The Charlotte News
Thursday, April 12, 1956
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from Jerusalem that Egyptian and Israeli war planes had clashed this date, with Israel claiming first blood. An Israeli Army spokesman had announced that two Israeli fighters had intercepted four Egyptian jets in a noon flight northward over Israeli territory and had shot down one, a British-made Vampire, over Israel's soil. He said that the other three planes had escaped and that their own planes had returned safely to base. The report of the air combat had followed claims by Israel that there had been five new attacks by Arab commando raiders on the ground the previous night, in one of which, three Israeli schoolchildren and a teacher had been killed while praying. Angered Israeli security forces had hunted for the raiders, as public clamor for retaliation mounted. Egypt had also complained, with a military spokesman in the Egyptian-held Gaza region saying that Israelis had opened automatic fire this date on an outpost in one area northeast of Gaza City, and that an Egyptian soldier had been wounded, with that outpost not having returned fire. The newly established Egyptian Middle East News Agency had reported the previous night that 300 Arab commandos had returned to their base in Gaza after staging a series of 50 raids. Official confirmation, however, was lacking from Cairo, which had disclaimed responsibility for those attacks. But an Egyptian Embassy spokesman in Damascus had said that the group had headed back after making its retaliatory raid for the Israeli shelling the previous Thursday of the Gaza Strap, in which 64 Arabs had been killed and 102 wounded.
Meanwhile, in Cairo, U.N. Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold held a three-hour meeting with Egyptian Foreign Minister Mahmoud Fawzi, his fourth meeting with Egyptian officials since arriving two days earlier on his Middle East peace mission. An informed source said that the Secretary-General would remain in Cairo until Saturday, but would spend the remainder of this date and the following day in conferences with his own staff, while the original schedule had called for a probable second meeting with Premier Gamal Abdel Nasser the following day and then the Secretary-General's departure for Beirut, his temporary headquarters. The informant said only, without elaboration, that there was good reason for the change of schedule.
Two of the three major national farm organizations, the National Grange and the National Farmers Union, had sent a telegram this date to the President, calling upon him to sign the new farm bill, despite it having features objectionable to him. Both of the organizations had used their influence to obtain passage of the measure. The Farmers Union president had addressed the telegram to the "ninth hole of the Augusta Country Club", saying that he hoped the President would "pause to give some consideration to the American family farm." The American Farm Bureau Federation, the third major farm organization, had worked against the bill, without making recommendations to the White House regarding whether to sign the current bill. Its president had said the previous day, however, that the measure was "ill-considered" and would "return to the discredited programs that contributed to much of the present glutted market situation." The final bill had cleared the Congress the previous night after the Senate had approved it, following House approval earlier in the day, with neither vote having been close. It called for a one-year return to the 90 percent of parity price supports, the system which had been in effect during the Truman Administration and had been blamed by the Eisenhower Administration for present surpluses, only one provision of the measure which the President opposed. It contained the soil bank program to pay farmers subsidies of up to 1.2 billion dollars per year for not planting cropland in commodities already in surplus, a provision favored by the Administration, but the President's lieutenants in Congress predicted nevertheless that he would veto it. Key Democrats who had pushed the bill predicted that the President would sign it, as it was that bill or nothing. An aide to the President said that he still did not think the bill met the test of a "good bill", but could not say what the President might do.
In Augusta, Ga., White House press secretary James Hagerty told reporters that the President would start his re-election campaign with an address to 800 Republican Party leaders at a Washington dinner the following Tuesday evening, speaking to state party chairmen and vice-chairmen, national committee members from all the states, Republican members of Congress, party finance leaders, and chairmen of the "Salute to Eisenhower" rallies, held throughout the country the previous January 20. He also announced that the President would make a speech at the event for up to a half hour, but was unsure whether it would be carried nationwide on television and radio. He said he did not know exactly how long the President would speak, but thought it would be more than ten minutes.
