The Charlotte News
Thursday, March 20, 1958
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that before the Senate Select Committee investigating misconduct in unions and management, an affidavit, charging that four deputized Kohler Co. officials had shot a man during a 1934 riot, had set off a heated row this date. The counsel for Kohler, who had been accused in the affidavit along with three others, angrily denounced the allegation as "a complete and utter fabrication", that if it were made under oath and submitted to the Committee, it would be perjury and that if anyone made it without the immunity surrounding Congressional hearings, he would sue the person for libel. The Committee was investigating violence in the four-year old strike against Kohler by the UAW. The 1934 strike, in which two persons had been killed and several dozen injured, involved another union. The affidavit had been read to the Committee as the sworn statement of an absent witness, read by an official of the UAW's Kohler local who claimed no firsthand knowledge of the 1934 incident but said that he believed the affidavit. He said that the affiant was not a member of the UAW. Along with the Kohler counsel, the affidavit had named the plant manager and two others as the men who had shot the affiant. Both the counsel and the plant manager said that they had done no shooting during the riot. The affiant said that all four men had been special deputies on the night of the riot and that he had seen them shooting.
Elton C. Fay of the Associated Press reports that the Army apparently had small nuclear explosive kits for sabotaging an enemy's bridges, tunnels, factories and other installations or to impede its advance in a war zone. Such kits had to be small enough to be carried in a suitcase. Cryptic reference to the "atomic demolition matériel" was contained in an otherwise routine, non-secret regulation which had been issued recently. Officials declined to discuss the matter, other than to confirm the existence of the atomic demolition equipment as mentioned in the regulation, and to say that it was developed jointly by Army Ordnance and the Atomic Energy Commission. With conventional explosives, a large bridge was toppled by blowing away its piers and other supporting structures, and was capable of being rebuilt quickly. But an atomic explosion, even of the comparatively low-yield blasts presumably designed into the atomic kits, would blow a bridge or tunnel to bits, destroying all of the structure and its abutments, similarly destroying a long length of tunnel or blowing apart a large factory or railroad marshaling yard.
The New York Times reported this date that scientific leaders of the U.S. satellite program had recommended to the Administration a long-range program of space research.
The New York Herald Tribune reported this date that top Government economists had come to the conclusion that unemployment was climbing to a new postwar high during the current month.
In London, it was reported that the Bank of England this date had reduced its interest rate from 7 to 6 percent, allowing money to be borrowed at a lower rate. The result would be cheaper money throughout the sterling bloc.
In Tunis, it was reported that Tunisian President Habib Bourguiba this date had reaffirmed his desire to keep his North African republic on the side of the West, promising that French troops would be withdrawn from his country with the help of the U.S.-British good offices mission.
In Berlin, it was reported that Hungarian Premier Ferenc Muennich and a delegation from his Communist Government had arrived in East Berlin this date for a five-day state visit to Communist East Germany.
In Tokyo, police and postal workers had engaged in minor clashes this date as Japanese labor stepped up its annual spring drive for more pay.
Chances for a final victory for the four-cent stamp over a five-cent rate appeared improved this date by the choice of Senate confreres on postal rate legislation.
In Chicago, a fire which called out one-fifth of the city's fire-fighting apparati this date had destroyed the Meyers Furniture Co., with an estimated $150,000 in damage. The multiple alarm fire had continued out of control for more than seven hours the previous night into early this date.
In Orofino, Ida., A 44-year old man suffered a heart attack and died at the controls while test-flying a light plane. His passenger, also a pilot, landed the plane safely.
In New York, the city began a probe this date of the loft building fire on lower Broadway which had taken a toll of 24 lives, 18 women and six men, with 15 others injured, three of whom had been treated and sent home the previous night, the remaining 12 having been hospitalized, with two of them being in critical condition. Two state agencies would enter the investigation, ordered by Governor Averell Harriman. There was no evidence of fire code violations on the premises. The blaze had been touched off by an explosion in a third-floor textile plant the previous day, and had shot smoke and flame into a fourth floor underwear factory, causing panic among the 36 workers. Many had been burned beyond recognition, but a medical examiner said that most of the victims were asphyxiated before they were engulfed by the flames.
