The Charlotte News
Wednesday, October 31, 1956
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from Budapest that the Russian retreat from the city appeared in full swing this date, with Soviet tanks, leaving their dead and wounded behind, headed away, as leaflets from Hungarian Air Force planes dropped on them, threatening to bomb them if they delayed. Russian armored forces guarding the Danube River bridges withdrew at dawn and others fell into the line of retreat throughout the morning. The Hungarian Army, which was completely now on the side of the revolution, had brought in fresh platoons to relieve street patrols of the insurgents. The Army took over the Citadel, a fortress commanding the entire city, and ringed it with anti-tank guns. Rebel anger, which had been directed at the Russians, was now being directed entirely against the remnants of the Communist Hungarian secret police, with vengeance hunts underway all over the city for members of the force, which Premier Imre Nagy's Government had ordered dissolved. Unofficial Hungarian sources said that 130 secret policemen, who had been captured the previous day in a battle for Budapest's Communist Party headquarters, had been hanged by their heels and beaten to death, with a precinct party headquarters having been a prime target in the street fighting this date. Eradicating the Soviet signs was accelerated with the Government's announcement of its decision to end one-party dictatorship and revive the multiparty governmental system which had prevailed before the Communists had taken over in 1948. The Red Army Memorial, a statue of a Russian infantryman, was toppled from its stand, and workmen chipped the Communist stone hammer-and-sickle emblems from the Danube bridges. Large metal red stars ripped from building fronts littered the streets. Josef Cardinal Mindzenty, imprisoned by the Communist Government, returned triumphantly to the city.
From Moscow, it was reported that there was a major policy shift under which the Soviet Union said that it wanted all of the Communist countries to be completely sovereign, and was willing to talk about the disposition of Soviet troops in three of them, Hungary, Rumania and Poland. The unusual declaration issued the previous night by the Government was interpreted by diplomatic observers as indicating that the Soviets were seeking a graceful way out of an increasingly embarrassing situation within the Communist satellites. It promised in conciliatory tones that the Soviet Army would evacuate Budapest "as soon as this is considered necessary by the Hungarian Government." It also acknowledged that "the further presence of Soviet armed units in Hungary may cause even further aggravation of the situation." While indicating that there were Soviet units in only three of the "peoples' democracies", the three aforementioned countries, it stated: "With a view to ensuring mutual security … the Soviet Government is ready to examine, with other Socialist countries participating in the Warsaw Treaty, the question of Soviet troops stationed in the territory" of the three countries. The Soviet troops in Poland, Hungary and Rumania were there under the terms of the Warsaw Pact, the Russian-commanded mutual defense alliance formed the previous year by the Soviet Union and its Eastern European allies in response to NATO. Soviet Defense Minister Marshal Georgi Zhukov told a Western correspondent the previous night that all of the members of the Pact would have to agree to the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Hungary to accommodate the major demand of the rebels. The declaration had also reiterated that Soviet troops had entered the fighting in Hungary only on the request of the Hungarian Government.
In Paris, it was reported by the Defense Ministry this night that combined British-French operations against points in the Suez Canal area had begun this date during the late morning, Egyptian time. The Ministry made its announcement on receipt of a military report from headquarters on Cyprus that the operations had begun, saying that combined aerial and naval bombardment had commenced.
