The Charlotte News
Saturday, April 21, 1956
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from London that Soviet Premier Nikolai Bulganin and Communist Party Secretary Nikita Khrushchev, visiting the British capital, had set out this date for a weekend stay with Prime Minister Anthony Eden at his country residence for another round of top-level discussions on East-West issues. Thus far, the two Soviet leaders had agreed to join the British in a search for a peace plan for the Middle East. A tight security screen had enveloped their visit since their arrival the prior Wednesday, set to stay for ten days, with unprecedented security having been established around Mr. Eden's residence until the two visitors would depart on Sunday afternoon for tea with Queen Elizabeth at Windsor Castle, where the Queen was celebrating her 30th birthday quietly this date with her family. After the previous day's round of talks, the Russian leaders and Mr. Eden had ordered their experts to submit proposals for a U.N. program designed to avoid war between the Arabs and Israelis. Diplomatic informants had said that the experts had been ordered to report back by the following Tuesday, adding that President Eisenhower would be kept informed of developments. The U.S., Britain and Russia already had agreed to take action through the U.N. to prevent any Arab-Israeli conflict and promote a solid basis for peace. Mr. Eden and the two Soviet leaders faced three main problems in their discussions, how to create a system for rationing the supply of Communist and Western arms flowing to the Arabs and Israelis, with Britain having reportedly put forth a plan under which the U.N. would ration the shipments, how to repel any aggressor in the region, and how to resolve problems regarding the Baghdad Pact between Britain, Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Pakistan, with the Soviets viewing it as a threat and thus wanting to dissolve it.
In Nicosia on Cyprus, British authorities had closed the sea approaches this date to the northern part of the British-held island, where 12 villages already were under strict curfew, the new move coming after a night of violence. Gunmen had killed a British official of the American-owned Cyprus Mines Corp., and wounded two others. Governor Sir John Harding had banned the entry of any vessel to the territorial waters of the 50 square mile area subject to the curfew until further notice, apparently aimed at sealing off the possible escape of insurgents from that area. The order would not affect normal shipping as no large ports lay in the 12-mile coastal stretch east of Kyrenia. The order was seen as one of Britain's sternest attempts to bottle up Cypriot rebels, who had been using violence to back demands for union with Greece.
Representative James Richards of South Carolina, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said this date that the U.S. would not let itself be "played off for suckers" by countries promoting rival foreign aid offers from the U.S. and Russia. He was joined by a senior Republican member of the Committee, Representative John Vorys of Ohio, in endorsing the theme of a basic decision which the President reportedly had made to have a tougher foreign aid policy, albeit one on which the President had not yet provided specifics to the Committee, which was considering his request for nearly five billion dollars in new foreign aid funds for the ensuing fiscal year. The aim of the President's new approach reportedly was to make it harder for Middle Eastern and other nations to obtain American aid if they accepted aid from the Communists. It was reported that the policy had been stimulated by Egyptian Premier Gamal Abdel Nasser's warning that if the U.S. and Britain did not meet his requirements for construction of the Aswan Dam, he still had a Soviet offer for same, not sitting well with U.S. policymakers. The U.S. and Britain, along with the World Bank, had offered to help Egypt construct the dam proposed for the Nile River, but no final agreement had yet been reached. Mr. Richards had said that in combating the Communist approach of offered economic aid, the U.S. had to approach it from a "common sense view". He said it was correct for the President to see "that we are not played off for suckers" by countries trying to have Washington and Moscow bid against one another to see who could make the biggest foreign aid offer. Neither Mr. Richards nor Mr. Vorys, who had spoken in separate interviews, mentioned any present intention of seeking a hard and fast "anti-blackmail" provision in the foreign aid bill, and any such provision would be difficult to draft into the legislation.
