The Charlotte News
Friday, December 28, 1956
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the majority of a House investigating subcommittee had recommended this date that segregation be restored in the District of Columbia public schools. Four of the six members voted for a report recommending the move, saying that integration had "seriously damaged" the D.C. schools, that the "evidence, taken as a whole, points to a definite impairment of educational opportunity for members of both white and Negro races as a result of integration, with little prospect of remedy in the future." It said that there had been an "appalling" increase in disciplinary and educational problems since integration had begun, as well as higher costs. The draft report, released the previous night, recommended legislation to permit children to transfer to new schools in accordance with the desires of parents. Signing the report were the chairman, Representative James Davis of Georgia, plus Representatives John Bell Williams of Mississippi, Woodrow Jones of North Carolina and Joel Broyhill of Virginia. The other two members were Representatives A. L. Miller of Nebraska and DeWitt Hyde of Maryland. The D.C. schools had been integrated at the start of the 1954-55 school year, at the urging of the President, who wanted it to be among the first school districts to comply with Brown v. Board of Education, decided in May, 1954.
In Camden, S.C., the Camden High School band director, about 50, had been hospitalized this date from a bad midnight beating which he said had been administered by "four or five" hooded men who accused him of making a pro-integration speech. The Kershaw County sheriff said that he had found no trace of the men yet and had been unable to find any occasion on which the band director had made any remarks on integration, in a speech or otherwise. The band director said that he was returning from an appearance on a Charlotte television program late the previous night when he had a flat tire near Westville, about 14 miles north of Camden on U.S. 521. Four to five men, he said, had stopped in a car and each had a sack over his head, forcing the band director to come with them, telling him he was going to get it for making a pro-integration speech to a meeting of the Lions Club Auxiliary. He was then taken in the car to the Mount Zion section, about ten miles from Camden, tied to a tree and beaten with a board, suffering severe bruises. The man had formerly lived in Charlotte and had been a music teacher for Central High School and Alexander Graham Junior High School between September, 1942 and January, 1944, and had also been the former director and presently was a member of the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra.
In Port Said, Egypt, operations to clear the blocked Suez Canal at its southern end had been delayed this date, despite announcements from the U.N. and Egyptian authorities the previous day that work would begin during the morning. But an official of the Suez Canal authority in Egypt said that no orders had been received to commence the clearing work. Representatives of U.S. Lt. General Raymond Wheeler, the U.N. chief of salvage operations, had arrived at Suez and said that they had instructions to begin work immediately, and intended to meet with Egyptian officials in an effort to straighten out the situation. It appeared that when work at Suez would start, it would be more of a symbolic nature than anything else. Sunken ships, damaged bridges and other debris had blocked the 103-mile canal for nearly two months. British and French salvage men had cleared the channel from Port Said to El Cap, a third of the way down the canal, but since the British-French withdrawal, the only work toward reopening it had been Egyptian clearance of some mines and continued operations by three British and French ships in Port Said harbor. Clearing operations scheduled to begin the previous day had reportedly been delayed after Egyptian authorities announced that they had to clear mines first. There was no indication whether the Egyptians had changed their position and were ready to permit eight more British and French salvage ships assembled in Port Said to move south into the canal. British and French crews remained with their vessels as volunteers under U.N. authorities, after Britain and France had withdrawn the last of their invasion forces from the canal zone the previous Saturday.
In Malibu, Calif., a large brush fire which had burned for the previous three days continued in two areas this date, after burning about 25,000 acres, at one point threatening a 75-room Franciscan monastery and about 28 homes. The number of homes and other structures already destroyed by the coastal fire had been placed at 68 by the Los Angeles County fire chief, indicating that the figure might have been much higher save for last-ditch efforts by firefighters to ward off the flames headed for a colony of expensive homes and a 34-unit motel on the Pacific Coast Highway. The main area of distress early this date was in the Malibu township area, where a second fire had started from flying sparks of the original blaze the previous night. The first fire was burning on a semicircular front, starting about ten miles west of Santa Monica and extending north and west. The other blaze was down the coast about 2.5 miles.