In Cairo, Britain warned Egyptians to clear out from all Egyptian airfields this date, apparently as a prelude to the expected landing of a French-British expeditionary airborne force to seize control of the Suez Canal, seized by Egypt the previous July 26, after which Premier Gamal Abdel Nasser had refused to agree to an arrangement sponsored by the U.N. for international control of the canal. Egypt announced that it had placed Russian MIG jets into operation against Israeli forces on the Sinai Peninsula, while Israel claimed the capture of an Egyptian ship in Haifa harbor. Egypt claimed its Air Force had sent Russian-built MIG jets into air battles this date against the Israeli Air Force, claiming to have downed 10 Israeli fighters for the loss of two Egyptian fighters. The military headquarters communiqué for the first time said that Egyptian bombers had gone into action over Israeli territory, that Israeli airfields had been "destroyed" and others damaged. London newspapers reported waves of troop-carrying planes taking off from the Mediterranean base on Cyprus just after dawn, flying toward the canal, 250 miles distant. But those reports appeared to have been premature, as hours later, Egyptian governors at Port Said, Ismailia and Suez along the canal reported that all was quiet there, with no sign of an invading force. The Egyptian high command said that the Egyptian Air Force had been busy all day pounding Israeli troop concentrations and convoys along the Egyptian frontier, hitting 21 trucks full of soldiers, destroying seven of them, adding that heavy fighting had started the previous night between El Auja, a strategic frontier crossroads, and Abou Ogueila, 15 miles to the west. The Israelis had attacked three times in an unsuccessful effort to break through Egyptian positions and fighting was continuing, according to the communiqué. The latter position of the Israelis indicated that they had expanded their attack to the north and west.
From Tel Aviv in Israel, it was reported that an Israeli broadcast from the "Voice of Israel", a radio station in Jerusalem, warned refugees in the Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip of Palestine this date that they would soon be isolated by Israel's military operations in the Sinai Peninsula. The station had addressed the listeners in Gaza in Arabic, saying that the Israeli Army would soon "conclude its operations in the Sinai Peninsula" after having "defeated Egyptian Army units stationed there."
The President would go on nationwide
television and radio this night
In London, it was reported that Prime Minister Anthony Eden had said this date to Commons that Britain must protect its own vital interests in the Middle East, with or without the prior agreement of the U.S.
In Philadelphia, Adlai Stevenson asserted that the Administration had dismissed a proposal he had made to keep the peace in the Middle East. To thunderous applause from his audience the previous night, he said that he had made the proposal the previous Armistice Day at the University of Virginia, indicating that the Administration had dismissed it just as they were presently dismissing his proposal to stop hydrogen bomb testing because of the threat of increased radiation levels throughout the world, with warnings of the problem having come from eminent scientists. Mr. Stevenson had stated in his speech in Charlottesville nearly a year earlier that he proposed that the U.N. undertake "patrol duties in the areas of tension" to avoid bloodshed and violence by keeping "the troops of these antagonists apart." The previous night, he said that "tragically serious trouble" had broken out in the Middle East two weeks after the President appeared before the people "on one of those Republican television productions" and said that he had "'good news' about the Middle East." Mr. Stevenson spoke to an overflowing crowd at the University of Pennsylvania's Palestra, an indoor gymnasium which sat 12,000. They had provided the candidate a big ovation and booed lustily at every mention of Vice-President Nixon. Police estimated the size of the crowd to be 20,000. There were boos also on two occasions at his mention of the President. Earlier, Mr. Stevenson had drawn a crowd in Reyburn Plaza in Philadelphia, which police estimated at being between 30,000 and 40,000 people. Mr. Stevenson would leave by train this date for New York, where he would make a series of speeches before flying to Pittsburgh for a major address this night.
Indications were that the war in the Middle East would prevent the President from making a scheduled campaign speech in Philadelphia the following day, after a scheduled flying trip to Texas, Oklahoma and Tennessee had already been canceled for this date.
Beginning in Battle Creek, Senator Estes Kefauver had made campaign stops in Michigan this date, talking with farmers and factory workers, at a press conference having blamed Secretary of State Dulles for a "large part" of the Middle East crisis. Vice-President Nixon's schedule called for a luncheon hour rally in Detroit and a flight to New York City, with a special whistle-stop train tour for three days in Pennsylvania and Ohio set to begin late this night.
In Cleveland, O., in a mock election at Case Institute of Technology the previous day, the President won a 2 to 1 victory over Mr. Stevenson, 542 to 244.
