The Charlotte News
Tuesday, June 24, 1958
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from Beirut that President Camille Chamoun had said this date that he expected heavy attacks from the rebels in Lebanon, probably within the ensuing 48 hours, making the prediction in a television interview with NBC only a few hours after the return of U.N. Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold from Cairo talks with United Arab Republic Premier Gamal Abdel Nasser regarding the Lebanese rebellion. Beirut buzzed with reports of a big showdown between the Government and the rebels. Almost as President Chamoun had spoken, a bomb had exploded within 200 yards of Dr. Hammarkjhold's hotel headquarters, from which he had left for lunch shortly before. It was the latter's second visit in Beirut during the crisis and was scheduled to be brief. When he would leave, Lebanon would be braced for a big blow-off by rebels who had been holding their fire during his visit. His return had produced no enlightenment on the results of his talks with Premier Nasser concerning the rebellion in Lebanon. Though he was smiling as he stepped from his U.N. plane, he volunteered no more information than that he had a pleasant trip. There was no indication that he had obtained an agreement with Premier Nasser for the latter to use his influence with the Lebanese rebels, seeking to overthrow the pro-Western Government of President Chamoun, to be replaced by a regime more sympathetic to Premier Nasser. The U.N. had sent watchdog teams to Lebanon after the Lebanese Government had accused the UAR of Premier Nasser of sending massive support to the rebels. Informed diplomats in London said that the U.S. and Britain had advised President Chamoun against making any precipitate appeal for Western intervention, indicating that they had told him that such a move was fraught with grave international dangers and that he should concentrate instead on supporting U.N. efforts to find a solution.
Personnel of the Securities & Exchange Commission had received a commendation for uprightness this date from the counsel for the House subcommittee investigating the case of White House chief of staff Sherman Adams and his old friend, Bernard Goldfine, and whether Mr. Adams had intervened on the latter's behalf with the SEC and the Federal Trade Commission in return for hotel accommodations and gifts. Robert Lishman, counsel for the subcommittee, said that a thorough check of leads supplied by apparently reliable sources had shown "little information useful to our investigation". He spoke at a subcommittee hearing at which the SEC chairman, Edward Gadsby, had denied that the SEC had given favored treatment to Mr. Goldfine after a call from the White House in 1956. He said that the Commission could hardly have done more had Mr. Adams been Mr. Goldfine's worst enemy. The inquiry had come from Gerald Morgan, the President's special counsel, and there was no indication on the record that the SEC had ever known that it had been prompted by Mr. Adams. But Mr. Adams had testified that Mr. Goldfine had provided him gifts and performed other favors for him, and had complained to him in 1956 about SEC actions against the East Boston Co., a Goldfine holding company, against which the SEC was proceeding for failure to file required reports. Mr. Adams said that Mr. Goldfine had not asked him to do anything about the case, but he had asked Mr. Morgan to find out what it was all about. Previously, the subcommittee had also inquired into Federal Trade Commission affairs involving Mr. Goldfine, and the intercession made on his behalf by Mr. Adams with that agency regarding charges against Mr. Goldfine's textiles mills of mislabeling woolen goods, eventuating in a criminal referral to the Justice Department when he paid a civil fine but continued to violate the mislabeling law, that criminal refrral also having mysteriously disappeared, apparently through action by Mr. Adams. The SEC already had said in a statement that its case against Mr. Goldfine had been successfully prosecuted and that the agency had pushed for heavier penalties than the judge had allowed. The general counsel for the SEC was reported ready to testify also that he recalled only discussing the legal status of a case involving Mr. Goldfine and had not imparted confidential SEC information in a 1956 White House meeting prompted by Mr. Adams. The latter said that he received information on the case but had not passed it along to Mr. Goldfine and had sought no favors in return. The SEC officials had been called as witnesses by the House subcommittee, renewing the inquiry into how Federal regulatory agencies had treated Mr. Goldfine. Subcommittee chairman Oren Harris of Arkansas said that Mr. Goldfine had received preferred treatment both from the SEC and the FTC.
The Des Moines Register this date had quoted an unnamed Republican Senator as asserting that Mr. Adams was not letting the facts through to the President regarding his relationship with Mr. Goldfine.
