The Charlotte News
Friday, January 13, 1956
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the Navy and Air Force had announced this date that the launching site for the earth satellite project would be Patrick Air Force Base in Cocoa, Fla., indicating that the base had been selected because it fit the operational requirements for large rocket launches and was suitable for the scientific needs of the program. It had restated a previous announcement that test firings of the components of the satellite would initially occur, although the exact launching dates had not yet been determined. It said that the Vanguard satellite unit would be launched after flight tests of the components, when they proved that there was a good chance of putting the satellite into orbit. The President had announced the satellite program the prior July, to be part of the International Geophysical Year of 1957-58, with several satellites to be launched into the lower fringes of space, expected to orbit the earth at altitudes of several hundred miles for several days or weeks. The satellite was initially projected to be about the size of a basketball, but there had been indications since the original announcement that the scientists were contemplating a somewhat larger sphere. The previous October, the Navy, which had been assigned the overall job of directing the program, had announced that a contract for building the vehicle had been let to Glenn L. Martin Co. of Baltimore, with G.E. holding a subcontract with Martin for part of the propulsion system.
In Amman, Jordan, Arab Legion troops this date brought four Americans to safety after rioting mobs had burned down two buildings belonging to an American Baptist mission hospital and looted others in Ajlun. There were no casualties among the hospital staff when the rioters had attacked. All except four Americans were now on the east bank of the River Jordan, having been brought to Amman.
In Boston, it was reported that one
of the 11 men named by the FBI as perpetrators of the 1.2 million
dollar Brinks robbery six years earlier, had entered the county
courthouse under heavy guard this date to testify before a grand jury
as to what he knew regarding the robbery. The district attorney
declined to comment, saying that he could only speak to the grand
jury directly. He said that he was seeking indictments against ten
individuals, six of whom had been taken into custody the previous day
by the FBI, with two others remaining at large, while the man who was
slated to testify to the grand jury and another man were serving
prison terms, with the 11th member of the gang
In Short Creek, Utah, a woman had returned to her home this date, leaving seven of her eight children in the custody of the State and vowing to fight "with every drop of my blood" to get them back. Only her four-year old boy remained in her custody, because he had whooping cough and could not yet be turned over to the State. The State Welfare Commission had taken custody of the other seven children when the mother refused to swear in writing not to teach them polygamy and not to practice it herself. The remaining child would be turned over to the State when he got well. She was one of three wives of one man, who was among a number of Short Creek men convicted of unlawful cohabitation by Arizona authorities two years earlier. He lived on the Arizona side of the two-state settlement, while his wife lived on the Utah side. They were members of a "fundamentalist" cult which believed in polygamy as God's law. The Mormon Church had outlawed polygamy in 1890. The Welfare Commission had begged the woman to sign the affidavit, but she continued to refuse, and so had lost custody of her children. "God's law", governing the need for procreation in prairie settlements where the menfolk necessarily outnumbered the womenfolk, does not translate well into more modern tribal life where the prairie no longer threatens.
In Fort Worth, Tex., a young woman, 18, and a 28-year old draftsman, who had earlier in the day shot and killed the woman's jilted suitor, had been married the previous night behind the locked doors of the Trinity Lutheran Church. The groom had told police that his car had been curbed by an automobile driven by the suitor and the latter had told him that if he was not man enough to get out, the suitor would drag him out. The groom told him that he had a pistol in his car and when the suitor grabbed the keys to his car, he pointed the pistol at him, at which point the suitor grabbed at it and it went off, the bullet striking the man in the forehead and he died shortly thereafter in the hospital. The man had previously dated the bride and more recently had, according to the groom, been bothering her, stopping her on her way to work the prior Wednesday morning and having shone a spotlight on the engaged couple as they sat in front of her house three weeks earlier. The mother of the slain man refused to believe the story regarding the shooting, saying that her son had been "decoyed to the scene" and that he would never be able to tell his side of the story. She said that at one time, he had wanted to marry the girl but that her mother had told him to stay away from her because he could not provide the things the new groom could. The groom was charged with carrying a pistol and was released on $1,000 bond, with the assistant district attorney saying that the homicide case would be presented directly to the grand jury.