Charles Kuralt of The News reports of a street poll regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict, with one man saying, "Let 'em fight their own war," Mr. Kuralt indicating that it pretty well summed up the opinion expressed. The man had gone on to say that Israel was not big enough to mess with and that the U.S. ought to stay out of the conflict. A dozen other people stopped at random on the streets had agreed with that sentiment. Only an Air Force sergeant felt that the U.S. ought to send troops to aid Britain and France in restoring order in the Suez. He stated that Premier Gamal Abdel Nasser and "his crowd" had provoked Israel once too often and that the U.S. was committed to help, that the whole U.N. ought to jump into the situation. Opinion was evenly divided on whether the conflict would lead to a third world war. One man said that he was firmly convinced that it was the beginning of the last battle of the world, that of Armageddon, while another man said that he believed it would lead to all-out war and that the country needed Adlai Stevenson in the White House. His 16-year old son, however, disagreed with him, indicating that he did not believe that either the U.S. or Russia would become involved in the conflict, but that if they did, the U.S. had better re-elect the President "or we won't be able to use the H-bomb on 'em." Three people had no knowledge of the dispute or had it confused with the Polish and Hungarian uprisings. A housewife said that she believed the President would succeed in keeping the U.S. out of the conflict, that she had three sons in the service and hoped so. All had agreed with her hope, with the exception of the Air Force sergeant, including those who believed the U.S. would eventually become embroiled in the fight. One man said it was just a case of Egypt picking on Israel because they were weaker and that he hated to see them get away with it, but that it was better than American boys fighting.
In New York, a large man with a large capacity for Scotch whiskey was the happiest lawyer in town the previous day, having drunk two fifths of Scotch and wobbled into court to prove that a man could down that much alcohol and still be able to walk around. He did so in the service of two of his clients, charged with kidnaping a young aviation engineer in Boston the previous June 19, the two defendants having testified that they had drunk 80 glasses of beer and a fifth of whiskey between them during an 18-hour period before the alleged kidnaping. A prosecution witness, a physician, had testified that anyone who drank that much alcohol in that span of time would be rendered unconscious. The lawyer begged to differ and so set out to prove that they could not have known the nature of their act because of intoxication. The lawyer, 30, weighed 260 pounds and stood 6 feet, 1.5 inches tall, stating that he had begun drinking Scotch with water in his office on Monday afternoon, with his partner and a private detective as witnesses, had continued drinking until 1:00 a.m., then slept until 6:00 a.m., got up, washed down the second fifth of whiskey in time to go to court. The lawyer's face was flushed, but he arrived in court with the two witnesses and the two empty bottles, inquiring of the witnesses on the stand whether he was in a stupor, to which they responded that he was not. He picked up the two bottles and waved them before the judge and jury of nine men and three women, offering them as exhibits "on behalf of the prosecution", to which he then begged the court's pardon, stating that he meant the defense. They were then marked in evidence. The defendants, both 21, were accused of kidnaping and robbing a 27-year old man, who escaped after being driven to New York. Both sides had rested their cases after the testimony of the defense. The previous night, when a reporter phoned the defense lawyer's residence, his partner answered saying that the lawyer was "in repose". Had the partner been a little more clever, he might have responded that the lawyer's asportation had been temporarily arrested. The outcome of the case is not provided. Perhaps, the jury returned a Scotch verdict.
We note that most courts would be quite unlikely today and in the decades since ethics courses were instituted as part of the normal course load in law schools, to admit any such evidence, as being not proper experiment subject to the strictures of empirical, objective verification and replication for the prosecution, with proper controls having been established for similarity between the lawyer and his clients in height and body weight, prime indicia of the effects of alcohol and absorption thereof into the bloodstream in a given course of time. Moreover, such an offer of an experiment by the lead counsel in a case would, undoubtedly, bring his bar card into considerable question, and not only until he regained sobriety, as a potential contempt of court might lie for the demonstration, at least without prior court approval, no matter how well-meaning his zeal as an attorney in representing his clients dutifully might have been. There is also a duty to the court to maintain professional demeanor, which, obviously, includes sobriety at all times.
