The Charlotte News
Wednesday, December 26, 1956
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from Vienna that Hungarian Premier Janos Kadar's Soviet-dominated regime was planning to seek a 100 million dollar loan from the World Bank, but an official of the bank in Washington said that it had no chance of obtaining the money. A report from Budapest said that a Hungarian delegation either had left or would leave soon for Paris to approach officials of the bank. Officials of the Kadar Government were not available to confirm or deny the report, but the Budapest regime's newspaper said on Monday that Hungary would have to seek foreign loans, even from capitalist countries. Economists had advised Premier Kadar that Hungary's revolt-disrupted economy needed at least 400 million dollars in foreign aid to put it back on track. The Soviet Union appeared to be the only likely country which would be willing to provide such aid. An official of the World Bank said in Washington that Hungary was not a member of the organization and therefore was not eligible for a loan of any amount. Any aid from Western Europe also appeared unlikely, as most of those countries were facing grave economic problems also, as a result of the oil shortage caused by the seizure and closing of the Suez Canal by Egypt. That left only the U.S., but there appeared no chance the funding would come from that source unless the Kremlin permitted the replacement of Premier Kadar by a government more acceptable to the Hungarian people and provided the people at least as much freedom from Moscow as the Soviets had conceded to the Poles. The U.S. Government had indicated it might extend economic aid to Poland's new regime and Secretary of State Dulles had told a press conference on November 2 that discussion of such aid was underway. But he also said that there was not yet satisfactory evidence that American aid to the Government in Hungary would be profitable. Any proposal to bolster the Kadar regime with American funding undoubtedly would meet with resounding defeat in the Congress. The Hungarian newspaper had predicted that the country would soon have 200,000 unemployed people because of the serious coal shortage, forcing factories to close and other economic troubles. The Soviet Union had promised Hungary 700,000 tons of coal by the end of March, and the Hungarians were also seeking to purchase electric power from neighboring Austria. Hungary's churches were filled for Christmas services on Monday night and the previous day, with some worshipers having walked past Russian tanks and armored cars without any attempt by the Communists to interfere with the religious observances.
In New York, 37 Olympic athletes who decided not to return to their Iron Curtain homelands had been given a rousing welcome when they arrived by plane this date from San Francisco, 33 having been members of the Hungarian team and four, members of the Rumanian team. Joyful reunions and speeches of welcome had greeted them, as they stood beside American and Hungarian flags while the Hungarian national anthem was played from a recording, ending with a rousing Hungarian cheer.
In Cairo, it was reported by an authoritative Egyptian source this date that Egypt would no longer consider negotiating a settlement of the Suez Canal dispute with Britain and France on the basis of the six principles on which agreement had been reached through U.N. mediation. One of those principles was that the canal would be insulated from the political policies of any single nation. The six points had been accepted by the U.N. Security Council as a basis of negotiation the previous October, but, according to the informant, Egypt would no longer accept them because of the British-French attack on Egypt, that Egypt would never negotiate with Britain and France and would discuss the matter only with the U.N. Egypt also had raised new obstacles to clearing the canal of sunken ships and other debris. President Gamal Abdel Nasser's Government had ruled out any work to clear the canal until all Israeli forces had withdrawn from Egyptian territory, thereby threatening a delay of at least several weeks while that withdrawal could occur. Hoping to obtain quicker action, two top U.N. aides had flown to Cairo from New York to talk with Egyptian officials, expected to arrive in Cairo the following day. Israeli soldiers, meanwhile, were withdrawing in slow stages from the Sinai Desert, blowing up fortifications and roads as they departed. But Israel had indicated that it would give up the Gaza Strip, seized from Egypt in the October invasion, only to U.N. control. That area, packed with Arab refugees, was historically a part of Palestine, but had been held by Egypt since the 1949 Palestine Armistice, until Israel had occupied it during the recent invasion. The Egyptian Navy had begun sweeping mines from the canal, but Egypt's canal authority had announced the previous day that there could be no other clearance work until all Israeli forces had withdrawn. Asked if it meant the Gaza Strip, a spokesman had replied that they could draw their own conclusions, but in reply to another question, the spokesman said that Egypt might possibly change its mind later on the Gaza issue. The U.N. salvage fleet of British, French and other vessels lay anchored in Port Said harbor, waiting Egypt's permission to begin the job of clearing the canal. The Egyptians reportedly had agreed that clearance work could begin as soon as the British-French forces had withdrawn from the canal zone, which had occurred the previous Saturday.
