The Charlotte News
Wednesday, January 28, 1959
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the President this date had asked Congress to require complete public accounting of union fund handling and to establish rules to free labor organizations of bosses. The special message said that the President's program was a complete and effective approach to curbing labor-management abuses, referring to the labor reform bill proposed by Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts as a half-way measure. The two proposed measures were largely identical in requiring unions to submit complete public reports of union finances to the Government and requiring periodic democratic elections and union internal procedures, but the Administration bill was somewhat stronger in those areas. The bills parted, however, on changes to the Taft-Hartley Act, with the President proposing tougher restrictions on union secondary boycotts against innocent third-party employers, and on picketing to compel union recognition where employees demonstrated that they did not want union representation. The Kennedy bill contained no such proposals. The President said that his program was designed to encourage responsible unions and to protect the interests of the public, workers and employers alike in the labor field. The President's picketing and boycott proposals, along with another to provide states more jurisdiction over labor cases presently handled by the NLRB, were likely to be the main points of contention in the coming battle in Congress, as the AFL-CIO had served notice this date that it would battle to the end to prevent any picketing and boycott provisions from being enacted. It hinted in testimony on Senator Kennedy's bill that such proposals, coupled with anti-corruption legislation, would endanger any bill in passing Congress. Labor Department sources said meanwhile that lack of picket-boycott provisions in the labor bill considered by Congress the previous year had been the main reason for Administration opposition to it, hinting that the President might veto any bill lacking such provisions in the current year. A Labor Department official said privately, "We just won't buy it."
The President said at his press conference this date, commenting on Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev's announcement on Tuesday that the Soviet Union had intercontinental ballistic missiles in production, that the U.S. was making remarkable progress in the ballistic missile field and had no cause for hang-dog humiliation. In apparent reference to the question of whether Mr. Khrushchev was saying that the Soviet Union had IBCM's in mass production, the President had said that he had no way of knowing just what was in the Soviet Premier's mind. Somewhat wryly, the President had added that the U.S. seemed very prone to provide complete credence to statements by the Soviets if they happened to deal with U.S. desires, while the U.S. dismissed other Soviet statements as bald-faced lies. Without ever saying whether the U.S. had ICBM's in the production stage, the President said that the missile program was going forward as rapidly as possible under the direction of capable scientists.
Secretary of State Dulles told a press conference on Tuesday that so far, the Soviet Government had demonstrated "a very strong desire to delude us into thinking the cold war is ended," but had not made direct proposals to end it. Nevertheless, he said, he believed it was timely to have another meeting either of foreign ministers or other high officials because it was occasionally possible to reach an agreement with the Communists which "tends to promote international peace on a fair basis." He indicated that a high-level conference could be had in about three months. The latest Soviet move toward a new East-West conference had come on Monday when Premier Khrushchev had told a group in Moscow that he thought "there is a possibility of a thaw in our relations" with the U.S. He said that he had gotten that impression from the report he had received on Deputy Premier Anastas Mikoyan's visit to the U.S. earlier in the month. Mr. Khrushchev told the 21st Communist Party congress in Moscow on Tuesday that, "There are no grounds for clashes between the American and Soviet people." He also reiterated, however, the earlier Soviet insistence, rejected by the West, that West Berlin be made a "free city" and that East and West Germany negotiate between themselves for reunification.
In Moscow, it was reported that the Soviet Government this date had announced the death of Pietr V. Nikitin, 50, deputy chairman of the State Committee for Foreign Economic Relations, following a long illness.
In Richmond, Va., the Legislature met in emergency session this date with pro-segregation leaders apparently prepared to go to almost any lengths to prevent integration of the public schools of the state. As the Legislature had gathered to hear Governor J. Lindsay Almond's proposals for continued segregation, plans moved forward which could lead to the integration of schools in Norfolk, Charlottesville and Arlington. The last barrier to the operation of desegregated schools in Norfolk apparently had been removed late on Tuesday when a Federal District Court judge restrained the City Council of the state's largest city from cutting off funding for all grades above the sixth, as it had proposed to do on February 1. A few hours earlier, Charlottesville's City Council had endorsed the stand of its School Board, which had proposed to operate integrated schools if necessary, and said that it was "unthinkable that we should abandon our public school system." School officials in Arlington planned to seek a stay from a Federal District Court order admitting four black students to Stratford Junior High School the following Monday. At the same time, the School Board moved ahead with plans to operate the school on an integrated basis if required. Nine schools had been closed since September, six in Norfolk, two in Charlottesville, and one at Front Royal. The law under which they were shut down had been ruled unconstitutional by a three-judge Federal Court, and unconstitutional under the State Constitution by the Virginia Supreme Court. There were advance indications that the Almond Administration would make two proposals, to repeal the state's compulsory school attendance law and to enact new laws to provide state tuition grants for private schools for children without any reference to the racial situation. Some legislators examined the possibility of having the General Assembly pass a resolution demanding that the Governor invoke his police powers to stop integration, at least temporarily. The Federal judge had apparently taken the police power possibility into consideration in his injunction against the Norfolk City Council, prohibiting it from using its police power to close any school or grade for more than two consecutive days without his prior approval.
