The Charlotte News
Friday, January 6, 1956
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the President's recommendation in his State of the Union message the previous day to Congress, that it set up a bipartisan commission to investigate alleged violations of civil rights of black people in the country, had run into opposition this date from Southern Democrats. Senator Harry F. Byrd of Virginia said that it was "very peculiar for the President to suggest that Congress set up a commission to investigate some acts which he apparently believes are against the law." Congressman Adam Clayton Powell of New York called the suggestion "sheer buck-passing", indicating that the Administration already had the power to investigate such violations. Senators James Eastland and John Stennis of Mississippi issued a joint statement saying that the proposal presented "just another aspect of the old Force Bill idea that has been a perennial in American politics for 50 years." They said that the Congress had no jurisdiction over the qualifications of electors and related matters, and that they would oppose the recommendation. Other Democratic Senators said privately that any attempt to pass such a bill would produce a filibuster. Former South Carolina Governor James Byrnes, who had supported the President in 1952, commented that the white people of the Southern states would "have to act in concert and with independence if they hoped to receive any consideration from either the Democratic Party or the Republican Party." He said that the Democrats, for some years, had outbid Republicans for the votes of blacks and that the President, in his message, had made it clear that he would outbid the Democrats for that vote, but that in his opinion, the President's effort in that regard would fail, but would be interesting to see how high he would bid and how the Democrats would bid before the ensuing November general election. (He seems to be playing on the fact that the President played bridge.)
Democrats also challenged the President on foreign policy requests, farm, tax and other major election-year issues which he had covered in the message. Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson said that the State of the Union and the world was not nearly so rosy as the President had represented, telling a press conference that the "political overtones" of the message were "the subject of deep disappointment and great regret" to those who had sought to cooperate with the Administration in the national interest. He said that most Americans knew that the domestic situation was not as rosy as it had been pictured and that the international situation was one of deep concern. He said that the Administration had become "frantic about the farm situation" and was rushing out a program to appeal to the voters, particularly in the Midwest. He also said that Republicans had been bragging for months about reduction of taxes by 7.5 billion dollars during a period of deficit spending.
In Richmond, Va., Senator Byrd
voiced a new appeal for support of a proposed State Constitutional
amendment to permit use of public funds for private education, a plan
which had come under attack from religious leaders. The plan would
provide for tuition grants for attendance at private schools as a
means of avoiding compulsory integration. Voters in Virginia would go
to the polls on Monday to determine whether a state convention should
be held on the amendment. Senator Byrd said in a radio address that
no leading educator had claimed that the proposal would destroy the
public school system, but new opposition had come from the Hampton
Roads Rabbinical Association, 28 Southwestern Diocese Episcopal
ministers, 47 Lynchburg ministers and the Harrisonburg Ministerial
Association. Representative William Tuck of Virginia said in a speech
at Farmville the previous night that the issue was whether the
citizens favored or opposed the mixing of the races. The editor of
the Baptist Religious Herald, Dr. Reuben Alley, said in an
editorial that it was "absurd" to say that a vote against
the amendment was a vote for integration. The editor of the Virginia
Methodist Advocate, Dr. George Reamey, asked what would become of
the many poor children whose parents could not afford to send them to
private schools. A national AFL-CIO official in Richmond told a
Bristol labor meeting that approval of the amendment could produce
increased juvenile delinquency and relaxation of child labor laws.
Colgate Darden, Jr.
Representative Thurmond Chatham of North Carolina said this date that he expected further discussion with Secretary of State Dulles regarding the Congressman's proposal to invite Russian Premier Nikolai Bulganin and Communist Party Secretary Nikita Khrushchev to the U.S. He told a reporter that he had not received any definite reaction thus far to his suggestion, which he had made the previous day. He said that there was some discussion of it at the previous day's executive session of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, of which he was a member, and afterward, between him, Secretary Dulles and others. He said, however, that Secretary Dulles did not seem too interested in the idea. He said he did not see what the harm would be, as the two leaders had gone to England and other countries, and he believed it would be a good idea for them to see what the U.S. had to offer and to let the free world know that they were invited visitors to the country. Representative James Richards of South Carolina, chairman of the Committee, was in South Carolina, and other members were not available for comment.
