The Charlotte News
Saturday, October 9, 1954
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that in Paris, Premier Pierre Mendes-France this date had predicted, in an interview with Malcolm Forbes, a Republican State Senator from New Jersey who was editor and publisher of Forbes Magazine of Business, that the French National Assembly would ratify within 60 days the decisions made the previous week by the nine-power London conference to enable rearmament of West Germany, but that the ratification would be won only after "a hard fight". The Premier had asked that the Assembly give him a vote of confidence the following day, which would approve generally the decisions made at the conference, and he wanted support for the additional agreements, the final details of which had not yet been negotiated, before the Assembly would be asked to ratify the decisions in their final forms, which would not occur for about 60 days. The Premier planned to visit the U.S. the following month to hold discussions with President Eisenhower, and a vote on the agreements, he said, would take place after his return. Regarding debate in the Assembly the previous day, he said that if a vote had been taken at that time, he believed it would have been 240 in support and 220 opposed, with 180 abstaining, after the substance of the agreements had not been attacked but many deputies like himself had expressed criticism of the lesser points of the agreement which were not all to the liking of France. He had halted what appeared to be the prospect of an all-night debate, telling the Assembly at midnight that it must either agree to the plan formed by the conference or get a new government, warning the deputies that if they voted him out, they might have to face new national elections.
The agreements formed in London would permit West Germany to rearm as part of an expanded Brussels Treaty Organization, presently comprised of Britain, France and the Benelux countries, to be expanded to include Italy and West Germany, and would also provide West Germany full membership in NATO, with full sovereignty for West Germany to come soon. The agreement was intended as a replacement for the rejected ratification by France of the European Defense Community plan for a unified army between France, Italy, West Germany and the Benelux countries. France had been reluctant to ratify that treaty without assurances from Britain and the U.S. that they would oversee West German rearmament to ensure that it did not get out of control, potentially causing a rearmed Germany, France's old nemesis, to become a threat to French security.
The U.S. this date accused Russia of having "willfully and knowingly" lied about the shooting down of a B-50 bomber over the Sea of Japan in July, 1953, resulting in 16 Americans dead or missing, filing a formal damage claim for about 2.8 million dollars. The U.S. challenged Russia, should it deny the claim, to join in presenting the dispute to the International Court of Justice at The Hague. Three of the persons aboard the aircraft were known to be dead, with 13 missing and one, the copilot, having been rescued. A series of previous diplomatic notes had not responded to inquiries as to the fate of the missing, indicating that there had been Soviet rescue ships in the area. Two weeks earlier, the U.S. had asked for about 1.5 million dollars from Russia for the shooting down of a B-29 off northern Japan in October, 1952, attaching the same contingency of presenting the dispute to the International Court of Justice should Russia deny the claim.
In Blackpool, England, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, speaking before the Conservative Party annual conference this date, warned the Western world, including Britain's left-wing Socialists, against taunting the U.S. into a policy of isolationism, which, he said, would condemn all of Europe to Soviet conquest. He pledged to continue to work for a system of peaceful coexistence with the Soviet Union, based on Western strength and unity, appearing to squelch rumors that he intended soon to retire. He said that the Russians could readily overrun all of Europe but for America's superior strength in atomic and hydrogen bombs, which would continue as a decisive deterrent against Communist aggression. He said that the decision of the West to free and rearm West Germany to buttress the Atlantic alliance "may well become a monument and a milestone in our march toward … peaceful coexistence" with the Soviets, urging the free world to extend the hand of friendship to the West German people and "let Hitler take his shame to hell." He said that Germany's "fearful deeds" in the past would never have occurred had Hitler not had "despotic personal power". Regarding the U.S., he said that there was no other case of a nation arriving at "the summit of world power, seeking no territorial gain, but earnestly resolved to use her strength and wealth in the case of progress and freedom." He indicated that had the conception been apparent to the U.S. governments of 50 years earlier, the world might have escaped the two world wars, and that "for America to withdraw into isolation would condemn all Europe to Russian Communist subjugation and our famous and beloved island to death and ruin…"
In Denver, the President had stated the previous night, in a midterm election campaign nationwide television and radio broadcast, that he foresaw "a cold war of partisan politics" should the Democrats regain control of Congress in the midterm elections, to occur November 2. He spoke immediately before a capacity crowd of 5,500 persons at a Republican rally in the Denver Auditorium, held in response to requests from party Congressional leaders to step up the campaign tempo in the face of feared loss of both houses. He said that history showed that when the executive and legislative branches were politically in conflict, politics in Washington "runs riot". He indicated that one could not have "one car with two drivers at the steering wheel and expect to end up any place but the ditch—especially when the drivers are set on going in different directions." He had been interrupted by applause at least 42 times, causing the broadcast address, lasting 30 minutes, to be cut off about 30 seconds before he completed the speech. The broadcast had been carried over 158 television channels and 534 radio stations, paid for by the RNC.
