The Charlotte News
Thursday, March 29, 1956
FIVE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from Raleigh that the State Advisory Committee on Education was expected to finish its work this date on its school segregation report, but the chairman of the Committee, Tom Pearsall of Rocky Mount, said that it was doubtful whether it would be released until later. The seven members of the Committee had been meeting in Raleigh since the previous morning and Mr. Pearsall indicated that they had made substantial progress in that time. The report would outline recommendations for dealing with the school desegregation problem and was expected to result in the calling by Governor Luther Hodges of a special session of the Legislature during the summer. Mr. Pearsall said that the Committee had received tremendous help from members of the Legislature and from school groups with whom it had conferred during the previous ten days, and that their counsel and advice had influenced the final result. They had been meeting periodically since the previous July. He refused to comment on statements made the previous week by State Senate president Luther Barnhardt of Concord and State Representative A. C. Edwards of Hookerton, both candidates for the Democratic lieutenant gubernatorial nomination, when they had agreed that a combination plan of tuition grants and local option might be put into effect to deal with the issue.
In St. Louis, a Federal grand jury appeared headed to a showdown with the Government over its handling of an investigation into tax scandals during the Truman Administration, the jury having complained that it had been sidetracked by the Department of Justice in its efforts to determine whether tax-fixing by highly placed Government officials had occurred in the prior Administration. Both St. Louis newspapers had reported growing dissatisfaction among the jurors as to the way the investigation had been proceeding. The Department of Justice had stated that it wanted the jury to delay its work for several weeks. The Post-Dispatch had reported that some of the jurors believed that the purpose of the delay was to provide Republican ammunition for the ensuing presidential campaign, and had also reported that some of the jurors believed they were close to having enough evidence to warrant indictments against high officials of the Truman Administration. It said further that the jury's complaint was caused by failure of the Department of Justice to seek indictments charging former Government officials with obstructing the prosecution of income tax evaders. Matthew Connelly, former executive assistant at the White House during the Truman Administration, Lamar Caudle, former head of the criminal division of the Justice Department during the Truman years, and Harry Schwimmer, a Kansas City attorney, had each been accused of conspiracy to fix a tax case and were scheduled to proceed to trial on May 7. The Department of Justice had suggested that the grand jury ought recess until after that trial, as publicity surrounding their work might be used by the defendants to claim that they could not obtain a fair trial.
In Progreso, Mexico, port officials said this date that all of the passengers and crew aboard a Mexican motor vessel had been rescued after the ship had burned and sunk in the Gulf of Campeche the previous night. A port authority official said that 21 passengers and a crew of 14, including the captain, had been rescued by a Mexican Coast Guard boat and an amphibious plane, and taken to Campeche on the west coast of the Yucatán Peninsula. The fire had started from an engine room explosion.
In Philadelphia, firemen were continuing to try to extinguish a fire from a granary explosion in which four men remained missing and were feared dead, along with scores of people who had been injured in the blast which cut a ten-block path of damage, two blocks west of the Schuylkill River which separated the downtown portion of the city from West Philadelphia. The explosion had been felt 25 miles away and some 25,000 telephone calls had been received in response at City Hall during a four-hour period following the blast. Twenty-five of the injured were students at Drexel Institute's night college, located less than a block from the rear of the granary. The night superintendent of the milling company which operated the granary blamed the explosion on collected dust. He said that he was attempting to ignite a pilot light in a drying vat when the blast occurred, causing the building to collapse almost immediately and burst into flame. He and three or four other employees had escaped the blast with injuries.
Emery Wister of The News reports of a proposal for a three-phase, $200,000 expansion of the Municipal Airport Terminal building having been made this date by the airport manager, that the first phase would be construction of an addition to the north side of the building, expected to begin in June, providing 700 additional square feet of space for Delta Air Lines, which would begin service in Charlotte the following Sunday. It would also provide space for another airline, should one be permitted to use Charlotte as a destination. There were also plans to increase the size of the first-floor coffee shop and for construction of space for small businesses, comprising phase 2, to begin in the fall. Phase 3 involved extension of the west wing of the building's second floor.
