The Charlotte News
Saturday, June 16, 1956
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the President this date had eaten soft food for the first time since his surgery during the morning the prior Saturday for ileitis, having consumed four ounces of cooked wheat cereal with a little sugar and milk, the first time since entering the hospital on June 8 that he had consumed anything other than liquids. White House press secretary James Hagerty said that the doctors told him that one would have thought the President was eating the best steak in the world when he got the four ounces of Cream of Wheat, that he had really enjoyed it. Yuck. Banish the thought. Mr. Hagerty said that the President planned to watch part of the National Open golf tournament on television from his hospital room late in the day, his first look at a tv program since being hospitalized, and through Mr. Hagerty, had requested of newsmen at the hospital that they send the participants in the tournament word of his deep appreciation for a cartoon sent to him, which had featured a golfer about to drive, under the caption: "To Ike who has done the most for golf—get well fast," signed by many of the President's golfing pals, including Ben Hogan, Dr. Cary Middlecoff, Byron Nelson and Sam Snead.
A Senate subcommittee said that it was confused regarding U.S. agents who had mistaken each other for Soviet spies while the real Soviet agents had stayed in the background "surveying the scene thoroughly" in a struggle over defected Soviet pilot Peter Pirogov in a Washington restaurant seven years earlier. The subcommittee had made public testimony taken behind closed doors, in which Mr. Pirogov had stated that he had thought that he had a narrow escape from kidnaping by Soviet agents, but that he did not know for sure who had handcuffed him. The incident had occurred in August, 1949, when the latter had gone to the restaurant two blocks from the White House to meet another Soviet pilot who had fled to the West, whom Mr. Pirogov had wanted to talk out of returning to Russia. The other pilot had finally returned to Russia and Mr. Pirogov said that he believed the Russians had shot him. The subcommittee said that it had conducted an inquiry into the episode at the restaurant and determined that U.S. agents had arrested the other pilot for deportation, as he had been in secret contact with the Soviet Embassy after accepting asylum in the United States. It said that the U.S. agents, fearing that Mr. Pirogov might be kidnaped by Soviet agents who were also in the restaurant watching the two Russian pilots, had gone to the restaurant to arrest the other pilot after it had been determined that he was dealing with the Soviet Embassy and that he should be deported. But when the meeting of the two pilots had occurred, unexpected complications had arisen when American officials had failed to identify each other and believed that an attempt at kidnaping was being made, prompting an ensuing scuffle before the agents realized that there were no Soviet agents participating, that when the episode had ended, the Soviet agents were observed surveying the scene thoroughly. The other pilot was taken into custody by the U.S. officials. Mr. Pirogov had been handcuffed during the encounter to an American agent for his own protection. The subcommittee said that the FBI was not involved. Reports in Congress were that the agents were from the CIA, but there was no confirmation.
In Hillsboro, Ill., three heavily armed prisoners had broken out of the county jail the previous night, had commandeered two automobiles and taken four persons as hostages, with two of the escapees having been captured early this date in the Indianapolis area. All of the hostages had been released unharmed.
In Cleveland, O., a young police chief had died this date from a bullet wound and police were holding his pregnant wife, who had admitted shooting him the previous night during a domestic quarrel. She had filed for divorce the previous month, having accused her husband of striking her and falsely accusing her of having affairs with other men, after which a judge had issued a restraining order against him. She told police that her husband had threatened to take away their son and that she had obtained his service revolver from the guest closet but had not known that it was loaded, had not intended to use the gun but wanted her husband to leave their boy at home. No charges against her had yet been filed.
In Honolulu, a man who lived almost next door to Fort Shafter for 11 years after walking away from his post at the fort, had been convicted the previous day of desertion and sentenced to two years at hard labor and a dishonorable discharge, after being arrested on April 26. Those are the only details provided by the compleat report.