Jim Scotton of The News reports that samples of "hate literature" received by local residents through the mail would be turned over to postal authorities in Washington, according to the Charlotte postal inspector, after they had received several recent complaints. The legal staff in Washington had to determine whether the material violated postal regulations. In 1953, similar literature had been sent to the legal department, but the local postal authorities had not been advised to take action, with the local postal inspector indicating that it was their belief that there had been no regulations deemed violated. Charlotte Police Chief Frank Littlejohn said that he had also received many complaints about anti-black and anti-Semitic literature being received through the mail by Charlotte citizens. A city ordinance passed on the prior March 28 prohibited the printing and distribution of any literature tending to "expose any individual or any racial or religious group to hatred, contempt or ridicule or obloquy." The chief pointed out that he could not act against those using the Federal mail to distribute such literature. Before the ordinance had been passed, distribution of "hate" literature had been fairly widespread but sporadic in the city. Leaflets of anti-Semitic and anti-black propaganda had shown up at Central and Harding High Schools and in some churches and theaters.
In Washington, six children had died and three others had been severely burned in an oil-fed fire which had swept through a two-story row house in the southwestern part of the capital the previous day. The one remaining child of the 26-year old mother was hospitalized and her sister, 24, had lost two of her four children in the fire, the other two having been hospitalized in critical condition, the children having been trapped in a second-floor bedroom of the six-room house which the two families shared, the children having been alone in the house when the fire had broken out while their mothers were visiting at a relative's home nearby. The fire captain said the exact cause of the fire had not yet been determined.
Near Mt. Olive, Miss., a horse this date had lifted a 20-month old child across a fence with its teeth and then kicked the infant to death, according to the child's uncle, when the child was standing against the outside of the fence as the workhorse suddenly stretched its neck across it, caught the boy's clothing in his teeth and lifted him inside the pen where the horse was located. The boy was dead by the time a doctor arrived. He had been visiting his uncle's farm at the time and was watching the horse from outside the pen. His uncle said the horse was used to pull logs and had never been considered dangerous.
In Portofino, Italy, it was reported that people along Italy's west coast were keeping an eye on the Mediterranean this date, hoping to catch a glimpse of the yacht bearing Princess Grace of Monaco and her new husband, Prince Rainier III. Five hundred miles to the south from Naples along the Italian coast, extra police from that city had crossed the bay to take up watchful positions on the Isle of Capri, their assignment causing a rumor to spread that the newlyweds would put into port on that island for the weekend, fueled further by fishermen reporting the sighting of the yacht on a course leading toward Portofino. But concierges of the local hotels said that the Prince and Princess had no reservations in the town and that if they came there, they undoubtedly would live on the yacht.
In Independence, Mo., Margaret
Truman, daughter of the former President, was to be wed
In Lexington, Ky., a man was awakened promptly at 5:30 a.m. by a loud metallic tapping sound, which turned out to be the pecking of a woodpecker on the man's garbage can. He wanted to know how to interest his wacky, but happy, friend in a tree.
Also in Lexington, a woman was wondering who next would knock on her front door after a plumber had come by saying that he was called to repair a bathroom fixture, with the woman saying there was no problem in the bathroom, after which a florist had sought to deliver five dollars worth of roses collect, a termite specialist had called, a drugstore delivery person had come by with four gallons of ice cream, also collect, and finally a television repairman had come knocking, none of whom, the woman said, had been called to her residence.
The temperature had dropped to 31.2 degrees during the morning in Charlotte, the lowest ever recorded in the city so late in the spring, with the previous low having been 33 for the date, in 1904. The first indications were that the cold weather would not damage the fragile fruit crops of the Carolinas, as humidity was exceptionally low and it was ice which killed the fruit blossoms. A check of nurseries and greenhouses revealed, however, that tomatoes, peas and similarly tender vegetables had been killed in many places. Holly berries, azalea blooms and new plant growth were widely nipped by the unexpected, sudden cold. All of the nurserymen interviewed, however, said that damage to shrubs and large plants could not be considered serious, one reporting that he had covered his azalea bushes and that they had suffered no damage at all. The forecast high for this date was 67, with the low during the night to be about 45, well above the previous night's low of 31. Charlotte was among the nation's coldest cities the previous night, although Asheville and its environs had recorded lower temperatures, such as 25 at the Asheville airport. Other, usually colder cities were warm by comparison, with Chicago having a morning low of 43, Denver, the same temperature, Boston, Washington and Detroit, recording 35 as the low, and Minneapolis, a balmy 50. Elsewhere in the Carolinas, Charleston recorded 47 as the low, Myrtle Beach, 37, Wilmington, 38, and Winston-Salem, 32. The forecast called for fair and warmer weather across the Carolinas this date.
