The Charlotte News
Thursday, May 10, 1956
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the President had been reported authoritatively this date to be looking for another widely known Democrat he could appoint to a high post in his Administration, following by a day the announcement of Senator Walter George of Georgia that he would not seek re-election in November and the President's offer the previous day to name the Senator as his personal ambassador to NATO. The Senator had said that he might be available in January to take the post. The offer of the post was seen generally among Democratic Senators as representing a White House effort to temper Democratic criticism of Administration foreign policy in a campaign year. But a high Administration official had denied that purpose, saying that the President wanted to find a "cooperative" Democrat whom he could name to some responsible position. The offer to name Senator George had been represented in Administration circles as having been made on the basis of the President's personal liking for the Senator and in recognition of his support of many Administration programs.
The announcement of the Senator the previous day was followed quickly by a statement from former Georgia Governor Herman Talmadge that he would seek the Democratic Senate nomination in the state in the September 24 primary, having been campaigning informally for months, with the assumption having been made that he would have given Senator George strong opposition. The Senator had provided no reason for reversing his previous decision to run, although his doctor had spoken of health considerations. Anti-Talmadge forces were reported to be looking for a primary opponent to Mr. Talmadge, with those most likely to enter the race being former Acting Governor M. E. Thompson, who had been defeated by Mr. Talmadge in 1948, and Earle Cocke, Jr., of Atlanta, an airline executive and former American Legion national commander. In Atlanta, Mr. Talmadge had praised Senator George and said that if he were to be elected to the Senate "it shall be my purpose to seek the advice and wise counsel of Senator George often." He said that his campaign would be keyed to maintenance of racial segregation.
Democratic leaders had fired new broadsides at the Eisenhower Administration as returns from Tuesday's Indiana primary showed that the President had received 58 percent of the total votes cast. Late returns from normally Democratic Lake County had cut into the President's share of the total vote and had boosted Senator Estes Kefauver's share by a small amount, with the final unofficial returns providing the 58 percent of the exceptionally light total of 610,000 votes to the President, while Senator Kefauver, unopposed on the Democratic side, had received 40 percent of the vote and all 26 Democratic convention delegate votes.
In the Ohio primary, Governor Frank Lausche had received 54 of the state's 58 Democratic delegate votes as the state's favorite-son candidate, with four anti-Lausche delegates also elected, three of whom were from the Cleveland area. The Governor had run unopposed for the Democratic nomination for Senator, while the Republican incumbent, Senator George Bender, had been renominated also without opposition.
Meanwhile in Los Angeles, Adlai Stevenson had said the previous night that the Administration was failing to cope with social problems and was "devoting a smaller percentage of our national income for our social welfare than we were in 1952—or than we were 20 years ago." Mr. Stevenson, campaigning in California for the 68 delegates to the August Democratic convention, advocated broadening of Federal aid programs in education, medical care and old-age benefits. In Oxnard, Calif., Senator Estes Kefauver, who would oppose Mr. Stevenson in the June 5 California primary, told a crowd in the town plaza that "if the Administration continues in office the control of our country is going to be more and more in the hands of fewer and fewer people. When it comes to giving something away, the present Administration can show remarkable agreement, but when it comes to doing something for the little people, they just never get around to it."
In St. Louis, the Government called a St. Louis attorney for the shoe manufacturer who previously had a tax evasion case which was the subject of the alleged conspiracy charges against former appointments secretary to President Truman, Matthew Connelly, former head of the tax division of the Justice Department, Lamar Caudle, and the attorney for the man accused of tax evasion, Harry Schwimmer, each of whom was charged with conspiring to defraud the Government for personal gain by providing favorable treatment in the tax evasion case. The St. Louis attorney testified the previous day that he had met with Mr. Schwimmer in Kansas City in 1947 regarding Mr. Schwimmer becoming the attorney for the man accused in the tax case. He said that a Kansas City attorney for that man had recommended Mr. Schwimmer as the "right man" to handle the case. A former Treasury Department attorney of Kansas City had testified that he was told that Mr. Connelly had arranged for a delay in the prosecution of the case. Ultimately, the tax evasion case was civilly settled in 1951 for a fine of $40,000. The former Treasury attorney said that during a chance meeting of Mr. Schwimmer in 1949, the latter had told him that Mr. Connelly had arranged with the Justice Department to have the investigation continued so that Mr. Schwimmer could take all of the time necessary to recuperate from a heart attack. During cross-examination, the attorney said that he saw nothing wrong with the continuance on the basis of what Mr. Schwimmer had told him. Earlier, he had said that Mr. Schwimmer, in a 1948 conference, had told him about a meeting with "the chief" at the White House before discussing the case, the reference to "the chief" being unexplained. The Government was charging that Mr. Schwimmer had given oil leases to both Mr. Connelly and Mr. Caudle for their help in the tax evasion case.
