The Charlotte News

Wednesday, December 29, 1954

TWO EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that in Paris, the French National Assembly was seeking to reach its final decision on the problem of West German rearmament, with the second reading of the proposed agreement set for a vote sometime later this date, a confidence vote for the Government of Premier Pierre Mendes-France, after the matter had been rejected by the Assembly on its first reading the prior Friday, not based on a vote of confidence. A heavy police force stood guard outside the Assembly to prevent mass demonstrations while the deputies were reaching their decision, which had been delayed for four years. The deputies had been called on to vote twice during the day, both confidence votes, with rejection not only causing the Government to fall, but the U.S. and Britain likely to rearm West Germany without respect to the opinion of France. The Premier was expected to win both votes, but by narrower margins than the 289 to 251 vote on Monday to admit West Germany to NATO. In theory, no debate could precede a vote of confidence, but the deputies could explain their votes, with rules allowing only five minutes for each explanation, a rule, however, interpreted so liberally that the explanations sometimes lasted for hours. The two vital questions before the Assembly were entry of West Germany and Italy to the expanded Western European Union, the basis for rearming West Germany, rejected on Friday by a vote of 280 to 259, and final action on the admission of NATO on its second reading. Regarding the re-submission of the WEU expansion proposal, Premier Mendes-France had written in additional provisions since the Friday defeat, which would provide for consultation with the Assembly before there would be any increase in the armed forces of WEU members. At the opening of the afternoon session, however, a Gaullist deputy, who had first proposed that amendment, suggested that the additional provision should be suppressed, causing optimism that the Premier would win in the votes this date.

In Augusta, Ga., White House press secretary James Hagerty said that the President would send a special message to Congress on January 11, recommending pay increases for Federal civil service workers and postal employees, that another special message would be sent to Congress on January 13, outlining a program of increased pay and benefits for members of the armed forces, as well as dealing with the new reserve program outlined recently by Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson, that the pay increases and adjustments of job classifications would add about 202 million dollars per year to the present payroll expenditures, about five percent of the current payroll for classified civil service workers. Mr. Hagerty did not provide specific figures on the pay increases. He said that the Administration believed that increases in pay for postal workers ought come from increased postal rates and that any proposed legislation would include such provisions. He declined to say whether the President would recommend a penny increase in the rate for first-class mail, bringing the letter rate for stamps to four cents, an increase which Congress had rejected during the year, at which point the President had vetoed a pay increase for civil service and postal workers the prior August because it did not contain a provision for postal rate increases. Mr. Hagerty said that the civil service and postal recommendations would not be linked in the same bill.

In New York, the stock market reported such heavy buying that price reporting facilities had been swamped, with gains registering between one dollar and two dollars per share in frequent trading and few stocks reporting losses. Right after the opening bell, the tickertape was as much as four minutes behind in recording actual transactions on the floor of the Stock Exchange and the congestion had lasted most of the first hour of trading, the longest such time during the year. The market had been in a steep incline for the previous 15 months, and since the November midterm elections, had been booming in an unprecedented manner.

In New Hope, Ala., it was reported that an Air Force C-119 Flying Boxcar had crashed into a mountain near the town during the early morning, and at least six of the 11 occupants had been killed, with two bodies hanging in trees, though it was not immediately known whether they were dead or alive. The plane had been flying to an Air Force base in Tennessee from an undisclosed field. An eyewitness to the crash said that he was pretty sure he had seen several parachutes and a lot of debris in the sky, and his wife said that she heard a terrific roaring, had run outside and seen a flame nearby which lit up the entire sky.

In Atlantic City, N.J., the FBI said that a tall and trusted bank official had admitted embezzling $48,000 which had been spent on "personal enjoyment, entertainment, and to meet social obligations." (It begs the question as to whether, had he been short, he would have been trusted, especially after he came up short.) The employee, according to the FBI, attributed his downfall to an effort to live beyond his means. The accused was married and the father of a son in college, and had fought to hold back tears during his arraignment the previous night before a U.S. commissioner. In addition to his position as assistant vice-president of a bank, he served as treasurer and vestryman for his Episcopal church. An FBI agent said that the total sum had been taken from the bank over a ten-year period, but that the initial charge dealt only with $9,600 in a misappropriation made the day before Christmas, with further charges to be brought regarding the remainder of the embezzled money.