In Romeo, Mich., it was reported that the Elvis Presley look was gone, "real gone", from Romeo Community High School, where 52 male students, who lately had sported the long sideburns and duck-tail haircut of the rock 'n' roll singer, had agreed to appear in class this date with trimmed hair and clean-shaven faces, having no choice as refusing to do so would have resulted in their expulsion. The superintendent of the schools had issued the clean-cut edict after teachers had complained about the unshorn appearance of some of their pupils and the "defiant" attitude it fostered. The superintendent said that they had sideburns and long hair "that you would think any man would be ashamed of, and blue jeans sliding off their hips." Two barbers in the town, after hearing of the ruling, offered a free trim for any of the 52 students who could not afford to pay.
On the editorial page, "The Mirage of Middle Eastern Peace" finds that the U.N. had one of its finest hours the previous day, but only an hour, after which Britain and France, as two of the five permanent members of the Security Council with unilateral veto power, had vetoed the best hope for averting further bloodshed in the Middle East, each having sent their own invasion forces to Egypt. It asserts that only Israel attracted more Egyptian hatred than the British and French.
For a brief time, the U.N. had served as a forum for expression of worldwide fear that a general war might erupt unless truce lines were restored between Israel and Egypt. The U.S. and Russia both demanded a Security Council order for withdrawal of the invading Israeli forces from Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, and issuance of a warning against unilateral interference in the struggle. It finds that those conditions had to occur as the first step in defusing the crisis and that a Security Council resolution had been the best hope of achieving it.
If Britain and France had abandoned their plans to send troops to the Suez area, there would have been reason to expect rapid easing of the crisis, as the U.S. and Russia were asking the U.N. to protect them momentarily against their own conflicting interests in the Middle East, to prevent them from being forced to choose sides militarily. The Israeli invasion of Egypt had suddenly made the status quo of an uneasy Arab-Israeli truce, bad as it had been, appear very precious.
The U.S. and Soviet statements to the Council had shown to all the challenge before the major powers, to find the spirit of agreement forced upon the two nations by the current crisis, enabling the U.N. to be used as a tool for bringing Israel and the Arab world to lasting terms.
Instead, at the moment, the hope was being destroyed in the wake of the British and French invasion forces, if not precipitating war, making peace in the region a mirage seldom seen and never realized. It appeared that there would be among the great powers a choosing of sides militarily, a tragedy overshadowing even the breakup of the Western alliance, until the previous day, the free world's continuing hope for peace in the world.
"The Skipper Taught Us 'The Word'" tells of the death of O. J. (Skipper) Coffin of the UNC school of journalism, indicating that there was not a city room in the state which had not mourned his passing, for as a working newspaperman and as an educator, he had influenced more budding journalists than any other practitioner of what he had once described as "the unholy calling".
A "brusque, rough-hewn monolith", he had been a newspaperman's newspaperman. Even when teaching at UNC, he had never yielded to academic humbug, as his classes were full of his cigar smoke, asthmatic laughter and earthy wisdom. Textbook intricacies were left to others on the faculty, with students obtaining more from him than the stylistic niceties of fashionable journalism. He imparted "of the word", consisting of how to get a news story and get it right. He provided no rule of writing or editing other than that which had been laid down by the Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland: "Begin at the beginning, go through to the end and then stop."
He believed in terseness and vitality, despised empty verbiage which too often betrayed lack of factual information and lack of reportorial zeal.
He had been a devout man and meant no disrespect to either religion or journalism by referring to the latter as "the unholy calling", having loved both and transmitted that love to all who knew him. He could render a Biblical phrase with the same painstaking accuracy and flavor with which he could render a back-country story, had a better first-hand knowledge of the political history of the state than perhaps anyone living. His friends had hoped that he would devote his later years to a book, but he had never gotten around to it.
