The Charlotte News
Friday, December 2, 1955
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from St. Louis that Matthew Connelly and Lamar Caudle, former Truman Administration officials, Mr. Connelly as secretary to the President and Mr. Caudle having been head at different times of both the criminal and tax divisions of the Justice Department, had been indicted the previous day for defrauding the Government. Both blamed their indictments on politics. Mr. Caudle claimed that Republicans were treating him as a scapegoat and public sacrifice for the coming national election and urged a Congressional investigation of the indictment. Mr. Connelly said that the charge was caused by "a little group of willful men now in power in Washington" who had "called Harry S. Truman a traitor," and because of his association with the former President, were now calling him a crook. The former President, in St. Louis for a speech at a Roman Catholic youth convention, declined comment.
In Washington, News publisher Thomas L. Robinson, attending the White House Conference on Education, tells of HEW Secretary Marion Folsom saying that if the classroom needs were to be met, the Federal Government had to raise some of the funds for buildings, Mr. Folsom having been one of the principal speakers the previous night at the closing session of the conference, which had attracted more than 2,000 participants from all the states and territories. Messages to the group from the President and Vice-President Nixon on Monday had advocated for limited Federal aid to education. Mr. Folsom said that he had discussed the entire situation regarding Federal aid with the President and that he was confident that the Administration in the coming weeks would present to Congress a broadened and improved program of Federal assistance to eliminate the classroom deficit. U.S. commissioner of education, Dr. Samuel Brownell, brother of the Attorney General, delivered another major address at the session, saying that improved education required the concern of officials of government at every level, Federal, state and local, designed to preserve the tradition of local initiative and local control which guaranteed the freedom of the schools.
In New York, the AFL and CIO merged this date into a single organization of 16 million members, the largest organized labor force in the free world. The CIO had voted overwhelmingly its approval of the merger at its final convention session and the AFL had endorsed the merger unanimously at its convention the previous day. The combined organization would be known as the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, or simply AFL-CIO, and would meet in convention on Monday. The CIO approval came over heated objections from Michael Quill, president of the 90,000-member Transport Workers Union, comprised primarily of New York City bus and subway employees, stating that his union was opposed to the merger, arguing that it would place the CIO under the thumb of the AFL and that the constitution of the combined organization lacked sufficient safeguards against racial discrimination, racketeering and inter-union raiding.
Governor Luther Hodges of North Carolina answered a legislator's criticism of his handling of the school segregation problem by saying that he had "no desire to comment on irresponsible statements," responding to a press conference question regarding the remarks made by State Representative B. I. Satterfield of Person County to a pro-segregation group in Durham the previous night, having asserted that "the only difference between the NAACP and the Governor and the Advisory Education Committee is that the NAACP would like to see the schools fully integrated next fall and the Governor wants it in 15 or 20 years—or as fast as you can ram it down the throats of the people of North Carolina." Governor Hodges was urging voluntary maintenance of segregation in the schools by both white and black parents. Mr. Satterfield had also commented on the Governor's decision not to call at the present time a special session of the Legislature to deal with the problem, indicating that in obtaining advice on the subject, the Governor "is calling in legislators who believe in him or legislators who owe the Governor a political debt." The Governor said that he had called in legislators who included the presiding officers of both the Senate and the House and the chairmen "of all the leading committees", stating that he would be glad to give out the list and that he did not owe anyone a political debt and no one owed him a political debt.
The President this date approved an additional allocation of 1.5 million dollars for relief of North Carolina areas damaged by hurricanes earlier in the year, the White House indicating that Governor Hodges had been notified of the new allocation, which would be administered through Federal Civil Defense administrator Val Peterson. A previous allocation of a million dollars had been made the previous August 13, following Hurricane Connie, with this date's allocation being intended for use in repairing damage done by the subsequent hurricanes, Diane and Ione.
In Brisbane, Australia, police believed that a crazed German-born miner who had killed two surgeons and wounded a third the previous day, before blowing himself up, had been enraged because the doctors would not certify an imaginary ailment. The 39-year old man had fired a .38-caliber revolver and scattered homemade gelignite bombs in the offices of the doctors, then locked himself in the office of another doctor who had eluded him, and shot himself through the head and then blew himself up with a bomb thrust into his waistband. All of the doctors were orthopedic surgeons. Police said that the man had consulted the four doctors regarding an imaginary back ailment and when they refused to give him a compensation certificate, he had, in recent weeks, sent them threatening letters. The police said that the man had emigrated from Germany 16 years earlier and they believed he had obtained his knowledge of explosives while working in tungsten mines in Queensland following World War II.
