The Charlotte News
Thursday, March 27, 1958
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page
reports from Moscow that Communist Party Secretary Nikita Khrushchev
had become Premier
The U.S. had stated this date that
it would make up to five attempts to send unmanned space vehicles to
the vicinity of the moon, with the White House and Defense Department
issuing separate announcements of the plans. Secretary of Defense
Neil McElroy said that, with the President's approval, the Pentagon's
Advanced Research Projects Agency would proceed with several programs
for launching a number of small, unmanned space vehicles. An initial
allocation of about eight million dollars had been made to start the
space program. Both the White House and the Pentagon said that no
timetable would be announced for the projects, and that there would
be no speculation at present on probable dates. The Administration
thus moved to follow up on the President's statement the previous
night that studies of outer space could provide benefits for the
world's people and its children. Secretary McElroy said that Roy
Johnson, director of ARPA, was issuing instructions to the Army, Air
Force and Navy to undertake the new programs. The Pentagon
announcement said that the programs authorized included both
scientific earth satellites and efforts to determine the capability
of exploring space in the vicinity of the moon, to obtain useful data
concerning the moon, and provide a close look at the moon. Authority
to undertake one and possibly two lunar probes was given to the
Army's Ballistic Missile Agency at Huntsville, Ala., that agency also
authorized to launch two and possibly three earth satellites,
utilizing the Jupiter-C rockets. It said that a program calling for
three lunar probes had been assigned to the Air Force Ballistic
Missile Division in Los Angeles, utilizing a Thor-Vanguard system
with a third stage to be developed. It also indicated that meanwhile,
the Naval Ordnance Test Station at Inyokern, Calif., had been ordered
to develop a mechanical ground scanning system for the probes. ARPA?
In Moscow, the Communist Party newspaper Pravda reported this date that the Soviet Union did not intend to send a rocket to the moon in the near future. In an official report on a one-stage rocket which had been launched to an altitude of nearly 300 miles on February 21, the newspaper said that a rocket could be sent to the moon at present but that the load of instruments it could carry would be of negligible scientific value. It said that a rocket carrying enough instruments to be of scientific value could be launched to the moon in the ensuing few years, that the problem of interplanetary travel lay in the development of heavy artificial earth satellites.
At Cape Canaveral, Fla., it was reported that Explorer III, the newest satellite to be launched, was coursing through the strangest orbital pattern man had yet established. Its radio voice was continually transmitting information as it coursed in each orbit to an apogee of about 2,100 miles with each orbit taking about two hours to complete, with its perigee being only about 100 miles above earth. No other satellite had been known to venture that close to earth and because of the greater pull of gravity close to the earth, the satellite was expected to have a relatively short life. Maj. General John Medaris, commander of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency, which had fired the new Explorer, had told reporters that it probably would not last longer than two weeks. He said that those in charge of the project were very happy with the performance of the rocket and the satellite. He said that the odd orbit ought prove to be of considerable benefit to the overall space research program, pointing out that the satellite, while venturing far out into space, also would explore air densities at the lower altitudes where it would overlap a region which had been measured by high altitude sounding rockets such as the Aerobee. For the first time, science would have important measurements in the fringe areas which were difficult to study but were highly important both to manned and unmanned aircraft. Dr. Wernher von Braun, deputy to General Medaris, said that one reason that the new Explorer had failed to attain a more successful orbit was that the second stage of the four-stage Jupiter-C rocket had ignited a little too early, causing the satellite to be accelerated prematurely to orbital speed at 18,000 mph. The launch had followed by ten days the successful Navy launch of the Vanguard satellite, which flew out to a distance of 2,500 miles. Previously, Russia had launched two Sputnik satellites the prior October and November, with only one of them still orbiting. The Army had launched its Explorer I successfully on January 31, but had failed to get Explorer II, launched March 5, into an orbit for want of speed.
