The Charlotte News
Wednesday, June 4, 1958
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from Algiers that French Premier Charles de Gaulle had landed in the city this date for a fateful meeting with the French insurgents who had seized control of the North African territory from the central Government in Paris. He was greeted by a hero's welcome of several thousand onlookers who cheered him and had broken through police lines at several points before being quickly pushed back. Waiting beside the runway were General Raoul Salan, the top insurgent commander, and all of the other leading military men and civilians of the public safety committee which was presently ruling Algeria. There were also many more thousands greeting the Premier along the 15-mile route into Algiers and in the city streets, with the crowds having begun to gather almost three hours before his arrival. The rebel insurgents awaited some signal of recognition of the key role which their defiance of the French National Assembly had played in the ascent to power of General De Gaulle out of retirement, and they hoped for the unveiling of an Algerian policy dedicated to keeping the territory forever French and the French colonists in control of it. General Salan headed the official welcoming committee at the airport and was the first to shake hands with the Premier, but right behind was Jacques Soustelle, the National Assembly deputy and longtime Gaullist who had fled Paris to take a leading role in the rebellion in Algiers, the latter joining the Premier and General Salan in reviewing the honor guard of paratroopers, sailors and infantrymen. Also in the receiving line had been Brig. General Jacques Massu, the paratroop commander who had first seized control in Algiers after the mob of colonists had taken over the government headquarters on May 13.
In Annapolis, Md., the President this date told the Naval Academy graduates that their overriding goal in the nuclear age had to be prevention of war and promotion of world peace. He said that a just peace could be won only from a position of strength and that the armed services had become the great shields to guard the peace. He also plugged for his controversial defense reorganization program without mentioning it specifically. He told the 900 graduates to keep up to date on the principles of effective military management, adding: "Obsolescence in military management and organization can be as dangerous to our nation as obsolescence in weaponry." He advised that they should develop a healthy and lively sense of humor, that the capacity of free people to accept their mistakes in good humor and to experience setbacks without fear or resentment added vitality to their characteristics searching for truth and knowledge and for higher standards of excellence. "A Communist is not permitted the adventures of this kind of searching." He advised that they should keep abreast of developments in their chosen profession and that adherence to obsolete viewpoints was a liability to the nation, that they should make a habit of reflecting seriously on the unfolding world drama to "help you along the road to responsible leadership for peace." He also said that they should develop a genuine proficiency in a foreign language as a means of improving human understanding throughout the world and to strive for a deeper understanding of the nature of man, the economic and political systems of nations, and of cultural heritages of all societies. He said that modern war was "preposterously and mutually annihilative; peace is the imperative of our age." It was the first time that the President had attended graduation ceremonies at the Academy.
The Atomic Energy Commission told Congress this date that it aimed at commercially competitive nuclear power in a decade within the U.S. and in five years abroad.
The Army said this date that the 40th Field Artillery Missile Group, armed with tactical range Redstone missiles, would sail about June 20 for Europe.
In Moscow, Premier Nikita Khrushchev had accused Yugoslavia of planting a Trojan horse in the Communist camp through President Tito's theories of independent communism.
In San Francisco, it was reported that a strong shift toward the Democrats in the California primaries had given Pat Brown, the State Attorney General, a growing popular vote margin over Senator William Knowland in the gubernatorial election, with California having an open primary, permitting each candidate to file in both the Democratic and Republican primaries, as had occurred. Mr. Brown and Senator Knowland had easily won their own party primaries. The Senator, from Alameda County, had lost to Mr. Brown in that county by a considerable margin, and Mr. Brown's two-party vote throughout the state was unprecedented in a gubernatorial race. Also reflecting the Democratic trend, with Democrats outnumbering Republicans 7 to 5 in registration in the state, had been the contest for the Senate seat which Senator Knowland was vacating, with Congressman Clair Engle, a Democrat, handily winning his party's nomination while leading Republican Governor Goodwin Knight in the total vote. The latter had withdrawn reluctantly from the gubernatorial race after Senator Knowland had announced his candidacy. The Governor had won the Republican nomination for the Senate but was given a surprisingly close contest by San Francisco Mayor George Christopher. The Senator had chosen his own issue as the basis for his gubernatorial campaign, labor union reform and a right-to-work law, with his campaign having been limited because of his duties in Washington. Mr. Brown, 53, was serving his second term as Attorney General and he campaigned on better education, increased employment and a solution to California's water problems, strongly opposing Senator Knowland's labor proposals. With 14,257 of the state's 26,363 precincts reporting in the Republican primary, Mr. Brown had tallied 163,596 votes to 464,467 for Senator Knowland. In the Democratic primary, with 14,728 of 26,363 precincts reporting, Mr. Brown had tallied 779,977 votes to 138,028 for the Senator. In the Republican Senate primary, with 13,955 of 26,363 precincts reporting, Mayor Christopher had tallied 199,446 votes to 261,255 for Governor Knight and 76,061 for Congressman Engle. In the Democratic primary, with 13,891 of 26,363 precincts reporting, Mr. Christopher had tallied 108,091 votes to 135,033 for Governor Knight and 545,446 for Mr. Engle.
