The Charlotte News
Tuesday, May 20, 1958
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from Paris that Premier Pierre Pflimlin had been greeted by applause this date in the National Assembly as he stood up to seek a virtual vote of confidence to meet the worst postwar crisis France had faced. Applause had erupted from all except the right wing when he declared that his Government would crack down on all extremists, whether on the right or left. The moderate Premier delivered a blistering attack on the rebellious Gaullists in Algeria. Moderate parties were reported to be banding together in self-protection to turn back the bid by General Charles de Gaulle to take over the Government with extraordinary powers. The Premier asked the deputies to give his six-day old Government a renewal of the emergency powers to fight the Moslem rebellion in Algeria, where General De Gaulle's civilian and military backers had seized control. The special powers bill had cleared a committee of the interior by a 22 to 3 vote, with the moderate parties supporting the bill, while extremists of the far right opposed it and 11 Communists on the left had abstained. Many thought that vote indicated a trend for the Assembly vote. The Premier appeared before the Assembly shortly after his Cabinet had announced that prompt security measures had paralyzed the action of extremist groups who had been preparing violence. The vote on the special powers for Algeria was the first test of strength for the Premier after the renewed offer by General De Gaulle the previous day to assume the powers of state. The vote of the Assembly might not occur until after 12 or more hours of meetings and debate. A favorable vote would be a victory for the Premier, but only a minor setback for General De Gaulle, whose shadow was likely to loom large over every Government action until the conflict between Paris and the Gaullists in Algeria was settled. The Premier declared the Gaullist committees of public safety, which had been established in Algeria, to be instruments for subversion, indicating that a quasi-revolutionary situation existed there and that agitators had exploited the passion of the people in the cities.
Also in Paris, it was reported that the potato was the root of big trouble, that to some Parisians, it loomed more important than the political crisis, with one woman, who cleaned offices for a living, indicating that it might mean revolution. The crisis had developed from two factors, one being political and the other economic. Few, if any, potatoes were arriving from strife-torn North African farms, and French farmers were boycotting the Paris market. Early in the spring, the Government had imposed a price ceiling of about 10 cents per pound on potatoes, a staple of the French diet. Demanding at least 22 cents per pound, farmers were refusing to haul their new crop to market in Paris. Wherever potatoes were being sold, there were long lines of housewives.
The President this date had signed legislation increasing military pay, with the aim of making career service more attractive. The first year cost was estimated at 500 million dollars. The increases, effective the following month, would apply to most persons on active duty in the Air Force, Army, Navy and Marines with more than two years of service. Draftees and young officers in their initial required duty hours would receive no increase. Increases in base pay ranged from $599 per month for the five members of the Joint Chiefs, down to $6.20 per month for some privates and apprentice seamen. Reservists on active duty or taking periodic training would share in the increases. Retired personnel would receive a flat 6 percent cost-of-living increase, except for retired three- and four-star generals, who would receive larger increases. The increases also applied to uniformed members of the Coast Guard, the Public Health Service, and the Coast and Geodetic Survey. The military payroll already ran to ten billion dollars per year, and the increase for the first year was estimated at 576.4 million, or about 64 million above the top amount recommended by the Pentagon, with the hope being that the money would be saved in the long run by retaining men trained at great expense. The new plan had originated the previous year with a Presidential commission headed by the president of General Electric Co. The commission said that a basic pay revision was needed to retain trained and skilled experts for the complex new weapon systems which included missiles, supersonic aircraft and nuclear submarines. The President had recommended a modification of the commission's plan early in the year and that recommendation had undergone numerous Congressional revisions before eventually receiving overwhelming approval. The House initially had voted for increases of more than 683 million, but later had accepted the smaller amount passed by the Senate.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee this date ordered an inquiry into U.S.-Latin American relations in the wake of the attacks on Vice-President Nixon during his recent tour of South America. The study had been assigned to a subcommittee chaired by Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon. Senator Theodore Green of Rhode Island, chairman of the full Committee, said that the investigation had been voted without objection on a motion made by Senator Morse. The action had been taken shortly after Senator Morse had told reporters that the State Department's own testimony showed that Mr. Nixon's South American tour was a "trouble-causing trip" which the Vice-President should not have undertaken. Robert Murphy, Deputy Undersecretary of State for political affairs, had made the report to the Senators the previous day, saying that Mr. Nixon had been told in advance that there was danger of disturbances in Venezuela. The Committee also voted unanimously to set up another subcommittee to explore the need for more intensive examination of U.S. policies elsewhere in light of the recent anti-American demonstrations in Lebanon, Algeria, Indonesia, Burma and other countries. Senator Morse had provided his views to reporters, as the Foreign Relations Committee weighed testimony that Communist exploitation of Latin American grievances against U.S. economic policies had fanned mob violence against the Vice-President and Mrs. Nixon.
