The Charlotte News
Friday, June 8, 1956
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the President had been stricken this date with an inflammation of the lower intestine and was being taken to Walter Reed Army Hospital for what the White House termed "a precautionary measure", with there being no "indication of any heart trouble", recurring from his heart attack of the prior September 24. The White House announcement had been made at 12:25 p.m., indicating that the President would be taken to the hospital by ambulance shortly. The White House physician, Dr. Howard Snyder, had been called to the President's bedside at 2:00 a.m. White House press secretary James Hagerty said that he would not characterize the President's condition as he was not capable of rendering any conclusions on his own, that he would leave that to the physicians. Earlier, he had described the difficulty as an "upset stomach" and insisted that it was not an illness. All of the President's appointments for the day were postponed.
The Defense Department estimated that spending for military defense over the 15-year period between 1950 through 1965 might total more than half a trillion dollars, including the Korean War, even with the nation otherwise at peace, far more, by many billions of dollars, than had been spent in the previous 15 years, including the fighting in World War II. The figure, 528.5 billion dollars, did not include the cost of nuclear weapons, as the Atomic Energy Commission had not disclosed what part of the approximate 14 billion dollars spent for the overall nuclear program to date involved weaponry, but was known to be the great bulk of that total. High defense officials stated that the critical need for military readiness probably would mean that the current annual rate of military spending, about 35 billion dollars, would be required well into the future, unless there were a change in world conditions resulting in either disarmament or another war. Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson had said that continued improvements in technology and weapons would lead to increased costs unless offsetting savings could be found. Defense Department spending during the previous six years had been estimated at 213.5 billion dollars, not including foreign military aid or public works projects, such as rivers and harbor development. An annual spending rate of 35 billion through 1965 would add another 315 billion to the total, to make the half trillion amount. From 1936, records showed that the 15-year spending had been $344,249,000,000, not including lend-lease during the war years, but including public works projects under the recovery program of the latter 1930's. The larger costs at present came from the facts that weapons cost more while the cost of material and labor for weapons production had also gone up, and that the weapons used during World War II had been relatively simple compared to present weaponry.
In St. Louis, Lamar Caudle, former head of the Justice Department's tax division during the Truman Administration, on trial for defrauding the Government by allegedly accepting a bribe to provide lenient treatment to a man accused of tax evasion in 1951, had testified this date that he had reluctantly put up with the lawyer for the man, because the lawyer was a friend of the President and others at the White House, the lawyer, Harry Schwimmer, formerly a co-defendant who had been dismissed from the case for health reasons, having allegedly provided the bride by purchasing oil royalty agreements in Mr. Caudle's name. Mr. Caudle had testified the previous day that he had flown into a rage when he learned that Mr. Schwimmer had purchased the oil royalty for him. He said that he had to apologize to his wife for the strong language he had used with Mr. Schwimmer. He stated, however, that while he had demanded that the royalty be taken out of his name, he had received three monthly payments from the contract. Matthew Connelly, former appointments secretary to President Truman, was the other co-defendant in the case, charged as a co-conspirator in the arrangement.
In Brady, Tex., a witness in the Texas veterans land scandals had been injured critically in a car bombing this date. Sam McCollum III, an attorney, had testified in the trial of former state land commissioner Bascom Giles, who had been convicted and was presently serving a prison sentence. The bomb had exploded as Mr. McCollum sought to start his station wagon in front of his home. The entire front of the car had been badly mangled and a county judge, who was the former sheriff, said that he did not see how anybody could have survived the explosion.
In Chicago, a gunman invaded a North Side tavern early this date, fatally shooting one of the owners and a dice girl, then fleeing into the street, where he killed a 32-year old news vendor. Police said that they had learned the identity of the gunman from a brother of one of the victims, describing him as an enraged former convict who had been arrested for creating a disturbance in the tavern a month earlier. According to witnesses, he had fired three shotgun blasts at the owner of the tavern, where about a half dozen customers were present at the time. The owner's brother had rushed to the rear room to obtain a gun, and the dice girl had been the second victim of the shotgun blasts. The gunman threatened some of the customers as he fled into the street, where he bumped into the news vendor and then fatally shot him.
