The Charlotte News
Saturday, May 31, 1958
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from Paris that General Charles de Gaulle this date had clinched a wide majority in the National Assembly to become Premier the following day. The Socialist Party had given its members the privilege of a free vote, and half of them had voted for the General, giving him about 50 Socialist votes, bringing his Assembly total to less than the 400 he wanted, but well over the only definite opposition of 150 Communists. The 47 or so Socialists who did not support him might possibly abstain. The Socialists had also voted to permit their members to accept posts in the new cabinet, and several were almost certain to be named. The vote in the Socialist caucus had removed the last snag to the selection of the General as premier. The Assembly had been called into extraordinary session the following day, although no prior French Premier had ever been voted into office on a Sunday. The General had given party leaders only five hours to make up their minds about supporting him. As he had talked with political leaders, President René Coty had met at his official palace with former Premier Pierre Pflimlin, the former formally having accepted the latter's resignation. Political sources said that the General had reassured the politicians that he would bring the French civilian and military insurgents in Algeria back under the law of the Republic. French newspapers predicted that the General would fly to Algeria. He had also guaranteed that he would not compromise the civil liberties in France. He expressed support for some kind of federal settlement between France and its African empire. The General said that he would respect the treaties which France had signed, specifically NATO, the six nation European Common Market, and the atomic development program. Socialist leaders Guy Mollet and Paul Ramadier had hurried back for conferences with their colleagues. M. Mollet was known to be supporting General De Gaulle and M. Ramadier was apparently acting as an arbiter between M. Mollet and the Socialist deputies who still opposed the General. A supporter of the General said that the latter intended to name an old hand as foreign minister, Catholic Popular Republican Movement Deputy Georges Bidault, a longtime backer of European unity, who would soothe the opposition to the General in those quarters which feared he might lead France down an isolated road. For the vital post of finance minister, the General was reported to have reached into the professional ranks and would tap Francois Bloch-Laine, 46.
Also in Paris, it was reported that all 14 persons, ten of them French soldiers, had died early this date in the crash of a DC-3 commercial airliner in Algeria.
In Lisbon, presidential candidate General Humberto Delgado, had pledged to throw out dictator Antonio Salazar, warning that Portugal might become embroiled in civil war if he was barred from the June 8 election.
In Colombo, Ceylon, weekend rioting had worsened this date in the eastern section where three persons had been killed as police moved against Sinhalese demonstrators harassing the Tamil minority.
In London, garages this date faced the biggest run on gasoline pumps since the Suez crisis of 1956, as London's bus strike threatened to spread to gasoline delivery truck drivers.
In Horta, in the Azores, jets of lava from the De Capelinhos volcano had spurted 12,000 feet into the air the previous day, while Faial Island had still been digging out from another series of quakes and eruptions.
In Pittsburgh, Grass Roots Presbyterian rebels had emerged as victors this date in their bid to keep a direct rein on future efforts to unite with other churches. Backers of the action said that it would curb over-concentration of power in denominational hands. But others at the founding assembly of the United Presbyterian Church of the U.S.A. disputed that notion, with opinion being sharply divided over whether it would stimulate or retard Christian unity efforts. The church had not achieved a merger of two Presbyterian branches.
In Philadelphia, the Teamsters Union, successful the previous night in halting circulation of the Philadelphia Inquirer, had this date extended their strike to the Philadelphia Bulletin and the Camden (N.J.) Courier-Post.
In Chalfont, Pa., blacks and whites tangled in an hour-long battle the previous night, marring the calm of Memorial Day picnicking in a park. Roughly 500 persons participated in the fighting which overflowed the 150-acre grounds of the park. Those engaged in the fight were primarily teenagers, swinging baseball bats and tire irons. Some had cut down small trees and used them as weapons. Scores had been injured. Women and children among about 2,000 in the park screamed in terror as they sought shelter, and many had fainted. Police had been unable to cope with the rioters and State police and officers from surrounding communities were summoned. Ambulances had carried more than a dozen people to hospitals, some with broken bones, others with stab wounds, severe bruises and cuts. According to police, the fighting had climaxed a series of small fights throughout the day between guests of Delta Phi Tau, a black Philadelphia high school sorority on a holiday outing, and white visitors to the park. The operator of the park said that the fighting was "purely racial". A 17-year old high school senior from Philadelphia who identified herself as the business manager of the sorority said that the first incident had occurred shortly after the group of 372 had arrived by chartered train during the morning, indicating that a white boy and a black boy had gotten into a fist fight, stating she did not know the reason for it. There was confusion as to how the main melee had erupted. The police chief said that it apparently had begun on the concrete dance floor near the center of the park, that the brawling had spread quickly from there, with scattered skirmishes reported as much as a half-mile from the park. Police had waded into the fighting crowds with riot sticks and the sorority group had headed toward their train. Some had taken up positions inside the coaches and hurled objects toward the picnic grounds. Windows in the train had been broken and window shades were ripped. A dozen police patrolled the chartered train as it returned to Philadelphia, and there had been no further incidents. At Philadelphia, police arrested a 40-year old man on an assault charge, indicating that he had interfered as police removed one of the injured from the train. He identified himself as a sponsor of the sorority. There had been no other arrests.
