The Charlotte News
Monday, June 16, 1958
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that House investigators had produced evidence this date that industrialist Bernard Goldfine had paid bills totaling $267.05 for White House chief of staff Sherman Adams at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York at about the time a Government agency was closing out a case against Mr. Goldfine, in January and February, 1954. In the same period of time, according to investigator Francis McLaughlin testifying before the House subcommittee, the Federal Trade Commission was settling a complaint against Northfield Mills, owned my Mr. Goldfine. A textile company of Mr. Goldfine had promised that it would halt alleged mislabeling of certain cloth and the matter had been closed on that basis. The law provided for various alternative actions in cases of alleged mislabeling. Later, Mr. Goldfine and some of his mills had been involved in other charges of alleged mislabeling, resulting in a cease and desist order to which Mr. Goldfine and his companies had consented, though admitting no wrongdoing. There had been no criminal prosecution. After an opening statement saying that the subcommittee was going to push its probe "without fear or favor", subcommittee chairman Oren Harris of Arkansas called Mr. McLaughlin to testify in a surprise move. The latter produced photographic copies of Waldorf-Astoria records which he said had been obtained through a subpoena served the previous Friday. He said that a Goldfine bill of January 21-26, 1954 had totaled $514.75, including $47.40 which had been transferred from the account of Mr. Adams. For the period February 12-15, he said that Mr. Goldfine had paid $2,982.29 for a bill which included $514.75 for Mr. and Mrs. Adams. He testified that FTC records showed a complaint against Mr. Goldfine's mills which had been settled by the FTC at about the time of the visits to the Waldorf by Mr. Adams.
In Berlin, it was reported that the U.S. had failed this date in its second contact with Communist East Germany to obtain the release of nine U.S. Army soldiers held prisoner there. Responsible diplomatic sources said that the Communists had insisted again that the helicopter case be negotiated on a government-to-government level. East Germany's Foreign Ministry had rejected a compromise formula on protocol put forward by the American negotiator, Army Col. Robert McQuail. In a 40-minute meeting at the ministry, Col. McQuail had reportedly presented credentials from General H. I. Hodes, the U.S. commander in chief for Europe, and had also indicated that he was negotiating with the approval of the State Department. Seeking international prestige for their regime, the Communists apparently demanded that Col. McQuail show accreditation. The latter had walked into the Ministry at noon accompanied by a major from the U.S. liaison mission in Potsdam and three soldiers who prevented newsmen from getting close enough to address questions.
In Beirut, Lebanon, American families had received the go-ahead to move out of the city this date as the anti-Government rebels kept up a determined, bloody stand in advance of the arrival of U.N. Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold to direct his international team of observers. Bitter fighting had broken out in Beirut on Saturday and had continued the previous day until Government security forces had pinned down the insurgents in their strongholds at the center of the city. Heavy shooting had stopped by noon, but sporadic firing and bombing had been heard the remainder of the day. In the gravest warning to Americans in the Middle East since the 1956 Suez crisis, the U.S. Embassy had offered free transportation from the country to dependents of Embassy staff members. The 5,000 other Americans in the city were urged to stay off the streets. Thus far, no foreigners had been hurt in the month-old rebellion against President Camille Chamoun's pro-Western Government, which charged the insurgents with having been directed by United Arab Republic Premier Gamal Abdel Nasser and inspired by its pan-Arab expansionist policies. The Lebanese casualties had been estimated to be around 500. Fighting on Saturday had resulted in the deaths of 50 persons and the large number of ambulances in Beirut the previous day had evidenced the continuing bitter battle.
In London, it was reported that the Soviet ambassadors to the U.S., Britain and France had been summoned to Moscow, presumably for consultation on an East-West summit meeting and nuclear arms negotiations.
In Paris, it was reported that Premier Charles de Gaulle would confer with British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan before the end of the current month, with official sources indicating that no precise date had yet been set for the meeting, though June 27 was frequently mentioned.
The House Ways & Means Committee had opened hearings this date on Social Security revisions with a strong hint from the chairman, Representative Wilbur Mills of Arkansas, that the Committee would take no action during the current year.
