The Charlotte News
Thursday, June 28, 1956
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from New York that the nation's steel industry had begun banking its furnaces this date after major companies and the United Steelworkers union had rejected each other's proposals to delay a strike of 650,000 workers at midnight on Saturday. While negotiations had not been broken off after the failure of compromise proposals the previous night, the plants were undertaking precautionary measures to avoid damage to their furnaces. Workers at U.S. Steel's Gary, Ind., works, the largest in the world, and at Bethlehem's Sparrows Point plant in Maryland, the next largest, had begun slowing down coke ovens and were scheduled to begin banking blast furnaces late this night. Twelve major companies had begun the exchange of compromise proposals by suggesting in a letter to the Union president, David McDonald, that the strike be postponed indefinitely and that negotiations be continued after the contract would expire on Saturday, with the letters suggesting that during the negotiations, the Union would provide 72 hours advance written notice of a strike any time after the deadline.
Ann Sawyer and Donald MacDonald of The News report that two Charlotte judges this date had lashed out at violators of motor vehicle laws, promising stiff sentences for hit and run drivers and drag racers, with a Superior Court judge and a Recorder's Court judge handing down strongly worded statements from the benches, with the former warning hit-and-run drivers that they would serve time on the roads, as he sentenced a 17-year old Charlotte youth to six months at first offender's camp, stating he did not know otherwise how to reduce the carnage on the highways. The defendant in question had struck another car but did not stop, causing damage to both vehicles estimated at $75, with the driver of the other car damaged having spotted the hit-and-run driver at a local drive-in restaurant a few days later, followed him for several blocks and overtook him, asking him if he had not struck his car, at which point the boy admitted having done so and accompanied the other driver to the police station. The Recorder's Court judge interrupted proceedings to tell a News reporter that drag racers on the streets and public highways would need expect little mercy in his court, asking that the newspaper tell its readers as much, saying that what he had heard was transpiring on some streets of the city to be nothing short of murder. The solicitor echoed the judge's remarks and said that he would vigorously prosecute persons charged with racing on the streets and highways.
Dick Young of The News reports that hefty surpluses had been shown in recent years by the Park & Recreation Commission, according to a check by a News reporter of audit reports dating back to 1951, showing year-end surpluses as high as nearly $243,000, at the end of fiscal year 1955, and as low as $9,300, at the end of fiscal year 1952. Meanwhile, the superintendent of the Commission said that efforts were being made to arrange a meeting of the park board the following morning in the wake of a controversy over a cut in park board tax funds.
Elizabeth Blair Prince of The News reports that the city's proposed $600,000 health center would probably be built on Memorial Hospital grounds, after the hospital's board of commissioners had this date approved the City-County Health Department's request to locate the center on Scott Avenue near the hospital's present entrance.
Julian Scheer of The News reports that nearly two million dollars worth of higher education facilities in Charlotte, including buildings for Charlotte and Carver Colleges, would be proposed in Raleigh this date, as a group of Charlotte businessmen and educators would discuss with the State Board of Higher Education during the afternoon preliminary plans which called for permanent two-year white and black community college buildings and daytime instruction. No plans had yet been formulated as to how the program would be financed, but the group would seek State aid consisting of 1.15 million dollars for a 24-classroom building for Charlotte College and $600,000 for a 14-classroom structure for Carver College, with the former to be for between 700 and 850 full-time junior college students in two years, and the latter, for 550 black students.
The FBI office in Charlotte had interviewed a South Carolina minister, who had allegedly been kidnaped and terrorized during a cross-country automobile ride, finding that there was no apparent violation of any Federal law over which the FBI had jurisdiction. The Methodist minister had returned home from New Orleans this date and had told of being kidnaped and held by three young men on a cross-country trip from a fishing spot located near New Orleans, indicating that he had been held for a week before being released from the car which bore Oklahoma license plates, six miles from New Orleans. The local sheriff of the man's hometown in Kelton, S.C., said that the case was closed and he planned no further investigation.
Near Fayetteville, a handcuffed prisoner had provided first aid to an injured deputy sheriff the previous day after the automobile in which the deputy was carrying the prisoner to Fayetteville crashed into a tree. According to a Highway Patrolman, the deputy had sought to pass a truck during a rainstorm and the car skidded off the highway into the tree, with the uninjured black prisoner, while still handcuffed, covering the deputy sheriff with a blanket, doing what he could for him until help arrived. The deputy's condition was reported as satisfactory.
In New York, the chief medical examiner reported this date that an autopsy had shown that acute alcoholism had caused the death of a 44-year old woman from Greensboro at a hotel in New York the prior Saturday, while she and her husband were vacationing there. Police said that she had complained of feeling ill on Friday night and a hotel physician had found her suffering from hypertension, administering a sedative. Early on Saturday, her husband had awakened to find her breathing faintly, and a doctor pronounced her dead a half hour later.
