The Charlotte News

Saturday, September 4, 1954

THREE EDITORIALS

Site E. Note: The front page reports from Taipeh on Formosa that, according to Nationalist Chinese sources, two U.S. officers, presumably members of the U.S. Military Assistance Advisory Group, had been killed during a five-hour Communist bombardment the previous day on the island of Quemoy, part of Nationalist Chinese territory. The U.S. Embassy and MAAG headquarters had not denied the report, indicating that the normal procedure would be to allow notification first of relatives before any formal announcement was made. The State Department, however, confirmed that the two officers had been killed in the shelling and were members of MAAG, assigned to Formosa. Army headquarters said that it had been the custom to rotate a few MAAG officers from Formosa to Quemoy for short tours of duty. During recent years, several other U.S. officers serving at various places in the world as military advisers had been killed, as their role of observation and providing advice required their presence in forward positions. A Nationalist Army spokesman this date predicted that the Chinese Communists would likely soon seek to invade Quemoy, but also indicated that there was no concrete evidence of an incipient invasion build-up. The Nationalists said that during the bombardment, three of the defenders had been killed, two seriously wounded and five slightly wounded. The Nationalists denied that any ships were hit, as claimed by Peiping Radio. Quemoy was said to be quiet on this date.

U.S. Representative Joseph Holt of California had told newsmen in Hong Kong this date that he had been under bombardment on Quemoy for 20 minutes and his plane had taken off for Formosa as the shells exploded near the airfield. Nationalist sources in Taipeh, however, said that they were unaware of that incident.

In Manila, the U.S. promised this date to furnish a major portion of the supplies and equipment to strengthen the Philippines armed forces because of developments in Southeast Asia, the pledge having been made by Secretary of State Dulles, announced in a joint communiqué with the Philippines President and Foreign Minister, following mutual defense talks preliminary to the conference designed to form SEATO, set to start on Monday. Secretary Dulles stated that the U.S. "would automatically react" if the Philippines were attacked. The defense pact with the Philippines required that its armed forces be strengthened through cooperative effort, with Secretary Dulles indicating that the U.S. would furnish the major portion of the military matériel requirements for an expansion of the Philippine army to four divisions.

In Hanoi, it was reported that French Brig. General Christian de Castries, who had been commander of the fallen fortress at Dien Bien Phu, which had fallen to the Vietminh on May 5, prior to the eventual truce in Indo-China on July 21, had been released this date by the Communists after having been taken prisoner at the fall of the fortress. The General's first request was for French fried potatoes and something different from his prison diet, which had mainly consisted of rice. He emphasized to a number of photographers that the white flag of surrender had never been raised at the fortress. He complained that he had always been kept in separate quarters during his imprisonment and had not been allowed to see or talk with his staff officers, said that he was "not completely well" but added that he was hard to kill and would be in good health again within a few days. He appeared gaunt and tired but walked erect.

In Denver, the President this date announced his signing of a bill providing for 2.8 billion dollars in foreign aid, most of which was earmarked for military aid, of another bill stripping citizenship from those convicted of advocating the forceful overthrow of the Government, and of a third bill which he said corrected injustices in U.S. immigration policy. He adopted pocket vetoes with respect to three other bills. In all, Congress had passed in the closing days of the session 513 measures, which the President had been considering, having taken action on the last of them late the previous day.

In Grand Junction, Colo., the President said at the airport this date, before a crowd estimated by police to be 3,500 persons, concluding the first leg of a 2,000-mile, four-state aerial survey of a multimillion-dollar irrigation and flood control project, "Let's not make Washington the master of any free American" in development of the West's great reclamation projects. The tour included stops in Wyoming, Nebraska and Kansas.

In Tromso, Norway, the captain of a Danish freighter reported this date that his ship had been shelled the previous Tuesday by a Soviet destroyer off Russia's Murmansk coast within international waters, about 30 nautical miles offshore, between the entrance to the White Sea and the Rybatshi peninsula. The ship had been carrying a cargo of lumber, when two Russian destroyers, according to the captain, suddenly opened fire with four live rounds, three passing above the ship and the fourth hitting the surface of the water about the length of a ship behind them. At that point, the captain had ordered the ship stopped, and one destroyer had then circled around it, both destroyers then disappearing. Two weeks earlier, the captain of a Dutch ship reported in Glasgow that a Soviet cruiser had fired near his vessel in the Gulf of Finland as he was heading for Scotland with a load of Finnish lumber, not damaging the ship.

