The Charlotte News
Wednesday, May 19, 1954
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the President, at his press conference, had called for the McCarthy-Army hearings to continue and let the chips fall where they might. He said that the hearings should not conclude without the public receiving all of the facts. He also said that he had no intention of withdrawing his order, contained in a letter letter released Monday, that executive department officials should not convey to Congress statements regarding private discussions held within the executive branch or to provide documents related to those discussions. Secretary of the Army Robert Stevens declared at the same time that no higher-ranking officials in the Administration had given orders to the Army regarding the dispute, the reason for which the hearings had been suspended for a week on Monday, regarding the release of the President's letter and its directive. Senator McCarthy still contended that if the order stood, there should be a quick end to the hearings, as it would make it impossible for the subcommittee to get to the truth of the matter, as Army general counsel John G. Adams had refused, pursuant to the order, to discuss a January 21 meeting he had with Attorney General Herbert Brownell, Deputy Attorney General William Rogers, U.N. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., and White House chief of staff Sherman Adams, at which the latter had directed the Army to prepare a report regarding the pressure which John Adams had stated had been brought to bear on the Army by Senator McCarthy and Investigations subcommittee usual chief counsel Roy Cohn, seeking favored treatment of Private G. David Schine, drafted former subcommittee unpaid aide, failing which, according to Mr. Adams, threatening more vigorous investigation of the alleged subversive infiltration of the Army at Fort Monmouth being investigated the prior fall by the McCarthy-chaired subcommittee. Senator McCarthy was seeking the substance of that conversation which led to the advice to construct the report, which had led to the current hearings, after Senator McCarthy had contended that it was "blackmail" by the Army to try to halt the Fort Monmouth investigation.
Senator McCarthy said this date that he wanted the hearings to continue but did not want "to go ahead with a stacked deck". He said that he was "willing to play with any kind of a deck they use but I don't think anyone on my staff should have to."
He needs to watch out for the flashing of the red queens, some of whom might be on his staff.
The President said also at the press conference that shipment of arms from Communist Poland to Guatemala, as the State Department had announced on Monday night was taking place, posed the terrible prospect of a Communist dictatorship being established on the continent. He said it was why an anti-Communist resolution had recently been adopted at the Inter-American Conference in Caracas, Venezuela.
On Southeast Asia, the President said that it might be possible to form a united front against Communism without the participation of Britain, and the determination of whether the U.S. might act without Britain would depend on the attitudes of the proper Asiatic nations plus Australia and New Zealand.
At Geneva, the peace talks regarding Indo-China were resumed in another secret session this date, without any sign of progress. The nine-party conference on Indo-China was reported deadlocked over Western demands that Communist forces withdraw immediately from Laos and Cambodia, the two French Union Associated States of Indo-China in addition to Viet Nam. France established direct contact in Geneva for the first time with the Vietminh, in an attempt to settle the controversy over the evacuation of wounded French troops from the conquered fortress at Dien Bien Phu. The French wanted the adjoining airstrip repaired immediately to speed the evacuation, which otherwise would take weeks by helicopter and small plane, which the French regarded as a Vietminh ploy to keep the "hospital corridor" open for a prolonged period so that they could transport troops and materiel along the road, free of aerial bombing, to the vital area of the Red River delta around Hanoi and Haiphong, the Vietminh's next principal target.
The President also said that he would announce a choice of a new chairman for TVA's board of directors as soon as he could find a person who was completely non-political, professionally qualified, whose integrity was beyond reproach, and who agreed with him on philosophy of government. The term of the current chairman, Gordon Clapp, expired the previous day and the post was vacant. He praised Mr. Clapp as having served without fear or favor, but gave no hint as to whether he might reappoint him to the job to which President Truman had appointed him in 1946.
The President also urged the South to take the advice of South Carolina Governor James Byrnes and proceed calmly to consider what should be done in light of the Supreme Court decision on Monday declaring unconstitutional racial segregation in public schools. Governor Byrnes had said on Monday that he was "shocked to learn that the court had reversed itself" regarding separate-but-equal doctrine. He then urged all people, black and white, "to exercise restraint and preserve order." The President said, in response to a question whether the fact that the decision occurred during a Republican Administration would place Southern Democrats, such as Governor Byrnes, who had backed the President in 1952, in a "hot spot", that the Supreme Court was not under any particular administration. He also said, in response to a question as to whether the decision might alienate his political support in the South, that he had always stood for decency and honesty in government, and that Southerners would have to make their own decision as to whether to support him.
