The Charlotte News
Tuesday, April 24, 1956
THREE EDITORIALS
Site E. Note: The front page reports from London that Soviet Premier Nikolai Bulganin and Communist Party Secretary Nikita Khrushchev had strode grimly from a crucial meeting this date with Prime Minister Anthony Eden, causing hopes to decline that there would be any solid British-Soviet agreement on world issues. Moments later, the Soviet leaders had postponed for 36 hours a press conference which had been scheduled for the following day. A British Foreign Office spokesman said that he could not explain the turn of events. The Soviet-British talks were in their final stages, with it being the penultimate session. The Soviet leaders had appeared almost sullen as they left No. 10 Downing Street, home of the Prime Minister. Mr. Eden had not come to the door of the official residence to see the Soviet leaders out, as they hurried to their awaiting car to be driven to the House of Commons for a luncheon given by the speaker. British alarm and resentment had mounted since the two speeches by Secretary Khrushchev the previous day, in which he had bragged about Soviet guided missiles with hydrogen bomb warheads and talked tough to Labor Party leaders critical of Communist policies. A typical headline was that Mr. Khrushchev had "dropped the mask", regarding the conference he had with Labor Party leaders over the status of Socialists and Jews in Russia and the Communist bloc nations. Even the most leftist of the Socialists appeared shocked. Informed opinion in London traced Mr. Khrushchev's new tone to a combination of irritation over the cool reception he and Premier Bulganin had received from Britons in Birmingham at the Prime Minister's country estate during the weekend, and their failure to break down Britain's determination not to trade in strategic goods. There had been reports that there had been progress made on the Middle East crisis but matters appeared deadlocked regarding trade and East-West contacts.
Republican Congressional leaders had decided at a White House conference this date to seek passage of a 1.2 billion dollar soil bank bill within the ensuing 24 hours, indicating that tax reduction also had been discussed at their weekly meeting with the President. They indicated the feeling that prospects were dim for a tax cut, even if the Government wound up the fiscal year with a larger than expected two billion dollar surplus. House Minority Leader Joseph Martin of Massachusetts believed that it was likely the Democrats would support the soil bank proposal, authorizing the President to start making 500 million dollars in advance payments during the current crop year to farmers who agreed to participate in the program, which would pay farmers to set aside acreage which was ordinarily devoted to crops in surplus. Democrats had not objected to voting for the 1.2 billion dollar appropriation to get the program started, but many contended that the President already had authority to launch the program.
The Supreme Court the previous day had declined review and thus affirmed a decision of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals decided the prior July, that continued racial segregation of intrastate buses was unconstitutional under the Brown v. Board of Education decision, rejecting the argument that the Plessy v. Ferguson separate-but-equal doctrine still stood regarding local buses, prompting the Montgomery, Ala., police chief, Clyde Sellers, a member of the White Citizens Council, to declare that passengers who mixed with the other race on local buses, as well as bus drivers who permitted desegregation on their buses, thus violating local and state laws requiring segregation, would be subject to arrest. The Montgomery bus boycott was still ongoing and so blacks had not been riding the buses since the prior December, following the arrest of Rosa Parks after she refused the directive of a bus driver to change her seat to accommodate a white passenger, resulting in her arrest and conviction under the local ordinance, a conviction presently on appeal. Montgomery City Lines, Inc., the operator of the only bus service in Montgomery, abandoned segregation of passengers on its buses in light of the Supreme Court determination, ordering its drivers to cease assigning seats by race. Montgomery Mayor W. A. Gayle had warned, however, the previous day that the company had to continue to maintain strict racial segregation on its buses. Chief Sellers said that he would be responsible for any arrests and would give the direct orders for same, adding, "As far as I'm concerned, this damn thing applies to South Carolina only." He continued that until they were told that the suit regarding the Montgomery buses caused a change, he would continue to enforce all city laws maintaining segregation. "That's the way I feel. I'm a Southern white man and I want to continue to be one." A similar case, attacking Montgomery and Alabama segregation laws, was pending in U.S. District Court, with a hearing scheduled for May 11.
