The Charlotte News
Wednesday, May 23, 1956
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the President had said this date at his press conference that he would be frightened if, in the present times, there were not good, strong arguments among the country's armed services, stating, however, that all differences ought be studied in the spirit of an honest search for the truth and not with any purpose of seeing whether an interservice rivalry could be promoted. Many of the questions at the conference had dealt with the rivalry among the services which had come to light during the previous weekend, about which Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson had stated the previous day that the President was unhappy. The President said as commander in chief as well as in the role of President, that no important matter dealing with the armed services arose which did not concern him. But he said it was necessary to get the matter in proper perspective, that in the current times of new weapons, there was constant change and fluidity, and military doctrines which had been sacrosanct in the past were now being deserted, and if there were not good, strong arguments among the services, he would be frightened. He emphasized that the strength of the country was not found alone in bombs or guided missiles, but was a combination of many things, such as balancing the budget.
Air Force chief of staff Nathan Twining, in a speech prepared this date for the Civil Air Patrol's national board, underlined the "deterrent effect of our long-range striking power" and said that he believed chances were "slight" for an attack on the U.S., but that the Russian Air Force's long-range attack fleet was "becoming an increasing menace" and "regardless of how strong our deterrent force, we can never be sure that a potential enemy will not attack." He made no mention of the interservice rivalry issue.
In Milwaukee, a dredge being towed in darkness early this date to a haven off gale-whipped Lake Michigan had snapped its towline and sunk in less than a minute, drowning seven of the 18 men aboard. One of the survivors said that the last thing he had seen was the dredge bottom-up and sinking. The captain of the towing tug told the Coast Guard that the boom had snapped and the dredge had begun to pitch. A search was ongoing for one missing man, presumed lost.
In Jamestown, N.Y., an armed jail escapee, accused of killing a fellow fugitive, had been captured just prior to noon this date by police swarming a rural farm and woodland area southwest of the town, finding the escapee asleep in a clump of evergreens about 100 yards behind a farmhouse. He had been sought since Monday night, was ragged, barefoot and exhausted. A police officer prodded him awake with the barrel of his rifle and he surrendered two revolvers meekly, offering no resistance.
Charles Kuralt of The News, in Cramerton, N.C., tells of the Southern Railway's main southbound track being reopened during the afternoon, 18 hours following a violent, unexplained crash scattering 45 freight cars like toys along the main streets of the town. A tanker car filled with creosote had smashed into a house beside the tracks and the 64-year old female resident had leaped through her open kitchen window seconds before the tanker smashed the kitchen to bits. She was treated for shock at the hospital and released. No one had been injured in the derailment but several people had narrowly escaped as the train crashed down a high embankment and piled up three cars deep in twisted stacks of wood and steel. A spokesman for Southern said that it would be 24 hours before the northbound tracks could be reopened.
Dick Young of The News reports that Charlotte's zoning system was threatened with collapse unless there was a change in the city's policy of enforcement, according to City Manager Henry Yancey in a statement to members of the City Council this date.
In a survey which indicated that the candidates had not yet scratched the voting surface in Charlotte, Judge Hugh Campbell was shown to hold a solid 2 to 1 edge over opponent Arthur Goodman in the Superior Court judgeship race. The telephone poll was conducted by The News the previous night by reporters of the newspaper having called the first and last residential listing on each page of the telephone directories in the area to comprise the poll's 379 respondents. Incumbent Mayor Philip Van Every was shown by the poll to be leading his opponent, Lonnie Sides.
Julian Scheer of The News again addresses the write-in campaign for Ed O'Herron for the State House, after he had indicated his decision not to run again, covered in the below editorial. But Mr. Scheer advises voters not to write in his name as write-in votes were not allowed in primaries. Mr. O'Herron said that he had decided not to run for personal reasons and that those reasons still stood.
On the editorial page, "Ed O'Herron: The Record Is Written", apparently written before the Scheer report, finds that the prospect of a write-in drive to send State Representative Edward O'Herron back to the House would be an asset to the community, as the primary was weaker for his decision not to run again. It finds that the public would benefit from the opportunity to cast meaningful votes for him in the general election. Of the six candidates on the primary ballot, three had previously served in Raleigh, James Vogler, Jack Love and Ernest Hicks.
