The Charlotte News
Tuesday, April 29, 1958
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that Joint Chiefs chairman, General Nathan Twining, had told the House Armed Services Committee this date that some U.S. forces were presently ready, without the legislation being sought by the President, to strike back within a half hour of any attack. Committee critics of the President's plan had quickly seized on the statement by General Twining. Representative Edward Hebert of Louisiana said that the President's proposal, to strengthen the military role of the Secretary of Defense, was being sold to the American public with slogans about "the need for direct command because of the rapid action needed in the space age." He said that it appeared that there was no need for the legislation to trigger immediate action. Representative Melvin Price of Illinois asked what present law prevented the military establishment from setting up its major united commands in advance of war. General Twining had responded that the question got into deep water and should be answered behind closed doors. The Committee got at least a partial answer, however, from Charles Coolidge, the special assistant to the Secretary of Defense for reorganization, saying that the principal problem was the specific command authority assigned by present law to the chief of Naval operations and the chief of staff of the Air Force, but not the Army chief of staff. Before the hearing this date got underway, Representative Carl Durham of North Carolina, chairman of the Joint Atomic Energy Committee, said that he was having a study made to determine whether the President's proposals might change U.S. atomic weapons policy.
Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson said this date that unless public works construction was sped up immediately, the only cure for the recession would be a tax cut. He told an informal press conference that he believed the time was approaching when a decision had to be made and that the Administration was not proceeding as swiftly as it ought with public works spending authorized by Congress. He expressed his concern about the statements coming out daily, particularly those of the Federal Reserve Bank presidents, and said that he believed they ought decide soon what course to take, that while the decision on tax matters was properly that of the House, if they did not provide a cure for the recession in public works, there was no other alternative except tax revision. Under the Constitution, tax legislation had to originate in the House. The Senator spoke out as the President discussed the economic situation with Republican leaders at their weekly White House conference. Senator Johnson's remarks came amid reports that there was renewed pressure in Congress for early tax-cutting. But Minority Leader, Senator William Knowland of California, told reporters after the White House conference that nothing had been said to the President regarding increased pressure either for or against a tax cut. While the economic situation was discussed in a general way, he said, there was nothing new to be added on it at the current time. The President and Secretary of the Treasury Robert Anderson were firmly against any tax reductions thus far, but no firm decision on future action had been reached. With organized labor renewing its demands for tax relief and the Administration leaving itself in a position to decide either way, influential Democrats said that they were receiving pressure to do something quickly in that area.
A Ford Motor Co. executive, T. C. Yntema, vice-president for finance, said this date to a joint Congressional economic subcommittee that the Government ought suspend tax collections for two or three months to bring the nation out of the economic doldrums. He claimed that such a temporary tax cut would end the recession "quickly and decisively", that at the end of his suggested suspension, the Government would collect only half of the taxes due for the remainder of the year or until unemployment dropped below 5 percent of the total labor force. The latest figures for March had shown a 7 percent rate of unemployment. Mr. Yntema conceded that a large deficit would accrue during the tax reduction, but would not be too serious since the ratio of Government debt to national income had fallen by about 50 percent since the end of World War II. Walter Reuther, president of the UAW, had called for a temporary suspension of taxes for as long as 90 days. Mr. Yntema said that a cut in taxes could place 2.5 billion dollars in disposable personal income in the pockets of consumers and new demand would thus be created, with increased production and employment to ensue. He also called for immediate reduction or elimination of the 10 percent excise tax on automobiles and trucks, with any reduction being retroactive, because the industry was suffering seriously from talk of a possible excise tax cut, suggesting that consumers ought wait for lower car prices. He described the nation's principal economic problem as wage inflation, rooted in "the excessive monopoly power of unions."
In Detroit, General Motors Corp. served a termination of contract notice this date on the UAW, the notice to become effective at midnight on May 29, when the current three-year contract expired. G.M. did not say whether it meant that it would shut down or attempt to operate without a contract after the deadline. A G.M. vice-president for industrial relations expressed the hope that a new agreement could be reached within 30 days and added that the company and the UAW could discuss the possibility of extending the current contract "before such termination becomes effective, should that appear desirable." Contracts had been extended beyond termination dates in previous negotiations, but when the UAW had served a termination of contract notice, it generally had been interpreted as a strike notice, effective on the termination date. G.M. and Ford had joined the previous day in an emphatic rejection of UAW president Walter Reuther's proposal to put off until September a showdown on new contracts.