The President this date picked Leo Hoegh, presently Civil Defense administrator, to head the new Office of Defense and Civilian Mobilization.
In Athens, Greece, a NATO staff conference had been called off at the last minute this date when four Turkish Army officers had arrived to attend, the result of strained relations between Greece and Turkey regarding Cyprus.
At Cape Canaveral, Fla., a Polaris experimental rocket had been launched this date in a strenuous test of its guidance and control systems. As planned, the rocket twisted crazily high in the sky until its fuel had been exhausted and it had broken apart.
Also at Cape Canaveral, the Navy's temperamental Vanguard rocket, the leading satellite launching vehicle, had flunked another test this date. After hours of hard work, the crew had given up in the early morning on another heartbreaking effort to get the rocket, with its small satellite, off the ground. The Navy said that heavy rains had caused an accumulation of moisture in the rocket's wiring system, which had led to electrical short-circuiting. It had been the second time in four days that the crew had been stymied in their effort to get the particular Vanguard from its launching pad. The launch had been scrubbed the prior Thursday night after a long countdown. There was no official announcement on when the next attempt would be made. The Vanguard had failed on four of five occasions in which the crew had managed to get it to launch. The first attempt had resulted in an explosion after the rocket had risen only 4 feet from the launching pad, the second having blown up at 20,000 feet, the third having successfully launched a 3.5 pound satellite into orbit, and the fourth and fifth attempts having launched 21.5 pound satellites, though both had failed in their missions and the satellites had plunged back to fiery oblivion in the earth's atmosphere. After the early Vanguard failures, the Army had been asked to launch a satellite with its Jupiter C rocket, and in three tries, the Army had put two Explorers into orbit. But it had not been asked to try again. Despite the Vanguard's many disappointing performances, the Defense Department insisted that it still was the country's best satellite launching vehicle, when it worked.
In Detroit, some 100 UAW pickets had marched at the Chrysler Corporation missile plant again this date, cutting into Jupiter and Redstone missile production for the second straight day. Thirty sheriff's deputies had kept the pickets moving and plant gates clear so that employees could enter, and there were no reports of violence. A company spokesman said that about 2,000 of the day-shift force of 7,500 workers had reported by early morning and more were coming in. Many had been delayed by traffic which backed up as cars slowed at the gates. Pickets carried placards and about a dozen women had joined the demonstration. An Army spokesman said that the walkout which had begun the previous day had resulted in a total loss of production on the day's first shift. Chrysler said that the exact effect on production could not be determined because the majority of the people in the group were not involved directly in final assembly of missiles.
The nation's cost of living had hit another record in May, but had registered the smallest monthly rise since December, according to figures released by the Labor Department. The figures suggested hope that the two-year inflationary spiral had leveled for the summer. Food items as a whole had failed to increase in May for the first time since the previous November. The index had risen one-tenth of a percent to 123.6 percent of the 1947-49 base period, which placed it 3.3 percent higher than in the same month of the previous year, representing the 19th straight increase in the index during the previous 21 months. (President Eisenhower could have done what Dummy Trump is doing, and when he didn't like the numbers, he could have just fired the numbers provider, even if the numbers were prepared by statisticians who were experts and had been on the job for decades. Poor Ike. He was sadly naïve at the game of graft and corruption, which the current Administration has made a way of life. And if you, you stupid little Trumpie, think all of this is good, you are going to find out sooner or later, when you wind up homeless or in the welfare lines, that it isn't really so hot. But, being so brainwashed by your Leader and his little boot-licking minions, you will probably blame that eventual condition somehow on those bad, old, Commie, liberal Democrats, just like the Trumpistas want you to do. Right, stupid? We suggest a brain transplant, the world's first, starting with your senile, babbling Leader, who knows all when it comes to conspiracies seeking to undermine His Majesty's authority and nothing when some knowledge might be problematic for him, such as regarding his asking his attorney, masquerading as "attorney general", the neo-head of the revivified WH Plumber's Unit, moribund for 51 years, to go after certain of his political enemies in revenge for all of the terrible, vicious "weaponization" of the Justice Department against him during the previous Administration—oh, boo-hoo, hoo-boo.)