The Vice-President would discuss his trip to South America in a luncheon before the National Press Club the following day, and would reply to questions at the conclusion of the talk.
The President this date was reported to be gratified at the way his foreign aid authorization bill had won House passage with a comparatively small cut.
Secretary of State Dulles said this date that the U.S. was not barred by Russian threats from doing its duty anywhere in the world.
In London, it was reported that about 20,000 people had converged on Parliament from every corner of Britain this date for the country's largest demonstration against the hydrogen bomb. Anti-nuclear campaigners were three deep outside the House of Commons during the morning, lobbying with House members from their home districts.
In Jakarta, Indonesia, the Government had called off plans for a massive invasion of the Celebes and Halmaheras Islands and had launched hit-and-run raids on rebel strongholds in East Indonesia.
In New Delhi, Prime Minister Nehru this date started the holiday he was taking instead of the retirement period he wanted, a ten-day vacation in the Himalayan foothills of north India, the longest holiday the Prime Minister had taken since assuming office nearly 12 years earlier.
In Miami Beach, Fla., Governor Harold Handley of Indiana had said this date that an economic upturn was in sight for the country, but Governors G. Mennen Williams of Michigan and Robert Meyner of New Jersey had been less optimistic, as the three spoke at the 50th annual Governors Conference during panel discussions of the business recession and what to do about it. Governor Williams favored a cut in excise taxes on automobiles. He denied that the automobile industry had been instrumental in bringing on the recession. Governor Meyner believed that any tax reduction ought be part of an overall plan to stimulate the economy and boost purchasing power, that a public works or school construction program would be helpful for areas of real need. But Governor Handley had said that the nation had to be maintained on a sound business-like basis, protecting the amount of money available in the country. He also believed that the automobile industry had gotten to the point where they were pricing themselves out of the market. A majority of the governors present favored public works programs over a tax cut as a remedy for unemployment.
In Detroit, General Motors this date appealed to 330,000 hourly wage workers for prompt agreement to the only wage proposal which the company said it intended to make. G.M. president Harlow Curtice had made the appeal in a letter mailed to employees.
In Brunswick, Md., a Capital Airlines turbojet, with seven passengers and a crew of four aboard, had collided with a military airplane in clear skies above the Potomac River valley this date, with witnesses indicating that all 11 persons in the passenger plane had been killed. The pilot of the Maryland Air National Guard plane had parachuted to safety and was taken to a hospital, suffering from severe burns on his face and hands. The passenger plane had fallen into an open field, and according to a member of a volunteer fire department, bodies had been scattered everywhere. A reporter for a local newspaper said that there were more persons injured lying around. A nine-year old schoolboy who had been playing in a nearby schoolyard told police that he happened to look up and saw a large plane and a small plane collide, that the large plane had begun diving and trailing smoke, and he had seen a parachute come from the smaller one and float to the south.
In Amman, Jordan, an Air Lebanon airliner had made an emergency landing this date and burned on the ground. The 27 persons aboard had escaped without injury. The plane had been bound from the Jerusalem airport in the Jordanian section of the city, to Beirut.
In Fargo, N.D., it was reported that Representative Usher Burdick, 79, wanted to annul his February 28 marriage to his 30-year old secretary. His son, an attorney, had drawn up the complaint, contending that the wife "had no intention of consummating the marriage", and that her Reno divorce had been inadequate under the statutes of Virginia where they had been married, and thus the marriage had been void. She was Mr. Burdick's fourth wife. She had a four-year old son by a previous marriage to a man whom she had divorced more than a year earlier.
