The Charlotte News

Thursday, September 22, 1955

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that at the U.N. in New York, Secretary of State Dulles this date declared that the world might be entering a decade of peaceful change which would spell the end of the cold war, stating to the General Assembly that the international atmosphere had improved substantially since the 1954 session of the Assembly and that there was a good chance for constructive decisions during the coming months. He believed that there was chance for solving the German reunification problem and that European security was presently better than it had been at any time in history. He stated that the situation in the Far East was also following a "favorable trend" because of the efforts of the U.N. and other governments and individuals toward settling differences between Communist China and the U.S. He appealed to the Assembly to endorse the President's proposal for an exchange of military blueprints between the U.S. and Russia and for aerial inspection of the countries on a mutual basis, a proposal which he believed would enable advance toward the goal of arms reduction. He said that the decade of the cold war, during which there had been limited wars, subversion, arms races and inflexible attitudes, might be coming to an end, that all four heads of state who had been present in July at the Geneva summit conference wanted that result and that each had contributed to it, producing a new spirit which provided for "greater flexibility and less brittleness in international relations". He declined to indicate which country had gained the most at the Geneva conference, but said that if the improved atmosphere was to be permanent, all had to gain. For the conference to usher in an era of peaceful change, governments had to renounce the use of war and subversion, accept orderly evolution toward their goals and develop friendly economic intercourse among one another. He hoped that the ensuing decade would be known as "the healing decade of true peace." Gut luck.

In Sumner, Miss., the trial of half-brothers Roy Bryant and J. W. Milam for the first-degree murder of Emmett Till on August 28 continued this date with Emmett's mother, Mamie Bradley of Chicago, testifying, as contained in the trial transcript, starting at page 180, regarding the identity of his corpse. She said softly: "I looked at the face very carefully. I looked at the ears, and the forehead, and the hairline, and also the hair; and I looked at the nose and the lips, and the chin. I just looked at it all over very thoroughly. And I was able to find out that it was my boy. And I knew definitely that it was my boy beyond a shadow of a doubt." She began crying as the district attorney handed her a picture of her son's body, with its face barely recognizable after the alleged brutal beating administered by the two defendants in the case—as they would later admit to reporter William Bradford Huie in a Look Magazine piece which would be published the following January after their acquittal the following afternoon. Mrs. Bradley, in examining the photograph, said that there was no doubt in her mind that it was of her deceased son. Spectators in the courtroom had sat quietly as she testified, with her eyes fixed on the lawyers questioning her. She was also shown a ring by the prosecution, which had been pulled from the finger of the body, and she identified it as her son's ring, which had belonged to his deceased father, and which she had given to him as he was preparing to leave for the two-week vacation with his uncle in Mississippi. She said that she had gone to a jewelry box to select cuff links for him and he had reached into the box and taken the ring and put it on his finger. It bore the initials "L. T.", standing for his father's name, Louis Till. The State was going to great lengths to establish the identity of the body which had been pulled from the Tallahatchie River, after being discovered by a teenager on the morning of August 31, as the defense had announced to the press prior to the trial that one of its primary contentions would be that the State could not show beyond a reasonable doubt that the body was, in fact, that of Emmett Till. Before the testimony of Mrs. Bradley, following the testimony the previous day of Emmett's uncle, Mose Wright, who had testified to the identification of the body shortly after its discovery and to the prior abduction of Emmett from his home at around 2:30 a.m. on August 28 by the two half-brothers, identifying them in open court, had come the testimony of Sheriff George Smith of LeFlore County and his deputy, John Ed Cothran, starting at transcript pages 116 and 141, respectively, indicating that during questioning of the defendants on the afternoon of August 28, in the wake of the report by his uncle that Emmett was missing, they had confessed to having abducted Emmett from Mr. Wright's home. Mr. Cothran also confirmed the removal of the body from the river and its condition at the time, its being photographed at the scene and its subsequent handling. The prosecution also had thus far presented the testimony of the undertaker, Chester Miller, starting at page 64, the police photographer who photographed the body, C. A. Strickland, beginning at page 80, the teenager who had found the body, Robert Hodges, beginning at page 100, his landlord to whom he initially reported the finding, B. L. Mims, starting at page 110, and C. F. Nelson, owner of a funeral home who was called to the scene to take away the body after the police had finished their examination, starting at page 177. All testified consistently that the body removed from the river was the one seen in the photograph shown to Mrs. Bradley in the courtroom, and that the body had been shipped to Chicago for the funeral and burial. Mr. Wright had testified that he had identified the body at the river as that of his nephew and Deputy Cothran confirmed that positive identification. To avoid confusion, it should be noted that the court never ruled, as the above-linked Chicago Tribune story of this date suggests, through the corpus delicti rule raised by the defense, that there was a "presumption" that the body had been positively identified as that of Emmett Till, as that would have invaded the fact-finding province of the jury. The judge only denied several times the motions by the defense to exclude the evidence of identification on the basis of insufficient foundation to establish the positive identification by the various witnesses before any evidence or inferences of the murder of Emmett Till could be admitted for the jury's consideration, which is not the same thing as creating a presumption, which would have meant that the jury could not have considered the contrary, that the fact of identification of the corpse would have been presumed as a matter of law to have been established, never the case with any contested fact in a fact-finding process, save in rare scientific determinations such as blood-alcohol levels, if accepted by the fact-finder as true, establishing by law presumed impairment under the law and the like, still not factually establishing a presumption of the blood-alcohol level, itself, in those instances, constituting otherwise a denial of due process to the defendants to have an impartial jury of their peers determine the facts pursuant to the Sixth Amendment. While the transcript does not contain the final jury instructions, in all probability the approved instuctions, peculiarly under Mississippi law at the time, to be given by counsel for each side and not read by the court, would specially instruct the jury that if they found that there was not evidence beyond a reasonable doubt to support the identification of the corpse as that of Emmett Till, the subject of the murder charge, they would have to acquit, that being essentially a restatement of the corpus delicti rule. There was no presumption that there was a murder of Emmett Till found by the court. There was only a determination that there was adequate evidence, by the court's denial later this date of the defense motion for a directed verdict after the close of the State's case, that the corpse was that of Emmett to allow the question to go to the jury and not to be decided as a matter of law that there was insufficient evidence of the identification, which, for the defense motion to have been sustained, would have necessitated a court finding essentially of no admissible evidence introduced to support such a factual finding.