In Pennville, N.J., youthful rioters, fired up by alcohol, had turned a holiday cruise down the Delaware River into pandemonium the previous day, smashing equipment aboard a crowded excursion boat and injuring 15 passengers. The crew of the boat had to turn fire hoses on the brawlers during the 35-mile trip downriver from Philadelphia. Twenty state troopers and local policemen were waiting in the town for the vessel, jammed with 1,880 passengers. They arrested 34 male passengers, about half of them black and half white. The police had initially thought it might be a race riot but later said that the fighters had only been stimulated by alcohol and not bias. The injured had been treated at dockside for black eyes, cuts and other minor ailments, with none being hurt seriously. The return trip by river had been canceled. Police did not know how the fight had started. Ten of those arrested had been released and eight others were under age 18 and were charged as juveniles, sent to a detention home to await action by juvenile authorities. The remaining 16, ranging in age up to 22, had been booked as disorderly persons, each accused of fighting with another in a public place. Parents or friends had arrived during the night to pay each person's $300 bail from the county jail.
In New Orleans, segregated seating on public transportation, a custom born decades before the Civil War, had ended this date and police said that the change was marked by absence of any flareup.
In San Francisco, evangelist Billy Graham would end the fifth week of his crusade this night with total attendance having reached 477,100 and a total of 17,254 having made "decisions for Christ". He had told a crowd of 15,000 at the Cow Palace the previous night that his six-week crusade would be extended for at least a week, to June 15, and possibly another week. He had said the previous night on Memorial Day: "The liberties we enjoy were purchased by the blood of other men."
In Smiley, Tex., a car-truck collision early this date had resulted in the deaths of four teenage boys.
In Mount Vernon, N.Y., six persons had been killed this date in a head-on automobile collision, and three others had been injured.
Thus far during the Memorial Day weekend, there had been reported 151 traffic deaths, 46 deaths by drowning and 32 by miscellaneous causes, a total of 229.
In Raleigh, it was reported that throngs of Democrats and a handful of Republicans were voting in primary elections this date across the state, choosing nominees for three Congressional seats and rubber-stamping the re-election of eight others, plus electing many local officials.
Julian Scheer of The News reports that local residents had turned out in good number during the first six hours of voting this date, with registrars in precincts all over the city telling the newspaper that voting was generally average to slightly better than average. Based on early voting, it was estimated that 20,000 residents might cast ballots by the end of the day. Voters would nominate a State Senator, members of the State House of Representatives, a Democratic candidate for Congress, members of the County Commission, County School Board members and the chairman of the County Commission and township officers.
Ann Sawyer of The News reports that job opportunities for 1958 college graduates were down as much as 20 percent at some colleges, while others had been affected little or not at all by the recession, depending on the field which the graduate would enter. In a spot check of colleges across the state, it was reported generally that opportunities were down, forcing students to exert more effort, particularly those ranking in the lower part of their class. One college placement official, who reported job opportunities being not as good as the previous year, said that she thought the situation was better since the students were more serious about acquiring jobs. Some colleges reported that prospective employers were taking a closer look at academic records and others said that there was no difference, but it was generally agreed that employers could be selective and were considering the individual as a whole. Extracurricular activities in some instances had made the difference for students. As expected, the best offers generally went to students in science and mathematics. While many students were putting forth additional effort to obtain jobs, those in textile manufacturing in the Textile School at N.C. State enjoyed an average of 18.3 interviews, whereas the previous year the average had been 17.2. But on the whole, the number of job opportunities per graduate was down. As a byproduct of the survey, at least two North Carolina colleges reported that students who would have left the state several years earlier were now remaining in North Carolina and the South. At Davidson College, the director of placement said that company and corporate representatives in general had been more particular about all requirements, though more representatives had come than they had initially thought. He said there was a greater reluctance than usual to employ those students who would face military service. A large number of the Davidson graduates were planning to enter the military, thinking that job opportunities would be better when they got out, while others were going to graduate school. At Queens College, it was reported that the general employment picture was good, but that the number of Charlotte businesses seeking applicants had been cut by about half from the previous year. Generally, the students who wanted jobs got them.
