The Charlotte News
Friday, April 11, 1958
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from Havana that rebel leader Fidel Castro's chances of ousting El Presidente Fulgencio Batista had faded this date following the failure of the second attempt by his rebel forces at total war and fomenting of a general strike. Bomb-throwing young rebels had sought the previous day to spawn an uprising in Santiago, but national police had quickly put down the effort with machine-gun fire. The number of casualties in the southeastern Cuban port city could not be learned immediately. On Wednesday, rebels in Havana and Matanzas had called for a general strike and popular uprisings, but on that occasion also, the public had not responded and police had quelled the outbreak, resulting in 45 rebels and two policemen being killed. From guerrilla headquarters in the Sierra Maestra of southeastern Cuba, Sr. Castro had continued to direct sabotage and attacks on communications, the type of campaign he had waged against El Presidente for 16 months. But the two failures to win popular support for the proclaimed all-out war to overthrow El Presidente apparently had left the rebel leader without any immediate chance of success. The defeat in Santiago had been a particularly hard blow, as the main strength and theater of operations of the rebels was in the surrounding Oriente Province. Only a massive uprising of Cubans or defection of many of El Presidente's 38,000 troops could cause the revolt to be successful in the foreseeable future. The armed forces had remained steadfast with El Presidente, and he had legalized the killing by civilians of strike agitators. Rebels had begun attacks on Santiago utilities before dawn, hoping to spawn a general strike in Cuba's second-largest city. Youthful gunmen had poured into the center of the city, firing pistols and machine guns and hurling hand grenades and gasoline bombs at stores as they began to open. The city of 250,000 had been heavily garrisoned by El Presidente's troops since the rebels had begun raiding the surrounding province. The troops scattered the rebels with fire from machine guns on rooftops and chased the rebel forces with motorized patrols. Within a short time, the attack was over. Rebel bands continued to disrupt land communications to the city, however, and attacks were reported elsewhere on the island, with major strikes having been reported in Camaguay Province, just west of Oriente, while in the next province to the west, Las Villas, 200 rebels had reportedly clashed with Government troops at Sagua la Grande. The Army said that six rebels and two soldiers had been killed in a battle near Santa Clara, in Las Villas.
In Greensboro, N.C., Grover Manheim of the city reported that as he had deboarded a plane at Havana, a cab driver had told him that he had better get a shave at once, as he could pass for Fidel Castro's double with his beard. Mr. Manheim had just laughed and said he had left his razor at home, had been nursing the beard for eight weeks and did not intend to lose it. That had been in the late afternoon of Tuesday, the last time Mr. Manheim thought about the advice of the cabbie until Wednesday morning when the rebels and El Presidente's police had gone into action and things started exploding all over Havana's Prado, where Mr. Manheim had been taking a stroll. As he dove under a table in a nearby coffee shop, the only weapon he wanted was a trusty razor to rid himself of his beard, as it suddenly hit him that any resemblance to the rebel leader was the worst handicap a man could have in Havana at the time. Mr. Manheim operated the Manheim Motor Co. in Greensboro and had returned to the city on Thursday, indicating that it had been too rough for him and he had to leave Havana on Wednesday afternoon on the last plane they allowed to depart. He said he did not see any rebels to recognize them, but saw plenty of El Presidente's police. "They were riding around like madmen in these big automobiles, swinging bull whips at anybody in sight. I saw some of them hit Cubans with nightsticks, too. Everybody ran. If they had put up the slightest resistance, they would have been beaten to death on the spot." He said that he had been walking along the Prado in the late morning on Wednesday when he heard a boom and then saw flames from a gas main shoot up 20 feet or so, at which point the police arrived. He saw two of them beat up a New York newspaperman and thought that they would kill him with their whips, until somebody pulled the reporter into a hotel. The newspaperman had been Neil Wilkinson, 37, correspondent for the New York Daily News. Mr. Manheim said that everything had been quiet in Havana until that point and that friends in Miami had assured him that Havana was "safe as a church". Tuesday night, the manager of the new Tropicana casino had told him that "this revolution stuff is a lot of hooey. It's all in the heads of these American newspapermen. They sit around in bars getting drunk on expense accounts and dream up these cock-and-bull dispatches."
