The Charlotte News

Tuesday, January 11, 1955

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the President had urged Congress this date in two special messages to increase the pay of Government workers covered by Civil Service and of postal workers by about five percent, while at the same time raising postal rates. He also proposed a health insurance program for Government workers. He estimated that the increase in pay would cost 339.5 million dollars per year and that the health program would cost another 55 million. The recommendations for the pay raise of postal workers was contained in a separate message from that for those covered under the Civil Service system. His effort to tie the postal workers' pay increase to an increase in postal rates repeated his effort in the previous session of Congress, after he had vetoed a bill the previous year to raise pay without a commensurate rate hike in postage. Talk in Congress since the beginning of the session indicated that members were in favor of raising the pay of Federal workers, but were reluctant to raise postal rates.

The President's five-member Highway Advisory Commission had recommended this date a 101 billion dollar modernization program during the ensuing decade, indicating that a two-cent per gallon Federal gasoline tax ought meet all costs of the Federal Government's share of the program, 31.2 billion, including financing of the major cost of a 40,000-mile network of interstate highways. The program also called for spending 29 billion dollars by Federal, state and local governments over the ensuing decade as part of a "grand plan for a properly articulated highway system that solves the problems of speeding, safe transcontinental travel—intercity transportation—access highways—and farm-to-market movement." It would be in addition to spending 47 billion during the ensuing decade as the Federal Government's nine percent share under present plans for road and highway improvement. The President had outlined the program the previous summer, saying that it was needed for national security, as highways had deteriorated since the end of World War II. The Commission, headed by retired General Lucius Clay, recommended overall that the Federal Government pay about 30 percent of the 101 billion dollar total for the program, with the Federal Government paying substantially all of the 24 billion dollars in cost for developing the interstate highway system, currently paying about 60 percent of that cost. It also recommended establishing a new Federal agency to oversee the program.

In Berlin, an American, John Noble of Detroit, released recently from a Soviet slave labor camp after serving 9 1/2 years, said this date to a press conference that a rebellion had flared up in the camp in July, 1953, during which guards had mowed down ten prisoners on the spot and had wounded 500 others, indicating that the vast networks of prisons in Russia needed only a spark to explode into open revolt. He said that the revolt in the camp where he was imprisoned had been inspired and organized by followers of the subsequently executed Soviet secret police chief L. P. Beria, who, at the time, had been under arrest, that 50 to 60 persons had been later executed for their part in the revolt. He said the camp contained more than a half-million inmates, of whom 95 percent were dedicated to opposing the Soviet regime. Mr. Noble said that he and his father, a camera manufacturer, had been trapped in Dresden in 1945 near the end of World War II, and had been compelled to remain there under local internment after both were arrested by the Russians. His father had been released in 1952 and he had been taken from a German prison to the slave labor camp in 1950. He said that he was sentenced to 15 years without any trial, the officials only saying that he and his father had been guilty of receiving American officers and soldiers in their home in 1945 and had American food in their possession. He said life in the labor camp was "horrible and hopeless", that none of them ever expected to return to their homelands. He had been assigned to coal mining, where the temperature sometimes reached as low as 40 degrees below zero, on one occasion falling to 72 below. He estimated that there were several thousand Germans and quite a number of Poles in the slave labor camp, that they had seen only two other Americans, one of whom had been released with him, plus a soldier from Louisiana, whose release was being sought by the U.S. Government. The Russians had given no explanation at any time for the imprisonment, including after the release.

In Hong Kong, U.N. Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold disclosed that he had cabled warm thanks to Communist China's Premier and Foreign Minister Chou En-lai for his hospitality during the Secretary-General's visit to try to negotiate the release of 11 U.S. airmen and other U.N. personnel imprisoned for alleged espionage during the Korean War, responding to a U.N.-passed resolution condemning the imprisonment as a violation of the terms of the Korean War Armistice of July, 1953, under which prisoners of war were supposed to be repatriated to their country of choice.

