The Charlotte News
Saturday, January 14, 1956
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that several Democratic Senators had this date predicted a lot more debate on the contention by Secretary of State Dulles that his "brink of war" policy had blocked Communist China in Korea, Indo-China and Formosa, as he had recently contended in an article appearing in Life. Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota demanded the previous night that the President say whether he approved of the contentions made by Mr. Dulles, saying that the remarks had been "indiscreet" and showed "callousness toward world opinion." The Senator told the Senate the prior Thursday that Mr. Dulles was playing "politics with foreign policy".
Senator Walter George of Georgia suggested that Mr. Dulles back away from the Administration's proposed long-range foreign aid program or risk losing bipartisan support in Congress. The two had conferred the previous day, along with Senator Alexander Smith of New Jersey, a supporter of the Administration, and Senate Minority Leader William Knowland of California, all members of the Foreign Relations Committee, which Senator George chaired. None of them would discuss with reporters the details of the conversations, but Senator George said afterward that it would be "most untimely" for Secretary Dulles to push in Congress the Administration's request for approval of a ten-year program of foreign aid to supplant the present yearly plan. He said that they were far more certain to maintain bipartisanship in the latter case.
The chairman of a House subcommittee, Representative John Moss of California, said this date that, based on evidence taken by the subcommittee thus far, the Government's attitude on dissemination of information was wrong, indicating that Government officials who provided information had to justify doing so, when Mr. Moss stated that they should have to justify withholding of information. Another member of the subcommittee, Congressman Dante Fascell of Florida, said that he also saw great danger in the present policies, that there was no place to draw the line once such criteria were implemented regarding security, that there did not appear to be anything in the foreseeable future to reduce the problem, and that there was a significant danger that it would increase unless checked.
In Concord, N.H., a State official reported this date that one of two surprise petitions to enter the President's name in the March 13 presidential primary had not contained enough valid signatures to qualify for the ballot, with one of the petitions containing only 49 valid names, when 50 were required. The second petition contained 70 names and was considered valid. A Manchester automobile dealer had unexpectedly filed the petitions the previous day, ahead of the state's organized Eisenhower forces' planned filing of similar papers of their own the following Monday, with Governor Lane Dwinnell, leader of those forces, indicating that they planned to carry out their intended filing on Monday.
In Raleigh, an advisory was issued to North Carolina servicemen at home and abroad that the deadline for filing state income tax returns was April 15.
Charles Kuralt of The News tells of the body of a train brakeman, who had fallen from a Southern Railway freight train the previous night, having been found beside the tracks near Berryhill School in Charlotte during the morning. The man, about 50, had struck his head on the overhang of a concrete bridge as the train had passed over it and had been killed instantly, his body having rolled off the train on a banked curve several miles from the bridge, which was located near Catawba College. The man had been the subject of an all-night search by police and railroad detectives, not missed by the crew of the train until the freight had reached Concord to take on additional cars. His last contact with other members of the crew had been via walkie-talkie, saying that he was going back onto the train to release a stuck handbrake on a car. Blood was found atop one of the cars, leading police to suspect that the low overhanging bridge had killed him.
Julian Scheer of The News indicates that voters in Charlotte and Mecklenburg County might become fatigued with marking ballots between May and November, despite there being no city elections, which had been held the previous year. But County and Federal offices, along with State offices and township offices all were scheduled for elections, with a primary on May 26, a runoff primary on June 23, and the general election on November 6. The story goes through the various positions up for election, including that of Senator Sam Ervin, who was seeking a full six-year term, after having been appointed by the late Governor William B. Umstead in spring, 1954 to the seat of the late Senator Clyde Hoey, the appointment lasting initially until the 1954 election, when he was elected for the remainder of the term, expiring in January, 1957.
