The Charlotte News
Saturday, September 25, 1954
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that at the U.N. in New York, the General Assembly this date, without discussion, placed on the agenda of the session a priority tag for the President's atoms-for-peace proposal this date and sent it along to the Political Committee where it would be fully debated. It meant that the action would receive early consideration, with some delegates believing it was the most important item on the agenda for the current session. In all, there were 67 items on the agenda.
The six-Senator select committee which had considered the censure resolution against Senator McCarthy was taking elaborate precautions to guard the secrecy of its report and its verdict, set to be revealed Monday. Senate leaders the previous day had decided to wait until after the November 2 midterm elections to recall the Senate into session to debate the report and determine whether Senator McCarthy should be censured, a move which Republicans greeted with approval, while Democrats said they were ready to bring the resolution to a vote immediately. The committee chairman, Senator Arthur Watkins of Utah, stated that the report had been unanimous in its findings. The resolution, brought by Senator Ralph Flanders of Vermont, with additional bills of particulars offered by Senators J. William Fulbright of Arkansas and Wayne Morse of Oregon, had generally stated, in its 46 charges boiled down to five general categories, that Senator McCarthy had engaged in conduct which tended to bring the Senate into disrepute, which included such charges as contempt of the Senate by refusing to testify before a subcommittee which had investigated his finances in late 1952, impugning the reputations of fellow Senators, abusing Army Brig. General Ralph Zwicker, and, considered to be the most serious charge, improperly receiving and soliciting from Government employees secret Government documents. Senator Watkins indicated that no member had been given a copy of the report and no copy had been provided to Senator McCarthy or anyone else in advance, and he urged that no member provide any of its contents to the press during the weekend.
The United States formally demanded that Russia pay 1.6 million dollars in damages for shooting down an unarmed Air Force B-29 bomber off Japan on October 7, 1952, or agree to submit the dispute to the World Court at The Hague. The fate of the eight members of the crew of the plane remained unknown and Russia was accused in the demand of withholding information about them. The Soviets claimed that the attack had occurred near an island over which they claimed to have rights pursuant to the February, 1945 Yalta agreement and that the plane had violated Russian territory, a charge denied by the U.S., as well as the Russian charge that the bomber had opened fire on the Soviet fighter. Under the Yalta agreement, the Soviets had been given control of the Kurile Islands, stretching northeastward from Japan, but not the island in question.
In Denver, the President's aides and RNC chairman Leonard Hall had conceded in advance of the four-state political tour of the President completed the previous day that Republican candidates were "running scared", but also insisted that it did not mean that they were actually fearful that the Democrats would recapture control of Congress, indicating that it was a good strategy to run scared to avoid overconfidence. They indicated that the sudden increase in pace of the President's campaign speeches had been a matter of timing, that the entire campaign had been planned the way it was transpiring, with an easy start, a gradual gathering of steam and then the climax in the weeks leading up to election day.
In Los Angeles, at the AFL convention, several unions of the organization, which included the Teamsters, Carpenters, Laborers and Operating Engineers Unions, were reported to be banding together to organize a drive to take away members from the United Mine Workers union of John L. Lewis, establishing a joint fund to try to squeeze Mr. Lewis out of the construction field. The delegates, shortly after the President had addressed the convention the previous day, renewing his pledge to remove "union-busting" provisions from Taft-Hartley, had passed a resolution unanimously, labeling inadequate the Administration's proposals for changing that law.
In Asheville, N.C., the Western North Carolina Conference of the Methodist Church unanimously reaffirmed this date its position on race relations which had been set forth in 1952 at its general conference. The original resolution had focused on sympathy with public school officials facing the need for racial desegregation, the broader expression stating that "to discriminate against a person solely upon the basis of his race is both unfair and un-Christian. Every child of God is entitled to that place in society which he has won by his industry and character." It further urged "that the institutions of the church, local churches, colleges, universities, theological schools, hospitals and homes carefully re-study their policies and practices as they relate to race, making certain that these policies and practices are Christian." The convention also adopted a report by its board of temperance recommending a statewide referendum on the sale of alcoholic beverages and abolition of interstate advertising of liquor.
In Charlotte, a young girl with cerebral palsy and unable to walk, receiving speech and physical therapy, as well as medical therapy, would be the symbol of the United Appeal charity campaign getting underway in the community, and her picture would adorn the poster for the drive. A number of children with the disease had learned to walk and express themselves, enabling them to attend school, following care and treatment at the Spastics Hospital in the city. The other charities in the drive are also listed.
In Reseda, Calif., a two-year old boy had undergone surgery for a peptic ulcer the previous day, a first for the hospital in its 53-year history regarding such a young patient.
