The Charlotte News
Friday, April 29, 1955
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the State Department, the Defense Department and the White House, as part of a series of arrangements of factors for negotiating a cease-fire in the area of Formosa, and possibly an eventual settlement of the entire problem, was considering the establishment of a U.S. base on Formosa under its treaty guaranteeing defense of the Nationalist island against Communist attack. Further decisions on the actual steps to be taken were due to be made after the return from Formosa of special envoys, Joint Chiefs chairman Admiral Arthur Radford and Assistant Secretary of State Walter Robertson, who had conferred with Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and other Chinese Nationalist officials within the previous few days. Establishing such an American base consisting of a token force of jet fighters and Marine units would present a symbol of American determination to prevent Formosa from falling to the Communists, and, even more important, an assignment, more or less permanently, of a U.S. force to Formosa which would increase the Nationalists' sense of security and thereby compensate them for agreeing to any cease-fire which the U.S. might be able to negotiate with the Chinese Communists. Officials had noted that the U.S. did not have to pay the Nationalists any price for going along with such a cease-fire, as arrangements for that had been made the previous December when the Nationalist Foreign Minister, George Yeh, had promised Secretary of State Dulles in writing that the Nationalist Government would not attack the Chinese mainland except upon agreement with the U.S. Thus, arrangements for a cease-fire with the Nationalists essentially had already been negotiated. Information available on the largely secret mission of Admiral Radford and Mr. Robertson had indicated that they had gone to Formosa to discuss a wide range of issues arising out of the two possibilities that either the Communists might shortly launch an attack on Formosa or the offshore islands of Quemoy and Matsu or that they might offer to talk peace with the U.S., as they had through the statements the prior Sunday in Indonesia of Communist Chinese Premier Chou En-lai.
In Saigon, South Vietnamese Premier Ngo Dinh Diem claimed victory this date in the bloody civil strife which had erupted the previous day, and defied the authority of the Chief of State, Bao Dai, to remove him as Premier. The rebel group, the Binh Xuyen, former pirates in control of the gambling and vice operations in Saigon, who had mustered an army of about 5,000 men to challenge the Government, had engaged in the fighting which had thus far caused casualties of perhaps 1,000 killed or wounded and continued this date between Saigon and its Chinese suburb of Cho Lon, one clash erupting only four blocks from the U.S. Embassy. Fires had raged for the previous 24 hours, rendering thousands of persons homeless. The Government said that its shock troops had blasted the last of the Binh Xuyen from their lone remaining stronghold guarding approaches to the society's headquarters in Cho Lon, with that building reported ablaze from Nationalist artillery fire. Bao Dai, who lived on the French Riviera, had summoned Premier Diem to confer with him by Tuesday, a communication which the latter regarded as a virtual dismissal. Bao Dai also ordered military authority transferred from General Le Van Ty, Army chief of staff, who was directing the war against the rebels, to General Nguyen Van Vy, a French-supported general opposed to Premier Diem. The Diem Cabinet issued a statement saying that there were no competent persons who could replace the Premier in directing the Government, and for the same reason, the transfer of functions of Army chief of staff could be "deleterious to the nation", and so it had decided unanimously that both Generals Ty and Vy would remain in their present functions, the former as chief of staff and the latter as inspector general. The Cabinet also instructed the Premier to expose the actual state of affairs to Bao Dai at once. In Paris, the French Government, which had been seeking the replacement of Premier Diem for some time, apparently was giving support to Bao Dai in his efforts to get rid of him. French Premier Edgar Faure told a press conference that it was evident that the Government of Premier Diem was no longer equal to the task of governing. Meanwhile, three high-ranking generals of the Cao Dai and Hoa Hao religious sects, which were siding with the rebels, and wanted a coalition government with Binh Xuyen after Premier Diem would step down, vowed not to recognize General Vy as the military chief of staff, describing him as a tool of the French. Those generals accused French colonialists of ordering Bao Dai to destroy the National army.
We shall resist suggesting that it was why Vietnam became the first Ty-Vy war.