In Fort Campbell, Ky., the second mass jump of 2,500 paratroopers, postponed from Saturday, was again postponed this date because of 15 mph surface winds. The first mass jump of 1,400 men had resulted in the deaths of five men and the injury of another 137, when billowing parachutes dragged by the wind had dragged the men helplessly across the rough terrain upon the conclusion of their jumps. The operation was being led by Maj. General William Westmoreland, head of the 101st Airborne Division.
In Washington, Lt. General James Doolittle, who had led the first bombing assault of World War II on Japan on April 2, 1942, launched from an aircraft carrier located in Shangri-La, this date threw his support behind the President's plan to create a civilian space agency, saying that America had to win its "rightful destiny" in space.
In Constantine, Algeria, it was reported that French forces this date claimed that they had killed about 100 rebels and taken 18 prisoners in a battle the previous day near Laverdure, about 90 miles east of Constantine.
In London, current hydrogen bomb tests in the Central Pacific might be Britain's last if the U.S. agreed to pool nuclear secrets, according to British Government sources this date.
In Nicosia, Cyprus, the U.S. consulate had warned American citizens this date to stay out of the walled Greek sector of Nicosia, as a deadline for renewed underground attacks on British soldiers had expired.
In East Berlin, Anastas Mikoyan began a one-day friendship tour through the city this date, aimed at showing the world that Moscow put satellite East Germany on a par with the West German Republic in Bonn.
In Valletta, Malta, Maltese workers returned to their jobs this date after a 24-hour strike called by the General Workers Union in support of former labor Premier Dom Mintoff, who had quit the previous week in a dispute with Britain over financial aid.
Julian Scheer of The News reports that North Carolina's newly appointed Senator B. Everett Jordan hoped to be elected again in 1960, indicating that he would not be just a "seat warmer", as had been rumored in newspapers, for Governor Luther Hodges to run for the seat in 1960. He declared affirmatively that he would run in that year for re-election. He said he wanted the state Democratic executive committee to place his name on the ticket in November and would be terribly disappointed if the committee did not do so. He said that he hoped that his record in the Senate would justify the people wanting to send him back in 1960. His interim appointment would run until the November general election and it was up to the state executive committee to place his name on the ticket for the general election. The state convention in Raleigh on May 15 would determine that action. It was highly likely, however, that anti-Hodges, pro-Scott forces would make a bid to block the naming of Senator Jordan and seek to place another name on the ballot, favored by the supporters of the late Senator Kerr Scott. As for the unfavorable comment by a large segment of the press, Senator Jordan, an affable Saxapahaw industrialist, said that he had no comment. He said that he would never jump on the press and would keep his mouth shut, that he could never get through answering if he did otherwise. He said he found himself in the position of a "man who doesn't know anything one day and is an expert the next day." He said he had no particular interests but looked at things as a whole. "There is not just one economy in the state. We're not just agricultural and not just industrial. And there is great diversity in industry alone. Every segment of our economy needs help. I want to look after it in the state and the nation. This is a big job, not just on the state, but the national level. I go to Washington with no bitterness toward anyone. If I had to go through a political campaign, you would have to expect criticism. I just hope I can do the job well enough to make people pleased with their representative." He said that he had been asked by the Governor to come to Raleigh immediately after Senator Scott's funeral at Haw River, and thought that the Governor wanted to talk to him about other candidates, that when the Governor had put the question to him about succeeding Senator Scott, he was surprised.
