The Charlotte News
Thursday, January 19, 1956
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the President this date, appearing at his first press conference since August 4, had said, regarding criticism of his 1954 State of the Union message by General Matthew Ridgway, former Army chief of staff, that if there were any misstatements therein, they should be taken up with Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson and Joint Chiefs chairman Admiral Arthur Radford, not with the President. General Ridgway had stated in an article recently in the Saturday Evening Post that while Army chief of staff, he had not gone along with the military cuts proposed in the 1954 message, despite the President having said that the cuts had been unanimously approved by the Joint Chiefs, the General having stated that he had been pressured by Secretary Wilson to fit his ideas on Army needs into a "preconceived politico-military 'party line'", based on budgetary considerations, and that domestic politics had been involved. The President said that such a thing would be contrary to the policies he had followed during his military career and stated that every section of his State of the Union messages were sent to the department involved to check that every item was accurate, that any errors, therefore, regarding the contentions of General Ridgway should be addressed to Secretary Wilson and Admiral Radford. Secretary Wilson had said to a press conference on Tuesday that it was his memory that General Ridgway was correct in claiming that he did not concur in the decision to reduce the level of Army forces for fiscal 1955. Admiral Radford had told newsmen this date that as far as he could recall, acceptance of the manpower plans had been unanimous.
The President also said at the press conference that he had no objection to entry of his name in the New Hampshire presidential primary or in those of other states, but indicated that he had not yet made up his mind whether he would seek a second term.
He also said that he had complete faith in Secretary of State Dulles, but added that he had not read a controversial article in Life, quoting the Secretary as saying that the country had been three times to the "brink of war" since the start of the Administration.
The press conference had attracted the second largest crowd of reporters ever to attend one of the President's conferences, with 290 present, fewer than had attended his first press conference on February 17, 1953.
In Bombay, India, evangelist Billy Graham was starting his newest crusade, touring the riot-torn areas of Bombay the previous day, telling questioners that he was not afraid "because I believe that God is with us. I have no fear." He said that he had seen streetcars stoned, burning cars and an old shopkeeper who had been beaten with sticks for keeping his store open, that when he asked persons throwing the stones why they were rioting, they had replied that they did not know. He had been planning to conduct a meeting the following day, but was refraining in deference to an edict which banned all meetings until Sunday because of the rioting.
Charles Kuralt of The News tells of a "Military Square" in the Central Avenue-Westover Street area of Charlotte being foreseen this date, with a request having gone to Congress for $302,000 to build a new Armed Forces Induction Station on Central Avenue behind the new Army Reserve Training Center. Funds had already been appropriated for a $106,000 Air Force Reserve Center, to be located beside the Army Reserve building.
Ann Sawyer of The News reports on the trial of the man accused of first-degree murder in the shooting death of another man whom he believed had been an interloper to his marriage, having emerged from the trunk of his wife's car while it was parked at a drive-in restaurant after hearing the two of them in the front seat making sounds which he interpreted as kissing, and ultimately shot the man to death. An eyewitness to the shooting had testified this date that the defendant and the victim had not struggled over the weapon, a combination rifle and shotgun, and that at no time were they closer together than eight to ten feet. She said that she had seen the defendant emerge from the car trunk and that the defendant had hit the other man several times over the head after he had fallen and then had taken an object and "jobbed down into his head." The witness said that she had then yelled for help and said that the defendant was killing the other man. A police lieutenant testified that the defendant had told him after the shooting that the combination rifle-shotgun had discharged while he and the victim had struggled. The defendant took the witness stand after the conclusion of the State's case and said that he figured that a man should do anything to protect his wife and children, and described what he had heard from the trunk of the car, saying that he heard the man tell his wife "how crazy he was over her. They were hugging and kissing." He said also that something was said about beer, the other man indicating that he had beer and liquor and a heater in his car, the defendant suggesting that he was trying to have sexual relations with his wife but that she would not do it. (As indicated on the subsequent appeal to the State Supreme Court, reversing the eventual conviction for second-degree murder and sentence of 30 years in prison, there was a colloquy between the trial court and the defendant regarding his speculation on what the sounds were which he heard, the trial court's questioning and comment in that regard resulting in the reversal.)
