The Charlotte News
Monday, July 21, 1958
FIVE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the U.S. this date ruled out for all practical purposes any thought of an immediate summit meeting as proposed by Russia, as White House press secretary James Hagerty said that a draft reply to Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev's call for such a meeting had been sent to the country's allies. He said, however, that he did not expect an answer to be dispatched this date, thus ruling out any talks by the deadline proposed by Premier Khrushchev for the following day. The country had taken the position that any immediate talks between the West and the Soviets ought be in conjunction with the U.N. That would not, therefore, necessarily rule out a meeting by the heads of state. British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan had told Commons this date that Britain and its allies were urgently considering "the best means by which to arrange for a meeting which heads of government could attend." Mr. Hagerty told a press conference that consultations were ongoing among the Western allies, indicating that the draft reply to Mr. Khrushchev, an answer on which U.S. allies were invited to comment before it was sent, was now in the hands of the other major Western powers. He said that the draft had been sent to the other nations the previous night through their ambassadors and that until the consultations ended, he would have nothing further to say about the possibility of a summit conference. He said that after the consultations among the Western allies were complete, the President would make a direct reply to Mr. Khrushchev. He also said that India was not among the nations which the country had consulted. Mr. Khrushchev had proposed that India be included in the proposed meeting. The President had met with top diplomatic and military advisers in an extraordinary Sunday afternoon session to consider what the U.S. ought do about the proposal by Mr. Khrushchev. The latter had sent notes to the leaders of the U.S., Britain, France and India calling for a summit conference at Geneva on Tuesday or at any other time, expressing willingness, if necessary, to meet in Washington, accusing the U.S. and Britain of committing aggression by sending troops to Lebanon and Jordan, declaring that they had gravely endangered the peace. Authorities in Washington said that the Russian move had placed the Western powers in a bad spot before world public opinion, already alarmed over the possibilities of war in the Middle East. The President, visiting his Gettysburg farm during the weekend, promptly conferred with Secretary of State Dulles by telephone, discussing the Russian proposal immediately afterward with British Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd, visiting the U.S. for consultations with Secretary Dulles and the President. Mr. Lloyd and Mr. Dulles had met again just before the British diplomat had taken off for London after 3 1/2 days of discussions regarding British-American strategy in the Middle East. Mr. Lloyd had told reporters that Mr. Dulles and he were in "substantial agreement" regarding how to handle the note from Mr. Khrushchev. The White House, a few hours later, issued a terse statement which set the tone of the reply expected to be sent to Moscow late this date or this night. But while U.S. officials were cold to Mr. Khrushchev's proposal, some, at least, believed that war fears had considerably increased the pressure for a top-level session.
In Beirut, a U.S. spokesman said that all ground, air and sea combat units had atomic capability, while specifically avoiding any indication whether the 6,300 U.S. Marines who had landed in Lebanon had atomic warheads. The Marines had joined Lebanese Army patrols which could bring them in contact with rebels, many of whom were pro-Nasser. Premier Gamal Abdel Nasser of the United Arab Republic and Premier Khrushchev were weighing the results of their latest diplomatic moves, with Premier Nasser reported by Cairo news agencies to have met with the rich ruling Sheik of Kuwait in Damascus the previous day. Kuwait, a British protectorate, was on the Persian Gulf close to Iraq, and supplied half of Britain's oil and was the leading oil producer in the Middle East. The U.S. had also taken steps to inform the Lebanese of the reasons for the presence of the American troops in the country. The U.S. Embassy spokesman said that a million leaflets in Arabic, bearing a picture of President Eisenhower, had been dropped from one end of Lebanon to the other, assuring the Lebanese that the Americans would depart as soon as the U.N. had taken measures ensuring the independence of the country. Two Sabre jets and a Marauder bomber which had swept over Beirut dropping the leaflets had caused a flurry of excitement. The Navy spokesman disclosed at the U.S. Embassy briefing that U.S. forces had come equipped with the necessary weapons to use atomic power, saying, "All combat units, including ground, air and sea, have atomic capability." He said that further discussion was subject to security. The Marines had landed 48-inch howitzers which were capable of shooting an atomic shell about 11 miles. The adding of Marines to Lebanese Army patrols had been described by U.S. briefing officers as an effort to improve liaison with Lebanese Army forces in an effort to halt sniping at aircraft and Marine guards. At least six U.S. military transports had been hit, with no injuries resulting. The flight path into Beirut Airport took planes over rebel territory. The U.S. Embassy spokesman denied the charges from Cairo that a UAR commercial airliner had been fired upon by U.S. forces and forced to turn back from Beirut. According to an information officer, the fire had come from the same insurgent forces who had been shooting at U.S. Air Force transports. A Marine had lost two fingers and a thumb of his left hand at Beirut's airport this date from an explosion in his cook fire. The Marines started an investigation as to whether rebels had planted a bomb in the fire. Children selling pop had tagged after the Marines, and one had left a bottle on Saturday which had exploded, having been filled with gasoline and equipped with a time bomb, doing no damage. Nice little children.