In Richmond, Va., an emergency operation was performed on a South Carolina explosion victim this date after a single-engine airplane taking him to Philadelphia for surgery had been forced to land when the man had gone into deep shock. Surgeons said that after 3.5 hours of surgery, the man would probably live but would lose his voice. He was a racing enthusiast who had been tuning up the engine of his miniature racer at his home the previous night when the transmission exploded, causing flying metal to rip his throat. Local doctors decided to fly him to a throat specialist at Temple University in Philadelphia in the hope of saving his voice, and the small airplane had left Charlotte at around midnight, with a nurse accompanying the patient, until he had gone into deep shock when the plane was near Charlottesville, forcing the plane to land in Richmond, where he was hurriedly transported to the hospital for emergency surgery. The man was a cabinet maker and the father of two children.
Donald MacDonald of The News reports of an attempt by the prosecutor of five men charged with distribution of "hate literature" to show that the States Rights League was behind the local distribution, accomplished through the mail. Four men of Charlotte were individually charged with distributing the anti-Semitic and anti-black materials. The first two witnesses in the trial this date had testified that they received unsigned hate pamphlets, titled "Jews and You" and "A.D.L. Terror". One of the witnesses testified that he had taken the pamphlets to Alfred E. Smith, the operator of M. B. Smith Jewelers, as Mr. Smith's name had been mentioned in the latter pamphlet. A Mecklenburg County Police captain had testified to a raid of the Art Stone Works on Tryon Street during the afternoon of May 31, in which were found additional pamphlets, dynamite, weapons, a Ku Klux Klan robe and mask, and a printing press, whereupon one of the defendants had been arrested at the location. One of the original five defendants had been dismissed from the case just before the start of the trial, with the solicitor indicating that he should remain in the courtroom for possible testimony as a State's witness.
Ann Sawyer of The News reports that the decision by voters to continue operation of the Mecklenburg Sanatorium for tuberculosis patients had brought County officials face to face with old problems. The voters effectively had turned down the offer by the State to take over care of the tuberculosis patients in State-operated hospitals. At present, the Sanatorium had 64 patients, an all-time low, and there were at least 30 empty beds in the new patient wing, the old portion of the building and that used for black patients. A problem thus existed as to what to do about the two-thirds completed new building for white patients, what ought be done about tearing down the old structure, which was preventing the full utilization of the new building, and how to fill the empty beds and stay within the legal requirements. For starters, we would suggest an educational program regarding the absence of black cooties from black patients being transferred to white patients so that perhaps integration of the facilities could take place.
On the editorial page, "The Desperate Gamble Is in Focus" finds that the State Supreme Court's decision in the Anson County case, approving of the expenditure of school bonds, had saved the state's public school system from chaos, interpreting the State Constitution as providing authority to meet the developing needs of the public schools without impairment by Brown v. Board of Education or "legalistic hair-splitting", the piece finding it a just and proper opinion.
The legality of the sale of $750,000 worth of bonds by Anson County had been challenged on grounds that they had been voted in 1952 for the building of segregated schools, now an unlawful purpose under Brown. The Court had rejected the argument, finding that the bonds had been voted for a valid purpose, for improvement of the public school system, regardless of whether it was segregated or not.
The resolution of the matter meant that the delay in distribution of the final 25 million dollars of 50 million in school construction funding authorized in 1953 could also now be spent. The pending legal roadblock had also posed a threat to millions of dollars worth of bonds voted by other county school administrative units.
It quotes Article IX, Section 2 of the State Constitution, which had been at issue, providing, among other things, that tuition in the public schools "shall be free to all the children of the state between the ages of 6 and 21 years. And the children of the white race and the children of the colored race shall be taught in separate public schools; but there shall be no discrimination in favor of, or to the prejudice of, either race."
The decision had been written by Justice William Bobbitt, making clear that while mandatory separation of the races was no longer the law in the state, the State Constitutional mandate for a public school system remained.
It indicates that the purpose of the special session of the Legislature, to occur later in the summer, was to prepare legal tools to continue separation of the races within the framework of the public schools, consistent with the notion put forward by Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge John J. Parker, who had stated that the Brown decision had not ordered compulsory integration but rather had ruled that a state could not deny any person the right to attend any school which the state maintained solely on the basis of race.
It finds that the decision by the State Supreme Court had served as a reminder to North Carolinians and their legislators that the state could not sidestep its responsibility to maintain free public schools without amending the State Constitution. It indicates that if the mandate for public schools was removed, the means to destroy the public school system would be available for the first time since the 1868 State Constitution had been ratified, such that in attempting to preserve the public schools, the Governor and his advisers were asking that they be endangered by forfeiting the State's responsibility to provide for them.
