The Charlotte News
Saturday, April 5, 1958
TWO EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from Havana that rebel leader Fidel Castro's "total, implacable war" against El Presidente Fulgencio Batista of Cuba had begun this date as a war of nerves, with the nation being tense but relatively calm. In his declaration of war, Sr. Castro had said that the big push "to be free or to perish" might not come until after the Easter holidays ended on Monday morning. Some rebel sources in Havana claimed that the Catholic Church had been friendly to Sr. Castro's cause and that he would not want to antagonize the Catholic hierarchy by open attacks during religious celebrations. There was also no sign of the rebel leader's long-threatened call for a general strike. Rumors in Havana had it that Sr. Castro would issue the call from his mountain hideout on Tuesday. He claimed 50,000 supporters would then pour into the streets, halt all commerce and do battle with the police and the Army. But the Government, with the backing of the powerful Cuban Confederation of Labor, had vowed that there would be no general strike. Workers had been authorized by the Government to kill anyone who urged them to walk off their jobs and those who would strike would lose their jobs permanently. Employers had been threatened with jail if they closed down their businesses. The declaration of war had gone into effect at one minute past midnight, but no shot was heard in downtown Havana at that time and there were no reports of increased rebel activity from anywhere in Cuba. Sr. Castro had pledged: "From this instant on, the country is in a state of total war against the tyranny of Batista. The war will be waged implacably." Havana had abandoned its traditionally gay mood, with streets, nightclubs and hotels almost deserted. Rebel sympathizers, who claimed they had arms, were stashed away in buildings on almost every street in Havana, awaiting orders from the rebel headquarters in the Sierra Maestra of Oriente Province. El Presidente had sent out increased police patrols to keep the peace. The determination of the rebels was matched by confidence in the Batista camp which verged on cockiness. The 57-year old former Army sergeant, who had dominated Cuban politics for nearly half of his lifetime, had 38,000 men under arms. The military leaders believed, no doubt, that they could wipe out the 2,000 or so mountain guerrilla force of the rebels, if only they would emerge from the backwoods for an open fight. Two rebel columns totaling about 1,600 men had been shooting up transportation and communications in Oriente for the previous few days, but they had held off engaging in a full-scale assault on the 5,000-troop garrison within the provincial capital of Santiago.
In Portsmouth, N.H., the U.S.S. Growler, the Navy's second guided missile submarine, was scheduled to be launched this date. It had been built at the Naval shipyard in Portsmouth and would be armed with Regulus II, a versatile missile with a range exceeding 1,000 miles and a speed of about 1,000 mph. The weapon coupled with the submarine's mobility meant that the Growler could deliver a nuclear strike nearly anywhere in the world. The craft weighed 2,500 tons and was 317 feet long, powered by diesel-electric engines.
In Stalinvaros, Hungary, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev warned Hungarian Communists this date that if a new revolt came, they could not depend on Russian help.
In Oslo, a strike of municipal workers had halted all streetcars and many suburban trains this date, the strike not being expected to be felt seriously, however, before the following Tuesday.
In Paris, a missing shipment of gold bars worth about $45,000 had turned up in Tel Aviv, according to police sources. The gold had been placed aboard a plane from Paris to Tehran the prior Tuesday and had failed to arrive at its destination.
In London, it was reported that much of Western Europe shivered this date under heavy grey skies, sleet and rain, keeping families by their firesides.
In Ponta Delgada, in the Azores, the battered aircraft carrier U.S.S. Corregidor had limped into the harbor this date to land four crewmen injured in Atlantic storms the prior Tuesday and to make repairs.
In Taipei, Formosa, President Chiang Kai-shek this date indicated that Nationalist China might sever diplomatic relations with Japan if Tokyo granted full rights to a Communist Chinese trade mission.
In New York, it was reported that former President Truman would be the guest on the "Youth Wants To Know" program over NBC television on Sunday, May 4.
