The Charlotte News
Saturday, May 3, 1958
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the President this date had invited 11 nations, including the Soviet Union, to join a conference to seek agreement to ensure that Antarctica would be used for peaceful purposes. He said in a statement that the participating nations ought continue their scientific cooperation in the South Pole region beyond the expiration of the following December 3, ending the 1957-1958 International Geophysical Year, suggesting that a treaty be reached which would establish freedom of scientific investigation throughout Antarctica by citizens, organizations, and governments of all countries, and a continuation of the international scientific cooperation being carried out during the IGY, that an international agreement be made to ensure that Antarctica was used for peaceful purposes only and any other peaceful purposes not inconsistent with the charter of the U.N. The nations invited included Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Chile, France, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, the Union of South Africa, Russia, and the United Kingdom.
The Air Force had announced the previous day that it would take several months to complete modification of approximately 1,400 B-47's, the mid-range arm of the Strategic Air Command, having to be returned to the factory for correction of a structural weakness which had shown up in low-level operations. A spokesman said that the project would not impact the deterrent capability of the medium bomber force, which could carry a nuclear bomb more than 3,000 miles at speeds in excess of 600 miles per hour. No estimate had been given of the cost of the modification, which would be handled at the Tulsa, Okla., plant of the Douglas Aircraft Co. and the Marietta, Ga., plant of the Lockheed Co. The Air Force said that the program of modification had resulted from an accident near Buffalo, N.Y., on April 10, when a B-47 had crashed on approach to a tanker plane for refueling in midair, in which four men had been killed. Although the announcement did not pinpoint a specific weakness, the spokesman said that the investigation had indicated that the trouble may have been in structural plates within the wings.
In Bogotá, Colombia, the nation prepared to elect the following day its first constitutional president in a decade after failure of an attempted military coup to prevent the election. In an almost bloodless uprising early the previous day, some 1,500 soldiers had seized the leading candidate in the election and four members of the five-man ruling military junta. But the fifth junta member had rallied loyal forces and forced the rebels to back down. The fifth junta member blamed the seven-hour uprising on persons who resented the impending re-emergence of a constitutional government. The political beliefs of the rebels were not immediately known. The uprising had followed a futile attempt the previous Wednesday to disrupt the election, an attempt staged by supporters of Gustavo Rojas Pinella, a former dictator who had been ousted a year earlier. The latter had been in Spain, but the previous night had flown from Bermuda to Barbados in the Caribbean, 1,300 miles northeast of Bogota, telling a reporter that he knew nothing of the uprising and hoped to go to the U.S. after a five-day visit in Barbados. The attempted coup had been called an act of lunacy by former President Alberto Lleras Camargo, expected to be elected under an agreement by the two leading political parties, the Conservatives and Liberals, to support him. The election was being held under a 16-year truce between the two parties, a truce designed to put the nation back on track of peaceful government after eight years of feuding which had cost an estimated 100,000 lives. The rebels had struck the previous early morning, invading the homes of junta members, touching off dynamite charges and taking their victims to a military police barracks 100 yards from the presidential palace. Former President Lleras had been picked up but was able to escape in the confusion when his captors ran into a loyal army patrol near the palace. The fifth junta member had escaped from his house, had gone to the palace and alerted the loyal army officers, sending an ultimatum to the leader of the rebels, telling him to release his prisoners or face an all-out ground and air attack. A Government communiqué said that 1,100 Army troops had surrounded the barracks with light artillery and 40 war planes had been readied for action.
In Buenos Aires, President Arturo Fondizi had banned all imports to conserve Argentina's rapidly disappearing foreign-currency resources, his first official act of his new Presidency.
In Jakarta, Indonesia threatened this date to complain to the U.N. unless Nationalist China took "immediate steps to prevent its nationals from interfering in Indonesia's internal rebellion."
In Paris, it was reported that the Western Big Three had reluctantly agreed this date that their ambassadors to Russia would continue separate consultations with Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko on preparations for a summit conference.
Also in Paris, it was reported that the French claimed this date to have topped a U.S. altitude record with a French Trident jet plane, which had reached an altitude of 80,190 feet.