In Bonn, West Germany, the West
German Parliament's Defense Committee this date approved the purchase
of 24 U.S. Matador rockets capable of firing a nuclear warhead 600
miles. The purchase did not require approval of the full Bundestag,
which had voted Tuesday night to accept atomic weapons if NATO
leaders decided they were necessary. The Defense Committee made its
decision over the vigorous opposition of the Socialists and Free
Democrats, both parties having fought Chancellor Konrad Adenauer's
plan to accept nuclear weapons. Six ramps would be bought for
launching the Matadors. Government and Committee spokesmen declined
to say how much West Germany would pay for the weapons. The West
German defense minister had negotiated the purchases during a visit
to the U.S. earlier in March. Public and parliamentary debate over
the plan to arm German forces with atomic weapons had been prolonged
and bitter. The Adenauer Government maintained that NATO leaders
could best decide whether the weapons ought be stationed in Germany.
The Chancellor had argued that only with the best modern weapons
could the West defend itself against Russia. The defense minister had
been assailed during the debate as a warmonger and a dangerous man.
Three hours before the Defense Committee voted to purchase the
Matadors
In Havana, rebel leader Fidel Castro declared this date that a general strike would be called "at any moment" in an all-out effort to overthrow the Government of El Presidente Fulgencio Batista. He called on all Cubans to join in mass sabotage of transportation and communications.
The President this date cut allotments under the Government's voluntary crude oil import program and barred non-complying companies from getting Government oil contracts.
FCC commissioner Rosel Hyde promised this date to provide House investigators with any records he might have in the disputed Miami television channel case.
Walter Reuther and Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona had squared off this date for what could be a fiery climax of their long feud, as Mr. Reuther, president of the UAW, had been called to testify as possibly the last witness in the investigation of the four-year old UAW strike against the Kohler Co. of Wisconsin by the Senate Select Committee investigating misconduct in the unions and management. The Senator, a member of the Committee, had long been a critic of Mr. Reuther and the two had swapped unpleasantries at long range. A month earlier, Mr. Reuther and Senator Goldwater had called each other cowards. The Senator had said that Mr. Reuther's appearance before the Committee could result in a "donnybrook" but that he hoped it would not. He told newsmen that whatever came of it, he looked forward to it. Mr. Reuther had wanted to testify at the opening of the probe into Kohler in late February, but after a partisan squabble within the Committee, it was decided that other witnesses would first appear. Mr. Reuther had accused Republican members of the Committee of being biased and wanting to smear him and the UAW, including Senator Goldwater, along with Senators Karl Mundt of South Dakota and Carl Curtis of Nebraska. Both sides of the Kohler strike had accused each other of violence which at times had marked the dispute which had begun in April, 1954. Herbert Kohler, the company's head, testified the previous day that the UAW had resorted to mob violence, "night riding vandalism" and illegal boycotting against his firm. He also said that he believed the UAW had lost the strike, on which the union had acknowledged spending ten million dollars.
AFL-CIO president George Meany had called on Congress this date to apply any anti-corruption curbs to business as well as labor, maintaining that there had been "far more embezzlement" of corporate funds than of union money.
In Baltimore, a dramatic and detailed plan to turn 22 acres of the old downtown area into a swank, modernistic center of glass and steel skyscrapers and parks had been presented this date.
In Chicago, three firemen had been killed and six others injured early this date in a fast-spreading fire in a big South Side auto agency, the flames having spread to three three-story apartment buildings, forcing about 150 residents to flee into the near-freezing weather.
In Newport, Ky., a 40-year old man had handed a handwritten note to his neighbor the previous afternoon, addressed to his estranged wife, asking her to return home with their kids within an hour without any police, indicating that he was a "changed man" and if that she did not arrive by the designated hour, or refused to come, he would set the house on fire and blow his head off, closing with, "Try once more for love and family..." Shortly after the designated hour, police and firemen had found the house on fire, with its interior gone and half of the roof burned away, eventually finding the man's charred body in the wreckage, along with two shotguns. They indicated that the wife had told the neighbor that she was afraid to return home with her children.