The Prime Minister of Afghanistan, Sardar Muhammad Daud, would arrive in Washington this date for a three-day state visit and discussions of possible increased American aid to his country.
In Salvador, Brazil, it was reported that a fireworks explosion in a marketplace had trapped hundreds of men, women and children the previous day and hurled bodies in all directions. There had been two fireworks disasters less than 30 miles apart and the toll had run to about 100 dead and 400 injured. The worst disaster had occurred at Santo Amaro, 35 miles northwest of Salvador, where most of the casualties had taken place. The other had been at Feira de Santan, 60 miles northwest of Salvador, where it was reported that seven persons had been killed and 40 injured when a fireworks factory had exploded, with no other details available. Many of the victims had been mothers and children who had died instantly in the municipal market at Santo Amaro, where they had been celebrating holy days with fireworks. An electrical power line had broken and fallen on a fireworks booth, setting off a chain of fireworks stand explosions, and some of the victims were believed to have been electrocuted by the loose wire. Moments after the first explosion, the fairground stands had erupted in flames. Firecrackers and rockets shot in all directions. Some victims had been mangled in the explosions and others had been engulfed in the flames and were burned to death. One report said that sticks of dynamite had been stored in one fireworks stand, adding to the force of the explosions. Medical workers and supplies had been rushed to Santa Amaro, where workers were hampered by torrential rains in bringing out the bodies. At the cemetery, 78 bodies had been counted, lined up for identification.
In Philadelphia, a 15-year old Latvian boy, who had come to America with his parents eight years earlier, was having to choose between his mother and father, who had separated, the mother wanting to return to Latvia with her son and the father, expecting to obtain his American citizenship papers in several months, which would make the boy also an American citizen. The mother said that she was not a Communist but only longed for familiar surroundings and long-missed relatives, and to forget her broken marriage. She wanted her son to do as she said and to live with them, indicating that he had always done what she said and that he would do so now. But he said he did not want to leave his country, though he also loved and obeyed his mother and did not wish to leave her either as they were very close. He said he loved everything about America from its government and people to its ice cream sodas. He wanted to marry an American girl and raise a family in America. At the request of the son and the father, the municipal court has stepped into the matter and a judge granted a temporary order forbidding the mother from taking her son from Philadelphia until there was a final decision, set for July 8. At that time, the son would have to make his decision also.
In San Francisco, it was reported
that an eight-year old boy of Oakland had gone through a two-hour
heart operation the previous night, 90 minutes of which had been
televised live in the San Francisco Bay Area and in Sacramento. The
purpose of the operation was to close a hole in his heart the size of
a 50-cent piece, without which he would have a short and sickly life.
A hospital spokesman had described the operation as a success. A
timeline for the operation is provided, indicating that his heart had
been visible on the television screen, beating normally. The surgery
team had then located the defect, and a heart-lung machine had been
hooked to the boy's circulatory system, beginning its job of
circulating and purifying his blood. The doctor had then made an
incision into the heart and 30 seconds later, the defect had been
exposed, then repaired in 15 minutes, at which point the program
ended. The hospital reported that they expected the boy to be able to
return home within about ten days. Television station KPIX
In Los Angeles, it was reported that the attorney representing the ten-year old son of Lana Turner's deceased boyfriend, killed by her daughter, had said that the latest version of the death offered by the daughter differed from a story told earlier by Ms. Turner, indicating that there were wide discrepancies between the latter's description of where the slaying had happened and where the daughter said that she saw the body lying. The attorney said that he was encouraged. The son of the deceased boyfriend, John Stompanato, who had been a reputed underworld figure, was seeking $750,000 in damages for the alleged wrongful death of his father, occurring the prior April 4. The daughter said that she had stabbed him with a butcher knife while he and her mother had argued at Ms. Turner's Beverly Hills home, the daughter believing that he was going to seriously harm or kill her, as he had threatened to do. A coroner's jury had returned a verdict of justifiable homicide in the matter. The daughter had provided a deposition at the attorney's office the previous day, and the attorney later told newsmen that the teenager said that she could not remember the actual stabbing. He said that the deposition had brought out that the daughter, Ms. Turner and her boyfriend were all on the best of terms in the days preceding the killing, which the attorney believed contradicted Ms. Turner's previous testimony that prolonged and violent arguments had preceded the stabbing.
