The Charlotte News
Friday, March 25, 1955
TWO EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the Senate this date had stripped a retroactive clause from a bill proposing a ten percent pay raise for 500,000 postal workers, after adopting an amendment offered by Senator Harry F. Byrd of Virginia to make any increase effective only at the point when the bill was signed into law by the President, with that amendment having been accepted by a voice vote with only a handful of Senators present at the time. The Senate Majority Leader, Lyndon Johnson, and the Minority Leader, William Knowland, had supported Senator Byrd's amendment. Senator Olin Johnston of South Carolina, chairman of the Post Office and Civil Service Committee, opposed the amendment, indicating that the last previous postal pay increases of 1951 had been made retroactive by several months. A late bulletin indicates that the Senate had rejected a substitute measure to provide the postal workers a 7.6 percent pay raise, a bill which had been supported by the President. The President had said he would probably veto any bill providing for a larger increase.
Representative Adam Clayton Powell of New York stated that he would attend the Afro-Asian conference in Indonesia the following month, despite objections by the State Department, that he would attend as an observer and guest of the Indonesian Government.
In Atlanta, a telephone cable carrying important circuits between Atlanta and Charlotte was shotgunned temporarily out of commission the previous night in a town near Atlanta, as the nine-state Southern Bell Telephone Co. strike continued. Three other cables in the Atlanta area were also reported to have been damaged, along with reports of similar instances in other areas of the company's operations. The Communications Workers of America union charged that the company was attempting to "intimidate and threaten the strikers" by firing workers in Valdosta, Ga., Laurel, Miss., and Jellico, Tenn., claiming that they had attacked non-strikers.
In Minneapolis, a 13-year old boy from Arkansas underwent surgery to close three holes in his heart chamber on Wednesday, and was reported afterward to be in satisfactory condition. A short time prior to the three-hour operation, a dog's lung was removed, sterilized and suspended in a plastic cylinder six feet from the patient, enabling the boy's blood to be pumped for 15 crucial minutes during the surgery through the dog's lung, allowing the holes to be closed in his heart within a "dry field". Doctors said that the boy had been a "heart cripple" since being injured in a truck accident the previous year. The technique had been developed through more than 100 experimental operations by two surgeons at the University of Minnesota Hospitals. The doctors expressed concern that an unpredictable side effect might be occasional barking at cars passing the windows of the patient's room.
In Raleigh, the House Education Committee this date approved for a second time a bill aimed at preserving public school segregation in the state as long as possible, despite objections that it would make desegregation possible. It voted, according to a State Representative, to let the nation and the Supreme Court know that the state intended to maintain segregation. In the meantime, the State Senate was approving unanimously an identical measure. Other committees of the Legislature did other things as well, of which you may read if you are interested in such arcane matters 67 years later.
Dick Young of The News indicates that Charlotte parents were lining up their children to receive the Salk vaccination against polio, it having been announced this date by the City Health Department that 78.3 percent of the local first and second grade enrollment had been represented in the 5,349 requests which had been submitted by the deadline on Wednesday, with a total enrollment in those two grades of 6,830. Five public schools reported 100 percent requests for the vaccination. Only a few of the parents were refusing to have their children receive the vaccination. Parents had to sign written forms requesting the vaccination, for their children to participate in the nationwide vaccination program.
Harry Shuford of The News reports again, for the second day in a row, of the juvenile justice system in the state, stating that the special commission on Juvenile Courts and Correctional Institutions, appointed by the late Governor William B. Umstead to study the matter, had indicated that the juvenile service system in the state was "a hodgepodge of legislation which over the years, like Topsy, just grew." The commission, headed by future Governor and Senator Terry Sanford, had recently provided its study report to Governor Luther Hodges and to the General Assembly. It had sought the advice and opinions of clerks of superior courts, juvenile judges, superintendents of public welfare, police chiefs and other officials, and determined that, almost without exception, they had commented on the overcrowded conditions, with waiting lists to obtain admission to the sole training school for black male juveniles. It said that many judges had pointed out that there were youthful offenders, contemptuous of law and order, roaming the streets because they could not be placed in the juvenile facilities, and thus there was no deterrence to their continuing the commission of crime. It had also found that the housing conditions at the training school were pitifully inadequate, that 80 boys were crowded into one dormitory, sleeping in rows of double bunks so close together as to constitute a health hazard and preventing the desired individual attention and supervision necessary to bring about rehabilitation. It had submitted to the Governor and the Legislature ten recommendations for study, one being that an additional dormitory be built at the training school for black boys and that an additional dormitory also be built at the training school for black girls. It closed by stating: "Our children, delinquent or not, are worth the effort and money required to help them grow into useful and worthwhile citizens."