In Raleigh, it was reported that four of five inmates who had escaped from the State Hospital's ward for the criminally insane the previous night had been recaptured early this date. One of the four, 33, a former coal miner who had boasted of trying robbery to finance an assassination attempt of former President Truman, had been recaptured in Durham by neighboring Orange County sheriff's officers, while another, 30, serving a 15-year armed robbery sentence out of Mecklenburg County, remained at large. The escape had been discovered the previous night by an attendant making rounds. The five had sawn a hole through a steel screen which covered the ward's windows.
Rick O'Shay and his pal, Deuces Wilde, would join the comic strip section of the newspaper the following day, and it urges to "saddle-up, pardners, for a round-up of laughs." Here in 2025, we need no comic strip, as we get that dosage almost daily from Trump and his Trumpers, so unremittingly and unwittingly funny that it hurts to watch them daily making fools of themselves, while destroying the country they obviously hate, as they wave their little flags in mock "patriotism", worshiping at the horse-trough of bone-spurs Donny, making it official policy to divide the country by the red-hats and those "radical, leftist Democrat-Communists" who choose not to partake of the numbed red-hat mentality.
They are every bit as funny as Chuck.
On the editorial page, "Gen. De Gaulle Was Right but Oh My!" quotes General De Gaulle from a radio address delivered to his countrymen from London on June 23, 1940, remarking on the Nazis having overrun the country: "There is no longer on the soil of France herself any independent government capable of holding the interests of France and of the French overseas."
The previous day, the General was expressing essentially the same sentiment, and it finds that he was unfortunately correct on both occasions. The faces had changed and the Germans now figured only incidentally in the new terror facing France. The sins of Vichy during the Nazi occupation had been purged and the Fourth Republic had been established postwar. But the trouble was that France was again seized by a kind of spiritual malaria, with internal discord and colonial wars leaving the country in agony and anguish, its government out of sync and its people split into factions, all at each other's throats.
After the fall of France, Andre Mesnard had written: "Perhaps the most shocking thing brought to light by the defeat of 1940 was the bankruptcy of the elite whose task it was to unite the nation morally. When the crisis came, it was discovered that Frenchmen, in key positions, thought not as citizens of France, but as members of groups."
It finds that happening again, equally as dangerous at present as it had been in 1940. France not only had to have a government capable of upholding the interests of Frenchmen, but also of Americans and Englishmen, Italians and Turks. France was an indispensable part of NATO and no plan could be formulated for the defense of the West without its full cooperation, that the notion that it could be bypassed or ignored was nonsense, as the very concept of a strong Europe with a supine France was a contradiction in terms.
General De Gaulle had recognized France's spiritual malaria, seeing a government caving in, unable to govern effectively, incapable of decision. Unfortunately, the General was a better diagnostician than a physician, and his bid for power as a military "strong man" represented as much of a threat to the future of France as did the Communists. Anti-democratic rule by either the extreme Right or the extreme Left would loosen the structure of the NATO alliance and might even force the withdrawal of U.S. and British troops from Western Europe.
It finds the only hope for France and for the West to be that the threat from the extremist factions would bring the forces of reason to their senses, as the only thing which could save France from a terrible fate was the consolidation of the moderate center of French politics and the institution of basic governmental reforms to prevent future crises.
It concludes that until Frenchmen could again unite in the cause of right and liberty, any aspiration concerning the future would be empty.
"Elmer Davis: An Unfrightened American" indicates that Mr. Davis, who had just died in Washington on Sunday, had always taken his own advice when he had said that the first thing to remember was not to allow them to scare you, the "them" including the pack of zealots and absolutists who considered it their right to tell other people what to think, how to act, and where to invest their faith.
As a radio commentator, author and former Government official, Mr. Davis was centered on words and ideas, the main idea being freedom. E. B. White had said a few years earlier to Mr. Davis, "The Founding Fathers are alive today." It indicates that they were indeed and it had been Mr. Davis's mission to spread the good news.