In Charlotte, over 400 commissioners of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, U.S., had debated during the afternoon majority and minority reports which held the fate of the Council on Christian Relations. The majority report, written by 21 members of a standing committee of 33, had rejected a bid for discontinuance of the Council, recommending that churches not be used as private schools where segregation battles had closed public schools. But the minority report stated the opposite opinion. Both were read shortly prior to noon, with debate following in the afternoon. On the most controversial of matters before the Assembly, the church's stand on race relations, the report recommended denial of requests by the Presbyteries of Lexington (presumably, Virginia) and Montgomery (presumably, Alabama) to open churches for use as public schools as a means of circumvention of Brown v. Board of Education, decided in 1954. The report further recommended approval of the Presbytery of the Potomac's request to record opposition to the use of any church facilities for the purpose of evading "the decrees of the Courts of the United States…"
Donald MacDonald of The News reports that Johnny Doughboy had fought valiantly at Argonne Forest and Belleau Wood in World War I, but for a number of years, had lost the battle of Charlotte or so it appeared. It had been at least four years since the World War I statue at Park Drive and Cecil Street had been damaged by vandals, and thus far, nothing had been done to fix it. It had been splattered by paint and a hand removed along with its rifle. A search had begun and a former truck driver had located the missing hand and rifle in a garbage can beside an unoccupied house on Park Drive, turning it over to the Park and Recreation Commission. The man who found it said it appeared not to have been damaged at all. The Park superintendent said that the severed sections had been turned over to a man at a sheet-metal company when it was learned that the American Legion owned the statue, but no one knew why it was still unrepaired. The Park superintendent did not recall what American Legion official had promised to repair the statue, and the damaged parts remained at the sheet-metal company awaiting someone to order the repair. The City did not own the land on which the statue stood, but the Parks Department took care of the plot.
The Weather Bureau this date issued a weather bulletin advising of scattered thunderstorms in northern Alabama during the morning, expected to intensify and move eastward into northern Georgia and the western Carolinas by the afternoon.
In Bloomington, Ind., an 85-year old woman dismissed rumors concerning her marriage the previous day to a 29-year old handyman-newsboy, who preferred her out of "all the pretty young girls he had ever seen." She said, "We love each other, and I'm sure we'll be happy." The couple planned to rest for a few days before accepting a Bloomington automobile dealer's offer to drive them to a honeymoon with the bride's niece in Johnston City, Ill., and later, if they could arrange transportation, they hoped to accept an invitation to be guests at a Miami Beach hotel. A crowd of more than 200 persons had jammed a room at a hotel three hours after the ceremony for a reception, some sneering and some smiling, but all applauding when the couple entered. Her first husband, a railroad worker, had died four years earlier. She nearly touched off a riot when she casually threw her bouquet into the crowd. Someone finally threw it back to her, but she said she did not need it as it would be her last wedding.
On the editorial page, "Community Colleges: Full Speed Ahead" indicates that voter approval of the two-cent tax throughout the county for the community college system had posed a stern test of the political skill and good judgment of officials of the City and County. The system, to be composed of Charlotte and Carver Colleges, could not come into existence without appointment of a board of trustees, and once established, it could not take maximum advantage of state aid for buildings without speedy and resolute action to qualify for that aid by raising local matching funds.
Eight of the 12 trustees were to be appointed locally, two each by the County Commission, City Council and the City and County School Boards, and the other four by the Governor. Those posts had to be filled with full recognition of what was involved in the appointments. The trustees would have work to do and there were plenty of qualified citizens for the posts.
At stake was the 1.5 million dollars in State matching funds to be divided with the community colleges in Wilmington and Asheville, both of the latter communities' colleges having some facilities, while Charlotte's colleges had no physical facilities.
By the approval of the tax levy the previous week, county residents had authorized their public officials to get busy building community colleges to meet local needs. It urges laying of the cornerstones quickly.
"It's the City Council's Turn To Act" indicates that the time for a strong and unequivocal stand on the question of consolidating the tax departments of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County was at hand, after the County Commission had unanimously approved the idea of the merger the previous day. The City Council would now have an opportunity to act the following day.
It urges that the Council should hesitate no longer, that its duty was clear and it should endorse the consolidation for the best interests of all residents of the county.
"This Little Poet Could Be a Premier" indicates that a precocious ten-year old French poet was explaining herself recently to an inquiring reporter, saying that she liked solitude, liked rain which beat against the windows, and gray skies. "The rain, the wind and the clouds are my friends. I play football with them… I do not need children. I do not need dolls. Dolls are dead."
The young poet, Minou Drouet, had allegedly authored a group of poems which had stirred more comment in France than the fall of a Cabinet, and she claimed to be writing a novel and composing her own pieces for piano and guitar, also to have written 18 songs and an operetta about herself, as well as designing her own clothes. "Happiness for me is work," she proclaimed.
The piece finds that she would make an ideal Premier for France, without one at the moment, as she had a taste for pessimism, and, with such a variety of talents, could amuse herself easily when she retired at the age of 11 or 12.
