The Charlotte News
Saturday, January 7, 1956
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from Richmond, Va., that an estimated 500,000 Virginians would go to the polls the following Monday to vote on holding a state convention on a State Constitutional amendment to continue racial segregation in the schools by means of supplying State funding for private tuition grants to parents who would send their children to private schools rather than an integrated public school, something which was currently forbidden by the State Constitution. The proponents of the amendment stated that the change was essential to prevent mixing of the races in the schools, while the opponents believed the plan unworkable and destructive of the public schools. The powerful Democratic organization headed by Senator Harry F. Byrd had put on a crash campaign in recent weeks favoring the amendment, and most politicians in and out of office in the state and virtually all school officials who had spoken on the matter, plus nearly all of the newspapers within the state, favored the change, contending that it would free the hands of the Legislature to deal with the problem of integration of the schools, as required by the Brown v. Board of Education decisions of 1954 and 1955, the latter requiring desegregation "with all deliberate speed", Virginia having been one of the four states involved directly in the decision, along with the District of Columbia. Opposition had come from a large number of church groups, a few liberal politicians, some intellectuals and labor leaders, on the basis that it would lead to the downfall of the school system in the state. This date, a statewide AFL-CIO committee had denounced the proposal as a "deliberate plot to have the people of the state pay for part of the private education of the wealthy." Governor Thomas Stanley, delivering a major address broadcast the previous night, contended, however, that poorer pupils would receive the greatest benefit under the plan. The leading Republican in the state, State Senator Ted Dalton, who had received an unprecedented 42 percent of the vote against Mr. Stanley in the gubernatorial race in 1953, had stated his opposition to the change the previous day, saying that it was a futile plan which would lead to "confusion and chaos". Though indicating that he opposed integration, he had been the only State Senator to vote against the proposal the previous month in the Legislature.
In Key West, Fla., the President would hold his first informal press conference the following day since his September 24 heart attack, though it remained uncertain whether he would talk about his plans to run for a second term. White House press secretary James Hagerty told newsmen this date that the President had volunteered to report to them on the state of his health, on how he enjoyed his Florida visit and regarding his work plans for the immediate future. He said that no questions from the press would be barred, including whether the President was planning to seek re-election, but added that he doubted the President would answer all of their questions. The President would return to Washington the following day shortly after the press conference. It would be his first press conference since August 4, when Congress had adjourned its session.
Senator Mike Mansfield of Montana, a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, in an interview this date, called for a daily assessment of American foreign policy to enable the country to counter promptly Russian cold war thrusts, criticizing current foreign policy as being too rigid, counseling flexibility to meet situations as they arose, thus requiring a daily assessment. He said that in light of the present Russian strategy, some of the old ideas inherited from previous Democratic Administrations, and continued by the current Administration, might have outlived their usefulness, suggesting that the "containment policy", initiated during the Truman Administration, had been "extremely effective in bygone years", but that its potency had "lessened considerably" as the Soviets had begun "leapfrog jumping" over the containment line and "penetrating into forward or exposed areas", such as the Middle East, South Asia and Africa. The Senator had spoken after Secretary of State Dulles had briefed the Committee on the world outlook the previous day in a 2.5-hour executive session. Republican members of the Committee said that the Secretary showed little discouragement regarding Russia's hardening attitude since the Geneva Big Four foreign ministers meeting in late October through mid-November, following the positive attitude which had developed at the Big Four summit conference the prior July. The Republican members said that the Secretary indicated that the Russian tactics had not come as a surprise.
In Taipeh, Formosa, Air Force Secretary Donald Quarles this date hinted that the American-made Thunderjets of the Chinese Nationalist Air Force might be armed with atomic bombs should a new war erupt in the Far East.
In Bombay, India, it was reported that Malaya would proclaim its independence on August 31, 1957, according to the chief minister of the rubber and tin-rich British protectorate, making the disclosure while en route to London to negotiate for independence.