A late bulletin indicates that the FBI had arrested Joseph Petersen, Jr., 40, a former employee of the National Security Agency, on charges of improperly obtaining secret documents connected with national defense.
In Fort Lewis, Wash., Army Master Sergeant Arne Stenslie, from North Dakota, 63, who had been a veteran of 32 years of military service, including a stint beginning in mid-1950 in the Korean War as part of the Second Infantry Division, had returned home with the same outfit two days earlier. Others had come home earlier as part of the rotation home of Korean War veterans, but Sgt. Stenslie, who had been wounded seriously on one occasion and hurt in battle several times, had remained. He said that he did not wish to talk much about the combat experience in Korea, saying that he had been shot seriously in the face on the one occasion and could not see for about two minutes, thinking he was blind, then rubbing his eyes, after silently praying that another bullet would come along and end it all, suddenly being able to see the flash of enemy mortar rounds going off, realizing that he was not blind, the happiest moment of his life. He would not have been there had he not given up his captain's commission when he reached the compulsory officer's retirement age of 60, requiring that he quit or re-enlist as a non-commissioned officer. Choosing the latter course, he became a master sergeant with the famed 23rd "Tomahawk" Regiment, being the head of a front-line Ranger platoon in Korea, charged with protecting the regiment's command post. He recounted some of that action.
In Norfolk, Va., the Coast Guard reported this date that five men had been picked up and that there were many survivors from a previously missing ore freighter which had been sighted about 150 miles east southeast off Cape Henry, Va. One of the rescued men said that the 6,000-ton freighter had capsized, and Coast Guard officials speculated that it had sunk early Thursday during high winds and rough seas. The freighter was reported to have 48 crew members aboard and no passengers. It had been sighted by one of 12 search planes, which had been supplemented also by two Navy blimps.
In Wichita Falls, Tex., 14 persons were missing this date after fire had destroyed a three-story hotel and four other business establishments. A captain of the fire department said it would be later in the day before it was definitely known whether anyone had died in the fire, which had started late the previous day. The fire chief said it was possible that some persons had been trapped in the 75-room hotel, which had 27 guests registered, more than a dozen of whom had exited safely via the fire escape, leaving 14 persons missing. No cause of the fire is stated.
In New York, a male boarder in a Harlem apartment, claiming "they wanted to poison" him, had beaten to death a four-year old child, her grandmother, and a 14-year old girl the previous day. He had, according to police, swung a baseball bat at police as they closed in on him, shouting: "Come and get me. I did it." Police said that he had placed dollar bills in the clothes of each of the victims "to ward off evil spirits". He had told police that after drinking his morning coffee at the apartment, he discovered on the way to work at a nickel plating firm that he was spitting up blood, convincing him that he had been poisoned. He also told police that his alleged victims had tried to make him "marry" the family dog.
In Springfield, Mass., an 18-year old high school sophomore was arrested the previous day in connection with a knife slaying two weeks earlier of a 14-year old babysitter and her four-year old charge. Police said that the arrested boy had been a pallbearer at the girl's funeral and had admitted the slayings in a signed statement. He was described by teachers and friends as a "good … quiet boy" and no one could offer a reason for the double homicide. He was a Boy Scout leader, who had never previously been in trouble with the police, with his only known vice being chain-smoking cigarettes, otherwise being calm as he explained the slayings and readily signed his statement. He informed the police as to where they could locate the knife he had utilized in the homicides, as well as his blood-stained clothing, both of which were within his home. The police chief ruled out any sexual motivation for the crimes and quoted the boy as saying that he had begun stabbing and beating the girl the moment she opened the door admitting him to the apartment where she was babysitting the child, at which point he heard the little boy crying, went to his bed and stabbed him and beat him with the wooden handle of the knife. The bodies had been discovered when the child's parents had returned after a movie. The babysitter had been stabbed 34 times and her neck was broken, the child having been stabbed 24 times with his skull fractured. The police chief said that the accused recalled every detail of the slayings except how many times he had stabbed each victim. He said that he had gone home, washed his clothes and cleaned the knife, hid them, and then gone to bed. The chief said that a piece of crochet thread found in the apartment where the slayings had taken place, matching a thread found wrapped around the handle of the knife to secure a better grip, led back to the boy's home. The father of the slain child said that he felt terribly sorry for the boy's parents as he knew what they had to be going through, that the boy had ruined three families. He was to be arraigned this date on charges of murder.
