The Charlotte News
Thursday, May 22, 1958
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from Paris that fighting between French and Tunisian forces had erupted in Tunisia this date, placing new pressures on the already troubled new Government of Premier Pierre Pflimlin. Tunisian President Habib Bourguiba had stated in Tunis that the fighting had broken out after French planes had dropped a bomb the previous day on the airport at Gafsa, in south-central Tunisia, 25 miles from the Algerian border. He had stated in a weekly radio address that French and Tunisian troops had been face-to-face at Remada, where a clash had taken place a few days earlier, leading to an exchange of protests between France and Tunisia. He stated that they would prefer that the question of the evacuation of French troops from Tunisia be regulated in a friendly manner, but that they feared that they would no longer find anyone in authority with whom to discuss the problem. The airfield in question had apparently been occupied by the French, and was one which President Bourguiba had asked the French to evacuate. The French had accused Tunisia of trying to provoke a clash with French troops at a time when the Government in Paris was seeking to regain control of neighboring Algeria from French rightists. French troops and planes had been technically restricted to their bases by Tunisian orders since the bombing of a border village in February had caused a crisis between France and its former protectorate. A Conservative leader, Antoine Pinay, had provided assistance to Premier Pflimlin by going to see General Charles de Gaulle, who had offered to assume full power in France. M. Pinay was reported to be urging the General to use his influence over insurgent military personnel and French colonials in Algeria to get them to bow to the authority of the central Government in Paris. The Premier was speeding progress of constitutional reforms aimed at strengthening the executive authority and to make it more difficult for the National Assembly to turn cabinets out of office. The present new Government was the 13th since the end of the war. The defiant French in Algeria had demanded that General De Gaulle take over the Government and said that they would not bow to the authority of the new Government, suspecting Premier Pflimlin of planning to make a deal with the Algerian Arab rebels which would reduce or end French influence in the North African territory. M. Pinay had apparently believed that World War II hero General De Gaulle, was the only man in France to whom the angry French across the Mediterranean would listen. The General had said that he would only take office through legal means.
In Panama, gangs of hoodlums, armed with clubs, rocks and bottles, had defied National Guardsmen this date in the heart of the city. The hoodlums had appeared to take over from students who had called for a general strike starting Thursday at midnight, in protest against school conditions. Buses had stayed in their barns and private cars had avoided the downtown section as violence and destruction raged unchecked. The Guardsmen appeared to be avoiding an open clash, chasing the gangs away after they had battered down traffic lights and smashed a store window, but appeared unable to cope with all of the violence. Thousands of persons had been forced to walk to work. The streets in the heart of the downtown section had been strewn with garbage cans. Demonstrators forced private cars to detour around the area. At least three homemade gasoline bombs had exploded in scattered areas. Youngsters had walked down Central Avenue, the city's main thoroughfare, smashing parking meters.
The President ordered this date his Air Coordinating Committee to conduct a special study aimed at eliminating midair collisions "to the maximum degree", the White House indicating that the President's action had been prompted by the collision near Brunswick, Md., the prior Tuesday of an Air National Guard training jet and a commercial airliner, which had taken a dozen lives. At the same time, the President arranged to confer later in the day with two House members who belonged to a committee investigating the crash. Representative Prince Preston of Georgia said that he and Representative Cliff Clevenger of Ohio had received word from the White House that the President would see them in mid-afternoon. The two were top members of a House Appropriations subcommittee which had been rebuffed by Federal air officials the previous night, when the subcommittee had put forward a stop-gap plan aimed at halting civilian military air crashes, voting to take the issue directly to the President. Mr. Preston said that a White House aide, Jack Anderson, had come to his office during the morning with word of the mid-afternoon appointment. The Air Coordinating Committee was headed by retired Air Force Lt. General Elwood Quesada. The Committee, according to White House press secretary James Hagerty, was responsible for coordinating national aviation policies where more than one Federal agency was involved. Military-civilian collisions of aircraft had accounted for 61 lives lost in a month, spurring new demands by Congress for new air safety measures.