In Columbia, S.C., the State Public Service Commission said in a statement this date that state laws requiring segregation of intrastate bus and railroad passengers were in full force and effect, and that the recent Supreme Court dismissal of an appeal in a case involving segregated buses in Columbia had "no effect on the validity or enforceability of the laws of this state." The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals decision had been left standing by the Supreme Court, after the lower appellate court had determined that segregation on intrastate buses was unconstitutional in accordance with the decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which had ruled that the previous standard for meeting Equal Protection under the 14th Amendment, separate-but-equal facilities, could no longer pass muster. The Commission was apparently following the opinion issued by the State Attorney General, T. C. Callison, who had said recently that the question was unsettled as far as the Supreme Court was concerned, that the Court's refusal to hear the appeal from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals was not conclusive in providing a final decision on intrastate transportation. The Commission said that the Supreme Court had acted in dismissing the appeal on the authority of Slaker v. O'Connor, 278 U.S. 188, which provided that an appeal could not be heard by the Supreme Court when there had been no final judgment in the trial court, in the instant case, the decision of the Court of Appeals having reversed the trial judge's decision to dismiss the complaint brought by a black woman who had been ordered to move to the rear of one of the buses in Columbia, seeking $25,000 in damages from the bus company for the illegal discrimination.
In Mount Clemens, Mich., a jet plane's 22 deadly rockets had shot over a two-mile area this date, injuring three Air Force men and endangering residents of a nearby base. Two hours after the missiles had been accidentally fired from an F-86D Sabrejet on the grounds of the base, the sheriff reported that all of the rockets had been accounted for. One of them had hit a civilian home a mile from the base, narrowly missing a baby's crib from which the baby had been removed only minutes prior to the strike. Another had shot through a building on the field, injuring two airmen who were inside. Another airman standing at the rear of the plane had suffered first and second degree burns from the heat of the rocket. The sheriff said that two of the rockets had exploded, one setting a small fire at the civilian's home, with a fragment hitting a window six inches from the baby's crib. Selfridge Air Force Base officials, however, said that none of the rockets had actually exploded and that the damage had been caused by the force of the supersonic speed at which the missiles traveled.
In Wake Forest, N.C., the previous afternoon, the ringing of the class bell had shaken the tower of Wait Hall at Wake Forest College, where Dr. Hubert Poteat closed a textbook of Latin literature and said to his students, "That's it." He was ending 48 years of teaching at the College and ending his ties with it which had lasted a lifetime. Known as the most colorful character on the faculty, and known to faculty members as "an institution within an institution", he had decided to retire and remain in Wake Forest rather than make the move with the College to Winston-Salem during the current month. He said that he could get sentimental about it but would not, that once he had thought of sitting down and making a list of the things he had tried to do at Wake Forest, but had not been able to do it. His ties with the College had gone back for several generations, as his father, Dr. William Louis Poteat, had been president of the College between 1905 and 1927. He had been born in Wake Forest and was graduated from the College in 1906, had obtained his master's degree there in 1908, had then gone to Columbia University, where he received his Ph.D. in 1912 and returned to Wake Forest to serve as a professor of Latin and literature ever since. In 1950, he had taken a year leave of absence to serve as Imperial Potentate of the North American Shrine. He was a noted organist and had given recitals all over the country, also directing the Wake Forest choir for 40 years. He had written eight books and said that was enough, maybe too many. He said he had to give up golf because of a heart attack, but was reading a book about it, though not always agreeing with the book. He said he did not know whether he would visit the new campus, that he had never seen the place, but hoped the move would be a great success. In the last issue of The Student, the College literature magazine, Dr. Poteat had written an article titled, "Random Reflections of an Old Fogy". One of his students said he was anything but that, that the college would not be the same without him, that he didn't believe anyone could even imagine the college without him. Dr. Poteat said that he had a rest coming, "but I've had a devil of a good time."