In Springfield, Mo., a former St. Louis police lieutenant who had become a controversial figure in the October 6, 1953 kidnaping and murder of Bobby Greenlease, six-year old son of a wealthy automobile dealer in Kansas City, by a couple who had been executed the following December, was released the previous night from a Federal medical center. The former lieutenant had been convicted along with a patrolman for lying to a grand jury regarding their handling of the recovered $600,000 in ransom money, half of which had been missing and most of which remained missing. The patrolman had already completed his two-year sentence in Federal prison.
In Shelby, N.C., a coroner's inquest into the death of the man who had gone to the restroom on a Piedmont Airlines DC-3 the prior Tuesday but opened the wrong door and fell out of the airplane to his death not long after taking off from Charlotte's Municipal Airport, was tentatively set for June 25, with the inquest expected to reveal how the door of the aircraft had come open. The Cleveland County coroner said that he had inspected the plane and that the only question appeared to be whether the man had opened the passenger door accidentally or intentionally, as no one had pushed him and someone had to open the door, as there was nothing wrong with it. The man, who had just been married, and whose bride was aboard the aircraft, was reported to have been drinking prior to takeoff, an assertion, however, denied by his bride. He had landed in a churchyard five miles north of Shelby.
Charles Kuralt of The News reports that the most vigorous County School Board election campaign in years was heading down its homestretch this date, with the vigor having been injected by Dan Hood, an outspoken Matthews farmer who was seeking to unseat J. Mason Smith, who had been a member of the Board for 13 years. Mr. Hood led the results in the Democratic primary the previous month, beating Mr. Smith by nearly 2,000 votes, with a third candidate in the race having received 5,192 votes, just 800 short of Mr. Smith. The runoff would occur one week from this date and both candidates were spending a lot of time shaking hands.
In Detroit, two men whom a man had met in a bar in Windsor, Ontario, had told the man that they would bet him $40 that he could not swim across the Detroit River. He told police that when the three men reached the river's edge, one of them said that he would hold the money and the two had pushed him in and then ran away.
In Stockholm, Queen Elizabeth II and Princess Margaret had danced the samba and mambo in the early morning hours this date, with members of European royalty and Swedish bluebloods at a royal ball in the Town Hall on the waterfront. Whether anyone bet the Queen that she could not swim across the adjacent body of water is not indicated.
As in Charlotte, where the predicted high for the following day was 90, it was apparently hot in New York City. Whether the Vice-President was visiting there or in Virginia is not indicated, but perhaps some of his aides and advisers handy with locks were
There is something very wrong, here. For when a fare arrives at the station in a Checker and then emerges from a Plymouth, there is some sort of strangeness taking place, just as with the rain falling on the lieutenant while not on the other side of the shot or in the establishing shot. Very weird and very scary...
On the editorial page, "Press and Courts: An Olive Branch" indicates that Judge Hubert Olive, in an address to the North Carolina Bar Association during the week, had stated that whatever conflict might exist between the press and those responsible for executing judicial processes was a conflict between rights and not a conflict between right and wrong, calling for a meeting of the minds of the press, the bar and the judiciary, with representatives of each stating honestly, frankly and factually their problems to one another.
It finds it a wise suggestion and one which all parties ought welcome, that there would be no clash between the courts and newspapers as long as both recognized their responsibilities, as both were interested in seeing that justice was done and that rights were protected. It indicates that open courts best served the cause of justice and was a principle to be maintained, that any judicial attempt to gag the press was a betrayal of the public interest.
It indicates that "Justice by Press", rather than "Trial by Press", was a principle which ought be followed to enable open trials.
It does not point out that the Sixth Amendment guarantees to every criminal defendant a public trial. The only proper limit to that public trial is an order to exclude witnesses who will testify during the course of the proceedings, a motion for which ought ordinarily be made by any defense counsel worth his or her salt, to prevent witnesses from hearing the testimony of other witnesses such that, when it comes their time on the stand, they are able to parrot what they have heard the others say, thus avoiding conflicts in testimony undermining credibility. Indeed, prosecutors ought favor the same exclusion for defense witnesses, with, of course, the exception of the defendant. Yet, we occasionally see trials on tv where no such exclusion has occurred. It should be mandated as part of due process, if not strictly afforded by state laws in particular jurisdictions.
