The Charlotte News

Wednesday, January 11, 1956

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from Richmond, Va., that Governor Thomas Stanley, in his address to the opening session of the 1956 Virginia General Assembly this date, had asked the body for prompt action to carry out the first step of a segregated school program, stating that the limited constitutional convention approved by the voters the previous Monday ought be held as early as practicable. That convention would put forward an amendment to the State Constitution to make it legal to use public funds for private schooling. The Governor said that the people had expressed themselves decisively in the referendum and that he considered it a mandate to him and to the members of the Legislature to act in accordance with their wishes. He also said that he was recommending a balanced, no-tax increase budget, providing for a record general fund increase of 23 million dollars for the state's public schools, advocating an accelerated tax collection program on personal income and public service corporations to provide 48 million dollars in additional revenue to the state.

In Columbia, S.C., Governor George Bell Timmerman, Jr., cautioned this date against any "premature action" in meeting what he regarded as the "threats that continue to face us" on the school segregation issue. He told the South Carolina General Assembly that he believed it advisable to consider the possibility of joining other Southern states at an appropriate time in a lawful and formal protest against the effort "to destroy our form of government." He said that there was "growing evidence of an effort to not only disrupt our public schools but also to relegate to a second-class status religious faith and racial heritage." He deplored statements by the President made in his January 5 State of the Union message to Congress, saying that the President "lent the prestige of his office to the effort to pour all religious faith and all racial heritage into the melting pot of lost identity…"

In Quito, Ecuador, airplanes were looking over the Amazon jungle this date for five American Protestant missionaries believed seized by savage Indians. The Air Force reported an arrow-pierced body being observed lying near the missionaries' plane, stripped of fabric to its skeleton, arousing fear for the lives of the five men. An Army helicopter had been dispatched from the Canal Zone this date to take part with Air Force planes in the hunt for the five men. The missionaries had flown their small Piper Cub into the bush area the previous week to do mission work among primitive tribesmen. Another missionary had made a reconnaissance flight over the area and reported seeing the stripped Piper Cub, but with no sign of the missionaries, although spotting several Indian canoes heading down river. At that point, the Air Force got involved. The mission party had radioed that they had encountered a group of Indians and then had broken off radio contact.

In Algiers, it was reported that 36 persons had been killed, 27 of whom were Nationalist rebels and nine of whom were pro-French Algerians, during the previous 24 hours of the continuing battle between the rebels and French forces.

In Oshawa, Ontario, an evangelistic team led by the brother-in-law of Billy Graham had been denied permission to appear before student assemblies in the city's two high schools, with the Board of Education indicating that the Rev. Leighton Ford and his traveling team could bring their message to the students instead at a meeting after school hours, with attendance voluntary rather than compulsory. The city ministerial association, representing 28 churches, had presented the request for meetings during school hours.

In Columbus, O., the Ohio Supreme Court this date agreed to review the conviction for second-degree murder of Dr. Samuel Sheppard for killing his wife Marilyn in their home in a suburb of Cleveland on July 4, 1954. The doctor had been imprisoned the previous July 20 following his trial in December, 1954, which had attracted nationwide attention. The Court agreed to consider the merits of his direct appeal, but turned down his appeal from a lower court refusal to grant a new trial on the ground of newly discovered evidence. The doctor contended that his wife had been murdered by a bushy-haired intruder, with whom he briefly fought before twice losing consciousness, first in Mrs. Sheppard's bedroom, and, after regaining consciousness, again on the beach adjoining their home after encountering the person a second time. Unless his conviction would be reversed on appeal, he would have to serve ten years in prison before being eligible for parole.

Harry Shuford of The News reports that U.S. District Court Judge Wilson Warlick this date had strongly urged stricter laws governing welfare aid to illegitimate children, which would "save thousands of dollars of the taxpayers' money" each year. He made the statement during a short session of court held during the morning in Charlotte, suggesting that two amendments to state statutes would solve many of the headaches of the Welfare Department regarding illegitimate children, relating to forced support of children by their fathers and sterilization of women seeking support for the children. The judge said that it could be handled under existing laws. He cited an editorial recently quoting the State Welfare commissioner as saying that there were over 9,500 illegitimate births in North Carolina in 1955. He suggested that if a woman were to seek aid from the Welfare Department for an illegitimate child, the Department, before taking her case, would have to reveal the paternity of the unborn child, resulting in an indictment brought against the alleged father to determine paternity, and if that were established, an order issued for support. The other statutory change would involve the necessity of an agreement of a mother before receiving aid from the Welfare Department for an unborn illegitimate child, whereby she would permit her sterilization to prevent recurrence.