The Supreme Court was planning to hear arguments on October 12 on the form of final decrees regarding ending segregation in the public schools, having invited the 17 Southern and border states affected by the ruling to issue plans for implementing it. Officials of the District of Columbia, one of the five school systems, along with those in Kansas, Virginia, South Carolina and Delaware, who had been named as defendants by the plaintiffs in the five cases joined in the decision, announced the previous day that they were planning to integrate schools by the opening of the new fall term. The President had expressed interest in the matter and asked to be kept informed on its progress. The only state thus far which had expressed open defiance of the Court's ruling was Georgia, whose Attorney General Eugene Cook had said he would refuse to take part in the October hearing. Georgia Governor Herman Talmadge, who had introduced a bill to the Georgia Legislature to abolish the public schools as a result of the decision, called the October hearing an invitation "to help select the knife to cut our heads off." Legal observers suggested that states which did not submit plans by October could be forced forthwith to admit black students to formerly all-white schools, with suggested methods of enforcement being either lawsuits filed in the Federal courts by parents, seeking damages from school officials who refused to integrate, issuance by the Supreme Court of contempt citations against such school officials, or prosecution criminally of such officials for denial of civil rights, pursuant to the Federal Civil Rights Act of 1871.
Governor Talmadge heard far into the night hecklers telephoning him from distant places, following his statement the previous day of refusal to heed the Supreme Court decision, until he finally turned over the phone to his wife to answer, saying: "Tell those Yankees the Governor isn't here. Tell them he's busy reviewing troops."
In Greensboro, N.C., the School Board told the superintendent of schools to begin studying "ways and means for complying with" the decision in Brown v. Board of Education. The members said that they considered it the first official affirmative reaction to the decision within states which currently practiced school segregation. The Board chairman, D. E. Hudgins, who introduced the resolution, said that its adoption by a vote of 6 to 1 let the community, the state, the South and the nation know that Greensboro proposed to live under the rule of law. He said that they must not fight or attempt to circumvent it.
In Raleigh, Governor William B. Umstead said this date that he would not name a replacement for Senator Clyde Hoey, who had died in Washington the prior Wednesday, until after May 31, following the May 29 Democratic primary between Senator Alton Lennon and former Governor Kerr Scott.
In Shelby, Senator Hoey's hometown, the Senator's holographic will was filed in probate the previous day, directing that a $12,000 memorial fund be established for his late wife, Bessie Gardner Hoey, for charitable, educational and religious purposes. His law partner was named trustee of the fund. His three children were willed all of his real and personal property, with the exception of a portion of the $90,000 life insurance proceeds, which went to the memorial fund. The will was drafted in 1943 following the death of Mrs. Hoey.
In Washington, Forrest Shuford, 56, the North Carolina commissioner of labor, died early this date of a heart ailment after being stricken while attending a conference on migratory labor problems convened by Federal agencies. Mr. Shuford had been a State official for more than 20 years and one of his sons, Harry Shuford, was a member of the staff of The News. He had been commissioner of labor since 1938, appointed by Governor Hoey, and since had been elected four times to four-year terms. Several State officials in Raleigh, including the Governor, paid tribute to him. He had been educated at Berea College in Kentucky, N.C. State and Duke, and, before becoming labor commissioner, had worked in textile mills in Rhode Island and Gastonia, N.C., as well as having been a school principal in two communities in North Carolina before joining the North Carolina Labor Department in 1933.
The Yancey County Prison Camp in North Carolina, the state's tightest security camp, had a riot the prior Monday, broken up by the Highway Patrol, according to Prisons director William Bailey. Mr. Bailey said that approximately 18 men out of more than "100 hardened criminals and psychopaths" at the facility had caused the disturbance after he had refused to go personally to the camp to hear their alleged grievances. He said that the men started tearing up their cell blocks and that the Highway Patrol had broken up the riot before having to resort to teargas. Mr. Bailey said that there had been complaints issuing from the camp for the previous several months and that he had sent the assistant Prisons director several months earlier to straighten things out. The prisoners had been complaining about food and he sent the food supervisor there. They had complained about recreation and he sent the head recreation person there. He said there was a long list of other petty grievances, such as the television being turned off too early and not enough items at the store where prisoners bought merchandise.