In Amman, it was reported that Jordan had broken diplomatic relations with the UAR, following the latter's recognition of the rebel regime in Iraq. The U.S. had given King Hussein's Government a check for 12.5 million dollars for economic aid.
In Baghdad, it was reported that the Iraqi capital continued calm in the wake of the coup the previous week, with the population apparently friendly toward the new regime.
At the U.N. in New York, the Western nations were expected to support a Japanese proposal that the Security Council expand operations of the U.N. observer group in Lebanon.
In Seoul, South Korea's National Assembly had unanimously endorsed American intervention in the Middle East this date.
A new set of House investigators had gone behind closed doors this date to look into new allegations of White House pressure tactics reportedly involving White House chief of staff Sherman Adams. Representative Edward Hebert of Louisiana, chairman of the House Armed Services Investigations subcommittee, said that the witnesses would testify in secret, at least initially, with open hearings expected to follow. Among the first witnesses would be Roswell Austin, a retired member of the Armed Services Board of Contract Appeals, which the previous year had cut to $8,500 a $49,784 wartime penalty against a New England textile firm for late delivery of fabric for Army uniforms. Mr. Austin said that he had heard so much talk of White House interest in the case that it had made him "boil". The White House denied that Mr. Adams had pulled any strings on behalf of the firm of Manchester, N.H., that the former New Hampshire Governor, Mr. Adams, had merely relayed queries and replies as a matter of routine. The former president of the defunct firm also denied that Mr. Adams had exerted any influence, but acknowledged that he and an employee who knew Mr. Adams had written the White House about the case. During the weekend, the Pentagon had indicated that the subcommittee would be told that the penalty reduction against the company had resulted from peacetime afterthoughts rather than intervention by Mr. Adams. Documents released by the Defense Department said that the appeals board had found that some of the firm's delay in delivering on the $633,500 contract resulted from slowness in the delivery of textile machine parts to the company because of wartime shortages and could not have been avoided. The penalty was placed on the firm on December 18, 1941, 11 days after the attack at Pearl Harbor. The new hearing involving Mr. Adams had no connection with Bernard Goldfine, the Boston textile millionaire who was a friend of Mr. Adams and had been investigated for providing gifts to Mr. Adams, ostensibly in exchange for intervention by Mr. Adams with the Federal Trade Commission and the Securities & Exchange Commission, with which Mr. Goldfine's mills had problems, both men denying that there was anything more than friendship involved in the gifts.
In Wetumpka, Ala., it was reported that cars had blocked the gates of a drive-in theater which advertised that it dared to display a movie the previous night showing a romance between a black man and a white woman. The film, "Island in the Sun", starred Joan Fontaine and Harry Belafonte. A reporter for the Montgomery Advertiser said that about 75 cars had arrived at the Dixie Drive-in shortly after the movie had started, with an estimated 200 persons milling about the gate, many of them spectators. A man holding a shotgun sat in one of the cars blocking the gate while other men stopped prospective patrons, with one of those halted approaching the theater, saying that he was from a White Citizens Council. Shortly after the demonstrators had arrived, the power line to the drive-in had been cut and the movie was not completed. The men then started allowing the 15 to 25 cars of patrons to depart. In the darkness, the demonstrators tried to drive cars into the theater from fields along the side. Employees fired shotguns into the air to turn them back. The theater owner and his wife had driven out of the drive-in through a field and were chased by three other cars. They had gone to a nearby house and telephoned police, as the theater had no telephone. The owner was quoted as saying, "We will not attempt to show the show again for our own protection." The theater had advertised: "This is the one that is banned all over the South. While we dare to show it, we do not endorse it. Make up your mind about seeing it." The drive-in owner was reported to have received telephone threats against showing the movie. The owner told the newspaper that his employees had fired shotgun blasts to frighten away two men who had come to the theater early on Sunday in a car with covered license plates. The sheriff said that deputies who reached the scene reported that there were no crowds outside the theater and that he had advised the owner earlier against showing the film. The newspaper's photographer, 18, said that the crowd had thrown rocks at photographers and a member of the crowd had struck him and exposed his film. Another newsman reported that he was warned to take no pictures. Another photographer said that his camera was taken from him, the film exposed, and the equipment then returned. The sheriff said that except for the photographer being struck, he received no complaints and no charges had been filed. The town was about 14 miles northeast of Montgomery.
