The Charlotte News
Friday, March 16, 1956
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from Algiers that massed machinegunners had set fire to a huge French garage in a terrorist raid in the heart of the city this date, while in western Algeria, guerrillas had staged a massive sabotage of communications, recalling tactics used by the Communist-led Vietminh against the French in Indo-China. The French had imposed a curfew in Algiers and sent troops scurrying over the countryside in search of the saboteurs. The machinegunners had seized the garage at 2:00 a.m., holding off watchmen and pouring gasoline over the floor and setting it ablaze. The raiders had made their escape as the blaze had swept through the garage, located below a large French apartment house, the fire destroying more than 100 cars. French families in the apartment house had fled when a young French soldier saw the flames and set off an alarm. It was the most sensational terrorist outburst in Algiers during the 16-month revolt, occurring only a few hours after the French Parliament in Paris had given Premier Guy Mollet's Government the final go-ahead for an all-out fight to smash the rebellion. The two Moslem watchmen at the garage had been unable to identify the raiders. Police assumed that they were rebels but did not exclude the possibility that they might have been French counter-terrorists seeking to provoke stronger Government action against the nationalists. Such counter-terrorists had been active in French Morocco before France had granted that protectorate its freedom. France's minister for Algerian affairs was scheduled to fly from Paris to Algiers the following day to begin putting the Government's new emergency powers in effect. Moslem terrorists had shot down one European in the Bougie region and carried out other harassing attacks around Bone. French troops had fought a running battle with 80 rebels north of Lafayette, killing 20 of them, with one French soldier being reported killed. In western Algeria, near the Moroccan border, the rebels had carried out one of the most massive acts of sabotage, cutting the key road at three places. Copying the tactics used by the Vietminh, the rebels had massed scores of laborers and dug trenches across the highway during the night, ripping up the asphalt surfaces and destroying the gravel beds beneath.
In Nicosia, Cyprus, it was reported that British troops had isolated the port of Limassol this date, imposing the toughest curfew yet seen on the eastern Mediterranean island, confining the 25,000 residents to their homes, with the curfew continuing until further notice. British officials said that the port had always been a "bad trouble spot" and that terrorist incidents had increased there in recent weeks. Authorities began an intensive search of the city for fugitive terrorists. Communist leaders of the largest labor union called for an end to the general strike protesting the deportation of Archbishop Makarios of the Greek Orthodox Church, leader of the island's movement for union with Greece, but Greek shopkeepers, laborers and clerks thus far had ignored the union appeal and continued their general strike, presently in its fifth day. Gasoline and fuel oil shortages were reported from some sections of the island. The work stoppage had paralyzed most business activity on the island since the prior Monday and had halted construction at major British military projects. Labor leaders said that the walkout might end by the following Tuesday, with Sunday and Monday being religious holidays. Pro-Greek terrorists had continued their fight against British control. A Royal Air Force man was wounded outside an Army barracks in Nicosia, and two policemen had been injured in an exchange of gunfire. A British Army officer's wife and six-year old child had been cut by flying glass when a bomb was thrown into their home. Fifty homemade pipe bombs had been found in a shop near the spot where a British police sergeant had been killed the prior Wednesday. A military vehicle was the target of a bomb at Famagusta and another bomb had been tossed into a military patrol in a village, with no injuries reported in either incident.