Mr. O'Herron had shown in the three sessions in which he had served to be one of the most respected urbanites in an essentially rural Legislature, an expert on the state's fiscal affairs and a representative of skill and devotion to his duties.
The write-in campaign was apparently up to Mr. O'Herron, but it indicates that his record was written and justified enthusiasm for the possibility that his services might again be available to the public.
"An Entry for Charlotte's 'Future' Book" comments on the previous day's dedication of the Charlotte Ordnance Missile Plant, driving home the point that Charlotte and North Carolina could be proud of their efforts in contributing to the nation's defense. Governor Luther Hodges had said that Charlotte was an excellent location, one of the key distribution centers of the South, a center of great economic progress and growth, predicting that Douglas Aircraft would flourish in the city, with the wholehearted support of the city and state.
It agrees and indicates it could not help but long for a day when the Nike missile would be obsolete because war would be obsolete and the economy would be fattened by plowshares instead of swords, "a wistful dream perhaps—and distant—but one that is in the public interest."
"Brawling Eager Beavers Need Restraint" comments on Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson's effort to put the Defense Department in order, finding that if he could not, then Congress could and would, as the squabble between the services had reached a high pitch, such that the "eager beavers" ought be restrained.
It opines that honest differences of opinion and reasonable competition between the services should not be condemned, but when the differences in competition spawned unfair attacks on the various branches and words impugning the good faith of military leaders, it had reached a point where it had to be stopped. The struggle had been ongoing for more than a decade, reaching back to the end of World War II and the merger of the armed forces into a unified defense command in 1947. The in-fighting had been so bitter at that time that the late Secretary of the Navy James Forrestall had pleaded for intervention by President Truman to avoid irreparable harm to the services.
It finds that the same warning was valid at present, and that the interservice brawling was out of order, dangerous and should not be tolerated by the people or Congress indefinitely.
"Amateur Athletics: The Money Score" indicates that one of the worst things about living in America, according to British writer Wilfred Sheed, was the necessity to explain football to a visiting compatriot, that whatever one told him, it merely confirmed his worst suspicions about America, that it was "young, vital, crude, frightfully scientific", not a bit like the British, and, "of course, money, money, money, wherever you look!"
It finds the judgment exaggerated but with enough truth in it to make Americans feel somewhat queasy about the financial aspects of football. It finds it did no good to attempt to justify it because it offered free education to poor, muscular boys, when college football's dirty linen was so plainly visible and unforgivable.
A husky UCLA senior had said during the week that illegal rewards to athletes were common practice in the Pacific Coast Conference, and that at USC, they held swimming parties where if an athlete dove in the pool and came up with a dime, he got a new suit of clothes as a prize.
It finds that the sickness affecting
amateur athletics in the country was not confined to colleges, that
there were illegal, under-the-counter handouts in tennis, golf and
track, that the previous week, Justice Walter Lynch of the New York
State Supreme Court had upheld the lifetime Amateur Athletic Union
suspension of Wes Santee
It finds that the judge's observation that there might be some good to come of the matter provided some level of hope, but that the athletic atmosphere would not be purified in the country until many more Americans shared his indignation about corruption of amateur athletics.
A piece from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, titled "The 250-Pound Question", tells of a 250-pound man of Detroit having been on a diet to lose weight until the recent tornado, at which time his garage had been blown away while he had remained, attributing his gravitational resistance to his weight, thus changing his mind about dieting.
It suggests that the man had overlooked one point, that the next time, his problem might not be staying put in a windstorm and wonders what his attitude would be if his mishap would be falling out of a boat.
Drew Pearson tells of Congressman Graham Barden of North Carolina, who had wielded power, both good and bad, over the schools, libraries and labor laws of the country, coming up for primary re-election during the current week. As chairman of the Labor and Education Committee, he was able to block the minimum wage bill for months the prior year by simply not calling meetings of the Committee. Yet, some of the most constructive legislation helping people bore his name, as the LaFollette-Barden Act for the rehabilitation of the blind, the George-Barden Act for vocational training in high schools, and, recently, the Library Service Act, which would provide 27 million rural Americans books now available only to urban dwellers from public libraries.
