The Charlotte News
Wednesday, February 22, 1956
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from London that Yugoslav Air Force planes had bombed giant ice packs blocking Adriatic rivers this date in a "declaration of war" against Europe's worst winter in living memory, that special teams of rifle sharpshooters had patrolled Communist Poland against wolf packs ravaging cattle after the wolves had been driven from their lairs by starvation, with Warsaw radio reporting that 90 wolves had been shot. Starving rats had attacked birds feeding in a number of the large Dutch cities. Spanish Air Force planes had succeeded in dropping food supplies to nearly 60 persons marooned for 15 days atop the highest mountain on Majorca in the Mediterranean Balearic Islands, a group which included a reported six Americans, as the group prepared a site for a U.S. radar station. German weather experts had said that the freeze might be central Europe's worst in 200 years, that the average temperature for the first 20 days of February had been slightly below the lowest average for the month since records had first been maintained in 1766. The Continent now had 762 known dead attributed to the brutal winter weather, with France still having the largest death toll, 189, followed by Italy, at 102, Turkey, 72, Yugoslavia, 70, Britain, 55, Holland, 50, Denmark, 40, Germany, 34, Greece, 30, and several other in other countries. The temperature had reached zero in much of East and West Germany, with the Bavarian valleys reaching as low as 10 below zero, Berlin having received 12 inches of snow, and the Elbe River being frozen solid between Hamburg and Dresden.
Senate investigators were reported this date to have found indications that Howard Keck, president of Superior Oil Co., had made his largest political contribution in recent years to the national Citizens for Eisenhower Committee. His bank records had been subpoenaed by the special four-member Senate committee as part of its inquiry into the $2,500 campaign contribution offered by attorneys for Superior Oil to Senator Francis Case of South Dakota, a contribution which the latter had rejected on the grounds that he suspected it had been offered to influence his vote on the natural gas deregulation bill, which he had voted against. A source close to the committee said that an examination of Mr. Keck's records had revealed "several" campaign gifts.
In Montgomery, Ala., six black
ministers and another black person whose home was recently bombed,
had been among the first defendants arrested this date for taking
part in the municipal bus boycott in the city, indicted along with
108 other persons by a grand jury late the previous day, a record number of charges in a single Montgomery grand jury action, following an
eight-day investigation of the mass protest against segregation on
the municipal buses, begun the previous December when Rosa Parks
refused to surrender her seat on a bus to a white passenger at the
request of the bus driver and had been arrested and found guilty of
violating the segregation law. Among those charged with violating
Alabama's anti-boycotting law was E. D. Nixon, former state president
of the NAACP. His home had been the target of a small dynamite bomb
on the night of February 1, but damage had been slight and there were
no injuries—whether from "Dynamite Bob" not being known, as the local gendarmes placed catching the perpetrator of bombings against civil rights leaders at a much lower priority, obviously, than bringing to justice those who had violated segregation and anti-boycotting laws. The arrested ministers included the Rev. Ralph
Abernathy, pastor of the First Baptist Church and one of the foremost
spokesmen for black citizens during the boycott, as chairman of the
negotiations committee which had sought unsuccessfully to reach a
settlement of the mass protest against the segregation of the buses;
and the Rev. R. James Glasco, director of the Alabama Negro Baptist
Center in Montgomery. The story does not say so, but among the other
ministers charged, though not yet arrested, was the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
In Akron, O., a 72-year old doctor admitted in court, after pleading guilty to a charge of performing an illegal abortion, that he had performed abortions since 1943 at the rate of about 300 per year, with an average fee of $200 each. He said to the judge that it had been going on "since earliest recorded history among both the savages and civilized people, and it will always go on." He said that on the day the newspaper story of his indictment had appeared, he had turned down ten women in the afternoon seeking abortions. He asked for mercy because of his age and health and the judge took the matter under advisement pending medical testimony regarding his condition. Conviction on the charge carried a maximum penalty of between one and seven years in prison. The judge said that he would insist that the doctor retire from the medical profession in exchange for any consideration he would provide him. He had practiced medicine in Akron for 42 years and said that he had "great respect" for the women he served, that many were unwed and from good families, frantic to save their reputations and those of others they held dear, that if they did not get good treatment, they would try dangerous treatment. He said that other Akron physicians referred cases to him and he suspected that other doctors were performing abortions, but had no proof. The assistant administrator of the Akron City Hospital told reporters that the hospital had rendered laboratory services for the doctor, but did not know the nature of his practice. The chairman of the Summit County Medical Society public relations committee said that the Society had "no idea or proof" that the doctor performed abortions. The doctor was free on bond.
