The Charlotte News
Wednesday, January 14, 1959
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from Havana that Fidel Castro had contended this date that the executions following his civil war victory had been necessary to purify Cuba after six years of dictatorial rule under Fulgencio Batista. The future course of the revolutionary purge had been a subject of conflicting statements, but Sr. Castro had made it clear in a speech the previous night that he considered the shooting of "war criminals" justified. Amid mounting criticism abroad, rebel firing squads had executed more than 150 persons on charges of murder, torture and other high crimes during the regime of Sr. Batista, who had fled two weeks earlier to the Dominican Republic. It was estimated that 3,000 others faced summary court trials, many of which had been held in secret. Sr. Castro, presently chief of the Cuban armed forces, had taken note of an adverse reaction within the U.S. in his speech to the Havana Lions Club the previous night. He asked: "Why didn't the Americans attack when the Batista government was executing people en masse?" He said that those who had killed were executed to demonstrate that they could not get away with murder and crimes against the people. A similar defense had been offered in a press statement by the provisional Government's foreign minister, Roberto Agramonte, who declared that if the new regime did not mete out swift justice, the people would take the law into their own hands to avenge the torture and murder of an estimated 20,000 Cubans by Sr. Batista's police and troops. Late the previous night, a presidential palace spokesman had been quoted by a Government press source as saying that the Government had ordered the suspension of all executions. The order had been reported to have followed a conference between Sr. Castro and the man he installed as provisional President, Manuel Urrutia. A presidential secretary this date, however, denied that the executions had been suspended and that Sr. Castro and Sr. Urrutia had met the previous day, telling reporters assigned to the presidential palace that the executions in fact had been continuing in accordance with due process of law. But no specific instances of new activity by the firing squads had been immediately reported. Both the statement of the presidential secretary and by the press source the previous night said that the names of the accused and the charges against them would be made available to the press. Reporters were also invited to cover the trials. Trials already had been suspended in Santiago, capital of Oriente Province, where Sr. Castro's movement and Sr. Batista's repression had been centered. More than half the reported executions had occurred in that province, including the shooting of 71 persons in two batches early on Monday, confirmed by the spokesman.
The U.S. might be willing to modify its policy on German reunification if it could get West Germany and other allies to agree on some revised formula, as the whole German situation was under intensive review in the State Department in preparation for new exchanges on the subject with the Soviet Government. The President and Secretary of State Dulles expected to discuss Germany, including Berlin and the reunification issue, in talks with Soviet Deputy Premier Anastas Mikoyan on Friday and Saturday. Mr. Dulles had hinted on possible modification of the U.S. stand at a press conference on Tuesday, saying the great reunification of East and West Germany through free elections, the formula which the allies had backed for years, was not the only method by which East and West Germany could be merged, but declined under questioning to specify the other methods which were possible. West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer had always opposed any alteration of that formula. The Soviet Government, despite an apparent agreement to such elections at the Geneva Big Four summit conference in 1955, had insisted on a merger worked out directly between the East and West German regimes. The end result of current State Department discussions, subject to consultation with the European allies, could be some innovations in U.S. and Western policy or a new decision to stand firm on present policies. Apart from the discussions with Mr. Mikoyan, the U.S. and other Western nations faced the necessity of replying soon to the Soviet proposal for a peace conference on Germany to be held in March. That proposal and a Soviet suggested draft treaty were sure to be rejected by the allies. Mr. Dulles, however, wanted to come up with some counter-proposal which would bring the East and West closer to a conference. The best guess among diplomats in Washington at present was that a Big Four foreign ministers meeting would be arranged, probably in the spring or early summer, bringing together the foreign ministers of the U.S., Russia, Britain and France.
