The Charlotte News

Wednesday, July 9, 1958

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that House investigators had developed this date that Bernard Goldfine was entertaining a group of business associates at New York's Waldorf Astoria Hotel in 1954 when Sherman Adams was also his guest there. Mr. Goldfine, who was in trouble with the Federal Trade Commission at the time for violations at his mills of the wool labeling act, had sworn that Mr. Adams did not come to New York by prearrangement to meet with him and his business associates, that he had just happened to be in the city and had accepted his hospitality at the hotel. In explaining the $1,600 bill he had gotten from the hotel, part of it for entertaining Mr. Adams, Mr. Goldfine said that he had invited about seven or eight people with whom he did business and that they were not in political life. Mr. Goldfine's testimony had been delayed for a day by the subcommittee because he had lost sleep after the discovery of a bug in his aides' hotel room and the theft of some of his personal papers from his secretary who was staying in the room. At the outset of this date's hearing, Mr. Goldfine and his attorney, Roger Robb, had agreed that some records demanded by the subcommittee chairman, Representative Oren Harris of Arkansas, would be supplied. Mr. Harris also asked Mr. Goldfine to tell of 33 names which the subcommittee had put in the public record the previous week. The subcommittee had said that the list included persons who were in the White House and Congressional offices to whom Mr. Goldfine said that he had sent checks at Christmas time. Mr. Harris noted that some people on the list had denied getting any money. He said that he thought an explanation ought be given sometime during the morning regarding those alleged gifts. Mr. Goldfine had drawn a larger audience to the hearing than had Mr. Adams when he testified the previous month. The 400 seats were taken well before the start of the hearing, and Congressmen and their wives sat in extra space behind the subcommittee rostrum. Others with perhaps less pull stood in the farther reaches of the room.

In New York, former President Truman, returning from a European vacation, said this date that it was up to the President to decide whether to fire his chief of staff, Sherman Adams. The former President said: "The Government would be in a bad fix if he loses Adams—he's running it, you know." Mr. Truman repeated the substance of a statement which he had made in Cannes, France, to the effect that "the facts speak for themselves very eloquently" and that public reaction would be felt in the midterm elections in November and two years hence in the presidential election. Someone had brought up the name of Maj. General Harry Vaughan, Mr. Truman's former military aide who had come under fire during his Administration for having received from an influence-peddler mink coats and deep freezers, distributed as gifts to various White House and Congressional wives by General Vaughan. Mr. Truman said: "There wasn't anything crooked about General Vaughan. He was viciously abused. They were trying to get at the man in the White House. Vaughan was my military aide and that's all. He had nothing to do with running the Government." He went on to opine that a code of ethics was not necessary for Government officials, that a "person who is fundamentally honest doesn't need a code of ethics. The Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount are all the ethical code anybody needs. You can't serve two masters at once." He was asked whether he had found any ill feeling toward the U.S. abroad and stated that he never had been treated more cordially in his life, that he had eaten himself through the Riviera and never found any sign of ill feeling toward the U.S., but had been there as a retired farmer from Missouri, not as an official. He said that he and his wife Bess expected to remain in New York for two or three days for a visit with their son-in-law, Clifton Daniel, and daughter, Margaret, and their new baby son.

In Ottawa, the President told the warmly applauding Canadian Parliament this date that Canadian-American bickering could not stand in the way of the "winning of the global struggle" against Communist imperialism. Members of the Senate and House of Commons, many of whom had been critical of U.S. policies, especially in the economic area, had beat their hands on their desks. Both the President and Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, who had introduced the President, agreed that the Soviet economic and political menace was as great as the Soviet military threat. The Prime Minister called for a free world offensive of "new and challenging policy in the economic field designed to extend a measure of prosperity everywhere." The President had conceded that there were frictions between the two countries and had received loud applause when he expressed the belief that "we will find an acceptable solution." He said that it would take understanding, common sense and "a willingness to give and take on both our parts." The Parliament had interrupted his address on ten occasions with applause and the traditional desk-thumping. The House chamber and its galleries had been filled and Mrs. Eisenhower looked down from a gallery. A crowd of about 1,000 observed and applauded as the President rode up to Peace Tower, the entrance to the Parliament Building. A few moments earlier, he had laid a wreath at the War Memorial at the foot of Canada's Capitol Hill. In contrast with unresponsive turnouts on his arrival in Ottawa the previous day, about 10,000 persons had gathered in the square around the memorial to watch the colorful ceremony, giving the President a warm, friendly hand. He said: "All that we Canadians and Americans, and those who went before us, have built, all that we believe in, is challenged as it has never been challenged before. The new horizons of competition range from the polar areas and extend to the infinity of outer space. It is for us to bring to the challenge a response worthy of ourselves and our nations." It was a far cry from the current stupe in the White House who wants to make Canada the 51st state and has undertaken a trade war with the world, including the country's neighbors, all inuring to the detriment of the average American consumer, now paying more for certain goods, such as coffee, soon, once the tariffed goods hit inventory, to be substantially more for a wide range of goods. What a dope.

