Charlotte was the only city in the country of 100,000 or more population without a zoning ordinance.

The piece asserts that the interests of the majority of the people of the city should be placed ahead of the small number of private interests who would suffer somewhat under the proposed ordinance.

But in November, 1945, with the war over and the prospect of coal strikes making oil a more desirable source of fuel, Esso began drilling 1,620 feet southwest of Hatteras Light off the North Carolina coast, to determine whether this geological study had been correct. In the process, Esso wore out 50 rock bits, drilling to a depth of 8,516 feet at a cost of $477,000, to find no oil.

Nevertheless, Esso determined the effort to be worthwhile in justifying further search for oil off the North Carolina coast. A search was presently underway at Esso Number Two off of Pamlico Sound, at an underwater drilling cost of $25,000 per month, perhaps accounting for why, in rhyme and reason, Esso later changed its name.

Esso cautioned in the pamphlet, however, that the odds were long against finding petroleum.

While the presence of the greatest tar-producing region in the world—hence the "Tar Heel" state, from the location of those tar deposits being in the heel of the state, visualized as a shoe—would naturally predict the presence of petroleum, obviously Esso was using its tax advantages derived from drilling dry wells.

It was perhaps wise and a lesson in foresight, to avoid embarrassing nomenclature, that the first effort in 1945 was not originally dubbed "Esso A". Of course, they could have simply obviated the subsequent problem by going with the Ford classifications and claimed a play on letters, much as the auto industry for decades sat on the electric car and other alternatives to gasoline-powered locomotion at the cost, nearly irreversibly, to our environment.

Academic freedom, it posits, did not include having a professor press a particular viewpoint on students, but rather to enable students to address an issue from all sides, search for facts, and then marshal those facts to a sensible conclusion based on them. But while Mr. Rankin might disagree with a professor, there was a question as to whether he could purge such faculty and whether such an attempt would degenerate into an attack on academic freedom.

The piece agrees that teaching of subversive ideas ought be investigated and eliminated, but questions whether HUAC could properly administer such a task, given its track record.

Of course, the real question was what is "subversive teaching". One person's "subversive teaching" might be another's notions of critical philosophical inquiry into certain traditions held dear by those who wed themselves to emotion rather than objective analysis and inquiry. Teaching of evolution and Darwinian theory of survival of the fittest, for example, was, and sometimes still is, considered subversive by the religious right, should you wish to call them "religious" and not, in and of themselves, quite subversive vis-a-vis established principles of rationalistic inquiry, principles of logical analysis, from premises to conclusion, which are antecedent to Christianity itself, not in the least detracting from Christian doctrine when viewed doctrinally as a matter of faith in the spirit, not materiality, in the first instance.

The President seemed genuinely eager to get along with the Republican Congress.

He mentions the gathering of former New Dealers in Washington at a meeting of the Union for Democratic Action, the meeting which included Eleanor Roosevelt, Mayor Hubert Humphrey of Minneapolis, former Congressman Jerry Voorhis, Congresswoman Helen Gahagan Douglas, Leon Henderson, Chester Bowles, and Paul Porter, among others.

Upon seeing the group, the chief economist for the AFL had stated: "The government in exile!"

The proposal of House Ways & Means chairman Harold Knutson for a 20 percent tax reduction for those earning less than $300,000, encompassing all but about a thousand taxpayers, appeared to have garnered more support among his colleagues than originally thought, including that of Senator Taft. The latter rationalized the reduction on the basis that many salaries of corporate executives were inflated to enable payment of high taxes and that reduction of taxes could mean reduction of these salaries, thus leading to reduction in prices.

The President had urged keeping taxes at their present levels, including wartime excise taxes. The Republicans wanted forthwith to eliminate all of the excise taxes, save perhaps that on liquor, leaving about half of the present excise tax revenue.

Mr. Childs warns against passing the buck to a subsequent generation by allowing the debt to continue unabated, through the device of lowering taxes to appeal to the current electorate in the short term. The price of the war, much of which went to lend-lease, had saved the country from both physical destruction at home and much higher casualties abroad. The least sacrifice which could be made was now to begin to retire that debt, as the President had proposed.

None of the editorial comment had mentioned the still homeless veterans and the housing shortage. The President favored the Wagner-Ellender-Taft long-term housing bill. But the Republcians had not yet given their imprimatur to it. Indeed, they appeared in favor of turning housing exclusively over to the private sector, with virtually no controls attached to insure production of low-cost housing geared to the pocketbooks of veterans.

Thus, Mr. Grafton concludes, it was a star-crossed unity which left out millions in the process of engendering cuddly feelings.

The editors respond that there was no central detention home for juveniles but a system of private homes operating under the County Department of Welfare. The small number of juveniles charged with serious crimes were sometimes detained in the City or County jail facility.

While sounding well and good, this rather Pollyannaish view of life in Washington would be no more successful than an attempt to fly without an airplane. Such a President would immediately be regarded as a lame duck and thus ignored by Congress, relegated to the confines of the White House, a politically impotent non-entity. Like it or not, the ability to stand for re-election and to impact party apparatus for the ensuing nominee after a second term is part of the balance of power built into the Constitution to enable a relatively strong Chief Executive. Arguably, when Congress determined to limit the President to two terms, as recommended by President Truman, it invalidated a major part of the executive power, even if only utilized beyond two terms by FDR under emergent circumstances. Under the former system, the President could never be regarded as a lame duck.

Mr. Truman, having been a politically savvy Senator for a decade before joining the Executive Branch, undoubtedly understood this idea very well.

Parenthetically, we note again the curious notion imparted in Jacques Lowe's 1983 photographic essay, Kennedy: A Time Remembered, in which Mr. Lowe quotes Lady Bird Johnson as having recommended to President Johnson, shortly after he became President, as they discussed whether he would run in 1964, that he should do so and then not run in 1968, announcing that decision early in that year, to enable him to have time in retirement with his family, knowing that the Johnson men did not enjoy longevity—of course, as he would ultimately decide to do, announcing the decision in March, 1968, based at the time, he said, on his desire to devote his full attention to the Paris Peace Talks and ending the war in Vietnam. The cynics have another view of that decision, that he believed he could not win. The conspiracy diviners have yet another view, that he was forced out on threat of revelation of matters which would destroy his legacy, etc., those matters always being vague and whipped largely out of thin air. Had any such thing existed, why would it have not been used by the other side in 1964? In all likelihood, his decision was simply the result of his genuine desire to end the war, the hope that a President who was not politically motivated to achieve re-election might effect a better result than one distracted by the vicissitudes of a campaign.

That proved otherwise, and also, incidentally, stuck us with a conservative Supreme Court, beginning with the failed Chief Justice nomination of Justice Abe Fortas in 1968, in response to filibuster by segregationist Southern Democrats. That conservative Supreme Court majority, begun under President Nixon, despite changing times, still persists to this day. We still live with fading remnants of the ghost of Richard Nixon.

When finally the will of the majority of the people, and, moreover, the will of the Constitution, on the direction the law ought take, liberal, is again recognized, not based on intellectual dishonesty to render a decision which is preordained by political ideology, not based on political advertising and brainwashing to ensconce "conservatism" as an expression, indeed, the only expression tolerable, of Americanism, we shall be restored as a republic based on democratic expression. Until then...

We simply mention it because it dovetails with Mr. Beasley's piece. If you think it subversive, we do not care. You can join Mr. Rankin and Mr. Nixon on the ash heap of history.