In Alexandria, Va., a U.S. District Court judge this date had rejected a plea of the Arlington County School Board to delay the admission of the four black students to the white junior high school until the following September, leaving the judge's order for the admission of the four the following Monday in effect. In denying the School Board's petition, the judge said that he did not feel that there had been any showing of changed circumstances in conditions to justify delaying the admissions. The School Board had made arrangements to enroll the black students if a last ditch legal maneuver failed to effect delay, having told pupils not to protest integrated classes and warning that any violence would result in expulsion. The Board contended this date that it would be detrimental to the black students to transfer to the white junior high school during the school year. Attorneys for the students contended that the School Board had not raised that contention previously and insisted that it was too late. The attorney argued that the School Board was not acting in good faith. The attorney for the Board said that he hoped for some action from a special session of the Virginia General Assembly convening this date, to prevent the black students from entering Stratford on February 2.
Bob Slough of The News, in the third in a series of articles examining the state's juvenile court system, its origins, operations and deficiencies, reports that the juvenile court judge in the state who wanted probation service for his court could obtain it, as provided under the General Statutes. But whether the the law was utilized was up to the particular judge. In the instances where special independent courts handled juvenile problems, special probation was provided, sometimes in the form of special probation officers appointed by the court and sometimes through the services of child welfare caseworkers, sometimes both. Dr. Ellen Winston, head of the State Department of Public Welfare, said that county welfare departments handled all of the specialized services for children in those counties which did not have special courts to hear the cases involving children in trouble with the law, adding that public welfare department caseworkers were utilized by all of the counties except those which had specialized juvenile courts. In some counties, where specialized courts were in operation, the county welfare department caseworkers were called on to render service to the court. Even in the smaller counties, where but one child welfare worker was available for both court duties and other county welfare assignments, juvenile cases represented one of the high priorities, according to Dr. Winston. General Statute 110-31 provided that the county superintendent of public welfare in each of the 100 counties of the state was to be the chief probation officer of every juvenile court in the county. That person was to have supervision over the work of any additional probation officer who might be appointed by the court. The law specified that the judge of the juvenile court was to appoint one or more suitable persons as probation officers to serve under the court's direction. Appointments by the judges had to be approved by the State Board of Public Welfare. Probation officers appointed by the judge were paid by the county commissioners, although the commissioners actually had no authoritative voice in fixing the salary. The judge fixed the salary and if it was approved by the Superior Court judge, the commissioners paid it. That part of the law had been questioned by some who said that since the county commissioners actually paid the probation officers' salary, they should have some voice in determining its amount. There were other aspects to application of the law also. If a juvenile court judge in a city court appointed a probation officer with a certificate of qualification by the State Board of Public Welfare, the city juvenile court judge set the salary of the probation officer. But the General Statutes did not provide for whether the county commissioners would pay the salary of the city probation officer when dealing exclusively with city juvenile cases. In counties where there was an established domestic relations court, as in Mecklenburg, the court had a chief probation counselor who was the supervisor of the juvenile court and had an assistant chief probation counselor and a psychologist who worked only for the juvenile court. The Mecklenburg Domestic Relations Court had seven white male probation counselors, two black male probation counselors, five white female probation counselors, and one black female probation counselor. The staff was employed by the Domestic Relations Court, which had exclusive jurisdiction over the personnel. The counselors were paid from the court's budget and worked under the direction of the judge of the court. Authorities admitted that such an operation for a small county, even in proportion to its size, would be impractical and costly. But state law provided a way in which the smaller counties could take advantage of a specialized domestic relations court, as the law authorized the county commissioners of any group of counties, not exceeding five, with contiguous boundaries, to establish a domestic relations court. No group of counties in the state had yet done so.