Also in New York, it was reported that Maurice Chevalier would talk with Edward R. Murrow on the CBS program "Person to Person" on April 18.
In Shannon, Ireland, it was reported that a Dutch KLM airliner carrying 38 persons from Amsterdam to Montréal had failed early this date in a second attempt to fly the Atlantic after one engine had quit. It had landed safely in Shannon.
In San Francisco, it was reported that a major break in the San Joaquin River levee this date had caused water to spill over several thousand acres of rich ranch land, as reported by the Stanislaus County sheriff.
In Eugene, Ore., a trip to a high school dance had ended in death for five persons when their car collided head-on with a Greyhound bus the previous night. The victims had been three young men and two girls. Nine of the 25 persons aboard the bus had been injured, though none seriously.
In Denver, Colo., juvenile gangs in the state had a new and fearful initiation rite, arson. The State fire marshal had said this date that teenagers wanting to join gangs first had to set a fire. He stated that the investigation of the most recent arson cases had uncovered the practice and that those they had caught admitted that to join the gang, they had been told they had to set a fire. Some of the fires had been costly, one of which having burned a train trestle in February, causing $50,000 in damage and disrupting rail traffic for hours. A group of teenagers in Douglas County south of Denver had recently gone through a resort area setting fire to summer cabins. Two of the state's largest fires in recent months had been of suspicious origin, one gutting a large plumbing supply firm in Pueblo during the early morning hours and the others having destroyed a horse and dog when stables of the Broadmoor Hotel near Colorado Springs had been gutted. A standard method used by the teenagers involved the use of a cigarette and a book of matches, while other fires were set in a traditional manner with oil-soaked rags or newspapers. The fire marshal said that his staff of experts stayed busy running down youth arson cases, but had made headway in recent months through constantly improving detection techniques.
In Augusta, Ga., a 26-year old man from South Carolina was killed early this date when his car left U.S. 1 across the Savannah River in South Carolina and plunged down an embankment.
In Jersey Shore, Pa., ten members of a family, including eight children, had been killed this date in a fire and explosion which had destroyed their two-story frame house on the outskirts of town. A neighbor said that he saw the family gathered at a second-story window during the height of the fire and sought to set up a ladder, but a bureau dresser had fallen in front of the window and that was the last he had seen of them. The fire chief said that the house was completely enveloped in flames when the firemen had arrived. The mother of the children had been able to escape the house, suffering only slight burns. The father had died with the children, his remains found clutching two of them. His mother-in-law had also perished. The cause of the explosion and fire was not yet determined.
Julian Scheer of The News reports that the tempo of local politics continued on the upbeat during the week, as labor interviewed the Democratic candidates for Congress, David Clark and Marvin Ritch. Next, they would talk to incumbent Representative Charles Jonas.
In Charlotte, J. B. Ivey, founder of the Ivey Department Stores, had been buried this date in Elmwood Cemetery in Charlotte, following his death the previous day at age 93.
Also in Charlotte, the 31st annual community Easter Sunrise service at Freedom Park had been canceled late the previous day by Dr. Herbert Spaugh, chairman of the Linten and Easter Committee of the Mecklenburg Christian Ministerial Association, in charge of the event. Dr. Spaugh, who was one of the founders of the event, said that the cancellation had been caused by the soggy condition of the park and its amphitheater, plus prospects of continued rain on Sunday. He said he could remember only two previous occasions when the service had not been held outdoors during the prior 30 years, occurring when it was being held in Memorial Stadium and was moved into the nearby Armory-Auditorium, which had since burned down.
