The Charlotte News
Saturday, March 29, 1958
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from Moscow that new Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev would disclose the makeup of his new Government on Monday, according to an announcement made this date before the Council of the Union, one of Russia's two houses of Parliament.
Ann Sawyer and Julian Scheer of The News report that an Air Force T-33 jet had crashed into a local home in Charlotte early this date, resulting in the death of the pilot but sparing the lives of nine sleeping residents in the home. The pilot had been attempting to make an emergency landing at fog-shrouded Douglas Municipal Airport in the early morning hours when his two-seat jet trainer had plowed into a one-story frame home occupied by two families, causing the structure to burn to the ground. The pilot had been on a flight from Enid, Okla., via West Palm Beach, Fla., when he had called the Charlotte tower a few minutes earlier to request permission for an emergency landing, indicating that he had only ten minutes of fuel remaining. He was cleared for an approach with visibility near zero when he missed the first approach and was, apparently, about to circle for a second approach when the aircraft struck trees and fell into the home. It came to rest in the bedroom occupied by a 20-year old man and his 11-year old brother, both of whom were covered with household articles after the front end of the bedroom had been blown out, but were able to scramble from the room. The rest of the family had left immediately, fleeing in a car because they feared an explosion. The pilot's mother and sister, both of Salisbury, had been waiting at the Air National Guard hangar for the pilot to arrive.
John Kilgo of The News reports further on the incident, indicating that one of the residents of the home which was hit had described the noise made by the plane as "like a loud clap of thunder" followed by a "great big flash that looked like the brightest streak of lightning I'd ever seen." She said she had been having a bad cramp in her leg all through the night and that just before the plane had hit, it began to hurt her very badly, at which point her son had hollered to her to walk on it, whereupon she had gotten up to begin walking when she heard the loud roar. She had run to every room in the house screaming, telling everyone to get up, as the house was burning by that point. All nine residents had then run outside and jumped into the car to ride down the road. She said they did not know where they were going, just wanted to get out of danger. After they realized from the woman's son-in-law that a jet plane had crashed into their house, they had returned and saw the house ablaze and the airplane sprawled across the back of it. The woman said that all she could save were three blankets and a quilt.
Near Oklahoma City, the wreckage of a B-25 had been found this date in an open field, with a highway patrolman recovering three bodies.
Civil Air Patrol planes had begun a route search between Charlotte and Asheville this date for a small private plane which had been missing since the previous afternoon with two businessmen from Bennettsville, S.C., aboard. Weather had been holding up the search during the morning, with several CAP planes from the eastern part of the state having taken off to join the search but having to land at other airfields before reaching Charlotte because of the weather.
In Sarasota, Fla., four persons had been killed this date when, according to police, the automobile in which they were riding had smashed into a palm tree at 80 mph.
In Woodward, Okla., it was reported that a murder charge had been lodged against a 12-year old boy in the shooting of the proprietor of a grocery store. The boy and his brother, 10, had been together when the grocer was shot, the police indicating that they had intended to commit a robbery.
In Brownsville, Tex., it was reported that 36 protesting Cubans, who had been without food since Wednesday night, had passed up breakfast in the county jail this date.
In Catania, Sicily, it was reported that Mount Etna had spewed fire and smoke the previous night after several weeks of relative quiet. Lava flowed down 300 to 400 yards from the northeast crater of the volcano.
In Boston, Joseph Sharkey, a pioneering correspondent with 40 years of service with the Associated Press, had died early this date of pneumonia at age 81.
In Hollywood, it was reported that nightclub entertainer Keely Smith, wife of bandleader Louis Prima, had undergone surgery this date, after becoming ill during her Las Vegas act at a hotel there the previous day.
In Aintree, England, Mr. What had
won the 112th running of the Grand National Steeplechase this date.
Tiberetta had placed second and Green Drill, third, in the field of
31 starters. Where did Mr. Who come in?
On the editorial page, "In the Old North State, Poetic Justice" finds that the salute in Raleigh during the week to poet Carl Sandburg was "warmly wonderful" and had challenged the notion of provincialism on the part of official attitudes toward creators of culture in the United States.
