The Charlotte News
Tuesday, July 1, 1958
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page
reports that the Senate Select Committee investigating misconduct of
unions and management had heard testimony this date that mobster
Charles "Lucky" Luciano, operating from Italy, might have
stage-managed the ill-famed "crime convention" at
Apalachin, N.Y., the previous November. Martin Pera, an undercover
agent for the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, had made the allegation in
testimony before the Committee. Police had long suspected that the
meeting had been a gathering of an American "grand council"
of the Mafia, called to try to carve up peacefully the rackets which
had been left unbossed after the murder the previous summer of
racketeer Albert Anastasia, a reputed Mafia bigshot. Mr. Pera had
testified that he believed the gunning down of Mr. Anastasia in a
barbershop had been the work of the Mafia. He said that the Mafia in
Italy was torn by strife in which there had been 14 murders since
1955, presumably causing repercussions in the American underworld. He
told the Committee that he saw "great significance" in a
meeting which had taken place in Palermo, Sicily, which he said had
brought together Joseph Bonanno
The Senate, in an overwhelming 64 to 20 vote, accompanied by gallery applause, had completed Congressional action the previous night on a bill to admit Alaska as the nation's 49th state, following a 42-year fight for statehood. Only the President's signature on the bill, expected the following day or Thursday, and formal acceptance by Alaska, were now required for statehood to become official. Sponsors of the measure predicted completion of those preliminaries late in the fall, in time for the new state's two Senators and one Representative to be on hand for the opening of the new Congress the following January. The action portended the first change in boundaries of the United States since 1912, when statehood was extended to the territories of Arizona and New Mexico. For Alaskans, statehood would mean that for the first time since the territory's acquisition in 1867, its residents would have voting representation in the House and the Senate, could elect their own governor and state officials and could vote for the President and Vice-President. Statehood also would give Alaska the right to select 103,350,000 acres of its area, including mineral lands, as a potential tax base for development purposes. Such a designation would leave more than two-thirds of the state in Federal ownership. For the U.S., it would extend the limits of the states—already extended by territorial designation—to within 55 miles of the Soviet mainland, with only three miles separating Soviet-held Big Diomede Island in the Bering Strait from Little Diomede Island, a part of Alaska. (Some Alaskans, albeit possibly a little high on peyote, claim that if they look really hard out their kitchen winder, they can see the gates of Russia.)
Secretary of State Dulles had asserted this date that the U.S. refused to pay political blackmail for the release of Americans held captive in East Germany and Cuban rebel territory.
The President this date had told Republican Congressional leaders that the 600 million dollar cut in foreign aid funding voted by the House Appropriations Committee would jeopardize U.S. foreign policy.
House investigators of the Sherman Adams matter had examined their consciences this date and unanimously agreed that they had acted properly in hearing in public session the principal accuser of Mr. Adams, Boston financier John Fox.
The House Education Committee this date had informally approved a four-year 660 million dollar blueprint of Federal aid to education, with emphasis on science, with the final, formal vote scheduled for the following day.
In Tokyo, it was reported that floodwaters had beset a limited area of drought-stricken Japan this date, drowning two persons. Light, scattered rainfall had been reported near Tokyo and over parched fields of the rice-rich southern island of Kyushu.
In Duluth, Minn., a big pine tree, broken by a severe wind and rain storm which had hit northeastern Minnesota, had crashed into a tent early this date and killed a nine-year old boy on a family outing.