Secretary Dulles said this date that "austerity and sacrifice", perhaps for generations ahead, would be required to counter the economic and military growth of Communism. In a statement to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he said: "We may have a period even harder than we have become used to. The price of failure would be the destruction of all our national objectives… We must press on with courage to build surer foundations for the interdependent world community of which we are apart. This will call for austerity and sacrifice on the part of all." He told the Committee that U.S. foreign policy had three basic purposes, to block aggressive force, to promote human dignity and freedom, and to stimulate economic growth and interdependence. He said that those goals were not attainable within a few years but would require decades and perhaps even generations to reach. He said that the primary threat was the economic and industrial growth of Communist China, that the U.S. would have to stand firm in the face of Communist threats and probings and make "whatever unusual sacrifices may be necessary."
In New York, Republican leaders had
prepared a sweeping plan for reorganization of the party, according
to the Wall Street Journal this date. It said that the
President had expressed enthusiasm for the project, which would be
submitted the following week to the RNC in Des Moines, Iowa. The
plan, according to the newspaper, had been written by Republican
national chairman Meade Alcorn, following conferences with
Vice-President Nixon, Governor Nelson Rockefeller of New York,
Cabinet officials and members of the White House staff. Since the
prior November's Republican midterm election debacle, top party
leaders had been examining the question of what had happened to them
and trying to decide how to prevent it from happening again,
according to the newspaper. Mr. Alcorn had said that they had to
undertake to change the false image of the party as that of big
business, that they had to mount a severe and prompt attack upon the
mistakes of the opposition as soon as they were detected and that
those attacks had to be sustained and fearless, that they needed to
re-examine and reorganize the internal party machinery at every
level, that they needed to develop new candidate material without
waiting until 1960, that they needed to bury factionalism within the
party permanently, and needed to preach and practice a militant
enlightened Republicanism all year round. Proposals to implement the
objectives were given as part of a weekly forum on television,
publication of a monthly magazine and development of a public opinion
sampling service. The report also envisioned "very substantial
enlargement" of the Republican public relations staff.
Sharpshooting teams would be sent to invigorate party operations in
each state, and periodic appraisal sessions would be held by national
leaders. The detailed program would require very substantial funds,
according to the report by Mr. Alcorn, and it was his conviction that
such expenditure as the program would require was most urgent
and that its cost ought not be considered in evaluating the worth of
the recommendations. There was no estimate given of the cost. What if
the Republicans faced in 1959 a coming debacle with a despotic nut in
the White House, issuing his daily ukases, oblivious to all reality
around him, accepting someone else's Nobel Peace Prize like the
senile old fool that he is, while torching American cities and
claiming the need then to bring in the military to restore the order
from the chaos which his storm troopers created, in true Nazi
fashion, all while threatening to annex Greenland after already
having annexed Venezuela? To call this man insane is to do a
disservice to those who have been declared legally insane. Anyway,
there will come an election
In Montgomery, Ala., the decision on
whether Circuit Court Judge George Wallace would have to report to
jail for disobeying a Federal District Court order to produce voter
registration records had been postponed this date for 24 hours, the
delay having been granted by a U.S. District Court judge at the
request of Federal prosecutors to allow time to present a complete
report to the judge on the Civil Rights Commission efforts to obtain
the registration records in Barbour and Bullock Counties. Judge
Wallace, under Federal court order to make the records available to
the Commission, had given them instead to the grand juries in both of
those counties. The grand juries, in turn, had offered to let
Commission agents inspect the files in the presence of two members of
each jury. Civil rights investigators examined the records of Barbour
County the previous day and were inspecting them in Bullock this
date. The District Court judge had twice ordered Judge Wallace, 39,
to make the registration files in the two counties available to the
Commission agents who were checking complaints of discrimination
against prospective black voters. The District Court judge could hold
Judge Wallace in contempt and send him to jail for failure to comply.
Or, since the Commission investigators had been given access to the
files by the grand juries, the judge might decide that the purpose of
his decree, if not the letter of it, had been honored. Judge Wallace,
runner-up in the race for Governor to John Patterson in the Democratic primary the prior spring
In New York, the Board of Education had voted to appeal a dismissal of charges against two black mothers who kept their children out of Harlem schools, which they said were inferior.
