The Charlotte News
Saturday, December 10, 1955
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the Administration was planning to ask Congress for 2.67 billion dollars in new foreign aid funding for the following fiscal year, a fractional decrease from the total for the current year, 2.7 billion, the Budget Bureau having approved the figure after a month-long series of discussions with interested Government agencies. The President could still decide to change the amount, but it was believed that he would not do so. The reduction in the program appeared to eliminate the prospect of increased spending in the oil-rich Middle East to offset Russia's increased activities there. Foreign aid officials said that the planned request represented only the bare essentials, with no room for even minor cuts if the program was to be successful. The amount would include 1.6 billion dollars for economic, defense supported technical assistance, plus slightly over one billion for weapons shipment. Senator Richard Russell of Georgia, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, had said that he would vote for a reasonable amount of military aid, provided it was shown that it was needed, but would vote to cut out all economic aid. He said that he thought that Congress had made too much money available for foreign aid during the current fiscal year. He and other Congressional leaders of both parties had been invited to the White House the following Tuesday, when the President and his aides would brief them on the Administration's proposed defense and foreign policy programs. Top Administration officials would also seek more flexibility and authority to decide when and where to spend the money, set to argue before Congress that they needed greater latitude to meet any Soviet economic challenges, especially in the underdeveloped or uncommitted areas.
In Gettysburg, Pa., it was reported that the President would return to Washington this date for a complete medical checkup and the important conferences the following week with Congressional leaders. He had traveled by car the 79 miles from his Gettysburg farm to the Walter Reed Army Hospital. Doctors planned to give him X-rays, fluoroscopic and other tests to determine how he was recovering from his September 24 heart attack. Doctors were still indicating that he was undergoing steady progress in his recovery, but had stated that it would be the following January or February before they could say whether he would make a complete recovery, sufficient to enable him to run again for the presidency. The President had appeared to accept an active role in steering the party's course the following year, regardless of whether or not he would be a candidate. Senator William Knowland, Minority Leader, had been urging an announcement early in the coming year to permit other Republican presidential aspirants, including possibly himself, to enter the primaries should the President decide not to run.
Senator Knowland apparently planned to depict himself as a stronger advocate than the Administration for a "tough" policy toward Russia, should he run for the nomination. The Senator refused to tell a New York press conference the previous day whether he would seek the nomination, until the President had the opportunity to make his decision, which Senator Knowland said he believed would occur in January. He had made it clear that if the President chose to run again, he would support him. Senator Knowland had made a speech before the National Association of Manufacturers the previous night in New York, asserting that the U.S. had "acquiesced" in what he regarded as "unadulterated blackmail" by the Communists to abstain from the vote to admit to the U.N. five Communist and 13 free nations in a package deal. The deal had been approved by a vote of 52 to 2, with six nations abstaining. Nationalist China threatened, however, to veto the deal in the Security Council, with the veto aimed at the admission of Outer Mongolia. The Senator said that "the external and internal threats (of Communism) may be camouflaged until after the American people go to the polls 11 months from now." He was not specific about what he meant in that regard. He also said that a short time earlier, "some at home and abroad were anticipating a release of tensions by a cooling plunge into the mirage of Lake Geneva." He said that "peace at any price means the ultimate communization of the world." He praised the record of the Administration on domestic policies. Meanwhile, House Minority Leader, Representative Joseph Martin of Massachusetts, stated to an audience in Bradenton, Fla., that since the Republicans had come into office, there was no more appeasement. Governor Theodore McKeldin of Maryland, who had nominated General Eisenhower at the 1952 Republican convention, said in a speech that the party would not greet with cheers any premature announcements of presidential candidates from what he called the Republican "fringe of fear and frustration."
