The Charlotte News

Monday, May 19, 1958

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from Paris that General Charles de Gaulle, at a press conference this date, had repudiated the role of dictator, but said that he remained ready to try to lead France out of chaos. The wartime hero had described himself as "a man belonging to nobody but belonging to all", saying: "Have I ever attacked the fundamental liberties of the Republic? No. I restored them. Would you have me at 67 start a career as a dictator?" He had made it clear that he believed the present situation, with party enmities in Paris and the Army nearly in revolt in Algeria, was hopeless, indicating that the parties had betrayed France. After his statement, he had taken questions for 30 minutes, limiting the questions to those concerning French institutions and relationships with Algeria. In referring to the previous four years in North Africa, he said that the present situation could lead to an extremely grave national crisis, but could also "be the start of a kind of resurrection," that in the present state of confusion, the party regime could not and would not solve the enormous problems of France, its association with the peoples of Africa and within the communities living in Algeria. He ascribed the rioting in Algeria and the emotional fever there to the failure of the regime in Paris, that the population of Algeria was looking elsewhere, outside the parliamentary combination, for a way to end its troubles. Under those conditions, he said, the Army, which had been able to sense that feeling, had prevented disorder, seeing the "mediocrity" which prevailed. He said that he was a man alone, with no party, no organization, one who for six years had engaged in no political action and for three years had made no declaration, belonging to no one and yet belonging to all. He then said that he was going to return to his village and remain at the disposition of the country. As he departed, shouts were heard outside the hotel where the press conference had been held, proclaiming, "De Gaulle to power". He had spoken to a room packed with an audience of nearly 700. As he spoke, the first signs of a Communist-called order to stop work were being observed in Paris, as some subway lines had halted and many buses had returned to their garages, with police on the alert at every nerve center of the city.

In Beirut, Lebanon, two bombs had exploded in a crowded vegetable market this date, with many persons having been killed and wounded. Security forces had moved swiftly into the area and arrested about 150 persons. The vegetable dealers had defied in opposition a general strike order and opened for business. For ten days, housewives had been unable to purchase fresh vegetables, fresh meats or other foods in the face of rioting, bombing, sniping and a general strike called by foes of the country's pro-Western regime. For the previous three days, however, Beirut had been comparatively quiet, in contrast to the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli, and some merchants had decided to defy the opposition and seek to recoup some of their losses by opening. The vegetable market had been the first to open and was bustling with activity when the bombs had exploded. Within minutes, it was deserted, except for security forces and ambulance crews. Few other businesses had opened. In Tripoli, the Government again held control following a weekend of bitter fighting. At least 60 persons had been reported as killed in the bloodiest fight of Lebanon's internal strife. Government forces had finally stormed through the streets of Tripoli to end the fighting. Another reported factor was an order by a top opposition leader for his forces to cease fighting because casualties were growing. President Camille Chamoun charged Egyptian Premier Gamal Abdel Nasser of the United Arab Republic, consisting of Egypt and Syria, with inciting Lebanon's Moslems to revolt. The Moslems wanted the Government to align its policy with that of Premier Nasser. They also feared that President Chamoun, a Christian, would have the Constitution amended to permit his re-election to another six-year term. Tripoli had been the chief center of resistance to the Government. Rioting had first broken out there ten days earlier and the U.S. Information Service library had been sacked.

In Jakarta, Indonesia, the chief of the Army had ordered a general mobilization of Indonesian males this date, indicating that the situation in the nation was tense.

In Stuttgart, West Germany, Socialist leader Erich Ollenhauer had accused Chancellor Konrad Adenauer this date of leading West Germany down a dangerous road to "new militarist and nationalist adventures" by agreeing to accept atomic weapons.

Union officials had asked this date the Senate Labor subcommittee to repeal key provisions of the Taft-Hartley Act, but management witnesses had urged that the law be strengthened.

A railway labor spokesman accused the railroads this date of putting up a phony poor mouth in seeking Federal Government aid.

The American Municipal Association this date urged Congress to convert urban renewal into a major crash program to counter the recession.

The President planned to go to Gettysburg the following day to vote in the Pennsylvania primary, and then travel to New York for a major speech the following night on the nation's economy.

At Cape Canaveral, Fla., the Jupiter intermediate-range missile apparently was the first ballistic weapon to solve the challenge of re-entry to the earth's atmosphere, the Army spokesman at the missile test center having agreed that there had been a successful re-entry after an almost perfect launch of the Jupiter shortly after midnight the previous day. Some 4.5 hours after the launch, the nose cone, the first full-sized warhead ever mounted on a Jupiter IRBM, had been retrieved from the Atlantic by frogmen and the crew of a Navy auxiliary submarine rescue ship. The precious nose cone was taken to Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Ala., where Army scientists would study its instruments to learn the secrets of re-entry to the earth's atmosphere without the object burning up from the intense friction. It had been the first time that a full-scale ballistic missile nose cone had been recovered intact, with the only prior recovery having been the previous August 8, when a four-foot nose cone had been retrieved from the sea. Most details of the missile's latest performance were classified, but it had been reported unofficially that the missile was fired over a range of just over 1,600 miles. After its liftoff, stations along the South Atlantic test range had helped to pinpoint its location through signals relayed by telemetry equipment in the missile's nose cone. The firing had been so accurate that the Army and Navy observers aboard ships as far away as ten miles from the impact area had traced the nose cone's course as it made its re-entry.