Surgeon General Leonard Scheele, head of the U.S. Public Health Service, reiterated this date his confidence in the Salk polio vaccine, stating that there was nothing unusual about the polio picture across the nation, that it had followed very closely the five-year median rate. The Service stated, without reference to the vaccine, that it had reports of 106 new polio cases in 47 states the previous week, compared to 117 in the comparable week the previous year. The report the previous day of post-inoculation cases of polio was supplemented with the statement that there were 12 cases which had been reported this date, raising the total to 17 known to have contracted the disease after receiving the first shot of the vaccine, all of which had been traced to production by Cutter Laboratories in Berkeley, Calif., with virtually all of the cases reported in the Western states supplied by Cutter. An exhaustive investigation was underway to determine whether the Cutter vaccine was at fault for the cases or whether all of those youngsters who had been infected had contracted the disease before receiving their vaccine shots. Most of them had become sick within a week after the shots, while polio normally had a gestation period of between 10 and 14 days after exposure. In Georgia, a six-year old boy had developed polio four days after he had received a shot of the vaccine prepared by Eli Lilly & Co. of Indianapolis.
Martians. Get used to them. They are here. The person sitting next to you may be one.
In Milwaukee, Eleanor Roosevelt indicated that Adlai Stevenson would be her choice for the presidency in 1956, and she indicated her belief that the Democrats would win that election.
In Raleigh, the State House passed into law this date a bill which would allow a municipality in a county which had voted dry to call for a special election for 3.2 percent beer, following a petition by 15 percent of the voters, with 41 of the state's 100 counties being exempt from its provisions. Regular bear contained 5 percent alcohol, and the sponsor of the bill from Richmond County and his supporters maintained that the weaker beer was non-intoxicating. Following the vote, the State House adjourned until Monday night, in memory of former Lt. Governor J. Elmer Long of Durham, who had died Wednesday night.
Julian Scheer of The News indicates that Charlotte doctors were asking this date how far back the move to improve the position and standing of black doctors would be set by the action of the North Carolina Medical Society in summoning before it the following Monday in Pinehurst members of the Mecklenburg County Medical Society to show cause why they should not be expelled from the state society for having, a year earlier, voted by nearly 3 to 1 to admit black physicians to their membership, in contradiction to a provision of the state society's constitution and bylaws. The Charlotte doctors who favored the admission of black doctors did not appear as concerned this date about a breakup of the local society as they were about black-white relations in the community. The question of admitting black physicians had long been a heated one, but following their admission the previous year, the subject appeared to have been settled. Yet, all of those efforts may have been scuttled because of the disclosure of the stand taken by the state society. It had been hoped by the local doctors that the question could be settled without public airing and undue publicity, and without a hearing before the state society's house of delegates. Depending on the action by the state society, the Mecklenburg Society might be abolished and a new society formed or eventuating in a split in the present society. Neither the heads of the state society nor the local society were available for comment this date, but several local physicians had not been reluctant to discuss the matter on condition of anonymity.
In Gastonia, the National Bank of Commerce branch had been robbed the previous day in broad daylight of two dollars, with two patrol cars arriving at the bank shortly after a burglar alarm had been tripped, with officers finding that someone had crawled through a restroom window and taken two dollars in change from a coin jar. Police said that witnesses told them that they had seen a small boy climb through the window. If you see a small boy carrying a coin jar, beware and immediately contact the police, as he is, undoubtedly, dangerous. No information was provided on the possible getaway vehicle or an accomplice in the matter, or whether the burglar was armed. The FBI was on the case.
In Baltimore, Governor Theodore McKeldin of Maryland this date vetoed a bill which would have provided for the "control, regulation and restraint of cats running at large" in Prince Georges County. The Governor said that the cat, by its nature, was "a roamer and a prowler, and, like his distant cousins, prefers the gentle cover of the night, both for reason of romance and pursuit of prey."