In Beverly Hills, Democrats and Republicans planned to take time out from their 1956 election battles to organize a bipartisan drive for campaign funding from persons of both parties who did not usually contribute. DNC chairman Paul Butler and a spokesman for the Republicans in Washington had confirmed that the general idea had met with approval. Mr. Butler told a press conference the previous day that the campaign would "broaden the base of contributions", with many more citizens taking part by giving small amounts. Mr. Butler said that Philip Graham, publisher of the Washington Post, had proposed the idea in a speech at the University of Chicago the previous spring. A recent Gallup poll, according to Mr. Butler, had indicated that millions of voters who had never before been solicited would be willing to give from one to five dollars for the campaign of the party of their choice. Under the plan, each donor would designate the party to which he intended the gift. Mr. Butler had asked RNC chairman Leonard Hall to seek support of Republican members of Congress for an amendment to the tax laws to allow a $100 deduction for political contributions by individuals, not to be applicable to corporations. Mr. Hall was reported to have approved the general idea.
In Montréal, violence flared anew on city streets early this date, as a gang of about 25 men and youths had attempted unsuccessfully to revive the previous night's destructive rampage against buses and streetcars, with police moving in quickly to break up the gang after the windows of three streetcars had been broken, the rioting resulting from a student demonstration called to protest a recent 2.5-cent increase in streetcar and bus fares. Police said that "hoodlums, thugs and vandals" had taken over the demonstration. They said that three of the 25 men arrested had been charged with disturbing the peace. The previous night, there had been a six-hour demonstration, instigated by students as a protest against the fare increase. It had developed into wildness reminiscent of a vicious hockey riot the previous March 17, during which leather-jacketed youths were conspicuous among the troublemakers, as they had been the previous night. The police said, however, that the students were not without blame, that they had done as much as anyone else. Some 40 persons had been injured and more than 100 arrested, and at least $50,000 worth of property damage had been done to the Montréal Transportation Commission, with 172 streetcars and 64 buses having been damaged. The crowds had hurled stones, sticks and bottles, smashing windows, ripping out seats, pulling trolleys from power lines and attempting to set fire to the buses and streetcars. The mayor banned group demonstrations until further notice. Police said that all injuries were minor, with one policeman among those injured.
In Omaha, the body of a University of Omaha coed, 20, with her neck and arms wounded by four bullets, had been found during the morning in the driveway leading to the University. She had been a part-time employee at the University, had worked until late the previous night at the library after participating in a debate tournament, and was believed to have died shortly after leaving the school alone. She had been shot once in the neck, once in the left arm and twice in the right arm, the police having said that the shooting had taken place about 150 feet from where the body had been found, and that she had crawled toward the main east-west thoroughfare in the city, seeking aid, inferred from the fact that one of her shoes had been found at the point where the police believed she was shot. She was described as a "brilliant student" and had planned to study law. Police said that they would compare the bullets which killed her to those which had also killed a 62-year old Omaha taxi driver the prior Monday, as each had been shot with a .32-caliber weapon. The cab driver's body had been found lying in the middle of the road at the west edge of Omaha, several hours after police had located his blood-spattered cab in a bowling alley parking lot.
In Waco, Tex., a Houston businessman was convicted of murder the previous night for setting an automobile bomb which killed his wealthy former mother-in-law in San Angelo on January 19. The State had referred to it as a "mistake" murder, contending that the defendant had set the bomb to kill her husband, with testimony having shown that the defendant received money from the mother-in-law and thought that her husband was preventing him from obtaining more. The defendant said that he would appeal and would be vindicated in the end. The victim's husband said that he had prayed that right would win. The jury had deliberated for 3 1/2 hours. The judge had permitted the nation's first live telecast of a murder trial, with the camera located in the balcony of the courtroom, without floodlights, making it unobtrusive. Testimony was picked up by microphones, and a news commentator gave a running account. The district attorney said that the punishment, life in prison, was commensurate with the crime, though the State had sought the death penalty. The defense attorney said that the victim's husband had already committed one murder and now, through the jury, was seeking to commit another, as he was actually the guilty party. The defendant had been divorced from the victim's daughter and had obtained custody of their two children. The State had relied on circumstantial evidence, that the defendant had sought to hire others to kill the husband of the victim and had been seen in and near San Angelo the night before the killing. The defense sought to imply in its cross-examination that the husband of the victim had set the bomb.