In East Berlin, it was reported that East Germany this date had tightened its economic squeeze on West Berlin with a new tax on West German and foreign shipping using its inland waterways.
In New York, former President Herbert Hoover had left the hospital this date, where he had undergone a successful operation for removal of his gall bladder two weeks earlier.
In Washington, Federal officials expected a record total of about 85,000 business bankruptcies during the current fiscal year, and during the bookkeeping year beginning July 1, anticipated an even larger total of 95,000 cases.
In Gatlinburg, Tenn., it was reported that a top-level nuclear scientist of Berkeley, Calif., had announced this date the "definite discovery" of the heaviest element on record and at the same time challenged the findings of an international group which the previous year had said it had done approximately the same thing. The element was nobelium, number 102 in the periodic table of elements, the tenth element heavier than uranium to be produced by man. Uranium, number 92 in the table, was the heaviest of the elements found in nature.
In Camp Lejeune, N.C., a 19-year old black Marine, described by psychiatrists as having a paranoid outlook and feelings of martyrdom, had been sentenced to life imprisonment the previous day for murdering his company sergeant, following a general court-martial which found the private guilty. He had been accused of shooting the sergeant in the barracks the prior January 10, after formally charging the sergeant with disrespect. The tribunal had also ordered the man to forfeit all pay and allowances and to be dishonorably discharged from the service. The sentence would be reviewed by a brigadier general, commander of Force Troops, Atlantic, the senior officer of the man's division. His counsel had asked the ten-member tribunal to consider the defendant's emotional state at the time of the shooting, but a psychiatrist from the Navy hospital in Philadelphia had told the court the previous day that in his opinion, the defendant had known right from wrong when he shot the sergeant. A Camp Lejeune psychiatrist had told the tribunal that the defendant "does have a strong super-ego, a paranoid outlook and feels that in many ways he is a martyr in life." He said that in one test given to the defendant, he was supposed to draw a picture of the most pleasant and most unpleasant experiences in his life, and that for the most pleasant, he had depicted a man asleep with another man pointing a rifle at him, captioning the picture, "I wish this was [the victim]."
Newly appointed Senator B. Everett Jordan, appointed to replace deceased Senator Kerr Scott of North Carolina, had arrived the previous day in Washington to be sworn in the following Monday, but he and his wife had still not found a place to live. The Senator said that he wanted a place big enough to accommodate six grandchildren and three children, as they liked to have their children around and wanted them to visit. Mrs. Jordan said that she wanted the house to have a yard and flowers. He said that he had not been approached to vote on anything by anyone thus far. He called himself a "progressive conservative", believing in progress to the extent that the economy could afford it, just as in his own business, expanding whenever possible. He suggested that one of the troubles at present with the economy was fear, that people should continue to spend normally if they could afford it, but indicating he did not know how to restore that confidence in the public mind. He said that it would be disastrous to farmers for price supports to be eliminated.
In Dallas, Tex., it was reported that the state was reeling from the ninth straight day of violent weather, as tornadoes, floods and thunderstorms had hit the state again this date, with witnesses describing tornadoes hitting Leesburg between Pittsburgh and Winnsboro in east Texas and violent winds smashing through Longview. Widespread flooding had occurred in the southwest and central portions of the state while in the north central and northeastern parts, streams continued rampaging.
In Waco, Tex., a close-range gunfight beneath a small frame house early this date had wound up in the death of a convicted murderer who had escaped the previous night from the county jail. The 28-year old escapee had been shot to death by officers. A captain in the Texas Rangers had quoted the dead man from some weeks earlier, when the man had been discussing his chances of dying in the electric chair, as having said: "Rather than ride old Sparky, I'll make some officer kill me." The Ranger, after having fired three shots from a riot gun at the man, said that he had kept his word. Another convicted murderer, sentenced to 99 years, had been captured nearby earlier, being unarmed and offering no resistance. The man who had been killed had been sentenced to die for the kidnap-murder of a 51-year old Waco service station attendant. The two men had used a smuggled knife to force their way out of the county jail the previous night. The Ranger said that officers were tipped on where the escapees were hiding, that a group of officers then surrounded the house and the man killed was spotted in the backyard and had fired once at the officers, then fled in a hail of bullets through the high grass. The other man surrendered. Eventually, the officers traced the man who was killed to some marks indicating that he had crawled under a small house, whereupon the Ranger and two officers knelt and shone a flashlight under the house, at which point a bullet had crashed between them and they blazed away. The officers had to chop a hole through the floor of the house to recover the man's body. The man and the other escapee had been captured in New Orleans the previous year and admitted the kidnapings of two men, one from New Orleans and the other from San Antonio, and in separate trials in Waco, had been convicted.
