The Charlotte News
Friday, March 18, 1955
TWO EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that former Republican Senator Harry Cain of Washington State this date had stated before the seventh annual Conference on Civil Liberties in Washington, as a member of the Federal Subversive Activities Control Board, that the Government's personal security program was "octopus-like", that the Government had built its systems faster than it could control them effectively or fairly. He also criticized those in authority who used the term "Fifth Amendment Communist" with its "power for destructive evil"—referring, without naming him, to Senator McCarthy and others supporting him. He asserted that those who did so demonstrated as much disrespect for the Constitution as any Communist. He said that the Fifth Amendment privilege not to testify against oneself was a "bulwark of freedom" and that the country should be less concerned about the few who hid behind the privilege without justification and much more concerned about those who trifled with its significance. He said, however, that there were recent steps in Congress and the executive branch which raised hope for reconstructing and maintaining a program of security which would keep the country "safe, self-respecting and free".
Senator Homer Capehart of Indiana this date accused Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas to his face of seeking to "harass the Eisenhower Administration and the business of the United States" through the Banking Committee's stock market inquiry, of which Senator Fulbright was chairman. The latter rejected the charge and told Senator Capehart to stop "attacking the chairman". The clash had arisen after Senator Fulbright had questioned Harlow Curtice, president of G.M., about the prices G.M. set for its cars. The latter had insisted that the prices were competitive but declined to say whether the company would like to increase its share of car sales in the country from the present 50.7 percent to between 55 and 60 percent. Senator Fulbright said that Mr. Curtice had just about convinced him that G.M. did not really compete with other car-makers on the basis of price, as it was concerned about developing a monopoly and becoming subject to Government regulation.
RNC chairman Leonard Hall had criticized the stock market inquiry during a speech in Miami the previous night as being a vehicle for spreading Democratic "gloom and doom" talk. He said that the stock market had developed "jitters" after Harvard economist John Kenneth Galbraith had "filled the air with dire statements" during his testimony before the Banking Committee, adding that Mr. Galbraith was "an old-time New Dealing, ADA-type of anti-Jeffersonian radical" who had "flirted around" with one or two "pink fronts". Senator Fulbright had responded that "professional Republicans" were trying to hamper the honest inquiry by the Committee because they appeared to lack confidence in the strength of the U.S. economy. He said he had attempted to conduct the inquiry in a fair and friendly fashion and believed he had the right to object to professional Republicans attempting to interrupt the important work of the Committee, that he would have objected just as vigorously if Democratic politicians had attempted to do so.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce stated in a report released the previous night that business was expanding healthily and without danger of a stock market crash, despite "loose talk" developing out of the Senate investigation of the stock market. It said that recovery from the 1953-54 recession was continuing and gaining momentum during the first three months of 1955.
A late winter snowstorm hit a broad section of the country from Ohio eastward to the Atlantic Coast this date, bringing up to 3.5 inches of snow in some areas of Maryland, and a half-inch in New York City and nearby areas, expected to turn to sleet and rain later this date. In Philadelphia, it had snowed through the night but had melted as the snow had fallen, with 2 to 5 inches forecast for the mountain areas of north central and northeastern Pennsylvania. The coldest weather was in northern Minnesota, with some areas reporting below zero readings and International Falls registering -8 degrees. Winter was set to end officially on Monday.
In New York, testimony of the former
call girl continued in the trial of Mickey Jelke, margarine heir,
accused of inducing two women into prostitution, including the woman
who was presently testifying. She said during cross-examination that
she had sex relations and had visited bars and nightspots at the age
of 16 prior to meeting Mr. Jelke. Defense counsel had elicited that
she knew at least two notorious procurers before she had met Mr.
Jelke, and also got her to admit that she did not know how many men
she had relations with during the time she was associated with Mr.
