The Charlotte News
Wednesday, January 18, 1956
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from New Orleans that former Governor Earl Long had won a landslide victory in the gubernatorial race this date, leaving the Administration of pro-Eisenhower Governor Robert Kennon in the dust. New Orleans Mayor deLessups Morrison, the only candidate in the five-man field in the Democratic primary who could have forced a runoff, had conceded the race. Mr. Long, brother of the late Governor and Senator Huey Long, had tallied more than 340,000 votes to Mayor Morrison's 159,000. As the Republicans had not held a primary, the victory assured Mr. Long of an unprecedented third separate term as Governor. By law, no Governor of Louisiana could succeed himself. The only major parish where Mr. Long had not run strongly and won easily had been Orleans, location of New Orleans, where Mayor Morrison ran strongly.
In Lake Charles, La., Cities Service Oil Co. workers this date battled flames and choking smoke which were thought to conceal the bodies of at least 16 seamen in a blazing tanker loaded with a full cargo of 130,000 barrels of gasoline, kerosene and fuel oil, after the tanker had exploded the previous night with a crew of 41 believed to be assigned to it, though Cities Service officials did not know how many had been on board at the time of the explosion. Firefighters had recovered parts of three bodies during the morning and a hospital had treated eight seamen, one in serious condition, with a Cities Service worker also having been burned seriously. Cities Service, which owned the tanker, estimated that 20 seamen were still missing. No damage estimate was provided. About 1,500 workers had attempted to extinguish the fire and had succeeded in confining it to the ship and docks, away from the huge adjoining oil refinery. The tanker had sailed from Boston for Lake Charles on January 11. Information reaching New York during the morning indicated that 13 of the crew had been accounted for, five having been hospitalized, but that it was still not known how many had been aboard.
A separate story of an eyewitness account of the explosion, by a seaman from Brooklyn, is provided.
Senator Kerr Scott of North Carolina said this date that he was waiting to see how much the Government would pay farmers to take cotton and wheat land from production before providing his approval to the President's proposed soil bank plan. A member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, the Senator said that the majority of members of Congress believed the President's proposal was sound, but added that if the payments were only about 50 percent of what normally could be made from the acreage in the soil bank, many small farmers would not be able to afford to participate.
In New York, thousands of persons across the country, who had managed to get a portion of the new Ford Motor Co. common shares of stock, had made an immediate profit this date, with the stock selling at a premium of more than five dollars per share even before the initial public offering had closed. During the morning, the over-the-counter market quoted the shares at $70 bid and $70.25 asked, with dealers indicating that trading had been fairly active. Limited buying and selling of the stock had begun late the previous day, immediately after clearance by the Securities and Exchange Commission of the 10.2 million share offering at a price of $64.50 per share. You had better ditch those suckers prior to 1958.
In Jacksonville, N.C., an Onslow County beer inspector and the owner of a tavern which had been closed temporarily by recommendation of the inspector had engaged in a fight early this date, according to police, and the beer inspector had sworn out a warrant charging the owner of Marvin's Bar with assault, while the owner of the bar had charged the beer inspector with assault, the altercation having taken place in front of a police station at around 1:30 a.m. with neither man being seriously injured. The bar had been one of four places suspended for 90 days by the State ABC Board on the recommendation of the beer inspector. The beer inspector had recently been dismissed from his job, but was later reinstated after local law enforcement officers said that there had been no problem with him not doing his job properly, as alleged in some reports received by the Board.
Charles Kuralt of The News tells of the Charlotte Coliseum and Ovens Auditorium having shown a net income of more than $28,000 in a financial statement released this date, since their opening on September 11, through the end of 1955. The gross income was over $50,000. From rental fees, the Auditorium had made a profit of $6,850, and the Coliseum, $38,182, with the week-long Ice Capades having brought in more than half of the latter amount, more than $24,000. The profits would remain in the operating funds of the facilities for awhile and would eventually be applied toward paying off the bonded indebtedness for their construction. The buildings had cost 4.7 million dollars to build, spread over three bond issues which would mature in 30 years. The balance sheet is provided, in case you are interested.