In Plainfield, Wisc., the farmhouse where Edward Gein butchered his murder victims and hid the bodies he looted from graves had burned to the ground early this date. It had been vacant since Mr. Gein had been arrested the prior fall. Several area clergymen, among others, had protested plans for an auction of Mr. Gein's property on Palm Sunday. Authorities were investigating the cause of the blaze, which was out of control by the time fire personnel arrived on the scene. Adjacent buildings to the house had been saved. Mr. Gein had been committed to the Central State Hospital for the criminally insane at Waupun. He had admitted two of the killings, one having been a woman who had been murdered in her main street hardware store the previous fall, and the other, a rural tavern keeper murdered in 1954. He had also admitted several grave robberies in the area.
Jerry Reece of The News reports that in Charlotte, an all-white jury of 11 men and one woman had retired this date to decide the guilt or innocence of five members of the Klan, after hearing testimony since Monday afternoon and closing arguments for both the State and the defense the previous afternoon, followed by final instructions from the judge, who said they had two indictments to consider, one against two of the defendants charged with attempting to bomb the Woodland Elementary School and the other against four of the defendants, including one of the two charged in the first indictment, charging conspiracy to dynamite a black school located in the Paw Creek section. The judge instructed the jury that in the second indictment, charging conspiracy, none of the defendants could be found guilty alone. He also instructed on the defense of entrapment by the prime witness for the State and police officers. The defense had attacked the testimony of the chief witness, a police undercover agent planted in the Klan to gather evidence. They suggested that the 33-year old construction worker and dynamite expert was a "Judas, leading five poor innocent lambs to slaughter." They further argued that the Klansmen had been entrapped after being led into the acts of violence by the undercover agent. They claimed that the latter had suggested and planned the cross-burning and bombing attacks. Theys just po' lil' lambs who has lost their way, bah, bah, bah... Have mercy on theya po' souls.
Wide areas of the mid-Atlantic states, from northern Virginia to southern New York, were hit by knee-deep snow this date, causing at least three traffic deaths. Two Manhattan patrolmen had been killed when their car skidded on the Long Island Parkway, and a car carrying four young women had sped through a road barrier on U.S. 1 and plummeted 90 feet down an incline northeast of Baltimore, killing one of the women. Two others were killed when their car skidded head-on into a truck in Fairfax County, Va. Power was cut off to about 50 percent of the homes and buildings in Washington. Snow had accumulated to 16 inches in depth in the northern suburbs of Baltimore and between 10 and 15 inches was forecast for many areas of Maryland and eastern Pennsylvania. The District of Columbia had invoked a snow emergency plan requiring motorists to use chains or snow tires and making drivers blocking traffic subject to arrest.
In Provo, Utah, it was reported that coeds at Brigham Young University were doing what any housewife knew could not be done, eating on 50 cents per day when meat and potatoes were costing a lot. The girls did not seem to lose weight, getting nutritious but simple meals in a reasonably varied diet. They did it in a sort of combat course for senior students of homemaking, to supply them training to avoid starvation in hard times. For nine-day stretches, two of the girls moved to a separate apartment set up by the University. The homemaking instructor provided them $10 for the nine-day period. One girl became the "husband" or "host" and the other became the "planner" or "wife". Two of the seniors had produced a menu of beef stew, dumplings, tossed salad with a microscopic slice of bacon and a razor-thin egg slice, whole milk mixed with powdered milk and chilled to taste better, with apricot gelatin for dessert, costing just over 49 cents for both girls. The homemaking instructor said that none of the girls had any trouble living on the $10, that all of them had returned a dollar or two at the end of the experiment. They were required to prepare three meals per day, as skipping one meal brought on a wave of icebox raiding which depleted the budget. Some of the girls planned to become home economics instructors or to work as kitchen equipment demonstrators, while others were merely preparing for the possible worse in the "for better or for worse" clause of marital vows.
On the editorial page, "An Embattled Briton Comes to Call" tells of Winston Churchill having returned to everyday attention with the publication of the final volume of his History of the English-Speaking Peoples and amid reports that his paintings were packing the Metropolitan Museum of Art with visitors every day. His personal health was attracting more interest in the U.S. than the political health of his country.
Mr. Churchill was a symbol of a time when leaders seemed at least to be masters of events and when, buoyed by his eloquence, the free nations could contemplate unconditional surrender by the Axis which seemed on the point of enveloping them. He was also a symbol of indomitable British courage and unity.
