Thursday, July 12, 1956

The Charlotte News

Thursday, July 12, 1956

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from Gettysburg that RNC chairman Leonard Hall, after discussing political plans with the President, had stated this date that the President would conduct a "vigorous campaign", traveling to different parts of the country by plane, though confining himself to five or six major speeches during the campaign to be delivered by television and radio. Mr. Hall said that the President planned to go to the national convention in San Francisco in late August and accept his renomination in person, that Representative Charles Halleck of Indiana would place his name in nomination, that the ticket was still Eisenhower and Nixon, that the President had made it clear this date that he still would be pleased to have Mr. Nixon as his running mate, and that Mr. Nixon would play a large and "very vigorous" role in the upcoming campaign. Far out...

Representative Perkins Bass of New Hampshire complained this date to the Civil Aeronautics Board that National Airlines had given his family extremely poor service on a recent trip to Florida. The Board was considering whether a new line should compete with National and Eastern Air Lines on the New York to Miami route. Mr. Bass said that one National agent in Florida "acted in a truculent way" when he sought to make arrangements to return to Washington, and that the airline had "ignored completely" his complaint after he later wrote the company for an explanation. He said that he provided his personal experience to demonstrate why he believed there was a need for more air service from New York to Miami, making a strong plea that Northeast Airlines of New England be provided the route. The attorney for National said that the testimony was "embarrassing" and demanded the right to investigate the complaint of Mr. Bass and would object if that were not permitted. Seven airlines had applied for the New York to Miami route.

In New York, a Kansas schoolteacher was in court to answer charges of felonious assault resulting from an encounter with New York traffic cops. The tall, blonde woman from Salina, who was studying for her masters degree at Columbia University, had allegedly slapped a cop in the face. She said that in Kansas, they treated people differently from the way they did in New York. The previous day, she had been stopped for allegedly making a sharp and sudden turn from a wrong lane on a Queens expressway, forcing other traffic to come to a screeching halt. Two patrolmen said that at their request, the woman produced her driver's license but did not have her registration with her, then promptly drove away. When the police stopped her again, according to the officers, she stepped from the car, slapped one of the officers and grabbed the other's gun. They handcuffed her and took her to jail. She said that she thought the policemen were all through questioning her and when she saw them charging at her, she did the first thing that came to her mind. She said she certainly did not mean to break any laws. She had been released on $1,500 bail, and was ordered to appear in court on the traffic and assault charges. She said she had been on the way to see about a job at a Queens junior high school when she was stopped. In most places today, if such an incident were to occur, she would likely not be alive to render her story at all. How far we have come in terms of progress in police training…

In Charlotte, the president of the Chamber of Commerce, Stowe Moody, would ask the Chamber to set up an interracial committee to advise the City and County on desegregation of schools and hospitals. He said: "It is time people in the middle of the road on the segregation question were organized. All we have been hearing is people at the two extremes." He had appeared as a member of a delegation before the City School Board the previous day to request that it appoint an advisory committee from the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Council on Human Relations. The Board had rebuffed the delegation, saying it was reluctant to provide official recognition to any one group. Mr. Moody stated, however, that a Chamber of Commerce committee could do a "constructive job" of making recommendations to the Board, which had said the previous day it would listen to recommendations from any group. Such a committee, according to Harry Jones, a member of the Human Relations Council and director of the Southern Regional Council's activities in Charlotte, would be the first in the state and probably in the entire South. Mr. Moody had said that he received no official request from the local Human Relations Council to appear before the Chamber of Commerce executive committee, but said he was certain such a request would be made soon. There were no black members of the Chamber of Commerce.