He had occasionally provided editorials for the Greensboro Daily News and a column of comment, titled "Shucks and Nubbins", rich in rustic humor and the ancient phraseology of the North Carolina hill country.
"The man is gone. He will be sorely missed by all of us who toil still among the clacking typewriters. But his influence will be as firm and ineradicable as the lively spirit that has always led men into the calling."
"The Bar Hammers Home a Point" quotes from a statement of principles signed by 100 lawyers residing in 31 states and territories of the country, in which they indicated that as members of the bar, they were deeply disturbed by the recent attacks on the Supreme Court, indicating that no institution of the Government stood beyond the reach of criticism, but that the attacks had been "so reckless in their abuse, so heedless of the value of judicial review, and so dangerous in fomenting disrespect for our highest law that they deserve to be repudiated by the legal profession and by every thoughtful citizen."
Among the endorsers of the statement were two North Carolinians, Henry Brandis, Jr., current dean of the UNC School of Law, and Francis Winslow of Rocky Mount, as well as a native North Carolinian, Jefferson Fordham, who had been dean of the University of Pennsylvania Law School since 1952. The concern of those men could not be taken lightly by laymen, as they were speaking for everyone, not just for lawyers.
It indicates that seldom had a branch of government been under such vicious attack before, and the current wave of abuse had undoubtedly been spawned by the Brown v. Board of Education decision and other desegregation decisions. But it had spread such that it was no longer unusual to hear the Court accused of "usurping authority" when it reviewed legislative authority, or of exercising "naked power" when it rendered a judicial decision, finding that such charges endangered the very institution of judicial review.
As the lawyers in their statement had pointed out, the privilege of criticizing a Supreme Court decision carried with it a corresponding obligation to recognize the decision as the supreme law of the land as long as it remained in force. Constitutional law could be changed and there were perfectly lawful and honorable ways to do so, either by amendment of the Constitution or by asking the Court to overrule one of its prior decisions. But active defiance was not among those honorable and lawful means.
"Astronomy Lesson" indicates that the Administration, according to Washington journalists, was in the market for some new diplomatic terminology, specifically for a new reference to Soviet satellites.
It suggests that after the week's headlines from Hungary and Poland, they perhaps ought to be called shooting stars.
A piece from the Minneapolis Star, titled "The Romance of the Pitchfork", indicates that the pitchfork, which had once been the handiest farm tool, was losing prestige, as the Department of Agriculture reported that three-fourths of the hay crop was now bailed and some of the rest chopped, while combines harvested most of the grain, leaving little use for the pitchfork. But in earlier times, every bit of hay received at least two or three rides on a pitchfork. Pitching hay or grain in the fields all day was hard work. A remarkable quantity of hay could be lifted if the fork were properly thrust and the body used to best advantage, labor which brought pride to a youngster given a man's job.
It indicates that the real pitchfork artist, however, had been the person who built the stacks of grain, with the stacker able to catch a grain bundle on the fly and flip it into place with his fork as easily as rain water falling into a barrel. Between the loads, the fork was handy for leaning on while catching some rest. The person "was aware of the good smell from earth and grass, the companionship of sun and grasshoppers, the satisfaction of getting a chore done in good season."
It concludes: "A man and a fork—they made a good team."
Drew Pearson, writing from St. Paul, Minn., tells of the teachers of the Minnesota Education Association being a sedate and studious group, removed from the political scene of Washington, but having been catapulted, for reasons not of their own making, into the middle of a hot verbal exchange between White House press secretary James Hagerty and Mr. Pearson. It had begun when they had invited Mr. Pearson many months earlier to speak on October 26 at their convention in St. Paul, and had come to a head as Mr. Pearson got off the plane at the airport and walked into a carefully laid trap.