In Glendora, Miss., a 35-year old white man was scheduled to have a hearing the following Monday on a charge that he had killed a 33-year old black service station attendant, shot to death at the service station the previous Saturday night. The defendant said that he had shot twice with his shotgun when someone had fired three times as he drove up in a car owned by a friend, J. W. Milam, who had been acquitted on September 23, along with his half-brother, of the murder of 14-year old Emmett Till on August 28. Authorities in Tallahatchie County, where Emmett's body had been found in the river, said that Mr. Milam had no connection with the service station killing. They questioned the defendant at Mr. Milam's home, where the defendant's wife was dressing a bullet wound in her husband's shoulder. Tallahatchie County Sheriff H. C. Strider, who had come up with the crazy theory that the body pulled from the Tallahatchie River was not that of Emmett Till, resulting, according to the foreman of the jury, in the acquittal of the two half-brothers after only an hour of deliberations, said that the defendant had told him that he had opened fire in self-defense after the black man had first fired a pistol at him.
In Gastonia, N.C., a police officer pulled a 47-year old man over because he was driving the wrong way on a one-way street, the man saying that he had not had anything to drink since the night before. But then his four-year old son had stated that his father had taken a drink when he let his mother out at the employment office. After hearing the evidence, a judge decided that the defendant should pay a $100 fine and the costs of court, and suffer a four-month suspension of his driver's license for drunk driving.
In Charlotte, a local man had a screwdriver driven deeply into his hip as a result of an automobile accident in the city this date. Police said that the man had made a turn in front of a car driven by Ralph Smith, "Brother Ralph" on the Arthur Smith and his Crackerjacks television program, and, though the compleat reporter does not bother to say so, presumably a collision resulted—or, perhaps, a Bunny Bread truck intervened to cause it all, as the shafts of most screwdrivers are round, not square. The police had not yet had a chance to question the driver regarding the screwdriver, but it appeared that it had been in his pocket at the time of the accident, with the police indicating that it was embedded in his hip up to its handle.
Also in Charlotte, a man had been crushed to death between a truck and a loading dock shortly before noon this date. He had gone to a warehouse to pick up merchandise which had been shipped to him in a truck, which was backing up to the loading dock, the driver indicating that he could not see the man.
Freezing weather extended from Maine southward across Florida and other Southeast areas of the country this date, with below freezing temperatures reported in Cross City, Fla., where it reached 31, a drop of 29 degrees below the previous day. In Jacksonville, it was 36, 26 degrees lower than the previous day, and in Savannah, Ga., it was 32, also 26 degrees lower than the previous day. Temperatures in Florida ranged between the low 30's in the north to the low 50's in the south, it having been 51 in Miami during the morning. In other East Coast areas, temperatures dropped between 10 and 15 degrees below those of the previous day. Meanwhile, in the Northern Plains area of the country, Minot, N.D., enjoyed a high of -6 while it was -20 in Aberdeen, S.D., during the morning. There was a slight warming trend, an increase of between five and 10 degrees, in the Western Plains and most of the area west of the Rockies.
In Charlotte, the cold front was moving in, with clear, cold weather anticipated for the area during the ensuing couple of days, the low during the morning having been 22 and during the warmest part of the afternoon, the predicted temperature was 40, with a high of about 43 forecast for the following day against a low of around 20.
In Hollywood, it was announced that the city would have colored sidewalks on Hollywood Boulevard and on Vine Street, with bronze plaques of movie stars laid in concrete squares, searchlights atop every street light and colored searchlights at intersections, with the nine million dollar cost to be paid by local businessmen.
On the editorial page, "Mr. Dulles and a Familiar Theme" indicates that the Secretary of State had used the theme of "massive retaliation" first in 1954, to deter open, armed aggression in Korea and Indo-China, saying that the U.S. would choose the means and places for retaliation against the next active Communist aggression.
But, it asserts, the international situation was completely different during the week when the Secretary had made his major policy speech, talking of military retaliation while Communist leaders were touring the Far East, seeking to break the West's monopoly on good works, offering tools and technicians, dams and grain elevators to the citizens of India and Burma. They were also decrying war as the weapon of colonial imperialists, identifying the latter with the U.S., France and Britain.
