The Charlotte News
Thursday, May 29, 1958
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from Paris that French President René Coty was calling on General Charles de Gaulle to return to power with a warning that only he could save the country from civil war, having announced the action to the National Assembly this date, indicating that he would resign if the Assembly refused to accept the General as premier. General De Gaulle, meanwhile, immediately had left his country home for Paris, about 150 miles away. President Coty said, "In the peril of the motherland and the Republic, I turn myself toward the most illustrious Frenchman." The unprecedented message to the Assembly by a President was greeted with shouts of derision from the Communists and cheers from the Gaullists on the right. The Assembly went into recess and the parties began feverish caucuses, with initial reports indicating that the Socialists, who held the balance of power, were holding firm in their opposition to General De Gaulle. The Ministry of Interior redoubled security measures in Paris, already an armed camp. Authorities feared clashes between Communists and Rightists. The President apologized to the Assembly for having possibly exceeded his traditional role, but said that the Republic was weak and he saw no other course, that he wanted to spare France the ordeal of Frenchmen frighting Frenchmen in a civil war. No one could recall any previous French President ever taking such a strong stand on a political question. While technically head of state, the French President had little actual power. He said that he intended to designate General De Gaulle as chief of the government and that if the Assembly did not accept him, he would resign and turn the presidency over to Andre Le Troquer, speaker of the Assembly and constitutionally the next in line to succeed to the presidency. The latter had delivered the message of the President to the Assembly.
The House had passed the Alaska statehood bill the previous day by a vote of 208 to 166, and Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson promised that it would get to the Senate floor by mid-June. It appeared that Southern Democrats were ready to fight the bill, as they opposed having their power diluted by two more Senate votes, or four if including Hawaii. Senator James Eastland of Mississippi, an opponent of statehood for either Alaska or Hawaii, said it that if an attempt were made to consider either bill in that body, he would offer as an amendment an equally controversial bill to limit review powers of the Supreme Court, a bill which promised a filibuster by opponents. Senator James Murray of Montana, chairman of the Insular Affairs Committee, said that he planned to go before the next meeting of the Democratic policy committee and insist that the statehood bill for Alaska be scheduled for floor action without further delay, indicating that he believed sentiment was as strong for it as in the House. Senate Minority Leader William Knowland of California expressed the belief that there were enough votes in the Senate to pass both the Alaska and Hawaii statehood bills, of which he was a supporter. He said that he would be willing to see the body take up a separate bill for Alaska, provided there was an agreement from the Democratic leadership that Hawaii also would be considered during the current session of Congress.
Chances declined this date that the Senate would break through the bipartisan wall opposed to tax reductions. The House would act the following week on a one-year extension of present rates for corporate and excise taxes, sought by the President and agreed to by Democratic Congressional leaders.
In Rome, Princes of the Roman Catholic Church knelt in the black-draped Church of St. Ignatius this date in final tribute to Samuel Cardinal Stritch of Chicago, as 3,000 priests, monks and laymen jammed the 300-year old church in the center of Rome for the funeral service.
In Chicago, it was reported that the nation's traffic death toll for the sixth straight month had dropped in April, as highway deaths during the first four months of the year had been the lowest for the same period since 1950.
In Chicago, an 82-year old man had gotten out of bed the previous night and shot a prowler who had barged into his living room, shooting him in the neck, chin and chest, the prowler being reported in fair condition in a hospital.
In Winston-Salem, a former City Alderman, 65, was in critical condition at City Memorial Hospital this date from a gunshot wound, police indicating that he apparently had shot himself in the head in the early morning hours at his home.
In Jackson, N.C., it was reported that the Northampton County School superintendent had vigorously denied this date that he was in any way involved in what the local solicitor called the embezzlement of "many thousands of dollars" in County school funds, and asked the people to withhold judgment until he could be heard in court, where he would prove his innocence. The solicitor said the previous day, following a conference with State Attorney General Malcolm Seawall, that he would send between 40 and 50 bills of indictment to the grand jury at the next term of the Superior Court, beginning August 4, indicating that most of the indictments would name the superintendent, plus two or three other persons. The chairman of the County board of education said that he did not care to comment.