In another case in Charlotte, a man, who had been arrested early on January 8 after the "reasonless" killing of his 20-year old wife, was scheduled to have a bond hearing the following day in Superior Court. His trial was set for February 13. He had shot his wife in the face with a .32-caliber pistol as she brought an early morning breakfast to him while he was lying in bed, saying that he and his wife had just been "playing" and that he did not intend to shoot her, having stated to police that he had shot without looking, from underneath the newspaper he had been reading.
The Weather Bureau predicted more frozen rain and some snow in western North Carolina and rain over much of South Carolina during the day, with clearing and colder weather forecast for this night and the following day. A light predawn sleet had fallen over Charlotte, turning into a chilly drizzle. Low temperatures across the state were expected to range between 28 and 35 degrees. Rain was needed almost everywhere in the state and so there was benefit from the wet weather.
In Seattle, it was reported that a 122-acre Army post, Fort Worden, which overlooked the Strait of Juan de Fuca on Washington's Olympic Peninsula, had been sold at auction to a man from Oklahoma for $106,000. It had been designed to guard the Seattle-Tacoma-Puget Sound naval shipyard area from an enemy attack, which had never materialized during World War II. Its garrisons had provided the little town of Port Townsend with much of its annual income until it had been closed in 1953 in an economy move. A local housewife and resident of the hard-hit town had written to President Eisenhower asking whether something could be done to save the fort or put it to some use, and the President had replied in a nice letter which had given the town and its residents far more national attention than they had received in their whole lives, but he could not save the fort.
In Crestview, Fla., a 20-year old
Ohio State coed had kissed a Confederate veteran the previous day on
his 108th birthday, the veteran indicating that it was the first time
of which he was aware that he had ever been kissed by a Yankee woman,
saying that he liked it fine. He received 108 silver dollars from
Crestview businessmen and a message from Florida Governor Leroy
Collins. After eating his favorite meal of fresh pork ham, turnip
greens and cornpone, he said that he had forgiven all Yankees and
loved everybody, was glad to be present. When the Crestview High
School band played "Dixie", he removed his Confederate hat
and stood at attention. He was one of four survivors remaining from
the Civil War. He said that his recipe for longevity was to look
after one's own business, keep away from doctors and look at every
pretty girl
On the editorial page, "Just Follow the Blueprints, Please" says that after considerable soul-searching, the City Council had authorized the preparation of a master plan the previous March 23 for the future development of Douglas Municipal Airport, providing the reasons for it. It finds that if the members of the Council still believed in a sound and sensible program for ordered airport growth, they should heed the advice of the expert they had hired, an engineer who had conducted a survey during a period of 75 days for $1,500, recommending the ordered expansion of airport facilities at the point when necessity required it. It says that the master plan had been hailed, when it was formally presented the previous July 13, as an excellent guide to airport development and that it should not now be discarded in favor of haphazard, unplanned expansion.
"Deliver Us from Professional Yes-Men" says that when John Paton Davies had been fired from the State Department in 1954, the syndicated cartoonist appearing in the News, Interlandi, had translated the incident into a particularly acid cartoon, which it reproduces, summing up the fears of many Americans that the U.S. foreign service was being transformed from a top career outfit into a haven for timorous ninnies who did not dare have their own opinions and made no blunders because they did not dare speak.
Mr. Davies had been a veteran of 23 years of service in the Department, and was attacked by Senator McCarthy and others because he had sharply criticized the regime of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek during World War II, suggesting a coalition Government comprised of the Nationalists and the Communists as being the only way to hold China from the Communists. He had survived eight loyalty tests, but the ninth one reviewing his case found that, although not disloyal, he had held some imprudent ideas during his 23 years of service and that his judgment and discretion in some proposals during World War II had been questioned. Secretary of State Dulles then fired him, primarily from pressure exerted by the China lobby, which favored the Nationalists.