In Raleigh, Governor Luther Hodges and several other North Carolina officials had spoken out strongly against the Supreme Court decision, with the Governor saying that the action was "typical of the court that decided the Clarendon County, South Carolina, school case, and, being a decision affecting business inside the states, is a further invasion of states' rights." (The Clarendon County case was one of four state cases decided in Brown, the dissent of Judge J. Waties Waring having been instrumental in forming the basis for the unanimous opinion.) Stanley Winborne, chairman of the State Utilities Commission, which regulated buses and other public carriers operating within the state, said, "It looks like the Supreme Court has jeopardized the operation of our schools and now it's going to destroy the buses." He said that the Commission would "wait and see what develops before we take any action," making it clear that there was little which the Commission or any other public agency could do to prevent compliance. North Carolina law required that black passengers take the first vacant seat at the rear of a bus and that white passengers take the first vacant seat from the front. Mr. Winborne opined that for the decision to apply directly to the state, there would have to be a specific case so stating. State Attorney General W. B. Rodman said, "It is noteworthy that states outside the South are beginning to feel some shock at the assumption of power by the Supreme Court and its asserted right to legislate." Sam Worthington, a member of the Utilities Commission, said that he believed that for the present, they would follow the state law until a case would arise directly impacting buses within the state, adding that the bus business in the state had about disappeared anyway and he did not know what it would do to it. He believed that the Court had "practically usurped the power of any state legislature." H. R. Rickman, manager of White Transportation Co. in Raleigh, said that his company had not made any effort to enforce segregation on buses in about two years and that there had been no trouble at all. R. C. Hoffman, Jr., president of Carolinas Coach Co., said in Raleigh that his drivers had been instructed "not to interfere with seating in the buses." Shearon Harris, general counsel for Queen City Coach Co. in Charlotte, said that his company's policy had been to maintain order and allow the races "to continue voluntarily the well-established custom."
Harry Shuford of The News reports that the ruling was having little or no actual impact on Charlotte municipal buses, that black passengers continued to seat from the rear and white passengers from the front, as had been the custom. One bus driver said, "People are following the same pattern as always on seating," adding that it would take a week or two before they would see any difference following such a court ruling, as people had to get used to the idea. Black bus riders took the ruling in stride, but white passengers did not appreciate having the legal rug yanked from under their feet. One white passenger said: "It makes a difference to me; a big difference. I'm a full-blooded Southerner. I just came back from up North, and it's really a mess up there." Another white passenger appeared less disturbed, saying: "I don't think much of it, but it seems like they are determined to do away with segregation, so there doesn't seem there is much we can do about it. But I don't think much of it." Consistent with the prevailing view among black passengers, one rider said: "I don't think it makes much difference. I don't think people of either race want any trouble, and as far as the court ruling goes, I don't think it will have too much effect on where people sit. If a person is clean and well-mannered, nobody minds sitting by him, but if he just got off work and is dirty or something, that's different. People just have to be humble and they'll get along all right." City police said that there were no disturbances reported on any city buses during the morning.
Governor Hodges told a Senate Appropriations subcommittee in Washington this date that Federal aid was needed to clear up health hazards resulting from hurricane-clogged streams in eastern North Carolina, as he sought approval of 5.4 million dollars for drainage work in the coastal section of the state, hard-hit by hurricanes in 1954 and 1955. He said that unless the stream clearance was accomplished before summer weather set in, it was probable that they would face a malarial fever epidemic of great proportions in the storm area. Mosquitoes breeding by the millions in the choked streams also had raised the threat of other diseases to humans and animals, according to the Governor. He indicated that approximately $300,000 in both Federal and state funding had been spent on mosquito control, but that the task could not be completed without greater financial aid than had thus far been provided for drainage and stream clearance.
In Raleigh, a proposed rate increase on motor freight shipments to points within the state had drawn opposition from several organizations at a hearing this date before the State Utilities Commission, with the North Carolina Motor Carriers Association and other agencies representing trucking lines wanting to increase by 20 percent their freight rates on less than truckload quantities, as well seeking an increase from $2 to $2.50 in the minimum charge per shipment on hauls of 95 miles or less, and from two dollars to three dollars on shipments of more than 95 miles. The story lists the organizations protesting the sought changes, including the North Carolina Merchants Association and the North Carolina Wholesalers Association, among several others.