In Sun Valley, Calif., two teenage girls had left a note with their parents on Sunday, reading: "We're taking Baby Mike away. We won't let you give him away." They then disappeared, taking with them their 20-month old brother whom they thought their parents no longer wanted. The previous day, a patrolman had found the 16-year old girl and her 13-year old sister asleep under a tree in a Burbank park, about 5 miles from their home, holding in their arms Mike. The officer recognized them from their mother's missing persons report. At the Burbank police station, the older sister explained to a policewoman that they had to leave and take their baby brother as their parents were going to put him up for adoption. Policemen had gone to the home of the parents in Sun Valley and found out why the parents had talked of placing the baby for adoption, the father having said that he could not see any other answer because he could not get a job. He said that they had eight children and lived in a house made for no more than two people, that their rent was coming due again on Thursday and the current week's rent was being paid by the Bureau of Public Assistance, which had said that it could not give them any more relief payments because his wife and children had only recently arrived in the area from Toledo, O. He said that he had to split the family up in Toledo and farm out the children. His wife said that they did not want to do that again and so thought that they would place the baby up for adoption. The three grimy, weary children had gone home in a police car. The girls said that they had spent the night in an all-night movie and trudged through the hills, taking turns caring for their brother. The mother said that she did not care, now, and would keep the baby, telling a juvenile officer that they could make out all right if she and her husband had jobs, that they were willing to work. The father, however, was on parole from San Quentin Prison, where he had served time for the theft of an outboard motor and had been in ill health recently. He shook his head sadly and said: "It can't be done. The boy has got to go."
In Pawtucket, R.I., it was reported that a former mental patient had shot and killed two police detectives who had stormed his house the previous night when he refused for several hours to surrender peacefully. Police had riddled the house with a machinegun and small arms fire and blasted teargas through windows after the two officers had been slain. When no further gunfire came from the house, police had entered and found the 35-year old man cowering in a bedroom closet. The two dead officers were among four who had first entered the house in an attempt to disarm the man. He had met them with blasts from a .38-caliber pistol. The siege had begun when neighbors in a tenement section complained that the man was firing shots into an unoccupied flat adjoining the house he shared with his mother. The man refused to come out of the house on orders of police, and knowing that he was armed, the first officers on the scene had sent for reinforcements. For seven hours, the man had held siege, until the fatal shooting and his surrender. During the afternoon, the man's mother had persuaded him to give up a shotgun, a rifle and two revolvers. Officers had surrounded the house and then four of them were assaulted, two fatally, with the other two forced to retreat. Police said that they would seek to hold the man until the following day before bringing charges against him. Officials of the Veterans Administration Hospital at Brockton, Mass., said that the man had voluntarily submitted to treatment there and had been released the previous year. The previous fall, he had been recommitted through court action, but had failed to return.
In Greenville, S.C., the Greenville County sheriff's office had reported that a vault containing "$36,000 in new money" had been stolen from a branch bank at nearby Donaldson Air Force Base the previous night, with the total amount of the money missing not known, as the loot included old money in addition to the $36,000—presumably from the nouveau riche or, perhaps, some airman's lucky winnings on the $64,000 Query. The robbery had occurred on Government property and the sheriff's office said it did not have much information, that the robbery had been discovered when the branch bank had opened for business this date.
In Columbia, S.C., it was reported that the superintendent of the South Carolina Penitentiary, desperate for relief from overcrowding of 2,120 prisoners in facilities adequate for about 1,400, had said that he might have to resort to use of tents to house the additional prisoners. He said that if he did so, baseball might have to be eliminated, as the baseball diamond in front of the prison was an ideal site for tents. The area was surrounded with a high barbed fence and was under surveillance of prison guards. He said that either prisoners about to be released or newcomers whom the superintendent said ought be separated from hardened criminals, as they were first-time offenders, could be housed in such tents. But where are they going to do some shaking?
In Asheville, it was reported that a nearly million-dollar blaze had raced through Southern Railway's roundhouse this date and destroyed approximately 5,800 tons of paper products stored there by Champion Paper & Fiber Co. of Canton, N.C. The fire had erupted in the wee hours of the morning among the bales of pulp and rolls of paper, some of which was milk-carton stock which was heavily waxed. The value of the products was estimated by a Champion official at $800,000. The vice-president of the company and the manager of the Carolinas division said that the loss was covered by insurance.