Ann Sawyer of The News indicates that sheriff's deputies this date had gone onto the streets of Charlotte to round up 50 more prospective jurors for the trial of the man accused of first-degree murder of another man whom he regarded as an interloper to his marriage, having hidden in the trunk of his wife's car and emerged with a combination rifle and shotgun after hearing his wife and the other man engaging in what he believed were kissing sounds, admitting to police having shot the man to death. The list of regular jurors and a special venire had been exhausted as court had recessed for the afternoon, and the judge ordered that 50 more citizens be brought to the courtroom to be examined for possible duty in the case. After 2 1/2 hours of voir dire, only eight white men had been sworn in to hear the case. The large majority of the special venire was comprised of women, who were excused because of having small children at home. The trial was the first regarding a white love triangle slaying since the Helms case of 1951, but a separate story indicates that the present shooting lacked the sensationalism which had brought many spectators to hear that case, wherein a wife had killed another woman whom the defendant believed was having an affair with her husband. Enquiring minds want to know.
On the editorial page, "Watlington, Wachovia & Civic Progress" finds that in civic leadership, humanitarian and community affairs generally, few men had worked with greater zeal or strength to build a better Charlotte than had John Watlington, Jr., newly elected president of Wachovia Bank & Trust Co., successor to Robert Hanes.
It indicates that its only regret was that he would be moving to Winston-Salem from Charlotte. In 1939, when Wachovia had merged with the Charlotte National Bank and established an office in Charlotte, Mr. Watlington had come to Charlotte as assistant vice-president of the bank and had since advanced to membership on the Charlotte board in 1940, to a vice-presidency in 1942, becoming in 1946 the senior vice-president, with the Charlotte office during his tenure having compiled a remarkable record of expansion. It expresses certainty that Mr. Watlington's achievements would continue to grow in size and significance.
It adds that the Charlotte office would now be headed by Joseph H. Robinson, another outstanding citizen who had given generously of his time and talent to a variety of civic projects, and that the new chairman of the board of Wachovia in Winston-Salem would be Archie Davis, another banker who had made public service an important part of his life.
Mr. Watlington would live in a very large mansion in Winston-Salem at the corner of Stratford Road and Buena Vista Road, by which we used to walk on occasion to and fro, when we would either walk home or, more rarely, after missing a bus, to our junior high school many years ago. It always looked nice, indirectly lit in subtle, tasteful hues of green or red, at around Christmastime. But that is about all we know of Mr. Watlington.
"The Ministry: An Act of Brotherhood" tells of the creation of an interracial ministerial association in Charlotte and Mecklenburg County having not been achieved without some rumblings of discontent, which it finds inevitable, with the merger of the white and black associations having been undertaken in a time of social upheaval, "when any act of brotherhood can be made suspect in the eyes of the overly fearful."
It opines that the ministry had a responsibility overriding the daily frights, charged with disseminating a doctrine of peace, understanding, and love, with that duty falling equally on blacks and whites. It finds that there was every reason to believe that the ministry would be strengthened by cooperation and consultation between the two racial groups, that there was during that time a great need for new bonds of friendship and understanding between the races, and that perhaps the greatest danger from the problem posed for the South by Brown v. Board of Education was that the ties of friendship and understanding which had permitted the races to live together in peace could be severed by "sharp knives of suspicion and antagonism."
It concludes that no force could be more effective in strengthening those bonds than the ministry and that it should be able to do a better job in concert than separately.
"Saving Grace?" suggests that by proposing a balanced budget for the coming fiscal year, the President was the only American who was observing National Thrift Week, an obscure and slighted week on the calendar, while the rest of the nation appeared to be going right ahead acting on the advice of Winston Churchill: "It saves a lot of trouble, if, instead of having to earn money and save it, you can just go and borrow it."