In Berkeley, Calif., the home of a wealthy stockbroker had been broken into this date by three men who took all of the available cash and then fled, taking the stockbroker with them. They had arrived in a car which was possibly stolen, abandoned it and took the stockbroker's car.
In Moscow, British air officials rescheduled a courtesy flight of their Comet jet airliner for Soviet air officials this date, after the airplane had failed to get off the ground as some 30 Soviet Air Force officers, technicians and officials of the state-operated Soviet airliner Aeroflot had shown up for a ride in the British airliner. They had boarded the plane and after the doors had shut, 45 minutes had passed, until the British air crew advised that the flight had to be postponed until the afternoon because the battery was dead.
On page 7A, Burl Ives and Steve Allen defend Elvis Presley, Mr. Allen responding to critic Charles Mercer, who had stated that the talentless singer, with his "primitive exhibition" which had proved controversial on the "Milton Berle Show" earlier in the month, had no business on Mr. Allen's new Sunday night show, Mr. Allen begging to differ, saying he would present the "new Elvis" on Sunday, with his act cleaned up for television consumption.
He didn't shoot his mama. That kind of reckless talk might get somebody's mama killed down the line one day by one of his devil-may-care emulators, say, out in Nebraska somewhere, who doesn't get the word and figures that's the way to the tippy-top, to shoot your mama. Maybe they were just being cute, suggesting that Big Mama
On the editorial page, "Zoning: The 'Compromise' Is a Wolf" indicates that the latest "compromise" proposal to allow funeral homes inside Charlotte residential zoning lacked both subtlety and disguise, appearing as a wolf in wolf's clothing. Rather than placing mortuaries in the approved list for R-2 zoned neighborhoods, certain members of the City Council would invite them in "subject to the approval of the Council" in each individual case.
It finds that a more exquisite method of fracturing the zoning principle would be difficult to imagine, that what would emerge would be a form of spot-zoning with certain small areas of land opened for purposes inconsistent with the use of the larger surrounding area, allowing a business to operate in a residential zone.
It finds it not in accordance with sound zoning principles, that it would injure neighbors, was discriminatory, unreasonable and, possibly, illegal. The City-County Planning Commission's opposition to it was sound, as funeral home operations would likely depress surrounding home values. It concludes that business did not belong in a residential neighborhood.
"Pity the Poor White Collar Workers" tells of the Marxist New Masses two decades earlier having stated: "The American working class is clamped in the jaws of an economic nutcracker. The man who works with his hands is a slave."
It finds, however, that the manual laborer had never had it so good as at present, and if there were any more tears to be shed about "economic exploitation", it should be saved for some revolutionary journal which might be called the "New Bourgeoisie", dedicated to the poor, wilting "white-collar" worker.
As the AFL-CIO Economic Policy Committee had said recently, the white collar might still retain some of its value as a symbol of freedom from manual labor but that any tangible evidence demonstrating superiority of the status was fast disappearing. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, working-class earnings had risen more than white-collar earnings in 11 out of the 17 years between 1938 and 1955. On a percentage basis, the manual workers had far outgained the white-collar workers in annual income since 1939. Workers in 1954, for instance, had made 250 percent more than they had in 1939, while clerical and other such workers had only realized a 163 percent gain.
That had occurred in spite of a marked increase in the demand for white-collar workers, as from 1940 to 1954, the number of such workers had increased by 67 percent, while workers in manual occupations during that same period had increased by only 26 percent.
"Weep not for the man in overalls. His collar is blue but new. It's the white-collared clerk who deserves your pity. All he needs is for some latter-day Marx to remind him that he has nothing to lose but his necktie."
"It Rained in Southeast Mecklenburg" tells of a 17-year old boy, who had worn no shirt in the sun, nor shoes, but only a pair of faded dungarees, working on the edge of his mother's garden, breaking the weeds with a hoe, music in his heart and a light-footed gait in his walk, smiling when he observed rain beginning to fall. He had not stopped working but let the cooling rain run off of his back and down his shoulders into the creases of his neck.
From the frame house on the other side of the field, his brother had waved and called, and the boy put down the hoe and ran across the field to the porch, where some of the family stood and watched as "the rain turned white like glass and began to slither off the face of the earth."
As the rain stopped, he told his mother that he had prayed for rain, as he had the previous summer, and that the garden would be all right. His mother said to him that he should get back out to the garden to resume his work.
We have omitted some of the color from the exercise in creative writing.
A piece from the Raleigh News & Observer, titled "The Precious Residue", finds sound logic in the suggestion of a Roanoke Rapids bald-headed man that barbers ought charge reduced rates for those without so much hair, as his research had shown that barbers saved about a third of the time off a normal haircut when they worked on virtually bald heads.