In New York, a group of black pastors of more than 50 Long Island Baptist churches had charged Representative Adam Clayton Powell of New York with being politically motivated in promoting a "national deliverance day of prayer." Mr. Powell was also a pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, and had called for a day of prayer on March 28 in connection with racial tensions and violence in the South. The Baptist Ministers Fellowship, composed of ministers of churches in black communities in Queens, Nassau and Suffolk Counties, reported this date that the charge against Mr. Powell was made at a meeting the previous Tuesday. The Rev. James Moore, executive secretary of the group, said that it was the general feeling among the Fellowship members that Mr. Powell was promoting the day of prayer "as an opportunist, for his own political prestige." A spokesman for the Abyssinian Baptist Church denied that claim. The Long Island ministers, who said that their churches had congregations totaling 25,000 members, stated that the Fellowship had set March 26-30 for "fasting and praying for freedom from oppression of the minority groups throughout the world." On each of those days, eight churches in central locations in the three counties would hold prayer services at noon and again at 8:00 p.m., and collections would be taken up to further the efforts of clergymen in Montgomery, Ala., leading the bus boycott there in protest against segregation of the municipal buses, that protest having begun the prior December when Rosa Parks had refused to surrender her seat, at the direction of the bus driver, to a white passenger and was arrested for violating the City ordinance, eventually convicted and fined, with her case currently on appeal.
In Warrenton, N.C., attorney James Gilliland, who had appeared as counsel, along with a New York attorney, for various witnesses who had appeared in Charlotte during the week at the HUAC subcommittee hearings regarding Communism within the state, said that they now wanted to kick him out as commander of the American Legion post, were seeking to force him to resign as solicitor of the Recorder's Court, as well as trying to kick him out of the Lions Club. He made the statements defiantly and not sadly, saying, "Just let 'em try." He had lived in the county all of his life. While he was representing the witnesses at the hearings, he had made a short speech against the "Southern manifesto" issued on Monday by 19 Senators and 77 Representatives, protesting the decision in Brown v. Board of Education and vowing to reverse it or sidestep it through lawful means. Ever since he had returned from the Wake Forest Law School to set up his modest law practice in the county seat, he had been arguing with his neighbors, but the current situation, he said, was different. Of the 23,000 people in Warren County, about 14,000 were black, a greater percentage of black citizens than in any other county of the state. Mr. Gilliland said that whenever one mentioned integration, people around Warrenton got pretty hysterical, that they had bounced him from his job as secretary of the Lions Club the previous year because of his stance on integration, a job he had held for five years, having asked him to make a speech on the segregation problem and that when he had, they decided that they had better get a new secretary. Years earlier, at Wake Forest, he had roomed one summer with John Myers, who had been subpoenaed before the subcommittee for having been identified as a Communist during the trial the prior spring of Junius Scales, convicted of Smith Act violations for being a member of an organization which advocated and taught the violent or forceful overthrow of the Government, Mr. Myers having been a faculty member at Campbell College until recently, when he was fired by the Board of Trustees for refusing to answer their questions about his religious views and his prior associations. Another summer, Mr. Gilliland had roomed with Warren Williams, who had also been subpoenaed to appear at the hearings, also accused of being a Communist. He had given both legal advice during the course of the hearings, as well as to each of the other uncooperative witnesses, telling the News that he believed that in doing so, they had "struck a little blow for freedom." He said that all the Committee had to do was point a finger at a man and say that the person was a Communist and that it suddenly made him one. He did not accept that, as not a single witness who had appeared had been indicted, much less proved guilty of any crime. Thus, when Mr. Myers had told him that he was having trouble finding an attorney, Mr. Gilliland dropped everything and came to Charlotte to represent him. When word had gotten back to Warrenton, however, it had hit the town "like a bomb blast", according to one citizen, with two people driving 30 miles into town to see a County commissioner about firing the attorney as solicitor of Recorder's Court. Mr. Gilliland believed, however, that they were pretty level-headed and would not do anything about it. He said that for years he had arrived at his office at 5:00 a.m. and that no one had thought much about it, but that when he had done so since the hearings, they were beginning to think that it was "mighty mysterious". He said, upon inquiry from the press, that he was not a Communist, "just a Democrat who believes in civil rights." But he added that it was hard to convince people that he was not a Communist, that when he had left the Post Office Building courtroom in Charlotte on Wednesday afternoon after the conclusion of the hearings, some people had tripped him up, saying that he was "one of them", and was followed by some "mean-looking" people.
