The Charlotte News
Wednesday, April 25, 1956
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the President, at his press conference this date, had said that Vice-President Nixon had not told him definitely whether he wanted to be on the ticket again in the fall, after being reminded by William Lawrence of the New York Times of his statement a few weeks earlier that he had invited Mr. Nixon to chart his own course politically and to report his decision back to the President.
On other issues, the President said that the Democrats were right in making him, rather than his Administration generally, the prime target of their criticism, as the President was the head of the Administration, adding that he had been shot at before. He also indicated, regarding the Pennsylvania and Massachusetts primaries of the previous day, where he had run far ahead of Adlai Stevenson in the overall popular vote, that he was still astonished any time anyone voted for him and was very grateful for it. He refused to endorse charges by some Republicans in Congress that the present session was a "do-nothing Congress", saying that he never had indulged in that kind of rhetoric and added that he did not make it a practice to challenge other people's motives.
In Montgomery, Ala., the vice-president of National City Lines, Inc., of Chicago, had stated at a press conference his promise to back up any driver arrested for permitting racial integration on a bus in Montgomery, as the Montgomery City Lines, Inc., which operated the only bus service in Montgomery, was a subsidiary of the Chicago firm. There was still no indication of actual integration of the buses, despite the company's order to its drivers to stop enforcing segregation in the wake of the refusal by the Supreme Court to review a Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals decision of the prior summer, holding that Brown v. Board of Education prevented continued segregation of intrastate buses, and that compliance with the 14th Amendment was no longer satisfied by the old separate-but-equal standard of Plessy v. Ferguson of 1896. Reporters said that blacks were still riding in the rear of the buses when they were riding at all. The Montgomery bus boycott remained ongoing since the previous December. The statement by the vice-president of National City Lines had been made in response to the threat the previous day by the Montgomery police commissioner, Clyde Sellers, to arrest any driver who permitted integration of a bus, as well as passengers seeking to integrate the buses. The National City Lines spokesman said that they did not want controversy with local authorities, but if their drivers were obeying their instructions, they would help them and that the bus company did not intend to change its orders for desegregation of the Montgomery buses or for other Southern cities where it operated bus lines. He said that the company had informed the bus drivers that they no longer had to enforce segregation and that it would be in violation of the Supreme Court if they did. In Montgomery, the leaders of the boycott said that a decision might be made on whether to end the five-month old protest the following night at a mass meeting.
In Philadelphia, nine persons had died in a fire which had wrecked two North Philadelphia dwellings shortly after dawn this date, with four others being reported as injured. The dead included three women and six children, with all of the children being under 14. No cause of the fire is reported.
In Boone, N.C., an FBI agent testified this date that the male of a couple, on trial for the first-degree murder of an elderly Chicago chemist, had signed a statement saying that his girlfriend had suggested killing the man and that he had helped her stab him to death, indicating that he had made the statement in the presence of the agent and other officers in Las Cruces, N.M., the prior August 29. He said that his girlfriend had initially stabbed the 72-year old man in his back and that he had then hit him in the jaw with his fists and stabbed him in the chest with his knife, after which his girlfriend stabbed him again by the heart in the front of his chest. He said that the girl had then undressed the dead man and they had rolled him in canvas cut from their tent and placed the corpse in the trunk of the car which they had stolen from the deceased and then driven to the Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky where they hid the body, subsequently recovered after the admissions to the FBI. This was the first day of testimony in the case.
In Raleigh, Governor Luther Hodges would meet in the morning with the Council of State, followed by a brief ceremony in which he would deliver the first check for the Business Development Corp., then board an Air National Guard plane for Winston-Salem, where he would address a meeting of civic clubs in recognition of the tenth anniversary of Western Electric's operations in that city. He would then fly to Lumberton and then motor to Whiteville for a late afternoon reception, and in the evening was scheduled to speak in Tabor City at a meeting of civic clubs, following which, he would drive back to Raleigh. Godspeed…
Harry Shuford of The News indicates that a candidate for the State House of Representatives had almost been forcibly ejected from the City Council meeting this date, with Mayor Philip Van Every having warned A. G. Brown of Thomasboro, after repeated interruptions, that if he did not sit down and be quiet, he would direct a police officer present to remove him from the chamber. Mr. Brown snapped that he would go if he were asked to leave, at which point the Mayor said, "Then, get going." Mr. Brown had then said: "Then, I'm gone. I like to please." As he reached the door, however, he said: "But I'm going to Raleigh. I'm going to tear this whole thing up; you just watch my dust." He was referring to the new perimeter zoning ordinance. After the outburst, the Council ordered the City Attorney to take proper legal steps in the case of Mr. Brown, who was erecting business buildings, including a service station, store and apartments over the store, in a residential zone of Thomasboro.