"Mec Dec: No Time for Optimism" tells of Edward R. Murrow having been presented with a copy of the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence during the week, and having said to Mayor Philip Van Every: "The eloquence of the ancients would be required to thank you adequately. If I leave my 10-year-old son nothing else … this is priceless."
Adlai Stevenson's sister, Mrs. Ernest Ives, speaking to the Mecklenburg Historical Society, said: "Why, I remember when as children we sat at grandfather Stevenson's feet as he told us about the Mecklenburg Declaration."
It suggests that such words stirred the hearts of "Mec Dec partisans", but cautions against over-optimism. For while grandfather Stevenson had been Vice-President under President Grover Cleveland, Adlai Stevenson might become President, and Mr. Murrow was influential and eloquent, as long as Dr. Christopher Crittenden guarded the State Archives in Raleigh, the Mecklenburg Declaration would not be admitted, "not until Murrow puts the original copy on See It Now and Adlai goes to the White House and calls out the National Guard."
It should be noted, as the piece does not, that the State Archives had rejected the Declaration because of its questionable provenance, with the original having been consumed in a fire at the beginning of the 19th Century and the existing copy having been created only from memory of those who had claimed presence at its original signing on May 20, 1775, over a year before the Declaration of Independence was signed in Philadelphia, the foundation for the state's questionable claim, once borne on its license plates, "First in Freedom", a phrase which provoked so much complaint that it was eventually supplanted by "First in Flight"—more apt for ironic reasons.
A piece from the Greensboro Daily News, titled "The Charm of Old Brick", tells of common brick used in construction bringing between $30 and $35 per thousand in the market, while the old handmade bricks were fetching as much as $100 per thousand and were extremely hard to get.
It tells of having heard from a lady who had a gifted mason lay $9,000 worth of old brick in her garden, forcing him to build and rebuild steps, walls and walks many times until things were just right for her tastes. She had even forbidden removal of a growth of moss on some of the brick.
It says that old brick had a charm of its own through slow, craftsmanlike methods painstakingly followed, amounting to something close to an art, that the inefficiency of the old kilns resulted in a variegated scheme of color and texture and a number of dark "clinkers", which would normally be discarded from among newly-fired brick as unsightly. It finds that the average person could not fathom what had gone into carefully removing the old brick from their original locations, for instance from a house a century or more old, the necessity of cleaning them by hand, usually rubbing two bricks together until the surfaces were relatively clean of the old mortar. By the time they were placed into new construction, they had a charm and beauty, which came at a high price.
Houses built from them were becoming numerous and old-brick walls enclosed some of the most sumptuous gardens in the Carolinas. "The old brick, humble in origin, cheap in its youth, unprepossessing in its telltale coating of mortar dust or fire clay, is a still small sign that newest is by no means always best."
There was, indeed, in Piedmont North Carolina in the latter 1950's and into the mid-60's a fad in home construction utilizing old brick, which was largely gone by the late 60's, presumably because most of the old brick was consumed. Many houses built from it, however, are still in evidence in the suburbs around Greensboro and Winston-Salem, as there were a lot of older brick homes in that area which could serve as a source. Long since, however, starting in the 1970's, brick construction generally gave way to cheaper methods, utilizing wood siding or that bane to purists, aluminum siding, and one rarely sees brick homes being built anywhere these days for its labor-intensive cost, though still the best hedge against wind damage, albeit not for unstable soil conditions, such as the coast or in earthquake zones.
Drew Pearson tells of there being probably no two people in the country disliked more by the President than Senator McCarthy and his former counsel, Roy Cohn, but that, unwittingly, the White House had allowed Mr. Cohn to appoint a new member of the Civil Aeronautics Board, Joseph Minetti, an old friend of Mr. Cohn, expected to lean toward him in cases impacting his client, National Airlines. Mr. Cohn's law partner, Tom Curran, high-ranking Republican and New York Secretary of State under Governor Thomas Dewey, had pushed the appointment of Mr. Minetti with RNC chairman Leonard Hall on behalf of Mr. Cohn. Mr. Hall had already known Mr. Minetti's father-in-law, a Brooklyn Republican leader, and so, with Mr. Curran's endorsement, Mr. Hall had pushed hard for Mr. Minetti, knowing that the Republicans had to make up to Italian constituents the firing of Ed Corsi as immigration adviser by Secretary of State Dulles. Louis Rothschild, the Kansas City department store owner and Undersecretary of Commerce, had opposed the appointment of Mr. Minetti, but Mr. Hall had gone over his head and Mr. Minetti was appointed without the White House knowing that Mr. Cohn was behind it. So in the end, former Senator Josh Lee was not reappointed to the CAB and Mr. Cohn's friend was appointed in his stead.