In Boone, N.C., it was reported that the State had asked for the death penalty at the start of a trial of a Milwaukee couple in Superior Court, with jury selection having begun this date in the first-degree murder case of the couple, ages 20 and 18, who had been charged with killing a 72-year old Chicago chemist, following their arrest in the Southwest the previous August on Federal charges of taking the man's stolen car across state lines, the couple having told the FBI where officers could locate the man's body in Kentucky's Mammoth Cave National Park. The murder charge alleged that the man had been stabbed with knives and had died on or about the prior July 28 in Cone National Park in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina off U.S. Highway 221 near Blowing Rock, nine miles south of Boone. The deceased had departed Palm Beach, Fla., on July 20, bound for Yuma, Ariz., to visit a brother, and his 1954 automobile had been traded for an older car and $800 cash in El Paso, Tex., on August 8. The male defendant of the couple had been arrested on August 20 in Truth or Consequences, N.M., with the FBI indicating that he was in the car which had been traded for the dead man's car and that he had the dead man's wallet and personal papers on him at the time. The female of the couple was arrested in San Antonio, Tex., 11 days later. On September 1, the FBI had announced that the man's body had been found in Mammoth Cave, wrapped in an Army blanket, covered with canvas, and concealed in a tangle of honeysuckle, apparently having been located there for several weeks.
Dick Young of The News reports that a five-point program for prevention of juvenile delinquency and for closer cooperation of various agencies interested in the problem, had been recommended this date by the Mayor's committee on juvenile delinquency, presenting its report at a meeting of a larger group of representatives from public and private agencies in Mayor Philip Van Every's office. The report recommended a security detention facility for a limited number of children, that copies of Juvenile Court judgments be made a part of the Police Department records, that unsatisfactory admission practices to State training schools needed correction or else local facilities for the care and training of selected children had to be developed, that at least quarterly, regular scheduled meetings ought be held by the department heads working on juvenile behavioral problems, and that a clinical psychologist was needed on the Juvenile Court staff. The committee consisted of the County superintendent of public welfare, Wallace Kuralt, who was the chairman, Judge Willard Gatling of the Juvenile Court, Police Chief Frank Littlejohn, and County Police Chief Joe Whitley. It had been named two weeks earlier by the Mayor.
On the editorial page, "Bus Ruling: The South Can't Keep Up" tells of the previous ban on segregation in interstate travel, as ordered by the Interstate Commerce Commission, having been extended the previous day to intrastate travel by the Supreme Court's refusal to hear the case out of South Carolina, affirming the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals decision which held the prior July that Brown v. Board of Education controlled, following logically in train from its earlier decisions outlawing segregation in the public schools, parks and playgrounds, eschewing in each of those fields the old separate but equal doctrine of Plessy v. Ferguson, established in 1896.
Following custom, the South had not come nearly so far and the latest decision would cause many to become even more resolute in their defiance of the Court rulings, with stratagems inevitably to be devised to enable delay and avoidance, and the tempers which simmered in between rulings to boil again.
It indicates that the South could not keep up with the Court and there was mounting danger that the two would become completely estranged as a result. The latest ruling would pose a threat to the public schools, stirring resentment as the travel ruling would distract from the efforts to work out nominal compliance in education to serve both custom and law, while preserving the public schools.
It concludes that if the Court would have the South understand its reversal of precedent, it had to understand the vast problems those reversals had created for the region, and that they were problems which could not be solved as quickly as the Court could write an order.
"Out the Window and into the Fire" tells of chickenpox not being an issue in the county but that job classification was and needed defenders during the current political season. County Commission member Herbert Garrison had said the previous day that if he had his way, he would throw it out the window, for "it ain't right."
It suggests that the perfection of intricately designed personnel programs took time and if it was "not right", then it was the responsibility of the County Board of Commissioners to make it right, as the tools were handy.
"Churls, Squirrels and Big
Issues" tells of the subject of the editorial being nothing, for
the reason that it believed there should be at least one portion of
the editorial page where the reader could escape from the "Big
Issues"
The previous day's front page had "churlish" Nikita Khrushchev warning of the Soviets' free falling hydrogen bombs and indicating that people should not shake their fists at the Russians. The editorialist could have written about that, but leaves it to the readers to worry about it for themselves and perhaps toss in a few deserved epithets, which could not be printed in a family newspaper.
