The Charlotte News

Monday, August 25, 1958

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the Supreme Court this date ordered a rare special session for Thursday, August 28, to hear the Little Rock, Ark., school desegregation case regarding a stay, on appeal by the Little Rock School Board, challenging the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals decision to reverse the District Court's decision to delay for 2 1/2 years continued desegregation of Central High School. The hearing on the stay would take place just five days before the start of the school year on September 2 in Little Rock. The NAACP was asking that the High Court dissolve the stay imposed by the Circuit Court on its decision, so that black students could begin attending classes. The Court had invited U.S. Solicitor General J. Lee Rankin to file a brief and take part in the arguments, which could put the Administration on record on the segregation issue. The President had urged state governments and all courts to "suppress unlawful forces", but had declined to say whether he personally believed that Brown v. Board of Education, decided in 1954, with its implementing decision having been decided in 1955, was correct in striking down public school segregation as per se unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment. A Justice Department spokesman said that high-level conferences had gotten underway immediately after Chief Justice Earl Warren had declared the special session, with the announcement being withheld until after he had consulted with the other members of the Court. He said that Justice Charles Whittaker, assigned to handle matters from the Eighth Circuit when the court was out of session, had chosen to assign the matter to the whole Court regarding the stay. While the initial hearing was to regard only the stay, the Court would later hear the substantive appeal in late September and affirm the Circuit Court decision.

In Little Rock, Governor Orval Faubus this date had three segregation bills ready as legislators gathered for the following day's special session called by the Governor. The key measure would close Central High School, subject to a public referendum within 30 days. Another bill would postpone the opening of Central from September 2 to September 8, apparently to provide the Legislature some additional time to maneuver. The third bill would allow any white student who was displaced from a closed school to carry his State aid allotment to another open district. The Governor said that his aim was to preserve peace in Little Rock and that based on information he had received, any effort to resume integration during the coming fall would spark more violence than the previous year. The previous fall, white demonstrators had rioted when nine black students had sought to enter classes, resulting in the Governor calling out the Arkansas National Guard to prevent their entry, then prompting the President in late September to federalize the National Guard and call in 1,000 Army paratroopers, with the result that one man had been bayoneted and another had his face smashed with a rifle as the demonstrators were driven away from harassing the black students attending the high school.

In Norfolk, Va., a Federal District Court judge this date returned to the Norfolk School Board for further consideration the applications of all 151 black students who had sought admission to white schools, returning the applications "for such further consideration, if any, as you may deem proper and legal" based on his interpretation of the Board's duties under law. He instructed the Board to report the results by August 29, with the Norfolk schools scheduled to reopen on September 8.

In Delaware, O., it was reported that a group of Southern delegates to the National Student Congress had issued a declaration condemning school segregation, stating: "Though we are proud of the Southern community's way of life, we do not feel that a system that denies equal opportunity to some Southern citizens is either necessary or desirable as a part of that way of life." The declaration had been approved the previous night by a vote of 33 to 1 by delegates from the Carolinas-Virginia region and unanimously by Mason-Dixon regional delegates, the latter region including Maryland, West Virginia and the District of Columbia. The Student Congress was the policy-making body of the National Student Association, which had 360 member colleges spread over 19 regions, representing a million students. The declaration was scheduled subsequently to go before three other Southern regions for a vote.

In Paris, it was reported that seven policemen had been killed this date in a series of raids staged by Algerian nationalists, while another had been killed in an ambush. Four had been shot at a station house and three others were machine-gunned at a police garage on the outskirts of the city. At the same time, a series of explosions and fires erupted in the provinces. The Algerians tried to set the garage on fire with cans of flaming gasoline and had been finally driven off by personnel inside the garage. Police immediately set up roadblocks in and around the French capital. In the Vincennes woods, in eastern Paris, a police squad began questioning Algerians found in three parked cars near an ammunition factory, and several Algerians hiding nearby opened fire, killing a police officer. In other parts of the area around Paris, two Algerians had been shot to death by investigating police and 51 others had been arrested, 8 of whom had been carrying arms. Authorities believed that the rash of incidents was part of a new terror campaign by the Algerians to attract attention to their demand for full independence. The outbreaks came as Premier Charles de Gaulle toured French Africa to encourage support for his new constitution to be voted on September 28 in a public referendum. Explosions and fire at gas and oil storage tank depots had been reported in Narbonne, Toulouse and Marseille in southern France, with other fires reported in the Paris suburbs.

In Vancouver, British Columbia, it was reported that a new kind of device which had possibilities for controlling the blast of an hydrogen bomb and making its energy available for peaceful purposes had been described this date, put forth by a Greek scientist who had a few years earlier been the first to set forth the means for greatly increasing the power of atom-smashing machines. In a paper before the American Physical Society, Dr. Nicholas Christofilos said that the device was being built at the University of California's hydrogen bomb research laboratory in Livermore, that it was called the Astron and its builders had hoped that it would demonstrate how they could duplicate and use in their laboratories the 100 million degree heat from the stars, necessary to initiate a fusion reaction. He said that the device presently being built would not produce enough heat to cause fusion but would establish whether the idea was feasible, and if so, fusion power could be attainable within a few years. The experimental device utilized magnetism to confine the atoms to be fused. A primary magnetic field within a cylinder was utilized to speed great numbers of electrons along prescribed corkscrew-like paths and when the electrons reached speeds corresponding to the energy produced by three million volts, they acted something like a strong electrical current, which traveled through the tube and formed a secondary and still more powerful magnetic field, which supposedly could squeeze the confined atoms together tightly enough to produce the enormous heat required for fusion. The plan would concentrate the magnetic fields of cyclotrons, which had brought fame to Dr. Christofilos five years earlier. He had submitted his plans to the scientists at the radiation laboratory in Berkeley, but they had not been convinced of its merit. Later, American scientists had found a way to concentrate the magnetic field of the cyclotron, only to discover that they were doing substantially the same thing that Dr. Christofilos had proposed. In the meantime, he had come to America and gone to work for the Atomic Energy Commission at its laboratory in Brookhaven, N.Y. Subsequently, he had gone to the Livermore laboratory, which had concentrated its efforts on research in fusion.

In Pontiac, Mich., it was reported that former convict and Teamster Union representative Herman Kierdorf, was due for another court appearance this date, related to his nephew's human-torch death investigation, stemming from an incident three weeks earlier on Sunday when his nephew was burned and died from the burns four days later, while seeking to burn down a dry-cleaning establishment, presumably because it had balked at Teamster demands for unionizing its drivers. The nephew had originally told police that he had been burned by two unidentified men after they poured gasoline on him, presumably related to union activities, but changed the story subsequently.

In Tel Aviv, Israel, officials said that six Arab infiltrators from Lebanon had been captured by a police patrol during the morning near the northern border after an exchange of fire, the six having been in a group of 20.

In Daaca, East Pakistan, it was reported that Parliamentary government had been restored to the province this date, with a six-member Cabinet subsequently sworn in.

In Brussels, Belgium, Group Capt. Peter Townsend, former suitor of Princess Margaret, would depart Brussels this night for another round-the-world trip on which he would make a feature color film, to be directed and produced by Victor Stoloff. Who was he to do that?

On the editorial page, "Lighting a Candle in the Darkness" finds that the President's announcement that the U.S. was willing to suspend nuclear weapons testing for a year, provided the Soviets continued their suspension and that there was genuine movement toward a permanent ban, had added a festive note to the season.