The Charlotte News
Saturday, July 14, 1956
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from Ingolstadt, West Germany, that seven desperate anti-Communists had asked for political asylum this date after seizing control of an Hungarian airliner during flight and crash-landing it in West Germany, with 12 of the 19 Hungarian passengers and crewmen, including a secret policeman, having been hospitalized with injuries received in a battle for control of the aircraft and from bone-breaking loops made by it when the pilot sought to upset the plot. Five of the hospitalized had been members of the group which seized the plane. Passengers and crew who had not been injured were under police guard. Police said that an eighth person aboard the plane, who had first indicated he would join the plotters, may have changed his mind about staying in the West. The break through the Iron Curtain had been planned far in advance. The leader was an Hungarian World War II pilot, referred to by his comrades as "The Lieutenant", and had been the only person with a gun, his compatriots having been armed only with iron rods secreted in their clothing. At a signal, they had attacked the other passengers with the iron rods because they had been tipped that a member of the secret police was aboard and they had no way of telling which passenger he was. One of the plotters, a 25-year old Budapest student, said that he had relatives in the U.S., slipping a message to reporters asking them to contact a man in Chicago, asking to send him money. One of the other persons involved in the effort, a Budapest student, said that a prearranged signal by their leader had been to shout, "Look, there's Gyor," an Hungarian town, at which point the plotters pulled out their iron rods and began striking the other passengers. Were they forerunners of things to come in the fall? (Actually, they were likely only expressing their choice in the 1956 election in the United States, as, in German, "Eisenhower", as once imparted in a news story in June, 1942, roughly translates into English as...)
At Fort Dix, N.J., 45 persons had been killed and 21 injured when a military transport plane had crashed into a forest of pines in a remote corner of the military reservation during a rainstorm. One man had survived the crash and then walked a mile until he found help from military policemen. After the dead and injured had been removed and the rescuers had departed, 30 armed security guards patrolled the scene around the crash site, lit by generators. Four North Carolinians had been among the victims.
In Richmond, Va., a 40-year old man had died in a local hospital the prior Tuesday following an explosion of ether in his lungs, according to the State chief medical examiner. The exact cause of the explosion had not been determined, but a spokesman had theorized that a spark from an electrical cauterizing machine had set off the blast in the ether-administering machine. The man had died about two hours after the explosion and an anesthetist was also slightly injured.
In Atlanta, officers investigating reports of a bootleg whiskey operation had chanced upon what they described as a four million dollar per year lottery headquarters, where they made four arrests.
Julian Scheer of The News tells of five bills, including a proposed amendment to the State Constitution, comprising the package to be considered by the special session of the General Assembly, to convene on July 23 in Raleigh, with none of the bills expected to encounter serious opposition. Governor Luther Hodges and his Advisory Committee on Education had recommended a constitutional amendment which would authorize expense grants for private education and local votes to suspend local schools, a bill to set up machinery for regulating the local option plan for suspension of schools, a bill to set up machinery for education expense grants, which would depend on public approval of the constitutional amendment, a bill to amend the compulsory school attendance law to provide for children who did not want to go to school with members of another race and who could not find a proper private non-sectarian school to attend, and a bill to set the date for a September referendum on the proposed amendment. Three other bills also would be put forward, one containing a resolution of protest to the Brown v. Board of Education decision of 1954, a bill for appropriation of education expense grants, and a bill making some changes to the school enrollment act passed by the 1955 Legislature. Governor Hodges had repeatedly insisted that the Brown decision did not require the states to integrate schools, but merely meant that a state could not deny to any person because of race the right to attend a public school which it operated.
The text of the proposed constitutional amendment and the way it would appear on the ballot is provided separately.
