The Charlotte News
Tuesday, May 8, 1956
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that Republican Congressional leaders had told the President this date, in their weekly meeting at the White House, that they believed Congress would be able to adjourn by July 15, with House Minority Leader Joseph Martin of Massachusetts telling the press after the meeting that there was no question in his mind that the session would end by that time provided there was a real desire on the part of Congress to do so. Senate Minority Leader William Knowland of California agreed with that assessment, and believed that both Democrats and Republicans were so inclined, as both parties would hold their national conventions in August. He said that the legislative review with the President had included three pending major bills, the farm and highway construction measures and the Administration's request for 4.9 billion dollars in foreign aid for the coming fiscal year. Regarding farm legislation, he said that he did not know what the prospects were for the Senate to include a provision to authorize up to a half billion dollars in advance soil bank payments to farmers during the year, as sought by the President after he had vetoed the prior farm bill. The Senator expressed confidence that Congress would complete action before adjournment on highway legislation satisfactory to the Administration.
Five states, Indiana, Ohio, Florida, West Virginia, and New Mexico, held primary elections this date and Maryland had held its primary the previous day, with former Senator Millard Tydings having apparently won narrowly the Democratic primary for the Senate, though a recount was possible because of the 7,700-vote margin. In the presidential race, Senator Estes Kefauver won all 18 Democratic national convention delegate votes, opposed only by an uninstructed delegation, but had won by a narrower margin than he had in the same race in 1952. The President defeated an unpledged Republican slate by a large margin in the Republican primary. Attention was focused on Indiana this date and the relative Democratic to Republican vote there, as Democrats hoped for a substantial farm vote switch from the Republicans.
The Agriculture Department, in a final report on ginnings for the previous year, this date estimated that the 1955 cotton crop was 14,721,000 bales of 500 pounds gross weight each, valued at almost 2.4 billion dollars. The 1954 crop had been 13.7 million bales, with a value of 2.3 billion. Both crops had been grown under rigid production control programs, designed to prevent accumulation of excessive surpluses.
In Durham, N.C., students of the Woman's College of Duke University the previous night had gone on record as believing "in the principles of human equality expressed in the Supreme Court decisions concerning public education," and expressed the belief that those principles ought be incorporated into the admissions policy of all institutions of higher education, public and private, and specifically in the admissions policy of Duke, the resolution having passed by a vote of 465 to 192. It included an affirmation of the "belief in the right of all peoples to equal opportunities for education" and asserted the students' "belief that these opportunities should not be restricted by consideration of race or religion." After the vote, the president of the Duke Woman's Student Government issued a prepared statement in which she stated that the resolution had not been the result of hasty thought or pressure by any organized group, but was the result of earnest thought and prayerful consideration. She said: "We can never hope to ease the existing tensions, to clear up the misunderstanding and misconceptions concerning the problem facing our nation and the South, in particular, if we allow prejudice to determine the course of our action." She expressed the hope that their action would serve as a guide to their generation.
In Athens, Greece, a 21-year old Ohio woman and a Greek fishmonger, who had fallen in love by mail, had come out of hiding this date and said they would marry over the protests of the woman's mother, who had gone to the police, saying that her daughter had disappeared the previous Saturday with the 31-year old man while his parents had prevented the mother from stopping them. The young woman and her fiancé had voluntarily gone to the police station, and she said that she loved her fiancé and that they would be married, and that she had not been kidnaped. Her mother, sitting beside her in a senior police official's office, had told a reporter that her daughter had nothing to say, that she was still against the marriage. Her father said that the marriage would be all right with him as long as the boy was okay. He said that since his daughter was an American citizen, he did not see any reason why her husband could not get into the country and that he would give him a job in his restaurant. The father had come to the U.S. from Sparta, Greece, in 1914 and had settled in Dayton in 1932, shortly afterward marrying. He explained that five months earlier, his nephew had come from Greece and gone to work in Dayton, and that he was married to the sister of the fiancé, who eventually began communicating by mail with his daughter. The daughter and her mother had left for Greece about three weeks earlier, intending to visit her father's relatives and the fiancé. The father said that he thought his wife would eventually accept the marriage, that she had been born in the U.S. and probably did not understand Greek customs and perhaps did not like the family of the fiancé, but that he approved and wanted his daughter and her husband to live in Dayton.