In London, Peter Townsend had said this date that he and Princess Margaret had no intention of marrying, issuing a statement through his attorney that there were no grounds whatever for supposing that his seeing the Princess in any way altered the situation which had been declared in a statement by the Princess in the autumn of 1955. In October, 1955, she had stated that she had decided to place duty above all else and not to marry the 43-year old World War II hero. Mr. Townsend's statement had been released a day after his first open meeting with the Princess since she had renounced him because he was a divorced man. His visit had revived speculation that the romance was being renewed. But he would not be fooled again and would instead eventually join a rock 'n' roll band.
In Cincinnati, a 10-year old, red-haired, freckle-faced boy hated tonsillectomies like Tom Sawyer hated his Aunt Polly's spring tonic, and showed it for a few hours. He told his mother that he was not going to hold still for a tonsillectomy, and wrestled free from the efforts of four nurses and a surgeon to lower an ether cone over his face as he lay on an operating table on Wednesday in the hospital. Finally giving in to him, the operating room personnel allowed him to return to his room. He was later observed fleeing, barefooted, down a corridor and into 40-degree weather outside, with a doctor in pursuit. He vaulted a fence, only to be tackled a moment later by a teenage boy. He yelled to let him go, as he was by that point shivering and out of breath. He pointed to the doctor giving chase, saying it was his father and he wanted to whip them. The boy let go. He headed for his grandmother's home three miles away, and his grandmother was very glad to see him after being told of a city-wide search both by the boy's parents and police. His grandmother said that he had told her that he wanted to keep his tonsils. She said he was cold and frightened and begged her not to call the police. She reminded him that his parents were very worried about him and that the police were looking for him and so she had to call them. He reluctantly agreed but pleaded that he was tired and wanted to lie down. He then went quietly into a bedroom while his grandmother completed her calls, whereupon she found the bedroom empty. Eventually, after more searching, he had popped out of a closet in the same room, saying he had taken a nap. Upon his return home, he learned that he had won temporarily his battle to retain his tonsils, the doctors having told his mother that if he was so frightened they would let it go for the present. The boy said: "They say tonsil operations make people feel better and they don't hurt much. But I don't like that either. I'll go when I feel real sick."
On an inside page, James Bacon of
the Associated Press reports from Hollywood that the 30th annual
Academy Awards show
A separate piece appears on Ms. Woodward, a native of Greenville, S.C., who was known by many residents of Charlotte. One of her best friends in high school in Greenville had said that she had practically talked herself out of winning, that when she was announced as the winner, her friend nearly had a fit. The two had been sorority sisters in the Phi Theta high school sorority, and she and another sorority sister, whose husband worked for Wachovia Bank & Trust Co. in Charlotte, had last seen Ms. Woodward when she visited Charlotte two years earlier for the opening of her first movie, "Count Three and Pray". One of her two friends said that she still considered that to have been her best role. She said that in high school, Ms. Woodward "nearly always had the lead in the high school plays", had been Joan in "Joan of Arc", and had always given credit for interest in dramatics to R. H. McLane, who had then been the high school dramatics teacher and later directed the Greenville Little Theater. The friend said that she was always the prettiest girl in high school, that they used to have sleep-over parties and that even with her hair rolled up and no make-up, she had still been beautiful, indicating that her pictures did not do her justice. She had been voted in her senior high school year as "Sweetheart of the Class" and "Prettiest Girl", and had also been elected president of the Phi Theta sorority. Ms. Woodward was married to actor Paul Newman, who had appeared with her on the Academy Awards telecast the previous night.