At the President's press conference, a reporter called attention to the warm reception he had received the previous day in Charlotte, and asked whether the Republicans had a good chance to carry the area in the fall Congressional elections, but the President demurred, saying that he did not wish to speculate on the contest. Incumbent Republican Representative Charles Jonas was the first elected Republican to the Congress from the state since 1928, when his father had been elected to the House. The President acknowledged that the South traditionally voted Democratic.
On the editorial page, "Lennon Hits below the Belt" finds that incumbent interim Senator Alton Lennon had thrown the first below-the-belt punch of the Democratic Senatorial campaign in the state, charging that former Governor Kerr Scott and some of his top political associates and advisers had "encouraged abolition of segregation in our public schools for many years."
It says that the statement was not true, as bolstered by Governor Scott's statement shortly after the Supreme Court had announced its decision the previous Monday, holding public school segregation unconstitutional, saying that he had always been opposed and remained opposed to black and white children going to school together. It finds that it was true, but not pertinent, that some of Governor Scott's supporters had encouraged the abolition of segregation, and that it was also true that some of his supporters were ardent advocates of segregation. Senator Lennon's supporters also held widely divergent views on segregation.
It concludes that many Southern leaders had counseled calmness and clear thinking during the time of adjustment to the Supreme Court's decision, and that the injection of the issue of segregation to the campaign at the time, whether it helped or hurt Senator Lennon's candidacy, could only harm the state he was pledged to serve.
"Congressmen versus Foundations" indicates that during the week, one of the more enduring Washington spectacles had returned to the headlines, the continuing House investigation of philanthropic foundations, including those of Rockefeller, Carnegie, Ford, and Hunt. The investigation by Congress had begun in 1952, by the late Representative Eugene Cox of Georgia, who wanted to determine if the foundations were using their resources for "Un-American and subversive activities or for purposes not in the interest of the U.S." But after four months of study of the matter prior to the start of hearings, Mr. Cox had stated that he was less inclined to point the accusing finger at those foundations. Hearings followed, at which many distinguished foundation executives testified, with the committee then concluding that there was a need for more foundations and for more tax advantages provided to those who contributed to them.
But that investigation had not impressed Representative Carroll Reece of Tennessee, the former RNC chairman, who was now chairman of the same committee which had previously investigated the matter under Representative Cox. Mr. Reece contended that a minority of the foundations supported efforts to overthrow the government and to undermine the American way of life through "a diabolical conspiracy". After six months of work, that committee had issued a staff study in which no subversion was found to exist in the foundations, but indicated that the foundations had financed "ideas and practices incompatible with the fundamental concepts of our Constitution." That claim was supported by statements that some grants had been used for directing American education "toward an international viewpoint", decreasing the dependency of education on the resources of local communities, changing school and college curricula, and financing experiments "designed to determine the most effective means by which education could be pressed into service of a political nature." It criticized recipients of grants and foundation trustees for withholding their views on the conclusions of recipients which the study deemed controversial.
It suggests that the probe amounted to a process similar to that which had been used on the State Department and the Voice of America, with the charges of subversion being used as a pretext to combat ideas disliked by the investigators. The danger, it concludes, was that those being investigated would become weary of the conflict and ultimately conform their behavior and thoughts to the wishes of the investigators.
"Freedom Day Planners Earned Thanks" finds that the city could take pride in its showing the previous day, as the President had appeared for the Freedom Day celebration, commemorating the anniversary of the May 20, 1775 putative signing of the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence. It indicates that entertaining a President was nothing new for Charlotte, it having welcomed Presidents Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt. It finds that the cordiality of the welcome had been reflected in the President's warm smile during his visit with the thousands gathered at Freedom Park. It thanks the many persons who had taken part in the planning and execution of the program.
