The Charlotte News
Tuesday, July 10, 1956
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from Gettysburg, Pa., that the President had disclosed to Republican leaders in a meeting this date that he would definitely continue his run for re-election for a second term, notwithstanding his June 8 ileitis attack and surgery. Republican Minority Leader Senator William Knowland of California had disclosed the fact at a news conference on the campus of Gettysburg College this date, while White House press secretary James Hagerty stood next to him nodding affirmatively. Senator Knowland said that the President had told a meeting of Republican Congressional leaders that he felt in better shape than he had when he made his original February 29 announcement that he would seek re-election, notwithstanding his September 24, 1955 heart attack. The President had appeared before reporters and photographers before and after the hour-long strategy session, looking, according to the report, a little pale and obviously having lost some weight, while his color was better and his step firmer than when he had left Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington on July 1.
In Chicago, Adlai Stevenson, the likely nominee of the Democrats for a second successive time, said this date that he was delighted that the President felt in good enough health to run again for the presidency. He said that the nation would benefit in the coming months from a "searching and vigorous debate" on urgent problems. Former President Truman, also in Chicago for a luncheon with civic leaders and to accept a gift for the Truman Library, said with a smile that the disclosure that the President would run again was "not headline news" to him, declining during a press conference to discuss the President's health. In Albany, N.Y., Governor Averell Harriman, also a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, stated that he had assumed that the recent illness would not affect the President's February decision to run again. Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee, who was also seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, said that he was glad that the President felt well enough to run again, and expressed the hope that it was a decision which he and Mrs. Eisenhower had determined free of political pressure, and that he would not be jeopardizing his health as a result of any such pressure. House Republican Leader Joseph Martin of Massachusetts said that he thought it was wonderful news, that it meant that the Republican Party would have a landslide victory in November. Senator Styles Bridges of New Hampshire said that he and fellow Republicans were "very pleased and enthusiastic". Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson said that he was not going to comment on Republican candidates, but hoped that the President would recover from his heart attack and the more recent operation so that he could be a candidate again if he so desired. Senator Johnson had also suffered a heart attack a year earlier on July 4. Senator Robert Kerr of Oklahoma said that he was not surprised to learn of the decision, but added that he did not believe the President could be re-elected. Senator John Sparkman of Alabama, the vice-presidential nominee for the Democrats in 1952, said that there was no comment to make as the President had been running all along. Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota stated of the decision, "That's like Macy's announcing Christmas is coming."
In New York, prices improved this date somewhat in stepped up stock market trading immediately following the news that the President would continue to run for a second term. Wall Street observers said that investors had pretty much discounted the decision by the President, however, having forecast the news in advance, with stock prices having been generally higher during the previous four weeks.
Governor Luther Hodges of North Carolina said that he was not surprised at the announcement and that "the national slogan will be a vote for Eisenhower is a vote for Nixon." An associated story also provides the reactions of several other local and state leaders in Charlotte and North Carolina.
In Westbury, N.Y., a longshoreman and a one-time bartender would face up to 25 years in prison if convicted of making a false claim that they held the month-old infant kidnaped from its parents' backyard the prior Wednesday and being held for ransom. The two men were to be arraigned this date, charged with attempting to extort $5,000 from the child's heartbroken mother and providing false information about the kidnaping. The two men allegedly had made four telephone calls to the parents' home the prior Sunday night and early the previous day, telling the mother that she would find her infant son in a Queens church if she paid the $5,000 ransom. Twice, the mother had taken $5,000 and driven from her home to Queens in the desperate hope of being reunited with her baby. There was still no trace of the infant or any solid evidence that he was still alive. The FBI planned to enter the case the following day, as it could do so under the Federal Lindbergh kidnaping law a week after a kidnaping or after the victim had been transported across state lines. As indicated, when the actual kidnaper would be caught the following August, he would tell police that he had abandoned the baby beside a busy highway the day following the kidnaping, and when the police checked that area, they found the dead baby's body.