Dick Young of The News reports that impetus to an outlined program for coordination of agencies concerned with juvenile delinquency had been given by the City Council this date, with the immediate employment of a psychologist for the Juvenile Court staff having been informally approved, as well as the overall plan for establishment of a detention home for juveniles. The Council greeted with approval generally the recommendations of the Mayor's committee on juvenile delinquency, as covered further in an editorial below.
Julian Scheer of The News tells of there being another side to Mecklenburg County, found at a crossroad at Lemley Township, or Crab Orchard, Long Creek, DeWeese Steele Creek and lower Providence Township. In those locales, there was the "uneasy roll of rural Mecklenburg, a brown and gray and slightly red earth covered with clover and corn, some cotton, and cattle." That side of the county, he reports, was dying. Farms were being replaced with housing developments. A County agent said that there would be 7,000 acres of cotton farmed during the current year, whereas 30 years earlier, 65,000 acres of the crop had been cultivated, and about 20 years earlier, 40,000 acres. He said there had been diversification, with dairying and poultry, but that farming of crops in the county was vanishing, with a steady decrease in the acreage of about 4,000 to 5,000 acres annually during the previous few years. Four years earlier, there had been 232,000 acres of farm land in the county, whereas now there were 200,000 acres. In 1949, the county had ranked 32nd in the number of farms, compared with the state's other 99 counties, whereas the previous year, Mecklenburg had fallen to 44th. During the same time, the county's rank in land value had gone from 5th to 1st in the state, causing farm land to be too valuable any longer to farm. One farmer in Hickory Grove was now developing home sites on land he had once used for dairy cows, having now become a realtor.
On the editorial page, "A Prescription Is Just the Beginning" indicates that Mayor Philip Van Every's committee on juvenile delinquency had accurately assessed the scope and challenge of the youth problems in Charlotte the previous day, with its recommendations outlining the minimal requirements for community action, with security detention facilities, interagency communication, better care for the dull-minded and incorrigible cases, and the employment of a clinical psychologist on the staff of the Juvenile Court being only the bare necessities.
It suggests that the leaders of the various public agencies could offer proof of a durable unity among them by making a determined and collective effort to have the advice of the committee implemented, finding that the job was too big for the four members of the committee, the superintendent of the Welfare Department, the County and City police chiefs, and the Juvenile Court judge. It finds that it would take a strong, well-established mechanism through which public welfare, health, mental health, employment, courts, police, training schools and education agencies would have to pool their resources with private agencies for the task.
The community would want to remain informed about what was being done and whether a genuinely robust effort was being undertaken. It recommends regular and comprehensive reports on what was happening to juvenile delinquents, so it could measure progress toward reasonable goals, indicating that a start had been made but that it was only a start.
"Choose Your Weapons, Gentlemen" indicates that with the Democratic primary in the state only a little more than 30 days away, campaigning was still being conducted in church whispers. The Charlotte Township constable race, for instance, was the warmest contest in the area, although some shadowboxing was evident in a judgeship competition.
Elsewhere across the state, there appeared to be timidity and apathy, as candidates worriedly scrutinized the public opinion polls and avoided honest issues as if they were typhoid carriers.
The piece indicates that the newspaper was all for "moderation" and had said so often, despising casting of private dirt for pretended reasons of public virtue and hating rant for the sake of rant, but was also unhappy with candidates who were afraid to take on an issue directly and hid from the facts of political life, being unwilling to take a risk for a principle.
It finds that Samuel Lubell had sounded general caution in the concluding paragraphs of his The Revolt of the Moderates:
"For people under siege,
complacency is the worst possible sentinel. We are less likely to
slip into those tragic neglects which could destroy us if we think
things are taking care of themselves.
"The time to worry about this country is not when we are battling among ourselves, for that is when our democracy functions best. The time to worry about is when all is 'moderation.'"
"Keep Fit!" tells of one of the distinctions of probate Judge A. G. Kennedy of Union, S.C., being that he was so lean that he could still wear his World War I uniform of 37 years earlier, explaining to a reporter that before rising each morning, one should lift one's heels, one by one, upward, let them drop at intervals, counting off one, two, three, four, which he said kept the muscles of the abdomen in condition.
