The Charlotte News
Tuesday, June 12, 1956
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the President this date had signed three routine documents and White House press secretary James Hagerty had said that he was "feeling fine" on the fourth day following his surgery for ileitis, it having been the first time he had signed any official papers since the emergency surgery in the wee hours of Saturday morning. He held what amounted to a regular staff meeting, lasting about 15 minutes.
Administration civilian and military leaders urged Senate Republican and Democratic leaders this date to restore at least 600 million of the 1.1 billion dollars taken out of the proposed foreign aid bill by the House. At a White House conference with Senate leaders, Secretary of State Dulles and Joint Chiefs chairman Admiral Arthur Radford had told them that "great injury" would be done if the money were not restored to the 3.8 billion authorization measure which had been passed by the House the previous day. Through chief of staff Sherman Adams, the President had made an oral plea for the full 4.9 billion which he had originally sought. Mr. Adams had presided at the conference with the Senators.
Secretary of State Dulles said at a press conference this date that there were encouraging developments in Soviet behavior, but that it was hard to judge yet whether the Russian regime would become more responsible to the people or revert to the "evils" of Stalinism. He said that he hoped that Communist Party Secretary Nikita Khrushchev's revelations in his speech attacking Stalin would mark the beginning of a change away from the system of dictatorship, but feared it may not be the purpose, that instead it might have been intended to try to persuade the subject people that the present dictatorship was good because it condemned the past dictatorship. The Secretary also said, in response to questions, that the present regime was giving Soviet workers greater freedom to choose their jobs, saying that he had talked over the subject two weeks earlier with George Meany, president of the AFL-CIO, and that Mr. Meany had indicated that there were favorable developments on that point, which Mr. Dulles said indicated a growing demand in the Soviet Union for a government more responsive to the legitimate desires of those governed. He also said that there was no difference between his and the President's views on U.S. policy toward neutrality, but declined to explain how they were the same or to detail his discussions with the President on the subject. The previous week, the President at his press conference had made comments widely interpreted as a defense of the rights of some neutral nations, but later, the White House had issued a clarifying statement and Mr. Dulles had asserted the previous week that neutrality outside of "exceptional circumstances" was "immoral".
Before HUAC this date, singer-actor Paul
Robeson had appeared pursuant to subpoena and asserted, for the most
part, the Fifth Amendment regarding questions as to whether he was a
member of the Communist Party and whether he knew certain individuals
who had been previously named to the Committee as Communists. After
repeatedly contesting with members of the Committee on their rights
to probe him for Communist affiliation, in their investigation of use
of passports to spread Communist propaganda abroad, though being more open about his statements made during travels abroad, the chairman of
the Committee, Francis Walter of Pennsylvania, banged the gavel in
the midst of an expostulation by Mr. Robeson, and declared the
hearing adjourned, after which he reconvened for the sake of a
unanimous vote to recommend that Mr. Robeson be cited for contempt of
Congress. The matter would next go to the full House for a vote. Mr.
Robeson told a reporter that there had been no contempt, that he had
answered every question and was just standing his ground. His
counsel, Milton H. Friedman, said that the whole matter was absurd
and that Congress would not vote for the contempt citation. In a
prepared statement for the hearing, which he was never allowed to read or even to submit unread at the end for the record, Mr. Robeson had said that his
fight for a passport was a "struggle for freedom
In Southport, Ind., a gunman wearing a stocking mask had kidnaped a bank president and his wife from their home early this date and had held them in the bank at gunpoint for almost six hours, before escaping with about $65,000 after the time lock had permitted opening of the vault. Six female employees who had reported for work during the course of the wait had been lined up together along one side of the bank by the robber, waving a revolver. He had escaped in a 1956 black Oldsmobile, was described as being between 30 and 35, 5 feet, 11 inches tall and weighing about 155 pounds, wearing a brown coat over a black and white sport shirt. State police had dispatched planes to look for the getaway car and all State police posts were alerted in central Indiana. The bank manager said that apparently the robber had broken into his home, that the first he was aware of his presence was when he was confronted with a flashlight shining in his face. The robber had not appeared nervous and was soft-spoken.
