The Charlotte News
Thursday, April 17, 1958
TWO EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the President this date accused Congressional critics of his defense reorganization plan of talking nonsense and raising far-fetched objections. He urged the swift approval by Congress of the controversial plan, saying that "peace, national safety—survival itself—demand of America the utmost strength in its every respect—spiritual, intellectual and scientific, as well as economic and military." Representative Carl Vinson of Georgia, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, had spoken against the plan just hours after it had been submitted by the President, the previous day delivering a speech in the House in which he called it a move toward setting up a "Prussian-type supreme high command". The President, in response, said that foes of the plan would contend that it sought to set up a "monstrous general staff—usually called 'Prussian'" and that such a staff in the views of critics would be set up "to dominate our armed forces and in due course will threaten our liberty." The President described that as "nonsense". He also said that criticism that the plan, which would concentrate new authority in the Secretary of Defense, would make an official a "czar" who would overwhelm liberty, was also without basis.
The American Society of Newspaper Editors had been told this date by Representative John Moss of California, chairman of the House Government Information subcommittee, that the Defense Department had manipulated information in an attempt to manage the news regarding missiles and satellites. He was sponsoring a bill to remove some Government secrecy, a bill approved unanimously by the House the previous day. He told 400 editors, at the beginning of their annual meeting, that immediately after the Russians had sent up Sputnik I on October 4, the Pentagon had issued secret orders to "muzzle the experts who could explain our predicament." Within the previous few days, he said that the President had issued a "dangerous" directive to Secretary of Defense Neil McElroy, calling for tighter control over Defense Department information as a curb on interservice rivalries. He said, "The nation no longer can afford the withholding and manipulation of information merely to suit 'policies'."
Secretary of State Dulles told Congress this date that the U.S. had to share atomic weapons secrets with its allies or the Soviet Union would dominate them with nuclear superiority.
In Moscow, it was reported that U.S. Ambassador Llewellyn Thompson had been summoned to the Foreign Ministry during the afternoon, apparently for the first diplomatic discussion preparatory to a summit conference.
In Paris, General Lauris Norstad told allied defense ministers this date that France had agreed to accept U.S. medium-range missile bases and nuclear warheads, and that an accord with the U.S. was being negotiated. A senior official reported that the supreme allied commander in Europe had told the ministers that several other European countries had indicated in exploratory talks that they would also accept missile bases. The General and French officials had said earlier that talks were only in the preliminary stage. The Foreign Ministry in France confirmed that negotiations were underway which would lead, if successful, to the bases being established in France. It did not indicate the conditions which France was seeking. The senior official who disclosed the General's remarks had said that he now felt satisfied that he could establish all the missile bases he needed in Europe. The defense ministers had ended their meetings with an agreement for a stronger defense shield in Europe based on missiles, larger ground forces and coordinated arms production. The decisions had been announced in a communiqué at the end of a three-day session. The communiqué said that the ministers endorsed a plan submitted by the seven ministers of the Western European Union to broaden cooperation in research, development and production of new and highly complicated weapons, and that a report submitted by General Norstad had asked for 28 to 30 divisions, about half the number presently under his command.
In Jakarta, Indonesia, Indonesian Marine commandos had landed on Sumatra's west coast at dawn this date behind a naval bombardment in the long-expected offensive to crush the rebel regime, meeting negligible resistance.