In Jersey City, N.J., New York Herald-Tribune columnist Marie Torre, who had entered the Hudson County Jail ten days earlier with tears in her eyes, had emerged smiling this date. The 34-year old mother of two had been sentenced to jail for contempt for refusing to disclose the source for an item she had written about singer Judy Garland. Flanked by her father and husband, television producer Al Friedman, Ms. Torre waved to newsmen as she stepped through the doors of the jail. Ms. Garland was suing CBS for remarks by an undisclosed CBS executive allegedly made about her to Ms. Torre, the allegation consisting of claims that Ms. Garland did not want to work in her TV commitments to the network. The District Court judge who had sentenced Ms. Torre said that he had no recourse under the law but to send her to jail. She could be asked again to disclose the name of the executive and if she again refused, could be returned to jail. She said this date that she "wouldn't have missed this for the world", but declined to say whether she would again refuse to disclose the executive's name. She said that the first thing she would do would be to play with her two young children.
In Columbus, O., it was reported that there was a dispute between the Amish and Ohio's school officials, with the schools, themselves, and how long youngsters of the religious sect went to school being the primary points of contention. State and county officials had inspected some of the Amish schools and claimed that they were not up to minimum state standards. The State Board of Education had passed a resolution that put the responsibility for enforcing state standards on local superintendents. The Board on Monday had voted overwhelmingly for the State Department of Education to give all possible assistance to local authorities in such enforcement. At Kenton, the County Board of Education had gone to Common Pleas Court to try to close two Amish schools for allegedly failing to meet minimum state standards. The school superintendent said that an investigation of two Amish grade schools near Kenton had disclosed that a number of State-prescribed courses were not being taught and that three of the four teachers had only gone through the eighth grade. (That could be a problem.) The Amish generally followed a policy of passive resistance, but in that case, had found a champion in a 76-year old semi-retired attorney from Cuyahoga Falls, Guy Hammond. He said that he did not like to see people being pushed around. He had once been president of the Cuyahoga Falls district of the reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints. He filed a motion to strike most of the county school board's contentions, which was overruled by the judge, who said that the two questions involved in the case were whether the Amish schools complied with state educational standards and what recourse in law the Amish had. Mr. Hammond had ten days to appeal. The attorney acting for the school board said that the only thing sought was an injunction against the Amish operating the schools as they presently did. Two more Amish schools in two other counties had been ruled to be below state standards at a Monday meeting of the State Board of Education.
In Pittsburgh, it was reported that a fireman had perished and an apartment building had been badly damaged early this date in a fire, which officials said apparently had resulted from an argument between the building's handyman and a female custodian. Detectives had arrested the man and the woman within a few hours of the blaze, which had broken out shortly after midnight. Officers said that the man and woman lived in the basement of the building and had accused each other of starting the fire. Both had been charged with suspicion of commission of a felony. Homicide detectives said that stories given by the two indicated that while drinking in their basement quarters, the man was quoted as saying, the woman had thrown lighted matches into a storage bin, and the woman, arrested a few hours later, had told detectives that the man had been tossing matches around the basement. Both said that they had attempted to fight the fire before being forced by the flames to flee. The fire had spread swiftly through the three-story brick structure near the University of Pittsburgh campus, about 3 miles from downtown. Occupants of 12 apartments had fled, many in night clothing, into near freezing temperatures. Damage to the building was estimated at $40,000. The dead fireman had been trapped on the second floor, overcome by smoke. Three other firemen had been treated for smoke and injuries. Four more firemen had been injured slightly in the collision of their truck and an automobile en route to the fire. A melee lasting for several minutes had occurred when a group of young adults, apparently unaware of the tragedy, jeered firemen as the blaze was brought under control. Some firemen charged into the huge crowd and one youth had been arrested but was later released.
In Rochester, Minn., evangelist Billy Graham was undergoing further tests this date at the Mayo Clinic where a serious eye ailment had brought an abrupt halt to his Southern tour. The survey included a general physical examination to determine the possible cause of a ruptured blood vessel behind his left retina, which had cut vision by half in that eye, but had caused him no pain. An early diagnosis by his doctor, who was also his father-in-law, in Montreat, N.C., had called the malady both rare and serious, that the condition arose from excessive work. The evangelist's associate, Grady Wilson, who accompanied him to Rochester, had said that no report had been expected prior to Friday.