In Los Angeles, it was reported that James Roosevelt, eldest son of President Roosevelt, had easily won renomination for a third term to Congress.
The House Banking Committee this date approved a bill authorizing a two billion dollar program of Federal loans to municipalities for construction of local public facilities.
An investigator for the Senate Select Committee looking at misconduct of unions and management testified this date that $85,000, all which remained in the welfare fund of a Jersey City Laundry Workers Union local, had "evaporated" in the hands of Max Raddock, a labor press publisher.
In New York, Federal authorities this date announced the arrests of 16 persons, including a number who were said to be top figures in the nation's underworld, in a crackdown of a multi-million dollar narcotics ring.
In Detroit, the UAW, holding an extension agreement with American Motors Corp., began this date to get its contract negotiations back on course with the automotive industry's big three manufacturers, General Motors, Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler Corp. American Motors, a smaller manufacturer, ignored the precedent of the big three and agreed with the UAW the previous day to an indefinite contract extension. If AMC and the union failed to agree on new terms by the time their present contract would expire on June 15, their three-year pact would remain in effect for an indefinite time. The big three employed half a million men, compared to AMC's 20,000 union employees. No contracts as such presently existed between the UAW and the big three, although the companies were maintaining wages and certain other essentials of the expired agreements.
In Guadalajara, Mexico, it was reported that the looted bodies of 45 victims of Mexico's worst air disaster were being brought to Guadalajara this date for identification. At the rain-swept, mountaintop scene of the crash five miles distant, investigators sought to learn what had caused the Constellation to crash into El Picacho Peak on Monday night during an electrical storm. The plane had been climbing away from a takeoff and one official said that ten feet more of altitude would have enabled it to clear the peak. The dead included 13 Americans and two Canadians, all residents of California, plus two American engineers among the crew. The rest of the victims had been Mexican. The passengers from California had boarded the plane at Tijuana for vacations or business in Mexico City, the destination of the plane, 290 miles to the southeast of Guadalajara. Their bodies would be flown back to Tijuana as soon as identification was possible. The Army was ordered to make a house-to-house search of a village, about four miles from the crash scene, in an effort to recover property looted from the wreckage. Searchers arriving from Guadalajara more than eight hours after the crash had found the bodies and luggage stripped of money, jewelry and some clothing. Officials charged that villagers, awakened by the explosion and flames, had raided the crash site.
In Raleigh, the State Supreme Court this date had given Warrenton attorney James Gilliland another chance to keep his license to practice law, the Court holding that he was entitled to have a jury hear and decide his appeal to Superior Court from the action of the State Bar Council, which had ordered him disbarred. (Mr. Gilliland had been attacked and criticized locally in his community for having dared represent a Communist, an old college friend, and others before HUAC two years earlier. He was also seen as favoring integration.)