Dick Young of The News tells of Charlotte's population set to grow by at least 30,000 if a proposed annexation of territory just outside the city limits were to be approved. The director of the City-County Planning Commission said this date that it would be perhaps a couple of years before any extension could be completed and that the 30,000 presently residing in the area to be annexed would probably increase in the interim by several thousand. The present estimated population of the city was 155,512 and if the annexation were to take place, the projected 1960 population of the city would be around 200,000, with the 1950 census having listed the population at 134,000.
In Ito, Japan, a 41-year old farmer had been arrested the previous day while trying to break into the resort hotel where Prime Minister Ichiro Hatoyama was vacationing, telling police that the air was full of radio waves which were driving him crazy and he wanted to see the Prime Minister to get him to do something about it.
In New York, a 13-year old girl had promised to behave after she had taken on Tuesday a steed and wagon belonging to a Bronx stable, being captured minutes later by the police, stating in Children's Court the previous day that she did it because she loved horses. The judge had told her that in the "wild" West, horse thieves were escorted "to the nearest tree, and I would not want to see you in that condition." The girl was released to her mother's custody.
In Hollywood, actor Errol Flynn had returned after several years abroad, and was promptly served the previous day with a contempt citation in a child support case, his former wife claiming that he was $4,325 in arrears.
In St. Louis, a divorce court had granted a divorce to Mrs. Wanda Jennings, 29, Mrs. America of 1954.
In Knoxville, Tenn., a child was born in the backseat of a car the previous day, after a couple had been on their way to a hospital when they realized they would not make it in time, and so sought a house with a telephone, finding one, pulling into the driveway which happened to be the residence of a practical nurse, who was just arriving home and delivered the child in the backseat of the car. Both mother and child were doing fine this date in the hospital.
Harry Shuford of The News tells of an AWOL Marine and his sweetheart who had hitchhiked over 600 miles to get married, but could not spend their honeymoon together, that after the ceremony in Lancaster, S.C., the previous evening, the bride had left for her home at Elkton, Va., while her husband of a few hours remained in jail, with the Lancaster police to turn him over to the Marine Corps during the morning. They had arrived at the home of a probate judge to obtain a marriage license the previous evening, accompanied by a soldier and his wife, who had also hitchhiked with them from Elkton, 618 miles away, explaining that they had come to South Carolina because the bride was only 18 and might have difficulty being married in her home state. They had to wait one day by state law to be married after obtaining their marriage license and so, without money, found themselves with nowhere to spend Thursday night, causing them to be picked up by the local police as they wandered about town, the Marine private first-class admitting to the officers that he had been AWOL for over a month. The police allowed the two couples to sleep in the jail, and the previous morning, the wedding party was given freedom, except for the Marine, whom they held until the previous evening when they permitted him to go to the judge's office to participate in the wedding, with two city police officers acting as attendants at the brief civil ceremony. The Red Cross had secured a 12-hour extension of leave for the soldier who accompanied the wedding couple and provided bus fare for the bride to return to her home, while her new husband remained in jail, awaiting the arrival of the Marines. The judge had provided the couple with a wedding present of the marriage license and performance of the ceremony for free.
In Charlotte, a "Northern winter" this date had dropped the temperatures to below freezing early in the morning for the first time since the prior Monday, with the low reaching 26 degrees, below the lows recorded in such cities as Boston, with a low of 33, Washington, where it was 32, Seattle, 38, Denver, 37, Minneapolis and St. Louis, where it was 29. The prior Monday, the low in Charlotte had been 25, with the lows the remaining days of the week having been, respectively, 32, 35, 38 and 33. Another low of 26 was predicted for the following day. There was forecast, however, a warming trend, with the high this date anticipated to be 55, 58 the following day, with the previous day having reached 55. Mount Mitchell in western North Carolina had recorded a low of 13, but the ice accompanying lows of one and two degrees the previous Sunday and Monday was disappearing, and there was no snow.