It finds that his death would not still his voice, which had value over and above the words spoken, a quality which added a dimension of credibility and sincerity to what he had said, the main thing having been that Americans "were born free" but could not remain so unless by exercise of freedom they retained the right to know and to think for themselves. It finds that perhaps as much as he detested the thought-controllers, he feared that Americans would forget their responsibility to think and speak for themselves, saying, "It hurts more to have a belief pulled than to have a tooth pulled, and no intellectual novocain is available."
It concludes that he was born free and remained free, a great deal to say about anyone, and all which Mr. Davis would want said about him.
"People Who Live in Glass Houses..." indicates that the New York Post had warned Vice-President Nixon against accepting a suggestion that he make a good will tour in the South, indicating that it was a good idea but that it was afraid that the Administration would not accept it because it was too dangerous, as: "Down in our own South, remember, the fellows don't argue with spit and stones. They use bombs."
It finds that such generalizations fell of their own weight and needed no shooting down. It suggests that it was interesting, however, that while that editorial was being written, Representative Adam Clayton Powell of Harlem was preparing a Sunday sermon for his church in which he said: "I just think Carmine [DeSapio, head of Tammany Hall] and Hulan Jack [Manhattan's black borough president] better not walk up and down Harlem streets too much. We're not going to give them the same treatment the Communists gave Vice-President Nixon and his wife, but we will make it mighty uncomfortable for them."
Messrs. DeSapio and Jack had declared Mr. Powell a renegade Democrat, thus causing him consternation. The piece suggests that what it had to do with St. Peter and eternity was not clear, but that it did not appear to have anything to do with the Golden Rule, and probably the two men would be careful not to walk up and down Harlem streets too much. It suggests that maybe it would be safer for them to stand inside a news stall reading the protest by the Post against violence in the South.
A piece from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, titled "Give the Kid a Break", finds that things had come to a pretty pass when a clean-cut young Dominican boy could not give Mercedes-Benz cars and chinchilla coats to Hollywood actresses without attracting unwelcome attention.
General Rafael Trujillo, Jr., son of the dictator of the Dominican Republic, despite having six children, remained a boy at heart. He was enrolled in the U.S. Army command and general staff college at Fort Leavenworth, Kans., and was diligently pursuing his studies from Beverly Hills, where he was reputed to live out of a fund of a million dollars per year, presumably contributed by his father. The million dollars was about the amount the U.S. had given the Dominican Republic, prompting some to suggest that perhaps the American taxpayer was footing the bill for the General. A spokesman for the General had explained, however, that the money came from his sugar mills.
The piece suggests that people should leave General Trujillo alone, because he had a right to lead his own life and the way he was leading it sounded like a story right out of Hollywood, itself. "Boy meets girls…"
Drew Pearson, in Rome, indicates that when the late Premier Alcide de Gasperi, Amintore Fantani and others had organized the Christian Democratic Party in Italy in the postwar days when the country was emerging from Mussolini's rule and Nazi occupation, they had endeavored to put Christian principles to work in practical politics, and, largely, had done a remarkable job. But, though they had proclaimed publicly separation of church and state, their critics maintained that they were directed from the Vatican, the biggest issue in the forthcoming election.
To some extent, the future of the U.S. alliance with Italy depended on that passionately debated issue. Most Italians wanted to be christened by the church, married in the church and buried by the church, but on election day, they wanted the church to remain out of politics.