Thomas L. Robinson, publisher of The News, had been elected president of the North Carolina Press Association this date, occurring during the closing session of the Association's 84th annual convention in Asheville. He succeeded Leslie Thompson, publisher of the Whiteville News-Reporter. Mr. Robinson had become publisher of the newspaper on January 10, 1947, had been vice-president of the Association in 1953 and 1954, and had just completed a three-year term as North Carolina director of the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association. He was also a vice-president of the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce. The convention had opened on Thursday at the Grove Park Inn, with Ralph McGill, editor of the Atlanta Constitution, having been the speaker at the opening session, and the featured speaker during the evening session of the previous day having been evangelist Billy Graham of Charlotte and Montreat.
Eddy Gilmore of the Associated Press
reports from London that Marilyn Monroe
On the editorial page, "Tar Heelia Holds No Harriman Stock" indicates that Governor Averell Harriman of New York, shopping at Asheboro this date for Southern delegates to the convention, would find no buyers of his stock in North Carolina. For the Governor had advocated calling out Federal troops to enforce school desegregation, though he was now trying to back away from that statement, denied ever having made it, working hard to destroy the public perception that he had.
It wishes the Governor luck in getting off that hook, finds it a "massive piece of stupidity", but that his real fault on the race issue was not the way he had presented it occasionally, but rather the fact that he insisted on injecting it in some form into the campaign where it had no business being. It suggests that he needed it as a weapon to overwhelm Adlai Stevenson's moderate position on desegregation and that he would continue to use it as long as he followed the strategy of trying to undermine the flanks of Mr. Stevenson's center strength, Governor Harriman's only effective strategy.
But Mr. Stevenson had observed that there was such a thing as wanting to be president too much, and it finds the malady to be represented by Mr. Harriman's reckless use of sensitive issues to manipulate emotions of the voters. It suggests that Governor Harriman's susceptibility had been revealed in his continued support of legislation to deprive segregated areas of the projected Federal aid to education.
It views the desegregation issue as being the concern of the Federal courts and the states involved, not presidential candidates, who could, nevertheless, contribute by recognizing that the first step toward a solution lay in keeping the problem out of the political arena and in diminishing its emotionalism.
But what a candidate would or would not do as President to enforce the ruling of the Supreme Court in Brown and the Federal court orders pursuant to it, and what he would veto or not coming from Congress were quite relevant for the public to know, and so the newspaper misses the boat, as it most often does on the issue of desegregation, always favoring following the law of the land but only in a milquetoast manner, favoring also what it considers to be honest means of circumvention of the ruling, such as the North Carolina plan afoot, though disfavoring the means considered thus far in Virginia, interposition and nullification, finding those anachronistic holdovers from the Civil War period and the immediate aftermath of Reconstruction.
"Security: A Rallying Point for Reason" indicates that the emotion which had accompanied the Government's chaotic security system during the height of McCarthyism had begun to subside in late 1954, after Senator McCarthy's censure, and that slowly the nation was sobering up again. Much remained to be done, however, before reason would be completely restored.
A study had been made of the five Federal security programs by the Association of the Bar of New York City, and its findings and recommendations had been published during the week in a 301-page report. It suggests that it could serve as a rallying point for those who recognized that the Federal security program had constantly to be weighed against the basic American principle of liberty of the individual under law.
The Bar study recognized that there was no clear and present danger to warrant the subjection of more than 6.2 million citizens, half of whom were in private employment, to security tests. It finds it consistent with the Supreme Court's reasoning in Cole v. Young, which had held that a national security program ought apply only to positions affecting national security. Unfortunately, the study had not gone as far as the piece had hoped in reconciling personal rights and national security. It had shown serious concern about the Government's use of "faceless informants", those who anonymously, for pay, supplied "derogatory information" on individuals. The agencies concerned were unwilling to bring the informants before a hearing for confrontation and cross-examination by the person accused of disloyalty or other security violations. The Bar survey recommended expansion of the right of confrontation, while reaching the conclusion that the final decision on whether an informer should appear ought be left to the discretion of the agency pressing the charges. It asserts that it was a compromise with traditional Anglo-American legal standards and that further thought ought be given to it.