The Senate Finance Committee this date approved a House-passed bill authorizing the Federal Government to advance money to the states for a temporary extension of unemployment benefits, the vote having been 11 to 4. The chairman of the Committee, Senator Harry F. Byrd of Virginia, said that the anti-recession measure, endorsed by the Administration, would be brought up for action in the Senate the following Tuesday. The Committee had rejected by a 10 to 4 vote a substitute proposal of Senator Paul Douglas of Illinois to liberalize the emergency measure and to strengthen the unemployment insurance system on a permanent basis.
Senator John McClellan of Arkansas, chairman of the Select Committee investigating misconduct of unions and management, said this date that A&P stores had reaped benefits worth millions of dollars by conniving with Butchers Union leaders in a labor contract. His statement marked the end of public hearings by the Committee regarding a secret deal through which 10,000 New York area A&P grocery clerks had become part of the Butchers Union in 1952, unaware that they were bound to a 45-hour work week for 55 months under the contract, while some competing stores had a 40-hour work week. The Senator said that an analysis of the testimony had established a number of improper practices which the Committee had to condemn, that the evidence was "quite clear" that A&P had embarked on a course of conduct in 1952 which produced serious violations of various provisions of the National Labor Relations Act, and that they were forced to the inevitable conclusion, supported by the evidence, that A&P had deprived more than 10,000 of its employees of their right guaranteed under the Act to be represented by the collective bargaining agent of their own choice, that it was obvious that the advantages of that arrangement were measurable in the millions of dollars.
The cost of living index had reached a new peak in April from a record high in grocery costs, as announced this date by the Labor Department statistics commissioner, who said that "in a broad general way, I'd say the index has shot its bolt—there is no question about it, the big rises are now over." He indicated that some food prices were declining in May and that the overall level seemed to have peaked or was reaching a somewhat stable level for the summer months. The Government index had risen by two-tenths of a percent between March and April, reaching 123.5 percent of the 1947-49 base period. The April increase was completely due to higher food prices, particularly fresh fruits and vegetables, but meats and fish were also higher. The cost of living for April had been 3.5 percent higher than the same month in 1957, representing the 18th increase during the previous 20 months, having declined only once in the previous 28 months, despite the business recession. The new increase meant a pay increase for about 500,000 workers based on labor contracts correlated to changes in the Government index. Most of the workers would receive increases on their June payroll of about two or three cents per hour, with some getting as much as a nickel per hour more. An additional 750,000 workers would normally receive pay adjustments based on the April increase, including employees of the major auto companies. Labor contracts for those workers were expiring at the end of the month. The automatic raises would go to workers in the aircraft and electrical manufacturing industries.
The House had passed and sent to the President this date a bill to raise the cost of first-class letters from three to four cents and airmail letters from six to seven cents, the vote having been unanimous, 379 to 0. The rate hikes would take effect on August 1, provided that the President would sign the bill. The measure also provided for wage increases for postal workers aggregating to 380 million dollars per year, 220 million more than proposed by the President. The House had sent the compromise measure to the President by a roll call vote after brief discussion. The Senate had passed the bill the previous day, also unanimously, 88 to 0. The bill provided for an overall increase in postal rates of an estimated 550 million dollars annually. The bill fell 150 million dollars short, however, of what the President had wanted, to eliminate the post office deficit. The bill had been a compromise of measures passed separately by the House and Senate, with the increase on first-class letters accounting for about 350 million of the new revenue. Rates on newspapers and magazines and on advertising matter would also be increased incrementally, starting the following January 1. The 10 percent pay increase for most postal workers, more than the 6 percent proposed by the President, would be retroactive to the prior January 1.
The Government was issuing licenses for the sale and shipment of about half a million dollars worth of police-type small arms to the Indonesian Government, according to State Department officials this date.
In Caracas, Venezuela, the military-civilian junta announced this date that it would create a 19-member consultative council to advise it on running the Government until it could conduct presidential elections.