In Columbia, S.C., a man convicted of murder had died in the electric chair this date at the State Penitentiary after having to be carried by guards to the chair. He cried out, as he was being strapped into the chair, that he had never meant to kill anybody. His body had lurched forward after the first jolt of electricity, breaking the chair's chest restraints, and he required two series of charges before being pronounced dead. He had been convicted of the February 26, 1954 slaying of a woman from Orangeburg. According to trial testimony, the man had entered the home of the woman and her semi-invalid husband with keys stolen from his grandmother, a cook who had been employed by the wealthy couple for 30 years, surprising the couple in their darkened den, where they were watching television, the defendant having first struck and seriously injured the husband and then slashed the wife with an ax.
In Sacramento, Calif., a 25-year old man was arrested as a suspected peeping Tom early the previous day following a complaint by a woman. He indignantly denied the charge, saying that he was a burglar and was waiting for the old lady to go to bed so that he could steal her car. Police said that he then admitted five local burglaries.
Near King, N.C., a head-on collision the previous night had killed five persons and left a sixth critically injured with a fractured skull and other injuries. A highway patrolman said that three women and a man had been in one car and two men in another, that the latter car had passed the highway patrolman at a high rate of speed, prompting the patrolman to turn to give chase and then saw it crash head-on into the other car.
In Raleigh, Richard Kluckhohn had his conviction for manslaughter reversed by the State Supreme Court this date in the slaying of a woman shopper the
prior May 13, having shot her through a hotel window, contending that
his pistol had accidentally discharged while he was cleaning it and
that he never realized until his arrest later that day that the
bullet had struck someone on the street. The reversal was the result
of the trial judge having summarized the State's case in great detail
while summarizing the defendant's contentions only in brief, general
terms, as if he had offered no evidence at all. The trial judge had
also not instructed the jury properly with respect to the law regarding involuntary or negligent manslaughter or anent the defendant's claim of accident or misadventure not amounting to criminal negligence, and failed to instruct that if the State failed to show beyond
a reasonable doubt that the defendant was guilty or that the jury
failed so to find, it would have to return a verdict of not guilty.
The former University of Chicago graduate student and son of
prominent parents who were members of the Harvard University faculty,
had been convicted in Wake County Superior Court the previous June of
involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to between five and ten years
in prison. Two
of the Court's seven Justices dissented from the majority opinion. The story points out that the Court's decision had been
entered on Friday the 13th, and that the killing had also occurred on
a Friday the 13th. His trial had begun on June 13, not a Friday. Think of that. Isn't that amazing? If they had only one alternate in the jury box, there would have been the twelve good and true plus one, making thirteen. Wonder if there were thirteen birds flying over the courthouse at the time of the verdict or a car passing by the scene of the shooting at the time with the number 13 on the license plate. There were 13 original British colonies in America, the earliest of which was the Raleigh colony on Roanoke Island, N.C., which then disappeared without a trace, except for the cryptic "Croatan" left carved into a tree. The Turnage case summarized by the Court had involved a witness and a victim, the witness having been standing twelve feet from the victim when he observed the shooting, each of whom had names identical
And we have not even covered the facts that Governor Luther Hodges, future Secretary of Commerce under President Kennedy, was about to become, in November, 1958, the first North Carolina Governor ever to serve more than four years to that point, until Governor James Hunt in 1981, the first elected Governor allowed by the State Constitution to be elected to succeed himself, 1958 to be the year in which former Governor and current Senator Kerr Scott would die in office, whose son, Bob Scott, would become Governor in 1969, succeeding Governor Dan Moore, who had succeeded Governor Terry Sanford, who, in recent days here in 1956, had determined not to challenge Governor Hodges in the primary, electing to wait until 1960 to run, to be challenged in that year's Democratic primary by I. Beverly Lake, who had recently, in 1955, resigned from the State Attorney General's office to lead the Patriots, Inc., in their effort to establish a voluntary private school system in the state to thwart Brown v. Board of Education, after he had unsuccessfully argued points to the U.S. Supreme Court, appearing as an amicus curiae on behalf of the State, in the Brown implementing decision the prior spring, Mr. Lake subsequently to be appointed to the State Supreme Court by Governor Moore, and former Governor Moore, in turn, to be appointed to the Court by Governor Bob Scott.