In Burlington, N.C., it was reported that the state mourned this date the death the previous day of Senator Kerr Scott, who died the previous afternoon when his heart, damaged by a coronary attack a week earlier, had suddenly ruptured. Death had come quietly as he rested in his room in the Alamance General Hospital. He would have been 62 this date. Funeral services for the tobacco-chewing dairy farmer who had been a dominant political figure in the state for a decade, having served as Governor from 1949 to 1953, would be held the following Friday afternoon. The Senator had apparently been making progress since his heart attack and his death had occurred unexpectedly. Only his private duty nurse and the hospital nurse supervisor had been in the room at the time, noticing suddenly that the Senator had stopped breathing. They summoned a doctor, but efforts to revive him through oxygen and artificial respiration and stimulants had been ineffective. His personal physician said that after an autopsy was performed the previous night, it was determined that the portion of his heart which had been damaged by the coronary attack had suddenly ruptured and that death had been instantaneous and without pain. He said that the rupture was "an unpredictable complication" which occurred in a limited number of such cases. The Senator had sent his wife Mary to the guest cottage near the hospital where she had been staying since his attack, giving her instructions to look through the mountain of mail he had received expressing sympathy and good wishes. She had learned that her grandson, an infant born in February, had been admitted to the hospital and had gone to visit him, thus was present at the time when death had come to her husband. A heart specialist had told the Senator that he had made such good progress that he would be able to run for re-election in 1960, and the word had been so encouraging that the females on his staff in Raleigh had prepared a non-fat angel food cake for a birthday celebration this date. The Senator, having heard that the celebration was planned, said that he expected a serving of the cake and ice cream.
State and national flags were flown at half-staff this date in memory of the Senator. In Raleigh, Governor Luther Hodges said the previous day that the Senator's unexpected death had "taken from us a warm and human leader who has rendered outstanding service to his state." In Washington, where the Senate had adjourned the previous night after learning of the Senator's death, passing a resolution of deep regret, Senator Sam J. Ervin of North Carolina said that his colleague was an "humble and modest man … exemplified those qualities which have characterized our greatest statesmen and leaders." Vice-President Nixon and Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson lauded the Senator as a dedicated and devoted public servant who had endeared himself to all who knew him. His staff in the Senate Office Building had burst into tears when they learned of the news via the Senator's brother. Several other state leaders also expressed their sadness at the loss, praising him as an outstanding citizen and fine Senator.
Julian Scheer of The News speculates on who would be appointed to replace the Senator, with more than a dozen names, including that of Governor Hodges, having been mentioned. The choice would depend primarily on what the personal plans of the Governor would be. There had been strong feeling that the Governor wanted to run for the Senate in 1960, but it had been questionable whether he would have wanted to run against such a formidable opponent as Senator Scott. There had also been suggestions from the Governor's close friends that he might be shooting for a vice-presidential nomination or hoped for a cabinet post should the Democrats win the 1960 election. (He would be appointed Secretary of Commerce by President Kennedy in 1961.) The Governor would ultimately appoint B. Everett Jordan to succeed the Senator.
In Annapolis, Md., it was reported that a trusty and three other prisoners had escaped from Anne Arundel County jail after beating a guard unconscious the previous night and had been captured early this date in Fredericksburg, Va.
In Akron, O., a widespread search was being conducted this date for three of five prisoners who had escaped from a county jail, one of the escapees having been killed by a policeman and another captured shortly after the break early the previous day.
In New York it, it was reported that a payment of 300 million dollars by a corporation as the first installment of its Federal income tax was the year's largest payment in the lower Manhattan district. The IRS refused to identify the corporation.
In Winston-Salem, a City employee, already charged with slashing an employee of a branch bank on April 3, had been charged this date with attempted robbery of the same bank. The 23-year old female employee had been found slashed and bleeding in the Wake Forest branch of the Wachovia Bank & Trust Co. She was the daughter of the vice-chairman of the board and chairman of the executive committee of the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. The accused, 39, was a heating inspector, arrested in the bank and charged with assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill, held in lieu of a $15,000 bond, with another $5,000 added for the additional charge. Doctors indicated that the employee was expected to recover completely. Police said that the man had gone to the bank after hours and gained admittance under the ruse of wanting to inspect the air-conditioning system and had suddenly turned on the female employee. Help had arrived when a passerby heard her screams. A preliminary hearing would be held on the assault charge on April 30 in Municipal Court.
In Beverly Hills, Calif., it was reported that actress Lana Turner and her former husband, Steve Crane, had both said they wanted what was best for their daughter, 14, who was being held by juvenile authorities since fatally stabbing her mother's boyfriend, Johnny Stompanato, on April 4, the stabbing having occurred because of the daughter's belief that the boyfriend's threats to her mother had placed her in imminent danger of being disfigured or killed. The slaying had been ruled a justifiable homicide by a coroner's jury, but the daughter still faced a closed hearing before the juvenile court on April 24 to determine whether she would be returned to her mother or placed in the custody of her father, or in a foster home or the California Youth Authority for juvenile offenders. Mr. Crane said that no decision had been reached on who between the two would seek custody.
