The Charlotte News
Wednesday, June 6, 1956
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the President this date had stated at his press conference that the whole question of whether to continue aid to Communist Yugoslavia had to be re-studied in the light of Marshal Tito's new friendliness with Moscow. He pushed hard for the Administration's 4.9 billion dollar foreign aid program, which the House Foreign Affairs Committee had voted to cut by 1.1 billion. The President also refused to take sides in upcoming primaries between Republican candidates, specifically in response to a question as to whether he would support Senator Alexander Wiley in his effort to win renomination after the Wisconsin State Republican convention had refused to endorse his candidacy in deference to a candidate supported by Senator McCarthy, saying he believed it was not the place of the President to intervene in the primaries, indicating that Senator Wiley had stated that he neither wanted nor expected Administration help in the contest. He also declined to indicate whether he would campaign more vigorously in the fall than he had suggested he would the prior February when announcing that he would run again, stating at the time that he would not do any whistle-stop speaking and would confine his efforts to campaigning through newspapers, television and radio. The President also stated that General Nathan Twining, chief of staff of the Air Force, in accepting the invitation to visit the Soviet Union air show in Moscow on June 24 meant that the U.S. would reciprocate by inviting the Russian counterpart to the U.S. He also stated that it was his opinion that the denunciation of the late Premier Joseph Stalin by Communist Party Secretary Nikita Khrushchev had been primarily for home consumption.
Air Force General Earle Partridge, head of both the Continental Defense Command and the Air Defense Command, said, during secret testimony provided to the Senate Armed Services subcommittee on April 30 and May 1, that American scientists had worked out, in principle, a weapon to defend the country against the still unperfected Soviet ICBM, indicating that the new counter-weapon had not yet been translated into hardware and that until they could figure out a way to make it work operationally, he did not rest easy. He said that both American and Russian scientists were striving to develop an accurate missile capable of carrying a hydrogen warhead thousands of miles in a matter of minutes. He did not provide a published estimate of which side was ahead but suggested that the threat of the Soviet ICBM attack was "so frightening" to him that the country could not afford to put less effort into defense than into offense. He said at a later public hearing that the most advanced Soviet bombers could fly higher and faster than U.S. interceptors, while saying at the earlier executive session that he was confident that his defense units could "take care of the Soviet threat up through the manned bomber." He said that with swift new jet fighters, more powerful radar detection and a far-ranging communications network, he expected his defense command to be able to handle the increasing Soviet air power menace for the ensuing several years.
In San Francisco, it was reported that Adlai Stevenson had achieved victory in the California primary conducted the previous day, all but knocking out his opponent, Senator Estes Kefauver, in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. Mr. Stevenson had received in consequence a commitment for all 68 California votes at the convention the following August, after achieving what approached a landslide margin, receiving 62 percent of the Democratic vote. Including other primaries the previous day in Montana and South Dakota, Mr. Stevenson now had 259.5 convention delegates to 166 for Senator Kefauver, with others having 226, while 370.5 were publicly uncommitted. While that left Mr. Stevenson well short of the 696.5 votes necessary for nomination, the impetus of his California victory appeared likely to obtain support for him from previously uncommitted delegates and others still to be chosen. Senator Kefauver conceded defeat early this date, saying that he would continue campaigning for the nomination and that he would not accept a vice-presidential nomination on the ticket, which the report indicates was unlikely to come should Mr. Stevenson be nominated by the convention—going to show that you cannot put stock in everything you read in the newspapers when it comes to augury of future events. The Senator said in a congratulatory telegram to Mr. Stevenson that he and his supporters would do "everything possible for the election of Democratic candidates in the general election and to bring California back into the Democratic fold in November." He told reporters that he had "no excuses, no regrets and no alibis" for the defeat.
Meanwhile, the President, unopposed on the Republican ballot in California, received all 70 votes for the convention. The combined popular vote received by both Mr. Stevenson and Senator Kefauver had exceeded the number of Republican ballots cast, as registered Democrats outnumbered Republicans in the state by 782,000. General Eisenhower had won the state by 700,000 votes in 1952 over Governor Stevenson.