In Charlotte, it was reported that
artist Lyonel Feininger
Too much of the front page of this
newspaper is starting to resemble more closely every day the pages of
the New York Daily News, unfortunately, and is, in
consequence, increasingly becoming quite boring. If things do not
change soon, we are going measurably to truncate our summary of it.
It seems hardly worth the effort, when most of it involves local
stories across the nation of blood and gore, automobile accidents and
crime, probably influenced by the abnormal proclivities toward such
fare shown by the public as the television
On the editorial page, "Charlotte and Aviation Grow Together" finds that Charlotte's economic future was hitched to aviation's rising star, that additional air service authorized by the Civil Aeronautics Board would serve as a new stimulus for the city's commercial and industrial health.
It thus commends the City Council for acting with speed and foresight during the week in ordering a study to examine the enlargement of Douglas Municipal Airport.
Charlotte had become the third-ranked city in the country in per capita boarding of passenger planes, with only Miami and Atlanta exceeding it. Fortunately, the new air terminal opened in mid-1954 provided for easy and relatively inexpensive additions, and it finds the time was already present for it to be expanded, urges appropriate studies to be completed promptly on the matter and to receive prompt and appropriate action from the Council.
"Education Is a Local Problem" tells of the President's eloquent plea for legislation authorizing 1.25 billion dollars in Federal grants for school construction obviously stemming from a sincere interest in the plight of public education in the country.
But it finds his method of meeting the problem to run contrary to principles which were deeply ingrained in U.S. tradition, that education was a local problem which had to be solved by local communities and the states. It asserts that to turn it over to the Federal Government, either in whole or in part, would be a mistake, inviting the kind of control and influence no community wanted.
It indicates that North Carolina was not a rich state but could provide the classrooms its student population needed if it tried.
"A General, Greenbacks and Justice" tells of Maj. General Bryon Gates having been called out of retirement to face charges of taking $7,000 from an insurance firm for providing it preferred treatment at the Air Force base which he had previously commanded, and being fined in consequence $500 and reprimanded in writing.
A reprimand, it finds, was the thing for punishing a military gentleman, even a retired general who was beyond any effectual wrist-slapping. But he still retained $6,500 of the money and had received another $2,440 in extra pay while temporarily being recalled to active duty. It finds, therefore, that with his $9,400 profit against a $500 fine and written reprimand, there was a silly imbalance resulting, called "military justice".
"No Fiery Cross below the Border" indicates that those who had hoped for an impetuous response from South Carolina Governor George Bell Timmerman, Jr., regarding the race issue, had received instead a relatively mild display of rhetorical discontent. In his annual message to the South Carolina General Assembly, he had made predictable references to attempts "to destroy our form of government," but there had been a new element of moderation voiced along with it, a welcome response for Southerners who still hoped for a moderate, reasonable approach.
The Governor had spoken of protest, but of "lawful and formal" protest, touching only lightly on the dubious doctrine of interposition, cautioning legislators that any action had to be taken with great care, that they had to be on their guard against "sweeping away in an ill-advised move all we have accomplished so far in maintaining separate schools for the races."
It finds that he had avoided the rash, hotheaded nonsense which less honorable Southern politicians had indulged in on occasion, that there was great need for moderation and respect for lawful, honorable means in the explosive controversy, that it was far too delicate and dangerously inflammable for any other approach.
While it finds the Governor's statements dressed in moderation, underneath the cloak was the same old nagging issue of opposing the Supreme Court of the United States and trying to maintain racially segregated public schools in defiance thereof. There is nothing very moderate about that, then or now. Indeed, it is probably better for advancement that the rhetoric match the intent and be fiery, the easier for it to be attacked and short-circuited at its origins.
A piece from the Roanoke World-News, titled "Charlotte's Game", says that the loss of Charles Frost by resignation as director of the Department of Air Pollution Control was an alarming setback for one of the finest programs ever effected by Roanoke. Mr. Frost had previously rejected better offers elsewhere because of his genuine affection for the city, but this time Charlotte had presented him a contract promising a $1,240 raise and so he had not been able to ignore it.
