorologist there having announced this date that the installation of a storm-tracking radar set had been completed and that the instrument was now in operation. He said that the Bureau hoped that it would be able "to detect more severe types of local storms and to give more accurate forecasts of the approach of the storms." He said that he hoped it would prove highly useful in detecting and tracking the severest type of local storm, the tornado, and that it would help in tracking hurricanes. It was the second such installation which the Bureau had placed in operation in the state, the other being at Hatteras, installed primarily to track hurricanes. The Bureau's chief meteorologist said that the radar operated by sending out electromagnetic waves which penetrated fog and darkness, as well as light rainfall, but were deflected by large drops of precipitation, such as rain, snow or hail, which bounced back to the radar set and showed up on the radar scope, with the radar able to track a radius of about 100 miles in any direction. He said that they would be able to tell pilots the position, the extent, direction, height and rate of movement of such things as thunderstorms.
In Elliott Lake, Ontario, a 28-year old woman and her two young daughters had been found slashed to death in a trailer a few miles north of the uranium-mining center early this date. Provincial police had found the bodies in the wee hours of the morning as a result of a report that a 30-year old man had walked into police headquarters in Detroit and told officers that he was "haunted by the feeling I killed my wife and daughters" at Elliott Lake. The victims were identified as the man's wife, and his two daughters, ages seven and three. Charges of murder had been sworn out against the man and provincial police headquarters in Toronto said that an officer had been dispatched to Detroit to arrange for his return to Canada.
In Hendersonville, N.C., it was reported that city, county and state police planned to search all summer homes of the Mountain Home community in the hope of capturing a man who was believed to have killed an 18-year old Flat Rock High School senior found choked to death the previous day in the rooming house where she had been staying. The coroner placed the time of death as 5:00 a.m. The police chief had signed a murder warrant against a 35-year old man, a service station attendant who had only recently returned to his native Hendersonville after living for several years in California. A police captain had told the newspaper this date that a lot of the summer homes were closed in Mountain Home and they believed that he might be hiding in one of them. A taxi driver had told the police chief that he had taken the man to the Mountain Home community about 45 miles north of Hendersonville about two hours after the time of death of the girl. Friends of the girl had described her as "nice" and doubted that she knew the alleged assailant. She had been a part-time waitress in a dairy bar, residing in a rooming house for the previous five months. The man being sought had moved into his room, which was next to that of the girl, the prior Sunday night. A note had been found in his room saying: "Don't any of this girl's people feel bad at me. I met her today. That is why I'm here. I told her I wanted to die from the way things have been going and she said she wanted to go with me. She was a sweet girl and I done what she asked me to do." Large amounts of blood and a bloody razor had been found in the suspect's room, and police theorized that he might have slashed his own wrists. The taxi driver had told police that the man was bleeding when he picked him up. Prior to the discovery of the murder, the police chief had issued a first-degree burglary warrant against the man, after another woman had reported that he had broken into her home about two hours before the girl's death. He had scuffled with a resident of that home, had been recognized and then fled. The police chief said that he had at one time roomed at that home. The girl had left a call to be awakened at a certain hour and when she did not answer, other residents of the rooming house had discovered her body. The coroner said that finger marks indicated that she had been strangled to death by hand.
In New York, S.C., it was reported that two brothers from Gastonia had received prison terms for looting the Catawba River summer home of Charlotte department store executive, W. H. Belk, Jr. Mrs. Belk had estimated the value of stolen furnishings at $75,000, including $4,100 in $100 bills contained in a piggy bank. The two men had been sentenced to 18 months and two years in prison, respectively, the previous day, with a third defendant from Gastonia, given a year suspended sentence on condition of two years of probation. They had pleaded guilty to the housebreaking charge, and the man given probation, the brother-in-law of the other two, had cooperated with police to help them solve the case. The men admitted having taken some household furnishings but denied taking many of the items listed as missing and insisted that they had never seen the money in the piggy bank. The cash and many of the furnishings were still missing. Defense attorneys had told the court that the younger of the two brothers, 35, had been hired for five dollars and a pint of whiskey by a Gastonia real estate man to go to the Belk home and transport some of the furnishings in a truck, indicating that when the two brothers and their brother-in-law had arrived there, the agent had not appeared, that the three had begun to drink and were drunk when they robbed the home.