"Mixing Medicine and Political Magic" indicates that for a week, the U.S. public had been spoonfed a possibly stupefying mixture of medical findings and political magic regarding the President's recent attack of ileitis the previous weekend. It finds it more regrettable that some of the reports by the doctors had been so full of prediction that it suggested the doctors were consulting among the politicians as well as among themselves, that the ultimate responsibility for judging the President's fitness for office rested on him and the American public, to make their judgments largely based on the findings of the doctors, and errors on their part would be misleading.
It indicates that if, in fact, the President was more fit to run for a second term after his surgery, then it would rejoice at that knowledge, provided it came from proper medical data and not from an excess of hope and optimism created by political publicists. There could be no benefit for the public or for the President in providing misleading reports on his condition.
"Diplomacy: The Missiles Are Musical" suggests that American music being performed by American musicians within the Soviet Union could promote better people-to-people understanding and so applauds sending the superb Boston Symphony Orchestra to Russia for a series of engagements.
When the Boston Symphony had made an
appearance in Charlotte at Ovens Auditorium during the previous
concert season, the audience had appreciated what it could do for the
nation's cultural reputation. It suggests that music provided a means
of interchange among peoples which was both unique and powerful.
Violinist Isaac Stern
It finds that he was correct, that music rose above mere words, which could lie, penetrating into a higher realm of feeling and that the more communication which occurred in that way, the better it would be for everyone.
"Perfection" tells of a
stagehand once having explained to a friend that, in television,
mistakes were simply not tolerated, indicating that a man had been
shot in their script the previous night and it had been his job to
rush out and throw ketchup on him to represent blood, but that the
camera had swung around and caught him
A piece by Henry Belk, appearing in the Goldsboro News-Argus, titled "Flour Sack Drawers", indicates that the modern generation of small boys knew nothing of flour-sack drawers, but to most middle-aged men, the subject was one of intimate acquaintance. He recounts that the Durham Morning Herald had printed the statement of candidacy by one candidate for the Durham Board of Aldermen the previous spring, in which he had indicated that when he was a child he had worn flour-sack drawers, and the candidate had won.
He says that when he was a boy and swam on a lazy summer day in Richardson's Creek at Lee's Mill, he undressed, along with the other boys, in an isolated spot on the bank. His regular summer undergarment consisted of drawers made from Level Best flour sacks, made into underwear by his mother. As a result, he had always tried to sneak off to one side to get out of his clothing quickly so that the other boys would not laugh at the flour-sack drawers he was wearing. But it turned out that most of the other boys likewise had on flour-sack drawers.
He indicates that at present, ladies made most attractive dresses from feed sacks, with the smart feed merchants distributing their product in multi-colored sacks which were intended to serve as dresses when emptied.
In earlier times, Smith Douglas Fertilizer had packed its product in 200-pound white bags, which became a favorite material for making trousers, with most good farm housewives bleaching out the fertilizer markings on the sacks before they turned them into pants. But one individual had been a nonconformist and one of his pairs of pants carried the words "200 pounds net" across the seat.
Mr. Belk finds a valuable lesson from it, that if mankind could generally escape the fear of what the other fellow might think or say, as the latter individual had, everyone would be "in a way for more progress."
So, are you suggesting that people should no longer shop at Belk's for their clothing, but should hustle on down to the feed and fertilizer store to buy plenty of the sacks so as to learn the lesson of nonconformity?