In Chicago, singer Nat King Cole, who had been attacked in Birmingham, Ala., two nights earlier while performing there, said this date that the incident would "do a lot of good for the cause of integration," that he was a "guinea pig for some hoodlums" who thought they could hurt and frighten him, and "in that way keep other Negro entertainers from the South", but that what they had actually done would backfire on them because "those thousands of white people in the audience could see how terrible it is for an innocent man to be subjected to such barbaric treatment." He had been singing before an all-white audience of 4,000, segregated under local law, in the municipal auditorium on Tuesday night when a group of six white men had charged onto the stage, hitting Mr. Cole and causing him to fall against a piano stool. He had been flown to Chicago where a doctor ordered him to take a short rest to recuperate from the minor injuries to his back, right arm and left leg from the attack. Mr. Cole, 37, born in Alabama, said: "Those men who attacked me were trying to start a riot. I don't think there was anything personal—that is, that they were against me as Nat Cole—but I do think that it was meant to be a demonstration against integration." When asked whether he would continue to perform for segregated audiences in the South, he said that he would as he was not a political figure or a controversial person, just an entertainer whose job it was to perform for people, that he owed it to both his black fans and white fans to perform for them, for if he stopped because of some state law, he would be deserting the people who were important to him, and believed that in his way, he might be helping to bring harmonious relations between people through his music. He said that it was foolish to think that a performer like him could challenge segregation in a Southern city and demand that the audiences be integrated, that the Supreme Court was having a hard time integrating the schools and thus he had no realistic chance of integrating audiences. He said that he planned to open at the auditorium in Raleigh the following day and then would make appearances in Norfolk and Richmond, Va., then appear in Winston-Salem, Atlanta and Louisville. Interviewed in bed in his Loop hotel suite, Mr. Cole said that one thing he was proud of was the way many people of the South had responded to the incident in Birmingham, showing his interviewer several telegrams expressing regret about it, with one having been signed by Charlotte Police Chief Frank Littlejohn, urging Mr. Cole to "come on to Charlotte", that the people of the city were "heartily ashamed of the indignity to which you were subjected." Police in Birmingham reported that the attack by a handful of men originally called for more than 100 men to take part, with two detectives having said that they learned that the attack had been plotted on April 7 and that men from Anniston, Piedmont, Bessemer, Tuscaloosa and the Birmingham area had been set to take part. The six men who had entered the stage had been charged in the incident.
In Charlotte, it was reported by promoter Jim Crockett that the show with Mr. Cole, originally scheduled for the Charlotte Coliseum this night, would go on as scheduled, but probably without the star performer, as he was sticking to his plan to skip the Charlotte performance and rejoin the show in Raleigh. The show would still have singer June Christy, the Ted Heath orchestra, the Four Freshmen and other groups, but ticket holders who wanted their money refunded could obtain it by turning in their tickets at the place where they had purchased them. What if nobody shows up?
Also in Charlotte, it was reported that announcer for WBT radio and WBTV, Bob Raiford, had been fired this date by an official of the company, after being ordered off the air the previous night. Charles Crutchfield, general manager of the Jefferson Standard Broadcasting Co., owners of the stations, said that the disc jockey's firing was the result of an "unauthorized" 20-minute statement he had made on his show the previous night, concerning the attack on Mr. Cole in Birmingham and his views set forth on the matter. Mr. Raiford had assailed the action of a vice-president of the company in ordering him off the air the previous night after he had made the statement, as being "haughty and narrow-minded", accusing company officials of "stifling expression". The official statement by the company said that the decision to terminate Mr. Raiford was based on "an extremely unfortunate series of consecutive incidents" the previous day, which had nothing to do with the "issues and problems concerning race relations". The statement said that Mr. Raiford, contrary to the rules of the company and without authorization from management, had gone the previous day to a variety of downtown locations, including a Charlotte high school, with a tape recorder, recording for broadcast on WBT interviews with a number of people, including several high school students and teachers, with the subject matter having dealt with the Birmingham attack on Mr. Cole. The statement said that the first knowledge which management had of that fact or his intended use of the recordings had come from a complaint from the principal of the school, saying that the announcer had recorded the interviews during school hours without proper authorization from him. Mr. Raiford had then been informed by management that none of the recordings could be broadcast over the station, but that contrary to that direction, he had broadcast a portion of the recording the previous night. The statement said that it had long been company policy not to editorialize on the air regarding controversial subjects, that the facilities were to be used only for reporting the news on controversial subjects as it was gathered and came to the station through the various news services to which they subscribed, and that such reports, pro and con, had to be given equal amounts of time. It said that Mr. Raiford was well aware of the policy of the company in that regard but had nevertheless violated it.