Julian Scheer of The News reports that the death of Judge John J. Parker the prior day had caused immediate speculation on who the President might appoint to fill the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals vacancy, with the name of Republican Representative Charles Jonas having been mentioned. The Court presently had a South Carolinian, Judge Clement Haynsworth—future failed appointee to the Supreme Court to be nominated by President Nixon in 1969—, and a Maryland native, Judge Simon Sobeloff. The big question was whether North Carolina would get the judgeship. The Fourth Circuit was made up of Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland and North and South Carolina. Virginia and West Virginia were without representation on the Court. Consequently, the Virginia legislative delegation was expected to make a strong pitch for the judgeship, with Judge Albert Bryan having been mentioned to fill the vacancy. Many Republicans were saying that Representative Jonas was too valuable to the Republicans in Congress to have him named to the judgeship, as he was the only member of the party from North Carolina and one of the few from the South.
Legal and political notables from all over the nation would assemble in Charlotte the following day for the funeral of Judge Parker, with his burial to follow in Elmwood Cemetery. Chief Justice Earl Warren would be present as chief among the list of honorary pallbearers.
Mr. Scheer also reports that State Representative Frank Snepp, a Charlotte attorney and active young Democrat, would seek re-election to the General Assembly, having announced this date that he would run again, becoming the fourth member of the 1957 delegation from the county to announce.
On the editorial page, "The Legacy of Judge John J. Parker" finds that the legacy of the jurist who had died of a heart attack the previous day while visiting Washington to have been "a vision of faith in the full promise of American life. Consequently, he left us all extraordinarily wealthy." "He was the rock in the storm, the Gibraltar of principle, though highly sensitive, he maintained his intellectual and emotional rectitude with unruffled serenity. And yet he would labor with a heroic perseverance for convictions which formed the basis for what can only be described as a classical philosophy of democracy."
After having been narrowly defeated for confirmation to the Supreme Court in 1930 following his appointment by President Herbert Hoover, he had "triumphed over the shallowness of lesser men", remaining "serene and aloof from all matters unmeasured by his own sensible devices, pure motives and reliable intuitions." It finds that he was dedicated to justice in its purest and most elementary form. He had been called a liberal by some, a conservative by others, but defied being labeled. He had told Newsman in 1955: "The true liberal and the true conservative have a great deal in common. The true conservative wants to conserve principles. He knows they can be preserved only through change. The true liberal strives for the ideal. Neither of them have anything to do with the 'conservative' who wants to cling to the past or the 'liberal' who wants to change just for the sake of change."
He had said sometime earlier: "There is much loose talk about democracy, but we must never forget that democracy is more than a form of government. It is a philosophy of life, a philosophy based upon the worth and importance of the individual, a philosophy which believes that institutions exist for men and not men for institutions, and that the happiness of the poor and the humble is of as much importance as the happiness of the great and the proud. Our country came into existence proclaiming this philosophy as her confession of faith. 'We hold these truths to be self-evident,' says our Declaration of Independence, 'that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.' And the greatness of America consists in the fact that she has lived up to this philosophy. She is great, not because of the strength of her army or her navy, not because of the wealth of field or forests or mine or factory, not because of the splendor of her cities or the learning of her colleges and universities, but because in her heart of hearts she believes in the sovereignty of the individual soul and the open door of opportunity for every man irrespective of race or color or religion or any other circumstances."
He had recognized the continuing challenge of progress, responding belligerently to the hosts of darkness who threatened the freedom of the individual. In defending the principles in the Constitution, no man had ever fought with such tenacity and grace, having once said: "It is easy enough to believe in freedom of religion for Episcopalians or Baptists or Presbyterians. The test is whether we believe in that freedom for Mohammedans or Buddhists or atheists. It is easy enough to believe in free speech for Republicans and Democrats. The rub comes when it is applied to Communists and Fascists and others whose teaching is hostile to our institutions. We must never forget that unless speech is free for everybody it is free for nobody, that unless it is free for error, it is not free for truth; and that the only limitations which may safely be placed upon it are those which forbid slander, obscenity and incitement to crime. As said by Jefferson: 'We have nothing to fear from the demoralizing reasonings of some, if others are left free to demonstrate their errors and especially when the law stands ready to punish the first criminal act produced by false reasonings.' It is so easy for the unthinking to persuade themselves that the end justifies the means and that a violation of fundamental principles should be allowed in the interest of a supposed public good. The answer is that we shall have fought the battle against the enemies of freedom in vain if in fighting we destroy freedom itself."
The piece concludes that it had never known another man "who was more just, nor one of sinewy will and powerful principles who was more gentle and forbearing."
"Charlotte's Buildings: Upward & Outward" indicates that the city's setback program was a wise and prudent plan to prevent buildings from being placed too close to streets which might have to be widened in the future. It reflected common sense and foresight to avoid the city, a decade or so hence, finding itself strait-jacketed by suffocating congestion.