In Hollywood, it was reported that actress Lana Turner's 14-year old daughter the previous night had killed an underworld figure romantically linked with her mother, plunging a knife into his abdomen in a pink-carpeted bedroom of Ms. Turner's home. Johnny Stompanato, 42, had died instantly. And the world is no doubt better off for the elimination, and so, so what? You unmitigated idiots who think that there is something exciting and even heroic about cheap little hoodlums need a brain transplant. Ever since "The Godfather" over 50 years ago, this concept of anti-heroic moronic low-lifes seems to have crept into popular culture, even if that plainly was not the intent of that movie. But popular audiences, confronted with violence, often focus on the violence in some perverse fashion and do not understand the whole concept of a film, especially one which is based entirely on fiction. Stupid is as stupid does. Anyway, we support the daughter in this instance, regardless of immediate circumstances. The report indicates that she had arrived home from her school on Monday for Easter vacation and on Monday night had heard her mother and Mr. Stompanato engaged in a bitter argument, and the next day had asked her mother for an explanation, being told that she was unhappy with Mr. Stompanato and was afraid of him. The police chief said that after the stabbing, Ms. Turner had sought to stop the bleeding with a towel, and, when asked how the daughter was able to stab him without harm to herself, stated, "It was just a hell of a surprise to him." Surprise, surprise, surprise…
In Denver, Colo., it was reported that only three persons had been in a savings and loan office when two men had robbed it of $5,000, one having been the branch manager, another being a teller, and the third being a portrait artist, who had sketched the portraits of the robbers for police a few minutes later. The robbers were being hunted. The sketches are not provided.
In Cincinnati, a boy had gone on a solo drive for the first time the previous day, after releasing the brake of his father's car, rolling fast down a steep driveway and across the street, snipping off a telephone pole and damaging the car's rear end. The boy, 3, was not hurt. Next time, watch where you're going, stupid.
On the editorial page, "The Easter Story" provides verbatim John 20:1-17.
For another take on that story, since the next piece mentions Jack Cash, it is always worthwhile to read again his piece from his last Easter, in April, 1941.
Speaking of due process for aliens placed on the cross, we feel it our incumbent duty to provide a necessary quick primer to the occupant of the White House in 2025 regarding due process for all persons who have entered the U.S., even if that entry was accomplished illegally. Zadvydas v. Davis, decided five to four by the Supreme Court in 2001, an opinion delivered by former Justice Stephen Breyer, so held, based on longstanding precedent spanning back to the 19th Century, premised on the expressed words of the Constitution. While there are certain potential exceptional circumstances involving cases of aliens who never actually enter the U.S., such as those who were formerly detained at the now-closed Ellis Island immigration detention center, such cases would involve very particular and special circumstances, such as that in Kaplan v. Tod, cited in Zadvidas, a 1925 case wherein a 13-year old girl had been excluded from the country under a then-existing law which allowed exclusion of persons who were deemed mentally deficient, and that person having been detained at Ellis Island for deportation, until World War I intervened, causing her to be turned over to her naturalized father for the duration of the war, the case holding that she had never actually "entered" the U.S. because of the particular circumstances and thus had never become entitled to due process.
Thus, if the White House can make a case similar to that involved in Kaplan, though the statute under which that person was excluded has long since been removed from the books, then, and only then, can due process be denied to persons living on U.S. soil, regardless of how they entered the country. Gut luck...
At least now, El Presidente can answer the question intelligently rather than having to appear as a complete moron, saying, in true Know-Nothing fashion: "I dunno. I have to ask my, how you say? abogado."
We do not live under ancient Roman law. But even Jesus, though an alien in his native land, was afforded some rudimentary due process before Pilate, before the latter washed his hands of the matter and delivered the defendant up to the high priests for final determination under ecclesiastical law. The Trumpistadores do not seem to understand it all very well, as they attend only their demigod's rallies for their religious and secular instruction from His Highness.
"J. B. Ivey: The Passing of a Pioneer" indicates that Mr. Ivey, who had died the previous day at age 93, had been born ten months prior to the surrender of General Lee to General Grant at Appomattox, but that the Old South had already died. The New South had not begun, as often portrayed in the history books, on the next page, as the Old South had ended in a wilderness, broken and crying for new pioneers. Mr. Ivey had become one of those pioneers and when he died, there was no doubt that the New South, still in the process of being built, had arrived to stay, with the indispensable aid of Mr. Ivey and his fellow builders.