A copy editor for the New York Times, Robert Shelton, testifying before the Senate Internal Security subcommittee, refused to answer questions as to whether he was a Communist, and challenged the subcommittee's right to inquire about that question, contending that it violated his rights under the First Amendment and threatened freedom of the press. He refused to invoke the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination, but the chairman of the subcommittee, Senator Eastland, ordered him to answer the question or face contempt of the Senate. Mr. Shelton continued, however, to refuse to answer, emphasizing again that he was not invoking his Fifth Amendment privilege. It was the third and final day of the current series of public hearings regarding the subcommittee's hunt for Communist influences in the press and other media, with Senator Eastland indicating that there would be other hearings later. He commented at another point that a New York Times reporter, Clayton Knowles, had given the subcommittee information which he thought was "invaluable", some of it leading to "people who are in a state government," not elaborating. Senator Thomas Hennings of Missouri had prompted that statement by saying that he knew that all members of the subcommittee had concern about calling Mr. Knowles as a witness and suggested that in the future, the members be briefed in executive session before a witness was called in any case which might be doubtful, that the subcommittee should be sure that it did not do an injustice or cause "unnecessary humiliation and embarrassment" to anyone unless the testimony in question would provide new information and serve a useful purpose. He said that he believed no one would quarrel with the subcommittee's right to inquire into all efforts by the Communist Party to infiltrate the press or other means of communications, but that they had a duty to protect witnesses and the purposes of the inquiry. At the beginning of the hearing this date, Senator Eastland had read a telegram received from Edward Gottlieb, managing editor of the New York Daily Press, saying that the newspaper was in accord with the committee in its efforts to expose Communist infiltration wherever found, and welcomed any revelations bearing on the local scene.
Mr. Shelton would be indicted, tried and convicted for contempt of Congress for his refusal to answer the questions as to whether he was a member of the Communist Party and whether he ever had a conversation with a certain individual, his first conviction, however, to be eventually overturned on appeal in 1962 by the Supreme Court for a defective indictment under Federal statute for failing to state the limited subject under inquiry when the questions were posed at the time of the refusal to answer, and his second conviction, after retrial, reversed by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in 1963 on the ground that the original subpoena was not issued by the subcommittee, itself, save as a purely pro forma ministerial act, but rather at the sole instance of subcommittee counsel Julian Sourwine—a strong ally of Senator McCarthy, as recently pointed out by Drew Pearson—, and that therefore the subcomittee had not exercised its sound discretion as to whether the witness was necessary to the legislative purpose of the hearings, as required by Federal statute. As the failure of the subcommittee in issuance of the subpoena was irremediable, there could be no retrial. The D.C. Circuit Court sidestepped the Constitutional issues raised by Mr. Shelton as unnecessary to the determination.
Perhaps Mr. Sourwine, who had subpoenaed another man named Shelton, was actually seeking out another Robert Shelton
In Chicago, a judge had subpoenaed four local newspaper reporters in the trial of a former lawyer for Al Capone, to forestall possible questions subsequently about the jury being prejudiced by news stories about the case. Abraham Teitelbaum, the former counsel for Scarface, was on trial in Federal District Court on charges of evading $135,000 in income taxes in 1946 and 1947. One person in the jury venire had said in response to questioning that he had read articles about the defendant and was afraid he could not give him a fair trial. The previous day, the judge ordered subpoenas for the four reporters assigned to the Federal Building, explaining that he wanted the jurors to have the facts about the origin of material in the newspaper stories so that the defense later could not reasonably raise any question about the jury being prejudiced by those stories. A reporter for the Chicago Tribune had declined the subpoena on the advice of the newspaper but testified voluntarily, while the others accepted the subpoenas, saying that they doubted they would be called to testify. The reporter for the Tribune, Stephen Tooley, said that Tribune articles were based on the indictment and statements by Government prosecutors. Another of the reporters, from the Chicago American, said that it was a first for newspaper reporters to be called to testify in such manner and that it was meant to show the jury that newspaper stories, while true, were not evidence. The judge had said that a time was coming when something would be done about the trial of cases in newspapers. The judge also said that during the trial, he would ask periodically if newspaper stories were prejudicing the jurors, and that if any of them indicated in the affirmative, he would call the authors of the stories to testify as to their sources.