Sigmund Blomberg, the famous memory expert, was preparing to enter a second big week of appearances in Charlotte under the sponsorship of The News, planning to speak on Monday at a weekly luncheon of the Mecklenburg Kiwanis Club at Honey's Restaurant, later in the evening to be interviewed by J. B. Clark on the WBT radio program "Profiles", to provide his memory demonstration on Tuesday at a luncheon of the Queen City Optimist Club at Thacker's, on Wednesday afternoon, to meet with the employees of N. G. Speir & Co., a real estate and insurance firm, on Thursday morning, to speak in two chapel programs to the 1,500 students of Central High School, on Thursday afternoon, to meet with the employees of Schwam Motor Co., after having appeared the previous afternoon before more than 500 persons at the Piedmont Sales Conference at the Hotel Charlotte. On the night of May 2, he would provide a free demonstration for the public in a program at Piedmont Junior High School, also under the sponsorship of the newspaper, and would give a two-night memory course at that same location on May 3 and 4. Meanwhile, his column, "Improve Your Memory", was continuing to appear daily in the newspaper. Now, after having read through that very quickly, you must recite his entire schedule, including times and locations, without looking at the itinerary, in order to pass his course. Otherwise, just pass the mayo and get thee gone to Acheron.
On the editorial page, "The Moderates: History in a Hurry" provides an "editorial book review" of Samuel Lubell's recently published Revolt of the Moderates, suggests that historians who awaited perspective before trying to analyze current events were correct generally, but also in so doing, lost the "dash and flavor" which was afforded by analyzing ongoing events, which were covered by pundits, commentators and columnists. It regards Mr. Lubell's work as serving history well, as he was a mixture of reporter, analyst and author.
He had reversed the ordinary process of an historian by looking at the present to find patterns in past voting which predicted the present and thus could be extrapolated to the future. He had searched census and voting records back to the time of the Civil War and looked at streams of political thought and prejudice coming forward to the 1952 election of President Eisenhower. He had found that the sweep of that tide had essentially been one of moderation, which no Democrat could have achieved in 1952 and probably could not in 1956. Conceding the President's personal attractiveness, Mr. Lubell had said that, nevertheless, an intensive national "craving for tranquility and moderation" would have elected almost any Republican, including the late Senator Robert Taft, who had been the primary contender with General Eisenhower for the Republican nomination four years earlier.
Mr. Lubell regarded the President as a creature of the mood of moderation, a masterful politician capable of giving the people what they wanted, saying that he had led the people "by moving in the direction toward which they were already inclined." He had no patience with the "myth of the blameless public" who had fallen victim to politicians, believing instead that politicians were accurate barometers of public opinion. Thus, the President reflected a middle-class demand for an end to political extremism in the country.
He would not allow the Democratic victory in the 1954 midterm elections to upset his theory that conservatism was still dominant, finding that the lesson imparted by the midterm elections had been that "in a vote dominated by pocketbook considerations, the Republicans had come close to running the Democrats a dead heat!" Thus, after profiting from fear of the Democrats as a war party in 1952, the Republicans during the midterm campaigns had rapidly lost their identity as a depression party. He found that although the "moderate revolt" had drawn strength from both the left and the right, defeating both of the extremes, the solidity of that moderate power was still subject to erosion from extremist solutions of such issues as racial and religious tolerance, foreign affairs and economic status.
Moderates also did not know where they were going in the future, with the strength of both parties being at "almost deadweight evenness" and neither having become dominant in the current decade. For the present, the people wanted to remain in the middle and would play one party against the other to stay there.
Mr. Lubell looked on the moderate revolt as the beginning of a new unity in American life, merging of goals and lessening of tensions resulting from ethnic and economic differences.