The South Carolina State Democratic committee had appointed Edgar Brown, South Carolina's DNC committeeman and president pro tem of the State Senate, to replace Senator Burnet Maybank, who had died suddenly of a heart attack the prior Wednesday. Mr. Brown had broken with Governor James Byrnes in 1952 and refused to join the independent South Carolinians for General Eisenhower, instead campaigning strongly for Governor Adlai Stevenson, who had narrowly won the state. The committee had rejected an alternate course advocated by Governor Byrnes, to call a special primary and in the meantime put up a candidate who would promise to withdraw later in favor of the winner of the primary, the Governor indicating that he would appoint the primary winner to serve the remainder of Senator Maybank's term, which would expire at the start of the next Congress in January. The Governor declined comment as to whether he would now appoint Mr. Brown for the unexpired term. The latter had run unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination to the Senate in 1926 and 1938, losing to the late Senator "Cotton Ed" Smith in the former election and to then-Governor Olin Johnston, presently the other Senator from South Carolina, in the latter.

In Raleigh, a report indicated that the main battles in the general election campaign in November would be waged in the 9th and 10th Congressional districts, the latter being around Charlotte, presently having the only Republican in the North Carolina Congressional delegation, Representative Charles Jonas. The Republicans also wanted to take the 9th district, presently represented by Congressman Hugh Alexander. The opponent of Mr. Jonas was Charlotte Recorder's Court Judge J. C. Sedberry, and the opponent of Mr. Alexander was Republican Williams Stevens, Jr., of Lenoir. Both the President and Adlai Stevenson had visited and spoken in the 10th district at Charlotte during the year, and the following Friday, DNC chairman Stephen Mitchell would speak at Morganton, also within the district.

In Dayton, O., Captain Edward Kenny of the Air Training Command this date set a new unofficial speed record of 616.208 mph in the 1,900-mile California to Ohio Bendix Trophy Race, making the trip in three hours, one minute and 56 seconds. He had flown a Republic F-84F Thunderstreak, which the Air Force said reached a maximum speed of 650 miles per hour—considerably faster than an F-85 Oldsmobile. Nine other pilots had competed in the race. The first Bendix race had been won in 1931 by Jimmy Doolittle, flying a propeller-driven craft with an average speed of 223 miles per hour.

Thus far during the Labor Day weekend, comparatively few deaths had occurred in accidents. The President had urged motorists to drive carefully and fool the experts, who had predicted 390 motor vehicle fatalities during the long weekend which would end at midnight on Monday. By 9:00 a.m. this date, 15 hours after the start of the weekend, there had only been 15 fatalities reported, 13 of which had occurred in traffic accidents, with one drowning and one miscellaneous accidental death. Governor G. Mennen Williams of Michigan had declared an emergency to try to curb the death toll, ordering National Guardsmen to join regular police officers in patrolling the highways.

In New York, seven teenagers, five of whom were girls, were being held this date for allegedly whipping and burning with cigarettes a 14-year old girl whom they accused of "making eyes" at another girl's boyfriend. Police said that the seven youths had thrown down the girl in a Queens schoolyard the previous day, thrashed her with a belt supplied by one of the boys and burned her right leg, also taking from a girlfriend of the whipped girl $1.55, but not injuring her. The whipped girl had walked a mile to the Ozone Park police station and provided a description of the assailants, after which having been treated for shock, burns and contusions at a hospital. Police then arrested the seven suspects and charged three of them who were 16 with assault and battery, charging four girls who were under 16 with juvenile delinquency. It was the latest incident in a series of juvenile attacks occurring in New York City.

In Waukegan, Ill., a grocery store had a rule against cashing checks for strangers, and after an employee followed the policy, a stranger returned on Thursday night with a pistol and held her up, taking $41, the amount he had sought to obtain through the check.

In Omaha, the head of the Michigan State Department of Guidance & Counselor Training at Michigan State College said that teachers had to be "shockproof", offering as an illustration the story of a first grade pupil who had walked into the classroom and reported, "Me sleep with daddy," which the teacher had corrected by saying, "No, no, I sleep with daddy," to which the youngster had replied, "Maybe so, but that must have been after I went to sleep." The head of the training program added that a good sense of humor also helped teachers.