Julian Scheer of The News reports that Governor Luther Hodges could expect smooth sailing on his legislative proposals in the special session of the General Assembly, scheduled to start July 23, to deal with the desegregation problem in the state. A News survey of members of the State House and Senate showed overwhelming support for the Governor and his Advisory Committee on Education. The two major items on the agenda would be a State Constitutional amendment or amendments which would authorize the granting of tuition for education in private, nonsectarian schools for "'any child assigned against the wishes of his parents to a school in which the races are mixed,'" the grants to be paid only when the child could not conveniently be assigned to a non-mixed school, and, second, authorization for local school units, on a majority popular vote, to close schools within their units when "intolerable" situations arose. The bills were commonly referred to as "local option" and "tuition grant" bills. The polled lawmakers supported both measures, as well as a strong resolution of protest to the Supreme Court for its decision in Brown v. Board of Education. Mr. Scheer provides the results of the poll in both bodies. There had been no significant difference of opinion between the two bodies, but three members of the House were against the resolution of protest, while no member of the Senate was opposed. The representatives polled were from every section of the state and represented a cross-section of legislative opinion.

Ann Sawyer of The News reports that the jury had begun deliberating this date in the trial of Shorty, the short-tempered short-order cook accused of murdering his wife's suitor by emerging from the trunk of her car, in the front seat of which she and the other man had been smooching, ending up shooting the man to death with a combination rifle-shotgun which he had brought with him while secreting himself in the trunk. He had been convicted in January of second-degree murder and sentenced to 30 years in prison, but the State Supreme Court had later reversed the conviction on the ground that the trial judge had cross-examined Shorty in front of the jury regarding what he had heard in the trunk and perceived as kissing sounds, whether he could really discern the sounds to have been kissing, the Court having determined that it was highly prejudicial for the trial court, itself, to conduct cross-examination of the accused, reserved for the attorneys, finding it reversible error. He was now being charged with first-degree murder and the Solicitor, Basil Whitener, running for Congress, had told the jurors that the defendant had "changed his tale completely from the first trial." He said that the defendant now contended that the deceased had threatened him and that he was sorry for his death. He also said of the defendant's wife, who had not testified: "That little rip of a woman took a man to the grave as surely as if she had pulled the trigger." In so doing, he echoed the remarks of the trial judge at the January sentencing, who said that he would rather be sentencing the wife, the ultimate cause of the man's death. The defense attorney told of the defendant working two jobs "to build a little love nest" for himself, his wife and two young daughters, and that it had been "a case of winner take all" upon the killing of the deceased in the parking lot of the Merita Grill on the morning of January 3, that the defendant had "stood up and fought back for his rights." He argued against premeditation, as sought to be proved by the State by the facts that the defendant had hidden in the trunk of the car and purchased .410 shotgun shells the day before the killing, the defense counsel saying that his client "hasn't got sense to lay a plot." As the jury began deliberations, it could find the defendant guilty of first-degree murder, guilty of first-degree murder, with a recommendation for life imprisonment, guilty of second-degree murder, guilty of manslaughter, or not guilty. A first-degree murder conviction without a recommendation for life imprisonment would mean the death penalty. In January, the jury had deliberated for six hours and 47 minutes before returning their guilty verdict on second-degree murder. What will they decide this time? Will the idiot defense succeed? Stay tuned... But remember, Shorty, tomorrow is Friday the 13th.

Emery Wister of The News reports that a 10 to 12 million dollar housing development was being planned on a 370-acre tract in the York Road-Nations Ford Road area, about six miles from Independence Square, to contain about 1,000 homes. Maybe Shorty and his happy family can land one of those.

Charles Kuralt of The News asks whether the reader had thought about the fact that it was Thursday the 12th, an unassuming, unsung day over which no one made a fuss. Yet, Thursdays the 12th did not come along in just any old month, and were quite rare. There had been three during the current year, in January, April and July, just as there had been in 1928 and as there would be in 2012. (For some reason, perhaps in deference to the late George Orwell, or not wishing to call attention to the potential portent, he omits 1984 as also having three Thursdays the 12th.) But the following year, there would only be two, in September and December, and in 1958, there would be only one, in June. He wonders again whether the reader had thought about that. "What does everybody have against Thursday the 12th, anyway? It is all sunshine and all innocence. If somebody breaks a mirror on Thursday the 12th, does he go around throwing salt over his shoulder? The very thought is silly. If he walks under a ladder, does he mope? On Thursday the 12th? Ridiculous. Do newspaper city editors horse around with pictures of black cats on Thursday the 12th? Of course not. That's because Thursday the 12th is just another day. It is an anonymous, uncelebrated, quiet day. It does not interfere with anybody's freedom or safety. There is no danger attached to its name, and thus, no hoopla. (This particular one happens to be the birthday of Julius Caesar, but who celebrates that, nowadays?) Thursday the 12th is calm and peaceful. It is not part of the weekend and it is not mid-week. It is not even mid-month. It is nothing special. Nobody ever looks forward to it, and when it is gone, nobody ever remembers it. It is a blue skies day, meant for enjoying. Celebrate Friday the 13th if you want to. Worry. Frown. Wring your hands. You won't find any black cat pictures in The Charlotte News. We're celebrating Thursday the 12th." And that's the way it was…