Secretary Dulles had recognized those new tactics and conceded that the Russians had the technicians they were offering to underdeveloped areas, but also saying that there was no reason for alarm because free Asiatic leaders would not be "easily duped by false promises" and would not disregard the dangers of Communism. He counseled a rebirth of the "crusading spirit" of the 19th Century in America.
It finds that it would be reassuring except for the conflicts and lack of detail, that the Secretary assumed that Russian promises were false, while at the same time admitting that they had the means to fulfill them. He assumed that Asian leaders would see through the Communist strategy, but that strategy had been directed more to the masses than to the leaders of the countries they were wooing. It wishes that the Secretary had talked more about the "crusading spirit" which had "animated our missionaries, our doctors, our educators and our merchants who during the last century went throughout the world carrying the benefits of a new way of life." It suggests that the way to face the threat from ostensible but duplicitous Soviet kindness to Asia was not through mere recollection of the 19th Century's crusading spirit, that the Secretary had to make the nation a 20th Century model of that spirit, "with wheels that roll and a motor that runs."
It concludes that the speech was significant for what it had not said.
"'It Makes Men Hate One Another'" tells of the New York Times having said that there was more than a small amount of historical support for the plea of Adlai Stevenson for "moderation" in the coming election year. It offered as examples the advice of Plutarch, "Moderation is best, and to avoid all extremes," Seneca's, "A great soul prefers moderation to excess," Racine's, "Who wishes to travel far spares his mount," and Shakespeare's, "Be moderate," from Troilus and Cressida.
It agrees with the advice but finds that the difficulties of moderation in the present times could be explained by Shakespeare's Coriolanus, in which a group of servants, speaking morosely about the peace between the Romans and the Volscians, said that the peace was nothing other than to "rust iron, increase tailors and breed ballad-makers,", to which another agreed, saying that it also made men hate one another because, according to a third servant, they less needed one another in time of peace. It finds the cynicism still valid.
It suggests that there was a need for pageantry in peace and that the political campaigns afforded it, serving as an outlet for surplus emotions. The danger, it posits, was that the emotion could get out of hand, placing the nation in moral danger. While there was something normal about campaign charges of deceit, corruption, extravagance, lust for power or even stupidity, when suggestions were made of treason, sadism and blood-selling, as had occurred in 1952 and 1954, the nation needed to put a stop to it.
Allan Nevins had written that such tactics smacked of the implacable temper, the rejection of moderation and compromise, which in a country, such as Spain, had divided parties by "unbridgeable gulfs and made democratic processes unworkable," threatening the U.S. with something new in its history or at least since the end of the Civil War, breeding of a fierce hostility between the temporary majority and the temporary minority, which would ultimately cripple the strength of the nation.
It concludes that the two major political parties did not differ much from one another and when one party attacked the other viciously, it was, in a sense, also attacking itself.
"Keep Your Tree from Turning
Red
The National Board of Fire Underwriters had recommended choosing a small tree and keeping it outdoors until a few days before setting it up, during which water should be thrown over it to keep it moist and fresh. When the tree was brought inside, the bottom of the trunk should be cut in a slant to open the pores and then the tree placed in a tub of water. They urged being wary of chemicals or other substances sold for supposed fireproofing of trees, as some such products were ineffective. Trees should be placed away from areas of great heat, such as a fireplace, stove, television set, radiator or electric bulbs. Untreated paper ornaments or untreated cotton batting or gauze should never be used for decoration, but cotton and gauze could be made flame-resistant by dipping them in a gallon of water mixed with nine ounces of borax and four ounces of boric acid. Only electric lights should be used, and never candles on or near trees. Wires should be in good condition and bear the Underwriters Laboratories label. Electric trains should never be run around the base of the tree. Decorations should be kept away from chairs and other places where people might smoke. Plenty of ashtrays should be maintained around the house. Candles should never be placed in windows, and curtains and other flammable material should be pulled at least six inches from any electrical light. After gifts were opened, gift wrapping and other packing material should be removed and disposed. Dresses or costumes made of net or gauze-like fabrics should not be worn unless they were made flame resistant—although not many would wish to go around wearing a dress soaked in a borax and boric acid solution.