On the editorial page, "Why Not Adopt the Bushel Basis?" indicates that the Federal farm program had teeth in it, but that some farmers did not mind getting bitten, as wheat farmers during July had voted for "marketing quotas", meaning that if farmers planted more than their acreage allotment, they would be fined more than a dollar per bushel for all of the wheat grown on the excess acreage, the purpose being to discourage overproduction.

The Wall Street Journal had reported that a Nebraska farmer said that he had 550 acres ready to plant but with allotment of only 432 acres, yet would plant the whole thing and pay the penalty on the few extra acres of wheat, still winding up better than with any other type of crop on the additional acreage. A county agent had also stated to the Journal that over 70 percent of the farmers in the county would overplant their allotments.

It suggests that the Nebraska situation represented the extreme difficulty of enforcing curbs on production. It urges that one possible remedy was to impose stricter penalties and another would be the proposed bushel allotment system, rather than based on acreage. Under that system, farmers could plant the acreage they desired but market only a specific number of bushels, being forced to store their excess wheat in a year of overproduction, at no cost to the Government, and sell it in another year when the crop was poor, not meeting quotas. In that manner, a farmer would not be penalized for overplanting the crop in a down year. Wheat stored on the farm, with price and market assured, would be like money in the bank. It would also discourage overproduction by large operators who had torn up large sections of the Northwest to make a quick buck, leaving behind clouds of dust on the land.

It suggests it as a farm program with teeth which might ease the problem, without harming either farmers or taxpayers.

"Winthrop College Needs Byrnes' Help" indicates that when the trustees of Winthrop College had met in Rock Hill, S.C., during the current week, their deliberations had proceeded without the benefit of Governor James Byrnes, ex officio chairman of the board. It reports that throughout his term of office, he had seldom participated in the meetings of the board, which it regards as understandable, given the duties of his office, were the affairs of the college running smoothly, unfortunately not the case. The college administration and alumni had been feuding and the college had been blacklisted by the American Association of University Professors and removed from the approved list of the American Association of University Women.

It posits that the people of South Carolina had reason to be disturbed and to expect the disagreement to be resolved quickly. The trustees needed to make difficult decisions and defend them before the people of the state, and it was not possible to conceive that the prestige of the Governor would not be of great help in carrying out those responsibilities. According to an Associated Press report, the Governor had replied to an appeal for his help in the situation by saying that his remaining time in office or even in his lifetime would not be sufficient for him to settle the problems at Winthrop.

It suggests that if that in fact had been his reply, it was made with ill grace from someone who had been in the Senate, on the Supreme Court, former Secretary of State and among the councils of the world's great, earning a reputation as a notable mediator. It urges that if Governor Byrnes wanted to retire to a life of tranquility, he had earned that right and could do so, but should not do it while being Governor and should not avoid taking a stand on a matter so vital to the education of young women in South Carolina.

"Yes, by All Means, a Good Press" indicates that when the soldiers had come home from World War I, some of them had suffered from "shell shock", and when their sons and nephews had returned from World War II, many of them had gone through similar strains, then called "combat fatigue", the conditions having been the same, only the nomenclature having been different. It suggests that if such unfortunate victims would endure another war of that magnitude, they would probably be said to suffer from "gross stress reaction". (That isn't far from the case, involving at least the veterans of Vietnam and the wars since, with "post-traumatic stress syndrome" being the more modern assigned label for the condition.)

The new terminology, it relates, was the result of the American Psychiatric Association having decided to define terms which had been loosely and incorrectly used in the past. Such terms as "idiots", "imbeciles" and "morons" were now obsolete in psychiatric circles, as was the word "insanity", now substituted by mental deficiency categorized by "mild", "moderate", or "severe". Psychiatrists no longer referred to "psychopathic personality", instead discussing "personality pattern disturbances", "personality trait disturbances" and "sociopathic personality disturbances". With the new nomenclature, psychiatrists hoped to understand with more certainty what other psychiatrists were intending by their classifications.

It suggests that political science ought also adopt more exact terminology, as there were a myriad of definitions for such terms as "coexistence", "subversive", "massive retaliation" and "containment". The economists, it ventures, were in even worse condition, having to differentiate between a "recession", "depression", "downturn", "easing off", "dip", "slip", "lull", "inventory adjustment", "rolling readjustment", "correction" and a plain old "drop". It suggests confidence that soon the political scientists and economists would attempt to delineate better their terminology as both professions appeared bent on making themselves better understood and receiving "good press".