In Miami, Fla., it was reported that Hurricane Hazel whirled its 125 mph winds into the central Caribbean Sea this date, still on a west northwest track, posing no immediate threat to land. Navy hurricane-hunter planes were no longer seeking to penetrate the storm because of its violence, having been warned away after a crewman of one such Navy plane had been injured. The San Juan, Puerto Rico, Weather Bureau called the hurricane "very dangerous". It was expected to continue on its current course in the open Caribbean this date, which would take it south of Jamaica, presently about 850 miles south southeast of Miami, moving at a forward speed of about eight mph. Gale winds were said to be extending outward 200 miles to the north and 100 miles to the south of the center of the hurricane, within 75 miles of which the winds measured 125 mph in the northern semicircle, as well within 30 miles of the center in the southern semicircle.
On the editorial page, "Repeal Absentee Ballot Law" indicates that in 1939, the Legislature had reacted to abuses in the absentee ballot procedures by abolishing it in the primary elections. It finds that the wisdom of the action had been emphasized again during the week in Graham County, wherein, according to North Carolina Secretary of State Thad Eure, absentee ballots were being sold for as much is $85 each, prompting an investigation by the SBI.
Absentee voting was still allowed in general elections for those who were ill, would be away on election day, and for members of the armed services. In Graham County, elections were held under a special act which allowed anyone who might be unable to vote on election day to obtain and cast an absentee ballot.
Despite a small population, with only 2,970 votes registered in the 1952 general election, Graham County had issued 342 absentee ballots to civilians and 84 to members of the military through October 7, whereas Mecklenburg County, which had 77,388 voters in the 1952 general election, had issued only 84 absentee ballots thus far, including those issued to members of the armed forces.
State Attorney General Harry McMullan had moved with commendable dispatch in sending the SBI to investigate the situation, and, it urges, those who might be found guilty of buying and selling absentee ballots ought be prosecuted and punished. But to remove the incentive for such fraud, the system should be repealed by the 1955 General Assembly, to enable only men and women in military service to receive absentee ballots in North Carolina elections.
"Protecting the Tar Heel Worker" indicates that there was no need for alarm regarding proposals for a reduction in Workmen's Compensation insurance rates within the state, as it would only mean that loss ratios had been somewhat reduced because of fewer industrial accidents in the state, and that if the changes were approved, benefits would not be decreased, as the amount of compensation was set by statute. Hearings on the proposed rate reductions, averaging 2.8 percent, saving policyholders an estimated $429,000 per year, would be held on October 11 in Raleigh.
It indicates that something over which North Carolinians should have even greater concern was the woefully inadequate scale of benefits which the law currently allowed, that for a total disability, the present act provided payment of a weekly compensation to an employee of "not more than $30 up to a maximum of $3,000" overall. It finds that in modern times, that sum was inadequate to provide the worker the protection he needed and deserved, to enable him to maintain himself and his family while regaining his health after sickness or injury preventing his continued work. If the worker had no savings, he might have to become dependent upon private charity or public relief.
It concludes that the outdated law needed complete revision in the General Assembly in 1955, and that one Mecklenburg legislator had already announced that he would renew his advocacy for liberal changes. It hopes that other members of the county's delegation would follow suit.
"Do Write-In Candidates Ever Win?" indicates that political scientists and politicians were awaiting the outcome of a dispute in South Carolina within the state Democratic Party in the upcoming Senate election to fill the seat vacated by the late Senator Burnet Maybank, who had died September 1 after winning renomination without opposition in the regular June primary. Instead of calling a new primary before the November 2 general election, the state Democratic executive committee had named State Senator Edgar Brown as the party's official candidate on the November ballot, prompting former Governor Strom Thurmond to enter the race as a write-in candidate.