It concludes that Revolt of the Moderates was an exciting, informative history in a hurry, although the author had outrun himself in spots, finding, for example, that changing social and economic patterns in the South were indicative of a three-party region, without specifying how a third party would be formed.
This notion, of course, would be the underlying theme of former Vice-President Nixon's 1968 campaign, in which his advertising stressed the "silent majority" struggling to be heard against the backdrop of crime and violence in the streets of the major cities, threatening to spill over into the white suburbs, at least in his overblown, nightmarish scenario, which had about as much reality to it as the average tv crime drama of the time, that which any individual would find in a self-fulfilling prophecy, irritating and provoking their own nightmares to be manifested by equipping themselves with weapons of violence, whether guns or otherwise, coupled with a rhetoric of "revolt" against "extremism", which, in some quarters, equated to nothing more than citizens, either minorities, women or underage youth, who were previously voiceless for the most part, having the temerity to stand up and demand their equal civil rights under the law.
But that does not suggest that Senator Barry Goldwater had been correct in saying, in his 1964 acceptance speech for the Republican nomination for the presidency, that "extremism in defense of liberty is no vice and moderation in pursuit of justice is no virtue". For in your gut, you knew...
"Hoose Plan Deserves a Fair Trial" indicates that "Sanity—not Santa Claus—is responsible for the softening resistance" to the plan put forward by City traffic engineer Herman Hoose to ban parking in midtown Charlotte during certain peak hours of the morning and afternoon, that the merchants who were willing to cooperate in a 90-day trial of the program were merely recognizing the hard facts of life and not providing a present to the city.
Gradually, the city had been strangled by traffic congestion, with streets built for the horse and buggy age having an increasingly difficult time moving the large amount of vehicular traffic on a daily basis, as the "Big Squeeze" had threatened the very economic vitality of the midtown area.
It indicates that it had also been reluctant to have street parking banned until adequate off-street parking became available, but Mr. Hoose had not suggested that his ban become effective until a lot presently under construction was opened, probably sometime in July.
It concludes that the recommendation of a special committee of the Merchants Association, that the organization's board of directors eliminate its opposition to the plan, had been farsighted and realistic, it having been just over a year earlier that the idea had been rejected by the organization "with the air of a Borgia guest spurning a poisoned cup." Meanwhile, midtown traffic congestion had become more tangled than ever and something had to be done, with any reasonable plan deserving a fair trial. It thus supports having that trial for the Hoose plan.
"Musical Cog in an Economic Wheel" indicates that fine music was no longer a luxury in Charlotte, but a necessity, as was the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra, that in 24 years of existence, the organization had become a vital, living part of the community. It had enriched the city's culture and provided pleasure to thousands, with inculcating of an artistic appreciation in children being one of its finer achievements.
It indicates that the value of the Orchestra could also be measured in monetary terms, as the ready availability of cultural facilities helped to draw new industry, considered by such prospects, alongside labor conditions, transportation, utilities and schools, to make the community an attractive place to live.
But the Orchestra needed help to survive, and it urges that it was the community's responsibility to provide it with financial support, that the funding drive for the coming fiscal year had opened on Monday and deserved the earnest attention of all citizens, suggesting that a contribution to the Orchestra was an investment in the betterment of the community.
A piece from the Montgomery Advertiser, titled "Sign of the Times", tells of a man in Brooklyn recently, after having drunk several beers, having been picked up and questioned by police after he had said, "I'm going to walk to Texas," prompting the Dallas Morning News to observe: "Things have come to ridiculous pass when a man can't walk to Texas without being arrested on suspicion—even after a few beers." It had noted that the man had been released on the promise of good behavior.
The piece suggests the incident as an example of a growing tendency to regard any deviation from the norm as dangerous, a threat to the peace and dignity of the community. It acknowledges that very few people had ever walked from Brooklyn to Texas or even avowed an intention of doing so, but that there was nothing in the law to forbid it, that plenty of people regarded a person who walked downtown or most anywhere, when it was possible to ride, as being eccentric. But it suggests that those persons had not generally been subjected to police scrutiny, although finding it only a matter of time, as regimentation continued to increase. For walking to Texas and walking from the suburbs differed only in degree.