On the editorial page, "Sen. Scott and the Timber Cutters" tells of Republicans having seriously underestimated the stubbornness of Senator Kerr Scott of North Carolina, that his debut during the week as an investigator had been met with brickbats hurled by Republican colleagues on a joint Senate-House committee which Senator Scott was chairing, regarding an investigation of an alleged Interior Department giveaway of public lands timber in Oregon to a private mining company, the Republicans charging that the Senator was guilty of "bias and cowardly tactics", of making inflammatory, prejudicial statements, relying on "New Deal smear artists", of abusing the Constitution, maligning a private company's reputation, "abandoning civil liberties, basic concepts of justice and ordinary courtesy and decency", plus mounting a "purely political" attack on the Republican Administration.
It expects and hopes that the taunts would spur Senator Scott's determination to get to the bottom of what appeared to be some tricky business in the Interior Department, says that the known circumstances justified an investigation and that the Republican reaction made those circumstances the more suspicious.
A mining company out of Mobile, Ala., had been awarded a claim two years earlier in the Oregon National Forest on the basis of an assay report that the value of silver and gold on the land was $2.06 per ton, after having a claim to the same land denied in 1949 because an assay report at that time from the same firm had shown the land's mineral value to be only 87 cents per ton, insufficient to justify awarding the claim. Since the granting of the claim, the mining company had been cutting public timber, allegedly worth $110,000, but had not performed any mining.
It had raised the issue of whether a phony assay report had been prepared to enable the mining company to be awarded the claim, which entitled it to cut timber. In addition to increasing the mineral value of the land in the course of four years, as indicated, the assay had been done in Mobile, whereas standard practice of Northwest prospectors was to send their samples to West Coast assay companies. The General Services Administration had previously branded the work of the Mobile assayer as being incorrect and inadequate, though the assayer had rebutted that contention.
The Bureau of Mines, within the Interior Department, had maintained no matching samples to check against those tested by the Mobile firm in case of a dispute, with a Bureau agent having testified that he had taken samples but then tossed them into a river because there was no adequate place to store them. After the investigation by the committee headed by Senator Scott had begun, the assayer from Mobile was invited to breakfast by Interior Department officials and briefed on his testimony, including the rebuttal to the GSA contentions, and an Interior Department lawyer had been caught in the hearing room handing copies of that rebuttal to the press.
It finds that the facts suggested boondoggling in high places and that the only way to find out about it was to call witnesses, as Senator Scott had said he intended to do.
"A Senator Concerned with Courage" indicates that the Senate had garnered a reputation as being a place where political courage, resolution and ideals were usually abandoned in favor of political expediency. The opinion was shared by members of the Cabinet, Presidents, reporters, historians and even by some Senators.
While a generalization, it had troubled Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts, who had written a book, Profiles in Courage, making the case for Senate integrity by citing examples of it shown through history by several individual Senators.
In discussing the pressures on members of Congress to conform and not to display the type of political courage of which he wrote, Senator Kennedy had said that, "fortunately or unfortunately", despite constant pressures from constituents, special interest groups, organized letter writers and even average voters, few of his colleagues in either house succumbed to the urge which had prompted Congressman John McGroarty of California to write in 1934 to a constituent that one of the countless drawbacks of being in Congress was that he was compelled to receive "impertinent letters from a jackass" like the constituent, who had said that the Congressman had promised to have the Sierra Madre Mountains reforested, whereas he had only been in Congress for two months and had not done it, concluding, "Will you please take two running jumps and go to hell."
Senator Kennedy's examples were
those men who had refused to shrink from their principles, as one
Colorado Senator had once advised another, to catch the plaudits of
voters swept by some popular frenzy which had alienated them
temporarily from their own principles. Senator Edmund Ross of Kansas,
for instance, had gone to Congress to fight President Andrew
Johnson's Reconstruction policies and wound up, "looking down
into my open grave" by casting the vote which had saved
President Johnson from removal from office after he had been
impeached in what Senator Ross
Senator Kennedy had also put forward the example of Senator Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar, who had drafted the Mississippi ordinance of secession and had been the first Confederate officer to enter the Senate, becoming one of the most eloquent voices for sectional reconciliation after the war. Mr. Lamar had prospered from his political courage, serving successively as a Representative, Senator, member of President Grover Cleveland's Cabinet and as a Justice of the Supreme Court. Senator Kennedy had quoted him in his book as having said in 1878 that the liberty of the country and its great interest would never be secure "if its public men become mere menials to do the biddings of their constituents instead of being representatives in the true sense of the word, looking to the lasting prosperity and future interests of the whole country."