Senators, dissatisfied with the Kennedy-Ives bill to curb labor abuses, had pushed ahead this date with a last-ditch effort to reshape the bill more to their liking. As they headed into a fourth day of debate on the measure, Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson said that he hoped to finish action on the bill this night under an agreement limiting debate. Awaiting action first was an amendment offered by Senator Charles Potter of Michigan to allow union members to recover dues used for political purposes or other non-union activities which they opposed. Senators Barry Goldwater of Arizona and Carl Curtis of Nebraska agreed with Senator Potter's assessment that it was "a violation of a worker's rights to appropriate hard-earned dues money for political slush funds." Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon, however, said that the amendment of Senator Potter was "as absurd and as completely without justification" as any yet offered. Senator Morse denounced it as "a union-busting amendment" and said it would "play into the hands of the type of employer who employs the stooge and spy." The bill was designed to help drive racketeers from the labor movement and to provide rank-and-file members more control over union matters. It would also make a number of changes to the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act, including some long sought by labor leaders. While a number of revisions had been made to meet criticisms of Secretary of Labor James Mitchell, every major amendment offered by spokesmen for the Administration had been defeated. Senate Minority Leader William Knowland of California had also lost his effort on Saturday to provide an amendment whereby 20 percent of the union's members could force secret balloting on recall of union officers and on change of a union's constitution and bylaws. The Senate had later adopted an amendment offered by Senator Sam J. Ervin of North Carolina providing for the recall of local union officers at any time by a majority vote of the members. The Ervin amendment also revised a section of the bill requiring periodic elections of union officers by secret ballot, setting the maximum term for officials of local unions at three years instead of four and for officials of international unions at four years instead of five.
In Washington, labor unions pledged this date to spread the mass purchase of medical care for workers despite growing objections from the medical profession.
In London, most of the 20,000 dock workers whose month-long strike jeopardized London's food supplies, had returned to work this date on union orders, with a back-to-work vote also underway among the 50,000 striking London bus workers.
In Terre Haute, Ind., floodwaters of a Wabash River tributary had picked up speed this date after overwhelming an earthen levee protecting West Terre Haute and spreading to inundate 30 percent of that community. The 4,000 residents of the town near the Illinois border had been alerted the previous night to the danger from the swollen Sugar Creek, and Civil Defense officials had reported that there were no casualties among the 1,000 persons forced from their homes. An Indiana National Guard truck, a jeep and a pickup truck had been swept away when the river poured over the levee in the wee hours of the morning, about a mile upstream from where the creek emptied into the Wabash. Six men working on the levee had been rescued by boat after being cut off for a short time in the darkness. The water flowed across U.S. 40, five blocks west of the Wabash, and closed the heavily traveled highway. Engineers inspected the main Wabash bridge on U.S. 40 connecting Terre Haute with its sister city and decided not to close the bridge. Residents piled themselves and furniture on trucks standing by and many of them had been taken to a Red Cross emergency center in the central grade school. Many had to be forced to leave their homes. National Guardsmen and Army Reservists aided police in patrolling the city against looters. Authorities estimated that 40 percent of West Terre Haute would be flooded before the Wabash reached its predicted crest of about 28 feet.
In Pensacola, Fla., an enraged suitor charged with killing a deputy sheriff had been captured in a highway telephone booth this date, indicating that he was calling the sheriff's office to give himself up. Officers said that the 25-year old man had fatally shot a 44-year old deputy in the head and wounded another deputy and both of his girlfriend's parents following an argument with her father. The deputy said that the argument the previous night had been caused by the man's attentions paid the girl, 19, who had run into the woods after the shooting but returned to the home later unharmed. Her father, 48, had been wounded critically, and another 33-year old deputy was listed in fair condition from a bullet wound in the neck. The girl's mother had suffered a flesh wound in the shoulder. Officers said that the man, who was the operator of a used car lot, was unarmed and offered no resistance when spotted in the telephone booth on the Mobile Highway near Pensacola. One of the officers who had taken the man into custody quoted him as saying that he had panicked when the killed deputy approached him, thinking that he was going to kill him. He said he had spent the night in the woods. The deputy said that the man would be charged with first-degree murder in the slaying of the deputy and with charges of attempted murder in the shooting of the other three victims. The father of the girl had summoned deputies after he and the man had argued over the family's objections to him seeing the girl, the deputy indicating that the father had threatened the man with a shotgun. The young couple had been sitting in the man's automobile at the home when the two shot deputies arrived, one of the deputies having walked to the car and asked the man for his pistol, whereupon he was shot. The other deputy then started toward the car and was fatally shot. The man then re-entered the home of the girl and shot her parents, then fled. The girl's brother, 15, had picked up the service revolver of the wounded deputy and fired two or three times at the fleeing shooter.
