The Charlotte News
Tuesday, March 20, 1956
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that a patchwork farm bill, containing features which Senator George Aiken of Vermont had said warranted "three or four vetoes", had been passed 93 to 2 by the Senate the previous night and was headed for a new fight in the House, with the final vote not reflecting the angry criticism which had been raised against it, as none of the Senators appeared happy with the final product. Democrats, pointing to a five-year decline in farm prices, were emphasizing the farm prices as a major campaign issue. Senators Prescott Bush of Connecticut and Ralph Flanders of Vermont were the only votes against the bill. Senator Irving Ives of New York, who had stomach trouble, was the only member not voting. The bill contained authority for a soil bank, the major recommendation of the Administration during the year, but several provisions of that program, designed to take land out of production and thus reduce surpluses, had been subjected to major revisions. While the bill retained the Administration's flexible price support system, it had been supplemented by a "two-price" plan for rice, a similar optional program for wheat and provision for "set-asides" which would have the effect of boosting the price supports for wheat, corn and cotton. The final action late the previous night had been after eight straight days of voting, during which debate had been limited, and 11 days of unrestricted debate prior to that. The House was expected to act promptly to send the bill to a conference committee to work out a compromise. The prior May, the House, over Administration objections, had voted to support prices of basic crops at 90 percent of parity and those of dairy products at 80 percent of parity, but the Senate bill had rejected the 90 percent fixed supports for basic crops, while being similar to the House bill regarding supports for dairy products. The House had not considered the soil bank or the other provisions of the present Senate bill.
Prime Minister Nehru of India intended to visit the U.S. in July for talks with the President and other officials, a White House announcement indicated this date, following an invitation issued for the visit by Secretary of State Dulles during his meeting in New Delhi with the Prime Minister earlier in the month. The announcement said that the visit would be an informal one, with the meeting with the President covering matters of mutual interest between the two countries.
The Air Force planned to parachute humans from balloons from 17 or more miles above the earth over the New Mexico desert late the following fall, heights as much as two times greater than any previously attempted. Dubbed "Project Explorer", the project was disclosed at a news conference the previous night by three Air Force officers associated with high-altitude, high-speed bailout experiments. They reported that Lt. Henry Nielsen, 31, co-holder of the unofficial record for high-altitude parachute jumps, would lead the new attempts, with one other airman participating, both to use recently developed automatically operating parachutes and other experimental equipment. The purpose of the jumps was to develop safe equipment and procedures for bailing out of fast airplanes at altitudes up to 90,000 feet.
The Northeast, beset by blizzard conditions, was digging out from the massive snowfall this date on the first day of spring. A blizzard which had begun in West Virginia on Sunday had moved up the New England coast early this date and was expected to end in Maine before noon. The New York area had suffered a foot of snow after the storm had moved on, following in the tracks of another blizzard which had swept through the Northeast on Friday night. The storm had hit a total of 14 states and caused at least 141 deaths, most of which had occurred in traffic accidents or from overexertion in shoveling snow. New York had the highest death toll with 30, followed by New Jersey with 28, Massachusetts, 26, Connecticut, 13, Ohio, 12, Rhode Island, 10, and several other states with fewer than ten. Up to 20 inches of new snow had fallen in parts of Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut, with New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine having less than 10 inches each.
In Asheville, N.C., it was reported that snow, ranging from flurries to a total of 16 inches at Clingman's Peak near Mount Mitchell, had produced hazardous conditions on the mountain roads, with the Weather Bureau promising more winter-like weather for the night, with temperatures dropping to between 16 and 22 degrees, after Asheville had hit a low the previous night of 22. The forecast for the following day was warmer with mostly sunny skies.
Helen Parks of The News reports that the General Assembly of the Southern Presbyterian Church, meeting in Montreat the following June, would be asked to approve ordination of women as ruling elders and deacons. As things were at present, women sometimes attended Presbytery, but did not know whether they should as they were not official members.