In Greenville, N.C., male panty raiders entered three female dormitories at East Carolina College the previous night, with the excitement having lasted periodically for about three hours, bringing a sizable task force of local and state police to the campus, three male students having been arrested and spending the night in jail, after two had been charged with forcible trespass and a third with disorderly conduct. The panty raid had begun at around 10:00 p.m. when five visiting Guilford College baseball players had attempted to enter Cotten Hall, a freshman girls' dormitory, whereupon a campus police officer arrested two of them. A crowd of several hundred students had collected by that point and the officer then drew his pistol and the whole group, including the two arrested students, had run away. Later, several East Carolina students had advanced on Jarvis Hall, cheered on by some of the residents, but that advance was stopped in about 45 minutes with the aid of city police, sheriff's deputies, State Highway Patrolmen and ABC officers, with a fire truck standing by ready to cool off the students, though, in the end, not needed. The three arrests had been made after midnight when a crowd of students had appeared at Slay Hall, for upperclasswomen, that is juniors and seniors, not, presumably, in reference to their socio-economic status. The president of the institution, John Messick, spoke to the students at that location and several ran away as he approached. Rocks had been thrown at police cars and at a car owned by the college publicity director. In the end, several panties had been surrendered.
The nation's youth are out of control and must be subjected to discipline and other harsh measures, including the death penalty, if necessary, to restore order and law on the campuses across the country. Shoot to kill, if necessary, resorting to your ray-guns in the most problematic of circumstances.
For those who have not yet learned to read, there is a strange photograph on the page, which, according to the caption, depicts an apparently affable President Eisenhower suddenly, and without forewarning, becoming unglued when he saw a precocious young man wearing a bow tie, laughed demonically in his face and then suddenly socked him in the jaw, the photograph capturing the precise moment just as he was about to make contact, knocking the boy for a somersault, causing him to wind up in the hospital, with the President indicating enigmatically thereafter, "Hah, hah, mock my golf game, will you?" The boy was not available for comment, but his father indicated that the President had a lot on his mind these days and must be under a great deal of stress, and no doubt, did not mean his action to be anything improper or unduly personal toward his son. The boy's condition was said by hospital staff to be fair, and that he was promised a nice visit soon from the President, who wished to present him with a set of golf clubs autographed by Vice-President Nixon.
On the editorial page, "The Inoculation Must Continue" indicates that in the wake of the approval of the vaccine against polio, it had appeared that Americans were free at last from their fears about the dangerous virus. But it had unfortunately been a false assumption, as the news had hit the previous day that several children had been stricken by polio within a week after having received their first vaccine shots, reviving the old fears and creating new ones along the way.
But the situation was not as bad as it had initially seemed, as only a few batches of the vaccine manufactured by Cutter Laboratories in Berkeley had been involved, with the result that the vaccination sites in several Western states being supplied by Cutter had the vaccine program suspended until a study could be conducted. It finds that latter move wise, but that in view of the complete confidence in the remainder of the firms producing the vaccine, the sudden suspension of the mass inoculation program in Mecklenburg County had probably been unnecessary. The Surgeon General, Leonard Scheele, had called for continuation of the program in all areas being supplied by the other five drug firms, as there were no reported incidents involving those supplies.
Furthermore, it was possible that all of the children stricken in the West had contracted the disease before they received their shots, as it normally took 10 to 14 days after exposure for polio to develop.
It expresses the hope that the scare would not cause parents to fear having their children vaccinated, as the vaccine could save many lives, especially as the polio season was now beginning.
One word: Martians. Watch out for them.
"Mecklenburg Doctors & the Race Issue" indicates that for nearly a year, the North Carolina Medical Society had been "sharpening its claws" for the Mecklenburg Medical Society members who had dared to allow black doctors to become members, deleting from their constitution and bylaws the word "white" wherever it appeared. The State Society had notified the local members to appear before the state society's house of delegates at Pinehurst the following Monday to show why they should not be expelled.
It had not been a surprise to the local doctors, as the local society had voted the previous May, by a vote of 95 to 33, to admit black physicians, a decision which had been logical, honorable and courageous, attracting nationwide attention at the time and praise in the process. But the legality of that decision, given the state society's exclusion of black physicians, had immediately come into question.
It indicates that if the Mecklenburg Society members were expelled from the state organization, it would reflect great discredit on the state society, as the county society had blazed an important trail across the social frontier, in both the medical profession and the community at large, with results favorable in both sectors, to become even more salutary as the years would pass into the future, as physicians of both races would benefit from professional association with one another, with the consequence that medical care in the county would improve from that association.
