The Charlotte News
Monday, September 12, 1955
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from Hong Kong that jubilant relatives had begun collecting this date in the city to await arrival of ten American civilians whose quick release had been promised by Communist China, though it was not known exactly when the released civilians would cross the border into Hong Kong, after a Peiping radio broadcast had stated that they might already be on their way to freedom.
In New York, the independent International Longshoremen's Association, following a meeting with union leaders, ordered this date an immediate strike of members in all Atlantic Coast ports in support of the New York waterfront strike. The ILA president issued a statement indicating that agreement had been reached the previous day between the union and officials of the New York State legislative committee, but that after the agreement had been made, pressure had been put on the legislators not to go through with the agreement, and after the union had called off the strike, they felt double-crossed and so were now recommending the strike at all of the East Coast ports.
Howard Whitman, a nationally prominent writer on social problems, in the first of a series of articles on rediscovery of the lost art of parenthood, indicates that there was mounting evidence in the nation's family agencies and courts that the theory of allowing the child to do as he pleased had backfired not only against society but also against the children who had been reared that way. It had produced neither well-adjusted nor creative, expressive children, as had been the hope, but rather youngsters who were untrained for life and ended up paying the price themselves. A report from the Washington Institute of Mental Hygiene by psychiatric social worker Thelma DuVinage, in charge of intake, had indicated that some youngsters they received were just "lumps", after their parents had raised them by doing things for them while never expecting anything from them, that if such a child complained about food, he was given other food and every complaint was met, that if he felt like messing up the house, or even breaking things, that was permitted, as the well-intentioned parents sought to make the child happy. They had overlooked the fact that it helped the child to experience disappointment occasionally. Such children, the case studies had found, grew up without any sense of allowing others their rights or with any sense of obligation, were psychologically weak, with distorted egos and no sense of identity. One example was a girl who was 14, eldest child in a family able to afford to send her to an outstanding private school. Though she had a fixed allowance, she was able to obtain extra money any time she wanted it by begging or nagging at her parents. About a year earlier, she had ceased resorting even to those measures and had gone into her father's desk drawer, where household funds were maintained, and helped herself. Her father had made feeble attempts to discipline her but gave up on the notion that such discipline was old-fashioned. She was permitted to go out as many as five nights per week and no effective attempt was made to limit the time by which she was to return home. She had carried that pattern of behavior with her when she entered private school, and her case history ended with the entry that the previous March, in the middle of the semester, she had been expelled. Mr. Whitman reports that, according to a case worker, the most pathetic thing about her father was that he believed he had given in to her because he loved her and that it had taken a long time to convince him of the difference between love and neglect. A judge in Baton Rouge, La., in the newly established Family Court there, had reported another typical case concerning a boy of 15, who had first gotten into trouble with the law by "borrowing" an unlocked car and going for a joy ride, resulting in a reprimand and being sent home. But soon afterward, he had returned to court on the more serious charge of auto theft and the judge had to send him to training school as the boy had no idea of life in society, the judge indicating that his mother had pampered him and sided against his father whenever the latter sought to impose discipline, and yet the mother had cried all during the court hearing.
As a follow-up to the piece, a story indicates that the Mecklenburg County Domestic Relations and Juvenile Court judge this date endorsed the series of articles as being "most instructive and thought-provoking", a must for every parent, after he had read the complete series in advance. He wanted the articles addressed in the schools and in Sunday schools, and discussed in every family, hoping that the parents would take the suggestions and put them into practice in their homes. He said that he particularly agreed with several of the theses of Mr. Whitman, that discipline, to be effective, had to begin early, that the child had to be loved in the home even when being disciplined and that consistency of the discipline was important.
In Charlotte, Julian Hampton Little, one of the oldest and best-known citizens of the community, had died at age 90 during the early morning hours at his home, following several years of illness. He had been born in Richmond County and had been educated at UNC, had graduated in 1888 after being a member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity, coming to Charlotte at the age of 21 upon graduation and joining the Heath Cotton Co., of which he became vice-president after several years. An editorial below summarizes his life and service to the community.
