The Charlotte News
Friday, March 21, 1958
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that a new high for food costs had sent the nation's cost-of-living level to another peak in mid-February, according to statistics published by the Labor commissioner, who saw little hope for a downturn in the cost-of-living during the ensuing few months, dependent largely on crop conditions and food supply. The index had risen by two-tenths of a percent between January and February, reaching 122.5 percent of the 1947-49 average, 3.2 percent higher than a year earlier. Food alone had risen to 4.5 percent above the previous year, a new record. The new overall living costs peak was the 16th time in the previous 18 months that the index had broken a new record. The commissioner said that the reason that living costs were not responding to the general business decline but continuing upward, was that most consumer cost items did not respond quickly to general economic conditions. He said that farmers suffered their recession two years earlier with the result that farm prices had since strengthened. Food played a major part in the cost of living. He said that durables, such as automobiles, appliances and so on, and soft goods, such as gasoline, fuels and clothing, were responding somewhat to the general downturn in the economy.
In Detroit, evangelist Billy Graham told a jam-packed Olympia Stadium audience the previous night that "only a spiritual revival can stop the blood tide that is sweeping us to hell." He said it was a dangerous time for the U.S. and for the world. The congregation, about half adults and half young people, sat absorbed as he delivered his hour-long sermon. He quoted Bertrand Russell as saying: "Unless we can solve our problems, I do not give a 50-50 chance that there will be one person left on the face of the world in 40 years."
The Senate this date rushed to the President a farm price support freeze bill which was likely to be vetoed.
Senator John McClellan of Arkansas, chairman of the Senate Select Committee investigating misconduct of labor and management, had told the Committee this date that both the union and the company had been "pretty obstinate" in the Kohler strike in Wisconsin, indicating that it showed the need for some new labor relations laws.
In Paris, the French Cabinet met in secret session this date to decide on the next step toward settling the Tunisian crisis, with signs increasing that a compromise might be possible.
In Jakarta, Indonesia, the Army commander who rebelled on Sunday and held the North Sumatran port of Medan for 27 hours before it was recaptured, was now trapped, according to the Indonesian Army.
In Tokyo, 35,000 Japanese coal miners had walked off their jobs this date at 15 major mines for an indefinite period as labor's spring offensive for higher pay rolled into its 18th day. The miners unions said that the latest strike would cut production of high-quality coal by 38,700 tons per day.
In Moncton, New Brunswick, Exercise Snowshoe, the last winter training maneuver for the New Brunswick southeastern Civil Defense zone, had been rescheduled for the weekend, as snow was blocking the road to the training area.
In Washington, the Federal Parole Board announced this date that it had denied a new parole application from David Greenglass, confessed atomic spy who was serving a 15-year sentence in the Federal penitentiary at Lewisburg, Pa. Mr. Greenglass was the brother of Ethel Rosenberg, put to death along with her husband Julius in 1953 after being convicted of sharing atomic secrets with the Russians during the last year of World War II, their convictions having come largely from the cooperative testimony of Mr. Greenglass, who had worked at the Los Alamos laboratory of the Manhattan Project.
Near Charlotte, a 22-year old Sanford man had been killed instantly a few minutes after midnight when his car had struck a Charlotte-bound truck near the truck weighing station on Wilkinson Boulevard. The owner of the car was also seriously injured and rushed to a Charlotte hospital, suffering from a head injury. The driver of the east-bound truck was not injured. The whole top of the 1948 Chevrolet had been peeled back, "like opening a can", according to a Highway Patrolman investigating the accident. He said that the tire marks showed that the car had crossed the center lane into the first of the two west-bound lanes, striking the side of the truck, which had just pulled out of the weighing station.
Julian Scheer of The News reports that David Clark, a lawyer from Lincolnton and four times a member of the State House, had entered the race for Congress from the Tenth District this date, opposing Charlotte attorney Marvin Lee Ritch, who had already entered the race for the Democratic nomination to try to unseat incumbent Republican Representative Charles Jonas.