State Treasurer Edwin Gill had labeled Mr. Sandburg at an official luncheon as "an original … secure in the affections of all our people." Governor Luther Hodges, a former industrialist, called the old Socialist "the realest American poet". State Auditor Henry Bridges offered a prayer to indicate that art had even penetrated the ledger rooms. Some of the 200 who had taken part in the observance were there undoubtedly to pay homage to a tourist attraction rather than a poet, but most had been sincerely interested in honoring a man of letters who deserved the respect of all Americans who thought and felt.
It finds the occasion too rare in the country, making the celebration in Raleigh remarkable. Artists were largely ignored, great writers and painters generally receiving no public honors. They had not even been invited to the President's stag dinners at the White House. Unlike Europe, officials in the U.S. rarely recognized the outstanding non-military achievements of citizens who brought glory to the country and served civilization by their moral qualities or artistic talent.
Rome had once offered such persons a curule chair in the Colosseum. Virgil had received the equivalent of about $900 from the Government for each verse of the story of Marcellus. Louis XIV had welcomed Molière to his table. Francois Rabelais was pensioned by Francis I and Pierre de Ronsard by Charles IX. Athens had provided the most gifted in each branch of art with free lodging in the Prytaneum. Florence gave the freedom of the city and a large annuity to Giotto. The kings of France had conferred the title of "Painter to the King" on Leonardo da Vinci, Lebrun, Mignard, Vanloo and Boucher, among others. Louis XIV had honored Christian Huygens and Giovanni Cassini, despite being foreigners. The Empress Catherine II had honored Denis Diderot. Napoleon had established the Legion of Honor. England still turned out Sirs and Lords among its intellectual and artistic elite.
It ventures that creative artists ought be honored in their own lands and in their own times just as military heroes were honored, and just as Mr. Sandburg had been honored in Raleigh during the week.
Gian-Carlo Menotti, an Italian-born composer who had lived in the U.S. for more than two decades, had made what it regards as perhaps the best plea for "recognition" of American artists a few years earlier when he said: "America must realize that its present civilization will be crystallized and remembered in the future only as portrayed by its contemporary creative artists. It is the Germany of Bach, Beethoven and Goethe that we love and forgive. It is the Italy of Leonardo and Michelangelo and the countless architects who have been asked to enrich it with their monuments that is portrayed in every schoolboy's textbook. It is the France of Utrillo and Rimbaud that the American tourist unconsciously seeks in his eternal pilgrimage to Paris. Most Americans are apt to excuse themselves by answering that, after all, there are no Beethovens and Michelangelos in this country. This argument reminds me of the proverbial young man who, after having murdered his father and mother, asks the judge to be lenient because he is an orphan. A nation is directly responsible for preparing the kind of soil that will produce art."
"Pay the Experts What They're Worth" indicates that in early 1957, president of the General Electric Co. Ralph Cordiner, chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Advisory Committee on Professional and Technical Compensation, had recommended revision of military pay scales as the compensation practices were so clearly out of step with the times and inadequate to the needs of technically advanced forms of national defense, so contrary to human motivations, that they had become a major impediment to national security.
Nevertheless, the problem had not immediately been remedied because of the need for economy, such that at a time when human and material resources were most needed among skilled personnel to move the armed services into the space age, the result had not been economy but extravagant waste. It finds that Congress now had an opportunity to take corrective action under a bill sponsored by Representative Paul Kilday of Texas. It did not contain all of the inducements for specialists recommended by the Cordiner Committee but was much better than anything which the Pentagon expected, with pay schedules to be substantially increased under the bill for positions of heavy responsibility and specialized skill, the top basic pay of a full general to increase from $15,312 to $22,500, plus allowances. The bill would also create two new enlisted pay grades at the top such that, with proficiency pay, a qualified enlisted man could receive over $10,000 per year.
It finds that the price was not too high for the security of the country, and that it could reduce the cost and increase the effectiveness of national defense by making it possible to attract, retain and motivate the scientific, professional, technical and combat leadership and management skills required in the space age.
The bill had passed the House and now went to the Senate, and it urges that it should be passed without delay.