Emery Wister of The News tells of the Reverend Billy Graham the previous day having dedicated before 12,500 persons the new Coliseum and Auditorium with the words: "Let us remember that the Master is outside waiting to come in. And let us make certain that nothing ever happens here that He cannot be invited in. Let us make this the center of Christ. Let us dedicate the building to that purpose." Governor Luther Hodges was also present for the dedication and delivered a short address.
Now, play ball.
Mr. Wister also reports from "somewhere in the woods" of Mecklenburg County that he and staff photographer Tommy Franklin had gone elephant hunting this date in woods off Wilkinson Boulevard near Airport Park, seeking Vicki, a gray, six-year old, six-foot elephant missing from the Airport Park Zoo since the previous afternoon. The park operator said that the elephant had become frightened when a calf had jumped in front of it as it was being loaded into a truck to be taken to the Gastonia fair. It then dashed across the road and disappeared into the wooded area, where it had been since. Several persons had sought to approach the elephant but had only scared it. Both men had sought to get the elephant's attention by throwing rocks, shouting and making "moo" sounds, but with no success, so trudged out of the woods and back to the highway, leaving Vicki still in the woods. That was certainly a very interesting story, probably worthy of a Pulitzer.
In Miami, Fla., the Weather Bureau issued a weather advisory on Hurricane Hilda, indicating that Air Force reconnaissance during the morning had indicated that the disturbed condition north of the Leeward Islands, which had been under observation for the previous 24 hours, had developed to hurricane intensity, presently located 165 miles southeast of Turks Island, moving in a west-northwesterly direction at 13 mph, with hurricane winds occurring around the center in squalls and extending outward with gale force winds to 125 miles northeast of the center and 70 miles southwest of the center. It was expected to continue in that direction and intensity for the ensuing 24 hours.
On the editorial page,"Segregation: The Widening Ripples" comments on the Federal District Court ruling reported on the Saturday front page, ordering UNC to process the applications of black students to undergraduate schools of the Greater University, after the three plaintiffs had been denied admission solely on the basis of their race the prior April, with the comment by the Board of Trustees that while the professional and graduate programs of the University now admitted qualified black applicants, the policy had not changed with respect to the undergraduate program, the Court finding, however, that Brown v. Board of Education applied to public undergraduate institutions as well as public schools in grades one through twelve, that the plaintiffs qualified as a class and so the ruling would apply henceforth to all black applicants to the University, that no longer could the University discriminate on the basis of race against applicants seeking admission to undergraduate programs of the three all-white institutions, UNC at Chapel, N.C. State in Raleigh and Woman's College in Greensboro.
The piece finds that the decision "cut deep along taut nerves" among some North Carolinians, while others had received it "with something approaching indifference". It observes that the decision should not have caused surprise, as Brown, in May, 1954, had overruled the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson doctrine of separate but equal facilities passing muster under the 14th Amendment Equal Protection Clause. It indicates, however, that realization of that fact did not reduce the problems, which it believes were nearly as severe in higher education as in the primary and secondary grades of local community public schools. It does not believe there would be explosive upheavals likely to occur on college campuses of the state as a result of admission of qualified black undergraduates. But the state had an enormous investment in college facilities for each race and had an obligation to see that its investment was put to the best use possible. It suggests that if black students suddenly flooded the already crowded State institutions with applications rather than applying also to the institutions originally designed for black students, North Carolina College in Durham, subsequently North Carolina Central University, and Greensboro A&T, complications would likely result.
It urges that the State and its institutions of higher learning had to initiate forthwith a careful study of the possible consequences of the decision and establish a sensible program to meet those consequences, requiring understanding, cooperation and patience on the part of all concerned.