In Tallahassee, Fla., it was reported that the municipal bus service had resumed this date after a Christmas Day layoff, but there had been little evidence on the early morning runs that black passengers were seeking to integrate with white passengers. A spot check of 12 buses passing the main transfer point in the downtown area in the early morning, when black riders normally were at their peak, showed the familiar pattern of blacks seating themselves in the rear of the buses. The Inter Civic Council, led by black ministers, had announced the end of its eight-month boycott of the buses the prior Monday and had urged black riders to sit where they pleased. The Council contended that the Supreme Court ruling affirming the U.S. District Court ruling of the prior June in Browder v. Gayle, specifically applicable to the Montgomery, Ala., municipal public buses and Alabama's segregation laws, applied also to Florida's and Tallahassee's laws requiring segregation, the Federal courts having ruled that the similar Alabama segregation laws were unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment. With state offices, many businesses, Florida State, Florida A&M and the public schools still closed for the holidays, bus patronage in the city was considerably diminished, with only a few white passengers aboard the buses. Seven of the 12 buses checked had no white passengers and most of the black patronage consisted of domestic workers en route to work, not appearing greater than before the announced end of the boycott. On the buses where there were white passengers, no black passenger was seated in the front portion. The leader of the Inter Civic Council, the Reverend C. K. Steele, was not seen riding any of the buses, nor were any other officers of the organization in the early morning. They had ridden the buses on Monday, taking seats near the front. Police said they had no reports of any black passengers attempting to take seats on the buses alongside white passengers. One bus driver, who declined to provide his name, said that he had not paid much attention to where the black passengers were sitting because they had the bus all to themselves. He said he did not care where they rode if they did not try to sit beside a white person. Asked what he would do if a black person did try to sit beside a white person, he said: "I'd ask them either to move or get off the bus, I guess. If they didn't, I'd notify the company. I wouldn't want to start any trouble."
Traffic deaths for the four-day holiday weekend, which had ended at midnight the previous night, had zoomed to the highest total for any holiday period in U.S. history, having reached 695, plus 49 in fires and 117 in miscellaneous types of accidents, for a total of 861. The motor vehicle death toll had surpassed the record of 609, set during the three-day Christmas celebration of the previous year, and had exceeded the National Safety Council's prediction of 660 deaths. The total for all accidents had broken the previous record of 805, established during the three-day holiday for July Fourth the previous year. The president of the Safety Council expressed "bitter disappointment" at the establishment of the records. Deaths on the highways during the 102 hours of the holiday weekend had occurred at a rate of seven per hour, whereas during the first ten months of the year, traffic deaths had averaged 106 per day. An Associated Press survey during a non-holiday period of four days between December 14 and 18, had shown 500 traffic deaths, with an overall accident total of 587. Hazardous driving conditions in most of the Eastern half of the nation during the first half of the holiday weekend had been regarded as a major factor in the heavy traffic toll, with safety experts also attributing the toll to shorter daylight hours and holiday drinking. North Dakota had been the only state which did not report any fatal accidents, and Maine and Wyoming had reported no traffic fatalities. Leading in traffic deaths had been California, with more than 70, followed by Illinois, Texas, Ohio, New York and Michigan.
Near Malibu, Calif., a brush fire had broken out east of the area in the Santa Monica Mountains early this date and within four hours had covered 1,500 acres, reportedly destroying 25 homes. The Los Angeles County fire chief said that firemen had reported the number of homes burned, indicating that the flames were moving at the rate of 500 acres per hour. There was no report of any casualties. Seven or eight of the homes burned were substantial residences north of Zuma Beach off U.S. Highway 101, roughly 40 miles north and west of Los Angeles. The blaze had been first reported by an unidentified airline pilot in the wee hours of the morning, placing it in the Zuma Canyon area, from which it later raced into upper Latigo Canyon and toward Newton Canyon, with firemen indicating that it could become a major disaster. Authorities expressed concern for the towns of Malibu Vista, Malibu Mar Vista and another settlement near Newton and Latigo Canyons.