Also on the front page of the previous day had been news of a meeting in Munich to ponder ways to kill people at long distance, and another piece about a fifth grader, 11 years old, who had killed his older brother, mother and father, finding a rifle "efficacious" in the process. In addition on the page had been a piece about the farm bill, tempting it to observe that the Senate had spent half of its time during the year thus far debating bills which had never become law, three weeks on the natural gas deregulation bill, three weeks on the farm bill, a week on the bill to revise the electoral college, and three days on a bill to set up a watchdog committee for the CIA. It asks rhetorically why one should criticize politicians for talking, as they were bound to do it and if they became blabbermouths, voters could simply turn them out at the next election. Also on the front page had been the news of the birthday of Osmond Barringer, who had brought ice cream for the students at a school named for him, his brother and his father.
That left the editors with nothing about which to write but the new squirrel houses at City Hall, supplied by the local firemen. "Here was the City of Charlotte knee deep in sneaking socialism, building houses for squirrels, and putting out $10 of the taxpayers' money every year for peanuts. What a bunch of spendthrifts on that City Council, we thought. Thirteen squirrels treated to free room and board last year, and now they have 22 and have to throw up four new houses for them. And not a squirrel in the lot hitting a productive lick." It says it also had some suspicions about the peanut bill, wondering whether there was a regular audit of it and whether there was some freeloading by the squirrels in the First Presbyterian Churchyard.
But after considering the matter, it decided that after all of the other news, the reader might not think that a few socialistic squirrels were so bad after all, adding, on second thought, that it did not either, and so decided that "nothing" was the best subject available.
A piece from the Richmond News Leader, titled "Winnie, Best of All Poohs", indicates that the newspaper's esteemed and distinguished book editor, John Wyllie, had exercised his prerogatives recently to list nine selected children's books which every parent ought have on their shelves. The newspaper had reluctantly run the piece, as he had made it brutally and explicitly clear that he had deliberately excluded from the list that which he chose to term "Winnie-the-worst-of-all-Pooh".
The piece suggests that if he continued with that heresy much further, he might find himself reviewing the complete works of Edgar Guest, or possibly being assigned to write four columns on the novels of George Eliot.
It finds that life without Christopher Robin, Eeyore, Piglet and Pooh would be quite dull, even if the late A. A. Milne, the author of the work, could cloy, citing: "Once upon a time there were three little foxes/ Who didn't wear stockings, and they didn't wear sockes."
But it finds that the story of Piglet and the Heffalump remained "pure joy, even if after the one hundredth reading thereof."
Mr. Wyllie had included in his list Edward Lear's Complete Nonsense Book, which the editorial regards as "one of the dreariest collections of forced and unfunny humor ever put between covers, and had added Huckleberry Finn, which it regards as fine, but not before about age 12.
It assumes that a choice of children's books depended on age and sex of the child, as well on the matter of factness of the child, as Mother Goose had laid an egg with one party of the editorialist's acquaintance, and there were households in which Alice in Wonderland, after four tries, had produced only boredom and thus was abandoned. It finds that there was one book which Mr. Wyllie had not mentioned, which merited approval, the Tenggren Tell-It-Again Book, which had some "nice short ones" in it.
Drew Pearson tells of the most publicized general of the Air Force, "cigar-chewing, big bomber" Curtis LeMay, having been under pressure from the civilian bosses of the Defense Department not to talk too much before the subcommittee, chaired by Senator Stuart Symington, examining the deficit in U.S. air power vis-à-vis the Soviets, with the Senator charging that the Administration had let air strength lag behind. The Administration was concerned about the hearings and had been doing their best to counteract them. Defense Secretary Charles E. Wilson had increased the allotment for giant B-52 bombers by half a billion dollars and the Air Force had invited 150 members of the press to San Diego to see the unveiling of its new, fast jet. Nevertheless, Senator Symington still contended that U.S. air power was lagging behind Russia, and had the intelligence reports and photos from Moscow's military parades to prove it. Thus, General LeMay was being called to instruct the Senate on whether Senator Symington was correct or whether his civilian bosses at the Pentagon had the story right. The General, if he were to testify publicly the same way he had given the subcommittee the unadulterated facts in private, would testify that the Air Force needed 2,000 B-52's immediately, compared with the 18 presently ready for use, and that the Air Force required far more men and money, plus more widely dispersed airbases, than the Administration was allotting it.
Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn, who had been a member of the House since 1913, had lived to see the laws he had passed, creating the Securities and Exchange Commission, rural electrification, and the Federal Communications Commission, become part of the foundation of the Government. But during the current winter, he had experienced great personal sorrow, his beloved sister having become ill in Texas, prompting him to fly there, only the second time he had ever flown in his life, remaining at her bedside for weeks. While he was there, his nephew had become ill and undergone surgery, but died, and when his nephew's mother had heard the news, she had a heart attack and also died, with the two deaths occurring within a day.
Mr. Rayburn was now back in Washington, pushing the business of the sometimes unwieldy House, but his heart had not quite been in his work the way it had been.
Marquis Childs indicates that the shrewdly timed offer by the Soviets to support a U.N. settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict could neither be rejected nor ignored. The three Western powers, Britain, France and the U.S., had failed to agree on any unified approach to the problems of Arab nationalism and the oil of the Middle East, a division which had helped to create for the Soviets the opportunity, against the backdrop of their "blackmailed" arms deal with Egypt, to cut themselves into the region as a recognized power. Given the conflicting interest of the three Western powers, particularly those of Britain and the U.S., agreement might never have been possible, as the vestiges of colonialism, past and present, were curses on the relationship of the two nations, both of which had a great stake in the oil of the region.
Behind the scenes, there had been mutual recriminations which went back to the rivalry of the U.S. and Britain in the Middle East, with the latter having a long-standing position there and the U.S. relatively a newcomer. Prime Minister Anthony Eden had made a strong appeal to the President to persuade the U.S. to take a common stand in checking the growing ambition of Premier Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, with the British implying that the U.S. had no policy and that permitting the drift to continue was effectively a concession to the inevitability of an Arab-Israeli war.
American officials privately complained of the way in which British colonialism clung to the past, citing the sheikdoms in which British "advisers" exerted real power, an example being oil-rich Bahrain in the Persian Gulf, where, for 30 years, Sir Charles Belgrave had been "economic consultant" to the Sheik of Bahrain. Recently, however, according to U.S. sources, there had been demonstrations against Mr. Belgrave, indicating that the slightly disguised British feudalism could not long continue. The British replied that the demonstrations had been inspired by the violent propaganda of Radio Cairo, pointing out that it had been, in part, the result of U.S. pressure that British troops had departed Egypt, thereby helping to inflate Premier Nasser's dream of an Arab empire, with himself as overlord.
Regarding feudalism, the British liked to remind the Americans about Saudi Arabia, where, as an absolute monarch, King Saud did exactly as he pleased with the 300 million dollars or more he received annually from Aramco, the American company which had exclusive rights to the oil on a 50-50 basis in Saudi Arabia. Articles in the British press had described how that money had gone to supply the King, his family and a small clique around him, with palaces and air-conditioned Cadillacs, with only a small fraction of it benefiting the people, who lived in abject poverty. In contrast, according to the British, the Sheik of Bahrain and other sheiks under the British wing had been taught to spend their money on hospitals, schools and roads. The British also charged that King Saud had used part of his wealth to stir up more trouble for the West in other Arab countries, claiming that he maintained a network of spies and agents freely supplied with money in Egypt, Syria and Lebanon, where they carried on constant intrigue against the Baghdad Pact and in particular against Iraq, the only Arab member of the pact and a close ally of Britain.
Both within the right wing of the Conservative Party and in the Labor Party in Britain, there was resentment of American "meddling" in the Middle East, with many Conservatives contending that the arbitrary American attitude toward colonialism had helped precipitate the crisis in Iran over British oil holdings and had hastened the departure of British forces from Egypt.
France had never been cut in on a share of the oil in the Middle East and, consequently, they had to pay royalties to British and American firms for their petroleum, being equally dependent with Britain and the rest of Europe, therefore, on Middle Eastern oil.
The Russians were quite aware of the differences which set the three Western powers apart, those differences being the background against which Premier Bulganin and Communist Party Secretary Khrushchev would be negotiating in London during their current mission. If they were to follow their shrewd strategy of the past, they would make some offer just before they departed, possibly on a sphere-of-interest basis, ostensibly couched in the language of peaceful coexistence. The fundamental goal of the Soviets was to split the Western alliance, in pursuit of which they were employing new and far more insidious methods.