The piece does not reckon with the
fact that the decision left to the Board of Trustees the exclusive
power of determining qualifications for the State's institutions of
higher learning, applicable to all applicants, and so the process of
determining such qualifications would serve to equalize the
application process among the institutions, as generally had always
been the case with white students attending the Greater University
all-white schools. You will still have to be able to answer correctly, or provide the best answer
"Security: An Abundance of Stupidity" tells of Boston attorney Charles P. Curtis having written in the Saturday Review anent his disgust over the Federal personnel security system, after reviewing 50 of its cases, stating that his first sentiment was compassion for little people, that while there were a few cases of persons who could take care of themselves, the others appeared bewildered as to how a kind government could act so cruelly, that there had been nothing to suggest malice but plenty to suggest stupidity.
He had found that the people responsible for the program were often quite careless, while others appeared ignorant of accepted procedures of law and common sense, and still others, though aware of the suffering and humiliation which their actions might be causing, felt that they had to compound the tragedy to maintain their jobs—sounding a bit like the later Peter Principle.
The piece observes that to the people harmed by the program, the result was the same as if there were callously indifferent and spiteful bureaucrats at work. It finds that illustrative of the point was the case of Dr. Alfred H. Kelly, who taught history at Detroit's Wayne University and had the misfortune of being named by the Army as "a contributor and supporter" of American Youth for Democracy, which was considered a Communist front organization, resulting in the professor having been branded a Communist sympathizer. He had appeared before a Senate subcommittee investigating the case of a Detroit man who had been denied an honorable discharge from the Army earlier in the year for security reasons, and had emphatically denied that he had supported the American Youth for Democracy. The Army had taken no immediate action, however, to clear the record. It was actually the case that Dr. Kelly had vigorously opposed the group and had investigated it at the direction of Wayne University, helping to run it off campus in 1947. The previous week, the Pentagon had admitted that it had made a mistake, saying that it was the result of an Army document which was "improperly and carelessly prepared." Nevertheless, the professor's name had suffered a great deal as a result of that mistake.
John B. Oakes of the New York Times had told the previous month of a draftee who had been given a discharge "other than honorable", despite an excellent military record, because, as a student, he had been accused of belonging to an organization on the Attorney General's list of subversive organizations. The man's reputation had been saved by the intervention of a Senator, who had managed to show that his accusers were unbalanced and that the accusation had no basis in fact.
South Carolina Senator Olin Johnston the previous week had commended the Secretary of the Army for admitting the error in the Kelly case, but said that it was an example of what could happen to others if the security program were not revised and properly administered. The piece finds that conclusion correct and urges an immediate reworking completely of the security program.
"Julian Little: 70 Years of Service" laments the death of Mr. Little who had been known as a builder of buildings but had also contributed enormously to the development of leading businessmen in the community, who had benefited from his advice, encouragement and assistance. He had disliked the limelight and seldom appeared in the headlines, but had been identified with many of the major undertakings in the city since arriving in 1888 after graduating from UNC. The town, at that time, was small, and Mr. Little had engaged in the cotton business for some years before entering banking, where he gained distinction as a progressive and forward-looking financier. He had first been vice-president and later president of the Charlotte National Bank, and had later organized the Charlotte Trust & Realty Co., of which he was president when it erected the Realty Building, one of the state's first skyscrapers. He had also been instrumental in the construction of Hotel Charlotte, the Professional Building, the Mayfair Hotel and the old Armory-Auditorium.
He had been active in and one of the leaders of the organization of the First Methodist Church, had contributed to the new church erected on North Tryon Street, and was active in numerous charitable and religious organizations.
It concludes that Charlotte at present was in large measure a testimonial to his devotion to the community and its people.