In New York, a 19-year old woman hired the prior January as a sales agent for Pan American Airways in their Fifth Avenue office, had been told by her boss the previous week to tone down her makeup and start wearing a white blouse and blue skirt, which she had done. During the current week, her boss told her that he would feel better if she was a strawberry blonde, but she decided to remain a platinum blonde. She said that on Thursday, she had been told that she was "too pretty" for Pan Am, and was verbally fired. The Air Transport Division of the Brotherhood of Railway Clerks had then gone to bat for her. She showed up the previous day at the airline office with the general chairman of the union and asked for her job back, with pay for both Thursday and Friday. The airline had told her that it was all a misunderstanding, that she had never been off the payroll.
On the editorial page, "Are the Bombers Spies or Bigots?" indicates that the Fayetteville Observer had implied that Moscow was plotting the periodic outbreaks of senseless violence in the South to smear its reputation, commenting on the recent bombings of a black school and a Jewish community center in Jacksonville, Fla., saying: "We must not overlook the strong possibility that what the French call 'agents provocateur' are at work in the South, deliberately trying to paint an untrue picture of our section, to defame it and to inflame the world against it, for purposes far more sinister than those dreamed up in the relatively simple minds of sheet-clad night-riders." The newspaper had then posed six questions leading directly to the assumption that shrewd Communist plotters, rather than stupid American bigots, were behind the bombings.
It finds that to accept that assumption would be comforting both to logic and the regional conscience. The Observer had noted that every act of violence which the Klan committed was an open invitation for more Federal interference in the South, and so was contrary to the Klan's ostensible aim of preserving segregation. It finds, however, that there was nothing new about Klan paranoia or the Florida bombings which would suggest a new design behind the terror, the pattern being distressingly consistent.
A number of Alabama Klansmen had recently been convicted for the brutal emasculation of an innocent black citizen, and Klan members in Charlotte had been found guilty of attempting to bomb a black school, part of a long list of shameful and sordid depravities.
While promotion of racial unrest was a familiar technique of the Communists, the possibility of their involvement ought be pursued only after the bombers were caught and incarcerated, as speculation on the ideologies of the perpetrators served little purpose with the madmen still at large. It suggests that it could simplify matters if there were a Communist plot, as agents provocateur could be arrested and their schemes obliterated.
"The jungle urges that grip Klan mentality, however, are not so easily subjected to the logical processes of police work. They merely interrupt—without meaning, form or reason." It finds that while it would be comforting to regional conscience to blame racial ills on foreign intrigue, to do so without proof could lead to a delusion as dangerous as that held by the Klan.
"Why They're Not Mild about Harry" finds that former President Truman was something akin to the weather, that sometimes he was cloudy, sometimes fair, that everyone talked about him but no one did anything about him. "What can one do about Harry Truman? Some hate him, some love him and others, perhaps the wiser, accept him for the political phenomenon that he is and try to enjoy the show as much as Mr. Truman does."
It finds the most puzzling reaction to be that of those who wanted to give the former President permanent obscurity, thinking it a shame that he was always butting into weighty discussions and giving his own simple explanations.
It finds that Mr. Truman's memory lacked a perfect homing instinct regarding history, that recently, he had publicly confessed his errors and offered apologies to a reporter whose accounts he had disputed, but that the matter had not ended with the reporter's gracious response, and some columnists and letter writers were still denouncing the former President as having committed an unforgivable act and referring to him as a "has-been".