In Kingston, Jamaica, two persons had been drowned in highway traffic blocked this date after heavy rains and floods had broken a long drought. The Government had suspended railway service and Kingston telephone service had been disrupted.
In Washington, it was reported that one of thousands of high school seniors sightseeing in the nation's capital had fallen from his hotel room to a concrete sidewalk four floors below this date, reportedly in critical condition.
In Norfolk, Va., it was reported that a small boy had been snatched to safety after he had opened the door of a Capital Airlines plane flying 7,000 feet above North Carolina the previous day. The vice-president of Stetson Hat Co. of Atlanta had pulled the unidentified child away from the door as it swung loose in the windstream of the aircraft. A crew member had pulled the door closed as passengers had been instructed to put out their cigarettes and fasten their seat belts. Two executives of Norfolk-Portsmouth Newspapers, Inc., had witnessed the incident. The assistant to the publisher, returning from New Orleans, said that the man who had pulled the child to safety was the vice-president of the hat company. The child was reported to have been walking up and down the aisle of the airplane and had managed to open the door in some manner. One passenger said the door had swung open wide enough for the child to have fallen out of the aircraft. The stewardess had sought to pull the door shut, but the vice-president of the hat company had grabbed her and kept her away from it. At the time, the boy's mother was with a second smaller child in the forward compartment of the aircraft. The assistant to the publisher of the Norfolk-Portsmouth Newspapers said that the crew members had acted calmly and without panic. Upon arrival at the Norfolk Airport, the mother and her two children, after expressing gratitude to the vice-president of the hat company, left with relatives before they could be identified. A spokesman for the airline in Norfolk said that he had no report of the incident and could not provide the names of the passengers involved from the plane's passenger manifest.
In Houston, Tex., it was reported that Southern Baptists were under attack this date by Texas segregationists, accusing them of fostering race-mixing trends. A flood of literature, bearing the imprint of the state's white citizens council, had been distributed among the approximately 15,000 representatives of the Baptists at their annual convention. The material had cited Old Testament scripture seeking to show that segregation had been ordained by God. The printed charges also claimed that Baptist publications had increasing integrationist content. Several church leaders described the material variously as distorted, inaccurate or unfair. At the previous night's session in Houston's Coliseum, many of the church messengers or delegates had held copies of the derogatory matter in their hands, reading it during the program. A report on the racial situation had come before the meeting this date, calling for closer Baptist "communication and fellowship with people of every race and nationality." The re-election of Representative Brooks Hays of Arkansas as convention president was seen by some as a victory for those favoring brotherly Southern Baptist relations with other churches. The Reverend Dr. A. Hope Owen, president of Wayland Baptist College of Plainview, Tex., said: "The election reflects the feeling among a majority of Southern Baptists that we should maintain a friendly, mutually hopeful attitude toward other Christians and not draw into an aloof corner."
In Jasper, Tenn., a 250-man search party, including volunteer National Guardsmen, had beat the brush of a mountainous area north of the town this date for a two-year-old boy missing since noon the previous day.
In Stokesdale, N.C., a man who had been the object of a search by law enforcement and bloodhounds after allegedly robbing a bank in Stokesdale of $18,426 two days earlier had been arrested this date in woods near the town and nearly all of the loot, recovered. The FBI had identified the bandit, from Baltimore, and he was taken to Greensboro where the FBI said it would file Federal bank robbery charges against him. The Guilford County sheriff and two of his deputies had captured the man as he lay wrapped in a yellow tarpaulin used as a tractor shade. He had offered no resistance. The capture climaxed two days and nights of intensive search for him after he had allegedly robbed the bank on Tuesday shortly after noon at gunpoint and had fled in a hail of bullets fired by the bank cashier. The bandit had dropped most of the loot in his hasty flight, abandoning his stolen getaway car and retreating into the rough terrain of the Oak Ridge section off State Highway 68, where the manhunt was conducted. The FBI said it could account for most of the loot, including $7,240 which officers had found late the previous day in an old coffee pot hidden in a stump. The remaining $2,280, according to the sheriff, had been found on the man. He had been spotted in the wee hours of the morning with a yellow blanket wrapped around him looking into a car window outside the home of the person who notified officers, and deputy sheriffs had then tracked him with bloodhounds to a private garage.