In Greensboro, N.C., three prisoners had escaped from the Guilford County jail in the wee hours of the morning this date, after they sawed through the bars of their cell and tied up the jailer, then took the courthouse elevator to the second floor. Two of the men were Federal prisoners, one awaiting trial for alleged Dyer Act violations and another having been sentenced to three years in prison the previous month under the same law, making it a Federal crime to transport stolen cars across state lines. The third man was awaiting trial in Guilford Superior Court on approximately a dozen charges of forgery, as well as facing potential revocation of probation which would subject him to as much as six years in prison. While the men were escaping from the second floor, they encountered a man whom they threatened to beat up if he reported them, but as soon as they disappeared, he called police to inform of the jailbreak.
Julian Scheer of The News reports on the impact to Charlotte residents of the increase in rates on extended coverage insurance, indicating that it would be strongly felt by virtually every homeowner in the city who had such insurance, as well as owners of commercial buildings. He indicates that most mortgages had a requirement for extended coverage and so very few homeowners would escape the increase. Local agents had informed that very little had been paid out on extended coverage for wind events, falling aircraft, water, smoke, etc. The present rate for extended coverage was eight cents per $100 of the amount covered, whereas in the 18 counties along the coast of the state, the rate was fourteen cents. The proposed 100 percent increase would raise the local rate to sixteen cents. The requested increase had been made by the North Carolina Fire Insurance Rating Bureau, to which every company writing fire and related insurance had to belong, and it was estimated that granting the request would add some 3.8 million dollars to premium bills paid by policyholders in the state.
In San Antonio, Tex., a post office clerk presented the San Pedro library a stamp map of the United States, illustrated with more than 100 stamps commemorating historical events and famous men. That's all there is… You obviously do not have to be too important or do too much to make the front page these days of a major city newspaper.
In Dallas, Tex., a man whose wife had walked out on him on Christmas Day, taking their four children with her, along with a 24-pound turkey and one of his shoes belonging to his only pair, had reported the matter to the Justice of the Peace initially, but then the previous day, had called again to report that a woman had pitched the shoe back through a window and announced that she was not coming back, and that it was definitely his wife. That is all there is to that one, too.
A caption to a photograph out of Chicago answers
the question we had previously, left unanswered by the story on the
topic, regarding the December 26 surgery for removal of the kneecap
of the son of Adlai Stevenson, with the caption explaining that he
had suffered his injury in a December 21 automobile accident—not
at the hands, as we speculated, of some hireling of a Scarface-type,
possibly confusing Mr. Stevenson with Senator Estes Kefauver in his
previous investigations, before a national television audience, of
organized crime. But then the question arises as to how the
automobile accident occurred, and whether it was actually an
"accident" or something planned by the heirs of the
Scarface empire. Probably not, but you can never be too sure about
goons and their mental state
On the editorial page, "The Union: A State of Frustration" comments on the President's State of the Union message read to the Congress the previous day by clerks because of the President's continued convalescence from his September 24 heart attack, finding that he had outlined a political landscape "streaked with sunlight and shadow". He had said that the country's outlook was "bright with promise", while at the same time telling of world responsibilities which were perilous and complex. It finds that overall, the program he had outlined showed no great departure from policies of the recent past.
In foreign affairs, the emphasis remained on building up strength and unity of the free world. In domestic policies, the President had echoed his familiar middle-of-the-road goals, some of which were echoing the Fair Deal of former President Truman, while those were coupled with rhetorical concessions to the Republican right wing. He had referenced his assurance that the budget for the current fiscal year and the following one would be balanced.