The piece agrees but asks whether the routine was not a little undignified for a judge.
"Mr. Dulles and the Unserved Puddin'" tells of Secretary of State Dulles, in his foreign policy speech recently, having latched onto the idea of expanding NATO into an instrument of economic and cultural solidarity among the Western nations, talking about it as an instrument for perfecting more independence and economic development, more sense of equality and human brotherhood, and more appreciation of the gifts and contributions of other civilizations.
It finds that within the context of other things he had said, he had offered an exciting prospect, facing some facts which he had previously avoided in speaking with rose-colored glasses before Congressional committees. He said that Soviet rulers and their agents, with their new approach, had somewhat greater ability and thus more chance for mischief, as the Western allies no longer felt the same compulsion to submerge differences as when they faced, together, a clear and present danger to their security, with collective security now appearing less important five years later. Secretary Dulles had said that the new task was "to build more on hope and less on fear."
It finds that to be the task and that Mr. Dulles might have found a tool for tackling it in the broadened concept of NATO. While it might develop into a "new milepost", as suggested in the press release which accompanied the State Department's release of the speech text, it was presently only an idea on which the Secretary had proposed no plan for implementation.
It points out that the Marshall Plan had also developed out of a speech by Secretary of State Marshall, at commencement exercises at Harvard in 1947, and had then been quickly implemented and made the weapon to stop Soviet subversion of European democracies. But it finds that what Secretary Dulles had said bore no comparison to the Marshall Plan other than the fact that it came at another crucial juncture in the Cold War. "The proof is in the puddin', still unserved."
A piece from Student Life of Washington University in St. Louis, titled "What 'Big Business' Made Possible", indicates that it had been somewhat disturbed recently over more or less casual comments made in classes by some professors, speaking disparagingly of business, businessmen and, in particular, what was commonly called "big business". Frequently, it suggests, comments were made to the effect that "big business" was for certain kinds of policies, with the implication being that the policy could not be for the benefit of the people if big business was for it. Sometimes the comments were aimed at "big oil" or "big steel", with a sneering tone.
It indicates that the privilege of any professor to speak in those terms was not being questioned and it was not complaining about the tone, even if too frequently it was one of sarcasm. It only suggests that those professors, who were awakened each morning by a General Electric alarm clock, afterward eating toast at breakfast from a Westinghouse toaster, driving a Chevrolet to school, obtaining gas from Standard Oil stations, and doing research on a grant from some large company, might admit that "big business" was not so wicked and evil as some sought to make it out to be and that its interests were not necessarily diametrically opposed to those of the people.
It further suggests that after those professors remained unconvinced and failed to appreciate the alarm clocks, cars, radios and other products, they might refuse to accept the benefits which would be forthcoming from the Ford Foundation grant to raise faculty salaries, as it was "big business" money made possible by the sales of automobiles and trucks.
Drew Pearson tells of former Vice-President and now Senator Alben Barkley being 79, having been born just 12 years after the end of the Civil War and having served his country in the House beginning just prior to World War I, before becoming Senator and then Vice-President in 1949 under President Truman. Because of his age and because he had undergone a cataract operation, Senator Barkley could not see very well, though no one would have known it had they watched him speak almost impromptu at the Woodrow Wilson dinner the previous week. Though he had a written text before him and though he generally followed that text, his memory was such that he did not have to read it.
But while he was referring to "government of money for money and by money," and suggesting that "massive retaliation", as favored by Secretary of State Dulles, had become "massive confusion", asking Secretary Dulles whether "agonizing reappraisal" had not become "all agony", Senator Barkley's income taxes were being vigorously investigated by the Administration, with IRS agents having been visiting the Senator's lecture agents, looking over their books and checking on every lecture fee he received. For many years, the Senator had filled a certain number of lecture engagements, as many Senators and members of Cabinets with no private income had done since the time of William Jennings Bryan, Secretary of State under former President Wilson, and the late Senator Robert LaFollette, Sr. Mr. Barkley had no private income or law firm and was dependent solely on his Senate salary and lecture fees. For many years, his first wife, who had since died, had been an invalid and required a day and night nurse. He had made ends meet through his speaking engagements.
Mr. Pearson finds that it was obvious from the attitude of the IRS agents probing his taxes that they did not relish their task but were simply carrying out an assignment handed them from above. Senator Barkley had told his lecture agents to open up their books and show the IRS agents everything they wanted to see. Mr. Pearson notes that there had been no investigation of the gift taxes which should have been paid by those contributing $18,000 to the personal expense fund of Vice-President Nixon, the fund which had become known just prior to the so-called Checkers speech in September, 1952.