It concludes that the physicians of the county had provided moral leadership in an important area and that they should be congratulated by the state society rather than face disgrace and condemnation.
"Education: A New Look Is Becoming" indicates that another progressive step in education had been taken during the week when the County Board of Education had formally accepted the first junior high school in the system, marking a departure from the outdated school plan and the beginning of another step which was making the county system one of the most outstanding in the South.
It indicates that School Board members several years earlier had taken the first step in the consolidation program, combining smaller schools into larger, more modern schools, which had paid off in better schools, a better planned curriculum and better trained students, giving the younger students in the county system better opportunities than their older brothers and sisters had in smaller schools.
With the beginning of the 6-3-3 educational system, that is, six years of primary grades, followed by three years of junior high and three years of senior high school, school authorities believed that the children of Mecklenburg would get even more out of their school years, especially in terms of personality development and social adjustment.
It posits that the seventh, eighth and ninth graders had many things in common, while having little in common with the children in the first six grades. (Sure, in those latter three grades, every other thought had turned to sex and away from comic books, candy and ice cream. Sorry, but that is reality with raging adolescent hormones. And there is nothing which the Supreme Court or even the State of Mississippi can do about it, except enable its unwanted results to be reasonably controlled so as to avoid future social tragedy, learning from the experience of the past, just as Prohibition learned during the course of a decade what happens when people, no matter how well-meaning, try to legislate morality through the lens of their personal religious experience and training, imposing those beliefs on others, often with monstrous results, based on superstition rather than empiricism, as with the Puritans of New England in the 17th and 18th Centuries. Anyone who posits that life begins prior to viability outside the womb is not dealing with scientific reality but rather mysticism, having its origins in the cult of Pythagoras, anent the belief in transmigration of souls, not Christianity, predating Christ by some 500 years, as Justice Harry Blackmun diligently found and articulated in 1973. The problem with having state legislatures determining for themselves the issue of when life begins, rather than having a uniform minimum standard based on the Constitutional right of privacy, is, first, that it becomes nonsensical, preventing persons born and raised or moved to certain states from obtaining the same time-dependent health services as those in other states, having to travel to obtain those services, often barred by lack of economic wherewithal, or, if still in school, facing a wall of practical considerations regarding time, and forced to endure thereby the unwanted traumas associated with pregnancy, all to satisfy some legislator trying to curry political favor, more interested in intellectual dishonesty to attract quickie votes through checklist stands on issues than with trying to educate voters to reality and away from superstitions by explaining the position they rationally choose, explaining it by reasoned analysis, not simply by reference to someone or something else. It also promotes confusion and complete silliness, for, in the abstract, without the national minimum standard, there will always be states which will permit the abortion anyway, and, as with Prohibition, there will inevitably be illegal abortions performed locally in the states restricting them practically out of existence otherwise, with consequent inevitable dangers, especially among the poor. There are other problems, all of which were thoroughly considered and dealt with in 1973. The Constitution is intended as an expansive instrument regarding liberty, not a restrictive one, not one designed to tell individuals what they cannot do. For anyone trained in the law to suggest that because a particular right is not specifically mentioned in the Constitution, it does not exist, is to engage in intellectual dishonesty, completely ignoring the Ninth Amendment. When science permits true viability earlier than about 23 weeks, then... Otherwise, prior to that point, it remains an inseparable part of the mother, as with her organs, and she, alone, may ultimately determine whether it remains or is removed.)
By attending separate schools designed for those age groups and their particular needs, they had opportunities "to find themselves emotionally and socially." (Some of them will find themselves earlier and more thoroughly than others, and room also must be made for that differentiation, as the wisest teachers recognize.)
It finds that while a complete junior high school program was not feasible at the present time, it had made a beginning and it commends the County School Board and the superintendent, J. W. Wilson, for taking that step forward.
It suggests that there was probably not a parent in the county who wanted to return to the old system, with all 12 grades attending in one building. Within a few years, it ventures, after the new junior high program was well underway, it feels certain that county parents would be just as much in favor of the new system as they were the new schools.