Donald MacDonald of The News indicates that the traffic captain in the Police Department had warned motorists to pay their parking tickets or have their cars immobilized by a wheel boot, a new locking device being used by the City, requiring release by the police. The police captain said that the police department in Denver had used the wheel boot successfully in the past, a device manufactured in Denver and costing $175 each. City Manager Henry Yancey had authorized the purchase of two of the wheel boots for immediate use on motorists who had accumulated parking tickets and ignored their payment.
The State this date banned parking on Providence Road from Queens Road to Caswell Road, by unanimous vote of the Highway Commission, with the bans slated to become effective as soon as "No Parking" signs could be erected along those streets.
Also in Charlotte, the four-story Piedmont Building on Tryon Street would be razed in May, according to an official of the Anchor Mills Corp., owners of the building. The official said that they had no plans at present for the property, but that it was conceivable it could be used as a parking lot. The building had been constructed originally in 1898 and had been regarded as the city's first skyscraper, reputed in the early part of the century as a model of advanced architecture, drawing crowds on Sunday afternoons to look at it. Some of the city's foremost citizens had offices in the structure at that time. The present owners said that there were a few tenants remaining in the building but that they would be out by May.
In Leadville, Colo., it was reported that what was believed to be the highest Easter sunrise service in the nation would be held atop the 11,750-foot Cooper Hill, with the participants taken to the top via a ski lift. The services would begin the following Sunday morning at the base of the hill and then move to the summit for the blessing and final prayer.
In Durham, Duke University had a library book returned which had been checked out 37 years earlier. The library normally levied a fine of a nickel per day on overdue books, and the one in question, a biography of Napoleon, checked out on October 8, 1919, could have cost the borrower $650, but the professor who returned it received instead appreciation for the return of the volume which he had found among his father's books. Officials at the University said that about 400 to 500 of their 1.2 million volumes in the library were lost, strayed or stolen each year. They are poor little lambs who have lost their way.
For those who have not yet learned to read, a photograph appears of a cop threatening a woman with a blackjack for giving him an icy stare.
On the editorial page, "A Blow against Anonymous Bigotry" tells of a disjointed stream of anonymous hate literature, including letters, handbills, circulars and pamphlets, having streamed into Charlotte for the previous two years, attacking Jews, blacks, and, occasionally, Catholics. Of late, friends of Jews, blacks and Catholics had also found themselves being attacked.
It finds that such efforts not only reflected cowardice but also an appalling absence of basic social morality.
At the urging of the Anti-Defamation League's local chapter, the City Council the previous day had approved an ordinance making it unlawful to publish or distribute any unsigned literature which exposed any individual or any racial or religious group to "hatred, contempt, ridicule or obloquy."
It finds that the law might be considered somewhat flimsy as race-baiting periodicals could still legally be distributed in Charlotte as long as they were signed by someone willing to front for the merchant of hate. But at least the Council's actions would dramatize in an emphatic manner society's contempt for such poison pen material, and thus was, in itself, a blow against bigotry and an affirmation of the civilization's better nature.
"Church St., the Belated Exhibit A" tells of Church Street to become a bustling valley of commerce in the future of the city, representing both a triumph and a tragedy.
The growth of Charlotte was welcome but on Church Street, the new growth would include the 15-story Wachovia Bank & Trust Co. building which had just been announced during the week, as well as a five-story addition to Ivey's Department Store. Along with other structures on the already crowded street, the new ones would turn it into a "concrete canyon" with dimensions so fixed that the street could probably never be widened to the size required to bear its heavy traffic load.
It thus finds it a pity that setback lines had not been used to control the midtown growth in preparation for future widening. Church Street was fit only for the horse and buggy days and yet had to feed one of the most important business areas of the city. It thus finds that the street stood as Exhibit A for expanding the setback program in the city, a program which had been approved the previous day by the City Council, which it finds a timely answer to the challenge of the future.