In Taipeh, Formosa, eight bodies had been recovered this date after a gas explosion in a coal mine in which 19 persons had been killed and two critically injured.
Ann Sawyer of The News tells of a "receipt system" agreed upon this date, designed to prevent future discrepancies between records of the Youth Bureau and those of the Juvenile Court Social Work Division. Beginning immediately, the supervisor of the Social Work Division would notify the director of the Youth Bureau in writing of the receipt of every offense report. The plan had been formulated after the Bureau had stated that 93 juvenile repeat offenders had committed 300 offenses, at variance with the total maintained by the Social Work Division, which handled juveniles after they were apprehended by police, finding only 220 offenses attributable to those 93 juveniles. The Bureau had contended that the offense reports had been turned over to the Social Work Division, part of the Welfare Department, but the Department superintendent, Wallace Kuralt, said that if the reports had been received by his Department, they would have been filed.
Harry Shuford of The News indicates that two AWOL Marines this date were sentenced in Federal District Court, after the judge made official note of lack of cooperation from the Marine Corps in dealing with offenders from their ranks. The Corps had refused to cooperate in possible rehabilitation of the two men, both of whom were juveniles, both age 17 and both charged with interstate transportation of a stolen motor vehicle. They were both sentenced to 18 months in prison with a request that they be examined for physical or mental ailments. They would be sent to a Federal detention facility maintained for juveniles. They told the court that they had been in service for only a few weeks. Both had records of having fits or dizzy spells and had been in the hospital at Parris Island, S.C., when they had gone AWOL on April 19. They had been picked up by the North Carolina Highway Patrol the following day near Pineville, with the stolen car. The judge had tried to get the Marine Corps to take the youths back for trial or treatment, but the Marines had indicated that they would only give them dishonorable discharges and then let them go. The judge found that the action was typical of the response in such cases for the previous six or seven years, that the Marines took the attitude that any time any of their men committed a felony, they did so for the purpose of getting out of the service, the judge adding that some of them undoubtedly did so. The judge had hoped that after the recent debacle at Parris Island, involving the drowning of the six Marines after they had been forced by their allegedly drinking sergeant to march into a tidal stream at night adjacent to the base, they might have changed their attitude on the subject, but found that it was apparent they had not.
Emery Wister of The News tells of the sidewalks improvement program of the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce having received a vote of confidence from the Charlotte Merchants Association this date, as its board of directors unanimously approved the project which had as its goal improvement of sidewalks in the midtown area.
A couple of photographs and a brief caption explain how the "bullet-nose" zig-zag median strips worked on Providence Road, in case you were wondering.
In St. Louis, the Weather Bureau and
jet pilots had confirmed that a round object, which had glowed for
about 2.5 hours the previous night at an altitude of about 90,000
feet above the city, had been only a weather balloon. Before that
confirmation, there had been considerable speculation by weather
experts, military men, astronomers, amateur stargazers and "flying
saucer" addicts as to what it was
In Gastonia, N.C., the sheriff and his men had uncovered one of the largest stills in the state recently, and had taken back much of the evidence to the Gaston County Courthouse and stored it behind the jail. But over the weekend, someone had carted off the barrels, the copper tubing, and the rest of the still, such that there was no longer any evidence present.
In Columbia, S.C., the FBI held a seminar for the Columbia Police Department on civil rights, including Constitutional guarantees of freedom of the press, but the press was barred from the closed meeting.
On the editorial page, "A Needle for Rip Van Mecklenburg" finds it obvious that City and County officials had refused to put their heads together in a search for comprehensive common solutions to the crowded governmental facilities, with joint action necessary and urgent.