In Cleveland, a man, who had been asked to leave a Pittsburgh-to-Chicago bus early during the morning, had retaliated with gunfire, fatally shooting down the bus driver and an 18-year old girl, with the assailant later having been killed by police. Five other persons had been wounded as the unidentified assailant had charged through the Greyhound bus depot in Cleveland firing wildly at a patrolman. A porter at the depot said that the man, following the shootings on the bus, had come "whooping and hollering" through the terminal, and the patrolman happened to be coming in the door at the same time, shouted to bystanders to fall on the floor. The assailant had fired several times toward the patrolman, but the latter had held his fire for fear of hitting someone in the terminal, firing only a single shot in the direction of the door. The patrolman chased the man from the terminal onto the streets, where the man took refuge behind the pillars of Saint Peter's Church, from which he had come out shooting again toward the patrolman. A police sergeant, who had come to the patrolman's aid, fired four times and the patrolman fired twice, and the assailant was dead on arrival at the hospital. Passengers on the bus said that the man had been bothering the slain girl in the waiting room of the terminal, and that when she had boarded the bus after the stopover in Cleveland, had told a fellow passenger that she was scared, and the passenger relayed the message to the driver, who had her bring her baggage to the front of the bus near him. The driver had then gone back to talk to the man who became the assailant. Another witness said that she heard the man say that he was getting off the bus and then grabbed his bags, then went to the front of the bus, turned and fired at the bus driver and then shot the girl, who had come running back, screaming, as passengers had no idea she had been shot.
In Mexico City, it was reported that a beacon, which officials believed might be seen from coast to coast in Mexico, was being planned for installation atop the 17,872-foot Mount Popocatepetl, to aid domestic and international air navigation, with experts believing that it would be visible in the Gulf of Mexico around Veracruz and across Mexico at Acapulco on the Pacific Coast.
Ann Sawyer of The News reports that changes in the method of selecting the County police chief were being whispered among County officials, that the appointment might henceforth be by or upon the recommendation of the County Commission instead of the County Civil Service Board.
On the editorial page, "Television Is Education's Idle Tool" indicates that a court ruling regarding four Dunn County children (there being no such county, only a town by the name, in North Carolina) had found that a television receiver was not an item of luxury but was "the pinnacle of 20th Century communication, a necessary and integral part of the atomic age… It will keep [children] well-informed on subjects which formerly were the exclusive domain of kings. It will let them travel in a short span to more places than any single human has ever been able to travel in a lifetime. It will let them hear the greatest statesmen, philosophers and scientists, and it will bring into their everyday life more of the world's entertainment than has ever been available to any person, living or dead, prior to our own decade." (The quoted order was actually issued by the Superior Court clerk of Cumberland County in Fayetteville, granting the request of a guardian bank to permit purchase of a tv for the four children of Dunn as a "necessity" under their financial trust. Whether they were now baked in a pie and well-done, we leave to the fractured fairy tales to determine. No, they were not "County" children.)
The piece finds that the promise was yet to be proved, that commercial television depended more on entertainment than on education for its survival and growth, with appearances by great statesmen and scientists depressing the ratings. Educational television, once hailed as a perfect antenna for intellects striving to comprehend a vastly confusing world, was still in its infancy. There were some 440 commercial television stations in operation, and only 26 were functioning among the 259 channels set aside for education by the FCC, the difference being made by money.
The Ford Foundation, which had sought to do good with its money, might make a grant to Charlotte the following year, delighting local educators who were concerned about the idleness of Charlotte's educational channel. They saw it as a powerful instrument of instruction waiting to be put to use and the piece believes them correct, as where it had been put to use, educational television not infrequently had taught commercial television some tricks which had improved the lot of all viewers, as educational television had more room and reason to experiment and to try radically different programming methods.