In Richmond, Governor Thomas Stanley of Virginia said this date that he would call the General Assembly into special session within the ensuing 90 days to deal with the school segregation problem in the state. He said that he was convinced the Legislature ought consider the recommendations of the Commission on Public Education, which the previous November had recommended to the Governor a package plan of pupil assignment and public tuition grants for private schools as a means of avoiding compulsory racial integration of the public schools. The General Assembly at its regular session the prior winter had not taken up the recommendations of the Commission, with many having thought that the plan, if enacted into law, would place the imprimatur of the state on at least token integration. The Commission had reconvened the prior Monday at the request of the Governor, recommending a special session to act on its plan, but putting forth no date for commencing that session. A reporter had asked whether the Governor felt that it was moving with "all deliberate speed", as mandated by the Brown v. Board of Education implementing decision of May, 1955, with Virginia having been one of the four states immediately before the Court in Brown, and he stated in response that he considered it to be moving with that speed. The Commission had not yet submitted to the Governor legislation to carry out its recommendations and the Governor told reporters that he expected the study group to meet again to wind up its report in that regard. He said that he was confident the Commission's recommendations could be restudied and completed in the near future.
New Year's Day, 1988, Grand Coulee Dam. Be there...
Omaha Beach in France was still known by that name among the French peasants who lived nearby the place where the Allies had landed on June 6, 1944. Signs in French now directed visitors to points of interest along the landing areas. Both Omaha and Utah beaches remained so named in memory of the effort undertaken to drive back the forces of the Nazis. Military buglers played taps to honor the dead of the invasion, with the military observances of the anniversary largely confined to the cemeteries where French, British and Canadian soldiers were buried along the coast. Omaha Beach showed almost no trace of the invasion, with a rusting landing craft observable far down the beach and at low tide, the broken skeletons of sunken ships could be seen poking through the channel waters. Foreign visitors renewed their memories along the coast and many French villages filled their churches and city halls to commemorate those days which had freed them from Nazi occupation. An annual tradition of commemorating the landing had grown strong in the channel region and local observances went on for several days. The official British party at the ceremonies had been headed by Housing Minister Duncan Sandys, the son-in-law of former Prime Minister Churchill. Maj. General Richard Partridge had flown from the U.S. Army headquarters in Germany to place an American wreath on the monument at Utah Beach.
Emery Wister of The News reports that on the 12th anniversary of D-Day in Charlotte, none of the brave men who had fought on the beaches of Normandy would ever forget it, such as D. Harvey Hill and Art Jolly, both now of Charlotte and both having been members of the Army's 4th Infantry Division which had stormed the beaches that day. Mr. Jolly now worked as an engineer for Southern Bell Telephone Co. and Mr. Hill was in the building supply business in Charlotte. Mr. Jolly, then a 1st lieutenant, said that they had gone in about 9 o'clock in the morning, that it had been rather hazy and cold. He had been in the division's 4th engineer combat battalion and had sailed from England two days earlier, with some of the men having been a little seasick from the crossing of the Channel. He said that they did not lose too many men on the beaches but that artillery fire had been heavy and the ships were burning, that he had seen some German soldiers on the beach but that they had not fired at them because they were prisoners. He and his men had quickly left the beach and streamed through a break in the high sea wall, fighting their way along the road through a swamp land and by nightfall, were in the hedgerows.
Mr. Wister also reports that an increase in the size of the North Carolina State Highway Patrol would be sought when the new Legislature would convene the following January, that commissioner of Motor Vehicles Ed Scheidt had told the newspaper this date that he would seek an increase in the number of patrolmen from the present force of 556, though not knowing at present how many more men he would request.