Edward J. Meeman, writing in the Memphis Press Scimitar, in a piece titled, "He'll Get Along All Right", indicates that when he had become an executive initially, it had been hard to refuse anyone a job and hard to fire anyone, that when he first had to do the latter task, it had been especially hard because the man was married and had a family. But then he had told Mr. Meeman that he expected him to fire him long earlier, that he knew his work was not right and that he had been fired from a lot of jobs and much sooner than he had been from the present one.
He had a different experience recently, when a man had lost his job in an economic move at the place where he had been employed and Mr. Meeman asked him to submit a sample of writing, as he always did with prospective hires. The man produced the story that he had worked his way through college, had two young boys and that his wife was expecting, had held his present job for five years and had not imagined it would ever end, had been working on a late shift when he received the news of his layoff, news which his wife had taken well, presenting him the next day with a bouquet of jonquils from their best flower bed, accompanied by the gift of a sport shirt he had been eyeing in a shop window, telling him that she loved him and that no matter what happened he was the best daddy in the world. On a morning several days later, he was getting his two boys ready for Catholic school, when the older had said that he wanted no breakfast as he would receive Holy Communion at mass, indicated that he needed no money for breakfast at school as he already had some, which his wife later told him had come from gathering empty Coke bottles in the garage and taking them to the supermarket for redemption, after hearing of his father's impending dismissal from his job.
Mr. Meeman indicates that he had never heard whether the man had gotten a job, but that if he had not, he would, as someone with a family like that could not be beaten. He wonders, when he heard a wife knocking her husband, especially before a group of people at a party, how she could expect him to succeed. He says that he was sorry he had not had a job to offer the man of whom he related, but that he was not worried about him as he would get along all right.
Sure, as long as his son found enough Coke bottles in the neighborhood.
Drew Pearson tells, in the first of a series of short snippets, of Premier U Nu of Burma having had private talks with Communist Chinese Premier Chou En-lai at the African-Asian conference in Indonesia, which had ended the prior Monday, regarding release of the 15 U.S. fliers being held by Communist China, with 11 being held on charges of espionage, denied by the State Department. Nu had raised with Chou the subject of the secret request of Secretary of State Dulles, and Chou had made no promises, in fact denouncing the State Department for refusing to permit American relatives of the prisoners to visit them after he had extended an invitation for them to do so. Mr. Pearson ventures the opinion that the Communists would turn the American fliers loose, but not until Chou had a good chance to make propaganda from the release.
First Lady Mamie Eisenhower had been so embarrassed when a guest showed up at the White House reception wearing exactly the same design dress which she had been wearing, that she had laid down the law to her dress designer and received a promise to make no duplicates of any dresses or hats designed for Mrs. Eisenhower in the future. (For Mrs. Kennedy to have done the same thing in the next Administration would have made it rather tough on about half the ladies across the country under age 40 or so at that time.)
Admiral Robert Carney, chief of Naval Operations, had been trying to repair relations with the President ever since the latter had bawled him out for talking to newsmen, suggesting that there would be an attack by April 15 by the Communists on Quemoy and Matsu, a prediction subsequently revised to a date after the Indonesian conference, though the Admiral had contended that he had never made the statement in the context of a prediction, only meaning to indicate what the Communists were capable of doing, though the reporting news organizations had stood by their story. The Admiral had sought repeatedly to see the President, but could not get past the White House door.
Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson had secretly increased the goal for an ammunition stockpile, taking no chances on another shortage of ammunition in the event of war.
The Kremlin bosses had built half a dozen secret, underground air raid shelters several miles outside Moscow for themselves in the event of nuclear war, but no plans had been made for the evacuation of the populace.
The Civil Defense Administration head, Val Peterson, was searching for a cheap, two-dollar gas mask for every American to have on hand at all times in their homes.
Communist China was rushing work on a secret atomic bomb installation in remote Sinkiang Province, being directed by nearly 100 Russian advisers, to enable China to develop cheap nuclear power for industrialization.