Mr. Pearson notes that the CAB vacancy by law had to go to a Democrat and Mr. Minetti was a Democrat, close to Carmine DeSapio, head of Tammany Hall in New York and pushing the candidacy of Governor Averell Harriman for the Democratic presidential nomination, while being groomed, himself, as a possible mayoral candidate in New York City, another reason, says Mr. Pearson, why the White House was upset over the trick by Mr. Cohn.
A letter writer says that if you wanted to telephone a man named Johnson, it was important to know that he could be found listed after I and before K, and for that reason, the writer could not accept the advice of Dr. Carl Brown not to teach a pre-school child the alphabet because, according to Dr. Brown, "knowing the names of the letters may make it difficult for the child to learn the sounds the letters stand for." He says that a lot of sound counsel had been offered by Dr. Brown—a faculty member of the UNC Education Department who had been a consultant for a semester on reading for the Charlotte City schools—, in "You, Your Child, and Reading", summarized in a recent news story, but that when he tried to defend an indefensible position on teaching methods, it did not "come off". He says that as a parent of two pre-school children, he did not give a hoot what method teachers used, as long as the child became a reasonably good speller and reader, that parents were interested in results and that the methods used became their business only when they failed to teach the child properly. He says that surveys by Rudolf Flesch and others had indicated that phonics as a method of reading and spelling generally produced poor readers and spellers, and so wonders why the "missionaries from Morningside Heights" continued to defend the Columbia University "party line". He says that if the phonics experiment had not worked out, the top echelon of education would keep the confidence of parents if it admitted that fact and started looking for a better method.
The letter writer, not in good form when being critical of an educator's suggested method of teaching reading
A letter writer advises citizens to become concerned over capital punishment, finds it a more grave depredation against society and the individual than any offense for which any convicted criminal was executed. He cites a recent news story concerning a young man executed in South Carolina, who had been dragged to the electric chair and "there slain by us through our representatives of law and order—in spite of the wretched fellow's piteous pleas for mercy", that it caused the writer to cry shame on those who allowed such a revolting scene to be legally sanctioned. He finds that capital punishment encouraged rather than deterred murder, giving killing a certain respectability, that while a criminal offender such as a murderer might deserve anything which might possibly befall the person, "we continue to foster a malignancy among us when we authorize men of the law to strike down, mercilessly, in cold blood, the offender." He wonders whether the judge and jury had given the young man in question any more leniency than he had given the woman whom he had brutally murdered with an ax in front of her invalid husband. "The guards put him in chains and dragged him (repentant or not) to the chamber of horrors; and there the executioner slew him, disregarding his cry for mercy." He wonders why society would condone a killing while calling it an execution, when research had shown that capital punishment had little or no effect on the rate of crime, that the concept of an eye for an eye had been thoroughly repudiated. He wonders whether society brutalized itself with capital punishment and whether such "senseless legalized slaughter" only helped to perpetuate the tendency in man to murder. "Capital punishment is just as abominable and senseless as is individual murder."