"Secrecy Deprives as Well as Shields" finds that the criticism of secrecy in the juvenile court system by Raleigh News & Observer editor Jonathan Daniels, addressing the Maryland State Conference of Social Welfare, had offered no perfect solution, and, it indicates, it could not offer any either, but suggests that a custom followed in the society for about half a century deserved re-examination in the light of 700 years of safeguards concerning the administration of justice otherwise.
Secrecy in the handling of juvenile crime shielded the youth from the retribution of society, based on the notion that men derived some morbid pleasure from the misfortunes of the very young, and that some wayward adult would seek vengeance on the wrongdoing youth. It suggests that such a pessimistic view was neither fair nor accurate as most citizens responded generously to juvenile misfortune, appreciating the problems of youth and the difficulties of rehabilitation. It finds that shielding youthful wrongdoers from public revelation thus also shielded them from public interest, understanding, compassion and support.
It appears to misunderstand, however, the primary reason for keeping the record of youthful offenders sealed and out of the public eye, at least where the offense is not so serious that the juvenile is tried as an adult, that being to preserve the record of the juvenile from public notice to avoid harm in the future to the juvenile in seeking adult employment or in obtaining higher education and the like, giving the juvenile space and time for adequate maturation and rehabilitation before reaching the age of majority.
It seems, incidentally, that a former President would regard the age of 40 as being the cut-off for "youthful indiscretions", which ought not be utilized against the wrongdoer in his or her efforts at rehabilitation. Discretion prevents us from disclosing the identity of that former President.
"Poet Laureates of the Status Quo" tells of Time Magazine having asked, "What does it mean to be an intellectual in the U.S.?" (The link appears dead right now, perhaps out of deference to prevailing stupidity, but we include the access in case it is repaired in the future, perhaps when respect for and appreciation of intellectualism is re-established in the country.) Columbia University historian Jacques Barzun had said that if there was a traditional distrust of ideas in America, the nation's men of ideas had still "won recognition in tangible ways beyond any previous group of their peers." Many had come to realize that they were true and proud participants in the American Dream. Time had then summed the matter: "But in 1956, it would seem, the intellectual has ceased weeping. He is, in fact, closer than ever before to assuming the role he originally played in America as the critical but sympathetic—and wholly indispensable—bearer of America's message."
The piece finds that if that was the picture of the contemporary intellectual, the person was not akin to the renegade eggheads of the 1920's and 30's. He had "grown fat, mentally and philosophically flabby, and even—horror of horrors!—conventional." According to Professor Barzun, he had all but abandoned his orneriness, the traditional rebelliousness which had always been the hallmark of persons of ideas. It had always been maintained by the best of them that when the intellectual abandoned that traditional rebelliousness, the person ceased to function as an intellectual, losing strength when losing boldness.
It indicates that it always considered the intellectual to be a person with a mind which was committed and yet dispassionate, ready to stand alone, curious, eager, skeptical, and possessing of critical independence. Philosopher Sidney Hook had said that the intellectual's true vocation "is critical intelligence. The intellectual betrays his vocation when he becomes the poet laureate of the status quo."
A piece from the Raleigh News & Observer, titled "Creeks Are Like People", wonders whether the reader had watched a creek recently, taking the time to draw its picture in the mind, finding that the only trouble was that a creek's personality was so devious that it was likely to leave one flabbergasted in the efforts to keep up with it.
After following the creek, it says: "Yep. One can do much worse these days than be a lover of creeks. Just watch the creek crawling on his belly under the willows emulating an Indian Scout, and then pausing briefly to tease the lady-birds about their boy friends.
"His history is brief to the eye and long to the heart. He swaggers down from the spring, a boy dwarfing the mother who bore him. He pauses at the corner oak to wave farewell, like a youngster off to high adventure whose mind leaps between the magic he's read and the safe comfort he's known at home. Then, proudly and wistfully, he races headlong down to the bridge to mingle with the fellows who're off to see the whole, wide world."
Granted, we have never thought to anthropomorphize a creek. But ol' man river, though, he must know somethin'...