A secret experimental atomic rocket had misfired at the Los Alamos proving grounds in New Mexico and had almost caused an incident with Mexico, landing in a Juarez graveyard and exploding in the air, but without damage. (Apparently, according to the previous Secretary of Defense in his new book, the immediate past occupant of the White House at one point had seriously considered sending missiles into Mexico to target drug labs, on the notion that no one would know the source of the attack—perhaps thinking, in his vast and detailed knowledge of American history, that he could rely on an incident such as the one recounted by Mr. Pearson, and simply claim, "Whoops," thereby excusing his war crime, taking the country back, and then some, to 1916 during the punitive expedition by General Pershing in search of Pancho Villa following his murderous raid on the American residents of Columbus, New Mexico. Mek Amurica... Vamonos, muchachos.)
Tests with mice had demonstrated that it was ten times more likely than previously thought that nuclear radiation would produce abnormal children. Be children, not mice, and avoid that prospect.
Times had changed regarding Senator McCarthy from the point three years earlier when delegates to the meeting of the American Society of Newspaper Editors had been clamoring for more news from his witch-hunt. Now, Sigma Delta Chi was holding a business meeting to prepare its annual breakfast meeting for visiting April editors in Washington, with a list of VIP's to be invited, from the Supreme Court down, with each name called off to see which member would put up the four dollars necessary to invite each VIP, and when the chairman of the group called the name of Senator McCarthy, there was dead silence, followed by laughter, as no one wanted to buy the breakfast for the Senator. Eventually, Charles Frederick, a hearing examiner for the FCC, which had been following the policies of the Senator of late, volunteered to pay the fee.
Reports from China indicated that most of the jailed American fliers had been tortured into signing phony confessions.
U.S. officials had reports that Generalissimo Francisco Franco of Spain had secretly encouraged Spanish workers to slow down construction on the American air and naval bases being built there to help him win his argument with the State Department regarding U.S. aid, that it should be more than what was being provided in return for the bases.
Egypt's strong man, Premier Gamal Abdel Nasser, had turned down an invitation to visit the U.S., telling the U.S. Embassy that until the U.S. changed his policy toward Israel, he would not consider making such a trip.
Word had leaked to members of Congress that State Department security head Scott McLeod had been comparing them with skunks.
Relations between France and the U.S. had reached their lowest ebb since the end of the European war on May 8, 1945. The French were bitterly opposing U.S. policies in their once productive colony of Indo-China and were infuriated when Secretary Dulles had ordered Ambassador James B. Conant in West Germany to end occupation rule without waiting for France to join the ceremony. U.S. Ambassador to France Douglas Dillon had cabled the State Department that something had to be done quickly to heal that potentially disastrous split. A major reason why France was stubbornly persisting in seeking to develop its own atomic and hydrogen bombs, according to the Ambassador, was that the French believed that they were being treated like a third-rate power rather than as an ally.
The Congressional Quarterly continues its look at the Federal grant-in-aid program to the states and local governments, informing that North Carolina had received 99.3 million dollars of the 4.3 billion distributed by the Federal Government in grants-in-aid, shared revenues and loans to the state and local governments as well as to individuals, primarily veterans' benefits in the latter category, during fiscal 1954. That ranked the state 15th among the 48 states and the District of Columbia in receipt of such grants, with California ranking highest at 365.6 million, followed by New York, with 278.3 million, while Delaware, with 7.1 million, ranked lowest.
The total grants for fiscal 1954 had been 5 percent higher than for the previous fiscal year, when 4.054 billion had been disbursed, with North Carolina having received about 95 million. Thirty-seven states and the District received less from the Government in total grants during fiscal 1954 than they had averaged during the period between 1949 and 1952, but 11 states had received more, with Nevada having received the largest proportionate increase at 53.5 percent, albeit ranking 46th among the states and the District, while the District, ranking 44th, lost the most proportionately, at 47.6 percent.
Since population was a major factor in determining aid, the largest states tended to receive the most. One purpose of the aid was to equalize governmental benefits among the poorer and wealthier states, but poor states sometimes did not take advantage of available Federal money because they were unable to match funding, required by many of the grants.
The total grants disbursed in 1954 represented about 6 percent of the total taxes collected by the Federal Government, with North Carolina having contributed 1.5 billion of the total.
