The Charlotte News
Tuesday, July 12, 1955
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the House Appropriations Committee this date had rejected the President's request for 30 million dollars to provide free Salk polio vaccine for the nation's children unable to afford it. It explained in its report that it could not approve the request because the program had not yet been authorized by Congress, with the legislation pending in both Senate and House committees. The Committee approved 4.5 million dollars to assist the states in operating their own polio vaccination programs, $300,000 to help prevent a black market in the polio vaccine, and $400,000 to build cages for 800 monkeys needed by the National Institutes of Health in polio vaccine research. Overall, the Committee approved a 1.648 billion dollar appropriation to finance scores of Federal activities, 279 million dollars less than the President had sought, with the big cuts applied to requests for atomic and defense plant equipment and construction programs. The bill would be subject to amendment when it reached the full House on Thursday, but the House generally accepted the Appropriations Committee's recommendations.
The President this date nominated Reuben Robertson, Jr., president of the Champion Paper & Fiber Co. of Hamilton, O., to be the new Deputy Secretary of Defense, succeeding Robert Anderson, whose formal resignation had been announced the previous day. Mr. Robertson lived in Cincinnati but had been born in Asheville, N.C.
In Barium Springs, N.C., Dr. Charles McClure, pastor of Caldwell Memorial Presbyterian Church in Charlotte, would be the elected moderator of the North Carolina Synod during the afternoon, as an estimated 500 representatives of the Synod's 636 churches were attending the 142nd meeting of the Synod.
Helen Parks of The News indicates that, according to the Synod's committee on educational institutions, some of North Carolina's Presbyterian Colleges were antiquated, inadequate and constituted considerable fire hazards. The report recommended the merger of three of the colleges into a four-year coeducational college, located in the southeastern part of the state. The colleges were Flora Macdonald College of Red Springs, Peace College of Raleigh and Presbyterian Junior College of Maxton. The report also recommended that Mitchell College of Statesville and Lees-McRae College of Banner Elk consider merger or explore the possibility of Mitchell becoming an independent community college. It recommended that Queens College of Charlotte and Davidson College, located near Charlotte, would continue with increased annual support from the Synod.
Ann Sawyer of The News indicates that at least two County commissioners wanted the County police chief to be appointed by the Commission instead of by the Mecklenburg County Civil Service Board.
Emery Wister of The News indicates that the little airport town of Morris Field would become nothing more than a business community by October 1, as the Morris Field Homes, which were apartments converted from Air Force barracks, would be closed at the end of September. Letters had gone out to all of the tenants, notifying them that the homes would be closed. It had been a low-rent project which had been dying a slow death for years. Director of management of the Charlotte Housing Authority said that there were presently 60 rental units in the project and approximately 175 persons living in the apartments. When they had been opened to veterans in November, 1946, there had been 404 units with a total of about 1,300 occupants. Many of the old barracks buildings, built before and during the war when Morris Field had been an airbase, had been torn down, while others were being scrapped at present and more would be torn down in the near future. Total rentals from the homes had once been more than $100,000 annually, according to City Manager Henry Yancey, but in the previous few years, revenue had been dwindling, in a recent quarter having been little more than $2,000.
Near Danville, Va., two Charlotte men had been killed when their single-engine Cessna plane crashed during a steady rain on a farm this date. Farmers nearby had reported hearing an explosion and seeing the plane in a cork-screw dive.
Near Camden, S.C., two automobiles had collided head-on eight miles south of the town this date, killing five occupants and injuring at least two others. One automobile was from Camden and the other had Michigan license plates. The accident had occurred at the crest of a hill.
In Banff, Alberta, four boys from Philadelphia and one from St. Louis, ranging in age from 13 to 16, were known to have died in an avalanche which fell on them 9,500 feet up on Mt. Temple the previous afternoon. Two other boys were missing and two were in the Banff hospital, suffering from head injuries, shock and exposure, while two had escaped injury. Eleven boys, all members of the Wilderness Club of Philadelphia, had been part of a group of about 30 boys who had been in the area for three days.
In Milwaukee, the All-Star Baseball Game was to be played this afternoon, with temperatures not anticipated to go above 75.
On the editorial page, "The Turncoats: They Can't Come Home" tells of the return home of the three Americans who had been prisoners of war in Korea but had chosen not to repatriate at the end of the war in July, 1953, now having changed their minds and were on their way home. It indicates that there would be many questions among those Americans who could not understand how any American could forsake his country to join a known enemy of alien tongue and culture.
It wonders whether it had been a fault in their environment or a weakness in the American system, or disillusionment with American democracy which had caused them initially to desert in favor of Communist China, along with 17 others, still present in China. It also considers that perhaps promised reward or fear of punishment for traitorous acts committed while prisoners might also have been motivations.