It finds impressive evidence available to support the other suggested reforms, including coordination of the 70-odd programs by a new director of personnel and information security within the President's office, creation of a central screening board to avert "excessive filing of charges", continuing pay of employees under suspicion, with those winning reinstatement already receiving back pay, providing subpoena power for screening and hearing boards for both the Government and employees, repayment of lawyer fees for cleared persons, the opportunity for job applicants and probationary employees to rebut adverse information, abolition of the Attorney General's subversive organizations list unless it would be modified to include only those who were given an opportunity to be heard and with the established requirement that membership alone would not establish an individual in such an organization as being subversive, and that "common sense" judgment of all evidence and an individual's value to the public service be considered.
It finds the problem serious and that the nature of the Communist threat made it mandatory that the nation have an effective security system, while at the same time adhering to the democratic tradition of individual liberty. It concludes that the New York City Bar Association had made a valuable contribution toward those ends.
"The Kremlin's Very Own Sloppy Joe" tells of Communist Party Secretary Nikita Khrushchev having been the prime example of a sartorial sadsack, with his trousers being too long and his coattails too high. It indicates that a Leningrad tailor had made his pants too long but that his coattails being too high had resulted from his own bent elbow. There were rumors that he might drink himself out of the dictatorship, and everyone would say "cheers" to that.
It suggests that he might have been particularly polluted at a recent Moscow party given for U.S. Air Force chief of staff General Nathan Twining, who was quoted as saying that Mr. Khrushchev, under a heavy load, had insulted the air leaders from the U.S., Britain, France and West Germany.
It suggests that the honor of the country had been avenged, however, by an undiplomatic proposal from Hollywood producer Darryl F. Zanuck, who had asked the Soviet Government for cooperation in making a film, to be titled "The Crimes of Joseph Stalin". Moscow had said it was insulted, and it suggests that it about evened the score.
A piece from the Baltimore Evening Sun, titled "Gosh!" tells of the London Times having recently remarked in an editorial on how fashions in exclamations, like other fashions, rose, faded and died, commenting that they said, "Gosh!" and sometimes "Golly!" that with all of the riches of the English language at their disposal, it was regretful that they relied so extensively on imported language from America to express such a wide array of emotions.
It indicates that the two words did
sound very American and that "golly" was American,
according to dictionaries. The Dictionary of American English
dated the word from 1848 when James Russell Lowell had used it in The
Biglow Papers, though it was unlikely that he had coined it.
"Gosh", according to the same dictionary, could be traced
back to at least 1832—one of those, per the blind broom salesman's prognostication of incumbent re-election elation, three Fridays the 13th years—, when it appeared in the Boston Transcript—and had even deemed print way down yonder, if a bit grandly wanton in its interlingual interpretation, hardly sublime, in the Greensborough Patriot by way of the New York Constellation, as a swinging terror-chariot, at about the same time. It had variants, such as "gosh all hemlock", "goshwalader",
and "goshamity", which it hopes were no longer with them,
though almost pure American. But "gosh" qua "gosh"
went back at least to the 18th Century, with the Oxford English
Dictionary dating it from 1757, when it had been used by Samuel
Foote in The Author: "Then there's highest—and lowest
It suggests that perhaps Mr. Foote had not invented the word, but it appeared that he had introduced it to English literature. It speculates that he might have invented it, as he had invented the phrase "the grand panjandrum". It finds the point to be that, insofar as etymological origins, "gosh" appeared to be just as English as "gadzooks" or "Great Scott" and so The Times did not need to repine.