The President had sat beside the presiding officer at the American Society of Newspaper Editors dinner, while the Raymond Clapper Memorial Awards were handed out to deserving newsmen by Robert Walsh, who had first announced that an honorable mention had gone to William Lawrence of the New York Times for his series of articles exposing the conflict of interest of former Secretary of the Air Force Harold Talbott, that conflict having led to his resignation. There had been heavy applause at the announcement of the award. But the President did not applaud, sitting grimly, nervously drumming his fingers. First prize was given to Clark Mollenhoff of the Des Moines Register Tribune for his series of articles leading to the reversal of Secretary Ezra Taft Benson after the latter had fired Wolf Ladejinsky as a security risk, and again there was heavy applause, while the President refrained, sitting grimly.
He indicates that the most politically promising member of the Roosevelt family, Franklin D., Jr., had recently sold his political future for a $60,000 fee as a partner with a registered agent for dictator Francisco Franco of Spain and dictator Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic. The Congressman from New York and candidate for State Attorney General, considered to be the man who could really go places in the Roosevelt family, even perhaps as far as the White House, had now become a partner of Charles Patrick Clark, the $75,000 per year agent for Generalissimo Franco and also of late the lobbyist for dictator Trujillo. He relates that the inside fact was that Mr. Clark was having a hard time holding onto that lobbying plum. The new Spanish Ambassador, Don José Maria Areilza, had not been entirely sold on Mr. Clark, figuring that he had antagonized too many people, and so to win liberal support, Mr. Clark had reached out and embraced FDR, Jr., for $60,000 per year. Shortly afterward, opponents of dictator Trujillo in New York City announced that they would picket the Democratic dinner at the Commodore Hotel, which was presided over by FDR, Jr., that picketing to be in protest against the disappearance in New York on March 12 of Columbia University professor Dr. Jesus De Galindez, an exile from the Dominican Republic and an enemy of Sr. Trujillo.
Doris Fleeson, in Hutchinson, Kans., discusses the preeminent issue in "breadbasket" country, farm prices, indicating that in an Administration with prosperity being half its campaign slogan, the individual farmer was steadily receiving less money for all the work done, and that the only farm philosophy he cared about was one which placed him back into prosperity among other Americans. Farmers especially resented the fact that everyone else was prospering when he and his family were sliding backward. The farmer had no weapon at his disposal as did labor in the form of strikes. Generally, there was deep sympathy for him in Hutchinson, with some, however, being somewhat cynical, one person having asked: "Why doesn't the farmer just admit he wants a subsidy?"
The history of drought, depression, failure and foreclosure was deeply ingrained in those of the Midwest, who were not yet hurting but the fear of what might come was still there, and the farmers were their neighbors and friends.
One farmer was angry about the fact that years of labor had won for him an acreage on which he ought to succeed by any standard, but had found that 40 percent of his wheat land was out of production while during each of the previous three years the price had been in decline. Meanwhile, everything he had to buy was increased in price and his income was decreasing faster than the wage earners' income was increasing. He figured that his income had fallen by 41 percent in those three years.
A recent Iowa State College survey, based on records maintained by Iowa farmers, had shown that their average profit per acre had dropped by half in the previous year, with every type of farm operator showing a loss.
The farm editor of the Hutchinson News-Herald said that the President's veto of the farm bill showed a lack of realization by the Administration of the plight of the farmer, that he needed help now and not the following year.
One farmer complained that Washington was now telling them that they ought leave their farms, but that one could not leave a place with so much invested, some having as much as $40,000 or more in their farms, unable to take a job in industry, even with a decent wage starting in middle age or older, which would earn back their investment.
Indiana was one of three states in which Democrats had a special reason for believing that they could capitalize on the farm revolt in their effort to retain control of the Senate in 1956, the other two being Iowa and Colorado. In each of those states, a highly placed agriculture official of the New or Fair Deal, including two former Secretaries of Agriculture, was expected to be the nominee against the incumbent Republican Senators. In Indiana, Claude Wickard, Secretary of Agriculture under President Roosevelt and a Rural Electrification administrator in the Truman Administration, was explaining to farmers that they had never had it so bad, with the politicians being confident that he would be the Democratic nominee to oppose Senator Homer Capehart.