It concludes that the incident showed how majority-minded the society had become, how the stress of the times was making people increasingly suspicious of nonconformity and intolerant of the right to be different, even in quite innocuous matters.
In suggesting that people who were walking rather than riding into town were not subjected to police scrutiny, it ignores that taking place in its own bailiwick, the Montgomery bus boycott, in which the participants were walking rather than riding the public conveyances, in protest of the segregation of them by local ordinance. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., had been the first leader of the boycott prosecuted, and, having been convicted of participation in and conspiracy to form an illegal boycott under an Alabama law forbidding organized boycotts against businesses, the other 95 or so leaders and participants who had been indicted under the law were awaiting the outcome of Dr. King's appeal on constitutional grounds, before the prosecution would proceed against them or the case dismissed.
Drew Pearson indicates that the supporters of former New York Governor Thomas Dewey were characterized by the fact that they never gave up, as shown by the backstage maneuvering of Governor Dewey and his close friend, Elliott Bell, to put the latter in the next Eisenhower Cabinet, assuming that there would be one. Mr. Bell, presently editor and publisher of Business Week, with one of his greatest disappointments having been that Governor Dewey had not been elected President in 1948, had been the architect of the strategy by Governor Dewey of not attacking President Truman and playing it safe, with the polls having him solidly in front of the President throughout the fall campaign and right up to election eve. He had never forgiven himself for that error and so wanted vindication. He had seen other friends of Mr. Dewey in the Eisenhower Cabinet, Attorney General Herbert Brownell, Secretary of State Dulles, Labor Secretary James Mitchell, Secretary of the Interior Douglas McKay, and Vice-President Nixon, all owing their jobs to Mr. Dewey, and Mr. Bell also wanted to be among them. But the President had not taken to the economic genius who had steered New York finances when Mr. Dewey had been Governor, and so a quiet campaign had been started to maneuver Mr. Bell into a spot in the next Cabinet, as secretary of the Treasury.
An inconspicuous handout had been issued by the State Department announcing that four prominent citizens had accepted the invitation of Secretary Dulles to serve as advisers at the multilateral tariff conference in Geneva, and heading that list, followed by a biographical buildup, had been Mr. Bell. The announcement had not been spontaneous, as quite a bit of maneuvering had gone on behind the scenes, including a meeting between Mr. Dewey, Mr. Bell and Gabriel Hauge, the economic adviser to the White House, with the latter having been told to line up an overseas assignment for Mr. Bell, something hard and without glamour so that a pitch could be made to the President later that he had done his share and deserved a reward. Mr. Hauge had gotten busy on the assignment, as he had once worked for Mr. Bell. Secretary Dulles had also been told to line up a foreign assignment for Mr. Bell, with the result that he was made the adviser to the multilateral tariff problems in Geneva.
Meanwhile, to prepare for his position in the Eisenhower Cabinet, Mr. Bell had brought an "associate publisher", Bayard Sawyer, in to handle Business Week. He concludes that Mr. Dewey and Mr. Bell figured that various Cabinet changes would take place in a second term and Mr. Bell had told friends that the Cabinet in a second administration would be even more powerful as the President would delegate more power than ever.
Joseph Alsop, in Cairo, tells of Premier Gamal Abdel Nasser, embodying the symbol of the new surge of Arab nationalism across the Arab states, being not an easy man to read, that certain of his qualities were obvious, as he was warm, had a natural charm and inexhaustible vitality, coupled with iron nerves, great boldness and solid strength of character. He was a dedicated patriot, a strict Mohammedan and immune to the ordinary temptations, living as simply as the virtual dictator of Egypt as he had lived when he was an obscure colonel in the Egyptian Army.