Ann Sawyer of The News reports that Charlotte had been called this date "the seat of more vicious anti-union propaganda than any city in the United States" by the director of organization for the AFL-CIO, John Livingston of Washington, addressing the first annual North Carolina AFL-CIO convention. He reminded the delegates that there were 14 million white-collar workers unorganized and 6 million non-white-collar workers in the "Southern Belt" who were not in the American labor movement. He attacked the NLRB as accepting many more unfair labor charges against unions than against employers. He censured the national investigating committees for investigating labor, while having "skimmed over management every way possible." He said that once unions had broken into the textile field, they had opened the gate to further unionism. He encouraged the members to stand up and be counted and attacked "so-called right-to-work laws". He had been the last scheduled speaker of the three-day convention. Speculation among the delegates was that W. Millard Barbee, incumbent president, would accumulate more votes than Wilbur Hobby, for the presidency. Both were from Durham and represented the Tobacco Workers Union.
Jim Laxson of the Associated Press reports that two hooded, white-robed figures had met on a barren, windswept field on the outskirts of a Southern town, with one asking the other, "Ayak?" and the other responding, "Akia," meaning that each recognized the other as a Klansman. The Klan was disappearing from the Southern scene, nonexistent in many areas where it had once brought terror to the hearts of whites and blacks alike. Some chapters, or Klaverns, had dried on the vine while others had disbanded or gone underground from pressure out of the courts and from public opinion. Anti-mask laws had forced Klansmen into the open. Their activities were on the wane for the most part, after they had enjoyed a brief resurgence in the wake of the Brown v. Board of Education decision in May, 1954. Their political influence was practically nonexistent. But in scattered areas, they had recently become evident again. A black man had been castrated in Alabama by Klansmen to prove "worthiness" for promotion. The normally peaceful Lumbee Indians had broken up a Klan rally in Robeson County, N.C., on January 18, utilizing rifles and pistols, and a Klan leader and cohort had been recently convicted for inciting to riot in the wake of that incident. There had been a few beatings, numerous cross-burnings, some attributed to pranksters, and a lot of oratory, usually directed against blacks or other minority groups. Whereas the old emphasis had been on patriotism, the modern emphasis was on segregation. Klan organizations refused to discuss their membership, claiming secrecy. There was actually no such thing as one Klan, as the various organizations had disbanded, reorganized, formed splinter groups, affiliated and re-affiliated. A worried dragon in Tampa, Fla., said that there were so many Klans operating in his area that the old counter-signs and passwords did not work anymore. A grand dragon of the Association of Florida Ku Klux Klans, W. J. Griffin, said that "Klan organizations multiply like rats and rabbits these days." Six groups in addition to his own were trying to operate in that area. Later he said that his group was folding its sheets and going out of business. Eldon L. Edwards was the Imperial Wizard of the U.S. Klans, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, Inc., probably the largest of all of the Klan organizations. Mr. Edwards, a 48-year old spray painter in an Atlanta automobile assembly plant, claimed that his group was descended from the original Klan and that the numerous other groups were illegal. He claimed that the theme of his group was protection, the "protection of the quality of the blood, of the flag, the home, women and children of this county. And charity. We do more charity in some areas than the Red Cross but we never get credit for it." The original Ku Klux Klan had been spawned in the days of Reconstruction following the Civil War. In those days of general chaos, it had helped to bring order, but through methods which were brutal and sometimes illegal, nevertheless attracting to it in the process many influential political and business leaders. After order had been restored and home rule re-established in the South, the Klan had disbanded and left law enforcement to elected officials. It rose again, however, after World War I.
A snowstorm had hit the Northeastern seaboard this date with great fury, costing life and property damage, and interrupting services. From Virginia to New England, gale force winds had driven the snow into mountainous heaps and sent high tides lashing at the shorelines, costing at least 34 lives, with 12 having died in Pennsylvania, seven in Maryland, five in New Jersey, two in Virginia, five in New York, two in Massachusetts and one in Rhode Island. Hundreds of thousands of homes, stores and offices had been without electricity and telephone service and thousands of persons in heatless homes had been evacuated, with schools closed by the hundreds. The snow had reached a depth of three feet in southeastern Pennsylvania, but there were much deeper drifts in many places. In Washington, 20 inches was recorded, in New York City, 11, in Baltimore, nearly 24, and varying amounts in other places. The winds had reached hurricane velocity of 75 mph at times in New England. The President was forced to cancel a trip to the Military Academy at West Point for a founders' day ceremony.