In Charlotte, it was reported that suspended police Capt. Lloyd Henkel had told the newspaper this date that he had "never given any thought" to resigning. He had made it clear in a letter to Police Chief Frank Littlejohn that he wanted an opportunity to defend himself "against the supposed charges" pending against him. The contents of the letter, copies of which had been sent to City Manager Henry Yancey and Civil Service Commission chairman Kenneth Clontz, had said: "Through my attorneys, I understand that you, yesterday afternoon, offered me the opportunity of submitting my resignation, in order that the charges you are now preparing against me need not go to a hearing before the Civil Service Commission." He said he had not had the opportunity to defend himself against the charges and requested an opportunity to do so. He had written the letter this date following newspaper reports during the morning that he was "giving serious consideration to resigning from the force…" The newspaper story had said that "highly reliable sources" indicated that he was thinking of resigning. Mr. Henkel this date said that he had no idea where the resignation rumors had originated, that he wanted to be tried on the merits of the things involved, not on allegations. He said that no one had ever asked him to resign and that a great many friends had asked him not to do so. The Civil Service hearing would proceed as scheduled on July 14. The captain had been suspended on June 12, along with another officer for 30 days, following an auditor's report showing that the captain had cashed some $26,000 worth of checks in public funds, some of which had bounced but were later covered by the captain. The other officer had resigned from the force and waived his hearing before the three-man Commission.
John Kilgo of The News reports that the police chief this date had drawn up a lengthy bill of particulars against the captain and had sent it to the Civil Service Commission, charging that the captain had cashed $8,610 worth of checks at the Red Fez Club and $4,500 worth of checks at the Union Bus Terminal, all of which had been cashed in May, 1958. The chief contended that at the time, the captain had "made, drawn, uttered, issued and delivered" those checks, knowing that he did not have money in his bank account to cover them. It was further alleged that the captain had been denied certain facilities at the club because he had become deeply indebted to some of its members and that a collection had been taken up for him, with several thousand dollars donated by a few of the influential members, that that money had been used to pay the debts incurred by the captain, but that he was still barred from use of the club facilities. The captain and his attorney had declined to comment on the particulars this date because they had not yet had a chance to read them. The charges also alleged that the captain had gone to radio personality Grady Cole on March 1, 1956 with a "hard luck" story and exchanged checks for $375. When Mr. Cole had cashed the check in April, 1956, it had been returned marked "insufficient funds", and Mr. Cole had declared it a bad debt on his 1957 income tax return. The check had been paid since the captain's suspension. The police chief said that more charges would be filed against the captain later.
Not on the front page, and mentioned
only in a short paragraph inside, a report from Gaffney, S.C.,
indicated that the previous day, the magistrate, who, the prior
Friday, had ruled inadmissible evidence of a confession of a deceased
co-defendant, had bound over for grand jury determination two of the remaining
four defendants and dismissed the charges against the other two,
finding that the State had not presented sufficient evidence
supporting probable cause for the charges against them, that they had
dynamited or participated in the dynamiting of the house of a
physician and his wife the prior November, the fourth and a half score and fourth
A report from Washington indicates that A. Carl Stelling, a New York highway consultant, had told of some new ideas such that "today's 'masculine' highways must in the future give way to roads geared to feminine driving habits." He said, in a speech prepared for the American Society of Landscape Architects, that women were "generally less confident than men in making their driving decisions." He said that women tended to panic more quickly than men in tight situations and that their attention was more likely to wander off the road. He foresaw the day when travel lanes would be wider, allowing women a greater margin of error, that an extra slow-speed truckless lane would be reserved for women who became nervous at high speeds, that emergency turnoffs or picnic areas would be closer together and would be equipped with police telephones, benches and shelters for bad weather, and that highway pavement would be produced in pastel colors, as most women would find it easier to follow colors than to read signs. Mr. Stelling also spoke of the time when major highways would be serviced by special radio stations to report weather and traffic conditions, describe points of interest, offer driving tips and safety information as well as "stay awake" entertainment. Such stations would make the female driver feel more at home and give her "a greater feeling of security".