Jelke. The previous day, she had broken down emotionally again while
being forced to testify by defense counsel regarding an illegitimate
child she had at the age of 17, prior to meeting Mr. Jelke. She had
mentioned well-known names when asked about men whom she had known,
though none of those men were claimed to be more than casual
acquaintances during her teen years, and there was no suggestion that
any of them had been her clients for purposes of prostitution. Among
the persons mentioned were Dane Clark, comedian Joey Adams,
bandleader Skitch Henderson, and disc jockey Jack Eigen. She said
that when she was 16, Mr. Henderson had given her his telephone number because he
wanted to take her out. She said that she
had met him at an NBC rehearsal. Oh, Skitch, say it ain't so...
In Plymouth, England, 300 hymn singers greeted American evangelist Billy Graham upon his arrival this date to begin his religious crusade in Scotland. The crowd had gathered long before dawn on the pier and serenaded the evangelist with his own theme song: "This is my story, this is my song." Reverend Graham had conducted a crusade in England a year earlier, which had been a huge success, attracting well over a million people. This date, he said that he felt like a Pilgrim son coming back again and that he had been a little homesick for Britain since returning to the U.S. the year before, that there was something about England which got into one's heart. He said that he believed that only a spiritual awakening could save the world and that it had to start in Britain, because "British tentacles spread all over the world and British influence is terrific." He said that diplomacy appeared to have failed to settle differences between East and West, that politically and militarily, the world had failed, but that there was great hope that spiritually, a common meeting ground between East and West could occur. He said that he did not believe the world would be destroyed by the hydrogen bomb, that God would intervene before that would happen. He stated that the crusade in Scotland, which would begin the following day, would cost about $131,600, but that all of his personal expenses were being paid by his American followers. He visited the Mayflower stone, commemorating the departure of the Pilgrims for America in 1620, and then set out for London by automobile, where he planned to spend only a few hours before taking the overnight train to Scotland.
In Raleigh, Governor Luther Hodges this date announced plans to establish a new state office building in the city to relieve overcrowded conditions. The bill to authorize the 1.5 million dollar expenditure was introduced by State Representative J. B. Vogler of Mecklenburg County later this date. The building would be intended as a substitute for the State Capitol insofar as the legislative branch, and would be completed and opened in 1963. We saw it, replete with its new red carpeting, the first Sunday it was open to the public. How about that? Did you?
In Portsmouth, O., police held a 14-year old boy from West Portsmouth, arrested the previous day while waiting to board a Greyhound bus bound for Detroit, armed at the time with a .38-caliber revolver loaded with two shells and possessed of $2,689.27 in his pockets. Police said they found in a locker at the bus station a new standard office typewriter, a movie camera and binoculars, which they stated the boy had bought for his trip. Police said the money had been taken from relatives. He was being held in county jail without charges. He was just off to see America.
In Norfolk, a motorcycle-riding waitress was upset over a report that her husband hoped to marry an English girl, claiming that she had married the man on April 18, 1954 in Elizabeth City, N.C., and produced a marriage license and photograph as evidence of the fact. She said that her husband had left recently on a 30-day leave from the Navy, where he was a baker, to visit with his parents in Texas. Then she had seen a newspaper story the previous Tuesday saying that he hoped to marry a 19-year old girl from England, whom he had met while on shore leave. The newspaper account said that he had shown the English girl a diamond ring and she had said "maybe".
In Chicago, the A.M.A. Journal reported that a healthy person could drink 20 to 30 cups of coffee per day without harmful effects, according to two medical consultants, with one of them stating that the caffeine in coffee could cause nervousness, tremor, flashes of light, hearing difficulty, insomnia, headaches, heart palpitations and other minor difficulties, which would dissipate promptly when the use of coffee was stopped. Both consultants said that caffeine and other substances in coffee could be harmful to persons suffering from peptic ulcer and other organic diseases. The opinion was stated in response to a query from a Connecticut physician.