In Miami, the Weather Bureau reported that Hurricane Janet, tenth tropical storm of the season, presently packing 115 mph winds at its center, had hit Barbados, driving the weather observer there from his station this date, as it moved toward the Caribbean Sea. The storm was moving to the west at about 16 mph in forward movement and was expected to continue on a westerly or west-northwesterly course for the ensuing 12 hours, currently positioned about 1,700 miles east-southeast of Miami.

In New York, Samuel Kress, 92, founder and chairman of the board of S. H. Kress Co., the nationwide dime store chain, died this date at his home on Fifth Avenue.

In Charlotte, City Coach Lines announced during the afternoon that the management and the union representing the bus drivers had signed an interim agreement extending the working contract to October 1, and according to the general manager of the company, there appeared to be no drivers' strike in prospect, with negotiations for a new contract to be resumed the following Tuesday.

Julian Scheer of The News tells of there being a proposal to switch the venues of the poorly attended outdoor dramas, "The Lost Colony" and "Horn in the West", so that the former would go to Boone in the mountains and the latter, to the coast at Manteo, with the exchange occurring only for one season before reverting back to their regular locations. Hugh Morton of Wilmington and Linville, one of the state's most prominent promoters, had made the suggestion as a member of the "Horn's" advisory committee and of the board of directors of the "Lost Colony". Both outdoor dramas had reported poor attendance in 1955 and each one was contemplating whether to continue with another season. "The Lost Colony", written by Paul Green, had been performed for 18 seasons, having premiered in 1937 but with no performances during 1944, while "Horn in the West", by Kermit Hunter, had run for four seasons. Mr. Morton believed the plan would work, as each drama would be played before a new area of the state, bringing in new patrons, and because the scope of the advertising value of the productions would be extended by acquainting new people with the details of the historical events depicted in each play, as well as giving more legitimate reason for the press to cover the productions in each area. Both of the outdoor dramas continue to be produced each year, as of 2022. The exchange plan proposed by Mr. Morton was not implemented.