In Raleigh, Senator Sam Ervin and Representatives Harold Cooley and C. B. Deane each had opponents file in their primary elections set for May, beating a noon deadline set by the State Board of Elections. Winston-Salem Mayor Marshall Kurfees filed as a candidate for the Democratic nomination against Senator Ervin. W. E. Debnam, a Raleigh author and radio commentator, former City Council member, filed as a candidate to oppose Representative Cooley. A. P. Kitchin, a Wadesboro attorney and former FBI agent for 12 years, filed as a candidate against Mr. Deane, saying he had long wanted to run for Congress and had decided just the previous night to enter the race. (Mr. Deane had been one of two members of the North Carolina Congressional delegation, along with Congressman Thurmond Chatham, who refused to sign the "Southern manifesto" the prior Monday, having indicated, in a report appearing on the front page of The News on Tuesday, his conscientious statement in support of that refusal.) The story tells of various others entering the gubernatorial and lieutenant gubernatorial races as well.
Julian Scheer of The News tells of Kidd Brewer officially becoming a candidate for lieutenant governor during the morning, joining Luther Barnhardt, J. V. Whitfield, Alonzo Edwards and Gurney P. Hood in that race. Mr. Brewer had pursued a campaign for that position for two years, but said he had not made up his mind earlier in the morning on whether to enter the race.
In Statesville, N.C., a man was being held for questioning in the strangulation death of a 59-year old woman in Statesville the prior Monday night, with the Safety director declining to identify the suspect, stating that bloodstained clothing taken from the man had been sent to a Durham laboratory for analysis, and that he was the first person arrested and questioned on Tuesday, was released but then taken into custody again the previous day. He quoted the suspect as saying that he had gotten blood on his shirt about two weeks earlier when he killed some hogs, but officers said that the stains appeared more recent. The woman's body had been found in the kitchen of her home by her husband when he arrived home from work on Monday night, a length of cord having been tied around her neck and knotted in the back. She had been writing a letter to her sister who lived in Marion, at the bottom of which, apparently unrelated to the other content of the letter, had been the words, "A Neg—". The man being held was black.
Heavy rains had fallen in Charlotte again this date raising creeks to the flood stage in one of the wettest pre-spring seasons in years, by noon, the 24-hour rainfall having totaled 2.25 inches, as much as a quarter inch more being expected during the afternoon or evening. Both Sugar and Briar Creeks were slowly but steadily creeping toward the flood stage, with Briar out of its banks at the Sharon Road crossing at noon, and Sugar also reported high in the central area of the city. Rain had fallen on 30 of the previous 45 days, having rained 19 days in February and today marking the 11th day of rain during the current month. February precipitation had totaled 5.85 inches and thus far in March, 3.05 inches had fallen. The forecast indicated fair weather through Monday, with scattered showers likely the following Tuesday, and a 32-degree low forecast for the following morning with a high of 55 for the afternoon. The Weather Bureau said that the rains were caused by a low pressure system to the south and shifting winds which had brought precipitation to the area.
In Cardston, Alberta, Chief Shot-Both-Sides, one of the last links with the free-wheeling days of the old West, was dead at age 82, having died the previous day in the Indian hospital. The Blackfoot chief was the son of Crop-Eared-Wolf and had grown up in an era when his people still roamed the prairies in search of buffalo and raided the enemy for horses and women, born four years before the Bloods, the Blackfeet, and the Piegans signed a treaty with the white man in 1877. He had been a firm believer in the white man's education, but had never attended their schools and did not speak English. He had turned away from his tribal ways to become a successful farmer and rancher, but fought to retain tribal heritages, having become chief in 1913 at the death of his father.
In Camden, N.J., a group of college students complained to the local mayor at a meeting he was addressing, that they had often received tickets for illegal parking while attending classes and wanted to know what could be done about it, the mayor having replied that it was too bad but that the police were only doing their duty, then departed the meeting, finding then that his car had been ticketed for parking in a restricted area.