In London, it was reported that nudes had been banned from Britain's state-owned railroads this date, that all advertisements which depicted or referred to nude, striptease or similar shows would be barred from station and track-side billboards, according to the British Transport Commission.
In Dallas, Tex., a garbageman had stepped on a catfish while at work the previous day and a spine had struck his foot. He was treated by Dr. Gill.
On the editorial page, "Everybody Needs Some of Ike's Luck" finds that seldom had a summer brought hotter political and diplomatic weather to Washington than that now besetting the Administration, with the President being confronted by portentous problems from every direction, not the least of which involved his right-hand aide, Sherman Adams. The dilemmas appeared at their thickest at a moment when the President's prestige was at one of its lowest points, and when the ranks of his supporters were at their thinnest. His luck, it finds, had gone absent without leave.
It perceives the heart of the political problem to be the fact that a large number of important Republicans were in open revolt against his decision to retain Mr. Adams, that revolt involving all wings of the party and such well-known party stalwarts as Senators William Knowland of California, Charles Potter of Michigan and Barry Goldwater of Arizona. It finds that to the normal downward trend of presidential power in a lame-duck term, the Adams case had given a sharp and steady shove. Regardless of what would be decided on the future of Mr. Adams, himself, the prestige of the President was bound to take a beating.
It finds that there was a certain inevitability in the fact, as all political halos had to tarnish, even in the best of times, and a certain amount of partisan chops-licking could be expected. But it appeared likely that the President would be spared the circling-walls tactic which many of his predecessors had undergone in periods of similar disenchantment. For in the outside world, the peril of events had grown steadily as the nation was occupied with the dismantling of Administration claims to special mortal virtue and political piety without parallel.
There was no easy or profitable way out of the Lebanese crisis, and there might not be a safe way out were the choice to be between intervention on behalf of the most pro-Western Government in the Middle East and letting that Government be taken over by the henchmen of Premier Gamal Abdel Nasser.
In addition, the Soviets appeared to be reverting to the policies of Stalin, and almost without notice, the world had returned to the brink, as Secretary Dulles had previously referred to the loggerheads status of world tensions.
Under such circumstances, Americans wished all the more for strong Presidential leadership and direction, even if that could only be attained now through the return of the Eisenhower luck, with it being needed by the people at present as much as the President.
"Rep. Fountain: A Responsibility Watchdog" indicates that the airing of scattergun charges against Sherman Adams by Boston publicist John Fox was a regrettable example of the restrained but productive use of the power of investigation by the Democratic-controlled Congress. "But on the whole the heyday of the Congressional 'Hey-Look-At-Me!' prober has been passed, with a consequent increase in responsible and pertinent probing."
It finds that the model of the post-McCarthy school of investigators was North Carolina Representative L. H. Fountain, a fair but persistent watchdog regarding the activities of four Federal departments. Representative Fountain had been in Congress for only six years, but had opened doors on an amazing number of carefully cached skeletons.
One of those had been the cheese scandal, exposed by Mr. Fountain's House Government Operations subcommittee, spotlighting the deal between the Department of Agriculture and a number of food firms, whereby the Department had bought millions of pounds of cheese and butter from the firms and sold it back to them at lower prices, thus netting the firms a large windfall, while never even moving the cheese and butter in the warehouses. Three of the firms had been ordered to repay the taxpayers more than $252,000, with still pending suits seeking recovery of an additional two million dollars.
Mr. Fountain had obtained results in a considerable number of cases involving wrongdoing, as well as Administration misuse of authority. He had done the job with a minimum of publicity and headline-hunting, and remained at it, doing his party and his state great credit.
"The Little Sports Car That Couldn't" indicates that everyone had been frustrated by uphill stoplights, as that at 4th and McDowell, that and sports cars. It had been a galling experience to view the approach of one of the city's "mechanized leaf-crawlers", for despite all of the efforts of the family car to pull away evenly, it was always less than 20 yards uphill before the sports car driver would offer nothing but a rear view and his "razzberry" exhaust. A downhill grade helped, as at 4th and McDowell, but gravity was impartial.