In Memphis, the Memphis Commercial Appeal reported this date that the forces of Tennessee Governor Frank Clement would challenge supporters of Senator Estes Kefauver to a "showdown fight" for control of the 32-member Tennessee delegation to the Democratic convention the following August.
In Portland, Ore., it was reported that new flood threats had developed this date, as more rain was forecast on top of nearly week-long rains, one of the wettest first weeks of any year on record, with rain averaging an inch per day in Portland and slides destroying some homes and clogging some streets.
In Rochester, N.Y., the 20-year old niece of an aide to Governor Averell Harriman had disappeared this date, only hours before her scheduled wedding, police having initiated a search for a young man whom she knew. Probably that Benjamin Braniff again. Be on the lookout for a pink and white 1955 Alfa Romeo, just in from Portland.
In Raleigh, a survey covering 39 of the state's 174 county and city school units indicated that advisory committees set up locally regarding school segregation had done little beyond studying the problem. Some 17 of the units had set up special advisory groups and 14 had not, with the other eight having the local school board, or at least part thereof, constituted as a study group. Many of the special committees included black members and, in some instances, there were blacks among the school board members. In some situations, the committees had been appointed but had never met, and in others, they had met and organized, while still others had begun studying the issues, with only a few, however, having made concrete recommendations. The previous week, the special counsel and executive for the State Advisory Committee on Education had written to the school superintendents suggesting that work of the local advisory groups be discontinued temporarily until the Committee could make recommendations on pupil assignments for the local school boards to consider. The 1955 Legislature had delegated to the local school boards pupil assignment. The chairman of the State committee contended that in one instance, a local committee had "usurped" authority of a local school board and that in other cases, local school boards were passing to the advisory committees matters which were their own responsibility. In Forsyth County, the locus of Winston-Salem, the 21-member advisory committee's first action had been to recommend retention of present assignment policies for the 1955-56 school year, with one of four black members voting against that action. A committee had also been named to develop a questionnaire on the segregation issue, and the Forsyth County Board of Education had voted to retain its committee. The most dramatic developments revealed by the survey had been in Lexington, where a 15-member advisory committee made recommendations which resulted in a major problem, as some of the committee's white members had joined its five black members in approving three recommendations to the Davidson County School Board—continued on an inside page.
In Charlotte, the Charlotte Association of Insurance Agents had gone on record this date in opposition to the proposed changes to extended insurance coverage, which had been sought by the North Carolina Fire Insurance Rating Bureau, changes which, among other things, would double the rate for Charlotte and Mecklenburg residents from eight cents per hundred dollars of coverage to 16 cents. The Association said that they opposed the mandatory $50 deductible clause, the blanket rate increase, and the radio-television antenna change which would eliminate coverage for same, though not opposed to the elimination of wind storm coverage for antennas, provided the coverage was available by endorsement for a specific premium, which would be reasonable and not excessive. We demand that our antennas, when they get blowed down in the storm, be covered and fairly, or else we just won't listen to the radio or watch the television, and you rich people'll lose all yer money.
Julian Scheer of The News tells of the last outbuilding of the famous William Fulenwider Phifer home, having been razed on E. 11th Street, having been an office for the owner and overseer, behind the main house which had long since disappeared. It had been in the main house, on a site presently occupied by Sears, that the last full Confederate cabinet meeting had been held in April, 1865, as the last of the Confederate Government skedaddled south from Richmond, with Jefferson Davis, Judah Benjamin and others in attendance. The present owner of the property had given the order to begin demolition during the week, and only a few local residents had taken notice as the work crew had torn down the small brick building. The Phifer estate had been one of the most impressive in the state, with the couple who owned it having left the Cabarrus plantation in 1852 and come to Charlotte where they started building on a 4,000-acre tract. The main house had faced what was presently Tryon Street, and behind the home had been a courtyard with several outbuildings, including carriage houses, servant quarters, and the office building which had been razed during the week. There had also been barns and other buildings, including a blacksmith shop. The bricks used in the building had been made on the property, the timbers, cut and hewn from the property, and the nails forged in the blacksmith shop. When the main home, the last structure to have been built on the land, was finished, it became a center of Charlotte social life. On May 20, 1875, the centennial of the putative signing of the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence, the home had been the scene of one of the city's most lavish parties. "Charlotte Russe" was a favorite dessert in the family, made from a recipe obtained by Mrs. Phifer's brother from the chef of an old Charleston hotel. (Sounds Commie.) At present the only reminders of the Phifer land were a few ancient magnolia trees, 12 having been originally planted to represent the 12 disciples, and now there were only five remaining. Guess the other seven disciples had departed the scene sometime earlier.