Julian Scheer of The News reports that employers had taken a dim view of most of the uncooperative witnesses who had appeared before the HUAC subcommittee hearings in Charlotte the prior week, that of the 11 unfriendly witnesses who had refused to answer questions on alleged Communist Party activities within the state, all but four were now unemployed, the story listing those who had been terminated. The four who were not terminated from jobs included a housewife, a man who owned his own farm in Walnut Cove, a man from Durham who faced possible discharge from the Bluefield State Teachers College in West Virginia, and a maid of Winston-Salem.
In Warrenton, N.C., it was reported that the attorney for most of the witnesses at the subcommittee hearings, James Gilliland, who had co-counsel from New York, had been asked by the Warren County Commission to resign as solicitor of Recorder's Court. He was also under fire from the American Legion post which he commanded. He said that to resign "would admit that my actions have been wrong. I don't feel that they have been." The commissioners had told him the previous day that they had no criticism of the way he had performed his duties as solicitor, and that they recognized the right of every person to be defended by an attorney and recognized and defended the right of free speech, but, nevertheless, adopted unanimously a resolution which said that the board was of the opinion that the attorney's participation in "the recent Communist hearings in Charlotte" had been inconsistent with his position as prosecuting attorney of the county and was "detrimental to his successful discharge of the duties" of that office. They said that they believed his actions had offended the majority of his fellow citizens "so as to impair his usefulness as solicitor of the court." Mr. Gilliland responded that "the popularity of a solicitor is not a measure of his usefulness."
Donald MacDonald of The News reports of an automobile having overturned east of the Catawba River bridge on Wilkinson Boulevard early this date, hitting a large tree, bursting into flames, killing three of its four occupants. The police had not yet determined who had been driving the wrecked 1949 Buick. The lone survivor of the accident was believed not to have any broken bones and was in satisfactory condition in the hospital.
Also in Charlotte, a 49-year old man had been burned to death in the wee hours of the morning when fire destroyed his upstairs garage apartment in the Myers Park section of the city. The man was the son of a well-known resident and minister of the Seigle Avenue Presbyterian Church. The fire had begun in the deceased's bed and had burned beneath his body and through the floor, according to the deputy fire chief.
In Winston-Salem, ambulance attendants had arrived at a home the previous day, and the individual who lived there, 23 years old, said that they had arrived just in time, as he was planning to shoot himself, then had placed the muzzle to his chest and pulled the trigger before the attendants, whom he had summoned, could stop him. The son of a local doctor, he was pronounced dead on arrival at Baptist Hospital.
In Hollywood, the establishment of the Suzan Ball memorial fund as a national cancer agency honoring the memory of the late actress, who had died the previous year, was announced by the City of Hope Medical Center. Ms. Ball was the wife of actor Richard Long.
On the editorial page, "The Hottle Case: A Sin of Omission" finds that the County Commissioners, in their report on the Welfare Department's role in the death of a three-year old child, after severe abuse by her "stepmother", who had been convicted in January of assault on the child after the child had died the prior Christmas Eve, had been limited to the superficial aspects of the case, without any clear and fundamental expression of confidence in the Welfare Department and other County agencies involved in the controversy. It finds that nothing in the brief report issued the previous day was designed to eliminate the lingering uneasiness of the citizenry regarding the administration of the public's business by the social agencies of the community.
The report had simply said that one caseworker had been guilty of "some negligence" in the matter, after the caseworker had recommended the home where the child was placed, not finding any evidence of abuse, after one doctor had reported that the child had not been brought back for further treatment after suffering a broken leg, and appeared to have bruises, which the caseworker had found disputed by the child having been taken to another doctor for further treatment, and that the second doctor found no evidence of abuse.
The report had also pointed out things which should or should not have been done by a counselor of the Domestic Relations and Juvenile Court and by a sergeant of the County Police Department, issuing a recommendation that the agencies remind their staffs that all investigation should be thorough.
