The Charlotte News
Friday, May 16, 1958
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from Paris that the French National Assembly, meeting under the lengthening shadow of General Charles de Gaulle, this date had voted Premier Pierre Pflimlin emergency powers to fight what he called "a plot against the Republic". Parliament had moved this date toward putting France under a virtual state of siege to cope with the threat of civil war and avert any attempt by General de Gaulle's followers to seize power. Bitter debate had shaken the Assembly, considering a bill to give the emergency powers to the Premier. With a thousand special security troops on guard outside, deputies of Parliament had defended or assailed General de Gaulle, whose offer to assume full power had plunged France deeper into its darkest postwar crisis. The bill to place France under a state of emergency, just short of martial law, had passed committee by a vote of 33 to 6, with only Conservatives voting against it. The measure had come under attack by the right wing when the Assembly reconvened an urgent session. Former Premier Georges Bidault had declared that it was intolerable that General de Gaulle would be accused of being the enemy of the Republic he had restored after World War II. Social Republican Raymond Triboulet had accused the deputies of following the Communists in suppressing French liberties, declaring: "It's thanks to him [de Gaulle] that you are sitting here on those benches." Conservative Deputy Jacques Isorni had opened the attack on General de Gaulle by accusing him of aspiring to a dictatorship. The Premier, whose country villa had been bombed and considerably damaged the previous night, was cheered by all except the extreme rightists. He said that the first emergency steps had been taken to meet the threat posed by the takeover of power in Algeria by Army officers and French nationalists, who feared a sellout to Algerian rebels, referring to a ban on all public meetings and parades in Paris. But despite the headlines and the angry debate in Parliament, Parisians were apathetic. Many commuters preferred crime and sports news to stories regarding the crisis. As Parisians walked through the rain to their jobs, the only outward show of crisis was the reinforced guard around the Parliament building. The city's 20,000-man police force had been bolstered by 15,000 security troops rushed from other parts of France.
The White House and State Department watched the French political crisis in silent apprehension this date, fearful of its impact on the unity and strength of NATO. Diplomatic officials said that it was impossible to predict the outcome of the developing conflict in France and Algeria, but many in high positions were known to feel that the very existence of the Fourth Republic was at stake. One possibility causing concern in official quarters was the danger that the French military in Tunisia, commanding 25,000 troops, might follow the example of the French Army in neighboring Algeria, and seek to set up some type of committee to exercise at least a degree of political authority. The Tunisian Government of President Habib Bourguiba, whose country had been a French protectorate until 1956, was understood to have expressed anxiety on that point. He had no military force comparable to that of France, which had maintained troops in Tunisia after granting it independence.
In Caracas, Venezuela, it was reported that the Government had shaken up the capital's administration this date as a result of the stoning of Vice-President Nixon on Tuesday. Colonel Miguel Ramón de la Rosa had resigned as governor of the Federal District of Caracas. The prefect of Caracas and the police chief had also been removed from their posts.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee had determined this date to inquire into the background of Latin American violence toward the Vice-President and also the anti-American rioting in Lebanon. The full committee, headed by Senator Theodore Green of Rhode Island, had agreed unanimously to take over the preliminary stages of the inquiry on the motion of Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon. After conclusion of the preliminary inquiry, Senator Green said, "The Committee will decide on a course of action to be taken with respect to further studies of United States policy in relation to Latin America." Senator Morse headed a subcommittee on Latin American affairs and had proposed the previous day to conduct an inquiry into the violence encountered by the Vice-President in Lima, Peru, and Caracas, Venezuela, during his Latin American good will tour. But the full Committee had decided to broaden the scope of the study to include the events in Lebanon, where U.S. Information Agency libraries had been burned. Senator Green said that the study would also include "recent incidents elsewhere", without specifying what those were. He said that representatives of the State Department and the CIA would be called in to give testimony on the background of the attacks on the Vice-President. Senator Morse had said that he wanted to learn whether those agencies were "ignorant or knowingly undertaking a gamble" in view of the dangers which had developed during Mr. Nixon's tour.
In London, it was reported via Moscow Radio that the Soviets claimed that the demonstrations against the Vice-President in Venezuela had been a spontaneous protest against U.S. intervention in Latin American affairs.