A piece from the Greensboro Daily News, titled "Of Ladylegs", finds that there were fewer bowlegged women than there had once been, which it says had been determined from "serious study and observation". The writer had discussed it with some experts, including a middle-aged physician, who agreed with the writer, asserting that better diet, medical care and general public health had eliminated bowleggedness in the state. But a young physician said that he had not noted the change, while an elderly physician said that he did not notice such things, with the writer concluding that the young one was inexperienced and the elder not to be trusted.
A shoe salesman had said that female legs were better because of better shoes and more sensible choice in shoes. A woman who sold corsets had given an explanation which it says it could not translate in public.
A psychiatrist said that female legs were changeless, immortal and immutable, and that any apparent change was the result of the observer, probably suffering from a neurosis.
An accountant had said that it was a pleasant subject for conversation, but that nothing could be established without a broad, scientific survey, employing skilled observers and tabulators. It says that the Familiar Sights Editor of the newspaper had made application to a foundation which would make possible a year of uninterrupted study of the issue and that he would hire out the tabulation.
Drew Pearson tells of Senator Olin Johnston of South Carolina, whom he regards as conscientious but sometimes naïve, having fallen for the German property lobby, trying to obtain return of alien property seized by the Government during and after World War II. The Senator had been holding hearings on the matter, and among the attorneys employed by the committee was one who had retired from the D.C. draft board in 1942 after being arrested for drunk driving in an accident which had injured a pedestrian, on which he had been acquitted, but then later fired a .38-caliber bullet over the head of a client, that case having been dismissed when the attorney claimed it was a joke. A second attorney on the committee had as a client Fritz von Opel, the German industrialist who was seeking return of his Ubersee Co., seized by the Government during the war and which now operated the Harvard Brewing Co. and the Spur service stations in Kentucky. That attorney could hardly be considered unbiased in acting for the committee, but Senator Johnston's explanation was that Senator Everett Dirksen of Illinois had asked him to hire the attorney, making it worse, says Mr. Pearson, as Senator Dirksen was one of the best friends of the German lobby. When the Republicans had controlled the Senate, Senator Dirksen had employed as counsel for the same committee an attorney who shared offices with Ray Jenkins, attorney for Interhandei, property of which was also seized by the Government. (It is not clear whether this was the same Ray Jenkins of Tennessee, who had been majority counsel for the Senate Investigating subcommittee which held hearings in the dispute between the Army and Senator McCarthy in the spring of 1954, unlikely the case as Mr. Pearson does not mention it.)
He next indicates that a major German industrialist visiting Washington recently had called Chancellor Konrad Adenauer of West Germany a fuddy-duddy and said that German business was only waiting for him to get out of the picture so that Germany could team up with Russia.
Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson, who had headed General Motors before joining the Administration in 1953, was not unhappy at the predicament of Harlow Curtice, who had succeeded him as G.M. president. Mr. Pearson speculates that perhaps Secretary Wilson remembered how glad Mr. Curtice had been to get Mr. Wilson out of the company. Several months earlier, Mr. Curtice had refused to attend Senate hearings unless subpoenaed, which he had been and so testified. The five-year contract which G.M. had just provided to dealers, in response to dealer criticism of the corporation which had stimulated the hearings, had been a victory for the executive vice-president of the National Auto Dealers Association, Frederick Bell, who had been working for better protection of dealers from the automobile manufacturers. The G.M. chairman, Alfred Sloan, stated before the committee, chaired by Senator Joseph O'Mahoney of Wyoming, that it was easy to get into the appliance business, not taking a large amount of capital, perhaps between 12 and 20 million dollars, which he said was not a lot of money for industry. Mr. Pearson says that Mr. Curtice had been opposed to the Eisenhower wing of the Republican Party and had recently fought the Henry Ford-Eisenhower Republicans in Michigan. Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay, a former Chevrolet dealer in Oregon, was glad that he was not back selling cars and was only watching the G.M. battle from within the Cabinet. Former IRS director T. Coleman Andrews had given G.M. a 206 million dollar tax refund.