Dick Young of The News tells of a sick parakeet between two possible candidates, one green and the other blue, one of which was dead and the other still on the loose, one having caused four cases of psittacosis among the members of a Charlotte family. Another family had purchased a blue parakeet at a pet shop the prior March, and in May, a green parakeet had flown into the pharmacy owned by the father of the family, and he took it home. Between June 25 and July 1, the birds had resided in the family's household and then were given to the family maid. On around September 1, the blue parakeet, bleeding at the mouth, had died and the green parakeet had escaped. Several weeks later, a 19-year old son of the maid began to cough and when the cough persisted, had gone to a doctor who referred him to the health department, where X-rays showed the presence of tuberculosis. His younger brother, age 16, had also developed a severe cough and when X-rayed, also showed the presence of tuberculosis. But when the younger brother had been referred to the Mecklenburg Sanatorium, they could not find any tuberculosis germs and so took a blood test, which showed the presence of psittacosis, with a blood test then being taken of the older brother, which also showed the presence of that disease. A short time afterward, a second younger brother, age 14, started coughing and a blood test also showed the presence of psittacosis. A 12-year old brother then developed the same symptoms and disease. There had been no illness in the original family which had the parakeets and the mother and father of the second family had shown no symptoms. Antibiotics had cured the four brothers and all had since returned to work and school. Meanwhile, State public health officials had come to Charlotte to investigate, with one doctor saying that psittacosis had once been a rare and dreaded disease prior to 1947 when antibiotics had been developed, previously having had a 30 to 40 percent mortality rate. The disease usually was transmitted from birds, such as parrots, parakeets and, in some cases, turkeys. The incidence of such cases had been increasing in recent years but the disease was not as serious now for humans because of the presence of antibiotics. The doctor said that two other cases of psittacosis, in a local family who had a parakeet for a pet, had been reported earlier in the fall. Officials were still searching for the green parakeet, which they feared might be the transmitter of the disease.
Also in Charlotte, the recommended site for the new $600,000 Health Center was unacceptable, according to the City health officer, Dr. M. B. Bethel, saying that he was speaking as an individual. The planning committee of the Charlotte Memorial Hospital Authority, at a session during the morning, had recommended purchase of 11 acres adjoining the hospital grounds, and proposed the donation of 3 to 5 acres of that property as the site for the new Health Center. Dr. Bethel said that the site was inaccessible and hemmed in without access streets and that to provide them would require extensive construction which he doubted the City would undertake, as it would include a bridge.
In McIntosh, Ala., Governor James Folsom promised to order every Alabama National Guard plane to Jacksonville, Fla., on the day when Auburn would play Vanderbilt in football in the Gator Bowl. Despite an Air Force investigation into reports that Air Guard planes had made unauthorized trips to take the Governor and his friends to football games, the Governor had stated the previous night that every aircraft under his command which could fly or roll would be in Jacksonville on December 31, being sent on a "special weather mission" which would include a "runway landing inspection" during the morning and a "takeoff inspection late that afternoon." The Air Force announcement of its investigation stated that plane trips to Texas early in the football season and another the previous week from Dothan to Birmingham by the Governor were among the trips which were being investigated. The Governor hosted Governor Averell Harriman of New York the previous day at the hunting lodge of Representative Frank Boykin of Mobile, and made his statement to the press in response to questions about the investigation. He would subsequently explain that he had only been joking about the planes being used for the Gator Bowl.
In Atlanta, Georgia Governor Marvin
Griffin this date called on the Board of Regents of the University
system to prevent Georgia colleges from engaging in athletic contests
with teams having black members of their squads. Georgia Tech was
scheduled to play on January 2 in the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans
against the University of Pittsburgh, which had a black member of its
team—making him, presumably, the first black Panther. When the Governor had been asked whether his request was not in
fact an order for Georgia Tech to cancel its Sugar Bowl appearance,
he said that the wording of the telegram spoke for itself. The
telegram read: "The South stands at Armageddon
Bob Quincy, sports editor of The News,
reports on the opening of the Charlotte Coliseum to its first college
basketball game this night, between Furman and Davidson, with a
question being whether the city would support college basketball. No
other city in the nation had such a Coliseum without a college within
the city limits. The Coliseum sat 11,666 for basketball. Everett
Case, coach of the basketball team at N.C. State, was regarded as the
father of basketball sellouts in North Carolina, having made Raleigh
a basketball-mad community. He said that it had been a process of
building enthusiasm but that there was no school in Charlotte from
which to incite that enthusiasm to the entire city and that therefore
obtaining a full house would not be easy. He urged cultivating the
kids who attended high schools and grammar schools, providing special
prices for them and turning them into basketball fans, becoming the
adult admissions of the future. He also recommended staying away from
high school game nights, Tuesdays and Fridays, if at all possible,
and to seek a high school following for the attractions brought to the Coliseum.