The present Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, had earned and ought be shown during his forthcoming visit to the U.S. much sympathy and respect. One motivation for his trip was the need for new prestige, and by stepping into the international spotlight it was believed that he could mute somewhat the bitter divisiveness in Britain regarding Anglo-American relations. One of the fractious controversies involved the British bases for U.S. missiles and planes carrying nuclear bombs. It finds that Mr. Churchill had a great advantage in governance which was denied to Prime Minister Macmillan, national unity in the face of peril. While the peril remained, many Britons did not agree with Mr. Macmillan's stubborn contention that it was centered in the Kremlin, with growing opposition finding the peril to be in Western preparedness. They believed that there should be unilateral disarmament by Britain and that nuclear tests ought be halted, as well as a ban imposed on U.S. bombers with nuclear weapons flying over British territory.
The recent accidental dropping of an unarmed atom bomb near Florence, S.C., had provoked a bitter assault on Mr. Macmillan's position that Britain had to remain behind the shelter of U.S. nuclear weapons. A poll of Oxford University students had found strong sentiment for pacifism. Nevertheless, Mr. Macmillan, even in the face of losses in recent by-elections, continued to stick by the alliance.
It finds it a pity that Mr. Churchill could not transfer to Mr. Macmillan a little of his prestige, which was needed to rally Britain. It finds that in the case of politics and diplomacy, prestige often came to a person after that individual had no further need for it. Mr. Macmillan needed it now and it was to be hoped that his visit to the U.S. would provide him a plentiful supply.
"For Charlotte, a Lamentable Loss" tells of Dr. Paul Kimmelstiel, who had accepted the dual posts of director of laboratories and pathologist at the 1,200-bed Milwaukee County Hospital and of professor of pathology at the Marquette University Medical School, after having been one of Charlotte's brightest medical lights for nearly 20 years. His "qualified resignation" had been accepted by Memorial Hospital late the previous year when he and the administration had failed to agree on a contract. He had been director of laboratories and pathologist at Memorial since the hospital had opened in 1940.
He had a reputation in pathology which spanned several continents and had served Charlotte well, as well the whole of medical science. It suggests that his joining Marquette's medical school would significantly broaden the scope of his influence. It congratulates him on the new appointment but regrets that he was leaving Charlotte
"Where Are the Bull Bellows of Yore?" indicates that the latest outrage in Washington had taken the form of a proposal that microphones and loudspeakers be installed on the Senate floor so that the members could hear and be heard. It suggests it as a symptom of the namby-pambiness of the age that Senators no longer had the natural eloquence or vocal range of a Daniel Webster, a "Cotton Ed" Smith or a Tom Connally.
It finds that not even an electronic marvel, however, could clarify the utterances of some of the Senators. "As they say in high fidelity circles, too much distortion and feedback in the speaker."
"Looking Up" suggests that in the wake of the bombing of South Carolina and the cannonading of a town in Wisconsin, the Air Force had been accused of being trigger-happy, an accusation with which a veteran of the Pentagon had taken issue: "The boys are shooting at the whites of the eyes of all those people looking up at the Army and Navy satellites."
A piece from the Manchester Guardian, titled "Dogs in Good Odor", indicates that Britain had a brave reputation for trying to be a nation of home-lovers and of dog-lovers. "Sometimes when the beloved dog exercises some of its less lovable natural functions in the beloved home this dual role becomes difficult to sustain. But modern science, as the phrase goes, is changing all that." Various medical products were designed to make dogs more attractive by deflecting their natural functions and inclinations. There were special shampoos which cleaned, deodorized and beautified the coats of dogs. There were tranquilizer pills for neurotic, hysterical, and big-business dogs. There were non-fattening, health-giving sweets for the dog, a liquid which made puppies house-trained and another liquid for removing the stains from the carpet. It finds that perhaps the most interesting products were the tablets given to bitches in heat. Those killed the scent which attracted dogs, though the makers admitted that the unwooed bitch might still woo and win a dog for herself.
More than ten years earlier, a Manchester man had written to the firm who made the deodorant to say that he had successfully used it on his bitch against the advances of amorous dogs and also claimed that it had reduced his own blood pressure. The firm had not been inclined at first to take him seriously. The product had been developed with the help of the RSPCA, which hoped that it would dissuade dog owners from putting their bitch puppies to death. It was claimed that because of it, more bitches were being kept. The RSPCA recommended it to the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association, which had found it helpful in keeping guide bitches in the straight and narrow path of duty.
It suggests that if science continued to progress, breeders might one day succeed "in producing a pure-blooded aristocracy of barkless, odorless, sexless dogs. Hot dogs may be all very well for the Americans; our more delicate temperament requires cold dogs."