In Houston, Tex., the cafeteria of the Harris County Courthouse remained closed this date after a clash the previous day between whites and blacks, when a group of blacks had sought to be served lunch in the segregated facility, one day after Federal District Court Judge Ben Connally—son of former Texas Senator Tom Connally—had directed that the cafeteria be made available to black diners, following his decision of the previous December, withholding issuance of the injunction forbidding the continued segregation of the cafeteria for 90 days. (The decision would be affirmed by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals the following December, after which the Supreme Court denied a petition for writ of certiorari.) J. M. Wren, an oil operator who had been a candidate for governor of Texas in 1950, had swung several punches at a black attorney, when a group of members of the Houston chapter of the NAACP appeared at the entrance to the cafeteria. Mr. Wren had shouted: "If the court won't stop you, we will. I am a citizen of Houston and I'm opposed to this." The attorney, M. W. Plummer, one of the plaintiffs in the action to desegregate the cafeteria, was not injured, but immediately filed a criminal charge of simple assault against Mr. Wren, as well as a civil damage suit against him, seeking $10,000 in actual damages and $50,000 in punitive damages.
In Williamsport, Pa., a man with a hat pulled down over his eyes and a handkerchief masking his mouth held two tellers of a local bank at gunpoint this date and fled with an estimated $43,000. He had entered the bank about a half hour after it had opened and approached a teller, pointing a gun at her and ordering her to put money in a small brown bag he was carrying. He had run through a rear entrance, going upstairs and then along a hallway lined with offices and exited through a rear door. State police and the FBI were immediately alerted and roadblocks were established on all highways leading from the town. The bank employed no guards, but it had been the first armed robbery in its history, with the bank, the largest in the town, set to celebrate its centennial anniversary the following year.
In Ponca City, Okla., a police officer investigating a reported fight had written: "Nothing serious. Just a guy trying to put his two kids to bed."
In Monte Carlo, actress Grace Kelly had greeted her fiancé, Monaco's Prince Rainier III, with a big smile and called him "darling" this date as they staged a romantic reunion on the blue Mediterranean. He had brought his 138-foot yacht alongside the liner S.S. Constitution, which had transported Ms. Kelly and a shipload of relatives, friends and reporters from the U.S. for the wedding set for April 18. Five minutes later, as the yacht steamed toward shore with the couple on the bridge, the Prince wrapped his arms around Ms. Kelly and she snuggled up to him and put an arm around his shoulders, then holding hands, they sailed into port to a tumultuous welcome. This is actually the point in the film where the train goes into the tunnel and disappears from sight, for the sake of that part of the reading audience either under age or with tender sensibilities.
On the editorial page, "Extend City Limits—But Logically" asks whether Charlotte's incorporated area could be enlarged to keep pace with the growth of the community, answering that it clearly could, that while sprawling in character, the metropolitan area was similar in composition and had a singleness of interest, and would thus function best when their development was planned and carried out as a well-integrated whole. But recognition of that theory did not provide city planners with the ability to construct boundary lines, with only the people, working with full knowledge of the facts, able to vote to extend the city limits to annex portions of the community.