Mr. Alsop indicates that he had been lucky enough to see him twice since he had been in Cairo, and although the Premier had talked at length and with apparent freedom on both occasions, Mr. Alsop could not guess what his intentions really were, that the best guess was that he was at a crucial turning point, considering different alternatives, with the ultimate choice freighted with fateful implications, waiting to decide which course he would choose. One alternative had already been rejected, that being an exclusive alliance with the West, as had he accepted the invitation, he would have been forced to join the Baghdad Pact. He had said to Mr. Alsop that the defense of the Arab lands ought be "independently organized by the Arab peoples themselves." That meant that the defense of the Arab lands ought be organized under Egyptian leadership. Although he denied any ambition to be the pan- Arab leader, it was hard to believe that he would reject that role. But Mr. Alsop does not believe that was the actual cause of his passionate opposition to the Pact, that it was actually because an exclusive alliance with the West, as every other Egyptian thought as well, would again reduce Egypt to a semi-colonial status of a new type. He had said that Britain was "always going out the door and then coming in the window," reflecting his constant suspicion and fears of rekindling of that colonial status.
Nevertheless, he had a curious ambivalence toward the British, who were being sharply distinguished from the Americans at present in Egypt. On the one hand he was alarmed and angered by the attacks on him and his regime which had recently been heard in London, while on the other, he was voicing his honest conviction when he predicted, with probable accuracy, that the semi-colonial positions which Britain still held in the Middle East were doomed in the long run when poised against the power of Arab nationalism. He had told Mr. Alsop that at present there was only one important Arab government supported by the British, that in Iraq, that already in Jordan, nationalism had proved stronger than Britain, and that it would also eventually occur in Iraq at some point in the future. "They say we Egyptians conspire to make the nationalists succeed, but I tell you Arab nationalism succeeds because it is strong in itself." He had also said, again with probable accuracy, that those in the West ought remember that the real alternative to true nationalism in the Arab lands was almost certain to be Communism, that in Egypt, until those of the Army had risen and taken control, the Communists had been gaining strength each year because the people thought they represented the national spirit, stating that the choice for the West was either Arab nationalism or Communism disguised as nationalism.
Mr. Alsop tells of those themes having been developed at great length during his first visit with the Premier and that he had asked to see him a second time because he wished to ask him what the Western allies would have to do to come to terms and make friends with the new Arab nationalism. Part of the answer had been obvious, that the minimum requirement was for the U.S. to persuade Britain to liquidate the semi-colonial positions it still held in the region, and that the minimum requirement for persuading Britain was for the U.S. to guarantee Britain against losses which the British feared would result from concessions to Arab nationalism.
When asked whether the Premier would guarantee the West the oil which the West needed for survival in the event that the nationalist aspirations were satisfied, whether the triumphant Arab nationalists would not soon launch a revenge attack on Israel, and that if the West were to insist on those two vital conditions, would the Premier be inclined to an exclusive alliance with the Soviets, which could open the door to a new form of colonialism even more rapidly than an exclusive alliance with the West, he had answered the first question by saying that he recognized "the West's vital interests" in oil and that "good relations were the best guarantee of the oil." Yet his press and some of his subordinates had sometimes talked in quite different language.
To the second question regarding Israel, he had replied, "Egypt would never attack Israel unless Egypt were first attacked; in fact until Egypt was attacked on February 28, 1955, we were neglecting our Army and spending all our money on internal development. It was only after that that we began to look for arms and we bought them from the Russians because you would sell us none." But the press and some of his subordinates again talked in very different language at times, and the Premier would not seriously discuss any positive settlement with Israel.
Regarding the last question, that of accepting aid from the Soviets, he said that the Soviets had always been "perfectly correct" with Egypt and that "no Middle Easterner had any experience of Soviet imperialism."
Mr. Alsop regards those answers as defining the hard choice which lay ahead for Premier Nasser, that any Westerner would be a fool not to see why the Premier and Egypt were presently in doubt about which choice to take. He states that Western statesmanship would miss another last chance if the Premier and Egypt were not aided by all means possible to make the choice which best served the long-term interests of Egypt and the West alike.
Walter Lippmann discusses the veto by the President of the farm bill, stating that he had no choice other than to veto it, as in signing it, he would have repudiated Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson, who had vehemently rejected the bill for its reinstatement of high, fixed price supports to replace the flexible supports passed by the previous Republican Congress. He would have also set aside the efforts of Republican Senate Minority Leader William Knowland and House Minority Leader Joe Martin.