The Defense Department, which had already dishonorably discharged all 20 men from the Army, had properly taken the position that the "turncoats" had to be held responsible for any acts they may have committed, not subject, however, to being tried merely for staying in China, pursuant to the terms of the Korean Armistice.
It indicates that all persons of decency felt sympathy for trapped creatures, and certainly the men had been trapped and could not, in any real sense, ever return home. Yet, it finds that an attitude of forgiveness would mar the sacrifices of millions of other American soldiers and U.N. troops who had fought beside them. It reserves its greater measure of sympathy for those Americans who, under the strain of torture and imprisonment, had cracked but had not broken to the point of desertion. That group included those who had made false confessions, gave military information, signed propaganda statements or cheated on their fellow prisoners to gain extra food and comfort. Yet, it had not entailed desertion.
A committee of civilians and military men were now seeking to determine if a new military code should be written in light of the Communist techniques used in Korea, basing their study on recognition that the strongest and most faithful of men in the service could be broken by deprivation and forced brainwashing. It hopes that they would develop a new policy guaranteeing mercy and complete justice for that group.
But it finds the turncoats outside those considerations, as they had made a positive decision to desert their country, and deserved strong punishment for it.
"Where Do We Go from Here?" indicates that for the first time in history, North Carolina ranked last among the states in average weekly earnings for manufacturing employees, according to an analysis of manufacturing employment and earnings by the North Carolina Research Institute, based on U.S. Department of Labor statistics, showing that production workers in the state during 1954 had earned average weekly wages of $47.88, about two-thirds of the national average, $71.86. The state ranked 47th, only ahead of Mississippi, in average hourly earnings among manufacturing employees.
It finds, therefore, that the state's economy rested on a weak basis, in need of much greater diversification in industry.
The 55-cent proposed minimum wage for jobs not in interstate commerce and thus not subject to the Federal minimum wage, had been rejected by the Legislature in 1955, never getting out of the State House Committee on Manufacturing and Labor, as the lobbies had been too strong against it.
It concludes that cheap labor was not an asset for the state, that it was liable to be inefficient and thus costly, and made for poor markets. It indicates that the problem was not easy to solve but had to be if the state was to build a solid basis for its economy.
"The Case for Intelligent Terror" indicates that ever since the Hiroshima bomb of August 6, 1945, scientists had shown proper terror at the prospect of the potential for the atom, but had thus far failed to get the bulk of mankind "intelligently terrified". The latest attempt was a statement issued by nine eminent scientists as an appeal to all nations to forswear war because the hydrogen bomb threatened "the continued existence of mankind." Despite distinguished names on the document, including those of Bertrand Russell and the late Albert Einstein, it had stirred surprisingly little interest and thus had little practical value.
The clear implication was that the nuclear peril was wearing thin with the public. After World War II, a woman's magazine had listed the ways in which people were beginning to escape from the mental discipline necessary to cope with the problem of control, which it proceeds to list, starting with not talking about it and that the higher-ups would solve it, down to the idea that one could not change human nature and that the person would be dead by then anyway, that everybody had to die sometime.
In 1950, Dr. Einstein had warned of the peril of the hydrogen bomb and its potential for poisoning of the atmosphere with radioactivity, thus annihilating life on earth. A few citizens had gasped, but then had gone on their way, unable to do anything about it and realizing they were only words.
It finds the goal of the nine scientists noble, but that the great mass of mankind was not ready for the sacrifices, which would include a limitation of national sovereignty, which abolition of war would require. It suggests that the people had to be shocked into awareness by being given the straight, unvarnished facts as to what the hydrogen bomb was and what it would do. It proposes letting the citizens see a few of the hydrogen tests and observe the effects of radioactive fallout on laboratory animals. It suggests that then, perhaps, a few laymen would be as intelligently terrified as the scientists and would begin to accept the idea of the necessity of abolition of war.
"Until then, man's hope lies in the terror of a few leading statesmen and military leaders—some of them untrustworthy and unpredictable—and the deterrent effect of the hydrogen bomb against temptation."
A piece from the Robesonian of Lumberton, titled "New-Type Southerner", indicates that auto registration in 16 Southern states had doubled since 1945, according to a recent issue of Automobile Facts, that while Southern population had increased by only 16.1 percent since 1941, compared to 19.8 percent nationally, passenger car registration in the South as a whole had increased by 73.8 percent, compared with 51.4 percent in the rest of the country.
It suggests that if the buying trend continued, literature about the South might have to be altered to include another type of underprivileged Southerner, "a poor fellow without a car."
