The Charlotte News
Friday, November 12, 1954
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that Senator George Malone of Nevada had said this date that Senator McCarthy had been made the "whipping boy" in a move aimed at destroying the investigative powers of the Senate. Senator Malone had previously indicated his opposition to the proposed censure of Senator McCarthy, expressing the view in a brief exchange with Senate Majority Leader William Knowland, who commented that Senator Malone's contention was "worthy of debate". Senator Knowland said that he hoped the Senators would maintain an open mind until the vote on the censure resolution and that he would be against any reduction in the investigative powers of the Senate and the House. Among Republicans this date, the third day of debate on the censure resolution, there appeared to be some compromise among Republicans, but not among Democrats regarding the matter. For the most part, Democrats preferred not to comment. Senator Sam Ervin of North Carolina, a member of the six-Senator select committee which had unanimously recommended censure, told reporters that there had been no discussion in the committee regarding a suggestion from Senator Francis Case of South Dakota, also a member of the committee, that Senator McCarthy could "purge" himself of the charges by an appropriate apology. Senator Ervin said that he would have to see the quality of the repentance before he would express any opinion on it. Senator Knowland said that he had not seen a substitute resolution which Senator Everett Dirksen of Illinois said had been drafted in an effort at compromise, with Senator Dirksen declining to describe it or whether it had been discussed with Senator McCarthy.
Appearing before the joint Committee on Atomic Energy, Atomic Energy Commission chairman Lewis Strauss said this date that the controversy surrounding the Dixon-Yates contract between the private utility combine out of Arkansas and the AEC to supply electricity via TVA lines to West Memphis, Ark., had not affected the weapons program. He said that a misleading impression had been conveyed to the contrary during the hearings. AEC commissioner Thomas Murray had testified on November 6 that it would be impossible to estimate the degree to which the Commission's attention had been diverted from its primary responsibilities by the issue, and that it was increasing neither the country's weapons know-how nor its weapons production at a time when that was of utmost importance. Admiral Strauss, however, testified that he had studied the minutes of AEC meetings and found that the Dixon-Yates matter had involved something less than three percent of the Commission's discussions.
In Cleveland, O., the trial of Dr. Sam Sheppard, accused of first-degree murder in the death of his wife, Marilyn, by beating on July 4, continued, with the testimony of Fred Drenkhan, the first police officer to enter the bedroom where Mrs. Sheppard had been found, indicating that there were no signs discovered that anyone had entered the Sheppard home from outside through a window. He said that only one of three bedroom windows had been open when he inspected the room shortly after Mrs. Sheppard was discovered dead. He said the screen of that window had been securely latched and there was dust on the window sill, that the other two windows had been locked. In previous testimony during the trial, defense attorneys had sought to establish through cross-examination that someone might have come into the bedroom by climbing an apple tree at the rear of the home and entering through one of the windows. The officer also testified that he observed no evidence of a struggle in the bedroom, but saw blood specks on all four walls and on a closet door. He said he observed a second bed in the bedroom, which was "open" with specks of blood on the sheets. He said that there appeared to be no evidence that anyone had slept in the second bed, that it appeared that it had been turned back in preparation for someone intending to sleep there, that the second bed was about four feet from Mrs. Sheppard's bed, where she was lying when discovered. He said that in the living room, he observed a secretary desk which had its three lower drawers pulled out, with papers strewn on the floor, and the fourth drawer, at the top, closed, that otherwise the room appeared normal. The officer was a social and police friend of Dr. Sheppard. Dr. Sheppard was maintaining that his wife was beaten to death by a bushy-haired intruder, whom he encountered after hearing his wife scream in the middle of the night, going upstairs from where he had been asleep on the living room couch, and there being knocked unconscious by the intruder when he tried to come to the aid of his wife. He had further told police originally that he shortly thereafter regained consciousness and gave chase to the intruder, who had exited the home toward the lakefront beach, and there encountered the intruder again, who again knocked him unconscious, that by the time he regained consciousness the second time, the intruder had left the scene. Dr. Sheppard had said that he then returned to the house and went upstairs, took his wife's pulse, found none, then called his neighbor, who was mayor of the village, and informed him that he believed "they have killed Marilyn". It indicates that a story regarding the trial from earlier in the day appears on page 9-A. The only thing it added was that the officer had testified that he was on patrol duty during the early morning of July 4, had driven by the Sheppard home five or six times and saw no strangers in the area. The prosecution estimated that it would conclude its case by the follwoing Friday.