Dick Young of The News reports that City Council member and former Mayor Herbert Baxter had often been for progress, but as the City Council considered a contract for removal of his Central Lumber Co. buildings to make way for extension of 3rd Street, he had commented cheerfully that when he had been mayor, he used to tell objectors that progress often stepped on the toes of some people, and that now it looked as if he was getting trampled by progress.
In Charlotte, a drive for another countywide school bond issue to meet the demands of the expanded educational system had been launched this date, with City school commissioners during the morning authorizing a committee to confer with County school authorities regarding plans for another issue.
In St. Louis, a man, who had a job as a forklift operator at a Sears warehouse, had, according to a detective sergeant, been lifting about $6,000 worth of merchandise since 1949, including a furnace, a 30-gallon water heater, a 300-gallon septic tank, an electric range, copper tubing and pipe, fire brick, wall cabinets and 42 squares of asphalt shingles. The sergeant said that the man had recently finished a new home and had taken a power mower from the warehouse to cut his new grass. He was charged with theft of the $59 mower.
In Schenectady, N.Y., an Army carrier pigeon had quit on a mission the prior Saturday because of rain, as it had also the Saturday prior to that, and now was lost, the Army stating the previous day that if the bird would ever be found, it would be flown in an airplane to Fort Monmouth in New Jersey for a refresher course.
In New York, a bearded habitue of the Bowery, who said that he lived in a cemetery because "it's cheaper", had learned the previous day that he needed a more permanent address to vote in an election. The shabbily-dressed man, about age 55, was turned away from eight different polling places, until finally he entered the State Attorney General's election fraud office and demanded his rights, being told that certain formalities had to be complied with before he could vote. He had said he lived in the cemetery because he could not afford 50 cents per night.
On the editorial page, "Charlotte's Tax Rate: Heady Hopes" indicates that the tentative municipal budget prepared by City Manager Henry Yancey was a bundle of heady hopes in which the tax rate would remain at $1.77 per $100 of valuation, the same as the current year's figure, despite the fact that the budget for the new fiscal year was anticipated to increase by more than $592,000 to more than $10,627,000. There was still a lot of trimming left to be done as well as additions for other needed improvements, such as a shorter work week for firemen.
The piece wants to see greater interest in fiscal policy on the part of the general citizenry and it urges citizens to become aware of the type of government they were getting for their tax money.
"In Operation Overlord, a Secret Found" tells of it being the 12th anniversary of the Normandy landing on D-Day, the beginning of the beginning of the end of the war in Europe, ending officially the ensuing May 8.
The nation looked back on "Operation Overlord" in silent awe, as it had been the largest combined military effort of any war of any age, with the total Allied strength having been 2,876,439 men, including 17 British divisions, of which three were Canadian, 20 U.S. divisions, one French division and one Polish division, plus 5,049 fighter planes, 5,112 bombers, 2,316 transport aircraft, 2,519 gliders and thousands of ships. The Germans had 65 divisions, including reserves extending back into Germany to try to withstand the onslaught.
The landing had been a success because of elaborate planning, split-second timing and because Allied morale had been at a high point. It had taken all of the energy, enthusiasm and will power of the nations involved. While many of those soldiers, sailors and airmen had perished in the effort, the invasion force had fought on to victory because it knew where it was going and why. All of them wanted to avenge Warsaw, Dunkirk and the massacre of the small Czech village of Lidice in the hunt by the Nazis for the killers of SS head Reinhard Heydrich in Prague in 1942.
But it finds that what had been won in 1945 might have been only an armistice after all, as where there had once been unity, there was now disunity, suspicion and dissension within the free world. It finds something missing, wonders whether it was the morale, energy, will power and enthusiasm extant during the war.
Sociologist Herbert Blumer had once said that any people might have high morale "if the collective enterprise to which they are committed enlists completely their hopes, fervent wishes and aspirations." The collective enterprise was peace, contentment and freedom in an orderly world, the problem being to re-create the collective enthusiasm of 1944 "before a new act in the drama begins."