"The Seventh Man" tells of the return of City Council member Herman Brown to the mainstream of municipal affairs the previous day, being a happy event for the Council and Charlotte following his serious illness which had prevented him from participating in governance for many months. It welcomes him back to afford a fully functioning seven-member Council.
"Score One for Tar Heel Literature" tells of North Carolina's Randall Jarrell having been named the poetry consultant to the Library of Congress for a two-year term, a highly prestigious post. While not a native North Carolinian, he had made his home in Greensboro for a number of years as an associate professor of English at Woman's College.
He had received scant notice at home but had made an impressive reputation nationally and internationally as one of the nation's better artistic craftsmen and a poet of distinction. His literary criticism had attracted wide notice in intellectual circles and his wise and witty first novel, Pictures from an Institution, published in 1954, had been a bestseller.
Technically, he succeeded William Carlos Williams as the poet in residence at the Library, but Dr. Williams had never been allowed to assume his duties as he had never been cleared by the FBI for loyalty, and so there had actually been no occupant of the post since 1952 when Conrad Aiken's two-year term had expired.
It expresses certainty that the post would be filled with distinction by Mr. Jarrell and hopes that he would return to North Carolina at the end of it to continue to enrich the state's literary output.
"Here Comes Congress with a Code" tells of a House subcommittee having debated and approved a code of ethics for Government employees, essentially saying that the employees had to be God-fearing, nation-loving and honest. It was sponsored by Representative Charles Bennett of Florida.
It finds that if ten Americans got together, they would draw up a code of conduct, have it embossed, and then promptly forget about it. It thus finds the House code as commendable as it was inconsequential. It suggests in the future, to save money, that Congress simply adopt without debate the pledge of the 4-H Club.
A piece from the Washington Post & Times-Herald, titled "Comus on the Couch", tells of an eminent Canadian psychologist, Prof. Douglas Kenny of the University of British Columbia, as reported on the front page of The News on March 6, having been subjecting the processes of humor to an elaborate clinical investigation, finding that jokes, especially the anecdotal type, were far funnier when one knew exactly how they were going to end than when one did not. It explained why stories of the "shaggy dog" genre, which had been popular in sophisticated circles a few years earlier, were so often rewarded with no more than a blank stare from casual acquaintances, whereas almost any joke which began, "It seems there was a traveling salesman, and—", would be welcomed at the start by appreciative titters swelling into hysterical guffaws long before the gag line was ever reached.
It suggests therefore that if one wanted a reputation as a raconteur, all one had to do was memorize the whole of Joe Miller and the collected works of Bennett Cerf.
Prof. Kenny explained it in Freudian
terms
It asks, speaking of stimulus confirmation, whether the reader had heard the one about the fellow who said to the other fellow, "Who was that lady I saw you—". It suggests apologetically that it did not mean to start anything and that the reader would have to control him or herself, take a gulp of water and straighten up. To help the process, it would tell the reader about a shaggy dog which went into a saloon, sat down at a stool and said to the barkeep—"Say! Where are you going? What's the big hurry?" (The dog didn't say that; the piece does.)
Drew Pearson tells of the President recently having spent 50 minutes with the Reverend Billy Graham discussing the potential of a summer trip to India, from which the Rev. Graham had just returned. The evangelist suggested that the trip could bolster sagging relations between the U.S. and India, and if timed to coincide with the August Democratic convention, could keep the spotlight on the President during it and also take away the issue of his health. His return could then be scheduled to coincide with the start of the Republican convention, and so would have a triumphant conclusion. Prime Minister Nehru of India was scheduled to visit Washington in July and if he invited the President to make a reciprocal visit, the President could immediately respond in the affirmative. The fact that the President had spent so much time with the Reverend Graham on the matter suggested that he was open to the idea.