This night in the NCAA basketball tournament, not reported on the front page, the regional semifinals in each of the four regions took place, with Temple beating Connecticut, 65 to 59, and Canisius beating Dartmouth 66 to 58 in the Eastern Regional; Iowa beating Morehead State 97 to 83, and Kentucky beating Wayne State 84 to 64 in the Midwest Regional (later, the Mideast Regional); SMU beating Houston 89 to 74, and Oklahoma City beating Kansas State 97 to 93 in the Western Regional (later, the Midwest Regional); and Utah beating Seattle 91 to 82, and defending national champion, undefeated and top-ranked San Francisco beating UCLA 72 to 61 in the Far West Regional (later, the Western Regional). The finals of each regional, labeled by the press, in those days of the 25-team field, as the "quarterfinals" of the national tournament, would take place the following night. (By the way, for young drivers, don't try Junior Johnson's multiple rollover at home, any more than you would try some of Bill Russell's around-the-basket maneuvers without his height, athletic ability and basketball savvy, as his car was equipped with seatbelt restraints and a rollbar
On the editorial page, "Luther Hodges: 'Luke-Warm' Governor" comments on Charlotte advertising salesman Tom Sawyer having entered the gubernatorial race against Governor Hodges based on the race issue, on which the Governor was "luke-warm", while Mr. Sawyer was red hot.
It finds that the label "luke-warm" fit Governor Hodges well, as the Governor, as Mr. Sawyer had ruefully stated, had not attempted to match the vehemence, threats and vitriol of Georgia's Governor Marvin Griffin, whose temperament Mr. Sawyer apparently admired. It suggests that there might be good reason for the gentlemanly conduct of Governor Hodges.
The only real issue which Mr. Sawyer saw in the state was segregated schools, but it was not that simple for the Governor, who believed that the state had more than one problem and worried about all of them. There was also the problem of keeping the schools public, about which the Governor was concerned, recognizing the investment in tax and human resources which the state had made in the public school system, pledging to save that system if he could for the future opportunity of all North Carolina youth. He had also recognized that the Supreme Court, however distasteful the Brown v. Board of Education decision had been, was a cornerstone of the nation's system of constitutional government and that while the decision might be protested, and even overturned by Congress and the states, it could not be chased away through angry shouts. Nor did Governor Hodges believe that the South's problem was explained to the rest of the nation or sympathy engendered through bombast and defiance.
The Governor was also concerned about the low per capita income of North Carolinians and was seeking tirelessly to raise that income through industrialization. He was likely disturbed by reports that unsettled economic conditions and a breakdown of racial harmony in some sections of the South had slowed the Southern migration of Northern industry.
The Governor was also concerned about interracial peace and good will, was repelled by the physical violence and economic boycotts occurring in some of the Southern states, whose alleged disappointment in North Carolina Mr. Sawyer shared.
It finds it good that Mr. Sawyer deemed the office of Governor too important to be elected by default, but that there was more than one issue at stake, and a "luke-warm" Governor appeared about right for solution of those issues. It concludes that perhaps the real difference in the temperament of Governor Hodges and Mr. Sawyer was explained by the fact that Mr. Hodges was Governor while Mr. Sawyer wanted to be.
"Secrecy, Survival and the Atom" indicates that Dr. Ralph E. Lapp, a young atomic scientist, had stated during the week in Charlotte: "The atom is the central issue of our time. The fate of the world hangs on it. The people need to know what is happening atomically."
It indicates that the need was more desperate than the people realized, that their lives might depend on how it was answered, the problem being how to maintain in secrecy the military information which could harm the nation if it fell into hostile hands, while also giving American citizens the information they required to exercise their civic responsibilities wisely and conduct their affairs prudently. Some secrecy was necessary for security, but secrecy could be limited to a small and truly sensitive area of technology.