Eleven persons had perished this date in separate fires which had destroyed rural homes in St. Mary's, W. Va., and Ironwood, Mich. Exploding kerosene used to ignite a wood stove had caused the West Virginia fire, causing the deaths of a couple, their daughter and two grandchildren. A young mother and five children had died in the Michigan fire, which had destroyed their seven-room farm dwelling, the cause of the latter fire not being indicated.
In New York, a bomb-like device described by police as "definitely the work of the 'Mad Bomber'" had been discovered early this date in the Paramount Theater in Times Square, found by the city's special bomb squad encased in a red sock and hidden in an orchestra section seat. Grand Central Station had its second scare in two days when a cylindrical object had been found early in the morning atop a triangular door hinge near a taxi entrance at 43rd Street and Vanderbilt Avenue. Police described it as a brass pressure filter about six inches long and two inches in diameter, capped at both ends, indicating that it was harmless. A telephone warning the previous night had caused a score of policemen to enter the theater, but a preliminary search revealed no bomb. After the theater's 2,500 patrons had left after the late show, however, police conducted a more thorough search and found the device. (It was a good thing it was a dud.) A series of telephone bomb threats which police attributed to crackpots and cranks had sent the bomb squad scurrying to several private and public locations after a pipe bomb had been found the previous Monday in the New York Public Library, which also did not explode. The previous day, a bomb-like device made from a pipe had been found in Grand Central Railway Terminal, but police did not attribute it to the "Mad Bomber" because of differences in design. Explosive or dud, the pipe found in the railway terminal was placed in the bomb squad truck on a Manhattan lot, and would be taken this date to Fort Tilden, Queens, for examination. Two rewards totaling $26,000 had been posted the previous day for the arrest of the "Mad Bomber", who had plagued the city with more than 30 homemade bombs during the previous 16 years.
In London, Scotland Yard said this date that it had broken up a diamond smuggling ring because it found the die really loaded. The investigation had begun a year earlier after the Yard had picked up rumors that diamonds were being smuggled in and out of Britain. Detectives started making air trips between Britain, Ireland and the Continent, keeping a sharp eye on a group of "businessmen" who played dice regularly to while away the time. One of the Yard's men had gotten his hands on a pair of the die and found that one side of each cube was a hinged lid, inside of which were small compartments for the gems. The Yard said that it expected to make some arrests.
In Raleigh, the police reported this date that three youths had been arrested at Kannapolis and two at Rock Hill, S.C., in connection with wholesale looting of cars parked at Reynolds Coliseum for the Dixie Classic basketball tournament the previous night. A detective lieutenant estimated that from 15 to 20 cars had been looted while their owners had attended the games. One man of Chapel Hill reported that he had lost clothing and luggage valued at $450. The detective said that one carload of loot had been found at Kannapolis, where officers had arrested three youths. As a result of those arrests, another carload of loot had been located at Rock Hill, where the other two youths had been arrested. The detective said that the youths had admitted the thefts and that Raleigh officers had been dispatched to bring them back to Raleigh.
In Charlotte, City police this date started a campaign to try to get rid of drivers blocking streets and intersections and snarling traffic in midtown Charlotte, with a police lieutenant saying that both types of offenders would be charged with illegal parking and could be fined up to $13.
Emery Wister of The News reports that Charlotte was preparing to celebrate another holiday, the New Year on Tuesday. The city would carry on business as usual on Monday but would shut down on New Year's Day. The schools would have their last day of vacation that day. Charlotte nightclubs, looking forward to one of their biggest nights of the year, were planning an evening of gala entertainment. The El Morocco Club on Wilkinson Boulevard announced an open house program, with a filet mignon dinner and a floor show with privileges of dancing and noisemakers thrown in. The Pecan Grove Supper Club announced its planned "customary" New Year's Eve program. Charlotte theaters would help celebrate with New Year's Eve shows at the Carolina, Imperial, Center and Manor, each of which would present late shows. There would be various "open houses" throughout the community and parties would be held in hundreds of other homes.