Mr. Barden, at one time, had been a booster for aid to education and the most aggressive defender in the House of the TVA, but now was hanging back on school construction aid and had completely reversed himself on public power. He had become so crusty and irreconcilable on the latter issue that he had paid $1,200 out of his own pocket to construct a power line to his new home on the edge of New Bern so that he would not have to obtain electricity from city-operated public power, something the residents of the town did not like. Thus, for the first time in years, he was facing real opposition in the primary in James Simpkins, Jaycee man of the year, whose Jaycee vehicle safety check program had won national awards from the National Safety Council and from Look Magazine.
Mr. Pearson notes that Mr. Barden would probably win the primary, but the competition was such that he had sent two members of his staff on the Committee back to New Bern to work on his political campaign.
The DNC, harassed by a threadbare treasury and bleak chances in November, had deliberately thrown a monkey wrench into its own machinery, as Neil Roach, supposed to arrange the national convention, had just resigned in a personal row with chairman Paul Butler. It could result in a reshuffling of the DNC, and possibly even the exit of Mr. Butler. The situation was so serious that former President Truman had sent a cable from Europe protesting the resignation of Mr. Roach. Leslie Biffle, another party stalwart, was also mad at Mr. Butler for letting Mr. Roach resign, while Col. Jack Arvey, leader of the Democratic forces in Chicago, locus of the convention, was angry at Mr. Butler for various reasons. The row had erupted over Mr. Roach's secretary, whom Mr. Butler wanted to go to work for Mr. Roach while Mr. Roach had refused to work with her. The latter said that convention planning was a back-breaking job requiring personnel familiar with the Democratic Party and that he could not do the job with a secretary hired in Chicago who did not know the score. But Mr. Butler had said he must.
Now, Mr. Butler had to find a new person to organize the convention, set to open in mid-August.
The Congressional Quarterly tells of Washington politicians and bureaucrats working themselves into an election year lather regarding the question of the status of business in the country, without too much disagreement that the economy was in good shape generally, but with considerable disagreement regarding the state of small business.
Congressman Wright Patman, chairman of the House Small Business Committee, had said that the situation was bad and would become worse under the current Administration, as "the bigger get bigger and the small go out of business." Wendell Barnes, the Administration's small business expert, said that anyone who took the view that there was a crisis which was desperate was going to convince listeners among the small business audience, but that the economy was in a boom and that small business had shared in the prosperity.
Whether it was boom or gloom depended on pre-election partisanship, in part because people in Washington did not know for sure the status of small business. There were about four million small businesses in the country, comprising about 90 percent of all U.S. businesses, and there was no standard yardstick by which growth or decline of them was measured. The number of businesses had been increasing more slowly during the previous three years than in the previous six. In 1954, there was a net loss of 15,000 firms, and in 1955, a gain of 28,300. There was presently one business for every 39 residents, whereas during the previous 25 years, the average had been one for every 41 persons. The rate of business failures had risen from 14 per 10,000 firms in 1947 to 42 per 10,000 the previous year. Thus far in 1956, the rate had been 45 per 10,000. For the whole of the 20th Century, the average rate had been 70 per 10,000, all based on a private firm's study of about two-thirds of the nation's businesses.
There were fewer figures regarding sales and earnings, with facts available on manufacturing corporations, which comprised only about three percent of all businesses. Small manufacturers, those with assets under a million dollars, had seen their total net sales decline each year since 1947, from a high of 18.9 percent to the previous year's 13 percent, selling more in 1955 than 1954, while their share of market declined and earnings after taxes had been higher in 1955 than the previous year. In defense contracts, small business contracts increased between 1954 and 1955, but its share of total defense contracts diminished.
In interpreting the figures, the Senate Small Business Committee stated in its 1956 annual report that there was an ominous significance in an economic atmosphere which made it possible for the nation's large corporations to reap record profits while the general run-of-the-mill businesses had been worse off than three years earlier.