Also in Havana, it was reported that a Cuban Army plane had crashed in flames in the exclusive Miramar residential district of Havana this date, killing two persons and injuring 15 others. The plane had demolished a grocery store and adjoining residence. It had burst into flames as it was taking off from a nearby airfield. Wreckage had scattered over a wide area, smashing windows in residences for blocks around the crash site. About 50 houses had suffered some damage. The explosion of the gasoline tanks of the plane had been heard throughout most of Havana, touching off rumors of fresh rebel bombing. The plane, described as a fighter aircraft, had been carrying bombs, but those had not detonated.
Russia reportedly had proposed to the Western powers this date that preparatory talks for a summit conference begin on April 17 in Moscow. Secretary of State Dulles had immediately gone to the White House to discuss the proposed date with the President, before the latter's departure for a golfing weekend at Augusta, Ga. The Soviet response was also being studied carefully by State Department experts to determine whether it provided evidence that Premier Nikita Khrushchev was ready to begin negotiating on the details of arrangements and the issues which would come before such a summit meeting. White House press secretary James Hagerty had provided the first word that the Soviet reply had been received, but disclosed no details, referring inquiries to the State Department. Informants at the Department said only that the Soviet Union had proposed that the pre-summit talks begin on April 17. The Soviet note had been in reply to a March 31 proposal by Western powers, including the U.S., Britain and France, that their ambassadors in Moscow start the preparatory work, calling for a start of diplomatic exchanges in the second half of April. Receipt of the Soviet reply followed quickly on the return to Moscow the previous day from Hungary of Premier Khrushchev after an eight-day visit. Authorities in Washington were uneasily aware that the Soviet leader had two more potential propaganda bombshells in reserve if he wanted to follow up the recent Soviet announcement of a decision unilaterally to cease for the time being nuclear weapons testing. Already there had been hints from the Soviet Premier that the Soviet Union at some point might announce a decision to halt the manufacture of nuclear weapons. The other potential action would be to announce, sometime after U.S. nuclear experiments started in the mid-Pacific in the spring, that the Soviets were canceling their own test suspension, blaming the U.S. tests for resumption. The specific proposal to begin diplomatic talks was part of a Western effort to pin the Communists down to hard facts where possible.
The Navy had said this date that it had developed the equipment to fire its Polaris 1,500-mile medium range ballistic missile from under water, representing a solution of the problem of getting it above the surface where its rocket engines could ignite.
The Government reported this date that retail sales had dropped a percent in March and the rate of personal income had dropped by 300 million dollars annually. It used to be a rich country under the New and Fair Deals, when the average bloke earned 300 million annually, until the 1958 recession wiped everybody out—again under those Republicans.
In Paris, it was reported that eleventh-hour U.S.-British efforts to break a deadlock in the French-Tunisian dispute had caused Premier Felix Gaillard to postpone an emergency Cabinet session this date.
In Warsaw, it was reported by the Polish Press Agency this date that Indonesia was negotiating to purchase 20 ships from Poland. The agency's Jakarta correspondent had reported that the deal had already been agreed to in principle but that price and sale conditions remained to be negotiated.
In Cambridge, Mass., former Massachusetts Governor Paul Dever, 55, had died in his sleep at home early this date. For many years, he had been afflicted with a heart ailment.
In New York, it was reported that a five-inch snowfall had occurred in some sections of the Northeast, leaving snow in northern New Jersey, across lower New York and in New England. Rhode Island reported as much as 5 inches of accumulation in some places.
