The Charlotte News
Monday, December 31, 1956
TWO EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the President was meeting this date with Senate and House Republican leaders to discuss an outline of the hopes and plans for policy during the ensuing year. With the aid of Vice-President Nixon, Budget director Percival Brundage and Cabinet members, except Secretary of State Dulles and Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson, the President planned to review the Administration's domestic program for the coming year, including matters such as aid to schools, tax, labor and farm legislation. The major forein policy issues, such as standby authority to use U.S. troops in the Middle East regarding the Suez Canal crisis, foreign aid and help for Hungarian refugees, might also come up for discussion, but were primarily reserved for the following day when Democratic Congressional leaders would be included in a White House briefing. The President had returned to Washington the previous day for the conferences, following a weekend of relaxation at the Augusta, Ga., National Golf Club. The President would deal with both foreign and domestic issues in his annual State of the Union message, which he planned to deliver in person to Congress on January 10. The 85th Congress would convene on January 3, Thursday. Invited to attend this date's meeting were Senators William Knowland of California, the Minority Leader, Styles Bridges of New Hampshire, chairman of the Republican policy committee, Eugene Millikin of Colorado, retiring chairman of the conference of all Republican Senators, Leverett Saltonstall of Massachusetts, the assistant Senate Republican leader, House Republican Leader Joseph Martin of Massachusetts, assistant Republican House leaders, Charles Halleck of Indiana and Les Arends of Illinois, plus Representative Leo Allen of Illinois, the senior Republican on the House Rules Committee. Mr. Martin predicted after a meeting with the President the prior Friday that the President would "get a good deal of what he asks" from the new 85th Congress, controlled in both houses by the Democrats. Mr. Martin said he did not anticipate any major new proposals to be outlined at the meeting this date. The President was expected to push again for some of the legislation which Congress had sidetracked in the previous session, one proposal likely to be renewed being his request for Federal aid for construction of schools, with rival plans for school aid having been killed in the prior Congress amid a fight regarding an amendment requiring cancellation of aid for any school district which continued segregation. Another matter likely to be renewed was civil rights legislation, mainly stressing protection of the right to vote, which the Administration had proposed to Congress late in the previous session. No general tax reduction plans appeared to be in the offing at present because of continued high Federal spending, mainly for defense, and the opposition to any tax cut by Secretary of the Treasury George Humphrey until the budget was balanced.
In Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, it was reported that 15 persons had been killed when a U.S. Air Force Constellation had crashed at Dhahran airfield in a heavy fog the previous night, as reported by the Air Force this date. The plane had been one of three Constellations which had arrived after an 11-hour flight from Tripoli, Libya, the two others having landed safely at another airport in Bahrain. The crashed plane reportedly had landed 1,000 yards short of the runway in sand and had burst into flames, with 15 of the 42 aboard having burned to death and 27 others having scrambled to safety. The airfield was equipped with a ground controlled approach system but the equipment had not been operating at the time of the crash.
In Charleston, S.C., the Air Force Base this date identified eight of the 12 crew members who had survived the crash, indicating that 41 persons had been aboard the craft and that 26 patients were being treated in the hospital, with three dead on arrival and 12 others listed as missing. No explanation is provided for the slight variation in the number of persons aboard.
In Hartford, Conn., a fire had destroyed the huge St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Cathedral this date, only 31 hours after a blaze of undetermined origin had wrecked another Catholic Church, St. Patrick's, in downtown Hartford. The two churches were little more than a mile apart. Because of the fires' proximity to one another in time and distance, City officials ordered 24-hour police protection for every church and synagogue in the city, with the fire marshal indicating that arson was one of the possibilities being investigated in the St. Patrick's fire, which had caused more than $250,000 worth of damage. Soon after the cathedral fire had been discovered in the early morning this date, scores of detectives began questioning all available persons in the area, asking if they had seen anything suspicious. About 100 persons had been at St. Joseph's for an early morning mass when a faint haze of smoke seeped into the sanctuary, giving warning that there was a fire. All had gotten out without difficulty. No one had been in St. Patrick's when a police officer discovered the fire there shortly after midnight. St. Joseph's was the worship center for the Hartford Roman Catholic Archdiocese, comprising the states of Connecticut and Rhode Island, including the Diocese of Norwich and the Diocese of Bridgeport. Firemen said that nothing could prevent complete wreckage of the interior of the cathedral. About ten firemen had been injured or overcome with smoke while fighting the latter fire, but none was believed seriously injured.