Yet, a group of ordinarily farsighted members of the City Council were currently wondering whether an exception could be made in the setback program to accommodate a local firm. It finds it an unfortunate situation as the principle of city planning had to be preserved if Charlotte was to continue to grow in an orderly manner.
It suggests that some tinkering might be allowed with the setback ordinance but to junk the whole thing or to permit an individual business to thwart its original and commendable intent would be inadvisable.
Drew Pearson indicates that a summit agreement, though still not certain, was much closer than public announcements had indicated for the fact that the President and Soviet Premier Nikolai Bulganin, while writing each other stern letters, had been dickering secretly. The President had leaned more toward a summit conference than either Secretary of State Dulles or the Joint Chiefs. When Communist Party Secretary Nikita Khrushchev had offered to come to Washington for the conference to spare the President the rigors of a long trip, it had been Secretary Dulles who vigorously opposed the idea, claiming that it might cause a bad reaction just before the November midterm elections, arguing that the visit would give the Kremlin social recognition which the U.S. ought to withhold, treating them as social inferiors because of their "international gangsterism". As a result, the meeting probably would be held in Canada.
The President had insisted that the summit meeting must have the blessings of the U.N., a condition which Secretary Khrushchev readily accepted. The President was also insisting both privately and publicly that the heads of state ought not meet until some hope for worthwhile agreements could first be reached. The President was still dickering with Secretary Khrushchev over what subjects ought be taken up at the conference, with the President wanting to modify the American position on banning of missiles, provided the suspension would be supervised by the U.N., that Soviet-American cooperation in exploring outer space could be achieved by working together through a U.N. space agency to send research rockets to the moon, that into his "open skies" plan to permit aerial surveillance of both the U.S. and Soviet areas behind the Iron Curtain, he would probably introduce a new gimmick, a satellite equipped with television cameras which would consistently orbit the earth watching for arms movements below, and finally, German unification.
The President was guided by two principal interests, his dedication to the idea of bringing about world peace and his faith in his ability to influence Soviet leaders, and his belief that the country must either reach an agreement with Russia or switch to a wartime economy to compete with the Soviet arms build-up.
Joseph Alsop tells of finding it strange to come home after a year and a half abroad with the preoccupation by everyone being the danger of a domestic depression when the danger abroad was at least as great.
As example he tells of the plight of America's chief Middle Eastern ally, King Saud of Saudi Arabia. Not very many months earlier, in the aftermath of the Suez Canal crisis in Egypt, the President and Secretary of State Dulles had gone to Bermuda to meet with British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd, where the President and Secretary promised that their friend, King Saud, would thereafter serve as "the anchor" of a new policy guaranteed to protect all the vital Western interests in the Middle East. But now, the "anchor" was slipping while the State Department maintained a brave front in public, but behind the scenes was sick with worry. No official had quoted the odds in favor of the "anchor" as being better than 2 to 1, and some said the odds were no better than even that King Saud would survive as America's great Middle Eastern friend.
King Saud's link with American policy, as distinguished from his financial link to the Arabian-American Oil Co., had only dated from October, 1956, at the time of the Suez crisis. Until that time, he had been closely aligned with Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser, and his oil money had supported the strong anti-Western movement organized by Premier Nasser and every other Arab state. But then in October, 1956, the King began to understand that Premier Nasser also threatened the Saudi throne and so he started to reverse his alliances. Since that time, the enmity towards Premier Nasser had increased until recently the King appeared to have made a desperate, last-minute attempt to prevent the union of Syria with Egypt under the leadership of Premier Nasser. According to the Egyptian story, that attempt had taken the form of offering 60 million dollars to the Syrian Army's undercover strongman, Col. Abdel Hamid Serraj, to organize a military coup in Syria.
A few days earlier, Premier Nasser had dramatically revealed the alleged attempt to prevent the Egyptian-Syrian union, the revelation having in turn caused a highly dangerous turn in King Saud's strange desert capital of Riyadh, where the King's reversal of alliances had never been popular. Even among the members of the royal family and Saudi ruling class, who had most to lose by a triumph of Premier Nasser in their country, there was regret over the lost attachment to Egypt, producing a new trend toward open criticism of the once-sacred monarchy, now evident in Riyadh when Mr. Alsop had been there just prior to the previous Christmas.