In Asheville, it was reported that spring had sashayed into western North Carolina with snow, making roads hazardous, and closing schools in Buncombe, Madison and Yancey Counties. The mountains had already experienced one of the most severe winters in recent years. Maple Springs in Haywood County reported a ten-inch snowfall, with drifts up to eight feet deep. Clingman's Peak received eight inches to add to another 12 inches already present. Generally there had been a two-inch accumulation over the western part of the state.
"Jesus of Nazareth", a dramatic new interpretation of the life of Jesus, would begin appearing in serial form in the newspaper starting the following Monday, a series written by Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, telling the story of the Saviour as it might have been told by an 18-year old boy who lived in the Holy Land at the time and had seen Jesus as he spoke to his followers. The story would appear until April 5, the day before Easter.
In London, it was reported that a woman suing for divorce on cruelty grounds had cited the replies which her husband had given to her on four occasions when she asked what he wanted for his birthday, responding, a divorce, 50,000 tons of caustic soda, a statue of King George III, and a submarine. The court in denying the petition held that the replies of her husband might have been eccentric but were not cruel.
On the editorial page, "Labor Enters the Era of Nonsense" finds alternating interludes of piety and pugnacity to have masked the real business of the first annual AFL-CIO convention in Charlotte during the week.
During the ceremonial rites, the rank-and-file had heard some unusually refreshing tough talk on the realities of labor's role in what was hoped to be the post-Beck or no-nonsense era of trade unionism. There was little of the exalted mysticism of the "Golden Age" when U.S. labor had still been rising from penury to power. It had become apparent that copybook maxims could not bring religion to the likes of former Teamsters president Dave Beck, or present Teamsters president Jimmy Hoffa.
The workers at the convention received oratory regarding Communists, crooks and recessions, discussing some of the practical ways in which the economy could be bolstered and social opportunities improved by astute political action. The speakers realized that the public's patience had been strained by recent misadventures and that labor's in-group betrayers had done lasting damage. They appeared to realize that the only hope for real reformation was in the painfully slow process of winning a basic acceptance among employers and the unions that there was something more important than a fast buck or peace brought at the expense of the worker, the stability of an industry or the welfare of a community. They also acknowledged that labor's rank-and-file, long accustomed to docility, would have to find its voice.
It finds that North Carolina Labor commissioner Frank Crane, in a speech in 1955 at Spencer, had summed up well what labor wanted in present times: "I believe that five things are uppermost in the minds of most workers. These are (1) security, (2) recognition, (3) good rate wages, (4) the safe and healthful places of employment, and (5) opportunities for advancement."
It finds that those things were what everyone wanted, whether in or outside of the labor movement, indicating that the lesson was that the future of labor lay in serving the community interest as well as the shop interest, and working for the security of all, enabling it thereby to obtain its own long-sought security.
"A Blow for Conscience and for
Law" indicates that a Mecklenburg jury and judge had sent three
Klansmen to prison for plotting to bomb a black school, finding that
the trial had satisfied the law and conscience of the community
It recalls that when such cases arose, there were usually protestations of piety and peacefulness made on the part of the Klan. It had been six years since the Klan had been "put out of business" in the state, based on a long string of outrages in Columbus County, involving a series of whippings administered to both black and white people for various alleged transgressions of the Klan's superimposed rules of society. Its revival had been accompanied by emphasis on lawfulness, religiousness, and orderliness, "but inevitably the cross is burned, the white sheet is soiled with dirt or blood and the fine, cynical words are forgotten. An organization built essentially on hate simply cannot keep itself within the bounds of law."
When it overstepped the bounds, a community had to respond quickly and decisively or invite a contagion of hate and lawlessness. In Mecklenburg, there had been that type of response from the police, the judge and the jury, and it suggests that all citizens ought feel safer for it. "However much the Klan may claim to hate one race or group, it is an enemy of the whole community. If it were not, it would abide by the laws of the community."
"An Answer for Percy Bysshe Shelley" suggests that the arrival of spring on the day appointed for it by the calendar would likely result in a riot of good feeling in the North, but in the South, it was the cause of much muttering and resentment, as independence of the calendar had been one of the nicer rewards of Southern living. Spring and summer, according to custom, were supposed to arrive early, while fall and winter were expected to be late. That had made possible picnics in November and sunbaths in March, regardless of the calendar.
But the current spring had been a conformist, arriving "a frail and puling shadow of springs past" on the day appointed. The daffodils were budded but reluctant to bloom, the willow leaves were only of tentative sproutings and there was an inconstant chorus of birds on buds which were only beginning to break.