"Deserving City" finds that Charlotte deserved a place on the 40-city play circuit planned by the American National Theater and Academy, as it was a ready market for fine drama, with its cultural growth keeping pace with its population growth and having superb facilities available for showcasing such entertainment.
"Scholarships: For Scholars Only?" indicates that with the spotlight of publicity shining so brightly, leading figures in what was loosely described as "the world of amateur athletics" were betraying an edgy apprehension almost without precedent.
Jim Weaver, commissioner of the ACC, had proposed that all candidates for athletic scholarships at NCAA colleges be required to take intelligence tests, to "eliminate the digs schools often toss at each other", as he had explained in Charlotte during the week.
It indicates that a sample dig was: "They must have slipped him under the door. He couldn't get in the eighth grade with his transcript." But it finds that instead of purifying collegiate athletics, such an examination system would only pile sham on sham, as athletes were hired primarily for their brawn and not their brains and it would be deceitful to pretend otherwise, that the thought of selecting guards and tackles on the basis of their ability to put round pegs in round holes and define transcendentalism was more than a little ludicrous.
It finds that if scholarships were to be given for physical prowess, then honesty about it should prevail, that athletes should be required only to achieve a "C" average and reasonably good citizenship, that anything further carried the joke too far.
A piece from the Greensboro Daily News, titled "Black Sheep Are Available", indicates that in Charlotte, there was a man who wanted a black sheep all of his life, according to a report by Charles Kuralt in one of his "People" columns, with the man having told Mr. Kuralt: "As far as I know, there isn't a black sheep left in North Carolina. I've looked everywhere."
It indicates that there were black sheep in North Carolina but that one had to look for them in spirit and not in flesh, that the foremost black sheep in the election year were the politicians who sought to ride into office by stirring up strife on the race question. There were also the black sheep who would talk of abolishing the public schools and leaving the state's children to grow up in ignorance and poverty. There were also the economy-minded black sheep who would put more money in their own pockets by cutting taxes and slashing appropriations for schools, hospitals, mental institutions, welfare funds and other basic state needs. There were secrecy-minded black sheep who thought the business of the city or the county or the state ought be carried on behind closed doors and hidden from the public. There were reactionary-minded black sheep who would stifle the American writer of freedom of thought and freedom of expression by punishing an individual for holding an opinion different from the current opinion of the majority.
"Yes, Mr. Kuralt, tell your Charlotte farmer that black sheep are still available in North Carolina—even though you may feel that they should be led like lambs to the slaughter of oblivion!"
And, what Mr. Heath needed was not a white leather coat but rather a white sport coat
Drew Pearson says that most political observers agreed that the bitter primary battles between Adlai Stevenson and Senator Estes Kefauver had seriously hurt both candidates and increased the chances of a deadlock at the Democratic convention in Chicago the following August, with a dark-horse candidate emerging as the winner, Mr. Pearson indicating that the tragedy was that it could have been avoided.
Before either candidate had announced, former Secretary of Interior Oscar Chapman, a friend to both men, had gone to Mr. Stevenson and suggested that an ideal Democratic ticket would be Mr. Stevenson for the presidency and Senator Kefauver for the vice-presidency, but Mr. Stevenson would not go along—even though, in the end, after he would turn over the vice-presidential nomination to the convention, it would narrowly select Senator Kefauver over Senator John F. Kennedy. But Mr. Stevenson thought at the time that it would alienate too many others who wanted to run for the vice-presidency, naming Mayor Robert Wagner of New York, State Attorney General Pat Brown of California, Governor Frank Clement of Tennessee and Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota, among those who wished to run for the second spot. He said that if he were committed to Senator Kefauver for the position, he would receive no support from the others, but that he would be open to having Senator Kefauver on the ticket unless the latter got into the primaries and caused him to spend a lot of time and money fighting for the nomination, in which case he would never accept him.