On the editorial page, "Isolationism: A Royal Road to Nowhere" indicates that James Reston of the New York Times had been traveling through the Midwest and along the California coast, while overseas, U.S. Information Agency libraries had been sacked and Vice-President Nixon had been stoned and spat upon in Caracas and Lima, with the people blaming Washington for their troubles. Mr. Reston had reported, however, that he "heard more isolationist talk" on his journey than at any time since World War II.
It finds that there was an erosion of the internationalist spirit on the editorial pages of newspapers across the nation. It considers the public's disillusionment and anger understandable and even pardonable, but not isolationism.
It finds that a less satisfactory case could be made for isolationism at present than in the days of isolationist publisher Col. Bertie McCormick of the Chicago Tribune. Senator Robert Taft and the America Firsters' "Fortress America" had been a dead issue as soon as the first ICBM became a Russian reality, and perhaps as long ago as the first atomic bomb in 1945. Whereas Hitler could devastate a continent, the next madman in charge of a government of considerable power could devastate the entire planet. Going it alone might have been possible for the U.S. in the early part of the 20th Century, but was now impossible. Interdependence was a practical reality. The country needed its allies and its allies needed the U.S. The U.S. had to continue to help its friends if both were to remain free and independent.
Yet, two-thirds of the free world's peoples lived in economically underdeveloped areas, with their average production in goods and services amounting to only about $100 annually, nearly 20 times less than the U.S. average of $2,000 per person. Their life expectancy of 36 years was only about half that of the rest of the free world. It finds it reasonable to believe that the rising demands for freedom out of poverty in the underdeveloped world was strong enough to shape world history. Recent events in Latin America and the Middle East had demonstrated that impoverished, unstable countries could confront vital American interests with dangers which were quite real and disturbing.
It finds it to be in America's best interests for those nations to be stable, independent and peaceful, requiring America to carry out a policy designed to assist the economic development of the free world and to organize and promote a workable program of collective military security.
It finds it little wonder that the Administration was presently saying that foreign aid had to be regarded as a permanent part of the U.S. budget, representing only the necessary acceptance of a fact of life in the space age. It was not to indicate that the present policies could not be improved if the U.S. was to cope successfully with contemporary international problems, but any thought of abandoning America's internationalist outlook and replacing it with isolationism, or "Fortress America", was unrealistic in the extreme.
Note to purblind Trumpies, who have obviously never studied history, find it overly taxing of their pea-brains: We cannot retreat to a pre-World War I model of the world, a blundering attempt at which was made by the Harding Administration and its "return to normalcy", followed by the Coolidge Administration and the Hoover Administration, leading inexorably to World War II. Stop being so stupid, and stop listening to the goon in the White House, who knows absolutely nothing, obviously, about this country's history or world history. He is simply a grand salesman, wanting support to stroke his vanity. He and his amateurs of the Cabinet are making a mockery of 80 years and more of this country's foreign policy, turning longtime allies either against us or causing them to quake in such fear that they kowtow to him, just as was the case with Hitler in the lead-up to World War II. He has no foreign policy, just a day-to-day ad hoc reaction to events, most usually of the personal and minor type, calculating each day how he can keep himself the focus of attention and distract and cover up any form of negative publicity. He calculates and does not govern or lead—another principal trait borrowed from Hitler. Obviously, if he could become a dictator of this country, he would.
At least he hasn't sought to suspend habeas corpus yet, though he has come close by suspending due process for some, not a good move, whether as mayor
"A Sharp Blow to City-County Planning" tells of the departure of William McIntyre, Mecklenburg County's first city-county planning director, going to Cleveland, which it regards as a tremendous loss for both Charlotte and Mecklenburg County.