In Gastonia, N.C., a local milkman had been charged with bilking a customer out of $20,000 by padding his bills. The operator of a supermarket on Wilkinson Boulevard, near Belmont, had brought the charge after examining his business records for the previous three years, finding some discrepancies in his accounts with Coble Dairies, the employer of the defendant. The milkman was accused of obtaining money under false pretenses and of cheating the supermarket owner by obtaining a store agent's signature on a legitimate bill which concealed carbon underneath, enabling the defendant to obtain a copy of the agent's signature on a longer list of dairy products ostensibly purchased but not actually delivered. The supermarket owner said that he became suspicious when his milk purchases failed to fluctuate with the rise and fall of his general business, began keeping track of the milk during the previous month, discovering that he had paid for about $600 worth of dairy products while receiving only a little more than $300 worth. The defendant readily admitted to detectives that he had been cheating the store for some time, but he had refused to sign any statement. According to the supermarket owner, the false bills dated back to August, 1953. The defendant admitted that he began cheating in a small way but for the previous several months, had taken the supermarket for about $15 per day on bills which averaged between $80 and $100 per day. He had been employed by the dairy for about six years. No hearing date on the charges was set.
Julian Scheer of The News tells of the top two candidates for the Democratic nomination for the 10th District Congressional race to meet with Governor Luther Hodges in Raleigh on Saturday morning, and that following the conference, either Paul Ervin, a Charlotte attorney, or former Charlotte Mayor Ben Douglas would announce as a candidate for the seat currently held by Representative Charles Jonas. Governor Hodges had talked with both men during the week and the two men had talked the matter over between themselves twice since meeting with the Governor. The Governor had expressed a strong desire to have a top candidate to run for the office in November. It was believed that it would ultimately be Mr. Douglas if he decided to run. It was certain that one of the two would step aside and not oppose in the May 26 primary.
Meanwhile, Congressman Jonas, the only Republican in the North Carolina Congressional delegation, had determined to seek a third term.
Charles Kuralt of The News reports of an attempted prison break from the camp in Huntersville the previous day by four tough convicts, with everything having settled back down to normalcy this date. The State Prison director, William Bailey, said that facilities for hardened convicts would be completed in 40 days at Ivy Bluff, near the Virginia border, and at that point the Huntersville camp would revert to a facility for short-term white prisoners. The Huntersville mayor was indignant over the five escapes from the camp during the previous seven months and said he would ask the town council to request that the state keep hardened prisoners away from the town. The four prisoners who had caused the problem the previous day had been quickly transferred to a maximum security camp near Asheville. One of them, from California, was serving 5 to 7 years for conspiracy to commit armed robbery, another, from Cabarrus County, 2 to 4 years for breaking and entering and larceny, a third, from Wilkes County, 9 to 14 years for robbery, and the fourth, eight months for nonsupport. Two of the prisoners had escaped from the camp in their underwear on January 21 and were recaptured a few hours later. This time, apparently they were wearing their regular clothing during their attempted escape.
Ann Sawyer of The News tells of a Charlotte resident having been sentenced to prison this date for lying as a witness in Superior Court in a case involving a conspiracy to violate liquor laws, which had been tried this date. The witness had just been released from prison and told a different story in court from the one he had told ABC officers previously, causing the judge to issue a bench warrant for his arrest, whereupon he was taken to the county jail and questioned, then tried after waiving a grand jury indictment, admitting that he had lied, saying that he did not know why he had done so. He had testified that he was picked up by ABC officers on February 11 and asked if he knew where a tractor-trailer loaded with liquor and owned by the defendant in the case was parked, telling the officers that he had the keys to the tractor-trailer, but stated in court this date that he had voluntarily gone to ABC headquarters and told the officers that he knew where the 120 cases of liquor were.
In Monte Carlo, Monaco officials, ecstatic about the plans for the April marriage of Prince Rainier III to actress Grace Kelly, announced this date that two American football teams would be invited to play in Monaco on April 17, the date of the marriage ceremony. The teams were not disclosed. As a pregame show, an acrobat was going to cross the stadium on a tight wire, pausing before the royal box to unfurl large Monican and American flags. Palace sources said that preliminary estimates placed the cost of the wedding at the equivalent of around $285,000. Among the guests for the wedding would be British ballerina Margo Fonteyn, Bob Hope and Bing Crosby.
