The Charlotte News
Thursday, May 1, 1958
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the Marine Corps commandant, General Randolph Pate, had said this date before the House Armed Services Committee that if Congress enacted the President's defense reorganization plan as written, some future secretary of defense might give the Marine Corps "the bum's rush". The Committee had received at the same time written assurance from Secretary of Defense Neil McElroy that his Department had no intention of making "a sweeping realignment of the services or their administration." He said that any merger of services would be expressly forbidden by the proposed law and that the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps would retain their respective individualities. General Pate had delivered the most outspoken opposition yet heard before the Committee to the proposed reorganization plan, emphasizing that he did not believe "those now in high office" had any intention of reducing the Marine Corps to impotence if the bill were enacted, but that "present good intentions are no insurance against future damage to our usefulness; only in the law can we find such insurance." He added that he found it difficult to see how sections of the present law, which spelled out the roles and missions of each service, could be regarded as unduly restrictive, "other than by some future secretary of defense who intended sooner or later to alter the Marines' status and functions." He directed his most severe criticism to the recommendation of the President that the sections spelling out the function of each military service be repealed.
The head of the Pentagon's special Space Bureau said to the House Space Committee this date that it could be disastrous to allow a civilian agency to limit military uses of outer space. Roy Johnson, director of the Defense Department's Advanced Research Projects Agency, called on Congress to write into the President's bill for a civilian space agency a clear-cut provision giving freedom for military space projects. He said that if the Defense Department decided it to be militarily desirable to a program to put men into space, it ought not to have to justify that activity to the civilian agency. His prepared statement highlighted the question of whether military or civilian authorities ought have the upper hand in future disputes over handling space projects. The President's bill proposed that the civilian agency would control all Government space research except for that "primarily associated" with military use. Administration witnesses had said that disputes would be resolved by the President if necessary but that most would be settled by lower-level action. Pending creation of a civilian agency, the President had authorized ARPA to go ahead for a year with experiments, such as shots at the moon. The President also ordered review of such projects to see whether they ought be taken over by the proposed civilian space agency, NASA.
The President's statement that he had no responsibility to groom a successor appeared this date to have placed Vice-President Nixon in a political dilemma. His expected bid for the 1960 Republican presidential nomination apparently had to rise or fall largely on the record of the President, who now indicated that he did not plan to push any particular aspirant as his successor. In case of a dispute over policies, it placed Mr. Nixon in the position of being forced to choose between an open break with the President, which no one expected, or going along on the President's policies and decisions without the promise of the President's backing. As an active participant in the Cabinet and National Security Council deliberations, the Vice-President could help as an individual to shape the Administration's course. There was no doubt that he supported many of the decisions and policies enthusiastically, but if the decisions went against his own judgment, he seemed likely to be stuck with them politically.
Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts announced this date that he was introducing bills to crack down on bribery of labor union officials and to eliminate what he called a union-busting provision in existing law.
Secretary of Labor James Mitchell said this date at a press conference that he felt that the Administration would have to decide within 30 to 60 days whether to recommend a tax cut, that while the recession appeared to be flattening out, as the President had said the previous day, he saw no solid improvement ahead. He said that once a decision was made that further anti-recession remedies were necessary, he favored a tax cut as the most effective step. He believed it to be more effective than a large-scale public works program.
The House began voting this date on a bill for emergency unemployment relief with many Southern Democrats backing the Administration's program. Emergence of a coalition of Republicans and Southern Democratic conservatives against the broader Democratic plan for Federal relief grants, had raised the hopes of Republican leaders of winning the crucial test, possibly late this date. The showdown would come when Republican leaders would introduce the President's bill as a substitute for the measure sent to the House by the Ways & Means Committee's Democrats. Representative Charles Halleck of Indiana, the assistant Republican floor leader, said that it looked like the Administration's substitute was "going over". He said that if the House passed the Democratic version, he believed he could say with confidence that it would be vetoed by the President. Democratic leaders, however, discounted the strength of the coalition and predicted that their bill would win on the roll call vote. Foes of the Democratic proposal attacked primarily a provision in it to give Federal relief grants to idled workers not eligible for benefits under the Federal-state unemployment insurance program. Representative Howard Smith of Virginia called it "pure, unadulterated, undisguised, unabridged and unabashed socialism." Others attacked the bill as a handout and as legislation opening the way to fraud, abuse and duplication. Representative Wilbur Mills of Arkansas, chairman of the Committee which drafted the Democratic measure, contended that it would be unconscionable discrimination to help one class of unemployed persons and not another. The Democratic bill called for 16 weeks of jobless payments to both insured and uninsured workers, with the Federal Government funding the estimated 1.5 billion dollar cost. The President's program would limit benefits to insured workers who had exhausted their benefits under state systems and require the states to pay back the estimated 600 million dollar cost after four years. The extension would be for 13 weeks in most states, based on a 50 percent increase in the present limits.