Jim Scotton of The News
reports that lots of little pigs were going to market at present and
that Charlotte housewives were meeting them at the counter, where
pork prices were at their lowest mark in five years, as thousands of
hogs, fattened on the previous year's bumper corn crop, were now
glutting the market. Typical prices for roasts were between
25 and 29 cents per pound, compared to 39 to 43 cents a year earlier,
with the current price having prevailed last in January, 1945. Pork
chops were as low as 33 cents per pound, whereas a year earlier they
had been selling at 50 cents and in January, 1951, at 63 cents. Bacon
prices always varied by the quality, but one supermarket manager said
that some brands were at their lowest prices in a decade, starting at
about 33 cents per pound, compared to 47 cents a year earlier, and 35
cents ten years earlier. And he continues down the list of
comparative prices of pig produce, quoting a meat manager at a local
A&P store that they could not keep the cases filled up fast
enough for consumers, with roasts nearly sold out and even pigs' feet
sailing out the doors at an unusually brisk pace. He said that the
quality of the pork being sold at the low prices was as good as he
had ever seen it. At least one customer had passed a huge pork
display in one market the previous night without elation, saying that
the prices were all right, but wondering what a fellow did when his
wife wanted to save money on pork and he wanted a plain, ordinarily
expensive steak
In Charlotte, resistance to a "no parking" restriction on a 12-block stretch of Providence Road appeared to be gaining strength, as the "no" in the "no parking" sign put up by the City had been covered, and a "free parking" sign tacked underneath the prohibitive sign in front of one business. The operator of that business said that he had received permission from police authorities to continue parking in front of his store until the following Wednesday. A formal protest of the parking ban was expected to be placed before the City Council the following week.
On the editorial page, "The Sly Art of Political Reprisal" indicates that the transparent efforts by Congressional watchdogs to undermine the highly respected New York Times had revived a form of political vigilantism better left dormant.
It recognizes as a right the efforts of the Senate Internal Security subcommittee, chaired by Senator James Eastland of Mississippi, to investigate possible Communist infiltration of newspapers, radio and television outlets, but urges that they also had an obligation to the public to confine their investigations to rational and appropriate limits. It finds that in the post-McCarthy era, it was beneath the dignity of the Senate to have one of its members use his office and authority to carry on a personal spite campaign against a venerable institution such as the Times.
It finds little doubt that Senator
Eastland and the subcommittee's chief counsel, Julian Sourwine, had
it in for the Times, indicating that in various ways, often by
"sly innuendo—they have made this fact perfectly clear
It posits that the reason for the subcommittee's attack on the Times was not any mystery, that it could be traced directly to the vigor with which the newspaper had opposed McCarthyism and segregation, as well as other such causes. It was a form of political reprisal which even those sympathetic to the efforts of the subcommittee recognized, citing as such an instance, an editorial by New York Daily News columnist John O'Donnell, who said that the investigation had as its background frequent charges that news reports of the early hearings, held by the late Senator Pat McCarran of Nevada and the later hearings by Senator McCarthy, had given "a false emphasis and twisted interpretation..."
It finds that the Times was defending itself eloquently and could be proud of its record of performance as the nation's leading independent daily newspaper, with high standards of accuracy and objectivity and exertion of a great and conscientious effort to live by those standards.