In London, a ten-year old white Arabian horse named Caid visited Buckingham Palace the previous night. The horse was part of the cast of the French revue, "La Plume de ma Tante", appearing at the Garrick Theater, a few blocks from Buckingham Palace, which had been attended by Queen Elizabeth, the Duke of Edinburgh, Princess Margaret and Queen Mother Elizabeth the previous night. The horse, riderless, was being followed by a somewhat breathless British bobby and a Frenchman in cowboy regalia, shouting, "Aidi mon ami!" At the Palace gate, a police squad car prevented the procession from entering, and a detective jumped out and collared the animal. The Frenchman in the cowboy outfit said that it was his job each night to ride Caid from the theater to a stable about a mile away, that he had left him tethered to a railing near the stage door while he went back for the saddle, and that when he returned, the horse was gone. The horse was released by police into his custody.
For those who have not yet learned to
read, Philadelphia police officer Virgil Tibbs had stopped into a
Rocky Mount diner one night during the week to order a cheeseburger
with onions and French fries, plus steaming coffee, for Harvey
Oberst, confined to the jail on a charge of theft, after the murder
charge against him relating to the victim, Mr. Colbert, whose wallet
he had stolen, had been dropped, thanks to the thorough investigation
by Mr. Tibbs. Mr. Oberst had now provided a vital clue, which would
have to be followed up through Packy Harrison, to find out the
identity of a foul owl on the prowl, who had sought an illegal
abortion from Mama Caleba for Dolores Purdy, who fancied the cool
mawble in the cemetery. A coffee salesman-cameraman happened along in
time to record the scene—"an eloquent, two-stooled ode to
food
On the editorial page, "Follow up Progress with Progress" tells of Charlotte set to reap the full benefits from the unclogging of 3rd Street and the addition of 600 new parking spaces only if it would bolster those projects with other improvements.
It quotes from Robert Moses, who had helped remake New York for the automobile age, writing in Freedom of the American Road, that the average public official was afraid to proceed without some evidence of public approval, scared of minorities, big owners, and demagogues who threatened his job at the next election, that without strong public opinion from the grassroots, problems could not be solved. "If you want action … pick out the nearest public officials with good ideas on traffic, with courage and enough modesty to imitate successful experience elsewhere. Build them up. They will make some mistakes and many enemies, but they will bring home the bacon."
It finds the advice sound and that the opportunities in Charlotte were within the public's grasp, encourages the plans being offered by experts, such as City traffic engineer Herman Hoose and City-County Planning engineer William McIntyre, to be put into effect.
"Hoover Report and Okinawan Dogs" tells of the Charlotte Lions Club having recently heard a speaker say that the Hoover Report on reorganization of Government, far from being a monument to the past, was a blueprint for a better tomorrow, one which the speaker, Albert Highsmith, wanted to use. Originally from Durham, he was now the organizational director of the Citizens Committee for the Hoover Report, which had as its purpose to familiarize the public, Congress and the Administration with the immense tax savings which could be had through putting into effect the recommendations of the report.
He had some disciples in Charlotte, led by an attorney, who were eager to resurrect the somewhat moribund recommendations of the report, arranging for speakers for civic and church clubs, PTA groups and any others interested in introducing simple economy and efficiency to the Federal Government. They wanted people to know such things as that the adoption of the report could save a citizen earning $4,000 per year as much as $32 in income tax, and $159 to a person earning $10,000 per year. It would install systems to eliminate bureaucratic silliness, such as the shipping by air of dog food to Okinawa, ping-pong balls to Berlin and 25,000 pounds of cement to Bermuda.
It had originated through a bipartisan committee and most of its recommendations were non-controversial, some of which could be implemented by executive order while others required legislation, with all aimed at streamlining government. But through inaction and ingrown tolerance of waste, much of the report had been ignored. It concludes that the local group ought be congratulated for trying to resurrect it.
"He Chopped Down What Cherry Tree?" finds that the popular folklore surrounding George Washington had taken many hits in recent years, to the point that impressionable types celebrated his birthday almost apologetically. The debunkers of myths had been so successful that even young children were likely to believe that General Washington was first myth before fact.
It relates that a young girl of its acquaintance had announced that she ranked Washington just ahead of John Henry and just behind Paul Bunyan in her book of childhood fancies.
It admits that a certain amount of poetic license had been taken with the life and times of President Washington, and that the cherry tree legend was sheer balderdash, that he had not thrown a dollar across the Rappahannock River, as the first American dollar had not even been minted until after that supposed feat. He had not said: "Entangling alliances with none,", as that had been uttered by Thomas Jefferson. Nor had he visited Betsy Ross when she was supposed to be making the first American flag. He had not even crossed the Delaware River in the manner represented in the famous painting by Emanuel Leutze, as the boat was the wrong type and the flag did not exist at that time.