In St. Paul, Va., police said that a 54-year old farmer had stated the previous night, "You tell her that if she don't start going with me again, I'll kill her and me, too," just minutes before he had used a hunting knife to slash to death a woman who had called off a courtship with him, then committed suicide with the same weapon. Officers said that a waitress in a diner had told them that the man had entered the diner in the evening and asked the waitress to pass his message to another waitress, and the man then sat a few minutes before asking the initial waitress to leave him alone with the waitress he had come to see, the mother of six children. Moments later, the first waitress heard a scream and re-entered the diner to find the man beating the waitress he had come to see. The first waitress told police that the man had warned her to stay away or he would kill her. He then grabbed a four-inch hunting knife from a sale display and slashed the woman he had come to see across the throat and then went to the back of the diner and cut his own throat. The woman had died almost instantly from the cut, which had severed her jugular vein and windpipe. The man died before an ambulance could get him to the hospital.
In Muskogee, Okla., six policemen of the town were arrested early this date and charged with second-degree burglary in connection with thefts which had occurred while they were on duty. The chief of police had announced the arrests after the six were taken into custody, and he demanded their resignations. One of those charged was a detective and another had just retired recently after more than 20 years of service. The chief said that the men were specifically charged with the theft of automobile tires from two companies, coffee and tea from a wholesaler and foodstuffs, mostly oysters, from a fish company. (They had eaten every one, even if, according to the song, they did not smoke hookahs or get small in Muskogee.) He said that the arrests climaxed an intensive investigation, and that 14 new tires had been recovered during it. The action had been disclosed after the chief called the officers to his office early this date, demanding their resignations and then turned them over to the county attorney. He said that all of them had been questioned and had given statements.
In Raleigh, the North Carolina Parole Board had twice urged California officials to revoke the parole of a man of Lumberton who was accused of robbing a bank at Lake View, S.C., the prior Wednesday. The chairman of the Board said that the man had been paroled about a year earlier from a California prison where he had been serving a term for armed robbery and was allowed to return to Lumberton and placed under the supervision of North Carolina parole authorities. According to the chairman, the man had changed jobs several times and in January, the Board had recommended strongly that the California authorities revoke his parole, but they had apparently decided to give him another chance and arranged for him to take another job.
In Dobson, N.C., it was reported
that a 30-year old WAC from Fort McClellan, Ala., was in critical
condition at a Winston-Salem hospital this date from drinking illicit
liquor spiked with methyl alcohol, according to police. One man had
died and two others had been hospitalized from drinking the poisoned
whiskey. The female sergeant, originally from Moore County, N.C., was
arrested in civilian clothes for drunkenness in Mount Airy early the
previous day according to police, indicating that she had passed out
at the police station. The county health officer had her transported
to a hospital. After her stomach was pumped, the doctor said that she
had been drinking methyl alcohol and transferred her to Baptist
Hospital in Winston-Salem. Six men had been arrested and freed on
$500 bond each in connection with purveying the bad liquor. The Surry
County sheriff said that a murder charge would be placed against the
person or persons found responsible for poisoning the whiskey, but
said that had not been determined. A 45-year old man of Elkin had
died on Friday after drinking the bad whiskey. Another man of Dobson
was in the hospital in Elkin, and a third individual of Mount Airy
had been released the previous night from Baptist Hospital in
Winston-Salem. Police said that they had been unable to question the
sergeant regarding where she had bought the liquor. Three men had been
charged with possession and transportation of non-tax paid whiskey,
and three men had been charged with possession for sale of the
whiskey. Officers said that two of those men had purchased the
whiskey from one of the men charged with possession for sale and had
brought it to Mount Airy. These are the dark and seamy things never
disclosed to you about Mayberry in the context of hapless Otis and
his omnipresent liquor bottle
Mayfield
In Asheville, N.C., it was reported that Buncombe County's list of banned magazines and comic books would be increased by as many as 23 titles within the ensuing 30 days. The deputy sheriff in charge of the censorship program in the county said that he would submit the 23 titles to a censorship committee in the near future. Those which the committee chose to ban would be added to a list which presently included some 63 prohibited magazines and comic books. The sheriff's department enforced the ban. The sheriff said that he had, however, not needed to enforce it because the local distributor and newsstand operators had completely cooperated in the censorship program. The new list, when issued, would be the third since the county had begun the censorship campaign late the previous year. The first list had included 31 magazines and 20 comic books, among which had been such magazines as Confidential and Playboy, several photography magazines and a number of "girly" magazines. The comic list was attacked as unfair by the Comics Code Authority, which said that 15 of the 20 comic books listed were no longer published and that the five which were still published had been cleaned up. A second list of banned publications had been issued during the winter, including Photo-Rama, Inside Story, Master Photography, Men's Digest, Model Studies for Artists, Night and Day, On the QT, Picture Digest, True Strange, Valor for Men, and Your Romance. A deputy had refused to disclose the second list for publication, although most newsstands in the county had it posted, the deputy indicating that they did not want to publicize obscene matter. The first Buncombe County blacklist had touched off a wave of censorship across the state when the sheriff had it mailed to sheriffs in the other 99 counties. In Cumberland County, a local committee had blacklisted 72 magazines and limited the sale of 15 others only to adults.