In Nashua, N.H., the Red Wing, Boston & Maine, Montréal to Boston overnight passenger train had derailed as it approached the Nashua railway station early this date, killing one woman and injuring at least 19 passengers, including the woman's young daughter. Six of the seven cars of the train were on their sides as police and firemen rushed the injured to two hospitals. The cause of the accident was not yet determined.
In the San Diego area, a sharp, rolling earthquake had occurred at 4:30 a.m. this date, making houses creak and suspended objects swing, but with no reports of damage. An amateur seismologist rated the intensity of the earthquake at 6 on the Mercalli scale, which ranged up to 12. He said the tremors had lasted five or six minutes and he estimated the epicenter at about 70 miles southeast of San Diego, placing it somewhere in a sparsely settled area below the Mexican border in Lower California. He said that he believed it could cause damage at or near its center.
In Raleigh, it was reported that more than 620,000 North Carolinians had cast ballots in the November 2 midterm elections. Senator-elect Kerr Scott had defeated his Republican opponent by nearly a 2 to 1 ratio. The piece provides the returns from each of the Congressional districts.
In New Haven, Conn., a man was arrested for stealing 50 cents and a newspaper from an unattended newsstand, telling police that he wanted the money to buy breakfast and the newspaper to read while he ate it.
In Sydney, Australia, striking dockworkers agreed to unload 10,000 Hopalong Cassidy good luck medals from a freighter for distribution by the Western film actor who played the role, William Boyd, who was welcomed by 1,000 men, women and children, some coming from remote cattle ranches hundreds of miles away, upon his arrival at Darwin the previous night. The waterfront strike involved 26,000 men, seeking to force the Government to withdraw legislation which would give shipowners the right to recruit new labor, a right presently held exclusively by the dockers' union.
The President this date, in Toledo, O., took time to hunt ducks on Lake Erie with Secretary of the Treasury George Humphrey, the latter saying that they should have pretty good luck if it did not rain. The President had flown in from Kansas where he had spent the previous day in his boyhood hometown of Abilene dedicating a $325,000 Memorial Museum, commemorating his time as a soldier, and helping to celebrate Veterans Day. The daily bag limit on ducks in the area was four, but pheasants were also fair game, as the club where they would hunt was classified as a private pheasant preserve, permitting birds which the club had raised or released to be shot. Dinner was waiting when the President had arrived the previous night and the main item on the menu reportedly had been roast duck. The President's six-year old grandson, David, displays, in a photograph, his pistol-packing marksmanship, which he indicated had been used the previous day while he accompanied his grandfather at a Veterans Day address in Abilene. Whether Chester was in town, up from Dodge City, is not reported. He appears to have been loaned out to the Los Angeles Police Department as a criminalist, and so was likely not around. We make no comment about smoking guns, leaving it to the Interlandi of the day on the editorial page.
In Missoula, Mont., it was reported that a man, his son and another hunter were looking for Chinese pheasants in the lower Flathead Valley, and the father had entered a field, whereupon a large pinto pony had run up to him snorting, at which point he withdrew, as did the horse. He had then tried to enter the field a second time, but the pinto returned, this time running in a partial circle past the hunter and over to another horse, a bay. The three hunters followed the pinto to the bay and found it entangled in a five-strand barbed wire fence, and while they sought to free it, the pinto stood by. The father said that once they got the bay free, the pinto paid no more attention to them.
On the editorial page, "Streamlining Legislative Machinery" indicates that with the opening of the 1955 General Assembly approximately two months away, key political leaders were at work on plans to speed up legislative processes in the new session. It provides detail, indicates that new Governor Luther Hodges, while Lieutenant Governor, had, in the 1953 session, set an example as to how the list of committees in the State Senate could be pared down, and suggests that the House should follow suit in the new session.