In Greensboro, a 49-year old
Gastonia man had started serving a 30-day sentence for vagrancy this
date after local police had found him using his 11-year old son as
bait for begging of money. The police said that the man and his son
had spent two days hitchhiking from Gastonia to Washington while
begging food and lodging along the way. Police had separated the son
from his father and the son was being returned to Gastonia by local
authorities. When taken into custody, the man had only 85 cents, most
of it in pennies. Police said that he collected it on the streets and
in cafés with the plea that his son was hungry. The son had
agreed when police asked him if he was being used as bait for the
panhandling, saying he guessed so. He said most people, however, had
bought him food rather than provide money and that he was "plumb
full" of hotdogs and hamburgers. The man told police that he had
left his wife and two children, ages eight and ten, in Gastonia and
was on his way to Washington to seek work, after he had been in jail
for non-support. He admitted in court this date using his son to
panhandle money and said that he had bought beer with some of the
proceeds. He stated that he had been arrested in Winston-Salem the
prior Saturday night but had been released when he promised to spend
the night with the Salvation Army and leave town the following day.
When asked about his home life, the boy said that his mother
sometimes beat his father over the head with a broom handle when he
was not working. Police had found a pack of cigarettes in the boy's
pocket and asked him if he smoked, to which he said, "Not much."
Sounds like one big, happy family
Ann Sawyer and Elizabeth Blair Prince of The News tell of County Commission member Sam McNinch having predicted this date that a split between the City-County Health Department would take place should the proposed Health Center be built at Memorial Hospital, a position which had met both favor and disfavor among fellow members of the Commission. City Council member Herbert Baxter, former Mayor of Charlotte, who had been among the members recommending the hospital as the site of the Health Center, disagreed. Mr. McNinch said that if the project went forward, he believed that the County Commission would set up its own health department in the new building because the members believed that all units of government ought be kept close to existing facilities which were presently easily accessible to the public.
Julian Scheer of The News, in the last of a series of articles regarding the Park & Recreation Commission, tells of the City Council possibly getting around to the situation the following day, having to do with the Commission's surplus which had not been known by any of its members. Members of the Council who had studied the matter had determined that the situation was not clear-cut. It clearly isn't and we are sad to see this absorbing series end.
On the editorial page, "The Public Schools: Debate Needed" indicates that the state was moving swiftly toward preliminary decision on weakening the constitutional and statutory foundation of the public school system. The special session of the Legislature would begin on July 23 to address the desegregation issue, and would begin considering proposals to provide for permissive closing of individual public school systems, for tuition grants for private schools, and for waivers in individual cases of compulsory school attendance in those systems where conditions were "intolerable".
Governor Luther Hodges had not preferred that course but had found the circumstances to be reason for a strong and sincere conviction that the proposals had to pass, believing it necessary to gamble on the possible closing of a few schools in the hope of preserving most of the public schools. Much of the criticism of the plan he regarded as a result of misinformation or lack of information, referring to "casual idealists" who "don't have the time to go into the facts."
The piece indicates that such a group would include many North Carolinians who felt almost instinctively that any tampering with the public school system was ill-conceived and dangerous, and suggests that it might be a healthy and worthwhile element, for it demanded that those who would change the school laws make a compelling case for doing so.
It finds that there were not enough facts to foreclose doubt of any course chosen and that there was plenty of room for a serious debate on the merits of the proposals. It suggests that the debate begin with submission of the Pearsall plan to the Legislature, with ample provision made for public hearings. That plan was generally known as to its basic principles, but its details could not be published until the meeting of the Legislature or shortly before, and until the details were known, the lack of information of the "casual idealists" could be viewed with charity.
It suggests that in the meantime, North Carolinians would be wise to remember that the debate was to concern method, not principle, that the correctness of preserving the public school system was an agreed precept, with how to preserve the public schools being the question, and no one having yet advanced guaranteed answers.
"The Posse: Primitive and Dangerous" finds that the group of hunters who had gone hunting for wild dogs in Cabarrus County the previous day had chosen a primitive method to get rid of the problem. It suggests that the necessity for action was clear, to protect private property being harmed by the wild dogs, but that in modern society, peace officers were preferred to private posses. It hopes that such conduct would not become the style in other areas where dogs occasionally bothered farmers.