John Kilgo of The News
reports that a big sign in front of a small two-story white building
in Stanly County had a picture of an Indian on it and the words
"Indian Healer" underneath. When knocking on the door, a
dark-skinned woman of about 50 peeked through the front glass and
asked, "What is it you want?" After telling her that he was
confused and needed help, she invited him in and he walked into a
brightly decorated room, inside of which were three chairs, a sofa, a
table with cups and dishes on it and a picture of Jesus hanging on
the wall. In one corner of the room on a table was a large yellow
candle in a blue vase. In another corner, a hi-fi set was going full
blast, playing "Problems"
In New York, it was reported that a young and comparatively unknown disc jockey was this date on the verge of an unmatched medical achievement by remaining awake for 200 consecutive hours under constant scientific observation. Doctors and psychiatrists who had been watching him and helping him fight off collapse, believed that Peter Tripp, 32, was a medical rarity. They also admired him for his driving determination, without which, they said, nothing could have kept his eyes open for so long. Mr. Tripp's personality had changed what initially appeared as another publicity stunt into an interesting scientific experiment. Dr. Jolyon West, director of psychiatry for the University of Oklahoma Medical School, said: "There has never been such a study made before. This man has been under 24-hour psychiatric observation for over a week. Every utterance, every attitude during this great stress has been noted down. There is nothing we haven't measured. We know him through and through. And I'll tell you something, he's a man." Mr. Tripp, who played records nightly for three hours over radio station WMGM, had started it all by saying that he would stay awake for 200 hours to draw attention to the March of Dimes campaign to combat polio. He said that he would spend the time in a glass-enclosed recruiting booth in the heart of Times Square in New York. Doctors had been reluctant when asked to supervise the stunt. Dr. West, who had studied the strange effects of sleep deprivation, was interested but wary, and he came to New York and spent two days talking to Mr. Tripp before deciding that the information he might glean would be worth the uncomfortable public spotlight. His endorsement had brought in the Air Force Surgeon General, represented by a noted psychologist from Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Maj. Harold Williams. The Cornell Medical School and the Albert Einstein Institute had asked and received permission to make some tests also. The 200 hours would conclude this night at 7:14. Even if Mr. Tripp fell short of the goal, Dr. West and Maj. Williams knew of no one else who had gone as long as he had without sleep under constant supervision. Dr. West said: "Medically, there is a great interest in sleep deprivation. It indicates a kind of mental disturbance which can be reversed. Mental health research is handicapped by the difficulty of trying to produce the disease in a laboratory for study." He said that no doctor was willing to produce an actual mental illness in a person to enable study of the disease. Sleep loss, however, could imitate some of the effects of mental illness. There were numerous other scientific aspects to the study, most of which had to do with the brain and the central nervous system. Maj. Williams presided over an instrument-packed room in the Hotel Astor, to which Mr. Tripp was steered from his Times Square booth every few hours. A doctor and a psychiatric nurse were at his side night and day.
On an inside page appears the third in the five-part series on murder in the country and what might be done about it, by Dr. Ralph Banay, well-known criminologist and former head of the psychiatric clinic of Sing Sing Prison in New York.
On the editorial page, "A Great Opportunity Awaits Charlotte" indicates that the progress or decay of the downtown area would depend, in large part, on the courage and conviction of a group of worried business interests who would meet in Charlotte the following week. The immediate purpose of the meeting on February 5 was the organization of a Downtown Association, but the men and women who would gather in the Carolina Theater would actually be enlisting in a campaign to "bring downtown back alive."
The problems threatening Charlotte's central business district were not unique, being the same problems facing all growing cities. "Downtown districts of American cities may soon become ghost towns," according to Thomas Matson, director of Yale's Bureau of Highway Traffic, writing a few years earlier. Col. Sidney Bingham, a noted transportation expert, had stated: "The inability of traffic to move freely on the streets threatens the very existence of our cities as we know them. Unless we translate our thinking from the movement of vehicles into the movement of people, Downtown U.S.A. is doomed to die." (Them flying cars, that's the answer.)
He indicates that traffic was only one of the problems which the downtown area faced, that parking, appearance, convenience, inappropriate uses, hazards to pedestrians, zoning, merchandising were also proper subjects for scrutiny and comprehensive, long-range improvements.