In Oran, Algeria, it was reported that five persons had been killed and about 40 injured when a rebel had thrown a grenade in an open air movie showing at Saint-Denis-du-Sig, about 30 miles from the city. A French farmer was fatally shot as he drove out of his farm at Orleansville.
In Jakarta, it was reported that the Indonesian Government had announced this date that its forces had captured the rebel holdout town of Tondano, in North Celebes, following ten days of heavy fighting.
In Nicosia, Cyprus, it was reported that Cyprus was under a dusk-to-dawn curfew imposed by the British for the ensuing 30 days in a desperate attempt to stop violence, with tougher measures also being threatened.
In Moscow, it was reported that Russian Baptists were holding their own against anti-religious forces, according to three American Baptist leaders this date. They had just completed a tour of Baptist churches in the Soviet Union.
In Vienna, it was reported that Chancellor Julius Raab and an Austrian Government delegation had left by air this date for an official visit to Moscow, with the Chancellor indicating that he would seek a reduction of reparations due Russia and the release of Austrians still held in Russia from the war.
In Lodi, N.J., it was reported that a man walked into his sister-in-law's cleaning shop this date, shot her dead, freed a jammed cartridge from his pistol and then killed himself, police providing no immediate motive for the shootings.
In London, it was reported from Buckingham Palace that Queen Elizabeth, who had an acute case of sinusitis, had been forced to cancel all public engagements until at least the end of July.
In Wilmington, N.C., it was reported that Governor Luther Hodges had released figures this date showing that the state's industrial development program had produced almost 70,000 new jobs during the previous four years. The Governor cited the statistics in a speech prepared for delivery to a joint luncheon meeting of the Conservation and Development Board and the State Ports Authority, saying that the state's payroll had been increased by $202,154,500 as a result of 617 new industrial finds and 709 plant expansions between July 1, 1954 and July 1, 1958. Investments in new industries and expansions during that time had totaled $619,364,500. He said that in spite of the national recession, the state had experienced a record rate of industrial growth during the previous fiscal year, that total new plants, investments, payroll and jobs had been greater during that time than during any comparable period on record. He said that the small industry section of the Division of Commerce and Industry had recently made an on-the-spot study of food processing in California and that not only was the study productive in ideas but had developed a surprisingly active interest among some of the nation's leading food companies presently operating on the West Coast for the potential of subsidiary operations to serve Eastern markets from North Carolina. He called for further expansion of the state's work in hog production and processing, and in seafood processing. Regarding recreation, he suggested that increased advertising of the state's beach resorts and deep-sea fishing facilities ought be undertaken. He closed his remarks by calling for more water conservation and more interest in the state's forest reserves.
In Charlotte, it was reported that Police Chief Frank Littlejohn had said this date that he would recommend appointment of Lt. James Steagall as captain of the police traffic division, following the firing by the Civil Service Commission the previous week of the former head of the division, Capt. Lloyd Henkel. The lieutenant had been in charge of the traffic office since the suspension of Mr. Henkel on June 12 by the chief. The chief praised the lieutenant's ability and said that he hoped the Commission would approve the recommendation.
John Kilgo of The News reports that the mystery of how a man had pleaded guilty to three charges in City Recorder's Court without ever making an appearance remained unsolved this date. Judge Basil Boyd of the court said that he had taken no action to determine who had pleaded the defendant guilty. The man had been arrested on April 25 and charged with drunkenness, resisting arrest and assault. The docket of the court showed that the man had pleaded guilty to all three charges and was ordered to pay the costs of court in each case. City police, however, had a statement signed by the defendant which said that he had never been to court on the matter. The warrants in the clerk's office showed that the defendant had pleaded guilty to the charges on May 5 and that the warrants had been signed, but not stamped, by Judge Boyd. The bail bondsman who had put up his $400 bond had told the defendant to pay $220 down and $15 per week until he had paid the $440, including a $40 surcharge for the bondsman, indicating that if he did not miss any payment, the bondsman would destroy the warrants he had in his office. Police had receipts which showed that the defendant had paid a total of $360 to the bail bondsman, with the latest payment having been made on June 27. If you want the rest of the exciting story of graft and corruption, you will have to turn to an inside page, which we shall not do for you, as this case does not appear worthy of it, unless you were living in Charlotte in 1958.