It now found that a certain "jazzbo" friend had been stopped short, not by an opponent, as his machine could "scratch off like the world's last frantic chicken digging up a final worm before the Great Fallout", but rather because his fan belt had broken. His sports car was one of the more popular models, manufactured in the U.S. and had an outcropping of chrome along with the optional plaid, exemplars of which were plentiful in the city.
He had tried repeatedly to obtain a replacement fan belt but could not find one, with the friend becoming more hot under the collar the more he had to look. He had a brainstorm, "like a coliseum-roof-covering-lifting-wind", when he saw on the showroom floor a brand new machine like his own, though its fan belt had already been stripped. Eventually, the replacement had to be ordered.
"And now, by George, we can challenge that unsold sports car at any stoplight in Charlotte—with both taillights tied behind the trunk."
Someone has been listening too much to the radio on the car dashboard.
"Wordiness" indicates that Robert S. Burger, assistant professor of the Amos Tuck School of Business Administration at Dartmouth College, had said that business writing in the U.S. was a mess, finding that most business letters and reports actually hindered communication. He said: "I call these faults pretentiousness, artificiality, weakness, indirectness, hypercomplexity, monotony, illogic, incorrectness, inaccuracy, ambiguity, opaqueness, inconsequence, disorganization and wordiness. By far the worst is wordiness."
The piece agrees.
A piece from the Wall Street Journal, titled "The Fireplug and the Geraniums", indicates that because New York City had 272,000 licensed dogs and innumerable unlicensed ones, the local American Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the Sanitation Commission and the Mayor's Committee to Keep New York City Clean had decided that a public restroom for dogs would solve some of their problems. Thus recently, a canine comfort station had been opened in front of the ASPCA building, with pictures showing it to be a rectangular enclosure 12 feet long, 4 feet wide and divided to provide two runways, by an elevation about four feet high, topped with a box of blooming geraniums.
The dogs had only sniffed around the place and the committeemen feared that the experiment had been a total failure.
The piece opines that having had
dogs all its life, it could tell the committeemen what was wrong, as
it had been its experience that wild dogs did not appreciate
geraniums very much, appreciating fireplugs
The previous piece on this subject, appearing on the front page, as we noted, had said that there was no tree in the vicinity of the comfort station. But through diligent research through time at great expense, as a service to the reader, we found that there had been a tree which had grown at the location to a promising height, only to be cut down in its prime through obviously nefarious machinations of some tree-hater, though apparently long after the doggie comfort station had been removed.
Now, however, we find from further expensive, dedicated recherche du temps perdu that the purported location, per the WSJ, is at variance with that originally stated as the place of comfort by the A.P. Maybe therein lay the rub, in that doggie, suffering the law's delay, had been forced to make his contumely offering in led-on confusion, despite the whips and scorns of Time, at a spot not of his master's choosing, maybe not even in Brooklyn at all
Drew Pearson finds that history regarding the Middle East was repeating, that about three weeks earlier, when Prime Minister Harold Macmillan had visited the President at the White House, the latter had approached him about cooperating with the U.S. in armed intervention in Lebanon if necessary. The Prime Minister was less than lukewarm on the matter, not at all enthusiastic about joining in such a venture. He reminded the President, gently, that it was almost 2 years earlier that Britain had intervened in the Suez crisis when the President had stopped that intervention, in November, 1956. If British-French-Israeli operations against Premier Gamal Abdel Nasser had been permitted to continue, according to Mr. Macmillan, it would not now be necessary for the U.S. to be talking about new intervention against Premier Nasser. Since the Joint Chiefs and Secretary of State Dulles all agreed on intervention, Prime Minister Macmillan reluctantly consented to go along, and to that end, 37,000 British troops had been concentrated on Cyprus, just a few miles from Lebanon, ready for intervention, the same thing which had occurred before the Suez landing in October, 1956.