In London, Paramount Pictures announced this date that actress Audrey Hepburn and actor Mel Ferrer were married this date in Switzerland in a small chapel overlooking Lake Luzern, leaving immediately for Rome where Mr. Ferrer was working on a picture. Both had appeared recently in the Broadway hit "Ondine", for which Ms. Hepburn had won a Tony Award the prior March, just two days after winning the Academy Award for Best Actress for her work in "Roman Holiday".
In Glasgow, Scotland, reports of a
monster with iron teeth had caused fright to children and worries for
parents and police as well. The scare had started on Thursday
afternoon from an unknown source, prompting hundreds of children to
arm themselves with sticks and rocks, entering the city cemetery
yelling, "The monster must die." Gravediggers sought to bar
the gates, but the frightened children swarmed over the cemetery's
eight-foot walls and rampaged among the gravestones, searching for
the monster
On the editorial page, "Patience Is the Best Policy" indicates that, eventually, out of the conflicting emotions regarding segregation, some order would come in time, perhaps in months or years, provided that tempers and impatience were maintained in check.
It finds that some of the more impetuous members of both races apparently were not willing to wait, however, as they preferred "arbitrary, inflexible action", despite such an approach potentially destroying the pattern of adjustment or endangering the peace. It finds that to be the case with a petition signed by more than 500 black parents asking for "immediate steps" to end segregation in Charlotte's public schools.
Kelly Alexander, state president of the NAACP, said that the organization took the position that the Brown v. Board of Education decision of May 17 had finally decided the merits of the segregation issue, that it was now deemed violative of the 14th Amendment and ought to be corrected.
It indicates that the decision had upset the old "separate but equal" doctrine of Plessy v. Ferguson, decided in 1896, and had stated in clear, simple language the new doctrine based on the Equal Protection Clause. But, it had delayed implementation of its decision until there could be further input from the 17 states and the District of Columbia to be affected by the decision, as to whether it should be implemented forthwith or through a gradual process of adjustment.
It posits that no action should be undertaken until the matters were settled by the Supreme Court through its implementing decision, and State officials in North Carolina had made it clear that conditions should remain status quo until the Court would issue that decision or the General Assembly would act. As the Court had decided during this week that oral arguments would not occur until December 6 on the implementing decision, a decision would likely not be rendered until the following spring. It concludes, therefore, that the NAACP should recognize that the problems attendant segregation could not be solved overnight and that forcing the issue was a dubious strategy which would only cause more difficulty for reasonable persons of both races to resolve.
"Wise Postponement of a Grave Decision" indicates that Senate leaders had made a wise decision the previous day by postponing until after the election the recalling of the Senate into session to consider the censure resolution against Senator McCarthy. A number of Senators from both parties, though most had been Republicans, had suggested the postponement, and Senator McCarthy had objected that a vote during the campaign would be prejudicial to him.
The piece finds that a pre-election session would have been conducive to angry and reckless words in the debate on the resolution, detracting from more important campaign issues. Senator McCarthy, himself, was not up for re-election in 1954 and so the Senate had no obligation to Wisconsin voters to render its judgment before the election. It reiterates its stance that the Senate should have passed judgment on the Senator prior to its adjournment in August, as it had the necessary facts before it at that time, but finds that time was no longer of the essence at present.
It hopes that shortly after the election on November 2, beginning November 8, the Senators would make their judgment on the basis of the facts and their conscience, instead of political expediency.
"Power for the Wheels of Industry" indicates that Duke Power Co.'s decision to build a 24 million dollar steam electric generating plant near Belmont reflected the growing industrial economy of the Piedmont. The installation would be the largest of its kind in the Southeast and would have an output of continuous capacity of one million kilowatts, with the first section to begin construction the following spring and the entire project to be completed by mid-1957. The company was planning ahead for the growth of the area, as Duke Power had always grown commensurate with the growth of the Piedmont.
"Morons Are Happy" indicates that it was not bothered by reading that mankind, according to the consensus of opinion among 500 U.N. population authorities meeting in Rome, was becoming increasingly stupid as the years went by, for, it finds, man had been becoming too smart for his own good when the trouble had begun, with the development of the atom bomb, nerve gas and the "flat look" of Christian Dior.
Weimar Jones, writing in the Franklin Press, in a piece titled "The Abominable 'Different Than'", tells of that phrase, among all of the "ignorant, ungrammatical, nonsensical expressions", being to him the worst, rubbing him the wrong way, primarily because it was used by language snobs who laughed first and loudest at incorrect language of the unlettered, looked longest down their noses at the good English phrase, "you all", and even affected British pronunciations. Yet, they would say "different than" something else, rather than "different from". "Different", being an adjective, was not to be followed by a conjunction, but rather by a preposition.