In New York, an attorney arguing a case reached for a glass of water before realizing that what he had drunk had not been water. He was representing a defendant in a rent-gouging case and for some days he and the assistant district attorney had been wrangling so bitterly that the judge had to order them to quit interrupting each other. Toward the end of the trial, the prosecutor developed a sore finger. As the attorney for the defendant picked up the glass, the district attorney jumped up and tried to speak but the judge had silenced him. After trying again, the judge gave him a stronger admonition, as the defense attorney downed the rest of the liquid. Finally, the prosecutor interrupted and said that he was sorry but that he had to speak in the interest of public health and justice, informing the court that the defense attorney had just drunk a glass of hot epsom salts in which the prosecutor had been bathing his finger. The judge, jury and courtroom audience roared with laughter. The defense attorney, somewhat nonplussed, asked for an adjournment. Later, he informed the court that, fortunately, he had suffered no untoward effects. His client, however, had lost the case, which the legal fraternity around town had dubbed, "The case of the hot epsom salts." (It seems more fitting and succinct to have called it the sore finger case.)
Also in New York, the new animalport at New York's International Airport was the first institution of its kind in the world to cater to the needs of animal air travel, expected to handle more than 100,000 animals per year. What will you do about the animals coming in without passports? Secure the borders against the invasion! Suspend habeas corpus and arrest those animals! If yet they do not comply, snatch their young, take them forthwith to the rock quarry and terminate them with extreme prejudice. It's a war against humanity! First thing you know, they'll take over.
On the editorial page, "Putting All the Begs in One Ask-It" indicates that in the postwar era, there had been any number of ambitious undertakings in the arts in Charlotte, with older organizations having grown larger and more adventurous while new ones had sprung up almost overnight, all coming forth independently to plead their separate cases for contributions from the public.
It was not unusual for one patron to be implored six times in quick succession to give money to different artistic endeavors. Such enterprises were almost without exception eminently worthwhile, enriching the community enormously and providing Charlotte a well-rounded significance which lesser cities lacked. But the ordeal of one hounding campaign after another had put an unnecessary and illogical strain on the nerves and checkbooks of all residents. There were just too many solicitations and too much drain on voluntary leadership.
It finds that the arts needed to do what the private health and welfare agencies had done in the city by joining under a United Appeal. The idea was not new and enjoyed enthusiastic support in some cultural quarters, but had never received the careful scrutiny it deserved from community leaders.
It was not as easy to sell culture as social responsibility and there was rivalry among certain musical groups within the community which might not be converted simply into selfless teamwork. There was also overlapping among the different groups. But such a united appeal could work in the arts, as it was working in Winston-Salem. It suggests that with careful planning, it could work in Charlotte and deserved consideration.
"There's Nothing Quite Like Spunkiness" tells of Ernest J. Sifford being unable to resist taking a few swipes at "the editors" during the week as he vacated the chairmanship of Charlotte's Park and Recreation Commission, further proof of the engaging spunk of a "wiry warrior for ideals and ideas he holds especially dear."
He had been a park commissioner for nearly 11 years and chairman for five, and had never ducked a fight or retreated an inch on any issue where his firmly held conviction had been involved. The newspaper had disagreed frequently with his judgment and occasionally with his attitude, but had never questioned his dedication and devotion to a dream, that being a great park and recreation system for Charlotte.