"How about (Hic) Swapping Real Estate?" finds that diplomats of the East and West were pulling their punches and their toasts, that earlier in the month, at a Kremlin banquet celebrating the Bolshevik Revolution, Russian Foreign Minister V. M. Molotov had proposed a toast to Paris, saying he was against the Paris agreement. Then, U.S. Ambassador to Moscow, Charles Bohlen, complimented Mr. Molotov as the "most experienced diplomat" in the room, which it finds safe enough for Senators McCarthy and William Knowland, as it was a small room with few people present. Ambassador Bohlen had then toasted Mr. Molotov's "next visit to Washington", but hastened to inform reporters that it was not intended as an invitation.
It suggests that there had been a time when diplomats toasted without inhibition or reservation, that they had said so many things that they began to believe them and actually reached agreements, in keeping with Mark Twain's rule that "when the toast gets down to the babies, we all stand on common ground."
British Prime Minister Winston Churchill had proposed a toast at Yalta in February, 1945 to "the proletarian masses of the world", according to the late then-Secretary of State Edward Stettinius. Mr. Churchill, in his autobiography about the war, had told of his toast to FDR and Stalin as "champions of peace", declaring: "Marshal Stalin's life is most precious to the hopes and hearts of all of us… I find myself in a relation of friendship and intimacy with this great man…"
Stalin had then toasted Prime Minister Churchill as "the most courageous of all prime ministers in the world."
Following the toasts, by the time the two had reached Potsdam in July, 1945, they were ready to get down to serious negotiations over brandy, with Stalin attempting to throw Mr. Churchill off guard by asking for his autograph, Mr. Churchill's account of that incident being quoted in the piece.
It finds that it had been power politics without regard to how people back home might misconstrue the flattering phrases which preceded hard bargaining. Mr. Stettinius had observed that he was highly amused to notice that Stalin would drink half of his glass of vodka and, when he thought no one was watching, surreptitiously pour water into the glass.
It concludes that in retrospect, it appeared that some of the Western diplomats should also have cut their cognac.
"The Season" tells of the many signs of the Christmas season in Charlotte, which included, as the coda, "the blanket of smog early in the morning."
A piece from the Greensboro Daily News, titled "The W.P.P.A.", indicates that the initials in the title stood for West Point Protective Association, a mythical body which, according to legend, made certain that West Point graduates never let another graduate down. The Association, it was informed, flourished, even when West Point men were no longer on active duty "but fading, fading, fading away."
Thus, the recently appointed general manager of the Atomic Energy Commission's various installations was Maj. General H. K. Nichols and the recently appointed chairman of TVA was Brig. General Herbert Vogel of the Corps of Engineers. The head of the security board which had paved the way for the firing of career diplomat John Paton Davies had been Lt. General Daniel Noce, inspector general of the Army.
It indicates that it might just be a charming old South American custom, but such government by generals, it wishes to think, was simply "the W.P.P.A. in action".
Drew Pearson discusses the termination from the State Department of long-term diplomat John Paton Davies, who had been investigated eight times by the Department's loyalty board in the past and each time cleared. He indicates that the headlines had carried the essential facts, that no doubt had been cast on the loyalty of Mr. Davies and no taint of Communism had been involved. But because of space limitations, the stories had not carried the backstage part of the matter, which demonstrated that after 23 years of diplomatic service, Mr. Davies had been fired largely because of the personal revenge of Patrick Hurley, former Secretary of War during the Hoover Administration, who had also been sent by FDR as wartime Ambassador to Nationalist China. In the latter capacity, Mr. Hurley had made the decision to favor a coalition between the Chinese Communists and the Nationalists under Chiang Kai-shek, but had been blaming Mr. Davies for that decision ever since. Mr. Hurley had first brought disloyalty charges against Mr. Davies and continued to badger the State Department until the latter was scrutinized a total of nine times, with Mr. Hurley having been the principal witness against Mr. Davies during the last hearing. It had taken a long time, because Mr. Davies had supporters, such as former Undersecretary of State Walter Bedell Smith, wartime chief of staff to General Eisenhower, who had paid public tribute to Mr. Davies in his book and also had supported him in the loyalty hearings. Eventually, however, Mr. Hurley had won out and Mr. Davies was fired, losing his pension and receiving no notice of the firing. He had four small children and was now looking for a job.