In Frankfurt, West Germany, it was reported that 18 U.S. Air Force Globemaster transports this date had arrived at various bases in Germany and France for possible use in the Middle East. The Globemasters had been ordered to West Germany by the U.S. Government on Saturday, possibly to evacuate Americans from Lebanon or to ferry arms to that nation. The exact whereabouts of the three-deckered C-124's was an Air Force secret. At least five of them had landed at a Frankfurt airport the previous night, and then departed during the morning for other bases in Europe. An Air Force spokesman said that there had not yet been orders for them to fly to Lebanon, that they would remain in Europe awaiting further orders. Several of the planes which had passed through Frankfurt had reportedly gone on to a base near Charlemont, France, a spokesman indicating that they could not be kept in Frankfurt because of the "parking problem". The Frankfurt base also had on alert six of the 12 Globemasters which were regularly stationed there. When the U.S. had sent arms to Jordan and Tunisia the previous year, that airbase had been used as a loading point.

In Vatican City, 70-year old Catholic Archbishop of Chicago Samuel Stritch, whose right arm had been amputated three weeks earlier, had suffered a grave stroke this date. He had previously been recovering well from the amputation, made necessary by a blood clot in the arm. The previous day, he had celebrated Mass for the first time since the operation. A medical bulletin said that his prognosis was reserved for the present. He had been spending part of each day at Chicago House, the residence headquarters for priests and students from Chicago studying in Rome.

In Paris, it was reported that Dr. Robert Oppenheimer, the U.S. atomic scientist, had departed this date for Israel after a month of lecturing at the University of Paris.

At Point of the Mountain, Ut., a 21-year old man who was facing a death sentence by hanging on June 7, said to a reporter: "I want to die, man. I'm fed up with it all." He had been convicted of killing a grocery clerk, 50, in a $50 hold-up in Salt Lake City in August, 1956. He had also been accused of killing a bystander in the store at the time, but was tried only regarding the murder of the clerk. He had refused to appeal for clemency, indicating that he did not want life imprisonment, that his parents had sought to have his sentence commuted to life. "They think you can be rehabilitated in prison … but rehabilitation comes from within." Despite his occasional lapse into "bop talk", his conversation had shown evidence of the reading he had accomplished during his 16 months on death row, including medical journals, psychiatric texts and legal briefs for his case. He said that he guessed he was "just a rebel". He was the oldest of five children raised as a Mormon, indicating that he had turned away from the church and quit school in the 11th grade, that after 18 months in the Air Force, he had gone AWOL, committed a robbery in Colorado, was given an undesirable discharge while serving nine months in a reformatory. He said he had been out five weeks on parole when he had shot the two people in the grocery store. His rebellion extended into prison, where after letting his hair and beard grow for 13 months, he had recently shaved his head and face bald to irritate prison officials who had ordered his hair trimmed. His execution would be Utah's first hanging in 46 years. He had been given the choice of hanging or firing squad, and had chosen hanging "because of the publicity … the novelty … to put the state to more inconvenience." He was spending his final days listening to radio, music, reading books and scanning newspaper clippings about his case, which he kept appended to the wall of his cell. When asked whether he was scared, he said: "Not particularly. When you live with the thought of dying so long, you get used to it. I may get shook up at the last minute, but I don't think so." When asked whether his religious upbringing provided solace at present, he said: "There is too much hate in me to accept religion. If I were going on a religious kick, I'd have done it long before now." When asked why he had turned to crime, he said: "I'm lazy. Three psychiatrists said I don't feel normal emotions but they say I'm legally sane. I knew it was wrong to kill … but I don't feel any remorse. I can't say I have any beef about my environment or parents or anything." When asked again why he had turned to killing, he had grinned, thrown up his hands and shrugged, "Man, I don't know…" It is not known, of course, whether he had served as an anti-society role model for Gary Gilmore, who had also had a negative visceral reaction to Mormonism and who later would be convicted of killing a motel manager during the course of a robbery and would take a similar approach to his execution, also in Utah, but choosing death by firing squad in early 1977, becoming the first execution in the United States since prior to the Supreme Court's 1972 decision in Furman v. Georgia, declaring the death penalty cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment in the way it was then being administered, varying by the states and often disproportionately by race and economic class as to who received its imposition, finding that to provide more uniformity, states had to set forth the framework statutorily for its imposition, eventually approving in Gregg v. Georgia in 1976, six months before Mr. Gilmore's execution, three weeks before the commission of two murders, the second of which sent him to death row, a statutory scheme based on specifically identified "special circumstances", going beyond the mere premeditation element necessary for first-degree murder, such "special circumstances" including multiple victims, lying in wait, torture, poisoning, murder for hire, commission of a murder during the course of a violent or serious felony, such as kidnaping, burglary, rape or robbery, and numerous other such additional factors distinguishing the murder from one, for instance, where a person, without motivation for financial gain, simply walks up to an individual on the street and shoots the person between the eyes without apparent reason. It remains first-degree murder in most circumstances, because the element of premeditation can occur without any lengthy deliberation, depending on circumstances, including the time to aim a gun and pull the trigger. But there is, in that scenario, no special circumstance to enable imposition of the death penalty, as long as there is no stalking, lying in wait or commission of another separate felony in the process, or other such statutorily specified special circumstance in a given jurisdiction. The theory behind the statutory schemes, in addition to greater uniformity of imposition of the most extreme punishment which the society administers, is one of deterrence, such that the person engaged in a violent felony, such as rape or kidnaping, formerly death penalty eligible crimes in many states, might take more care to preserve life if realizing that there would be no possibility of facing the death penalty unless the perpetrator committed a homicide in the course of the crime, taking away the "nothing left to lose" aspect.