The House Armed Services Committee this date had unanimously approved a compromise bill to reorganize the Defense Department. The President objected to two key parts of it. The bill largely followed the President's recommendations as to command over military forces made up of more than one service. It contained two major provisions to help establish a clear line of command from the President through the Secretary of Defense to the forces in the field. It did so by providing an operational joint staff of up to 400 members for the Joint Chiefs and by limiting command powers of the individual service chiefs. But the Committee refused to go as far as the President had wished, in authorizing the Secretary of Defense to reassign military functions among the services. It had added provisions indicating that the head of any one of the separate services could object to such a transfer and, in effect, refer the question to Congress for determination. Congress could then block the change by a simple resolution in both houses, not requiring the President's signature. As submitted by the Administration, the proposal would have required that such changes be submitted to Congress, which could then stop it only by passing a regular bill, which the President could veto, requiring the usual two-thirds vote in each house to override it. Thus, in the language of a Committee announcement, the group had preserved to the Congress its constitutional responsibility to provide for the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps.
In Cambridge, Mass., the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory this date had reported that several of its moonwatch teams had sighted Russia's Sputnik III. Definite sightings had been reported from the South and the West Coast, because of clear weather in those areas the previous night and early this date. The large Russian satellite had also crossed the Northeast and Midwest sections, but cloudy weather in those areas had hindered visual tracking efforts. Meanwhile, two of the country's top defense officials, Army Secretary Wilber Brucker and Garrison Norton, Assistant Secretary of the Navy for air, had discussed satellites and missiles in separate talks the previous night. Speaking in Ogden, Ut., Mr. Norton had said that the U.S. now had rockets powerful enough to boost into orbit a two-ton satellite, a half-ton heavier than the Sputnik III launched the previous day. He did not say why the U.S. had not launched a larger satellite, but said that the smaller ones placed into orbit were providing the information deemed necessary at the current time. The largest U.S. satellite in orbit weighed 31 pounds. Secretary Brucker told a Portland, Me., audience that the U.S. would have Russia ringed by operational intermediate-range missiles by the following December.
In Manila, it was reported that Indonesian rebels had said this date that central Government planes had made an unsuccessful raid on their principal airbase at Menado.
In Beirut, Lebanon, a stick of dynamite had exploded 150 feet from the American-owned Trans-Arabian Pipeline Co. tapline office this date, as violence had erupted in Beirut for the fifth consecutive day.
In Budapest, it was reported that Premier Gamal Abdel Nasser of the United Arab Republic had said this date that a Lebanese charge that the UAR had interfered in riot-wracked Lebanon had been a tactical attempt to blame him for Lebanon's internal troubles.
In Warsaw, it was reported that tornadoes in central Poland had killed three people and injured more than 100. In a town of 10,000 about 50 miles southwest of Warsaw, not a single house remained undamaged.
In Hong Kong, it was reported that two tugs had failed this date to re-float the grounded American passenger freighter President Hayes. Two additional tugs had been dispatched for another attempt the following day.
In New York, Representative Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., of Harlem, had pleaded not guilty this date to an income tax evasion charge, and pledged to fight against Tammany Hall for re-election in the fall, after Tammany's Harlem leaders had dropped Mr. Powell the previous day.
U.S. Ambassador to Canada, Livingston Merchant, had told Congress this date that nationalism was growing in Canada and that any implication that Canada was "sort of a 49th state" infuriated the people. It still has that effect in 2025, thanks to the head Moron of MAGAville referring to it as the "51st state", updated after the addition of Alaska and Hawaii in 1959, but still about 125 years behind the times of U.S. expansionism. Of course, it is easy to dupe the dopes of MAGAville, as obviously none of them know the first thing about U.S. history or the Constitution and how our Government works, or how it necessarily interfaces and interacts with the rest of the world, long since disabused of isolationism as leading only eventually to world war. They just fly their little flags and sport their little red caps and spout off on their pet peeves daily, believing, as any brainwashed minions in the worst of dictatorial states, that their Leader will ultimately prevail and give each one of them precisely what each wants—meanwhile robbing them blind with cute catchphrases such as "Big, Beautiful Bill" and "Alligator Alcatraz" to mask the reality behind the catchily named policies and facilities. Hitler tried that with such phrases as "Work Makes You Free", adorning the entrance to Auschwitz, in that case mockingly contrasting with the expression in John: "Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free." One day, perhaps, it may dawn on MAGAville and its Mayor, as it has eventually on other totalitarian regimes, that scaring people into compliance with its unconstitutional methods, while rewarding in Pavlovian manner those who do obeisance and punishing those who protest, is no way to govern, breeding only utter contempt for the town and its governance by force and coercion, and eventual overthrow of the ancien regime.