The church-state issue had become so fiercely debated by some that the newspaper Espresso, founded by Prince Coroccillo, whose mother had come from New Orleans and grandmother from Cincinnati, had built up a profitable circulation by following an anti-clerical editorial policy, the previous year having made a profit of 150 million lire. The issue had come to a head when Mauro Bellandi of Prato, a former Communist, had published a civil notice of intent to marry, meaning that he would marry outside the church. His priest had then denounced him from the pulpit, a routine procedure. The Bishop of Prato, the Most Rev. Pietro Fiordelli, had gone further and written a letter to the priest accusing Sig. Bellandi of "concubinage". Ordinarily, that would be read from the pulpit and posted on the church door, but in that case, it had been sent through the mails in the church paper. Simultaneously, local banks had called in the loans of Sig. Bellandi and he was forced to close his small business employing about 40 people. That had caused such anti-clerical reaction that a public fund was initiated in defense of Sig. Bellandi, and two anti-clerics had underwritten his business for 500,000 lire. Sig. Bellandi had brought a charge of criminal libel against the Bishop, and shortly before the trial, the presiding judge, a liberal, had been promoted in what the political opponents of the Christian Democrats claimed was an attempt by them to influence the outcome of the case. In his place had been appointed a strong member of the Christian Democratic Party. At the trial, the latter nevertheless had held with his two colleagues that the Bishop was guilty of criminal defamation.
The decision would have been an important aid to the Christian Democrats in refuting the charge of links between them and the Vatican had it not been for additional developments, in that the Vatican had then excommunicated the three judges, the public prosecutor and everyone connected with the trial.
Doris Fleeson discusses the investigation of the trip to South America by Vice-President and Mrs. Nixon, during which they were harassed, spat upon, and stoned, in Lima, Peru, and in Caracas, Venezuela, the latter having been the worse, with their car having been battered and windows broken. There had been an immediate scramble among Congressional committees to undertake an investigation to determine what had gone wrong with the planning and timing of the trip. The President, Vice-President, and Congress agreed that the matter needed to be investigated and not just to blame the problems on the Communists.
She regards the seriousness of the episode to have been indicated by the fact that it had overshadowed in the news the far more serious problems arising at the same time in France and Algeria, impacting the whole Western position in Europe, including the possible return to power of General Charles de Gaulle, which ordinarily would be of grave concern to Washington, with the prospect of a possible Hitlerian era returning to the country which was the keystone of the Western defense against Communism.
Speaker Sam Rayburn had opined that neither aid nor reciprocal trade with South America would be impacted by the events, although still to be hotly contested.
The planners of the Nixon trip had apparently grasped the problem with bitterness abroad over U.S. economic policies, as shown by the fact that he had avoided a visit in Chile, where it was obvious that increased U.S. taxation of copper imports would make the ceremonial visitor from the U.S. unwelcome. Chile's President had recently cancelled a visit to Washington on those grounds.
But why the same experts had not foreseen the problems in Peru and Venezuela, as well as other Latin American countries, was a question to which Congress was demanding an answer.
Even U.S. relations with Canada had been deteriorating, and, while not likely to result in stoning or the like, the intense feeling had arisen from the same economic causes.
She finds that in a sense it presented Mr. Nixon with a great opportunity, as he now understood that just because the U.S. meant well, it did not necessarily follow that it was doing well abroad. His voice would carry weight on the subject after his experience in South America.
Joseph Alsop, in Chicago, tells of a grey-haired wife of the owner of a small printing plant, who had said that she was not going to spend a dime because she did not know how long it would be before they had to dig into their savings to pay for groceries. The couple was in the lower-end middle-income group, had a comfortable little house, an admirable garden and a paid-for 1957 car.
A skilled mechanic told him that he needed a car so badly that it hurt and that his wife needed every type of appliance, but that with no more overtime work and prices being as they were, they could not afford anything. They had been able, however, to afford a fairly large house, partly bought and partly self-built, driven to it, as the man put it, when rent controls had ended in 1951. He now owed $2,000 on the house, which was probably worth at least $17,000. But the remaining house payments, the grocery bill and the children's apparel had taken all the money he could earn.
A young wife said that everyone had everything they needed at present, that all of their friends were in the same situation, having cars, appliances and everything else important, whereas a couple of years earlier, they did not even have bank accounts, but now were able to save money. She said she would like some more furniture and was contemplating a living room couch in the fall if there was plenty of work until that point. They had been able to save because in construction work, they knew what the winters would be like. She said that their car was kind of beat up because her husband was hard on a car, but they thought they could keep it going for another two years.