Ann Sawyer of The News reports that Charlotte bondsmen in the previous 11 months had grossed over $50,000, with their bond forfeitures to the City and County Recorder's Courts having amounted to $3,550. The top grossing bondsman, according to the clerk of Superior Court, had earned $16,375 in fees on 904 bonds written between July, 1957 and May, 1958. The second most had been $14,606.50. Records in the clerk's office of the City Recorder's Court showed that the top grossing bondsman had forfeited $200 in bonds during that time and in the County Recorder's Court, had forfeited $1,550 worth of bonds. The second most grossing bondsman had paid $50 in City Recorder's Court and none in the County. Fee collections by other bondsmen between July and May had been $6,354.25 for one, $6,260 for another, $5,960 for a third, and $1,270 for a fourth. Records showed that the latter during that time had forfeited $650 in bonds in the County. The other three had forfeited even less in the County. Of the $50,825.75 in fees, $28,595 had been collected by the top grossing bondsman and two brothers among the latter four. The fee for a bondsman was a five dollar minimum or 10 percent of the value of the bond.
In Charlotte, the repair of the Coliseum roof, much of which had been blown off in the previous day's wind and rain storm, might require some time to complete. A construction industry executive, connected with the original construction of the 5 million dollar Coliseum and Auditorium complex, said that specially designed aluminum sheeting had to be fabricated and shipped to Charlotte before the repair could be effected. He said it was not a stock item and had to be cut to fit, that they could not just go to the store and buy it. He said that some of the roofing which had not been blown off, particularly that around the edges, might also have to be replaced. The felt padding which was between the roofing and the concrete dome would also have to be replaced. A Pittsburgh aluminum firm would repair the roof based on shop drawings and specifications of the original. The freak wind had struck the Coliseum at around 1:45 the previous afternoon and ripped away about three-eighths of the sheeting on the dome. The wind had gotten between the roofing and the concrete dome and stripped away the sheeting as if it were tinfoil. The sheets had been hurled from the roof to the ground near the Independence Boulevard side of the building. There had been no injuries. The Coliseum had originally opened in September, 1955.
In San Francisco, Billy Graham had ended his seven-week crusade, urging a crowd of 18,500 at the Cow Palace the previous day to carry "the spirit of revival back to your churches." He urged that if they waited a week or two, Satan would take advantage of them. He said that some of the crowd were "like Judas. You are greedy and will sell your soul and your future for a few pieces of silver. Some of those who steal from God are those with the most money." He said that advance contributions and weekday offerings for the free meetings might not have met all expenses of the crusade, which he estimated to have been $400,000. He asked the crowd to give generously to make sure that all of their expenses were met. The total take was not immediately available. Total attendance for the seven weeks had risen to 696,525, of whom 25,575 had stepped forward to make "decisions for Christ" at the events. He urged that Christ had gone a long way for them and that they could take a few steps for him. After visiting Yosemite National Park the following day with his 13-year old daughter, the evangelist would rest until Sunday, when he would speak at a Seals Stadium rally in San Francisco, and then would tour California.
In Vatican City, Pope Pius XII had presided this date at the final third consistory to prepare for the canonizations of a Spanish nun and an Italian Franciscan.
In Antibes, France, it was reported that Francis Meillan, 46, a world-famous rose grower, had died the previous day at the height of the rose season on the French Riviera, with his room having been banked with his favorite flower to the end.
On the editorial page, "Does Dissent Make Them See 'Red'?" tells of Troy Middleton, president of LSU, having made the right to express an opinion a little safer in the South and everywhere else, after 66 faculty members had signed a petition opposing current bills in the Legislature to close the public schools to preserve segregation. The immediate response of the Legislature had been to propose a hunt for Communists, "un-American" types and assorted goblins at the state's largest institution of higher learning and to summon Mr. Middleton to testify.