A letter writer hopes for competition for the presidency in 1956, which was why he liked the idea of Senator Estes Kefauver running in the New Hampshire Democratic primary, though Adlai Stevenson was apparently not going to contest him there. He says that there were some old Democrats in that area of Maine and New Hampshire, Maine having elected as Governor Edmund Muskie in 1954, and President Franklin Pierce having been a graduate of Bowdoin College and hailing from New Hampshire, the writer suggesting that President Pierce was the last Democrat before the Civil War—that being in error, as it was actually James Buchanan, President Pierce having served between 1853 and 1857, followed by President Buchanan. He says that President Pierce had not been re-elected because he chose "the constitutional way of the Democratic South". (He is also regarded by historians as having been one of the two or three worst Presidents in U.S. history, and was a reputed alcoholic while in the White House.) He says he thinks the spirit of "Marse Jeff Davis" was present in New Hampshire, "maybe flitting around the falling snow that lights on the shoulders of Kefauver as he drawls his way through the countryside. After assuming the mantle of Calhoun after the latter's death, Jefferson Davis, broken in health and almost blind, was advised to go North for a rest," where he regained his sight and health in New Hampshire, Maine and Boston. "Yes, there are still a lot of good New England Democrats and Kefauver is among friends."
A letter writer says that many kindnesses had been shown his family since fire had destroyed their home on January 4 and that he, his wife and children wanted publicly to thank friends who had come to their rescue so graciously, including his employer, his fellow workers, friends and business acquaintances, churches and members of East Gate Masonic Lodge No. 692, who had provided the necessities and comforts in a manner expressing the true spirit of Christianity.
He does not mention the heroics of Missy, the family collie which had awakened him and saved the family, the focus of the original piece on the front page by Charles Kuralt on January 4. Perhaps, they had discovered that, after all, Missy was just a glory-hound and had actually started the fire just to earn the Big H for "heroine".
A letter writer indicates that he was a native born North Carolinian and just as strongly opposed to desegregation as was a prior letter writer, but rejects that letter writer's advice on actions they ought to take, in accord with the Patriots of North Carolina or any other group, saying that he was able to think for himself, a belief strengthened after reading that Senator James Eastland of Mississippi was coming to Charlotte as the main speaker for the Patriots. The previous writer had urged people to turn out and listen to Senator Eastland, this writer saying that many of those who opposed desegregation also opposed the policies of Senator Eastland, that reasonable people deplored the violence and excesses which had taken place in Mississippi, and that it would be much better for the Senator to provide his wisdom and advice to residents of Mississippi, to prevent the outbreaks which did serious harm to demands for continued segregation. He suggests that in choosing Senator Eastland as their speaker, the Patriots of North Carolina were either publicly admitting moral bankruptcy or insulting the intelligence of North Carolinians, as outstanding editors of the nation, including those of the News, were exposing his tactics in his "investigation" of the New York Times and his attitude toward freedom of the press.
A letter writer suggests that the newspaper had done a fine job advertising what made Charlotte grow, smokestacks. He says that the city was blessed that it did not have too many damp, foggy days during the winter, that if the smoke ever stopped coming from chimneys and smokestacks, it would be because of installation of natural gas, electric or perhaps oil heating, not what any person could do individually. He says that he welcomed the new City air pollution engineer, but that the smokestacks would continue to emit smoke into the sky, as the city continued to attract large manufacturers. He believes that the office of air pollution engineer would again be abolished, for the new man could not control it, regardless of what the office was called, that it was $30,000 of taxpayer money wasted. "Just as Gone With The Wind played out, this so-called smoke office will play out."
But, you must not be such a cynical pessimist, for tomorrow is another day...
A letter from two teachers expresses appreciation for a tour of the newspaper plant on January 6 provided their classes, finding it a fine way to build good public relations between schools and the press, and says that they had all enjoyed the tour, that afterward they had gone to the Southern Railway Station and viewed "Classrooms U.S.A.", which had proved an education in itself, and then on the way home, had viewed the new Coliseum, which they believe ought be considered one of the wonders of the world, at least in the U.S.A.
In latter years, having had its dome and glass sides at its inception considered emblematic of the future, the building has instead apparently become identified with a big biscuit. In fact, however, its shape resembles a large meringue pie baked in a tin and so, more properly, as long as onomatopoeia is in play, should be called Meringue-a-Tang
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