While the report was acceptable as far as it had gone, the case which it involved was neither simple nor routine, as the report seemed to treat it. It finds that it had been the duty of the commissioners to set the alleged negligence in diagnosing the situation in perspective and provide the citizens an honest evaluation of the agencies involved, their overall services being rendered and the competence of their leadership. It finds that the failure to take advantage of the opportunity to repair public confidence in those agencies was notable and regrettable.
"Foreign Aid: Dulles Must Be Frank" finds that the President would have trouble with Congress regarding passage of his proposed foreign aid program, as the Minority Leader in the Senate, William Knowland of California, had joined powerful Democrats in opposition to the President's request made the previous day for power to make long-term commitments on certain non-military projects for up to a decade ahead, with that opposition being serious.
It finds that the question was whether the Administration would be deterred by those objections or would continue the fight to achieve passage. It suggests that the most eloquent argument for long-term aid was the state of the world at present and the previous failure of the U.S. to counter Russia's economic offensive, aiding neutral countries.
It suggests that Secretary Dulles was inclined to obscure world conditions or paint them with rosy hues, and while the long-term aid was the best answer to the Communist drive, he had not given the program the consistent advocacy it needed to win approval. The President had argued that the country had to assume that Soviet expansionism had merely taken on a different guise of late and that its fundamental objective remained to dominate the free nations, whereas the Secretary had recently suggested that the change in Soviet direction indicated that their prior policies had failed and that they were operating from a position, therefore, of weakness. The piece finds the President's view of the matter supported by the current chaos in the Middle East, where the Soviets had penetrated with military and economic aid, constructing with Egypt a trade of weapons for cotton and money.
It finds that the innovation of long-term guarantees of foreign aid was necessary to stimulate the confidence of investors in friendly nations and to depict the shallowness of Communist offers of a short-term nature, providing concrete evidence that the U.S. would not be a fair-weather friend. It views the President's proposal therefore as necessary, but one which would not be obtained in the Congress without a frank appraisal of world affairs by Secretary Dulles, which, thus far, he had been reluctant to undertake.
"Vandalism: Protection or Repairs" indicates that the measures which had failed in the city to stop vandalism of recreation facilities had included appeals to the citizenry to report suspicious activity, very good cooperation from the police department, publicity and appeals for good citizenship, stiff court sentences for two vandals, and a threat of legislation to penalize the parents of vandals.
The superintendent of the parks had said that vandals were ruining them, but there was no indication that they would cease their activity. It admits not having any solution to offer to stop the vandalism, which was costing the city $50,000 per year. It wonders whether a better system of protection could be devised, that it would be better to spend $50,000 preventing the damage than to spend it on repairs.
"Which Is the Wordier of the Species?" indicates that the theory that the human female was invariably wordier than the male had been officially disproved by Senator Margaret Chase Smith of Maine, who had the shortest "autobiographical sketch" among the Senators listed in the new Congressional Directory, being only five words in length, consisting only of her name and address. In contrast, for instance, two Senators, Sam Ervin of North Carolina and Theodore Green of Rhode Island, each had over 400-word descriptions of their accomplishments.
It quotes from the Babylonian Talmud: "Ten measures of speech descended on the world; women took nine and men one." It suggests that the trouble had been that when women had said anything at all in earlier times, men had insisted that they were talking too much, that while men liked the beauty of women, their delicacy and vivacity, they also valued their silence. Sophocles had suggested that a woman should be seen and not heard, with the substitution of "children" for "women" coming later.
But it finds that the filibuster, the talkathon and the soap box oration had all been been invented by males and that "windbag" had a distinctly male connotation, as did "blatherskite", an older colloquialism to describe prolix loquacity.
"Down through the years, history's Silent Sals have been the victims of outrageous libel and they can thank Sen. Smith for exposing the whole ugly conspiracy with her admirable restraint."