Previously, the Government had followed a different course, with secrecy maintained on a broad front of scientific endeavor in most atomic energy matters, while losing the true security which came from vigorous and continuing technological achievement. It finds it important that Americans become aware of the fact that Russia had the scientific and industrial potential to equal and surpass the free world in any number of technical fields, should U.S. progress slow down even for a short time. That was the opinion of some of the nation's leading scientists and it was generally accepted among them that the U.S. technological lead over Russia would be best maintained by vigorous and imaginative research and development, to a much lesser extent by safeguarding of secrets.
It finds that unnecessary secrecy meant costly technological delays which the West could not afford. It was the opinion of Lloyd Berkner, the physicist and engineer who had first proposed the 1957-58 International Geophysical Year, that technological delays resulting from secrecy deprived the U.S. of many World War II benefits which it should have obtained from the discovery of radar in 1930. In an address in Ann Arbor, Mich., he had said that the significant new concepts of science were often, if not always, the result of association of widely diverse facts and ideas which might not previously have seemed remotely connected, that such ideas as the laws of mechanics and the concepts of space and time derived from astronomy, together with the work of Max Planck on high-temperature radiation, leading Albert Einstein to postulate the equivalence of mass and energy through the concept of relativity, the basis for the discovery of nuclear energy. Yet, he had continued, any intelligent military organization, operating under present rules and concepts, would classify the equivalent of Dr. Planck's work so that it would be denied to a potential Einstein. Mr. Berkner had asked whether scientists could not demonstrate that in suppressing seemingly isolated bits of information of direct military value, the nation at the same time was preventing the germination of scientific ideas of much greater scientific, social and military significance.
The piece finds it not an abstract argument of science but a hard fact of the struggle with Communism, that the Government's current absorption with secrecy could not be permitted to discourage the production and critical evaluation of new ideas, methods and concepts, which could be major weapons in the free world struggle for survival.
"March Makes a Gurgling Sound" indicates that when March had arrived, people rejoiced at it, thinking it to be beckoning the start of spring, but instead, from the rains it had brought, found it "a sodden wench gurgling down the sewer pipes."
For some reason, a program comes to mind which we happened to watch briefly a little while ago, with Shown N. Sanity interviewing a British interviewer who had interviewed one of the three persons, "an adult film actress", to whom "Lawyer A" paid or arranged to pay "hush money", according to the recent indictment and accompanying "Statement of Facts" regarding a defendant, not an "unindicted co-conspirator", in Manhattan. The Shown N. Sanity interview, pandering to the live studio audience, wins the Red Herring Award for the matter thus far, even on Fox "News", as it completely ignored the gravamen of the indictment: that defendant allegedly falsified business records by mischaracterizing as a legal retainer fee the "hush money" payments to two women and a doorman, "Lawyer A" having previously admitted, as part of his 2019 plea of guilty to a Federal campaign finance violation, were paid or arranged by him for the purpose of influencing the 2016 election, then reimbursed to him by the defendant's company monthly in 2017 as payment for the nonexistent legal retainer fee, so entered falsely and carried on the defendant's company books, that the payments were made or arranged, according to "Lawyer A" in his plea of guilty, "in coordination with and at the direction of" defendant, and that the falsification of business records, under New York law, was a felony in each instance because defendant's alleged "intent to defraud", which, under New York law, can be accomplished through frustration of the State in carrying out its laws, "includes an intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof", the wording of the state enhancement statute, the other crimes being Federal campaign finance violations by "knowingly and willfully" concealing and not reporting a donation or expenditure of the campaign and mischaracterizing it as payment for a legal retainer fee, and potentially associated other crimes. Instead, Shown focused on whether or not the defendant in fact had the affair, whether the "adult film actress" made contradictory statements regarding it and whether there was a "timeline problem" because the conduct alleged in falsifying business records occurred in 2017 and the "hush money" was paid in 2016, just prior to the election. "Isn't there a big timeline problem here?"