In Warren, Pa., a 22-year old man of Cory had told police that he was driving to Warren on Tuesday when he encountered two female motorists with a flat tire, that he had stopped and helped to change the tire and after he had finished, one of the women had said, "Here's your reward," and had shot him with a rifle she had taken from her car. The man was in fair condition in the hospital with a wound to his left shoulder. Police were investigating.
In London, 20 automobiles had crashed in a pileup and ferryboats had run together, with hundreds of airline flights being canceled and shipping on the Thames anchored in disgust, as Britain had its worst fog of the winter this date. Activity in 62 of Britain's 89 counties had been at a slow pace or laid prostrate beneath the fog. There were no reports of loss of life, although visibility in many parts of London had been no longer than the length of one's arm. At least one minor train wreck had been caused by the fog and other trains were running hours late. No one had been hurt in the 20-car and truck pileup in suburban London.
In Washington, the first edition of Who's Who of American Women contained the names of 19,000 prominent women and one man, Shirley Povich, sports columnist for the Washington Post—and father of later television personality Maury Povich. Mr. Povich made it clear this date that he was not mad about being included and was somewhat accustomed to that sort of thing, saying cheerfully, "I now belong to the most exclusive club in America." Once, Mr. Povich had been invited to join the League of American Penwomen, and the application blank had such questions as, "How do you get along with the men in your profession?" He had filled in the blank by indicating, "I simply try to be one of the boys." He said that when he received advance notice of the intention to list him in the female edition of Who's Who, he had not objected. In the edition of his newspaper this date, a photo of him had appeared displayed prominently, surrounded by photos of such well-known women as Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor and Mamie Eisenhower, all included in the book.
On the editorial page, "Procedure, Not Verdict, Was at Fault" concerns the "kissing case" of the two young boys, ages eight and ten, who had been sent to Morrison Training School, a reformatory, because there was no other place available to send them, even though they had not been convicted of anything, because there was no one at home to supervise them and each had a lengthy record of juvenile misbehavior.
It indicates that if the hysterical outcry at home and abroad could be justified at all, it could be justified by certain oversights in the way the case had been handled. Counsel for the NAACP in its habeas corpus petition on behalf of the two boys had not seriously questioned the judgment of the Juvenile Court judge in Monroe who had sent the two boys to the Training School. But in their arguments, certain charges had come to light, that the boys had been held without formal charge for six days in the Union County Jail, and that in the hearings before the Juvenile Court, the white parents and the three school girls who were "kissed" had been heard in private session, while separately, the two black boys and their mothers had been called before the judge. At that latter time, without the accusers present, the judge had determined that it was necessary to send them away. The NAACP in its petition had therefore charged that they had been committed to the reformatory without benefit of counsel and without the crucial due process right of being able to confront and cross-examine their accusers. The Superior Court, however, had denied the petition.
The Juvenile Court judge had treated the "kissing" incident as the last straw in a series of similar delinquencies in which the two boys had been involved, including petty larceny. He had also considered their home environments. But although they had appeared before him previously, he had kept no formal record of their offenses.
It finds that on the evidence, the judge's judgment had been defensible. The atmosphere of a training school might be preferred to that of a home where parents were not equipped to pay due attention to discipline. Contrary to the sensationalized press accounts, the boys had not been heartlessly "railroaded" or discriminated against on the basis of their race.
It finds that the traditional informality in a juvenile court proceeding could lead to less than scrupulous attention to procedure. The boys, if the charges were true, should not have been detained for six days in jail without charge. The hearings ought not to have been segregated. The judge should have kept and been able to produce official records of his past dealings with the defendants. The age of the juveniles entitled them to some deviations from the regular criminal procedures. Errant children, too young to have the discretion of adults, ought not have to pay in later life for their immaturity at such a young age. But informalities ought not alter the sharp lines of procedural justice and when they did, the price was noisy and irrelevant publicity which exacted equally of the state and the accused.