With juxtaposed stories this date involving Wilbur Mills, Mr. Nixon, moon shots, ARPA and NASA, there must be some available clever punning somewhere, but we do not want to be stuck with it and so, NASA.
In Fort Campbell, Ky., Army authorities said this date that one paratrooper had been strangled to death in the mass airdrop the previous week when a partial dental plate had lodged in his windpipe. It does not make clear whether the paratrooper was one of the five who had been killed in the drop a week earlier of 1,400 men, swept away by winds at ground level, causing injury to 137 others.
In Paris, René Pleven had been reported this date to be considering a wage-price freeze in his efforts to form a government to end France's political crisis.
In Budapest, it was reported that Albania, the smallest member of the European Communist bloc, had ended rationing for the first time since World War II.
In Aden, reinforcements the previous night had relieved a besieged British garrison on the Yemeni border after fighting their way through tough rebel resistance.
In Singapore, it was reported by a ship's agents this date that at least nine and possibly 12 of the crew of a Panama-registered freighter had been killed during a bombing attack on the ship near Amboina in East Indonesia.
The IRS reported this date what it called the mishandling of 48 to 60 million dollars in canceled Federal tax stamps at the New York Stock Exchange.
In Paris, it was reported that Yvonne Menard, a tall brunette star of the Folies Bergeres, had been found semi-conscious in her apartment this date with one wrist slashed by a razor. She was hospitalized and given a blood transfusion.
In Newark, N.J., a 24-hour police guard had been stationed at the home of a male schoolteacher who had been stabbed by a 12-year old boy of the school. Later, the teacher received threatening phone calls.
Donald MacDonald of The News reports that nine Soviet textile businessmen were in Charlotte, living in an ultra-modern motel and shopping in the city's capitalistic stores, touring the Piedmont's textile plants. They had even visited a shoeshine parlor on West Trade Street the previous day and chatted among themselves in Russian while the shoeshine boys gave their shoes a neat polish—no doubt picking up valuable intel to be provided the CIA later. Getting official information about the nine visitors was very tough, taking the newspaper three long distance calls to the State Department in Washington to find out that they were actually in the city, though the newspaper, through its staff writer Dick Bayer, had already become aware of them. The Department had approved visas for the nine men, but said nothing further other than that the visit was purely a business venture sponsored by the Intertex Corp. of New York, which was showing the Russians varied types of textile machinery. The tour had begun in Massachusetts on April 20 and would continue for about a month. The Russians reportedly had visited Gastonia, Lowell and Mooresville in North Carolina, with a visit to Charlotte mills scheduled for the following day. The Charlotte FBI office knew that the Russians were present, but said that the State Department had passed on the visit and the FBI was not concerned.
Emery Wister of The News reports that the City of Charlotte would maintain the unpaved Coliseum parking lot and receive a larger share of parking fees paid under two proposals made to the City this date by the owner of the property. Under one proposal, the City would pay the owner 5 percent of the value of the property or a straight $10,000 per year, with the City then receiving all parking fees. Under the second proposal, the City would maintain the lot without making a large payment to the owner, and parking fees would then be split with each party receiving half. Under the proposals, the City would agree to release five acres from the present acreage to the owner. The owner had made the proposals in a meeting of the Charlotte Auditorium-Coliseum Authority this date at the City Club, where City Manager Henry Yancey and City Attorney John Shaw were in attendance. The Authority agreed to consider the two proposals and take action at a future meeting.
The following week was "Be Kind to Animals Week" and a series of photographs shows a kitten in a stalk-and-attack duel on the living room floor with the young son of a Charlotte couple. The Mecklenburg County Humane Society was sponsoring the week and would solicit assistance with its work on Saturday in its annual Tag Day, urging residents to purchase a tag for their pets and help it with its work. You must discourage children from attacking kittens.