The latter had attracted powerful support throughout the state and some pundits believed he would win the election. If he were to do so, it would be the first major race in the country since 1900, according to Library of Congress files, won by a write-in vote.
The most spectacular recent attempt at a write-in vote had been in 1952 in the Minnesota presidential primary, wherein General Eisenhower had received over 108,000 such votes against more than 128,000 regular votes for Harold Stassen, whose name had been on the ballot.
In a Colorado county two weeks earlier, 80 voters had written in the name of Republican Representative John Saylor of Pennsylvania, part of an organized protest to development of the upper Colorado River, Mr. Saylor having been deemed the county's best friend in Washington regarding the water diversion fight, after Colorado Representative Wayne Aspinall had fought for the project and Mr. Saylor had led the battle against it.
In 1947, Herman Talmadge nearly won the gubernatorial race in Georgia, with his name not on the ballot until 1948. His father, former Governor Eugene Talmadge, had died in 1946 after winning the general election that year, and the Georgia General Assembly had named the younger Talmadge to replace him, until the State Supreme Court had decided later that the elected Lt. Governor, M. E. Thompson, was the legal successor and that the Legislature had no authority to determine otherwise.
In 1944, Representative Hampton Fulmer of South Carolina had died after being renominated without opposition, but Governor Olin Johnston had ordered a primary in one district of the state for November 1, six days before the general election, with John Jacob Riley winning in a three-way race. It indicates that while that procedure had worked in 1944, it was not being followed at present.
It concludes therefore that Mr. Thurmond would not only be battling Mr. Brown, but also would be battling tradition.
A piece from the Greensboro Daily News, titled "We Got Shoes", indicates that Southerners took some offense at the stereotype sometimes prevailing that they did not wear shoes. The citizenry of Hickory, N.C, had been "miffed" at some remarks made by Hilda Yoder to Broadway columnist Earl Wilson, saying, as a native of Catawba County but now a resident of New York City and originator of the Yoder Reading Improvement Center, that she was "a barefoot hillbilly from Hickory, N.C.", and that when she had gone to the Catawba founding celebration, she did not know whether to show up with her shoes on or off. In consequence, the people of Hickory and Catawba County wanted the world to know that they were not "hillbillies" and that they did wear shoes.
Former Secretary of Labor under FDR, Frances Perkins, had rankled some Southerners with her statement some years earlier regarding Southerners not wearing shoes.
It indicates, however, that there was nothing wrong with going barefoot, that it did not suggest barbarity or that shoes necessarily indicated civilized culture. David, Solomon, Pericles, Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Caesar, Asoka, Gautama Buddha, Mohammed, St. Francis of Assisi, and Gandhi had all forgone shoes, or at least only donned sandals, while Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin had worn shoes.
It concludes that Southerners wore shoes because the pavement was hot in summer and cold in winter.
Drew Pearson indicates that the inside story had never been told of how the railroads had pressured the President to cut their taxes or provide them an outright subsidy to enable them to compete with the subsidized large airlines. A lobbyist for the Association of American Railroads, who had played golf with the President, arranged a meeting with him, accompanied by the presidents of the Santa Fe and Southern railroads, and the former president of the Pennsylvania Railroad. At the meeting, they complained to the President that the big airlines received favored treatment from the Government, consisting of Government-supplied safety signals, weather reports, heavy mail subsidies and, in some cases, tax-free airports. Meanwhile, the railroads built their own railroad stations and tracks, while paying heavy taxes. The President had appeared impressed and asked the railroad men to submit a written report, which they did two weeks later, complaining about the "selective diversion of the better-paying government freight, passenger, and mail traffic to subsidized competitors of the railroads", meaning the airlines. The report named the Defense Department, the General Services Administration and the Commerce Department as the three principal offenders, and suggested that the big airlines be required to pay their own way or subsidies be extended to the railroads, that the airlines had to be taxed more or the railroads less, and that the railroads had to be regulated less or at least their competitors regulated equally. The President had referred the report to an aide, indicating that he should contact each department named and obtain from it written opinions and recommendations.
Eventually, Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson responded by denying the claims of the railroads, indicating that the Defense Department was not discriminating against them, as shown by the facts that the railroads handled 58.9 percent of the defense freight traffic and 55.2 percent of defense passenger traffic. He also said that the Department was planning to increase airline rentals from $3,000 to $12,000. He also suggested creation of a department of transportation, which would oversee all phases of transportation problems, not just economic problems and economic regulations.