It finds that the only difference from previous messages was largely in emphasis and method. For instance, in asking again for Federal highway construction funding, the President had suggested only "an adequate plan of financing", rather than insisting on the long-term borrowing which had been rejected by Democrats the prior year.
In foreign policy, he had sought an increased aid program and asked Congress "to grant limited authority to make longer-term commitments for assistance to such projects, to be fulfilled from appropriations in future fiscal years."
It finds that 1956 would pose a severe test of the President's leadership, as many Republicans in Congress had different ideas from him on what constituted an election-year Republican program, with many of them thinking of sectional interests and their own seats first, of allegiance to the President second, particularly if they believed he was not going to stand for re-election.
It posits that every reasonable effort ought be made to balance the budget, but that certain tax revisions should also be considered, particularly regarding small businesses and lower income groups, with favor given to the President's plea for a more enlightened program of economic assistance to the rest of the free world. It ventures that Congress should not authorize additional Federal aid to education, but that the Administration's health reinsurance plan deserved wide support. Defense expenditures, it suggests, ought be revised, with greater emphasis on missile development and research, and that improvements were still needed in the military reserve system. Farm policy ought be scrutinized again, but it doubts that any action would take place during the year above and beyond the call of politics. The Taft-Hartley Act ought be amended and vast improvements were needed in the immigration policy and in the internal security program. A Federal highway program was needed, but it was no time for expansion of the public housing program. It disfavors the renewed attempt by Senator John W. Bricker to have the Congress send to the states a Constitutional amendment regarding the treaty-making powers, to limit the President's ability in that area.
It suggests that there would be many other issues, given that it was an election year, and that the column would take them up as they arose. It predicts that there would be many great frustrations for everyone, the President, Republicans, Democrats, and the ordinary citizens. It suggests that all concerned would have to grin and bear it until the general election in November.
"Leave Legal Matters to Legal Minds" finds that the President's proposal to Congress to establish a bipartisan commission to investigate charges that black citizens were being denied the right to vote and other civil rights in some localities was touching, but unnecessary.
It finds that if the conditions described by the President, which included reports of application of financial pressure to coerce citizens not to vote or exercise their other civil rights, then the Government was well equipped to cope with that problem through the Department of Justice, and that it was not necessary to place legal matters in a political realm, finding that a commission, no matter how bipartisan, would merely offer a stage for "loud and lusty arguments". It concludes that where simple justice was desired, judicial processes were the best means to achieve them.
"The ABC: A Pot-and-Kettle Case" tells of the State ABC Board, which had fired the supervisor of Beaufort County's ABC stores, despite the man having an excellent reputation with various functionaries in law enforcement in that area, and having claimed that politics had been behind his ouster, had dropped his threat to fight the matter in court. The Board had charged that he had bucked Board policy and regulations and had failed to cooperate with State and local officers.
It finds that there was a pot-and-kettle aspect to the matter which should not go unnoticed by Governor Luther Hodges, who alternately appeared full of confidence and full of doubt about the competence of the Board. When the supervisor in question had charged the ABC Board chairman with "gallivanting around the country at the expense of liquor companies", the chairman had denied the claim, but said that he and the Board auditor had gone to New York at the expense of a liquor firm to discuss business matters with that firm's officers.
It suggests that if the supervisor had the wrong "concept" of ABC laws, as the Board had charged, the Board also had a foggy notion about government ethics, as it finds there would be no proper reason for any State official to accept money from a company whose operations the official was charged with supervising, and thus there was no justification for the trip to New York. It finds that the Board needed a sensible personnel policy and that the current case applied to the Board chairman as well.
A piece from the Chattanooga News-Free Press, titled "'I'm Governor Stratton'", tells of Illinois Governor William Stratton having received a lesson from a 98-year old resident of a home for the aged in Chester, Ill., that after being introduced to her, according to the Associated Press, he had apparently thought she did not hear very well and said to her: "I'm very happy to meet you. I'm Governor Stratton." After he had repeated the statement several times, the woman inquired, "Well, what about it?"