Milton Eisenhower, brother of the President, had been named Father of the Year this date and promptly received congratulations from his brother. The younger brother was president of Johns Hopkins University and had been chosen by the National Fathers Day Committee, along with six other fathers outstanding in the fields of sports, entertainment and the arts.
In Van Nuys, Calif., a man, 46, accused of getting a three-month old puppy drunk, had been sentenced to 19 days in jail and three years of probation during which time he was not to own or feed dogs. What would the current nutcake who heads Homeland Security in 2025 get for her puppy-dog treatment? At least she did not try to feed it to alligators. There's a silver lining to every cloud, especially the heavy eyeliner she uses as part of her Halloween costume.
And for those wishing a valuable and illustrative Bible
lesson to younger siblings or those with less life experience than thou, you may read of one here, every bit as informative, and exhibiting of exegesis beyond the comprehension of most, as that of the
Trumpies and their Biblical scholarship. Meanwhile, Chuck was betting against himself, that he would get the battery—also not unlike many of the self-defeating Trumpistadores who battle windmills
A problem with the picture, incidentally, of the ostensibly happy-go-lucky family Robins, is the broken ruler
On the editorial page, "Higher Education: Where's the Fire?" indicates that the future of State-supported higher education in the state could not be left to chance or dependence solely upon the outcome of haphazard clashes involving injured pride and built-in prejudices, as the public's stake in it was too great and the issues involved, too precious.
The delicate relationships between the State Board of Higher Education and the Consolidated University had not yet been explored in depth. The two groups had not been able to air their differences around the same conference table and so there had been no conscientious effort to resolve those differences, and yet the University's board of trustees would be asked the following Monday to initiate a full-scale campaign to reduce the Board of Higher Education to insignificance, being asked to take action before the significance of the Board was even clearly apparent to the public and to the three member institutions involved, UNC at Chapel Hill, N.C. State in Raleigh, and Woman's College in Greensboro.
It was apparent that the issue would be left to the General Assembly of 1959. It was also obvious that the University trustees would be acting too hastily if they approved the suggested remedy the following Monday, though that remedy might prove to be the correct treatment. But first, there had to be a proper diagnosis before a treatment was applied. And there had been no complete examination yet made.
The UNC committee recommending the action had made only token attempts to resolve differences between the two bodies, and it had been agreed that both groups would meet to discuss and possibly resolve those differences, but the meeting had never been held.
The Board of Higher Education had issued a statement in March on the matter, but had only examined superficially the fundamental issues involved. Its functions had been poorly defined and poorly sold to the public. It had been suggested in Raleigh and in certain parts of the North Carolina press that the value of the higher education body ought not be questioned because it was clearly a good thing.
It indicates that when that argument had been put forward during the winter, it had left the newspaper chilly, and still did, wanting to know why it was a good thing or, in the opinion of the trustees, why it was a bad thing, with the answers to be provided publicly after the issues and points of friction were thoroughly explored without rancor and with an informed regard for the best interests of higher education in the state.
"Harold Stassen Believed Mr. Kipling" finds that Mr. Stassen, in losing badly the Republican gubernatorial primary in Pennsylvania, had been as lonely as he had been at the Republican convention in 1956, seeking to "stop Nixon" in his bid to be renominated as the vice-presidential candidate. Now, the former Governor of Minnesota, his native state, had been stopped, appearing to be permanent, although it finds it risky to underrate his nerve and doggedness. But his prospects for the 1960 Republican convention had been reduced practically to nothing.