Donald MacDonald of The News reports that a water-filled balloon tossed from a school bus had broken the windshield of an automobile on Carmel Road early this date and the shattered glass had cut the driver's arm, causing him to have to go to the hospital for treatment. County police said that the driver and his father, a passenger in the car, had chased the school bus and after repeated attempts to stop it, had finally blocked it several miles away on Sardis Road. A 14-year old male junior high school student had admitted throwing the balloon from the bus, driven by a student from East High School. A Highway Patrolman said that the incident had occurred early in the morning, when the victim was driving on Carmel Road in a 1953 Cadillac meeting the school bus, that the balloon had knocked a hole in the windshield as big as the officer's two hands, cracking the whole left side.
Julian Scheer of The News reports that charges made the previous day by Arthur Goodman, candidate for the Superior Court judgeship held by Judge Hugh Campbell, that there was a "smear" campaign ongoing against him had been answered this date by Judge Campbell, noting that Mr. Goodman had implied that he was being smeared by alleged statements that he had "the support of Jews, labor organizations and Negroes." Judge Campbell said that he had "many friends and supporters in all three of those groups" and did not feel that he was being slandered or libeled when it was stated that he had their support, that, on the contrary, he was proud of his support from those citizens. Mr. Goodman had promised, before the Jaycees the previous day, that he would take legal action against any candidate and the candidate's workers for slander and libel as it occurred and would represent others who were defamed in the course of a campaign.
In Worcester, Mass., a four-year old boy had stopped digging worms long enough the previous day to stick his dirty hand down his baby sister's throat, possibly saving her life. Their mother said that while she was talking on the telephone, her 19-month old baby had put a bottle cap in her mouth, that it had lodged in her throat, and she had sought desperately to dislodge it, that the baby had been turning blue and the mother yelled for someone to call an ambulance. At that point, her young son stopped digging worms, ran indoors, put his hand down his sister's throat and brought out the bottle cap.
On the editorial page, "Annexation: A Retreat from Reason" tells of the City Council scuttling former Mayor Herbert Baxter's plan for "town hall meetings" regarding the extension of the city limits, the piece finding it a retreat from reason.
The city needed to win territory and influence taxpayers, and the decision therefore demonstrated a lack of courage and candor on the part of municipal leaders. It also does not understand why the Council was leery of facing potential citizens of Charlotte, unlikely to inspire confidence in the perimeter areas of the community, with residents thereof only assuming that Charlotte either had nothing to offer them or preferred force to reason.
It concludes that annexation would be easier to accomplish if Charlotte offered itself as a friend rather than as a threat to suburbanites.
"Talmadgeism Overtakes a Statesman" comments on the decision of Senator Walter George of Georgia not to seek re-election in 1956, despite having, the prior December, said, in effect, that neither age nor Herman Talmadge would keep him from a seventh term in the Senate.
It speculates that what had changed his mind was the unhappy prospect of facing an extremely popular opponent and having to stump through Georgia's 159 counties at age 77 without much hope of success, as former Governor Talmadge's stock was at an all-time high.
The Senator had been a conciliator and provided good counsel within his own party regarding foreign policy matters, and had made it easier for President Eisenhower to neutralize reactionary Republicans and gain control and direction of his Administration. It finds it good that the Senator was willing to accept the post as the President's ambassador to NATO, as he commanded prestige among other nations and would continue to command it in the Senate were he called upon for advice on foreign affairs.
Meanwhile, Mr. Talmadge was telling Georgia farmers that war-worn Britain was as rich as Rockefeller and that the American financial aid for it was strictly sucker spending. He also made jokes about Pakistan, a key ally of the U.S. in the Far East.
A Senate race between Senator George and Mr. Talmadge had promised Georgians the choice of the enlightened conservatism of the Senator and the reactionary preachments of Mr. Talmadge, but that choice had now gone by the boards, while the Senate would lose a great leader.
