The Charlotte News
Monday, January 9, 1956
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the President had asked Congress this date, in his special message on agriculture, to establish a soil bank plan to help consume the present surplus of farm products, part of a nine-point program he put forward to ease the plight of farmers. He said that farmers had found their prices and income depressed amid the nation's greatest prosperity, that for five years, their economy had declined, and that unless it was corrected, "these economic reversals are a direct threat to the well-being of all of our people." Farm income had declined by slightly more than a billion dollars the previous year. The President said that the program would seek to use the price-depressing crop surplus to reduce output, that farmers who helped to cut back production would be offered Government surpluses as compensation, that under the "acreage reserve" plan, farmers would be encouraged, but not compelled, to reduce planting until surpluses were reduced and markets grown enough to purchase agriculture's productive capacity. Incentives for not planting crop land would be offered in the form of cash payments, as well as surplus stocks of such crops as cotton, wheat and possibly corn, rice and peanuts. The payments and the value of the surplus crops which would go to the producers would total about a billion dollars under the President's plan, at least $750,000 more than farmers had received in direct payments from the Government during the previous year. He also proposed that new steps be taken to move stocks from the present seven-billion dollar surplus holdings into foreign and domestic use, easing of production controls on some major crops, placing a dollar limit on the amount of price support aid which could be given to a single farmer, speeding up of the rural development program for low-income farmers, first suggested the previous year by the Administration, and greater aid to stabilize farming in the drought-plagued Great Plains. In addition, a 25 percent increase in Federal appropriations for research aimed at finding new uses, new markets and new crops for agriculture was proposed, as well that assurance be given that the Federal Government would always supply adequate credit to meet the needs of farmers, and that the Federal Government would make refunds to farmers of gasoline taxes collected on motor fuel used for non-highway purposes, estimated to be 60 million dollars presently paid by the farmers.
Among 246 heart specialists providing definite opinions in a poll on the President's health, 60 percent had said that he was physically fit enough to seek a second term, with the others saying that he was not. The results of the poll had been published by U.S. News & World Report this date, the poll having been conducted by Benson, Inc., of Princeton, N.J. The AMA had questioned the propriety of the poll and urged doctors not to participate. Questionnaires had been sent to 444 doctors certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine as heart specialists, and about 62 percent, or 275, had replied, 29 of those not providing direct answers. They were asked, on the basis of what they had read about the nature of the President's illness and assuming a normal convalescence during the ensuing few months, whether they thought that the President was physically able to serve a second term. They were also asked whether a man who had suffered a heart attack could be regarded as physically able to serve a term as president, with 65 percent stating that he was, and the remainder indicating that he was not. The magazine did not report the names of the physicians, and the research organization which conducted it had not asked that replies be signed.
Senator Price Daniel of Texas stated this date that drug addiction was responsible for nearly half of all crimes in major cities, and for a quarter of all reported crimes across the nation, saying that traffic in illicit drugs had tripled in the country since the end of World War II. He sought legislation which would provide the death penalty for smugglers and peddlers of heroin in extreme cases. Senator Daniel chaired a subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee which had investigated the illegal narcotics traffic during 37 days of hearings taking place in 11 cities. The subcommittee, in its preliminary report to the Senate, had also recommended that legislation be enacted to permit Federal narcotics agents to tap telephones under "sealed court orders" and to use such evidence in courts to enable catching of "big operators" who worked behind the scenes, and that a treaty be negotiated with Mexico for a mutual fight against the drug traffic across the border, which Senator Daniel said accounted for 99 percent of the overland smuggling of heroin and marijuana, across the border into Texas, California and Arizona. The recommendations also called for complete outlawing of the sale of heroin, which Senator Daniel said was used by addicts in the country.
In New Delhi, the Indian Government this date called for full details on reports that a number of holy men belonging to a cult practicing cannibalism had been arrested for eating children. Indian newspapers reported that at least 25 such child-eaters had been taken into custody in various parts of northern India. Such holy men wore flowing yellow robes and belonged to the Aghori sect, some of them having confessed the existence of cannibalism among them for centuries. The report stated that three skulls of children had been discovered at a secret hideout.
In Chapman, Ala., 11 non-striking workers were injured, two critically, from a dynamite explosion at a troubled lumber company plant, where violence had marked a prolonged strike, started July 20 by about 500 International Woodworkers Union members. The sheriff said that dynamite had exploded under a steel drum where the men were warming themselves before starting the dayshift at the plant, that the dynamite charge had been placed there during the weekend. The blast had blown the drum to shreds and left a hole about 16 inches across and 14 to 16 inches deep in the ground.
