The Charlotte News
Friday, April 20, 1956
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the House Appropriations Committee this date had cut 25 million dollars from the President's request for the Government's overseas propaganda program, also had refused to approve money sought by the Justice Department to build two new prisons, and criticized the State Department's proposal to purchase an unspecified number of "executive wastebaskets" at $27 apiece. The Committee said it "would be a wasteful aberration" to give the U.S. Information Agency the entire 135 million dollars requested for the ensuing fiscal year, recommending 110 million instead. It approved the full amount sought for its radio programs, the Voice of America, but rejected a request for 3.8 million to fit out an aircraft carrier for use as a floating theater equipped to show Cinerama, a new movie screen viewing experience. The overall bill was 451.3 million dollars to finance the State and Justice Departments, the judiciary and the USIA. The recommendations were subject to action by the full House and the Senate, with the House set to consider the appropriations the following week. The total recommended was 56.8 million dollars less than that sought by the President for all of the agencies, but 46.8 million more than they had received during the current fiscal year. The State Department budget was cut by 9.7 million dollars, and the Justice Department by 19.9 million, to 215.9 million, with the FBI having been granted the entire 95.5 million it had requested. Requests by the Immigration Service for 1.9 million dollars to build 34.3 miles of fence along the Mexican border, and of the Federal prison system for 17 million dollars to build a close-custody reformatory for youthful offenders and a maximum security prison for more hardened criminals, were all rejected. The budget for the Federal courts had been cut from that proposed by 2.2 million dollars, including rejection of 1.5 million dollars to air-condition courtrooms and court offices.
Senator John McClellan of Arkansas, chairman of the Senate Investigations subcommittee investigating bribes allegedly paid to receive Army contracts for uniform manufacture during the period 1951-54, said this date that the subcommittee had shown that, at the least, the Army had spent millions with "people not worthy of a Government contract". He said that they were pointing out a condition which ought to be remedied. The subcommittee hearings were in recess until the following Tuesday, at which time Senator McClellan said they would continue to dig into the story of the millions of dollars which two individuals had allegedly invested in bonds under bogus names while holding big Army uniform contracts. One of the men, a Brooklyn accountant and garment manufacturer, had invoked the Fifth Amendment privilege 68 times in two days of testimony, refusing to say whether he bought bonds under phony names or used any of them to bribe Government officials or for tax evasion. He was awaiting trial on a Federal charge that he had converted to his own use cloth which the Army had furnished on one of his contracts. He had been banned from obtaining any further Army contracts. The other man, and his father, operators of a New Jersey uniform manufacturer, were scheduled to be questioned the following Tuesday about the bond deals in which the witnesses thus far had linked their names with that of the indicted individual. They also had been barred from obtaining other Army contracts. The subcommittee had heard hearsay testimony the previous day that another uniform manufacturer had borrowed $5,000 from the two latter witnesses, operating their firm in the same New Jersey town, and then sent it back to them to be used to bribe Government officials. That witness had collapsed in the witness chair after invoking the Fifth Amendment privilege, apparently having admitted to subcommittee investigators that he had borrowed the money and then sent it back to be used for bribes, as investigator Carmine Bellino had testified the witness had told him the previous January. Subcommittee counsel Robert F. Kennedy had said that he also had been present at the time of those admissions and that the witness had shown physical fear of one of the scheduled witnesses for Tuesday, from whom he had borrowed the $5,000. Mr. Kennedy had stated to the subcommittee that the man who had collapsed the previous day had decided after a conference on the prior Wednesday with the witness who had asserted the Fifth Amendment 68 times, and with that witness's lawyer, not to tell the story under oath. That witness told reporters that he knew of no basis for Mr. Kennedy's testimony.
DNC chairman Paul Butler said this date that the Democrats were facing a "financial crisis" which, if not resolved quickly, would seriously endanger their chances for victory in the November general elections. He said that fund-raising ought be given top priority if the party was to be able adequately to present the issues to the people, which included what it meant to them to have a "part-time President".
In Independence, Mo., Margaret Truman, 32, daughter of the former President, was to be wed the following afternoon to Clifton Daniel, Jr., assistant foreign editor of the New York Times. Guests had started to arrive this date for the wedding, set to occur in a small Episcopal church a few blocks from the old Truman family home. The guest list was maintained in secret from the score or more correspondents who were present, at the behest of the former President who said that it was necessary to keep the wedding as solemn and serious and as much a family affair as possible, with a minimum of pomp and theatrics. The groom had flown in the previous day from New York and was greeted by Ms. Truman, who arrived 45 minutes before the plane was scheduled to land. The couple then walked arm-in-arm down the ramp, through the airport, and entered a waiting limousine which took them to Independence. The marriage license had been issued the previous day.