"Life in America: The Urge To
Purge" indicates that a report in the New York Times had
stated that U. E. Baughman, head of the Secret Service, had testified
before Congress recently that the previous year, his section had
processed 17,801 letters to the President which were "of
interest from a security standpoint"
A piece from the Manchester Guardian, titled "Irish Miscellaneous", indicates that one of the wonders of modern Ireland was the style of church architecture in the new suburbs of most of its cities. A brief report of the Irish Times recently had stated: "A new basilica-type church dedicated to St. Pius X is to be built at Fortfield Road, Terenure. Many features of early Christian Byzantine and Italian Romanesque architecture will be incorporated in the building…"
It indicates that the description appeared to have inspired another creative artist working in a different medium, as two days later, the same paper had published a letter which stated: "With reference to your report that a new Roman basilica-type church is to be built in Terenure, incorporating many features of early Christian Byzantine and Italian Romanesque architecture, you may be interested to know that I'm composing an opera-type verse-play. The libretto combines passages from Homer, Virgil, Chaucer, and Shakespeare; the music includes elements from Byrd, Scarlatti, Beethoven and Wagner, and will be played on accordions, harpsichords, and drums. The decor is to combine features from Giotto, Botticelli, Rembrandt, and Turner. This should be very nice, I think... I am often commissioned to do operas and things and make quite a bit out of it, but I would like to hear whether you think this one would be all right for the Theatre Festival."
Drew Pearson indicates that housewives were not aware of it but that they were in for either faulty inspection of meat or a slowdown in meat production because the Federal meat inspection service was short 412 meat inspectors and could not get the Administration to seek more money to lure new ones. The population of the country had grown at the rate of 3 million per year while the cattle population was at record levels, but the number of meat inspectors stationed in the slaughterhouses by the Department of Agriculture remained about the same. The number of packing plants under inspection had risen by 55 percent during the previous 15 years, but in that same time, the number of inspectors had been reduced by 6 percent and the number of Federal veterinarians by 23 percent.
The previous year, the President had asked Congress for additional funding to hire more meat inspectors, but did not receive them. This year, he was not even asking because the White House rule was that all non-defense funding was being withheld in favor of armament. The result of the meat inspector shortage was curtailed income for farmers, higher prices for consumers, less profit for packers, and sometimes faulty inspection. Slowdowns in packing houses to give the inspector more time to inspect caused the price of meat to rise. Protection had been curtailed by 20 percent in one plant in Cleveland during the current month.
House Speaker Sam Rayburn never objected to a good story on himself, and so Mr. Pearson provides one, in which he had stated that he had been invited to dinner recently and found himself sitting alongside a handsome young man whose face looked familiar, but he could not place him and so asked whether he was in the Justice Department, finding that the young man was William Rogers, the Attorney General. Mr. Pearson notes that Mr. Rogers, although new to that office, was not new to Washington, as he had served as counsel for the old Truman Investigating Committee of the Senate and also had served for four years in the Justice Department as Deputy Attorney General to former Attorney General Herbert Brownell. He had, however, kept his youthful appearance so well that people recognized him as a sedate member of the Cabinet.
Senator Ralph Yarborough of Texas had introduced legislation, commensurate with the demands for new restriction on oil imports by Texas oilmen, to that effect.
Russia had been quietly opening new fields of trade among the good neighbors of the U.S. He notes that Soviet progress in Latin America had resulted from U.S. neglect, increased Russian prestige following the launch of the Sputniks, the fall in raw material prices and the unwillingness of the Administration to give economic aid or technical advice to state-owned enterprises in Latin America, especially the government oil monopolies of Brazil and Argentina.
Despite public pronouncements to the contrary, the gas and oil Congressmen planned to bring up the natural gas bill before Congress would adjourn. Mr. Rayburn had hinted at it recently in a private talk with Philadelphia's Mayor Richard Dilworth. The gas bill would boost the profits of the companies, but would also increase by millions household bills.
Doris Fleeson indicates that advocates of the reciprocal trade agreements had met in closed session recently to plan a program of lobbying members of Congress individually, having been placed on notice by White House chief of staff Sherman Adams that they would have to do the job themselves.