In Norman, Okla., a high school girl, 14, had broken into 18 banks to help finance a trip to Europe during the summer, but the banks were only her piggy banks, containing change she had saved during the previous 12 years. She and her mother would soon depart for a tour of Europe.
Putting the latter two stories together, incidentally, might produce Dick and Perry.
In Nags Head, N.C., Governor Luther Hodges, addressing the State Postmasters Association, stated this date that the almost unbelievable growth of the nation had brought corresponding demands for increased governmental services and mounting financial deficits each year, reviewing some of the problems caused by an increasingly complex society. He said he was very concerned about the low per capita income in the state, and also indicated that the small farmers needed help, assistance and advice, that there needed to be small local industries, expanded native industries or new industries to supplement farm income and to permit them to remain on their land and yet benefit from an industrial payroll. He also said that they were concerned about the problems raised by Brown v. Board of Education concerning segregation in the public schools, that aside from the segregation issue, public education was taking an increasing amount of tax dollars to operate amid the constant increase of the student population. He also indicated that the state was striving valiantly to recover from tremendous damage suffered from four hurricanes since October, 1954. In addition, the state was faced with building new roads, government reorganization, water, highway safety and other such problems.
In Charlotte, County Police chief Joe Whitley this date called for the Legislature to enact a new "night speed law" to reduce the rising toll of traffic accidents which took place after dark. Such a collision on Wilkinson Boulevard had occurred on Saturday, injuring five persons, two seriously. He said that in the Southeast, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky and Tennessee had all implemented lower night speed limits. He recommended lowering the speed limit at night by 5 to 10 mph. In March, five persons had been killed in nighttime accidents and 11 of the 17 fatalities occurring in the county during the year had occurred at night, seven of the 11 fatalities resulting from loss of control of the vehicle at high speed and running off the road.
A report indicates that Charlotte might be heading into another summer season as scorching as that of 1954, when the city had experienced 73 days of temperatures at or exceeding 90 degrees, that this date marked the fifth straight day of 90-plus temperature readings, with the same predicted for the following day. At noon this date, the mercury had risen to 91 and the previous day a high of 96 had been recorded. The City Water Department recorded 25,061,000 gallons of water pumped, the highest amount recorded since June 30, 1954 when 27,838,000 had been pumped. The previous year, there had only been eight days in June with temperatures of 90 or higher, 25 in July and 21 in August, without any 100-degree days, which had occurred seven times in July and August, 1954, and once in June, at 103.
On the editorial page, "The Price of Indifference Is Tragedy" indicates that Catawba Lake was deep and deadly, no place for showoffs, drunks or poor swimmers, but that the hazards of the lake had been met only with official complacency and public indifference.
The prior Sunday, two residents of Charlotte had drowned in separate accidents and a third had narrowly escaped death. Unless an organized effort were made to compel respect for the dangers, it was likely that the drownings would continue. It counsels that the first step ought be to organize an effective river patrol. There were technical problems with enforcement of laws because the lake stretched over more than one county and even into South Carolina, but those problems could be overcome with political ingenuity and undoubtedly were worth the effort. It urges that the Mecklenburg County Board of Commissioners ought start the ball rolling.
"Bowater and the Threat of Bad Air" indicates there were quick and heated reactions to recent suggestions that a paper mill of the Bowater Co. would be established in York County, S.C., neighboring Charlotte and Mecklenburg, because of its inevitable odor. Bowater had responded that its plant would smell like roses on pay day, avoiding the issue of whether the plant would pose a threat to the well-being of Charlotte.
It finds that the Mecklenburg County commissioners had contributed nothing new to the public understanding of the situation in their move to block construction of the plant, that it should receive widespread support if indeed the plant would threaten the air quality in Charlotte. But the fact remained as to whether Charlotte would be impacted.