If he were to disappear, it would mark a dismal end to an astonishing career, beginning when he had become the nation's youngest Governor at age 31 in Minnesota, four years later having been the temporary chairman and keynote address speaker at the Republican convention, and floor manager of Wendell Wilkie's drive for the 1940 nomination. He had run twice unsuccessfully for the presidential nomination and had been president of the University of Pennsylvania. He had also been a commander on the staff of Admiral William Halsey during World War II.
It finds that any one of his successes would have satisfied less ambitious political types, but he had always wanted to become President. It had been reported that "If", by Rudyard Kipling, was one of his favorite pieces of poetry, having a framed copy of it on his library wall as an admonition against defeatism. It suggests that if in retrospect, his defeat in Pennsylvania was inevitable, there might be room at present for some sympathy, even among his severest critics. If he had been a young man in too much of a hurry, if he had diluted his own idealistic image by seeking an inside track to the presidency, he had always labored strongly for whatever position he undertook and had established an excellent record as Governor of Minnesota, as a Naval officer, and as President Eisenhower's "secretary for peace".
"Unfortunately for boxers and politicians, the comeback trail often ends not only in defeat but in dimming of the past victories."
It could have written, of course, and probably did, much the same political obituary for then-former Vice-President Nixon in November, 1962, after his dismal defeat to incumbent Governor Pat Brown in the California gubernatorial election, when Mr. Nixon famously stated that the press would not have him to kick around anymore—only to come back as the "new Nixon", a kinder, gentler version, six years later in the 1968 presidential campaign, however short-lived his kinder, gentler, carefully cultivated image from 1968 had lasted, roughly about a year until the old, nasty Nixon resurfaced with a new vengeance, entirely predictable at the time to some of us.
By then, of course, Mr. Stassen had
become a standing caricature in politics of the man who perennially
ran for the presidency and lost, his successful past having long
since dissolved into the ether of failed recollection by a younger
generation. We recall David Brinkley
"U.S. Culture—with Mustard and Onions" indicates that J. V. Blevins of Nashville was an indignant, unhappy man, having stated that the U.S. brass at the Brussels World's Fair had refused to admit his popcorn to the American pavilion, certain that the refusal had something to do with culture. He had complained, "Popcorn and a popcorn stand may not be cultured, but it's such a typically American product that it ought to be in the pavilion."
It suggests that, while he might be correct, with the rest of the world ready to make remarks about American culture being "barbarian", perhaps the pavilion bosses had been reminded that the head-tossing accompanying the consumption of popcorn was not a particularly graceful gesture.
The hot dog had been quite popular when the fair had opened. It suggests that it was a really cultured American item, guaranteed to win friends for the country if for no other reason than its inherent daintiness. "A fat man with mustard on his tie, licking the bottom end of the dog to keep more yellow goo from sliding to his shirt front, or small boy with a bun clutched tightly in a grimy fist while juice from slaw drips off his elbow, are sights certain to soften the hardest of hearts."
It concludes that the uncultured popcorn, however, should be kept out of the joint.
A piece from the Green Bay (Wisc.) Press Gazette, titled "The Hazard in Remembering", asks whether the reader remembered when automobiles had running boards or when the limit of outer space had been the farthest town one could pick up on a crystal radio set after midnight, suggesting that if the reader could, then no hint was needed from the column that the years were advancing at a rate faster than could be considered comfortable. It asks also whether the reader could remember when the latest college fad had been to swallow a goldfish or when spats had been a necessary article of male apparel or when Russ Colombo had been the idol of millions.
"Green Eyes" had been the song which all of America had been singing at the time when it was fashionable for young people to do their courting on a front porch swing instead of at a drive-in movie, the same time when the symbol of adventure was a train whistle, not the swoosh of an intercontinental rocket. Civilian Conservation Corps encampments were sprouting up across the nation when economists had cautiously agreed that the country could stand a Federal debt of 75 billion dollars. Every other male child had seemed to be studying the cornet or the saxophone and the wild West was in Montana instead of in the living room on the television set.
There had also been a time when
children had been strong enough to walk to school and that the only
weapon
It also asks whether the reader remembered when a disappointing date had been called a "flat tire", at a time when the rumble seat was the rage, along with the straw hat.