It finds that obscurity, however, was not for the former President, that he had arisen from obscurity and would not return to it, as long as the game of politics was played. As with all Presidents and peasants, Mr. Truman had his failings, but it wonders whether he had more than his share as alleged against him or merely whether his partisanship and political instincts were so transparent. "Is he a mirror that reflects too faithfully for tender sensibilities the realities of the brokerage between opposing groups and interests that is called politics?"
It suggests that while he might be a "common politician", most American voters fell into the common category, as Thomas Dewey had been distressed to learn in 1948.
We trow that the little Trumpies
might wish to say something like: "Aha, see? Common politician
appeals to common voters, thus..." But the analogy quickly
breaks down in trying to equate a billionaire oligarch to the
genuinely plain folk origins of Harry Truman and his eschewing
throughout his life of any trappings of significant wealth, his
post-Presidency ownership of a Chrysler being about the most
luxurious thing he ever owned, emblematic of a Presidency about as
anti-royal as any since, save perhaps that of President Carter. Trump
is quite common but not in the sense of his economic class. His
appeal to certain types of common voters shares only the type of
common element which manifests itself most usually when juveniles get
together and trade stories of recent female conquests and rites of one
sort or another performed under the influence of alcohol, drugs or
simply unrestrained arrogance. That is Trumpville
Mercutio, wethinks, probably sent that cat after grabbing his sword in offense to Tybalt, or maybe his dipstick. What do you think?
"Just Follow the Bouncing Ball, Ivan" indicates that the bright young brains of the Navy and Madison Avenue had teamed up the previous week for what might be an historic turn in the armaments race, a change which would reserve a niche for each in the hearts of all peace lovers and sports fans. The Navy, eager to help the cause of American business, had agreed to perform a mission of special significance for a sporting goods firm, the object being to see how high a basketball would bounce when dropped from the top of the Empire State Building.
New York City Mayor Robert Wagner had already refused use of the building for the purpose, however, fearing that some pedestrian might be hit, and so the experiment had to be moved to the Navy blimp base at Lakehurst, N.J. The briefing officer had told the press that it was not a frivolous stunt, that continual development of bombing accuracy for anti-submarine missions demanded constant practice in dropping missiles with varying ballistic characteristics.
The blimp had come in low over the field, armed with an "anti-submarine" cargo of 12 basketballs, the largest target for which having been a ten-foot cross on the runway, representing a submarine's conning tower. None of the basketballs had come near the target and the highest bounce was only 22 feet, 9 inches.
It suggests that with more effort and study, the Navy might get higher bounces from the basketballs until one was placed in orbit, and the temperamental Vanguard rocket could be abandoned.
A piece from the Shelby Star, titled "Politics and Spittoons", indicates that the Associated Press had nearly run out of adjectives to describe the recently deceased Senator Kerr Scott other than "tobacco-chewing". Both the morning and night leads on the story regarding Senator Scott's heart attack had described him as "North Carolina's tobacco-chewing Senator", or words to that effect.
It indicates that there was no question as to the truth of the description, but it suspects that a lot of readers had connected his tobacco-chewing to his heart trouble, and the stories suggested that it was out of the ordinary when a member of the Senate chewed tobacco.
It finds that it was not out of the ordinary in North Carolina, where tobacco was the largest cash crop, though not as big anymore as the state wanted it to be. It indicates that there was not as much chewing going on in the state as once had been the case, that even the spittoons had been removed from many courthouses and post offices.
Shelby's 86-year old country preacher, the Reverend John Suttle, had once told a questioner: "It's a sin to burn anything that tastes as good as tobacco." On another occasion, the Baptist preacher who had held forth in North Carolina pulpits over a 60-year period, had deflated a pompous clergyman who announced he did not chew because he was a Christian, by saying: "I'm a Christian, too, but I ain't no durned fool about it."
Governor Gregg Cherry, who had been Governor between 1945 and 1949, immediately preceding Governor Scott in that office, had also chewed tobacco, having picked up the habit in the courtroom and claimed that he could not only outwit but outspit most of his fellow lawyers. It indicates that it was not an idle boast.