It suggests that the danger of the subcommittee was not to the Times, alone, but to every American who depended on a free press, independent of political control or intimidation. Alan Barth of the editorial staff of the Washington Post & Times Herald had stated it wisely when he said that the First Amendment provided for freedom of the press because its authors had desired that the press serve as one of the elements in the system of checks and balances on the Government, to keep the Government within proper bounds, and that only a genuinely independent press, "free from governmental censure or reprisal, whether by investigation or legislation—can discharge this vital function."
As indicated in conjunction with the front page story the previous day on the subcommittee's last hearing in the current series, Robert Shelton, copy editor for the Times, whom Senator Eastland had referred to the Justice Department for recommended prosecution for contempt of Congress for refusing to answer whether he was a member of the Communist Party on the ground of the First Amendment, Mr. Shelton expressly having declined to assert the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination, would be subsequently indicted, tried and convicted, only to have his conviction reversed initially in 1962 by the Supreme Court, as part of a group of such defendant-petitioners, on the ground of defective indictments not stating the statutorily required specific subject matter of inquiry at the time of the questioning eliciting the refusal to answer, and then, after retrial and conviction again, having his conviction finally reversed in 1963 by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals on the ground that the original subpoena had not been issued pursuant to the exercise of discretion by the subcommittee, as required by Federal statute, but rather solely at the behest of Mr. Sourwine, rendering as a consequence the entire proceeding against him void for want of proper process, sidestepping the Constitutional issues raised by Mr. Shelton as unnecessary to the decision.
Regarding the above-referenced piece by Mr. O'Donnell of the Daily News, the first clue to his lack of understanding of the legal issues at stake regarding a free press might be discerned from his consistent misspelling of the word "subpoena" as "subpena
"A Fine, Clear Day at City Hall" tells of the City engineer having laid to rest the previous day a rumor about the trees on Kings Drive and the plans to widen that street, indicating that the city did have plans to widen it, but that they would not cut down all of the trees lining it, only perhaps three, two of which were small.
It finds it comforting candor, as nothing could keep all predators away from trees. It would also exempt birds, mistletoe, July flies, dogs, butterflies and small children who swung one-handed from around their trunks. "But bulldozers should have to crush a steel wall of official resistance before they get their snouts next to even the runtiest sapling. They can have only three, and two of them small." It offers a few hats in the air for the City engineer, a "nobleman of nature".
"Close the Door to Kremlin Team" finds a poor suggestion to have been made by North Carolina Congressman Thurmond Chatham, that Russian Premier Nikolai Bulganin and Communist Party Secretary Nikita Khrushchev be invited by Secretary Dulles to visit the U.S., on the basis that it would be good for them to see what the country had to offer and good for the U.S. to let the free world know that the country was willing to have them as visitors.
It thinks it good to try to argue some sense into "international cutthroats" at a conference table, but that asking them to dinner after they had been saying scandalous things abroad the world regarding the U.S. and its allies was another matter. It urges using the country's hospitality to bring its allies closer, as there were plenty of free world leaders who had never been to Washington, including those of Japan, which had provided the cherry trees for Washington springs, and now served as the root of the country's Pacific defense arc.
It also finds that it might be disastrous for everyone behind the Iron Curtain for the Russian leaders to see what the country had to offer, wondering what Mr. Khrushchev's reaction would be to hearing a Senator telling off the President or a citizen telling off a Senator or the newspaper taking issue with Mr. Chatham. "Probably an even more brutish intention to see that all the people he controls and schemes to control will never know the light or taste of such freedom."
"The Orders and Absence of Calendars" tells of calendar makers being busy with a record number of orders for 1957 calendars, suggesting that American firms which placed the orders felt pretty bullish about business prospects for that year, as calendars were usually advertising media and advertising budgets rose or fell based on the economy.
Brown & Bigelow of St. Paul, Minn., which published about 60 million calendars per year, said that early 1957 orders indicated optimism by big and small firms alike, not reflected even by some government economists.
It finds it pleasing but also increasing wonderment over the absence of a 1956 calendar in the writer's home, despite being on the mailing lists of dairies, mortuaries, loan firms, service stations, etc. So it finds that if calendars really were reliable indicators of business optimism, the people with whom the writer did business must have thought that 1956 would be a "soup-kitchen-and-bread-line year."