It indicates that for the first time, many of the facts had been made available to the City Council the previous day, with many myths and mysteries concerning the cost of annexation having been exploded in a 60-page survey made by the technical staff of the City-County Planning Commission. It did not contain any recommendation for annexation of any specific area, but merely reported on the pertinent conditions in the urbanized fringe surrounding the city, with expected gaps in the study of the 21 different sections.
It advises against force as a means of achieving the goal of selective extension of the city limits, with emphasis on logical arguments for and against annexation in specific areas rather than penalties for avoiding it. It concludes that many of the facts were now at last available on which to base those arguments and that they ought be put to good use.
"The Schools: Years of Uncertainty—III", in its third consecutive installment regarding the upcoming special legislative session during the summer to examine the issues raised by the State Advisory Committee on Education, recommending that two State Constitutional amendments be sent to the people for ratification, allowing school systems to vote to abolish the public schools and to allow State tuition grants to students who desired attendance at private, nonsectarian schools, this piece looks at the local pupil assignment program passed previously by the Legislature in 1955 and the continuance of voluntary segregation urged by Governor Luther Hodges and the Committee, both of which were designed to maintain segregated public schools. The Advisory Committee's recommendations would only be used, if adopted, in the event that those two programs did not work.
It indicates that there was no reason to believe that the still segregated public schools of the state would be able to prevent desegregation uniformly and indefinitely, that voluntary segregation was only an idea and not a plan, which could be accepted or rejected at will. It would fail at the point where black students sought admission to an all-white school. Voluntary segregation might work in one locality and fail in another.
It regards, however, the pupil assignment plan as a more tangible plan, one in which the Committee placed definite confidence. The assignment plan stood between a black student seeking admission to a white school and the only place where he could obtain that admission, in the courts. The Committee had stated in its report the previous Thursday that the Supreme Court had said that a law barring a child from a public school because of color and nothing else was invalid, but posits that an administrative body could find, if it acted honestly and in light of "local conditions", that under such existing conditions it might not be feasible or best for a particular child to go to a particular school with children of another race, and that "an understanding and tolerant Court" might well recognize that difference.
The piece indicates that by "local conditions" the Committee had meant "residence, school attended during the preceding year, availability of facilities, and all other local conditions bearing upon the welfare of the child and the prospective effectiveness of his school."
It finds that it gave an assignment officer many broad and vague standards other than color, or a combination of standards including color, through which to judge a black applicant for admission to a white school. Those standards might include racial feeling, differences in academic backgrounds between white and black students, the need to protect the health of individual students, and the personality and needs of individual children.
It finds that such standards were, on their face, fair tests for admission, and could delay desegregation, just as the Federal District Court had held in the McDowell County case that a black student, before seeking admission through the Federal courts, had first to exhaust all possible remedies in the state courts, a decision of which the Committee took cognizance, indicating that "each admission case must depend upon the individual facts of that case and that those facts should be completely adjudicated in the State Courts…"
It posits that the question was whether pupil assignment power could be used to continue total segregation permanently. The Institute of Government in Chapel Hill had posed that question and provided an answer in a report to Governor Hodges in late 1954, with the Institute's director, James Paul, indicating that, judged in the abstract, the proposed assignment plans appeared to be legal, but that it was not the end of the matter, for if they were tested in a court case arising against the background of a consistent practice of racial segregation, especially if it were statewide, with total racial segregation by local school boards, the ostensible legality would probably not save the plan from invalidation by the courts. But assuming the assignment standards were recognized by the court, the power to assign children might be used to continue separate schools, at least in part, where conditions justified separation. If, however, the state adopted the assignment method to compel permanent and total statewide segregation, especially where the purpose was openly advertised to the world, it would likely fail to receive court approval.
The piece finds that the purpose was advertised by the report of the Committee, urging the assignment plan as a specific method to prevent desegregation. The piece suggests that the Committee probably had felt compelled to be specific in that regard to bolster confidence in the assignment plan as a method of maintaining the schools public and segregated.