Bill Hughes of The News reports that city dogs and country dogs were different in the Charlotte area because of the rules which governed each set. City dogs had to wear two tags, one showing the dog's license and the other his rabies inoculation. When taken in by the dogcatcher, he was taken to the City dog pound. In the county, the dog went to the County pound, about two blocks from the City pound. A County dog was deemed properly tagged with only an inoculation tag, provided he did not wander into the city. The county dogs usually got their vaccinations from a veterinarian set up by the County Rabies Inspector. Authorities agreed that the County pound was generally better than the City pound, which had a bad drainage problem, according to the secretary of the Mecklenburg Humane Society. Until about two years earlier, there had only been the City pound and the County had paid the City a fee for use of its pound. It later built its own pound, partially because of conflicts and confusion between the two agencies using the same pound. Most people did not want the two agencies combined. The Humane Society president said that they had worked for years to get them separated. But members of the Society said they were upset because of the two separate operations, that there was no sense in the duplication of services and that consolidation would save money.
In Monterey, Tenn., the town of 2,043 marked its first traffic fatality in 41 years when a woman, 58, had been struck by a truck as she crossed U.S. 70 N.
In Atherton, Calif., it was illegal to build a tree house without a building permit. A woman whose eight and nine-year old sons wanted to build one in their front yard without a permit had found the requirements silly. But when a neighbor protested the construction, and reported them to the city clerk, they learned of the law. The mother said that she might take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary. This date, State Attorney General Pat Brown issued a statement from his "Brown-for-Governor" headquarters, saying that he had requested a lawyer friend to see if he could not save the boys' tree house.
The world here is on the brink of nukler atillanation because of the elites on the hill in the white house with their bomb shelters
On the editorial page, "It Was Right There All the Time" indicates that for ten years, the City Council had hidden its tax consolidation plans in some remote corner of its own collective conscience. It had only been discovered the previous day, stunning some and troubling others.
What some might call a decade of dawdling had ended abruptly the previous day when the proposed merger of City and County tax departments had finally received the Council's approval. Two days earlier, the County Commission had yielded to the same public necessity.
It finds that, despite ten years of delay, the move was a significant and timely triumph for the forces of progress, as it was never too late to streamline bureaucracy.
"Mum Is Not the Word for Mr. Shaw" tells of City Attorney John Shaw having produced a civic shock when he spoke of the possibility that extension of city facilities to the perimeter areas to be annexed at the end of 1959 would be delayed by a court test.
A member of the City Council, Herbert Baxter, had asked him why he had waited until the present to bring that up, and Mr. Shaw had stated, somewhat illogically, that he did what the bond attorneys had told him to do and kept his mouth closed so that the bonds would pass.
It indicates that if there had to be a court test, then it should be initiated and concluded quickly. Mr. Shaw was employed to advise and it was not in his province or that of the bond attorneys to try to influence a bond election other than by providing the fullest information possible.
"Good Trustees Make a College Click" indicates that the City Council could not have chosen more wisely in the appointments to the board of trustees of the local community college system, consisting of Charlotte and Carver Colleges.
Both J. Murrey Atkins and W. A. Kennedy had played key roles in establishing the colleges and bringing their development to the point where they could now qualify for State aid to provide buildings and campuses. Mr. Atkins had been chairman and Mr. Kennedy, a member, of the present college advisory committee since its formation in 1949. At the time, Mr. Atkins had been chairman of the City School Board and was instrumental in keeping the colleges alive after the North Carolina Extension Service had withdrawn its support, a service created in the wake of World War II to meet the large population of returning veterans seeking a college education. Mr. Kennedy had been active in developing and enlarging the technical training programs of Charlotte College.
"Charlotte Prescribed a Simple Antidote" indicates that Charlotte had observed the nation's first Law Day with unobtrusive simplicity, there having been a brief ceremony with the two divisions of Mecklenburg Superior Court meeting in joint session during the morning, followed by talks at various luncheon clubs and a memo to members of the local bar. There had been no bombast, no parade or rally, just a few words about the dignity of the law.
It finds, however, that the simple celebration in Charlotte and other U.S. communities had suggested an antidote to a different kind of observance this date in Soviet Russia and its satellites, May Day, reserved for displays of military might, authoritarian dogma and chest-thumping praise for the super-state—kind of like Trump Day.
It finds such a simple celebration to be appropriate at a time when the courts were being subjected to occasional bursts of reckless abuse, when the value of judicial review was widely misunderstood and when the rule of law was meeting multiple challenges throughout the nation.
Samuel Johnson had once called the law "the last result of human wisdom acting upon human experience for the benefit of the public." Cicero had called it "the highest reason, implanted in nature."
Charles Rhyne, president of the ABA, from Mecklenburg County, called it "the intangible force that makes freedom and progress possible." He said that the law brought order into the affairs of men, enabling them to lift their sights above mere survival, to accumulate possessions, to develop the arts, to pursue knowledge, and enjoy life among their fellows. Law gave the individual security obtainable in no other way, protecting the family and other groups organized for the advancement of common interests, permitting the growth of great cities and the development of vast enterprises. It was the cement which holds free society together.