Detroit had a bold new plan to redesign completely Woodward Avenue, its main street, by 1969 to provide spacious shopping malls. Fort Worth, Tex., had an even bolder plan to revitalize its central business district by creating walks, open-air courts, gardens, malls, garages, with a belt parkway encircling the district.
It finds that Charlotte's Downtown Association would have much to discuss, study and accomplish, that it might develop wholly original and completely new ideas for the promotion of the downtown's best interests. It would be up to the local business people who would meet the following week to organize and reason together, finding that the important thing at present was that they were aware of the problems and were eager to do something about them, having a commendable attitude which was bound to be translated into commendable results.
Elvis Presley had performed at the Carolina Theater in February, 1956, but apparently that was not enough. Maybe they could build a NASCAR skyway track from building to building in the air around the city and hold weekend races, or perhaps a downtown wrestling rink with daily matches performed before picture windows to enable those unable to afford a ticket to see it for free from the street, as on the "Today Show" with Dave Garroway and Jack Lescoulie. Any number of ideas pop into the mind of 1959.
"Sen. Jordan Touches upon a Key Fault" indicates that North Carolina Senator B. Everett Jordan had voted against the foreign aid appropriation the previous year for reasons he had not made absolutely clear. From the generality of his explanation, some had deduced that he opposed foreign aid.
It is relieved to indicate, however, that the deduction was false, as speaking in Chapel Hill recently, the Senator had explained that he did not oppose foreign aid, but rather the way it was being administered. He had stated: "We have the reputation of being interested in giving aid primarily to those nations where we need an airfield or an army."
It finds that he had touched upon the key fault in the present allotment of aid funding, that it was military-minded. The U.S. had, for instance, provided a billion dollars to Spain since the 1954 airbase treaty with its authoritarian leader, Generalissimo Francisco Franco. But Spanish policy was not unique, for the nation had attempted to build, not good will for democracy or for America, but a nuclear Hadrian's Wall to prevent the Soviet armies from entering the Western sphere of influence.
It hopes that Senator Jordan would work as he talked, on the side of a more sensible policy. But if he did, he would run against the rigid illusion in military and some Congressional circles that heavy armament alone would purchase security for the nation. "That illusion is, in turn, supported by the widespread popular feeling that military aid is the only worthwhile investment—that technical assistance, capital loans, and relaxation of trade walls can go hang. Nothing could be further from the truth."
"When You Say That, Smile" indicates that Lt. General Clarence Huebner, director of the State Civil Defense Commission, had predicted the previous day that within five years most Americans would be living in fallout shelters and would see sunshine only by taking a calculated risk.
According to the New York Times, "Earlier Hanson W. Baldwin, military news analyst of the New York Times, advised the information officer to tell the public what needed to be done 'without making them unduly despondent.'"
It concludes that a few funny stories ought to turn the trick.
"Bubbling Officialese Has Long History" indicates that custodians of the language had tearfully bemoaned the bubbling officialese or "gobbledygook" of Washington and often claimed that it was a matter of decadence. But now an old letter from Alexander Hamilton, dated in New York in 1789, had been discovered when he was Secretary of the Treasury. In it, he had said: "There is a species of information highly regarded to the Government respecting Navigation for obtaining which with proper accuracy & detailed no regular plan has been pursued in this country… This utility of the Knowledge of the facts on which this comparison will depend need not, I am sure be explained to you… I take the Liberty to request your aid in making the inquiries requisite to the attaining of the Knowledge I have mentioned, for which purposes I have enclosed a number of Queries, to which I shall be obliged by as full particulars and accurate answers as possible."
It offers its own translation: "We badly need information about navigation but have no regular way to get it. Please fill out the enclosed questionnaire."
"Moral: Gobbledygook is at least 169 years old."
A piece from the New York Times, titled "'Thar She Blows!'" indicates that Captain Ahab and the other old-timers would be puzzled over the proceedings of the International Whaling Conference which had been meeting in London. The confreres from Norway, Britain, Japan and Russia, with none from Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket or New Bedford, had not been pursuing sperm whales, white or otherwise, right whales, bowheads or humpbacks across the seven seas, or were much concerned with whalebone for ladies' corsets. Nor did they go rolling off to the cry of "a dead whale or a stove boat!"
The modern whaler, who was most likely to be a Norwegian, sought whale oil, taking 80 percent of his catch in the Antarctic and shot his harpoon from a gun which was sometimes electric, boiled out his catch in a modernized factory on ship or shore, went to sea to earn money, not because somebody on shore had first gotten him drunk and then given him knockout drops. If the modern whaling captain was rough with his crew, the union and the proper legal officials would hear of it and make him wish he had not been.