A third story, from Aiken, S.C., tells of Ms. Woodward's mother, Mrs. R. L. Carter of Aiken, having never been so surprised in her life at the award, stating that she was quite happy and did not expect her daughter to win it. She said that it was not the movie which had won but her daughter's acting, that the subject of the movie had been excellent but that Joanne's acting ability had won for her the award. Just minutes before, Ms. Woodward, who was on the verge of tears, accepted the award with the comment, "I've been wanting one ever since I was nine years old." Her mother said that she had been wanting her to receive one long before she had been nine. Her mother said that when she had arrived at the podium with Mr. Newman to present the award for Best Editing, she did not believe that she would receive the award and that they were just being kind to her, that she could not believe it when she had won. She said that her husband was lying in bed with a cold and that when Joanne had won the award, she had exclaimed for him to come quick as she wanted someone else to make sure she was not dreaming. Ms. Woodward's parents were divorced and her mother said that her first husband, the father of Joanne, was living in New Jersey, that she and her former husband were "wonderful friends" and that her father had given for her a large wedding party in New York upon her marriage to Mr. Newman. Ms. Woodward had moved to Greenville when she was 13 and had lived there until she had gone to New York in 1950. Her first acting experience had been in high school in Greenville and in Little Theater plays. She had graduated from high school in 1947 and had won a local Little Theater award for her lead in "The Glass Menagerie" in 1949. Her father said that it was especially thrilling for her to receive the award since she had been in pictures for such a short time. An official of Scribner's Publishing Co., he was visiting with friends in Atlanta and watched the awards program on television there.
The race had been run and the magistrado had not won, any more than had Linnemon. Ye Fala?
On the editorial page, "N.C. Court System Needs Major Surgery" indicates that Albert Coates of the UNC Law School and Institute of Government had issued the previous day a 41-page report on the past, present and future of the courts in the state, based on a survey prepared for State Senator Spencer Bell's Committee on Improving and Expediting the Administration of Justice. It exposed several monstrous incongruities between the purposes and performance of the court system which was presently tainted with bureaucratic blight.
The State Supreme Court and the Superior Courts had been the products of an orderly process to meet the growing demands of a changing society, but the lower courts, charged with dispensing much of the local justice, represented a "medley of confusion". It was in that area that the most important reforms had to be made.
The lower courts consisted of the Justice of the Peace, the Mayor's court, the special act courts, the "General Law" courts, Juvenile and Domestic Relations, and the Administrative courts, more than 1,400 in all, established by different people in different places for different purposes at different times and with overlapping and conflicting relationships.
Among the justice of the peace courts, there was a lack of uniformity, as each justice of the peace could be elected by the voters of a particular township, designated by "omnibus bills" in the General Assembly or appointed by the resident judge of the Superior Court. The General Statutes of the state authorized 3,081 justices of the peace in the state's 1,027 townships plus one for every 1,000 people living in an unincorporated city or town, the formula authorizing 152 justices of the peace in Mecklenburg County alone.
There were also problems in other minor judicial agencies. For instance, prior to 1917, the General Assembly had established a multiplicity of "special courts", of which 70 were still extant. In 1915, the president of the North Carolina Bar Association had called the ill-conceived miscellany "a crazy quilt court system, a veritable judicial Pandora's Box, creating judicial and court chaos."
There were 265 courts in the state with jurisdiction greater than that of a justice of the peace but less than that of a Superior Court.
There were also problems even within the relatively tidy Superior Court system. The Legislature had decreased the original jurisdiction of the Superior Courts in differing degrees in different counties to the point that the judges rarely knew the situation they would face in going from one county to another in a given judicial district.
In reviewing the history of the courts in the state, Mr. Coates had illuminated with great care their lack of uniformity and proper controls, with resulting delays and inefficiency, his study indicating that the logic and experience of nearly 300 years had established the need for a general unified court system in the state, with the need especially acute for an orderly system of lower courts within easy reach of the people for the trial of lesser civil and criminal cases. That would be the task of Mr. Bell's Committee.
Mr. Coates had concluded his report with the wise assertion that the Committee should realize continuity with the past, noting that the life of the court system, as with the life of the law, had not been so much logic as it had been experience and that the courts of the future would grow out of the courts of the present. The Committee would not recommend a plan of administration of justice in the state simply because it was working elsewhere or because the ABA recommended it, but because it would grow out of the logic and experience of the state's life and history.