He labored valiantly toward that goal throughout his tenure and few individuals had given so much of themselves in service. To many, he was the Park and Recreation Commission, and if he seemed overpowering at times in wielding his will, it was only because his dedication to the job was also great and overpowering. He had discharged his duties as he felt they had to be discharged, with supreme assurance, authority and personal integrity.
It finds that if anything, the city had accepted the good things which he had done with too little appreciation and become too agitated about the controversial items. It finds it to his eternal credit that he had emerged from each encounter unmarked and with his head held high. He had accomplished much in his own way and consequently deserved much credit. It thus salutes him.
"Jaycees Spring Spring on Charlotte" tells of the Jaycees having produced "The Hornet's Nest", to run through the following night in Ovens Auditorium, stocked with more talent than one might expect in a "soberly industrious marketplace of the Carolinas". It finds the show to be a "potent antidote for anyone suffering from winter's hangover." There was some tart talk and spiked spoofs of the Charlotte scene, but the proportions were fine and it was good to know that Charlotte was big enough to laugh at itself.
"President Eisenhower Pulls His Rank" finds the most encouraging prediction heard in Washington recently to be that there would be a fight over military reorganization, implying that the President would place the power of his office and prestige as a military man behind the plan.
There had been no doubt that he would have to fight if he were really serious about reorganization of the Pentagon. Ancient alliances between the separate services and Congressional leaders constituted high hurdles for any far-reaching attempt to bring real unity and increased efficiency to the services. At his press conference during the week, the President had said that he was for his plan and did not care who in Congress was against it. He said that he had "a little bit more experience in military organization and the directing of unified forces than anyone on the active list" and that the plan was necessary for the country.
It finds it to be tough talk for Mr. Eisenhower and exactly the sort which would be required to make any measure of progress in increasing the readiness of the defense forces. The President's proposal might or might not be the correct prescription for the Pentagon. There were those in Congress and in the Administration capable of rendering sound judgments on organizational reforms.
But there had been a real danger that the soothing effects of the U.S. satellite launches since February, diminishing anxiety caused by the Sputniks of the prior fall, would encourage lassitude regarding the increasingly vital issue of unity of the armed forces. The President's reorganization proposal indicated that he was deeply concerned about defects in the defense structure and his verbal support of the plan suggested that at least the issue would be faced and that some truths might come from the contest.
A piece from the Washington Post & Times Herald, titled "Oysters, Arise!" begins with a quote from Through the Looking Glass: "'I weep for you,' the Walrus said: 'I deeply sympathize.' With sobs and tears he sorted out those of the largest size."
It bows to the Communist Hungarian
press for scoring a sensational scoop on reporting America's raging
civil war over the oyster, as the Hungarian editors had used a magic
Soviet telescope to spot border warfare between Maryland and
Virginia. According to the Budapest
It seeks to pass some suggestions to rally world opinion against the monstrous oyster cartel, that perhaps some new banners at the next spontaneous demonstration for Comrade Khrushchev ought read: "Smash the Oyster Trust", "All Power to the Little Oystermen", and "The World Is a People's Oyster".
It finds, however, that there was a danger of embarrassment as someone might shop around for a tasty oyster and find the delectable morsels had been sent to Moscow to be devoured with Russian dressing.
It concludes: "'O Oysters,' said the Carpenter,/ 'You've had a pleasant run!/ Shall we be trotting home?'/ But answer came there none—/ And this was scarcely odd, because/ They'd eaten every one."
Drew Pearson indicates that consumers and farmers wanted to know why prices on the farm went down while prices in the grocery store went up. Since 1953, when Ezra Taft Benson had become Secretary of Agriculture, through 1957, the prices paid to farmers had dropped by 16 percent, while prices paid by consumers had gone up by 2 percent. The trend was continuing. During a recession, prices usually dropped such that people who lost their jobs at least had the opportunity to buy cheaper food. But during 1958, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the price of food was still rising.