On the editorial page, "Welcome to the Wilderness, Governor" indicates that Governor Luther Hodges was taking his press conferences on the road, with one scheduled for Charlotte on July 24, causing the Raleigh Times to carp: "With modern communications being what they are, it would seem to be a fairly safe assumption that the holding of such a conference in Raleigh, as is customary, would result in rapid and wide dissemination of the news to all concerned."
It suggests that with the help of native guides, Raleigh's press corps could surely find Mecklenburg and visiting newsmen would not be menaced by headhunters, scalped or devoured by cannibals. "They might consider replacing their typewriters with tom-toms, however, if they want to make the early editions. Shootin' irons? Optional." It promises to send the Governor back to the "effete East safe and sound. Honest Injun."
"What Happened to
'Libertarianism'?" indicates that the Augusta Chronicle
in Georgia was still battling "liberalism's" ragged legions
with all the vim and vigor of a "Wild Bill Buckley"
The libertarian idea was that government ought protect all persons equally against outside and internal aggression but would otherwise leave people alone to work out their own problems and aspirations, prepared then to reap the consequences, whether good or bad, and not expect the government to reimburse them for their folly if things did not turn out as expected.
It finds that it had not heard a better expression of rugged individualism since the days of William McKinley. "But if survival of the fittest is to be the rule and everybody is supposed to fend for himself, with the weaker members of society dying off, why should the 'libertarians' band together in clubs?"
It concludes that it guessed it was life, that before the movement had even gotten off the ground, it had fallen victim to collectivism by forming clubs.
"Thought for Today" quotes from the U.N.'s study on The Future Growth of World Population that: "In 600 years the number of human beings will be such that there will be only one square meter for each to live on. The one square meter would include Arctic waters, deserts and mountaintops. It goes without saying that this can never take place: something will happen to prevent it."
The piece asks: "How many guesses do we get?"
If Republican extremists get their way, making abortions illegal, contraception illegal and marital privacy generally open to inspection regularly by Big Brother, the one square meter will be reduced to less than a square inch, meaning everyone will then have to return to the caves underground.
"The Reason Jobs Must Be Half-Done" indicates that Charles Brower had recently labeled it "the great era of the goof-off, the age of the half-done job. The land from coast to coast has been enjoying a stampede away from responsibility." Mr. Brower, in mass media advertising, said further: "It is populated with laundry men who won't iron shirts, with waiters who won't serve, with carpenters who will come around some day maybe, with executives whose mind is on the golf course, with teachers who demand a single salary schedule so that achievement cannot be rewarded, with students who take cinch courses…".
It indicates that nearly everyone would agree with nearly everything Mr. Brower had to say.
But Cyril Northcote Parkinson, in his best-selling Parkinson's Law, had posited that it was impossible to do work because it expanded in direct proportion to the number of people trying to finish it, that during a time when the British Royal Navy had decreased its commissioned ships by 67 percent and its men by about 33 percent, it had increased its Admiralty officials by 78 percent, leading Mr. Parkinson to conclude that "in any public administrative department not actually at war" the staff increases annually at the rate of 5.75 percent, regardless of output. He had been asked recently what was implied when the staff of an office decreased, in response to which he had asked: "Do you know of any such instance?" to which there was no answer.
It thus concludes that with work expanding with each additional hand put to it, it was bound to be the "age of half-done jobs", just as Mr. Brower had said. And as it had been reading of Mr. Brower's lament, work had expanded on its desk and so it begs the reader's pardon.
It appears to be consonant with the 1969 Peter Principle, by Laurence Peter, that everyone in an organization advances ultimately to their level of incompetence, with the inevitable corollary that all bureaucracies exist to be self-sustaining in their incompetence.
"Question" indicates that Russell Lynes, when asked by Look Magazine to define a lady, wrote: "A lady is a woman who makes a man behave like a gentleman."
It finds it fine and suggests that all it needed now was for Mr. Lynes to supply a definition of a gentleman.