Meanwhile, Lebanese President Camille Chamoun had been offered aid and U.S. Ambassador Llewellyn Thompson in Moscow had been instructed to call on Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko and inform him that the U.S. was determined to use force if necessary to protect Lebanon's independence. The President figured that the threat of American intervention would discourage both the Russians and the Arab rebels in Lebanon. But it had not worked out that way, as the U.S., with its slump in military prestige, could no longer negotiate from strength. Russian and Syrian arms continued to cross into Lebanon to aid the rebels, while Russia issued a warning that "volunteers" might intervene in Lebanon if the U.S. and Britain intervened.
The President and Secretary of State Dulles had begun to get cold feet, the previous week Ambassador McClintock, in Beirut, having been instructed to urge President Chamoun not to call on the U.S. for aid under the Eisenhower Doctrine, except in case of a "dire emergency". Even then, U.S. Marines and British paratroopers would be used only to evacuate American and British civilians, while Turkish-Iraqi troops would be flown in to battle the Arab rebels.
Meanwhile, hesitation by the U.S., similar to the British delays just before the Suez landing, had given the Russians time to prepare their "volunteers". Thus, history was repeating.
During the height of the furor over Sherman Adams, the latter had attended a Washington cocktail party where he got into a conversation regarding fishing. He had said: "The best fishing I ever had was in Turkey. I was in Germany visiting with Laurie Norstad [the American commander of NATO]. Norstad flew me to Turkey and we spent two days there fishing. It was a great experience." Mr. Adams was nonchalant about taking an American Air Force plane and flying from Germany all the way to Turkey just to fish, not appearing to worry him that he was spending American taxpayer money, no more than he was worried about spending the money of his old friend, Bernard Goldfine.
Marquis Childs, in Moscow, indicates that aside from politics where the differences at present seemed to be accentuated, two other approaches were being explored in an effort to bring the East and the West closer together, one being culture and the other being trade, the latter promising to become increasingly important.
Premier Nikita Khrushchev was too much of a realist to have expected a favorable reply to his letter to the President regarding trade, suggesting that credits might be made available to facilitate Soviet purchases of American machinery. It only indicated that Russia was ready to do business with the West, demonstrating also a shrewd awareness of the U.S. recession which had slowed down industry in the country and was beginning to retard the flow of trade in Europe. Mr. Khrushchev was bidding for machinery to build up Russia's consumer-goods industry, with emphasis on artificial fibers for more clothing. Competition had begun between the representatives of half a dozen Western powers to obtain those orders.
The firm of Alfred Krupp in West Germany, which had expanded aggressively since 1949 in almost every corner of the world, had sent a strong team to Moscow to negotiate for contracts. The firm, with the prestige of the West German Government behind its trade negotiations in more than 20 countries, was believed to have the inside track. But the British firm of Courtaulds, specializing in textiles and textile machinery, also had a team negotiating for contracts.
Because of the size of the proposition by the Russians, the British had joined forces with American textile machinery interests headed by Van Kohorn. The French and the Italians also had representatives in Moscow trying to obtain contracts.
The Russians were doing some tough horse trading. The British were told that if they could not meet the price estimates set by the Russians, then Krupp would meet them. And despite the cartel agreements between Krupp and top British interests covering prices in the international field, the strong suspicion was that it was true.
The bargainer directing those negotiations was Anastas Mikoyan, second in charge in the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet. Mr. Mikoyan, of American origin, had a long career in the hierarchy which governed the country. With a native instinct for bargaining, he had carried through many successful negotiations. Mr. Childs, in talking with him, found that he scarcely concealed his belief that Russia was at this point in the driver's seat, saying recently that if the U.S. did not want to participate in the deals being negotiated, he was confident that British and other sources would be willing to meet Russia's desires. His attitude on trade with the U.S. was similar to that of Mr. Khrushchev regarding a summit meeting, that it was up to the U.S.