It suggests that perhaps the way to come to a fair price for the balding patron would be to charge by the weight of the hair clipped, which would also cause those who waited long intervals between haircuts to have to pay more.
But it also takes into account that those who had the least hair were the most fastidious about how their last follicles were being treated. There were also those who wanted the help of barbers in fooling themselves by long fringes left on one side which were combed over the bald top.
It finds that the soundest conclusion probably was that there would be no more exact justice in the price of hair-cutting than there was exact equality in heads of hair.
Drew Pearson indicates that several diplomatic cables had been exchanged across the Atlantic before the State Department had been able to sidetrack the long-scheduled visit of Prime Minister Nehru of India, that at first, the latter had been advised informally that the President's illness would interfere with the visit and that most of the conferring would be done in consequence by Secretary of State Dulles, not pleasing to Premier Nehru, who had talked to the Secretary previously and did not particularly like him. He thus had indicated that he might not visit at all, at which point, he had sent a cable to the President suggesting that the trip be postponed until the President had fully recovered, eventually done.
When Congressmen William Ayres of Ohio and Glenn Davis of Wisconsin, both Republicans, had decided to fly some balloons at the Congressional baseball game, the Democrats had tried to stop them. The two Congressmen knew that the game would be televised and so had the balloons marked "Ayres is a sure hit" and "Davis is your friend", ordered them delivered to the ballpark via a Post Office Department mail truck, whereupon Democrats got wind that taxpayer money was being used purely for political purposes and the truck was stopped by the House postmaster, forcing the Congressmen to hire their own truck. They had thus obtained their publicity, but not at taxpayer expense.
Mr. Pearson indicates that his mail had increased as a result of the President's illness, with most readers appearing to be sympathetic, but also wanting the facts about the President's health, with some Republicans believing that party leaders were taking advantage of the President, imposing on him at the risk of his life by demanding that he run again. A few editors had criticized Mr. Pearson's columns regarding the President's health, while some outstanding Republican publishers had been quite frank, more so about the attack of ileitis in June than about the heart attack the prior September. He provides a quote from the Republican or conservative Toledo Blade: "A great many doctors must have said to themselves that they never before heard a doctor speak with such optimism about a patient right after he had undergone major surgery."
Walter Lippmann tells of three official visitors in Washington since the President had gone to the hospital on June 8, Chancellor Konrad Adenauer of West Germany, Foreign Minister Christian Pineau of France, and Canadian Foreign Secretary Lester Pearson, each of whom had come hoping to find common ground on which the Western allies could unite around the U.S. After they had departed, it was evident, however, that there was no serious effort to find that common ground and negotiate a common policy, something which the President, had he not been ill, might have attempted.
As it was, Secretary of State Dulles underwrote Chancellor Adenauer without qualification, thus ruling out the chance to negotiate with M. Pineau, as well as much of a chance of a successful outcome with Mr. Pearson or with the other two "Wise Men" of NATO.
The net result was a public display of disunity of the Western alliance on the crucial question of what to do with regard to the Soviet Union in relation to reunification of Germany. The unwillingness of Secretary Dulles to negotiate on his own without the President had also been placed on public display, as the Secretary was unable to find common ground on which the coalition could agree. For NATO, the question of how reunification would occur would be critical, but instead of looking for the ground on which France, Germany, Britain and the U.S. could work together on the issue, Mr. Dulles had let Chancellor Adenauer commit him to terms which were so extreme that they foreclosed any serious negotiation. Mr. Lippmann finds it bad judgment which would surely cause regret and would have to be repaired, as the terms of Chancellor Adenauer would be certainly rejected by the Soviets and would not be accepted by the other allies or for very long even by the West Germans. For under those terms, none of the allies would be permitted to reach agreement with the Soviets until the latter had surrendered on the German question, abandoning East Germany and agreeing to a united Germany rearmed within the NATO alliance, an unlikely prospect.
It would be impossible to commit NATO to the view that the paramount interest of the Western world was to reunify Germany on the terms of Chancellor Adenauer, and probably would even be impossible if the Chancellor had the overwhelming support of his own people, which he did not. The London Times had written shortly after the Chancellor had returned from Washington that "he is now faced with widespread dissatisfaction in his own party and a united opposition."
Mr. Lippmann asks whether it was wise for the U.S. to be more inflexible and extreme than the Germans. Chancellor Adenauer, who had done a great job, was, nevertheless, very old and those who would succeed him would not consider themselves bound by his views, making it necessary to question why the U.S. should be so bound.