"This Peace Treaty Is Mighty Pretty" indicates that the overrated "feud" between UNC trustees and the State Board of Higher Education might end in an entente cordiale of truly cozy proportions. What had worried the trustees was the looseness of the language in the act establishing the Higher Board, as its authority was poorly defined. The superstructure appeared to some to be an agglomeration of discordant hooeys and a few trustees thought that they were in danger of losing substantial control over the University.
Some of the complaints on both sides had represented the caterwauling of men who doted on the outrageous, but there was no doubt about certain basic defects in the original law and the necessity to repair them. The fate of the Consolidated University was not something which could safely be left to chance or the vicissitudes of politics.
Thus, at the urging of Governor Luther Hodges and some of the state's less strident editorial voices, representatives of the Higher Board and the executive committee of the Board of Trustees had sat down together and worked things out. The report they had submitted had been approved during the week by the executive committee of the Board. The "agreement" stripped the Higher Board of powers it could wield over the University under the original law. It made clear that the trustees and not the Higher Board would run the internal affairs of the University. The proposed changes spelled out precisely what the Higher Board's authority was regarding higher education in the state. Real or imagined duplications of authority were removed.
It finds it wise and what it had hoped would happen when the trustees and members of the Higher Board had met to reason together. It indicates that it was especially important that the University, which had been a guiding force in the development of the state and the region, be left reasonably free to apply creative leadership in the future.
"City Policemen Deserve Some Answers" indicates that Charlotte's Police Club might be as pure and fragrant as the flowers in May, but it had been bad-mouthed regularly both inside and outside the Department for years and consequently, Police Chief E. C. Selvey's decision to hold an airing-out session on its operation had been long overdue.
It finds that the briefing ought be thorough as the club's relationship to personnel of the Department was peculiarly close and police officers had a legitimate interest in its management and its bookkeeping, as did the public at large.
"Higher Learning" indicates that the degree of Doctor of Education had been recently awarded to a candidate whose dissertation had been titled "An Evaluation of Innovations in Elementary School Classroom Seating". There was a new Doctor of Philosophy at large whose dissertation dealt with "A Comparison between the Readability of Digest and Original Versions of Articles".
A piece from the Raleigh News & Observer, titled "No Piedmont Metropolis", indicates that the Greensboro Daily News and the Charlotte News were tilting with pots and kettles, the former indicating innocuously that the Piedmont had no metropolis and the latter taking umbrage at that statement, adding: "Just what do you suppose they take us for—a field of Winter wheat?"
It finds the hassle to be akin to Emerson's point about the mountain and the squirrel, in which the squirrel had conceded he could not carry a forest on his back, but then again, the mountain could not crack a nut. Apparently, every locality wanted to combine the finest elements of Athens and New York and every town wanted to be as big as a hippopotamus and as pretty as a cardinal. Every place wanted enough money to dam up the Mississippi and enough refinement to satisfy the needs of all the book clubs extant. But actually, the condition of a metropolis was comparative.
The Piedmont had no such metropolis as the Norfolk-Newport News-Warwick area in Virginia and there were more people out of school down there than there were people in the average town in North Carolina. It indicates that Charlotte could not compare with Atlanta, either as to size or the gravity of bombings.
"Maybe a town ought to be big enough to care for the needs of its people and of those who pass by. Greatness is not measured by the force of numbers nor by the paucity of numbers. Towns are similar to what Lincoln said about a man's legs: 'They ought to be long enough to reach the ground'…"
Drew Pearson lists the Senators, including some of the new Senators, who had answered the roll call regarding the crucial vote to permit the Senate to adopt new rules at each session and thereby limit filibusters more than they already were. Some of the Senators had reversed pledges made only 24 hours earlier after being fast-talked by Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson. Even those who did not agree with him had admitted that he had put on the most successful one-man sales campaign seen in the Senate in the prior decade.