It finds that history was written primarily in terms of political movements and the men who led them. But history was also made by commerce in goods and ideas, things and forces growing from the experience, needs and desires of millions of people, made by anonymous persons from all walks of life. It suggests that history would note too concisely that Mr. Ivey was a great merchant, but that his memory could not be marked fully by the Ivey Department Stores which bore his name, located in Charlotte, Asheville, Raleigh, Greenville, S.C., and Orlando and Daytona Beach, Fla., powerful forces in the economic lifeblood of their communities. Yet, they were only part of a more powerful force which was Mr. Ivey's life, which had acted upon nearly a century of the South's struggle and achievement, leaving an indelible mark on future years.
It finds that in thinking of his profound influence on the development of Charlotte into a great marketplace, it was reminded of the description of Southern yeomanry provided by W. J. Cash in The Mind of the South: "These men took from aristocracy as much as, and no more than, could be made to fit with their own homespun qualities; and so what they took they made solidly their own, without any sense of inadequacy to haunt them into gaucherie. The result was a kindly courtesy, a level-eyed pride, an easy quietness, a barely perceptible flourish, of bearing, which, for all its obvious angularity and fundamental plainness, was one of the finest things the old South produced."
It finds that there was more to the legacy of the civilization in whose ashes Mr. Ivey was born, including the grinding poverty and unending toil and lack of opportunity for millions. There was also its sustaining closeness of large families, of the earth and of the church, and Mr. Ivey had known all of those things, as had millions of his fellow Southerners. He had become one of the designers of the new region, utilizing as tools faith, struggle, ingenuity, energy and enterprise, making his own opportunities. Knowing what the people wanted made a great merchant. It suggests that perhaps Mr. Ivey had prospered because he and the region in which he resided both wanted the same things, prosperous communities with people filling the stores and the churches. That was what had resulted in the New South which Henry Grady had proclaimed when Mr. Ivey was only a boy and which Mr. Ivey had done so much to build as a man.
He had left everyone a legacy of dedicated service and idealism at work which would help mightily in future building.
Drew Pearson indicates the difference between the activities of two Congressmen, both of whom were Democrats, one being Representative Leo O'Brien of New York and the other Representative Howard Smith of Virginia, the latter presiding over the all-powerful Rules Committee, which decided what legislation could or could not come up for a vote before the full House. Mr. Smith had been blocking a vote on the bill to provide statehood for Alaska. Appearing before the Rules Committee recently, Congressman O'Brien had urged action on that bill, and he was cross-examined by Mr. Smith, asking him whether he realized that some state would lose a Congressman if statehood were provided to Alaska, to which Mr. O'Brien replied that he did and wanted to point out that it was going to be his own state and probably his own district in Albany. He indicated that he was on a Democratic island surrounded by Republicans which would be redistricted, but he was willing to make the sacrifice. Mr. Smith commented that Mr. O'Brien was the most generous Congressman he knew, but continued to block the statehood bill.
Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson's friend, meat lobbyist Aled Davie, who had recently sought to get a newspaperman fired from the National Press Club, had just been kicked out of the Club himself. Mr. Davies liked to throw his considerable weight around and had used his fists against four different Club members and thus was provided an indefinite suspension. Mr. Pearson indicates that the incident would not be significant had it not highlighted the manner in which Mr. Davies also threw his weight around in the Agriculture Department and in Congress, not only boasting that he was very close to Secretary Benson but demonstrating the fact. He had written Mr. Benson's recent statement defending himself against Republican Congressmen. Recently, he had been in the Press Club bar and had taken a poke at a correspondent for the London Telegraph, with whom we he was an old friend and had spent a vacation in Chicago. The old friend, however, had referred to Mr. Davies as some kind of a "Welshman", whereupon Mr. Davies punched him. Later that evening, Mr. Davies was demonstrating how he had punched his old friend, and a columnist for the Washington Post had gotten in the way of his demonstrative swing, as had a lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute and a New York publicity man. The irony was that a short time before that, Mr. Davies had telephoned a member of the Press Club board of governors demanding that a Chicago Daily News correspondent be kicked out because of his news story on Mr. Davies. Mr. Davies had asked whether the Press Club was not a gentleman's club. The board of governors had later ruled that it was and suspended indefinitely Mr. Davies.