In Charlotte, the merger of the Union National Bank of Charlotte and the First National Bank & Trust Co. of Asheville into one institution, the First Union National Bank of North Carolina, had been approved by both institutions' boards of directors. Carl McGraw, president of the Charlotte bank, would be president of the proposed merged institution, which would have total resources in excess of 100 million dollars in capital funds and reserves in excess of 11 million. Details of the merger would be announced after approval by the comptroller of the currency, and action by shareholders was anticipated in about 90 days.
John Kilgo of The News indicates that Charlotte Police Chief Frank Littlejohn this date had blasted City Recorder Basil Boyd's recommendation that a civilian ought be made clerk of City Recorder's Court. In a statement to the newspaper, the Chief threatened to resign if City Manager Henry Yancey went through with his announced intentions of hiring a civilian for the post. Judge Boyd declined to make any statement, saying that the City Council and City Manager handled the situation and he would let them answer. The Council the previous day had approved Mr. Yancey's request and had authorized him to appoint a civilian to the job which had been held for 16 years by a police lieutenant who was awaiting transfer to another position. Mr. Yancey said that he had a man who would accept the job at $3,600 per year, but declined to name him.
The News announces its "Famous Fathers Game", which would appear in the June 2 edition, offering prizes totaling $300, in honor of Father's Day on June 15. As with the contest of the previous year, contestants would be asked to identify famous fathers, from among statesmen, sports heroes, movie, stage and television stars, which would appear in advertisements of all participating merchants of the Charlotte Merchants Association in the June 2 issue. Contestants would also be asked to complete a sentence in 25 words or less: "My father should be Father of the Year because…" Well, let's see: "… because he does not beat me when I am bad, but rather only gives me a stern lecture, which, sometimes, is more painful than would be a good, old-fashioned beating, probably." The contest would be open to boys and girls under 16 years of age and the entries had to bear a postmark by June 6, with judging to take place on June 11. First prize would be $150 worth of menswear for the father of the winning entrant, plus a $50 savings bond for the entrant. That sounds like delayed gratification for the entrant. How about a new model car and skip the savings bond?
In Plainview, Tex., two couples set out on a camping and fishing trip to Lake Brownwood, and during the first 28 miles of the 500-mile round-trip had ruined a new tire. Then, 50 yards from their favorite fishing spot, their boat trailer, rear bumper and trailer hitch had pulled loose. They had dragged the boat trailer to the lake edge and as a precaution, tied the trailer's hoisting cable to a tree, whereupon one of the men slipped and fell in the boat and the trailer had rolled back into the lake. The cable had held, but the boat had come off the trailer and sunk in 30 feet of water. They recovered the boat hours later, but as one of the men drove to Brownwood to get the bumper and hitch repaired, a State Highway Patrolman arrested him because he did not display a rear license plate, which was on the bumper which had come loose. They finally were able to get out onto the water in the early afternoon of the following day, at which point a three-inch rain began, and upon bailing out the boat, they finally made it back to shore, where a wind blew their tent down and all of their bedding and gear were soaked by the rain. One of the men then contracted pneumonia and en route home, they had five flat tires. No fish had been caught.
On the editorial page, "Give the Pacifists a Fighting Chance" indicates that people on either side of the issue of the UNC board of trustees versus the State Board of Higher Education did not appear ready to kiss and make up. But there was a need for a meeting of the minds on the issue, to prevent the University from being kicked to pieces by politics.
It suggests that a sensible solution had been proposed by Victor Bryant of Durham, who had served the state and the University with wisdom and courage for many years, and was presently a member of the three-man subcommittee created by the trustees to probe the Board's powers. In 1955, he had also headed the study commission which had recommended that the General Assembly set up the Board. He believed in a strong, independent University operating effectively within the framework of a larger system of State-supported higher education in the state, and believed that the two need not conflict.