Countless hundreds of public officials who had risen from the legal profession had cultivated the chewing habit because they could not smoke in the courtroom. It recounts that one of the real tests of a cub reporter, the writer, years earlier had been whether he could chew along with them and successfully sidestep the puddles of amber juice in front of the bench, as many lawyers had notoriously poor aim.
Drew Pearson indicates that Washington dinner parties sometimes made strange table-mates, citing Senator William Knowland of California having just finished two days of Senate debate in which he had sought to write a new restricting labor law, presenting several amendments from the Senate floor designed to rewrite completely a bipartisan bill for the protection of labor welfare funds, keeping the Senate in night session and through most of Saturday to act on the proposals, in every case of which, the Senator had lost. One reason had been the vigorous opposition of AFL-CIO president George Meany, who had thrown all of his influence into the battle which had recessed late Saturday to continue on Monday.
During the Sunday recess, Israeli Ambassador to the U.S., Abba Eban, had given a dinner in honor of the tenth anniversary of the founding of Israel, attended by Secretary of State Dulles and his wife, Ogden Reed, publisher of the New York Herald Tribune, and his wife, the Ambassador of France, Herve Alphand, the Ambassador of Australia, Congresswoman Frances Bolton of Ohio and Senator Stuart Symington of Missouri and his wife. In addition, Senator Knowland and his wife, and Mr. Meany were in attendance. As they sat down to dinner, Mrs. Meany found herself sitting beside Senator Knowland, the two appearing to get along well, with one guest remarking afterward: "If the Meanys can get along with the Knowlands, then the Arabs should be able to get along with the Jews."
He notes that one of Wall Street's biggest banking houses, which followed the nation's economy closely, had come up with some discouraging private prognostications, that there would be no business upturn, that business was waiting to use up existing inventories before buying anything new and that the only bright spot was that buying would have to start soon, that business was waiting for a drop in prices but would be disappointed, as continued inflation seemed to be the order of the day.
The Army and Air Force had been frantically racing to beat each other to the moon. The Army had set its first moon rocket test for the following October, and the Air Force had then advanced its date for a moon launching to August, whereupon the Army moved its test up to August, at which point the Air Force began rushing its scientists to prepare a rocket to be ready if possible by July.
White House chief of staff Sherman Adams had refused to allow Secretary of Defense Neil McElroy in to see the President recently to discuss the increased military pay bill, despite it being a traditional rule that members of the Cabinet, especially the Secretary of Defense, one of the most important Cabinet members, could see the President at any time. But Mr. Adams, who actually ruled the roost, had kept the Secretary of Defense waiting until late afternoon and then refused to allow him in to see the President.
Former Boston Mayor Jim Curley, 80, who had survived a jail sentence, many stormy elections and a novel written about him, claimed that he was going to live to be 125. He had watched many of his contemporaries die, but claimed that "Skeffington" would live to be a 125, Mr. Pearson noting that "Skeffington" was the name given to Mr. Curley in the novel The Last Hurrah.
Congressman Tom Lane of Greater Boston, who had gone to jail for income tax evasion, now had a fine relationship with the IRS. His constituents had asked him to handle their tax problems and he received extremely prompt service from the IRS.
Doris Fleeson finds it difficult to tell at present whether one party was more concerned than the other about the recession, some members of both parties believing that more ought be done at present than did other members and the White House. The Democratic Congressional leaders, however, had been lethargic of late, with their effort to speed up housing and roads bills seeming to have exhausted them, and even the future of the plan with the most immediate impact on unemployment was clouded. The latter plan was the Democratic proposal to authorize Federal grants to finance an additional 16 weeks of unemployment compensation benefits. To defeat it, the White House had worked hard to reconstitute the old conservative coalition of Republicans and Southern Democrats, a coalition weakened during the previous summer by the struggle to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1957.