It quotes Daniel Webster regarding the law: "It has honored us; may we honor it."
Van Wyck Brooks
He ventures that Dylan Thomas had been unique among the younger poets of the time because he had escaped the sophistication which had paralyzed the contemporary poetic mind.
One of his correspondents had written to him recently that "the young writers of America are old and dangerous." When no one spoke of the heart any longer except as a physical organ and few seemed to know the difference between love and sex, what would become of natural feeling? "And without natural feeling, there could be no wonder, the kind of wonder that gave Theodore Dreiser, banal and material as he was, the sense that, in life and the world, he was 'a guest at a feast.'"
Drew Pearson indicates that the Smithsonian Institution in Washington had made a secret deal to purchase the famous Hope diamond as a spectacular attraction for its new mineral hall, which would open in the summer. The Smithsonian was reportedly ready to trade several industrial diamonds for the supposedly jinxed jewel, once worn by Catherine the Great of Russia and last owned by the late Evalyn Walsh McLean, author of Father Struck It Rich, who had dominated the Washington social scene for many years and whose husband had been a close friend of President Warren G. Harding. The Smithsonian spokesman had refused to comment on the deal except to say that an announcement might be expected within a few weeks.
The McLean estate reportedly had been unable to sell the Hope diamond because of a superstition that it brought bad luck. Mrs. McLean herself believed in its bad luck and yet clung to the jewel. Her son had been run over by an automobile, her husband had died in an insane asylum, and her only daughter, the late wife of former Senator Robert Rice Reynolds of North Carolina, had died of an overdose of sleeping pills. When Mrs. McLean had asked why she did not get rid of the diamond, she explained that it would only bring bad luck to someone else. Following her death, Supreme Court Justice Frank Murphy and former trust-buster Thurman Arnold, executors of her will, found the diamond plus four million dollars worth of other jewels in shoeboxes in Mrs. McLean's bedroom.
At the Smithsonian, the Hope diamond would join 44 million assorted relics, ranging from 450 million-year old fossils to a 1935 jukebox, with less than one percent of the collection actually on public display.
He notes that at one time, the Soviet Government had made overtures to retrieve the Hope diamond, along with other jewels, which had once belonged to Catherine the Great. The former Russian Empress had died of apoplexy after a tragic marriage and controversial career.
He does not bother to mention that it had once belonged to Marie Antoinette, who eventually lost her head, four days after the founding of the nation's first state university in 1793. We hesitate to add that the former Senator Reynolds had been an alumnus of that university. Not all who pass through its portals are inevitably blessed with judgment to complement the knowledge gleaned from the experience. He had once hoped to inherit the famous diamond through his wife, apparently harboring hope of one day achieving the White House through purchasing it, much as the current occupant.
Doris Fleeson indicates that CIA director Allen Dulles had added an important dimension of national security to a debate which many economists and politicians had long been seeking to initiate, that being the debate about the future of the American economy, what it could be and what it ought to be to maintain the country's lead over Russia. Mr. Dulles had now warned in a speech to the annual meeting of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that Russia's economic offensive was replacing its war-making threat as "the most serious challenge this country has ever had to meet in time of peace." It was being made possible by the steadily growing Soviet economy, proceeding at a rate roughly twice that of the U.S. economy.
Senator Paul Douglas of Illinois and his colleagues on the Joint Economic Committee had said as much a year earlier, but Mr. Dulles had wound up on the front pages after his statement and forced attention to the issue which both the Government and the people appeared reluctant to embrace, except for the warning vis-à-vis the Soviets militarily.
Even before the current recession, the economy had been all but standing still. Testimony before the Joint Economic Committee had suggested that normal growth goals for the gross national product would be 460 billion dollars in the current year, 475 billion for the ensuing year and 490 billion for 1960, while the present figure was below 425 billion. The Full Employment Act of 1946 had been the last significant Federal planning legislation in the economic and social areas, having been the only part of the domestic Fair Deal which President Truman had managed to get passed. It had been much watered-down from that which had been proposed by the President, and asserted that the national policy would be to work toward full employment. Since the country was expanding in many ways, including in population, the goal ought meet the challenge of the Soviet Union's expansion if it would be achieved.
Mr. Dulles, brother of the Secretary of State, did not expect that the Russians would risk general war, but pointed to many areas in the economic field where it was scoring against the U.S. He attached the label of "expansive luxury" to the present recession and warned that Soviet advances were not merely transitory. Conceding that the Russian people would undoubtedly demand improvement in their standard of living, he said that it could be had without impairment of present Soviet military and industrial progress.