The Senate this date unanimously approved the President's nomination of Arthur Flemming to be the new Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare.

In St. Louis, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals indicated this date that it would rule before the fall school term on an appeal from a District Court decision suspending desegregation at Central High School in Little Rock, Ark., until the beginning of 1961. As indicated, the decision in late August would reverse the District Court's decision, and that would be affirmed by the Supreme Court in late September, reinstating the original District Court orders of 1956 and 1957, that desegregation was to proceed forthwith.

In Guantánamo, Cuba, it was reported that U.S. Vice-Consul Robert Wiecha planned to return to rebel country this date and said that he had hopes that some of the 30 remaining U.S. servicemen being held by Fidel Castro's men would be released by nightfall.

In Beirut, a band of armed men had attacked the apartment of the son of President Camille Chamoun with small-arms fire in a four-hour gun battle the previous night, with witnesses indicating that the son and his wife had not been injured.

William Pollock, general president of the Textile Workers Union of America, proposed in Washington this date a Federal development agency to revive the ailing textile industry.

In Oak Ridge, Tenn., a blue flash, a strange sweet odor and the clanging of alarm bells were signals which warned eight atomic plant workmen that something had gone wrong where they were working on June 16. The men had evacuated the area immediately, but not before they had been exposed to an overdose of radiation from a nuclear reaction. The matter had occurred as a chemical operator transferred some enriched uranium from a small drum into a larger one. There had been no explosion, but the Atomic Energy Commission said that there was an instantaneous emission of radiation. Tests indicated that five of the men had suffered dosages sufficient to cause some damage to their bone marrow and three others had received lesser amounts and were released from a hospital on June 26 after showing no ill effects from the exposure. The five men who were more seriously exposed were still being observed at a hospital, all reported as being in satisfactory condition.

In Antonito, Colo., it was reported that rescue teams had moved this date along routes above and below a man trapped on a narrow shelf of rock where he had been for five days. One group at the base of towering Conejos Canyon had found the body of the trapped man's companion on Tuesday. But winds and the heights above them had kept them from undertaking new efforts to reach the stranded man, even by helicopter. The two men had been returning from a fishing trip when they apparently had fallen from a perilous mountain trail five days earlier, with the man on the ledge being 600 feet from the bottom of the canyon. One man had lowered a rope to the stranded man's side the previous day and gave him food and water for the first time in four days. The rescuer volunteered to join the stranded man despite the danger of jagged rocks cutting into the rope which supported him. The Army helicopter had flown into the area with a three-man mountaineer crew but the rescue attempt had been turned back by the turbulent air in the canyon, 35 miles west of Antonito.

In Westcliffe, Colo., it was reported that the walls of a mine had collapsed and trapped two men nine feet underground 12 miles northeast of the town the previous day, with both men being found dead by rescuers.

In Alexandria, Egypt, a multimillion dollar fire had broken out in lumber stores the previous night and had quickly spread to neighboring shops and houses, forcing 20,000 persons to leave their homes.

In Santa Fe, N.M., guards had fired a teargas bomb into a dormitory for teenage convicts of the state penitentiary the previous night and broken up what officials had called a minor disturbance.

In Greenwich, Conn., more than 80 children had been tossed into Long Island Sound the previous day by a sudden squall which had disrupted a sailing race and overturned nearly 40 boats. All of of the children had been rescued.

In Beaumont, Calif., three fires believed to have been set by an arsonist had roared through the San Bernardino Mountains this date, routing summer campers and destroying hundreds of acres of watershed.