He had always followed the rule that cooperating with his colleagues in the press would result in them treating him right, but was now revising that formula. For as he got off the plane, his colleagues had shrewdly suggested that they go inside the airport lounge where it was quiet and hold a press conference regarding what Mr. Hagerty had just said about Mr. Pearson. Mr. Pearson, unsuspecting, and confident in his ability to handle the press, cooperated, but once inside the lounge, was confronted with an array of television cameras and microphones which he had not anticipated. Yet, he still cooperated as there was nothing else by that point he could do. The press representatives then proceeded to give him "the business", as he had sometimes given it to others, regarding whether the President left the Minneapolis airport without shaking hands with local leaders, whether his car left the line of procession of the others and how much of a mild relapse he had.
During the course of the press conference, he had noticed a woman lurking in the background, to whom he had not been introduced. He suspected from the "dagger glint in her eyes" that she was not on his side. As he rose to leave his heckling comrades, the woman had moved into position and the tv cameraman, knowing what was coming, had moved in with her, whereupon she unsheathed her "verbal claws" and tore Mr. Pearson to little pieces. Her name was Elizabeth Heffelfinger, Republican national committeewoman and mother-in-law of Philip Willkie, son of the late Wendell Willkie, the 1940 Republican presidential nominee who had been a friend of Mr. Pearson. Her husband headed one of the largest grain companies in the Northwest, was director of the Great Northern Railroad, the Northwestern National Bank, the Minneapolis Grain Exchange, the National Grain Trade Council, and, as Republican finance chairman, had raised millions of dollars for the party. For a moment, he had thought of reminding her that her husband was the man who persuaded the President to remove the Truman Administration's ban on rat droppings in wheat, resulting in two years of non-regulation by the Government of that addition to the American diet. But finding himself never any good at arguing with a woman and because she was charming and delightful, he had left ungracefully, but as quickly as possible.
He indicates that it was never pleasant to get into a hassle with the President or his aides, and was also not pleasant to diagnose the health of a President, probably the reason some newsmen had ducked the issue when FDR had been running for re-election in 1944, resulting in the world having been plunged into a crisis at his death in April, 1945, just as the war was ending and as the gravest problems of peace lay ahead.
The Congressional Quarterly explains why a Democratic sweep in the coming election the following Tuesday would make the South the top region in Congress, while a Republican sweep would concentrate power in the Midwest, pursuant to an analysis conducted by the Quarterly of who would become chairmen of the various committees, thus able to expedite a bill favored by the chairman or block one opposed by delaying it or saddling it so drastically with amendments that it would never stand a chance of passage after reaching the floor. The majority party in either house controlled the committees in the body.
In the current 84th Congress, the Democrats controlled the Senate by 49 to 47 and thus all of the committee chairmanships, while in the House, the Democrats had a 232 to 203 majority. The seniority system, by custom rather than rule, would give the South nine of the 14 major committee chairmanships in the Senate and 11 of 18 in the House, provided the Democrats retained their majorities.
In contrast, a Republican majority in both houses would put Midwesterners in charge of eight Senate committees and nine in the House, with the Northeast being a close second, as five Senators would chair committees from that region in the Senate and seven Representatives in the House.
In the event of Democratic majorities, the breakdown of regions outside the South would be four chairmanships going to Senators from the West, and one from the Northwast, while in the House, there would be one chairmanship from the West, three from the Midwest, and three from the Northeast. Under Republican majorities, the remaining regions outside the Midwest would be, in the Senate, one chairmanship from the West, while in the House, two from the West.
A committee chairman could also be a help or hindrance to the program of the President. Both candidates, President Eisenhower and Adlai Stevenson, had stressed in their campaigns the importance of having majorities from their respective parties in control of Congress. The President had said that he believed that as a normal thing, the country was best served when the White House and Congress were both run by the same political party, for the simple reason that there could then be fixed responsibility. Mr. Stevenson had said that he was sure that it was even more important for him to have a Democratic majority in Congress than it was for the President to have a Republican-controlled Congress, because a large portion of the achievements of the Eisenhower Administration had been accomplished only through the help of a Democratic Congress.