Liberals in both parties, including Senators Douglas, Estes Kefauver, Francis Case and others, had protested strongly the notion that the U.S. could halt on any plateau, no matter how high. They were welcoming the support of the CIA director, but also admitting a practical dilemma. While the Federal Government could not do it all, the only force able to mobilize the machinery, both public and private, to do the job was the White House. But there was no sign from the White House thus far of any will to act in that area.
Robert C. Ruark, in Seville, Spain,
again discusses bullfighting
A good bull, which charged straight and saw well, was called in Spanish either a "nun" or a "ferro-carril", meaning that he charged on tracks as a railroad train. He followed the red rag well and ate it like candy. But the Miuras were rarely "good" bulls and the toreros were extremely frightened of them, believing it nearly inevitable that they would receive serious injury.
Recently, the Miuras had not fought well, not following the cape and not calming down after the picadores had done their work, would not cooperate with the banderilleros sticking them with toothpicks, and would not eat the muleta as if it were candy. More than likely, they observed the bullfighter rather than the red flag as they made suggestive motions with their horns.
He says that bullfighting required courage, that even an unsuccessful bullfighter who had become more of a valet in the ring than a matador, had to be brave, even if frightened. The fear, even with the bravest bull-killer of them all, Luis Ortega, was so strong that you could smell it. The day before, Sr. Ortega had killed two bulls "recibiendo", his specialty. The term meant to kill the bull when he was charging the bullfighter and the bullfighter was charging him, provoking the charge with the flirt of the red flannel in the left hand and a pass over the horn with the sword in the right. Sr. Ortega had gotten two ears as a reward for killing his last bull after fighting him well, the day before the Miuras.
On the day of the Miuras, he would not get any closer to the bull than an old lady approaching a large mouse, impacting the other bullfighters, the banderilleros and picadores. It had been possibly the worst corrida which Mr. Ruark had ever seen out of some several hundred.
He indicates that fear was a strangely communicative thing, that animals sensed it, just as did the bulls, enabling them to dominate the man until the bull was finally dead.
He indicates that there were some pretty good Salamanca bulls the following day and the first three toreros had gotten caught, one of whom, an old pro, having been lucky he was not killed, while a brave and often foolish young one wound up with his pants taped with adhesive, and another young one was now in the hospital. One of the best and bravest of the youngsters was working with a marvelous bull on the final day of the fiesta, working so well that he offered the bull a couple of extra passes as a sort of birthday present. But his condition was now deemed very grave "because a long horn up the behind is a very long horn indeed." (Which gets back to NASA.)
The fiesta was over and the reputation of the Miura remained intact as a race of bulls who bred fear, "even if another casta has to collect it."
A letter writer indicates that on the prior Saturday, a motorist had struck and killed a boxer dog belonging to his nine-year old boy and five-year old girl. He believed that it was not intentional, but also believed that the person had to know that they were exceeding the speed limit and that the car had come into contact with an object weighing nearly 70 pounds. But evidently the motorist had been in such a hurry that he or she had not stopped to determine if the animal was dead or alive, or even to find out if it was an animal. Had the person stopped, it probably would have meant the difference to his little boy having to be rushed to the hospital, as after seeing his pal in pain, had rushed to his rescue only to have his hand badly bitten, requiring several stitches and injections, plus a broken heart. His little boy, bleeding profusely, had not been concerned about himself, but only about his pal lying in the road. He hopes that the person who hit the dog read the letter so that they might learn a lesson should they have a child.
A letter writer indicates that columnist Walter Lippmann and others had made some "pretty sane appraisals" of the current recession. The anonymous writer, however, finds the recession different from others, as the country might be on the brink of another industrial revolution and readjustment because of technological progress and inventiveness which stockpiled goods faster than they could be utilized, thereby dispensing with manpower. Automation was replacing men and women everywhere and could do away with ten million jobs in the ensuing five years and affect many more. The writer thinks that there was no answer yet to the newest upheaval, which could be beneficial to man in the future, but if left unchecked, could grow through competition until it was a master rather than a servant of man. But there was hope in the fact that the uniqueness of man is thought, and the time to demonstrate that uniqueness was the present.
A letter writer indicates that there was no such thing as reform of the courts, that the country had one Constitution and that all the courts had to do was respect it. She says that the government, the churches and schools had the same charge.
A letter writer indicates that she was impressed with the column of Dr. Herbert Spaugh appearing recently, when he said to forget oneself and start thinking about others. She indicates that there was so much Christian work to do if people could only forget themselves and think of those who were shut-ins and blue and in need of kind consideration and attention.
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