Charlotte City Schools superintendent, Dr. Elmer Garinger, had said the previous week that the possibilities of educational television were endless, able to teach languages, explain Shakespeare, look into the atom, explain how to do things, show the dissection of a frog and scatter the thoughts of great philosophers and scientists far and wide.
It indicates that Charlotte had to put the tool to use and a Ford grant would serve the purposes of its philanthropy and the future of local school children.
"The Long Playing, Very Dry Snobs" indicates that the community needed a good dose of genuine democracy, finding amusement in a situation which permitted a $25 per week hot rodder to pity the lady in the chauffeur-driven limousine of limited torque and antique lines.
It provides the example of the poached egg snobs. A man who had ordered hash under a hard fried egg in a Trade Street establishment recently had been served hash under a poached egg, whereupon he had sent it back to the cook, and three minutes later, was served the same poached egg with a cryptic note from the waitress: "How's that?" He returned it again and five minutes later was icily served a medium fried egg. But the man had ordered a hard fried egg, expecting that he would obtain a medium fried egg, the piece indicating that it was impossible to obtain a really hard fried egg.
An even more intricate strategy was required to enjoy a well-done steak, with the order of "well-done" really meaning "if you won't cook it, please bleed it before you bring it in."
It finds that the most tiresome snobs belonged to the dry martini cult, whose supremacy in the beverage field was being challenged by the bourbon and water addicts. While the latter averred that bourbon untainted by soda or ginger ale gave off the veritable snap, crackle and pop of masculinity, martini drinkers had been bolstered by mechanical science, as a new atomizer was available that permitted the hated admixture of vermouth in a fine, stingy spray. It suggests that eventually it would create class warfare in the martini cult between those who atomized vermouth and those who followed the older custom of rinsing out the glass with it.
It also applied to the hi-fi snobs who, according to poet Randall Jarrell, prided themselves on the fidelity of their phonographs almost as "the Crusaders prided themselves on the fidelity of their wives." People with only two speakers were being regarded as mere tin-eared pretenders, with the libel being spread that some of them actually were given to whistling "White Christmas" in dark, out-of-the-way places. Beyond all redemption were people who harbored 45 rpm record players or those who failed to massage records with a brush or cloth before playing them.
It concludes that clearly the time had come to reactivate the OA-SS, Organization of Anti-Snob Snobs. It adds that applications were now being accepted.
What about us with the little colored records, red, green, and yellow semi-transparents, and the spinning reflector placed on the center of the turntable, as on a carousel at the carnival, to make all the colors spin together in variegated profusion? Surely, there's artistic merit in that method of audiophilism.
"No, Sir, This Is Not Scholarship" indicates that the week's frowsiest example of decadence in collegiate athletics had come in the form of a two-paragraph news item from the University of Minnesota, indicating that the Big Ten's plan for granting football scholarships on the basis of financial need had been attacked as "too socialistic" by a member of the University board of regents, with the member indicating that if they were hiring the kid to play football, they ought to pay him whether his old man was rich or not, that establishing the need of the college athlete was "too socialistic and not scholarship".
The member's attitude was that it was honestly and courageously wrong-headed. But the piece wonders whether such a program would turn the universities into better institutions of higher learning or of higher earning.
It quotes from the late H. L. Mencken: "College football would be much more interesting if the faculty played instead of the students, and even more interesting if the trustees played. There would be a great increase in broken arms and necks, and simultaneously an appreciable diminution in the loss to humanity."
Harry Golden, writing in the Carolina Israelite, in a piece titled "The Christian Clergy", indicates that while radio and television evangelists and "healers" spent fortunes to bring their "message" to the masses, the average clergyman, making $4,000 per year, was called upon to make the real "decision" in human relations. He says he had seen a clergyman cancel his summer vacation because a member of his church had been hospitalized after a serious accident and he had felt that he might be needed at home. He had seen other ministers go to the police station at all hours of the day or night to see what could be done to help a young person in trouble. One summer, a clergyman, whom Mr. Golden knew, had made the rounds of the wholesale grocery people, loading his car with food and had taken it to a group of gypsies on the outskirts of the city, where they had been stranded momentarily in their wanderings through the South. The clergyman had not understood their language, but sat around with them all day, returning to town for additional supplies and medicine.