Mr. Middleton had denied that integration was taught at LSU and said that he knew of no Communistic leanings among faculty members, adding, with emphasis, that LSU was pledged to allow faculty members to exercise their rights as citizens. He thought it pertinent to add that he had fought in two wars and earned four battle stars to preserve the American way of life. He had received applause at that point.
The piece finds it an excellent strategy as no one would make light of the patriotism of a veteran of the Battle of the Bulge. But it also finds that there was something terrible in the notion that a Southern educator had felt compelled to recount his war record to protect his institution against careless insinuations of disloyalty. "Why should a Communist hunt be launched automatically upon discovery that a teacher does not agree with the majority political view, and has the courage to register his dissent?" It finds it a potent way of forcing the views of the state upon the individual, a practice which occurred in all dictatorial regimes, including under communism.
It finds that the tragedy in the history of the South had often followed the systematic stifling of dissent, once true in North Carolina. UNC trustee Victor Bryant had recalled in a speech recently that the University in 1856 had discharged a science professor because he advocated publicly the abolition of slavery. Mr. Bryant said that he could not help but speculate "how fortunate this nation might have been had he and others like him prevailed, and we had avoided that collapse of reason which made possible the catastrophic Civil War some five years later."
The piece indicates that things had changed in the state and University faculty members were able to express without penalty their varying views on integration of public schools, that it would take a political hysteria wilder than any which could presently be imagined to quench the spirit of academic liberty which had been nourished by so many North Carolina educators and political leaders.
It finds that as with all other freedoms, academic freedom was indivisible, that when threatened anywhere, it was threatened everywhere. "And the real tragedy of stifling the student, scholar or the teacher is not the damage done to him, but that done to the society which undermines its own rights, and sometimes even seals its own doom, by refusing to hear its own voices of reason."
Now comes Dummy Trump doing exactly and precisely what the Louisiana Legislature was seeking to do in 1958, stifling dissent on college campuses by using the coercive means of deprivation of Federal funding to twist the arms of college administrators to void policies with which the Administration disagrees, primarily diversity, equity and inclusion and dissent against the continued Israeli pounding of Gaza, which have the result of stifling dissent among faculty and students, all in the name of Trump's dictatorship, which has now become quite evident as his aim—unless he is stopped. The point is never who dissents or what issue the dissenters champion, but rather the principle in a free democracy under our Constitution, with its first amendment ensuring against laws which limit freedom of speech, freedom of the press, religious belief, freedom of assembly and to petition the government for redress of grievances. The piece might have added that to limit one such freedom or coerce adherence to a regime's view is to open the door to limit and coerce all such freedoms, the currency of despots and dictators, of Hitlers and Mussolinis. Soon added to that list, if not already, will be "the Trumps" of the world.
"Another Crusader Bites the Dust" indicates that Sherman Adams was one of the most powerful men in the Government, so much so that he could not possibly reckon the full extent of his words and actions on the administrative agencies of the Government, with his most innocently intended query or suggestion able to sway the thoughts and actions of lesser officials.
It finds therefore that he could not support his denial of influencing Federal agencies to provide favored treatment to Bernard Goldfine, his friend who had been paying his hotel bill in Boston. Mr. Adams had admitted having interceded personally with three agencies with which Mr. Goldfine was having difficulties. The latter could have gone to those agencies himself, as any other American. Unless he believed it a special benefit to him, there was no reason why he did not go and instead asked Mr. Adams to do so on his behalf.
The White House protested that the matters involved were mere trifles. But Mr. Adams had committed a major indiscretion. It doubts that there was anything unusual about it or that many members of Congress could deny similar intercessions on their part, as the getting and using of influence was an inherent part of the serious game of politics. But what made Mr. Adams's conduct so shabby was that he was not a run-of-the-mine political type but rather the right hand man of the President, whose actions inevitably carried the imprint of the Presidency. He was better fixed than anyone else in the Administration, save the President, himself, to resist efforts to use him and his office for political or financial favor.
As Mr. Adams had stated in 1952, while damning influence-peddling within the Truman Administration: "The people want Ike to clean up the government—to make it a government of which they can be proud. They want Eisenhower to build back honesty and integrity in the government which is not unduly influenced by any particular segment of society, any particular special interest."
