The Charlotte News

Thursday, July 29, 1954

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the State Department had announced that the Communist Chinese had refused to consider U.S. diplomatic protests to two incidents, the first the prior Friday involving Communist Chinese planes which had shot down a British transport plane, and the other incident occurring the following Sunday in which two Communist Chinese planes had fired on U.S. rescue planes in the area and then were shot down by the American planes, both incidents occurring off Hainan Island in the South China Sea. A State Department press officer indicated that the situation would not be permitted to rest there, but did not indicate what further steps were contemplated. The Chinese took the position that the matter involving the British transport plane was between China and Britain, and that the firing on the U.S. aircraft had been the result of a violation of Chinese territory.

Senator Pat McCarran of Nevada said this date that Attorney General Herbert Brownell had injected politics into national security, resulting in a lack of action on the Administration's anti-subversive bill. Leaders of both parties agreed that most, if not all, of the other major parts of the Administration program would likely pass the Congress in some form. The President, at his press conference of the previous day, had urged passage of the anti-subversive measures prior to the adjournment of Congress, scheduled for August 7, listing them along with farm, tax revision, Social Security, foreign aid and housing measures which were major parts of his legislative program.

Later the previous day, a housing bill, lacking some of the things which the President had sought, had been passed. Senators William Knowland and Homer Ferguson predicted passage within the ensuing few days of most of the other bills which the President had listed. Senator Ferguson said that he was confident that a measure similar to the President's flexible farm price support program would pass in the final days of the session. All of the President's listed programs, except for parts of the anti-subversive bills, had already passed the House.

The compromise tax revision bill, which the President regarded as the cornerstone of his 1954 domestic program, might clear its final Congressional hurdle this date, as the Senate planned to take up the measure which would completely revise the nation's tax laws, with Senate Republican leaders predicting that they had the votes to send the compromise bill to the President for signing.

Senator Knowland said this date that he would allow "a full dress debate" on proposals that the Senate censure or investigate Senator McCarthy, set to begin the following day and possibly to continue through Saturday and Monday sessions. He said that he had nothing to do with an effort by Senator Alexander Smith of New Jersey to push aside the motion of censure sponsored by Senator Ralph Flanders of Vermont. Senator Smith had proposed instead that a committee of six Senators, three Democrats and three Republicans, plus Vice-President Nixon as chairman, investigate and report the following February 1 on "the alleged good or evil of so-called McCarthyism". Senator Flanders said that he would fight the Smith proposal as a substitute for his resolution of censure, but said that he would favor it as a separate move.

At Fort Dix, N.J., a sergeant with six years of Army service had been cleared by a three-man special court-martial board the previous day of charges that he kept 225 recruits at taut attention for an hour in 92 degree heat. The board had deliberated for 40 minutes before acquitting him. He said that he felt very good and glad that it was over. The punishment had occurred on June 21 and men were said to have passed out in the intense heat and had to be revived with pails of water before being forced back into the line. The sergeant's immediate superior, a first lieutenant, and the commander of the company, had been cleared of "dereliction of duty" charges the previous Friday. The sergeant had not testified in his own behalf, and his counsel had argued that he had merely acted on orders of his superiors, the counsel, a captain, making light of the ordeal of standing at attention, saying that he had done it many times and that he had seen men pass out all around him. One soldier testified that he had fainted twice while standing at attention, that he had been revived by water the first time and the second time by smelling salts administered by the charged sergeant.

In Brookline, Mass., police stated that an 18-year old schoolboy had confessed that he had killed a 52-year old dressmaker with a rolling pin in an attempt to commit what he had called "the perfect crime". The woman was found dead the previous day on her living room floor, bludgeoned and stabbed to death. The police indicated that the boy had told them everything, but they had not determined any motive beyond his desire to kill. He had gone to the woman to pay her for repairing his raincoat. The woman had not been raped. He had told a schoolmate that he would kill someone and that it would be a crime which would be unsolved, that the schoolmate would read about it in the newspapers. The schoolmate, who was unidentified, furnished the tip which had led police to pick up the boy for questioning.

In Philadelphia, a woman had gone horseback riding in the scenic Fairmount Park the previous day, where she often rode her horse during the previous several years. A short time later, a mounted park policeman found her and the horse shot dead, side-by-side, killed with a .22-caliber rifle rigged to a nearby tree branch, with the horse's head covered with a blue denim skirt. Both had been shot through the head. Police concluded that the woman had apparently shot the horse and then committed suicide. She had in her hand five playing cards, a pair of aces and three eights, a full house in poker, close to the traditional "dead man's hand", consisting of two aces and two eights. Carved on the wooden stock of the rifle was the inscription: "Speak not in anger. In mercy, whisper; in vengeance, sing." There was also a note tied to the trunk of the tree addressed to the woman's brother, indicating that she planned to commit suicide, had so planned during the previous ten years and expressed regret for any inconvenience. Friends described her as moody and her father, with whom she lived, said that she had been depressed recently because of her inability to find employment, having previously worked in musical instrument manufacturing plants.

In Louisiana, a tropical storm had struck the sparsely populated southwest portion of the coast this date and had begun moving inland toward a point east of Lake Charles, with heavy rains and winds up to 60 mph as it crossed the coastline about 25 miles east of the small fishing town of Cameron and about 40 miles southeast of Lake Charles.

In Greenwood, S.C., Miriam Stevenson, recently crowned Miss USA and Miss Universe in the pageants at Long Beach, Calif., was planning to return to her hometown the following day, and officials, business leaders and nearly everyone else had begun planning this date to provide her a red carpet welcome as "the prettiest girl in the world". We hope that they do not lose her luggage again such that she arrives in Greenwood on Friday night without her suitcase, as she had in Long Beach two weeks earlier.

In Niagara Falls, N.Y., an estimated 185,000 tons of rock had collapsed the previous day into the Niagara River gorge, including the well-known observation area, Prospect Point, plus a large pie-shaped chunk of the American Falls, itself, the largest collapse at the falls since January 17, 1931, when a huge section of the American Falls had fallen to the rocks below. Many visitors had witnessed the collapse, but no one had been injured. Engineers for the Niagara Frontier State Parks Commission estimated that the size of the rock-fall had been 400 feet in length, 50 feet in width, and 150 feet in depth, falling down 70 feet, taking ten minutes to occur. The change had resulted in an improved appearance of the falls, as visitors would now be able to obtain a direct view of the American Falls because of the deep "V" carved in its flank, whereas prior to the fall, the only available direct view of the American Falls had been from the Canadian side, thousands of feet away across the gorge.

On the editorial page, "Atomic Bill an Anti-Monopoly Measure" indicates that when the Senate version of the atomic energy bill had been finally approved on Tuesday night after extended debate, Senators on both sides of the aisle appeared reasonably satisfied that they had won their main points. Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota, a leading opponent of the bill, had said that the marathon debate had prevented approval of a bill which "would have been disastrous to the American people". Senator Alexander Wiley of Wisconsin, an Administration supporter, believed the passed measure would set up a satisfactory relationship between the Government and private enterprise.