Drew Pearson's column, still being written by staff while he was on vacation, indicates that despite tales of Texas braggadocio, the most modest man in Congress, judging by his biography in the Congressional Directory, was Representative Brady Gentry, who had written simply that he was a "Democrat, Texas", while the biggest advertiser in the House was Virginia's Representative Joel Broyhill, who had provided himself 57 lines in his biography. Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina topped that record, however, with 60 lines, the the most of any member of Congress. It notes that Congressman Broyhill had sponsored the first piece of music ever placed in a House bill, the official Francis Scott Key version of the Star-Spangled Banner. There were four other lyrical versions, all slightly different, which had been written since the original, composed on a British ship off Fort McHenry in Baltimore.
They indicate, also apparently gleaned from the Directory, that the favorite hobby of Representative Leon Gavin of Pennsylvania was collecting Civil War relics, using a mine detector to search for metal objects buried on Virginia farms near the battlefields of Bull Run and Manassas. He had found a belt buckle pierced by a bullet which evidently had killed its wearer.
Representative Peter Rodino of New Jersey had received a cablegram stating, "Baby Born," from his parents while he was in the Army in Africa in 1942, not learning until a month later that his firstborn child had been a daughter. (We trust that they did not throw the baby out with the bathwater.)
Senator Irving Ives of New York did not rely on service station attendants to maintain his tires in properly inflated condition, instead carrying his own tire gauge with him at all times. He denied, however, that it was equipped to measure the air pressure on the Senate floor.
It thanks the athletic director of
the Ferris Institute in Big Rapids, Mich., for advising that they had
omitted from the column Representative Gerald Ford, former football
star at the University of Michigan, in a recent listing of members of
Congress who had played sports. The athletic director said that he
had played against Mr. Ford and knew that he was good. (Whether he
noted also that he had played once too often without his helmet is
not indicated. The Huston Plan, incidentally, the perhaps Freudian misprint on the afore-linked sports page notwithstanding, had nothing to do with any Astro
An authority on the Capitol Building reported from Rochester, N.Y., that a flaw in the famous painting of Pocahontas which had hung in the Capitol since 1848 had been discovered during the summer by an eight-year old girl, pointing out to a guide that an Indian in the picture had six toes. (Well, maybe the artist was quietly communicating the notion that the white man spoke to the Indians with forked tongue.)
President Washington had failed in his first message to Congress to obtain an official measurement standard for the yard and the pound, and none of his successors had bothered much with it.
Stewart Alsop, in London, indicates that the British, since the end of the war, had developed a habit of having an economic crisis every other year or so, and were having one at present, the outcome of which would determine whether the nation was absolutely dependent on exports. Since the coronation of Queen Elizabeth in 1953, the British had been having their cake and eating it, too, as there was no unemployment, with jobs going begging in the mines, offices and elsewhere in the economy, giving the labor unions an unchallengeable bargaining position, with the result that wages were steadily increasing. At the same time, business was booming, while the state had been spending large sums for defense and social services. The result had been inflation, with the real value of the pound having dropped about 30 percent since the devaluation of 1949.
In theory, those factors should have led to Britain's loss of competitive position in world markets and to another economic crisis, but the current crisis was very small, at least at present, compared to the world-shaking crises of 1947, 1949 and 1951. Chancellor of the Exchequer R. A. Butler denied that it was a crisis at all, found it only a difficulty which would soon be overcome. The most important outward sign of the crisis was the loss of about 500 million dollars from the British gold and dollar reserves during the previous nine months. There were rumors of a second devaluation on the horizon and the pound had shown signs of weakening on world markets.
To the ordinary British worker, however, the crisis was invisible, as they enjoyed their best wages ever. The same was true of business. But to the responsible men of both parties, the crisis was real and they were worried more than they cared to admit. Mr. Butler had been worried since the previous February, when he sharply raised the bank interest rate, supposed to have the effect of reining in the current boom. But instead the boom only accelerated, and at the end of July, Mr. Butler had tightened the reins further by narrowing the availability of consumer credit. It yet remained to be seen whether that would slow the boom.