In Norfolk, Va., a third man had been arrested in a $13,000 safe burglary at the Little Creek Naval Amphibious Base, according to a special agent in charge of the Norfolk FBI office. The 33-year old man of Youngstown, O., had been arrested by the FBI on Monday.
In Charlotte, the presiding judge of criminal Superior Court this date, after hearing evidence in a case, had changed the plea of a young college student from nolo contendere on a charge of manslaughter to a guilty plea for forcible trespass. Prayer for judgment was continued for five years. The judge said that he could not remember when he had seen anyone come to court with a better character than the defendant. He had originally been charged with murder in the death of an individual who had been killed by a pistol at Davidson College on April 3. Witnesses to the shooting, all of whom had been students, had stated that several of the students had been having a bull session and looking at some firearms which were to be taken on a hunting trip during the spring holidays, starting April 4. They recounted how the defendant had gone to his room and taken a .38-caliber revolver from the desk drawer of his roommate and…
John Kilgo of The News reports that in City Recorder's Court during the morning, an issue had arisen as to whether bondsmen should be relieved of their obligation to the court when a defendant appeared and then had his case continued, with Judge Basil Boyd indicating that he did not know the answer and had advised a bondsman before him to consult with his lawyer. The bondsman had put up a $50 bond for a defendant charged with driving without a valid license, guaranteeing her appearance the prior May 8. The defendant had appeared and the judge had found her guilty, fined her $25 plus court costs. When she did not have the money to pay the fine, the judge continued prayer for judgment until May 22, but she had not reappeared at that time to pay the fine. The solicitor had asked that a notice be issued to the bondsman telling him that the defendant had not appeared. The 30 days during which the bondsman had to get the defendant back to court had expired the previous day. The solicitor had asked the judge pro tem, who had presided in Judge Boyd's absence the previous day, to make the bond absolute. The other judge had said that the bondsman was to pay the $50 bond to the clerk's office. During the morning, the bondsman had appeared before the judge… And the rest is history. All of them would be executed at dawn. Well, that's the way of it in Trump's America.
In Halifax, Nova Scotia, the old town clock, a landmark in the town, had been ticking away since October 20, 1803. Prove it.
On the editorial page, "Does Council Have Confidence in Him?" again indicates that under Judge Basil Boyd, a former member of the City Council, the City Recorder's Court had fallen into a state of almost unbelievable disrepair, urging that the Council undertake to suggest to him his resignation.
But only Council member Martha Evans had indicated any interest in improving the personnel responsible for the procedures of the court. It finds that the Council's otherwise complete and lack of satisfactory sense of outrage about the court had not escaped Judge Boyd, as he had refused to resign.
It wonders how long the Council could go on winking at the record of its former colleague. They were encouraging further erosion of confidence in the administration of justice in the city.
While an expression by the Council's majority of lack of confidence in the manner in which the judge had conducted the court would have no legally binding effect, as they could only fire him for malfeasance, it would notify the judge and the community that the Council was finally fed up with the mess and with the judge who had presided over it. At that point, it suggests, the judge presumably would have the decency to take the hint.
"The Cattle Have All the Political Pull" indicates that the National Citizens Council for Better Schools had laid it on the line the previous week for parents and educators when it said: "Passage of any form of federal aid to education appears unlikely in this session of Congress. Most proponents of either a school construction bill or a scholarship program are openly discouraged about the chances of either type aid program being approved."
Gone was the sense of urgency about the condition of U.S. public education in the wake of the launch of the two Sputniks by Russia the prior fall, misplaced somewhere in the hurry to trace the sources of vicuna coats. Even the shortsighted and thoroughly inadequate remedies prescribed by most members of Congress the prior January were virtually now forgotten.
The shock value of the first Sputnik had now passed and leadership from the White House had been anything but inspiring. The President had not even revived the school construction programs junked by Congress in 1956 and 1957. A similar measure, reintroduced by Representative Frank Thompson of New Jersey, had been given little chance of passage by practically everyone concerned.