A piece from the Washington Post & Times Herald, titled "The Wayward Weather", indicates that it had been warmer or colder or wetter or drier or windier or calmer than that to which everyone was accustomed throughout the current year on any given date, such that the only safe principle was to expect the unexpected. On the first day of astronomical spring, there were thousands snowed in by a blizzard, while during the balmy days earlier in the year, there had been the worry about the artificial thawing of the polar ice cap and the prospect that the submerged cities of Boston, New York and Washington would soon be inhabited exclusively by fish.
Just a year earlier, the farmers had been complaining about the drought and now were complaining just as bitterly about the rain, as were ordinary suburbanites whose homes were threatened by unseasonable floods, bursting dams and all the other perils one read about in the newspapers. Even the migratory birds, according to the ornithologists, did not trust their own judgment about the weather anymore. Thousands of songbirds had perished during the year because of their mistaken forecasts about the coming of spring to the north temperate latitudes.
"It should make us all more sympathetic toward those sorely perplexed and harassed fellows in the United States Weather Bureau."
Drew Pearson gives his best estimate as to whether the Russians would engage in open hostilities in defense of the Middle East, indicating that their objections to American troops landing in Lebanon had not been half as intense as those which had followed the landing of the French and British troops at Suez in November, 1956. At that earlier time, the Russians had even threatened two rocket attacks on London and Paris and had literally screamed vituperation, whereas now the voices were not so violent.
He predicts that there would be Russian maneuvers along the Turkish-Iranian border, plus operations by the Communist Chinese against Quemoy and Matsu to scare the U.S. in the Far East and tie up airplanes around Formosa. (He was quite correct on this latter prediction.)
He predicts that there would be astute propaganda work among the Kurdish tribes of Iran and Turkey to get them to sabotage and worry those two chief countries neighboring Iraq.
He predicts that the Russians would cause just as much trouble as possible for the U.S., but would not risk a global war. He notes that global war would be damaging and disastrous for the U.S., but that global war for Russia at present would be equally so because its lines of communication inside Russia were not as good as those inside the U.S. and because American long-range bombers were still the best safeguard against Russian attack, able still to make mincemeat of Russian cities.
Georgia Congressman Carl Vinson, chief champion of the Marines, ought be delighted that the first thing the Marines had done after landing in Lebanon was to cable Washington for more motion picture film, with hot action shots on the beaches of Beirut likely to help Congressman Vinson in his battle to save the Marines from being "reorganized" under the President's reorganization bill.
It had just leaked that the real decision to send U.S. troops to Lebanon and British troops to Jordan had been made during a trans-Atlantic phone call between the President and Prime Minister Harold Macmillan early in the morning on July 14. The President had called Mr. Macmillan shortly after word had come that pro-Nasser forces had seized Iraq. With Secretary of State Dulles at his side, the President had told Mr. Macmillan that the Iraq revolt was the beginning of the end for the West unless Britain and the United States moved immediately and jointly with troops. He warned that Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and even Turkey might fall to Premier Nasser and the Russians within six months unless the U.S. and Britain acted. Prime Minister Macmillan agreed with the President's assessment, despite the fact that in another trans-Atlantic conversation with former Prime Minister Anthony Eden two years earlier, the President had talked like a drill sergeant dressing down a buck private in demanding that the British remove their troops from the Suez, with the danger at the time having been the same as at present. Forgetting the past, however, Prime Minister Macmillan had agreed to consult with his Cabinet and phone the President later, calling back shortly before noon to say that Britain would support the U.S. even if the decision was unpopular at home. It was then agreed by telephone that Britain and the U.S. would divide responsibility, that U.S. troops would land in Lebanon while British paratroopers would land in Jordan and later in Iraq, if it developed that the rebels had not completely smashed the pro-Western Government of King Faisal III in the latter country. The agreement was maintained in complete secrecy except for the British Cabinet and the Joint Chiefs, with 22 Congressional leaders later called in for advice after the decision had already been made.
Joseph Alsop indicates that the the disarmament program of former President Truman and former Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson had taken 18 months to produce the Korean War, while more time and greater follies had been needed to produce the current catastrophe in the Middle East during the Eisenhower Administration. Once again, the root cause had been complacent neglect of the world balance of power by the Government.