In Raleigh, a hearing had begun during the morning before the Insurance commissioner, regarding the prospect of a 25 percent farm insurance fire rate increase and a proposed 100 percent increase in extended coverage rates.

The unseasonable cold snap in Florida and other Southeastern areas this date was continuing, with no indication of immediate relief. Heating units were best sellers in Miami, and dealers in fuel oils and bottled gas reported record sales, with winter clothing being in style. Temperatures had dropped to 42 in Miami the previous day, again climbing to 67 during the day, but dropping into the 40's during the morning.

In Kill Devil Hill, N.C., it was reported that high tides and angry waves continued to pound the Outer Banks this date, threatening additional destruction to beach cottages, though the weather system was showing signs of losing its strength. High waves hitting the beach at Kitty Hawk had destroyed at least four cottages and left another so battered that it was considered a total loss. Highway crews and prisoners, along with others, were working to prevent further damage, using drag lines and bulldozers to try to divert to the sound water which had washed in from the ocean and was standing on the Outer Banks highway, accumulating up to 12 inches deep in places along a three-mile stretch of the road.

In Milford, Conn., a Geiger counter at a construction job gate had found a small cylinder of deadly, radioactive cobalt this date, in the possession of a workman who did not know anything about it until they stopped him and asked him what he had in his car. They asked him why he had taken the cylinder and he responded that he had been looking for a piece of string and saw the thing hanging there and took it. The cylinder had been hanging alongside a pipe which engineers wanted to photograph. The workman said that he had left the cylinder in his car all night and had parked it on a street frequented by pedestrians. He was taken to the hospital for examination.

In Cannes, France, burglars had broken into the Riviera villa of Queen Mother Elizabeth of Greece the previous night and had stolen her jewels, valued unofficially at about $60,000.

On Hayling Island, England, it was reported that a swan named Susan could not learn to fly, thus was stranded in the local reservoir for the second winter in a row, probably stuck there permanently. Susan had been hatched in the spring of 1954, with her five siblings having learned to fly easily and thus having migrated at the appropriate time, leaving Susan behind. The family returned the following spring, finding their "dumb daughter" still paddling around in the same stretch of water. Susan had watched while a new brood had hatched and learned to fly, "but either the gal just can't dig it or she has no head for heights." The previous day, the parents had again taken off for their annual migration, but Susan stayed behind. Wonder what's going to happen. Maybe Susan was lovesick, as had been Elmer, the swan of Charlotte, back in September, 1949. It is too bad that Orville Wright had passed away seven years earlier, or England could perhaps hire him to teach Susan how to fly.

On the editorial page, "UNC Presidency: Sense & Nonsense" finds that editorialists within the state who had relegated the UNC presidency to education's "minor leagues" had been guilty of faulty foresight and faultier hindsight, arguing, amid the talk of deconsolidation, that no really top-flight educator would want to accept the post in Chapel Hill because of the probability that the job would diminish in importance.

There was the possibility that the person who accepted the presidency of the Consolidated University would eventually head only the Chapel Hill campus, while the other units would have their own presidents and boards of trustees. But, it finds, to suggest that the presidency of the University would become a small job was ridiculous, as it had not been so in the past when the Chapel Hill campus stood apart from the other campuses within the Consolidated University, N.C. State in Raleigh and Woman's College in Greensboro.

It indicates that since Cornelia Phillips Spencer had rung the bell summoning students back to the University in 1875, following the Civil War, it had been a leader in the development of the new South. It quotes Frank Porter Graham, president of the Chapel Hill campus before becoming president of the Consolidated University, having once said that what the South did agriculturally and industrially depended "in intelligent part on what the South does educationally."

The Chapel Hill campus had not only been the capstone of the state's educational system but also a source of regional inspiration and leadership. Under the guidance of president Harry Woodburn Chase, between 1918 and 1930, the University had achieved a worldwide reputation for high standards of scholarship and freedom in research and teaching, becoming a place for the imaginative search for truth. It also finds it a cradle of greatness and that the new president would not find the challenge small or the opportunities few, as the job remained big, regardless of the result of the proposed deconsolidation.