Undersecretary of State Douglas Dillon, who was in command of the Administration's effort to extend the agreements for five years, had appealed to Mr. Adams for help to get the President to apply personal counter-pressure, suggesting that the President obtain initially an absolute commitment to the Administration bill from House Republican leaders Joseph Martin and Charles Halleck, and then enlist their aid in locating Republican waverers who would be influenced by personal attention from the President. Mr. Adams had turned Mr. Dillon down, indicating that the President would speak for the bill at a large public conference on Thursday, to be telecast, and that it would be his final word on the matter. That was not a departure from the normal White House routine, as the President had been consistently reluctant to apply his personal pressure on any issue. Mr. Dillon had been driven to ask for the pressure by the facts that the bill was in trouble and a few votes either way might prove decisive, and that some of its most active proponents had asked Mr. Dillon to name the ten members of the House whom the President would call personally and pressure, once they had done their individual parts.
She points out that the President would not share a dais with former President Truman or Adlai Stevenson, and Mr. Truman would not appear with Vice-President Nixon. DNC chairman Paul Butler shied away from appearing to be on a friendly basis with RNC chairman Meade Alcorn. Eric Johnston, who produced the recent foreign aid show, had an anguishing experience with the Vice-President, believing that the need for foreign aid compelled unity of the nations and that the example ought be set in the U.S. with both the President and former Presidents Truman and Hoover on the same program, believing he needed the Vice-President's support when they approached the President with the idea together. But the President had become angry at the suggestion, and when Mr. Johnston had turned to the Vice-President for help, the latter said it was the first he had heard of the idea, but that it was interesting.
The Congressional Quarterly indicates that the President faced one of the tough political decisions of his career in deciding whether to veto a bill to freeze farm price supports and acreage allotments at the 1957 levels. The measure had reached his desk on March 24 and he had until April 3 to act on it. A veto was anticipated because the President had called the bill "a 180 degree turn in the wrong direction." But many observers believed that a veto would have serious political repercussions for Republicans, as some 44 House Republicans and four Senators up for re-election in the fall had supported the "freeze" bill. Local resentment of the President's veto could hurt in the midterm elections.
The President had vetoed relatively few acts of Congress compared to his predecessors. From the beginning of his first term through March 26, the President had cast 100 vetoes, very few of which were concerned with measures of any importance. It was an especially low number considering that, with the exception of his first two years in office, he had faced a Democratic Congress. President Truman had vetoed 250 bills in nearly eight years and President Roosevelt, 649 in 12 years. President Eisenhower was the first President since Warren Harding to escape the humiliation of having a bill passed over his veto. The veto of FDR had been overturned nine times and that of President Truman, 12 times. Congress had sought to override only two of Mr. Eisenhower's vetoes and both times had fallen short of the necessary two-thirds majority in each house.
In 1955, the Senate lacked eight votes from passing a postal pay increase bill over the President's veto, and in 1956, the House had fallen 74 votes short of reinstating rigid, 90 percent of parity farm price supports over his veto. Indications were that the new farm bill could not pass over the President's veto, as neither the House nor the Senate had passed it by a two-thirds majority.
In the past, most of the major bills vetoed by President Eisenhower had been modified to meet at least some of his objections and then had received his approval. In 1953, he had vetoed a bill to remove the 20 percent tax on movie admissions, but approved a bill to cut the tax in half in 1954. He had vetoed postal and Federal pay raise bills in 1954 and 1955, but then had approved a less expensive measure subsequently passed by Congress. In 1956, he had vetoed the first farm bill, with its rigid price support features, but had approved a second bill with that section removed. Also in 1956, he had vetoed the natural gas bill because of the "arrogant" lobbying in support of it, but indicated that he would sign a similar bill if it came to him untainted by such lobbying tactics. In 1957, he had vetoed bills to increase Federal and postal pay, but in the current year, had recommended increases himself.
After Congress had adjourned in 1956, he had withheld his signature from the 1.6 billion dollar rivers and harbors authorization, thereby killing it with a pocket veto.