On the editorial page, "Punctuating the Park Board Surplus" indicates that the Park & Recreation Commission was penitent and the City Council forgiving, ending the furor regarding the Commission's unknown surplus. Resolutions of the Commission and the Council to provide for automatic apprehension and examination of future surpluses had been passed to assure that the two agencies as well as the public would have fairly constant knowledge of the Commission's finances. It finds the actions fitting and likely to prevent similar fiascoes in the future.

The situation caused by the revelation of the surplus had demanded reasonable answers to the questions raised as well as corrective steps to prevent such questions from rising again.

It appears everyone would have been much happier had they simply stuck by the usual governmental practice of running a deficit. For running a surplus meant that the public must be overtaxed and thus…

"City Council Was in Good Company" finds that applause for the City Council's rejection of a move to allow funeral homes to operate in residential neighborhoods had been misdirected, that instead of applause for the Council, objecting citizens should have been slapping themselves on the back for they had done a good job. The previous hesitancy to settle the matter and an attempt to beg the question through a so-called compromise had indicated that the Council was willing to be led. Citizens who had signed petitions and appeared personally before the Council had provided the leadership.

Good zoning principle demanded automatic rejection of the proposal by the funeral home operators, but politicians could feel cold and lonely standing on principle, and wanted company. It suggests that the Council had company the previous day in the form of a citizens delegation who had stood for principle and enabled the public's business to be handled correctly and with dispatch.

"Everybody's Help Needed in This One" indicates that Charlotte could not extract itself satisfactorily from the continuing dilemma of segregation in the public schools until there was better communication between the races. The City School Board the previous day had asked to remedy that defect in the community's approach toward the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision and the resulting statewide moves to meet the challenge. The Board had been asked by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Council on Human Relations to name an interracial advisory committee to aid in the peaceful solution of the problem.

It indicates that the need for an interracial advisory group was evident, but that the Board might not be in a legal position to appoint such a committee from the public at large, suggesting that it ought be a job for the Mayor, the City Council or some other civic body.

It suggests that an interracial committee organized through the cooperation of many local organizations would be more effective than a group named by the Board members alone.

The group who had appeared before the Board the previous day had wisely observed that a moderate approach to desegregation was needed. It finds that to be true and that an interracial advisory committee could offer the beginning framework for moderate methods and solutions to the problem.

It suggests that the probable result of the special session of the General Assembly, set to begin on July 23, would increase rather than diminish the need for better lines of interracial communication. Serious decisions would have to be made in Charlotte in the near future, and those questions had to be faced with maturity and responsibility. The answers had to reflect the best interests of the community as a whole, and not just a part of the population. White and black citizens working together with mutual respect could undoubtedly help attain that high degree of civic wisdom needed for peaceful community progress.

"USIA: Knife in Back, Smile on Face" finds that nothing quite equaled the attitude of executive agencies referenced by the title in their relations with Congress, that cheerfulness was the rule no matter how severe the legislative punishment would be. It cites as a case in point, the important U.S. Information Agency, which had just finished licking so enthusiastically the hand that fed it that one would have never guessed that it was perhaps the most abused Federal agency in Washington.