Walter Lippmann indicates that it had been an ordeal for Secretary of State Dulles to have faced a large press conference a few hours after the newspapers had carried the story of the Soviet suspension of nuclear testing, prompting the Secretary to treat the Soviet move as a tricky and meaningless propaganda stunt which they would exploit, unable to be matched in a free and open society such as the U.S.
Mr. Lippmann indicates that while it might be of comfort to the Secretary, it was a dangerous form of escapism from the hard realities of the world situation, as it rested on the notion that the many reverses of the U.S. and the decline of its influence were the result not of defects in U.S. policies but because of the superior advantages of the Soviet Union in promoting propaganda. He finds that the world would agree with the Secretary were it not for the fact that the world was so gullible that it was being taken in by the Russians, flattering to U.S. pride but not true.
The Secretary had accurately pointed out that the Soviets had just completed a series of tests and that the U.S. was preparing to conduct a series of tests during the spring and summer, such that the Soviets' trick, according to the Secretary, was to suspend the tests which they now did not need for some time to come, hoping to prevent the U.S. from conducting its tests which it very much needed to conduct. Mr. Lippmann questions whether that was such a difficult trick with which to deal, as the natural way to deal with it would be to say that when the U.S. had completed its tests, it would suspend further testing, provided the Soviets continued to do likewise. The world, he posits, would not be so gullible as not to understand the common sense of that response.
But that response was not open to the U.S. because the controlling factor was that the U.S. military position in the world was built on the deterrent power of nuclear weapons. The Secretary had spoken of the U.S. desire "to eliminate nuclear weapons effectively from the international arsenals." Mr. Lippmann cannot imagine why he made such a remark, for the elimination of nuclear weapons would make impossible the strategic containment through a network of alliances to which the Secretary was committed.
He finds that to be the real reason why U.S. propaganda worked badly, for if the U.S. could not or would not revise its policies, Mr. Dulles would do better to be candid and tell the world that the U.S. could not suspend testing because it could not abolish nuclear weapons without a revolutionary change in foreign policy. He could then argue that the Russians, with their massive conventional forces and their interior lines, could not be contained without nuclear weapons, believable if not making him loved.
U.S. propaganda was in trouble not because the Russians were able to lie with impunity but because in many critical areas U.S. propaganda was seeking to sell policies which were obsolete, fictitious and profoundly unpopular. There was a central fiction in the Far East that Formosa was part of China and that the actual Government of China on the mainland ought to disappear. No propaganda could make a policy based on that fiction credible, much less convincing and inspiring. In South Asia, there was the fiction that the U.S. was arming Pakistan to defend the Middle East against the Red Army, earning the U.S. deep suspicion from India. In the Middle East, there was the fiction that the Arab states would remain with the West provided the U.S. could prevent the Soviet forces from invading them. In Europe, there was the fiction that Chancellor Konrad Adenauer's Germany would absorb East Germany and that in some unknown way the Red Army would remove itself from Eastern Europe. But the fact of the matter was that the mass of the people did not like those fictions and the informed leaders of opinion knew that they were fictions and did not believe in them, which was why U.S. propaganda worked badly.
He indicates that a wise and experienced man had said to him in Paris that the Western world was in political decline, not so much because the Soviet Union was so strong and so shrewd but because the Western democracies made so many mistakes and lacked the political courage to rectify them. He finds that listening to Secretary Dulles at the press conference the prior Tuesday, he had wondered whether he was not trying to escape from that bitter truth.