In Sunnyside, Ut., rescue crews had freed this date three men entombed for between 40 and 44 hours in a coal mine collapse, and workmen continued their efforts to reach a fourth man also caught in the collapse, it not being known whether he remained alive. The rescued miners had remained trapped without food and water since early Wednesday afternoon. Two of them had been reached in between 4:00 and 5:00 a.m., and the third at around 8:00 a.m. Two of them had been pinned under a coal loading machine, under which all three had taken refuge, and could move only a few inches. All three were in good condition after being taken to the hospital. The Utah Industrial Commission chairman promised a complete and thorough investigation of the incident, commenting that apparently there was no evidence of negligence on anyone's part.
Julian Scheer of The News indicates that Governor Luther Hodges had put an end to the bickering and two-day skirmish he had undergone with the North Carolina Congress of Parents and Teachers by saying that he took "no exception" to its statement concerning the preservation of the public schools. The executive committee of the Congress had issued a statement the previous night which said that it had come to the conclusion that the inherent rights of all children to be educated could be served only through preserving the public schools, following its study and much concern for the welfare of all children and youth of the state. Governor Hodges had told The News this date that he agreed with them and their comments on the preservation of the public schools, that he had only been trying to correct the state PTA president, who had stated the prior Tuesday in Charlotte at the convention: "On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court ruled that segregated schools are unconstitutional. On May 13, 1955, the Supreme Court decreed that legally mandated schools must go with 'deliberate' speed." She went on to say that just what that latter statement meant in terms of timing, she did not know. The Governor, as reported the previous day, had indicated to the group that the Court had not ruled that voluntary segregation was barred by the Constitution, only that state-enforced segregation was barred.
Dick Young of The News reports that a scientific study of the purity of streams in the Catawba River basin would get underway around May 1, under the supervision of the State Stream Sanitation Committee, with a mobile water testing laboratory to be located near the headwaters of the Catawba in the Morganton area at that time, and another mobile laboratory to be established in the Gastonia-Lincolnton area around July 1. The study would not be completed until after the summer of 1957, and would be concerned with the quality of the water in the Catawba River and its major tributaries, and the sources of pollution from municipal sewage plants and industrial plants. Facts gathered in the survey would form the basis for recommendations as to various classifications for different segments of the river, with final action regarding the designation of those classifications not to be reached by the Committee until after a series of public hearings in which farmers, industrialists, municipal officials and other citizens would be heard. The law creating the Committee had set forth the policy "that the water resources of the state shall be prudently utilized in the best interest of the people."
Emery Wister of The News reports that Charlotte would be the hub of Delta Air Lines operations provided the Civil Aeronautics Board granted the company's request to establish new routes, according to a Delta vice-president in a message to the Aviation Committee of the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce, at a breakfast meeting at the airport this date. He said that Delta planned to make Charlotte the crossover point on proposed Florida-Great Lakes and New York-Florida routes, with Charlotte being the hub of those routes. Delta had begun service to Charlotte on April 1 and had six passenger planes land and take off daily, with the Delta representative saying that they had about as much business in Charlotte during the first three weeks as they ever had in a similar period at any point. He added that they had to get more routes to provide the type of service needed by the city, and if the CAB granted their request, they would be able to do so. He said that the 89 miles between Columbia, S.C., and Charlotte was currently a missing link on the New York to Florida route, and they needed permission from CAB to fly between those two cities. He said that there were 19 aircraft to be delivered in the ensuing 18 months to Delta, in addition to jet transports ordered for delivery in 1959.
Harry Shuford of The News reports of a special committee of the Charlotte Merchants Association having agreed this date to recommend to the full board that it not oppose the ban of parking in midtown during designated peak hours during a 90-day trial of the program. The City traffic engineer, Herman Hoose, had met with the committee during the morning to go over details of the plan, which he claimed would increase traffic movement efficiency during peak hours by 120 percent. He had agreed to make minor changes to the parking ban at the suggestion of the committee, changing the hours of the morning peak period to 7:30 to 9:00 rather than until 9:30.
On the editorial page, "Gov. Hodges Wages a Good Fight" wishes well to Governor Hodges in his attempt to "tumble a tower of misunderstanding" arising out of Brown v. Board of Education.