The piece agrees.
"Fakery in America's Cultural Diplomacy" indicates that the U.S. Information Agency had again managed to stub its toe with cheap imitations of U.S. art being palmed off as the real thing at the embassies and USIA offices around the world.
It was a good idea to provide doubting foreigners a peek at examples of America's contemporary culture, but the good intentions had been badly rendered. USIA had purchased 300 identical sets of color reproductions of 20th Century American paintings to hang in U.S. installations abroad. Other governments provided their embassies with original paintings and so it questions why the U.S. had sent fakes and had thereby further advertised the official Philistinism of its Government.
The country was full of fine artists who faithfully mirrored the rich cultural heritage of the country, with painters in Charlotte and scores of other cities across the land who were expressing the best which America had in art. One New York art critic, Maurice Grosser, had correctly assessed the situation when he had written: "However good its intention, the USIA, in distributing reproductions of paintings, is not supporting art, it is encouraging lip service; it is not patronizing artists, but underwriting publishers."
It concludes that America had plenty of genuine art to display proudly to people abroad and ought do so.
A piece from the Jackson (Miss.) State Times, titled "Sounds out of the Past", tells of some older graduates, most of whom now lived in towns and cities, having held a meeting and talked about earlier years. A Vicksburg woman had wondered: "What sounds can you recall which have a nostalgic ring?" She recalled the "sound of a neighbor chopping wood on a chilly, still night when the stars were out and no other sound but that from the vibration of the ax and the wood could be heard."
Another had said, "The most dead-in-earnest sound I can recall is the squealing pigs when a bucket of rice polish was being dumped into the trough inside the pen."
Everyone in the group then began volunteering their favorite sounds, such as, "that far-away sound of a railroad locomotive whistle which stimulated the urge to go somewhere", "roosters—10,000 of them crowing at four a.m.", "a sandlot of boys in an argument over whether the man was out or safe on third base." And, it goes down a list of several others, including nostalgic aromas members of the group had recalled.
It suggests that if one wanted to be nostalgic and was old enough to play the game, "then be pensive with the past."
Drew Pearson indicates that the betting odds in Washington were that Sherman Adams, who had been the "assistant president" for five years, would now have to resign as the secret evidence against him which had piled up in the House Legislative Oversight Committee was too embarrassing, including the fact that Bernard Goldfine had paid other hotel bills for him, with the $2,000 worth of accommodations paid at the Sheraton-Plaza in Boston being but one instance, that there was also another $1,300 hotel bill paid on behalf of Mr. Adams in Plymouth, Mass. Committee investigators had checked with the tailor who fit both Mr. Goldfine, the millionaire textile manufacturer, and Mr. Adams, and it had been determined that Mr. Goldfine had paid for most of the clothes of Mr. Adams, presenting him also with a vicuna coat.
It had caused Democrats to recall during the Truman era the flak about the mink coats provided to Administration wives by a White House "fixer", and the "cloth Republican coat" speech of Vice-President Nixon when he was defending his $18,000 personal expense fund in September, 1952 during the campaign, and had mentioned therein the mink coats provided to Democrats. They also recalled the President's "clean as a hound's tooth" speech regarding his Administration and the sanctimonious criticism of Democrats by Mr. Adams, himself.
When Sam Faber of the Faber tailoring firm in Boston had been asked by the column how much money Mr. Goldfine had paid for the clothes provided to Mr. Adams, he replied that it was a very delicate matter which he could not discuss. There was also evidence that Mr. Goldfine had paid for some of the clothing for Mrs. Adams from Jordan-Marsh, Boston's most exclusive store. On some occasions, Mr. Goldfine and Mr. Adams had come along on those shopping trips. There was also evidence that Mr. Adams had intervened at the Federal Trade Commission where Mr. Goldfine had faced a criminal case, which was dropped. The National Association of Wool Manufacturers also had informed its members that Mr. Adams had contacted the Tariff Commission, intending to obtain more tariff protection against foreign imports. Members of the Association said that it was the same Mr. Goldfine, one of the largest woolen manufacturers in New England, who had gotten Mr. Adams to intervene.