But the problems lingered for thousands of children living in some of the poorest states of the nation. While Americans insisted on having high-grade chickens, corn and cattle, low-grade humans were matters of only casual and occasional concern.
Many states' rights advocates in Congress could vote millions of dollars without a qualm to stamp out hoof-and-mouth disease but could find all sorts of elaborate reasons why it was wrong for the Government to assist in stamping out illiteracy.
It finds it a shameful state of affairs, but that the shame could be eradicated as the current Congress still had time to act, or would suffer a lasting blot on its record.
"$60,000 Question" asks which issue of the newspaper the reader believed: "70-G Razzle-Dazzle Failed for Mr. Love", appearing on June 2, or "Jack Love Says He Spent $9,783", appearing on June 23, referring to the varying amounts reported that he had spent during the initial primary for the State Senate seat.
"Lend an Ear to New Sounds, Too" indicates that conductor of the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra, Henry Janiec, was promising Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Mozart and Wagner to ticket-holders during the coming 1958-59 season. It would also provide audiences with an occasional contemporary classic. But tradition and the box office demanded that the old standbys comprise most of the symphonic programs, preferred by most of the subscribers.
Thus, Aaron Copland's recent lament: "Though available music has increased rapidly, the proportion of new music to old music remains small—and the same."
But even the most unadventurous subscriber would not object strenuously to new music, provided the programs were arranged shrewdly. Contemporary music needed the support which even community orchestras such as that in Charlotte could give it. It finds it shortsighted policy to concentrate only on the famous composers of the past, building no musical future and narrowing the field of musical enjoyment unnecessarily, obscuring the considerable activity of talented contemporary composers such as Igor Stravinsky, Mr. Copland, Samuel Barber, Roger Sessions, Dmitri Shostakovich, to name but a few, who were composing in the great tradition of Western art music.
It concludes that while contemporary music explored new realms, it remained the expression of basic human emotions and deserved a hearing.
Wilma Dykeman, writing in the Virginia Quarterly Review, from a much longer piece titled "The Southern Demagogue", asks what characteristics had made the term Southern demagogue a national institution, indicating that first and foremost it was that the person had a way with words. The South was a region where reading had been considered at best only a secondhand imitation of "reality", where for generations, a gentleman's word provided over a dram of whiskey was considered perhaps more binding than the name written in ink on a legal document.
In the previous century, many Southern politicians had defeated opponents with purple passages painting their respective states as much more than mortal earth and only a little less than heaven. More particularly and always, they had stood ready to defend womanhood, which appeared always to be in grave danger of being violated.
The late Grover C. Hall of the Momtgomery Advertiser had said of the professional Southerner that which was also true of the demagogues: "Ever ready to protect the honor of any woman against all men, except himself."
Ben Tillman of South Carolina had undoubtedly in mind such a person, more of the carnival than the newsreel, when he was asked by a friendly planter why he raised so much hell in the course of his campaign, replying: "If I didn't, the damn fools wouldn't vote for me."
Besides raising hell, the Southern demagogues also adopted distinctive manners of dress and a vast assortment of folksy nicknames. After Mr. Tillman had assured his constituents that President Grover Cleveland was "an old bag of beef and I'm going to Washington with a pitchfork and prod him in his old fat ribs," he had become known thereafter as "Pitchfork Ben".
There were also "Cotton Ed" Smith and "Pappy-Pass-the-Biscuits" O'Daniel, "The Man" Theodore Bilbo, "Ma and Pa" Ferguson, Gene Talmadge, "The Wild Man from Sugar Creek", and "The Kingfish", in reference to Huey Long of Louisiana. She indicates that in sartorial matters, Mr. Talmadge had been known by his red galluses and Mississippi's James Vardaman had his long flowing hair and long flowing coattails.
Anew the demagogue of modern times is the colorful "Dandy Don the Johnman of Trumpville, USA", patterning himself precisely after Machiavelli's Prince, with dosages of Hitler's and Mussolini's emulations thrown in for good measure, all encapsulated in a palatable golfer's costume, with self-proclaimed omniscience added as his crowning glory, for appeal meant to intrigue the minds too weak to see through the play of the play at work daily before your eyes, should you care to look.