"The Garden Club as an Institution" indicates that women typically formed garden clubs around the dinner table, to which the husband replied that it was nice, that he had hoped to obtain some help in "speeding up the garden and getting the onions and radishes in." But then it became clear that it was not to be strictly a flower garden club, that as the weeks passed, it became apparent that there was no need for purchase of bulbs, plants and a trowel, that instead parliamentary rules of order, notebooks, a typewriter and the telephone were the essentials in formation of the club, its constitution and bylaws.
It relates of a typical phone conversation, overheard from the receiving end, in which was discussed the purchase of loose-leaf notebooks at $2.50 each, wondering whether a committee could find out if they were cheaper by the dozen and wondering whether they should put into the notebooks familiar quotations, as another club had done, and whether they would need special permission to reprint them, that perhaps a committee could find out. It then points out that 35 minutes and two babies later, the phone was free and a speaker for the club meeting had been determined. "Comes the meeting and, before you can say Joe McCarthy, points of order have been raised all over the place."
The months then went by and there still had been no orders placed for bulbs, plants or a trowel. Meanwhile, the men of the city patiently had tended the camellias and azaleas. It suggests that as they sniffed the roses, they were plotting to form a garden club of their own.
That last sounds particularly sinister, no doubt the result of Communist brainwashing endeavors. Red queens can be mighty dangerous
Ray Erwin, writing in Editor & Publisher, in a piece titled "Bulletin Board Bullets", tells of the editorial bulletin board of the Chicago Daily News having urged the newspaper's writers and staff to learn to spell "judgment" correctly, that they should repeat it to themselves, without the oft-included "e". It had also urged at the same time that "acknowledgement", "management" and "derangement" likewise afflicted the editors who had to strike the "e" in "judgment", insisting that each, including "acknowledgment", was properly spelled with an "e". It was signed, "DERANGED".
Someone, probably a reporter, had responded: "dear deranged: I tried to spell judgment without an 'e' and it came out judgmnt. Now I'm in a predicamnt. —confused."
Actually, "judgement" is not incorrect, but "judgment" is preferred, though no one wants to suffer it, no matter how you spell it.
Drew Pearson indicates that Senator Robert Hendrickson of New Jersey had made a speech on the Senate floor recently which had not received much attention in the press but which had garnered attention among his colleagues. He had said that when he viewed the McCarthy-Army hearings and certain Senate investigative tactics, "the public good might be served if the Senate could find a hole into which all its members could crawl." Senator Hendrickson had sat on the investigating committee which had examined the financial records of Senator McCarthy and his concealed activities in speculation, plus the money he had received to fight Communism and the way he had used some of that money for his own personal gain. In the end, Senator Hendrickson and his colleagues two years earlier had issued the most damning report ever produced on a fellow Senator, only to have it gather dust in the files of Attorney General Herbert Brownell.
He sets forth several facts adduced by the report, which was no longer easy to obtain as the Government Printing Office claimed that no more copies were available, which Mr. Pearson indicates had come about since Senator William Jenner of Indiana, friend of Senator McCarthy, had become chairman of the Senate Rules Committee, with jurisdiction over the Printing Office.
Alan L. Otten, in the Wall Street Journal, discusses House Majority Leader Charles Halleck's endorsement of the Eisenhower public housing program, despite longtime opposition to it, being representative of a phenomenon around Washington at present, with Republicans in power doing things which they had previously attacked the Democrats for doing when they were in power for twenty years. Despite these changes of position, the Republicans were still the party of "conservatism" and the Democrats, still the "liberals" by comparison.
Another example of a flip-flop, however, within the executive branch, was Albert Cole, previously a Representative from Kansas, presently head of the Housing and Home Finance Agency, who, while in Congress, had been an outspoken critic of public housing, but now was the Administration's chief advocate for it.
In foreign policy, before becoming Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles had pointed out the dangers he had found in unrestrained treaty-making powers, but in recent months, had helped lead the successful Administration fight against the Bricker amendment to the Constitution, designed to restrict the treaty-making powers.
The intervention in Korea by President Truman in mid-1950 had been a major target for the Republicans in the 1952 campaign, but some of those same Republicans were now prepared to involve the U.S. in the war in Indo-China, while Democrats who had supported President Truman's Korean policy were now "deeply concerned" about the danger of involvement in a war in Asia.