In Iowa, R. M. Evans, an early head of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration during the Roosevelt years, and later a governor of the Federal Reserve System, was likely to be the Democratic nominee against Senator Bourke Hickenlooper.
Thus far, Governor Ed Johnson of Colorado and eager party strategists in Washington had not been able to obtain a single affirmative stance from the best known of the three, former Secretary of Agriculture during the Truman years, Charles Brannan. In 1948, he had tipped off President Truman that there was political hay to be made in the failing of the 80th Congress to do anything about storage facilities for crops. He had also authored the controversial Brannan Plan, viewed with horror by Republicans, though recently, at the urging of Secretary of Agriculture Benson, had been enacted by Congress with respect to wool. Mr. Brannan was now counsel for the Farmers Union, which, with the Grange, had opposed the President's veto of the farm bill.
It was possible that John Carroll of Denver, former Congressman and aide to President Truman, would not again contest in the primary, though twice nominated for the Senate and twice defeated. The incumbent Republican in Colorado was Senator Eugene Millikin, famous for his wit and erudition, who, while battling arthritis which had severely crippled him, had announced that he would run again.
Ms. Fleeson indicates that Mr. Wickard had other cause to be encouraged in his run against Senator Capehart, in addition to the discontent of the farmers, as Indiana had Republican mayors in two-thirds of its cities when statewide municipal elections were held, and the following day, they had Democratic mayors in roughly the same two-thirds of the cities, with Fort Wayne being the only large city to prove an exception to the rule. Senator Capehart was, however, a shrewd and rugged operator, not a statesman, but smart in business and in politics, causing Mr. Wickard, with the President running again, to be the underdog.
Robert C. Ruark, in Manila, tells of President of the Philippines Ramon Magsaysay being, in his opinion, the most charming and dynamic man he had ever met. He was a peasant first and a man later, and a great advertisement for democracy. He had been a great guerrilla fighter during World War II against the Japanese, when they had occupied the Philippines. He had then cleaned up the Communist partisans at a time when it seemed likely that they were going to take over the islands. Mr. Ruark says he could easily be a movie actor or football player, spoke excellent English, fluent Spanish and five or six dialects.
As a politician, his approach to people was nearly perfect. He finds him completely fearless, eschewing all security precautions, despite the fact that anyone in the Philippines could kill him.
Mr. Ruark had flown with him to northern Luzon in the presidential plane, determined to resist his charm of which he had heard much. But, instead, he came back babbling his praises, as the President had owned him after only five minutes, giving him a day which he would never forget.
He and another man had gone to Aparri with the President to dedicate a new irrigation project in the barrio of Bulan, with irrigation and roads being two of his most cherished plans for pulling the Philippines to its feet. He appeared, in his open-necked shirt and rough boots, to be the guerrilla he had been during the war. He referred easily and immediately to Mr. Ruark as "Bob", sitting on the side of an aircraft seat, swinging his feet and punctuating a point with a shout and a short, profane word. He reminded Mr. Ruark of Cuba's Fulgencio Batista years earlier, before World War II, when he had first come to power, before he was spoiled. In those days, Sr. Batista had been a former sergeant who had come to power, whom the peasants adored slavishly, as did now the paisanos of the Philippines worship President Magsaysay. The faces of the people bloomed when he passed, as if he were Santa Claus.
When he had accompanied him to the barrio, the people had stood in a soaking rain for hours to hear him, with his head being as wet as theirs and his clothes drenched, as they lined the roads for miles in the pouring rain just for the chance to see him. They had fallen on their knees before him and hundreds had grasped his hands as they rode along. Mr. Ruark was concerned that any one of those hands might contain a bomb and he and the other man were in the backseat with President Magsaysay.
A letter writer compliments Mercy Hospital, celebrating its 50th anniversary during the week, as the writer had a sister in the hospital. She indicates that the nurses and Sisters at the facility were the "sweetest, kindest people on the earth" and had a kind word for those who were visitors as well as those who were patients, and that when one was worried about a loved one in the hospital, nothing was more Christ-like than a smile and a kind word from a nurse and a Sister. "May the Mercy Hospital live on and on doing the wonderful things they do for others."
A letter writer offers congratulations to Herblock for his cartoon captioned, "It Says Here That Grace Kelly Got Married". He also liked the last front page installment of the prior Thursday regarding the wedding of Ms. Kelly to Prince Rainier III of Monaco, although taking issue with the header, "They Lived Happily Ever After", to which the writer says "wanna bet?"
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