The Charlotte News
Saturday, June 21, 1958
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page
reports that in Little Rock, Ark., a Federal District Court judge had
held this date that racial integration at Central High School could
be suspended until 1961. The judge had indicated in the order that
the Little Rock gradual plan for desegregation could be suspended for
2 1/2 years without the school "being considered collectively or
individually" in contempt of court. The court had heard the
board of education's petition for suspension of the program on June
3-5. The ruling meant that the seven students still enrolled in the
2,000-pupil school at the conclusion of the previous school year
would be banned from the high school in the coming September session.
An attorney for the NAACP who opposed the suspension, had declined to
comment on whether the ruling would be appealed. The president of the
school board expressed pleasure at the decision. He and other
witnesses from the board had told the judge at the hearing that
racial incidents continued at the high school throughout the previous
school year despite the presence of Federal troops and federalized
National Guardsmen. They had said that they saw nothing to indicate
that the situation would change in the coming year should black
students be allowed to return. The board president said that the
board had based its request for the suspension in part on the fact
that Governor Orval Faubus might no longer be Governor in 1961. The
previous fall, the Governor had placed the Arkansas National Guard at
the school on the eve of the opening of the term, after protests had
erupted on the first day of registration, and ordered the troops to
prevent black students from entering classes despite a Federal court
order directing the beginning of desegregation, with the Guard
turning away nine black students. Under the school board's
court-approved plan, integration was slated to begin at the high
school level, then at the junior high level and finally in the
elementary schools. The Governor had withdrawn the troops after a
Federal District Court judge had enjoined him and other State
officials from interfering with integration. Rioting had broken out
when the nine students attempted to enter the high school under the
protection of city policemen. The President, on September 24, 1957,
had ordered elements of the 101st Airborne Division, under the
command of Maj. General Edwin Walker, to be deployed as needed at the
school and had federalized the Arkansas National Guard. Federal
troops had dispersed the anti-integration crowds who had filled the
street in front of the high school and had enforced the judge's order
that integration proceed forthwith. The federalized Guardsmen had
remained on duty at the high school throughout the school year, but,
along with the troops, had been relieved of the duty at the end of
the school year, shortly after peaceful graduation ceremonies in which one of the black students had graduated. The court's order would be reversed by the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals the following August, a decision unanimously affirmed by the Supreme Court in September, with the original District Court orders for adoption of the school board's plan for the gradual desegregation reinstated. (Whether General Walker, incidentally, who would in September, 1962, assist in the rebellion attendant the enrollment at the University of Mississippi by James Meredith, following the General's reassignment from his command in West Germany to Hawaii in 1961 by President Kennedy for his alleged attempted rightwing indoctrination of troops under his command, leading to the General's accepted resignation from the Army, and would be arrested for his participation in the disorder at Oxford and confined for a time to a mental hospital thereafter on orders of Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, would come to know Harvey
In Beirut, Lebanon, U.N. Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold had left this date to look into a couple of other Middle Eastern hot spots after apparently failing to make any headway toward ending the six-week old Lebanese rebellion. As he had flown to Israel following two days of talks, a bomb had exploded only a few yards from the presidential palace in Beirut, one of the hundreds of bombs hurled by terrorists since the rebellion had begun against the pro-Western Government of President Camille Chamoun. Dr. Hammarskjold had been scheduled to visit Jerusalem and the Jordanian capital of Amman on the way to Cairo, capital of the United Arab Republic, which Beirut officials charged with supporting the rebels. Jordanian officials said that the Secretary-General would meet King Hussein of Jordan and Premier Samir El Rafai in Amman, with U.N. headquarters in New York indicating that he would discuss Mt. Scopus, an Israeli enclave in Jordanian territory near Jerusalem, where a Canadian U.N. truce official had been killed in a clash on May 2. The U.N. announcement had said that one topic for discussion in Cairo would be the U.N. Emergency Force which had been separating Egyptian and Israeli troops since the 1956 war regarding the expropriation of the Suez Canal by Premier Gamal Abdel Nasser. Another expected topic was the Lebanese violence. President Chamoun had accused the UAR of sending in from its neighboring Syrian province arms and troops to aid the rebels. The Secretary-General was scheduled to return to Beirut on Monday or Tuesday and fly back to New York on Wednesday. Meanwhile, the Lebanese Government had taken another legal step against the rebels, as sporadic small-scale warfare against them continued, with warrants having been issued for the arrest of 17 rebel leaders on charges of inciting terrorism and rebellion. The warrants named former Premiers Saed Salam, Rachid Karami, and Kamal Jumblatt, heads of political parties outlawed a week earlier. Dr. Hammarskjold had met the previous day with Lebanese officials regarding the situation while scattered gunfire had rung through Beirut.