It indicates that journalists also had won a great victory when Webster's New International Dictionary had been published the previous year, as "journalistic" now had a new definition, formerly related to a style characterized by evidence of "haste, superficiality of thought, inaccuracies of detail, colloquialisms and sensationalism", now stated to be referring to a "style of expressions, appropriate to the immediate present and to stimulate and satisfy the interest and curiosity of a wide reading public—often in distinction from literary."

It concludes that it thinks it would take its "unliterary talents off into a corner and write a dictionary."

A piece from the Montgomery Advertiser, titled "Two Stages of Man", begins with the quote, "Once a man, twice a child," suggesting that the similarities between an infant and an aged person were more superficial than otherwise, that the weakness in identifying the two ages was the same which led some to believe that history repeated itself precisely and that the future could be foretold by the past as prologue. It acknowledges that both the infant and the elderly person were wrinkled, potbellied, without hair and bent because of lack of strength to resist the pull of gravity. But the one was coming while the other was going, one was remembering while the other was forgetting, one laughed while the other sighed. It concludes that what made them alike was that they were both headed for the same destination "and that one is not far behind the other on their journey."

Drew Pearson's column this date is written by Gertrude Berg, who played Molly Goldberg on the tv show "The Goldbergs", discussing, in character, her television neighborhood and her husband on the show, Jake, plus her role of arranging marriages. She relates of a marital problem within their television family, and concludes that Molly Goldberg thanked Mr. Pearson for letting her take the time so that she could relate of her "Bronx Merry-Go-Round".

We hope that he does not turn the column over Monday to Farley Granger and that he might opt to write the column in character from that of one of his two films directed by Alfred Hitchcock.

Marquis Childs, in Paris, discusses the aftermath of the French National Assembly's rejection of the ratification of the European Defense Community plan for a unified six-nation army and what lay in the future. French Premier Pierre Mendes-France had said repeatedly that he would work with Britain and the U.S. regarding a plan to bring German military contribution within a new form of partnership, with suggestions having been made to form a "little NATO" which would contain the German divisions. But West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer had stated in a letter to the other five signatory nations of EDC, Italy, France, and the Benelux countries, that his Government would not accept such a solution. West Germany also would not accept limited sovereignty which would attach under ratification of the Bonn treaty, separated from EDC. A month earlier, West German Vice-Chancellor Franz Blucher and other German officials had told Mr. Childs that such a solution would not be acceptable, pointing out that the Bonn treaty had been negotiated in 1951 and that since that time, extraordinary changes had occurred, including the resurgence of German industrial power to a point that its production increasingly had dominated markets in Europe, the Middle East and Far East.

Moreover, the position of Premier Mendes-France had been seriously damaged by his failure to support EDC in the National Assembly, though having given lip service to ratification. He now appeared as just another Premier caught within the French system, making government appear impossible. The Communists within the National Assembly had made themselves appear indispensable to the Premier if he wanted to remain in power. That bloc of 95 deputies plus the orthodox Gaullists, with 75 votes, formed over half of the majority of 319 which had defeated EDC. Thus, the Premier had little latitude to form foreign policy henceforth. If he were to try to put the Bonn treaty into effect, with rearmament of West Germany to come later, worked out in a conference with the Atlantic powers, the Communists would turn against him. They might be joined by the pro-EDC deputies who were likely to say that there had to be a united Europe or nothing, as strange as were those political bedfellows. Animosities had also been stirred among EDC advocates who believed that the Premier had deliberately sabotaged EDC. That would inevitably spell doom for the Mendes-France Government, and already, some observers were saying that its downfall was not far away. As a result, France now appeared even more ungovernable than it had been previously.

The U.S. was considerably bitter over the outcome, particularly among those who had staked European foreign policy on EDC, believing that the Premier had engineered the defeat, potentially another handicap in trying to effect a new approach.