Emery Wister of The News reports that the old Spanish cannon had been moved to its new site during the morning, despite students having all but barred the way. The 6,000-pound gun had been transferred from its resting place for decades on the Alexander Graham Junior High School lawn to a new site on the lawn of City Hall, to the jeers, pleadings and wailings of a few students who insisted that their cannon could not be moved. But it was nevertheless all done in the course of 90 minutes. Early in the morning, a City Government crew, under the direction of the City engineer and the City Street superintendent, had driven onto the school lawn, bringing two hydraulic frontloaders for lifting the cannon, and a truck for carrying it. Because of the gathering of protesting students, the City engineer suggested that they wait until classes convened as there would not be many students around at that time. The temporary forbearance had worked and the cannon was removed and replaced on the lawn of City Hall without incident. City Manager Henry Yancey, who came from his office to supervise the final moments of the operation, said that the cannon would not be anchored at the new site, expressing the belief that it was heavy enough to remain in place on its own weight.
In Phoenix, Ariz., grasshoppers had taken over the city, with millions of them causing a mess underfoot. Windows and automobile windshields were covered with the pests, and at night, they obscured headlights and streetlamps. Entomologists blamed unusually favorable breeding weather for the plague, an infestation which the state had been fighting for weeks. Probably Commies…
In Bennettsville, S.C., Presbyterians of the Pee Dee had a new motto: "If you can't whip 'em, buy 'em out." For some months, the area presbytery had plans for conference grounds, and some 600 acres had been purchased, two lakes planned and an entrance road made ready for paving. In planning the wooded retreat, however, surveyors for the church had found and destroyed no less than five stills on its property.
In Shelby, N.C., three men charged with a string of safe-crackings had waived a preliminary hearing this date in Recorder's Court and were ordered held for trial on the charges in Cleveland County Superior Court, with bond set at $3,000 each. They were accused of stealing $8,700 during the previous two months. The sheriff said that the men had been charged with a break-in in Caldwell County near Lenoir in March, which had netted $7,500, an attempted burglary in Polkville in Cleveland County on April 11, which had been interrupted by police, a $400 safe job at Robbinsville in Graham County on April 18, a burglary of a Marion auto firm on April 27, when thieves reportedly had taken $800, the safe and possibly a truck, and an attempted burglary at Spruce Pines on May 3, when thieves had been unable to break into a safe. The sheriff said that no money had been recovered and that he and two SBI agents had arrested one of the three men at a hospital in Elizabethton in eastern Tennessee after the man had been injured in an automobile accident, had captured a second member of the trio by calling him and asking him to visit the first man in the hospital, and that the third man had been arrested in a store in Johnson City, Tenn., where he was purchasing a raincoat, apparently to use as a disguise. No, his name was not John Mitchell, even though caught in the vicinity of the Newfound Gap...
In Cincinnati, a classified ad had appeared in the Cincinnati Enquirer during the week, producing a lot of calls and inquiries. The ad read: "Wanted to buy—poison ivy leaves and stems, up to 1,000 pounds, 35 cents a pound." The calls had come from farmers, suburbanites, orchardists and gardeners, who usually spent a lot of money trying to get rid of poison ivy and now were being offered cash for it. The inquiries were from persons just wanting to know what anyone wanted with poison ivy. The production manager for the company which had inserted the ad had explained that his firm manufactured a tincture from poison ivy to make persons immune to it, that previously it had been sold mostly through prescription but now could be bought in a drugstore. He said that he had more than 30 calls in a day and a half and that two men, who had offered to bring fresh plants in 400-pound lots, had gotten the job. One of the inquiries was: "How do people pick poison ivy without being affected?" The spokesman for the company said that some people were not allergic to it and they never had any trouble. Then there was the question, "Isn't 35 cents a pound for poison ivy a little high?" To that, he had said, "Well, we didn't expect so great a response."