In Sydney, Nova Scotia, a masked gunman had held up the mail car on the Canadian National Railway's Sydney night express early this date, looted it and escaped after locking two mail clerks in a washroom. It was the first train robbery in Cape Breton Island's history. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police and postal authorities said that they did not know yet what had been stolen. The train had left for Halifax the previous night and the gunman had boarded the mail car while the express was at Port Hawkesbury in the wee hours of the morning. A mail carrier who met the train about three hours later discovered the robbery, finding the doors to the car closed and hearing the clerks hammering on the washroom door. The clerks said that the bandit had been masked and carried a sawed-off shotgun, had told them: "This is a stick up. Turn around and go to the washroom or I'll blow your brains out." (That was a stunningly original approach. He should write for the Westerns.)
In San Pedro, Calif., women could
wear overalls, drive trucks, throw the discus, operate jackhammers
and steal their husbands' razors, but could not enter the San Pedro
Boys' Club. The director of the Club, seeking a topic for its annual
essay contest, had set upon the theme, "Should the boys' club
allow girls to use club facilities?" The 10-year olds in the
organization, stunned that such a question would be raised,
definitely ruled out the prospect. One respondent said: "No,
because they take off their shoos and shoo their toes." Another
said: "No! But if they come in, let us have some nasinal gards
... to defend ourselfs." Yet another: "No. I don't want
girls because this id a man's club." And it provides some
samples also from the 11-year olds, who were equally adamantly
opposed to the prospect. But the 13-year olds were mixed, with one
indicating: "Yes! Girls would make it popular. And also I like
them." But another had opposed on the basis that there would be
fights "because of them buttin in." The 15-year olds were
in favor of the move, with one indicating that it might be helping
both boys and girls on their way to the Olympic Games, while another
said that he liked girls and thought it would be more fun. The
director of the club decided that a girl could not get in if she
smoked a pipe, used snuff and wore a derby. Perhaps, however, if she possessed the eagle's
On the editorial page, "Free Judges from Demands of Politics" finds that a sensible promise to get bad or mediocre judges off the bench had lain at the heart of the Bell Committee's preliminary recommendation that North Carolina judges be chosen initially by qualified authority rather than elected by the people. It finds the plan would improve the standards of justice in the state and might prevent corruption of those standards in the future.
While retaining the power of the people to oust a judge on the basis of performance in office, the plan would remove from politics the judge's initial selection and length of tenure. A judge selected on the basis of personal integrity, judicial temperament and adequate legal training could devote full energy to disinterested service, without reason to contemplate political effects of decisions or allowing the docket to pile up while politicking for another term. Periodically, the people would vote to continue the judge in office or not, on the basis of the judge's record and not on how much money was spent and how many hands shaken in a political campaign.
Often people left polling places with a sense of shame over having voted as a robot for a candidate not even known and whose qualifications could not be assessed. Yet people living in the eastern part of the state voted for Superior Court judges who sat in Mecklenburg County and the residents of that county voted on those who served the eastern part of the state.
At present, a large number of the Superior Court judges had been originally appointed to fill vacancies by a governor, and so the Committee did not criticize the records of the present judges or the theory of a popular vote.
The Committee's plan and practice would be keyed to the character and disinterestedness of an enlarged Judicial Council, a body which would provide the names from which the Governor would choose in his appointment of Supreme Court justices and Superior Court judges. The Committee recommended that two laymen be appointed to the Council, the piece indicating that a larger number might be needed.
Earlier, the Committee had recommended that the 1,400 lower courts in the state be replaced by a system of district courts, with one in each of the 100 counties, incorporating into their function justices of the peace. The Committee now suggested that the lower court judges and magistrates would be appointed by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, on nomination from the senior resident Superior Court judge, subject to removal by the Chief Justice for incompetence, misconduct or disability, after recommendation by the Judicial Council. The lower courts were the most susceptible to political pressures and poor appointments, and the least subject to proper standards and administrative control.