He next indicates that one bright spot in the Administration's attitude toward small business was the Justice Department's antitrust division, headed by Stanley Barnes, who had done a good job, even if in one or two cases he had been forced to pull back, such as in the case of the President's good friend, Roy Roberts, publisher of the Kansas City Star. But in most cases he had forthrightly gone after monopoly, recently bringing a criminal indictment against Shell Oil in Boston for fixing retail prices.
But the President was treating Mr. Barnes as FDR had Thurman Arnold when he had headed the antitrust division, appointing him to the Circuit Court of Appeals, leaving the question as to who would replace Mr. Barnes. Rumor had it in the Justice Department that it would be Edward Foote, "socialite politico", who was friendly with Robert Learnard, head of Alcoa, which had more trouble with the antitrust division regarding monopoly than any other corporation.
Marquis Childs discusses the presidential candidacy of Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee, tells of him being an endless reservoir of energy, as he had been in 1952 when he ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination. He provides a glimpse of his busy schedule for the ensuing two months, prior to the June 5 primary in California, finding it physically exhausting, with the Senator going back and forth between the East Coast and the West Coast "like a ping-pong ball with brief pauses in Washington for a day or two and a stopover in Tennessee."
The Florida primary would be on May 29 and, suggests Mr. Childs, if he defeated Adlai Stevenson there, as he had in New Hampshire, where Mr. Stevenson was not a candidate, and in Minnesota, he would greatly increase his momentum for the nomination.
All of his many travels were being done on a shoestring budget, according to his staff, who indicated that his total campaign war chest was a little over $67,000 at present, most of which had been donated in $50 and $100 increments, with one $5,000 contribution from Nathan Straus of New York, the former housing administrator who had managed the Senator's primary campaign in 1952. The staff reported that the total New York contribution was just short of $17,000, by way of disputing a rumor that Tammany Hall had heavily contributed to the Senator's campaign, to fund a stop-Stevenson movement in favor of Governor Averell Harriman, a claim which the Kefauver campaign staff vehemently denied. But there was no way to check the accuracy of their figures as the Corrupt Practices Act limiting campaign contributions did not apply to primaries.
Senator Kefauver was running as a David against a Goliath, the political bossism and corporate powers of the country, appealing to discontent which he believed was widespread beneath the surface of glowing prosperity as presented by the Administration. Senate Democrats, including those who agreed with his liberal views, complained that he did not carry his share of the load, that he could not be counted on to stay on the Senate floor or do committee groundwork essential to the legislative process. The general view of him in Washington was that he was an opportunist grabbing for himself every possible opening.
He had taken the chairmanship of a Senate Judiciary subcommittee investigating crime and racketeering in 1950 and 1951 and had parlayed it into a nationwide television audience. The prior January, he had sought the chairmanship of an anti-monopoly subcommittee to conduct hearings into the growing concentration of economic power in a few large corporations, another television opportunity offering sensational headlines, but he was thwarted in that effort by Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson, who reportedly kept Senator Kefauver from that committee assignment.
Mr. Childs suggests that while the Senator's motives for seeking that chairmanship may have been mixed, his record on the question of monopoly had been consistent, always opposing the concentration of big business. It had largely been the result of his persistence that the Dixon-Yates power deal had been investigated, eventuating in the Administration canceling the contract after it had become controversial and the City of West Memphis agreed to provide the necessary power which the private utility combine was set to offer.
Mr. Childs suggests that after the Minnesota and New Hampshire primaries, the Senator had succeeded in projecting his image of a homespun David, contacting voters with a big hand and a grin, saying, "I'm Estes Kefauver and I hope you'll vote for me." Although he would be 53 on July 26, he had a boyish quality which appealed to female voters. He wanted people to like him but beneath his guileless surface, he was a shrewd and sophisticated politician who knew the stakes he was playing and the odds stacked against him, but nevertheless was pursuing his ambition with unflagging energy, in the tradition of old-time campaigners.