A photograph on the page shows evangelist Billy Graham speaking to some 4,000 convicts gathered on the baseball field at San Quentin Prison just north of San Francisco. Reverend Graham had called it "one of the most moving sights I have ever seen." He had later visited Death Row, where he spoke to 18 of 21 condemned men awaiting execution.
There was nothing on the front page this date, as was the case the previous two days, regarding the first-degree murder trial in Lincoln, Neb., of Charles Starkweather, although there was a small item on an inside page, indicating that the reading by the defense of some of the confessions of Charles, some of which directly conflicted, had continued the previous day, begun Wednesday. Charles had also begun his testimony the previous day, claiming that he had acted in self-defense in each of the killings he committed. In some of his statements, he admitted killing all ten people in January, while in other statements he claimed that his 14-year old girlfriend, Caril Ann Fugate, had killed the female victims, particularly 17-year old Carol King, the girlfriend of 17-year old Robert Jensen, for whose murder Charles was currently only on trial. The evidence showed that Ms. King had been killed at about the same time as Mr. Jensen. He contended that he had initially sought to clear Caril of any involvement, explaining the conflicting statements, but now was telling the truth, having said in an earlier letter of April 9 sent to the prosecutor that "she was the most trigger-happy person" he had ever seen. The defense had pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, ultimately having to produce evidence that he did not know the nature and quality of his act or that he did not know the act was wrong when he committed it. The apparent effort was to show that Charles acted under the delusion that he could resort to self-defense, even if the facts did not support such a defense for the fact that Charles was the initial aggressor in the killing of Mr. Jensen—as with the other victims—and did not undertake an unequivocal retreat from his aggression prior to the claimed advance toward him by Mr. Jensen. There were no witnesses, of course, to the claimed aggression other than Charles and Caril in any event, and Caril was not testifying in the case. She was awaiting a determination by the State Supreme Court as to whether she could be tried as an adult or had to be tried in juvenile court. She was also charged as an accomplice in the murder of Mr. Jensen. Charles appeared a little nutty, but his mother apparently thought he was okay.
You can get you some banana nut cake in Lincoln for 68 cents. We suppose it has nuts in it, as most of them do.
Trump says it's not like jacking up a car—not the banana cake, but the enrichment of the uranium by Iran.
On the editorial page, "The Perimeter Road Plan Is Sound" indicates that the County Commission appeared to be beating a hasty and confused retreat from the concept of orderly growth in the perimeter area, that in response to citizen protests of a proposed belt line in the perimeter, the commissioners had withdrawn their previous endorsement of plans for that road and had left the impression of distaste for plans to construct other such roads in the future.
It indicates that the proposed belt roads were key parts of a larger plan for healthy and orderly community development in the perimeter area, the plan having been to provide thoroughfares for directing convenient movement of traffic around and into the city.
The Commission had given the appearance of bowing to Topsy, appearing to ignore the expensive problems inherent in unplanned growth, and the necessity of reserving at present rights-of-way for an adequate and convenient system of streets to serve county residents. It suggests that if the Commission would allow itself some thoughtfulness, it would see the wisdom of its original endorsement of the belt road plans and act accordingly.
"General, We Knew It All the Time" indicates that the Office of the Army chief of staff had issued an official decree which stated: "Memo: D:C.SL06. Subject: Use of Terminology, Korean Conflict. The terminology of 'Korean War' will be used in lieu of the terminology 'Korean Conflict' in all correspondence, publications and briefings. Authority: Office, Chief of Staff."
It finds it in a way an amazing admission, that the Pentagon had not only been insisting on calling the war a "conflict" for eight years, but that former President Truman was still referring to it as a "police action" just a few months earlier. In polite diplomatic society, it had also been called an "incident", an "episode", an "encounter", and simply "the hostilities".
It indicates that to the men who had lived, bled and frequently died in it, the word had always been "war". More than a million men, mostly Chinese, had been deployed on the Communist side by the time the Armistice negotiations had finally opened in 1953. On the U.N. side, there were troops from the U.S., South Korea and 15 other U.N. member nations. It had always been a war to the casualties, too, numbering 136,916 in the U.S. armed forces alone, including 33,417 American battle deaths.