Logically, "different than" was a contradiction in terms, signifying nothing. To say one thing is different than another, might as well be expressing the nonsensical "different like another".
Nevertheless, one found that the expression was spreading everywhere. "And if I don't watch myself I'll end this damnation of my pet aversion by saying I'm determined to keep from being different than the folks who use it!"
Another terrible one which has gained too much currency in the prints these days, deriving, no doubt, from the pervading stupid-speak of television, is "as best as", which, just last week, we saw being used in the online version of Newsweek. Newsflash: The phrase is "as well as", or, in another context, "as much as", there being no such proper phrase, "as best as", which again is nonsense, for one does not say "as better as", which would be the proper comparative to a superlative, were there any sense to the superlative or the comparative. It does not make sense because the best one can do is the best one can do and is not "as best as", in relation to something else. What does one say? "I done did as well as I could, or as good as I should done have done." But one does not say, "I has done as best as I could have did, which was as better as what I done did last week."
Where are "journalists" being trained these days in the English language? Sounds increasingly as pigpen English.
Just think of "as best as" as being as verboten in English as asbestos in the building trades.
Drew Pearson indicates that Republican Senators had been pressuring the State Department to publish the previously secret minutes of the 1945 Yalta conference, and to do so prior to the midterm elections, believing it relevant to U.S.-Chinese relations and how, according to Republicans, FDR and Alger Hiss had conspired with Stalin to sell out the country and give up critical territory to the Russians. But, indicates Mr. Pearson, the document contained almost nothing about Mr. Hiss, but did contain one typical wisecrack of the late President, regarding selling Long Island to the Russians.
For it to be released, the State Department had to obtain clearance from England, France and various diplomats involved in the Yalta correspondence, a process which had proceeded slowly. A member of the historical section of the State Department had tipped off Senators William Knowland of California and Styles Bridges of New Hampshire regarding the documents, after which the two Senators continued an appropriation of $112,000 per year for four years to publish diplomatic correspondence pertaining to Yalta and U.S.-Chinese relations, almost nixed from the bill by parsimonious Congressman John Taber, but restored after some fast talking by the two Senators in the joint conference to reconcile the bill. Since that time, the two Senators had written to the State Department asking for progress reports on the documents, and the Senate secretary had gone to the Department to prod the historian to action. That latter trip was highly unusual for someone not elected to the Senate, the secretary refusing to disclose what he had discussed with the Department. Mr. Pearson had learned that the galley proofs of the Yalta papers were on the desk of Undersecretary of State Robert Murphy, and he did not know when he would find time to read them.
Mr. Pearson relates that four years earlier, when he had first begun investigating the mysterious activities of Henry Grunewald, Washington fixer, he never dreamed that one day he would be coming to his defense. When Mr. Pearson had sought him out initially, he was wanted for testimony in the wiretapping case of Howard Hughes, whose phone had been tapped on behalf of Pan Am through unique intermediaries as Mr. Grunewald, former Senator Owen Brewster, and a Washington police lieutenant. When he was finally located, he refused to talk to the Senate committee investigating the matter, or to any other committee. Mr. Pearson was now interviewing him for a television program, after he, himself, had been subpoenaed to testify against Mr. Grunewald about a month earlier in a grand jury proceeding. He had answered the subpoena and testified on a relatively minor matter, which he could not disclose, appearing to him that the Justice Department was grasping at straws when it should have been going after the big wheels behind Mr. Grunewald. Though Mr. Grunewald had at one time wielded quite a lot of influence, he was relatively small compared with the Senators, Cabinet members and big businessmen who hobnobbed with him and used him when they needed him. He found that the Treasury had three squad cars following him day and night, with a listening apparatus stationed outside his house, scaring the Hungarian diplomatic minister and his wife who lived next door. Eventually, Mr. Grunewald had gotten in touch with Mr. Pearson, after which the television interview had been arranged. He had been able to produce letters and canceled checks to prove that he knew some of the top leaders in the nation. Though Mr. Grunewald had been indicted for perjury, Mr. Pearson had become convinced that he was telling him the truth, an amazing story on which he would report in the future.
Joseph & Stewart Alsop indicate that scientists in and out of the Government were debating whether the human race was being endangered by the increasing level of radiation accumulating in the atmosphere from nuclear explosions. Atomic Energy Commission chairman Lewis Strauss had said that following the Pacific series of U.S. hydrogen bomb tests earlier in the year, every U.S. test and Russian test had been followed by a small increase in "background" radiation, but that it was far below the levels harmful to humans. Nevertheless, several reputable scientists were convinced that there was something about which to worry. The distinguished British scientist, Dr. Edgar Adrian, had stated recently that repeated atomic explosions would lead to a degree of radioactivity which no one could tolerate or escape.