It had received from Congress 22 million dollars less than the President had personally requested for it. And even to get that, it had paid dearly. For instance, USIA had been castigated by Representative George Dondero of Michigan for sponsoring overseas exhibits of what he called the "Red art monopoly", and the project had been abandoned. The chairman of a House Appropriations subcommittee, John Rooney of New York, had accused the agency of attempting to distort conceptions of prosperous America in a book called Profile of America, slated for overseas distribution. Request for funds to circulate the book had been withdrawn. Mr. Rooney had also been instrumental in scuttling USIA's projected "Freedom Ship", and during debate, Representative Don Magnuson of Washington had accused the agency of attempting to float a "private Navy".

After a member of the subcommittee had referred to the agency's floating transmitter ship, plans were said to have been launched to beach it.

Congress had cut the agency's entertainment expense account from the requested $250,000 to $60,000, with Mr. Rooney calling it a "booze bill".

Two other overseas cultural projects had been abandoned after heavy Congressional criticism, NBC's Symphony of the Air and its Middle East tour, based on alleged left wing politics of four violinists and piccolo players, and U.S. participation in the International Festival of Dramatic Arts in Paris.

Senator Mike Mansfield of Montana compared the agency's program to some mythical campaign by Cambodians to win Americans over to their way of life, joined by Mr. Rooney who said that the agency was "more interested in propagandizing the American people than in combating Communism overseas."

But after that, USIA had smiled, thanked Congress for its gratitude and offered no criticism in response. It reminded the piece of Senator Sam Ervin's story of old Uncle Ephraim Swink, who, years earlier at a revival in the North Carolina hills, while the old folks of the congregation had risen as the spirit gripped them and told what the Lord had done for them, had, when finally called upon by the preacher to speak of what the Lord had done for him, dragged himself upright and stood tottering before the congregation, finally saying: "Brother, He's mighty nigh ruint me!"

A piece from the High Point Enterprise, titled "Mistaken Identity", tells of two men with identical names, one a clergyman and the other a businessman who lived in the same city, the clergyman having died at about the same time the businessman had gone on a trip to Arizona. Upon reaching his destination, the latter had sent his wife a telegram telling of his safe arrival, but unfortunately, it had been delivered to the clergyman's widow, who read the message with some astonishment: "Arrived safely—heat terrific."

Drew Pearson indicates that some of the cleverest backstage lobbying in the present session of Congress had maneuvered a bill for the return of German property out of the Senate Judiciary Committee onto the consent calendar where it could sneak by the entire body. It meant a giveaway of half a billion dollars, with the German cartels which had manufactured the arms for the Nazis being the primary beneficiaries while taxpayers would have to make up for the lost money. To camouflage the giveaway, the bill was stated in high-flown language, regarding compensation for nationals of the United States who had war-damage claims. While some former POWs did receive some benefit, the chief beneficiaries were I. G. Farben, the giant Nazi cartel, and the former owners of American Bosch, Schering, North American Rayon, and others. Behind the lobbying maneuver were half a dozen of the most potent public relation firms in the country, plus several pro-Nazi German-Americans.

Senator Olin Johnston of South Carolina, who had hardly a German voter in his state, was pushing the bill, though he did not like receiving much publicity about it for the fact of his buddies in the American Legion, once having served as state Legion commander.

He next provides some of the unwritten history regarding a previous revolt behind the Iron Curtain, which he suggests might provide ways of helping the people of Poland at present. In June, 1953, immediately after East Berlin workers had attacked Communist tanks with bottles and bare hands, crying for food, Mr. Pearson had suggested to Jimmy Riddleberger, then in charge of the State Department's German desk and presently Ambassador to Yugoslavia, and to General Walter Bedell Smith, then Undersecretary of State, that U.S. food surpluses ought be provided the hungry rioters by private American service groups, pointing out that it was much better for such groups to do it because gifts by the Government were viewed with suspicion. The International Lions Clubs were holding their annual convention in Chicago at the time and they authorized Mr. Pearson to make a specific proposal for the purchase of surplus wheat and butter, of which Agriculture Secretary Ezra Taft Benson had ample supplies. Mr. Pearson had gone to see Secretary Benson who brought in five of his top executives who were polite and cordial, but noncommittal. Mr. Pearson had stressed the need for speed to show that individual Americans were eager to help individual rebels against Communism. He had suggested that it was better to have groups of Americans operate than the Government because East Germans distrusted governments generally, but not people. Mr. Benson had asked him to write a letter about it, and Mr. Pearson said he had already written one, then produced it from his pocket.