Drew Pearson indicates that Pan American Airways, which advertised itself as "the world's most experienced airways", had taken more newspaper editors and publishers on free junkets and employed more lobbyists and public relations personnel than any other airline. Recently, Mr. Pearson had reported in his column on the question of air safety, showing the manner in which the Civil Aeronautics Board and the Civil Aeronautics Authority had failed to take proper safety precautions for knowing issues with various commercial airplanes and engines. He indicates that the piece was not aimed at Pan American, even though his search of the CAB and CAA files showed that the airline had been the chief offender in preventable accidents during the previous year and a half. He says that the column had been much less critical of Pan Am than official records actually justified. But since Pan Am's public relations personnel had drawn up a letter to newspapers denying various references to two Pan Am accidents which could have been prevented and since the safety of American lives on the airlines was of critical importance, he suggests a more complete look at Pan Am's safety record, as published in official CAB records.
When a Pan Am Boeing 377 had ditched in the Pacific 35 miles off the coast of Oregon in March, 1955, the CAB examined other Pan Am propellers because a propeller had come loose on one of the engines and caused it to fall out. The CAB found in its report that corrosion, which was known to be often the foci for fatigue, had been found on 13.5 percent of the Pan Am Pacific-Alaskan division propeller blades. Pan Am had stated in its denial of Mr. Pearson's column that the CAB report had indicated that the aircraft had ditched under control, but the report had actually said that the plane was ditched in the Pacific Ocean after the number three engine and propeller had torn loose and fallen free, followed by control difficulties. The record had made various other references to the plane's uncontrollability.
Pan Am had also denied Mr. Pearson's statement that the CAB investigations had revealed that the pilot had been unable to increase the power of the three good engines to compensate for the engine which had failed. The report had actually stated that the tearing away of the engine had obviously created a short in that portion of the electrical system serving the engine and a subsequent attempt by the flight engineer to increase the rpm by use of all switches simultaneously had resulted in opening of the master circuit breaker so that the rpm of none of the remaining three engines could be changed. Increasing the rpm increased the power. Mr. Pearson indicates that the situation had actually been worse than he had reported, for Pan Am had failed to teach the flight engineer what to do in such an emergency. CAB had said that the specific contingency which occurred in the accident had never been taught in the classes which the flight engineer had attended, nor had Pan Am issued any specific instructions regarding it.
Walter Lippmann indicates that it appeared that the President's decision to continue to run for the presidency had actually been made immediately after his operation for ileitis on June 8, when the doctors indicated satisfaction that the operation had been successful and that he would undergo a reasonably rapid recovery, that the decision had been made that it was not only not likely to impair his ability to run but might even make him more fit by having corrected a chronic ailment. At least that had been the picture provided the country at the press conference held by press secretary James Hagerty and the doctors a few days following the operation.
Mr. Lippmann suggests that there might be many different views as to whether and how Democrats could legitimately raise the issue of the President's health during the campaign, but that it was already in the people's minds, would be talked about privately regardless of what politicians said publicly. People would question whether the President could conduct himself for the ensuing four years with full vigor or whether he would have to depend on his staff and perhaps his Vice-President more.
He finds it a horrid duty to discuss such things, but that the press had that duty because of the President's decision to seek another term despite his age and recent serious illnesses, that to refrain from discussing the matter would be to engage in a sentimental conspiracy of silence, making the fall election turn on a whispering campaign. He finds that the discussion would be a difficult task of the taste and common sense of the country and the press, and that no doubt the medical profession would have things to say in private with their patients and friends. But there was no such thing as any authoritative and conclusive medical opinion. The final question before the people would be whether the President could be counted on to carry a burden of stress and strain which could not presently be predicted and appraised, as no one could count on a full four years in which any President would be under as little stress and strain as had been President Eisenhower since his heart attack the previous September 24.
Frederick C. Othman, substituting for Marquis Childs who was on vacation, indicates that the National Press Club had Governor Averell Harriman of New York over for lunch recently, and the Governor attacked the banquet with bogus gusto. Then the president of the Club, Frank Holeman of the New York Daily News, said that he could not understand why so many members had paid $1.75 each unless it was to see 50 million dollars on the hoof or perhaps because they believed the speaker might become the next president. The Governor had smiled when Mr. Holeman said: "Very few men with his beginnings ever got where he is today; it was a real downhill struggle."