In Hong Kong, it was reported that a haggard American priest just released from five years in a Communist Chinese prison had said this date that he did not deny charges against him, but a fellow priest said that his companion was sick and thus made denials for them both. The two priests were moved almost to tears by the greetings of fellow Catholics when they reached Hong Kong. Both looked worn and older than their years, one being 65 and the other, 51. At a press conference shortly after they landed, the younger of the two, of Pittsburgh and Chicago, said that he did not deny the Communist charges, indicating, "I did deal in black-market currency." The other priest, of Ossining, N.Y., interrupted him and put his arms around him, indicating, "This man has been sick for five years. I deny the charges." He said that the trial of his case and that of the other priest had been "ridiculous". Peiping Radio, in announcing their release the prior Saturday, had said that the younger priest had been jailed "for sabotaging China's financial ordinance" and the older priest, on charges of collecting Chinese political and economic information "under the cover of being a priest." The younger priest said that he felt his sentence was a little long, that 2 1/2 years would have been a fairer sentence. Both men appeared to be at best in fair health, although reporting earlier by telephone from Shanghai that they were in good health. They had both spent exactly 5 years in prison. Their release left four Americans in Communist Chinese prisons, two businessmen and two civilian employees of the U.S. Army.
In Moscow, it was reported that the Soviet press had said in advance this date that the U.S. would be responsible for any failure of the Geneva conference of technicians, aimed at suspending nuclear testing, scheduled to begin July 1.
In Brussels, a Belgian Air Force lieutenant had returned home this date after 23 days of detention in East Germany, where his jet had been forced down by Communist fighters.
In Jakarta, Indonesia, the Government claimed this date the capture of another North Celibes village in its drive to eliminate the rebel regime based at Menado.
In Pretoria, South Africa, the mass treason trial of 92 South Africans who opposed the Government's harsh apartheid laws would open on August 1, according to the attorney general of Transvaal Province.
In Detroit, the UAW said this date that a strike vote in progress at General Motors and Ford Motor Co. plants was running more than 13 to 1 in favor of the walkout.
In Washington, Senator Sam J. Ervin of North Carolina said that he favored providing a new trial based on newly discovered evidence to Lamar Caudle and Matthew Connelly, convicted of conspiracy to defraud the Government by allegedly fixing an income tax case against a shoe broker of St. Louis. The Senator said the previous day that he was gratified when the chief judge of the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals had stayed the sentences of both men pending their petition for new trial. Mr. Caudle had been the head of the Justice Department's tax division under former President Truman, and Mr. Connelly had been the President's appointments secretary. The two were alleged to have conspired to keep the shoe broker from going to jail, the Federal District Court judge who had sentenced him having found that he was too ill to be confined and so had fined him $40,000. The new evidence consisted of the statement of a co-defendant, Harry Schwimmer, formerly an attorney for the convicted tax evader, who had become ill during the trial and was granted a mistrial. He had been unable to speak until recently because of his stroke during the trial, and was now prepared to testify that oil royalties he had taken out in the name of Mr. Caudle had been done without the latter's knowledge, and had not been a payoff for lenience for his client, as the Government had charged in the case.