During the 1952 presidential campaign, General Eisenhower had promised to "cast away the agents of centralization who would destroy the vitality of state and local government by assigning all powers to the Federal Government." Congress, at the start of the President's term, per the President's request, had established the Commission on Intergovernmental Relations to study the grant program and its impact on state and local governments. Dissension had interrupted the Commission's study, resulting in the deadline for its report having been extended twice, with the latest deadline being the following June 30.
Those who favored generous grants contended that the national interest required standards that state and local governments had to be required to meet to equalize the wealthy and poor regions of the country and provide incentives for local activity, disputing the importance of state boundaries when it came to formulating policy on alleviation of disease and poverty, improvement of education, and construction of highways.
Those who wanted to cut back on the grant program contended that extension of Federal authority violated the principles of grassroots democracy, and that the grants were inefficient by promoting extra layers of bureaucracy and wasting money because the states would spend it carelessly when they received it "free" from the Federal Government.
Robert C. Ruark, in Paris, tells of the Calavados being his favorite spot in Paris, being the one place, apart from the George V bar where he could go and find a chum he had known previously and with whom he might be pleased to eat, drink, fight, kiss or "whatever". (We do not wish to hear about the "whatever".)
One of his friends, a black man
named Charlie Beal
He found it a pleasant place for quiet introspection, with his friend at the piano providing the quality which had made Rick's in the movie "Casablanca" so realistic that people still kept looking for it when they visited that city, despite it never having existed. In the Calavados, one did not feel like a tourist, a stranger, an intruder in a strange place, but rather very romantic, especially in the wee hours of the morning, while making the patron feel that he owned a piece of the place and that "something pretty fascinating" was going to happen shortly, feeling like a character in a movie, loose in a strange town, and that the pretty girl sitting in the next seat was shortly going to prove to be a spy and cause a lot of trouble. He relates that the girl sitting next to him had been a Pan American Airlines hostess sitting with the flight steward and was a great friend of one of his friends.
He goes on quite a way about how he would explain it all to his wife, that he had gone to dinner with Charlie who played the piano and that he had friends with whom they had gone to dinner, etc., with his wife contending that he had eaten the same sort of fare he had while growing up in North Carolina.
His wife would then find it a "likely story", and so he would not even tell her that he had lunch by himself at the Crillon, while reading a book, "because you can't get nowhere with truth when you are telling a wife what you did in Paris when you should have been home a week earlier."
A letter writer, who indicates that she was an employee of Southern Bell and a member of the Communication Workers of America union which was on strike against the company, says that she had found it a privilege to walk in the picket lines, that she believed in good telephone service, but that it was not reasonable when the company had failed to offer a good contract, and so it was reasonable for the employees in that event to fail the public who, in reality, paid their salaries, that had the company been anxious to prevent a strike, they would have offered a good contract, without the demanded no-strike clause. She indicates that they had been bargaining since the prior July 19 and that when the ensuing months had failed to produce a satisfactory working agreement, they had gone on strike on March 14. She urges the public to bear with them so that they could obtain a good working contract.
A letter from 20 "Scabbie Club" members, whose names were withheld, indicates that some of them were loyal members of the CWA and that a part of their group had walked the picket lines during the initial part of the strike against Southern Bell, and that they believed in fidelity to the union as long as it was being fair. But when cables were being cut, shots being fired, rocks being thrown, company doors being battered down and offices closed because of vandalism and violence, they believed it was time to throw down the picket signs, don their headsets again and take their places at the switchboards. They had thus done so proudly and did not feel that they had violated the code of ethics in joining "The Scabbie Club".
A letter writer urges voting on May 3 in the local general election for men and women who were in favor of the Bible being taught in the schools. She says she would not want to meet God at judgment not wanting to have the Bible taught to the boys and girls, many of whom never heard the word of God except at school.
Sure they do. "You better get up out of that bed, you goddamned lazy good for nothing and get your little hiney up to the goddamned schoolhouse or you're going to become a goddamned ignorant bum," or "You listen to me, you goddamned little slut. You're not going to any goddamned dance dressed in that goddamned way as long as I'm goddamned alive. You want to grow up to be considered a goddamned whore?"
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