"In a modern whaler even the
lowliest apprentice doesn't have to sleep in a wooden bunk in a
foc'sle too low to let him stand up, with the salt water sloshing
into it every time the ship dips into a head sea. Romance
Drew Pearson indicates that before Senator Warren Magnuson of Washington, chairman of the Interstate Commerce Committee, confirmed the President's newly appointed undersecretary of commerce, he ought to give him careful scrutiny. John Allen, a former Congressman from California, who had been appointed to the post, had once been under investigation by the Justice Department for his part as attorney for the king of northern California gamblers, Chin Bok Hing. Congressman Allen, a resident of Berkeley, had set up a so-called trust fund which the Chinese gambler had used to evade about $100,000 of income taxes. After the scheme had been exposed in Federal Court, Mr. Hing had gone on the lam and then-Attorney General James McGranery under President Truman had begun a probe of the Congressman. But after Herbert Brownell had become Attorney General in 1953 during the Eisenhower Administration, the probe of the Republican Congressman had quietly evaporated.
The previous November, Mr. Allen had been defeated for re-election. Shortly thereafter, former Congressman James Patterson of Connecticut, another Republican who had lost in the midterms, had been approved by Vice-President Nixon to be undersecretary of commerce in charge of transportation. Suddenly, West Coast shipping interests got busy as they wanted a man in charge of transportation friendly to their interests. Some of them had quietly suggested to Mr. Nixon's office that they had been heavy contributors to the Republicans in California, and overnight, Mr. Patterson was out of the running while Mr. Allen was in the running. Mr. Pearson indicates that it was how a man under investigation for setting up a "trust fund" for Mr. Hing had gotten into the Eisenhower little Cabinet.
The son of one of the 76 wealthiest men in the country had arranged to borrow 4 million dollars from Jimmy Hoffa and the Teamsters Union. Clinton Murchison, Jr., of Texas was borrowing the money from the Teamsters Union to finance a housing project in Hollywood, Calif., where he and associates had purchased the estate of the late Edward Doheny, who had won fame for carrying the little black bag with $100,000 to Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall during the Harding Administration, as part of the Elks Hill-Teapot Dome oil scandal. The fact that the young Mr. Murchison and associates would borrow 4 million dollars from the Teamsters was considered significant as the Teamsters had loaned large amounts of money to industry in the past, including Fruehauf Trailers and Montgomery Ward, but usually to bolster their bargaining position. The loan to Montgomery Ward, for instance, had come during a hot proxy fight and had won important labor concessions for the Teamsters in a previously anti-labor company. The loan to Mr. Murchison, however, appeared to be a straight business deal. The Murchison interests had always been able to finance their own projects without going outside the family. Fortune Magazine, in listing the 76 wealthiest men in the nation, had placed the senior Mr. Murchison as having an estimated wealth of between 100 and 200 million dollars, lumping him with the Rockefellers and Ambassador John Hay Whitney, new owner of the New York Herald Tribune, and ahead of Henry Ford II, former New York Governor Averell Harriman, Henry Kaiser and the Pews of Sun Oil Co. of Pennsylvania. Mr. Murchison listed himself in "Who's Who" as owner of: "The First National Bank of Athens, Texas; of the City Transportation Co. of Dallas; the Royal Gorge Branch Amusement Co. of Colorado; the Martha Washington Candy Co. in Chicago, with other large company interests and holdings including many connected with railroads, steamships, real estate, gas, oil, publishing, office equipment, insurance, motion-picture theaters, restaurants, fish and tackle." He also owned the Hanabanilla Co. in Cuba and the Henry Holt Publishing Co., among others.
Marquis Childs indicates that not long earlier one of the principal admirers in the press gallery of Senator Lyndon Johnson had written an article projecting a 1960 race for the presidency between the Senator and Vice-President Nixon. While flattered, Senator Johnson rejected the notion on the oft-repeated ground that he would never be a candidate for the presidency.
"Nothing quite like the Johnson phenomenon has been seen in this capital in the memory of man. His fellow Democrats in the Senate, and even some Republicans, viewing him with a mixture of admiration, envy, resentment and sheer stupefaction, regard him already as 'another President,' an executive in his own right." The opinion recognized that the Majority Leader had created a center of power in the legislative branch rivaling that in the executive branch.