"It had all the earmarks, all the while—the horror, the filth, the misery, the stench and, finally, the utter hopelessness of war. When men died they died like dogs and often in great numbers. It is small comfort that nobody used a nuclear weapon. A fatal wound is just as fatal with a 'conventional' weapon."
It concludes that the generals were a little late with the word, that it had been a war, which "was damnably apparent at the time."
"The Case of the Bogus Bobwhites" indicates that a neighbor's news had been startling, that a bobwhite had built a nest and was incubating four eggs in a backyard sandbox usually inhabited by the neighbor's children. But there was no accounting for the ways of birds. The writer had told the neighbor that he would do what he could to see that the eggs were hatched and to keep dogs, cats and children away from the nest in the sandbox.
It had taken a neutral approach to birds since reading a dispatch from China that the Communists recently had slaughtered 4,310,000 sparrows because they had been eating grain, a victory for the "the people". The People's Daily in Peking had said: "All must join battle ardently and courageously; we must persevere with the doggedness of revolutionaries."
So it had come to hope strongly that the mother bird would be able to hatch her brood and lead them safely away from the sandbox. The days had passed in some suspense, while neither a dog, cat nor child had poked around the nest. Even in the worst of the heavy rains, it had persisted. Finally, two birds had hatched, with blue feathers, whereas bobwhites had brown and white feathers. The neighbor had a red face, and the event had restored its old confidence in the wariness of bobwhites.
A piece from the Richmond News Leader, titled, "Skill at the $2 Window", indicates that a couple of months earlier, it had written an editorial stating that there would not be immediate consequences from an investigation by the General Assembly of pari-mutuel horse racing in Virginia, even if a study commission favored the plan, as Virginia's Constitution prohibited lotteries and so, its editorial had asserted, would stand in the way.
But an opinion of the Supreme Court of Arkansas had just been delivered which gave it pause, as Arkansas also had a provision in its State Constitution against lotteries, including the same elements as that in Virginia's Constitution, those being prize, consideration and chance. But the Arkansas Court had held that pari-mutuel gambling, whether on dog racing or horse racing, was not a lottery, as only two of the elements were present, prize and consideration, but picking winners was not determined to be a matter of chance but rather only a matter of skill, according to the Arkansas Court.
It said: "The outcome of a horse race is affected not only by luck but also by such factors as the physical condition and qualities of the competing horses, the ability of the trainers, who take care of the animals and the skill of the jockey. There is available to the betting public a printed racing form that provides information about some of the factors we have mentioned and that contains a record of each horse's performance in prior races. This information was shown to enable the bettors to bet 'with more discrimination and with improved chances of selecting or picking a winner.' Upon these facts we conclude that the bettor's choice is not governed solely by luck and that pari-mutuel betting upon horse races is therefore not a lottery."
It indicates that a young lady of its acquaintance had recently witnessed her first races in New York in the company of her father, and she had timidly put $2 on Eric's Boy in the first race, because she had once known a boy name Eric, and the horse had paid $3.70. In the third race, she had picked Loverboynik because it was a cute name and played him to show, and he had paid $5.60. In the fifth race, there was nothing to it, as she placed her accumulated winnings on Dottie's Pick, because her name was Dorothy, and had won a couple of hundred dollars. The fourth race had been won by Daddy Luck, whom she had picked because she felt lucky, daddy. "What better reason?"
Drew Pearson, in Rome, indicates that the forthcoming election would be completely free, with every shade of political opinion not only able but required to vote, a purer demonstration of democracy than in U.S. presidential elections because only 60 percent of Americans voted. When that was contrasted with the complete suppression of democracy under Mussolini, it showed the tremendous political progress in the interim. Also evident was that there had been more economic progress in Italy than in any other European nation except West Germany, with Italy's gold deposits in New York at 1.4 billion dollars, only less than those of England and Germany.
On the surface, Rome was a bustling city, bulging with traffic problems, even knocking holes in the ancient Wall of the Emperors to let more traffic pass onto Christopher Columbus Highway, and using the castle of Emperor Caesar Augustus as traffic police headquarters.