Three weeks then passed but no word came from Mr. Benson. Finally, Mr. Riddleberger had phoned to say that he had taken 15 million dollars out of the State Department budget to offer food to the East Berliners. The State Department then drafted an official announcement and the President signed it. It had been a fine gesture and good politics at home, but by that time, it was July and the riots had concluded. Moreover, the official announcement by the Government had been interpreted abroad as a pure propaganda gesture and did not win the country any friends.

Walter Lippmann indicates that to judge what was happening to the President's legislative program in Congress, it appeared that he was the unanimous candidate of a party which would not follow him as a leader. A large majority of the House Republicans had just voted for the amendment of Representative Adam Clayton Powell to the Federal aid to education bill which would prevent utilizing any of the money in districts which continued to practice racial segregation in the public schools, thus knowingly dooming the bill. In addition, without Republicans, the Democrats could not have gotten Congress to overrule the Administration on the size of the military appropriation, effectively voting no-confidence in the President's military judgment.

The President's modest proposals to liberalize international trade were stalled because of Republican opposition, and the foreign aid bill, the keystone of the Administration's foreign policy, had been given what Life had described as "a furious kicking around."

None of it could have occurred if the President had a reasonably united party behind him. Yet, Republicans overwhelmingly supported his running again and he would likely be renominated at the convention by acclamation. The same Republicans who opposed his policies and measures were proclaiming that the future of the country and the world depended on him running again.

Mr. Lippmann finds the explanation to that dichotomy within the party to be a cynical one, that the dissenting Republicans did not believe in the policies of the President but needed him to win the election so that they could ride his coattails. The President's enormous popularity and prestige had made him, as he had been in 1952, the undisputed choice of the party for the presidency. Yet, he was unable to unite and lead the party in support of his policies, and the issues on which the party would not follow him were not minor, but crucial issues of foreign policy, defense, and education.

The party could be nevertheless united behind him for re-election because in the President's view of American government, the President was not a leader of the system who made it work but the officer who presided over the executive branch, who exhorted and proposed measures, but did not lead the Congress. Yet to lead a party, the leader had to be able to reward and penalize, and it was the President's unwillingness to insist upon party discipline and his virtual neutrality between those who opposed him and those who supported him which accounted for his inability to lead Congress. His personal popularity was available to all Republicans without any reciprocal obligation, and thus Republicans who opposed him still wanted him as President while not having an obligation to follow him.

Mr. Lippmann indicates that the American political system had never worked well when the President was passive and unable to give strong leadership to Congress, as the latter body was not capable of dealing successfully with large questions except under the strong leadership of an executive. Regarding measures where the national interest was more than the net sum of opposing local interests, the executive had to be the active political force. He could not simply drop the large measures into the Congress, make occasional public comments and do some private lobbying while largely standing aside. With such an approach, the large measures were likely to be ground to bits by members of Congress responding to local pressures from their constituents. The members would only get behind those issues if there was national pressure being applied stronger than those local pressures, and only the President, unless there were popular sentiment at large, could exert such national pressure.

The Kelley bill to provide Federal aid to the public schools was a case in point. The President believed that the national interest called for its passage, but it was known that there was no chance of it passing the Senate because of the prospect of a Southern filibuster if the bill coming from the House contained the Powell amendment. Nevertheless, a majority of Republicans had joined a third of the Democrats from the North to vote for the Powell amendment. Thus, he concludes, Federal aid to education had been sacrificed by about 148 Republicans and 77 Democrats who believed that they were appealing to black voters in their local constituencies. The President alone could have forced Congress to face the grave national need in the crisis, but with him absent, or passive and silent, the national interest could not prevail.