Drew Pearson indicates that as the President was preparing to leave for the Geneva Big Four summit conference, scheduled to start July 18, a delegation of Russian farm officials were arriving in New York on July 16, an invitation inspired by the Des Moines Register-Tribune, constituting the first real visit of grassroots Russians since Russian military men and their families had lived in the U.S. during World War II. He finds that the State Department was playing it smart, providing the Russian farmers no security men as guards or chaperones, permitting them to go anywhere they wanted at any time. They would be entertained by other farmers along the way. After visiting points in Iowa, they would visit Nebraska, South Dakota, Minnesota, California, Chicago, and then return by way of Washington, with a flexible itinerary.
Some Democratic Senators privately viewed the Dixon-Yates probe with mixed feelings, recognizing it as the best piece of inside work by the big bankers which they had pinned to the Administration, and also did not like the fact that Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee was the great champion of the matter, as he might once again be able to get too close to the Democratic presidential nomination, as in 1952.
Adlai Stevenson's advisers were telling him that he should remarry, having previously been divorced. Mr. Pearson says that he had a new girlfriend in Washington and so did not need encouragement.
Members of the Administration had appealed to former Undersecretary of Defense William Foster, under President Truman, to take the job again, replacing the retiring Bob Anderson, but Mr. Foster had said no, despite being a lifelong Republican.
Portugal had appealed to the U.S. to send more American fighters to replace the 12 which had crashed into a mountain recently, wiping out 20 percent of the Portuguese Air Force. Even though the U.S. Embassy believed the accident might have been avoided by good pilots, the U.S. would probably send new planes to replace them.
Actually, there were only eight of the twelve planes lost in the crash, as the upper of the three stacked formations of four planes each, preparing for an airshow at Coimbra, had flown over the mountain, only the bottom two formations following the leader into the mountain. Hey, get the story right, you son-of-a-bitch. We don't want to give away four more planes than we have to.
The Congressional Quarterly tells of the scheduled adjournment of Congress by the end of July looking good, despite the absence of Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson, sidelined with a heart attack. Acting Leader Earle Clements of Kentucky needed to be back home by an August 6 primary in the gubernatorial race and so was eager to meet that goal. He and Governor Lawrence Wetherby were backing former Judge Bert Combs for the nomination against former Senator A. B. "Happy" Chandler, who had served in the seat between 1939 and 1945. He had also been a former Governor, as had Senator Clements. The race was expected to be close. Senator Clements had not had much time for home-state politics since the new Congress had convened in January, as early in the session, he had also served as Acting Leader in the absence of Senator Johnson, when the latter was hospitalized for a kidney operation, and in June, had spent three weeks on an inspection tour of the Far East for the Senate Appropriations Committee.
It was anticipated that he would stay close to the pattern established by Senator Johnson as Leader. Both he and Senator Johnson had given less support to the President's program than the average Democratic Senator. On an analysis of 40 Senate roll call votes through June 26 testing the Administration's legislative requests, Senator Johnson had supported the President 45 percent of the time, while Senator Clements had done so 55 percent of the time, with all Democratic Senators averaging 57 percent support. Twenty-two of the 40 votes concerned foreign policy, on which Senator Johnson supported the President 59 percent of the time, Senator Clements, 73 percent of the time, and all Democratic Senators, 75 percent of the time.
During the previous Congress, when Republicans controlled the majority of both houses, the Quarterly had tabulated 126 Senate roll call votes in 1953 and 1954 regarding requests by the President for support of policy, with Senator Johnson supporting the President's position 55 percent of the time, Senator Clements, 51 percent of the time, and the average Democratic Senator, 41 percent of the time.
As expected, both Senators Johnson and Clements were heavily for party solidarity. On 19 votes in which a majority of Democrats were opposed by a majority of Republicans, Senator Johnson had voted with his party majority 17 times and against it twice, while Senator Clements had voted with the party 13 times and against it once. Senator Clements had missed the other five votes when he was in the Far East. In 1954, Senator Johnson had voted with the party 76 percent of the time on 85 such roll call votes, while Senator Clements had voted with the party 82 percent of the time, compared to the average Democratic Senator, at 64 percent of the time.
The only two issues on which Senator Johnson and Senator Clements had split in 1954 were the St. Lawrence Seaway and statehood for Alaska and Hawaii, both of which had been supported by Senator Clements and both opposed by Senator Johnson.
Senator Clements had held public office without interruption since 1926, moving up from county court clerk to county judge to state senator to Representative to Governor to Senator. The record explained why he had been selected as the Democratic Whip in the Senate and chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in 1953, although at the time practically a freshman. He had been elected to the Senate in 1950 on a majority of 56,000 votes and would be up for re-election in 1956.