He regards it as the only explanation as to why Premier Khrushchev had dared to do what Joseph Stalin had never dared to do, even in his final, most belligerent and paranoiac period. The cold war had begun in the Middle East with a sharp defeat for the Kremlin in 1946 under firm Anglo-American pressure when Premier Stalin had reluctantly withdrawn the Red Army from the Iranian province of Azerbaijan. From that point forward, Russia had always left the Middle East alone during Stalin's reign through March, 1953. He had even resisted the enormous temptations of the second Iranian crisis when he had been all but asked to intervene by Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh. Stalin had decided that probing in the Middle East would come too close to the bone.
He had taken great risks in blockading Berlin, ordering the attack by North Korea on South Korea, and sponsoring the war in Indo-China, but had taken no risks in the Middle East because the Western interests in the region seemed to him too vital to be safely tampered with.
But when Egyptian Premier Gamal Abdel Nasser had heard the first Soviet hint that he might be allowed to purchase arms from the Russians in the time just prior to the July, 1955 "foolish" summit meeting at Geneva, Stalin's "rule" for the Middle East had come to an end. Nothing had been settled until Mr. Khrushchev and his party had gone to the summit to hear President Eisenhower and British Prime Minister Anthony Eden compete in their protestations of peace at any price.
Dmitri Shepilov had then been sent to Cairo to sign the Soviet arms contract with Premier Nasser within two weeks, with the summit having been a prelude to the abandonment of Stalin's rule, the Kremlin leaders having then determined that the rule was out of date.
By the same token, the two months of American feebleness in Lebanon recently had been the direct prelude to the bloody coup in Iraq.
Those were only contributing causes, however, just as former Secretary of State Dean Acheson's proclamation of lack of Western interest in Korea had been at best a contributing cause of the decision by Stalin to invade South Korea. Without the disarmament policy of the Truman Administration, the Korean aggression would never have happened, regardless of what Mr. Acheson had said or not said. "And no matter what nonsense was talked at Geneva, or what weakness was displayed at Lebanon, the Middle Eastern catastrophe would never have happened if we had not also lost the American military lead in these last self-indulgent years." The lead had been narrowing fast when the President had taken office in 1953, inheriting ugly documents in which the Truman Administration had belatedly recognized the progress of Soviet weaponry and had proposed a greater U.S. defense effort to maintain its lead. Instead, the Eisenhower Administration had shortly decided on a reduced defense effort, with the result of Mr. Eden's and Mr. Eisenhower's protestations at Geneva, convincing the Soviets that the Middle East could be had.
Since that point, Soviet power had grown continuously and Western power had continuously failed to keep pace with that growth. For Mr. Khrushchev, as for Stalin before him, the decisive factor in every calculation was his estimate of the existing balance of military power. As the balance of power had tilted in favor of the Soviets, the Kremlin had regularly recalculated the risks which might reasonably be taken, until the present when the Kremlin had boldly risked the climactic stab at the Western oil-jugular in the Middle East.
Now, the gravest decisions about the region had to be taken immediately and in the future, equally grave decisions would have to be taken regarding the inner relationships of the Western Alliance. But the most important decision was long-range, with the Middle Eastern catastrophe being a warning ten times more serious than that of the launch of the first two Sputniks the previous fall, it being a warning that the U.S. could not save itself without an immediate, massive and sustained national effort to strengthen its defense and redress the balance of power. Mr. Alsop posits that there was no other way, unless the U.S. wanted to stab at the oil-jugular to be followed shortly by a stab for the heart itself.
Robert C. Ruark, in Palamos, Spain, tells of a 28-year old man of Pennsylvania suing his wife for separate maintenance and custody of their child and asking for support for himself and his son, claiming alimony because he said his wife was an heiress and full of money. She had been left recently several million dollars by her father, the late chairman of Zenith Radio Corp., who had died on May 15. His son-in-law had charged desertion and misconduct by his wife and had obtained a court order enjoining his wife from taking their son to Nevada where she told him she was going to investigate Reno.
He says sardonically that the man had given the best years of his life since 1956 to his wife and had provided aid and comfort as her husband and indispensable service as father of their child, thus suggesting that he ought therefore be able to share in the loot.
Typically, the tradition was that the female spouse, upon dissolution of the marriage, took the lion's share of the marital product, based on the supposition that women were "weak little chattels, pawns to the villainy of males, and once they have entered into the bonds they wish to sever should be allowed to walk off with the till—just because Pa's salted away a few bucks in it."