The mass-appeal evangelists delivered their "messages" in broad generalities, but the head of the church of 200 or 300 families was the man who delivered the real down-to-earth "messages". He says that a minister in Charlotte, head of a church of working people, when a member called him about some serious family problem, such as an operation for his wife, had a pat answer: "Don't worry, we'll find a way." Mr. Golden concludes that the minister always found the way.
Drew Pearson, writing from Harmon, Newfoundland, on his tour with entertainers of the Far Northern bases to bring holiday enjoyment to the servicemen stationed there, tells of the most interesting construction project in the world being carried out in northern Greenland under Lt. Col. Elmer Clark of the 1st Army Engineers Arctic Task Force, building a subway-like tunnel under the icecap and silos out of ice, plus a huge room of ice, the basic principle being to pour snow in the same manner concrete was poured in warmer climates. One ice silo was already being used to store gasoline, Col. Clark saying that it would not leak a drop. Since the Air Force had to expend a lot of money to build gas and oil tanks in the Arctic, the ice silos could save great sums.
The tunnel was 650 feet long, in some cases formed by digging out a deep trench and pouring snow on supports to form the roof, then removing the supports and the roof remained solid, as with concrete, forming a four-foot thick roof which did not melt in summer.
The commander of the base at Harmon, Col. John Batjer of Houston, was enthusiastic about Newfoundlanders. About 1,500 Canadians worked under him and he also provided a helping hand to the little town of Stephensville, a one-time fishing village of 150 which had grown to 6,000 Newfoundlanders since the base had been established at nearby Harmon. American wives could be stationed in Newfoundland, unlike in Greenland, and there was also ample contact between the Americans and British. Col. Batjer was not only a base commander and a constructor of a school but also a diplomat, holding biweekly sessions with newly arrived troops on how to improve Canadian-American relations.
Edwin M. Yoder, in London, making his second contribution to the page, writes of embattled Prime Minister Anthony Eden's return from Jamaica, greeted in Commons by less criticism regarding the Suez Canal crisis than had been present three weeks earlier upon his departure. The day's debate, which Mr. Yoder observed, had begun with regular questions regarding the oversight of the bothersome gasoline rationing by the Minister of Fuel and Power, Aubrey Jones, while everyone awaited the appearance of Mr. Eden.
After 45 minutes, he appeared, with the Tories greeting him with, "Hear! Hear!" while the Labor benches remained silent. Mr. Yoder found him to appear as an old hand as he began inspecting the order paper for the day. Soon, a question came for the Prime Minister from a Labor M.P., asking whether Mr. Eden planned to appoint an historian of the "armed conflict" with Egypt. The Prime Minister evaded the question based on Egypt not being up for discussion and as no historian had been appointed for any conflict since World War II, he saw no reason for appointing one. He said that if one were to be appointed, he would support Winston Churchill for the position.
Opposition Leader Hugh Gaitskill welcomed the Prime Minister back, as the debate on fuel rationing wore on. There was no question that Mr. Eden was still master in the House. Mr. Yoder recalls that Mr. Eden had resigned from the Conservative Government of Neville Chamberlain on the eve of World War II, unable any longer to stand the appeasement of Hitler. He concludes that there was no doubt that the Eden policy in late 1956 was attended by tragedy. "Whether the fault is in ourselves, our stars, or in this man who props his feet up beside the old dispatch box in the House of Commons—this is not yet clear."
The Congressional Quarterly looks at the coming 85th Congress, finds that the effort to curb the power of the Supreme Court, begun in the 84th Congress, would be renewed, with the Southerners continuing to lead the attack, based on their outrage over Brown v. Board of Education. On March 12, 1956, 101 members of Congress from 11 Southern states had issued the "Southern manifesto" pledging themselves to use "all lawful means to bring about a reversal" of that decision. Some Northerners would also join the Southerners on the basis of states' rights, concerned with what they considered to be a growing trend toward Federal supremacy in the Court's decisions. At issue were decisions stretching back to 1942, which limited the powers of the states in areas of concurrent Federal-state jurisdiction.