Erich Fromm
A letter writer finds it gratifying to learn that beer could be served again on the curb at drive-in restaurants. He says that everyone was aware of the elaborate club set up less than a block from Independence Square, enabling people to do their tippling in a lush atmosphere. "We're grateful for our beer. What'll you have? Curbside."
A letter writer from Salisbury indicates interest in the letters which had been written to the newspaper regarding the Brown v. Board of Education decision, finding that the majority of the letters had merely criticized the Supreme Court and those of both races who favored the decision. In his opinion, those who were opposed to the mixing of the races in the public schools ought do something more than simply criticize. They should write their Senators and Congressmen and request that something be done about the situation, suggests that members of Congress could easily introduce a Constitutional amendment so that the people could again have segregated schools "and the freedom which has been taken away from the colored people as well as our white citizens." He believes that the great majority of both races did not want to intermingle in public schools. He wants the amendment introduced prior to the adjournment of Congress, favors abolition of the public schools for awhile to enable creation of some arrangement for both races, rather than having "bloodshed and violence between the races."
So, this cracker wants to abrogate the 14th Amendment, and, presumably, start the Civil War all over again.
A letter from a former G.I. who had fought in Korea for two years, says he is black, but withholds his name, indicates having been a constant reader of the editorial page for some time and had read very interesting letters on integration of the South, but finds the most idiotic one to have been that which had misquoted the Bible. "You people who have nothing to do but look and talk about who is light or dark, Catholic, Jew or Negro are definitely lower than the lot." He suggests that those who were concerned about the NAACP should look into the NAAWP or the Klan. "You worry about integration while I worry about how I fought in Korea. I was a prisoner of war, watched my Negro buddies get killed with hands tied behind their backs and I come home to find I am not as good as a dog. At least, the white man lets him sleep in his house."
A letter writer responds to a letter published July 8, which had wondered why anyone should worry about NAAWP head Bryant Bowles, this writer wondering why anyone should worry about "the Negro race and the NAACP". He thinks the previous writer was trying to poison the minds of both races and wonders why the newspaper would print such letters, says that the previous correspondent would stop writing if no one would answer that which she wrote.
But you answered it.
A letter from A. W. Black tells of the contradictory accounts of creation found in Genesis, according to Daniel Michalek, on the one hand being epochal, in Genesis 1:31 through 2:3, while the second account represented a commentary on the first. He believes such an explanation absurd in view of the fact that the Hebrew word "yom", meaning day, meant a solar day of 24 hours and not an epoch or an indefinite period. He quotes biblical scholar Dr. James Moffatt, that "the Old Testament is a collection of oriental books, oriental in thought as well as in form … and for the most part have been made out of books or edited more or less drastically by later hands." He believed that Genesis and other mythological formations contained in the first five books of the Bible were "mere tales and traditions". Mr. Black says that A Guide to Religions of America, a recent publication, had disclosed that 62 percent of the clergy and 96 percent of ministerial students regarded the Bible as myth and legend. He views trying to harmonize Genesis with the facts of science and evolution to be the equivalent of trying to combat armored legions with weapons of straw.
His latter statistics, incidentally, appear somewhat misleading, if based on a 1929 publication of responses of 500 ministers and 500 ministerial students cited in the publication which he appears to reference, as the statistics were actually 55 percent for ministers and 95 percent for the students, answering "no" to the question: "Do you believe that the Bible is wholly free from legend or myth?" He adds the percentages of those who had expressed no opinion to obtain his final statistics and misstates the premise, suggesting that they had regarded the entirety of the Bible as myth and legend, not just a part
A letter writer from Middletown, Conn., a representative of EIS Automotive Corp., tells of it having come to their attention that a series of articles had appeared in the newspaper on the inferior grades of brake fluid which had been used in hydraulic braking systems for years without legislation, and he wishes to congratulate the newspaper for a crusade which was of utmost necessity in an age of heavier cars, covered wheels and high speed. He says that very few people realized the importance of an SAE 70R1 brake fluid, and suggests that if more crusading of the type were done, the death rate from automobile accidents in the country could be substantially diminished.
A letter writer from Lancaster, S.C., regards an editorial suggestion that the principle of states' rights had been buried along with the Articles of Confederation. He reminds that section 2 of the 21st Amendment, that abolishing Prohibition, which had become effective on December 5, 1933, provided that the transportation or importation into any state, territory or possession of the U.S. for delivery or use therein of intoxicating liquors, in violation of the laws thereof, was prohibited.
The editors respond that it was not the principle of states' rights but that of state trade barriers which they had assigned to the grave of the Articles of Confederation.
A letter writer suggests to all people who thought that they were getting old the maxim: "Think young and you will live to be a young, old man or woman." He considers himself young at age 46.
Framed Edition
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