A fundamental difference on policy existed regarding trade, with the British wanting to abolish virtually the entire embargo list, leaving on it only goods directly useful in war, while the U.S. continued to favor maintaining the present list. But regardless of what the official attitude in the West was, it seemed certain that in one way or another there would be considerable expansion of trade between East and West, with Western specialists and technicians coming in to help construct large-scale plants for consumer goods. The forces producing new trade development appeared sufficiently strong.
He indicates that whether it was also true in the area of cultural exchange, where a start had already been made, was a question based on the difference between the two systems. Americans, including some tourists, were beginning to come to Moscow in increasing numbers as a result of Russia's relaxed policy on visas. Alexander Kusnetzov, who had negotiated the cultural agreement in Washington and who was presently acting as head of the committee on cultural relations with foreign countries, said that a tour of the U.S. by Soviet citizens was being organized. But when cultural exchange meant equating American institutions and Soviet institutions, difficulties arose.
Thus, Mr. Kusnetzov spoke of how, from the Russian side, the desire was still strong to exchange delegations from the Congress and from the Supreme Soviet. But according to Mr. Kusnetzov, the leaders in Congress had not been able to come together directly with spokesmen for the Supreme Soviet, elected by the one-party, one-candidate system.
The effort to broaden the channels, especially regarding trade, would continue despite official rebuffs, and Mr. Childs observes that it would be an error to interpret the effort as evidence of the urgency of Russia's need for help from the outside world. The political climate was quickly becoming as chilly as the recent weather in Moscow, but it was irrelevant to underlying forces which appeared certain to bring about a gradual alteration in the relationship between the two centers of power.
Doris Fleeson indicates that Senator William Langer of North Dakota, despite age, illness, denial of the Republican endorsement and a resurgent liberal Democratic Party in his state, had been renominated by the Republicans and was expected to be re-elected to the Senate. It was a personal triumph for him, about all it meant politically, but in an age of conformity, many people who deplored his record were smiling.
In earlier years, when Democrats were seeking to obtain an extra margin of control in the Senate, they had wooed the unpredictable Senator and would still be glad to have him, though the pressure of the need had relaxed.
His method of campaigning never varied, never forgetting a friend or a favor, still more isolationist than pro-America, while on domestic issues remaining a New Dealer.
Senator Everett Dirksen of Illinois, the most probable heir-apparent to the Republican leadership, following the imminent departure of Senator William Knowland of California, had gone to North Dakota and campaigned effectively for Senator Langer, thus now able to count positively on his support, while Republican liberals who deplored the prospect of a leader famous for his ability to go through a revolving door backwards, would have to whistle. On balance, Senator Langer ought side with the liberals, but now owed Senator Dirksen a favor.
Years earlier, there had been a move afoot to deny Senator Langer his seat for various "irregularities", when the late Senator Robert Taft of Ohio had stopped the effort. Thereafter, when Senator Taft needed an extra vote, he could always count on that of Senator Langer. Some of those votes had contributed heavily to the strange flavor of the Senator's voting record, but to him that consideration was irrelevant compared to the fact that Senator Taft had been there when he had needed a friend.
North Dakota politics had long been confused by the existence of the Non-Partisan League, a bulwark of strength for Senator Langer. After 40 years of stringing along with the Republicans, the League in 1956 had voted to become Democrats, though not all of them had gone along.
There had been earlier signs that Senator Dirksen was more content to focus on his own fence-mending than on the Eisenhower business to which he had devoted himself assiduously and successfully during the first five years of the Administration. He had joined lately with Senators Knowland and Styles Bridges of New Hampshire in demanding a major alteration of the necessary items of the Eisenhower program.
She indicates that an informed guess was that Senator Dirksen, after securing the leadership role, would have his eye on the Republican nomination for the vice-presidency in 1960. As matters stood, it was a spot likely to constitute a peace offering to the Republican right wing, as Vice-President Nixon was clearly turning to the left. It would help explain, she concludes, why Senator Dirksen had again turned cozy with the right wing.