The Committee's preliminary reports, it finds, were charting a sound course toward needed and lasting improvements in the quality of justice in the state and its recommendations deserved earnest and sympathetic consideration by all citizens of the state.
"Everyone Has a Plan but the Planners" finds that everyone in Washington seemed to have a plan to cure the recession, except the President, the Treasury Secretary, the Secretary of Commerce, the director of the Budget and the chairman of the national Republican policy committee, each of whom was busy waiting and seeing.
It finds that the most provocative "plan" had come from Mrs. H. F. Raderer of Louisville, Ky., arriving in Congress replete with diagrams in color and the author's assurance that she sought no material reward, just credit for her plan. It would end the recession through a system of "prosperity certificates" issued by the Government, which would sell them to the banks, which would sell them to employers, who would pay them to employees, who would spend them at once.
It finds it to lack some of the raw charm of some of the "plans" which had come to Washington in 1931 during the Depression, one having been devised by John Nichlos of the Oklahoma Gas Utilities Co., writing to his friend, then-Secretary of War Patrick Hurley, regarding a "relief" program he was trying in a town in Oklahoma, whereby restaurant owners had been asked to dump food left on plates into five-gallon containers, and the unemployed could qualify for the scraps by chopping wood donated by farmers. Secretary Hurley was sufficiently impressed with the idea that he personally urged Col. Arthur Woods of the Hoover Administration's Emergency Committee for Employment to consider it.
It indicates that, fortunately, the society had not yet come to feeding garbage to the jobless, but, unfortunately, it had not yet come to much of anything.
A piece from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, titled "Word Cook", indicates that no fancy word to glamorize an occupation had been added to the English language since "realtor" and "mortician", but it had spotted a new one on the horizon, "culinarian".
The word had apparently been dreamed up by Eugene Ertle, a native of Alsace-Lorraine, who fed United Air Lines passengers, not wanting to be known simply as a cook. He contended that the preparation of food was a sacred ritual and could not think of anything more sacred than the maintenance of the only body God had given to house human souls.
It suggests that Mr. Ertle ought be an artist at whipping up a Hollandaise sauce or a lobster Newburg, though it had tasted none of his soul-guarding dishes. But it finds there could be no doubt about his skill in cooking up a word.
Drew Pearson indicates that one of the most significant facts which Congressman Emanuel Celler, chairman of the antitrust subcommittee, might develop in his revealing investigation of the telephone company was the manner in which the Defense Department, whether under a Democratic or Republican President, had always gone to bat for big business in antitrust cases. Under Presidents Roosevelt, Truman and Eisenhower, big business dominated the Defense Department in a manner which would shock the public were all of the facts known.
Not much tax savings would occur until the Defense Department gave up its unholy alliance with the 100 large business firms which got most of the military contracts. The Department not only created greater monopolies by channeling 60 percent of its orders into the 100 companies, but also went to bat for those companies when they got into antitrust trouble. Under FDR, the War and Navy Departments had requested that 44 antitrust suits be held up by the Justice Department. The most notable intervention under President Eisenhower, as revealed by Congressman Celler, was on behalf of the telephone company. After former Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson had written a letter to Attorney General Herbert Brownell, urging the latter to get rid of the antitrust case brought by the Truman Administration against AT&T and its giant subsidiary, Western Electric, Mr. Brownell had obeyed.