The national death toll from traffic accidents thus far in the four-day New Year's holiday had climbed higher this date, but at a rate much slower than the record-breaking four-day Christmas weekend. With the 102-hour holiday more than half completed, traffic accidents had accounted for 213 deaths, with fires having caused another 24 deaths and miscellaneous accidents, another 37, for an overall total of 274 fatalities. The four-day period would end at midnight on Tuesday. The President of the National Safety Council said late the previous night that he noted "an ominous trend in the traffic toll" and hoped that it could be halted by a resumption of care and common sense which had marked the earlier hours of the holiday, which had begun at 6:00 p.m. on Friday. Safety officials said that the most deadly time on the nation's roads during the current holiday was New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. Safety experts estimated that between 35 and 40 million motorists would be on the roads during the holiday, compared with more than 45 million during the Christmas holiday. The Council predicted that 490 persons would die during the current 102-hour period. The record was 407 for the New Year's holiday, set in the four-day period of 1952-53. Drive carefully…
In Charlotte, a Myers Park High School history teacher had told police that he was kept prisoner by three men for seven hours this date, while his house had been robbed of clothing, appliances and jewelry worth several hundred dollars. He said that he had been putting the key in the front door of his cottage located off Providence Road shortly after midnight this date when a sack was pulled over his head. The three men had kept him prisoner for about seven hours while they ransacked his apartment. Police had found him on the Old Sardis Road shortly after his release, the man indicating that it was the location where the men had left him.
Charles Kuralt of The News reports that an Hungarian girl, winner of a gold medal at the recent Olympic Games in Melbourne, Australia, might come to Charlotte to live. Andrea Bodo, 22, one of the world's greatest female gymnasts, and her husband had been invited to settle in Charlotte by her great-uncle, a Charlotte construction engineer. The two had come to the U.S. from Melbourne with other members of the Hungarian Olympic team who had defected from their homeland. Her husband, 29, had fled to Vienna shortly after his wife left Budapest for the Olympics, catching a plane to Melbourne, where he joined his wife and accompanied her to the U.S. Ms. Bodo had been introduced to the nation the previous night on the "Ed Sullivan Show", and this date, she and her husband had flown to Miami for the first of a month-long series of appearances with the rest of the Hungarian team under the sponsorship of Sports Illustrated, with the team to raise money for Hungarian relief. It was not yet known whether the athletes would make Charlotte one of their stopovers, but Charlotte Coliseum manager Paul Buck was making inquiries into that possibility during the morning. The only contingency on which the couple's future plans could snag was the problem of employment in Charlotte. Her husband was a former Budapest newspaper sports editor and his wife had taught physical education in a Budapest school, and they would be searching for similar jobs.
John L. Stickley, president of Lions International, was selected as the Man of the Year in Charlotte this date, in the annual selection sponsored by The News. He had been notified of the award while in Pasadena, Calif., where he would view the Tournament of Roses Parade in advance of the Rose Bowl on the following day. The ceremonial presentation of the award would be delayed until he would complete a three-month world tour on behalf of Lions International in April, set to travel to South America, Africa and the Middle East.
In Houston, Tex., a woman reported that her 78-year old husband was missing, and when asked by a policeman whether she had any idea why he had left home, she replied: "I have a pretty good idea. Red-headed woman."
And, don't miss 1-B and 8-A, keeping the latter, as we suggested last week, hush-hush and on the Q.T.
Because we know you are dying to find out what is going on in the sports world, that thread of continuity spanning generations, as 1956 heads to 1957, we also provide the sports page as a bonus.
On the editorial page,"John L. Stickley: Man of the Year" tells of Mr. Stickley, a local businessman and international humanitarian, having returned to Charlotte for a brief Christmas visit before heading back around the world as president of Lions International.
He was being honored by The News for his intense interest in all people of the earth and for his efforts on behalf of their welfare. For 18 years, he had sought to help his fellow man, and his spirit and energy had served as inspiration to his fellow Lions Club members in Charlotte and in the rest of the world.