A letter writer from Valley Falls, R.I., indicates that on June 16, he had some unfinished business in Charlotte at Elmwood Cemetery regarding one of his sons who had died while he was a resident of Charlotte some 38 years earlier. The superintendent of the cemetery, he finds, was a credit to the city, having given him time and detailed explanations, clearing up something which had been on his mind for 38 years, finding him to be the right man in the right place, doing a job.
A letter from J. R. Cherry, Jr., agrees with the editorial of June 19 that the President ought to fire Sherman Adams. He finds that the President had displayed a double standard during the Suez crisis when he had insisted that Israel adhere to high standards of conduct "which were not necessarily incumbent upon the thugs of Russia to adhere to in connection with the Hungarian massacre." The President had stated in effect, he finds, that Israel was "good" and the ruling thugs of Russia were "bad", but that the country ought insist that the "good" do what the "bad" would not do, and withdraw. In that case, the "liberal" President Eisenhower had set the high standards of ethics of his Administration and, he asserts, it should not be a shock that he had decided to retain "his boy" Mr. Adams who would not adhere to those standards. "The 'double standard of values'—an ugly duckling of contemporary liberalism—is reaction, injustice, and public betrayal in raw form. Indeed, it is out of character in Republican government."
A letter writer from Florence, S.C., comments on the editorial "The Sideshow Is Not the Main Event", regarding the recent decision of the U.S. District Court to suspend desegregation in Little Rock until 1960, with particularity, focusing on the editorial's statement that an "orderly and rational solution" could yet be found to the problem, the writer asking what the definition of "orderly and rational solution" was. He wonders whether it was as they had done in Charlotte, Winston-Salem and Greensboro, letting in one or two black students and then yelling loud and long, "Look, we have solved the 'integration problem'." He asserts that those cities had done more harm than the states which had not allowed any integration in the schools, that when a "token few" were allowed to integrate, there was a snubbing of others who had just as much right to enter as those who had been allowed to do so. He comments on the statement of the editorial that Governor Orval Faubus and the mobs had won a "minor skirmish" but that "human decency will triumph in the end", suggesting that the editorial was calling the majority of the people of Arkansas mobs with their determined Governor as a mob leader. He proposes that the only solution to the "illegal Supreme Court decision" in Brown v. Board of Education was for all of the states to demand that the Tenth Amendment be recognized as it had been originally written and intended, allowing the individual states to decide whether or not they wanted integrated schools. "This is the solution assured the people by the Constitution of the U.S."
Sure, if you read out the post-Civil War amendments, including the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery and, of course, the most central of all, the 14th Amendment, applying equal protection of the laws and due process to the states, meaning that all of the fundamental rights embraced by the Bill of Rights became applicable to the states, those amendments, along with the 15th Amendment on voting rights, having laid to rest the fundamental tensions left from the Founding which had eventually led to a bitterly divisive and bloody Civil War, which no one but a suicidal nut would wish to recur. And if you are such a suicidal nut, just take a gun and blow your brains out and be done with it, rather than inflicting your suicidal thoughts on the rest of us who disagree with Your Highness. Or, you can move to some place such as El Salvador, where your authoritarian thoughts will be quickly put in their place by the head authoritarian.
Indeed, we recommend such a move to El Presidente, as those people might very well enable him to have a third term down there. Throw your hat in the ring early and maybe you will have a chance. It will satisfy your lust for power and authority over peasants, who will enjoy your irrational and divisive daily comments on your political enemies and absurd, unconstitutional proposals in the form of executive ukases. Maybe, after that term expires or a military coup displaces you, you could go to Russia and be co-ruler with your friend, Vlad.
Speaking of which, did you ever notice that in his latter years, former President Nixon began to look very much like Premier Leonid Brezhnev?
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