A piece from the Manchester Guardian, titled "Big Ben's Birthday", indicates that Big Ben had just turned 100 years old the previous week.
Sir Charles Barry had made provision for a campanile in his plans for the Palace of Westminster, creating a controversy which raged for a decade. The casting of the main bell had proceeded smoothly, yet not without incident, as the bell, after being cast, had nearly gone to the bottom of the sea on its way to London in a storm. Once it arrived at Westminster, the public was allowed to inspect it, while the experts squabbled over whether the tone was true. Eventually they conceded that something might be wrong, that the bell appeared too thick at its waste by two tons and would need a heavier clapper. It was also determined that the bell was cracked and that it was "porous, unhomogeneous, unsound…"
Thus, they had to start over, this time at Whitechapel. It had taken a week to haul Big Ben, so-called after Sir Benjamin Hall, the first commissioner of works, to its perch 230 feet in the tower. It had to come through the window suspended on its side from a special chain made in Newcastle.
Those in charge of the delicate operation were not to know that the 13.5-ton bell would become something more than a teller of time, or that its somber E, bruised after a crack, was repaired in 1859, would ever be parodied by those suburban clocks which marked the hours, halves, and quarters with what the makers chose to call Westminster chimes.
Drew Pearson indicates that Justice Department officials had been jittery over the Federal grand jury in New York presently appearing ready to hold its own independent investigation of the income taxes of Harlem Congressman Adam Clayton Powell. In the summer of 1956, Mr. Pearson's column had reported that Mr. Powell had discovered that he was under investigation by the IRS and that three of his secretaries were being indicted under circumstances which involved their giving salary kickbacks to the Congressman. In the past, Mr. Powell had been a strong critic of the President, until he got in touch with the Vice-President and suddenly became a strong Eisenhower booster. As a Democrat, he urged blacks to vote Republican.
A special press conference had been arranged in New York by May Rabb, a White House aide, and John Roosevelt, the Republican member of FDR's family, after which another press conference had been arranged inside the White House by press secretary James Hagerty. Thereafter, the grand jury investigation of Mr. Powell suddenly came to a halt. On November 24, 1956, Mr. Pearson's column reported that the U.S. Attorney's office in New York had wanted to press the case against the Congressman, but there were indications that the Justice Department planned to drop the case in return for Mr. Powell campaigning for the Republicans.
The previous week, 18 months later, Thomas Bolan, Assistant U.S. Attorney in charge of the Powell grand jury, had confirmed those facts. When asked whether it was true that on March 18, 1957, he had been informed by his superiors that, on orders from Washington, the U.S. Attorney's office in New York was abandoning the investigation and turning it over to the Treasury Department, Mr. Bolan had replied that it was correct. While the latter had not said so, it was plain that he had not gone along with any political fix in the case of Mr. Powell.
In 1954, the campaign manager for Mr. Powell, Joseph Ford, had broken with the Congressman and thereafter some of the Congressman's financial records had reached the Justice Department. Subsequently, two of Mr. Powell's secretaries had been convicted, and a third had been indicted, while treasurer of the Federal Credit Union of the Abyssinian Baptist Church had pleaded guilty to embezzlement, a church of which Mr. Powell was pastor, a church which was one of the biggest in the world. He was also president of its "Federal Credit Union". His secretary had been treasurer and both had resigned when the tax investigation had begun, and the treasurer of the Federal Credit Union of the church had pleaded guilty. The two secretaries of the Congressman had received salaries of $8,000 per year in addition to their Government salaries. Part of the deal arranged in the election campaign of 1956 had been that the Congressman's secretary ought be released as soon as possible from the Women's Federal Penitentiary. She had become eligible for parole on September 25 and received a hearing the same day, was granted parole on October 17. She had been convicted of tax evasion after paying salary kickbacks to the Congressman.
Mr. Pearson indicates that he had helped to convict three Congressmen for taking kickbacks, and in each case, they, not their secretaries, had been prosecuted. But in the case of Mr. Powell, the secretaries were prosecuted while he campaigned for the President. He indicates that indicative of the jitters within the Justice Department over the Powell grand jury was the fact that Herbert Brownell, the former Attorney General, had never held a press conference in Washington after the Powell case had begun. The new Attorney General, William Rogers, had flatly refused to answer questions about the Powell case.