We cannot, incidentally, refrain from expressing our unreserved condemnation of this limey newspaper for engaging in such deplorably reprehensible vitriolic vituperation regarding members of the Trump Cabinet, wherein the rump-fed ronyon
As was approximately uttered, after catching unawares his would-have-been father-in-law behind the arras, wethinks, by him who was a douzeper
Drew Pearson finds that Cabinet members ought know better than to try to influence House Speaker Sam Rayburn by any means other than what was good for the country, a fact which should have been known by Postmaster General Arthur Summerfield, who had made Mr. Rayburn a political offer recently and was almost kicked out of the Speaker's office. The Speaker had told friends afterward that Mr. Summerfield had come to his office and sought to buy his vote, using colorful language in the process. He said that he had wanted him to support the five-cent stamp and that when he had refused, he had adopted a Cheshire cat smile and said that he could use some nice post offices in his district. The Speaker had not detailed what happened after that but his aides indicated that the Postmaster General had left immediately.
During the Senate debate on the five-cent stamp, Mr. Summerfield had moved into Vice-President Nixon's office while Republicans, plus some Democrats, filed in to obtain promises of new post offices. Under the new post office construction bill, a lot of new post offices would be built and many were pledged just before that Senate vote.
He indicates that to obtain an idea of how the Senate had been shirking responsibility for checking on the qualifications of public officials, he provides the record of the Senate Commerce Committee showing how Senators virtually kissed Richard Mack on both cheeks when they had first confirmed him as an FCC Commissioner in 1955, having spent about ten minutes giving him a backslapping reception rather than conducting an investigation. He quotes Florida Senator George Smathers as having made laudatory remarks regarding Mr. Mack. But the Senator had said on March 5, 1958 that he had never had any close personal association with him, though claiming three years earlier that he had known him for about 20 or 25 years. Senator Spessard Holland of Florida had also roundly praised Mr. Mack in 1955, believing that he would do "a splendid job". The only Senator who had asked critical questions had been Mike Monroney of Oklahoma, a former newspaperman. Other Senators had embraced Mr. Mack, who recently had been forced to resign from the FCC after it had come to light that he had accepted loans from an attorney in Miami who was plumping for National Airlines, a subsidiary of which ultimately received the television channel for which Mr. Mack had voted as the grantee of the license.
Joseph Alsop tells of an adherent to the British Labor Party, who had been holding forth on the alarmingly ugly relationship between the two chief Western allies, the U.S. and Britain, having said: "It's a queer thing, isn't it? But I really believe there is nothing wrong between Britain and the United States that three months of Nixon's vigor and realism wouldn't cure." As with most other Britons of his sort, he had formerly thought of the Vice-President as being as low as a snake's belly.
Mr. Alsop finds something odd and mystifying about the nearly complete transformation of overseas opinion regarding Mr. Nixon. Much good had been done by certain proofs of the Vice-President's good sense, such as his sober answer to the silly jokes about the Sputnik which other Administration leaders had at first lamely attempted. But there was no way actually to pinpoint the ways in which the Vice-President had changed the allies' common perception of him. He had once been thought of as a villain but was now considered a white hope.
The transformation was due in part to an unhappy transformation of the image of the President. In Britain, France and other countries of the Western Alliance, no one doubted the President's essential goodness, his high purposes or his dedication to peace, but during the previous 12 years, the President had, by virtue of his occupancy of the White House, become the President of the West also. There were plenty of Americans who had always doubted whether the President was correct in adopting his passive approach to his office, wondering whether the forces of the times could be mastered by a President who merely presided but did not rule. An increasing number of Americans were also wondering whether it was not an injustice to badger an already ill man to stand for a second term in such a stressful job.
Those trends of opinion had recently gained traction in the U.S. in such a way as to startle a returning traveler as was Mr. Alsop. Those trends were now in full control abroad, with the President's role as head of the West having caused deep and universal disappointment among the allies, even if they still liked him as a man. There was, however, no faith in his leadership and no hope that his leadership would ever inspire faith in the future.
That lack of faith went hand-in-hand with an increasing amount of bitterness against the U.S. throughout the Western Alliance. In the postwar years before the Eisenhower Presidency, the allies had come to expect and accept and rely on vigorous American leadership, but did not believe they were obtaining it from President Eisenhower. They thus felt, albeit in an illogical manner, that they had been cheated of a long-established right.