Drew Pearson indicates that the last Gridiron Club dinner had featured a skit on Sherman Adams which was so rough that the latter had canceled his reservations to attend a repeat performance the following afternoon. The skit had shown him telephoning the FCC for TV channels for favored Republicans to the tune of the song: "Sugar in the mornin'/ Sugar in the evenin',/ Sugar at supper time,/ FCC's our baby/ And TV ain't no crime." He says that there was a lot of truth behind the jingle, which was perhaps why Mr. Adams had not wanted to see it a second time. But he finds no truth behind the statement by Mr. Adams that his calls to the FTC and to the Securities & Exchange Commission on behalf of his old friend, wealthy industrialist Bernard Goldfine, had not been intended to affect the decision of any official of the Government.
Mr. Adams occupied the same position in the White House as that of Matt Connelly for President Truman, the latter's role having been to make appointments for the President, enabling him to wield tremendous power and favor. While Mr. Connelly had gone far beyond that single duty, he had never approached the power of Mr. Adams.
Every report requiring affirmative action which came to the President's desk was initialed by Mr. Adams, and if the paper did not have his initials, the President would inquire what Mr. Adams or "Sherm" had to say about it. The latter presided over staff meetings, which had been presided over by Presidents Truman and Roosevelt in their respective Administrations. He attended meetings of the National Security Council and pulled wires with Congress, despite the fact that an efficient liaison officer, General Wilton Persons, was appointed to do the latter job. Despite his sworn testimony to the contrary, he kept a careful eye on the regulatory agencies, supposed to be independent of the White House. The heads of the regulatory agencies came to see Mr. Adams at regular intervals and he went over their policy and personnel.
Members of the regulatory agencies were aware of those facts, which was why a call from Mr. Adams to Ed Howrey, chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, merely asking a question, was equivalent to an order. When members of the regulatory agencies did not conform, they were fired. When Paul Rowan, commissioner of the SEC, had voted against the giant Dixon-Yates private power project for the Tennessee Valley, he had been dropped on the orders of Mr. Adams. When Col. Joseph Adams fought for small airlines, as a member of the Civil Aeronautics Board, he had also been dropped. Formal notification had come from the assistant for Mr. Adams, Robert Gray. It had also been Mr. Adams who decided to get rid of Dr. Leonard Scheele, Surgeon General of the Public Health Service, as well as to fire Peter Strobel of the General Services Administration, after Mr. Pearson's column had revealed that the latter was guilty of making an inquiry on behalf of his company, somewhat in the same manner that Mr. Adams had made an inquiry on behalf of Mr. Goldfine.
Much of the intervention by Mr. Adams with the independent agencies did not consist of actual phone calls. Members of the agencies knew that since he had the power to hire and fire, they had to conform. Under the law, the regulatory agencies were supposed to have a majority of only one Republican under a Republican Administration, with the other members to be Democrats. By a process of appointing such weak "Republicrats" as Richard Mack at the FCC, Mr. Adams had succeeded in stacking the independent agencies so that they followed the line he had laid down. Technically, that was not against the law, but it was certainly against the spirit of the law.
Joseph Alsop, in Beirut, indicates that the U.S., a little more than 18 months after Egypt's Premier Gamal Abdel Nasser had caused the Suez crisis in November, 1956, and in turn had caused the civil war in Lebanon, was prepared, if the Government of Lebanon's President Camille Chamoun requested protection for an Anglo-American landing, to land troops in the country. No one at home appeared to realize it yet, but the assurance provided by the American and British Governments was not unlikely of acceptance in the end.
U.N. Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold and his team had not shown much promise yet in solving the problem in Lebanon. The Government had not shown much promise either of solving the problem. Yet, President Chamoun was not ready to surrender to the supporters of Premier Nasser and was ready to ask for an Anglo-American military intervention if he saw no other alternative. The U.S. Marines and British paratroopers were presently waiting in readiness in the Mediterranean, with a strong possibility that they would have to land in Lebanon unless the President decided to break his recently reiterated promise to President Chamoun.
The White House, at the time of the Suez crisis, had refused any aid to the British, French, and Israelis, instead moralizing against their efforts. The chief beneficiary of it had been Premier Nasser.