Ann Sawyer of The News tells of a new County office building to supplement "inadequate and outdated" courthouse facilities having been proposed by local attorneys this date in a five page report presented to the County Commission by the president of the local Bar Association. They recommended "a carefully planned office building designed to house the activities of Mecklenburg County and other related municipal or state governmental functions", suggesting a location in the southeastern segment of Courthouse Square. A portion of the text of the report by the Association is provided verbatim.
In Charlotte, a man, 22, having been charged with the "reasonless" killing of his wife, waived a preliminary hearing this date in City Recorder's Court. He carried a Bible and wept into his handkerchief during the brief proceeding. He would be held without bond in the County jail until trial, probably to occur during the month in Superior Court. It was alleged that he shot his wife, 20, as she brought him a breakfast of biscuits, bacon and eggs to the bed in which he had been lying the previous early morning. The man said he did not know why he had shot her. The couple had been childhood sweethearts who had quit Harding High School five years earlier to get married, had two daughters who were three and four years old. When the emergency ambulance had arrived at the home the previous day, the attendants had found the man in the front bedroom holding his two daughters and sobbing, stating, "We were playing." He later told detectives that he would not hurt his wife for anything in the world. He said that when she had brought him the breakfast, he took his .32-caliber snub-nosed revolver from a dresser drawer and held the gun in one hand while he read a newspaper in bed, that when his wife had set the tray with the breakfast on a table beside the bed, he stuck the pistol under the newspaper without looking at his wife and pulled the trigger, the bullet striking her in the face. He had then dialed the operator and asked for help, and an ambulance was summoned. Police said that after he had been taken into custody, he was too distraught to be questioned, repeating several times that he had not known why he had killed her. He had a steel plate in his head as a result of injuries suffered in an automobile accident some years earlier, and had spent much of the previous day reading a family Bible in his cell. He said that he had given his wife two Bibles for the children for Christmas, but that the one he had, he supposed, was the only one the police could find to bring to him. A steady stream of visitors had come to the police station to visit him, including his father-in-law, who said that he was a "good boy", that the killing had been an accident and that he believed his son-in-law did not know what had occurred.
In London, a representative of the London Zoo had been given permission by the Kremlin to visit Russia to study freshwater fish which produced caviar, saying that the study of sturgeon would take him up and down the Volga River. When asked whether he would eat much caviar, he said that he hated it.
On the editorial page, "Crisis in Farming: Everybody's Problem" tells of North Carolina having lost 20,602 farms between 1950 and 1954, according to the latest UNC News Letter, and that except for the abnormal years between 1935 and 1940, it was the first time that the state had ever lost farms, making it the only state in the country which showed decreases in farms during the decade of the 1940's.
Nationally, the number of farms had reached a peak around 1910, remaining fairly constant for 25 years, but steadily declining since 1935, losing in the ensuing 15 years 1.5 million farms. In 1800, 80 percent of Americans had lived on farms, whereas now that number had dropped to 20 percent.
It thus questions rhetorically why, with fewer farmers, the farm problem was regarded as the principal issue in politics at present, finding that pressure groups were part of the answer. The farm bloc had started with the tractors in the 1920's and had become powerful after 1933. It was made up of members of Congress amenable to farm legislation, general organizations representing all of the farmers, and a few special interest organizations. While on its face it represented homely, back-country virtues, behind that facade there was a hard-boiled commercial drive.
W. M. Kiplinger had once called the farm bloc the best turned-out lobby in Washington, controlling at least 15 million votes, "once the organizations stand united."
The most important of those organizations were the Farm Bureau Federation, the Grange and the Farmers Union, but there were many smaller pressure groups also devoted to special interests within the field.
The election of members of Congress gave the agricultural states a mathematical advantage, especially in the Senate, making the farmer important, and, it suggests, rightfully so. As Stuart Chase had commented, the country had better not get too hauty with its farmers if they wanted to go on eating.
But agriculture did not stand alone as a single, isolated issue, as Congress could no more devise a foolproof farm plan than it could guarantee good growing weather. Agriculture in the country was no more self-sufficient than business or labor, as all economic groups in the country were interdependent, as there could be no profitable markets for the farmer unless the rest of the nation prospered and had the means to purchase the products.