It indicates that multiple and incorrect analyses from "street corner lawyers" had been the toughest bar to any concentrated effort to keep the decision from wrecking the public schools and good race relations. It suggests that what the Court had said and not said had been set forth precisely long earlier by Judge John J. Parker of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, but that his precision had been "smothered in a babble of angry, conflicting voices." It had been variously suggested that it consisted of "general orders for intermarriage and forced mingling out of a desire to replace the Constitution with the Communist manifesto."
It urges that the Governor might find it profitable, however, to distinguish between misunderstanding channeled into constructive purpose and that aimed at defying the Court by destruction of the institutions involved, finding that his remarks regarding an address by the state PTA president appearing to lack that distinction. The sense of her speech had been that the public schools had to be preserved in spite of the Brown decision, and that the PTA would continue with its aim of preserving the public schools while future court action further evolved the final dimensions of the decision. It finds it a good statement and that if it reflected any misunderstanding, it was on the side of faith in public education and opportunity for youth.
It indicates that there was no significant difference between the positions of the PTA president and Governor Hodges, that both were supportive of the public schools and that in the days to come, the schools would need the support of all of their friends.
"The Party Platform Is Obsolete" finds that to ordinary Democrats in the state, the tempest brewing in Raleigh at present over the party's 1956 state platform was not worthy of the smallest teapot.
State Treasurer Edwin Gill was reportedly at work on the first draft, but the average voter could not care less, for as an instrument of political persuasion, the platform was vastly overrated by professional politicians. Public opinion was changed by events, not rhetoric.
It indicates that political parties could find comfort in the fact that they only occasionally practiced what they preached. Representative Manasco of Alabama had said in 1945 that if they put into law everything which both parties pledged in their platforms during the previous 40 years, the country would have been destroyed many years earlier.
It finds the average platform, whether state or national, to be a cross between Little Women and a wombat, seldom even frank or honest, speaking boldly about issues which were already settled, elaborately ambiguous on contentious questions, while perhaps not even mentioning new or growing issues at all. It generally sought to take credit for everything good which had occurred in the country, whether it was deserved by the party or not.
It doubts that, aside from party professionals or a handful of eager amateurs, most North Carolinians were even aware of the existence of the state party platform. But they were printed every two years in the North Carolina Manual, and for the most part were shamelessly vapid and inane, designed to inspire but succeeded only in boring.
It concludes that if the platform had to survive, it ought be reshaped, replacing the senseless rhetoric with a clear statement of genuine issues, discussing each in a civilized and proper manner. Ideas which had not changed in half a century would not save the state or the nation, nor were they likely to win votes for a political party.
"He Said Sassafras Needs a Slow Boil" tells of a man at the door selling sassafras and asking whether the writer would want some for tea, saying that they were fresh and the tea would be good and strong, warding off colds, thinning the blood and generally salutary as the weather warmed up.
He had explained that one washed the roots first, making sure to get all of the dirt off, and then scraped off the bark, sliced the root and placed it in a stewer with enamel sides. After slow boiling it to taste, ideally on a wood stove, it was ready.
After listening to his pitch, the writer agreed to purchase them, and did not have the heart to throw them away, was still able to smell them on the back porch where they were hidden. It decided that with antihistamine in the medicine cabinet and the blood flowing all right, it could not believe that the tea was worth making, but suggests that the man probably did not expect the writer to do so anyway, as he would not expect much from someone who did not have enameled pans or a wood stove.
A piece from the Wall Street Journal, titled "Box Top, Hard Top", indicates that the automobile industry now saw some of its manufacturers venturing into the insurance business, as in the case of American Motors Corp. and Studebaker-Packard, the "little two" of the industry, offering free accidental death insurance as an inducement to purchasers of their automobiles. AMC would provide purchasers a $25,000 policy covering husband and wife, while Studebaker offered a $20,000 policy.
The piece indicates that it was a long way from the time when a buyer had to take a car outfitted with all kinds of extras at extra cost or not obtain the car at all, with the supply of automobiles now being quite plentiful, with or without options. The insurance policy program was the logical outcome of the present promotion by manufacturers of safety features, with all of the producers now offering safety belts, safety door locks and padded dashboards on their new cars. The "little two" had decided to do something not only about trying to reduce the dangers of accidents but also to cover accidents when they did happen.
It does not know what effects the new policy would have on either the automobile or the insurance business, that many states already had compulsory automobile insurance laws and that all responsible drivers therefore carried insurance on their cars. It finds, however, the idea to be intriguing, as no one could say where it would lead, that Ford might be induced to give away garages with every car, that Chrysler might offer a year's supply of gasoline, and GM might provide a chauffeur for its Cadillacs.
It concludes that the company which offered to pick up all overtime parking tickets for the year would get its business.