One of the reasons for that was that the military man in the White House took a narrow view of the functions of the Presidency. But most of the reasons were in the dynamic Senator Johnson himself. Other able managers had led the Senate majority in recent times, including Senator Charles McNary for the Republicans during the Presidencies of Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover, and Senator Alben Barkley during the first Truman term after the death of FDR. But what made the Johnson model unique was a "forward drive (complete with the biggest tail fins and fabulous lighting) that aims at adoption of a complete Democratic program covering most major phases of national policy."
It had begun with the Senator's own "State of the Union" message to the Democratic conference on January 7, two days prior to the State of the Union by the President. Senator Johnson had in his stable some of the ablest "brain trusters" from the New Deal, who salted his speeches with vivid locutions and sparkling phrases. Then, he had put forth his own four-part civil rights bill.
Some of the other pieces of his program included a complete new program dealing with the problem of agricultural surpluses, which the Senator said would save a billion dollars per year in storage charges alone, with the Senator planning to have it introduced by a Northern liberal and a Southerner. A new measure resembling the one which the President had vetoed the previous year for depressed areas would be introduced by the Senator, with the stress on means for abolishing the pockets of unemployment persisting, with the number of jobless almost certain to remain above 4 million. The confident projection was that the President would find that one harder to veto. Insofar as airport construction, the Democratic proposal would go beyond the limited recommendation of the President's budget. Regarding labor, Senator John F. Kennedy had already presented a revised and somewhat sterner version of the Kennedy-Ives bill adopted by the Senate the previous year but defeated by Republican strategists in the House. Most Democrats would be in favor of it and Republicans would find it hard to oppose. From the Public Works and Interior Committees would come proposals for dams and projects of every kind. Regarding budget and finance, for what Senator Johnson regarded as "tricks" in the President's budget, such as moving into the year the proposed 1.375 billion dollars for the International Monetary Fund to show a balance the following year, he would counter with a proposal to be disclosed in due course.
Mr. Childs indicates that the outline was suggestive rather than comprehensive, suggesting the characteristic stress by Senator Johnson on the feasible, the practical, the attainable. He wanted to get as many Democrats as possible behind the compromise with the greatest possible appeal and thus hoped to obtain four states from the South to align with his civil rights program.
Critics argued that it might be good practical politics but that it did not stake out new and exciting ideological ground on which elections could be won. Senator Johnson, however, brushed that off impatiently, asking whether they had not done all right the prior November in the midterms and answering his own question by saying that it was only the third time in the history of the Senate that the party which had the majority had not lost a single seat.
The Congressional Quarterly examines the results of a study by the RNC on the question of the political benefits which the Republicans had reaped from their fight to strengthen the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and describing the Republican strategy for winning more votes from blacks in 1960. It indicates that the report on the party's 1958 showing in Northern black districts had stirred considerable interest in Republican circles, its chief conclusions having been that the Republicans had garnered more votes from blacks in 1958 than they had in the previous midterms of 1954 in many key races, but had run behind their showing of 1956 almost everywhere. It also stated that blacks in large Northern cities still voted for Democrats overwhelmingly.
The increase between 1954 and 1958 in black support for Republican candidates had been impressive in many instances, but was not consistent across the country. Gains ranging from one percent to over 10 percent had been recorded in black districts of Detroit, Cleveland, Chicago and New York. But similar areas in Philadelphia, Baltimore and St. Louis had shown that Republican candidates lagged behind their 1954 pace. The Democratic share of the black vote in the seven cities rarely dropped below the two-thirds level in the surveyed races. All of the results appeared to be shaped more strongly by local issues, personalities and organizations than by the national record of the parties on civil rights legislation.
With those facts in mind, Republican strategists were emphasizing six points in their plans to lure black voters in 1960. First, although Democrats continued to win the bulk of the black vote, it was possible for Republicans to increase their share of the total, with spectacular breakthroughs possible when blacks believed the Republican candidate was friendly to their aspirations and the Democrat was not. In Maryland in 1954, when that was the case, Governor Theodore McKeldin, a Republican, had received 75 percent of the votes in some black areas. It was also possible for Republicans to make some gains even against Democrats with strong civil rights records, such as Governor G. Mennen Williams in Michigan and former Governor Averell Harriman in New York, both of whom had lost strength in surveyed black areas between 1954 and 1958.