It indicates that the award was a symbol of more than greatness and deeds, that it represented the spirit and sacrificial attitude of the men who had received it since 1944, serving not only as a singular honor for the recipients and as public recognition of the highest type, but also as a reminder of the goodness of humanity generally.
It lists the past recipients.
In a widely heralded speech, Secretary of State Dulles had called for renewal of America's missionary zeal such that men from all walks of life would seek to restore the image of the country throughout the world, with the task too big only for diplomacy.
It suggests that Mr. Stickley was the kind of man Mr. Dulles wanted overseas and had it not been for his special gifts of leadership, another man, perhaps of another nationality, would be representing the charity and hope of the Lions Clubs to the world. The principles of the Clubs were synonymous with national ideals and were being represented from India to Brazil in an outstanding way by Mr. Stickley, particularly fitting as he also represented an economic system which Communism had portrayed to the world as a heartless oppressor of the poor and underprivileged.
For many years before his current assignment, Mr. Stickley had served in civic and religious affairs in Charlotte and continued to serve in no less of a capacity, and it counts it an honor to announce his selection as Charlotte's Man of the Year.
"A Low Bow to an All-American City" salutes Laurinburg, N.C., for having been named an "All-American City" in a contest sponsored by the National Municipal League and Look magazine. It finds that Laurinburg richly deserved the honor, with a high record of accomplishment, including a multi-million-dollar campaign to attract the Consolidated Presbyterian College, its $208,000 addition to Scotland County Memorial Hospital, its new $40,000 community swimming pool and its new 52-unit low-rent housing and slum clearance project, all of which, it finds, were noteworthy monuments to the city's capacity for achievement. It finds it possessed of an outstanding community spirit and creative leadership, and that its accomplishments would serve as an inspiration to other North Carolina cities.
Simeon Stylites, writing in the Christian Century, in a piece titled "In Defense of Gossip", indicates that when Robert Louis Stevenson had been in lonely exile north of San Francisco suffering from tuberculosis, he had written a friend back home in Scotland, asking why everyone had sent him sermons, indicating that it was gossip for which he was dying. Mr. Stylites finds that he was speaking for the human race, that there were many times when the human spiritual constitution needed good gossip more than sermons, for news was usually a better boon than advice.
Gossip had a bad name because so much of it was malicious, for which there was no defense. He suggests that in the true and undefiled sense, nourishment from finding out about the doings of people placed gossip in the same vein as Christian love, stemming from the same root, an interest in other people. When that interest was lacking, much of the saving salt of life was gone.
Henry David Thoreau had written: "I wanted to drive life into a corner and reduce it to its lowest terms." Mr. Stylites suggests that if life were driven into a corner, it was robbed of a continuing interest in people.
"We would seriously question the reality of 'love of humanity' in anyone who did not have stirred into it a lively interest in good gossip.
"Oh, yes, I almost forgot: What is the news down your way?"
Drew Pearson provides his predictions for 1957. Among them were that Virginia Warren, daughter of the Chief Justice, would become a television star, that Senator John McClellan of Arkansas would treat lightly Murray Chotiner, the Vice-President's former campaign manager, being investigated for influence-peddling by Senator McClellan's committee, that Senator McClellan would make headlines with his probe of racketeering in the Teamsters Union and regarding Teamsters czar, Jimmy Hoffa—a fateful and accurate prediction—, that Senator Estes Kefauver would start a sensational investigation of big business monopoly, and that Senator John W. Bricker would obtain a compromise blessing from the President for his amendment to modify partially the President's treaty-making power.
Among the other predictions were that at least four members of the Cabinet would resign before the end of the year, including Secretary of State Dulles, Secretary of Labor James Mitchell, Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson, and Postmaster General Arthur Summerfield. Vice-President Nixon would be "busier than a bird dog playing the part of 'Eisenhower Jr.'", making a trip to Western Europe, garnering more headlines. The President would not be active politically, but the men around him would be tough and ruthless in weeding out opposition to his policies, especially within the Republican Party, where the Old Guard would almost disappear and the party remade in the image of the President. Mr. Nixon, once a conservative, would be in the vanguard of remaking the party.