The President late the previous day, with tongue in cheek, reportedly had wondered aloud whether George Washington had been investigated for accepting a sword as a gift, posing the question during a half-hour tour of Mount Vernon in Virginia. Turning from a study of an ornate sword given to the first President by a German admirer, the President pointed over his shoulder at the weapon and inquired with a grin whether they had investigated him for the present, an allusion to the present controversy regarding gifts to White House chief of staff Sherman Adams by his old friend, Boston textile industrialist Bernard Goldfine. The President had visited Mount Vernon many times previously but it was the first time he had been there as President. He showed special interest in the bedroom where the former President had died in 1799 at age 67, the present age of the President. Gazing around the room, he said that President Washington was "a good, strong fellow", but that it was "remarkable he lived as long as he did." Trumpies these days, no doubt, would think themselves mighty cute by suggesting whether or not they would have investigated President Washington for receipt of a jet from a foreign government worth nearly a half billion dollars, such a trivial pursuit.
In Asheville, a 21-year old man had been killed early in the morning when the automobile in which he was riding had overturned and tumbled down a 40-foot embankment inside the city limits, according to the State Highway Patrol.
John Kilgo of The News indicates that the scandal-riddled City Recorder's Court had been stripped of nearly all of its current records this date when they had been taken to the grand jury for examination on Monday. Among the records had been all docket books between 1955 and the present, and the appearance bond ledger. Three agents from the State Bureau of Investigation remained in the city this date and had conferred at length with Police Chief Frank Littlejohn, who said that at least three SBI agents would stay in the city until the investigation was complete. The grand jury had requested the records after examining the first of what probably would be a long list of witnesses the previous afternoon. The first witness was a member of a company which had audited the court's books, testifying for over two hours. The 18 grand jury members had emerged about five minutes after the departure of the witness, and the foreman of the jury had gone immediately into conference with the solicitor of Recorder's Court. He then asked that the records be made available on Monday.
In Charlotte, a City police officer had been severely beaten the previous night when he and another officer had sought to quiet a party at a house, the patrolman having been taken to Memorial Hospital and treated for two deep cuts around his left eye, requiring 20 stitches to close the wounds. He had been released from the hospital and sent home, but was not expected to report for work this date. After the officers had responded to the scene of the party and sought to quiet it twice and failed, they had placed the owner of the house under arrest for disorderly conduct, whereupon two other individuals attacked them, seeking to obtain one patrolman's gun, which had discharged and had shot a hole in the kitchen stove. The officer was knocked down during the fight and kicked about his face and body. They arrested four men. Neither of them had been attacked by a submarine sandwich, thank God!
The winner of the week's $50 prize in the newspaper's Social Security Game was a woman who for 30 years had, along with her sister, run the nurses' registry. She thanked the newspaper for the prize and said she could find good use for it. She had lived in Charlotte for nearly 40 years and had established the nurses' registry in 1922, retiring with her sister in 1952 and turning it over to another woman.
In Ekalaka, Mont., an eight-year old girl had fallen and broken her wrist and ankle, whereupon her mother had to rush her 12 miles to the community's only physician, her father.
The Veterans Administration regional office had announced this date that more than 82,000 widows of wars prior to World War I would receive a pension increase of between $7.27 and $12.50 monthly, including widows of the Indian Wars, the Civil War and the Spanish-American War. The V.A. was careful to point out, however, that most, but not all, widows of the Civil War and Indian Wars would obtain the pension increase, as one had to be over 70 to collect.
On the editorial page, "Citizens Decide the Quality of Judges" refers to a citizen who had written a letter to the editor this date indicating his hope that the press would not allow the mess in the Recorder's Court to be "whitewashed and forgotten as so many crusades have been."
It finds that such an expression might be addressed more pertinently to the people of Charlotte, as the press had a duty to report facts and express what it believed to be sincere and constructive opinions, but had neither the right nor power to impose its views on governing bodies. It had reported some facts about the situation in the court, but whether those facts added up to wrongdoing had to be evaluated by the grand jury. It finds at the same time that it was its right and duty to express its convictions about the performance of the judge and the quality of his court, which it found to be bad on both counts, too bad for a well-governed city to allow and too bad for its people to put up with. It had thus concluded that Judge Basil Boyd had to quit.