It indicates that it did not suggest that Senators become so wedded to their own views that fanaticism would replace idealism, as Abraham Lincoln's view was equally valid, that there were few things wholly evil or wholly good, that almost everything, especially regarding Government policy, was "an inseparable compound of the two, so that our best judgment of the preponderance between them is continually demanded."
Senator Kennedy's book, which had just been published and had already begun appearing in serialized abstracts in various newspapers, would go on to win a Pulitzer Prize in 1957, having been worked on during his convalescence from his back surgery in the fall of 1954 and onward into the spring of 1955, when he returned to his Senate duties after several setbacks in his recovery, nearly costing his life on two occasions. Despite losing narrowly the vice-presidential nomination the following summer to Senator Estes Kefauver in an open Democratic convention for the second spot on the ticket, Senator Kennedy would be the party nominee, of course, in 1960 and would go on to defeat Vice-President Nixon in a narrow popular vote victory of somewhat more than 100,000, though achieving more handily in the electoral college.
It should not escape attention that
on this date's editorial page, there is not only this piece regarding
Senator Kennedy, but a full piece by Marquis Childs devoted to the
future prospects for Mr. Nixon, and a piece by the Alsops which
mentions Senator Hubert Humphrey, to become, along with Senator
Lyndon Johnson, among the chief rivals of Senator Kennedy for the
nomination in 1960, and, of course, to be nominated and elected
Vice-President under President Johnson in the quadrennial election of 1964, following the
assassination of President Kennedy in November, 1963, Mr. Nixon to be
elected President, defeating Vice-President Humphrey, in 1968, and the
rest, as they say...
"This Wonderful World of Science" tells of the Mexican bean beetle beginning to make meat out of rotenone, the poison it was fed by farmers, and the cabbage worm having become adapted to DDT, while new pests, alfalfa weevils and tobacco loopers, were invading North Carolina. Entomologists said that unless there were several days of 15-degree weather, boll weevils would emerge from their winter quarters by the billions to bite the farmers' crops the following summer.
It reflects that with all of the
modern technology, there was still needed 15 days of bone-chilling
weather to control the boll weevil
A piece from the Jackson (Miss.)
State Times, titled "Bartered Brides"
In West Pakistan, there was a flurry of abductions of girls between the ages of 13 and 16, with authorities blaming it on the high price tags imposed by their parents, causing suitors to kidnap the girls rather than pay.
In Australia, the aborigines traded
a female relative, such as a sister, for a bride. In New Guinea, the
going price for a bride was a polished set of dog's teeth
In the U.S., while suitors did not have to purchase their brides, he might well have to figure how he could support a wife and still keep up his car payments.
Drew Pearson continues his story of the raid on a moonshiner's still, which he had begun the previous day, tagging along with the raid by the Alcohol Tax Unit, with television cameras in tow in the Virginia mountains a few miles from Roanoke. Their zero-hour for the raid was 12:30 p.m. and he begins at 12:25, with the raid ready to start amid quiet as they descended the mountain ridge toward the moonshiner's barn where the still was maintained. Suddenly, there had been a shout from the other revenue agents who had entered the barn five minutes early, causing the two moonshiners to flee through the rear, running into two agents who had been covering the rear. The television cameraman had slipped and only captured a blurred image.
Mr. Pearson says he could not help but feel sorry for the two moonshiners, one of whom had just been released from jail. He had a long talk with them, interviewing them for television, and at first they had been reticent, but eventually came to appear pleased to talk on television.