He attempts to answer why that was, with one part of it being gleaned from the stock market. During the big crash of the previous October, when 4.67 million and five million shares had been sold, food stocks had hardly budged. The wise guys on Wall Street had known that they were making money and did not trade them short.
Safeway Stores had increased their profits during the Eisenhower Administration by 246 percent between 1952 and 1956. Food Fair Stores during the same time had gone up by 90 percent and Super-Valu Stores, by 172 percent. (This, then, is why apparently Food Fair was able to give away a car every month or so in the midst of a nationwide recession in 1958. If memory serves, that stopped, however, after around 1962, or 1963 or 1964, though by then we had lost all interest, realizing the odds, and thus do not recall it, no longer collecting the little tickets.) The meatpackers, says Mr. Pearson, had also fared well, with Cudaby profits having risen by 186 percent during the Eisenhower Administration, and Wilson and Co., by 111 percent, Armour, by 105 percent. The only meat firm which had gone down in profits was Swift and Co., which had made 21.7 million dollars in 1952 under President Truman and 13.5 million in 1956 under President Eisenhower.
The big dairy firms had also done all right. Borden's profits had risen by 33 percent under the Eisenhower Administration. National Dairy Products had gone up by 50 percent, while Beatrice Foods had risen by 83 percent. The big cereal companies had also done fairly well. Quaker Oats, whose executives were heavy contributors to Mr. Eisenhower, had seen their profits rise by 89 percent. Corn Products had risen by 51 percent, General Mills by 28 percent, National Starch by 162 percent, and Fairmont Foods, by 210 percent.
Part of the reason for those tremendous profits was the failure to enforce the antitrust laws. With the virtual disappearance of the corner grocery store and with retailers increasingly dependent on the giants of the food business, the only protection of the consumer was enforcement of the anti-monopoly laws. But the Justice Department's Antitrust Division had become a political instrument, as recently shown by Congressman Emanuel Celler's investigation of the telephone company. Secretary Benson, who was supposed to enforce the antimonopoly laws against the meat industry, had as one of his best friends Aled Davies, the lobbyist for the American Meat Institute, who was now seeking to block the bill sponsored by Senator Joseph O'Mahoney of Wyoming, which would transfer the enforcement of the monopoly laws regarding the meatpackers away from Secretary Benson and place them with the Federal Trade Commission.
Another reason for the large profits was the manner in which Secretary Benson had taken representatives of the large meatpackers, the big dairy companies, and the large grain processors into his Agriculture Department and made them, not the farmers, the chief beneficiaries of his administration.
Mr. Pearson indicates that it was an
important story which would have to be reserved for another column,
but the best illustration was the manner in which Mr. Benson had
appointed Arthur Sigmund, vice-president of Kraft Cheese, as his
cheese advisor. (Did he also tell him when to smile
It definitely takes on shades of Trump, does it not? albeit Trump having taken the lack of enforcement to a whole new level. And you, little Trumper, in your wildest dreams, thought you were going to get lower prices at the grocery store and the gas pumps, some of you, even now, still deluding yourselves into believing that you have or will soon, when you have not and will not. You are actually paying more for food, substantially more in some categories such as meat, than you did last year this time, whereas gas is about the same or slightly higher depending on the state, as much as a dollar higher than it was in December and early January. Look it up. And it is only apt to get much worse because of the stupid Trump tariff policy. This is what happens when you listen to Fox Propaganda and Propangandamax for all of your "news", rubber-stamping and rationalizing through the winy-rummy haze everything His Highness conjures during his nighttime tweeting flourishes. You wind up scratching your head and wondering about the hair of the dog which bit you, and the shoes, ships and sealing wax which scarcely fit you. And there are plenty which bit you among those fitchews at those "news" organizations, many of them now in the Administration.