It suggests that those things might be fresh in the reader's mind and might cause a tingle at the thought of them, but also might provoke sadness for an era which could never be again. The present was the present and tomorrow was far too close. "Time, you see, has a peculiar way of healing old hurts and creating new ones." It concludes that it was the hazard in looking back.
Drew Pearson, still in Paris, indicates that outside the U.S. Embassy was a huge black police van, which was parked there every night. It was dark inside the van, but every so often, someone would light a cigarette such that one could see rows of faces of gendarmes standing guard over the Embassy all night. Alongside the Embassy was the Hotel Crillon, wherein President Woodrow Wilson had lived when he had sought to develop the Versailles Treaty to prevent further devastation of France after World War I; and along the Champs Elysees, had marched American doughboys after first landing in France in spring, 1917 and again when they liberated France during World War II in the summer of 1944. He finds that much of French history, from Lafayette on, had been intertwined with American friendship, and yet the dark police van sat all night to guard the U.S. Embassy for the nation which had sent troops and aid to France in two World Wars and in 1947, via the Marshall Plan, had spent billions for the country's reconstruction.
He wonders how far the gendarmes could be trusted, finding that they had been tough and courageous thus far, that when the Chamber of Deputies had been threatened, they had not wavered. But they had also let Jacques Soustelle, leader of the revolt against the Government, go to Algiers, which he could not have done without their connivance. Thus people wondered, and especially about the French Army.
They knew that a showdown between the French military and civilian rule had been postponed for a long time, that it had been seething since 1952 when Marshal Alphonse Juin had written an article for the Revue de Deux Mondes blasting the European Defense Community. The French Cabinet had officially approved the EDC and its plan for a common army for Western Europe, but nevertheless, Marshal Juin had publicly opposed it. At about the same time, General MacArthur in Japan differed publicly with the Far Eastern policies of President Truman, leading to the General being called home by the President and fired. French Premier Rene Plevin had called Marshal Juin to his office, but had not fired him. Since, Premier Plevin and all French Premiers had suffered increased trouble with the French military. But each time the civilian leaders had evaded the issue, not doing what President Truman had done in forcing a showdown.
The military had become stronger and shortly after the incident with Marshal Juin, the French military had kidnaped the Sultan of Morocco on August 15, 1953 and taken him to Madagascar. The French Government had let them get away with it, and the Sultan was presently King of Morocco, the incident having not endeared him to the French.
Admiral Thierry D'Argenlieu had started shooting up Hanoi in what had begun the French Indo-China War. The previous year, the French military had kidnaped five rebel Algerian leaders, who had been flying from Rabat, Morocco, to Tunisia, the act having been in violation of international law, but the French Government had bowed to the military. The previous February 8, the French military had bombed the Tunisian village of Sakiet-Sidi-Youssef, killing about 100 inhabitants, without any consultation with the French Government in Paris, the French military having acted on its own; yet, again, the Government had not only bowed to the military but had even covered up for them.
He finds that with that record of vacillation, a showdown between the French Army and the French Government had been inevitable.
"The pigeons are fatter in Paris than anywhere in the world. And the children are rosier. I watched the former gobbling nuts in the Tulieries Gardens and the latter jumping rope, roller-skating, and riding merry-go-rounds… Outwardly Paris is unchanged."
Joseph Alsop, upon returning from Europe to Washington, reflects on the differences between the first Eisenhower Administration and the current one, indicating the lack of resemblance between former Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson and the current Secretary, Neil McElroy, as well as between former Undersecretary of State Herbert Hoover, Jr., and the current Undersecretary, Christian Herter. He finds that there was also an improvement in the governmental atmosphere, although rather negative in character, but that at least the old smugness was gone, with one no longer constantly commanded to admire the selfless patriotism of captains of industry, who were using all of their hard-won know-how to dismantle the defenses, to alienate the allies and to weaken the world position of the country.