The importance of the President's idea for a committee of private citizens to promote people-to-people friendship in foreign countries had just been illustrated two weeks earlier when a group of Americans and French dedicated a French-American hospital at St. Lo, the point in the German lines where General Omar Bradley's troops had broken through after the Normandy landing in June, 1944. There had been so much petty bickering between the French and American politicians recently that a lot of Americans had forgotten the basic concept of people-to-people friendship existing between the two nations, which was quite evident at the hospital dedication ceremony.
Clair McCullough of Lancaster, Pa., who had made a special flight to Paris as special representative of the Friendship Train committee, reported that sentiment toward the American people was deep and friendly and that the French particularly appreciated the hospital because it was a joint enterprise. It had not been a gift from the Government, but one from private donations, though more French than American. He notes that the Friendship Train money which went to the hospital had been insurance money paid after the Communists had burned down a warehouse containing part of the Friendship Train food during the winter of 1947-48.
Former Mayor of Toledo, Mike DiSalle, who had been the price administrator during the Korean War and was now running for Governor of Ohio, said that the Democratic ticket in November should be Mr. Stevenson, to make the speeches, and Senator Kefauver, to tell the people what the speeches meant.
IRS agents had been looking into the taxes of former Senator E. B. Robertson of Wyoming, and the latter had appealed to some of his former colleagues to intervene on his behalf. The tax transaction under investigation involved the sale of a ranch in Cody, Wyo., long owned by Mr. Robertson's brother-in-law, but managed by the former Senator, who had come to the country from the British Isles as a boy. He had bought the ranch from his brother-in-law at what was considered to be a cheap price and then later sold it to the Hunt Oil Co., owned by H. L. Hunt, friend to Senator McCarthy. The sale had been made through a complicated lease arrangement which the IRS had been investigating, with the cattle on the ranch sold separately. When asked by the column regarding his tax difficulties, Mr. Robertson had refused comment, saying that he was no longer a public official, that it was his private business and that he did not have anything to say. When reminded that any tax violation, even by a private citizen, was a public matter, the former Senator replied that he still had nothing to say.
Marquis Childs indicates that nearly three months earlier, Dr. Jesus de Galindez, a refugee scholar, had disappeared in New York under circumstances which suggested that his persistent criticism of the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo in the Dominican Republic had led to his political assassination. It had been known that Dr. Galindez had completed his doctoral thesis at Columbia University on the oppression of the Trujillo dictatorship. About a month before he had last been seen on March 13, an academic committee at Columbia had approved the thesis after suggesting some minor changes. Previously, Dominican exiles in the U.S. had been assassinated, three years earlier, the then-Dominican consul general in New York, Felix Bernadino, having been declared persona non grata by the U.S. Government following the murder of a refugee from the Dominican Republic.
In the intervening nearly three months since Dr. Galindez had last been seen, no Government agency in Washington had made any effort to seek to discover whether he had been the victim of espionage by a foreign power. It had been suggested that the disappearance may have been planned to promote interest in the book by Dr. Galindez, and his disappearance had given the book publicity it would never otherwise have garnered. But Mr. Childs suggests that surely some agency of the Government ought be expected to be interested in finding out whether his disappearance was a hoax or whether he had been kidnaped and killed. Had he been the potential victim of a Communist plot, he ventures, Congressional committees would be competing for headlines to delve into the matter.
The Department of Justice was "watching" developments in the case, Assistant Attorney General Warren Olney III having written in response to Congressman Franklin Roosevelt, Jr., when the latter had written stating his concern over the disappearance, that Mr. Roosevelt should ask his client, President Trujillo and the Dominican Republic, for information, as Mr. Roosevelt was a registered lobbyist for Mr. Trujillo at a rate of $60,000 per year.
HUAC had heard only vaguely from newspaper reports about the matter and its schedule was full. The Internal Security subcommittee had no plans to investigate the case. Both of those committees had long concentrated on Communism at home and abroad, and the latter subcommittee had investigated the case of Soviet sailors who had been coerced into re-defecting and returning to Moscow, as a consequence bringing pressure on the State Department to expel Soviet diplomats.