In Greensboro, an 18-year old student would cross the stage at Greensboro Senior High School, later Grimsley, this night, to receive a diploma and step into history as the first black student to graduate from an integrated North Carolina public high school. A year earlier, she had become the first black student in Greensboro to apply for reassignment from an all-black school to an all-white school. She said, in an interview with the Greensboro Record the previous day, that she had no idea she would be accepted but had wanted to attend such a school since the seventh grade, having always heard, however, that it could not be done. She said she wanted to do what could not be done. The previous September, she was one of 12 black students to enter previously all-white state schools, six in Greensboro, five in Charlotte and one in Winston-Salem. None of the others were graduating in the current year. When asked whether she was frightened as the only black student among the 1,900 other students, she said: "Yes and no. I was frightened the first day but two or three weeks later it was like going to any other school. There were very few unpleasant instances and I thank God for it. The students were very nice in some ways and not in others. A few people were unkind, as could be expected in any group. It was the most valuable year of my life." She planned to study psychology in college. When asked whether the NAACP had paid her or her family, she responded that no one had paid her to go to school and that no citizen of the country ought be paid for what was rightfully his. Previously, she had participated in integrated YWCA groups, church groups and NAACP youth groups. Her mother was a member of the NAACP.
In Marion, N.C., a never practiced but smoothly executed hospital disaster plan had met and conquered its first emergency when almost an entire school suffered food poisoning. The 60-bed Marion General Hospital had admitted 202 children and teachers from a 227-pupil elementary school after a school lunch the previous day turned a school day during the final week before summer break into a nightmare of retching children. No one died or was seriously injured, though many of the patients remained hospitalized overnight. Doctors indicated that food poisoning was seldom fatal. The public health officer suspected that the poisoning had come from ham on a school lunch menu which also contained coleslaw, green beans, baked apple, ice cream, cookies and milk. He said that samples of all foods served had been collected, frozen and sent to Raleigh for testing. He said that he expected an initial report within a few days. Pupils had received first-aid at the school while lying on cots or blankets on the floor. Floor lamps served as rigs for feeding glucose to the more seriously ill. State Highway Patrolmen had rushed additional medical supplies from Asheville, 35 miles to the west. Volunteer policemen had helped uniformed officers direct traffic and other volunteers served as hospital orderlies. By nightfall, the crisis had passed. It was probably the chicken pot pie.
In Jackson, Tenn., the Methodist bishop of Louisville said that he would decide this date whether a young man who smoked could be ordained as a Methodist minister. The issue had arisen unexpectedly the previous day at the opening session of the Memphis Annual Conference of the Methodist Church, attended by 600 clergy and lay delegates from 500 churches in western Tennessee and southwestern Kentucky. A minister said that the church required candidates seeking admission to the ministry on a trial basis to agree to abstain from tobacco, but the Book of Methodist Discipline did not spell out what action the board ought take if a candidate, still smoking, later sought ordination, and the minister asked the bishop to plug the loophole. Tobacco was the only stimulant mentioned specifically in the discipline. The book indicated that all candidates for the ministry ought abstain "from the use of tobacco and other indulgences which may injure your influence." The decision by the bishop would have no effect on ministers already ordained.
In Raleigh, parishioners, occasionally wincing in pain and unable to give their undivided attention to a service, courageously continued to worship at the Mount Moriah Baptist Church, as a mass of bees had caused unrest the prior Sunday. The bees had settled on a wall near the front door of the church and had constructed a huge honeycomb. The embattled minister said that several congregants had been stung, but that no one ever hollered. The bees had been at the church for three weeks. The previous week, the assistant county farm agent brought out a hive in which to try to collect them. He set up a funnel apparatus which permitted the bees to leave their space inside the wall, but which prevented them from reentering. It was hoped that they would take up residence in the new hive.
In Coeur D'Alene, Ida., a dog had bitten a water skier, ten years old, as a boat towed the boy close to shore. Sheriff's officers said that the mutt, paddling around in the water, had leaped up and caught the boy's right arm as he went past. The boy was treated for the bite, which was not believed to be serious.
On the editorial page, "It's Simple: Consolidate or Degenerate" favors the merger of the City and County school systems, and borrows the title from Oliver Rowe, who had campaigned persuasively for school consolidation in rural Mecklenburg County.
He had said that degeneration had already begun, with old residential areas inside the city limits changing to business and the people moving to the perimeter and beyond, with increase in white enrollment already leveling off, and if present district lines were frozen and the county held the rich perimeter, the big City school system would deteriorate alarmingly. It was a choice between progress and decay. It finds that it was the kind of talk which Charlotte needed.