Drew Pearson tells of the civil rights bill put forward by the Justice Department to protect voting rights of blacks in the South having been rigorously subjected to cross-examination when the Senate Judiciary Committee had summoned Attorney General Herbert Brownell before it, the latter having avoided testifying almost as much as he shied away from press conferences. The Senators wanted to know why he had delayed for months in answering their questions regarding civil rights and why the bill did not contain criminal penalties for denying voting rights to blacks, instead containing only provision for civil action.
Senator Thomas Hennings of Missouri told the Attorney General that at the time the bill had been proposed, there were four bills already reported out of the subcommittee on Constitutional Rights and that the Senate had received no cooperation from the Justice Department. Mr. Brownell had not replied. Senator Hennings then said that he understood that the Attorney General was opposed to any penal provisions relating to acts which would intimidate, threaten or force any person to vote against his intended exercise of the franchise or not to vote in a Federal election, to which Mr. Brownell had said that the Justice Department was opposed to such criminal sanctions because they believed it a matter of Congressional consideration and would not affirmatively recommend such sanctions to the Congress at the present time. He said that they would not oppose such sanctions but that more stress ought be provided civil remedies, but also indicating, in response to a question by Senator Hennings, that he would not agree that it might be more compensatory to the offended party to receive a money judgment than to have those who denied the right of suffrage have penal consequences. Mr. Brownell sought to clarify that it would be better for the Justice Department to try to obtain injunctive relief to prevent such activity from happening in the future than to obtain punishment for the offender. He also stated that there were some penal sections in the extant statute which could be utilized.
Senator Olin Johnston of South Carolina, after Mr. Brownell had alluded to the criminal and civil proceedings available under the antitrust statutes, wanted to know whether the Justice Department had sent anyone to jail under antitrust laws, to which Mr. Brownell responded in the affirmative, stating, in response to a follow-up question by the Senator, that he believed the first time had been many years earlier, but that it had occurred in at least two cases since 1953 when he had become Attorney General. When asked by Senator Johnston whether that was the way he wanted to proceed in civil rights cases, with only two such cases having resulted in criminal penalties, Mr. Brownell said that it would be misleading to leave the record that way because there had been dozens of criminal penalties in the form of fines and jail sentences which had been suspended, that they would take the same approach regarding civil rights, that it was better to use civil process to accomplish the goal of prevention of the conduct in the future.
Doris Fleeson tells of Senator Albert Gore of Tennessee having told a Massachusetts rally that Senator John F. Kennedy would ornament the presidential ticket in either spot, finding that he was only repaying a compliment to the Senator, who had said in response to whether he held vice-presidential ambitions, that the nomination should go to Senator Gore.
Ms. Fleeson indicates that the press gallery would agree that Senator Gore, from the standpoint of character, ability and industry, was very near the top of the heap and was well-placed geographically to be on the national ticket, Tennessee being between the Northern and Southern factions within the Democratic Party. The care and diligence with which he had constructed his record in six House terms and during his first term in the Senate spoke for his ambitions, but he had been overshadowed by the presidential aspirations of Senator Estes Kefauver, also from Tennessee.
The careers of the two Senators, in many respects, had been parallel, with Senator Kefauver also having served for a long period of time in the House and both representing the new South and being internationalists on foreign policy. Both also had an unusual degree of personal independence.
Senator Gore had superior standing with his colleagues, resting in large part on his capacity and willingness to work at the dull tasks as well as the things which made headlines. But the Southern conservative leaders were not his fans, as proved by their refusal to back his plans for the Senate Lobby Committee, of which he had originally been chairman, and in consequence, acting in character, he had quit.
His most recent achievement was the new highway bill, the largest Federal Government program ever undertaken. He had begun with the financial aspects of that bill, probably reflecting his long and close association with Bernard Baruch, the economic elder statesman. Senator Gore had substituted a tax plan for the President's proposal to raise the money for the program through bonds, and thereafter worked out the compromises.
Senator Gore was a public power advocate, coming from the Tennessee Valley, and had been pushing for Federally-constructed atomic power plants. The CIA had backed his contention that the country was lagging behind the Soviets in that field.
Ms. Fleeson indicates that both Senators Gore and Kefauver had behaved with great circumspection toward one another, with Senator Gore no doubt planning to stand aloof at the Chicago convention in August until Senator Kefauver's fate was determined. The Kefauver criticism of Adlai Stevenson during the latter stages of the primary campaign had made one thing certain, that Mr. Stevenson would not take Senator Kefauver in the second spot on the ticket, and, therefore, she suggests, Senator Gore or Governor Averell Harriman of New York might become the vice-presidential nominee.