It concludes that the Bell Committee had done its homework well and the need for a revised system of the courts had been dramatically established.
"That War Has Been Named Again" indicates that the Legislature of South Carolina had insisted tediously in a resolution on referring to the Civil War as "The American War Between the Confederate States of America, South, and the Federal Union of the United States of America, North."
It finds such an unwieldy appellation possibly to represent Southern scholarship at its best and that it might even have brief notoriety at meetings of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, but would never catch on among the people as it was too long for a rebel yell, too esoteric for Confederate drinking songs and too mazy for successful Memorial Day oratory.
It finds that surely no war had ever been garnished with so much nomenclature as the Civil War, having also been called the War Between the States, the War for Southern Independence, the Southern Rebellion, the Late Unpleasantness, the Late Hate, and probably many other names. It proposes the solution which would satisfy all of the requirements of Confederate vanity, Yankee misgivings, and the jackets of historical novels, proposing to call it "The War".
"Life in America: Separate but Equal" quotes a report from the Associated Press, stating that a white schoolteacher, fired after she permitted a white child to ride home in a black school bus, had appealed the firing to the Georgia State Board of Education, with the Board having tentatively scheduled a hearing for April 24.
The report said that she had inadvertently kept her class in session overtime and that all school buses had departed when she dismissed it. After arranging for rides with teachers for most of the pupils, she had offered to drive the remaining three students home, but had a flat tire, at which point a school bus had gone by and when it stopped, she found out that it was a bus for black students. A nine-year old boy said that the bus went by his home and he accepted a ride aboard it rather than waiting for the teacher to have her tire changed.
Drew Pearson indicates that the reason for conflicting statements from the White House regarding the business recession the previous week had been the result of a serious split inside the Cabinet, plus the bad news having penetrated through the White House guard with full force to the President, himself, causing him alarm. Just a week earlier, Secretary of the Treasury Robert Anderson had gone to his fellow Texan, House Speaker Sam Rayburn, and patched up a truce regarding taxes. Rather than have Democrats and Republicans outdoing each other in promising tax cuts, they had agreed to do no more regarding tax cuts without prior notification. Four days later, the truce had been broken by the President. Senate Republican leader William Knowland, leaving the White House after a long conference with the President, had announced that it would be at least two months before the Administration would make a decision on cutting taxes. Less than an hour later, the President promised a group of cheering Republican women that he would cut taxes if necessary.
That caused the issue of the tax cut to return to the fore and ignored the private warning from Detroit automobile manufacturers that talk of taxes only held back the consumers from purchasing automobiles. They had warned that the public would not buy cars as long as they could hope for a $200 reduction of excise taxes per car.
Meanwhile, the White House scanned anxiously the economic reports, watching for new construction contracts, new business orders, insurance company investment plans, advance financing for new home construction, and the fluctuation of the stock market, believing that those indicators provided a more accurate prognosis of business than unemployment figures. Thus far, the figures were not hopeful. Employment usually rose in March with spring construction, but unemployment figures thus far, though scattered, showed a continued rise in claims for unemployment insurance and a continued drop in income. It indicated that more people were losing their jobs and that those who were keeping them were getting either pay cuts or less overtime pay.
Joseph Alsop indicates that for the first time since the end of World War II, the American consumer had cut sharply purchases of goods and services. The dollar volume of American consumer purchasing had continuously increased, with only minor fluctuations, for most of exactly 12 years. Even the prior mild recessions had not halted the advance, having merely leveled out the upward curve for awhile.
That was the background, he indicates, against which to judge the yet unpublished Government figures which were creating something of a stir among the Administration's economic policymakers. The rate of American consumer expenditure had reached an all-time high of 283.6 billion dollars per year during the third quarter of the previous year. In the last quarter of the year, however, the rate of consumer spending had shown the first unprecedented positive downturn of 1.2 billion, and it was further estimated that the drop had continued and accelerated during the first quarter of 1958, with the consumer spending rate having probably gone down by another two billion during that quarter.