Mr. McIntyre was a quiet, unassuming young man but was both a master craftsman in his field and a superb defender of the whole concept of orderly growth, having laid all of the groundwork for a vast and ambitious city-county operation, with master plans, land-use studies, traffic artery planning, development and rehabilitation plans, and population studies being only a few of the things he had handled well.
The planning operation was only in its infancy and there were great accomplishments still lying ahead, for instance urban redevelopment, hardly on the drawing boards. Mr. McIntyre would therefore be leaving at a time when his services were most needed.
It hopes that an able successor could be found, but indicates that there would be problems as there was a national shortage of qualified planners, with the consequence of rising salaries for them. Local governments could not expect to recruit and keep top people if they were unwilling to pay adequate starting salaries and if they failed to reward planners sufficiently as their value to the community increased. It indicates that it was not the money the community could not afford but rather the loss of such men as Mr. McIntyre.
"The Seal and the Road to Miltown" refers to a story recently about a harp seal having received a massive dose of tranquilizers because it kept swimming round and round a tank in which it had been imprisoned, apparently searching for its home. The tranquilizers were designed to help it adjust to its surroundings, and apparently it had, still circling the tank, but now slowly and methodically.
It finds itself unimpressed by the docility and doubted it would last, as there was something very human about the seal, and humans never stopped wanting to get out of the tank, even if few of them did. "Even the Miltown Road, we've heard, turns back to the starting point."
Harry Golden, writing in the Carolina Israelite, in a piece titled "The Coming of the Robes", finds it no coincidence that the state was the last in the union to ask its judges to don the traditional black robes, as the Calvinist tradition went very deep, frowning on the "robes of office", looked upon with suspicion which went far back into Calvinist history and the struggle with the Papacy.
Judicial robes went back to the Hebrew priesthood. John Selden, an English lawyer who lived in the early part of the 16th Century, had introduced the robe for the judiciary. A great student of Hebrew and Catholic church law, he adopted the robe from an idea which Catholic clergy had borrowed from the Jewish priesthood, the notion that if one wanted to rule people, the functionary had to make themselves as unlike them as possible. Mr. Selden had seen the need for that respect to be transferred to the judicial bench. It was much better to be sentenced to the gas chamber by a person wearing a robe than in normal street clothes.
Drew Pearson, writing from Bucharest, Rumania, despite having returned in the meantime to Washington, tells of having listened one afternoon to Communist Party First Secretary Gheorghiu-Dej haranguing a large crowd during ceremonies in honor of visiting Premier Gomulka of Poland, saying: "The United States had the audacity to congratulate the Rumanian people, wherever they may be on their anniversary May 10, the monarchist anniversary, not our real Independence Day when we won our freedom from Turkey. This is the last gasp by the Americans to try to bring back the destitute capitalists of the monarchy. This is American wishful thinking. The Americans think they can bring back the past but they can't. America should keep its snout out of Rumanian affairs." He had been referring to a State Department press release and a Voice of America broadcast which had switched the date of the anniversary of Rumanian freedom to the day the kings of Rumania had been crowned. The release had been written by Rumanian refugees, with the State Department having nothing to do with it, the latter having delegated the problem of winning friends behind the Iron Curtain to Rumanian ex-royalists.
One of the things which struck him was that the U.S. might have more friends in that area than in parts of Western Europe, especially in France. Unquestionably, the people of Rumania were friendly to Americans, as were the people of Czechoslovakia and Hungary. Thomas Masaryk, after all, had founded the Czechoslovak Republic in Pittsburgh with the aid of President Woodrow Wilson. And there were more Poles listed in the Detroit and Buffalo telephone directories than there were in Warsaw, and thousands of Hungarians in Cleveland and Youngstown, communicating the friendship possible between the U.S. and parts of the Soviet sphere. The friendship did not necessarily, however, include governments. There was no affinity for Secretary of State Dulles behind the Iron Curtain and the feeling was the same regarding Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko as far as most Americans were concerned. "But when you get down to people, there can be friendship."