From the depths of depression and discouragement, as Mr. Pearson had seen the country after the war, Italy had accomplished a modern economic miracle, for which Americans could take a little credit, but basically it had been from the indefatigable energy and determination of the Italian people. At present, Italy received no foreign aid from the U.S. except for a barter deal by which Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson had gotten rid of some of the surplus tobacco and cotton in exchange for local lira, some of which were used for the expense of the U.S. Embassy in Rome. He notes parenthetically that Congressman Adam Clayton Powell had been able to come abroad the previous year and pick up enough lira at the American Embassy to rent a villa along the Adriatic at a time when he was supposed to be voting in Washington, that the Embassy unfortunately had no power to tell a Congressman how he was to spend his counterpart funds.
Outwardly, there were ample signs of Italian prosperity and efficiency. Not only did the trains live up to Mussolini's proud boast of running on time, but the airplanes also ran on time and there was a new glass and aluminum railroad station, plus an airport which would have made Mussolini green with envy.
Italian land reforms, tax reforms, oil development and highway improvement had revitalized the nation's economic structure. The Christian Democrats, who had governed Italy since the war, deserved credit for those difficult and sometimes unpopular reforms. It had been former Premier Antonio Segni, one of the largest land-owners in Italy, who had primarily written the land reform bill and written it in such a way that his own land would suffer severely. Many of the largest estates in Italy had been owned by Christian Democrats or the Catholic Church. But the law was passed and was being carried out, though it would take time, partly because landless peasants, settling on new land, required tools, houses and seed.
Marquis Childs, in Copenhagen, finds prosperity characterizing the surface of life almost everywhere in Western Europe, including in Denmark, with the shops full of attractive items to purchase and the price level kept down by a fairly stern Government fiscal policy. Car ownership had doubled in the previous six or seven years. While unemployment was comparatively high at more than 10 percent, that was attributed primarily to seasonal factors, including a late spring.
Yet behind Europe's prosperity, it had been made clear by the representatives of the North Atlantic powers who had gathered in Copenhagen the previous week, that there was fear that the U.S. recession would be exported, with serious, if not disastrous, results. Thus far, it had produced little effect, belying the gloomy predictions that if the U.S. suffered an economic setback, it would be worse in Europe. Figures for the registered unemployed in Britain for mid-April had shown a total of 440,000, 2 percent of the number employed, only .5 percent above the amount in April, 1957. Britain had just announced a substantial rise in the gold and dollar balance.
Many Europeans believed, however, that it might be the crest of a wave which, if it were to break at present, could carry the whole structure down with it. American prosperity had begun almost immediately after the war and the European economy had been rehabilitated much later, with large amounts of U.S. aid. Europeans were aware of the threat that a recession started in America could spread to Europe and were wanting to know the steps which the U.S. was proposing to take to combat it.
One of Denmark's leading bankers, quite friendly to the U.S., had told Mr. Childs of an editorial in the Economist of London, titled, "Appeal to America", in which a plea was presented for rapid measures to make sure that the flow of international trade, already slackening somewhat, did not further slacken. While the measures recommended were of a technical nature, they added up to remedies for the shortage of gold and dollars threatening the movement of international commerce. One proposed remedy was for the U.S. to underwrite the sterling area exchange as a facility for the world's business.
Proposals of that type undoubtedly
would be taken up when Prime Minister Harold Macmillan visited the
President in Washington the following month. The Economist had
concluded: "The danger is not that the approach will be met by a
reasoned obduracy as by an invincible bewilderment; it will be a
tragedy if the only American reaction is that this whole argument is
very complicated and probably exaggerated and that the wise thing for
a businessman's administration to do is to keep quiet and lock up the
spoons
The North Atlantic Council had uttered brave words about the need for economic cooperation to ensure prosperity. There was an opportunity to make good in that area, with the U.S. of necessity taking the lead. Denmark had reason to know what economic nationalism and the lack of cooperation meant, as nearly 60 percent of its exports were agricultural and in recent years, many countries had cut down their purchases by recourse to subsidies to underwrite their farmers' high-cost production. Other nations had dumped their butter and farm produce on the market, thereby greatly depressing the price.
Mr. Childs indicates that it was only a sample of the trouble ahead unless there were constructive cooperation as well as talk about cooperation. The European Common Market, created by France, Germany, Belgium, Holland, Italy and Luxembourg, could work to expand productivity if it became a part of a larger free-trade area. Or it could serve as an instrument of regional rivalry and further upset the free movement of goods.