We note again for those with poor memories that the reason for the spike in prices in 2022, an international phenomenon which hit the U.S. far less than nations abroad, was the spike in gas prices from a combination of the removal of two-year Covid restrictions, triggering unleashed demand for travel and, moreover, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the resulting embargo in the world market against imports of Russian oil, starting in March and April. It had nothing to do with "Bidenomics", the breathless Fox bottle-o-wino-propaganda to the contrary notwithstanding. The Biden Administration restrained those factors from hitting the U.S. anywhere nearly as badly as they did the other industrialized countries. And who was it who bungled and mismanaged so badly the pandemic in the U.S. in 2020, minimizing it and insisting it was only a short-term, weeks-long passing phase to end by Easter? which spread the virus arithmetically and prolonged and deepened its effects, including the worst death-rate of any industrialized nation, lasting as a result of MAGA inherent resistance to reality, science, masks, social-distancing, and, eventually, the vaccine, into 2022.
Incidentally, speaking of people who would fain have a balanced diet were they able to afford it, we have no quarrel with the Secretary of Health and Human Services swimming amid raw sewage discharge in Rock Creek, even with his grandchildren, as we view it as a passionate cry for help
We must, however, comment that whether to partake of a recommended vaccine, such as for measles or other communicable diseases, while always voluntary and not compulsory, is also not a matter of "personal choice", as the risk is not only to one's own health or that of one's family and offspring but, moreover, to those who will inevitably be infected in schools, churches, the workplace, etc., by the irresponsible failure to take a readily available, entirely tested and safe vaccine, a complex which should be stressed by Government officials and not simply tossed aside as an issue of "freedom of choice"
Walter Lippmann finds there to be no more thankless assignment for an American newspaperman than to try to put together impressions of France in its relations with North Africa, with the conflict appearing to be irreconcilable and the problem of finding a solution hopeless. He indicates that the critical question for the foreign observer was to decide how much to discount that heard and how much there was a compulsion in events which would override opinions.
The situation consisted of a guerrilla war in Algeria with which the bulk of the French Army was involved, a war which almost certainly could not be won, but which, in military terms, would not be lost. The public life of metropolitan France was dominated, even obsessed, by that cruel, indecisive and interminable war, the obsession having produced a political condition in France which no Government believed it could survive if it considered a negotiated settlement. It had reached the point where there was the gravest doubt as to whether the legal Government in France really controlled the whole Army or its own appointed officials dealing with Algeria in Paris and in North Africa.
The political climate in North Africa, as Mr. Lippmann had observed it in Tunisia, was verging on desperation. President Habib Bourguiba, the most moderate and most Western of Arab leaders, believed that if there were no settlement of the Algerian war in the near future, he might be overwhelmed and destroyed by a fanaticism which followed Egyptian Premier Gamal Abdel Nasser. Tunisia, having no army of any consequence, was incapable of policing its long frontier with Algeria. But even if Tunisia could be neutral, it would not dare to be so because of the solidarity of the Arabs.
The political climate in Paris was oppressive, reminding Mr. Lippmann of Washington during the McCarthy era, when people in high places would deplore the terror privately and appease it publicly. Under the French version of McCarthyism, anyone who disagreed publicly with the official policy as administered in Algiers would likely be branded a traitor. He found it to resemble the time when any expressed doubt about Chiang Kai-shek in Nationalist China was for an American politician the same as expressing doubt in the United States. There was, moreover, in France an admixture of race feeling so that a political advocate of negotiations in Algeria was akin to a white man in Little Rock advocating integration in the public schools.
There were predictions of dictatorship and civil war current in Paris, but having removed himself from that atmosphere, he felt that events might not follow the horrid logic of the apparent situation. Though the war could not be settled by a negotiated arrangement, he finds it not unlikely that an arrangement would develop. The essence of the Algerian question was that there were two communities, one white and European and the other dark and Moslem, living on the same land. The Europeans were the minority and with the growth of the Moslem population, would become ever smaller. Yet the Europeans were the stronger and richer community and had the powerful support from the French homeland. A "democratic" solution was impossible with the French community outnumbered eight to one and thus it appeared that the French would be driven to do in Algeria what had been done in Ireland, Palestine, India, wherever there were two communities which could not be integrated and could not rule themselves as one nation.
There would be a partition of Algeria, though perhaps not in name, with the French congregating in the coastal regions and the Moslems in the hinterlands. Probably, that would not mean peace in the sense that there would be no more violence, but it might be a barely tolerable arrangement.