It indicates that the following day, it would continue the series by looking at the total picture.
"Juvenile Crime: All Together Now" indicates that inter-agency feuding, official jealousy, misunderstanding and a general lack of coordination had not helped the city solve its juvenile delinquency problems, becoming increasingly apparent of late, with the most urgent overall need being for a greater dedication to the principle of cooperation on the matter.
In appointing a study group to find ways to ease the tension between agencies and promote collaboration, Mayor Philip Van Every had acted with timely prudence, as combating the problem of juvenile delinquency required many hands working together.
Juvenile Court operations had been criticized by police officers the previous month, with a spokesman for the Department's Youth Bureau having been quoted as saying: "Whatever happens when we send youngsters into juvenile court is ineffective because we keep picking them up day after day. Repeaters jam our files—repeaters who have never been sent to a correctional institution." The Department had complained about the large number of recidivists among the delinquents, apparently prompting the Mayor's action, having promulgated a list of 93 offenders during the previous five years, with each offender on the list having at least three prior convictions.
It finds that the study committee had already performed a community service by placing that list in proper perspective, disposing of some serious misunderstanding. For as Wallace Kuralt, Welfare Department superintendent and a member of the special committee, had stated, the list represented only two percent of the juvenile delinquency cases handled during that five-year time, explaining further that 41 of the 93 recidivist youths had been under 12 years old and could not legally be committed to a corrective institution.
Nevertheless, the problem was serious and needed action, with whether the condition was better or worse than a year or a decade earlier being unimportant, as was whether it was better or worse in Charlotte than elsewhere, for it was bad at present in the city and the condition would not cure itself, requiring the best brains and experience available cooperating toward a single end.
Drew Pearson tells of Senator Estes Kefauver, previously having been asked whether he would run for the vice-presidency, being asked during the week in New Jersey at a press conference whether he would take Governor Meyner of New Jersey as his running mate, to which the Senator had replied that he was a fine man and that he certainly would take him, but that there were a lot of fine leaders in the party and that the final choice ought be left to the convention.
Six months earlier, mutual friends of Senator Kefauver and Adlai Stevenson had asked Mr. Stevenson whether he would take Senator Kefauver as his running mate, to which Mr. Stevenson had said he would make no comment, that there were many fine Democrats who would make good vice-presidents and that the matter should be left to the convention in Chicago. He had added that if Senator Kefauver ran against him in the primaries, however, and made him go to the expense and trouble of stumping through the different states, then he would never accept the Senator as his running mate. (Of course, after obtaining the nomination the following August, Mr. Stevenson would throw the choice of his running mate open to the convention, prompting a sharp contest between Senators Kefauver and John F. Kennedy, with Senator Kefauver narrowly becoming the choice of the convention for the second spot on the ticket.)
Prime Minister Anthony Eden had asked the President how far the U.S. would be willing to go in blocking war in the Middle East because of the tremendous build-up of Egyptian-Arab forces along the Israeli border. Both U.S. and British intelligence had warned their governments that on the basis of the troop concentration, war was likely almost any minute, even warning, some 60 days earlier, that the deadline for war was likely to come during the current month. Egyptian armed forces had begun massing in the Sinai in January, south of Israel's Negev border, and by the end of March, nearly three fully equipped divisions were in place along that border. Stockpiling of munitions had begun earlier, to make those divisions independent of Egyptian bases in the Suez region. The armored units included Sherman tanks, Russian tanks, British Centurion tanks and Russian artillery, the latter installed along the Gaza Strip. Egyptian and Saudi Arabian forces had been almost completely unified, with the new British jets which Egypt had "sold" to Saudi Arabia to be flown by Egyptian pilots. A pincers movement, from Egypt on one side and Saudi Arabia on the other, would catch Israel in between. King Saud recently had stated that Saudi Arabia, Syria and Egypt had worked out plans to rescue "bleeding Palestine".