The origin of the commitment to President Chamoun had not come from Beirut, with neither the British nor the American embassy there having advised that the commitment ought be made. Both embassies had sought to delay a call for a landing and both would have preferred the Lebanese to settle their quarrel by a compromise. The origin had come from the governments in the region friendly to the West, who had lobbied the British and Americans with pleas and warnings ever since the Lebanese trouble had begun. Nuri Pasha in Iraq had been the most insistent, but the Turks in Ankara, the Shah of Iran, Western diplomats in Amman, Jordan, and the Government of Greece had all lobbied for it. They had all indicated that if Premier Nasser and his allies succeeded in subverting Lebanon's pro-Western Government, then no friend of the West would be safe any longer in the Middle East. The other pro-Western Arab governments would be the first to go, with Iraq probably in the lead. But after Premier Nasser would triumph in all the Arab lands, the position of Turkey, and even the position of Greece, would become precarious if not altogether untenable.
The pleas had called for Anglo-American action, including the open use of military force, to prevent a victory by Premier Nasser's forces. It was the kind of situation which U.S. policymakers should have foreseen long before the Suez crisis and before they had undertaken their moral stand during that crisis, certainly sometime in the prior 18 months. But they had not foreseen it and had taken no adequate preventive action against it, now being squarely confronted with the consequences of their own improvidence.
Only a few months earlier, Premier Nasser had fixed his sights on another Western friend, King Saud of Saudi Arabia, virtually forcing him to abdicate. A month earlier, he had aimed at President Chamoun, and he had already been forced to promise not to be a candidate to succeed himself, as he might otherwise have done. Politics in the Arab lands were highly personal, and by demonstrating his power to pick off individual friends of the West, Premier Nasser had already achieved much.
If he were to go on to win a complete victory in Lebanon, all of the voices who had warned of a catastrophic and final Western defeat in the region would be proven truly prophetic.
Robert C. Ruark, in Palamos, Spain,
indicates that he had just reread Little Caesar, the classic
gangland story, 30 years old and the earliest harbinger of Edward G.
Robinson, James Cagney
He indicates that Judge Sam Leibowitz of Kings County Court in New York had just been reported to have suggested that what was needed in the country was a good 25-cent electric chair, and a type of Devil's Island for professional crooks, the latter, he had asserted, being worse than the chair. They would not be tortured, according to the judge, but would be placed where their friends and politicians could not see them. The do-gooders would holler that it was barbaric, but the judge had found it the surest cure for professional racketeers.
He goes on regarding the suggested
punishment by Judge Leibowitz for professional criminals, indicating
that rival guns, the chair, the rope or finally tertiary syphilis,
had taken care of most of them and relieved the state of their
maintenance. But a new generation was coming along and he wonders
whether Judge Leibowitz was not correct when he suggested a Devil's
Island
A letter writer expresses gratitude to the News and the Observer for their relentless efforts in exposing the disgraceful past operation of the City Recorder's Court. He hopes that people would demand that the person or persons responsible for it would be held accountable.
A letter writer suggests that the only way to clear up the mess in the court was to fire everyone connected with it and start with a clean slate. He wonders how anyone could have confidence in the courts when they were in such hands. He was sure that people with money could get out of serving time, which was why one did not see men serving time on the roads who were wealthy or influential, but rather only poor whites and blacks, sometimes depending on whether a person lived in Myers Park or what some police officers called the slums. He believes it wrong to send any teenage boy to the roads to serve time, that some other manner of punishment could be found. He suggests that the Roosevelt-Truman-Eisenhower-packed Supreme Court had caused the majority of American citizens to lose respect and confidence in it by its decisions of recent years. Headed by Chief Justice Earl Warren, he says, they had set aside many cases of convicted Communists. He thinks that Supreme Court justices, as well as all other judges, ought be elected by the people and not appointed by the President, that when one of them overstepped the Constitution, he ought be kicked out.
A letter writer from Paw Creek indicates that the people of the county had been electing judges for years and the record would show that the people had made intelligent choices. He says that the judge of the City Recorder's Court was appointed, indicating more reason why judges ought be elected by the people. Jack Love, running for the State Senate, was opposed to gubernatorial appointment of judges, and the writer thinks that he ought be the next State Senator.
Framed Edition
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