It urges that the people had to relay their concerns to members of the City Council. It indicates that there had been no protest when the Council majority had twice put its crony on the court bench, despite Mr. Boyd's undistinguished record as a member of the Council. The newspaper had not protested, although it had doubted his qualifications for a judgeship. Councilwoman Martha Evans had expressed doubts on both occasions and firmly declined to vote for Mr. Boyd's appointments. But the Council primarily, in appointing the man it wanted, was free of demands that it appoint the person the job required.
It finds that the court had fallen into disrepute during the judge's administration and that it would remain in that condition until the residents of the community decided otherwise. The judge disclaimed responsibility for the mess in his court and it was the Council's intention to go along with him, hoping that it would not have to admit its failure in the matter or comment on the record of the judge.
It remained the conviction of the newspaper that the test of a judge was whether he was doing a creditable job and not whether he was a knave, as there were laws to oust crooks, while only the people could deal with failure.
"The 'Quiet' in Mecklenburg Is Deceiving" indicates that to political pulse-takers who gauged the vigor of campaigns by stump speeches and telethons, Mecklenburg County's runoff primary race for the State Senate had been "quiet".
It finds it not to account, however, for the noisy wheeling and dealing in the precincts. In the residential areas, the political landscape appeared to come alive with activity, finding that the expensive campaign techniques of challenger Jack Love to incumbent J. Spencer Bell, were being employed blatantly and presumably as effectively as ever. The latter, it finds, could be defeated because of overconfidence among his supporters, evident since Mr. Bell had won with a big lead in the first primary.
It indicates that the Senator would have to campaign more vigorously and his supporters would have to respond in force to the challenge of responsible citizenship at the polls the following Saturday, opining that for the sake of the county, he needed to be returned to the State Senate in 1959 as the more qualified candidate.
"Life in Hollywood" indicates that a comment had arrived that, "Sheree North and her ex-husband, Bud Freeman, are friendlier now than when they were married."
"'The Greatest Reporter in the World'" laments the death of Herbert Bayard Swope, one of the giants in journalism, "a hero from a golden era who lingered painfully on to view with alarm what he considered the downgrading of 'a priestly mission.'" As a reporter on the old New York World, he had cracked the famous Rosenthal-Becker case, one of the great crime stories of all time.
With the aid of Admiral von Tirpitz, he had obtained an exclusive interview in 1914 with the German U-boat hero, Kapitan-Leutnant von Weddigen, who had sunk the British cruisers Cressy, Hogue and Aboukir. In 1917, he had been awarded a Pulitzer Prize in reporting for his series, "Inside the German Lines", receiving another journalistic beat at the Peace Conference by being the first newsman to obtain a copy of the terms of the Versailles Treaty and the Covenant of the League of Nations. As executive editor of the World, he had presided with flair over the final stages of the heyday of personal journalism, bringing the old newspaper to the highest circulation in its history. Louis L. Snyder and Richard B. Morris had written later in A Treasury of Great Reporting that two years after he had left that newspaper, "Joseph Pulitzer's old journal was no more." They had recalled that Lord Northcliffe had dubbed Mr. Swope "the greatest reporter in the world."
President Woodrow Wilson had said that "he had the fastest mind with which I ever came into contact." Walter Lippmann had judged him to be "a fascinating devil" and Stanley Walker had described him as "a cyclone. His gift of gab is a torrential and terrifying thing. He is probably the most charming extrovert in the Western world."
Now, he was dead and "his era nothing but a slightly bleached memory. It is a pity, for these facts diminish us all."
A piece from the Montgomery Advertiser, titled "The First Lines of Best Sellers", indicates that in the book publishing business there was a saying that a good editor could read the first sentence of a manuscript and tell whether it would be a best seller, that to test the theory John Fuller of the Saturday Review had taken the current list of the ten bestsellers and read the first lines of each of them, which it proceeds to list.