In Covina, Calif., scores of sheriff's deputies hunted for five hours for two little girls, ages four and three, who were feared to have been lost or abducted, only to discover that they were having a "cooking party" in the home of a neighbor who was away. The two little girls had heated two pans of water, into which they had placed a pound of bacon, a dozen eggs, birdseed, spaghetti and three quarts of ice cream. Most of the resulting concoction, after it had been cooked, wound up on the chairs, tables and the floor. Eventually, the woman came home and found her house in disarray. The previous summer, the same two little girls had found a gallon of white paint and proceeded to paint the house of the same woman, including walks, a gate and a bicycle. They need to be sent to the California juvenile home for little girls, to straighten them out. Spare the rod and spoil the child.
On the editorial page, "Anonymous Government in Raleigh: Concealing the Face of the Age" indicates that the State Joint Subcommittee on Appropriations had set up a new set of ground rules for news coverage of budget sessions, in light of the bill which had passed in January regarding holding of executive sessions. Under the new rules, reporters could sit in with the subcommittee but could not connect names of committeemen with statements made during the discussions of the state's fiscal matters.
It finds that it was secret government giving way to anonymous government, while the legislators proudly proclaimed that the doors would be wide open to the public through admission of the press. Some reporters had objected and walked out, refusing to place themselves under any such obligation. It finds the plan full of absurdities, with nothing to prevent a citizen from wandering into the hearing and then informing the newspapers of what a particular legislator had said about a budget item. It only prohibited reporters from doing so. Nor was there anything to prevent a reporter from concocting an imaginary account of the committee in action, without violating any of the rules.
Former News associate editor and editor Burke Davis, currently with the Greensboro Daily News, had written the previous day of an imaginary scene in the Legislature, from which it quotes. He could do that but not quote one of the legislators accurately by name without running afoul of the new rules.
It suggests that a democracy could not thrive and be healthy when public officials were artificially sheltered from the public, even if the public would occasionally heap on them abuse and pressure. Public debate, discussion and clash of opinion informed the public about the problems of government and enabled them to vote intelligently. It indicates that when persons entered politics, they walked onto a stage on which they could no longer hide from the public's eye, and had to accept "rotten eggs and tomatoes" every now and then. The public wanted pressure on politicians to be out in the open where it could be seen, reported on and evaluated. The public wanted to know the whole story, not just that part of it which the politicians believed it was good for them to know.
It quotes from Rebecca West in 1947, which it finds apt: "It is the presentation of the facts that matters, the facts that, put together, are the face of the age; the rise of the price of coal, the new ballet, the woman found dead in a kimono on the golf links, the latest sermon of the Archbishop of York, the marriage of the Prime Minister's daughter. For if people do not have the face of the age set clear before them they begin to imagine it; fantasy, if it is not disciplined by the intellect and kept in faith with reality by the instinct of art, dwells among the wishes and fears of childhood, and so sees life either as simply answering any prayer or as endlessly emitting nightmare monsters from a womb-like cave."
"Segregation: A Device & A Challenge" indicates that the state, avoiding the "noisy emotionalism" of neighboring Deep South states, had been working calmly and coolly to prepare for whatever new decrees the Supreme Court would issue on segregation in the public schools. A bill placing assignment and enrollment of pupils in the hands of local school boards had been unanimously approved by the State Senate the previous day, and a public hearing was to be held this date on an identical House bill.
It finds the measures sensible, as racial conditions varied from county to county and community to community, and so no single formula would solve the various problems encountered in each locality. It thus finds that there had to be variance in remedial methods and of the time periods for working out adjustments to comply with the Supreme Court's holding in Brown v. Board of Education the previous May 17, that continued segregation in the public schools was no longer viable under the 14th Amendment Equal Protection Clause, having overruled the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson holding that "separate but equal" facilities could pass constitutional muster, though segregated. The implementing decision was expected later in the spring, following oral arguments, soon to be heard.