That had been in direct contradiction to the President's strong policy of low-tariff reciprocal trade which Democrats had renewed for another five years the previous week—because the country had learned the lesson of the failed tariffs of the Smoot-Hawley era from 1930, which only helped to exacerbate the worldwide depression, leading inevitably to World War II, unlike the current Trump Administration, populated by idiots who have obviously never cracked a history book in their lives, except perhaps distillations which they managed to crib in junior high and high school by looking over the shoulders of their neighbors—and, of course, not to slight their scholarship, their secret, dedicated reading of Mein Kampf as their outline for "Project 2025".
All of it had followed so much Republican castigation of Democrats that it was believed that the President could not let Mr. Adams remain as his chief of staff. In Des Moines on September 19, 1952, General Eisenhower had promised: "When it comes to casting out the crooks and their cronies, I can promise you that we won't wait for Congressional prodding and investigation. The prodding, this time, will start from the top." (It was only a week or so later that he embraced Mr. Nixon in Wheeling, W. Va., as his "boy" following the successful Checkers speech in Los Angeles while Mr. Nixon stayed at the Ambassador Hotel, then owned by the father of David Schine, close friend of Roy Cohn, later, in spring, 1954, becoming well known as part of the Army-McCarthy hearings.)
The close relationship between Mr. Adams and Mr. Goldfine had been revealed just before Matt Connelly, who had occupied the same position during the Truman Administration, was set to go to jail for accepting an overcoat and two suits of clothes from Irving Sachs, operator of Shu-Styles in St. Louis, with a criminal tax case against Mr. Sachs having been involved and a phone call to Lamar Caudle, then head of the tax division of the Justice Department, resulting in Mr. Sachs having been fined but not sentenced to jail by a Federal District Court judge on the basis that Mr. Sachs was epileptic. For being involved in that matter, both Mr. Caudle and Mr. Connelly had been prosecuted relentlessly by the Eisenhower Administration and finally convicted of "depriving the United States of their best services", with the Justice Department having not charged either man with receiving any monetary reward.
In the case of Mr. Goldfine, by contrast, he had also faced a criminal charge before the Federal Trade Commission, and Mr. Adams had also placed phone calls in his behalf before the case against him had been dropped. Mr. Adams had received $2,000 and free hotel accommodations in Boston, $1,300 worth of hotel accommodations in Plymouth plus the vicuna coat coat and other clothes, considerably more than that received by Mr. Connelly in his case. Mr. Connelly and Mr. Caudle would report to jail in a week, on June 22, Mr. Caudle's birthday.
It is to be noted that Jordan-Marsh would crop up again in presidential politics in July, 1963. Perhaps, President Kennedy recalled the reference to the department store in the Adams case and realized therefore its potential seriousness, not only in terms of sinking the Air Force budget. Thus, his "silly bastard" comment, in reference to the Air Force officer who was posing proudly for a newspaper photograph beside the furniture supplied from Jordan-Marsh for Mrs. Kennedy's maternity ward room at Otis Air Force Base, and his desire to have the officer and the Air Force general who ordered the furniture transferred to Alaska, were quite understandable in retrospect.
Rowland Evans, Jr., indicates that the Administration, as orchestrated by the White House, itself, had deliberately sought first to promote and then undermine the Kennedy-Ives labor bill on the notion that Republicans could then run in the midterms on the basis that the Democratic Congress had refused to pass any labor reform despite the McClellan Committee rackets hearings exposing labor corruption.
He suggests the strategy as faintly reminiscent of the Administration's conduct a year earlier regarding the civil rights bill, the first since Reconstruction, when the Senate had done the impossible and passed the bill without a Southern filibuster. The Republicans and nearly everyone else had counted on such a filibuster to disunite the Democratic Party. But Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson had won the votes of 12 Republicans for the disputed jury trial amendment and was able thereby to gain passage of the bill. Then the Republicans resorted to delay which appeared as an effort to kill the bill by having the House delete the jury trial amendment. The inevitable result had been a belief still held by leading black organizations that the Republicans simply meant from the beginning to agitate and exploit the civil rights issue and not resolve it. The same result was likely from the White House labor bill intrigue.