It urges that a study coordinated among local groups be undertaken to define the problem and that if the threat were real, it should have coordinated protests, but if it would be confined largely to South Carolina, then that state and its residents ought be "allowed to smell their pulp and their dollars in peace."
"You'll Be Doing Yourself a Favor" indicates that Americans undoubtedly were the most insurance-conscious people in the world, striving constantly to increase their security, and thus being sought out by sellers of insurance of all types, with American males willingly paying monthly premiums for the purchase of that security.
Now, there was a new type of insurance, blood insurance, with the Red Cross Blood Center having established what it called the blood donor credit plan to protect those willingly giving blood, assuring them of an adequate supply, providing them with blood without an obligation to replace it. An individual blood donor credit card was issued to each donor following the donation, with a single donation entitling the donor and the donor's family to all blood which they might need in any cooperating hospital in the country for a period of six months. Donors who had given a gallon or more of blood received a credit card which would provide for the family's blood needs for a year, and those who had provided three gallons, would be entitled to permanent credit cards for the duration of the program. It was made available to business and industrial groups just as ordinary insurance was made available for individual protection under a group plan.
The piece indicates that it was the easiest insurance policy to take out and could be done in minutes, that the donor would be doing him or herself a favor, plus a favor for the five percent of residents of the community who had been donating all of the blood for community needs.
A piece from the Richmond Times-Dispatch, titled "Hocus-Pocus on Capitol Hill", indicates mixed feelings at the news that 20,000 items of magic, hocus-pocus and legerdemain had been donated to the Library of Congress, including books on hypnotism, hundreds of trick gadgets, such as a silver ladle which was self-filling and a silver box which could produce from its inner intricate mechanism any playing card sought. The collection had been donated by a doctor and his wife, as well as another man and his widow, all of New York, and included books on witches, demons and monsters.
It finds the collection likely to be a worthwhile and interesting addition to the Library, though some members of Congress were already masters of the art of legerdemain and needed no help from reference sources. They could, for example, talk economy out of one side of their mouth and vote affirmatively for nonessential appropriations out of the other, while some did that so effectively that the voters did not recognize that they were being fooled, or perhaps did not care, voting those members back into office repeatedly.
It also finds that some members had to be masters of hypnotism, as it was the only way to explain their re-election after their contribution to the public welfare had been virtually nonexistent.
Such members did not need to obtain ideas from a magic collection, but treatises on hocus-pocus might put an idea or two into the heads of those just learning the art.
Drew Pearson indicates that the Republican high command had been overhauling their strategy as a result of the President's sudden illness the prior weekend and that the outcome was difficult to indicate. Regardless of the politicians, it was possible that the President would re-examine his health and withdraw from the race before the San Francisco convention in late August. There was also an important move by party strategists to drop Vice-President Nixon from the ticket, as they believed that the person in the second spot would be almost as important, given the President's health problems, as the candidate at the top.
While it had been hushed up at the White House, the President had suffered another attack, though not a long one, at a stag dinner in early March, immediately after he had announced that he would run again at the end of February. Attacks of acute indigestion had been troubling him for some time, dating back to 1949, when he had to take three months off as a result of inflammation of the stomach lining, with another such attack having occurred immediately after he had addressed the American Society of Newspaper Editors in April, 1953, having been helped off the platform to a side room where he collapsed in a chair.
Mr. Pearson indicates that, unfortunately, the public had never been given a clear picture of the President's health. On the same night that Dr. Paul Dudley White had provided an assessment following his heart attack, another distinguished heart specialist, Dr. Samuel Levine of the Harvard Medical School had publicly differed with him by stating: "Nobody can accurately predict the lifespan of an individual's heart patient." Dr. White had then responded that he agreed that no one could predict the lifespan of a heart patient, adding that the headlines in the news story which had carried his statement had not properly qualified his "five-to-ten-year" prediction for the President by inserting such phrases as "uncertainties of the future", "changes", and "should", that such qualifiers had modified his prediction and placed him in complete agreement with Dr. Levine that one could not predict the lifespan of a heart patient, and that they were both optimists.