The Communists would chalk the defeat up as a major victory, however, even though it largely resulted from forces over which they had no control, such as the intransigent Gaullists. The defection recently of a member of key German parliamentary committees, who had said in an interview that there were secret plans for 48 German divisions, not just 12, had occurred at a critical moment and been exploited by the Communist propaganda machine, carried throughout the French press. The Communists could count on the 95 votes of their bloc of deputies in the Assembly, and that, posits Mr. Childs, could be France's greatest tragedy and greatest menace.

Stewart Alsop, in Charleston, W. Va., examines the race for re-election in the fall of 79-year old Senator Matthew Neely, who was openly attacking the President's policies, peculiar among Democrats. His challenger, Tom Sweeney, had not sought to defend the President, making it a doubly peculiar race. Senator Neely asserted that the President was speaking "monstrous hypocrisy and nonsense" regarding the economy and other matters, believing that the policies were as disastrous as those of the Hoover Administration and would, if not stopped, "make paupers of half the population of West Virginia". The Senator had been sporadically in Washington for 40 years, but had made little dent on the national scene. He regarded the Eisenhower popularity as an overblown myth.

Mr. Sweeney, much younger, was a Wheeling insurance executive. His biggest problem was a split between the Eisenhower faction and the pro-McCarthy right-wing of the party. Mr. Sweeney had induced Senator McCarthy to make his Wheeling speech in February, 1950, identifying 57 supposed "card-carrying Communists" in the State Department, the start of what became known as McCarthyism. But Mr. Sweeney said that he had insisted on not taking any public stand on any issue which would alienate voters from any faction of the party. He told Mr. Alsop that he wanted to go along with the President as much as possible, but had not sought speakers in his behalf from the Administration and was not building his campaign around the President.

Governor William Marland, who had also attacked the President for returning to the days of Hoover, had said that the state had returned to the Thirties under the Eisenhower Administration, a fact true insofar as the coal industry was concerned, the primary industry in West Virginia, down to the level of production of the late Thirties with employment in the mines lower than during the Depression, with 40,000 to 50,000 miners unemployed and many others working only part-time. The number of indigent persons certified for free surplus food in the state had risen during the previous two years from 12,000 to 16,000. The facts, however, were not the fault of President Eisenhower, but rather from such factors as competition of residual fuel oils and mechanization of the mines.

Mr. Alsop suggests that West Virginia was a foretaste of what could happen nationally were another depression to occur, crippling the ability of the President to lead.

A letter writer suggests that Americanism and patriotism should be stressed more in the schools so that children would learn what America should mean to them.

A letter writer tells of having seen a report that a rally had been held in South Carolina to support maintenance of segregation in the public schools, that one speaker had said that many blacks had false impressions and were being led in the wrong direction. He expresses his disagreement, that just because black people were having their eyes opened to resisting discrimination did not mean that "some moss-backed diehard fanatic" should say that they were being led in the wrong direction. He finds that trying to maintain segregation was the equivalent of trying to keep a river from running down hill, that a dam might be interposed to hold back the river for awhile, but that eventually it would break. He finds the fanatics, who claimed to be saints, actually to be "black as the devil" on the inside, that one could not love God and hate black people. He says that there was no half-way ground between being all love or all hate. He urges reconciliation to the idea that segregation was on the way out and that doing away with prejudice and teaching brotherly love would bring about a brighter world where the songs of birds would be sweet and the flowers more beautiful. He urges practicing Christianity not only on Sundays, but during every minute of every day.

A letter writer, the branch manager of Diebold, Inc., compliments the editorial, "If You Don't Want To Be a Dead Hero...", regarding what to do and not to do in case of a holdup, advising that one should not try to be a hero in the face of a gun. He indicates that it was what the bank vault and safe industry had been expounding for nearly a century. From the time the first Conestoga wagons and pony express riders had been held up at gunpoint, the industry had been seeking to build security and alarm devices which would deter or prevent holdups and burglary attempts. There had been progress through various elaborate locking systems on bank vaults, with electronics entering the picture in the previous few years. Now there were listening devices which could detect the footsteps of an intruder when the business was closed or could detect the sounds of a window being jimmied open, and then report that fact to the police department. There were also other methods of which the holdup men were not aware, many of which were of low cost. He advises doing exactly as a man with a gun said and otherwise taking proper precautions, resulting in fewer daylight holdups.

A letter writer thanks the newspaper for reprinting on Thursday the piece by Rufus Terral on jazz, indicates that jazz was the only original art form of the United States, and was also a product of the South, of which the region should be proud.

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