In Charleston, W. Va., Florida authorities were en route to pick up a North Carolina trucker charged with embezzling a tractor-trailer and $1,000 from a firm in Winter Haven, Fla., after the man had been arrested on the West Virginia Turnpike the previous day and identified by State Police as residing in Winston-Salem. An officer said that the man had been contracted about six weeks earlier to haul a trailer of citrus fruits from Winter Haven to Canada, and had his own truck to pull the trailer and fruit which were owned by a brokerage company in Winter Haven, the police indicating that after he delivered the fruit, he had driven to Ohio and Illinois instead of returning the rig and the firm's money to Florida. Wanted posters had been circulated and another trucker spotted the man the previous day, leading to his arrest. He waived extradition.

In Atlanta, a doctor suffered a stroke while attempting to revive an attractive female patient in her home, after she had successfully attempted suicide through an overdose of pills, and then later died in his wife's arms, an autopsy the previous night showing that the endocrinologist and former paratroop surgeon had died of a hemorrhage at the base of his brain. Seven empty or partially empty sedative bottles had been discovered in the room and the woman's husband said that she had attempted suicide twice before. He said that he and his wife had separated two months earlier after 14 years of marriage and that he had agreed to give her a divorce so that she could marry the endocrinologist. A detective quoted the husband of the deceased woman, who had previously been a patient at a mental hospital, as saying that the doctor's wife had also consented to a divorce, but that the wife, herself, had made no statement on the matter and could not be reached for comment.

In New York, entertainer Arthur Godfrey reported this date that he had fired another of his staff, though only partially. Larry Puck, a veteran showman, was said to have been ousted from his job as producer of one of Mr. Godfrey's shows because he became engaged to the singing star, Marian Marlowe, about 30 years his junior. He had been retained, however, as producer of another of Mr. Godfrey's programs, as reported by the New York Journal-American. At CBS, neither Mr. Godfrey nor his spokesmen were available for comment. The partial firing revived memories of the firing on the air of singer Julius LaRosa over a year earlier. Mr. Puck, between 57 and 60, had been producer of the Wednesday night program, "Arthur Godfrey and His Friends", as well as the Monday night program, "Talent Scouts". Ms. Marlowe, 25, was the singing star of the Wednesday night program. As a Christmas gift, it was reported that Mr. Puck had presented to her a 6.5 carat emerald-cut diamond solitaire engagement ring. Shortly after hearing of the engagement, Mr. Godfrey had reportedly announced at one of his regular meetings of the staff that he would produce the Wednesday night program himself, providing no reason. Ms. Marlowe had told the reporter who wrote the story that she could not imagine that the change had any relation to her engagement to Mr. Puck.

In Vienna, Austria, it was reported that rolls imported from Poland had in them papers, cigarette butts, dead mice, spiders, hair, nails, a human tooth, rope, stones, coins, safety pins, screws and wire.

In Long Beach, Calif., an escaped monkey in the Hall of Mirrors left no time for idle reflection in the Pike Amusement Zone the previous day, as a young man had been polishing glass in the maze of mirrors when he spotted the monkey and 19 reflections of monkeys staring back at him, prompting him to seek help, as the monkey snarled and spat at his own newly polished reflections, whereupon concession workers, animal shelter officials and police arrived, their reflections adding to the general confusion within the maze, out of which the monkey leaped into the rafters and fled to the quiet of a restroom, where he sulked until he was captured.

In Grafton, W. Va., people of the town were relieved this date to find that there was a sensible explanation about how an octopus had turned up in the hills of West Virginia, the second such octopus, both of which had been found by four small boys in a stream on Monday, each measuring about 36 inches from tip to tip of their various arms. A supermarket had reported that it had sold all except one of a pre-Christmas shipment of frozen octopi.

On the editorial page, "The Question of Local Legislation: Some Creaks in Democracy's Joints" starts by indicating that if poet T. S. Eliot had been a newsman covering the previous night's meeting with Mecklenburg County's legislative delegation, he might have summed it up with one of his famous lines: "The intolerable wrestle with words and meanings." For two hours, legislators, City Council members and County Commission members had wrestled with terms like "home rule" and meanings for such phrases as "formulas agreeable to all parties and for the good of all concerned".