"Veterans Benefits: A New Direction" tells of the American Legion having commendably fired off a salvo of oratory before the House Veterans Committee the previous day, denouncing the Bradley Commission report, which was actually a restrained and sensible appeal for common sense reform of veterans benefits, which most veterans would likely endorse. It had favored continuance of basic benefits for service-connected disabilities, as well as preserving the temporary readjustment aids found in the G.I. Bill. It did not believe that the able-bodied veterans ought be accorded special status to be eligible, with his survivors, for pensions and bonuses, believed that the ordinary losses of time and opportunity while in military service had to be regarded as part of the responsibilities of the citizen. It recommended gradual elimination of payments to non-disabled veterans as Social Security and other retirement benefits increased.
That concept clashed with proposals that the Government should further liberalize benefits for non-service-connected disabilities, grounded in the belief that the veteran was a citizen apart from others and should continue to be treated as part of a special, separate class. The Legion and other veterans groups argued for special status, but the facts supported the Commission's view, as it was becoming a nation of veterans, making up, along with their families, 45 percent of the population.
The Commission also reported that servicemen at present had a higher income than their civilian counterparts, that the training in the service provided an advantage when the veteran returned to civilian life, with most World War II veterans making more money, being better educated and owning as many homes as their non-veteran contemporaries, thus not needing any handouts.
It concludes that the able-bodied veteran could be separated from fellow citizens by special interest legislation, but not by reasoning based on economics, common sense and facts.
A piece from the Northumberland (Va.) Echo, titled "Virginia Must Be Boss", finds that now that the state had gone overboard for interposition, the next and logical step ought be secession, inviting some of its neighbors to form a Confederation of Independent States.
North Carolina would have to purge itself of Jonathan Daniels, who had made some unkind allusions to Virginia, and they would have to get some sort of easement regarding Georgia's Herman Talmadge before they asked Georgia to join, and regarding Governor Jim Folsom, should Alabama want to join.
It posits that if they could get all of the states east of the Mississippi through to the Potomac and south to Florida, the latter of which they would not want, they would have a "right tight little island of nonconformists that could defy just about anybody."
Maryland probably would not want to join and they would have to move quickly to grab the eastern shore south of the Delaware line to protect their naval installations at Newport News, as well as put the fear of God into Delaware to remain neutral.
"With earthworks thrown up along the Maryland line, backed by the cannon assembled from the numerous courthouse greens of the South, we could come near defying anybody. And if we were attacked, a million men would spring to arms—we are sure—well, pretty sure—overnight, all armed with squirrel guns and assorted flintlocks that would play hell with Chief Justice Warren and his cohorts."
It adds that if there were any sort of confederation, it wanted a definite understanding that Virginia would provide the government and that the royal family, as they would want a monarchy to "go backward whole hog", would have to be born and raised in Virginia.
Drew Pearson tells of Representative L. H. Fountain of North Carolina quietly investigating a new cheese and butter scandal, with farmers again left holding the bag while food manufacturers had gotten away with thousands of dollars in windfall profits. Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson had increased farm price supports on April 18, two days after the veto by the President of the farm bill which would have restored 90 percent of parity price supports. By that action, the price paid to the cheese manufacturers by the Commodity Credit Corporation was raised by a penny per pound, while butter had been increased by two cents per pound, to aid farmers by making it possible for manufacturers to pay them more money for milk and butterfat. Mr. Benson, however, had made the increased prices retroactive to April 1, making the new support levels applicable to all cheese and butter produced during the first half of April, still in manufacturers' warehouses as of April 18. It was a mystery as to why the Secretary had done that, as not a penny of the retroactive payments to the cheese and butter manufacturers could have possibly benefited farmers who sold milk to a manufacturer prior to April 18, while the manufacturers reaped the retroactive payments as a windfall.
Whether the large butter manufacturers had advance knowledge of the price increase was that which Representative Fountain planned to investigate, suspicious of the fact that for two weeks prior to Mr. Benson's April 18 announcement, butter manufacturers were selling their product to the Commodity Credit Corporation at a very slow rate of only 600,000 pounds per day, and then on April 23, right after the announcement of the price increase, had suddenly dumped butter on the Government at the rate of 4.3 million pounds per day. The two-cent increase was retroactive for all butter produced after April 1 and not sold to the CCC.