The current assault on the Court was the worst since President Roosevelt had sought to pack it in 1937, the current assault having been touched off by an April, 1956 decision in which the Court had invalidated state sedition laws, ruling 6 to 3 in the Steve Nelson case that Federal legislation against sedition had left no room for state laws in that field. Representative Howard Smith of Virginia, author of the 1940 Smith Act, which the Court found was intended by Congress to occupy the field of anti-sedition legislation, had promptly introduced a bill requiring Congress to state its intention specifically if it intended to preempt any other field of legislation. Mr. Smith's bill was reported by the House Judiciary Committee with an amendment limiting its application to the field of sedition. But it had received no floor consideration in the 84th Congress, and Congressman Smith would reintroduce it in 1957.
Senator John McClellan of Arkansas and 11 Southern colleagues had introduced an identical bill in the Senate, where the Judiciary Committee, by a 7 to 2 vote had reported it out, after which it had died without reaching the floor. Another bill, applying only to sedition laws, had met a similar fate, both measures to be reintroduced in the Senate in 1957.
In all, more than 70 bills were introduced in the 84th Congress to curb the power of the Court, ranging from a proposed constitutional amendment, sponsored by Senator James Eastland of Mississippi, to provide that "there shall be no limitation upon the power of any state to regulate health, morals, education, marriage and good order in the state", to bills seeking to change the composition of the Court by making the age of 75 a mandatory point of retirement for justices.
The President might have the opportunity to appoint new members to the Court without Congress setting a mandatory retirement age, as Justices currently sitting could retire at full pay at age 70, with three members of the Court, Justices Felix Frankfurter, Stanley Reed and Hugo Black, having reached that age, while Justice Harold Burton was 68 and Chief Justice Earl Warren was 65. The other four Justices were between the age of 50 and 58.
Senator Eastland would reintroduce his proposed constitutional amendment in 1957, and the mandatory retirement bill and other measures designed to restrict the Court's power would also be reintroduced. Those bills, particularly those dealing with states' rights, would be received in better terms in the Senate, where Senator Eastland chaired the Judiciary Committee, than in the House, where Representative Emanuel Celler chaired the Judiciary Committee.
Also in 1956, states' rights groups in the North and South had united behind the presidential candidacy of T. Coleman Andrews, former IRS commissioner, Mr. Andrews having spiced his campaign with criticism of the Brown decision, charging the Court with abandoning "its law books for Communist novels." Incomplete returns from the previous presidential election indicated that Mr. Andrews had received 138,342 votes in 13 states.
Some of the sharpest recent criticism of the Court had come from former Justice James Byrnes, Governor of South Carolina between 1951 and 1955, who had urged that the Court be deprived of the power "to amend the Constitution and destroy state governments."
The piece concludes that unless the Court further offended Congressional sensibilities in 1957, legislation to restrict its powers was unlikely to be enacted.
Inez Robb, substituting for Doris Fleeson who was ill, tells of the death of the gentle art of conversation, with the death variously attributed to the 20th Century innovations of the automobile, radio, tv, movies, canasta and bubble-gum. Now, people "just talk, talk, talk, or—worse yet—yak, yak, yak, according to the critics, and there is no conversation as the great 18th Century salon-ists (Benjamin Franklin included) practiced it."
She tells of another nail in the coffin, which had arrived amid her Christmas loot, a small pack of cards aimed at doing away with a lot of useless conversational sparring and transforming the user into a strong, silent type. There were, for instance, three cards suited to the person who tried to obtain a small loan from an acquaintance to tide them over until payday or until his rich, old aunt died.
If the panhandler's story was a real tear-jerker, if, for instance, he did not know where his next bottle of gin was coming from, a card was suggested which said: "Your Story Has Touched My Heart. Never before have I met anyone with more troubles than you have. Please accept this as a token of my sincere sympathy."
A card suitable for a minor touch read: "I'd like to help you out. Which way did you come in?"
There was a third card, on the brusque or fundamental side, which would solve the whole problem, stating: "Before you ask, the answer is NO."
Second Day of Christmas: Two hounds
ghosting
Framed Edition
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