The British had decided to use military force, under certain circumstances, to stabilize at least one area in the region, Jordan and Iraq. But they had been unable to obtain from either the President or Secretary Dulles any indication of what the U.S. would do. Mr. Pearson notes that the reason for the long session between the President and Secretary Dulles, the longest they had ever had together, the day after the President had returned from the North American summit conference in West Virginia, was the Middle East crisis and concurrent British pleas for a policy, with no policy as yet having been definitely adopted.
Stewart Alsop tells of Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota having predicted, prior to the fight over the bill to deregulate natural gas, that the President would veto the bill, that he would sign the farm bill, and that he would run again and win easily. The prediction had been relayed to the President not long after the Senator had made it and the President had given Senator Humphrey at least a 50 percent score by vetoing the gas bill and announcing his decision to run, and it would be interesting, suggests Mr. Alsop, whether he would give him a 75 percent score by signing the pending farm bill in the ensuing few days.
During his Monday conference with Congressional leaders, the President had made a last ditch effort to force through the House an acceptable compromise farm bill, and if the effort were to succeed, presently unpredictable, the President would sign it, but if it failed—as it had—, he would be faced with a hard choice, as Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson had publicly labeled the bill unacceptable in its present form and the President had been careful not to commit himself one way or the other, although there was no question about his opposition to the present bill's rigid 90 percent of parity price supports, as well as a number of other parts of the bill. There was likely not another issue of domestic policy on which the President felt more strongly. His brother, Milton, was generally given credit or, among farm state Republicans, blame, for persuading the President that the rigid parity system was self-defeating and ruinous in the long run. The President had consistently supported Mr. Benson, although fully aware that he would win no popularity contests in the farm areas. But the political dangers inherent in a veto of the farm bill were real and menacing.
The Minnesota and Wisconsin primaries, especially the former, had heavily underscored those dangers. Prior to Minnesota, it seemed possible that some sort of face-saving formula, short of rigid 90 percent support prices, might be agreed in conference, with Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson inclined toward such a formula. But when Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn saw the Minnesota primary returns, he insisted that the 90 percent of parity formula be retained, and he had gotten his way.
The Democratic strategy was to obtain a bill which included rigid supports, such that if the President were to veto it, the farm issue would become the principal issue of the campaign, with the President then subject to criticism across the country as being indifferent to the farmers' plight, with his famous Minnesota speech, at the time of the 1952 national plowing contest, in which he appeared to promise high price supports, to be gleefully recalled by Democrats.
Some Democrats believed, or professed to believe, that the President might suffer the same fate as Thomas Dewey had in 1948 if he were to veto the farm bill, that is unexpectedly lose the election. But as Senator Humphrey had predicted, a presidential signature on a high support farm bill would take away the issue from the Democrats, the only powerful issue they had left. Signing such a bill would also help threatened Republican candidates in the farm areas, such as Senators Homer Capehart of Indiana and Everett Dirksen of Illinois.
If Secretary Benson were to resign in protest of signing such a bill, as some of his friends believed he would, that would not be a great political disaster for the Administration or the party. Thus, it was easy to see why there was pressure on the President to sign the farm bill under any circumstances, although there would also be persuasive voices favoring a veto, including not only Mr. Benson and Milton Eisenhower, but, reportedly, the White House chief of staff, Sherman Adams. An argument in favor of the veto was that the political curse could be taken off a veto by a concurrent decision by Secretary Benson to raise parity levels sharply, which the Secretary had the legal authority to do.
Mr. Alsop concludes that it would be interesting to see how the President would resolve the personal and political dilemma which he faced should the effort to force an acceptable compromise on the farm bill in the joint conference fail.