The Democrats would go through the year divided and bickering, with the Texas leadership in Congress weakening, partly because Speaker Sam Rayburn was getting old and partly because Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson would suffer a reduction in his prestige. The once powerful Southern wing of the party would lose its tight control, but the Northern wing would still not be able to gain control. Some Northern Democrats would patch up a precarious truce with such Eisenhower liberals as Senators Francis Case of New Jersey and Jacob Javits of New York.
The President, who had made his fame as a man of war, would endeavor to establish his final place in history as a man of peace, working toward the goals sincerely, but sometimes timidly. In the backstage battle presently being waged between his disarmament adviser, Harold Stassen, and the Pentagon regarding the proposed banning of hydrogen bomb tests and the ICBM, he would not take a forthright stand, but would agree to ban super-hydrogen bomb tests.
Behind the Iron Curtain, it would be the Soviets' most crucial year, as well as a crucial year for the rest of the world, with the unrest continuing in the satellite nations, Poland being the next country in which riots would occur, followed by East Germany.
In foreign affairs, Prime Minister Anthony Eden of Britain would resign and be succeeded by R. A. Butler, presently the number two man in the Conservative Party.
Communist China would release the last of the American prisoners, but the U.S. would not recognize Communist China or agree to its admission to the U.N.
Walter Lippmann tells of the President picking and choosing the people to occupy positions in his second term, it being a normal time when the administrative machinery came up for reappraisal, especially true of positions responsible for conducting foreign policy.
In the time since the first World War and the Administration of Woodrow Wilson, there had been built up, largely by improvisation, an exceedingly complicated foreign policy machinery, so complicated that serious thought was being given to creation of a new office for the vice-president, with the power and responsibility to see that all of the different departments and bureaus responsible for a particular policy in fact administered it. There was also talk of a constitutional amendment to provide the vice-president greater authority within the executive branch, as, technically, the vice-presidency was part of the legislative branch, as the only duty assigned to the position by the Constitution was as the presiding officer of the Senate.
Mr. Lippmann ventures that experience showed that there was no such thing as the best type of machinery for conducting foreign policy, that it all depended on the person of the President and how stabilized or fluid the world situation was in which the policy had to be made and conducted, that in tranquil times, the President had usually been able to leave foreign affairs to the State Department, which had administered them along reasonably well-settled lines of a fixed policy, the case, for example, under President Calvin Coolidge between 1923 and 1929. But in the crises of the great wars, under Presidents Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt, the conduct of foreign affairs had been drawn into the White House, with the Secretary of State not having been the foreign minister, though still a powerful figure in domestic politics who could help the President with Congress and with public opinion, as, for example, Secretaries of State William Jennings Bryan under President Wilson and Cordell Hull under FDR, or had been a high civil servant as Robert Lansing under President Wilson. In such times, when the White House had been the actual foreign ministry, the President had usually employed special agents for delicate negotiations, the best example having been Colonel Edward House under President Wilson and Harry Hopkins under FDR. But both Presidents Wilson and Roosevelt had used many other special agents who operated outside the foreign service and the State Department.
The situation under President Eisenhower was quite different from any which had preceded his Presidency. Although the country was not at war, the world situation was unsettled and the U.S. foreign policy in the critical areas of Europe, Asia and Africa was being reappraised, re-planned and refashioned. Based on precedent, it would be a time when foreign policy would be made and directed by the President, but President Eisenhower was not doing that. Except in the recent situation where Secretary of State Dulles was ill, the President did not make or conduct foreign policy, rather judging and choosing among alternatives brought to him by staff officers, leaving initiation, making and building up of the policy to the Secretary.
But Secretary Dulles had a peculiar conception of his office, that it required him not only to make and direct foreign policy but also in major matters to administer it personally, which meant that he was away from his office much of the time, making it impossible for him to be in intimate contact with the conduct of foreign policy.
Joseph & Stewart Alsop finds that the much-heralded "revolt of the liberals" within the Democratic Party had turned into a "damp squib" at least for the time being, the main reason being that Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson, the dominant person in the new Senate, had squashed the proposal advanced by the party liberals for an "advisory committee" to guide Democratic policy. The attempt by the same liberal forces to eliminate Senate Rule 22, an effort led by Senators Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota and Paul Douglas of Illinois, among others, was also to be squashed, with the net effect to make it virtually impossible to break a filibuster.