Shown has shown again perhaps why he never went much beyond high school in his educational pursuits. But, of course, he was defending his political hero before an audience of his peers and so had to divert attention from the actual subject of the indictment as much as possible, his audience obviously, by their cheering, not understanding the attempted prestidigitation they were witnessing. He also ignored the second woman and the doorman
Shown might toke
A piece from the Richmond News
Leader, titled "Seven, Magic Number", tells of
scientists spoiling things for ordinary folks, with nothing being
sacred to them, as soon ready to trample on a superstition as not. A
Harvard psychologist had done his best to spoil one of the writer's
favorite haunts, indicating that man had a limit to his memory, that
his brain was organized in such a way that he could remember only so
much at one time, after which he became confused, with the outside
number of things being seven. He had also said that it might be the
reason why the number seven appeared in so much of man's history,
such as seven days in a week, seven phases of the moon, the
sabbatical year being the seventh, the seven deadly sins, the seven
graces, the seven churches of Asia, the seven sages of Greece, the
seven senses of ancient teachers, the seven spirits before the throne
of the Lord, the seven wonders of the world, and the seven seas. The
seventh son
So it regrets that the psychologist had taken out the mysticism by saying that the number seven in man's history and lore was only because man's mind naturally worked that way, as seven was the most of anything he could remember.
"Well, maybe, but deep within
our dark, superstitious psyche, we doubt it. We even have a reason
why the number seven is the most anyone can remember. It's not
because of the brain's organization. It's because seven is the magic
number
Whether, incidentally, this piece was by News Leader editor James Kilpatrick, the leader at the time in Virginia and across the South of the "interposition" movement, having first dragged out the theory from its moribund state in the musty bins of antebellum history and given its thoroughly disreputed exegesis of the Constitution's tension between the Federal Government's power, as set forth in the theory-ignored Supremacy Clause, and states' rights, as set forth in the unduly theory-stressed Tenth Amendment, new vitality in the mid-Twentieth Century for the first time in the wake of Brown, is not known.
Drew Pearson indicates that the British Secret Service, MI6, had launched an urgent investigation of the entire British Embassy staff in Cairo, seeking to track down a Russian agent believed to have been collaborating with one of the two British spies, Donald MacLean, who were now behind the Iron Curtain. The investigation had arisen from a coded letter from Louisville which had slipped out of a book in the Embassy library, with the incident taken so seriously that U.S. intelligence agents had been called into the case. The British librarian and an American visitor in Cairo had discovered the letter in a copy of one of Lord Cromer's books, the letter having fallen out when the book was opened for checking reference material late the prior November. The letter was dated June, 1951 and was believed to have been placed in the book by an agent to be picked up from the book by another agent.
It had read in part that as the
writer, "Bill", was writing, the news of "Donald's disappearance is
coming over the air… He must be given a longer breakdown
period in the future… Ten days is a long time to howl…
Donald is very cautious about David's replacement chap and hasn't
decided what he is like… Am sending over for those who
understand Runyonese a lot about Guys and Dolls
U.S. agents believed that the letter
was a coded message between two Communist agents reporting on Mr.
MacLean
Former Speaker of the House Joseph Martin of Massachusetts was being quizzed by newsmen about various subjects, until finally he was asked what he thought of Governor Christian Herter of Massachusetts as the vice-presidential running mate for the President. He then said he had to make a speech and was not in the vice-presidential fight, rushed away. Some right-wing Republicans were vehemently opposed to Governor Herter as the potential nominee and were threatening to tell the White House that.
Walter Lippmann indicates that as
Secretary of State Dulles finished his current tour
In each of the disputed areas, French North Africa, Cyprus, Palestine and regarding Egypt and Saudi Arabia, the U.S. was antagonizing both sides. The U.S. consulate in Tunis had been wrecked by Frenchmen who suspected the U.S. of supporting the dissident Arabs. In Cyprus, the U.S. had provoked the British and annoyed the Greeks. In Palestine, the U.S. was distrusted by the Arab states and scolded by the Israelis.