On the editorial page, "An Unhappy New Year for the South" indicates that no one knew the trouble the South had seen, nor what was yet to come, but that it seemed conservative enough to say that the region was on the verge of one of its unhappier New Years.
It had bought some time regarding integration of public schools. In North Carolina, the Pearsall Plan would be tested in the courts, as would similar plans in other states. It suggests that the South had been given a surprising period of grace since the Supreme Court decision of nearly 3 years earlier, in May, 1954. The presidential campaign had generated very little heat under the race issue, and petitions for specific desegregation mandates had been scattered, with the law's natural delays having had a tranquilizing effect.
There been a feeling in both the integrationist and segregationist camps that time was an ally for each, and so the full resources and determinations of both sides were still to be committed. If the South was lucky, the situation would continue. "For through this period of scattered skirmishes, hundreds of the 3,700 school districts affected by the Supreme Court order have been able to make apparently acceptable accommodations between the new decree and the old customs."
But the armed truce on civil rights between Northern and Southern Democrats, out of the hope that it might have provided a victory in November, had been coming apart in the wake of the defeat in the presidential election, with the gloomy prospect that desegregation increasingly would become a concern of partisan Congressional tinkerers as well as of the courts. There would be a large opportunity for Republican partisans to contribute to the division between Democrats, and its potential for new extremism.
As the purchased time dwindled, the problem emerged again in its original shape and the South would be required to confront and deal with it. The real testing unit was the Southern citizen and his heritage of values and ideals. "What is to be seen is how well his heritage has equipped him to rationalize and accommodate inevitable change; how well he comprehends new economic forces that have pushed the South back to the banks of the mainstream of national life, and which of his institutions—among them law and order, the public schools, churches, and social customs—he most reveres."
"The Refugees Are Not Strangers Here" indicates that Charlotte's new Hungarian refugee couple, as Charles Kuralt had reported on the front page the previous day, had brought with them few possessions, having to travel light and swiftly to reach their new destination. But they had brought the rich gift to exchange for the material aid which hospitable Charlotte residents were providing them, that being "two bright sparks of liberty from the torch the Hungarians had lifted against the dark face of Communist totalitarianism."
It hopes that they would serve to establish new roots for the couple. Mecklenburg County residents also prized their ancestors' contribution to American freedom and thus would know how to welcome the refugees who had served the same cause at great sacrifice. It indicates that the refugees and Mecklenburgers were really not strangers, that they shared their fervent hopes for the triumph of the Hungarian people, their frustration over terrible odds, and their conviction that eventually those odds would be beaten by a growing desire among all people for individual dignity and freedom. It would take a long time for the newcomers to comprehend American manners, mores and habits, and perhaps they would eventually understand what was done to meat in the name of Bar-B-Q. (Well, it's no worse than what they do to it to make Hungarian goulash.)
It hopes that they would know instantaneously that they were among friends and that many who had not met them welcomed them no less warmly than those who had.
"In Each Floperoo, a Silver Lining" indicates that now that the bowl games were being played, there were many predictions afoot touting the spectacles, which inevitably only fizzled into "limp floperoos" despite the undeniable quality of the participating teams. But the quality had been measured during the regular season when competition had been keen, and, unfortunately, the same teams often appeared stale and spiritless when they took to the field on January 1, full of turkey and contentment.
The previous January 1, Maryland had entered the Orange Bowl as the "Terrible Terps" and had indeed been terrible. Some of UNC's "wonder teams" of the Charlie Justice era had looked similarly sluggish and dispirited in at least two of their three bowl appearances in the late 1940's, despite having had remarkable regular seasons.
In contrast, it finds, such athletic
extravaganzas as the holiday basketball tournaments were downgraded
on the sports menu, despite the participating teams being invariably
ripe and ready, in the middle of their regularly scheduled games.