He indicates, however, that there was something still very wrong in the second term, as shown by the previous two weeks of disastrous U.S. setbacks all over the globe, finding it to be that "the chickens reared in the fat, smug, outwardly lucky years of the first term are just coming home to roost. As was foreseeable, they all look like vultures." He finds that the roots of that which was wrong went back to the beginning, when the President had taken office in 1953 at a time when the U.S. was still the leader of the world. But there were many warnings awaiting the new President, starting with the last National Security Council directive from the Truman Administration, belatedly recognizing that the U.S. position in the world would soon be challenged by the rapid, massive growth of Soviet power, calling for much more effort to safeguard the U.S. leadership position.
With George Humphrey as Secretary of Treasury and Secretary Wilson at the Defense Department, the Administration was already half-committed to less national effort. With Lewis Strauss as chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission and Robert Cutler at the National Security Council, the Administration was already tending toward the view that the people did not need to know about the people's business. Nevertheless, for nine months in 1953, the President played with the idea of "Operation Candor", wanting to tell the people the harsh facts of their situation and then to call for greater national effort to deal with those facts. But in October, 1953, "Operation Candor" had been blocked by economizers and those who wanted secrecy.
Thereafter, the Administration increasingly refused to believe the intelligence reports, the facts being imparted being too uncomfortable when nothing was being done about it. The leadership was self-deceived and the country was deceived. Meanwhile, the growth of Soviet power continued at an accelerating pace. The hostile ferment in the former colonial countries had progressed toward the crisis point and the heart of the Western Alliance had begun to show symptoms of decay. The old, unchallengeable position of the U.S. was lost, and the dangers abroad finally had been accentuated and increased by recession at home.
The Government's nearly total inability to make any coherent, continuous response to that combination of challenges had been a primary characteristic of the second Administration. He finds that when the heat was very hot, they thrashed about, as they had done and were again doing in the Middle East. Those thrashings only disguised basic passivity. He finds that one reason for it was that the great measures presently needed could not be considered until the country was fully undeceived. But anything approaching "Operation Candor" at present would make such people as White House press secretary James Hagerty, and many others, look both silly and fraudulent.
He finds another, deeper reason, that being that a truly "dynamic new policy" which could re-capture the initiative vis-à-vis the Soviets, could not even begin to be invoked without the most dynamic leadership, endowed with the most inexhaustible vigor, the freshest intelligence and the most ruthless capacity for detailed, hard work. He concludes that until those qualities were present at the top, the new challenges could never be met and so the American position would continue to deteriorate.
Doris Fleeson, in Cleveland, indicates that Ohio Democrats, who a few years earlier had been holding their party together with string, were expecting to elect Michael DiSalle as governor in the fall, and believed they might even be able to replace veteran Senator John W. Bricker with former Representative Stephen Young. Objective observers found good basis for those beliefs from the lack of leadership being shown by the present state leadership.
Governor C. William O'Neil, who had beaten Mr. DiSalle by 400,000 votes in 1956, was being charged with vacillation, indecision and administrative incompetence. He had disappointed his own supporters, as shown by a protest vote in the Republican primary of nearly 200,000 for Charles Taft, brother of the late Senator Robert Taft, who had only been a token candidate and had failed to carry his own county, but had carried Governor O'Neil's.
She indicates that the emphasis on leadership was being heard in every state, suggesting to incumbents of both parties that they were being judged by voters with the harshness of temper and clarity of political thought which was different from the easy-going and optimistic mood of recent years.
The obvious danger for Democrats was overconfidence and the hidden danger was that despite the evident Democratic trend, all officeholders were on the defensive, regardless of party.
Governor O'Neil was weaker than his state party. Senator Bricker was not harassed by division over the course the party ought to take, but he feared that the weakness of the Governor at the top of the ticket would drag him down.
She finds that much credit had to go to the resilient Mr. DiSalle and other aggressive Democrats, including the Mayor of Cleveland, Anthony Celebreese, who had begun to fight strongly for party identity after Governor Frank Lausche had quit his long tenure as Governor to become Senator. The latter, though a Democrat, had been much in the Eisenhower mold, and had often supported the late Senator Taft, dependent on Republican votes and money for his election.