Germany, as with the U.S., had a vast hoard of hard reserves. It could be used, at least in part, for the common good of the West, or it could go entirely to nationalistic ends and further unbalance the structure of Europe's prosperity. Resentment of German economic expansionism was growing rapidly.
He suggests it as some of the problems which were beneath the prosperous surface in Europe and indicates that Europe could do a lot if the will to cooperate really existed, but that it was only from the U.S. that the principal affirmation could come, and Europe was beginning to wait with growing anxiety for an answer from the U.S.
Robert C. Ruark, in Palamos, Spain, indicates that whenever he saw the Daughters of the American Revolution meddling in other people's business, or when he read a fresh communiqué from the WCTU, he became mad enough to bust. The first time he had been upset with the DAR had been 20 years earlier when they refused to allow Marian Anderson to sing in Washington's Constitution Hall because she was black. He finds that it made as much sense as their backing down on their own citizenship award recently because the individual was foreign-born, or as much sense as its recent injunction for the U.S. to withdraw from the U.N. to avoid getting mixed up with foreigners.
The heritage of which the DAR was so proud was composed of foreigners and the sons of foreigners, and in many instances, had been crooks, rabble, hot-eyed zealots, bad hats and banished younger sons. Many had been men of vision and nearly all were brave. The nicer element had been called "Tory" as a word of hate, and generally spat upon. But now the descendants of the revolutionaries had become "defenders" and possibly would have been shot for their views in the earlier times of their ancestry. They meddled in everything, from literature to art to Arctic claim-staking, and religion. They opposed socialized medical care in any form, but he guarantees that anyone who would spend ten days in a hospital without Blue Cross or a kindred plan would be right back for shock treatment when they received the bill.
The DAR had also been strongly opposed to "our husbands, sons, and grandsons serving shoulder to shoulder with Yugoslavs, Czechs, and other Communist troops." He says that he would rather fight a war shoulder to shoulder any day with anybody than against them.
He believes that the DAR should stay at home and bake cakes, hold literary discussions and find time to be nicer to their husbands. "A militant woman is an abomination before her hen-picked spouse, especially when she starts to protect the mental morals of 'our boys' overseas."
The WCTU and other "blue-nose groups" had been more or less directly responsible for the greatest period of serious crime and corruption ever in the country, during Prohibition. People had drunk as much or more than at present, and the ghost of Carrie Nation still hovered over the land.
He indicates that if the women of those organizations looked a little less grim, he might not mind them so much, but that the DAR members all seemed to look like cartoons by the late Helen Hokinson. The militant groups sought to impose their will on the masses, male and female, domestic and foreign, and that was not democracy but a form of fascism, even if it was brought through pressure to a legalizing vote.
A letter writer from Hamlet suggests that Bernard Baruch had been correct in assessing what had caused the current depression, indicating that it was costing the public too much to operate their government, that business had been going along well for awhile, probably too good for the public's good, and now there was an adjustment in the form of a depression. He suggests that things might get better probably after 1960, as the Republicans would abdicate in that year, not voluntarily, but at the instigation of a lot of Democrats.
A letter writer from Lenoir urges appreciation more for one's father, both on earth and in heaven. He had lost his own father and had missed him greatly, especially during the previous two years, realizing how much people needed their fathers to guide and be companions to them through life. He had found out after the death of his father that he could not, as he previously thought, do anything. He urges listening to one's father, obeying him and loving him until one's dying day, that one would never know how he would be missed until he was gone.
A letter from J. R. Cherry, Jr., indicates that he had read the May 8 editorial opposing the Jenner-Butler bill, based on the argument put forth against it by the "incurable egghead", Senator Thomas Hennings of Missouri, who had found the bill reminiscent of the court-packing plan of 1937. Mr. Cherry says that the same principle for which conservatives had fought in opposing that plan was now at stake in their defense of the Jenner-Butler type of legislation, that being "constitutional government". He says that FDR had wanted to pack the court because it would not approve New Deal legislation, which would have "perverted and circumvented the Constitution". In 1958, conservatives were supporting the Jenner-Butler type of legislation because the Court, itself, "had been accomplishing for several years the same dirty business that the executive branch failed to accomplish in 1937…"
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