Now, the Senate's fiercely pro-Nationalist members were targeting Robert Bowie, nominated to be assistant secretary of state, charging that he favored Communist China's admission to the U.N. He was currently director of the State Department's policy planning staff, and it had been reported from Washington that he had often come to "the brink of disagreement" with Secretary Dulles on China policy.
It indicates that there was every reason to believe that Mr. Bowie was an able man and that unless the Senate found something more damaging than it had thus far, he ought be confirmed. It finds that U.S. foreign policy was not so dogmatic that it could not stand constant scrutiny in light of changing conditions and that it should be the result of many minds and as much enlightened thinking as possible by way of a diversity of views, not "a marching society of professional yes-men."
"Sen. Ives: Surrounded by a Slogan" quotes Senator Irving Ives of New York as having said that the President would run again rather than let the country revert to "New Dealism or worse."
Henry Wallace, the first Agriculture Secretary during the Roosevelt Administration, said that the heart of the President's new farm plan was "to retire considerable grain and cotton acreage … and I am all for that and have been since 1938 or earlier."
It indicates that Mr. Wallace had wanted to plow under cotton, corn and pigs, and that the President wanted to "include (in a soil bank) wheat already seeded as if it is incorporated with the soil, as green manure…" which the piece regards as plowing it under.
It finds that Senator Ives had his directions confused, that the New Deal, born in the past, was still living and that the President was rapidly projecting it via farm, school, social security, and highway messages, into the future. It concludes that if the Senator wanted to get away from the New Deal, he would have to leave Washington.
A piece from the Wall Street Journal, titled "Numbers, Please", tells of a recent the story out of Chicago that in the suburb of Highland Park, increasing numbers of people were putting two telephones in their homes, one of which was for the teenagers. Illinois Bell officials had provided two reasons for the additional phones, with one official saying it was part of streamlined, modern living, while the other said it was the result of gabby kids tying up the telephone.
It suggests that it would have the beneficial effect that there would be a telephone for the lady of the house to use uninterruptedly and that she would always know where at least one of the children was and that the others would likely be waiting in line to use the telephone. But it also finds some drawbacks as the night would be filled with the "music of two telephones" instead of just one and the day was not likely to be any more peaceful.
It says that it was not one to stay progress and so when the second phone arrived at the writer's house, he or she would make the best of it, only asking that the telephone company rent them a pay phone and install it in a booth in the garage, in the space they had been saving for the second car.
Drew Pearson says that it was generally conceded that Secretary of State Dulles had written the book on "How To Make Enemies and Alienate Allies", that the person immediately behind the recent mistakes had been Carl McCardle, Assistant Secretary, who operated on the principle of giving up a little bit of information here and there to selected press organs, leaving no one happy. After he had slipped the New York Times one of the great scoops in recent State Department history, the full text of the Yalta Conference papers from 1945, he felt obliged to do a favor for Life by giving an exclusive interview to James Shepley, its Washington bureau chief, regarding how Mr. Dulles and the Administration had gone to the brink and averted war three times. While the scoop for the Times had left a lot of people upset, the Life article had made everyone mad, except Life.
He recounts that Mr. McCardle had met Mr. Dulles when he was working for the Philadelphia Bulletin and Mr. Dulles was making a world tour during the Truman Administration, with there having developed a kind of father and son relationship between them. The relations between Mr. Dulles and his own children had not been very happy and so when he became Secretary of State, he made Mr. McCardle a close adviser on press and public relations. Mr. Pearson indicates that sole responsibility for the Dulles mistakes should not be placed on Mr. McCardle, as there were two other important factors, that Mr. Dulles had a habit of operating his office out of his own hat, and that he had an aptitude for making boo-boos, even before he became Secretary of State.
He recounts that in March, 1939, after Hitler had taken Austria and Czechoslovakia and obviously had his sights set on the rest of Europe, Mr. Dulles had said: "There is no reason to believe that any totalitarian states, separately or collectively, would attempt to attack the United States or could do so successfully. Only hysteria entertains the idea that Germany, Italy or Japan contemplates war upon us."