But beyond that, it draws the line, agreeing with historian Moncure Conway, who had said that the folklore "rather draped than disguised" the country's first President. It indicates that behind the legend was flesh, blood and true greatness, a hero whose exploits, leadership, and eminence outshone the fiction. And so it takes note of the anniversary of his birth with unabashed respect.
A piece from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, titled "Too Darn Much Literature", tells of publishers in Russia ceasing to pay authors by the page, finds it a good thing as poets would suffer under such a system while writers who wrote voluminously would profit.
Somerset Maugham had pointed out the dangers of the quantitative approach to literature years earlier, in a series of articles on the art of skipping, observing that Don Quixote, for example, could be sustained without undue boredom only by judicious skipping, because Cervantes had been paid at space rates, in consequence of which had thrown into his manuscript all of the old stuff he had hidden away in trunks, attics, windmills, etc.
It observes that the modern
Muscovite pursued the dollar with the equivalent fervor of the
unquixotic Cervantes for as many pages. "Maybe now, with the New
Editorial Policy, the Soviet reader can get back to some reading
intended to inform, illumine
Drew Pearson finds it easy to understand why Senate Minority Leader William Knowland of California was deftly maneuvering to neutralize the general probe of the gas lobby sought by Senator Albert Gore of Tennessee. The Superior Oil Co., which had provided the rejected $2,500 campaign contribution to Senator Francis Case of South Dakota, influenced politics in California and all types of gas money had never been recorded as campaign contributions. Thus, Senator Knowland wanted to shift the investigation to a more docile bipartisan committee and away from the Elections Committee, as any thorough investigation would impact a lot of people in high places in both political parties, thus the leaders of both parties wanting only a limited investigation. The Keck family, who controlled Superior Oil, did not record a single campaign contribution in the 1952 or 1954 election cycles, with Mr. Pearson positing that perhaps they had followed the same pattern they had in the matter of Senator Case, providing 25 $100 bills through an intermediary. The family, along with other interests, had raised some $300,000 to defeat Governor Earl Warren in his 1950 bid for re-election and later to block his efforts to obtain the presidential nomination in 1952. He had accused them of waging "a campaign of vilification" and named Bill Keck, chairman of the board of Superior Oil, as the man who had raised the money to defeat him.
Harold Ickes, the late Secretary of the Interior and wartime petroleum administrator, who was aware of oilmen, said on May 31, 1950, in a letter, regarding Bill Keck, that he had long considered him "to be one of the most ruthless individuals in the oil industry."
Warren Olney, who was a close friend of Chief Justice Warren, who had appointed him while Governor as counsel for the California Crime Commission, wherein he had come to know of the techniques used by the oil and gas lobby to dominate the California Legislature, was heading the Justice Department investigation into the $2,500 contribution to Senator Case and the lobbyist who had provided it. Mr. Pearson indicates that Mr. Olney would push an exhaustive probe while his fellow Californian, Senator Knowland, was trying to avoid the probe planned by Senator Gore.
The son of William Keck, Howard, was president of Superior Oil and had provided the $2,500 for Senator Case. The Keck family owned 51 percent of Superior Oil, the wealthiest independent oil-gas company in the nation, with stock valued at over $1,000 per share, having risen $120 per share on the day the Senate had passed the now-vetoed natural gas deregulation bill earlier in the month.
Joseph Whitney, who provided the daily "Mirror of Your Mind" advice column to the newspaper, in the third in a series of six articles on the subject of growing up, tells this date of the tendency of teens to band together, usually an emotionally healthy experience. When a child passed from puberty to adolescence, the two stages he had covered in the first two articles, the directional force of personality from within the family began to diminish, and by the time young people reached high school, they were ready to move together in groups or gangs. As the groups became cohesive, codes of behavior began to develop, with the youths learning how to get along without adults to guide them, and influences outside the family beginning to test the strengths and weaknesses of youthful personalities.
Through the medium of clubs and secret societies, the young people learned what it meant to be accepted by others, how to adjust to various types of individuals and how to win attention and approval, as well as how to attract the opposite sex. They might swear, smoke and go to extremes in dress and music, but that was part of becoming an adult. Seeking freedom from family ties represented a distracting time for young people, tending to withdraw from their loved ones, producing loneliness which was alleviated to an extent by belonging to a gang, where they found strength and confidence in numbers and a means of sharing their problems with contemporaries experiencing much the same conflicts.
The young person wanted praise and approval from those of his or her own age group who had no reason for liking the person, such as family had, even though often embarrassed in the effort to accept praise and approval gracefully.