It posits that the vigilante system could get out of hand easily, whether the prey was a man or a dog, and that it would be too easy for an innocent person to be hurt in the process. Trigger-happy volunteers were not always dependable people during the excitement of mass operations and were not even ordinarily efficient in the manner of trained gun-toters of law enforcement, who had demonstrated the necessary qualities.
It concludes that while the first victim of the hunt the previous day had been a dog, it had not been killed but only wounded, and might not have been one of the wild dogs which the group had been seeking. "Such niceties, however, are easily overlooked by a posse. In general, that is what we have against posses."
"Uncle Sam, the Latter Day Scrooge" indicates that throughout the history of the country, it had been difficult to obtain and hold top personnel in Government service, because of the parsimony of the Government with regard to salaries. It was now somewhat more of a problem than it had been since World War II, because of much higher paying jobs in the private sector.
Yet, legislation designed to improve the situation was buried in the Senate Post Office and Civil Service Committee, chaired by Senator Olin Johnston of South Carolina. The measures would only increase rates of compensation for the heads and assistant heads of executive departments and independent agencies, whose salaries had not been increased since 1949, while salaries of rank-and-file employees had gone up substantially twice. The result was that the Government was finding it increasingly hard to coax experts in management into Government service, as the private sector paid considerably more with fewer duties.
The Hoover Commission had recognized the situation and in its report to Congress on personnel and civil service the previous year, had recommended that salaries for the top managers be increased "as a practical means of securing and holding competent men in public service."
The piece suggests that the added expense would be an investment and not an extravagance, that improving the compensation of top executives in the Government could result in Federal economy worth many times more than the cost of the increased salaries. Former President Hoover had said: "A good top executive at any salary can save ten times his salary."
It concludes that a more reasonable balance between Government and private sector salaries was a public necessity and urges appropriate legislation be saved from the grave prepared for it by Senator Johnston's Committee.
"Uh Huh Dept." indicates that after several attempts to pass the Bricker Amendment to amend the Constitution to restrict the President's treaty-making powers, its supporters had finally given up. Senator John W. Bricker of Ohio had said that he probably would receive a favorable vote in the Senate, but would not even try.
It quotes sportswriter Grantland Rice: "When the One Great Scorer comes to write against your name—/ He marks—not that you won or lost—but how you played the game."
A piece from the Carlsbad Current-Argus, titled "What Price Success?" tells of Driscoll's Printer's Gazette having asked the general question as to whether the reader was disappointed with their lot in life, then commenting, "This, too, shall pass away."
It recounts that in 1923, an important meeting had taken place in Chicago, attended by nine of the world's greatest financiers, including the president of the largest independent steel company, the president of the largest utility company, the president of the largest gas company, the greatest wheat speculator, the president of the New York Stock Exchange, a member of the Cabinet, the greatest bear on Wall Street, head of the world's greatest monopoly, and the president of the Bank of International Settlements.
Charles Schwab, who was the president of the largest independent steel company, had then died bankrupt, having lived on borrowed money for the last five years of his life. Samuel Insul, the president of the greatest utility company, had died a fugitive from justice and penniless in a foreign country. Howard Hopkins, the president of the largest gas company, had gone insane. Arthur Cutten, the greatest wheat speculator, had died abroad, broke. Richard Whitney, the president of the New York Stock Exchange, had spent some of his last years in prison. Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall of New Mexico, the member of the Cabinet, had been convicted in the Teapot Dome scandal and had his prison sentence shortened to a year so he could spend his last years at home. Jesse Livermore, the greatest bear trader on Wall Street, Ivar Krueger, head of the world's greatest monopoly, and Leon Fraser, president of the Bank of International Settlements, each had committed suicide.
Drew Pearson tells of General Joseph Swing, commissioner of the Immigration Service and the President's former classmate at West Point, having been the subject of frantic phone calls from Republican Congressmen to Democratic Congressmen, trying to head off an investigation of the General. A House Government Operations subcommittee, chaired by Congressman Bob Mollohan of West Virginia, the previous week had begun probing the General's activities, especially his hunting expeditions in Mexico. The hearings had been held in executive session, but it was now revealed that the General had used Government cars, including newly purchased house trailers, to go hunting.