Mr. Pearson indicates that to get the full picture, one had to go back to the wartime period of 1944-45 when General Joseph Stilwell was engaged in a bitter feud with General Clair Chennault, with General Stilwell, as a result, eventually replaced by General Al Wedemeyer who, in turn, was in such a feud with Ambassador Hurley that for weeks they would hardly speak to one another despite sharing the same bathroom. Ambassador Hurley had been quite insistent in those times that the U.S. should work with both the Communists and Chiang Kai-shek, and had sought personally to persuade Mao Tse-tung to come to Chungking to patch up differences with Chiang. A photo still existed at the Chinese Embassy in Washington of Ambassador Hurley with his arm around Mao. On November 29, 1945, he had made a statement at the National Press Club that "the only difference between Chinese Communists and Oklahoma Republicans is that the Oklahoma Republicans are not armed." He argued that the Chinese Communists would never team up with Moscow. He had traveled to Moscow several times and enjoyed relating of those trips, regaling President Roosevelt and members of Congress after each one. One of his favorite stories had been how he taught Joseph Stalin to speak one pithy sentence of English and how Stalin then went to a group of English and American guests and used the sentence: "What the hell's going on here?"
Mr. Pearson indicates that despite that history, Mr. Davies was fired, was now forced to look for a new job, while Mr. Hurley relaxed in his New Mexico mansion.
The Congressional Quarterly examines the loss of probable support by the President in 15 Senate committees, to change to Democratic chairmen at the start of the new Congress in January. But four of the 15 prospective chairmen scored above the Democratic average of 41 percent support of the President during the current Congress, based on frequency of voting on roll call votes with the position supported by the White House, where the President's position was known.
Eight of the 15 Republican chairmen whom the Democrats would replace had voted with the President more consistently than the Republican average support of 72 percent.
Thirteen of the Democrats to assume chairmanships of standing committees had lower support scores than did Republicans they would succeed, with one Democrat ranked higher than the Republican predecessor and one other having the same score. Three of the 13 Democrats who had lower scores were less than ten percentage points below the Republican chairmen they would succeed. Southerners, who held no standing committee chairmanships during the 83rd Congress, would hold eight in the 84th Congress, with the West having four, West Virginia, a border state, having two, the East, one, and the Midwest, nine. The Midwestern states had held seven chairmanships during the current Congress and the East had six, with the West having two.
It regards prospective Democratic control as problematic, as Senator Carl Hayden of Arizona, the second-ranking Democrat in terms of service, had said two days after the election that the Democrats would be "reluctant" to organize the Senate with such a slim majority, though not a position taken by the Democratic leadership—not to become an actual problem.
Chairmen were traditionally selected on the basis of seniority by the majority party, with the chairman often determining which bills a committee would act on, and also conducting legislation through the Senate. Six of the committees would likely have the same chairmen who had presided during the Democratic 82nd Congress, including Agriculture, Armed Services, the Committee on the District of Columbia, Government Operations, Post Office, and Public Works. It proceeds to list the likely chairman of each of the 15 committees, the Republican to be replaced and the successor's and predecessor's voting percentages with the President during the current Congress.
Sports Illustrated examines former UNC head football coach Carl Snavely, now in his second season as head coach at Washington University in St. Louis, a relatively low-pressure job. It indicates, therefore, that it was checking on the former big timer who had gone small time and stuck with it. For 25 years he had been known as the "Grey Fox" of big time college football. Now, according to his own assessment, he had found a small time paradise. He said that he now slept nights, following his tenures at Cornell and UNC, at the latter having been the mentor of Charlie "Choo-Choo" Justice, the legendary halfback. He said that now even the night before games, he got nine hours of sleep and had time for his family, could even play a little golf, without the fear of impending catastrophe which had always dogged him before. He found the change "wonderful".
Washington University had a modest 10,000-seat stadium on the campus, and coach Snavely appeared to be someone who was getting his proper rest, his eyes being clear and untroubled. He appeared closer to 40 than to his actual age of 60. He said that at UNC, he had reached the point where he was not having any fun anymore and that when football was not any fun, a coach should make a change or get out of the game. The piece points out parenthetically that the fun at UNC had been diminished by his last three losing seasons in a row, causing North Carolina officials and alumni to take small comfort from his overall good record as coach, having taken two of his teams to the Sugar Bowl, in 1946 and 1948, and another to the Cotton Bowl, in 1949.