Mr. DiSalle and others had gone to work in the counties to give the party faces and a name. If no well-known candidates were available, they urged an appeal to young people, women and minority groups, and selection of a candidate from those groups, no matter how little the person might be known to voters.
A letter writer indicates that the flood of the previous Saturday had not been unfortunate as it enabled some people in the community to realize how noble and efficient some of the City's employees really were. He singles out Mr. Barnett and personnel of the Laurel Street fire station.
A letter writer from Atlanta, secretary of publicity for the General Council of the Presbyterian Church, U.S., thanks the newspaper for its coverage of the recent Presbyterian General Assembly during its meeting in Charlotte, particularly thanking reporter John Borchert. He says that he had heard many commissioners express pleased reactions to the way the newspapers of Charlotte had covered the Assembly, with many of those present not accustomed to such high quality journalism.
A letter writer indicates that Article I of the Constitution stated that all legislative powers contained therein would be vested in the Congress. He suggests that a lot was being said about Brown v. Board of Education being the law of the land, but wants to know when the Supreme Court had obtained the authority to pass laws. He thinks that every candidate for Congress who would refuse to uphold states' rights and constitutional government ought be defeated at the ballot box. "There are still some states, and many individual voters, that have not been brainwashed by the Carl [sic] Marx Communists, one-world Socialists, and they will not follow party lines. When they vote, Alabama and some other states may bolt if the right kind of men are not nominated." He says that he had read sometime earlier that an American Gestapo would be set up in the U.S., and believes that a civil rights organization could do just that. "There is a movement on to consolidate all government agencies, from our armed forces on down to states, counties, and cities, schools and churches, and set dictators over them called managers. This would make it easier for the one-world Socialist liberals to take over America, since they would not have so much opposition to conquer."
Think about it, little Trumpy-Dumpy-Doer. Does he not precisely describe the last six months under your King, His Lordship, here in 2025? Be honest, now, and objective, for a change. It really was a tremendously better nation six months ago, was it not? That was actually when America was great again, not during that dismal pandemic exacerbated by your Leader's incompetence on display for nine months during the worst crisis of his first term, now on display again, and how, during the previous six months, as his childish tariff obsession plays with world markets and drives inflation only upward, while his momentarily distracting preemptive bunker busters perhaps end for a few months a brief skirmish between Israel and Iran, but with unknown long-term consequences for the future, and completely unnecessary except as a stunt for political theater, as with his border stunts at home, turning the previously largely peaceful country into an armed camp of masked goon-squads, dressed as Proud Boys, led by Hominids spewing false propaganda to justify Fascist tactics only employed by third-world dictators, whom His Majesty admires with little reservation, while calling all Democrats "radical-leftist Communists" whom he "hates". And then to top it all, there is the inflationary and destabilizing Big, Beautiful Billionaire Bounty on the rest of us, the only possible skimption of a tax benefit to ordinary taxpayers being completely eroded by the promise of higher utilities costs for the fact of wiping out alternative energy tax incentives, to mention but part of the manifold problems with it. Such is what happens when you vote for a Super Salesman, good only at one thing, promotion of plastic crap painted as the bright, shiny singular thing you need to make your life special and worthy of all the Three Fates' graces upon your soul infinite, at long last at one with the Universe, triumphant over all of the unseen inimical forces seeking your demise and extirpation—until it breaks and the super glue won't fix it but for a minute or so until it breaks again, a situation indefinite, ad nauseam.
A letter writer, the district sales manager for Eastern Air Lines, praises the editorial of May 9, "Cool Competence Prevented Tragedy", regarding the response to the emergency landing in Charlotte without injuries by an Eastern Air Lines flight with a stuck nose gear. The writer indicates that all at Eastern appreciated the editorial, which had expressed their thinking and feeling regarding the superb cooperation and support provided by countless people, organizations and agencies in the area.
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