Walter Lippmann indicates that during the previous week, the Kremlin had been acting as if it were in no hurry to have a summit meeting. It was not clear why Andrei Gromyko was taking that line. He assumes that in the Kremlin, Soviet policy was to maintain the status quo, to avoid serious negotiation for settlements, while at the same time relaxing the fears and tensions which troubled the Russian people as with all peoples around the world. He ventures that the Kremlin might have come to the conclusion that the basic Western policy was not to relax the tensions unless and until the Soviet Union made concessions which amounted to a substantial retreat.
It had been made clear in Washington that the Government was opposed to a summit meeting which would have as its only purpose to reduce tension. The President, if left to his own impulses, might be induced to participate in such a meeting, but Secretary of State Dulles was opposed to it, and he had the strong support of former President Truman and former Secretary of State Dean Acheson, acting as spokesmen of the Democratic Party.
It might mean to the Kremlin that at a summit meeting, they would find themselves on the defensive, subject to embarrassing questions about a change in Germany, in Eastern Europe and in the Middle East. He hastens to add that it was all speculation, but came from known realities.
He says that there was no use in going through the motions of attending or even preparing for a summit meeting as long as both of the two major powers had positions which could not be negotiated. He suggests that it would mean that since things would not stand still and as the new generation, the post-post-war generation, came forward and the "Angry Old Men of Diplomacy" subsided, the relative importance both of the Soviet and U.S. Governments would decline. He finds that the world was at least at the beginning of the end of the postwar era when political power was polarized around the two great survivors of World War II.
He says that he did not know it but believed that inside the Communist orbit, the influence of Moscow in Warsaw, Belgrade, and Peiping, might rise or fall from time to time but that the general trend was downward. He believed that the decline of the importance of the U.S. was one of the great facts within the non-Communist world. The anti-Americanism which was such a political phenomenon was a complex of many feelings, but he believes the core was not a rebellion against U.S. power and leadership but rather resentment that the U.S. expected to be treated as if its power and leadership, relatively speaking, were what they had been in the post-war years.
A letter from J. Spencer Bell, chairman of the Committee on Improving and Expediting the Administration of Justice, responds to a letter from State Senator Seavy Carroll, appearing in the April 26 edition, regarding the Bell Committee study of reorganization of the courts and recommendation of elimination of initial selection of judges by popular vote. Mr. Bell says that he respected the right to differ with the Committee on the subject, but indicates that the first fallacy of Mr. Carroll's argument was that he failed to make any distinction between the office of a judge and the offices of the legislative and executive branches of the government, indicating that the office of a judge was not a true political office in the sense that it established policy. A judge needed basic knowledge of the law to do the job right and should have judicial temperament, good character, and infinite patience and love of his fellow human beings. Unless a person had at least some experience in a court and a legal education, it was doubtful that the person could judge the technical qualifications of a candidate for judicial office. Qualifications of the candidate should be the only issue in a campaign for a judgeship. He indicates that the people of Missouri had three times by popular vote overwhelmingly supported the plan proposed by the Committee, that plan having been established in Missouri in 1942, and since that time, the people had rejected one Supreme Court justice for incompetence. The plan to make the judges responsible to the people on the basis of their record, while not permitting them to vote initially for the judges, had thus been well received in Missouri. He says that there were many other arguments for the proposals, but that the basic underlying factor was that the average layman voter could not know what the requirements were for the office and had no opportunity to know the individual candidate's qualification.
A letter writer addresses the same subject, finds that the root of the evil was the abuse of power by the bar, suggests that a successful challenge to the bar's control of the courts could lead to a challenge of the bar's control of the executive and legislative branches, and so he urges not to be misled by issues planted by the bar over details, such as the issue of electing or appointing judges, which he finds meaningless, since the bar could make or break any judge or public official at any time.
A letter writer urges people to vote and feel the better for doing so, that if a person failed to do it, they had no one to kick regarding how things were carried on in their city, county, state or nation. He finds that the Democratic way helped more people.
A letter writer from Los Angeles indicates that the cost of speed and car insurance was too great for the average worker's income, that if there were exercised more caution in driving, some of that money could be used for more basic things in life.
A letter from the 1958 campaign chairman for the Easter Seal Drive thanks the newspaper for its coverage of the Mecklenburg County Society for Crippled Children and Adults during their recent Easter Seal Campaign, a drive which had been very successful and would benefit many crippled children and adults in the county during the coming year.
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