Quarterly figures for support and opposition in the 84th Congress for the President showed that a Republican sweep would give the President more friendly chairmen on all except four Congressional committees. Statistics showed the percentage of time a member supported or opposed the President's announced position on 117 roll calls in the Senate and 75 in the House, in which the issue had been promulgated by the White House. Based on those findings, the President, if re-elected with a Republican Congress, would lose 16 percentage points worth of support through the advancement of Republican Senator William Langer of North Dakota to the chairmanship of the Senate Judiciary Committee instead of Democratic Senator James Eastland of Mississippi. He would lose eight percentage points through the advancement of Representative Dewey Short of Missouri to the House Armed Services Committee instead of Representative Carl Vinson of Georgia, a Democrat. He would lose six percentage points through the advancement of Representative Bernard Kearney of New York to the chairmanship of HUAC and 17 percentage points through the advancement of Representative Daniel Reed of New York to chair the House Ways & Means Committee instead of Representative Jere Cooper of Tennessee.
Those losses would be more than offset, however, by large gains by the President under other switches. Past performance statistics indicated that the President would gain 37 percentage points of support through the advancement of Senator George Aiken of Vermont to the chairmanship of the Senate Agriculture Committee instead of Senator Allen Ellender of Louisiana. He would gain 52 percentage points through the advancement of Senator Leverett Saltonstall of Massachusetts to the Senate Armed Services Committee chairmanship instead of Senator Richard Russell of Georgia. He would gain 42 percentage points through the advancement of Senator Edward Martin of Pennsylvania to the chairmanship of the Senate Finance Committee instead of Senator Harry F. Byrd of Virginia, 40 percentage points through the advancement of Senator Alexander Smith of New Jersey to the chairmanship of the Senate Labor and Public Welfare Committee instead of Senator Lister Hill of Alabama, and 44 percentage points through the advancement of Senator Frank Carlson of Kansas instead of Senator Olin Johnston of South Carolina.
A letter writer indicates that the vote of Representative Charles Jonas to return the tidelands oil to the states had been criticized by his opponent in the race, Ben Douglas, the writer suggesting that it was thus logical to assume that Mr. Douglas took the opposite position. Had he been in Congress when the vote was taken, consistency of positions suggested that he would have voted for retention of the tidelands by the Federal Government, in which case he would have been aligned against both Senators from the state and 10 of the other 11 members of the House delegation. He would have also been aligned against the official State position, on which the State Attorney General had asked Mr. Jonas to vote, to return the tidelands to the states. He would have also been aligned against 95 percent of the other Southern members of Congress who recognized the basic states' rights issues involved. The writer indicates that Mr. Douglas would have voted to turn over North Carolina's important offshore interests, including fishing and unexplored mineral possibilities, to the control of the Federal Government. He asks rhetorically whether Mr. Douglas, therefore, was the man they wanted to represent them, finding that he was not.
A letter writer indicates that newspaper editors and publishers ought read an item in the October 29 issue of the "pro-integration" Time Magazine, concerning whether newspapers ought identify someone in the news as a black person, especially when it involved a crime, as many newspapers were now increasingly reluctant to do. He cites to two examples referenced in the Time article and four instances from the News in 1955 and 1956, in which the reports either did or did not identify the racial aspect of the story, in only one, regarding an edit from a letter from New York, identifying it by date, ranging from stories of people accused of criminal acts to a reference to Representative Adam Clayton Powell of New York as a black person, apparently quoting from some piece: "Most of our information concerning Negro Rep. Adam Powell's recent rantings and recantings came to us only by radio and television." (Yet, there is no such reference in any News article or editorial in 1955 or 1956, unless it was from an edition from which the comment was excised with the edited version only surviving on the microfilm. But the writer does not place the comment in quotes and so, given his other erratic rendition of matter, the statement is of questionable origin.) He finds that the newspapers were editorializing while failing to report the news. He cites a statistic from the Time piece stating that in New York City, 10 percent of the population was black, while committing 35 percent of the crime, with the writer appearing to suggest that the rate held either in Charlotte or nationwide, including attribution of 63 percent of the murder, drug violations and aggravated assaults to blacks, not indicating where he got the latter statistic. The Time article had added in a footnote, to which the writer cites, that by comparison, New York's Puerto Rican minority, which was 6 percent of the population, committed just slightly more than 6 percent of the crime. He believes that when responsible leaders, particularly black leaders, would come to realize the full import of the rising black crime rate, a start could be made to reverse the trend, and that the newspapers which failed to report racial identification in crime stories could not avoid a share of the responsibility for the trend. He believes that every person had the right to feel pride in their race, from knowing that "what God has given is true and just and right." He says that black newspapers generally reported the racial identification of people and that newspapers which did not do so would deny racial pride to the black person.