The Governor gave a political speech and the general opinion was that in front of a microphone, "he was punk." As an orator he was a sobersides, but Mr. Othman had heard worse speakers almost daily in Congress. The Governor's voice trailed off at the end of nearly every sentence. He repeated words, and after a few minutes, with perspiration glistening on his cheeks, he spoke in a type of monotone, saying that he would make a better president than President Eisenhower. He said that the President had been extremely skillful in holding himself aloof from the actions of his party, which he called "the old Army game". He charged that the President had surrendered in his appointments and policies and expressed shock that he had done nothing to stop the steel strike before it began. He also said that he did not believe the Administration had any stand on neutrality. He then answered questions, which ranged from the ridiculous to the embarrassing, but gave each one a cold, sober answer.
When asked about his health, he said that if any of those at the lunch cared to take a trip with him, they would soon find out. He also said that he would not be available for the vice-presidency, and if nominated for the presidency, would do the right thing about selling his securities.
A letter writer from Pittsboro comments on the July 9 editorial, "A Whole New Constitution Is Needed", finding it to be food for thought, that the editorial had commented significantly that the present State Constitution of 1868 had been written primarily by "scalawags and carpetbaggers", and that as many as 30 amendments had been added in just one year, 1875. He says that the 1868 Constitution had been submitted to an illiterate electorate while white citizens of the state were disfranchised, and that when the people of the state had returned to control of the government in 1875, a new State Constitution had been adopted through amendments, including the limitation of a segregated public school system, the only system the people of the state had ever adopted. He finds that then the Supreme Court had come along and rendered "a purely mechanical ruling based on time sequence." He goes on quite a way, indicating that he hoped that the special session of the Legislature would submit an amendment to the State Constitution forbidding the use of public funds for the support of any school forced to integrate. "If you can't force a Negro child to attend a segregated school, the same logic and sense compels the conclusion that you can't force a white child to attend an integrated school." He finds the Brown v. Board of Education "desegregation fiat" to have made no sense but that it could not be defied, and yet the state could close its public schools.
We could also drown you if we really wanted to, but that wouldn't be very sensible either, now would it?
A letter writer indicates that the Mecklenburg precinct delegation appeared to be trying to cover up some of the past when it had selected Mr. Blankenship to attend the special session of the Legislature. He wants the schools to be maintained as white, as whites paid the taxes. He wants to tell the Supreme Court where to go and that the people of the state had run state affairs for many years and expected to continue to do so. "So let's run the business the Southern way, not the Yankee way." He indicates that there was one Republican Representative in Congress, in the 10th District, and they were planning to clear that up in November.
We do not care for Mr. Jonas either, but not for the same reasons you espouse, you nut. You are still seeing through the warped lenses of your Civil War embittered forebears. Time to grow up and realize that was 91 years earlier. Get together with the first letter writer and try reading the Fourteenth Amendment and understanding it.
A letter from two people indicates that they had been reading the letters to the editor during the previous few weeks and were interested in the comments about Elvis Presley, with some people thinking him the very lowest thing in music and that teenagers should not listen to him, the writers indicating that there were worse ways teenagers could spend their time. They suggest that parents of teenagers must have enjoyed the music of their time as they were enjoying their own. They don't think the rock 'n' roll dancing looked any worse than the Charleston in the 1920's.
A letter writer from Mooresboro says that he agreed with some of the letter writers and not with others about Elvis, that he was a fan but also a piano student studying Beethoven, Bach and other such composers. He believes that tearing peoples clothes off and the other wild things were silly, urges that people should stop and think before doing things like that, suggests putting themselves in the place of their idol and stop bumping on him and tearing their clothes off, begging for autographs, screaming, and other such antics. He says that the musicians would like them more for refraining from those things. He had the records of Elvis and a scrapbook on him, but none of his friends seemed to like Elvis except on the basis that he had great talent, good looks and provided good entertainment.
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