A piece from the Greensboro Daily News, titled "All the Way, Please", indicates that hot dog lovers would be pleased that their favorite delicacy was "up to snuff" in nutritional value, as learned from the Manchester Guardian, commenting that ever since 1939 when Eleanor Roosevelt and the President had served hot dogs to King George VI and Queen Elizabeth when the royal couple had visited the U.S., the British had been hot dog-conscious.
It indicates that at the University
of Chicago, the effects of gamma-irradiation in a cobalt-60 furnace
were presently being observed, in the hope that the hot dog would
keep its red color and not develop any "side flavors"
It finds that the hot dog had to wait 2,000 years, plus 100 years beyond its popularization in Frankfurt, for the great occasion, but at last dietitians had announced that it was nutritionally the equal in protein and amino acids of ordinary cuts of lamb, pork and beef.
"Fortified with this knowledge, we say with a clear conscience: 'Hot dog all the way, please, mustard, pickle, onion and chili.'"
They must never have tasted the shriveled little weenies they used to serve in school, which they claimed were hot dogs, but instead appeared more as large worms stuck in between some semblance of a water-logged bun, and even fouler tasting than they looked, conveying the experience of chewing a piece of leather, causing one, if belaboring in subtle contemplation and indecision the task of downing it, to lose one's lunch. Yet, the things which passed for "hamburgers" were even worse. We learned to stick to the shriveled up fried chicken, avoiding the watered-down mashed potatoes. The rolls, however, were always pretty good. So, if you stuck to the rolls and a half-pint of milk, it was probably slightly better than prison food.
Drew Pearson tells of a secret meeting in the office of Congressman Graham Barden of North Carolina, in which 11 Democratic members of the House had participated. Mr. Barden was the chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, and had originally been a school teacher before coming to Congress but now bitterly opposed Federal aid to education, having become one of the most reactionary members of the House, so reactionary that he had not held a single meeting of his Committee since Congress had convened in January, instead ruling it with his own iron hand. He had hired a recognized labor-baiter, James Brewbaker, as counsel of the Committee, which was charged with liberalizing Taft-Hartley, broadening the wage-hour laws and passing Federal aid to education. Without consulting a single member of the Committee, Mr. Barden had hired Mr. Brewbaker, who had spent 11 years working for the anti-labor National Association of Manufacturers and later formed his own anti-labor organization, the Association of Industrial Mobilization.
The 11 Democrats present in Mr. Barden's office were upset about the hire, Congressman James Roosevelt, a member of the Committee, having issued a press statement criticizing the appointment and defending that public expression before Mr. Barden by indicating that after the latter had made the hire without consulting other members of the Committee, Mr. Roosevelt had the right to express himself publicly and emphatically.
Two Southern Democrats on the Committee, Representatives Carl Elliott of Alabama and Phil Landrum of Georgia, defended Mr. Barden, saying that the Committee had granted him the authority to hire counsel and that they supported the choice. But the other Democrats, whom he lists, did not agree and for three hours expressed their displeasure. Mr. Barden had responded that he had never dreamed that anyone would question the integrity of Mr. Brewbaker.
Mr. Pearson says that he was being naïve as Mr. Brewbaker had gone about as far as possible in professional labor-baiting, providing further detail of his prior record.
Joseph & Stewart Alsop tell of the macabre spectacle before the recent 20th Communist Party Congress, wherein Communist Party Secretary Nikita Khrushchev, "the stocky, outwardly jolly little man whom Stalin personally chose to preside over the ruthless massacres that reduced the restive Ukraine to the final subjection after the war", now denounced Stalin, with most on the dais having participated in the purges which he had ordered. Now, Mr. Khrushchev was speaking of Stalin's secret assassinations and encouraged suicides, plots and counter-plots, his sadism and megalomania, indicating that almost all of his victims had been innocent of any crimes. He was thus defending the reputations of those who had been denounced as "criminal beasts" by Mr. Khrushchev and everyone else in the hall when they had lived under the rule of Stalin.