The interdependence of the entire metropolitan area required consolidation of the school systems and as soon as possible, as the only way a uniformly good and uniformly healthy system of public education could be maintained for all of its children. As Mr. Rowe had emphasized, the City ought not fear consolidation with the County, as there was no longer a problem of joining with a system which was poor in quality and which might drag standards down, but rather presenting an opportunity of joining with people who had brought their standards of performance to a high level in a strong, well-organized school system which would, the following year, have more white pupils than the City system. He said that the only solution to save the perimeter for both the city and the county was consolidation of the two systems, and the piece agrees that it was as simple as that.
Mr. Rowe must have been listening to an oldie on the radio
"A Poor Parody of Tar Heel Justice" indicates that it was simple for guards to bootleg drugs to inmates of Central Prison in Raleigh, that huge profits were possible and the risk, comparatively slight.
For if a guard was caught and he admitted fleecing his suckers with jacked-up prices, apparently the law would only wink, as was the case of Harvey Speight, a guard at Central Prison who had admitted selling dexamyl, a stimulant for the central nervous system, to inmates. According to an SBI agent, he obtained a prescription for 200 tablets from an out-of-town physician and had also secured a supply of prescription blanks which he used in duplicating the order. The agent said that the guard admitted buying the tablets in lots of 200 for $10 and selling them for $24. But in the end, he only received a token sentence of 30 days suspended and payment of court costs.
It finds the offense serious and merited serious concern by the court. It indicates that, as might have been expected, a justice of the peace court had been involved, with the magistrate's light treatment of the matter not providing a deterrent to crooked guards who would practice similar trades behind prison walls.
The State Prison director, William Bailey, who had promptly dismissed the guard, was properly outraged, saying: "We'll never get this stuff stopped if the courts don't get aware of the problem and do something about it."
It finds him correct and that guards who would bootleg such tablets would also bootleg other, more dangerous items, as had happened previously and would happen again unless justice was appropriately stern. It finds the outcome of the case thus to be a poor parody of justice.
"Artist" indicates that J.
Fred Muggs, the chimpanzee formerly of "The Today Show"
"Take off Your Coat, Mr. McIntyre!" finds the community's determination to retain the services of William McIntyre as head of its planning program to be a mark of metropolitan maturity and strength. He had been scheduled to depart for a better paying post in Cleveland, but in accepting and acting on the fact that there was keen competition among cities for an insufficient number of qualified planning experts, the City Council and the City-County Planning Commission had demonstrated good judgment and alert leadership in retaining his services.
Caroline Coleman, writing in the Greenville Piedmont, in a piece titled "Sassafras Tea", imparts the history of sassafras tea, which had the favor of colonists when the tax on tea had become a matter of bitter controversy between the colonies and England, enabling Southerners to brew the delicious tea from sassafras roots and not rely on imported teas.
Following the Revolution, imported tea again came into use and sassafras tea had gone out of favor. Then during the Civil War and the strict blockade which caused the South to have to search for ersatz forms, the roots, herbs and barks again came into daily use in every household, and families drank sassafras tea and found it good. She remarks that her grandmother had told them that she had never seen any imported tea or coffee for nearly four years in the 1860's, but that she and her friends had considered it a patriotic duty and a necessity to serve only sassafras tea and parched rye coffee.
After the Civil War, the roots again went into discard, save as the makings of spring tonic. When the blood was supposed to need "clearing of humors" after a winter diet lacking in green vegetables, sassafras tea was a pleasant way of thinning the blood.
She indicates that housewives were now brewing sassafras tea for new taste thrills and their families were drinking it because they liked it and by the time the blood began to thin, the season was over.
Drew Pearson indicates that Atomic Energy Commission chairman, Admiral Lewis Strauss, was seeking to hide one of the reddest faces in Washington, as the Defense Department had just rejected one of his "clean" hydrogen bombs because it was too dirty for tactical military use, meaning that it still emitted too much radioactive fallout. That had just about knocked out the Admiral's long and persistent argument that the U.S. was producing a "clean" bomb which would be effective against combat troops but would not injure innocent civilians with fallout. The Admiral, whose advice the President accepted as law on atomic matters, was hiding behind official secrecy and probably would not admit the facts which Mr. Pearson had put forth, but he relates further of the inside story.