Mr. Whitney finds that the dangers of teenage gangs were outweighed by the advantages, with the youths almost always reflecting the behavioral attitudes of their parents, with the same code of conduct and morals, notwithstanding the desire for independence from home. The possibility of undesirable companions was always worrisome to parents, as an antisocial leader of a group could produce a following and so was of genuine concern. He suggests that intelligent, understanding parents could alleviate such concerns by making sure the group had a place where they could hang out, with reasonable adult supervision nearby, tending to neutralize the influence of such a leader with hostile intentions.
He indicates that of all the teenage groups which flourished in neighborhoods, schools and churches, those which had to do with religion were among the most interesting, as teenagers were at their best in such groups, for they had few religious inhibitions and were not averse to challenging sacred truths, rarely being orthodox in their beliefs, yet having strong spiritual values. Very few would accept a packaged religious formula without significant questioning.
Mr. Whitney finds that almost every adolescent believed that he or she knew what was wrong with the world and how to correct it, having an exaggerated regard for their own opinions, ideas, abilities and friends, and that through group and gang associations, learned to test those in a new world of reality. Usually, the person was guided safely through the experience by the family's code of conduct and morals.
A letter writer suggests that in light of the traffic accidents occurring in the wee hours of the mornings, traffic lights ought operate in the city as they did in daytime rather than being placed on blinking caution status, though expressing the understanding that many of the operators were under the influence of intoxicants and probably never saw the traffic signal in the first place.
A letter writer from Zirconia responds to a previous letter writer who had wondered what was to be gained by integration, suggests that the country could not champion liberty across the world if colonialism was transpiring at home. She says that with integration, interracial marriage would remain the same, that members of each race would not force themselves into each other's social circles unless they believed they belonged, that blacks and whites would naturally move in their own social groups. She wonders why, if black people were good enough to handle the white man's food and to take care of the white children, it would be unthinkable that they would share classrooms.
A letter writer from Cheraw, S.C., asserts that it was the wrong approach to integration to use Federal troops to enforce it in the public schools or in other public places, that such had been caused by the executive branch and the Supreme Court, "as it is called, which by its unfair ruling on segregation has lost the respect of millions of our people by trying to change their way of life." He wants the matter left to the people, that to force the matter amounted to the "tactics of the Nazi and the Communist, using police and troops to force people against their will." He urges the Court to reverse its decision "before anymore [sic] trouble between our people [sic]". He thinks that people should not vote for anyone for the presidency who advocates such use of troops and that those presently in office who so advocated should be ousted "before some more yokes are placed around our necks, such as mixing the races and lowering the tariffs for the Japs and changing the immigrant act by law and executive order."
Perhaps, it never occurred to you that the people had already spoken long earlier at the ratification in 1789 of the Constitution, with its Supremacy Clause and Article III regarding appointment of Federal judges and their powers, and again in 1868, at the ratification of the 14th Amendment, on which Brown v. Board of Education was premised, that if on every issue of the day, there were a national plebiscite conducted to determine its outcome, there would be no end to it and only chaos would ensue in the society, as there would be no constancy in the law or in the rights of individuals under it.
Take, for a timely example, the issue of roes, bearing in mind that until June, 2022, there had never been a decision of the United States Supreme Court which reversed a longstanding prior decision and in so doing contracted rather than expanded existing constitutional rights.
A letter writer from Lumberton thanks the newspaper for helping him solve his rabbit problem, indicating that he did not believe the boys knew what they had been catching, that he had not until the present winter, that to date he had caught 16 rabbits in his half-acre garden and not a doe among them. He wonders whether the does knew that the boxes were death traps but would not tell the bucks, so that they could get rid of the pesky rascals. "Or could it be that the bucks go in there to hide from the does? You see, this is a thought-provoking question."
A letter writer from Rock Hill, S.C., comments on the February 18 editorial, "Teeters on a Middle Eastern Brink", finding that it had clearly pointed out the State Department's blunder involving the shipment of 18 light tanks to Saudi Arabia, asserting that it was disheartening that the shipment had proceeded, providing further evidence of the unfairness and inconsistency of current foreign policy regarding the Middle East. He finds that the State Department had been correct in condemning the Russian shipments of MIG fighters and IL bombers to Egypt in exchange for cotton and money, and wonders how the Department could explain the shipment of American arms to Egypt's major ally in the region. He says that Saudi Arabia had been in the middle of intrigue against the U.S. and Britain, stirring up Jordan and other Arab states, through bribery and threat, to oppose Western efforts to strengthen the region against Communist imperialism. He further asserts that the Department could therefore no longer presently justify withholding arms from Israel based on opposition to an arms race and that it was isolating the one dependable democratic ally in the region. He asserts that Israel could deter aggression from the Arab states if it was given the ability to strengthen its defense, that failure to take that action exposed democracy in the Middle East to defeat.
Framed Edition
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