The Charlotte News
Wednesday, February 29, 1956
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the President had announced this date at his regular press conference that he would seek re-election for a second term, despite his heart attack of the prior September 24, which had caused delay in his making the announcement. He would deliver an informal address via major radio and television networks this night to tell the nation about his decision, which he said he had reached only the day before. He said that he never would have made the decision had he not believed he would live out the ensuing five years, based on his doctors' assessments. In response to many questions from reporters after the announcement, he said he would defer the answers until the nighttime broadcast to the American people. He did say that the decision should not exclude others from entering the race. Only Senator William Knowland of California had thus far done so and he had stated that he would withdraw if the President decided to run again. He refused to reveal whether or not he had made such a decision to run again prior to his heart attack. The President also refused to respond as to whether he favored Vice-President Nixon as his running mate again, but stated warm praise for the Vice-President and called him a dedicated public servant. It had been anticipated that the President would announce his decision at the press conference this date.
A separate story suggests that his refusal to endorse Mr. Nixon for the renomination as his running mate might trigger Republican jockeying over the vice-presidential nomination at the August convention in San Francisco, but it was assumed that the President would settle the question by the time of the convention, having said at a press conference the prior May 31 that unless the vice-presidential nomination were acceptable to the head of the ticket, the presidential nominee should immediately step aside. When asked about the President's statement at the press conference, Vice-President Nixon praised the President for his decision to run again.
In Congress, Republicans were jubilant at the news and RNC chairman Leonard Hall said it was "the best possible news for Americans." DNC chairman Paul Butler predicted that the American people would never elect a President who, at age 65, had suffered a serious heart attack and was unable to be a full-time chief executive. Adlai Stevenson, running for the Democratic nomination again after having been the President's opponent in 1952, said that it was fitting that the President be the candidate and that the principal issue would be the policies and record of the Administration. The business and financial world immediately responded as stock prices went up on the New York Stock Exchange, with buying orders pouring in such that the tickertape was about 19 minutes behind, just an hour after the President's announcement.
Julian Scheer of The News reports that within the 10th Congressional District of North Carolina, the only district with a Republican Congressman, Charles Jonas, the President's announcement had been greeted with cheers, as had been the reaction across the state and in Washington, at least from Republicans, with unconcern and a ho-hum attitude expressed by Democrats. Republicans believed it would result in a large turnout within the 10th District and a showdown with the Democratic opponent. The announced Democratic candidate for the House race in the 10th district, former Charlotte Mayor Ben Douglas, said that the announcement would have no effect on his campaign plans. Governor Luther Hodges had predicted that the President would not run again and expressed surprise at the announcement. Charlotte Mayor Philip Van Every said that the President had made "us a great President".
No other news appears on the front page this date. It was, after all, Leap Year Day and presumably, therefore, there was no other news, as the day barely exists to begin with, only occurring in quadrennial U.S. presidential election years, so that you can keep track of it. It will not occur, however, in the year 2100, 2200, or 2300, as those years are not divisible by 400. Make a note of it, so that you won't think it Leap Year in 2100, should you be young enough at present to hope to reach that year. Keep that note in your pocket until you are old enough to remember, fondly or not, the day in the dim past when you marked it down, recalling how young you were, and record whether you are able still to leap by that point, assuming you can at present and are not confined to a little cage.
On the editorial page, "And Park Rd. Lived Happily Ever After" tells of the planned widening of Park Road having met considerable opposition from residents of the area, with a solution having been reached by State Highway commissioner James Hardison, enabling saving of many of the trees along the existing roadway and leaving room for construction of sidewalks without cutting too deeply into existing parcels of adjoining property owners.
It concludes that a little flexibility and mutual good will could go a long way in enabling community progress without angering residents.
"Sen. Kilgore, the Man with One Vote" tells of the death of Senator Harley Kilgore of West Virginia from a stroke at Bethesda Naval Hospital the previous day, having been announced on CBS radio with a prefatory comment that the Democratic majority in the Senate was suddenly reduced to one seat, before the announcement of the death of the Senator.
It finds that he had been more than just a statistic, that his influence in the Senate and across the nation had exceeded the single vote he had, having at one time been able to defeat efforts to restrict the treaty-making power of the President through the controversial proposed amendment to the Constitution by Senator John W. Bricker of Ohio. It recounts that drama, in which Senator Kilgore, just as Vice-President Nixon was about to gavel the vote closed at 60 to 30, enough for the two-thirds passage of the proposed amendment, had entered the chamber and voted against it, thus defeating it. At the time, Senator Kilgore had been suffering from flu and then left the chamber immediately afterward to resume his sick bed at home.
It indicates that he had made many important contributions to legislative history, having sponsored laws for stricter mine safety, more adequate Social Security and unemployment compensation, and had authored labor bills, a Federal program to combat adult illiteracy and small business and anti-monopoly legislation. But it would remember most the day he trudged onto the Senate floor to provide his single vote to defeat the Bricker amendment, an important vote by an important man who would be missed.