Horace Horse, writing in the Stanley News & Press, in a piece titled "When Breakfast Was Breakfast", says that men were not the men they once had been, now taking too many baths, shaving too often and eating humming bird breakfasts. In the old days, breakfast was what it was supposed to be, breaking a fast which had continued for more than 12 hours, which could not be done on a "tomtit menu". The first item would be a bowl of steaming oatmeal, covered with sugar, butter and thick cream, followed by a slab of ham and at least two eggs, with a plate of fried sweet potatoes on the table as well as a bowl of fried corn, with hot biscuits of goodly proportions and coffee by Arbuckles, "so strong that the teaspoon was reluctant to sink into it." When one finished, one was ready to go out and conquer the world. (Mr. Horse would probably have to venture up to the Daniel Boone Inn in Boone, perhaps utilizing polo ponies to get there, to get that cuisine nowadays on a winter morn.)
But now, breakfast consisted of a small glass of orange juice which was frozen months earlier, an egg from small-sized white hens, usually poached or gently scrambled, a piece of thin toast, and some instant coffee.
He concludes that it was no wonder
that mankind was not greatly concerned over hydrogen bombs. "It
ain't hardly worthwhile no way
Drew Pearson tells of having gone to Providence Hospital in Washington recently and done a telecast from inside an iron lung, believing that it might be a good way to sneak in a few hours of rest. But after the experience, he admitted that he never wanted to get out of a tight spot so much in his life, having found himself locked in with an airtight pad around his neck, his head out in the free world but his body a prisoner and his hands unable to touch his head or even scratch his nose. "You can see the world around you through a mirror, but you can't see your feet, arms, any part of you… It's as if your head were completely severed from your body… A body that breathes whether you want it to or not… Breathes in quick intakes or long intakes according to how your nurse adjusts the speed of the bellows at the end of the lung." He found that the iron lung was therefore the boss, and finally, once submitting to that condition, had gotten over the initial stages of claustrophobia and settled down to several hours of conversation with a nearby patient, discussing with a woman how to live in an iron lung and its importance in the present battle against polio.
He indicates that he supposed that his colleagues would kid him about a newspaper stunt and admits that it might be so classified. But it had come about when he reported what most people did not then know, that Basil O'Connor, president of the Infantile Paralysis Foundation, had borrowed nine million dollars to finance the manufacture of the Salk vaccine the previous winter so that American children could have it a year early. He now had to pay back the money and to help do so, Mr. Pearson had agreed to become chairman of the Iron Lung Day to help raise money for the March of Dimes and to help put an iron lung in every community. He says that one could not be chairman of such a drive until having spent some time in such a contraption, and thus he had done the telecast while laying on his back listening to the eerie pounding of the air entering the lung, compressing and expanding his own lung, "swish-suck, swish-suck, in and out, as your chest goes up and down."
He says that despite the miracle of the Salk vaccine, one tragedy regarding polio was that the proportion of adult polio was actually increasing, reminding that FDR had been stricken at the age of 39 in the summer of 1921, and that since 1944, adult polio had increased by 25 percent. Yet, it would be another five years before there would be enough of the Salk vaccine to treat adults. The type which usually struck adults was bulbar polio, causing paralysis of the chest, requiring an iron lung immediately and constantly. Without the device, the patient would die within just a minute or two, and so the claustrophobic experience was a necessity for life to the polio patient.
He concludes by indicating that iron lungs were expensive, costing $1,650 and another $1,500 in potential attachments, that a portable chest respirator to permit the patient to go from one hospital to another or one room to another, cost between $1,550 and $1,740, that a rocking hospital bed to coax the patient's chest back into the habit of breathing after being in the lung for a couple of months, cost another $775.
Joseph & Stewart Alsop tell of the U.S. Strategic Air Command soon to be measurably weaker than the Soviet counterpart, the strategic air army of the Red Air Force, an inescapable conclusion from the Government's own intelligence forecasts, as approved by the National Security Council.