It concludes that the farm program which Congress would enact during the year should not be devised as a "political lollipop" for a special group, but as part of a program for all Americans, and that anything less would not be acceptable.
"The Right To Speak Your Mind" suggests that if there was any place where someone could express things freely, it was in the letters column of a newspaper, a principle in which the News believed. Since the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, letters to the editor on the subject had often reached the flood stage, which it regards as a healthy sign, indicating interest in the most significant issue to face the area in over 50 years, and suggests that the letters column of the newspaper was being used as a means to produce better democracy.
But some letters had unfortunately been highly inflammatory, including sweeping assaults on whole racial and religious groups, full of anger and hate, patiently fashioned to stir up racial animosities.
Faced with the responsibility to the public, the newspaper had found it necessary to eliminate some of the more inflammatory language from letters, and occasionally some of the letters in their entirety. It had performed the editing reluctantly, and, if anything, had not been strict enough, with a few phrases having slipped by which should have been deleted. They indicate that they were not invoking censorship, as it was the newspaper's policy to allow readers to speak their minds, short of libel or obscenity, and suggests that a newspaper which did not allow such freedom was not worth the space the column occupied.
It indicates that if space limitation required some editing of letters, a careful effort was made to preserve the thought and flavor of those letters. But on such issues as race and religion, the newspaper had a responsibility to the community and to the region to encourage temperance and discourage high emotions, without blanket insults to entire races or religions.
It again asks for temperance and suggests to contributors of the column that they be as brief as possible, to avoid blanket indictments, use moderate, reasonable language, confine their statements to their own opinions and avoid criticizing other letter writers, sign the letters with their address, their names subject to being withheld on request.
"Sour Note in Song of the Open Road" tells of Britain's tramps moving to the Continent, leaving behind a protest that the welfare state was ruining their profession. In 1948, tramps had officially been classed as "persons without a settled way of living." Since then, they had been herded into reception stations, bathed, quizzed, coddled and urged to give up their way of life. Now, they were fleeing rather than face extinction.
It ventures that the trouble was that some tramps chose their way of life because they enjoyed it, a few of whom the author of the piece had met locally, finding them to be men of education who liked the roving life because it gave them peace and time for reflection. George Orwell, author of Animal Farm and 1984, had been a practicing tramp for many years and had written a book about his experiences, Down and Out in Paris and London, having been a defender of the brotherhood.
"Things have indeed come to a pretty pass. That's the main thing we have against the welfare state enthusiasts: They believe in government by busy-bodies."
A piece from the Atlantic, titled "The Artist and Women", says that the author had made two good portraits of women, one having been of an elderly philanthropist and the other, of a doctor of a clinic, both having characteristics because of their great achievements.
"Perhaps the obviousness of feminine attractiveness is disconcerting and cannot be described by me in terms of painting in the language (as I like to call it) to which I am accustomed." He says that painter John Sargent, when asked why he had not made a better portrait of a female subject, had responded: "What could I do? She is a beautiful woman." He had meant that there was nothing in her face to emphasize or exaggerate to make a likeness, that nature had made her too perfect.
The author of the piece says that his difficulty perhaps was summed up by a comment made regarding his New York one-man show by the art editor of the New York Sun: "He is enough of a Yankee to portray a shrewd businessman, is at home with his academic clients, but when it comes to the ladies, he makes them look good and not dangerous."
Drew Pearson urges Senator Mike Monroney of Oklahoma, in making his probe of Civil Aeronautics appointments, to take a look at a portrait entitled "Custer's Last Stand", which had disappeared from the White House, perhaps to find that the picture had some bearing on the friendly relations between the White House and American Airlines and the ousting of former Senator Josh Lee as a member of the Civil Aeronautics Board, a position which, by law, had to go to a Democrat. Mr. Lee had voted consistently against the large airlines, especially against the largest of them, American. He suggests that if Senator Monroney looked carefully enough, he would find that the portrait had been presented to the President by the head of American, C. R. Smith. He adds that there was nothing illegal about making a gift to the President, but that it was usually not done, especially by those doing business with the Government and seeking important concessions from it, arousing public scrutiny and sometimes criticism, as in the case of the freezer presented to Mrs. Truman during the Truman Administration. American had numerous cases before the CAB, some of which had been passed to the White House for final decision.