The 1956 Democratic platform had explicitly committed to elimination of the rule, and the Northern Democrats had been joined in that effort by a number of Republicans, such as Senators Irving Ives of New York, Charles Potter of Michigan, and Thomas Kuchel of California. But the highest current estimate of the forces against Rule 22 was now 30, and Senator Johnson opposed the attempt to eliminate it, with what he said becoming the rule.
Part of the reason for Senator Johnson's extraordinary influence was personal, as the Northern liberals liked him and respected him. Senator Humphrey, who had made his national reputation in 1948 when he had introduced a strong civil rights plank to a reluctant Democratic convention and had entered the Senate with the reputation of a wild man of the left, had, during the previous two sessions of Congress, worked very closely with Senator Johnson, becoming in the process his intimate personal friend. Unlike Senator Douglas and others, he had not told Senator Johnson in advance that he meant to join the "liberal revolt", resulting in there being some slight chilliness between the two men. But there was reason to believe that the primary reason Senator Humphrey had not discussed it with Senator Johnson was that he suspected the latter would use his ability of persuasion to talk him out of it.
Persuasiveness was a secret of Senator Johnson's power, while his genius as a parliamentarian was another, and yet another was his infinite capacity for taking pains. Within 24 hours of the November election, Senator Johnson had telephoned each newly elected Democratic Senator to congratulate him personally and to chat about the forthcoming session. Another reason why the liberals did not wish to fight Senator Johnson was that on most issues, he was siding with them. On civil rights and oil, a Texan could only vote one way, but on issues such as the minimum wage, public housing, public power, farm aid and other such issues, Senator Johnson stood completely with Senators Humphrey, Douglas and the other Northern Democrats.
Senator Johnson received immense prestige from the fact that the Senate had remained Democratic under his moderate approach, while the "liberal" Adlai Stevenson had lost in a landslide to the President. Yet, Senator Johnson remained caught in a dilemma. He would be an obvious Democratic presidential candidate in 1960, provided his health would hold, and yet he was also up for renomination in 1960 for the Senate in Texas, where he had numerous enemies. In the ensuing years, it would not be easy for him to make a record which would please Texas constituents without alienating the liberal forces which would control the Democratic nominating conventions.
The Northern Democrats who had staged the abortive "liberal revolt" were also faced with the same dilemma but in reverse, being aware that the minority groups which had been solidly Democratic in the North for more than a generation, especially among blacks, were slipping to the Republicans, which was why the liberal revolt, regardless of how much the liberals liked and respected Senator Johnson, might not be as dead as it appeared at present.
A letter writer indicates that in the hands of Marshal Tito and his henchmen, war was being waged against God and His servants, as well as against the individual and his liberties, and despite that, the State Department was seriously considering inviting "this Communist monster" to visit the U.S. He finds it revolting to those who prized religion, decency and representative government. He indicates that in 1941, the "indispensable President", referring to FDR, had provided American aid to the "evil Communists in their struggle with the evil Nazis, thereby enabling the evil Communists to rise to a position of terrific world power." In 1955, President Eisenhower had shaken the "blood-drenched hands of Bulganin and Khrushchev, told him he always spoke the truth, and assured those Communist monsters he was convinced they were as sincere in their desire for peace as he was." He finds that all degrading and humiliating, indicates further that in 1956, the American Association of University Professors had adopted a set of principles holding that a college should not dismiss a professor who was a Communist. He says there were other examples illustrating the deterioration of Americanism but asserts that the ones he had listed were sufficient to expose the decay, that every American who believed in the principles of the founding fathers was conscience-bound to disassociate from those whose actions were corroding "the pillars on which our way of life rests. He is conscience-bound to work for a return to the principles of our Declaration of Independence. If he doesn't, a decent United States cannot survive."
A letter writer says that the country had to have law and order to protect the Constitution, that it had put up with attacks on the Constitution and the Supreme Court for more than two years from those who defied and violated the law of the land and the law of the Bible with their discrimination. She indicates that the Court had always upheld the law of the country and had never permitted discrimination, as neither had the law of the Bible. She wants the full penalty of the law administered to those who attacked the law of the land and that of the Bible, that two years of such defiance was much too long.
Prepare to meet 1957
Seventh Day
Framed Edition
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