The Senators he had reversed included Thomas Dodd of Connecticut, who had promised the labor representative of Bridgeport on January 8 that he would vote for the Anderson Resolution, permitting the Senate to change its rules, but on January 9 had voted the other way.
Vance Hartke of Indiana had pledged during his election campaign that he would oppose filibusters and then voted against changing the rules on them.
Howard Cannon of Nevada had co-sponsored the Anderson Resolution to change the rules, but on the Senate floor had voted against his own resolution.
Robert Byrd of West Virginia had made a public statement in response to a query from John L. Lewis, head of the UMW, that he believed in majority rule by Senators to make their own rules. Mr. Lewis and the UMW could elect or defeat a Senator from West Virginia and had elected Senator Byrd, but on the Senate floor, he had voted directly the opposite of his public pledge.
Jennings Randolph of West Virginia had written an enthusiastic letter to Senator Paul Douglas of Illinois prior to the election endorsing Senator Douglas's stand for ending filibusters, but on the floor, had voted the other way.
Ernest Gruening of Alaska had phoned Clarence Mitchell of the NAACP before the election to volunteer that he wanted to change Senate Rule XXII to end filibusters, and as Governor of Alaska, had initiated a law ending segregation for Eskimos in restaurants and public places. As a result, the Eskimos had waged a terrific campaign for him in November and their votes might have elected him. After talking to the persuasive Senator Johnson, however, he voted against the Anderson Resolution.
Robert Bartlett of Alaska had fought approximately 15 years of Southern opposition to Alaskan statehood, including filibusters inside Senate committees, but had also voted against the resolution.
Gale McGee of Wyoming, the former University of Wyoming professor, had been elected in part by money raised by Mrs. Roosevelt's Committee for a Better Congress. She had begun early encouraging and contributing to Mr. McGee. When the votes were counted on the resolution, however, he had lined up against it and against Mrs. Roosevelt who had helped him.
Senator Johnson had performed his salesmanship miracle partly by personal charm, partly by having something to sell. He could offer Senator Gruening and Senator Bartlett help in getting highways for Alaska. He could offer others choice committee assignments. In addition, Senator Johnson was a doer, had a program and not just an assortment of platitudes. He performed and in most respects his performance had become increasingly liberal, more similar to the philosophy of the new Senators. He was constructive, vigorous and not afraid to make decisions. But politically, he was a prisoner, as were most good Southern Senators, on the race issue. He had two prison wardens constantly looking over his shoulder, one being Senator Richard Russell of Georgia who had helped Senator Johnson obtain the leadership role in the first place, and the other being the vocal Texans who raised Cain every time Senator Johnson did not defend the filibuster or did defend the Supreme Court.
The issue of the filibuster was somewhat like filter tip cigarettes, not meaning much, but becoming a trademark. It did not really help the South, but the South thought it did. It did not hurt the North, but the North thought it did. Actually, Northerners had used it just as much as Southerners on such issues as the Dixon-Yates matter, tidelands oil, and the natural gas bill. Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon had once used it to defeat the South and defend the Supreme Court.
Albert M. Cole, director of Charlotte's Urban Redevelopment Commission, which had met for the first time during the week, preparing an assault on the slum-ridden Brooklyn district of the city, examines the proper role of the Federal Government in the effort, condensed from a recent address. He indicates that statistics did not measure the public attitude, acceptance, or awareness of the size and scope of the housing problems, something which evolved slowly with many ups and downs. A vast change in that climate had taken place in the country anent urban renewal in recent years.
When he had become U.S. housing administrator in 1953, there were mayors of cities, many of whom were "reluctant dragons" on urban renewal, and initially did not grasp either the full possibilities or potentialities. No one could say that was the case now, as the mayors were on the bandwagon. The views of most people had changed since the Housing Act of 1949. He cites as example the early picture they had in mind of armies of bulldozers smashing down acres of slums and doing away with them forever. That could only provide a partial answer. Rehabilitating and restoring potential slums was just as important as clearing them, and rehabilitation was the new vista opened up by the Housing Act of 1954.