While the portrait in question was not a valuable gift, being a copy of a portrait by Harold von Schmidt, made for Esquire Magazine and having once hung in the Admiral's Club, operated by American Airlines at Washington Airport, the gift did mean that there had been an intimate relationship between the President and Mr. Smith. The portrait had hung for a long while directly opposite the President as he sat at his desk, as many visitors had seen it there. About a year earlier, it suddenly disappeared, and the White House was only commenting that they had no record of it at all. He says, however, that White House functionaries, on the Q. T., had said that it was "sent back" to Mr. Smith after Mr. Pearson had started making inquiries about it.
HUAC counsel Thomas Beale had been a justice of the peace in Jefferson County, Ky., some years earlier and in that capacity had once been convicted of taking a bribe of eight dollars from a traffic offender to avoid prosecution, as determined by a jury in 1931. Mr. Beale was now sitting in judgment of persons for indiscretions of which they had been guilty in the 1930's, but when asked for an explanation, Mr. Beale had only replied, "No comment."
The U.S. Court of Appeals had reversed one of the most political television decisions of the politically-minded FCC, giving the husband of former Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare Oveta Culp Hobby an award of a one-third interest in a television station in Beaumont, Tex. Senator Warren Magnuson of Washington, the following week, would begin an investigation of the FCC. The Commission had originally turned down Mr. Hobby, ruling that he could not have a television station in Beaumont, as he already operated a radio and television station, plus a powerful newspaper in Houston. The FCC had also turned down the Enterprise Co. because it owned newspapers, and had awarded the television license instead to the Beaumont Broadcasting Co. It then scheduled a rehearing, having done so in only one other political case before it, and after the new hearing had been ordered, Mr. Hobby had suddenly taken over part of the Beaumont Broadcasting Co., paying it $55,000 and receiving a 35 percent interest, in a cheap deal. The Republican FCC commissioners who had previously voted against Mr. Hobby then reversed themselves and voted for the deal.
Doris Fleeson tells of Senator James Eastland of Mississippi, chairman of the Senate Internal Security subcommittee investigating infiltration of Communists to the news media, with his principal target being the New York Times and most of the witnesses being from its staff.
Ms. Fleeson states that he would find that there was no such Communist infiltration on the Times creeping into reports so as to influence public opinion and ventures that it would have been cheaper had he simply read the Times consistently, as something written in a newspaper was indelible, as indicated by the saying: "Would that mine enemy would write a book."
But, she finds, the Senator would obtain the headlines which the subcommittee counsel, Julian Sourwine, had promised him. "The insular, reactionary minority of the Senate to which Sourwine has been a grey eminence since the late [Senator] Pat McCarran recognized his special talents, will enjoy the harassment of the press that has so signally failed to appreciate it." She finds that the essence of the conflict in Congress was between Senator Eastland and the thinking he represented on the one hand and the sophisticated and internationalist New York Times on the other, the one being everything that the other was not, the one fearing the democratic institutions that the other was dedicated to upholding.
Senator Eastland and his allies and Senator McCarthy and his allies had been on the losing side for a long time, in politics and in the courts, with the press recording their losses and frustrations, never rising above their setbacks and rarely receiving approbation in the major Washington and New York newspapers read typically by those in the Federal Government. She says that if responsible politicians were conducting the hearings, the press would take them very seriously, but Congressional leaders instead were predicting a hasty retreat and a dull thud at the end of the investigation.
But she also ventures that perhaps the politicians were not too unhappy watching reporters reporting misdeeds and poor judgment of other reporters for a change, as had occurred with some of the witnesses before the subcommittee. The feeling among politicians was that the correspondents sat in judgment always but were never judged, as had been expressed by an important Republican who had helped to bring about the Republican Congressional victory of the 80th Congress in 1946. That unnamed person had said that they had gotten a new Congress and would obtain a new President two years hence, then added that he guessed that they were stuck with the same old reporters in the press galleries.
She indicates that the undue concentration of McCarthyism in the parent Judiciary Committee was Senator McCarran's legacy to the country as Committee chairman, dictating Committee membership and staff, choosing them for sharing his style of thinking. Mr. Sourwine, well trained by Senator McCarran, had experienced no trouble with Senator Eastland, and the preliminaries of the investigation in New York had been conducted by Mr. Sourwine in the absence of Senator Eastland.