Drew Pearson indicates that it had been overlooked in the Pentagon feuding that the armed services had found a way to get around budget restrictions on publicity by each branch using its contractors to purchase advertising for them. Connecticut Congressman "Pat" Patterson, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, had found statistics showing that defense contractors spent millions in advertising for the separate services. The latest available figures showed that Air Force contractors spent 2.3 million dollars in 1954 to promote the Air Force, while Navy contractors had spent 1.3 million, not counting an additional $335,000 on Marine Corps advertising. The Army had spent $248,000 for advertising. Those figures represented money spent only for magazine advertising and did not include other costs of propaganda. Air Force contractors, for example, had spent millions to promote the Air Force through the Air Force Association, and the Navy contractors helped to subsidize the Navy League, which put out pro-Navy propaganda. All of those costs came indirectly from taxpayers through defense contracts, with the contractors setting aside a portion of their defense profits to purchase the advertising, openly taking sides in the inter-branch feuding. As private contractors, they were not restricted by the Pentagon rules which forbade such feuding, and so the individual services received the benefit of that indirect publicity without having it charged against their publicity budgets.
Congressman Patterson had obtained a confidential breakdown of how much defense money had been spent on armed services advertising in 1954, which Mr. Pearson lists by the various defense contractors.
Former Congressman Norris Poulson, currently Mayor of Los Angeles, had almost caused an international incident when he became upset with the Mexican Consul General in Southern California, accusing him of running narcotics across the Mexican border. He had asked him to provide VIP treatment to Carleton Williams of the Los Angeles Times when the latter visited Mexico City. But the word had not gotten through until after Mr. Williams had departed. The reporter had been a good friend to Mayor Poulson in covering City Hall, and the Mayor therefore phoned the Consul General and bawled him out, saying that he was tired of providing the red-carpet treatment to many Mexican officials and then having his friend snubbed. He then said that he believed "some of you guys have something to do with all the dope that's been coming across the border," and then hung up. The Consul General then made an official report to the Mexican Government, which, in turn, sent it to Washington, where the Mexican Ambassador, Manuel Tello, wisely waited before registering any complaint with the State Department until two friends had gotten the Mayor and the Consul General together at lunch and made them shake hands.
Congressman Clarence Brown of Ohio, a prominent Republican, was grumbling about the President's physical fitness to run again, though limiting his criticism to private conversation, but indicating that his latest illness was the last straw and that he should withdraw from the race.
RNC chairman Leonard Hall was talking and acting as if the President's recent attack of ileitis was no more serious than a simple stomach upset, and preparations for the San Francisco Republican convention were proceeding as scheduled. Aides of the President at the White House were all following the same rehearsed line, that the President had taken his intestinal condition into consideration when he had made his original decision to run in late February, and thus should be healthier and more inclined than ever to continue to run, as he was healthier for having had the surgery the prior Saturday. But there was no explanation for the fact that the President's recent complete medical examination had overlooked his stomach ailment.
He adds that the BBD & O advertising firm, which had advised the RNC and the White House in some public relations, had nothing to do, according to White House aides, with that new theory of the President's health.
Doris Fleeson indicates that an excess of propaganda was beginning to get in the way of the public dialogue regarding the President's health, a dialogue which was necessary and proper, given the importance of his office. She indicates that the psychological warfare over his latest illness had begun with the Army doctors almost before he had come out from the anesthetic following surgery, with his aides continuing it during his recovery. The Democrats were starting to fight back, and the opposing attempts at manipulation of public opinion could be expected to continue until they ceased to have a point.
Dr. David Allman, candidate for president of the AMA, had told reporters in Chicago that when the President recovered, he would be in better physical condition than any of his opponents had been at any time in their lives. But he had never been an attending physician of any of the men, and as the Milwaukee Journal had pointed out, such silly stuff tended to degrade the medical profession. But such was the way people were regarding the power and advantage to be derived from the office of the Presidency.
Maj. General Leonard Heaton, the Army surgeon who had operated on the President at Walter Reed Army Hospital the previous Saturday, had said that he thought the President's life expectancy might have been improved because he would almost certainly not again suffer from ileitis and that there was nothing to prevent the President from running again.