Stewart Alsop indicates that some very sensational statements had recently been made by the highest Air Force authorities, without drawing much attention. Air Force chief of staff General Nathan Twining had said: "[The Soviets] have long since passed us in quantity and they are making remarkable strides in quality." Deputy chief of staff General Thomas White had said: "They have been and are outproducing us in all categories but medium bombers… Here is the area of deep concern—the Soviets are presently beating us at our own game—production… The Communists are making scientific and technological advances at a faster rate than we are." Lt. General Thomas Power, chief of the Air Research and Development Command, had said: "With both quantitative and qualitative superiority on their side, we would lose the protection of the deterrent force and be at their mercy. This danger is very real and immediate."
Mr. Alsop indicates that all three generals were saying that the Soviets were rapidly outstripping the U.S. in strategic air power, the one field in which the U.S. had previously enjoyed superiority. Despite such warnings being very serious, they were being met with bored yawns across the nation, which he regards as an important phenomenon regarding why the nation was so indifferent.
He finds first that there was a tendency to regard all generals as professional criers of "wolf, wolf" and that the services had sometimes been guilty of budget-minded scare-mongering. Yet, as General Twining had pointed out in his testimony to Congress, the Air Force had consistently underestimated Soviet progress in air power by a wide margin.
There was also a theory that the professional soldiers did not really know things, that they were just guessing, which he indicates was incorrect, that when General Twining had testified recently that the Soviets were producing more than twice as many long-range bombers as the U.S. and that they were already testing intermediate range missiles, he had not been guessing. How he had come to that knowledge might not be any of the public's business, but the facts were the public's business.
Another perception was that no one could do anything about it anyway, which he finds equally incorrect. Assistant Secretary of the Air Force Trevor Gardner had resigned a few weeks earlier because of an official decision not to undertake the "crash" missile program he had proposed. To increase the nation's long-range bomber production at least to the Soviet level, as Strategic Air Command chief General Curtis Lemay had advocated, would require a simple order to the Boeing plants, an order which had not been given for budgetary reasons.
He concludes that the Government had officially decided to permit the Soviets to gain the lead in strategic air power and that many people refused to worry about the decision because they trusted the military judgment of President Eisenhower from his long military experience, despite his own disclaimer of personal infallibility and that his military experience had been in a different field. His military reputation was the primary reason why the Administration's defense policy had been only mildly criticized. Those who undertook to do so, such as Senators Stuart Symington and Henry Jackson, were charged with "breaking security", becoming "prophets of gloom and doom" or simply playing politics. Critics of defense economy were also accused of wasteful war-mongering as people believed there would not be another big war, which Mr. Alsop allows might be true but only if the nation did not lose its deterrent force.
He concludes that all of it, however, was not enough to explain the extraordinary public apathy in the face of such sensational warnings as he had listed earlier in the piece, that unless the country had become "so flabbily self-regarding as to be indifferent to the future, there must be something else as well—a failure of communication between the nation as a whole and those responsible for the national security."
A letter writer responds to a letter writer of the prior Monday who had written anonymously, asking who had been to blame for dirty children who were playing with their children on occasion, and winding up criticizing the Welfare Department for not doing anything to clean up those children. The writer says that if the children's parents were not to blame, no one else was, that if the Welfare Department were to clothe and feed all children who were dirty, the City would go broke in a day. The purpose of the Department was to help the poor and elderly and those who were unable to help themselves. She finds that if parents could not board and clothe their children, they should not have any. She says that all over the city, one saw "sorry men and women lying around drinking and children hungry", and that the parents were to blame. She believes that the parents should be made to work and support them, and that not until then would they stop drinking and seeking support from the Welfare Department. She says that the people who paid taxes were tired of people knocking the Department and that if parents would go to work and live right, they would not have dirty children who were hungry and begging, that whiskey was the root of it all.
A letter from the president of the Mint Museum of Art, Sam Galabow, expresses appreciation to the newspaper for its fine presentation in its March 24 edition of the cultural activities at the Museum. He generally commends the newspaper for encouraging and featuring cultural activities within the city.
Framed Edition
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