In Baltimore, it was reported that boys were allowed to go on exploration trips to faraway areas such as the South Pole and a 12-year old girl, a self-styled tomboy, had decided to take matters into her own hands as to why girls were not allowed to do so as well. She wrote the Navy Department and asked to go along on an exploration trip to the Antarctic, listing her qualifications, which included "sewing on popped-off buttons, sewing up holes in clothing, peeling potatoes and running machines that aren't too complicated." She added that "Russia hasn't sent any children to the South Pole so that would put us ahead of them in that category." To the surprise of her parents, she had received a personal reply from Rear Adm. George Dufek, commander of the U.S. Naval Support Force in Antarctica, saying: "We do have a need down in Antarctica for someone who can sew on popped buttons and fix up holes in clothing, but the people who run the Navy won't let us take little girls down there. I guess they think it's too cold and too far from home and school. You said something about Russia not getting ahead of us. I'm sure that no country will ever get ahead of us as long as we have young people like you who are willing to do the hard and thankless jobs and who need nothing fancy." The girl's mother was asked what would have happened had the Navy given her daughter permission to travel to Antarctica, saying that she would have allowed her to go, provided she had a proper chaperon. She and her husband, an electronics engineer, had gone along with their daughter's scheme, apparently believing that the letter would not get very far. The girl admitted that she had "fussed a little" over the refusal but then had decided it was for the best, that there were about ten other things which she wanted to do when she grew up and finished school.

Representative George Shuford of North Carolina, who had been partially paralyzed since May 25, said in Washington this date that he believed "the public was informed I was a seriously sick man after a neck operation in Asheville on that date." His comment had been in response to an editorial in a North Carolina weekly newspaper that news of his condition had been suppressed by Asheville newspapers prior to the Democratic primary—as covered further in an editorial below. Mr. Shuford told a reporter that his doctors never had referred to his condition as a stroke or as resulting from a stroke. His family and office aides had referred to it as a slight stroke because of the paralysis. The doctors referred to it as residual paralysis caused by an operation on the large artery in the left side of his neck. His wife said that in North Carolina, they had told people that he was very sick and had a growth removed from his neck, that they had not gone into the details but had also not deceived the public, that he was walking and showing steady progress in the use of his arm, that it had only been seven weeks since the operation and he anticipated full recovery.

Ann Sawyer of The News reports that Weimar Jones, the outspoken editor of the Franklin Press, a weekly newspaper, said that it was up to the Western North Carolina Press Association to decide whether "the facts of the situation as we now know them" warranted action in the matter of Mr. Shuford's condition and whether the daily newspapers around Asheville had misrepresented it to readers. In a front page editorial the previous week, Mr. Jones had said that the voters had been deceived purposely and deliberately, as the evidence suggested the seriousness of Mr. Shuford's illness. Mr. Shuford had won the May 31 Democratic primary. A meeting of the Western North Carolina Press Association had been called for Saturday evening in Asheville to discuss the charges. When asked by the newspaper if he personally would call for an investigation, Mr. Jones had said that he was going to the meeting and let nature take its course, that he did not know what he would do until he got there, that he would probably call for an investigation if nobody else did, but he thought somebody would. He said that the temper of the meeting would determine his actions, that he was not going to try to force anything down anyone's throat. (That is good, because at the S & W Cafeteria, where the meeting will take place, some of the food, especially the candied yams and corn, can be mighty hard to swallow. We still wonder why some of them were K & W and others were S & W, but we leave it to the more industrious sleuths to determine the distinction.)

John Kilgo of The News reports that Police Chief Frank Littlejohn had released more evidence this date disclosing irregularity in the City Recorder's Court, including a statement signed by a Gaffney, S.C., man saying that he had paid a bail bondsman $110 to take care of a reckless driving charge, and another case involving a receipt for $50 signed by suspended police Capt. Lloyd Henkel, money supposed to go to the Charlotte Police Club, the receipt having been dated June 15, 1953, and the chief indicating that the Police Club had never received the $50.

On the editorial page, "It's To-and-Fro on the Commission" finds a to-and-fro rhythm on the County Commission regarding the fluctuating salary of the County welfare superintendent. In less than two years, the Commission had raised the salary in 1956 to what it thought the superintendent was worth, had cut it back because the raise exceeded the state-imposed maximum, had asked the state to raise that maximum, and had refused, when the state raised the maximum, to raise the salary back to the level which it had originally set in 1956.