It finds that the local Bar Association president had exhibited commendable persistence in trying to get both the City and County to act, having appeared the previous day before the County Commissioners urging immediate action in finding additional courthouse facilities at present, warning that otherwise it might be too late.
The piece finds that redevelopment of the whole area around the present City and County governmental buildings was needed, but that it would be foolish to postpone the solution until the General Assembly could get around to passing adequate urban redevelopment legislation, which it had been reluctant to do in the past.
Both the City and County needed more space for operations at present and it finds that the Bar Association had provided a sensible plan for doing so. "Let the needling continue until Rip Van Mecklenburg is aroused."
"Air Power and 'Big Picture' Watchers" comments on the President's statement during his Friday press conference that people should look at the big picture regarding air power and not just concentrate on one area. Defense Secretary Charles E. Wilson appeared also unworried about the words of General Curtis LeMay, head of the Strategic Air Command, who, while testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee, stated that the U.S. was lagging behind the Soviets in production in such vital areas as intercontinental jets and intercontinental missile development, such that the Soviets would likely surpass the U.S. in those departments by between 1958 and 1960.
Secretary Wilson had explained that General LeMay was a dedicated specialist who was too absorbed in his own area to see the big picture of overall air power and that if he could see it, he would not be so grim in his testimony. Mr. Wilson, however, conceded that the Russians were "currently building at a higher rate" than the U.S. and did not dispute the forecast of the General.
General Nathan Twining, Air Force chief of staff, had said that "the Russians either have overtaken us, or can overtake us, in all categories of warplanes except that of the medium jet bomber." Those reservations were shared by Trevor Gardner, the missile expert who had resigned over the concern that the Administration was placing budgetary constraints over defense, General Matthew Ridgway, former Army chief of staff who had resigned regarding the same concerns, and General Burgess, deputy intelligence chief of the Continental Air Defense Command, who had said the previous May that the Russian Air Force was as good or better than that of the U.S.
Nevertheless, the President was urging people to look at the big picture and be reassured. The citizenry believed that the President was confident and that he would provide, and so chose to look at the big picture, a normal attitude after the previous decade of repeated crises. Campaign strategists were beginning to suggest that the peaceful years would begin as soon as the President and his team were re-elected.
It finds that as lullabies went, it could not be surpassed, as the citizen had to "let Ike watch the big picture", as the picture was far too big and complex for average citizens, reporters or editorial writers to judge.
But it indicates that they could wonder and question and take campaign talk with a grain of salt, wondering if the Administration was wise in knowingly permitting the U.S. to fall behind the Russians in any category of air power, and wondering whether the worried generals were wrong, while remembering that in the atomic era, preparedness in all things was vital. "All may be well in the big picture, but questions are in order."
"Seven, We Suppose" expresses envy for a young girl in the second grade at the North Carolina Orthopedic Hospital School in Gastonia, approximately seven years old. She had been interviewed regarding her ambition in Cheerful Children, saying that she wanted to be a movie star when she grew up, would not get married and would live in Union Grove and go to Hollywood where she would stay for six months.
It indicates that the odds were that she would not become a movie star, would get married and would not go to Hollywood, not even for six months. But assuming she was seven, the odds did not count and that was what the piece envies. "Imagine! Being a movie star and living in Union Grove, all but six short months needed to bring Hollywood to its knees."
"Automation Comes to the Battlefield" begins with a quote from the late Ernie Pyle in Here Is Your War: "Every line and sag of their bodies speaks their inhuman exhaustion… The men dig in on the back slope of the hill before any rest begins. Everybody digs in. It is an inviolate rule of the commanding officers, and nobody wants to disobey it. Every time you pause, even if you think you're dying of weariness, you dig yourself a hole before you sit down."
The piece indicates that any veteran of the "late hate" would say that the foxhole added the final "satanic touch" to the hell of war, that the foxhole was both the soldier's sorrow and salvation, purchased with blistered hands and an aching back for the sake of saving his life.