He said that his team at Washington University was about having fun, that they were not there because they had to be and none of them were on scholarship or receiving any special privileges. They were attending school to get an education and football was just what it ought to be everywhere, a game.
It indicates that when an undergraduate rushed up to the coach to tell him of a 6'5" student who weighed at least 250 pounds, to whom the student had suggested that he come out for the team, coach Snavely had simply said: "Fine, fine, tell him to come out by all means. We can use a big boy like that." That was quite a contrast from his time at UNC, when he worked from dawn to midnight during the football season and then after the final game, would begin combing the countryside for talented players and scholarship money for them. He said that at UNC, the emphasis on winning had been all out of proportion, whereas at Washington University, they had one game to think about each week, without any desperate demand for victory.
In January, 1953, he had bid farewell to the members of the American Football Coaches Association by saying: "The coach must win his share of games. And what is his share? Obviously, it should be 50 percent because where there is a winner, there has to be a loser. But for the football coach, the law of mathematics surrenders to strange computations. Fifty percent is not enough."
At Washington, he had won seven of nine games the previous season, and said of his current team that it was the dumbest he had ever seen, though quickly correcting himself to say it was probably the smartest team he had ever coached, that he should not bawl them out because they were there to have fun.
The chancellor said that the program had been ridiculed in some quarters, but had now earned the respect of people generally, and he believed the trend was in their direction. He said that coach Snavely had informed him that his experience at W.U. had been a joy.
It's no fun unless they win every game. Hope springs eternal. We have been following assiduously UNC football since 1962, and though they got close to undefeated seasons a few times, albeit very few, we keep hoping. We would not trade our team or school for any other, however, and so don't ask. For it is also no fun when a team wins so many that nearly everyone begins to expect no losses.
Coach Snavely, incidentally, during his two stints as head coach in Chapel Hill, compiled a 15-2-1 record in 1934 and 1935, and between 1945 and 1952, an additional record of 44-33-4, for an overall record of 59-35-5 in ten seasons. During the intervening years, he had also enjoyed success at Cornell, with an overall record of 46-26-3, including an undefeated, 8-0 season in 1939, finishing number 4 in the Associated Press poll.
His replacement at UNC, George Barclay, in his second season, had compiled not so impressive records of 4-6 and 4-5-1, at this juncture in 1954, on the eve of a game at Notre Dame, standing at 3-3-1. The record would be worse in his third and final season in 1955. Things would improve only marginally under his successor, Jim Tatum, when the latter returned to his alma mater in 1956 after having won a national championship at the University of Maryland in 1953, but unfortunately died of Rocky Mountain spotted fever during the summer of 1959, after establishing a four-season record, including a previous year as coach in 1942, of 19-17-3.
In any event, we are too perplexed for too many words regarding UNC football right now, after seeing the current team, on the day after Thanksgiving in 2021, lose 34 to 30 to N.C. State, with UNC having had a 30 to 21 lead with 2:12 left in the game, N.C. State then scoring a touchdown from its own 44-yard line in two plays, the first having been a nine-yard loss, then kicking an onside kick and recovering it with 1:33 left, then scoring another touchdown, all in the course of 1:03. Fielding the onside kick would have meant the end of the game, as UNC could then have run out the clock. Such obvious black magic, the work of the devil, never happened before involving UNC football, at least not within any living person's memory. C'est la vie...
A letter writer indicates that he was a constant reader of the newspaper and found it a good paper, especially enjoying the letters to the editor, especially those from one writer who praised the Democrats, good times and prosperity, which the country was certain to have when Democrats were in power. He remembers having it tough under the last two years of the Hoover Administration, but very little better during the early years of the Roosevelt Administration, until the war came along to supply jobs for all while there were not enough goods to go around, requiring rationing. He says that the previous writer had erred when he said that Republicans were too stingy to fight a war, that there had been two wars under Republican Presidents, the Civil War and the Spanish-American War.
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