It finds that far from containing
any magic, most of the opening sentences were downright forbidding,
such as the opening line of number one on
the list, Anatomy of a Murder—made into a film
It finds it nothing short of remarkable that anyone bothered to read on in The Winthrop Woman, number two on the list, which began: "Elizabeth saw the hedge shadows lengthening across the dusty land as the Fones Family jogged towards Groton." But it suggests that no one would have thought that a book which began as prosaically as, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth," would have done much either.
Drew Pearson discusses the explosive events in Lebanon, "a 100-mile stretch of Mediterranean Sea coast which could turn into another Korea overnight." Air Force C-124 troop transports were standing by in West Germany, waiting to airlift Turkish and Iraqi troops into Lebanon if necessary. The U.S. Sixth Fleet, with 3,000 battle-ready Marines, was cruising within striking distance of Lebanon. British paratroopers were poised at Cyprus, less than 120 miles away.
The U.S. and Britain had been dickering secretly with Turkey and Iraq to rush troops into Lebanon in case the present revolt would expand into a Middle Eastern war. The allies were determined not to use their own forces except as a last resort, believing that a Middle Eastern war could better be localized if Turkish and Iraqi troops were used. The Air Force had several C-124's ready in West Germany to begin an airlift from Baghdad and Ankara to Beirut, and in case that became necessary, the Air Force troop carriers would fly under the operational control of the Sixth Fleet. The West was watching the oil outlets at Tripoli and Sidon on the Lebanese coast. Rebel troops were holed up in both ports, but the oil flow had not been cut off. The loss of Lebanon, however, would mean control of the Lebanese pipeline by United Arab Republic Premier Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt. That would provide complete control of all oil outlets into the Mediterranean, through Suez, Syria and Lebanon. It would mean that Premier Nasser could turn off Western Europe's oil supplies as easily as a spigot. As a result, both the U.S. and Britain had agreed that Lebanon had to be saved at all costs. If Turkish and Iraqi troops were not enough, U.S. Marines and British paratroopers would be landed. The British and Americans had been mapping their Lebanese strategy jointly without consulting France, presuming that Premier Charles de Gaulle had enough troubles at home and in Algeria. Anglo-American forces had been disconcerted, however, by the unannounced arrival of a French cruiser in Lebanese waters the prior Wednesday morning. The French cruiser had notified the Sixth Fleet that it had been ordered into Lebanese waters to evacuate French nationals if it became necessary.
Premier Nasser had summoned U.S. Ambassador Raymond Hare to his office during the week and had given him a tongue-lashing regarding the Lebanese crisis, accusing the Ambassador of having given assurance earlier that the U.S. regarded the Lebanese crisis as purely a matter of internal Lebanese politics. The Egyptian dictator had made it clear that the temporary improvement in relations between the U.S. and the UAR was at an end.
The British had rushed its paratroops to Cyprus on the pretext that they were needed there to police the tiny Mediterranean island, with their chief purpose having been, however, to stand by for possible action in Lebanon. The British were determined not to repeat the same mistake they had made at Suez in 1956, as then the British-French landing in Suez had been delayed a crucial four days while the troops were rushed into position, giving Premier Nasser time to pull strings in Moscow and Washington to stop the British-French-Israeli invasion which might otherwise have swept over Cairo and taken out the Premier before it could be stopped.
The British were also concerned about the Cyprus crisis, having secretly expressed a fear that Greece might use a Middle Eastern war as an excuse to take over Cyprus. If Turkish troops were to become involved in Lebanon, the British had been warned privately that Greek troops might be rushed to Cyprus. U.S. intelligence reported that the Lebanese rebels were divided into two rival groups, both of which were receiving arms smuggled from Egypt and Syria, comprising the UAR. U.S. intelligence estimated that the rebels had enough supplies to hold out for three months, even if the U.N. would succeed in sealing the Lebanese borders.