It says that the difference in salary had emphasized the fact that because of limited finances, Roanoke was not maintaining pace in paying its municipal employees, especially those in key positions.
It urges that the city would always owe a debt to Mr. Frost for his nine years of service, during which he had written the City ordinance and formulated regulations under which his department had operated ever since, with the ordinance having become a model throughout the nation. He had previously been administrative assistant to the Board of Air Pollution Control in Indianapolis, a city which had experienced notable improvement in air pollution. He had been trained at Carnegie Tech and Purdue Technical Institute. His department had been virtually self-supporting through heating installation permits, until that function was transferred to the building inspections office.
Any shortcomings had been the result of the failure of the City Council to authorize stricter enforcement of the regulations. But prior to 1947, a pall of smoke had hung over the city, resulting in dirty streets, homes and businesses, with a high incidence of eye and pulmonary diseases.
The newspaper had fought hard to see the program established and believes that the people of Roanoke would never consent to abolition of it. It concludes that Charlotte was to be congratulated on obtaining the services of Mr. Frost, and wishes him every success.
Drew Pearson says that his wife and former President Truman claimed that he never told the truth, though the latter had not been vocal on the subject recently, while his wife still appeared to agree with the former President's original point of view, saying that it was possible she had caught him in an untruth recently by reason of silence. She had come into his office to hear his secretary saying, "Well, we finally got Mr. Pearson's reservations to Roanoke, Va., but I certainly had a hard time doing it." To that, his wife had said that she had invited a lot of people to dinner that night and that her husband had known that weeks in advance, assuring her that he would be present. His secretary then told her that perhaps she should not inform her, but that he was going to Virginia to raid a moonshine still. At that point, his wife was even more irate, figuring that he would be shot. Mr. Pearson then told her that he was planning to break it to her gently, that a man from the Alcohol Tax Unit had promised him sometime earlier to let him tag along on the next big raid and televise it, that the raid was all set and could not wait.
That evening, he had registered at a hotel in Roanoke under a slightly different name and shortly thereafter huddled with the chief enforcement officer for the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax Unit and the top agent thereof for southwest Virginia, with the latter telling him that he had located a 600-gallon still in an old apple-packing barn in the Blue Ridge Mountains, about 15 miles from Roanoke, and had just come back from inspecting it. They discussed for some time the strategy and timing of the raid and finally decided that it would be better to start in the morning. And so early the following day, they went to the location of the still, with the raid set for 12:30 p.m.
Most of the agents involved had been up all night and the lead agent had climbed the tough mountain ridge three times in the previous 24 hours, twice during the night, and most of them had put in a 60-hour week. He regards them as the unsung enforcement heroes of the nation, with their diligence saving the taxpayers millions of dollars.
The story contains an editorial note that the report of the raid would continue the following day. Cannot wait for that one.
Robert C. Ruark, in Sydney,
Australia, tells of a remarkable occurrence, that a white judge in
the Northern Territory had sentenced two well-to-do white brothers to
jail for six months and heavily fined them for the beating with stock
whips of six black aborigines, considered the lowest living form of
humankind in terms of evolution. Called Jacko, the "abbo"
still went about naked out of preference and in an earlier state, had
never been known to cultivate crops or domesticate animals, living
off half-raw flesh, grub worms, fish and whatever they could find.
Their superstitions were such that they died willingly after a witch
doctor pointed a bone at them. The cranial structure was closer to
the Cro-Magnon man than to any other living human, including the few
hairy Ainus left in Japan. The abbos
Yet, the white judge had sentenced
the two brothers for the beatings. The brothers had claimed self-defense, that they had been attacked by the natives with boomerangs
and nulla-nullas
Mr. Ruark says he was contemplating the "wolf-whistle case", that of Emmett Till, out of Money, Miss., the prior summer, wherein the two half-brothers accused of the murder—who would shortly admit their guilt in a Look Magazine article—were found not guilty by an all-white male jury. He says further that he was thinking of all of the lynchings transpiring from mob instinct, for which nobody had paid except the corpse. Then he considered what the white Australian judge had done in "dealing in court with the greatest white supremacy that the world knows these days against the smallest black minority, who had the courage to put reasonably rich white ranchers in jail for a pure principle of equality and justice for all," finding Australia probably the only country in the world at present where such could happen, suggesting that the world might be truly proud of the judge.