He does not explore the notion that racial identification of the accused in crime stories or in some other negative context in the press fed old and ingrained stereotypes of "the dangerous Negro" when the accused happened to be black, and also, on a local level, ran the substantial risk of instilling prejudice in the potential pool of jurors against the accused, though difficult to distinguish from prejudice aroused in readers by the recitation of salacious or sensational details of a particular criminal act in a given story, especially when those details are particularly gruesome or revulsive. Yet, when the crime is alleged to be cross-racial, with a black person accused of committing some criminal act against a white person, those who are predisposed to racial bias will inevitably be aroused by the racial identification of the accused and alleged victim, when maintaining a neutral, non-racial report avoids that potential tampering with the fairness to the accused. There is no crying need for the reading public to know the race of the accused, especially after being caught, when identification to aid in capture is no longer an issue. Before capture, race is an incident of identification which aids the public in supplying potentially helpful information to law enforcement and so outweighs other issues for the sake of expediency prior to arrest. But after arrest, no such purpose is served, then only appealing to the salacious and racial bias.
Brought to mind is the infamous darkened image of O. J. Simpson which appeared on the cover of Time in June, 1994 when he was accused of killing his former wife and a visitor outside her condominimum. That bit of subtle editorializing plainly ventured far beyond mere racial identification in an alleged black-on-white crime of supposed Othello-esque murderous passion, into the realm of manipulation of reader reactions actively designed to stir racial antipathy, particularly offensive given that the crime occurred in a suburb of Los Angeles, when Los Angeles, two years earlier, had been the scene of extensive riots in the aftermath of the acquittal of three white police officers in predominantly white Simi Valley for the brutal beating of Rodney King, a black man, a beating preserved on videotape by a bystander.
If the cover, as Time's subsequent editorial explanation suggested, was supposed to be some sort of work of artistic endeavor, then the effort was grossly misplaced and unthinking, sounding more, however, as a pathetic after-the-fact attempted cover-up of a blatantly racist cover than a credible explanation. For art does not coexist, outside the movies
A letter writer from Lincolnton indicates that the bill which had removed from the ballot for the presidency, Congressional and Senatorial candidates, and placed them on the state ticket, and the bill which had gerrymandered the 10th Congressional District around Charlotte until it looked "like a corkscrew", had not been designed to make it easy for the voters to elect the candidate of their choice, but rather to make it easier for the Democratic candidate to win. He finds that there were a lot of good Democrats within the district who believed that it was proper to try to elect a Democratic Congressman, but believed that it ought be done honestly, or not at all.
A letter writer wishes blessings on those "who play, who turn themselves loose, untying all strings and letting jolly laughter flood the soul; who never play for money, to whom winning is only a circumstance, never a business; to whom sunniness and airiness are natural everyday treasures, unconsciously and unendingly lighting up the spirit." He also wishes blessings on those who got others to rejoice in play, that too often play was for 18 men or 22 men only, while he urges that everyone ought play, and concludes with blessings on those who asked nothing but a chance to help others have a good time.
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