A piece from the Greensboro Daily News regards the City Recorder's Court controversy in Charlotte as the latest major example of the disorganization in the lower courts, with which the recommended reorganization by the Bar Association's Court Study Committee, chaired by State Senator J. Spencer Bell of Charlotte, had dealt in part, recommending judicial reform throughout the system, proposing one unified court system statewide, transfer of the rule-making power from the Legislature to the courts, and revisions of the justice of the peace system and the jury selection system.
The recommendations, approved enthusiastically by the Bar Association at its annual meeting the prior week, had followed closely proposals made by the late Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge John J. Parker prior to his recent death. He had told Mr. Bell shortly before his death that the proposals, if enacted by the Legislature, would be the realization of a lifetime dream. The piece concludes that while the judge did not live to see the dream fulfilled, the Legislature had an opportunity to make the dream come true posthumously, a monument to his memory.
A letter writer, as indicated in the lead editorial this date, writes regarding the City Recorder's Court, expressing thanks to both the News and the Observer for the work done in bringing the scandalous mess before the voters, hoping that it would not allow the matter to fade away so that it would be whitewashed and forgotten. He had read the editorial of June 18, in which the newspaper had called for Judge Boyd's resignation, with which he agrees. He finds that it would not be humanly possible for the judge to be so stupid as to be so unaware of what was going on in his bailiwick as he claimed to be, but whether from stupidity or cupidity, he was eminently unfit to occupy the position to which he had been appointed by the City Council. He says that he was not overlooking the irregularities which appeared to have been prevalent in the functioning of the Police Department, but that those were not as malodorous as the manipulations of Judge Boyd in his realm.
A letter from former Congressional candidate P. C. Burkholder finds that the upcoming runoff primary was the most important decision for the state since the days of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, indicating that a vote for Senator Bell meant that he was in favor of giving his vote to the Governor and admitting that he was not qualified to vote for a judge, and that if he failed to vote for Mr. Love or Senator Bell, and the latter was elected, then he was sacrificing by default not only his own vote but the vote of his children and grandchildren, as Senator Bell had recommended in his committee that direct election of judges initially should be abolished in favor of gubernatorial appointment and then, after a time, confirmation or not by the voters, a recommendation opposed by Representative Love. He says he had seen bullet holes in a log house near Charlotte which had been placed there by the British to keep the free vote away from the colonists and he believes that if he did not defend the right to elect public officials by free popular vote, he would consider himself a traitor to the heroic dead of the Revolution. He thus urges a vote for Mr. Love.
A letter writer of the American Meat Institute in Chicago indicates that they had read the newspaper's editorial of May 21 concerning humane slaughter, finding that the picture painted of a sadistic meat industry causing cruelty and terror to animals would be frightening if true. He says that they were in accord with principles of humane treatment and improved methods of dispatching animals, that since 1929, the Joint Committee of representatives of the American Meat Institute and the American Humane Association had worked toward improved slaughter methods. Now, half of the nation's beef production was handled by plants qualified for the AHA Seal of Approval, and the list was growing rapidly. He indicates that the use of a new stunning device developed and designed from cooperation with Remington Arms was one of the many signs of progress. Another was a carbon dioxide tunnel for immobilizing hogs, the use of which was also spreading, though presenting problems for a small packer as the space occupied by such a tunnel and the major changes in plant layout required for it presented obstacles in a small plant. He says that they believed that a bill pending before the Senate was sound and workable, whereby a committee comprised of members representing producers, industry, humane societies, unions, scientific and professional groups would conduct a thorough investigation of improved slaughter methods. He says that they believed that the progress made to date emphasized that the meat industry and others vitally concerned could and would find the answer to the important matter.
The editors note that while the writer may have read the editorial with interest, he had not done so with care, as the piece had noted that "no one opposes humane slaughter … not even those meat packers who practice the opposite—and not all of them do." It had also noted that humane methods, specifically naming stunning devices, were gaining wider use in the industry, but had concluded that Congress ought give the industry a "gentle nudge" in that direction.
A letter writer opines that the Governor ought not have the authority to appoint judges, that it ought be left to the people, lest it become a dictatorship. He favors in consequence Mr. Love for the State Senate.
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