Admiral Strauss had planned to show the particular bomb to foreign observers during the summer as a "clean" bomb, supposed to be used for precision bombing to knock out specific, pinpoint military targets behind enemy lines. But tests had shown that it would spread too much radioactivity. The Admiral, who had spent most of his life as an investment banker, not as a scientist, had failed to take into account the fact that when an hydrogen bomb exploded, it set off new radioactivity in the atmosphere. He had been figuring only the actual radioactive particles set off by the trigger mechanism of the bomb, not the "induced" radioactivity which followed the explosion. The latter could contaminate the atmosphere just as dangerously as the actual particles from the trigger bomb. Thus, the Admiral had not cleaned up the hydrogen bomb but had only reduced one kind of radioactivity without curbing another.
Mr. Pearson notes that for some time, Senator Clinton Anderson of New Mexico had said that Admiral Strauss did not know what he was talking about regarding clean bombs, and repeatedly, the Senator, with Senator Albert Gore of Tennessee and Congressmen Chet Holifield of California and Melvin Price of Illinois had blasted the Admiral for confusing the public.
Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., had been sending urgent messages to Secretary of State Dulles suggesting that Admiral Strauss drop his "clean" bomb idea, warning that the Soviets had produced some technological information which would confute the idea of the clean bomb. The Ambassador to the U.N. had rushed to Secretary Dulles a copy of a technical paper prepared by a Soviet scientist, O. I. Leipunsky, showing that a hydrogen explosion threatened mankind with as much radiation damage as an ordinary atomic explosion, supporting the argument that an hydrogen bomb had not been made "clean". The Ambassador had warned that the paper was packed with complicated formulas and technical arguments, many of which could be refuted, but that the Ambassador feared that it would not diminish its propaganda effect. In the translation which the Ambassador had sent to the State Department, the Soviet scientist concluded, following pages of technical explanation: "The total number of persons suffering genetic damage as a result of the explosion of a 10-megaton hydrogen bomb … is estimated at 49,000, and through the explosion of an ordinary atomic bomb at 41,000. The total number of leukemias induced by the explosion of a 10-megaton pure hydrogen bomb is estimated at 15,000 and by that of an ordinary atomic bomb at 26,000." From those figures, the scientist contended that "as regards the amount of radiation damage it causes to mankind, a pure hydrogen bomb cannot be regarded as less dangerous than an ordinary bomb."
Ambassador Lodge had urgently requested technical information to answer the scientist's statements, which he expected to be brought up in a meeting of the U.N. Radiation Committee on June 9.
Walter Lippmann indicates that General De Gaulle had come to power in France because he alone had any hope of being able to make peace in Algeria and North Africa. The success of his Government and his reforms of the constitution depended on his success in Algeria. He finds that his main objective of achieving peace in North Africa was borne out by the fact that he had asked for special powers only for six months, that if his objective was to make war, to suppress the rebellion by military force, six months would not be sufficient time. His moderate Cabinet also attested to the fact that he believed he could arrange an acceptable settlement without much more fighting and in the ensuing few months.
He finds that the crucial question on which his success depended was whether he could count on the whole loyalty of the Army in Algeria and in France, and that if so, the civilian extremists would be unable to veto the political concessions which any conceivable negotiated settlement would require them to make. But if the Army in Algeria, with support from the Army in France, sided with the civilian extremists, then General De Gaulle would fail and civil war would probably be unavoidable. Thus far, the indications were favorable and there was reason to believe that in the insurrection in Algeria, the Army had not been acting on behalf of the civilian extremists but for reasons of its own. He posits that the first of those reasons was that by taking command of the rioting mobs, the Army maintained law and order during the dangerous interval when there was no responsible government in Paris, and the other reason was that the Army's grievance against the parliamentary government in Paris had been that it was too weak to make war and too weak to make peace. He finds it highly probable that while the civilian extremists were interested in white predominance over the Moslem masses, the Army's primary interest was to conclude with honor to itself an indecisive and inglorious war.