"Leap Year: Bachelors Should Relax" quotes at its start the Scottish law of 1288 regarding the myth of Leap Year as it related to bachelors.
It indicates that it was intended initially as a joke and that bachelors were not fooled, even if in certain quarters, there were "a few boobs who may fall prey to the idea that they have to be on guard in only one year out of four. As many such boobs there are, as many fewer the number of bachelors."
It regards the bachelor as nearly indispensable, serving as a point of envy and admiration for the "hen-pecked, as best man at weddings, as the traveling man in most of America's jokes, and as an unexempted treasure for the tax collector."
It concludes that Leap Year was the one year in which the bachelor could relax and that the legend should be changed accordingly.
A piece from the Daily Texan, the student newspaper of the University of Texas, titled "Don't Walk on Grass", indicates that it was time for the newspaper to reprimand students at the University for walking on the grass, asking whether they could have a beautiful campus without having beautiful grass and replying in the negative.
It also says that the holes in the doughnuts in the student union soda fountain were too large, suggesting that it implied that the holes should be smaller so that students would receive their money's worth, as they were getting hungry.
It also discloses other ills, that people everywhere were not kind enough to other people and that people were not nice enough to stray dogs on the campus, suggesting a Stray Dog Committee.
It concludes: "Etc."
Drew Pearson indicates that Attorney General Herbert Brownell had finally been cornered behind closed Senate doors by a belligerent Anti-Monopoly subcommittee and had emerged from it saying that it was the "roughest grilling" he had ever received. The press and public had been barred from the hearing, but Mr. Pearson had been able to obtain the highlights of what had occurred.
Senator Olin Johnston of South Carolina, acting chairman of the subcommittee, asked whether anyone wanted the Attorney General placed under oath, with Senator Joseph O'Mahoney of Wyoming saying "certainly not", but then proceeding to conduct himself as a prosecutor, pointing out that the Justice Department had sided with the Dixon-Yates power combine agreement in its early stages and had approved the legality of the Government contract, which the President had been forced to cancel after Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee had revealed that Adolphe Wenzell of the First Boston Corp. had developed a conflict of interest by acting both as Government consultant and private financier of the deal. Senator O'Mahoney observed that now that the contract had been canceled and the Government had been sued on the contract, the Justice Department was forced to shift allegiance and fight against the combine in the courts, the Senator thus urging, as had Senator Kefauver earlier, that an impartial special counsel be appointed to handle it.
Senator William Langer of North Dakota, a Republican, had stated that White House chief of staff Sherman Adams had telephoned the SEC chairman, Sinclair Armstrong, to stop an SEC hearing which might have embarrassed the White House regarding the contract, which Senator Langer likened to telephoning a Federal judge in the middle of a trial to try to hold up the trial. He said that the subcommittee had invited Mr. Adams to testify and he had refused, stating that had such occurred under the Administration of Theodore Roosevelt, he would have been fired the next day. He opined that any honest man would come before a committee such as the present one and testify as to why he told Mr. Armstrong to hold up the matter. He then pointedly asked Mr. Brownell whether he proposed to subpoena Mr. Adams in his investigation. The Attorney General gave a generalized response, saying that the Department would summon anyone whom they regarded as having information on the matter. He also said that he had no qualms about anything which might prove embarrassing to the executive branch. He gave some more generalized responses to the persistent questioning of Senator Langer regarding whether the Justice Department would do a thorough probe of the matter.
The Congressional Quarterly regards the creation of the Federation for Constitutional Government, seeking to coordinate the white citizens councils of the Deep South and other conservative groups, but not a merger of those organizations. The Federation had been organized by experienced leaders in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia, with its leaders including Senators James Eastland of Mississippi and Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, Representatives James Davis of Georgia, Edward Hebert of Louisiana, John Bell Williams of Mississippi, L. Mendel Rivers of South Carolina, William Tuck of Virginia, and Watkins Abbott of Virginia, plus former Governors Herman Talmadge of Georgia, Sam Jones of Louisiana, Fielding Wright of Mississippi and Coke Stevenson of Texas.
The organization's chairman was John U. Barr, an industrialist and board member of the National American Bank of New Orleans. He had said that he had spent more than eight months hand-picking the men to guide the organization and when asked whether he was seeking to form a third party, said that one could never tell where such an organization would finally go. The organization's headquarters presently was in New Orleans and Mr. Barr had said that it would soon open an office in Washington. He said that it included a lobbying branch.