Joseph Alsop, in Paris, indicates that the current crisis in France had begun when infuriated crowds in Algiers had attacked the building of the Government General, and the French commander in chief, General Salan, had given the task of restoring order to his paratroop commander, General Massu. As the latter's men were forming, the General had telephoned Paris to ask the civil government whether he should fire on the crowd, pointing out that the odds were against restoring order via any other means. At the time, the Government of Felix Gaillard was no longer in power and no replacement government had yet been formed, and so the civilian politicians refused responsibility for making the decision. Thus, General Massu restored order by joining the formation of the committee of public safety.
A serious and firm French government could still exercise power if it wanted to do so. The crisis had been precipitated by extremists on the Right, such as General Massu's civilian colleagues on the Algiers committee of public safety. The same sort of plot was already afoot when the atmosphere in Algiers had suddenly become a total crisis, but there was no truth in the widespread impression that right-wing extremists had been able, alone, to challenge and subvert the legitimate Government of France. Without the Army, such men as Jacques Soustelle and others would have counted for very little, even in Algiers.
The civil government of France, however, was not abandoned by the Army, or at least it was just as accurate to say that the Army was abandoned first by the civil government. There were plenty of right-wing extremists within the French Army and the officers who had led the Corsican operation, and the officers of the paratroop units which quietly moved into the military airdromes of metropolitan France in the first days of the crisis, would not have included many liberal or left-wing individuals, but did include many of anti-democratic tendencies. That part of the Army, however, was a minority and even the extremists would accept orders from any civil government firm and decisive enough to give orders.
Mr. Alsop finds it a terrible thing that the legitimate Government of France foundered on double abandonment, an abandonment first of the Army by the civil authorities and then an abandonment of the civil authorities by the Army.
For General De Gaulle, there would be no danger of abandonment as he could give orders to control or even to suppress the right-wing extremists and they would be carried out by the Army. Nor would he become a "prisoner" of such men as M. Soustelle. He had not been made such a prisoner by President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill during the war and so would not become the prisoner of the men presently leading the rebellion in Algiers. The choice would be up to General De Gaulle alone as to what he would do, and Mr. Alsop concludes that it could not be predicted whether he would be content to restore sanity and order in France or would imitate dictators Francisco Franco in Spain and Antonio Salazar in Portugal. Signs were encouraging, but no one really knew the inner mind of the General.
Robert C. Ruark, in Palamos, Spain, finds that women seemed ready to take over the United States. He believes that there was a conspiracy of "togetherness", which he finds a little sinister in its implication, as he was one of the archaic "woman's place is in the home" boys, refusing to dry dishes or change diapers, regardless of togetherness.
He says that in Rochester, N.Y., they had a course in the seventh grade to teach boys to change diapers, the boys having been forced by the female commissioner of the board of education to take a coeducational course in homemaking. He says that his grandfather had a shortage of help also, but it had never been suggested that his grandfather ought wash up, and his grandmother did not have such modern conveniences as vacuum cleaners, mixers, garbage disposers, deep freezes, etc.
He would not expect his wife to mow the lawn, make out the tax returns, bring home a few cans of beer, re-shingle the house or practice carpentry. He would never make a bed or sweep a floor, but would walk the dog and throw out all the junk mail, and try to take care of the business of feeding the family.
He says that there never had been in the history of the world a female population so pampered as the American woman, with the mechanical replacements for the old-fashioned manual work, even if the breadwinner could not afford but one car and one television set. He concludes that men seemed to like being pushed around and shoved into household economics, but the time had come to rebel and he was determined that they would not make a lady of him.
A letter from Rock Hill, S.C., plaintively asks the newspaper to stop carrying on so much about Mecklenburg Democratic politicians and their "silly primary", especially since Republican Congressman Charles Jonas appeared to get all of the votes in Mecklenburg.
A letter writer from Cellriver, S.C., indicates that without France, the U.S. could forget about NATO and head for home. It was not clear what General De Gaulle planned to do and whether the generals were leading General De Gaulle or vice versa. A stronger and more stable regime might emerge or the opposition parties might produce revolution and chaos, with an immediate reduction in the effectiveness of NATO, causing the Eisenhower Administration to be faced with the necessity of undertaking an agonizing reappraisal of European defenses. He finds that the Administration's indecision as to whether to support France in North Africa, together with its refusal to back it in the Suez crisis of 1956, might now result in dire consequences to NATO.
A letter writer suggests that in view of the recent humiliating experiences resulting from efforts to launch satellites, perhaps it would be better for the Navy to continue in the boat business, as at least they usually got the boats launched successfully.
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