It indicates that for all it knew, Governor Stratton might be a modest man and perhaps did not need the lesson that public officials were not gods or supermen, but suggests that a great number of public officials did need very badly such a lesson. It urges that public officials were entitled to reasonable respect and honor, provided they performed their duties properly. But with the tremendous growth of officialdom in the country in recent years, there had been a growth of official opinion bloating their own importance, finding that many officials considered themselves to be of a special, superior and privileged class, seeking to make themselves so by custom and law.
It concludes that it would be good for many "pompous officials" to be introduced to someone like the elderly woman in Chester and to be asked the same question she had posed to Governor Stratton.
Drew Pearson tells of Brooklyn Congressman Victor Anfuso being a city boy who did not know a silo from a threshing machine, but was nevertheless a member of the House Agricultural Committee. He had just returned from Rome, where he and Representative Clifford Hope of Kansas had served as official delegates to the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization, charged with making sure the world's population was fed. Despite the U.S. having substantial food surpluses, the fact was that most of the rest of the world was painfully short of calories, with conditions growing worse as 100,000 new births occurred every day.
Mr. Anfuso, nevertheless, had found strong opposition to the U.S. "dumping" food on the world market, whether as charity or at low cost. He said that poor countries did not want it because they were too proud, and other food-surplus countries had also objected for its threat of wrecking their markets. In his meeting with delegates from 71 countries, he had made no progress in unloading the U.S. surplus. He said that FAO was seeking to develop the purchasing power of the undeveloped countries, which enabled them to become buyers on the world market, that if they could be helped to conquer their hunger issues, then there would be no place for Communism in the world. Mr. Pearson notes that it was Mr. Anfuso's second trip abroad since the adjournment of Congress the prior August, having toured Europe to inspect NATO the prior September.
The Congressional Quarterly tells of the Democrats likely to gain in 1956 as many governorships as the Republicans, with each party having 15 such positions standing for election. A Quarterly survey of the 30 states showed that Democrats were likely to win nine Republican-held governorships and Republicans likely to win four held by Democrats.
Five of the Republican spots in danger were in the Midwest, where declining farm income was worrying both parties, in Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, Kansas and Wisconsin. Democrats could also pick up Republican governorships in Delaware, Massachusetts, Montana and Utah.
Republicans stood to gain governorships in Colorado, Maine, Minnesota and West Virginia.
Democrats were expected to retain their governorships in Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Rhode Island and Texas. Republicans were expected to retain seats in Nebraska, New Hampshire, North and South Dakota, Vermont and Washington.
Democrats had been adding governorships since 1953. Following the 1952 elections, Republicans had held 30 governorships and Democrats, 18. Democrats had added New Jersey in 1953, and Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Maine, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York and Pennsylvania in 1954, for their current 27 governorships, to the Republicans' 21.
At the 1952 Republican convention, there had been 25 states with Republican governors, comprising 249 electoral votes, whereas at the 1956 convention, there would be 21 such states with 184 electoral votes. The Democrats, at their 1952 convention, controlled 23 governorships, comprising 278 electoral votes, and in the 1956 convention, would have 27 states, with 347 electoral votes.
The last elections held in the 30 states holding elections in 1956 had resulted in 16 candidates having won by less than 55 percent, with Republicans presently holding nine of those 16 marginal states. In some of those states, the margins in 1956 would not be as close as the 1952 percentages indicated, the piece providing detail of why that was.
A letter writer recommends an investigation of the City Health Department and that it be relocated from "that swamp over at Memorial Hospital, where it is unhandy to get to," suggesting some alternative locations. He indicates that the city had a first-rate health officer and needed a health department to match.