The King's brother and heir, Faisal, Prince of the Hejaz, had left Saudi Arabia not long after the King had broken with Premier Nasser. The son of the Prince, who held the critical post of Minister of the Interior and therefore commanded the police, had been openly and violently in favor of Premier Nasser and was anti-Western. The Prince also had shown his sentiments openly during the winter at the end of his long period of medical treatment in the U.S., when he had gone to Cairo as Premier Nasser's guest instead of returning to Saudi Arabia.
But after months in Cairo, the Prince had at last gone home, timing his return to coincide with Premier Nasser's public attack on King Saud. Even if the King managed to save himself by returning to his former alliance with Premier Nasser, the ensuing political chain reaction would rapidly destroy the West's other remaining friends in the Arab lands.
Anthony Hartley, in a piece condensed from the Manchester Guardian, looks at the Western as an "art form" in his eyes. He says that he had been a fan of Westerns, perhaps because he was fond of nomads, even though over time, he had become aware that there were hardly any nomads left in the world and little chance of his ever seeing another Mongol invasion, coming as a disappointing confrontation with reality. There were still Bedouin tribes in the Arabian Desert, but they were rather scruffy and many did their wandering in Cadillacs. "No, nomads were out in the modern world, and what romance could still be extracted from the idea of a pastoral life could only be found in the Western."
He finds that the behavior of cowboys upon hitting town betrayed the true nomadic antipathy to dwellers in oases. The sense of space, liberty, impermanence and hostility to established communities was that which was attractive in Westerns. He found that they fell roughly into two categories, the Feud and the Peregrination, the Revenge Tragedy and the Epic. The latter included such things as cattle drives, journeys to trade furs with Indian tribes, searches for someone carried off by Indians, Mexicans, or others and plain pioneering. It might culminate in an heroic last stand, among which Custer's was the outstanding example along with the Battle of the Alamo, "that Texan Roncesvalles."
The Feud found its plots in such themes as "Bad Sheriff Shoots Good Man; Good Man's Not-so-Bad Brother Shoots Bad Sheriff"; or "Lone Star Wipes Out Crooked K". Frequently the two genres combined as when a long journey was undertaken for the purpose of revenge.
He finds that what made the plots, in themselves banal, successful in their treatment was the relationship existing between the Western and the audience, making it the only contemporary art form whose conventions were utterly assured and completely familiar. It merely required a character to appear on the screen for everyone to know what to think of him and for his place in the story to be settled. An obvious example was the man in black who invariably turned out to be the villain, or if not, causing the audience to believe that he ought be so viewed within the plot. (Not any longer since Paladin hit the trail.)
There were dangers for a director in tinkering too much with the established form, such as the "miserable device" of the "good Indian", having already ravaged the territory of the Western and if allowed to proliferate, would end by destroying the basis of the "cowboy versus Indian" relationship.
He indicates that the importance of
conventions was that they helped the audience to absorb anything. A
minor Western called "The Bad Lands of Dakota"
He finds that the Western deserved to have an Orwellian treatment, but did not imagine that the general ethics of the form would show anything more remarkable than the ordinary manners of chivalry. He finds it a type of fiction which had arrived at a stage of definition where it was ready for the hand of a real master, with all of the stock characters having been created along with the stock plots such that an imaginative synthesis was now required. "The genre, in fact, is just at the stage reached by the Elizabethan drama before the appearance of Marlowe and Shakespeare. All that is missing is a genius, but he may not be long in appearing. I take my own taste as indicating that this form is peculiarly well adapted to the 20th century."
A letter writer from Rock Hill, S.C., tells of the Flushing Remonstrance, as little-known in American history as the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence, being commemorated on the recent issue of a colored three-cent postage stamp. On December 27, 1657, a group of 31 Flushing, N.Y., residents living in the settlement bordering the Long Island Sound, had signed the Remonstrance, protesting the wooden-legged Governor Peter Stuyvesant's order declaring that any person caught lodging a Quaker for a single night would be fined 50 florins, that any vessel used to bring into the province any Quaker would be confiscated. The residents of Flushing had stood up to the Governor and protested that they had the right "to have and enjoy liberty of conscience according to the custom and manner of Holland, without molestation or disturbance from any magistrate or any other ecclesiastical minister, that may pretend jurisdiction over them." The new stamp commemorated the 300th anniversary of the signing of the document and the writer believes that the Postmaster General deserved commendation for recalling the courageous deed founded on the teachings of the Old Testament, well known to the early American settlers.
A letter writer says: "Of all the darn fool things I have ever heard of, the proposal to lease the lawn in front of the Post Office for parking takes the cake. It would ruin the looks and the beautiful lawn…"
We quite agree. Don't do it. Let them park on the roof or out in space somewhere.
Framed Edition
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