In the current issue of the technical magazine, Nucleonics, the results of an experiment were described in which the thyroid glands of 39 head of cattle, five lambs and ten sheep, which had been slaughtered in Memphis, San Francisco and Boston, had been examined for radioactivity, finding that they had radioactive thyroids, with as much as 32 times the normal amount, especially prevalent in those originating in Florida. It was reported that the animals had eaten foliage containing iodides which had become radioactive from the nuclear explosions. Thus, it was clear that the tests, whether U.S. or Russian or a combination thereof, were causing sharp increases in background radiation on a global scale.
Dr. Adrian, winner of the Nobel Prize, believed that the matter should not be taken lightly, but was considered an extremist in that view. In the September 10 issue of Science, Dr. A. H. Sturtevant, a leading geneticist from the California Institute of Technology, had written that there were two types of damage from radioactivity, that occurring to the exposed individual and that to the genes in the individual's germ cells. He believed that there was some hazard from radioactivity, especially regarding an increase in the probability of the development of malignant growths, that is the incidence of cancer. And he believed that there was particular concern regarding possible damage to genes, causing defects or mutations in humans. He said that there was no possible escape from the conclusion that the bombs already exploded would ultimately result in the production of numerous defective individuals, that there was no way to measure that effect quantitatively. He also said that he regretted that Admiral Strauss, being in such a position of responsibility, had stated that there was no biological hazard.
Robert C. Ruark believes that Robert Kintner of ABC deserved some kind of gold award for hiring Walt Disney for a fall series of programs, believes that parents of the "rising crop of potential young thugs" ought send him a blessing, in an era when it was considered sport to kick people to death and shoot one another with zipguns, or murder one another with hot rods, or take dope for fun. Mr. Kintner and Mr. Disney proposed to refocus the young and adults on healthier topics than "murder, space cadets, sadism and ill-concealed smut and unfunny rudeness."
The Disney programming would be presented in four parts, "Land of Tomorrow", "Frontierland", "True Life Adventure", and "Fantasyland". The first segment would deal with scientific fact, the second, legendary heroes of the country, such as Daniel Boone, Kit Carson, Davy Crockett and the like, the third, with nature photography and expeditions in all lands, and the fourth, with cartoons, such as Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse. Mr. Ruark ventures that it would succeed wildly, believes that the interests of children had been perverted in recent years by blood-and-thunder in the comics and on radio and television.
He believes that there was more interest in animals and nature at present than he could recall from the past, with the zoos packed and animal movies doing big business. In a small way, he says, he had experimented in creating a diversionary interest for children, in the monthly series he had written for Field and Stream, which had run for two years. He was seeking to invigorate better relations between fathers and sons and grandfathers and grandsons, dealing with game and fish, plus wind and weather, receiving a hearty and immediate reception, so much so that he believed he would one day incorporate the pieces into a book. He found it interesting that adults had embraced it more warmly than the children.
When he had asked the son of a friend what kinds of games they played as children, he got the response that they played the radio, that he had never heard of Mr. Ruark's early heroes, Paul Bunyan, John Henry, Daniel Boone, etc. Nor had he heard of Ernest Thompson Seton and his fascinating "Three Little Savages" or "Rolf in the Woods".
A letter writer from Locust, N.C., indicates his appreciation for an article, appearing in the newspaper on September 21, on the telephone exchange to be built in that town, but states that the article had given undue credit to the Midland Lions Club, who had been working to establish the exchange for three years, when Locust citizens had been making efforts to establish it for about six years, and that the Stanfield PTA also deserved credit.
A letter writer from Myrtle Beach, S.C., takes issue with the editorial of September 20 regarding fluoridation of water, saying that it was not true, that fluorine was dangerous, proceeds to explain his position, and defends the City Council of Greensboro for having delayed continuation of the program, after objection had been made by a group of concerned citizens, until further study could be made of fluoridation. He says that the row had started as a result of promotion out of Deaf Smith County in Texas, where stingy people needed to sell wheat after an analysis showed a high fluoride content in their wheat and water supply, and they disregarded the fact that bad teeth were common in that county and began promoting fluoridation, picked up by Reader's Digest, causing the aluminum industry to become involved, to make money from their poisonous slag waste material, fluorspar, to be placed in the drinking water. He claims as a doctor to have pictures of patients and books from all over the fluoride areas, proving that fluorides were dangerous, harmful chemicals in the drinking water. And he goes on quite at some length, in case you are interested in that silly theory.
A letter from a dentist, president of the Dental Society of the district, comments on the same editorial, expresses thanks for the piece supporting continuation of the fluoridation program in the area.
But what about Deaf Smith County in Texas and their wheat, doc?
Framed Edition
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