A letter writer from Myrtle Beach, S. C., tells of an article in the current issue of Collier's, titled "What's Wrong with the Weather Bureau?" says that there could only be one answer, nothing. The article told of hurricanes and how easy they were to chart and determine what they would do, but the letter writer contradicts that assertion. He says that in 1955, the Weather Bureau had received a terrible warning in Princeton, N.J., and then did nothing, but that the people in northern South Carolina and in North Carolina, especially around Onslow Bay, knew that the Bureau had done its job well in predicting the path of the hurricanes. The same story had not mentioned the work done in charting Hurricane Hazel in October, 1954, and the fact that the Weather Bureau and the letter writer had charted it for 20 hours to a spot within ten miles of where it had hit, indicating that the warning services in South Carolina had held the loss of life in that state to zero and that over 35,000 people had been warned enough to flee to safer spots, that the losses of life in North Carolina had been the result of lack of bridges and stubborn people. He says that the head of the Weather Bureau in Wilmington had never had much doubt about what was going to happen during any hurricane in recent years, that every five hours they charted the exact last known position of hurricanes and that all the Bureau was able to do was to warn people possibly affected by it that a disaster was impending. He suggests that the professor who had criticized the Bureau in the Collier's piece could not do as well. He says that he had assisted the News staff during hurricane watches and understood that charting of hurricanes and other storms was in its infancy and that those interested in working hard at their job at the newspaper understood that. He believes criticism ought instead be directed to the politicians who were spending money for hurricane repairs, doing "the usual boondoggling and wasting of money." He says that scraping up piles of sand along the coast was a foolish waste of money, that he had observed Hurricane Ione the prior September remove such piles of sand from the beach in the space of two hours. He stresses that the Bureau could not control flood conditions, as had hit New England. He concludes that the Weather Bureau needed more money for its work, not the criticism of a writer and a professor, that what was in a book and what was blowing down one's neck were vastly different things, believing that the author of the piece and the professor had done injury to thousands of people like himself who served the public without compensation. He lists himself as "displayman in charge" at the U.S. Hurricane Warning Service.
He had also written numerous letters
in favor of maintenance of segregation and criticizing efforts to
integrate as Communist-inspired. Thus, hopefully, he was better at
storm-watching than he was at society-watching
A letter writer urges as New Year's resolutions living a more Christian life, refraining from drinking and cursing, ensuring that a person would be happier in that event. She says that many of those living would not see 1957 and that everyone's life was in God's hand, that if on a person's last day on earth, there was nothing between that person and God, the person would spend eternity in Heaven, but that no one could fool God, that he knew what each did and would forgive or not each person.
A letter from a couple says that the Park and Recreation Commission would meet on January 9 to decide its policy regarding segregation in the parks, swimming pools and golf courses of the city, and that if they permitted integration, there was no order by a court forcing them to do so. They think that the Commission should take a stand with the white people who paid for the facilities in question. "There are reasons too numerous to mention why we white people want to keep parks, schools and races segregated, and we vigorously object to anyone permitting integration to take place."
The editors note that the Commission had announced the previous day that it had not made a decision on the issue and that it would be premature to do so with cases still pending in the courts.
A letter writer from Zirconia says
that a previous letter writer—presumably referencing this letter—had "a yardstick all her own to
measure the Negro race." This writer thinks that it was hard
enough to judge an individual, let alone a race and thanks goodness
that there was "a divine yardstick which takes nothing into
account but the goodness in the hearts of men, whether or not they
have outdoor plumbing or whether they are white or black." She
believes that the black people were aware of that fact or they would
not have the patience they had displayed in the face of humiliation.
"When and if this superior white lady goes to heaven she may
have to enter by the back door in order to avoid associating with
Negroes, for the 'pearly gates' will not be marked 'white' and
'colored.'" She says that it had not been so long since the idea
of a female lawyer or Senator had seemed like heresy, that every year
progress was being made in some way toward the emancipation of the
oppressed. She views it as all the more cruel for a woman "to
keep her superior southern white foot on the Negro, considering that
women themselves have only recently emerged from 'niggerhood'
Epiphany for 1956 and 2023: There's a lot of trouble in the world, always has been and always will be, but some of it gets resolved in time, even on just terms occasionally, as long as everyone remains reasonably level-headed and approaches the task with good will and the interests of all in mind, including Lassie, Missy, Fannie Kemble and Tiny Tim.
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