His subcommittee had recognized the necessity for preserving unhampered the overall policy-making privileges of the trustees, the planning and executive duties of the president and his advisers, including chancellors, and the important rights of the faculty to teach in a free and congenial atmosphere, and had also recognized the necessity for a board of dedicated persons who, as planners and architects, would ensure soundness of purpose and intelligence of direction for the future of higher education in the state, that since both groups had a common goal, the welfare of the state, there ought be no conflict of interest, that it was not unnatural that as the Board of Higher Education had entered on its duties under the 1955 law, there would develop some overlapping functions and areas of conflict, which needed resolution in a way not depriving the institutions of higher learning of their rightful autonomy or crippling the functions of the Board. Since both groups were composed of honorable persons dedicated to the welfare of the state, there was every reason to believe that in calm conference, those areas of friction could be eliminated.
His views, the piece offers, represented a common sense approach to a delicate problem and transcended the pique, piety and pettiness of the past, offering reasonable hope that a middle ground could be found in the dispute.
As the Greensboro Daily News
had said the previous day, an appropriate solution would not flower
in "an atmosphere of personal vindictiveness and hostility",
but only in "calm conference", with full realization that
truth did not necessarily lie completely on either side. It counsels
letting the belligerents hold their fire and giving the peace
"For Mecklenburgers, Preventable Woe" indicates that a storm in the area on May 17 had caused creeks to overflow, admittedly an "act of God", though much of the resulting adversity could have been prevented by a few acts of man.
It finds that legal responsibility for adequate drainage might be difficult to establish, but where the general welfare was concerned, government had a moral, if not legal, obligation to do something. The complaints brought before the City Council the previous day, it opines, ought be investigated promptly and City and County officials, working together, ought produce long-range plans to guard against a recurrence.
Where raw sewage was involved, some relief could be granted as a health measure, for which the Health Department had an important role in the present investigations.
Gullywashers did not occur often in the community, but Mecklenburg ought be prepared when they did.
"Life in America" indicates that a bill forbidding schools to refuse to hire qualified teachers because of race, creed or color was in the process of being debated in the California Senate recently, opposed by State Senator Louis Sutton, who said: "Small groups of minority people will send well-qualified people to apply just to make trouble."
"Alaska: Drop the Other Shoe, Senators" indicates that the House had passed the Alaskan statehood bill the previous day, hailed as a triumphant affirmation of America's belief in justice for all people, while condemned by others as dangerous nonsense.
It finds that regardless of the emotions triggered, there were practical reasons why statehood for Alaska was a good idea. The people of the territory had voted overwhelmingly for it repeatedly and the people of the country had indicated in many ways their solid approval of the idea. It had been repeatedly promised in political party platforms. The territory had great economic potential which could be utilized fully under its own administration. It also had a large, loyal population of more than 210,000, while 23 states had smaller populations when admitted to the union.
Opponents argued that the territory was too far away to be integrated into the union, but it responds that in an age of jet travel and instant communications, the argument had little validity. Other states, including California, had been admitted while separated from other states by long distances. Alaska was closer to the nation's capital in travel and communication time than Boston and New York were when the nation was founded.
House passage did not guarantee that Alaska would become the 49th state, as Congress had considered statehood bills since 1916 for Alaska and since 1919 for Hawaii. Each chamber had approved statehood at least once since 1947, but no final action had ever been taken by Congress.
It urges that the Senate follow the example of the House and vote to make Alaska the 49th state.
Of course, that would occur the following January. Hawaii would follow a few months later.
And no, little, stupid Trumpy, Canada will not follow; nor Greenland; nor Panama; nor Mexico; nor Britain, your stupid, crazy Leader and his outrageously dumb ideas notwithstanding.