It finds that the action of the State Senate Education Committee the previous day in approving the elimination of continuing contracts for school teachers because, according to the State Attorney General's office, of questionable constitutionality of the contracts made by the segregated local districts and because many of the 8,500 black teachers in the state might have to be terminated, based on the implementing decision, depending on how quickly it would order desegregation to take place.
It indicates that if the experience of other desegregated communities would serve as guide, black teachers in many instances would lose their jobs in a desegregated school system. Those teachers would have to obtain jobs in the North, where jobs were scarce for black teachers, if they were to continue in the teaching profession. It informs that North Carolina employed as many black teachers as did New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, California and Indiana combined. At least one out of every three teachers in the state was black, whereas in the 31 nonsegregated Northern and Western states, one out of every 73 teachers was black. The job market for black teachers within the state was already tight because teaching was one of the few occupations open to educated blacks, and the supply of black school teachers was already many times larger than the demand, and would only become worse under integration. Thus, regardless of how quickly segregation would end, the state had to develop new employment for black teachers as well as for blacks generally.
It indicates that black citizens could become an enormous asset to the state, but that unless economic opportunities were broadened, they would become an enormous burden.
A piece from the Asheville Citizen-Times, titled "Gadget Needed for Homes", indicates that after development of electronically operated doors, now commonplace in many businesses, and the "whammy" speed-detection device, it had read the previous day that the Seaboard Railroad switched its cars electronically in its Hamlet yards, and also that there was a new gadget which would set off a warning siren to bid a speeding motorist to slow down, rather than attempting to arrest him.
It suggests a gadget to place inside
the door of the home to measure the temper level of a father when he
returned home from work. It would flash green on positive days, amber
if there was reason to be cautious, and red if his boss had
criticized him during the day. It figures that if electronics could
be used to couple freight cars without bumping
Drew Pearson tells of the Republican Party having collected less than 7 percent of the 2.1 million dollar quota assigned to states and territories for the 1956 election cycle, designed to keep the political pot boiling until the following year when there would be an all-out financial drive. The worst record was that of Mississippi, which had not collected anything, followed by Washington State, which had only raised $8.50 of its $41,000 quota. Connecticut had only raised $35 of its $38,000 quota. The Virgin Islands led in terms of percentage, having collected more than $1,000, $100 more than its $950 quota. The most cash had been raised by Kansas, over $15,000, nearly half of its $32,000 quota. North Carolina had collected only $101 of its $20,453 quota.
Nevertheless, the Republican books were in the black, which was better than those of the Democrats, with the RNC having reported a current balance of more than $156,000, of which $39,000 was owed in bills. The Republican campaign committees in Congress were also in the black, but operating on a slow basis until the following year. The Senatorial committee, which helped elect Republican Senators, had a balance of more than $9,000, of which more than $5,000 was owed, while the House committee had a balance of $9,400, owing $5,000 of it. The RNC finance chairman was looking for a field man who could squeeze money out of reluctant state organizations, considering Alexis Doster, a volunteer for the Citizens for Eisenhower, and Rolla Mottaz, assistant to the veteran Republican money raiser, Spencer Olin of Olin Industries. The comptroller of the party had sent a memo to the finance chairman commenting on the two possibilities, indicating that Mr. Doster would likely not be much help in state organization work, and that Mr. Mottaz was back at his regular job at Olin, indicating that he would like to talk over the matter with the finance chairman before approaching Mr. Doster.
Some Republican leaders had called on General MacArthur the previous month to obtain his views on reorganization of the Republican Party, those leaders being opposed to the President.
Senator Matthew Neely of West Virginia, had remarked recently to an acquaintance as to whether he knew anyone who would trade his youth for a seat in the Senate.
The President's Army crony, retired General Lucius Clay, had used his influence inside the White House to oppose Alaskan statehood. General Clay headed Continental Can, which manufactured tin cans for Alaska's salmon industry, the Alaskan canneries having bitterly fought statehood.
The Federal Communications Commission, concerned over broadcaster Walter Winchell's stock-market tips, was quietly investigating what to do about them. Those tips had been the spark which had ignited the stock market on two previous occasions, and had eventually led to the just concluded "friendly inquiry" into the stock market by the Senate Banking Committee.
Nuclear scientists had developed an amazing new atomic process for coating cheap metals with scarce, expensive metals, to enable, for example, the Navy to coat ships with a thin sheet of metal resistant to seawater.