Pluperfect journalistic augury strikes again.
Robert C. Ruark, in Palamos, Spain, tells of becoming slightly nauseated at the press coverage given to the Aly Khan and Porfirio Rubirosa types for their brief flings with females. He says he did not know Prince Khan but did "Rubi", as he calls him, and liked him, though adds that to like was not necessarily to admire.
He finds that the gossip press spoke of Aly Khan and his latest lady "as if it were a combination of Pygmalion and Galatea, or Cupid and Psyche, when all the time it is just some broad he met in a bar at Cannes, or happened to fetch along from Paris." He says that Mr. Rubirosa had worked his way through a "battalion of dames", proving only that, as Oscar Hammerstein had stated in "South Pacific", "broads are broad where broads should be broad." But such escapades were treated in the gossip press as a sort of World Series, with each such "model" or "movie starlet" suddenly dubbed a "new romance" or even engagement.
The type of conduct which used to
result in a person being placed in the stocks or having, in the case
of females, her head shaved, now was applauded loudly in the
international press. He had come to the defense of Rita Hayworth when
she was being criticized for running around with Prince Khan without
being married, while accompanied by a small child from a previous
marriage
A letter writer from Pittsboro addresses an editorial of June 4, "Quality Education Must Be Maintained", which he finds provocative of thought and reflection. He indicates that he was an alumnus of UNC, indicates that they wanted men of independence and executive ability in the executive department of the Greater University, that character came first in all relations of the state's development of the youth of the country, and that it was important to maintain balance in the executive department. He had known Frank Porter Graham, former president of the University, since 1905, having roomed just across the hall from him for three years during their college days, and while he loved him, he believed he lacked the balance needed in the presidency of the Greater University, and urges not duplicating that error. "The top man gives tone and character to the institution he heads, if he has force of intellect and a strong personality. It's at the top we must first concentrate our thoughts and endeavors if we make of the Greater University what we all desire."
A letter from Mahlon Chandler quotes UNC football coach Jim Tatum, "There is nothing that takes the place of victory in winning a football game or a political campaign." He remarks that love of family, loyalty, and the sincere good will of friends, however, could lighten the weight of defeat at the polls or on the athletic field, until it was as light as a feather from the wing of a hummingbird. He says that although he had run low in the race for the Democratic nomination to the House, receiving 6,275 votes, he valued each and every one of those votes as though it were a precious jewel of great value. He urges that now that the primary was over, all Democrats ought work immediately with enthusiasm and effort to elect each and every Democratic candidate in the general election in November.
Speaking of gracious election losers, we feel compelled to correct those, such as Messy Wawtas at Fox "News", who are going about irresponsibly saying that there have "always" been in American politics slates of "alternate electors" submitted to Congress. Much as with the "alternate facts" universe, that is quite untrue. That occurred only in 1876, in the contested Hayes-Tilden election, when, notwithstanding Samuel J. Tilden having won the popular vote, a contest erupted in four states, three from the South plus Oregon, the three Southern states vying to end Reconstruction, between whether slates of electors committed to Governor Tilden or to Governor Rutherford B. Hayes would be recognized as the legal slate from each state, the outcome being determinative of the electoral college majority, ultimately decided along partisan lines by a 15-man commission designated by Congress to resolve the matter, eight of whom were Republicans, each of whom voted to seat the disputed slate for Governor Hayes. Messy claims that "since 1876", and including, specifically, the 1960 election, there have been "alternate electors".
In the 1960 election, there were eight so-called "faithless electors", designated for the Democratic winner, Senator John F. Kennedy, in Mississippi, and six unpledged electors who had won the majority of the popular vote in Alabama, all 14 of whom, plus one other faithless elector from Oklahoma, based on stands in support of continued segregation, cast their lot with Senator Harry F. Byrd of Virginia. There have, at times, been such "faithless electors" who, while committed to their party's winner by signed pledge or law, have diverged from that commitment and voted for some other person not on the ballot. But other than in 1876, there have never been sent to Congress competing slates of electors, so-called "alternate electors", in the instant case in 2020, those "alternate electors" having been fraudulent electors claiming to be legitimate and signing false affidavits to that effect, a crime. Messy and his ilk need to study history for a change rather than being intent on misleading their gullible, not so astute listeners and viewers, many of whom have already been sentenced to prison for listening without question to their bunk.