"Smoke Where There Was Fire" recalls that fire had destroyed the old Armory-Auditorium 19 months earlier, but that the Park and Recreation Commission's method of financing a replacement had remained a smoldering issue. The commissioners had initially announced that they would rebuild the facility and call it a "Park Center", but there had arisen discontent because the city appeared already to have its quota of such structures with the new Auditorium-Coliseum complex.

Money for the new facility had also been an issue, but appeared resolved when the commissioners assured the citizenry the previous March that they would limit the cost of the project to the available insurance funds from the old auditorium. By September, it had become apparent, however, that it would be a hard plan to follow and so the commissioners devised a new plan to lease the facilities of the new structure which could not be covered by insurance, the heating, air conditioning and ventilating equipment. That plan, however, was immediately denounced by Mayor Philip Van Every as "a subterfuge".

The previous day, the commissioners abandoned the idea of leasing the equipment and instead determined to fund the equipment from the residue of 1949's recreation bond issue, to be borrowed with interest. It finds that latter idea welcome, as it had been undesirable to lease the equipment indefinitely. But the new plan fit the mold of the intent to confine the costs of the new structure to the available insurance money no better than had the old plan.

"The Art of Standing on the Brink" tells of the country having been on the brink of war three times during 1953-54, according to Secretary of State Dulles, as quoted in the current issue of Life, and that war had been averted each time by warnings that the U.S. was willing to use force, including atomic weaponry. Secretary Dulles had said that the U.S. would have renewed the Korean fighting had the Communists not come to terms on the Korean truce, that the U.S. would have destroyed with atom bombs Communist staging bases in south China had the Chinese intervened openly in the fighting in Indo-China, and that the U.S. would have defended Formosa against any attack.

The Secretary said that chances had to be taken for peace, just as one had to take chances in war. "Some say that we were brought to the verge of war. Of course we were brought to the verge of war. The ability to get to the verge without getting into war is the necessary art. If you cannot master it, you inevitably get into war. If you try to run away from it, if you are scared to go to the brink, you are lost." Parenthetically, this would be the essence of "brinksmanship", for which Secretary Dulles would become known, though the term had not yet been coined.

The piece continues that it was an art, but one which it believes should involve great tact as well as courage on the part of the artist, in that case, Mr. Dulles, and that tact would counsel remaining quiet about threats to start atomic wars, particularly when the threatened party was doing its best to convince the world that the U.S. was trying to start such a war. "The U.S. can go to the brink and show its big stick, but it also should be able to speak softly in the aftermath."

"Mr. McGinley Stopped That Sliding" tells of the post office superintendent at Albuquerque, N.M., James McGinley, being likely to receive a certificate for meritorious conduct and dutiful service from some Washington functionary for his having discovered one of his clerks sliding down a mail chute on his way to work, writing of the report to the clerk, indicating that it was a dangerous practice and had to be stopped immediately, which then occurred. But the mail clerk had replied with insubordination, saying that it occurred to him that if either the superintendent or himself were "senile, so stupid, or so unalert to become bruised, battered, or even dusty in sliding down the mail chute," neither of them would be less than a disgrace to either the "Sons of Erin" or the "Sons of Adam".

It indicates that the clerk might get fired for his statement and, in a way, it would not mind if he did, as there were many lesser distinctions in the world than being fired for sliding down a mail chute on the way to work.

A piece from the Baltimore Evening Sun, titled "The Authors' Motors", suggests that the automobile had acquired a place in modern literature beyond being only a furnishing and background to a story, becoming a handy and deadly instrument therein as well.

It wonders whether it had begun with Michael Arlen and his character, Iris March, of The Green Hat, as Iris could not have ended the book without the help of the 1924 car which she drove. John O'Hara's The Farmers Hotel included an automobile wreck, and the young wife in The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, by Sloan Wilson, had more or less just missed having one. Aldous Huxley's goddess of The Genius and the Goddess had finished off the story with a hideous accident, and the wife of the hero of Self Condemned, by Wyndham Lewis, had died beneath a truck. The narrator of Mary McCarthy's A Charmed Life had written of a bloody finish to her life through a collision.

The piece wonders whether the motorcar was becoming the chief deus ex machina of modern fiction and suggests that it might become the subject for a PhD dissertation, perhaps titled, "The Influence of Traffic Hazards on the Contemporary Motorist".