If the reports of Mr. Khrushchev's speech were correct, the Alsops suggest, the scene had reached the "heights of sordid drama of those scenes in the Roman Senate, after the death of one of the tyrant emperors, for which the great Tacitus always dipped his historian's pen in an acid of double strength." It was necessary to go that far back in history to find an adequate parallel, but the question remained, they posit, as to what it meant to the U.S., that a simple answer was given by George Kennan, former State Department planner who developed the Truman policy of containment of the Communist bloc nations and was a student of the Soviet Union, when he had said "that a morbid monster has now been replaced by jolly gangsters." He was of the view that the corruption of absolute power by Stalin had deprived him of common humanity without depriving him of uncommon ability, and that while his successors were the products of the same system, they were not inhuman, but rather embittered by the humiliation which Stalin had made them suffer and that, in a sense, they meant what they were saying about him.
For the people of the Soviet Union, the new humanity being shown by their rulers promised somewhat better days, that the terror was over and was not likely to be reinstated despite the fact that the instruments of terror persisted. But the great rise in postwar Soviet national income had given the Soviet people a standard of living high enough so that terror was no longer needed.
Yet the true priorities of the Soviet state had been strongly reemphasized at the Party Congress by former Premier Georgi Malenkov, whose complicity in Stalin's plots was now a source of great personal danger for him. As Premier, he had advocated more consumer goods to gain support for his failing power. He had confessed his former error at the time when he was replaced as Premier by Nikolai Bulganin, and, under orders, had promulgated the rule of the Soviet Presidium, that the needs of the Russian people had to be wholly subordinated to the needs of the State's heavy and military industry. The Alsops view that speech as the key to understanding the present Soviet Union and the response to those who claimed that the system had changed such that the West could now disarm. While the new Soviet rulers had abandoned Stalin's ways, they had not altered his priorities or goals.
While in ancient Rome, the good emperors were better than the bad emperors, they were not better for Rome's neighbors, and the parallel still fit, they assert, for the Soviet Union.
Marquis Childs finds that by any proper method of political cost accounting, the Democratic Party at present would be in a state close to bankruptcy, that the internal stresses and the uncertainties regarding candidates and issues added up to a total on the debit side of the ledger. The Southern wing of the party was in open revolt, with the likelihood that from three to five Southern states would bolt the party for a white supremacy ticket. The candidate shown to be in the lead for the Democratic nomination for the presidency, Adlai Stevenson, had two rivals, Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee and Governor Averell Harriman of New York, both of the latter of whom were seeking to beat the front-runner, with dark hints that they had entered into a conspiracy to eliminate Mr. Stevenson from the race. But if either Senator Kefauver or Governor Harriman were to become the nominee, the states of the Deep South would walk out of the convention, whereas, as a candidate counseling moderation on the issue of desegregation of the public schools, that desegregation had to take place gradually to permit social adjustment, Mr. Stevenson might be able to hold the party together.
Mr. Childs, however, finds that prospect doubtful as the Southern movement behind Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson was aimed at forcing the convention to accept a compromise on the desegregation issue, a compromise which inevitably would alienate voters in the North.
The Democratic campaign committees showed a deficit of more than $121,000 for the first two months of the year, with national committee officials saying that they had $75,000 on hand, a small amount to carry on a national presidential campaign, which would start around Labor Day. By contrast, the Republicans already had their nominee in the President, who, by the polls, was a two-to-one favorite over Mr. Stevenson, showing that the Republican campaign was well underway. The Republican nominee would have the support of up to 85 percent of the press and the RNC treasury was full to overflowing, with the latest accounting showing two million dollars on hand, with the actual accounting possibly being closer to five million.
To find solace, Democrats reflected back to 1948 when they found themselves in a similar situation, with the polls indicating that if President Truman were to run for re-election, he would be soundly defeated, prompting important elements within the party to desire to dump him. A Southern revolt had been brewing and the Dixiecrats, led by Governor Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, had walked out of the convention to form their own party in response to the civil rights plank of the platform. Former Vice-President Henry Wallace was nominated by the Progressive Party, appealing to the "extremist and fellow-traveling vote" in the large cities. Yet, in the general election, despite the loss of Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Tennessee to the Dixiecrats, and New York State to Republican Governor Thomas Dewey after the Progressive Party split the ordinarily Democratic vote, the Democrats had won the election, notwithstanding such a lack of money that they had to beg for funds to obtain television time.