There was already appearing a powerful counteracting force to the movement for independence in the colonial countries. The North African territories, Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria, were not capable of economic independence, to an extraordinary degree integrated with and dependent on the subventions and the protective devices of the French economy. There were French interests which profited through that system, but for the French as a whole, the North African territories were not an asset but rather a liability.
In the modern world, the advanced states were increasingly capable of using for themselves their own capital savings, with the incentive to export capital decreasing and tending to become, except in special cases such as oil, a matter not of profit but of benevolence and public policy.
Parenthetically, he notes, the American capacity to absorb capital at home was the underlying reason why foreign aid was becoming increasingly unpopular in the U.S.
He finds that the moral for North Africa and for most, if not all, former colonial territories, was that as they won their political independence, they would find it had become very hard to satisfy their needs for capital, that in the long run, they would probably find that not Russia alone, and not even Russia and the West combined, would supply enough capital to provide them with the material basis for complete independence.
Robert C. Ruark, in Palamos, Spain, tells of baseball pitcher Sid Hudson, who had been found working in a hosiery mill in Chattanooga, Tenn., until recruited to play for Raw Meat Rogers in the Florida State League in Sanford as a first baseman, becoming a pitcher in an emergency when they ran out of pitchers. He had wound up winning 24 games and the Washington Senators had purchased him for $5,000 on the ground that any kid, in any league, who could win that many games was worth looking at. At the end of the same year, they had bought him and Clark Griffith, the owner of the Senators, had turned down $100,000 for him.
Mr. Hudson had arrived at spring training in Orlando straight out of "D" baseball, able to keep his fastball low and, according to his coach, had "about as many nerves as a dish of ice cream."
The St. Louis Browns had won six straight over New York and Boston, and the Senators had lost seven straight. Then, on June 21, 1940, Mr. Hudson, who had given up more home runs than anybody in either league while losing nine of 11 starts, had the bases loaded in the first inning before calmly retiring the side. Washington was able to score a run and Mr. Hudson had gone into the ninth inning with a no-hitter, until one batter hit a fluke double. Mr. Hudson had settled down and finished the game. He had then tallied a second one-hitter against Philadelphia and won 16 straight for a team which could not have "burnt its way out of a cheese soufflé with a flamethrower." He wound up fourth in the American League in games won, against the likes of Bob Feller, Al Milnar and Buck Newsom. He had pitched 252 innings and obtained three salary raises out of Mr. Griffith, a minor miracle.
Mr. Ruark had watched him in his first major league game against the Boston Red Sox, who had hit ten times off of him, including a grand slam home run in the first inning. But then he was able to strike out the next two batters.
The war had interrupted his career and he never worked much with any wonderful clubs and never had made the kind of mark one would have expected of his built-in ability. But nearly 20 years earlier, the drama of seeing "a weedy kid step out of the low bush and do everything right, including not minding the first nine losses—except when he wept slightly in his room—and watching the unflagging faith of a guy like Manager Bucky Harris, who wouldn't ship the kid back for seasoning in Charlotte, well…"
He says that it was not unpleasant to have been a sportswriter in those bright, sunny days in Florida when any sort of adventure hid around the corner and there was even a chance that the Washington Senators would finish up there.
The editors note that Mr. Hudson now lived in Texas, scouting for the Red Sox and conducting a baseball school in Florida.
A letter writer finds it surprising that the Democrats in the Tenth District had to go to Lincoln County to find a candidate to oppose incumbent Congressman Charles Jonas, finding that in his opinion, there was better material in Mecklenburg County. He finds that Mr. Jonas had the experience and influence in Washington which was needed and thus supports his re-election.
A letter writer from Rock Hill, S.C., indicates that every once in awhile one ran across an item which was so poignant that it kept weighing heavily on one's thoughts, that such was the following statement made by the Rev. W. O. Harper, Southern Baptist missionary in Tanganyika: "It is very embarrassing when we have to tell our Nigerian youth who plan to visit America that they will not be welcomed in the churches that send missionaries to them."
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