It wonders what was in store for the
New Army, perhaps a rocket-propelled foxhole digger. The House
Appropriations Committee had set out the details of such a new secret
weapon recently, which would weigh 3 to 4 pounds and operate on the
principle of a bazooka, consisting of a cardboard tube to be placed
upright on the ground, into which a rocket would be inserted and
fired into the ground, producing a foxhole. It finds it the greatest
invention since the mess kit but indicates it did not intend to
reenlist until it came equipped with flyswatters, pinups, hot and
cold running lemonade and form-fitting pillows. It assures that
there was no such thing anyway as a labor-saving device in the Army,
because as soon as one of the diggers would be issued, a sergeant
A piece of from the Providence Evening Bulletin, titled "A Captain Way out on a Yardarm", tells of Capt. Alan Villiers having gotten himself into a pickle by rescinding his offer to include women in his crossing of the Atlantic on a replica of the Mayflower in commemoration of the original voyage in 1620. Originally he had said that he would take along "controlled and disciplined" women, for which 300 had applied. But he had changed his mind on the basis that he did not want to "inflict" women on the crossing party, an explanation which the piece indicates was bound to get him in trouble with women.
The captain, to familiarize himself with the conditions of the crossing in 1620, had recently made a trip to the Indian Ocean for a trial run with the Moldavian Islanders, whose ships were modeled after the old Portuguese galleons and had passenger accommodations approximating those of the Mayflower. The three days he had spent with them turned out to be a rugged experience, described by the captain as "damnation grim", which he believed would have been a lot grimmer had there been women aboard.
The piece indicates disappointment in the captain as it could not understand how a perceptive and colorful writer could afford to pass up a chance to see how modern women reacted to such a primitive crossing endured by the 40 original Pilgrim women. It suggests that he might be all wrong about modern women, as the emergencies of war and disaster usually found them able to take things in stride and posits that such women might make a better Mayflower crossing than the captain.
Drew Pearson discusses again Murray Chotiner, who had been Vice-President Nixon's campaign manager in 1952 and had come up with the idea of the Checkers speech to save his place on the ticket, finds the issue in the matter quite simple by comparing it to the situation in 1933, shortly after FDR had taken office when several important Democrats who had helped elect him came to Washington and set up law offices, with their position of influence helping their practices. President Roosevelt had then announced that if they were to practice law, they would have to resign from the DNC. Mr. Pearson says that he had been present at FDR's press conference when he made the statement and recalled that some of the Democrats who had helped him win in 1932 had not liked it. O. Max Gardner, the Democratic committeeman from North Carolina, said that the President was quite right and resigned immediately. But Arthur Mullen of Nebraska had complained directly to the President before he resigned. Others who resigned were Robert Jackson of New Hampshire and Bruce Kramer of Montana.
Another comparison was when James Hunt used an autographed photo given him by President Truman and started using the latter's name when, in fact, the President had nothing to do with him. That was the first five-percenter case involving charging people a fee, typically 5 percent of a contract, to wield influence with the White House. The same Senate committee which had treated Mr. Chotiner so gently had been ruthless in probing Mr. Hunt. That same committee had also been tough with General Harry Vaughan, President Truman's military aide, for making phone calls from the White House on behalf of John Maragon and his friends, just as Mr. Chotiner had done for Charles Willis and Max Rabb. But the committee did not press Mr. Chotiner for the names of his clients for whom the phone calls had been made.
Mr. Pearson points out that his column was the first to expose General Vaughan's and Mr. Maragon's influence operations and that he had personally testified before the Senate committee, the primary reason he had been called various names by the White House.