He had gotten the Immigration Service director in El Paso to draft a Mexican maid at low wages for his home in Washington, while ordering the Immigration Service plane to carry Attorney General Herbert Brownell around Texas on a political trip to try to enlist the support again of Governor Allan Shivers, who, though a Democrat, had supported Mr. Eisenhower in 1952. General Swing had also provided a job in the Immigration Service to his daughter, a fact which press officials of the Service had admitted while not revealing her salary, despite all Government salaries being required to be made public.
In testimony the previous week, General Swing had admitted that he had taken Government cars on the hunting trips and also admitted that on one occasion, Mexican officials had disarmed his hunting companions because they had no license, contending, however, that when it happened, he had left the hunting party. Mr. Pearson concludes that the testimony made it easy to understand why Republicans were pressuring Democrats to drop the public hearings.
Marquis Childs finds it increasingly evident that the election campaign in the fall would be a make-or-break test for the foreign policy of the country and the bipartisan support for aid and cooperation with the free nations and neutral nations during the previous decade. Those who had studied the record of debate and roll calls on the foreign aid bill in the Senate believed that the new Congress the following January might cause a sharp reversal in those trends.
For on several roll calls, significantly on the issue of continuing aid to Yugoslavia, the majority of Democrats had supported the position of the Administration while a majority of Republicans had voted against that position. Many of the Democrats up for re-election believed they were sticking their necks out in so doing.
If during the fall, Vice-President Nixon behaved as he had in the 1954 midterm campaign and would accuse Democrats of being soft on Communism, and if the anti-Eisenhower Republicans would charge those Democrats with disloyalty and seek a Congress to support the President, then the Administration in a second term would find itself in serious trouble. Senator Walter George of Georgia, who was retiring at the end of his current term, would no longer be present to provide decisive support of Administration foreign policy.
Thus, the Administration would face potentially a very new situation on foreign policy. The Administration could not control the irresponsible members of the Republican Party, such as Senator McCarthy, who had been virtually disclaimed by the Eisenhower supporters in any event. But a memorandum of the Republican policy committee of the Senate, quoting a convicted Communist to attempt to show that the Communists favored the Democrats, presented an unhappy portent for the campaign.
Secretary of State Dulles had placed the stress on continuation of aid to Yugoslavia, indicating that the President shared his concern. Yet, in the Senate, Minority Leader Knowland had led the fight for the amendment of Senator Styles Bridges of New Hampshire, chairman of the Republican policy committee, to strike out aid for Yugoslavia. Virtually the only Republican voice in favor of the Administration's stance was that of Senator Alexander Smith of New Jersey. On the vote regarding the amendment, Republicans were opposed 23 to 2 against the Administration position, while Democrats favored continuing aid to Yugoslavia by a vote of 29 to 15. Both of the Democratic Senators from Oregon, Richard Neuburger and Wayne Morse, voted for the aid.
After the vote, Senator Neuberger had recalled that in his campaign two years earlier, Senators Herman Welker of Idaho and George Malone of Nevada had come to Oregon to support his opponent, former Senator Guy Cordon, on the basis of the need for a Senator who would support the President. But both Senators Welker and Malone had voted against the aid to Yugoslavia.
Senator Morse, who had switched from being a Republican during the fall of 1952, first to becoming an independent and then to becoming a Democrat, was currently up for re-election, and the Republican national organization was planning to contribute large sums of money to defeat him.
Senator Neuberger had voted four times for the Administration on reciprocal trade, receiving more hostile mail than on anything else during his two years as a Senator, with his constituents protesting regarding imports of Japanese tuna and Italian cherries.
Mr. Childs regards it as the type of risks which Democrats would no longer take if, at election time, it would be turned around against them. Nor would Republicans take such risks, given the example of Senator Alexander Wiley, a consistent supporter of the Administration's foreign policy, who nevertheless, has been given the brush-off by the White House while the Old Guard in Wisconsin had maneuvered to oust him in the Republican primary.
He concludes that the question was larger than party, involving the future of the country and the struggle against Communism, but that in an election year, the matter would be determined strictly along party lines.