Note: Every state after the first 13
colonies was first a territory, and usually for several decades,
before entering the union as a state. No President, not even an
insane one, can wave his little magic pen and suddenly incorporate
another nation's sovereign territory into our own, no matter how much
Herr Doktor Goebbels jumps up and down and screams and shouts and
demands it. Likewise, for the supposed renaming of the Gulf of
Mexico, which remains the Gulf of Mexico, and will so remain long
after the stupid moron presently in the White House, by far its worst and most corrupt steward in the country's history, is long gone
after a thorough decontamination process occurs upon his final exit
A piece from the New York Times, titled "There Aren't Enough Strawberries", indicates that it was a time for asking questions, whether or not answers were given, for instance why there was a dandelion which was persistent, determined and ubiquitous, even though livestock would not eat it, few insects troubled with it and birds could not consume it, leading one to believe that the world could get along well without it, but instead there were ever more dandelions. (They are there for children to blow on and make a wish.)
Another question it poses is why there were not more strawberries as there once had been, as recalled from childhood summers in the country where there were sweet, wild strawberries in plenty, whereas now one had to hunt them. Daisies and buttercups grew in every meadow, as did hawkweed, but there were only a few wild strawberries.
It also wonders why bluets were not really blue but rather white tinged with lilac or pale violet, and sometimes not even tinged. It finds them beautiful in an old pasture, but nevertheless not blue. It also wonders why plantain did not have a flower worth looking at.
It also wonders why flowers were colorful at all as insects were color-blind, and most flowers depended on insects for pollination, with their petals supposed to help the insects in that mission.
"Why
Drew Pearson, having returned from traveling behind the Iron Curtain, says that anyone having done so returned with new insight into the security police, those who kept an eye on civilians to make sure they were loyal to the Government. No one who lived behind the Iron Curtain ever dared criticize the security police, for to do so would mean investigation and personal ruin.
In returning to Washington, he found that it had almost become dangerous to criticize the FBI. After Cyrus Eaton, the Cleveland industrialist and chief stockholder of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad, had dared to criticize the FBI on the "Mike Wallace Interview" the previous May 4, he had been promptly given notification that he would be subpoenaed to testify before HUAC, placing him in nearly a criminal light for exercising his free speech rights, and placing HUAC in the same light as Communist governments behind the Iron Curtain and the FBI in the same status as the security police.
Congressman Gordon Scherer of Ohio, a close friend of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, had written a letter to all members of HUAC, urging that Mr. Eaton be subpoenaed for questioning, and when asked about reports that Mr. Hoover had inspired his letter, Mr. Scherer had denied it but added that the FBI was "happy about it".
Meanwhile, Congressman Francis Walter of Pennsylvania, chairman of HUAC, had held a closed-door meeting of the Committee and authorized Richard Arens, staff director of the Committee, to ask for equal time on ABC to answer Mr. Eaton's criticism of the FBI, an unusual step. It was not unusual for a Government official to ask for time to answer a statement on television, but highly unusual for a Committee of Congress, supposed to be a check and counterbalance to the executive branch, to go on television in defense of any Government bureaucrat. Mr. Arens was authorized to ask for equal time and delivered an attack on Mr. Eaton, announcing that a subpoena had already been signed for his appearance before the Committee. Meanwhile, fireworks had been going off behind closed doors in the Committee, with several members, among them Morgan Moulder of Missouri and Clyde Doyle of California, not appearing to think that the U.S. ought to adopt the system of not allowing criticism of the police. Mr. Doyle said that it was a free country and everyone was entitled to express their views, whether or not members of the Committee might disagree with them, which he believed was the issue in the case of subpoenaing Mr. Eaton.
Doris Fleeson indicates that Democrats had not been called upon by Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson or House Speaker Sam Rayburn to consult prior to the deal made with the Administration not to cut taxes, and many were calling it a decision made by the "Three Wise Men from Texas", which included Treasury Secretary Robert Anderson, an Eisenhower Democrat. The dissident members would not let it stand without a struggle, to be led by Senator Paul Douglas of Illinois, the only professional economist in Congress.
He would be working in a fluid situation. Administration leaders were split on prospects for a business recovery, as was business, itself. Secretary of Labor James Mitchell and Vice-President Nixon were not happy and even aides of Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson feared that farm problems would again get worse, though easing at present.