Mr. Butler was blamed by the Socialists, not for clamping down, but for not doing so enough and early enough, while left-wing Labor politicians echoed, in private, the equally private view of most Conservatives, that the root of the problem lay in over-employment. As long as there were many jobs available, there was no incentive for higher production, and coal mines were left idle such that Britain would soon stop all export of coal, causing consternation on the Continent, while prices were keeping pace with increasing wages in an unending spiral upward.
Nevertheless, both Socialists and Conservatives were amazingly optimistic about the long-range economic prospects. Members of the Labor Party indicated that they had to adjust their policies to the fact that mass unemployment and mass poverty were things of the past, and an able Conservative politician had said that he was not worried about the present economic troubles because the previous decade had proved that catastrophic conditions could be avoided by intelligent economic management by the State. The latter view was widely shared and amounted to the conviction that Britain could have its cake and eat it, too, provided the prosperity was enjoyed with prudence and intelligence, whereas in the years immediately succeeding the war, it had been fashionable for Britons to say that the country could never again become a great power or even support its population, with the only solution being mass emigration. More recently, it had become fashionable to say that even a relatively painless recession in the U.S. would adversely affect the entire West.
Mr. Alsop concludes that Britain had not only recovered from the war but had also developed a major rearmament program, while feeding its population better than ever, and it had been during the U.S. recession that the British boom had really begun to gather momentum.
The Congressional Quarterly examines the lobbying efforts during the year, finding that there would be numerous leftover efforts for them in 1956, as their pressure drives during the year had largely ended inconclusively. The battle over taxes, for instance, never ended. Labor lobbyists had fought for cuts in individual income taxes in 1955 and for repeal of reductions granted to stockholders earning dividends. While the Democratic champions of reduced individual taxes had lost on the issue to the Republican Administration, the Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers, the issue would be taken up again in 1956 and the lobbyists in favor of those tax reductions would seek to garner support in an election year. Labor lobbies wanted to shift the emphasis to low-income groups while business interests wanted to cut taxes on corporations and stockholders. Particular industries wanted to cut excise taxes on their products, and there might be pressure for across-the-board tax cuts, with each segment of the economy getting a portion.
Another issue which would be renewed in 1956 was farm price supports, with a farm-labor bloc having obtained a majority in the House in favor of restoration of rigid supports at 90 percent of parity, rather than the flexible price supports adopted in the previous Congress. They would begin placing pressure on the Senate the following year, but would find that the American Farm Bureau Federation, a leading champion of flexible supports, had dug in firmly.
Farm groups would also be among the lobbies taking sides on highway construction, with a major part of the dispute hinging on financing. Manufacturers of truck trailers and allied groups advocated larger highway user taxes to fund the construction, while trucking interests did not want to pay discriminatory user taxes and favored instead bonds for financing the highways.
Early in the 1956 session, natural gas producers and distributors would launch another drive for exemption of independent producers from Federal regulation, a campaign which would be resisted by city mayors, municipal law officers and unions, who claimed to be speaking for consumers. Advocates for public power had already promised to investigate further the Dixon-Yates contract, canceled several months earlier by the Administration, and the issues regarding development of Hell's Canyon for private utilities rather than public power. The water-starved mountain states would renew their battle for the Upper Colorado River and Fryingpan-Arkansas projects, with disastrous flood damage possibly developing pressure for and against the valley authorities from the Connecticut to the Missouri. Lobbyists in that area recently had been limiting their activities to the TVA.
Democratic proposals to expand the Social Security Act were expected to stir controversy and generate lobbying efforts, with the AMA on one side, opposing cash benefits for disability on the theory that Federal machinery to supervise certification of disability would place the Government in the middle of medical practice.
Other renewed lobbying efforts would include those for and against public housing, Federal aid for school construction, revision of sugar quotas, half a dozen water and power projects, and regulation of the railroads.