He indicates that increasingly he had come to believe that the real difference in judgment about how to deal with post-Stalinist Russia did not arise from objective evidence but from differing temperaments and different approaches to human experience by those appraising that evidence, as exemplified by the President and Mr. Dulles, even though both would swear that they were in complete agreement. But there was no denying that they had opposing policies, which he posits might be because they did not feel alike, and that the people could feel the difference.
Doris Fleeson, in Atlantic City at the Governors Conference, again tells of Adlai Stevenson's chief aide, Bill Blair, having advised the candidate via telephone in the wee hours of the morning on matters gleaned from the conference, with spies from the campaign of Averell Harriman reporting that Mr. Blair had said something to the effect that Governor Frank Lausche of Ohio might be a good Democrat but was no fool and never did anything on the spur of the moment, having announced that he would vote with the Republicans to organize the Senate if elected, or would vote with the Democrats if he liked a Democratic president, tending to confirm DNC chairman Paul Butler who had said he did not know if the Governor would help organize the Senate if elected. Governor Lausche's reason was that his program had suffered from opposition control of the Ohio Legislature.
Secretary of the Treasury George Humphrey was seeking to get the industrialists, who had always backed Governor Lausche, to support his opponent, incumbent Senator George Bender, on the ground that the President needed the latter's vote, despite half of Senator Bender's fund-raising committee having always supported Governor Lausche. But the latter would receive a lot of defeatist press coverage.
Governor Abraham Ribicoff of Connecticut had told reporters that Mr. Stevenson ought take Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts as his vice-presidential running mate, as Senator Kennedy had applauded Mr. Stevenson and said that he fit the national mood of moderation and could out-campaign the President to make the voters feel it. Governor Ribicoff had been asked whether Mr. Stevenson was a retread and said that some men looked good in defeat, that nobody could have beaten the President in 1952. Asked how he could choose between the moderate Mr. Stevenson and the moderate President, he said that the one would win who convinced the people, and that would be Mr. Stevenson. Senator Ribicoff had been firm on civil rights but sympathized with the South's social upheaval, saying that with Mr. Stevenson, all of the country would move ahead with as little upheaval and conflict as possible in a complex society. The reporters, including Lawrence E. Spivak of "Meet the Press", had come away quite impressed, and might even trade Mr. Stevenson for Senator Ribicoff, but luckily, most lived in Washington and could not vote.
Governor A. B. "Happy" Chandler of Kentucky was in top form, working the sophisticated press over as if they were moonshiners in Harlan County, and the reporters had eaten it up. He said that he was a favorite son candidate who would become serious, given the opportunity, indicating that Mr. Stevenson had carried Kentucky by only 700 votes in 1952 and was weaker at present, claiming that Mr. Stevenson was the only public man he had never met and that the latter's supporters had guarded him from contact with Governor Chandler, while former President Truman was writing the Governor confidential letters from Europe. He also was meeting with former DNC chairman Frank McKinney, who was supporting Governor Harriman, and was talking to the Governor as well. He was asked if he wanted to be the vice-presidential running mate to Governor Harriman and he said that he had not reached that stage yet. He would not know until the following Saturday whether he could beat out Senator Earle Clements and former Governor Lawrence Wetherby for control of the Kentucky delegation, both of the latter of whom were at each other's throats, Mr. Wetherby seeking to win the seat of deceased Senator Alben Barkley. Governor Chandler had said that when one had a political obligation, he paid it when the obligees wanted it paid, not when the obligor wanted to do so, that when one hit a dry hole in politics, the person did not stay and fill it up with tears but moved his digger elsewhere.
Governor Frank Clement of Tennessee had played it cagey, admitting that he had been supportive of Mr. Stevenson the previous year, but now wanted an uninstructed delegation, a decision on which was to be made during the week. He had lowered the boom on Senator Estes Kefauver and was vague about Senator Albert Gore, said that he would be flattered to be mentioned for the vice-presidency or as keynoter of the convention, or just being mentioned, but would likely not steal any national headlines.
Everyone at the convention thought that the President would be hard to beat, and since word had come that he would attend the Pan American Conference in Panama City, they were certain he would continue to run. That was the end of the report of Mr. Blair to Mr. Stevenson.
Ms. Fleeson adds a P.S., that the Conference had met the previous day and discussed education, and decided that they were for it.
A letter from A. W. Black indicates that the much-publicized fly-casting tournament of June 23, sponsored by the Charlotte Park & Recreation Commission, had perhaps been the most poorly organized and conducted of any local event of its type, as well as being disappointing to the participants. Almost every official rule and regulation of "skishing" had been either ignored or wantonly violated, with casting targets arranged at distances exceeding official requirements. He goes on with the problems, concluding that should similar events be planned in the future, it was to be hoped that the Commission representative would seek the advice and assistance of more competent aides so as to appeal to greater numbers of casting anglers.
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