In the June 3, 1946 edition of Life, Mr. Dulles had described the Russians: "In some matters the Soviet system is tolerant … men have considerable freedom to disagree and argue."
He had made conflicting statements about Korea and Indo-China, having stated in the May 19, 1952 edition of Life: "President Truman's decision that the U.S. should go to the defense of the Korean Republic was courageous, righteous and in the national interest," but only two months later, had written into the Republican national platform the accusation that President Truman had "plunged us into war in Korea without the consent of our citizens."
A letter writer wants an explanation, in words of three syllables or less, as to why Charlotte could not get another television station, with all of his friends contending that it was a "political thing", that it depended on who people knew in the FCC.
The editors respond that there was a Santa Claus, but that he did not live in Washington, that the first application for an additional Charlotte station had been filed eight years earlier, in 1948, and that action had been delayed through governmental inefficiency and bureaucracy at their worst, with most of the blame on the FCC.
A letter writer from Cheraw, S.C., says that during the Christmas holidays, he had visited some of the local stores in Cheraw and was somewhat surprised to find imported shirts for men and boys and blouses for women selling cheaper to the consumer than the domestic textile industry could manufacture them for the market. He says that they were made by cheap labor in places with low standards of living, and extends a plea to merchants and local consumers to refrain from buying those goods at low prices to protect the domestic market.
A letter writer from Mooresville tells of a case in which an 18-year old male had been sentenced to 30 days in jail for violating the speed limit, cited for going 75 in a 55 mph zone, that the judge had discretion to impose a 30-day suspension of the youth's driver's license or provide him 30 days in jail. There had been no accident. The youth's father had begged the judge that a fine be imposed in lieu of jail and his mother had likewise implored the judge not to sentence her boy to jail, asking for a suspended sentence. The judge said he would take it under submission and asked to see her and her husband the following day. The next day, he asked the parents whether, if he were to release their son, they would be willing to ride with him driving at 75 mph, to which the father said that they would not unless there were an emergency. The judge decided to sentence the youth to 15 days and release him to his father for the remaining 15. The writer believes that the judge had the right idea.
A letter writer responds to the editorial earlier in the week regarding lamb's lettuce, says that it was a European herb of the valerian family, naturalized in the U.S., was used as a salad and also was called corn salad, while lamb's quarter was a very common weed covered with whitish blooms, a pigweed, with both used as pot herbs.
The editors thank the woman for her definitive statement and indicate that they would leave lamb's lettuce to the seed catalogue and cultivate pigweed instead.
A letter writer from Pittsboro
responds to the letters regarding desegregation of the schools
appearing on January 16, says that God had ordered the "integrity
of the species", that all wild life reproduced after its kind,
with the exception of domestic animals, that man had the power to
think and was "as promiscuous in his sexual habits as the
animals he owns and controls", generally limited only by the
reactions of society. He says that in North Carolina the previous
year, there had been 10,000 illegitimate children born, which he
assumes represented only a negligible number of the promiscuous
sexual contacts, "the hasty and careless ones." He says
that the ratio of blacks to whites involved in the practice was 5 to
1, though he allows that it might represent degrees of care and
preventatives only and not contacts. He says there were hundreds of
thousands of illegitimate children in Germany fathered by American
soldiers, and twice as many in Japan. He indicates that while
boasting of being a Christian people, Americans acted like "domestic
animals in our sexual life." He thus was convinced that racial
barriers should be maintained and that animal husbandry and the
breeder's code should be taught in the high schools, colleges and
especially in the theological seminaries, that within two generations
of integrated schools in the South, they would have practically
complete amalgamation of the white and black races. "You just
can't mix the two like sardines
A letter writer from Clinton, S.C., urges the newspaper to give readers more editorials on interposition, finds it a breath of fresh air in a stale atmosphere.
Framed Edition
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