Robert C. Ruark, in Sydney, tells of civilization in some respects having come to Australia with the abolition of what had once been called the "six o'clock swill", closing time at one point for all but the sly grog shops and the legitimate hotel lounges where one was supposed to show a room key before receiving a drink. Drinking was now legal in New South Wales until 10:00 p.m., since the last referendum had put the "wowsers" on the run, that term meaning, loosely, "blue nose, spoilsport, old-fashioned".
He says that he had known the country since the last year of World War II and that its changes had been fascinating to observe, with the abolition of the six o'clock swill being another key to the progress, just as the admission of more than a million migrants was another concession to the need for change.
Kings Cross in Sydney was as bright as Broadway at present, with a glittering new hotel, modern cocktail bars, and good restaurants, all of which now remained open late, as he had indicated. Wine was served with meals and Australians had suddenly become fanciers of the good vintages grown in Australia.
A few years earlier, public drinking, like public eating, had been shocking in the country, as "a man bellied up against a bar packed three and six deep in eddying smoke and bloated himself with as much beer as he could swill before the barmaid called time and swept up the glasses. The man went home sozzled to the eyes, staggered through dinner and passed out in his chair."
A letter writer from Pittsboro finds that there might be much truth in what the newspaper had said in its editorial, "The Case against 'Interposition'", the editorial having said that it was the "flimsiest weapon" used by ardent segregationists. But he finds that the editorial had gone far afield in its interpretation of the function of the Supreme Court. He questions why have a Constitution if the function of the Supreme Court was, as the editorial had commented, to keep it "alive and growing", not necessarily in accord with the will of the people, whom the letter writer regards as possessing the sole privilege and duty to keep the Constitution alive and growing. He finds the ultimate power to be in the people or any other branch of the Government besides the judiciary, which he believes resulted in complete frustration of a republican form of government. He regards the Brown decision of 1954 to have been a "complete usurpation of power" without supporting legal or constitutional authority cited as a basis for its ruling, overturning 123 cases, including five by the Supreme Court, and basing its conclusion on the research of social scientists, "some of whom were of doubtful national loyalties". "And the 14th Amendment itself provided that its enforcement should be by appropriate legislation on the part of the Congress. So we find the Court both interpreting and legislating." He says that there was no force on earth which could make him respect such "usurpation of power".
A letter writer indicates that God had so loved the world that He had given His only begotten Son that all men could be free. "And what some may think they have taken from the Negro, his God-given right to the tree of life, they are sadly mistaken." She wonders why such persons were so sure that God was a white man, that if God appeared at their door as a black man, he would be shown the back door. "And remember, too, that their great, white forefathers brought the Negro here from Africa and taught him the civilized ways and America cultures, so doesn't that include cutting and fighting and having illegitimate children?"
A letter writer from Gaffney, S.C., says that the Church of Christ was a spiritual church and that those who worshiped must worship in spirit, according to the Book of John, chapter 4, verse 24, that in order to obtain heaven, people had to obey God's commands, such as the prohibition against adultery. "All people know that anything that is mixed with another, though both things may be pure alone, but when mixed they become adulterated (impure, which is adultery.)" He says that nations committed adultery when they "go out of the pure way," citing Ezekiel, chapter 23, verse 37, and Jeremiah, chapter 3, verse 9.
It becomes easy enough to see where such persons jumped the tracks and went off into the woods in their attempts to interpret the Bible in favor of segregation of the races, with such misunderstanding of the difference between the contextual meaning of the words "adulterated" and "adultery". If you do not understand the difference, we suggest you look up the two words, and realize that just because two words may sound similar and appear to have similar root words, in context, they do not necessarily mean the same thing. "Adultery", in short, especially as used in the Commandment, has, as any mature adult understands, nothing at all to do with mixing of different things together in the sense of "adulterated", but rather with illicit relations between two persons, one or both of whom are already married, but not to each other. If that is "mixing" in the sense of "adulterated", then, certainly, it is in an entirely different context from the usual sense and usage of the latter word. In the letter writer's view, to introduce Bosco to pure white, homogenized milk, obviously a Commie plot to undermine American morals, is to adulterate the milk and thus commit adultery, ergo, to be guilty of a cardinal sin, all you reprobate chocolate milk-drinking sinners, sure to go to hell for it. Don't mix your contexts unless you want to be disintegrated.
Incidentally, for some strange reason, the newspaper forgot to wish the Vice-President a happy 43rd birthday. Happy birthday...
Framed Edition
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