Coach Frank McGuire of UNC's basketball team—which would meet Georgia Tech at the Coliseum a week hence—had lavish praise for
the Coliseum, but recommended that Charlotte work to bring in an NBA
franchise to stimulate enthusiasm. The Harlem Globetrotters
On the editorial page, "Intramurals: Athletics for Everybody" tells of the Charlotte junior high schools increasing in number while the student population was decreasing and money to support interscholastic athletic programs, coming primarily from student ticket sales, had consequently also been in decline, with the result that junior high school principals were recommending that the interscholastic programs be supplanted by intramural activities only, with interschool activities limited to senior high schools.
It finds it a good plan, even aside from the money issue, as intramurals could do for many what interscholastic sports only did for a few, and if the City School Board had to provide more funds for physical education, it ought go to a program which would benefit the most students.
It suggests that interscholastic events should not be emphasized to the exclusion of an adequate intramural athletic program in which all students could participate, providing the qualities of physical development, competition, excitement, teamwork, and school spirit.
"Civic Responsibility: Embarrassing" finds it embarrassing to the City Council that they had to pass a resolution pledging that each member would back the enforcement of any smoke abatement ordinance presently in existence or which might subsequently be adopted. The resolution had been adopted unanimously.
It finds that because of a lack of enthusiasm on the part of some members of the Council toward enforcement of the smoke abatement ordinance, perhaps it had been necessary, but because public office was a public trust and individuals holding public office therefore had a responsibility to abide by the laws and enforce them, it was too bad that some civic responsibilities were so little understood that they had to be re-committed to memory and paper by the Council.
"Coach Barclay: The Forgotten Adage" indicates that UNC football coach George Barclay would likely be fired at the end of the season unless UNC could pull off an unlikely upset in Chapel Hill the following day against Duke. It hopes that he would be able to do so and that the matter would have a happy ending. For the coach was popular with the students, took a healthy interest in campus affairs and saw that the players played hard, with the Daily Tar Heel reporting a year earlier that he got to work on time. It was also true that, as he had said, the team had a "murderous" schedule during the season, including Oklahoma, Maryland and Notre Dame—which would finish the season numbers 1, 3, and 9, respectively, in the final Associated Press top 20 poll.
But the team had not won, with only a 3-6 record to date, "no way to run a business." It urges that the coach had to remember the ancient alumni adage: "When the Great Old Grad comes to write against your name—He marks—whether you won or lost—not how you played the game."
Coach Barclay would be fired at the end of the season, with UNC losing to Duke the next day 6-0. In three seasons, since replacing in 1953 Carl Snavely, he had not had a winning season, going 4-6 and then 4-5-1 in his first two years. He would be replaced by Jim Tatum, coach of the University of Maryland, who had won the national championship in 1953 and whose team would again go 10-1 this season, its only loss coming to Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl, finishing number three. The latter would have rough-sledding during his first season, going 2-7-1, but would have considerably improved teams in the following two seasons, both of which would wind up 6-4. Coach Tatum, however, would die suddenly during the summer of 1959 of Rocky Mountain spotted fever, replaced by assistant coach Jim Hickey, who, during the ensuing eight mostly miserable seasons—which we still remember—, would have only one winning record, that being his ACC champion and Gator Bowl champion team of 1963, which finished 9-2, thanks to the 42-yard field goal in the closing seconds by Max Chapman to give UNC the victory on Thanksgiving Day against Duke, 16-14—a game postponed from the prior Saturday because of the assassination of President Kennedy on Friday.
As for the current coaching staff at UNC, following the dismal second half last Saturday evening against Clemson in the ACC championship game, all of them now have to be fired, don't they? Well, maybe not. We can give them one more year. But nothing short of a national championship will suffice. Otherwise, it's back to ESPN.
"A Stamp for Grandma Moses?" tells of Dave Garroway, on his "Wide, Wide World"
It finds it a good idea to have an issue commemorating the work of a significant American artist, perhaps utilizing one of her paintings as the basis for its design. Grandma Moses was a "people's artist", with her paintings representing Americana in the simple way she applied her brushes to the canvas and the homely subjects she used, striking "a happy chord of nostalgia and warmth." She had produced over a thousand paintings and many of her winter scenes would serve as a suitable reproduction during the Christmas season on a stamp. It hopes that Congress would take note when it reconvened in January.