The President was not bestowing any official status or personal blessing on the trip of former President Truman as he departed for Europe, based on a series of prior incidents which had led to considerable bitterness on the part of President Eisenhower toward President Truman. The latter would be entertained by U.S. ambassadors abroad and by the Queen of England and other heads of state, but would have no official status.
After the recent tour of Premier Nikolai Bulganin and Communist Party Secretary Nikita Khrushchev through India, Burma and the Middle East, various American ambassadors had urged that a top-level American tour those countries to counter the Soviet trip, and former President Truman's name had been mentioned among the possible envoys. But the suggestion had never gotten beyond the State Department, which knew how Mr. Truman was regarded in the White House. Secretary of State Dulles took the good will trip to India and Pakistan instead, but was not invited to Burma, even though he had sought to obtain such an invitation.
The President resented President Truman after the latter, during the 1952 presidential campaign, had criticized General Eisenhower for being as much to blame as anyone else for the Russian corridor around Berlin, pointing out that General Eisenhower had been his chief military adviser at Potsdam in July, 1945 and had assented to the Berlin agreement and so should not criticize the Democrats for its terms. By the time of President Eisenhower's inauguration on January 20, 1953, when President Truman and President-elect Eisenhower were riding to the Capitol together for the swearing-in ceremony, the first hint of bitterness of the new President had become apparent, as President Truman stood in the White House front hall waiting for the President-elect as the latter had driven up to the front door, not getting out of the car, however, per customary practice to greet the outgoing President. After it became apparent to President Truman that Mr. Eisenhower would not get out of the car, the former went to the car and they drove to the Capitol, observing the basic amenities but nothing else.
In the spring of 1953, when President Truman had returned to Washington for the first time after his Presidency, he was not invited to the White House and he remarked to friends that he had invited former President Hoover to the White House and told him that he wanted him to consider it his second home, had also placed a White House automobile at his disposal. Mr. Hoover and President Truman had become such good friends that the former had asked the Gridiron Club for the privilege of speaking at one of its dinners, where he paid a glowing tribute to President Truman, and had also helped to raise money for the Truman Library in Independence, Mo.
That which had really hurt President Truman was an incident in Kansas City 18 months earlier in which President Eisenhower had arrived to dedicate the new stockmen's building. Mr. Truman had called the President's headquarters at the Muehlebach Hotel to say that he would like to call on the President to pay his respects, explaining that he did not want the President to be in his hometown without paying him the courtesy of a call. An aide to President Eisenhower gave Mr. Truman an inconclusive answer, and after the former President had called a second time, he was told that the schedule of the President was full and that he could not see him.
President Eisenhower had taken little pains recently to hide his feelings toward Mr. Truman, especially bitter at the latter's reference to the President as a "part-time President". He repeated it as a charge by Mr. Truman that he was a "do-nothing President". President Eisenhower had recently told friends that the primary reason he had run for the presidency in 1952 was to keep President Truman from running again and that he hoped the latter would run in 1956 so that he could have the pleasure of giving him the trouncing of his life.
Government sleuths had used the egg-on-the-mouth trick recently to catch a petty thief who had been raiding desks and drawers at the U.S. Information Agency, the detectives having planted a bottle of perfume and a pack of chewing gum on a desk as bait, dusting the chewing gum with an invisible dust which showed brilliantly under ultraviolet light. Soon, the perfume and gum had disappeared and the detectives, armed with the UV lamp, launched their search for the culprit, finding that the mouth of a woman was glowing brightly, conveying the evidence that she had been chewing the stolen gum.
A letter writer from Mount Holly comments on zoning in Mecklenburg County, saying that he had faith in the City Council and believed they would listen to everyone's protest should the zoning law affect them unfairly. He also believed they would adjust and rezone, one way or the other, to suit the particular protester provided there was good reason behind the request for rezoning certain property to suit the owner. He was sure that the government body was honorable and capable and would act fairly in all matters brought before it.