The previous year, Representative Kenneth Keating of New York had led a fight in the House Judiciary Committee to permit wiretapping only after a Federal court order had issued, while Representative Emanuel Celler of New York attacked that proposal as being too cumbersome, arguing that the Attorney General should have complete discretion to conduct a wiretap involving national security. The Administration had then proposed a bill whereby the Attorney General would have such discretion, a bill sponsored by Mr. Keating, while Mr. Celler opposed it.
Regarding taxes, Democratic Administrations and Democratic leaders in Congress had fought for high taxes to help cover heavy Government spending, while Republicans in and out of Congress campaigned for tax cuts and reduced spending. But the previous year, regarding the excess profits tax, and in 1954, regarding the excise tax rates and individual income tax cuts, Democrats had sought tax relief, regardless of the budget consequences, while Republicans, with the Administration having reduced both spending and taxes, opposed further tax cuts, which the Democrats wanted for the sake of keeping the deficit under control. Now, Democrats were accusing Republicans of fiscal irresponsibility, the reverse of the previous pattern.
House Speaker Joseph Martin of Massachusetts had long reflected Boston's opposition to the St. Lawrence Seaway, helping to block it as House Minority Leader under the Democratic Administrations, but now was in favor of it under a Republican President, having gotten it out of reluctant House committees and passed.
Doris Fleeson, in Lawrence, Kans., indicates that the rains had come, relieving, to some extent, the rebellious inclination of farmers distressed over Department of Agriculture policies under the Eisenhower Administration. Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee, who had attracted 400 Democrats to a Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner in Topeka the previous Saturday night, reported that his greatest reception had come from his attacks on the agricultural policies of Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson. The Senator stressed the "intra-party bickering and backbiting" which he said had stalled the great crusade of the President, finding that theme also to have resonated among Democrats.
Republicans agreed that the McCarthy-Army hearings in Washington, while "morbidly fascinating", were hurting the party. Most Republicans said that the President should shut the hearings down, if the Senate would not do so. As in other parts of the Midwest, the McCarthy admirers in Kansas had gone underground, with the visitor cautioned that they were still around but were not so vocal as before, with those in the middle, comprising the great majority, perturbed and confused by the hearings. It was an unpleasant surprise to Republicans in the region that Senator McCarthy had turned on the Administration with such angry vigor. There was some tendency to suggest that it was another great debate on the separation of powers among the three branches. That, Ms. Fleeson observes, was not true, as Senator McCarthy had no legislative axes to grind, with no sponsorship of any piece of legislation and his committee having offered none. He rarely participated in Senate debates, except on his favorite topic, himself, to whom he referred in the third person. He strictly sought power, and, as the classic revolutionist, devoured his allies and accepted as moral that which would advance his cause.
Ms. Fleeson finds that one of the true climaxes of the hearings had come when Army special counsel Joseph Welch had elicited from the Senator the story of his fifth column in the intelligence service of the Army, with the Senator refusing to identify the Army officer who had provided him a confidential report out of the FBI, which the Senator claimed contained the names of a spy ring at Fort Monmouth which had been led by executed atomic spy Julius Rosenberg. She finds that the Senator's performance had been comparable to the actions of the "Fifth Amendment Communists" whom the Senator had so viciously attacked.
A letter writer indicates that the editorial of May 12, titled "Jack Blythe Is Clearly the Choice Among Contenders for State Senate", had been of great interest to him. As a reader of the newspaper for several years, he had the feeling that it was sincerely seeking to present the facts, to allow the people to decide a given issue. But he finds that the editorial of May 12 had been a departure from that practice and thus a disappointment. He goes on at length to explain his position, especially stressing that Mrs. Marvin Rea, one of the candidates in the race for State Senate, was not in fact "dangerous", that, as her brother, he could assure that she was a woman of her word and that their parents had been rich in character and had many friends, teaching them to work hard, have faith in God, and act fairly to their fellow man.
A letter from a representative of the Temple Israel Sisterhood thanks the newspaper for its kindness and cooperation throughout the year.
A Pome from the Atlanta Journal appears, "In Which Is Contained An Observation Concerning Enjoyments To Be Found On Every Side:
"Nature in her fancy dress
Creates joy you can't express."
But Nature in its dances, nude
Evokes for thought trances, food.
Framed Edition
Links-Date — Links-Subj.