A third comparison was that Mr. Chotiner was just as much a part of the RNC as FDR's friends were of the DNC when he had forced them to resign from the committee. Mr. Pearson had the record of Mr. Chotiner's expenses paid him by the RNC between June 1, 1954 and January 23, 1956, showing that he had received more than $5,000, largely for telephone calls, with his heaviest expenses having been incurred during the 1954 Congressional campaign, lost by the Republicans both in the House and the Senate. He had been responsible for the anonymous telephone technique which had been used in 1950 against Congresswoman Helen Gahagan Douglas during Mr. Nixon's Senate campaign and in 1946 when Mr. Nixon had defeated Congressman Jerry Voorhis. The technique was to get female volunteers or paid operators to call up voters and announce something like: "Did you know that Mrs. Douglas had strong Communist sympathies? I thought it was my duty to tell you."
It very much reminds of the same sort of technique today used by Fox "News", except they only broadcast their routine prevarications for millions of bucks, not bothering to phone their gullible viewers with whom they would not deign to break bread or even sip tea, even if most of their viewers would be sipping quite a bit stronger potations while being inundated by the lies and propaganda, confirming what they deeply believe, derived from the bottom of the bottle "Made in U.S.A."
Marquis Childs tells of the world image of the President being that of a peace-maker, particularly true in Europe and Asia, with the image to be enhanced during the summer in scheduled conferences with President Soekarno of Indonesia and Prime Minister Nehru of India.
The Republicans would promote that image of the President during the election year, and the fact of peace, together with the intimation that a second term would enable the President to reach a settlement with the Communists which the West could accept, was likely to be the major claim for the Republican Administration to remain in power.
Politics aside, the position established by the President the previous summer at the Big Four summit conference in Geneva had left an indelible mark on opinion everywhere, including that of those who made up the collective dictatorship in Russia. He had succeeded in convincing neutralist and wavering nations not only that the U.S. was not a warmonger but that it meant to work hard to ease tensions preparatory to a peace settlement.
Such claims, however, made some Republicans nervous, fearful of "appeasement", a label which had been freely applied to Democrats in their conduct of foreign policy.
Mr. Childs indicates that within the Kremlin, the 11 men who made up the Supreme Presidium would likely choose the President for re-election if they had a choice. They associated the Democrats with former President Truman, the Korean War and the threat of a preventive war, and so furthered that identification with Senator Stuart Symington, Governor Averell Harriman and other prominent Democrats.
Premier Nikolai Bulganin and Communist Party Secretary Nikita Khrushchev had demonstrated once again during their visit to Britain recently that the Soviets believed they could get along with the right but were bound to quarrel with the left. At a dinner given by the British Labor Party leaders, Mr. Khrushchev had clashed violently with party leader Hugh Gaitskell, who called on the Communists to release Social Democrats imprisoned in Eastern Europe. Mr. Gaitskell would be coming to America soon to address the convention of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union in Atlantic City and was likely to say things about Communist relations with the West.
The Republican right was developing a line regarding Russia, indicating that a revolt was simmering there beneath the surface, enabling the West simply to wait for nature to take its course and thereby avoid the risk of "appeasement" in moving toward a settlement. Mr. Childs suggests that so much which happened behind the Iron Curtain was shrouded in mystery that the theory could be correct, but that those with the most immediate knowledge of the situation considered it to be dangerous nonsense because it encouraged a mood in the U.S. of relaxation, encouraged by the present boom economy, tending to undermine the strength which the country had to maintain were the West to stand up to the challenge of Communism in peace or war.
As example, the armed services were finding it increasingly difficult to maintain standards, for competition with peacetime employment of skilled technicians. Secretary of State Dulles had to take part of the responsibility for the growing complacency, as in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee the prior February, he had said that the U.S. had grown stronger and Soviet Russia weaker, the evidence being the Soviet "imitation" of American methods of economic aid to foreign nations.
But that view did not accord with that of the diplomats who had knowledge at least equal to that of the Secretary. They believed that the collective dictatorship's policy of abandoning the disastrous Stalin policies and then proceeding to destroy Stalin's reputation was a sign of strength rather than weakness, believing that the dictatorship was functioning effectively, developing and building the most modern new weapons while at the same time proceeding with its new campaign of peace and economic cooperation. It could be a front which concealed internal weaknesses, but to make that assumption was dangerous wishful thinking which the West could not afford. "In competing with communism, whether in war or in peace, nothing is more risky than to try to have your cake and eat it, too."