A piece from the Gastonia Gazette, titled "'They Say…'", indicates that people frequently said, "They say…" It believes that such generalizations were only opinions stated as fact, usually based on a few actual incidents in a person's experience, premised mostly on presumption. It urges instead the statements "I believe" or "it is my opinion" or "it is sometimes true" instead of such certainty expressed in the generalization.
"It would be a dull life if there wasn't any variety in it. Generalizing is a way of saying there isn't."
Drew Pearson indicates that White House chief of staff Sherman Adams had decided not to recommend reappointment of Surgeon General Dr. Leonard Scheele, following the problems over the Salk polio vaccine earlier in the year, planning on Dr. Jack Masur being his replacement. Mr. Pearson indicates that Dr. Scheele was actually not to blame for the bad batches of vaccine which were released to the public, as he had advised former Secretary of Health, Education & Welfare Oveta Culp Hobby to delay the release while further tests were being conducted, but she had insisted on going ahead with approval of the distribution. Nevertheless, Dr. Scheele had been dragged into the spotlight during the controversy and became associated with the tainted vaccine. His term as Surgeon General would expire in March and he would not be reappointed. When he became aware that he was likely to lose his job, he began trying to ingratiate himself to Republicans. He attended a ceremony in Kansas City to watch some subordinates receive annual Lasker Foundation Awards for outstanding medical service, at which former President Truman was present, making a nonpolitical speech, causing Dr. Scheele, however, to become so nervous about appearing with the former President that he left the ceremony before his subordinates were honored. That had backfired with new Secretary of HEW, Marion Folsom, who criticized the doctor for doing so.
Mr. Pearson indicates that while Congress might vote for a tax cut, the President had promised to veto it and Treasury Secretary George Humphrey had stated emphatically that there would be no tax reduction until the budget was balanced, which he hoped to do by the end of the current fiscal year.
Propagandists for school segregation were mailing out speeches by Senator James Eastland of Mississippi, but might get into trouble with the Justice Department for doing so, as it was against the law for anyone to use the frank of a member of Congress and no member had the power to transfer it to another.
Joseph & Stewart Alsop tell of the dispute over foreign policy between Adlai Stevenson, Governor Averell Harriman, and the DNC on one side and Secretary of State Dulles, Senator Walter George of Georgia and Harold Stassen on the other, based on the difference between what the Administration was telling the public, presenting a rosy picture, and what the actual situation was on the world stage, which was perilous and ominous.
Afghanistan was on the verge of becoming a Soviet satellite and Burma, once one of the most hopeful countries in Asia, was being penetrated by Soviet economic influence. The situation in the Formosa Strait was uglier than ever and while the situation in Indo-China was somewhat better than six months earlier, it remained extremely dangerous. Malaya, where a Communist takeover in Singapore was a serious possibility, had grown worse than had been foreseen. Thailand, once strongly allied to the U.S., was undergoing a strong trend toward neutralism.
In the Middle East, the Soviet arms sales to Egypt and other Arab states were only the opening of a campaign to expel Western influence from that whole region. Secretary Dulles had privately characterized the Soviet drive into the Middle East as being potentially "more serious" than the original aggression in Korea.
In Germany, there was increasing danger that a nightmare would develop in Western diplomacy soon, with former State Department planner and former Ambassador to the Soviet Union George Kennan having predicted that the West Germans would abandon their alliance with the West so that they could purchase from the Soviets.
Japan was also undergoing a similar reversal of alliances in the event of further Communist victories in Southeast Asia, potentially convincing the Japanese that the trend was toward Communism in that region.
The Alsops also indicate that there had been a recent Soviet hydrogen bomb test, that in all critical categories of arms, the Soviets were catching up to the U.S. and in certain important categories, such as jet fighters and long-range guided missiles, were ahead.
In all, the balance of power in the world was shifting toward the Soviets. That tendency had not only stimulated Mr. Stevenson and Governor Harriman, but had also produced a split in the Eisenhower team, with a large number of the people in higher staff levels of policy-making in both the State and Defense Departments, and even at the White House, having approached the world situation as outlined by the Alsops, with considerable alarm and belief that urgent measures were needed immediately to avoid serious trouble. The other team chose the rosier picture of the world. They conclude that Mr. Dulles, along with some other key figures of the Administration, had not yet chosen which team they would join.
Walter Lippmann indicates that words like "moderate, constructive, and nonpartisan" were hard to define but were also important as expressing qualities which a majority of the people were looking for in the next president. While an egg was hard to define, everyone knew a good egg from a bad egg and it was nearly as easy to recognize an immoderate, destructive and partisan politician.