Meanwhile, a Cabinet committee had been set up to study the railroad problem, and a similar study was being undertaken by the Hoover Commission, with it now appearing that the Cabinet committee would recommend favorably the suggestions made by the railroads, while the Hoover Commission would recommend the exact opposite.
The courts martial of the two corporals who had been coaxed back from the Communists following the end of the Korean War, Edward Dickenson and Claude Batchelor, were only the beginning, as the Army was preparing to court-martial another 30 men, narrowed down from 200, all accused of aiding the enemy while they had been prisoners of war of the Communists during the Korean War. The Justice Department had been given the case histories of a dozen other men, presently civilians.
The recent Soviet hydrogen bomb test had showered Japan with radioactivity far higher than that which had occurred during the U.S. tests the prior spring in the Pacific, contaminating Japanese fishermen aboard a fishing vessel some 80 miles from ground zero, outside the supposedly safe perimeter established by the Atomic Energy Commission. Despite the Soviet contamination, the Japanese press had been so busy stirring up anti-American feeling over the death of one of the fishermen, the so-called American H-bomb victim, that it had hardly mentioned the Russian-caused radioactivity. Mr. Pearson points out that actually the fisherman who had died had yellow jaundice, which he had contracted from infected blood following a transfusion, and had not died from radioactive poisoning, the reason why American doctors were never permitted to examine him.
Time, in a piece titled "The Vanishing Negro", indicates that zoologist Curt Stern of the University of California, writing in Scientific American, had posited that the American "Negro", being relatively new as a group of mankind, existing for only 300 years and being already notably mixed, with two-thirds of their genetic material coming from Africa and the remainder from Europe and more than 78 percent of American Negroes having some non-African genes, would, by 1980, be virtually devoid of pure African descent.
According to Dr. Stern, there would still be plenty of dark-skinned Negroes, but skin color was a superficial characteristic rather than a dependable indicator of racial origin. Heredity produced many dark-skinned Negroes with thin lips and many light-skinned Negroes with thick lips, with one type being as mixed as the other. But the white population judged chiefly by skin color, usually considering the darker to be more authentically Negro. A light-skinned Negro could pass as white, although in other respects than skin color, he might be strongly Negro.
Dr. Stern predicted that over the generations, more light-skinned Negroes would be born, and would tend, even at the present rate of interracial mating, to diffuse into the white population. The "passing" of light-skinned individuals could leave the remaining Negroes darker, on average, than they presently were, while on the other hand, an influx of European genes could balance the loss and further dilute the Negro population.
Dr. Stern said that most of the original African genes would be widely dispersed within the numerically dominant white population and their incorporation would make no change except to produce a slight darkening of the national skin. Eventually, there would be a few thousand black people in each generation, and they would probably have straight hair, thick lips and thin noses.
Dr. Stern had stated: "If some person now living could return at that distant time, he would ask and wonder: 'What became of the Negro?'"
We have used the discarded term "Negro" in summarizing this piece, as it states the racial group of the time with whom Dr. Stern was concerned, whereas "black" or "African-American" might not have the precise meaning as did "American Negro", in terms of racial composition and identity in 1954, and are not contextually consistent with the subject of the piece.
Bill Mauldin, who had won fame as an
editorial cartoonist during World War II, continuing that occupation
after the war, writing in The Reporter, tells of his son
picking up from him some purple language, which Mr. Mauldin
He quotes from the late Harold Ross, former editor of the New Yorker, who had once told him that he managed to stay off radio programs by being "a profane son of a bitch by nature, and whenever one of those damned literary roundtables or something would call up," he would say, "'Why, hell yes, I'll be glad to sit on your damned panel or whatever the hell you call it.'" After going on that way for a couple more sentences, the person never would call back and word had gotten around that he could not draw a breath without cussing. (We supply the otherwise omitted expletives.)
Mr. Mauldin indicates that he had gotten his eldest son, currently in the first grade, pretty much straightened out the previous year before he was able to corrupt too many kindergarten playmates or caused to be sent home warning notes from the teacher, the formula having been to becloud the use of a cuss word which his son would say, justifying his use by saying he had heard his father say it. For instance, Mr. Mauldin would say to his son that he had not heard him use the word, that he had, in fact, said "got damaged" and that Helena, Montana, was that which was damaged. Or, maybe he would say that he had said "got down", couldn't get up, "son of a bit my finger", in Helena, Montana, "got damaged by fire". In most cases, his son would quickly lose interest and would also suspect his father of having become a little cuckoo, thus discouraging the imitative tendencies.