Mr. Shelley had once raised a question about the weather, dying before answering it: "If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?" It suggest that the answer was yes.
Weimar Jones, writing in the Franklin Press, in a piece titled "Teacher Shortage", asks why it was so hard to obtain enough teachers for the schools. He reprints a letter first published in the Texas Outlook as a possible answer to the question.
It was addressed to the superintendent, saying that the writer appreciated his offer of a job for his girl, who had her heart set on becoming a schoolteacher until he had talked her out of it, as he found it too much like being a preacher's wife. "It's a high callin', but people expect you to give more'n they pay for." He said that teachers in town were little different from the early Christian martyrs except for the lack of a bonfire.
They taught the children who could
learn and entertained those who had fallen on their heads "when
they was little
They also had to prepare shows and plays to work the school out of debt and to sing in the choir and to teach a Sunday school class, "and when they ain't doin' nothin' else, they're supposed to be a good example."
"On top of everything else, they can't hold hands comin' home from prayer meeting without some gossipy old sister startin' a scandal on them. I'd just as soon be a plow mule as a teacher. A mule works just as hard, but it can relieve its soul by kickin' up its heels after quittin' time without startin' any talk. I appreciate your kind offer and may the Lord have mercy on you and your teachers, but my daughter ain't interested."
They done tranquilized that dog, for there ain't never been no chihuahua that docile in its natural state in the history of the world or even Hollywood. Though our'n has been deceased since early 1963, dying one night of a heart attack at about age 11, we can still hear it chattering away into eternity: rrrrrrr-ruh-ruh-ruh-ruh-ruh-rrrrrrrr... It didn't like us from day one, soon as we done come to town.
Drew Pearson says that the appointment of John Cross to replace Richard Mack on the FCC had been a missed opportunity for the White House. Mr. Cross was a likable pedestrian bureaucrat and honest engineer, but had no special ability or real concept of the importance of the FCC. He was from Arkansas, the home state of Congressman Oren Harris, chairman of the Legislative Oversight Investigating Committee, and the White House had been so anxious to please Mr. Harris, about to cross-examine White House chief of staff Sherman Adams, the President's brother-in-law, and others close to the White House, that it had rushed Mr. Cross into the job.
To avoid political favoritism, commissioners ought be picked who were of a high caliber rather than routine bureaucrats, and they ought be appointed for terms of greater than seven years so that they would not have to hunt for jobs after seven years among the radio and television executives over whom they had been responsible at the FCC. At present, a commissioner thought twice before antagonizing the networks. Mr. Pearson favors also subjecting the broadcasting industry to public utility regulation to limit its profits from a television channel or radio station, encouraging more public service programming. He also favors making it a criminal offense for any outsider, including a member of Congress, to talk to a commissioner about the award of a license under adjudication, a move which would be welcomed by members of Congress, who were constantly being pursued by constituents to pressure FCC commissioners.
Gridiron Club skits were so rough on the Administration the previous week that Mr. Adams, who had accepted an invitation to see a repeat showing on Sunday afternoon when ladies were invited, had changed his mind about attending, having heard enough the previous night. One skit had featured him telephoning the FCC for television channels for favored Republicans, in the form of a song which went: "Sugar in the mornin', sugar in the evenin',/ Sugar at supper time,/ FCC's our baby/ And TV ain't no crime." Secretary of Commerce Sinclair Weeks, reportedly involved in the award of a channel in Boston to the Herald-Traveler, looked glum at the affair. Bob Choate, publisher of that newspaper, sat nearby looking even glummer.
Doris Fleeson, in Detroit, discusses the aspirations of Minnesota Governor G. Mennen Williams for the presidency in 1960, contingent on the possibility that growing Democratic strength in the West and Midwest could and would coalesce the party's liberal organizations of the industrial states and the North. The Governor was one of the most successful politicians in the country and appeared to be a shoo-in for a sixth term the following fall, after establishing firm Democratic control of the state, which for many years had normally been Republican.
He was viewed, however, as anathema to the powerful Southern minority of the party, which could not presently name a candidate for the presidency but which was seeking to exercise veto power over any potential candidate to whom it strongly objected. Because the Governor had helped to lead the loyalty-oath struggle at the 1952 convention and because it disliked his close association with UAW president and AFL-CIO vice-president Walter Reuther, the South distrusted him. He had also attacked the 1956 campaign of Adlai Stevenson as fatally moderate and predicted early that he would lose. In addition, he favored civil rights.