Robert C. Ruark, in Palamos, Spain, indicates that he had read that the New York cops had been undergoing rigorous training in target practice and were not doing so well on moving targets, where both judgment and accuracy were tested. In recent tests, about 75 percent of the sergeants taking a refresher course had been off target, prompting the police captain in charge to say: "In an issue of a magazine for gun fans, they called us the worst marksmen in the country, and they weren't far from wrong."
He indicates that the pistol was very useful for committing quiet murder, although recalling that the hoods who had killed underworld figure Albert Anastasia in a barbershop in New York City had missed him several times at a range of about 2 to 4 feet. But at very close range, the pistol typically worked effectively. "It is a fun gun for plinking at cans, but there is always the danger that even a .22 could could come back and bite the shooter. With few exceptions, it was useless for hunting, though he knew one man who could shoot flying guinea fowl with a pistol, but lived in Kenya and was quite exceptional. It was useful around the home for guests or kids to discover and shoot holes in the ceiling or into their feet. Hysterical ladies occasionally became disenchanted and discovered marksmanship which they never knew they had, usually saying something like: "I killed him because I loved him." It was also handy for drunken wives shooting drunken husbands or drunken cops shooting drunken wives or even a cop being called up for drunkenness on a charge of shooting a teenage youth while the policeman was off duty, as had occurred recently.
He finds that the rare case of armed cops making an arrest when they were off duty did not generally warrant going around armed when they were in civilian dress unless they were a private detective on duty.
He indicates that it was possible to hit the target and not an innocent bystander with a handgun if one were very good and very lucky or very close, but mainly, as an offensive weapon on the side of right, it was tough to handle. "Perhaps the Mike Hammer or Mickey Spillane can hit things with a .45 automatic, but when they checked me out on the thing in the Navy the quote was: 'After it jams, throw it at the nearest stranger and run for your life.'"
He finds that the light carbine, which he believed was in heavy surplus, was an ideal weapon for a uniformed police officer on duty, making a better club than a nightstick and probably did not weigh much more than a police special and the nightstick put together. Once one learned to aim it, the person could hit something with it and it was also difficult to conceal when the owner was off duty and somewhat inebriated.
Hoss, on an excursion from the Ponderosa, posing as "Big Joe", stole jade chess men from the local Chinese laundry in San Francisco, probably a relative of Hop Sing, and was going to teach everyone how to use a pistol, but instead got taught. Pa is gonna be powerful sore at this turn of events when he gets home, for Hoss having taken up with the wrong crowd along the trail somewhere. One Cartwright is turning into a werewolf from a mad scientist's experiment gone awry while another is turning crooked. Meanwhile, Pa is the prosecutor in Peyton Place. And in just a couple of weeks, it will become evident that Adam, too, has been a crook on the side, as a Simon Legree to Chinese railroad workers. The Ponderosa is going to hell fast before it even gets started.
A letter writer from Salisbury finds large moths to be one of the pretty creatures of God's creation, reminding that it had once been an egg, then a leaf-eating larva, then a big fat creature wrapped up in a silk cocoon from which the beautiful moth came forth. "The appreciation of such beauty makes our souls grow and we become greater souls with more power to love and appreciate."
A letter from Rock Hill, S.C., indicates that in a recent article, Dr. Henry Commager, professor of American history at Amherst College, had touched on a matter which would be of interest to all Southerners, having written: "The antebellum South persuaded itself that slavery was not an evil but a positive good. It would not tolerate any criticism of that institution, or any questioning of its ultimate good… The South silenced criticism of all kinds, and drove out critics. It required schools to teach that slavery was a blessing … driving out scholars who questioned the virtues of slavery. It closed the doors to disinterested research in the history, the economy, the sociology, or the science of slavery and of race. And because institutions of learning were not allowed to question and to challenge the course of the South, it was not possible for education to raise up a generation to deal with slavery by any means except that of violence and counter violence." The letter writer indicates that all efforts to use schools to advance regional political ends were fraught with peril and if the problems currently facing the region were to be solved, scholarship and teachers had to remain free from all pressures which would prevent their search for truth. He urges that Southern university leaders ought bear in mind what Dr. Commager had stated very well.
In 2025, the Administration requirement is to teach Trumpism and nothing but Trumpism or else lose all Federal funding. Herr Doktor Goebbels likes it.
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