They had been learning by experience and increasingly were coming to see that housing and slum problems were inseparably interrelated with other social and economic problems, urban, suburban, metropolitan. It was a waste of time and money to try to tackle them in pieces as only a total approach was valid for the total problem. He believes there were too many who, when it came to thinking in terms of tackling problems, automatically returned to the one-track bulldozer concept of the 1940's, but in the field of finance. Too many people confused the "total approach" with the indiscriminate distribution of bags full of Government money, thinking in terms of bookkeeping when they ought to be thinking in terms of a dynamic concept.
He indicates that the total approach when it came to tackling their problems did not mean only a Federal approach. By resorting to the many possibilities within the communities for use of foresight, imagination and enterprise, it did not mean abdication of the Federal responsibility, but that was only a part of the total responsibility. Unless there were adequate local codes and enforcement of the codes, they would never overcome the problem of dilapidated housing. Improving and preserving the character of the neighborhood by construction work was still only a partial answer. Such things as traffic hazards and the noise and dirt accompanying indiscriminate traffic were the enemies of neighborhoods. Many cities would have an opportunity to do something about their traffic problems. In connection with the new Federal superhighway program, about 6,000 miles of those highways would be built in central cities, providing a chance to replan the maze of municipal traffic patterns and to relate them to the new highways and to route through-city traffic around residential neighborhoods.
A neighborhood was a neighbor to other neighborhoods and in planning a traffic system, the proper relationship between neighborhoods had to be created.
One of the most encouraging signs he had seen on the urban renewal horizon was an upsurge of community leadership among those who realized that the vitality of any community came from within. He cites as example Kansas City, where a group of businessmen had bought two million dollars worth of stock to get the redevelopment ball rolling. In Cleveland, the Cleveland Development Foundation, possibly the outstanding example, was working out a practical plan for rehabilitating a neighborhood in its entirety, involving the full use of condemnation powers as well as code enforcement. Similar efforts were ongoing in Baltimore and Oakland, as well as in many other cities.
He indicates that there was hope for the future and if the resurgence were sustained, becoming widespread, then they were on the move to the total approach for which he hoped. The part which the Federal Government ought play might be defined as "acceleration of a reaction", not precluding Federal help but including self-help as well.
A letter writer writes in response to the Greensboro Daily News and Charlotte News feud over whether there was a metropolis in the Piedmont, indicating that Charlotte should not be sensitive to the notion as the Jefferson Standard Building in Greensboro was the extent of its skyline and that winter wheat was abundant around Greensboro.
A letter writer expresses his appreciation for the articles on Winston-Salem's cultural profile presented by Harriet Doar of the News. He indicates that many now realized the wonderful opportunities for their children and that the arts need not be a dream but could become a reality. As a native of Charlotte, it had made him take notice to read that Reed Sarratt, executive editor of the Winston-Salem Journal, a classmate of his at Central High School in Charlotte and who was now first vice-president of the Arts Council board in Winston-Salem, said, in speaking of the latter's cultural climate for children, "Winston-Salem is a good place to grow up in." He suggests that a child with a real interest in any of the arts and giving expression to that interest would be a child who would never stand as a defendant in a juvenile court. He asks whether they were less interested in their children and their cultural growth in Charlotte.
We hope that the supervisors will keep a sharp eye on the children so that they do not try to eat the paper paste or the papier mache concoction, which was a problem among some of the children at the time. A few even sampled the various media of artistic expression, whether finger-paint, crayon or some of the others, apparently having taken literally the notion of exhibiting taste in art.
Mr. Sarratt and Ms. Doar, incidentally, had been on the staff of The News during W. J. Cash's tenure as associate editor between October, 1937 and May, 1941, Mr. Sarratt having joined the newspaper at the same time Cash was hired as the primary editorial writer in October, 1937. Ms. Doar had, in the interim, joined the Raleigh News & Observer, and had now returned to The News, later in the year to join the staff of the Charlotte Observer. Mr. Sarratt in the interim had become associate editor of the Baltimore Sun in the latter Forties.
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