Mr. Lippmann indicates that it was not possible in international affairs to please everyone and, sometimes anyone, but in the present situation, the plight in which the U.S. found itself was not that it was in the moderate middle but between two extreme factions, because the U.S. central policy was no more than an attempt to avoid decisions and get by without displeasing too much anyone, at home or abroad.
He indicates that in French North Africa, the U.S. and the British ought consult seriously with France, and then decide what the U.S. would regard as a settlement which it could wholeheartedly support, giving France full support, provided France would offer the Arab population the full freedom which liberal French opinion already favored.
In Palestine, the U.S. should convert the 1950 declaration into a firm international guarantee against aggression by either side, enabling the U.S. then to take its stand for the neutralization of Israel within frontiers which had been modified and rectified by international arbitration.
The U.S. should face up to the tactics of Saudi Arabia in its use of the profits from oil for subversion by corruption, bribery and dissemination of propaganda throughout the Middle East. The U.S. ought cease acting with regard to Saudi Arabia as if the U.S. was helplessly dependent upon its rulers, whom it had to appease and placate lest they deprive the U.S. of its oil concessions.
Decisions of that kind were momentous and could not and should not be made except with the full attention of the highest responsible officials of the Government. But with Secretary Dulles away on travels, there was no one in Washington who could or would make decisions of that magnitude. The President did not have the full grasp of the issues and Undersecretary of State Herbert Hoover, Jr., could not make such decisions. They had to be made by Secretary Dulles, with the advice and consent of the President. He thus recommends that Mr. Dulles ought come home and remain home for a considerable time, and stop making so many speeches. He should stop trying to be the voice of America and to produce a campaign platform for the Republicans, instead directing his attention to the business of being Secretary of State.
A non-bylined news article from Washington indicates that agreement was being sought during the week on a compromise plan for electoral college reform, as Senators were seeking to iron out differences before the floor debate, scheduled for March 19, with no final understanding having been reached on a plan under discussion whereby the electoral vote of each state would be divided among the three leading candidates in that state, according to their share of the popular vote unless the state legislature decided to give one electoral vote to the leading candidate in each Congressional district and the remainder to the candidate with a statewide plurality. The high vote receiver in the nation would win, but if no candidate received a majority of the electoral vote, the Senate and House, sitting jointly, but voting as individuals, would pick the president from the two men having the largest electoral vote, with the majority of the combined votes of the Senate and House necessary for election.
Under the existing system, the leading candidate in a state received all of that state's electoral votes, as determined state by state, and a majority of the national electoral vote was needed for election. If no candidate received a majority, the election would be decided in the House, with each state delegation having one vote based on its majority vote, choosing the president from among the three leading candidates.
The compromise plan included elements of three proposals submitted separately to the Senate, the first clause being from the plan of former Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., and Congressman Ed Gossett, as presented in 1956 by Senators Price Daniel of Texas and Estes Kefauver of Tennessee, with the suggestion that only the leading three candidates in a state would share in the electoral vote coming from Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina. The second clause, the alternate voting method, was a plan originally put forth by Senator Karl Mundt of South Dakota and Representative Frederic Coudert of New York, both Republicans. Requiring a majority of the national electoral vote was a concession to Senators Mundt and Thurmond by Senator Daniel, who originally had favored a 40 percent minimum for election. The voting method in Congress was that suggested by Senators Daniel and Mundt, with Senator Thurmond having desired that the contest be decided by the House, with balloting by state delegations, with each state having one vote. Under that compromise, both Senators Mundt and Thurmond would accept Senator Daniel's suggestion that the voting in Congress be limited to the top two candidates, rather than the top three, as they had originally proposed.
If the compromise were not agreed to, the Thurmond, Mundt-Coudert and Kefauver-Daniel plans probably would be considered separately. The odds against any legislation passing would then be increased.