Mr. Childs suggests that the question had to arise as to whether that was the only area of freedom and subversion with which Congressional committees were concerned. Those who had the courage and will to escape from Communism were left, as recent articles in the New York Times had shown, to languish for months and even years in refugee camps.
Mr. Childs suggests that a useful investigation could develop as to why the lot of those who chose freedom at terrible risk was far too often neglected and treated with indifference. He finds it basic to the problem of those who had defected and then decided to return to the Iron Curtain, that if they had been offered an opportunity to become a real part of the free world, the coercion by Soviet agents would have had little effect. Likewise, an investigation into the disappearance of Dr. Galindez would show that freedom and the rights of political exiles were not confined to the struggle with Communism.
He finds, however, that it was doubtful that a Congressional committee could discover anything which the New York Police Department had thus far been unable to find, but that the effort would at least demonstrate the concern by the Government with tyranny, wherever its source.
Robert C. Ruark, in Palamos, Spain, tells of being somewhat lonesome in the world at present as about half the people he knew had died of heart trouble during the previous year. Thus, he had gone to have his blood pressure checked and found that it was normal, concluding that only the good died young. But he refused to be morbid over those who had died, as most of the ones he had known had a lot of fun while they were around, and had gone fast without a lot of last-minute regrets.
Charlie MacArthur had been a longtime friend and Mr. Ruark was convinced that in the old newspaper-gangster days in Chicago, he had enjoyed enough bawdy fun to last him through a couple of eternities, and had also been fortunate enough to marry Helen Hayes, the actress. He recalled only one anecdote about him which had not already been well-publicized, that one time when Mr. Ruark had gone to Africa or some place and loaned Mr. MacArthur a house he had in Greenwich Village to do some writing, Mr. Ruark had returned some months later and found a sheet of paper in the typewriter saying simply: "Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of MacArthur."
Another friend who had died was Owen Brennan from New Orleans, who had run a saloon and the best restaurant there. Another from New Orleans was Tom Caplinger, also a saloon keeper and friend of Mr. Brennan. The latter's place was called Café Lafitte, located on the upper end of Bourbon Street, where everyone wound up in the wee hours, provided they had a touch of worthlessness in them, as most decent folk were home in bed by that time. Mr. Caplinger had been a graduate of the Naval Academy and was a fine interior decorator, a saloon keeper and an habitue of Europe, had never shirked a fist-fight in his life and had an amazing faculty of laughing uproariously at himself. He surrounded himself with creeps and drunks, but had an enormous family and was one of the best fathers Mr. Ruark had ever known. Both he and Mr. Brennan had died recently in their sleep, leaving behind a legacy of remembered kindness.
Louis Calhern, the actor, was another of his friends who had recently died, having lived next door to Mr. Ruark in the Hotel Elysee in New York, along with the Gish sisters, Joe DiMaggio, Gertrude Niesen, Tallulah Bankhead and Paul Douglas. Mr. Calhern would outrage the management, stopping off quite drunk to demand a cash advance from the desk and then proceed to spend it at the Stork Club or Twenty One Club when his hotel bill was already quite in arrears. Mr. Ruark says that he hoped that when he had died in Tokyo recently, somebody had fed him a martini in lieu of extreme unction.
"It should be a very interesting eternity, because the people who have passed ahead will have it organized for fun and games. Somehow I cannot be sad at the idea of joining the mob."
As indicated, Mr. Ruark would join the mob in nine years at a relatively young age, dying of cirrhosis of the liver.
A letter writer says that in the critical election year, it was important that Christians pray about their relationship to good government and bring their influence to bear through prayer, to change the "sordid political situation in the nation." He wonders whether the election would be based on sound spiritual and moral principles of justice rooted in the Constitution or would be an auction to the highest bidder. He wants Sunday morning worship services to organize prayers around issues which determined the entire course of national events.
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