He tells of the trick having not worked, however, with the second eldest, who was just starting nursery school during the fall, as his purple vocabulary surpassed even that of his father, as his childish imagination took whole strings of expletives and ran them into new combinations, a couple of times being so shockingly profane that Mr. Mauldin found himself spending the rest of the day in sober silence. Yet, he swore only in front of his father and remained the soul of innocence otherwise.
Making things even worse for him, his wife had enrolled their son in a new nursery school recently, organized by a local group of progressive, high-minded young parents, sending out an informational pamphlet stating that on bringing the child in the morning, parents or the driver should remain until the child had been examined and accepted by the teacher. That caused Mr. Mauldin to reflect on the possibility that when he drove his son to the nursery school, he would be waiting in line behind him with all the other parent-drivers, and when his son was asked whether he had any traumas to report, would respond: "No, but that ___ ___ ___ behind me made me finish every ___ ___ ___ smidge of my cereal." Mr. Mauldin suggests that, more often than not, he would then have to bring his son right home.
We refrain from supplying the omissions in the latter sentence as we do not know how purple it got, and furthermore do not wish to encourage profanity in nursery schoolers. But now, as slightly older than nursery school, you are left to fill the blanks with your imaginations. Which is worse or better? We, ourselves, when in kindergarten, were so concerned about utterance of the word "belly" in mixed company before the class that we had to have our papa accompany us and state the word during our verbatim reading otherwise of "'Twas the Night Before Christmas", and without any surreptitious cloak of artifice or irony in the process. We say, "reading", incidentally, without remembrance of things past as to whether it was actually reading or the product of rote memorization, possibly a mix of the two, but "belly" was right out. Honi soit qui mal y pense.
A letter writer asks that the correct mailing address be provided for the National Association for Advancement of White People, which the editors duly provide.
A letter writer thanks the newspaper for its editorial putting the record straight on Vice-President Nixon's false claim of the Administration being responsible for kicking thousands of Communists out of the Government. He says that more political deceit had followed immediately afterward, the "shameful, goofy desegregation law" and the "shameful mess our public school systems are being subjected to". He wonders when it had become necessary for the Government to "aid and abet civil strife" to please some "group of goofs overseas", apparently referring to Communists. He finds the Administration not to be keeping faith with the American people.
A letter writer indicates that News reporter Donald MacDonald, in an article the previous Monday regarding a "Boy Walking in His Sleep and Falling from the Window", had shown the newspaper to have a keen sense of humor. He adds to the report, however, that the boy had been injured in an automobile wreck the previous April, spending 18 days in the hospital, and was now in the hospital indefinitely, that he had injured his forehead and required 89 stitches, that since the automobile accident, had constantly complained of severe headaches and sore eyes, having also bad nerves and lacking appetite. In the fall out of the window, he had broken his left arm and had been stuck by a substantial tree limb in his hip, concluding that he knew so much about the boy because he was his father. "Some joke, don't you think."
Assuming the father was referring to this briefly related story, without a by-line, and without any ostensible hint of intending humor to be derived from the unfortunte incident, he may be reacting a bit defensively on the matter. Had the story, for instance, said something like, "A boy injured his hip and broke his arm in a fall from his bedroom window while performing as a somnambulist, apparently aspiring in dreams to becoming a funambulist, winding up needing, upon awakening, an ambulance for taking one step too many in nocturnal, arboreal perambulation," then perhaps he would have had ground to register complaint of engendering some degree of risibility, albeit somewhat invisibly, at the boy's expense.
A letter writer suggests to Charlotte ministers that they call on God for help in relieving the drought, quoting several verses of the Bible.
A letter from a dentist indicates that after seven days of public hearings by a Congressional committee regarding the benefits and potential harm of water fluoridation, during which 18 witnesses, qualified by training and background, representing both sides of the issue, had presented their views and recommendations, the committee unanimously had recommended that communities proceed slowly before fluoridating their water supplies. The previous year, Congressman A. L. Miller of Nebraska, a former health director and a doctor, had introduced a bill in Congress to permit the District of Columbia to add fluoride to its water supply, but after serving on the aforementioned committee and hearing the evidence from experts, he said he had been convinced that he had been wrong.
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