Mr. Childs concludes that the failure of the three Western powers to agree on a common policy regarding the Middle East had given the Soviets a splendid opening.
Doris Fleeson tells of a Senate subcommittee on air power policy dealing with vitally important matters to the nation, while giving the country a fresh look at an oft-mentioned presidential possibility, Senator Symington, chairman of the subcommittee, operating in a sphere in which he was quite expert, having been previously, during the Truman Administration, Secretary of the Air Force. Yet the new hearings had gotten off to a tame start amid little public notice, there having been empty seats in the small old Supreme Court chamber, where the hearings were taking place. General Omar Bradley and General Walter Bedell Smith had provided warnings against a second-best Air Force during the hearings.
Ms. Fleeson indicates that it was unsafe to write off any Congressional hearing before its conclusion, as many such hearings had unexpectedly made history after a slow start, with clashes of personality and conflicts of interest always being present.
Senator Symington had disavowed partisan politics during the hearings, but partisan politics was the order of the day at present in the country in an election year. The subcommittee wanted another big-spending program, with the President having forestalled it to a degree with a modest request for more air defense, general apathy having greeted both that request and the Eisenhower foreign aid bill, as spending was not popular in an election year in foreign and defense areas.
She indicates that there was evident a lack of political savvy in the choice of the opening date for the hearings, which had been the day of the Federal income tax deadline on April 16, a time when spending was particularly unpopular. It had also been a week of political distractions in Washington, with both parties meeting and holding dinners. The President had just vetoed the farm bill and he and Adlai Stevenson had addressed the weekend meeting of the national editors, with the weddings of Grace Kelly in Monaco and Margaret Truman in Independence, Mo., also appearing prominently in the press reports.
Both Senators Symington and Henry Jackson of Washington, his Democratic colleague on the subcommittee, had a great deal to gain by capturing the public imagination at the current time, with Senator Symington being the South's favorite compromise candidate at a potentially deadlocked convention between Adlai Stevenson and Senator Estes Kefauver the following August. Washington expected to put Senator Jackson forward as a possible vice-presidential nominee. For both Senators, it was, in a way, the second effort, as both had been on the Senate committee conducting the Army-McCarthy hearings in the spring of 1954 and much had been hoped for them, as both were young, vigorous liberals, unafraid of Senator McCarthy. Neither, however, had proved effective, while Senator John McClellan of Arkansas, also a member of that committee, had made them appear fairly impotent when his "killer instinct" occasionally exhibited itself. No one could describe exactly how politicians became personalities, but it was of great importance to them to achieve that status if they were to obtain national recognition.
A letter writer comments on an article by News reporter and feature writer Julian Scheer, regarding the increase in salary of Paul Buck, manager of the new Coliseum. The writer, who remains anonymous, urges the reader to stop for a minute and consider whether the community had more regard for Mr. Buck than it had for Dr. Garringer, superintendent of schools, who had at stake the future education of the children, as well as for Dr. Bethel, who was the City and County Health Department official, as well for the chief of police and the superintendent of County schools, J. W. Wilson, each of whom received less in salary than did Mr. Buck. The writer suggests that those latter officials should receive equal pay to that of Mr. Buck, who, as with the President of the United States, was not indispensable.
A letter writer suggests that the solution to the school desegregation problem, rather than trying to circumvent it, lay in love and not a negative attitude. She finds that the evangelists were seeking to Christianize Europe, when there was a great need for them at home, in the South, where Christians were not practicing their principles. She urges practicing active love, bringing people nearer to God, with an act of kindness being remembered by people.
A letter writer says: "It might well behoove some of the super-duper, glorified scalawags in the Charlotte area to take a long look at the 'handwriting on the wall' in the Bob Raiford case"—the WBT radio disc jockey who had been fired for having violated station policy without permission by interviewing subjects, including high school students without the permission of the high school principal, recording them and playing back excerpts on the air, regarding the subject of the recent assault on singer Nat King Cole during a performance in Birmingham, Ala. He concludes, "The party's just begun, chums!"
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