He would test the party's professedly liberal principles which the moderate position of Mr. Stevenson and the compromises of some of the leaders of the party had managed to evade in 1952 and 1956.
His pre-convention strategy was reminiscent of the manner by which former New York Governor Thomas Dewey, never popular in his own party, had managed to obtain two Republican presidential nominations in 1944 and 1948.
An effort to make his abilities better known was underway. The current Harvard Business Review had an article in which he answered in a persuasive affirmative the question of whether businessmen could be Democrats. He was expected to make many appearances outside Michigan. Although no one was yet discussing his entry to primaries, he had the necessary endurance for the technique of winning friends and influencing people.
Paul Green, North Carolina playwright, in a recently delivered Chapel Hill address, condensed for publication, concerning what was the democratic ideal in the country, begins by saying: "It is a vision, an intuition of a nation, of a world of free and self-reliant men—men of good will, of courage, of truth and justice. It is a philosophy of government which declares that each individual of whatever race, color, creed or calling has a right as well as a duty to his fullest self-development in the exercise of his talents as becomes the dignity and worth of a man. It is an ideal then of self-government—of liberty and rights and a compelling responsibility to these liberties and rights."
He briefly outlines the history and development of U.S. democracy to the time of the Declaration of Independence, reciting its Preamble. He quotes Thomas Jefferson as having asserted that "truth is great and will prevail—that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error and has nothing to fear from the conflict and less by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons—free argument and debate, errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them."
At the end of the Revolution, George Washington, in his letter to the governors of the separate states, had reiterated his devotion to the American ideal thus: "I now make it my earnest prayer that God would have you and the state over which you preside in His holy protection; that He would incline the hearts of the citizens to cultivate a spirit of subordination and obedience to government; to entertain a brotherly affection and love for one another, for their fellow citizens of the United States at large and particularly for their brethren who have served in the field; and finally, that He would most graciously be pleased to dispose us all to do justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that charity, humility, and pacific temper of mind, which were the characteristics of the Divine Author of our blessed religion, and without an humble limitation of whose example in these things, we can never hope to be a happy nation."
In his Farewell Address, he had stated that "of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert in these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of Men and Citizens." In the same address, he had urged: "Observe good faith and justice towards all Nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all. Religion and morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be that good policy does not equally enjoin it: It will be worthy of a tree, enlightened, and at no distant period a great nation to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence. Who can doubt that in the course of time and things the fruits of such a plan would richly repay any temporary advantages which might be lost by a steady adherence to it? Can it be, that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a nation with its virtue? The experiment, at least, is recommended by every sentiment which enobles human nature."
A letter written by Warden Seixas of the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, R.I., to President Washington in 1790, had said that he and his people found the American vision embodied in the new Government to offer "to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, but generously affording to all liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship, deeming everyone of whatever nation, tongue or language equal parts of the great Government machine. This so ample and extensive union whose basis is philanthropy, mutual confidence and public virtue, we cannot but acknowledge to be the work of the great God who ruleth in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth, doing whatever seemeth Him good."
Repeatedly, Mr. Green finds, the founding fathers and statesmen had joined a plea for liberty of conscience, for morality, for good will, with the admonition always to responsibility and "public virtue". The Constitution dedicated the nation to the principles of the ideal of freedom of religion, of speech, of the press, of the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the Government for redress of their grievances, to be secure in their persons and property, to ensure due process of law, habeas corpus, trial by jury and freedom from slavery and servitude, as becoming a reliant and courageous people.
In defense of those principles, a horrible Civil War had been fought and won by the Union. It had cost President Lincoln his life as a sacrifice on behalf of those principles, "and the great Robert E. Lee serving these principles as he felt them to be plunged his own life down to tragedy and pain. And Woodrow Wilson and likewise thousands of other men have given their all that the right should prevail. For this is religion, this faith of ours. It is of the spirit then, and with the spirit it must be served. Or it will perish."
A letter writer indicates that there was plenty of room for the tax collectors to work full-time in the county. He says that as much as $10,000 in taxes from 1948 remained past due, and that the amount had climbed to more than $800,000 for 1957. He finds that the excuses of "hard times" and "tight money" did not apply all the way back for a decade.
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