That which embittered Democrats most was the shouldering of political risks which Mr. Rayburn and Senator Johnson had undertaken in their behalf, which they viewed as unnecessary in helping the President out of his jam while conceding that foreign policy was different. Senator Douglas was proceeding with the position that the recession was real and severe, and working on the premise that a tax cut ought approach six billion dollars, with his bill apportioning it equally between excise and personal income taxes, including a provision to help small business by cutting from 30 to 22 percent the corporate tax rate on the first $25,000 of business investment. He believed that such a cut would increase the gross national product by 18 billion dollars and help to pay for itself in increased income tax revenues.
Tax cut proponents were counting on the fact that some type of cut in transportation excise taxes was widely acceptable and that once that occurred, they would be on their way. Early the prior March, Senator Douglas had made an attempt at tax cutting regarding life insurance companies, but was stopped by Senator Johnson. Senator Douglas might delay his effort until later in the summer. Secretary Anderson believed there would be a summer upturn in the economy, but should the May unemployment figures, to be published in mid-June, show an increase, Mr. Anderson's status as a soothsayer might suffer.
Democrats were concerned that they would face the fall midterms without a record on fighting the recession, though they were being assured by Senator Johnson and Mr. Rayburn that the lack of leadership would be ascribed to the President and the Republicans, not to the Democratic Congress. But not all of them believed it and those anticipated that incumbents of both parties would wind up on the defensive in the campaigns.
A letter writer supports J. Spencer Bell to be re-elected as Mecklenburg's State Senator, and commends his campaign for the way it was being conducted, by traveling around the county meeting the people, and without perpetrating cheap tricks, such as offering personal items for men and women and gala dinners for voters. He begs voters not to allow their votes to be purchased.
A letter writer urges voting for Jack Love for the State Senate, as he had shown in his legislative record as a State Representative that he would introduce bills for the good of all the people of the area, while others from the delegation did nothing.
A letter writer says that she was completely in favor of Mr. Bell, and was in complete agreement with the newspaper's editorial endorsing him.
A letter writer indicates his support for the third candidate in the field, James Vogler.
A letter writer says that he would vote for Mr. Bell, who had proved his ability repeatedly, both in the community and as State Senator.
A letter writer also endorses Mr. Bell.
A letter writer also endorses Mr. Bell.
A letter writer also endorses Mr. Bell and urges everyone to vote in the primary on Saturday.
A letter writer endorses Mr. Bell and says that he had a record of promoting the general welfare of the people of the county and the state.
A letter writer indicates that as chairman of the Fine Arts Council, he wanted to thank the newspaper for its publicity given the recent Bach Festival.
A letter writer from Salisbury indicates that there were millions of people who pretended to give advice to young people, but that there was doubt of the ability of those really to give advice, with one authority estimating that perhaps only about 5 percent were able to give correct guidance to young people. He says that he had learned much earlier to say no when he did not know the answer to a question, that young people liked to find adults practicing what they told them to do.
A letter writer indicates that the Associated Press had reported State Senator Seavey Carroll's open letter to Senator Bell, that Senator Carroll had sent the writer a copy of his letter and that apparently the A.P., in condensing it, had missed what the writer believed was the most important point, that Mr. Carroll believed that the Bar Association of the state had talked too long and loud about reforms in the courts without reaching the basic problems of the courts, that the lawyer was a public servant and, as such, ought be supervised by more than members of his or her own profession, that the committee of Mr. Bell ought consider setting up a joint committee of lawyers and laymen for regulation of the bar to protect the public interest.
A letter from the chairman of the Education Committee of the Chamber of Commerce indicates that the United Church Women of Charlotte and the North Carolina Employment Commission were cooperating again in a program to promote summer jobs for high school students of the community. The Education Committee commends the program to employers, indicating that by giving summer work to young people, employers would provide them with guidance in their attitude toward work and help establish good work habits, as well as teaching them the satisfaction of real achievement.
That might be, as long as the
"One-Eyed, One-Horned, Flying, Purple Prosperity-Eater
Framed Edition
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