With the annual rate of spending running at about 280 billion, the outlays for American consumers' comfort, nourishment and pleasure were still far more than double the total income of the Soviet Union, the next most productive nation in the world. Furthermore, American purchases of soft goods had not decreased. Virtually the entire drop in the spending rate was in contracting purchases of such durable goods as automobiles. But the figures were still causing concern among the policymakers, because it was being classed as a durable goods depression, and because of the further decrease in durable goods spending during the first quarter of 1958.
Consumer purchasing figures were only one part of the depressing statistics on the recession-depression now being studied at the highest Administration level, in the White House, itself. Other items included what were called the "real spendable earnings" of employed factory workers. In addition to the sharply rising industrial unemployment, there had been a sharp reduction in working hours among those who still had jobs. According to a Labor Department estimate, the average time on the job in the nation's factories had decreased from 41 hours per week, including an hour of overtime pay in many factories, to 38 hours per week. The resulting cut in weekly pay had canceled out the continuous rise in factory workers' "real spendable earnings" which had taken place in the previous three years. After adjustments for changes in the postwar price index and taxes, the estimated rate of "real spendable earnings" had passed $65 per week in 1957, but had now dropped by nearly 8 percent, to a few cents more than $59 per week, the rate at the end of 1954.
Among the other troubling statistics were figures confirming the forecasts which had already appeared, that the President was due for substantial disappointment in his hopes for substantially better March employment figures. The Census Bureau had based its estimate of 5.2 million unemployed in February on a study during the week ending February 15, in which 25,000 persons had been added to those receiving unemployment compensation payments, bringing the total for that week to 3.131 million, with the rest of the Census Bureau estimate having been based on people wanting jobs but having no unemployment insurance. Since that week in February, new applications for unemployment insurance had risen sharply and then dropped again, while the total number of recipients had gone up less steeply and dropped less importantly. For the week ending March 15, new applications for unemployment compensation were already known to have numbered 410,500, and the total on the rolls was estimated at about 3.23 million. According to Labor Department authorities, that would render a March unemployment total which would be no different from that of February, perhaps even a bit higher.
Thus, the facts on which the President had been waiting to determine whether he would propose to Congress a tax cut were now on his desk and were bleak, with nothing lacking other than the Census Bureau's belated confirmation of the March unemployment total, leaving the question of why the wait-and-see mood still prevailed in the Administration high command.
Marquis Childs indicates that the Senate soon had to decide whether the 40 billion dollar Federal highway system was to provide roadside advertisers a captive audience for their billboards, with conservationists and garden club members all over the country scrutinizing the coming vote. It was an issue which every voter understood as they coursed the nation's highways for which they paid, while being confronted with eyesore billboards around every curve and over every hill. It could prove an embarrassment to the Democrats, despite the initiator of the anti-billboard measure having been a Democrat, Senator Richard Neuberger of Oregon, as most of the opposition had also come from Democrats.
Senator Thomas Kuchel of California, whose state had placed a large premium on tourists, had reversed his earlier position and joined Senator Neuberger in sponsoring the bill, which offered states a premium for observing Federal standards limiting billboards. By a narrow vote of 7 to 6, the Senate Public Works Committee, meeting behind closed doors, had voted to include the billboard provision in the bill expanding highway spending during the current year. Four Republicans, Senators Kuchel, Francis Case of New Jersey, Chapman Revercomb of West Virginia and Norris Cotton of New Hampshire, plus three Democrats, Senators Albert Gore of Tennessee, Frank Church of Idaho and Senator Neuberger, had voted for the billboard amendment. Of the six voting against it, four had been Democrats, including Senators Dennis Chavez of New Mexico, Kerr Scott of North Carolina, Patrick McNamara of Michigan and Robert Kerr of Oklahoma, while only two Republicans, Senators Edward Martin of Pennsylvania and Roman Hruska of Nebraska had opposed it.