Thus, the Democrats held out hope that a repeat might be in the offing, suggested that the current disaffection among farmers could spread and deepen, that the trouble in the Middle East could develop into war, underscoring the deficiencies of Administration foreign policy.
The uncertainty of their candidate and the lack of money for the presidential campaign were the two most important factors working against the Democrats, but they were almost always a problem for the party. DNC chairman Paul Butler had welcomed the proposal of Philip Graham, publisher of the Washington Post and Times-Herald, to get the Advertising Council behind a nationwide campaign for small contributions to be made by members of both parties, as the best answer for the abuses under the current system, wherein large donations were made in anticipation of favors. The proposal had been rebuffed by Republicans, however, leaving the DNC in urgent need of finding other ways to raise funding. On April 21, the Democrats would hold a Woodrow Wilson centennial dinner in Washington, expected to raise about $350,000, and other dinners would help in that regard. But by the most conservative estimate, the presidential campaign alone would cost in the neighborhood of three million dollars and it was not clear from where the bulk of that financing would derive.
Meanwhile, the Republicans had at their disposal a wealth of volunteer specialists and technicians in advertising, public relations, television and radio, with RNC headquarters having indicated that they had taken in from that source 1.7 million dollars as of March 1. They also had at their disposal corporate executives eager to help in the cause, providing big money, and the large corporations had year-long contracts for television and radio time which would yield to the Republicans.
Recognizing those handicaps, Democratic officials nevertheless were planning in advance on a campaign they believed would end in a repeat of the surprise victory of 1948. While the President would, for his health issues, devote virtually all of his campaign time to television talks, the Democratic candidate would be conducting a widespread whistle-stop tour, in the tradition of former President Truman, and thus have daily appearances recorded in the press, the newsreels and on television. They believed that a candidate sitting and talking into television cameras would eventually wear on the patience of television viewers, and so they still had hope.
The problem with the hope would be that, as in 1952, Mr. Stevenson, for all of his eloquence and lawyerly presentation of issues to the people, lacked the common touch, the folksiness, which President Truman naturally had and, if communicated in a different manner, possessed also naturally by President Eisenhower, it having been an era in which, following a decade and a half of economic depression and then world war, most people wanted the security of a father-image or even a grandfather-image in the White House for awhile postwar, to reassure them and settle their frayed nerves a decade now into the atomic age, a period of societal readjustment to "peace and prosperity" while trying their best to learn to live without a major war to boost the economy, now instead relying on an ever-increasing cold war arms race as the big economic teet to satisfy natural inner urges and quell collective aggressive tendencies
A letter writer indicates that the chairman of the local chapter of the American Red Cross had just received a copy of the annual report made the previous week to Governor Luther Hodges by the director for field services of the Red Cross in the state, with the report indicating that during the previous year, disaster operations had been necessary in 22 counties of the state, mostly for victims of Hurricanes Connie, Diane and Ione the previous August and September, the total disaster expenditures having been $463,000, including rehabilitation of 3,200 families of servicemen and war veterans with welfare problems, with all of the funding having been the result of gifts and more than 11,000 volunteers having provided 63,000 hours of free time to welfare, disaster preparedness and relief, safety, health, hospital and Junior Red Cross through the 121 chapters of the Red Cross in the state. She provides additional statistics on the contribution of the organization in the state in aid of disaster relief during the previous year, and concludes that during March, there was an ongoing fund drive, with the Charlotte chapter's quota being $12,325, providing the address to which to send contributions.
A letter from the president of the Charlotte Board of Realtors thanks the newspaper for its coverage of Realtor Week.
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