Mr. Pearson concludes that Dr. White had told the world on television that the President "should be able to carry on an active life for another five to ten years," but had told New England newsmen that no one could predict the lifespan of a heart patient.
Stewart Alsop indicates that while it was good news that the President was recovering after his emergency surgery for ileitis and that his recovery would take about six weeks, with full recovery anticipated, the fact remained that the country had to question whether a man in his physical condition, following the September 24 heart attack, ought attempt to shoulder the burden of another term in office.
He tells of Dr. Burrill Crohn, who had first discovered ileitis and diagnosed it as benign and operable in 1932, before which the patient usually died, since that time, having treated some 700 cases and had publicly agreed that the President ought recover fully in six weeks, that there was virtually no chance of malignancy, as the small intestine impacted was nearly immune from such a condition. It was thus reasonable to hope that the President would have many years ahead of active life.
But there was also a negative side to the surgery which had eliminated several inches of his small intestine, that although the heart was not directly involved, the heart attack and his age were complicating factors, especially with the 35 percent chance of recurrence of the ileitis, as well as a similar chance of recurrence of coronary thrombosis. Doctors were in agreement that a physically vigorous campaign by the President had to be ruled out.
At stake in the campaign, however, was the President's personal prestige, which had never been higher all over the world, having removed the false face of the U.S. as an unstable and warlike power, perhaps his single greatest contribution to the country thus far. Mr. Alsop posits that perhaps the second greatest service had been to restore a large measure of national unity which had been lacking a few years earlier. If the President were to decide to withdraw from the campaign, that irreplaceable element of prestige would be lost, followed by extreme political confusion in which violent partisanship would again be resurrected.
There was also another side to that political picture as well, that since the heart attack, the President's subordinates had a tendency to shield him from unpleasant responsibilities of his office. Mr. Alsop cites the example of an urgent message on the Middle Eastern crisis from British Prime Minister Anthony Eden, which apparently had been concealed from the President. Military leaders, upset over the accelerating shift in the world power balance to the Communist bloc, were complaining that the President was so insulated that they had not been able to make known to him the real case for a sharply increased defense effort. There was heavy pressure on the National Security Council to avoid troubling the President with split recommendations, with the result that the NSC had become a mechanism for reading the lowest common denominator of indecision. Moreover, that tendency to insulate him was bound to increase with the current illness.
Mr. Alsop suggests that perhaps it was not too much of a price to pay for his prestige abroad and leadership at home, but that it was also silly to pretend that there was no price to pay or to disregard the risks involved in a second term for someone 65 years old with the President's immediate history of physical problems. He concludes that the final decision had to rest with the President, but that the matter had to be fully and frankly debated by the country.
The Congressional Quarterly indicates that the large airlines in the country were about to stand trial for the first time in 18 years on the question of whether domestic passenger service was gouging the public by charging excessive fares, that a finding that they were could usher in a new era of commercial aviation by forcing the Civil Aeronautics Board to open the sky to new competition. The five-member CAB had the previous month announced that it would investigate fares charged by the 13 major domestic airlines, prompted by the high profits they had enjoyed in 1955. Much of the defense would be provided by the Air Transport Association, to which each of the 13 airlines belonged. But the ultimate decision would likely be made by Congress.
Senator John Sparkman of Alabama, chairman of the Senate Small Business Committee, and Representative Emanuel Celler of New York, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, had already urged changes in aviation policy, while other members of Congress would not make up their minds until after the decision by CAB. Congress could demand a change in CAB policies, and if that were to fail, could amend the Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938, which prescribed conditions for issuance of flying certificates and setting of fares.