To obtain an honest, serious and public-spirited debate on foreign policy, each party had to nominate the type of candidate who did not and would not stoop to extremism, violence and demagoguery. "If either of the candidates is the kind of man who thinks that he is entitled to do anything to win, no amount of pious talk now will save us from a poisonous campaign. The character of the coming campaign, will, in short, be determined by the character of the candidates."
Because there was a reappraisal of foreign policy at present, a lot would be heard about it in the months to come. While the basic commitments to the U.N., NATO, and the nation's allies were not in question, a re-examination of such matters as the German policy, which was nearly at a dead end, and certain aspects of the containment policy in the Middle East and South Asia, would undergo re-examination.
But there was no real issue on which Americans were divided and could take a stand because the policies were not yet formulated, and so no bipartisan coalition could be formed. That state had lent itself to irresponsible political talk which could not be avoided by exhorting one another to be constructive. Neither party and none of the candidates at present had an answer to the questions which needed to be answered.
If the Administration decided to stand pat on foreign policy, as Secretary of State Dulles appeared to have been doing in the current week, it would produce a severe Democratic attack on the record of the results, as the position of the country abroad had deteriorated. The alternative was for the Republicans to take the lead in recognizing that the world situation was changing and that U.S. policies had to adapt to those changes, both a sound approach practically and politically. If the Republicans reappraised and prepared to revise foreign policy, the Democrats would have to be constructive and propose answers to the unanswered questions.
Democrats also had to decide whether to stand pat or put themselves in the position of looking for the answers to the new developments. Mr. Lippmann views the acid test of whether a Democrat was being nonpartisan and constructive to be whether that person admitted at least that some of the worst problems at present had originated from mistakes made by Democrats, for instance the premature attempt to rearm Germany in 1950, ruining the promising movement toward a European community, as well as the irreparable mistake of crossing the 38th parallel in Korea, turning the U.N. police action into a Chinese-American war, and the over-militarization of the containment policy, jeopardizing U.S. relations with India and several other neutral nations.
He concludes that in addition to moderation, constructiveness and nonpartisanship, perhaps the country was looking for some self-criticism along with a saving humility.
Doris Fleeson suggests that top Republicans, who were seeking to place foreign policy out of the 1956 campaign by stressing that bipartisanship should be the watchword, were either giving the Democrats credit for complete loss of memory or an unlimited capacity for Christian charity, with their efforts becoming a political flop. Democrats were inflamed by their pious attitudes, and observers recalled with relish the proficiency shown by the same Republicans at foreign policy criticism of Democrats in 1952, 1953 and 1954.
The President had approved of a statement by Senator Walter George that foreign policy ought to be nonpartisan in an election year, with Vice-President Nixon echoing the remark and Secretary Dulles having called on both Republicans and Democrats to abstain from "partisan debate" in the campaign, just at a time when Senator George had somewhat relented by indicating that "constructive criticism" would be acceptable. The Secretary also stated that Republicans had an excellent record in foreign policy, prompting Democrats to begin to attack that policy and its perceived architect, Mr. Dulles. The latter had constructed the foreign policy plank of the 1952 Republican platform, charging Democrats with carrying on the Korean War "without will to victory". It had also said that Democrats had "shielded traitors to the nation in high places … abandoned friendly nations … substituted on our Pacific flank a murderous enemy for an ally and friend." It had attacked the Truman Administration for "disloyalty in public office" and promised that Republicans would "substitute … men of proven loyalty." It said that "notorious infiltration of Communists and fellow travelers in key agencies" during the Truman Administration, along with "tolerance of people of doubtful loyalty", would, under a Republican president, be replaced by "persons of unquestioned loyalty". General Eisenhower had supported that plank by promising in Detroit that he would go to Korea with the purpose in mind of bringing the war to "an early and honorable end", while the Truman Administration could "not be expected to repair what it failed to prevent." Vice-President Nixon had attacked Adlai Stevenson as an appeaser, "a PhD. graduate of Dean Acheson's cowardly college of Communist containment," referring also to Governor Stevenson as a "dupe" who had never regretted his actions in defending his friend, Alger Hiss. Following the 1952 elections, Mr. Nixon had urged that it was wonderful to have a Secretary of State who would "stand up to the Russians", all of which the Democrats well remembered.
Then in the 1954 midterm campaign, Mr. Nixon had spearheaded the Republican attack, imputing softness toward Communism to the Democratic candidates for the Senate and the party generally, all provoking former President Truman to engage in attacks on the Republican attempt to brand Democrats with the label of treason. Governor Stevenson, during the 1952 campaign, would only remind Mr. Nixon in an indignant broadcast that one of the Ten Commandments forbade bearing false witness.
Framed Edition
Links-Date — Links-Subj.