Doris Fleeson indicates that the Administration was cautiously optimistic that the steel strike would not be prolonged to the point where the public interest would be impacted. They believed that neither the steel companies nor the steel unions could stand the inevitable publicity regarding the extent to which both had already contributed to postwar inflation. The first step of any public investigation would then necessarily be a study of the facts, not as perceived by the union or the employers, but in relation to the general economy, and the trend of those studies showed that steel was the leading contributor to postwar inflation, as the industry's profits were substantially larger than average and its labor force had also benefited accordingly, while lagging behind the profits of the companies by a large margin. The study showed that labor productivity in the steel industry, however, had not increased as much as labor productivity in other industries.
In response, the unions would contend that they had been working upward from a low level and the steel industry would assert that it had been under rigorous controls during World War II—albeit not during the Korean War because of the pretermitted attempt of Presiden Truman to seize the steel mills out of war necessity when a strike loomed, premised on his inherent executive authority as opposed to an act of Congress as during the previous war, precluded by the Supreme Court in the Youngstown Steel case. Nevertheless, the figures showed a somewhat different story from that which would be claimed by the industry and the unions.
Some members of Congress believed that the story of steel ought be generally made public as a warning to the country of the speed and extent to which inflation was being fed, both by the Administration and by Congress. Senator Harry F. Byrd of Virginia had long contended, without much support, that there had been no real difference between this Administration and previous Administrations regarding inflation, that both Democratic and Republican administrations had not only countenanced it, but had helped it along.
Steel had led inflation but had never made a serious effort to absorb rising labor costs, adding to its own costs all of the new labor costs, plus a contingency amount. That had been shown again the previous week when United Steel Workers union president David McDonald had offered to postpone a national strike for 15 days, provided that any wage increases and other benefits mutually agreed would be made retroactive to the original deadline for the strike. The industry had replied that it could not do so because it could not make higher steel prices retroactive. The New York Times had reported that "in the past the industry has barred retroactive pay adjustments on the ground that price increases cannot be applied retroactively."
A letter writer comments on a previous letter, perhaps this one, which had discussed separation of church and state, and which he believed contained an arbitrary refutation of the existence of church and state in the country. He asserts that it was self-evident that to deny the existence of church and state in the country was the same as to say that if the thing presented was not visible, it was not there. "When the centuries rule of the church over the state became intolerable to the intelligence and conscience of mankind, church and state went underground." He asserts that church and state had existed in all countries of the Western world since Moses had led the Israelites from Egypt and used their religious faith as an instrument of government. He further indicates that it was under the law of church and state that the Christian God was executed as a criminal by magistrates of church and state, the "greatest paradox to challenge the imagination of man". He concludes that because the government put up part of the money to run the church, he calls that "church and state though the same is operated underground out of view of the mass."
It is difficult to discern exactly what he is trying to establish, perhaps grounds for a state-run church, or not?
A letter writer indicates that the country was "traveling on a treacherous road in a storm", with "winds of fear" all about, "hate and greed" swirling, and "heavy atomic clouds" hanging over everyone's heads. He finds that the U.N. was dominated by Russia because of its veto within the Security Council and use of the U.N. as cover for Soviet espionage, as highlighted in Congressional investigations. He says that more than 40 American members of the U.N. Secretariat had been dismissed because of possible connections with the Communist Party, and 200 had resigned without explanation. He indicates that the President had authorized membership of the U.S. in the Organization for Trade Cooperation, an international authority regulating foreign commerce of all member states. "The internationalists are nibbling away our freedom and independence as a free nation. Soon we will be permitted to trade or prohibited from trading by this international board; thus putting America at the mercy of pagan and atheistic nations of the earth." He believes that internationalism would destroy the country and Christianity. He suggests that the country had become a breeding ground for strange political doctrines and that there was a lack of moral conviction among the people, that the foundation of the country's greatness was its faith in God. "Spiritual renewal is the servicing we need if we are to travel safely over the difficult road up ahead."
He perhaps had been attending some exploratory
meetings
A pome appears from the Atlanta
Journal, "In Which Is Contained Further Advice On How To
Achieve A Desired End
"If you're plugging for
success
Don't say 'No' when you mean 'Yes.'"
And if you're bugging for arrest
Just say "Yes" when you
mean "No".
Framed Edition
Links-Date — Links-Subj.