Senator Eastland, a prime mover of the organization, had said in June, 1954, in the immediate wake of the May 17 Brown v. Board of Education decision, that it would be a "people's organization, an organization not controlled by fawning politicians who cater to organized racial pressure groups. A people's organization to fight the Supreme Court of the United States, to fight the CIO, to fight the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and to fight all the conscienceless pressure groups who are attempting our destruction." He said it would have on its banner the slogan of free enterprise and would fight organizations attempting to socialize industry and the medical profession of the country, intended to add to its support in the North and West. It had begun organizing in two meetings in Atlanta in December, 1954 and in another meeting in January, 1955 in Jackson, Miss., where representatives from 11 Deep South states announced formation of the Federation and appointed Mr. Barr as its temporary chairman.
At that time, it announced as its platform planks: "Preservation of the independence" of the three branches of the Government, preservation of the "sovereign rights of the several states", and support of candidates who sought to "counteract the effects and consequences of … decisions of federal courts which have wrongfully abrogated, modified or amended the provisions of the U.S. Constitution." Mr. Barr said that "some national patriotic organizations have developed their support through the presentation of one particular feature, while another has gained support through presenting some other feature. Merged into one organization (they) would most likely produce a lessened overall interest." Thus he wanted a coordinated rather than merged organization. The rallying point for the immediate future for the organization would be the Brown decision, which it claimed "placed an impossible burden upon the southern states."
A letter writer from Rock Hill, S.C., tells of New York Times reporter Anthony Lewis having said that some Southern officials had stated that time and due process would prevent the threats of defiance to school segregation from materializing into physical defiance, with those officials hoping that no showdown would come. The writer says that the important words of the Brown implementing decision of May, 1955 had been "with all deliberate speed" and that Federal officials hoped for a gradual process of local communities in integrating schools without legal pressure. Washington, D.C., schools and some parts of Texas and other border states had already integrated without court action. In mid-February, Federal District Court Judge J. Skelly Wright—in 1962 to be appointed by President Kennedy to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals—had ordered the New Orleans School Board to admit black children, but not "overnight" or even within a year—stating in the end the period as being "from and after such time as may be necessary to make arrangements for admission of children to such schools on a racially nondiscriminatory basis with all deliberate speed as required by the decision" in Brown. The writer says that Mr. Lewis had reported that those school districts which ignored Federal District Court orders to integrate could be found in contempt, with any officials engaged in such obstruction jailed. He says that neither the Republican nor Democratic leaders wanted to use Federal force to enforce desegregation, that the danger instead lay with the extremists on both sides, suggests that the solution was slow, deliberate local community resolve that solutions needed to be peaceful and decisions made in the local community.
A letter writer from Salisbury tells of a meeting of 29 executive members of the merged AFL-CIO in Miami Beach, leaving the rank-and-file members wondering how they could afford such lavish expenditures in the heart of tourist season, with the organization's president, George Meany, informing the members present that Adlai Stevenson was unacceptable to him, the writer commenting that Mr. Meany did not like the idea of moderation in any activity. Mr. Meany had called on the President to use the FBI at the University of Alabama regarding the mob action which had interfered with attendance of classes by the first admitted black student, Autherine Lucy, eventually resulting in her temporary suspension by the University for her own safety. He says, however, that Mr. Meany, Walter Reuther and Teamsters Union president Dave Beck had no love for the South, hating its independent workers who demanded the right to work rather than joining a union. He says that Mr. Beck, because he probably wanted to build another swimming pool for his house which he had sold to the union for about $150,000 after he built it, wanted to dip into the pay envelopes of Southern drivers as he was doing with Northern drivers who belonged to the Teamsters. He says that Mr. Beck had recently stated that he might have his membership in the North refuse to unload Southern trucks driven by non-union drivers. He views the attempt as one seeking to capture the South into the union membership by dividing and conquering, the reason why the union heads were going to make comments on every incident which transpired in the South, hoping "to continue their road to socialism that got sidetracked almost four years ago, but not completely." He suggests to Mr. Meany that he inform his membership that the South would resist him all the way.
A letter writer from Lancaster, S.C., expresses his agreement with a letter writer from Cheraw, S.C., that "millions of other red-blooded southern men and women" felt the same way about integration, that blacks did not want integration any more than did whites and that forced integration would cause trouble. "It is a disgrace in the sight of Almighty God to know that we have some near-sighted, stupid politicians who will sell out our country just to get in office—even advocate the use of federal troops just to gain the Negro vote. Just how stupid can a man get?" He thinks it high time that the Supreme Court consider the mess which they had brought about in the South for both white and black people.
To answer your question, we believe that a man could not get much more stupid than you.
A letter from the first vice-president of the Mecklenburg County Humane Society says that a quorum of its board of directors had passed a resolution to protest any leniency in the law regarding the death by torture of a 3 1/2-year old child—referring to the recent Charlotte case of a woman convicted for assault on her step-daughter by various forms of torturous conduct, including pouring hot water over her, rubbing human waste over her face, and tying her to a bed, after which the child had died on Christmas Eve.
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