Two other proposals, it indicates, were also slated for Senate consideration, with Senator William Langer of North Dakota urging direct, popular election of the President, and Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota urging dividing the 435 electoral votes on the basis of the candidates' share of the national popular vote, a proportional method, giving, in addition, two electoral votes to the person with a plurality in each state.
Congress had been debating plans to reform the electoral college since the early 1800's, and there had been general agreement that the existing system had serious flaws.
It is worth a thought that had responsible action been taken to abolish the anachronism, especially after the debacle of 2000, the country today would not be facing the headlines of the week, that for the first time in the nation's history, a "former President" was arraigned on a felony indictment.
A letter writer responds to the March 12 letter of J. R. Cherry, Jr., thinks that he had made some legitimate queries concerning moderation as it applied to views and actions on segregation. The writer says that his view of the Brown decision was diametrically opposed to that of Mr. Cherry, but that he also was having doubts about moderation and the moderates, and was becoming increasingly uneasy about the many apparently sincere and patently insincere pleas for moderation, which he views actually as being effective in arousing the strongest and most violent emotions from both sides of the issue. While Mr. Cherry had become upset when he had read a speech by Judge Fred Helms, this writer says he had not and that Mr. Cherry would likely consider him an extremist for being unalterably opposed to segregation in principle and practice when it was effected and enforced by laws, though supporting it when practiced in private affairs through individual choice. He says that while he might consider Mr. Cherry an extremist, he seemed to be the classic sort of segregationist who would have his feelings exalted and somehow justified by their being unshakably embedded in the laws of the land. If each regarded the other as an extremist, they would tend to ignore each other in certain areas of thought. But when Judge Helms had made his speech advocating moderation and when the newspaper printed its editorial, "Extremists Must Be Answered Clearly", Mr. Cherry had struck back, driving home what this writer believes were cogent points in asking where the middle ground of moderation on those issues lay, this writer finding his statement proper, that he would stand at that point if the newspaper could offer sensible assurance that the ground was solid enough to support the collective weight. He hopes that both he and Mr. Cherry could be moderate enough that they would always reject violence and respect votes, court action and constitutional procedure. But both men believed, he says, that they could never meet in "that nebulous, never-never middle ground of moderation" as they could not disengage themselves from their views and step off into a land which did not exist. He says that he would be glad to join Mr. Cherry on the middle ground if someone would show them where it was, and that in the meantime, Mr. Cherry would continue to regard moderates as really being extremists and he darkly would suspect that some of them were "ninnies" while others were "hardhearted segregationists temporarily enamored with their self-made halos and imaginary sets of wings." He says that he considered himself to be a moderate but believes practically everyone believed the same thing. He hopes never to see physical force and violence employed by either side of the issue and finds that enough pious, veiled protestations for moderation had been made, infuriating everyone and inflaming the emotions of those who had convictions which were intellectually honest and fearlessly held.
A letter writer tells of having read a piece in the newspaper by Dr. Herbert Spaugh concerning the very first chapel in a department store, says that the Baptist Book Store, of which she was an employee, had organized a devotional period taking place every morning at a certain time, during which the staff was led in prayer. She found that it gave the day the right start and wishes that there would be more of the same.
A letter writer indicates that after reading the front page article the previous day by Charles Kuralt regarding C. E. Earle, Jr., and his bid for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, having offered to Mr. Kuralt that he run in Mr. Earle's stead and that he would contribute a thousand dollars to his campaign, says that if Mr. Earle would make the same offer to the writer, he would accept it. He says that he had been a candidate for the Charlotte City Council in 1949 and had been a resident of Charlotte for most of the time since 1928 when he had become a resident of the state.
A letter from a minister says that
Gene Autry
Fewer Trumpety-Trumps and
hullabaloos on the Sabbath. We'll go along with that
Framed Edition
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