Senator Kerr was one of the two or three wealthiest men in the Senate, speaking eloquently for the oil and gas interests of his native Oklahoma. He had led the opposition to the billboard measure and was a formidable adversary, rarely bothering to argue his side, instead scorning and ridiculing his opponents' position. In the heated committee session, he referred to the "ass-etic" pretensions of the garden club ladies and those who presumed to speak for them. The oil companies were one of the two or three largest roadside advertisers and since they received the medium on which they were advertising virtually free of charge, it was perhaps the cheapest form of advertising available to them.
Former Senator Scott Lucas of Illinois, a previous Democratic Majority Leader, was representing the roadside business association which he said was made up of the owners of motels and roadside stands. The powerful lobby, one of the most potent in Washington, was that of the big outdoor advertisers. The most effective argument against any prohibition had been advanced by those who spoke for organized labor, such as Senator McNamara, claiming that the billboards would mean 50,000 jobs for sign painters and carpenters.
The anti-billboard provision, it was argued, was a fine thing but should not be hooked onto a highway measure where it did not belong. The sponsors were hopeful that the appeal was strong enough to carry the day. An estimated 5.2 billion dollars was necessary for acquiring the land for Federal highways and of that, some 260 million could be spent by the states which conformed to Federal standards on roadside signs, for buying up land with the specific purpose of keeping off billboard advertising. States which agreed to do so would be paid an additional half of a percent of the Federal share of the interstate network. Thus, if state legislatures succumbed to the billboard lobby, the embattled conservationists and garden club members could demand to know why they were rejecting the bonus.
Nevertheless, Senator Kerr was not to be underrated. He had recently suffered a disappointment when Senator Harry F. Byrd had announced his intention of retiring, causing Senator Kerr to believe he could assume the chairmanship of the powerful Senate Finance Committee. But Senator Byrd had changed his mind and would seek another term. Accustomed to getting what he wanted, Senator Kerr would continue to seek the right of the billboard advertisers to have their way, and between a lofty mountain and a big sign advertising somebody's super-duper gasoline, the latter might win out.
Robert C. Ruark, in Palamos, Spain, indicates that no one had ever accused Conrad Hilton of stupidity and in his newest venture, he had just announced plans to build a number of inns close to airports in the major cities, which would be 300-room motels with modern facilities for eating and amusement. It might cause him to lose some business from his large hotels, but in the jet age, he would make many new friends.
Mr. Ruark says he had already made a friend of him for merely the idea as it would eliminate the need to make long rides from airports to the city to a hotel when all one needed was a night's sleep for a connection the following morning.
The vice-president of TWA, Walter Johnson, had stated recently that within ten months, the advent of jet service would "shrink the travel size of America by 40 percent", mentioning that the flying time of 7.5 hours from Los Angeles to New York would be reduced to 3.5 hours. European flights were already reduced to a long day's haul, and when the trans-oceanic jets began to get moving, time changes would reach the passenger almost before they left. According to Mr. Johnson, jet planes would double the amount of passenger seat mileage, but he questioned whether tourists would continue to fly in turbine aircraft if upon arrival they received service which bordered on the obsolescent, having to lodge in piston-aged hotels and motels.
He says that he would not be forced into city traffic to seek an old-fashioned hotel, with elevators, bell captains, parking problems and tipping everywhere, if he could drive his car to some pleasant motel on the outskirts, enjoy its swimming pool, tip no one and not have to ring down for ice because there was an ice machine on the veranda. The airline travelers would begin to demand the same thing.
A letter writer from Royal Oak, Mich., indicates that the House had recently voted overwhelmingly in favor of a humane slaughter bill which required that animals be rendered insensible before they were killed, with the bill still having to pass the Senate before going to the President for signature. For almost 30 years, he indicates, people had protested the barbaric cruelties in the slaughterhouses, and now there was a chance to eliminate them. He urges writing Senators to support passage of the bill, quotes Albert Schweitzer as having said: "When so much brutality prevails in our slaughterhouses … we all bear the guilt of it."
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