There was a greater consistency of spirited play as a result, such as
in Charlotte's Carrousel Tournament and the Dixie Classic presently
underway in Raleigh. There were exceptions, but there always were
exceptions. (Bob Cunningham and Billy Cunningham, incidentally, wore the same number for UNC and both were from New York, though both were unrelated and played on different teams, the former, during the 1956 through 1958 seasons, and the latter, 1963
The bowl game, however, was business, requiring the buildup, the prefabricated suspense, the anticipation of an event which ought properly take place at the end of the regular season, and a maddeningly uniform result. "So uniform, in fact, that we plan to hover hungrily beside the great cyclops in the living room during every second of every available game—drowning our December doubts in the joy of witnessing unarmed combat in any form whatsoever. Play ball."
Harold Martin, writing in the Atlanta Constitution, in a piece titled "The Littler Old World", tells of having gotten in a taxicab taking him to the airport, full of a strange feeling of mingled anticipation and regret which a man felt when leaving for a long journey, though his wife did not really cry at such times. He had told the taxi driver that a day later he would be in Italy, but the taxi driver was unimpressed, saying he loved Italy, that France was all right and Germany was okay, but Italy was the best. It had been the same way at the plane, the stewardess saying that she envied him for his destination of Rome, telling him that she had been there two weeks during the summer with two female friends, having spent a total of six weeks in France and Italy, most of it in France, but having the best time in Rome, having met some young Italians who showed them the town.
He reckoned that he was about the only guy in the U.S. who had not already been to Rome and did not know every alley in it. When he boarded the plane, he sat down next to a young man who looked like he was too young to have been anywhere, but as soon as he announced his destination of Rome, the young man said that he would like it, that he had been there the previous week, as he ferried planes for the Air Force.
He had deboarded in Washington and another man had taken his seat, and Mr. Martin had asked him whether he had ever been to Rome, to which he had replied in the negative, saying he had never been east of Boston or south of Washington or west of the Mississippi River. He says that the man must have thought him crazy when he then reached over and shook his hand.
Drew Pearson tells of the last
minutes of test pilot Milburn Apt having been captured by an
automatic camera trained on him in the cockpit of his X-2
Secretary of State Dulles had been less than frank when he had announced that the U.S. would cut troop strength in Europe, except possibly for some "streamlining". The truth was that the Army had been ordered to trim its NATO force by at least one division within the ensuing two years, and the only "streamlining" was strictly budgetary. It was part of an overall 10 percent cut in Army strength. Even more drastic, the Budget Bureau had ordered facilities for training reservists cut to the bone. The Air Force also was getting reductions, with the 137-wing goal scaled down to between 130 and 132 wings. Secretary Dulles, however, had assured Air Force General Lauris Norstad, the new NATO commander in Paris, that only ground strength would be reduced in Europe. NATO air strength would be both increased and modernized, a necessity as the NATO nations would depend on air-atomic power to defend Europe in case of a Soviet attack. Mr. Pearson notes that Britain also wanted to save money by withdrawing troops from the European continent, with probably two British divisions to be called back home.
Walter Lippmann indicates that the question of whether the Vice-President's trip to Austria had been necessary would be answered when the dimensions of what the Administration would ask Congress to do for the refugees became known, that the purpose of the visit was not so much to study the problem, as it had already been well studied, but rather to dramatize it and arouse American public opinion in favor of admitting more refugees and appropriating and raising more money to care for them. The country could do a great deal more for the refugees than it had been doing, with a large gap extant between emotions and actions. But at very best, the U.S. could provide for only a fraction of the refugees and behind them were the Hungarian people in Hungary, itself, to whom was owed a duty, provided the U.S. could find an effective way to discharge it.