Marquis Childs, in Seattle, finds that there was a question of whether the President running at the head of the ticket, with all of his personal popularity, could carry with him enough Republicans to win a majority in the Senate, a contest which would likely be decided in the Pacific Northwest, where in Washington and Oregon, three Democratic Senators were up for re-election, Richard Neuberger of Oregon, the first Democrat to be elected from that state in 40 years, supplying the Democrats in the 84th Congress with their 49 to 47 margin, and Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon, also up for re-election, after having left the Republican Party following the nomination of the General Eisenhower in 1952, and, following an interval as an independent, had joined the Democrats. In Washington, Senator Warren Magnuson faced re-election.
A President elected or re-elected to office had always carried with him both the Senate and House, even if by narrow margins, and Republicans were arguing that it would be a significant blow to the President's prestige in his second term were he to fail to obtain Republican majorities in both houses, one reason there would be such a great concentration of Republican effort and money in the Northwest.
To defeat Senator Morse was a prime objective of the Republicans, making that contest the top priority in the country. Scarcely less important was the race involving Senator Magnuson, while far less controversial than Senator Morse, representing an equally serious problem for the Republicans, as he had worked zealously for the interests of his own state and was solidly entrenched there. The Republicans' first problem was to get a viable candidate in that race.
Governor Arthur Langlie, completing his third term, would be such a candidate. As a reform Mayor of Seattle, he had cleaned up the city and had been a careful and conscientious administrator for the state during a period of great change and expansion. In talking to him, Mr. Childs was impressed by his stubborn integrity, the result perhaps of his Norwegian ancestry. He liked administering the State Government, but was a reluctant candidate for the Senate seat. A private poll taken recently on the assumption that the Governor would be a candidate, showed him trailing badly to Senator Magnuson, 53 percent to 38 percent. Even though the election was several months away and a great deal could happen, that was a large 15-point gap to make up, and friends of the Governor believed he would likely not run.
Shortly before the President's decision at the end of February to seek a second term, the Governor had breakfast with him at the White House and they talked about many things, but not about the Governor's own plans or intentions. There followed a session with Mr. Adams, who quickly asked whether the Governor would run for the Senate against Senator Magnuson, to which the Governor had replied that if the President should decide to seek a second term, then he would feel strongly obligated to contest for the Senate seat, though not a final agreement to do so. Thus, the matter remained up in the air.
It was conceded that if Governor Langlie did not run, Senator Magnuson would easily win re-election, but that with the Governor as his opponent, it would be a lively campaign with the President's prestige counted on heavily to make up the large margin by which he presently trailed in the private poll.
A letter writer indicates that having traveled many years by trains, he could speak regarding manners which should be practiced on them by the passengers, reminding everyone that the rear cars of a train arrived at the destination at the same time as those at the front, and therefore passengers ought proceed to the back to give the next person a chance to board with facility. Those who boarded trains ought sit down next to the windows, so that those following them could sit down immediately without further delay. He suggests that if those basic rules were observed by passengers, he would be glad to offer rules to owners, tycoons, moguls and others, regardless of the route of the particular train.
A letter writer from Great Falls, S.C., says that he was greatly disturbed and disappointed by the manner in which the Democratic presidential candidates were conducting themselves during the primary campaign, that every American who was honorable and qualified to assume the responsibilities as President, was justified to seek that office and had a perfect right to work toward getting an opportunity to be selected as the nominee, that there ought not be personalities involved unless a candidate had a shady reputation with aims which were dishonest, with issues otherwise being their only concern, particularly aspirants from the same party. He indicates that Adlai Stevenson had surprised him by his conduct in recent times, although still believing that he would make an excellent president if nominated and elected, saying that he would vote for him. But he would also vote for Senator Kefauver if he were nominated, believing that both men were well-qualified to assume the responsibilities of the presidency. He preferred, however, in the current primary season Senator Kefauver, as he had persistently refused to involve personalities in his campaign. He hopes that the debate currently being arranged between Mr. Stevenson and the Senator would concern only the issues and what each candidate stood for and why the Republicans ought be replaced, and not deal in personalities then or henceforth.
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