Drew Pearson indicates that the American Society of Newspaper Editors, who were meeting in Washington during the current week, would be interested in the findings of Congressman John Moss of California, who, more than any other public official, had been digging into press censorship. He had taken a trip to Europe the prior summer to determine whether American newsmen abroad were having trouble getting news from American diplomats and generals, finding that most correspondents feared reprisal if they criticized the officials on whom they depended for stories. In Washington, he had also experienced a hard time getting newsmen to cooperate, receiving excellent tips from them personally and orally, but finding them reluctant to testify or stick their necks out in a way which might provoke retaliation from Government officials or cause them to lose their sources. Mr. Pearson notes that Mr. Moss had sought to keep politics out of his censorship investigation, saying that Republicans were not to blame for the growing suppression of news about the Government, and that Democrats, likewise, were not to blame.
Several recent news incidents had taken place which supported the belief of Mr. Moss that some newsmen were not inclined to resist censorship. On March 20, 1956, Merriman Smith, dean of the White House correspondents, had written a short item for release by the United Press on March 22, that the President had been overheard, regarding his decision to run again, that he had to say yes because they told him that they did not have time to build up another candidate. Between the time the story had been written and the date of its release, wires had begun to buzz around the White House and the UP office in Washington, alerting White House press secretary James Hagerty, whereupon the vice-president in charge of the Washington Bureau at the UP, Lyle Wilson, ordered the story killed. The story had run in early editions of the Washington News, a Scripps-Howard newspaper whose executives owned or controlled the UP. It suggested that editors and publishers were not always the guilty parties when it came to voluntary censorship. Mr. Wilson said that he had ordered the story killed because it was overheard as the President passed down a White House corridor and it had been impossible to determine to whom the President was talking. Mr. Smith had reiterated that the story had been accurate, and in reporting it, he had been fully aware of current Washington reports that the President really did not want to run again and might step down from office later.
Another instance of self-censorship by the press had occurred when the President had been in Thomasville, Ga., visiting on the plantation of Secretary of the Treasury George Humphrey, just before he had announced his intention to run again at the end of February. Andrew Tully, covering the President's vacation for the Scripps-Howard newspapers, had reported in some detail on how the President had lost his temper on the golf course, showing extreme irritation at his caddie and throwing a golf club against the side of the golf cart. As the incident was revealing of the health of anyone suffering from a heart condition or high blood pressure, as losing one's temper was something doctors warned patients to avoid, it was an item about which the public was entitled to know. But none of the other members of the press at Thomasville had reported on it. Mr. Pearson says that he was not at Thomasville, but had called Mr. Tully to find out why it had not been reported, inquiring as to whether the incident had taken place in front of the press or was just something Mr. Tully had heard about in private conversation, finding out that it had occurred in front of the press. When he had asked Mr. Tully why he had reported it and others had not, the response was that he considered it important and newsworthy, but did not venture an opinion regarding why others had not done so. Mr. Pearson suggests that the answer probably was supplied by Congressman Moss, that newsmen who obtained news from certain officials, as Mr. Hagerty, did not want to get on their wrong side. Scripps-Howard newspapers had published the story, despite Roy Howard, head of those newspapers, being a staunch Republican and at times having been a close friend of Republican cabinet members and presidents. He concludes that Mr. Howard did not exercise censorship.
Doris Fleeson discusses the New Jersey primary of the prior Tuesday, in which Senator Estes Kefauver had taken a severe beating from an uncommitted slate of delegates of the Democratic Party organization, led by Governor Robert Meyner, known in advance of the primary to be leaning toward Adlai Stevenson for the nomination. Mr. Stevenson was not on the ballot.
The results had temporarily halted the momentum gained by Senator Kefauver in the Minnesota primary, where he had upset Mr. Stevenson, supported by the Democratic Party organization in the state in a head-to-head battle.
The Senator had lost more than just one state, as Governor Meyner was typical of large state party leaders who had either strongly indicated support for Mr. Stevenson or were tending toward that position. They had believed that Mr. Stevenson was invincible with the ordinary voters, with Ms. Fleeson pointing out that he was actually not "one of the boys" but rather a "partaker of the old club spirit". They had been very concerned after the upset in Minnesota and had Senator Kefauver won in New Jersey, the party heads in New York, Pennsylvania, Indiana and similar states would have developed grave doubt of the viability of the Stevenson candidacy. Now, they were entitled to believe, at least for a while longer, that whatever the farm belt might have thought, Senator Kefauver was not genuinely a hero to ordinary Democrats.