Mr. Barnes, head of the Small Business Administration, however, said that small businesses were worse off than they had been in 1947, 1948 or during the Korean War, but were in better shape than they had been in 1952 or 1953, that there was still a large gap between large and small firms but the hope was that the gap could be narrowed and continued on an upward trend.
The SBA had been created by Congress in 1953 to "aid, counsel, assist and protect the interests of small businesses". It succeeded the Small Defense Plants Administration and the scandal-plagued Reconstruction Finance Corporation. The SBA made loans to businesses, directly or in cooperation with banks, when private financing was unavailable. It loaned money at low interest rates to victims of natural disasters. It helped small business obtain Government contracts and scarce materials, advised them on technical and financial problems, and to date, had approved more than 47 million dollars worth of disaster loans and 135 million in business loans. Demand for its services had increased so much that it had run out of loan money the prior April 11 and been forced in consequence to discontinue all except its emergency activities until the previous week, when Congress had voted an additional 20 million dollars for use through the end of the fiscal year. SBA operated under an order from Congress that "all loans made shall be of such sound value or so secured as reasonably to assure repayment." Mr. Barnes said that delinquencies and losses had been held to a low level at $500,000, and probably considerably lower than that.
There was dispute about the way SBA had interpreted the Congressional directive, with its last report having said that it applied the most liberal interpretation of the policies and requirements possible, consistent with sound credit principles. But the Senate Small Business Committee the prior January had said that while SBA was designed to protect the interests of the public in assessing loan applications, it was also expected to be courageous enough to make loans which private institutions had declined.
Mr. Barnes said that the SBA loan policies were not a partisan question. But Representative Patman said that the SBA was "an absolute disgrace" and that Congress ought abolish it and create an agency which would help small business. Democrats were making plans to carry that issue to the public, with a small business advisory committee headed by Mr. Patman and Senator John Sparkman of Alabama spearheading the campaign.
Meanwhile, Mr. Barnes had said that he would be available for speeches defending the Administration's record on small business.
The piece concludes that the upcoming general elections would finally tell how the public thought small business was doing.
A letter writer from Cheraw, S.C., thanks those who had participated in the effort to bring a hospital to Chesterfield County. He says that he visited the sick often and noted the suffering in the homes and hospitals of other counties and cities, and yet there were those who claimed they had done all they could to oppose the proposed hospital. He thanks the hospital board and especially the county senator for their untiring efforts on the project.
A letter writer indicates that the world was full of sorrow and disappointments but there was one who cared and that a person would never be lonely if he or she had God as a friend. She relates that a preacher had preached a good sermon one night, asking all who were ready to go to heaven to stand up, at which point only one man had stood up. She finds that many church members at present would be unprepared to go if God should call and yet everyone had plenty of time to prepare.
A letter writer, after reading the May 15 reprint in the newspaper of an editorial from the Birmingham News, titled "Who's Got That Equator?" had sent to them a letter, which he encloses, indicating that having lived for the major part of five years in one of the two major cities through which it said the equator passed, Singapore, he understood what had happened to the missing half-mile, and that it had occurred since May, 1951, when he returned to the U.S. He suggests that the residents of Singapore had furtively pulled the equator from roughly two degrees southward up to their city and the effect had been felt around the world, snipping off a half-mile of slack equator. He says that now that the mystery was solved, his real concern was for the unfortunate cartographers who had to swing the equator up through Singapore, evidently even further north than the mapmakers had realized, such that it was now in Malaya.
A letter writer from Atlanta expresses surprise to read an Associated Press chronology of developments following the Brown v. Board of Education decision of 1954, as stated in the News on its second anniversary on May 17, as he found it a slam on the South, thinks that the newspaper should not print such items which were "twisted around to suit the writer, and do not give the true facts." He believes that the Southern states were in the right on segregation, that it was a state matter and that this Supreme Court had no right to make any decision on the issue, that it would be "a cold day in Hell before the Supreme Court can do anything about our not desegregating our schools or mixing the races otherwise in Georgia." He believes that whoever had written the AP articles did not have guts enough to put their name on them.
A letter writer, president of the Junior League of Charlotte, indicates that the board of directors wanted to express appreciation to the newspaper for coverage of their activities, having aided them in their efforts to serve the community.
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