He does not know how much Winthrop Rockefeller had paid in his divorce from his wife, Bobo, but had read that it was in excess of six million dollars. He suggests that if his name had been Jones, any court would have sneered at the claim, based on the fact that the Rockefellers did not get along very well. But the ghost of John D. Rockefeller had entered into the bickering and bartering such that the coal miner's daughter wound up with a mint, at the rate of about $1,000 per hour for their time married.
Mr. Ruark suggests that with women clamoring for equal rights and lamenting their downtrodden status as second-class citizens, the man in Pennsylvania should get his chance at the loot collected by his wife. He says he had provided his views to his own wife and she, as usual, had disagreed, saying that women were still "confected entirely of the usual condiments, and that boys still pay off on a direct ratio to nails, snails, and puppy dog's spinal extensions." She had said that women were too weak to work, though she had been chairman of his board since they had been married in 1938. "And she says that girls is so good and boys is so bad that when the household erupts, it's got to be the gentleman's fault, and he ought to pay for blunting the precious flower, of willfully planting rank weeds in the garden of domestic bliss."
A letter from J. R. Cherry, Jr., asserts that the editorial of July 14, indicating that North Carolina's secret weapon was that its people were largely "equalitarian individualists", was not true. He finds that the average North Carolinian was a libertarian individualist. "As defined and preached by the egghead zealots of today, equalitarianism is the sure road to the regimented, collectivist state in which there can be no genuine individualism, for the simple reason that there would be too little liberty to give it meaningful, healthy life." Though a graduate of UNC, he did not feel, as the editorial had suggested, "an almost mystical devotion to the University." He posits that an honest poll would indicate that more North Carolinians were ashamed of the University than proud of it. He says that it was liberty, not equality, which most North Carolinians and Americans held most dear and that the newspaper and Jonathan Daniels should never forget it.
A letter writer indicates that a beauty in a contest had been photographed sitting at rest with her shoes off after the contest was over, evidently from pain in her feet. He wonders why shoes should hurt and with perfumes, paints, dyes, stimulants, pomades, and rouges, where natural beauty could be found. He suggests that women demand manufacture of shoes which were not outlandish and did not hurt and to give natural beauty a chance. "The whole world rejoices in and bows down before that!"
A letter writer responds to another letter writer regarding incumbent Representative Charles Jonas and the state of the country, suggesting that despite Congress being controlled by the Democrats, the current recession had taken longer than two years to occur and he had yet to hear from any ranking Republican any positive program to combat the economic disasters affecting so many Americans. Regarding the previous letter writer's statement that Mr. Jonas was a proven leader, he says that to the best of his knowledge, Mr. Jonas had never, "in his rather pathetic attempt to be all things to all people and political parties, made a positive statement or taken a positive approach to any major issue confronting the people today." His six years in Congress, he concludes, had been enough time for him to receive his pension and "enough is enough!"
Speaking of that notion, we understand through the grapevine that a new comic strip will soon begin in the newspaper, starring a character dubbed Pig Hogslop, a major in the mythical state's national guard, referred to behind his back as "Major Major", a person who is insane but has somehow been promoted by the head Pig, also insane, to be "Sec. of War", and then, in his alcoholic haze, compounded of some other sloppy substance obtained from the son of the head Pig, has declared war on the state's major cities because of the high rate of crime therein, despite all indicators saying that crime was on the steep decline in recent years under the opposing party's reign, Major Hogslop sending in his war troops nevertheless to wage violence and mayhem on the inhabitants, for training in foreign wars, unless they toe the mark and cease any and all even mild protests, including the exercise of the franchise, against the Pig regime.
Major Major Pig Hogslop, who is patterned off a poor imitation of General George S. Patton or at least some actor feigning the role for the silver screen, but who more resembles in mien Air Marshal Hermann Goering, has declared that the opposing party is comprised of terrorist cells trying to overthrow the good party which he represents, the Pig Party.
It all appears, perhaps, a little derivative of the late George Orwell's 1945 Animal Farm, but because it is a cartoon parody, it is allowed to be derivative in its content to a certain extent without running afoul of plagiarism. Hog Pigslop, that is, Pig Hogslop, is said to be a regular riot, even when more or less sober and not hanging from the chandeliers naked with all of his tattoos on display for everyone to see. Don't miss it. It is a wonderfully hilarious parody of Nazi Germany
We would suggest to the unfortunate generals, admirals and soldiers being commanded by Major Hogslop that they examine carefully the articles of war which permit soldiers to disobey plainly unconstitutional and unlawful orders, as explored in the infamous case
Framed Edition
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