In Sacramento, a member of the State Assembly from North Hollywood had abandoned his bill which would have forbade use of the word "bureau" as a name of any agency or organization outside of government, stating that he had heard from the California Farm Bureau Federation and the Sacramento Better Business Bureau, among other such organizations, in opposition to his bill.
Not on the editorial page, in Kansas City, in the NCAA basketball tournament this date, the University of San Francisco, led by its star Bill Russell, defeated the University of Colorado 62 to 50 in a national semifinal game, and defending national champion La Salle University nipped the University of Iowa 76 to 73 in the other semifinal, with San Francisco set to play La Salle for the national championship the following night, starting at 10:00 EST, right after the consolation game between Iowa and Colorado. Get your sleep if you want to listen to it on the radio. Don't look for it on the tv, even if you live in San Francisco.
From our vantage point in 2022, it is two down and four to go...
On the editorial page, "The Yalta Conference in Retrospect: A Lesson in Memories and Desires" comments on the release two days earlier by the State Department of the record of the February, 1945 Yalta conference between FDR, Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin, especially focused on the Pacific war and Russia's role in it following the defeat of Germany, which at the time appeared imminent, and which would occur at the end of April, approximately three weeks after the death of the President on April 12.
It indicates that from the present vantage point, it appeared that President Roosevelt had erred by essentially bribing the Soviets to join the war against Japan, giving them too much territory in the Far East for what was received in return, but that in fact, he had probably only relied on the advice of his Joint Chiefs, who, at the time, believed that it would take at least 18 months to defeat Japan after the victory over Germany, with the atomic bomb not yet having been tested until the following July, thus the assumption having been that a land invasion of Japan would be necessary for its defeat, with estimates running to 100,000 American men to be lost in such an assault.
It recaps the terrible battles in the Pacific, resulting in heavy losses, to take back the Philippines, as well as the heavy losses in Europe in the Western theater, as the Soviets moved from the East. The people had been war-weary and unhappy. Everyone was exhausted from the war by 1945 and wanted it over. People also assumed that the Soviets would join the human race after the war and take its place among the honorable nations of the world to build a stable postwar peace.
The first reactions to the Yalta agreement had been enthusiastic. Time had reported on February 19, 1945: "By any standards, the Crimean Conference was a great achievement. All doubts about the Big Three's ability to cooperate, in peace as well as in war, seemed now to have been swept away."
Earlier in February, Senator Arthur Vandenberg, the chief Republican spokesman on foreign affairs, dedicated to bipartisanship in that area, had issued his statement on Yalta: "It reaffirms basic principles of justice to which we are deeply attached, and it undertakes for the first time to implement these principles by direct action."
But time had intervened and Republican criticism had increased regarding the giveaways to the Soviets to achieve cooperation in the conquest of Japan, which, in the end, because of the atomic bomb, proved unnecessary. Meanwhile, the Soviets had instead lied, cheated and stolen, making a mockery of the trust the U.S. had placed in its word at the conference table.
It concludes: "It is too late for tears, too late for rage. The United States must mark Yalta up to experience and get on with the task still unfinished—building a world of peace and good will and honor."
"Eleven Voices in the Wilderness" indicates that after four months and a week of political rancor and fuzzy name-calling, the Senate had finally confirmed the President's nominee to the Supreme Court to replace deceased Justice Robert Jackson, new Justice John Harlan, appointed the prior November, but having his confirmation delayed in the meantime. It finds that the remarkable part of the delay was that in the end, only 11 Senators had voted against his confirmation, while 71 had voted for it.
It indicates that the matter illustrated how a handful of lawmakers could paralyze the whole Federal Government. It finds the long delay in confirmation shameful, holding up the work of the Supreme Court in the meantime and reflecting adversely on the integrity of the Senate.