A letter from the chairman of the Loyalty-Security Study of the League of Women Voters of Charlotte indicates that the League of Women Voters of the United States had just completed a four-year study of individual liberty related to the public interest, two years of which had been devoted specifically to the Federal loyalty-security programs, with the consensus of opinion on the part of 1,000 local leagues, including that of Charlotte, being that the programs ought be limited in coverage to sensitive positions with more realistic classification of information, have more uniform procedures, apply a "common sense" standard in judging the individual, and provide the greatest possible protection of individual rights. She calls to the attention of readers legislation pending in the House, a bill already passed in August, 1957 by the Senate, providing that agency heads maintain accused employees on the job pending determination of their cases. She says that the present House bill bore little resemblance to that which had been passed by the Senate, providing for extension of the security programs to cover all Government positions, whether sensitive or non-sensitive. The background of the original Senate bill had been the 1956 Supreme Court Case, Cole v. Young, which had limited the security programs to sensitive positions by denying the right of employers to dismiss summarily an employee based on loyalty and security grounds when the position was not sensitive. The writer indicates that the League questioned whether the security programs were needed at present, as they had originally come about as an emergency measure to meet the threat of Communists in the Government. She indicates that they had been unproductive and the procedures followed had gravely encroached on the rights of individuals. One problem had been the lack of a clear definition of "loyalty" and investigators had sometimes relied on statements of irresponsible or malicious accusers who frequently gave their statements anonymously, not amounting to traditional due process. She says that they also wanted to call attention to a radio broadcast to be sponsored by the League of Women Voters on WBT radio on April 10, featuring a talk by Professor Karl Auerbach of the University of Wisconsin, presenting the relative merits of recommendations regarding loyalty-security by the Government Commission on Loyalty-Security and those of the Bar Association of the City of New York.
A letter writer from Cellriver, S.C., indicates that the recent palace revolution in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, which had passed control from King Saud to his pro-Egyptian brother, Crown Prince Faisal, had occurred for several reasons, because the King's luxurious court had mortgaged oil royalties to the banks for about 500 million dollars, because Faisal had feared that the King would pass his crown to his son, and because Egyptian Premier Gamal Abdel Nasser had the King in a spot when he had broadcast that the King had attempted to assassinate him, embittering the pro-Nasser forces in Saudi Arabia, despite the King's denials. Faisal would pay a large tribute to Premier Nasser to ensure transit of oil tankers through the Suez Canal, just as the desert sheiks had paid the robber-sheikdoms for passage over the camel routes for generations. The writer indicates that Premier Nasser would receive a welcome in Moscow which would rival the salute provided King Saud recently in Washington, further enhancing the Premier's prestige. He concludes that American policymakers needed to strengthen the leaders in the Near East and in Africa who would resist Premier Nasser in their fight to maintain their independence.
A letter writer indicates that the newspapers stated that because of excessive use of alcoholic beverages, the ABC Board had fired one of its employees, finding it commendable that they had fired a man for using its product and yet if the product was so good, he wonders why the poor victim had been fired. He indicates that the head of the ABC system in Mecklenburg County had been involved enough in the "liquor for legislators" scandal erupting in spring, 1957 during the previous session of the General Assembly, that he had been convicted of a crime, and yet he had not been fired.
A letter writer indicates that the ungrateful perimeter citizens should not expect much from their "great white fathers" of Charlotte, as they could not appreciate the many sleepless hours their benefactors had spent in making the campaign successful to extend the city limits to embrace the perimeter areas. He thinks it ought be called "CRAMPAIGN". He wonders why perimeter residents should be taken into the city in 1960 without being permitted to vote on any bond issues. He says he believes in progress but believes the people concerned ought bare in mind that to pay off bonds, there had to be a means of income, which meant more taxes for the citizens to have to bear into the future.
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