The vice president of AT&T, T. Brooke Price, told the story in his own words after he had been asked by Mr. Brownell to visit him during a legal conference at White Sulphur Springs, W. Va., on June 27, 1953, just a few months after the beginning of the Eisenhower Administration. In a secret memo to his AT&T colleagues, Mr. Price had written that Mr. Brownell was staying alone in the manager's cottage on the hill above the hotel and had come onto the porch to meet him, whereupon they sat on the porch and talked for 25 minutes with no one else present. He had brought with him a memorandum AT&T had recently filed with the head of the antitrust division of the Justice Department, presenting their arguments for dismissal of the case. The policy of AT&T at the time was to insist on dismissal and not to discuss settlement. Mr. Price then revealed that he expected more from the Republicans than the Democrats, telling Mr. Brownell that under the previous Administration, they had temporized by asking for postponement only, but were now hopeful that Mr. Brownell would see it their way and dismiss the case. Mr. Brownell had hesitated and then asked Mr. Price to give him the particular items sought in the prayer for relief. Mr. Brownell knew that he would have trouble with his subordinates in getting them to agree to an outright dismissal and suggested that there ought be another way to get rid of the case, asking Mr. Price whether, if AT&T reviewed its practices, they would be able to find things they were doing which had once been considered entirely legal but might now be in violation of the antitrust laws or questionable in that regard. Mr. Price told Mr. Brownell that he had thought about the matter but was not prepared to say that they could proceed in that manner. Mr. Brownell had said that if AT&T tried, they might be able to get a consent decree, used for the first time in the matter, according to Mr. Price.
When Mr. Price said that they believed the case ought be dropped, Mr. Brownell said that he did not think it was a sensible attitude. Mr. Price said that they were not inflexible and would consider the matter.
Mr. Brownell had repeated to Mr. Price that it was important to get the matter disposed of, indicating that the President would understand and that if a settlement was worked out, Mr. Brownell could obtain the President's approval in five minutes. Mr. Price said that they had applied for a dismissal and assumed that it would be all right that if they did not hear from the head of the antitrust division in the near future, they could get in touch with him to find out what was to be done, and Mr. Brownell said that was correct.
The meeting then ended, leading to one of the most important and lopsided consent decrees in recent antitrust history.
Marquis Childs indicates that former President Truman had again demonstrated what everyone had known about him for a long time, that he had no trouble in making up his mind about almost any subject. Regarding the prospect of a summit with the Soviets, he had enunciated his opposition almost as firmly as had the President and Secretary of State Dulles, in part a reflection of the strong views held by his former Secretary of State, Dean Acheson, on whom Mr. Truman had relied almost as heavily as did President Eisenhower on Secretary Dulles.
When Mr. Dulles had been recently subjected to heavy criticism, the President had come to his defense, saying he was the greatest Secretary in history. Similarly, when Mr. Acheson had been savagely attacked, President Truman had come to his defense in the same manner. Mr. Truman and Mr. Acheson remained close friends and both publicly opposed a summit meeting with the Russians. But among Democratic leaders, there was strong dissent, as voiced at the previous meeting of the Democratic Advisory Council. Mr. Acheson had prepared a paper setting out his firm views on upholding the containment policy and rejecting overtures for a summit. But Governor Averell Harriman of New York, Adlai Stevenson and others had set forth less rigid opinions, not favoring an unprepared meeting with the Russians, but argued the importance of convincing the rest of the world, and particularly the U.S. allies, that the U.S. was willing to negotiate and would not have to be dragged to the conference table.
Mr. Acheson, however, remained firm in his opposition and the discussion had grown fairly acrimonious as he let it be known that any change in his position was unwelcome. The view of the party which emerged from the meeting was that of Mr. Acheson. Governor Harriman told friends later that he was so unhappy about the outcome that he had seriously considered resigning from the Council's foreign policy subcommittee.
Governor Harriman had been the first American official to warn at the end of World War II that the Soviets under Stalin meant to launch a campaign of aggressive imperialism and was presently convinced that an inflexible attitude could only divide the Western allies and give the Soviets one propaganda opening after another.
The close parallel between the outlook of Messrs. Acheson and Dulles regarding U.S. policy toward Russia was a striking phenomenon of the postwar era. Mr. Acheson was preparing for publication of a paper arguing the error of U.S. Presidents participating in international conferences, citing the example of President Woodrow Wilson and the tragedy of his visit to Paris for direct participation in the bargaining around the peace table which had led to the Treaty of Versailles after World War I. Secretary Dulles was known to hold the same view about the difficulty of a President who was both the ceremonial head of state and the prime minister, taking part in first-hand bargaining. Because the President's constitutional position was unlike that of all other negotiators at a summit meeting, he was placed in an awkward position.