Part of the reason for the delay, it suggests, was that some Senators wanted to block the Court in its implementing decision in Brown v. Board of Education, decided the prior May 17, with oral arguments on the implementing part of the decision having been delayed by Chief Justice Earl Warren so that the Court would have its full complement of Justices, so that there would be no question as to the unanimity of the decision when rendered. Other Senators had objected to Justice Harlan's Atlantic Union connections, indicating that they feared he would forget his oath and try to give away the sovereignty of the country. One Senator, William Langer of North Dakota, had opposed the nomination because no Supreme Court Justice or Cabinet member had ever been appointed from his state or other smaller Western states, plus Florida. Senator Sam Ervin of North Carolina had complained about the lack of experience on the bench of Justice Harlan, having been appointed to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals by the President just a year earlier. None of the complaints, however, reflected personally on the Justice.
It finds that the country had to have completely honorable men in government and that extreme care had to be exercised in selecting them, but that the level of scrutiny could also become ridiculous, as had happened in the case of the confirmation of Justice Harlan.
Justice Harlan would serve honorably on the Court until his retirement in 1971, just three months before his death at the end of that year. His successor, appointed by President Nixon, would be William Rehnquist, who, after serving often as a lone dissenter during his 15 years as a Justice, was appointed Chief Justice by President Reagan in 1986. The two Justices could not have been more diametrically opposed in their judicial philosophies.
A piece from the Richmond News Leader, titled "Can the Public Look In…?" tells of the ceramics industry having recently invented one-way glass, finds it symbolic of the way Congress was conducting business, behind closed doors for the most part, in executive sessions. It tells of the Congressional Quarterly having found that in 1953, three out of ten committee sessions were held in secret, and the previous year, 41 percent had been conducted as executive sessions.
It finds the trend hypocritical on the part of lawmakers, who were in favor of freedom of information until a reporter sought to be privy to it. The managing editor of the Tampa Tribune, as chairman of a freedom of information committee formed by Sigma Delta Chi, the national journalism fraternity, had asked members of Congress how they felt about the situation, and among those who favored open sessions was Senator William Jenner of Indiana, chairman of the Rules Committee, at the time conducting hearings on proposed changes in Senate rules allowing for executive sessions. Most of those who had testified at that hearing in the previous Congress had been politicians and no representative of the press had testified before it regarding the right of the people to know all facts regarding their governance.
The Virginia State Senate Rules Committee had killed a proposal by State Senator Theodore Dalton to open all committee hearings at the 1954 Virginia Legislature, but a noticeable improvement had followed in several of the committees, a trend which it believes should be encouraged.
Drew Pearson tells of foreign aid administrator Harold Stassen having a blacklist for U.S. colleges and universities, that while the University of California was assisting the University of Indonesia in developing the latter's medical school, and Columbia's Teachers College in New York was helping to set up teachers colleges in Afghanistan, and Cornell was expanding the agricultural branch of the University of the Philippines, as Georgetown University was assisting five Yugoslav universities in establishing English-language institutes, Mr. Stassen had blacklisted Syracuse University's School of Public Administration and Roosevelt College in Chicago, the latter two receiving no invitations to help in overseas aid. The dean of political science at Syracuse, Dr. Roscoe Martin, had gotten wind of the blacklist and came to Washington to find out more about it, was told that until Paul Appleby left the school, they would never receive another contract with the Government. Mr. Appleby had been the assistant to former Vice-President and former Secretaries of Commerce and Agriculture, Henry Wallace, and was a close friend of the President's brother, Milton, who had also once been a top assistant to Mr. Wallace. Messrs. Appleby and Wallace had actually intervened to keep Milton Eisenhower in the Agriculture Department where he was serving as a holdover Republican appointee from the Hoover Administration during the early days of the Roosevelt Administration in 1933, when key Presidential adviser Jim Farley wanted to kick him out. Roosevelt College was on the blacklist of Mr. Stassen because it had been established with union-labor backing and was closely identified with the labor movement. Mr. Pearson notes that Mr. Appleby had been appointed by New York Governor Averell Harriman to be the state budget director, and suggests, therefore, that Syracuse might be removed from Mr. Stassen's blacklist. He also notes that despite the fact that the Syracuse Public Administration School was on the blacklist, 14 of its graduates were employed by Mr. Stassen, including his own executive secretary. Syracuse University as a whole was not blacklisted by Mr. Stassen and was working with Iran's teacher-training school.