In Swarthmore, Pa., a Swarthmore College student who was planning to enter the ministry, had fired five shots into a college dormitory room early this date, killing one of the two students who were sleeping there, according to police. The 22-year old student admitted firing the shots which had killed another 18-year old student, while not injuring the 19-year old roommate. The assailant then walked with the roommate and another student into the Swarthmore police station, where he surrendered himself. The college dean, who had sat in on the police questioning, quoted the assailant as saying that he had become enraged the previous night at pranks played on him by other students, then had gone to his home in Pottstown, about 35 miles away, obtained a .22-caliber rifle and returned to campus in the early morning hours, attempted to obtain access to several rooms, then fired five shots into the room where the victim had been sleeping. The assailant was proctor in charge of the floor where the victim and his roommate lived, and was considered strict by the other students. The assailant was majoring in psychiatry—which we presume to mean psychology—and was attending school on a scholarship, was an excellent student, supplementing his stipend with odd jobs, including that of being proctor. Police indicated that he had been in the Air Force for slightly more than a month before receiving a discharge after suffering a nervous breakdown.

In Raleigh, State Senator Jack Blythe of Charlotte gave his support and received support on two vital issues before the current General Assembly, the first being a motor vehicle inspection bill, as suggested by the commissioner of Motor Vehicles, Ed Scheidt, during a speech the previous night in Winston-Salem before the North Carolina Automotive Wholesalers Association. Mr. Scheidt had said that in his opinion, the repeal several years earlier of the mechanical inspection law, after a two-year experimental program, had been a serious step backward in terms of highway safety. Mr. Blythe also reported receiving support for his proposal to have redistricting in accordance with the decennial census for the State Senate.

Near Mount Airy, N.C., an early morning fire had destroyed the old 165-room White Sulphur Springs Hotel, which the previous summer had been dubbed "the world's largest chicken house", the owner saying that she had carried only a small amount of insurance on the estimated loss of $50,000. Poultry raisers, who operated a business out of the structure, said that 25,800 chickens, valued at $15,000, had been destroyed in the fire, with most of the chickens ready for market. The hotel, located three miles from Mount Airy, had attracted thousands of vacationers for 30 years, but had not been used as a hotel for about 20 years, sitting vacant for a long period of time while its owner sought other uses, the previous year finally renting out the building to two Mount Airy poultry raisers, who immediately proclaimed it as the largest chicken house in the world. No one knew yet how the fire had started, the wooden structure having quickly burned out of control and eventually burned to the ground. Recoup part of your losses maybe by advertising a special sale of extra-crispy fryers.

In Charlotte, Superior Court Judge Francis O. Clarkson, in an unprecedented move in the city, had admitted a News photographer, Jeep Hunter, to the courtroom for the purpose of taking photographs during a criminal court session, and indicated afterward that Mr. Hunter had not bothered him a bit. He said it was all right to take one or two pictures in the courtroom without flashbulbs, posing, interruptions or commotion. It was believed to be the first time that working photographers had been permitted to photograph an actual court in session in Mecklenburg County. The judge said he would pass individually on each future request for permission to photograph in the courtroom.

In Hollywood, a man from Stuttgart, Germany, had ridden a motor scooter 35,000 miles from his hometown, indicating that he had been filming a movie during the trip, which had gone through India, Egypt and the Far East, from Tibet to Singapore, and that he hoped still to visit Mexico and New York before returning to Europe by ship. No explanation is provided as to how he crossed the Pacific on his motor scooter, but surely there must be some rational explanation. Perhaps, he had little floats on either side and a little beany-cap with a propeller for locomotion.

In New York, the president of the National Association of Hosiery Manufacturers told department store executives that the average American woman owned fewer than four pairs of nylon hose and that they all looked alike, that the fault was with merchants and manufacturers who had placed the American woman in a uniform as far as stockings were concerned, with the average woman waiting until her old stockings had worn out before purchasing new ones, buying two pairs of exactly the same weight and color as the old ones, which she would wear while scrubbing the floor or playing golf, to a county fair or to the church social, or while pruning the roses. Meanwhile, the average American woman bought hats, shoes and automobiles in a variety of styles and colors. Hose all look alike.

On the editorial page, "A Floor for North Carolina Wages" indicates that the state had a moral responsibility, as well as a practical stake, in providing a decent minimum wage, that even the 55-cent per hour recommendation of Governor Luther Hodges to the Legislature would help raise the living standards in the state. But even that low minimum wage law for jobs not in interstate commerce and thus not covered by the Federal Wage and Hours Act, was viewed with suspicion and alarm by some members of the Legislature in the previous 1953 biennial session. It had been favored by the late Governor William B. Umstead at that time, and had passed the State Senate, but a House committee had blocked it without a record vote.