Despite Secretary of Labor James Mitchell's denunciation of the Kennedy-Ives bill, the White House strategy was likely to boomerang in several respects. It had put Mr. Mitchell "entirely out of character", according to one of his staunchest Republican admirers in Congress, with his bright future as a Republican who had merited the full respect of labor having been damaged, perhaps irreparably. The Administration had also appeared to place itself between Senator William Knowland and Senator Barry Goldwater, although the brightest future for the party had to lie elsewhere and although Secretary Mitchell had personally moved the party toward a liberal labor position during the previous four years. The implication that Senators Kennedy and Ives had deliberately contrived to write a bill which would weaken and not strengthen the controls over unscrupulous labor leaders had greatly enhanced the chance for final passage of a reform bill.
In the House, Speaker Sam Rayburn would use all of his considerable power to have the Senate bill approved and should the House pass the bill and send it to the White House, the big winner would more likely be Senator Kennedy and not Secretary Mitchell. For Republicans, the most unfortunate part of the matter was that they, not the Democrats, had kept the heat on the labor reform issue and might now wind up with no credit on the issue.
Robert C. Ruark, in Palamos, Spain,
tells of having been reminded of the rock 'n' roll tune, "Puppy
Love", during the recent tour abroad by Jerry Lee Lewis,
especially the parody of the tune by Carol Burnett
He finds that Mr. Lewis appeared to be the biggest cultural thing since the Army had claimed Elvis Presley. Mr. Lewis had said that all of the bad publicity in the British press was ill-founded, as he did not understand why they would bring up his marriage to his third wife without having divorced his first wife when there was never any issue regarding his second marriage.
He recalls Sonny Wisecarver, 14, who a decade earlier was running off with grown women, one of them having recounted, "He is the kind of man women always search for and never find." Mr. Ruark suggests that Sonny finally had a rival who also sang.
When Mr. Ruark let his hair grow, everyone called him a bum and suggested that he visit a barbershop, and he had not even been divorced in 20 years of marriage, as his wife would not let him. "To be more or less legally impounded three times before you can vote fills me with admiration for this vibrant new generation of ducktail hairdos and black jeans, motorcycles and blazoned leather jackets."
Mr. Lewis had been quoted as saying of his new bride, "She may be young, but man, she's all woman." Her mother, who was under 30, said that she was not worried about her daughter's dubious marital status as Mr. Lewis was a good boy and if they were not really married yet, they would hold the ceremony again to do the right thing. The previous weekend, Mr. Lewis had said that he had done so.
He said that he did not care that he
had been booed by his own fans because he made $20,000 per week when
he worked in the U.S.
Mr. Ruark concludes that since the U.S. appeared to have failed badly at the Brussels World's Fair, it might mend its fences by sending Mr. Lewis and his bride to the U.S. exhibit so that the world could get a firsthand look at what the world thought America was really like.
A letter from J. R. Cherry, Jr., says that he always got a kick out of the newspaper's editorialists when they took off on a "'brave outer space cruise'" on the subject of "'rugged individualism'", finding that it had done so in the June 7 edition in the editorial titled, "In Diversity, There Is Also Strength". "With U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. (integratin' individualist) Douglas as your 'rugged' co-pilot, you gave us a most illuminating insight into what rugged individualism really means, and why it operates best in a one-way air lane which terra-firmsters like me piously know as 'Liberal Conformity Boulevard.'" It finds that the piece had indicated that the late Senator McCarthy had not been an individualist, when Mr. Cherry believes that he had stood alone against his colleagues on a Senate resolution to censure him, and that he had also aligned with the minority of individualists against the majority conformists on several occasions. He finds that the "individualistic" label was fine as long as it was applied to the liberal establishment, provided the peons did not commit the unpardonable intellectual sin of sharing views similar to those of a bogeyman, Senator McCarthy. He believes that the title of the piece had overlooked a truth, that "In Diversity, There Is Also Weakness and Dissolution", indicating that if it doubted it, it should behold the corpse of the Fourth French Republic.
Someone should remind Mr. Cherry
that the U.S. is not postwar France, at least not before Trump came along. As
we have suggested before, Mr. Cherry, had he lived so long, would now
enjoy a prominent place, no doubt, in the Trump Administration,
provided, of course, he took the Trump oath of loyalty, promising to
uphold the laws and sacred sayings of Trump, whether they conflict
with the Constitution and laws of the United States or not, such
conflict being much the better, as going over big in cult-chanting
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