Apart from who might or might not negotiate with the Soviets, Mr. Stevenson had long urged an end to the rigidities in U.S. policy on disarmament. More than a year earlier, he had argued that the question of ending nuclear testing, with control and inspection, ought be separate from the production of fissionable material. Mr. Stevenson was planning to visit Russia the following July for the first time since he had gone there as a correspondent for the Hearst newspapers in 1936. He stated that he was going chiefly as a tourist, although he also had some legal business there. Mr. Childs indicates that it would be surprising if during his visit, he did not talk with Premier Nikita Khrushchev and others in the Kremlin hierarchy.
Events, however, were moving inexorably toward a summit conference, as Secretary Dulles had indicated by his latest concession to the Soviets regarding an immediate start on preparations for it. It was much easier to take a firm position if one were on the outside as a critic rather than on the inside coping with the realities.
Joseph Alsop, in Detroit, again looks at the automobile industry through the lens of the recession, telling of a couple living on a little gray street containing gray little houses in East Detroit, barely able to exist at present. The male had been an automobile worker for 11 years and was doing exercises when Mr. Alsop called on him, saying that it was easy to get out of shape when laid off. The female was a sturdy young woman who had met her husband on the assembly line at one of the Chrysler plants. Neither was a highly skilled worker, but took home over $160 per week between them before the female had lost her job the prior September. She said that she would not have believed it until it happened, as she had been working for seven years.
The male of the couple had the car paid off, but the house, the washer and dryer, the television and the furniture were all still on time payments, amounting to $83 per month, which they had never totaled until Mr. Alsop did it for them, commenting that it was "awful". Yet, they had gone in hock another $200 to buy Christmas presents at one of the cheap Detroit stores, and three weeks later the male was laid off. He said that if he knew that he was going to be laid off, he would never have gone so deep into debt at Christmas.
The female's unemployment benefits had run out and the family had nothing except the male's benefits of $43 per week, with time payments having now amounted to $108 per month after the Christmas presents. The couple and their son lived primarily off spaghetti. The male's payments would run out in another 13 weeks. Nevertheless, they had no impending sense of catastrophe.
Both had always been hard, steady workers but with a nearly total improvidence, not unusual in the area. Mr. Alsop had run into one young autoworker who had lost his job, had gotten married on his unemployment benefits two months later and had gone on the installment plan for $850 worth of furniture and appliances with no job prospect and only 17 weeks of benefits left. Now, he was on welfare, with a pregnant wife and their "whole wretched little apartment" smelling of ruin.
Another "brisk, bustling woman who had gone to work at Chrysler against her husband's will 'because you don't never get ahead unless the woman works'", and her husband had signed a large note with a fly-by-night contractor for finishing their attic as an extra bedroom, expanding their installment payments to $160 per month, half of what the husband earned. The woman said that with some little amount still coming in, they were better off than a lot of people.
"At first one hardly knows which is more shocking, the rapacity of the never-never traders who prey upon the simple people, or the shortsighted folly of the people themselves. Nothing, certainly, can excuse the dealers selling trash for 'nothing down, easy terms,' whose 'easy terms' are such that the trash is generally paid for at least twice over." He indicates that not all of the blame could be placed on the industrial workers for their fantastic uses of easy credit, as they lived in a society which measured achievement not by inner standards but by material possessions. There were voices, and sometimes very respectable voices, warning them that they had achieved nothing if their plumbing merely flushed but was not orchid-colored, or if their cars merely got them from place to place, but did not look like "dropsical juke boxes."
The monstrous use of credit they had been undertaking had been permitted and even encouraged by the societal leaders. The automobile manufacturers had not been the least powerful of those who had pressed the Federal Reserve Board to relax installment buying rules. If tens of thousands of G.M. workers, for instance, had outrageously mortgaged themselves because of overconfidence in their job security, they had judged that job security by the forecasts of G.M. president Harlow Curtis, who had often swept aside every suggestion that the American automobile market might become saturated.
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