Drew Pearson tells of there being White House friends of the President in the background of the oil lease recently provided to the Frankfort Oil Co. for drilling in the Lacassine Wildlife Refuge, previously barred from oil exploration. Among them were two high officials of Seagrams Whiskey, one of whom, Ellis Slater, being very close to the President, Mr. Slater having been one of only three men who had traveled with the President on his plane when he had flown from Key West to Washington the prior Sunday. The refuge in question was in the tidelands oil area of southern Louisiana, one of the Federal reserves set aside by the Interior Department under an act of Congress to protect wildlife, dating to 1935, considered one of the most important bird refuges in the country. Attempts had been made by the oil companies to drill for oil when Oscar Chapman had been Secretary of Interior under President Truman, the last application having been made in October, 1952, just a month before the election. That application had been rejected by Secretary Chapman on the ground that oil prospecting and drilling would end the purpose for which Congress had set aside the refuge.

At the start of the Eisenhower Administration, however, the application was resubmitted and in June, 1953, an appeal was made directly to new Secretary of Interior Douglas McKay. Because of the protests of conservation groups, however, signing of the oil leases had been delayed during 1953-54. The oil man who had sought the leases had interested the Frankfort Oil Co., a subsidiary of Seagrams, which was a $20,000 contributor to the RNC in 1948 and a heavy contributor to the Democrats, with three of its directors having been friendly with President Eisenhower. At that point, things began to move through the Interior Department, and on September 30, 1955, the Frankfort people had moved in full force, so confident of success that they submitted an operation plan for oil drilling in the refuge, appearing to have assurances from other sources that their plan would be adopted. There were reports that decisions were being made as high as White House chief of staff Sherman Adams. The head of Seagrams called on the Interior Department personally, visiting with the top officials there. While lower-ranking officials continued to resist the deal, they were being bypassed, and in November, the head of Seagrams again called on the Department and got what he wanted about a week later, the approval of the plans for Frankfort to have permission to drill in 12,000 acres of the refuge, near the Gulf of Mexico.

At almost the same time, Secretary McKay developed new regulations which authorized oil and gas leasing on 252 of the other 264 game refuges in the country, at which point Frankfort-Seagrams was the only applicant with an approved operating plan and so its leases were the only ones involved. It had taken only two working days to process them and they were issued on December 6, backdated to December 1.

Robert C. Ruark, in Melbourne, Australia, tells of the grasshopper invasion of Victoria being almost checked, following a plague of hoppers, undoubtedly released by the neighboring state of New Wales out of sheer malice. He recalls hearing of a kindred plague in Kenya consisting of locusts so thick that they had stopped a train.

He finds the most fascinating thing about Australia, apart from the summer dresses on certain streets, was the violence of the country, having just read of an elephant getting loose from a zoo and trampling a pedestrian, and of a racehorse suddenly being spirited away and presumed murdered. There were daily stories about battles with sharks, and the feud between man and kangaroos, wallabies, pigs, rabbits and possums went on endlessly. He also recalls a story of an eagle stealing a baby from a carriage in Kings Cross.

The most violent occurrence in the country recently had been the trial of some white graziers charged with beating a flock of aboriginals, using stock whips and inflicting scars. The white men had been imprisoned and given heavy fines, causing astonishment in the pubs.

He recounts other stories of violence in the country, but says he found it charming that a place concerned itself with what occurred to people and things rather than with long-distance ideas regarding the masses taking place in some distant conference or international assembly. He favors the man-bites-dog idea over what Mr. Dulles thought.

He suggests that some U.S. papers had become so concerned with what ought be printed so that every man was informed of everything "that we toss the readables into the hellbox and bore the pants off a lot of people" like himself, "whose brain is not equipped to extend to infinity or even Mr. Nehru." He says he would take grasshoppers and sharks as a menace to his security more seriously than the world-shakers claimed would happen if no one accepted their viewpoint. "We may go down swinging out here, but at least we ain't bored."

A letter writer compliments Julian Scheer of the newspaper for his recent front page article on the demolition of the last of several buildings of the Phifer estate in Charlotte, indicating that no local historian had previously stated precisely when Mr. Phifer had arrived in Charlotte. She indicates that he had been a patron of education, having deeded certain lots to the trustees of Liberty Male Academy for $300 in 1856, where the Academy remained until around 1882, at which point the property had been transferred to the City Board of School Commissioners, which, in turn, sold the lots in 1885 to a minister representing the Raleigh diocese of the Episcopal Church, with the site having become the churchyard of the first St. Martin's Episcopal Church.