Afterward, his wife had asked him if he had offered them a job on their farm in Maryland, and he had to confess that he had.
He found that someone else had put up the money for the still, which included about two tons of sugar stacked in the barn and 100 or so five-gallon tin cans, plus several dozen gallon fruit jars, a set-up which no mountaineer could afford. One of the moonshiners explained that the operation consisted of only rye, sugar and water, which they let set and then ran it through the still.
Following the interview, the revenue agents told the two men to go home and report to Federal District Court the following Monday morning, and Mr. Pearson's camera crew had driven them back toward their homes. The head of the Alcohol Tax Unit had told Mr. Pearson that the moonshiners were men of their word and so they could be assured that they would report to court. He said most of them ran like jackrabbits right up the mountain and his men had to be good to catch them. One of the problems with catching moonshiners was that the practice was handed down generationally within families and also that local Federal judges were not inclined to hand down heavy sentences, since someone else was supplying the cash for the operation.
He says that moonshining was heavily concentrated in the Southern states, with the largest number of stills being in Georgia, Alabama and North Carolina, and another busy area existing around New York and New Jersey, where the trade was carried on by racketeers, usually with industrial alcohol. The Northern bootleg liquor was more dangerous, there having been some cases of severe poisoning from it, while the Southern White Mule would almost blow off the roof of one's mouth, but had less poison content. Most of it was sold only a day or two after it had passed through the garden hose from the still into an old washtub and sold for about six dollars per gallon, costing between one dollar and two dollars to make. The moonshine from the still which they had raided was to be sold in West Virginia.
He concludes that Dwight Avis, head of the Alcohol Tax Unit, was an unsung hero, as were his men, performing an efficient and sometimes courageous job, many having been killed and others wounded. They operated without enough funds or personnel, causing the men on the raid which he had joined to have to work about 60 hours per week, with some of them having stayed up all night.
Joseph & Stewart Alsop tell of the Administration having usurped every major issue supported by the Democrats heading into the election year. On the farm issue, the Democrats had wanted to restore 90 percent fixed parity on basic crops and provide for such things in addition as soil bank payments for keeping farm land out of production, a measure which they were sure the President would veto, causing problems for the Administration with the farmers. But the Administration had taken over the soil bank idea and other ideas first advanced by Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota, the principal Democratic farm policy idea person in Congress, prompting him to complain, "They're stealing my babies."
While Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson was quite unpopular in farm areas, the President remained immensely popular with the farmers. So, the Administration's plan at present was to have the President move to the forefront on the farm issue to sell the Administration program and persuade the farmers that the fixed support program of the Democrats would only lead to higher surpluses while depressing prices still further. A nationwide telecast by the President devoted entirely to the farm issue was being seriously considered and several Democrats were already finding doubtful the vote-getting potential of high fixed parity price supports.
On taxes, the Administration had also boxed in the Democrats, with the President having stated that a balanced budget and debt reduction had to occur prior to any tax relief. Democrats suspected that around June, there would be an announcement from the Treasury that, based on brilliant economic management, a surplus of perhaps as much as four billion dollars was in store for the 1957 budget, enabling tax reduction along with a balanced budget and debt reduction.
Were the Democrats, in response, to seek tax reduction at present, however, they would be accused of fiscal irresponsibility and causing an unbalanced budget, as any tax reduction for the ordinary taxpayer could only be offset in the budget if the oil depletion allowance loophole were closed, not practicable with Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson coming from Texas, and Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn also from that state.
Regarding education, the Democrats also had thought they had a winning issue in 1956, and in the House, had ready a major school construction bill. But the Administration was ready to box them in with its 1.25 billion dollar school program. Moreover, Representative Adam Clayton Powell of New York was prepared to introduce an anti-segregation amendment to the Democratic bill, which would almost certainly kill it.
The highway construction and social security issues had been similarly taken over by the Administration in the same way.