During the first session, Congress had adopted a series of compromises which were often unsatisfactory to either side, while postponing decisions on a number of issues. Labor, for instance, had won an increase in the minimum wage and a pay increase for Federal employees, but had lost the tax fight and had its campaign to aid the National Farmers Union to revive rigid price supports stall. The effort to exempt natural gas producers from Federal regulation would be a logical sequel to the 1955 session, as unexpectedly strong opposition from consumer interests had stalled the bill in the Senate after the industry's bill had passed the House. Public housing lobbies had been somewhat disappointed when Congress had authorized only 45,000 public housing units during the prior session, while the Senate bill had called for 135,000 units annually, until attaining the goal of 810,000 units set in the 1949 Housing Act. Supporters of public housing anticipated doing battle with the real estate lobbies again for an expanded program during the second session. The National Education Association and its allies had failed to obtain enactment of expanded Federal aid for school construction. The American Legion had not obtained a stronger reserve program, as it had sought, and domestic sugar interests had lost their effort for increased quotas.
A letter writer from Opelousas
Had he wanted to carry his punology to another plane, he could have paraphrased Descartes: Cogito ergo yam.
A letter writer, president of the Hamlet Athletic Club, seeks to answer the question why blacks remained in the South, indicating that there were many reasons, principal among which was that there was not room enough for all blacks in the North, that blacks for many years had worked hard and honestly to improve the South's farming industry, and after many years, had honestly and faithfully bought homes in which to live peacefully where they had worked so long and hard, while waiting patiently and peacefully for change in conditions to occur. He says that incidents such as the lynching of Emmett Till on August 28 in Mississippi would cost the Federal Government a large amount of money in the near future if action were not soon brought against the "lawless white citizens" responsible for the lynching. He indicates that Governor Luther Hodges of North Carolina would tell anyone that segregation would become a subject of the past by 1960, provided white citizens acted as calmly and peacefully as the black citizens. He finds that if some took the law into their own hands and sought to judge as they pleased, the Southern states would suffer a severe race war, that the U.S. could not make two decisions at one time and profit, that the Congress faced two problems, whether to accept Communism or integration. He opines that if the country accepted integration, the union would profit and make progress, but that if there were a race war, the union would be ruined, free to be taken over by Communists. He regards that as the principal reason why Southern whites ought accept the conditions offered by the Supreme Court decision in Brown, that they would suffer "no more than, or not as much as the Negro has for the last 90 years or more." He hopes that his message would be understood with great new ideals for peace.
This brief mention of the murder of Emmett Till was the first reference to it in the newspaper since the front page account on September 1, an Associated Press story of the finding of the body in the Tallahatchie River the previous day and the arrest of the two half-brothers who had already admitted, the same day Emmett had gone missing on August 28, that they had abducted Emmett, but claimed they had let him go after the wife of one of the half-brothers had said that Emmett was not the person who had been "doing the talking" inside their store the prior Wednesday evening, August 24. Of course, as we know from the Look Magazine account subsequently provided to reporter William Bradford Huie in early 1956, after both half-brothers had been acquitted at the trial on September 23, they in fact did commit the murder, with the only remaining question being whether they had accomplices, as appeared circumstantially to be the case from other percipient witness testimony, a question which was never resolved for want of testimony regarding identification of those accomplices, at least beyond rumor. Whether the complete failure of the jury to provide justice in that case would have led in fact to a "race war", as predicted by the letter writer in that event, but for the fact of the ensuing Montgomery bus boycott and the emergence of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., as a peacekeeper and conscience of the nation in the ensuing troublesome years of racial unrest in the country, can only, fortunately, be the subject of conjecture. There were, of course, many strident black and white voices on the landscape during those subsequent years, which might have led to violence of a much greater degree than befell many of the inner cities, starting in summer 1964, with riots in Harlem and Philadelphia, continuing in the summer of 1965 with the Watts riots in Los Angeles, followed by other riots in the summers of 1966 through 1968, especially the widespread urban rioting of the summer of 1967, notably in Detroit, had it not been for the ameliorating voice of Dr. King and other black leaders who followed in his example of nonviolent resistance. But, as with anything which seeks to prove a negative, it is, fortunately, only conjecture.