The maneuver by the White House had been so successful that managers of the Democratic proposal were casting doubt on the prospects for the President's more modest plan and any other program for outright aid, including a tax cut. Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn and Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson had currently immobilized the tax cut issue by agreeing with their fellow Texan, Treasury Secretary Robert Anderson, that neither Congress nor the White House would move in that area without prior consultation. In effect, it put the conservative point of view in command of both Congress and the White House, the trend being strengthened by the rebuilding of the House conservative coalition, as would also be attempted in the Senate.
House Ways & Means Committee chairman Wilbur Mills had fought hard for the unemployment compensation bill in his first major effort as chairman of that key Committee. Even members intending to vote against him felt that Congressman Mills had handled himself well and made the best possible case for his side. The praise was meaningful, as the House was a harsh judge of its own members regarding legislation, knowing well which ones showed capacity, industry and political intelligence.
Hearkening back to the Depression of the 1930's, Republicans had cried "dole" regarding the bill sponsored by Mr. Mills, an accurate assessment as the bill included Federal aid for the jobless not covered by the unemployment insurance program. Ms. Fleeson wonders whether it was smart, however, for Republicans to provide that old battle cry against proposals which had been offered to deal with the Depression when President Hoover had been in the White House. "Just the sound of the word 'dole' sent reminiscent chills down the backs of some of the more venerable members of the press gallery."
Robert C. Ruark, in Palamos, Spain, tells of having been sitting in Seville recently with a woman from New Orleans, discussing whom they loved of that city, settling on Jimmy Moran as a topic. The latter had been a hoodlum in a mild sense, mixed up with the mob of Frank Costello in the slot-machine business, had served some time in jail and been a bootlegger. Nevertheless, he finds "Diamond Jimmy" to have been "real class" in his own way. He had recently dropped dead while still working, running some restaurants, in one of which was mounted a black mallard duck which Mr. Ruark had shot through the right eye. Mr. Moran had diamonds in his teeth and on his fingers, and at one point had given Mr. Ruark a diamond-studded pump gun, and on one occasion, Mr. Ruark had given him a pair of leopard-skin spats, which he had worn to the Kentucky Derby with tremendous success. Mostly, he had given Mr. Ruark true friendship.
He had drunk his beer out of a chased silver basin big enough to scald a hog in. He ate copiously and cooked magnificently, had a flair for the sensational, whether in cooking or duck shooting, wore suits of checkered fawn or gray, wore a gray derby and had been seen in a gray Ascot topper with tail coat. He liked fine antipasto and pasta fagiole.
Mr. Ruark had hunted with him and some others down on the bayous, and Diamond Jim had shot magnificently. The biggest thrill he ever had was when Mr. Ruark had imported Harry Selby, the African professional hunter, to New Orleans, where Mr. Moran took him shooting, each looking at the other as if he was not real. "But suddenly an English African looked at a Louisiana Italian and they got through to each other. Last time I looked Harry was helping Jimmy in the makeshift kitchen and I was mixing the drinks."
He hopes that wherever Mr. Moran was, they had diamonds for his halo and that the celestial ducks decoyed well.
A letter writer responds to a letter from J. Spencer Bell appearing April 29, finding him to have presented good arguments for the appointment of Superior Court judges, as opposed to electing them, but finds that he had forgotten that governors were apt to play politics in any appointment. He also finds that another letter writer in the same issue had made pertinent remarks about the state bar association, which he finds wielded dictatorial powers over its members, saying that he knew of at least one case in which they had exerted undue influence to stifle opposition, with many attorneys admitting that drastic reform was overdue, though being hesitant to express it for risk of disbarment. He states facetiously that both letter writers had missed the best solution to prevent election of Republican judges in districts in the western part of the state, statewide election of Superior Court judges, as provided by the Legislature. He advocates for returning election of the judges to the individual districts, that while it might result in the election of a few Republicans, that would result in a better caliber of judges than reliance on politically biased selection by a politically elected governor.
A letter writer indicates that he had advocated for Sydney Croft among the four candidates running from Mecklenburg County for the General Assembly, but had run into objections, though not specific, other than that throughout Mr. Croft's life he had been active in politics on behalf of the Democratic Party. He finds that the whispering being used against Mr. Croft was unwise and unfair because it could conceivably deny the people of the county one of the most qualified candidates for the State House.
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