The result meant that the California primary was even more important now to Senator Kefauver, that if he failed to upset Mr. Stevenson there on June 5, he would not have won any large state going into the Chicago convention in mid-August. The upcoming Florida primary also was vital to him as an example that he could win in the South.
She indicates that final conclusions were not merited from the New Jersey outcome, as turnout had been light, as usual, and both parties, as was true of most of the industrial states, were much more organized than in the Midwest. The results showed that both party machines had the situation well in hand, a normal outcome.
On the Republican side, the President had easily outpolled the Democrats overall, but some evidence appeared in two Democratic stronghold counties that supporters of Mr. Stevenson had remained home because he was not on the ballot.
Mr. Stevenson was helped by the primary to remain in the race, but would need to do better to recapture his previous position as front-runner.
Robert C. Ruark, in Biak, New Guinea, tells of having ridden the hard roads, built during the war by the Allies, now mostly overgrown, looking at the junk and talking to a collector of the junk who was selling it back to the U.S. He comments that it was depressing to find in one of the many caves in which the Japanese had holed up during their lengthy stand which had cost many American lives, to find a Japanese helmet with its front blown in and a thigh bone amid the moss-covered muck. He observed a shelf cut into a "dank, sweating clay wall, obviously for a bed, and over there the grisly debris of old bones." There were also a trenching tool and a shovel. Ferns grew among the wet, and "the steaming sun of Biak sucked water off the vegetation outside."
He found grislier than the bones, however, the carcasses of U.S. equipment, causing him to reflect on what a waste war was.
He was driven around the island by the junk dealer and his assistant, seeing rows of houses built from the cannibalized leftovers of U.S. equipment, standing alongside the hard-surfaced road which nobody any longer used. "Little brown babies played among the pigs on the roads the Seabees made."
In the jungle, there were fuselages of aircraft, magnetos, ammunition conveyors for machine guns, trucks, ducks, and half-tracks, with much of the small equipment being salvageable and the rest bringing a good price as scrap. Such prices as about $70,000 had been paid for wrecked Japanese planes from Hollandia alone, where 275 enemy planes had been hit on the ground even before the landing, and Americans had left behind 1,500 functional aircraft on Biak.
He indicates that during the Korean War, scrappers were selling to the U.S. gun turrets from abandoned Liberators on Biak, and the U.S. was still purchasing cylinders from abandoned Wasps.
In the bush, there was still a long line of burned-out jeeps, and on one day, a ridiculous price had been sought for 2,000 typewriters, and since the price was wrong, a nameless lieutenant had bulldozed the entire consignment. Now the mass was being melted down and sold back to the U.S. by an international firm of London and Australia, with the U.S. purchasing back close to a million dollars worth of goods which already belonged to it.
While it was a small amount relative to the large budgets for defense, there were also other aspects of the waste of war, indicating that those who had fought it, including Mr. Ruark, were still paying for it, with the exception of those who had died on the beaches, who had paid a much higher price.
A letter writer from Hendersonville
comments on the rock 'n' roll craze sweeping the nation, "carrying
all the thoughtless and indifferent before it like a violent,
destructive hurricane". She finds it, along with jazz, to be "a
part of a carefully developed plan originated by the enemies of our
American way of life for the express purpose of taking us all over
without the use of violence. Thousands of respectable citizens of
Alabama recognized this and are waging a war to outlaw
A letter from a couple and one other individual comments on a front page story of April 17 regarding the construction of a new bypass resulting in six almost new houses needing to be removed from the right-of-way on Beachwood Road, with two of the families still trying to hold onto their homes. The writers, apparently those two families, say that they should have had the same settlement as their neighbors whose homes in most cases had cost less than theirs and that they were not trying to obtain a fortune. They indicate that their home was purchased by the State as a five-room house when it was only four rooms, that everyone made mistakes, but that they should not have to pay for a room which was not there because of someone else's mistake. Not only had there been a reduction of the price to account for the extra room, but they had been told to vacate in 60 days, when other families had been provided 3 to 4 months to rebuild. Thus they felt treated unfairly and that the offered settlement had hardly covered their equity in the property plus decorating and moving expenses. Real estate prices had also jumped such that a home of the same type would cost more than $1,000 more to rebuild in a desirable location.
A letter writer encourages others not to allow hypocrites, who attended church and were members, but lived "worldly" lives, to prevent church attendance, that it was each person's life to answer and not that of another. If church members wanted to curse, drink and follow the wrong road, they had to pay for it, and if people were to live for Christ and love one another more, there would be peace and happiness. She says she could see so much suffering and often thought how hard it would be if there were no Saviour to stand by one's side and help bear suffering and sorrow.
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