The Alsops had reported in their previous column the contrast between the Soviet and American rates of production of advanced aircraft types, disturbing enough, but the really disturbing feature of the present situation, they assert, was the way those production rates would inevitably change the balance of air-atomic power. They posit that within about two years, the Soviet strategic air army would consist of somewhere between 600 and 800 long-range "Bisons" and between 800 and 1,000 medium-range "Badgers". Those manned aircraft would be supplemented by medium-range ballistic missiles, being turned out by the Soviets in quantity and capable of reaching any European target.
By contrast, the U.S. Strategic Air Command would retain its existing 1,500 medium-range B-47's, with the only improvement to be made in its 11 long-range groups, which had a total complement of no more than 330 aircraft. In those obsolete groups, obsolete B-36's were being replaced by B-52's, but the replacement process was slow and would likely not be completed before 1958. By that point, the Soviet Strategic Air Army, with its Badgers and guided missiles, would have medium-range capability at least equal to the power of SAC's 1,500 B-47's. Meanwhile, with 600 to 800 Bisons, the Soviets would have at least twice the long-range striking power of SAC, perhaps more.
General Curtis LeMay, commander of SAC, and Lt. General V. I. Aladinski, commander of the Soviet Strategic Air Army, would not simply count planes and missiles as they contrasted their relative strength, but rather would consider their relative freedom of action. General Aladinski would have absolute freedom of action, while General LeMay would have none, the latter still having to depend on his medium-range force of B-47's, completely dependent on their bases overseas. Thus, any denial of those bases would effectively destroy about two-thirds of SAC's striking power. General LeMay, therefore, would be dependent upon the nations which controlled those overseas bases. And those nations might deny access to those bases under impending threat of Soviet hydrogen bomb attack, which was why General LeMay had asked in the current year's budget for an urgent program to provide SAC with 1,900 B-52's, a request refused for budgetary reasons.
Doris Fleeson tells of the same newspapers which had carried restrained eulogies for the recently deceased former Jersey City, N.J., boss Frank Hague, having indicated the passing of boss-style politics in both Philadelphia, where a Republican machine had crumbled when Richardson Dilworth had been inaugurated as Mayor amid a continuing wave of municipal reform, and in Memphis, where for the first time in 50 years, City officials, not handpicked by the late boss E. H. Crump, were sworn into office. Edward Meeman, editor of the Memphis Press-Scimitar, had said that the Crump machine had ceased to exist, and generally, that it was "still possible but not easy" for political bosses to rule American cities.
Roy Roberts of the Kansas City Star had said of the old Pendergast machine that no city boss story was still present in Kansas City, that they had nonpartisan reform in city government for the previous 15 years.
Boston Globe political experts had said that there was nothing in Boston resembling the old Curley machine of the early New Deal days, with Representative John W. McCormack, the House Whip and probable successor to Speaker Sam Rayburn, and former Governor Paul Dever no longer fitting the old mold.
Carmine DeSapio, leader of Tammany Hall in New York, had received criticism when he sought to initiate a drive for Governor Averell Harriman for the Democratic nomination, hurting Governor Harriman in the process. But the limits of Mr. DeSapio's power, compared to his famous predecessors, had also been exposed by the fact that Mayor Robert Wagner of New York City and Senator Herbert Lehman had, nevertheless, aligned with Adlai Stevenson.
Ms. Fleeson therefore concludes that the big-city boss era was over, with the exception of their influences over minority and labor voters within the Democratic Party, the latter evidenced by the choice of James Finnegan by Adlai Stevenson as his campaign manager, Mr. Finnegan being one of the new-look Democrats out of Philadelphia, also demonstrated by the choice of a manager by Senator Estes Kefauver, when he sought to obtain the services of Mike DiSalle of Toledo and settled for J. F. Donahue of Washington. The fact that former President Truman was strong in the large cities was a major factor in his support being sought by all Democratic candidates for the presidency and why they dreaded his active opposition.
Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson, who was said to be politically naïve, appeared, in his sniping at labor, charging that labor's gains in recent years had been coming at the expense of the farmer, also suggested the decline of the big-city bosses. It was also indicated by the attacks by the Republican right wing on the merger of the AFL and CIO and labor activity in politics. "With its overtones of class warfare, such a case is, of course, more difficult to handle than the cry against city bosses who, unhappily, have deserved practically all the brickbats hurled at them."
A letter writer tells of coal having been one of the basic industries of the country and one of the more progressive industries, growing on average by 6 percent per year when the overall average growth of American industry was only 3 percent. Duke Power Co. was the third largest purchaser of private utility coal in the country, according to the 1955 "Keystone Coal Buyer's Manual". The writer had been informed by the editor of that manual that the fuel purchasing agent for Duke was the ninth largest coal buyer in the country. He says that the coal industry, with the cooperation of their customers, was ready and able to solve the smoke problem produced by coal-fired furnaces and asks whether Charlotte was ready for the treatment, that in Louisville, a distilling company had been operating with virtually smokeless equipment since 1914, that Pittsburgh, also, had undertaken great steps to eliminate their air pollution problems.
A letter writer from Bennettsville, S.C., says that the first man to die in the American Revolution had been black, and that black men had fought in the Revolution, that in the War of 1812, black combat units had won the praise of General Andrew Jackson, that in the Civil War, black soldiers had distinguished themselves in the fight to preserve the Union, at Fort Pillow and Millikin Bend, for example. In the Spanish-American War, black volunteers had rescued the Rough Riders and turned the tide of battle at San Juan Hill. In World War I and World War II, as well as in Korea, black soldiers had made a good account of themselves. She indicates that, in return for that loyalty, the country owed blacks whatever economic, educational and political opportunities which it had to offer, and asks whether the reader did not agree.
It should be noted, in reference to the above-linked statement of President McKinley at Springfield, Ill., on October 15, 1898, that the President had, just three days earlier in Omaha, paid homage to the soldiers who fought in the Spanish-American War battles as having fought in the tradition of a number of American generals, including Ulysses S. Grant, Philip Sheridan and William Tecumseh Sherman, as well Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson and James Longstreet, the latter analogy to the Confederate generals having received notice and praise in several Southern newspapers of the time, while the praise of the black soldiers at San Juan Hill was noted in some Northern newspapers, but ignored by most, though not all, in the South, suggesting that President McKinley was a man who tailored his speeches for his audiences to achieve the best political advantage of the moment, a man for everyone, in an age when television cameras and radio microphones did not follow the President around and in which the print press made few comparative judgments from speech to speech, even if some of them, as the Chattanooga Daily Times collection of abstracts and summaries, included them for their attentive readers to make judgments—Chattanooga, of course, being the locus of the Civil War battle of Lookout Mountain, November 24, 1863. But, it was the unifying thoughts of the President, we suppose, which counted. And, of course, he would be assassinated by anarchist laborer Leon Czolgosz in Buffalo in 1901
A letter writer from Laurinburg, a minister, says that "Negrophobia" was a mental disease which poisoned the mind of its victim with racial hatred, jealousy and fear, and had only one cure, logical reasoning. He contends that if the white South did not know that blacks were their equal and did not fear that they might be superior, they would not mind meeting blacks on equal terms. He says that the white South was sick, and like a sick child, balked at taking the only remedy which could cure them, "a mixture of logical reason and common sense." Now, the Government was becoming impatient with the South and if the patient would not take the medicine voluntarily, was going to have it "poured down its throat."
While it might seem so, during this time especially, it was not that the entire white South was ill, but rather a determined group of miscreants and their political leaders who knowingly capitalized on the ignorance of those miscreants to obtain political power and create a vicious circle in the South which tended to inhibit, even to the point of violence, certainly enforced by informal sanctions, such as by limited or curtailed employment, those whites who strongly differed from their miscreant neighbors and their political understrappers and overstrappers and had the temerity to speak their minds even in private company, provoking the whispering campaigns through the established grapevines, ultimately back to the political leaders who enforced the system.
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