He tells of the Geneva spirit, generated during July at the Big Four summit conference, going to "heck in a hand-basket", with war possibly threatened in the Near East and Secretary of State Dulles rivaling Secretary Wilson for putting his foot in his mouth. He indicates, however, that at least the squirrels were having a wonderful time on the White House lawn, scampering everywhere, no longer worried about the President's golfing habits. White House gardeners had put the putting green behind the White House in excellent shape, awaiting the return of the President, and the squirrels had not molested it. He suggests that maybe they had learned their lesson.
A letter writer hearkens back to the "separate but equal" doctrine of Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, indicates that the members then of the Supreme Court had lived through the Civil War and Reconstruction and were therefore better equipped to understand what Congress had meant when it passed the 14th Amendment in the wake of the Civil War than did the present judges. "And yet their decision in 1896 was just as unfair and undemocratic as the decision made by the Supreme Court of May 17, 1954," in Brown v. Board of Education. He regards each Court as having been comprised of "'nine old men' dictating a sacred principle of the people both white and colored, without permitting it to be brought before the Congress that represents the people of the nation for a vote in a truly democratic manner." He regards that as "high-handed". He goes on to say that the officials of the NAACP "and other race agitators" had seized on the opportunity "to agitate race friction and are wearing out the expression, 'It's the law of the land.'" He tries to equate the 14th amendment with the 18th amendment which had established Prohibition, and suggests that just as that amendment had been repealed subsequently in 1933, so might the 14th amendment be repealed, "if the race agitators try to push it over on the white people too hard." He says that he was in favor of ending all segregation laws, provided the majority of the people wanted them to end and that it was done democratically. But he finds that for the Supreme Court to pass on it was tantamount to the way they did things in Russia. "We don't want that kind of stuff in America. We want it done by our law-making representatives who represent all of the people and answer to them at the polls on election day. That is true democracy in action!"
So, we should have our rights expanded or curtailed by whimsy of the day, by the present electorate, regardless of the 14th Amendment having been based on principles plainly enunciated in the first ten amendments ratified shortly after the Founding. He seems to think that a mere majority of Congress could amend the Constitution, or is crazy to believe that not only two-thirds of both houses would vote for such an amendment but that three-fourths of the states would then ratify it. Just how he manages to equate the banning of sale of alcoholic beverages with equal protection of the laws for all citizens is quite a stretch in non-thinking.
A letter writer refers to letters which had been written on November 17 and 18, says in response, "None are so blind, as those who will not see." She wants to know why blacks should not comingle with whites, as Cubans, Italians, Indians, Chinese, Russians, Mexicans, Japanese and Germans did, just about everyone except blacks. She suggests that it might be because the white man was afraid of finding out that black people were no different from white people. She says that God had made everyone and had let man become ruler over all things on earth, counsels to let God's way stand, before the right to rule over anything was forfeited. She says, "As you sow, so shall ye reap." She finds it to have been amusing to have read of so many complaints from readers about being "short-changed" at the Southern States Fair during October, knowing that blacks had been short-changed ever since setting foot on American soil.