Both "Risk Appraisal", which governed the insurance underwriters, and the current issue of the New England Journal of Medicine had suggested that ileitis was always serious and could become chronic in about 10 percent of cases, resulting in obstruction in various degrees, with surgery not offering much hope and the prognosis always dubious. Recurrence was considered to be distressingly high, with a study out of the Mayo Clinic having shown that in 42 recurrent cases, five had died, ten had become invalids, 27 had been stopped, one had continued severe diarrhea, five had nutritional disturbances and 19 had mild continued diarrhea. Recurrence could be expected within two years.
Ms. Fleeson finds that it was a truism that doctors disagreed, but that the accounts which she had referenced were not the whole story, as patients often surprised their doctors and confounded the research. It had been a very long time since Winston Churchill had been able to pass a medical examination.
The Congressional Quarterly indicates that if signs of a business slump continued to develop during the ensuing few weeks, one could expect renewed discussion of a tax cut before the adjournment of Congress prior to the conventions in August, because the four billion dollar surplus in the cash budget, like the Federal Reserve's year-long policy of restraining credit, was a major anti-inflationary influence. If the Fed and Treasury decided that deflation was the greater threat, the factors favoring a policy of easier credit would also suggest the need for a tax cut. The Administration currently had its fingers crossed regarding the economic indicators. According to the experts, business was in a state of flux while inflationary pressures remained strong in some areas, with soft spots having developed in automobiles and other areas.
Those conflicting trends and their significance, rather than any basic difference regarding policy, explained the disagreement between Secretary of the Treasury George Humphrey and other Administration officials regarding the April 13 increase in the Federal Reserve discount rate, the fifth such credit restraining action within a year. Secretary Humphrey had told the Senate Finance Committee that he would not have made the last move, but that he had not abandoned his opposition to a tax cut, despite his action on May 17 in boosting the estimated surplus in the 1956 administrative budget from 200 million to 1.8 billion.
Presumably, the Administration would act promptly to counter the development of anything approaching a general recession in an election year, but it was easier said than done, especially when the economy was experiencing sharply conflicting trends. The chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, William Martin, had testified before the Joint Economic Committee on February 7 that the Fed had always followed a policy in recent years of leaning against the wind whenever they could determine its direction, but that they did not always know that direction, trying to avoid inflation as well as deflation.
By law, the Federal Reserve System was independent of the Administration, but in practice, it had to work in close cooperation with the Treasury, potentially a source of trouble if they were to work at odds with one another. The last serious dispute in their relations had occurred in the late 1940's when the Reserve's policy of supporting Treasury bond issues to keep interest rates low came under heavy attack because of its inflationary effect. At that time, Secretary of the Treasury John Snyder had been blamed for pressuring the Board of Governors to support a policy against its better judgment, a policy which was revised in 1951. In September, 1953, the Reserve reaffirmed its intention not to support Government security issues, but on November 30, 1955, at the request of the Treasury, the Reserve agreed to make an exception and purchase 400 million dollars worth of Treasury certificates at the point when the offering met market resistance.
Senator Paul Douglas of Illinois, chairman of the Joint Economic Committee, had charged that the Reserve had acted to bail out the Treasury and prevent the mistakes they had made in gauging the market from becoming apparent. Mr. Martin, a Democrat first appointed by President Truman in 1951 and reappointed the previous January by President Eisenhower for a full 14-year term, said that the Treasury and the Federal Reserve were partners trying to achieve the same general ends and were not subordinate to one another. On the prior April 13, he had underscored the Reserve's independence by raising the discount rate, but all of the evidence suggested that the Fed and the Treasury would be working overtime to achieve the same general ends in the ensuing weeks and months, that being a stable and growing economy.
A letter writer responds to a previous letter writer, indicates that Benjamin Franklin had a practical faith in God, quoting him as having said on June 28, 1787 in addressing George Washington, the presiding officer of the Constitutional Convention at Philadelphia, that they had not once thought of applying themselves "to the Father of Lights to illumine" their understandings, after having made daily prayers during the time of the Revolution, prayers which had been heard and graciously answered by a "superintending Providence in our favor," a kind of Providence to which they owed the "happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity." He said that the longer he lived the more he had seen the convincing proof that "God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid?"
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