Senator Sparkman had said that there was room under the law to establish additional trunk lines and that there was need for more competition, that the trouble was not the Act itself but how the CAB was administering it. Mr. Celler had also said that more competition was essential and that the CAB had not been abiding by the antitrust laws, more or less rubber stamping everything the Air Transport Association had proposed.
CAB figures showed that airline profits after taxes had been, as a whole, averaging 11.8 percent in 1955, with the CAB believing that an 8 percent profit was fair when figuring mail pay. The Air Transport Association said that its current profits were not excessive when figured over the long run. Trans American Airlines, formerly North American, had been the most vocal of the non-scheduled airlines trying to get permission to fly regularly, saying that the profits were unfair, daring CAB to allow it to enter the field and prove it.
CAB had started three fare investigations in the past, but none had ever gone to the hearing stage. It had not certified any new airlines for domestic passenger service since the Act had been passed in 1938. Its own defense of that policy had been provided to the Senate Small Business Committee the previous year, saying that its past practice could not be interpreted as foreclosing the possibility of entry by new carriers to the trunk line field. In response to Committee inquiry, CAB indicated that the dangers of unrestrained competition were many, with the primary one being the likelihood that there was not any stability in the services available and that many important points and entire areas might not be served at all.
A letter writer responds to two letter writers of June 7 who had written regarding prayer. He says that one of the writers, of the third letter of that date, had been deeply impressed with George Washington having knelt in the snow at Valley Forge to ask God for help, but finds that God had apparently not been so impressed as the previous letter writer had thought, as the men under General Washington had suffered from cold, starvation and sickness during the winter of 1777-78, as detailed in the Encyclopaedia Britannica. The other writer had indicated that prayer was so much hogwash, with which this writer agrees. He suggests that if God was omnipotent, then he must have enjoyed the winter at Valley Forge suffered by General Washington and his men. He is taxed to find any event in history which might show the power of prayer. He suggests to the letter writer who professed belief in prayer that he had done so based on something taught in childhood without good reason, "as an Indian might have believed in the spirit of the wild buffalo". In the face of thousands of years of human misery, including wars, famines and pestilences, storms, fires, floods, wars and torture, "may Mr. Black speak of a bit more than omniscient vigilance and omnipotent justice."
A letter writer suggests that the "recent unmitigated and fallacious implication that Washington and Franklin were profoundly religious" and given to frequent prayer, could not go unchallenged, indicating that Mr. Washington had been a deist and not a believer in Christian theism, that his supposed prayer at Valley Forge had been created by Parson Mason Weems, who claimed to have learned the story second-hand from Isaac Potts, the result of pure myth. She indicates that the Rev. M. J. Savage had been quoted, in Religion of Our Presidents by Franklin Steiner, that the pictures which showed General Washington on his knees at Valley Forge were "silly caricatures", that General Washington did not display his religion at street corners or out in the woods in the sight of observers, or where his portrait could be made by some special artist. Bishop White, whose church Mr. Washington had attended sporadically for 25 years in Philadelphia, said that he had never seen him on his knees in church. It was admitted by the Valley Forge Park Commission that Mr. Potts had not lived at Valley Forge at the time General Washington was encamped there. The writer indicates that Benjamin Franklin had also been a deist who had declared "revealed religion had no weight" with him and maintained that the Christian theory of "original sin" was a detestable doctrine. The writer indicates that the only clergyman who had Dr. Franklin's attention was so liberal in his views that he had been expelled from his church. She quotes Dr. Franklin as having stated: "If I were a Catholic, on my arrival home I would ask subscriptions to build a church, but being an unbeliever, I will raise money to build a lighthouse instead." She says that those were facts which every well-informed student of American history knew and could be verified through encyclopedias and other authoritative works.
Well, he was the Commie among the Founders, out flyin' a kite in a storm with a key on its tail, crazy as a bedbug. Everybody knows that.
Framed Edition
Links-Date — Links-Subj.