A letter writer comments on the piece by Henry Steinhauer appearing on the editorial page of March 21, regarding the modern, progressive approach to education versus the traditionalist approach, stating that he believes Mr. Steinhauer had overstated the position of the traditionalists and that the proponents of progressive education were not simply trying to see that children had to have fun in learning. He indicates that only through experimentation could positive steps be taken to improve education. He notes that he and his wife, parents of young children, believed that high academic standards were a most important part of education, but only at the college level, as only at that time, was a student of sufficient age both to understand fully and grasp firmly the wisdom of the ages. But at the ages between five and ten, children needed the freedom to explore thoroughly their own emotions and creative imaginations, requiring employment of well-trained, mature, loving and understanding teachers. He finds it one of the most sadly overlooked facts by people in education who were primarily concerned with physical plants, curriculum, rigid hours, controls of every kind and making a political football of teacher salaries. Adolescence was also not the time for intellectual discipline, as a child between 11 and 15 was primarily concerned with understanding the very sudden physical and emotional growth being experienced, and to the extent parents had given the adolescent their own knowledge and understanding of the period of development, the child would have some insight into the maturation process, or, where there was no such understanding imparted, become thoroughly mixed up. To interject classical education into that "cauldron of turmoil" was to accentuate a problem already present. (Double, double toil and trouble…)
A letter writer finds idiotic the editorial hypothetical regarding spring, concluding that the prosecution rested. He lists several things mentioned by the editorial, lettered A to Z, adding to each one his "defense" case and then rests, questioning whether the editors were under the influence of a drug or inebriated when stating their exhibits. Sample: "S. Spring catarrh—Too much oil soot in nasal passages,"—presumably referencing the smog problem in Charlotte.
A letter writer from Waxhaw indicates that he had enjoyed an article appearing in the newspaper on the South Carolina state park named for Andrew Jackson, says that he would have enjoyed it more had they included in the article the location of the park in Waxhaw, N.C.—putative birthplace of the former President, although the subject of a long-term dispute as to whether his birthplace was actually just over the border in South Carolina.
A letter writer finds it shocking to read that the North Carolina Methodist Youth organization had officially opposed a bill before the House to have a compulsory reserve plan, the Methodist Youth having stated that UMT was antagonistic to the idea of peace and therefore antagonistic to Christianity as they interpreted it, and that militarism in any form degraded human dignity and was contrary to a Christian concept of human existence. He finds it to constitute "naïve disdain for the future" of the country, withholding his name and signing "Puzzled".
A letter from two women who were mothers of handicapped children and had attended Arthur Goodman's birthday party, given for his aid to handicapped children of the city, expresses thanks to him and indicates that it had been a wonderful party and that the children had a marvelous time. They indicate that he had been the first man in the city to help handicapped children, many years earlier.
A letter writer from Phoenix expresses thanks for the responses to her request for information about deer tongue leaf, which she had requested on behalf of her father who used it in his pipes mixed with his pipe tobacco. She says that one woman had written from Georgia that she had a friend who packed the deer tongue and would send some of the previous year's crop, then mailed a large box of it and even paid for the 61 cents of postage to mail it. She thanks the newspaper for having published her previous letter and says the result of the several responses was a satisfied smoker in her father. She indicates she also had written to two other newspapers, in Georgia and Florida, and had heard from people in those areas as well.
They sent you counterfeit
All these years ago, incidentally, White House squirrels
The winner of Saturday's UNC vs. Duke game in the semifinals will, on Monday night, play the winner of the Kansas vs. Villanova game for the championship.
Together, the four schools have 17 NCAA national championships, including nine of the last twenty since 2001, North Carolina with six, 1957, 1982, 1993, 2005, 2009 and 2017, Duke with five, 1991, 1992, 2001, 2010, and 2015, and both Kansas and Villanova with three each, one of the Kansas championships, its second, having come in 1988 with former UNC star on coach Smith's first two teams and, subsequently, assistant coach to coach Smith, Larry Brown, as head coach. The other Kansas championship was in 2008, under current coach, Bill Self. Villanova's championships were in 1985, coached by Rollie Massimino, in 2016, on a last quarter-second shot to break a tie against UNC, and in 2018, both teams coached by current coach Jay Wright. The former traitor coached the latter three of UNC's championships, retiring at the end of last season, and the guy who is retiring at Duke, with the most wins of any coach in NCAA Division I history, known only as "K", because Krewzewewski
Be sure to spit in the Mississippi
The weather is fair and warm where we are.
Framed Edition
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