After the President's recent mild stroke, the true state of affairs had been revealed in Britain where the professionally anti-American extreme Left united with the equally anti-American extreme Right in openly praying that the President would transfer his duties to the Vice-President. They had no further hope in President Eisenhower and had begun to hope for much from the Vice-President, saying so without any effort at concealment of the feeling.
He concludes that the former unity and purpose of the Western Alliance could still be retrieved by the right kind of American leadership, whoever might offer it, but irretrievable local defeats, in the Middle East, for instance, might later render the whole situation irretrievable. For the present, however, it still could be saved.
Robert C. Ruark, in Palamos, Spain, indicates that he had been in Paris a few weeks earlier when the sad sack was being introduced to spring fashions, suggesting to him that women were in for some trouble with men. He had heard from New York that men were speaking in loud terms about the ugliest fashion mess which a bunch of Paris "delicate boys" had put forth on sheep-like women.
"There is no doubt that the sack, chemise or old bag—call it what you want to—is the most repulsive piece of drygoods that these silly chicks have ever allowed themselves to be conned into. These shapeless shrouds might be useful to conceal advanced pregnancy or contraband. But they completely hide the salient points which make women appear different from men." Men were furious about it and some had flatly refused to allow any money to be spent on such attire. One man he knew, whose wife was a top fashion executive, had planned a campaign to insult all of his wife's clientele whom he spotted in a shroud, and would feign surprise whenever he saw the same person in shorts or slacks, exclaiming that he was glad to find that the person was not pregnant or had suddenly become very fat.
Another man he knew had suggested legislation to make it illegal for a woman to appear in a sack unless her basic measurement adorned the back of it so that people would know what was inside. Another had suggested that the wearer sport buttons of political convention dimension stating, "Believe it or not, I'm a girl."
He also believes that the Italianated, Frenchified hairdo had to go, as one would expect to see "the rat's nest of a tussle on some gin-soaked old bag in skid row. And you would expect her to be wearing clothing similar to that which now passes as high style." He assures the women they would not win the battle. Men had put up with the low neck one year and high neck the next, dipping skirts and lifted hems, but at least women had looked what they were supposed to look like in those fashions. Now, they looked as a "sort of unsuccessful Middle Eastern street woman who has forgotten to comb her hair or wash her face. And, frankly, the male revolution is of such dimensions right now that you'd better mend your ways or else. We are, you know, rather necessary to the scheme."
A letter writer addresses his letter to perimeter dwellers of the community, suggesting that they should make the road to the State Legislature a little rougher than it had been before, finding the annexation effort in the community to be undemocratic. He urges getting in touch with committee chairmen or members regarding the matter.
A letter writer notices that current officeholders were campaigning to be elected again, and yet had refused to respect the Constitution and observe the law of the land. She thinks that if people were to regain their self-respect and decency, they would have to elect people who would respect and obey the law, finding that they were disgraced at present in the eyes of the rest of the country.
A letter writer comments on the editorial of March 17, "It Is Better To Have Laughed and Lost", suggests that had the editorial writer read a letter on the same page that day regarding birds, he was sure that the writer would have found new hope in the reflection that all was not lost. He believes Mark Twain or Stephen Leacock could not have created a more humorous metaphor than the writer's "shaking like the old-fashioned pioneer boy who never wore any underwear". (That is actually a simile and not a metaphor.) He says that while it was a sad situation, not everyone was "infected with the abysmally cheap form of comedy so skillfully marketed by Mr. Jerry Lewis."
A letter writer from Ellenboro responds to a letter writer who had written regarding the supposedly light punishment accorded Frank Wetzel, who had been sentenced to two consecutive life terms for the two murders of the Highway Patrolmen—and, as indicated, would ultimately die in prison in 2012. He says that no one but God had the right or power to pass judgment on a man as to whether he should live, though acknowledging that if one of the victims had been related to him, he might also have sought revenge because of momentary insanity or frustration. He finds too many people to be bloodthirsty, indicating that he had been taught by his parents to forgive and try to forget. He suggests that Mr. Wetzel had missed love and understanding somewhere along the line, or perhaps had been born the way he was. He believes that it was up to society and medical science to find an answer rather than to execute him. He says that love and understanding would create a happier, more Christian atmosphere for all, though not advocating for abolition of prisons, just of the electric chair and gas chamber. "Our people who cannot or do not adjust themselves to the rules of our society will have to be left in the hands of God and modern medical science for readjustment."
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