The State Department had invited a team of British scientists to observe the nuclear tests in Nevada, consistent with a new law which permitted greater exchange of atomic information with the country's allies. The British mission would be headed by Britain's leading nuclear scientist, Sir William Penney. The State Department was worried that McCarthyites might raise a clamor, citing the cases of the two British atomic scientists, Klaus Fuchs, who had been convicted of providing atomic information to the Soviets, and Dr. Bruno Pontecorvo, who had defected behind the Iron Curtain.
The Joint Chiefs had recommended a joint Chinese-American command to take over defense of Formosa, which might lead to the appointment of an American as Chiang Kai-shek's chief of staff, as had been the case during World War II. General James Van Fleet had been seeking the job since he had returned from the Far East after performing a special survey for the President.
A letter from the Truck & Service editor of the Automotive News comments on a February 28 editorial, "Faulty Brake Fluid Shouldn't Be Sold", indicates that a great many accidents were caused by either brake-line fading, drums walking away from the shoes, poor brake fluid or contaminated fluid, those causes not showing up in accident reports. In all four cases, the faulty brakes came from heat generated in what should have been an emergency stop, but that by the time the brakes were inspected, the cylinders had cooled and the fluid would work properly, or the brake lining and drums would have also cooled down and thus appeared in proper working order. He indicates that it was the practice of both Ford and Chrysler engineers to put cars through 5 to 7 abrupt stops on the track from a speed of 75 mph at a deceleration rate of 15 feet per second, and if the cars had good brakes after those tests, the engineers were satisfied that the lining and the fluid would stand the heat generated by such conditions on the road. But he stresses in conclusion that all brake failures were not evident in accident reports.
A letter writer indicates that during a business trip to Charlotte the previous day, he had visited the Southern Bell picket lines and thought about the fact that the boys and girls on them were young and did not realize that their strike activities would follow them for years to come in their employment reports. He encourages them to think about it, says that he was 64, and urges them to return to work.
A letter writer indicates that from an article in the newspaper on March 14, he had gleaned that there was a debate impending over whether or not Dr. H. L. Seay, superintendent of the Mecklenburg Sanatorium, would be permitted to engage in private medical practice on a part-time basis. After he goes through the debate on the issue, the editors note that Dr. Seay had resigned the prior Wednesday after 17 years as superintendent, and that the Sanatorium board of managers would meet the following week to consider his resignation.
A letter writer from Lenoir indicates that Governor Luther Hodges had never spoken truer words than when he said that the people were looking at him and the Legislature with critical eyes, suggests that they were principally examining him, which he would find out come election time in 1956. He contends that the people of the state believed in segregation, finding evidence of it in the fact that it had been practiced since blacks had first been brought to the country, and he believes they wanted it continued. He says that the people were deeply concerned at the failure of the Governor to offer effective leadership toward that end or make clear his views on the subject, appearing to pass the buck to local authorities. There was also suspicion that the Governor would conform to the Federal policy of integration of public schools. He goes on with his blah-blah-blah ad nauseam, concludes that it was time that something be done about it, complains that there were not any political leaders in the state willing to mobilize the "overwhelming majority for segregation", suggesting that someone ought carry the ball for segregation.
A letter writer, a Brother of St. Mary's Church in Phoenix, indicates that a few days earlier, in a letter to the editor, there had been a plea from boys in Phoenix for stamps to aid them in their stamp-collection hobby, and voices thanks for publishing the letter, as there had already been two replies. He indicates that he loved the South and its people, had taught at a school in Arkansas in the 1930's, and as a boy in 1903-04, had gone to public school in Fort Worth, as well as having visited every Southern state.
Why did you move to Arizona?
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