A letter writer finds that the Supreme Court had made a mess of integration, that in nearly every Southern state no one was happy over the decision, suggests that the Court should have ruled that it was up to Congress to outlaw segregation in public places instead of attempting to amend the Constitution by decree. He finds that Virginia was following the wishes of the people rather than the ruling of the Court, that only time would tell how right that decision would be. But he believes that Virginia was doing the only democratic thing by letting its citizens decide if they wanted to mix the races.

What Virginia was actually doing was letting the citizens vote on whether the Supremacy Clause in the Constitution and the 14th Amendment were still viable, despite the Supremacy Clause having been ratified with the Constitution in 1789 and the 14th Amendment having been ratified in 1868. Why, nothing could be more sensible than that, right? Next week, let us vote on whether we want to retain the First Amendment. Why not? In any event, its plan of interposition, as outlined by Governor Stanley, reported this date, would not survive the Allwright decision, regarding a similar attempt to privatize voting primaries, and so it was an exercise in futility, which Virginia's lawyers had to understand. But as long as you can tell the uninformed masses what they want to hear, you can buy time until the next election. Isn't that right, Fox News?

A letter writer from Greensboro congratulates the newspaper on its editorial, "The Case against 'Interposition'", finds that as trying as the problem of integration would be, it would be well worth it if it continued to inspire such writing, reflecting thinking on the fundamental meaning of the Constitution and government under it.

A letter writer from Lincolnton says that he had been thrilled by the editorials of the newspaper, that while J. E. Dowd had been editor, "it was like some tall, strong lighthouse casting its steady flame through a night of storm." But he found the editorial on interposition, as referenced in the previous letter, to be "a lot of defeatist propaganda against the South's stand on integration, and aid and comfort to that subversive organization, the NAACP." He finds that it should be obvious to anyone that the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education had been against the Constitution, "as written by the founding fathers, and against the rights of the states." He favors standing pat, suggests that there were not enough "fanatics" to bring war on the South, as "in the days of the abolitionists".

A letter writer from Whiteville wonders how the mass of white Southerners would maintain "the purity of Anglo-Saxon culture and civilization, when all they know is 'rock and roll'". He finds that the South was going under if its cultural salvation depended on the "'jive-jumping' whites who are so 'crazy, man, crazy' about Negro music." He says that he had to laugh every time he heard some white "'ragtime tiger' say that he is superior to the Negro." He believes that the white masses knew nothing about true Anglo-Saxon culture and that they were not the custodians of Anglo-Saxon civilization. He believes that if the rich politicians were really honest and sincere, then Anglo-Saxon grammar would be taught as a required subject in all high schools throughout the South and that the "ethnic history of Anglo-Saxondom and the kindred races would also be taught so that the younger generation would have some idea what is meant by the ethnological term 'Anglo-Saxon culture.'"

A letter writer from Greensboro responds to a letter printed on January 3, wonders whether if only the South would insist on racial segregation, there was a difference between Southern white men and other white men such that the Southern faction required 100 percent purity and stood superior to other white men. He suggests that if integration were to take place amid such sentiment by Southerners, the insistence to remain pure, that there could be no worry of "adultery", as the previous writer had suggested. The jailing of the black man who had only looked too hard at a Southern woman was evidence that there would be no form of "romantic cohesion" between the races. He indicates that blacks were less than 20 percent pure racial stock at present and had thus become "colored", that it was too bad that the slave had been unable to voice the wish to remain pure. He suggests that the previous writer read the story of the late NAACP executive secretary's life and discover why he was almost indistinguishable from a white man—referring to Walter White, who had died the previous March. He says that there was a profound difference between a white man and a black man, and that the black man never became a man, perhaps only "'a boy, uncle, or Sam'". He was denied the chance to exercise technical skills, was kept on a low economic level as a reservoir of cheap labor and was accorded no respect in spite of his achievements. He had even been denied the purity of race, first-class citizenship and the right to a good education. The black man had finally realized that the only way to do away with the separate-but-equal doctrine was to integrate himself in the society. He says that blacks only wanted from integration a chance to live as first-class citizens, thinks that if the true motives for opposing integration were given voice, they would be that the black should be nothing, have nothing, say nothing, and think nothing. He concludes that he did not assume that everyone thought that way, but that bigots would be happy if they did.

A letter writer indicates that City Manager Henry Yancey had foreseen the handwriting on the wall, and so to retain the smoke engineer on the job, had changed his title to air pollution engineer, realizing that the battle was on between the coal industry and big oil and natural gas producers. He says that the City did not need to waste $30,000 per year on either a smoke engineer or an air pollution engineer, that $70,000 had already been wasted in that regard.

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