Ditto for the likes of Newty-Wooty, who has stated, along with Shown N. Sanity, that the supporters of Vice-President Al Gore, in the contested election of 2000, would have to be locked up under the same principles underlying the current Georgia indictments. Mr. Newty-Wooty, you are bound not to be that stupid. The 2000 election was decided by some 537 popular votes in Florida, determining the electoral college result by four electors, 271 to 267, the closeness of the popular vote having prompted automatically, under Florida state law, a machine recount, which was then followed by a request by Vice-President Gore, also pursuant to state law, after the machine recount reduced the margin to 327 votes, to conduct manual recounts in four counties, with Governor Bush having sought to stop the recount. After the trial court in the ensuing contest upheld the Bush contentions, the Florida Supreme Court ultimately ordered the recount to proceed following the result having been originally certified for Governor Bush by the Florida Secretary of State, the Lady of the Lake, Loch Katrina. Then came the infamous U.S. Supreme Court decision of December 13, 2000, which, by a 5 to 4 vote, ordered the recount stopped based on a finding by the majority that without a recount in all counties of the state, not just the four requested by Vice-President Gore, though acting pursuant to state law in that regard, Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection would be infringed vis-a-vis the other counties where no manual recounts would take place—even though, of course, Governor Bush had the same right under state law to request recounts in all of the other counties had he thought that would be beneficial to his case. That bears no resemblance to that conduct, as alleged in the indictment, which took place in Georgia in late 2020 and early 2021, all occurring quite outside the state law provisions for contested elections.
No candidate for the presidency in the history of the country, let alone an incumbent, has ever gone forth and directly sought informally, outside of legal processes, to influence state officials to change the certified results of the election in their state, and certainly has never implicitly threatened them with criminal action for certifying a supposedly false result, while sitting as the chief executive officer in the White House—even if some, because of the three-million popular vote victory for Hillary Clinton in 2016, never really accepted that incumbent as a legitimate "President", and for very good reason. That action in Georgia, not mere speech or mere advocacy, in trying to coerce
Perhaps when these ignoramuses begin to get their facts and law straight, with proper discrimination between this and that bogus example from the past, their sheep, who follow them breathlessly and echo their every word, will also begin to develop some sensitivity to the notion that there really is no problem in the current indictments except their faulty perceptions of reality which persist because of their lock-step march
Perhaps, in the end, it is just all a demonstration, if somewhat cynically and grotesquely undertaken, with the continuing common denominator through time being Fox "News" and their media ilk, in 2000 and again in 2016, flipped onto itself spitefully in 2020, as with a frustrated small child unable to get his or her way, in projected fashion because it was then foiled from working again, to show that even in the U.S., truly representative democracy can be stolen by foreign interests working through the guise of a benevolent demagogic autocrat who willingly participates in the scheme out of pure vanity, pretending to be the people's friend, in the instant case, a non-politician billionaire who is on your side, so that you can have the burger your way, even if in the final taste test, it is the same old barely visible, processed patty hardly worth eating, with its price having risen now beyond casual stop-off consumption without consideration of the household food budget, commensurate with the rampant worldwide inflation set in motion by the worldwide pandemic of 2020-21, the results of which in the U.S. were dramatically worsened by the demagogue's diminishing of its impact until it was rampantly out of control, the inflationary trend begun in 2020 under his watch—which is why Fox "News" only cites to more favorable economic statistics through 2019—having then been complicated by the 2022-23 war launched by Russia against Ukraine and the consequent international sanctions on Russian oil exports, lowering world supply and thus increasing oil prices and consequent transportation costs of all raw materials and products, rippling through every economy in the world, kept to a relative minimum in the U.S. by the policies of the current Administration, except in the eyes of the demagogue and his blind followers over the cliff
A letter writer suggests that to hold the tax rate at $1.77 per $100 of property valuation and to hold the city firemen to a work week of 72 hours suggested that there was someone looking backward instead of forward, that they had elected the City Council and hired the City Manager to conduct the city's business, and so if the tax rate had to go up to do that, then it should, and that the firemen should have 12 hours off per week. The policemen worked eight hours for six days per week, while those at City Hall worked five days of eight hours each, and so the firemen should have a 60-hour week.
Framed Edition
Links-Date — Links-Subj.