Marquis Childs tells of White House chief of staff Sherman Adams, working in close collaboration with RNC chairman Leonard Hall, having undertaken a major effort to obtain strong candidates to run for the Senate with the Eisenhower-Nixon ticket in November. Mr. Adams was using the argument that since the President was willing to run despite his second major illness in nine months, he ought be able to expect cooperation of those who believed in him and his program. The argument had been used successfully to persuade former Kentucky Senator John Sherman Cooper to overcome his reluctance to leave his position as Ambassador to India and seek the Senate seat left vacant by the death of former Senator and former Vice-President Alben Barkley. It had taken a personal telephone call to Mr. Cooper from the President to get him to change his mind, but when he heard from the President, convalescing in Gettysburg, stating that support of the President's policies in Congress was of paramount importance, he had no choice but to yield to the draft of Kentucky Republicans.

One of the reasons for the determination of Mr. Adams to strengthen the ticket wherever possible was the recognition that the President's second illness had raised doubts about his capacity to run for re-election, which appeared to have taken some of the edge off of his popularity. Mr. Adams, being acutely aware of the President's battles with opposing Republicans such as Senator McCarthy during his first two years, wanted to see an Eisenhower party with the balance of power in Congress.

Following weeks of persuasion, initiated by Mr. Adams, Governor Arthur Langlie of Washington had agreed to run for the Senate against Senator Warren Magnuson. Senator Magnuson, despite being a Democrat, had the support of influential Republicans because of his proven ability to obtain favors for his home state. The Republicans, to support Governor Langlie, had made him the keynoter of the Republican convention in August.

The effort had not been abandoned to try to persuade former Governor Thomas Dewey of New York to run for the Senate against Senator Herbert Lehman. At the end of his fourth term as Governor, Mr. Dewey had announced that he was leaving public life to enter his private law practice so that he could provide properly for his family. There had been an effort to convince him that he would not need to give up all of his law practice but only foreign clients he represented if he were to enter the Senate. The Government of Turkey was one of Mr. Dewey's clients, and according to his statement registering as an agent of that Government, his law firm received $150,000 per year from it. Many members of Congress, past and present, had retained connections with their law firms while serving in the Senate and the House.

Mr. Childs indicates that the pressure placed on Mr. Cooper was ironic in view of his own past relationship with the White House. Having been elected to a two-year term in 1952, he ran for re-election in 1954 disturbed about the effect of the Dixon-Yates private power deal in Kentucky, where low-cost power from TVA was a political factor. At the time, Mr. Cooper had tried to see the President to tell him personally that it would have a harmful political impact, and it was reported at the time that Mr. Adams had refused to give him an appointment. Mr. Cooper had also been unhappy about recent statements by Secretary of State Dulles and Vice-President Nixon criticizing India's neutral policy as "immoral", and he had sent urgent telegrams to the State Department from New Delhi recommending means for improving relations with India. His communications, however, were said to have been treated as routine "file and consider" dispatches by Undersecretary of State Herbert Hoover, Jr.

A letter writer indicates approval of an article which had appeared on July 4, titled "Gatling Praises Teenage Program", wherein Judge Gatling had made "real cool" observations, suggesting a Teenage Occupancy Act to help teenagers into summer employment. The letter writer says, "Bravo! Bravo!"

A letter writer from Derita indicates that if a critic of Elvis Presley was as cultured as she seemed to want people to believe by her recent letter, she ought take stock of herself, as she was "so refined that she doesn't like Elvis but still makes herself public with her run-away emotions." She finds that Elvis had not sought to pretend to be something he was not, and she says she was for Elvis. "I am just a country girl and proud of it. Culture is okay but everyone isn't in a position to acquire it." She says that there were many Northerners settled in the South as Southerners and they were still not cultured enough for the previous letter writer, of whose type she believed fewer were needed. She likes the South and most of its people, though originally from the North, and finds that the actions of Elvis on the stage were no worse than the public's actions previously, those who had swooned for Frank Sinatra. She thus wonders why pick on Elvis and indicates he was not a snob.

He already had impersonators.

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