It appeared that there was a stalemate between the Hungarian people and the Soviet army of occupation, that the rebellion had not been completely crushed, but for the time being, had been quelled and the Hungarian Government left in the hands of Soviet agents, puppet Premier Janos Kadar and his "fellow Quislings". That Government was hated and could count on no willing cooperation from the people, being confronted with a perhaps catastrophic economic dislocation. Premier Kadar and the Russian tanks could not hope to set the Hungarian economy back in order, and if they did not do so, the unemployment, which the Government, itself, had estimated would reach 200,000, would be almost certain to result in violence and the revival of the rebellion, possibly producing a rebellion of the most dangerous kind, guerrilla warfare.
To make the Hungarian economy function with some level of success, it was almost certainly necessary to have an Hungarian government which had some popular support and, in addition, large economic assistance from abroad. The Kadar Government could not obtain popular support and, except from the Soviets, could not obtain any foreign aid.
Without a new government and a political settlement along the lines, perhaps, of the Polish settlement, it was hard to see any way out of the dead-end street in which Premier Kadar and the Soviets found themselves. Even if the Soviets were willing and able to supply large amounts of economic assistance for an indefinite time, there was no reasonable prospect that the Government would be accepted by the Hungarian people. If, on the other hand, there were an Hungarian settlement, a new government could not only count on popular support but also on economic aid from abroad.
There was a report that Premier Kadar was applying to the World Bank for a loan, presenting an opportunity to make two things plain to the Hungarian Government and to the Soviets, the first being that the Kadar Government had no credit and was not recognized as a legitimate government, and the second being that when there was established a legitimate government, it could count on the good will and assistance of the world.
The greatest contribution the U.S. could make would be to assist in promoting a workable settlement inside of Hungary, with there being no telling how much the U.S. could actually do, but with some hope existing that it could help at least a little. There was good reason to believe that the Kadar Government was at a dead-end, and some reason to believe that the Soviet Government was aware it was involved in a disaster, enabling statesmen to look for some opportunity which might lead to negotiations.
Mr. Lippmann indicates that it had been said that it was a rule of the classic Chinese military philosophy that when one was about to surround one's adversary, some road had to be left open to permit retreat because the adversary, when surrounded, would fight to the death, as being captured meant that he would be killed anyway, while being allowed a means of retreat would cause the enemy to give up the city without ruining it and costing great loss of life. Mr. Lippmann concludes that whether or not the Chinese rule was good military strategy, it was a good rule of diplomacy and an especially good rule in the type of desperate stalemate which now existed in Hungary.
A letter writer wonders why the two great bodies of water in the area were not referenced by their actual names, Lake Catawba and Mountain Island Lake, rather than "the Catawba River", when they were impounded waters, urges that they be called by those proper names.
A letter writer indicates that he had just read a news item reporting that a man and his wife had been given ten days in jail for refusing to send their children to a certain school in Versailles, Missouri. He regards it as the way of things in Communist Russia and wonders how long it would be before America would be completely communized, questioning whether parents had the right to say where their children could attend school.
Whether the writer understood from the locally published story the reasons for the refusal of the couple to send their daughter to the rural school is not clear, as it was not stated therein, but other reports elsewhere clarified that the parents had a genuine concern for the safety of their daughter because of an unsupervised playground which had within it a dangerous cave. The child, in the meantime, was being schooled at home, according to her father, a high school teacher. The whole matter had nothing to do with "Communism", that is the typical dog-whistle of segregationists when discussing the state of the schools and parental choice of their children's attendance in 1956. If you regard equal protection under the laws as "communistic", then perhaps you ought move to Russia, where only Party members are equal, or at least primi inter pares.
The same letter writer thought well of Richard Nixon, believed he ought be President, wanted a third party and the Supreme Court elected, believed that the Fourteenth Amendment had been "fraudulently procured" and was illegal, among many other opinions he held.
A letter writer indicates that there appeared to be some confusion among local officials as to what the city and county wages ought be for various jobs, indicating that there were many employees resigning, evidencing a wage schedule in drastic need of revision, which she proposes to outline.
A letter writer indicates that people who lived on the west side of Charlotte ought begin to ask questions as to why they were crowding the west side to clear the east side railroad crossings.
Fourth Day of Christmas
Framed Edition
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