Mr. Alsop indicates that the point of recounting the interviews with the three citizens was that they covered virtually the entire range of economic attitudes, which he had discovered in a couple of days of doorbell ringing in the area. Among the 65 persons polled, there were only two variants, one having been a disabled veteran, whose pension had shrunk in the price rise to the point where the family was in bad shape, and the other, having been a junior industrial executive, owner of a 1955 Cadillac and another, cheaper car of the same vintage, having indicated he would ordinarily be looking for a new car during the year but for the fact that they would wait until they slimmed them down some and got some chrome off of them.
Mr. Alsop had found it an extraordinary experience to go down the tree-shaded, comfortable-looking streets of Harvey, Ill., and Gary, Ind., ringing doorbells, led to the experience by pollster Lou Harris who accompanied him. They were not poor people on those streets but workers in the more highly skilled and better paying specialties, with some small businessmen and retired people. None of them who wanted a job was actually unemployed, although the incomes of many had been cut by shorter hours and some had relatives who were jobless.
A year or two earlier, or any time since the end of the war, a doorbell-ringer on those streets would have heard about plans to purchase some major piece of mechanical equipment in a large number of the houses. Of those polled, six had bought cars during the previous year but none were planning any replacement. Only one of the 65 polled was planning to purchase, or even appeared to desire to purchase, any consumer durable good, with the one exception having been a hard-working plumber who was planning to purchase a new house because it did not cost any more than his rent, plus some new appliances.
People said they had what they needed already or wanted to purchase but were caught in the midst of inflation. Or they were able to buy, but were frightened by the recession. Or they were more interested in new furniture, appliances or the like or a summer home, things that were not necessities. Since the U.S. economy had been largely governed by consumers of durable goods, the hope was that the sample was distorted, although he found that the people polled appeared as typically American as apple pie, that otherwise, the "famous theory that the recession is 'bottoming out' is going to operate mighty slowly at best."
A letter writer from Matthews suggests that everyone could be proud of the way Vice-President Nixon had conducted himself during his recent trip to South America, doing a wonderful job of overcoming evil with good. She finds, however, that the President's order of 1,000 Marines to Puerto Rico to stand by in case they were needed in Venezuela for the protection of the Vice-President had been a "dreadful mistake". She finds that judging from some of his previous decisions to use force when the Golden Rule would have been better, that one of his advisers appeared to be Daddy Warbucks of the "Orphan Annie" comic strip. She finds that the gains achieved from force were always short-lived. She indicates that in the previous 1,958 years, there had been peace throughout the world in only 257 years, causing it to appear that experience was a poor teacher and suggesting that if only people could forget selfish desires long enough to do a little reasoning, everyone would become pacifists.
A letter writer indicates that the recent flurry of excitement over Mr. Nixon's experiences in Lima and Caracas had shown that ignorance was still Enemy No. 1 in international relations, that part of the ignorance was that of certain elements in Latin America hostile to the U.S. because of the impact of Soviet propaganda, while a large part of it was that of Americans and unfortunately found among public officials who might have been expected to inform themselves on such matters. He says that having lived for some time in two Latin American countries and having known some hundreds of Latin Americans in the U.S., he had confidence in his judgment. He says unthinking and uninformed rabble-rousers were found everywhere, including in the U.S., and that the word "student", which had been applied to the demonstrators in Peru and Venezuela, was flexible, applicable not only to the "empty-headed in schools", but also to the middle-aged "'characters'" who could be made into students by small payments. He asserts that the U.S. had suffered from economy in foreign relations, that while he was in Chile in 1947, the Truman Administration had cut drastically the number of U.S. representatives in Latin America, limiting the operation of the Good Neighbor Policy inaugurated under President Hoover and continued under FDR, while at the same time Russia was increasing its propaganda. He says that there was a large group of intelligent professionals and businessmen in Latin America who thoroughly disapproved of the discourtesy shown to the Nixons in Lima and Caracas. He finds it unfortunate that some public officials in the U.S. had chosen to denigrate Mr. Nixon's "clear good judgment and personal courage", that such criticism by Americans would provide welcome grist to the Soviet propaganda mill. He thinks that it would be worth the money to have some public officials tour Latin America who had unwittingly displayed ignorance in their comments, even if it would run the risk of exposing the U.S. to further criticism from their behavior away from home.
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