He suggests that it would account for the Army's faith in General De Gaulle, as there was nothing he had ever said and there was nothing in his record to support the idea that he would espouse the purposes of the civilian extremists or the so-called Algerian lobby, who had stultified all of the preceding governments. There was in his record, as one of the great historic figures of the epoch, a guarantee that he would protect the honor of the French Army.
Mr. Lippmann indicates that he had known many Frenchmen who had looked to General De Gaulle as the only man who could extricate France from the predicaments of an indecisive war, and that their feeling that he could do what no other Frenchman could do was not unlike the popular feeling in the U.S. in 1952 that only General Eisenhower, with his great personal prestige, had the power to bring to an end the stalemate in Korea. General De Gaulle had been much criticized for not offering a blueprint for a settlement in Algeria, but he had been wiser than his critics, avoiding what might have been a fatal mistake, for to make peace in Algeria, a modus vivendi had to be found in which the extremist factions could acquiesce, possible only if the extremist leaders of the Algerian rebels understood that they did not have to support the Tunisian and Moroccan Governments. To create that situation, there had to be a government in France which could not be sabotaged and overthrown, with an impeccable record of defending the honor of France and a record of magnanimity in dealing with the dependent peoples of the French empire, a record which General De Gaulle possessed. Government had to be free to shake off the extremists and fanatics and to propose compromises which a weak government would dare not sponsor.
The U.S. Administration had acted with propriety and wisdom during the French crisis and the Government had every reason to wish that General De Gaulle would succeed, for if he could bring peace to Algeria, he would not only avert a disaster which might involve the whole of North Africa, but would also open up for France the way to a much happier future. The U.S. interest in France was not to be measured in terms of the NATO airfields, depots, communications centers and divisions, but rather in terms of the interest of peace requiring a strong and prosperous France, as then there could be no irreconcilable issues and the legitimate interests of the U.S. would be safe.
The appointment as Foreign Minister of the former French Ambassador to the U.S., Maurice Couve de Murville, was reassuring, as Mr. Lippmann finds him an extraordinary man, cool, objective and as penetrating a judge of international affairs as any Western diplomat presently in active service. Though still relatively young, he had already had a distinguished career and ought have a brilliant and invigorating part to play in the diplomacy of the Western coalition.
Robert C. Ruark, in Palamos, Spain, says that he was heavily in favor of young love and knew that spring exerted strange emotional influences, but was bored with Princess Margaret's off-again, on-again roadshow with Peter Townsend, as much so as with French politics.
He goes on at some length about the non-issue troubling few, if any, Americans, at least those with any intelligence, concluding that maybe Margaret would be engaged by the time his piece hit the prints. He hopes so, "because the lovelorn Townsend and his persistent presence at the back door is certainly beginning to stale on the public imagination."
One might ask him why he devotes an entire column to the non-issue. It is not altogether unlike the non-intelligence of the current DNU here in 2025, regarding everything we already knew about the 2016 election, only with a twist of bitter lemon added to her cocktail of nonsense, which now demands, according to idiots in Congress, also quite Un-intelligent, a special prosecutor anew, a third one, to look into this non-issue, a vain pet peeve of His Highness since 2015, trying to get something, anything, including things made up from whole cloth, just like the birther issue of old—to which, before it's over, he will no doubt return eventually should events imperil him enough—on former President Obama, then-Vice-President Biden, and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, his little, amateur DNU with the strange streak in her hair, making her appear quite frightful, indeed, now supplying His Highness just what he needs to go on more social media ranting and raving like a lunatic to his U-masses of core supporters about nothing but sheer madness, that which they knew all along, the Madness of King Don, about everyone except the only real crook in the whole mess which is the current Administration, that being His Highness.
But little Toolsy had to find
something to make up for her big, bad blunder two or three months ago
in diverging from the King's Will
What the hell are you crazy nuts talking about? Why not, while about it, investigate the American Revolution for potential sedition by the revolutionists and, depending on findings, obliterate from the history books all mention of them and declare the Constitution therefore an invalid instrument, by proclamation of His Highness, all to coincide with July 4, 2026?
We've had a sudden realization: Trumpville apparently believes that the person serving time for the crime, who is being deposed as to her knowledge, which, if deemed good enough, might merit her a pardon or commutation, lest she otherwise be sent to Alligator Alcatraz for the duration, will somehow comport with this story
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