A letter writer says that while he had read for many years the editorials of the newspaper and had generally found them fair and informative, he believed that the recent editorial on the proposed Bricker amendment, to amend the Constitution to provide less treaty-making power for the President, to have presented only one side of the issue. He says that he had prepared a radio talk on the matter for the Daughters of the American Revolution the previous year during Constitution Week, and encloses a copy of his talk. He asks why any President should fear restriction of his authority to constitutional limitations, that recent history had shown that Presidents were not infallible. He says that the Founders had been of great wisdom but could not have foreseen intercontinental plane flights of a few hours' duration, atom and hydrogen bombs, and an international conspiracy of Communism, and so believed it illogical to suggest that there should be no change.
The editors respond that a nonpartisan presentation of both sides of the controversy had been carried on the editorial page the previous June 28, prepared by the Congressional Quarterly, and that the editorial to which the writer had referred had been simply a frank expression of the newspaper's own opinion of the proposal to curb the President's treating-making powers, that it welcomed all expressions of disagreement from readers.
A letter writer responds to a previous letter writer who had said that he believed Virginia was doing the only democratic thing by letting its citizens decide for themselves if they wanted to mix the races, says that those who wanted to continue keeping blacks in their place had to be careful in their public statements, for if every citizen of Mississippi were given the democratic right to vote, it would be safe to assume that segregation would be defeated. He says that he had noticed statements in the letters column from contributors who meant well while actually giving aid and comfort to the NAACP and others who opposed continuance of segregation. He urges disciplining themselves and their public statements, to take their cues from the Patriots of North Carolina, Inc., conforming the statements to the principles and policies which that organization represented. He says that the Patriots had obtained the services of "that outstanding American", Senator James Eastland of Mississippi, who was scheduled to speak in Charlotte. He urges people to show their appreciation by attending in great numbers his speech.
A letter writer claims that the 14th Amendment, on which the Supreme Court had based its segregation decisions, had been fraudulently procured and was illegal, that before an amendment could become the law of the land, it had to be voted on by each of the 48 states.
Somebody ought educate this cracker as to the number of states which were in the union in 1868 when the amendment was lawfully ratified. The writer apparently favors re-ratification of the entire Constitution every time a new state comes into the union.
A letter writer comments on the editorial criticizing the outdated theory of interposition, as had appeared on January 4, recommends that the editorial be sent to Soviet Premier Nikolai Bulganin and Communist Party Secretary Nikita Khrushchev so that they could send the newspaper a medal and a lifetime membership in the Party. He thinks that the decisions of the Supreme Court against segregation of the races were "abominable".
A letter writer welcomes the new smog engineer, Mr. Frost, says that her eyes were bloodshot and watery and her lungs made a noise when she breathed which resembled a noise made by a moth-eaten accordion. But she warns against popular armies of opposition who complained about spending money for a smog engineer whom they claimed would not be able to do anything about the issue.
A letter writer wonders who would pay for the satellite launchings, as had been covered in an article of January 10.
The editors respond that in the end, everyone would.
A letter writer who was a member of the Dale Carnegie Club of the Piedmont Carolinas expresses his appreciation for the newspaper's coverage of the presentation of the charter at their last meeting on January 6.
A letter writer says that she had read of the things which were destroying homes, and had just recently heard of the violent death of a man who had broken up a home—apparently referring to the man who had been shot to death by a jealous husband emerging from the trunk of his wife's car after he heard their conversation which he believed implied they were having an affair, smacking their lips, or something, together. She says that the world would be surprised if people knew of the many homes being wrecked because of sin and other men or women, that if they would let Christ be head of the home, they would all be happy.
A pome appears from the Atlanta Journal , "In Which Is Contained Advice Anent Standing In the Street While Awaiting A Traffic Light Change:
"Don't clutter
The gutter."
A step in stutter
Could bend your rudder.
Framed Edition
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