Charles Kuralt of The News indicates that Vicki, the elephant, which had gone out like a lion, had come in like a lamb, and, in the end, it had been a group of amateurs who had managed to catch it. The veteran elephant hunters who had sought it were resting in a jeep the previous day, while a group of 20 high school football players and volunteer firemen had managed to corner Vicki and throw ropes around it to end its 11-day period on the lam. Once captured, the elephant returned willingly the last mile back to the Airport Park Zoo, albeit with its head down and its trunk swinging sadly, walking through the park gates, entering its old stall voluntarily and submitting to the flashbulbs of photographers going off in its face. "She was dirty and tired, and swilled buckets of water as fast as handler Thomas Seeley could bring them to her." The owner of the elephant said that Vicki would spend a couple of days in seclusion and then go on exhibition again. A veterinarian visited the elephant and provided a few shots for protection against anything it might have picked up during its sojourn through the woods and swampy lowlands near the park, also mending its ear which had been slightly damaged by an elephant hook the previous day. The amateurs had surrounded the elephant early in the evening, circling around it with ropes "like a spider catching a fly", according to one of the hunters, who then was able to get the hook in its ear "and the terror of West Mecklenburg became a kitten." He said that as soon as he got the hook in its ear, it had calmed down and he patted it on its snoot and "that was that". The caravan which led the elephant back to the park was joined by about 20 police officers and sheriff's deputies, with the 20 young amateurs who had captured it also in the parade, taking 2 1/2 hours to reach the gates of the park from which it had escaped on Sunday morning a week earlier. Much credit was given to the dogs loaned to participate in the hunt, as every time the hunters would lose the elephant, the dogs would find it. One of the participants in the final corralling of the elephant, a former Harding High School football star, said it had been about as much fun as the night they had beaten Central High School. The only casualty had been a volunteer fireman who suffered a broken arm when he fell into a hole trying to get out of Vicki's way before its capture. The owner gave high praise to everyone who had helped.

Good. Now get it off the front page. If the "On the Road" segments of the CBS Evening News, when Mr. Kuralt would entertainingly and ably take the nation on short tours of everyday life in various locations, had comprised 15 to 20 minutes of the 30-minute broadcasts, with the same story continuing day after day after day for 10 of 11 days straight, everyone would have thought that CBS News had lost its collective mind and that Mr. Kuralt had gone a-hunting. The equivalent is the case for this elephant hunt. Besides, all they really needed to do was to hire a vet in the first place, fill a dart with some sedative and shoot it into the hide of the elephant, with a crane and heavy duty straps at the ready to move the elephant onto a flatbed trailer and then transport it back to the park. That could have been done the first time the elephant made its appearance in open territory, as it did early on in the parking lot of the trucking terminal behind which it had been stowing away in the woods. But, they had to find a way to get the wires buzzing and get Charlotte on the map, as well as providing, no doubt, plenty of good publicity for Ringling Brothers, which supplied the leader of the hunt from Florida, and the not so famous Airport Park Zoo.

In Traverse City, Mich., a deputy sheriff said that a 61-year old grandmother had blown her top when she learned that repairs to her car had not been completed, proceeded to scratch the face of an auto mechanic, knocked another from his feet with a right jab to the jaw, then hit an arresting patrolman on the head with a wrench, and kicked out the window of her cell at the county jail, severing one of her arteries and injuring a tendon. She was reported in satisfactory condition the previous day in the hospital. Police said that she was jailed so that she could cool off, and was charged with being drunk and disorderly.

On the editorial page, "Transit Woes: Cure Them at Home" indicates that complaints about the Charlotte bus service continued to pour in, causing the City Council to defer to the State Utilities Commission as the only regulatory authority in such matters.