The Charlotte News

Friday, March 4, 1955

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from Moscow that Professor Bruno Pontecorvo had held a news conference for an hour and 40 minutes this date, disclosing little except that he had been a Soviet citizen since 1952, working on a peaceful atomic project. He had fled the West in 1950 and his whereabouts had since been a mystery, until Pravda the previous weekend revealed his presence in the Soviet Union. The reason for the timing of the disclosure was not clear. He said that he would serve the Soviet people to the best of his ability, when asked whether he would change to atomic military work in case of a direct threat to the Soviet Union. He offered greetings to physicists with whom he had worked in England prior to 1950. He said he believed they were good people blinded by the yellow press regarding the Soviets. Prior to his disappearance, he had worked at England's top secret Harwell Atomic Research Station. He stated his belief that Soviet science and physics held the first place in the world, citing as proof what he claimed to be the world's first atomic-powered electric station, adding that he was not connected with the work on that station.

The House Post Office Committee this date voted an average 7.5 percent pay increase for half a million post office employees, at an annual cost of 150 million dollars.

Before the Senate Banking Committee, the president of the American Stock Exchange, Edward McCormick, testified that a stock tip from Walter Winchell on a television show two months earlier had thrown the exchange into turmoil and that but for prompt action by officials, it would have cost those who followed the tip an eight dollar per share loss. Mr. Winchell had recommended an oil company stock as a good buy, resulting in 357,000 transactions in the stock the following morning on January 10. Mr. McCormick testified that it was the greatest number of transactions on a single stock in the history of any exchange. He had immediately notified the SEC and he and other exchange officials took a series of actions which held the opening price of the oil stock to $8.875 per share. He said that, otherwise, it would have opened at $15 per share. It had closed the previous day at seven dollars per share and so anyone who would have purchased it at $15 would have lost eight dollars per share. The exchange had also delayed trading on the stock for over two hours after the opening bell. As it was, despite the limit on the opening price, it opened at 2 1/8 higher than the previous Friday's closing.

In Detroit, the parents of a 13-month old boy thought he had the croup for ten days, until an X-ray revealed the previous day that he had a quarter lodged in his throat. The child had died the previous night as surgeons had sought unsuccessfully to remove the coin.

In Florence, Ariz., a man was executed in the gas chamber, following his February, 1954 conviction of a torture-murder of a young Pennsylvania woman in December, 1953. He thanked the prison warden for his kindness and said that he still thought that he was not guilty. He was sobbing as he addressed the warden, and began trembling as he was strapped into the chair inside the gas chamber. Twenty-six persons witnessed the execution. He held his breath for about 45 seconds before finally breathing in the deadly fumes. He was a former New Mexico carnival operator, becoming the 23rd person to be executed by gas in Arizona, the last previous execution having occurred in July, 1951, a man who had been convicted for the murder of a woman on a train.

In Raleigh, the House this date gave overwhelming voice vote approval to a bill aimed at preventing judges from "cussing out" juries because of their verdicts. It then began debate of a measure to allow the State Milk Commission to set minimum retail and wholesale milk prices. A subcommittee on House Insurance provided a favorable report of a bill which sought to resolve the problem of insurance companies canceling or failing to renew health and accident policies. There was some controversy stirred by a local Charlotte law before the Senate Roads Committee, permitting Charlotte buses to be 102 inches wide, compared to the present state limit of 96 inches, and 40 feet long, instead of the 35 feet imposed by the state. A State Senator from Mecklenburg said that the larger buses were needed to help solve Charlotte's city traffic problem by cutting down the number of buses in use.

A strike of Southern Railway trainmen which had begun several days earlier in Spartanburg, S.C., when members of the carmen's union walked off the job after four of their members were removed from their jobs for failing to sign worksheets, was now spreading to other points in South Carolina and to North Carolina, including Spencer and Charlotte, where members of other brotherhoods joined the walkout in sympathy, including engineers, firemen and other operations employees. It was expected that carmen would also walk off the job in Knoxville and Atlanta, in sympathy with the strike.

Harry Shuford of The News reports that, according to a local poll, most people did not like poll taxes and that some did not even know what they were. Nearly all states which still had a poll tax had removed it as a requirement for voting, retaining the tax, itself. In a poll taken by the News, it appeared that only 20 percent of the people had a good idea of what a poll tax was, while half of the other 80 percent had only a vague notion and the other half were completely in the dark. A typical comment was that people were aware that they did not have to pay it any longer to vote, but did not know anything about it otherwise. A poll tax in North Carolina meant only taxes per head, a tax on being extant. About 70 percent of the people in the poll had stated that they thought the poll tax was unfair or pointless, just another way to raise revenue. The other 30 percent believed it was all right as a means by which to raise money. The tax was levied only on males between ages 21 and 50 in North Carolina. The State Constitution permitted it but did not mandate it, but state statutes did mandate that county commissioners levy such a tax of two dollars per head on all qualified males, with the exception of disabled veterans or hardship cases. North Carolina cities could also levy a one dollar per head tax under the Constitution. Charlotte had such a tax, even though nearly all people in the survey said they were unaware of it. The State Constitution provided that funds raised by the poll tax would go to the benefit of the public schools and the poor of a given county. It goes on to relate how it was collected. Poll taxes for voting continued at the time in Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia.

In Riverside, Calif., the International Association of Machinists had utilized two rented elephants and two camels as part of their picket line the previous day at an aircraft company where the union was striking over an arbitration clause dispute, with the animals having signs strapped to them which read: "We Won't Settle for Peanuts" and "It's Been a Long Dry Spell without Arbitration". Add a jackass bearing a sign which says: "No Arbitration Is Asinine; Low Cogitation Biz Last To Find Its Holism".

On the editorial page, "Court Reform: Progress & Perspective" indicates that the current General Assembly session had finally authorized judicial redistricting, a move which was long overdue, following a plea from the Judicial Council of the state for more judges to reduce the docket load of the existing judiciary. The new law increased the number of judicial districts from 21 to 30 and the number of resident Superior Court judges from 21 to 32.