Some young person, not old enough to remember those times, might speculate as to why there was so much rioting initiated immediately in the wake of the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, only increasing after the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and why the rioting subsided to a great degree after the summer of 1968, following the assassination of Dr. King on April 4 of that year.
Sociologists and social commentators of the time sought to explain it, in part, as a function of the frustrations arising from increased but unrealized expectations engendered by the civil rights movement and the consequent legislation, but that would not explain why the race rioting largely subsided after 1968, as impoverished ghettoes not keeping pace economically with the society generally did not suddenly vanish thereafter. To draw some facile conclusion that it was the result of the new policies of the Nixon Administration in 1969 would be the height of naïveté, ignoring the facts having to do with FBI infiltration in those times of the civil rights movement, especially of the more militant groups, though including also Dr. King and his immediate followers, and the resultant efforts to undermine the movement by sowing within it the seeds of discord, through propagation of rumor and outright slander, to try to destroy the movement from within, by destroying the reputations and, in some cases, the very lives of its leaders, and the ensuing Nixon policies of running the clock backwards on civil rights, together with draconian Justice Department policies, especially under Attorney General John Mitchell, in combination with support of the more conservatively led states in that effort to bring about a restoration of what was called "law and order", which was very close to a permanent declaration of martial law in many places, the same type of cudgel Mr. Nixon had utilized to gain his initial political power while a member of HUAC, starting in 1947 during his first year in Congress, government by rumor and destruction of civil liberties on some pretext, in the case of the civil rights movement, branding its leaders as subversive and coming under the influence of Communism, associating therefore in the minds of that part of the public already receptive to such notions the effort to obtain civil liberties with subversive Communism, when the exact opposite was the case. The unimpeded peaceful effort to obtain civil liberties in any society is the hallmark of a democracy, with the converse being indicative of a despotic system tending toward royal dictatorship.
That understanding is a much more complicated path to follow, but if followed properly, one can soon see that it was not the Nixon Administration policies which stemmed the violence in the streets, but rather served to destroy virtually the heart of the civil rights movement, not restoring "law and order" in any constitutional sense, but simply depriving people of their constitutional rights on a routine basis, chilling free speech and free assembly, whether those chilled were black or white being quite beside the point, treating everyone, except the chosen "silent majority" of the Nixon Party, with equal disdain, seeking, often with success, to manipulate the naïve to vote for that draconian form of government, bordering on fascism, on the notion that otherwise lawlessness would reign and the violence of the inner cities would spill over into the quiet of the suburbs, with black boys suddenly jumping through the living room windows with knives and machine guns blazing away.
Getting the trains "to run on time" is not the essence of government in any constitutional sense, and it was certainly not the case during the Nixon years, which is why, ultimately, he would have been removed from office after his impending impeachment trial in the Senate had he not resigned in disgrace in August, 1974. There is, and has always been, as witness the Trumpies of late, a streak in the country which desires, at any cost to democratic government, a return to royal prerogative, always with the rather stupid, short-sighted thought that the supporters of such a movement will ultimately be the favored ones under the new regime, never stopping to realize that the only favored ones in such a regime would be the ones in power, just as in forerunners of that type of system, whether in Nazi Germany or Fascist Italy, or other such systems. But trying to explain that to dumb pates who have never cracked a history book to any extent in their lives, reliant on canned outlines in school, can be very difficult, when they believe that getting the trains "to run on time" is really the only thing that matters, that the system of government is beside the point, as such people almost always believe that there is really no need for government in the first place, that they should be allowed to run their own train on the schedule they wish to keep, a formula, of course, for disaster in any society.
Framed Edition
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