In this scenario, however, nothing would have changed between 1958 and 1976, the profit-motive for the homicide in question, in addition to the means of commission, being the necessary element to warrant electrocution, even if no heater was involved to accomplish the demise of the decedent. Charles Starkweather would have later also been doomed from the very first instance of his homicidal rampage, the killing of the young service station attendant on December 1, 1957, as the police had concluded, before connecting that crime with Charles, that the motive had been robbery, as apparently it had been. Had he been less impetuous and used better "judgment", as his father suggested during his testimony in the case the prior week, he might later have seen this advertisement for Fairmont Ice Cream, which had also appeared in the Lincoln Star by March, 1958, thought that pretty cool as Fairmont, Ind., was where James Dean was raised, not to mention the association also of Lincoln Logs, and realized that the stuffed animal from the service station was not that important as a Christmas offering to 14-year old Caril after all, certainly not worth murdering someone and destroying a young lifetime of aspirations and dreams, and that he could please her, no doubt, just as easily, if not more so, by purchasing two half-gallons of the ice cream, sharing them with Caril, and then adding 60 cents from his earnings with two bells, one from each carton, to obtain the nice, little Smokey Bear Cabin, into which to drop coins as in a fountain in Rome, and nurture their traveling urges that way, perhaps finding some nice aphorisms of Benjamin Franklin regarding saving to go along with it, not needing then to ring the bell in untoward ways, until finally they could venture into the sunset, actualizing together their need to escape Lincoln without all of the complications they faced otherwise along the way, and leaving everyone else alive and well in the process.

In Greensboro, N.C., the Rev. James Cole of Marion, S.C., self-proclaimed Grand Wizard of the North Carolina Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, said that he would announce his candidacy this date as a write-in candidate for governor of South Carolina. He was in Greensboro for an "evangelistic" speaking engagement at two Baptist churches, telling a Greensboro reporter that he would wage an active campaign to receive write-in votes in the race. He said that his platform would consist of only two issues, the race issue and the Communist Party—obviously ready to declare himself a black Communist to establish a large tent for all of his followers to join hands in inspirational uplift. His appearances around the state had been few since he had been convicted the previous March in Robeson County for inciting to riot among Lumbee Indians the prior January 18, in which his Klan rally near Maxton had been broken up by the Lumbees, chasing the Klan members away with guns and sticks. He had been sentenced to serve between 18 and 24 months in Central Prison in Raleigh, and was presently free on a $3,000 bond pending appeal to the State Supreme Court, the case not being scheduled for hearing until December.

In Gastonia, N.C., a Boy Scout executive and his wife, a schoolteacher, had been rescued from their burning home during the morning this date after they had collapsed at the front door. Both were in serious condition in the hospital. The woman, still incoherent, said that she had been smoking when she and her husband had gone to bed the previous night, and that she had awakened to a fire in the bedroom. She grabbed a pillow and tried to beat out the flames, but her clothing had caught fire. The man then awakened and attempted to extinguish the fire, but his clothing had also caught fire. A block away, neighbors had heard screams and one had run to the house and with two other men, had knocked down the door, finding the couple unconscious at the threshold. The rescuers dragged them outside and carried them across the street.

In Santa Barbara, Calif., actor Ronald Colman, 67, had died this date 24 hours after being hospitalized with a lung infection.

In New York, singer Alan Dale had received numerous cuts on his hands and forearms after falling down stairs and crashing into a glass showcase in a nightclub affray early this date. The 29-year old singer had nearly a dozen stitches at a hospital and was then released. Had he been a comedian, one could have said that he had left the audience, in stitches.

In Hagerstown, Md., police had used tennis rackets to swat down and dispatch a band of bats which had invaded a nursing home, explaining that the tennis rackets could not be felt coming toward the bats.

On the editorial page, "Help Is Needed in the 'Hinterlands'" indicates that the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra was in need of an angel, as it was suffering monetarily. In modern America, the chore of patronizing the arts had increasingly fallen to the economic nobility and a few generous foundations. Aside from a brief attempt during the New Deal years of the Depression, the Government had refused to subsidize the arts.