Second, it was considered definitely worthwhile for Republicans to "play percentage politics" for even small gains in predominantly Democratic black districts. The RNC study said: "In a close nationwide election, the vote of Negroes may well be crucial in determining which party wins the presidency."
Third, any effort to increase the Republican share of the black vote had to start from the recognition that, as one official had put it, "Negroes do not form a separate bloc, immune from the factors that affect other voters." In almost every case, the trend in the black vote paralleled the trend in the Northern cities where blacks lived. For example, in New York, Governor Nelson Rockefeller had run 9 percent ahead of the 1954 Republican gubernatorial nominee in New York City and 10.3 percent ahead in the surveyed black districts of the city.
Fourth, Republicans had established their record on broad civil rights issues to the satisfaction of most black voters and would be mistaken to think that an effort to "outbid" the Democrats in that area would yield additional political returns. In most Northern districts with substantial black populations, differences between the parties on that issue were infinitesimal.
Fifth, there could be important differences in the appeal which rival candidates with similar civil rights records had for black voters. Republicans believed that both Governor Rockefeller and Vice-President Nixon had demonstrated an abundance of such appeal.
Sixth, Republicans ought put more emphasis in the ensuing two years on "implementing" their civil rights position by securing tangible advances for blacks in the party organization and in public office. Wise use of their patronage power in both Federal and state governments could go far in solidifying black support for Republican candidates in 1960. One official had said: "Negroes, like all other racial, religious or nationality groups, are strongly influenced by personal loyalties. When leaders of their group are given recognition, the impact is widespread."
A letter writer from Salisbury finds that perhaps it was a good thing that there were conservative Republicans and conservative Democrats as well as liberal Republicans and liberal Democrats, that a few radicals were good seasoning for both parties as long as they were not too many of them, ensuring that all of the people would be represented in Congress. He suggests that it might be a good thing if there were an extreme labor leader once in a while in Congress, as a matter of education. He finds that all people needed to be represented so that justice could be done and revolution avoided. "Trying to make the American Constitution and the Declaration sacred is just as bad as trying to say that The Bible is the word of God from cover to cover. Nothing is sacred except people's rights as human beings."
A letter writer from East Hampton, Conn., wonders how many readers remembered the poor workmanship and sloppy assembly of their new cars long after they had forgotten the good features. Characteristic of many of the late models was the aggravation of repeated expense and loss of valuable time in having numerous factory defects repaired after the new car warranty had expired. "So many people bought new cars in good faith only to find that their cars were just carelessly slapped together by what is known in the auto industry as the 'quick and dirty' method." He wonders how many had the guts to complain to the car manufacturers' top management long enough and strong enough to get a satisfactory result.
It came to be called "planned obsolescence" to ensure a ready market for each new model rollout, that if the old one was not worn out after a year or two, the almost annual styling changes rendered it practically obsolescent in terms of social acceptance by one's neighbors. No one wanted to drive around in what was regarded as an old rattle-trap, an accident waiting to happen, yesteryear's drawings rendered in steel, though the car was only two years old. Enter Ralph Nader eventually to change all of that. Those dummies who think he was only responsible for the cornering of the Corvair and elimination of it eventually, do not understand the broader picture. Try reading for a change and not becoming transfixed on the one shiny thing on which the opposition seeks your focus, thus able to limit their contra argument to the shiny thing—shall we call it the Trump Method of Debate.
When, incidentally, for Ga-hawd's sake, are the ICE saviours of the people and the little furry animals going finally to break through the otherwise impenetrable Democrat sanctuary wall into Springfield, O., to rescue all of the little would-be Crickets from the insatiable appetites of the Haitian immigrants, ruining our country by eating the little Crickets rather than doing the humane thing and taking them out to the quarry and putting a bullet through their heads? When? Oh, please be there. Come to Springfield. Protect the doggies and kitties, and the whales, too. Pra-haise Ga-hawd.
We suggest, by the way, strongly that El Presidente continue with his strenuous effort to manipulate and change the records from the 2020 election by seizing all of the ballots, to show eventually that he won by 80 million votes. For by doing so, he would automatically disqualify himself from having run in 2024, by virtue of the 22nd Amendment limiting a person to election to two terms. Thus, the only thing to do in that event would be to install the runner-up in the 2024 election and remove El Presidente. Keep up the good work!
For every thing you take from us, smart guy, we shall get every bit of it back in due course
Framed Edition
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