The day after, incidentally, the appearance of the letters which she references, on November 19, a letter writer counseled justice for Emmett Till, urging the Justice Department to become involved in bringing his killers to justice. That would never happen. Of course, in January, the accused and acquitted half-brothers, Roy Bryant and J. W. Milam, would admit having committed the murder and explain how they had gone about it, in an article for Look by William Bradford Huie. The Justice Department had already determined that they did not have jurisdiction in the matter because it considered the murder to have been exclusively a state crime without any impairment of a Constitutional right involved as the reason for the murder, such as a murder to prevent a person from registering to vote or helping others to do so. The statute, 18 USC 241, which permits the Federal Government to intervene in such situations where at least two persons, not acting under color of state law, such as law enforcement officers, covered by 18 USC 242, have conspired in the act, had been enacted in 1948 under President Truman, an extension of prior law in effect since 1870, albeit with lesser coverage of acts, at least practically, and more limited penalties. In 1955, the maximum penalty under it was ten years in prison, even where death resulted—the reason for the limited sentences for the seven defendants convicted, out of 18, eventually increased to 19, Federally prosecuted in 1965 pursuant to Sections 241 and 242, for the 1964 killings of Mickey Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James Chaney while they had been endeavoring to register citizens to vote—, extended by statutory amendment to life imprisonment in 1968 when death occurred, with the potential for imposition of the death penalty in the event of death added in 1994. The provision was extended in 1968, enacted a week after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to include much broader intended interference with rights on the part of the perpetrator, consistent with the provisions of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and 1965 Voting Rights Act, by the addition of 18 USC 245. It would be under the latter statute that the 1984 murder in Denver of radio talk-show
A letter writer indicates that the "'diehards'" in the Carolinas, Georgia and Mississippi were upset because the Supreme Court and the ICC had said that segregation was unconstitutional in the schools and in interstate travel. She finds it absurd that they insisted that there would never be mixing of the races, failing to practice what they preached, as there were "so many white Negroes in South Carolina (white) schools, children are required to present their birth certificates in order to register. Their segregation laws fail to control human emotions." She asks which evil was greatest, mixing openly, secretly after dark or interbreeding. She recommends that everyone would get along better if they recognized and accepted the humanity of all, that all had sinned and were short of the glory of God, that all had come from one common clay.
A letter from J. R. Cherry, Jr., finds that the "'people be damned'" attitude which he regards as consistently being exhibited by both of the Charlotte newspapers regarding the "racial crisis confronting our state and section" to be "one of the most profoundly disgraceful spectacles" which Southerners had ever seen. He says that he refers specifically to the newspaper's stance of unquestioning compliance with the integration decisions of the Supreme Court, finding the stance to condone or advocate "by crafty silence, the destruction of a great, natural way of life cherished by the rank-and-file of our people and a way of life which is undeniably compatible with the fundamental principles upon which this Republic was established—majority rule." And, as usual, Mr. Cherry goes on further in that vein, counseling not to be made a sheep or the wolves would eat the sheep. He says that it was clear that the newspaper did not "dig" him at all and so he was going to quit, but urges diverting concentration for a moment from the "intermittent effusions of the 'almighty,' race-hating Supreme Court, and concentrate on this bitter prophecy. A majority of the sovereign peoples of North Carolina and the South will resist and repel the tyranny thrust at them by the Supreme Court. They will do it with or without the encouragement and assistance of The Charlotte News and Charlotte Observer. Mark it!"
A letter writer from Myrtle Beach, S.C., comments on the recent protests by students at Georgia Tech against the statements by Governor Marvin Griffin of Georgia, urging the Board of Regents to order all Georgia colleges not to participate in sporting events against opponents with black members of their teams, the Board having determined not to do so, permitting Georgia Tech to go forward with its plans to play in the Sugar Bowl against the University of Pittsburgh, with one black member of its football team. He said that what had struck him most was a photograph of four students, "young punks by their faces; but two of them holding aloft their clenched fist—the Red Communist high sign." It caused him to wonder whether the protests were spontaneous or inspired by Communists, which he believed to be the latter. "The NAACP intends to push the Negro down our throats whether we like it or not. All this guff about the bulk of the Negroes not wanting the NAACP to represent them is pure bunk. The fact is that the Negro lawyers, teachers, doctors and others are solidly behind the NAACP and their Reconstruction day methods of forcing themselves into regions that they are not eligible to enter." He wonders whether most Southerners had ever read the true story of Sherman's march to the sea and what his troops had done to Southerners, burning Columbia while General Sherman had sat idly by for a whole night and listened to the screams of the women, many of whom, he says, were black, and "treated as rough as were the white ones." He says that the whole "NAACP business is Communist-inspired, Red idealism." He does not doubt that violence and undesirable things had been done in the name of the Klan, but also believes that Southerners remembered the Klan, "the Knights of the White Camellia, the Red Shirts of Wade Hampton's day and others," who had been "the sole force that sparked the white rebellion against the thieves of the carpetbagger days and none other." And he goes on and on, concluding that blacks were emerging "from a condition of cultural savagery into a status of semi-civilization. African black men have never produced any great culture of themselves."
You'll find all kinds of Kultur in the Klan, won't you, boy?
Framed Edition
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