A letter from a minister expresses disturbance at the potential restrictions to be placed on the Bible study activities at Myers Park High School, suggests that the zealous young Christians there be afforded the same courtesy by their elders and their young peers which had been recently expressed by the president of Princeton University, justifying "silly doings" on that campus by saying that the young had to be allowed to find themselves even though they might make mistakes in the process. He urges not panicking into foolish fear, requiring closing of the Bible classes. He indicates that the New Testament had told of a wise Jew advising his compatriots, who were wrought about young Christian zealots, that they should remember that if the thing came from God, they could not stop it, and if it did not come from God, they need not worry because it would stop itself in due course.
A letter writer comments on the same issue, says that concern ought be felt for there was a crying need that "'all should come to the knowledge of Jesus Christ.'" She thanks God that the Holy Spirit was working in the hearts of the young people and prays that "'the fire shall not be quenched.'" She says that bad things had been happening in the schools and yet there was no hue and cry to do something about it, and that now that the most important thing for a human soul was being done, concern was being expressed about it. She urges that the parents become Christian and stop doing the things they did, setting a Christian example in the home such that it would not be necessary for someone else to try and do for the children what ought be done for them in the home and in their everyday lives. She believes that the reason for juvenile delinquency was the lack of God in the hearts of the parents.
A letter writer from Bennettsville,
S.C., who withholds her name, identifies herself as a white woman
born on a Southern plantation, indicating that blacks had been very
much a part of her life and that her life would not have been half so
good without them, sharing her joys and sorrows. But mixing had been
as unthinkable to them as it was to her, their individuality meaning
as much to them as her own. She finds they had a "gift straight
from God, the gift of true happiness", which, along with their
individuality, was being destroyed by "agitators", whom she
asks whether they really knew blacks as individuals. She asks whether
they had ever lived on a farm and awakened to the sound of a field of
blacks singing in complete harmony as the sun was rising, and
listened at the end of the day to the complete happiness and
contentment which rose in laughter and song as the day ended. "My
spirits soared with them. Alas, all that is ended. Why?" She
asks whether the reader had ever attended a service in one of the
black churches, asks why so many blacks had remained with the
Southern way of life, answers that it was because they knew that life
was good in the region, that some had left the farm and gone to the
North only to be begging soon for money to get back home. The reason
why was that when they were hungry, Southerners had fed them, that if
they were cold, they were given fuel to burn and warm clothing, that
if they were sick, they sent out for a doctor. Now, women were not
safe in their homes, while in earlier times, she could ride ten miles
to town in a buggy with a black man off the farm and know that he
would protect her with his life. "What has happened? People of
all colors are losing their individuality." She says that her
baby brother, who was now a man, had been reared by a black man,
given as much care and protection from danger as he would have
received were he in the care of a white woman. Her mother had been
unable to care for him as she was sick, but he never suffered from
having a black protector, whom her brother idolized and still did.
One night, they had been awakened by screams from a tenant house and
her father had gone to investigate, finding that three black children
had been left alone and a snake had gotten in the house with them.
Her father had killed the snake, picked up one "pickininny"
in one hand and another in the other arm, while a third swung from
his pants leg so that he could hardly walk, and brought them home
where he and her mother had fed them warm milk, made them a bed and
sat by them until they went to sleep. She says that was just a sample
of why "the Negro loves the South and loved life and laughter too
until he was made confused just as the white people are confused.
Yes, that is it. There are those so confused as to be envious of the
South with its feelings for fellowman; white or black. Most of all we
want for each other, individuality. Why not give back the Negro his
song
Why don't we just turn back the clock to about 1860, to when everybody on the plantation was happy-happy and hi-yeeing? Ooooo, just gives ye goosebumps, don't it?
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