A letter from the campaign chairman for Superior Court Judge Hugh Campbell comments on a letter writer who had heard that campaign posters of Arthur Goodman, Judge Campbell's opponent in the primary election for the judgeship, were being torn down, stating that if it was being done, it was not at the instigation of those supporting Judge Campbell. He says that he favored the voters becoming fully aware of the identities of the two men to show the contrast in their training to become lawyers, the types of cases they had handled in the appellate courts and to contrast their experience as a judge.
A letter writer says that in spring, 1955, all except one of the local attorneys had endorsed and recommended Mr. Campbell for the judgeship on the Superior Court, and that later, Governor Luther Hodges had appointed him. The primary in late May would enable the people to vote to continue him in office. She says that her late husband, who had practiced law in Charlotte for 49 years, had the highest respect and admiration for Judge Campbell's superior legal ability and his fine personal character.
A letter writer indicates that from authentic reports and comments, there was considerable anxiety regarding the enthusiastic religious fervor among the community's high school students, with fear that their intensive emotion might reach the point of fanaticism. He asserts that the progress of the world had been advanced by fanatics in the fields of science, education, industry, politics and religion. Paul and Silas, who had introduced Christianity to Europe, had been described as having "turned the world upside down." Martin Luther had started the Protestant revolutionary movement which had changed the religious face of the world. John Wesley had preached the gospel in the face of the established forms and ceremonies of his day. Galileo had invented the thermometer and the telescope, was imprisoned for his fanatical ideas. William Harvey had discovered the circulation of blood. Thomas Edison had lighted the world with electricity and Henry Ford had provided the mass-produced automobile. Marconi had invented the wireless telegraph and opened the way for radio and television broadcasting. William Jennings Bryan had proclaimed the doctrine of free and unlimited coinage of silver. He regards all of those men as having been fanatics, but finds that life was richer and the world happier as a result. He says that the zealous students in the community who were developing a high degree of emotion were only being human, for without emotion, humans would become a "flabby race of beings, mentally, physically and spiritually."
A letter writer indicates that segregation would be one of the major issues in both local and national politics in 1956, that in 1952, Adlai Stevenson would not have taken his stand on civil rights had it not been for former President Truman. He asserts that Mr. Stevenson was now using his own judgment rather than that of the former President, and that if he were to win the nomination again, the writer believes that he would this time defeat President Eisenhower because of the latter's betrayal of the South, allowing the Supreme Court "to slap the South down and stomp us to a certain extent, which we will never forget." He says that many people across the state believed as he did, that the President alone was responsible for the decisions from the Supreme Court and that the large independent vote he had received from North Carolina in 1952 had been let down. He urges reconsideration on election day. But he says he did not want Senator Estes Kefauver or Governor Averell Harriman, but could support Senator Lyndon Johnson. He urges voters in the primary to go to the polls and vote a "straight segregation ticket."
Well, you really know your politics. That "segregationist" Senator Johnson will not let you down. You go vote for him.
A letter writer says that Christian mothers were the real martyrs of the world, constantly making sacrifices for their children to train them in the fear and the love of God. He finds that there were mothers broken in both body and spirit because of their prodigal children who had forsaken the faith and were living in sin. He thanks God for mothers who had taught that "we are Thy children through the grace of Jesus Christ, Thy Son." He urges that the day be a reminder to the "careless and indifferent mothers who never pray with or teach their children to pray. Amen."
A letter writer from Hamlet indicates that Thomas Jefferson, in August, 1800, had said in part: "The theory of our Constitution is surely the wisest and best: That the States are independent as to every thing within themselves, and united as to every thing respecting foreign nations." He finds it to be the perfect theory of the Constitution, working for the benefit of everyone as long as it was respected and maintained as Mr. Jefferson had interpreted it. "The southern provinces—pardon me, 'states'—should use Mr. Jefferson's theory, in order to see to it that we, the people of the South, keep our states rights under the Constitution of the U.S.A."
A letter writer from Lincolnton writes a note of appreciation for the News carriers, indicating that her son had been carrying the News for about four years, and had enjoyed many wonderful trips and educational opportunities which the newspaper had given their carriers, while making many warm friends by delivering papers to their door every evening. She also wishes to thank the newspaper for friendly and understanding circulation managers to help the carriers, indicates that her son enjoyed his job and joined her in expressing thanks for his trip to Charleston recently as well as for all of the other trips.
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