They conclude that it was impossible to predict what issues the course of events during the year would produce, that perhaps the Communist bloc nations might make an aggressive move, such as an attack on the Chinese offshore islands, causing the presently dormant defense and foreign policy issues to dominate the election year. But for the moment, by adopting large parts of the Democratic program, the Administration had reduced the Democrats to shouting, "Me too, but more so."
Marquis Childs tells of Vice-President Nixon, having just turned 43, appearing almost as youthful as when he started his meteoric political career with his run for Congress in 1946. If the President were to decide not to seek re-election, Mr. Nixon was the favorite to become the Republican nominee, and if the President did seek re-election, there was a growing likelihood that Mr. Nixon would not be included on the ticket, a view held by some of the President's closest associates who were championing the notion of a proposal to have essentially two Presidents, naming a vice-presidential nominee who would have wide experience and longstanding national reputation to make the job more appealing to the President.
Several names had been considered, with the most frequently mentioned being former Governor of New York Thomas Dewey, but he was not close to the President personally, a desire for which was paramount to produce harmony in a "two-President" Administration. Mr. Dewey also had many enemies within the Republican Party, who would charge that he was being given an entry into the White House through the back door after twice failing to be elected, in 1944 and 1948, as the party nominee.
Other names were also being floated by friends and advisers of the President. While they held no animus against Mr. Nixon, they also realized that he was distrusted and disliked by a wide segment of the population, including not only Democrats but many independents, his Checkers speech of September, 1952 to explain his receipt of an $18,000 slush fund from wealthy donors to pay off his 1950 Senate campaign debts and expenses, having stirred deep feelings of distrust in people, despite his having survived it politically at the time and remaining on the ticket. Many had accused him of demagoguery and high-pressure advertising techniques.
As a young Congressman and member of HUAC, Mr. Nixon had led the inquiry in 1948 which resulted in the indictment and conviction of Alger Hiss for perjury, bringing him instant fame and, ultimately, the nomination for the vice-presidency. But it had also served to sharpen the controversy which had centered on "this extremely able and very ambitious young man."
RNC chairman Leonard Hall had said that if the President were to run again, Mr. Nixon would continue to be his running mate, and the President had gone out of his way on several occasions to praise the Vice-President warmly. But if the President were to be persuaded of the wisdom of the "two Presidents" concept, he might conceivably ask Mr. Nixon to step aside.
Mr. Childs regards it as a fairly remote contingency which would risk offending the Vice-President's strong Republican partisans, concluding that it would, in any event, not end the political career of Mr. Nixon, as he was young enough to be re-elected to the Senate, where there were several septuagenarians, and Senator Theodore Green of Rhode Island, who was 88. He had a smiling confidence that was a chief component of his personality and having nearly completed his term in the second highest office in the country at a remarkably early age, had every right to look confidently toward the peak still ahead—a peak which ultimately would encounter the deepest valley through which any President would traverse in U.S. history.
A letter writer says that he had the misfortune of attending a basketball game between Harding High School and East Mecklenburg High School on the night of January 10, and found the poorest sportsmanship he had ever observed on display. He had intended to support Harding, but after seeing the poor sportsmanship, became ashamed to root for them. He says that they were constantly booing each time a boy from East got the ball, and especially when one of the players from that team took a free throw. He finds that the students had behaved as much like beasts as any animal one could bring from the jungle, even spitting on the players of East every time they came down the court. He was astonished when one player had hit another and was not ejected from the game. After the incident, the player who had been hit had been mobbed by spectators, but he had won the game for East during the last 20 seconds. He says that sports were intended to bring students closer together and to demonstrate good sportsmanship, that some effort ought be made to correct such acts of poor conduct, that they, as parents, tried to teach their children at home to play their friends in a manner consistent with the Golden Rule, that, however, when such incidents as he had observed took place, the feeling was that their efforts were in vain and that the students' teachers and coaches, as well as their parents, had been disgraced.
It is only fair to point out, incidentally, that Harding was named for Charlotte educator and former superintendent of schools, Harry P. Harding, not former President Warren G. Harding.
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