Mr. Lippmann asks rhetorically whether all would be well on the farms had the bill he sent to Congress in January been passed, finding it not to follow, as the President's statement accompanying the veto recognized that the basic complaint of the Congressional opposition to his original program was about halfway justified, that where that bill would have subsidized farm prices by about 1.2 billion dollars per year under the soil bank program, the President would administratively subsidize farm prices by about 500 million per year, aiming his veto at the high, fixed price supports. He would put into effect high flexible price supports, but not as high as the 90 percent fixed supports provided in the Congressional version of the bill.
He indicates that the issue between the President and the Democrats in Congress was not really one of principle but rather whether farm income should be subsidized at the rate provided by the Congress or at that provided by the Administration. In the long run, it might be that the character of the veto marked the acceptance of the principle that in the transition through which agriculture was passing, it was a national obligation to cushion the effects of it on the farmers. There was a theory that prices ought be set by the market and that in the current price structure, the more efficient farmers would survive while the less efficient would be forced out of farming. But no politician would think of acting on that stern theory, no matter how many times the person might have made speeches regarding free enterprise. The hazards of farming during the ongoing technological revolution had become a social obligation, in principle akin to the Social Security system dealing with unemployment and old age.
Mr. Lippmann suggests that it would be wise to hope that the day would come when a farm policy based candidly on the principle of Social Security would be promulgated, as the enormous increase in agricultural productivity during the current generation, even more than the high parity price supports, was producing the price-destroying surpluses. To eliminate those surpluses, millions of farmers would have to leave the farms, with the key being to reduce the surpluses to alleviate that painful readjustment, as with Social Security. When that would occur, it would no longer be necessary artificially to maintain high farm prices, as the artificial prices were only an indirect and cumbersome method of subsidizing farm income. He posits that it would be better to support the income of the farmers for the nonce, as with the industrial population, on the principle of Social Security, and to allow prices in time to become genuinely determined by the market.
A letter writer from Cheraw, S.C., wishes to impart some facts to his fellow citizens of the town who were dissatisfied with the way in which state officials, especially the "good" Governor George Bell Timmerman, Jr., had grappled with the segregation issue thus far. He indicates that the courts had not thus far made any ruling against anyone who was opposed to what the state and its people were doing in that regard, and urges those dissatisfied to leave the state as that was their prerogative. He indicates that he would leave at present if he were not satisfied, and would do so before making false statements against the people for and with whom he had worked. He said he had not seen anyone pushing people around on the streets of Cheraw, as some had claimed in a magazine, that the "good white and colored people" of the town knew that the statements made by some were false, and that it was not the way to maintain the peace among the people, as he views the probable purpose of those statements to have been to stimulate strife and trouble. He urges that there were many people of both races who did not approve of such tactics by anyone. He had always believed that if people believed in justice, they would remain in their places as citizens and abide by the customs of the city and state. He appeals to the people of the North and other parts of the country to let the South solve its own problems, saying that others in other regions did not understand those problems, no more than Southerners understood the problems of those other regions. "There are always two sides to matters such as exist today in mixing our white and colored people." He wonders, if the Supreme Court were to be allowed "to encroach in all of our states' affairs, why have state legislative governments? We can do away with those and just take orders from some of those who do not understand our problems in the South or it seems don't care anything about them regardless of what anyone may say." He concludes that Southerners did not object to the choices made by other regions of the country as long as it did not "interfere with our way of what we deem best for all of our people of the southland."
You had better look around good and realize that you do not speak for all Southerners or necessarily even the majority of them, as you seem, presumptuously, to assume. You had better go up to Charlotte and attend the next all-black rock show, attended by a mixed audience, mostly white. Get ready for a rude awakening. Your old world is long gone, if it ever existed in the first place. It ended somewhere between World War I, the Depression and World War II. Get with the program.
A pome appears from the Atlanta Journal, "In Which A Few Words Are Written In The Interest Of Good Humor:
"By keeping cheerful
You'll rarely be tearful."
But if an humorless earful,
Best always be fearful.
Framed Edition
Links-Date — Links-Subj.