The Charlotte News
Tuesday, August 14, 1956
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that that there was no sign of a break this date in the potential for a deadlock at the Democratic national convention regarding the presidential nominee, as favorite sons still clung to their votes and the large bloc of delegates in that category remained silent regarding their sentiments, as the party began its second day of the convention. The supporters of Governor Averell Harriman of New York, who was waging an uphill battle for the nomination against leading candidate Adlai Stevenson, professed to find the situation to their liking, indicating that the reluctance of many state delegations to take a firm position demonstrated "discontent" in groups previously regarded as leaning toward or virtually committed to Mr. Stevenson. But to many of the old pros, Mr. Stevenson was still the odds-on favorite. An Associated Press poll of the delegates showed that he was just 132.5 votes short of the needed 686.5 to capture the nomination. A large number of uncommitted votes were in the South, and Southern sentiment clearly preferred Mr. Stevenson over Mr. Harriman if the choice came down to the two. The AP poll showed that among those delegates willing to express a preference, Mr. Stevenson had 554 to Mr. Harriman's 229.5, with other candidates polling a total of 283, leaving 305.5 uncommitted. Among the latter group were 22 from Mississippi, 11 from Alabama, 14.5 from Arkansas, 19 from Georgia, 19.5 from Virginia and nine from North Carolina.
Senator Sam Ervin of North Carolina
said this date that extremists in both the Southern and Northern
wings of the party would "have to swallow something we don't
like" on the controversial civil rights issue, but that so far
"we've been feudin', fussin' and fightin' in a most cooperative
manner." The Senator was one of the 17 members of the drafting
subcommittee trying to come up with an acceptable civil rights plank
Governor Frank Clement of Tennessee, 36, "boy orator of the Cumberland" had, according to Saul Pett, Associated Press reporter, provided an old-fashioned spellbinder as keynote speaker the previous night, living up to his advance billing, showing "evangelical fervor, ungentle humor, thunder, searing derision of the opposition, songs of sweet harmony for the home team and a ringing battle charge." The speech had alliteration, metaphors, rhyme, puns, catch phrases and "long, rolling sentences which began innocently, gathered speed and crashed like angry waves on the Republican beach." He had assailed the Republicans with cries of "Nixon, Dixon and Yates"… "party of privilege and pillage"… "the Republican triple B–Benson, below parity and bankruptcy." He said that the President could not "Jim Hagertize his way through this whole campaign," that "the farmer has been devitamized by the GOP and Bensonized by Ezra B," that "Foster fiddles, fritters, frets and flits," calling the Secretary of State the "wandering minstrel" and "the unguided missile". The cheering delegates of the convention had loved what they heard, though appearing to run down on enthusiasm toward the end of the speech, while the Governor showed no sign of letup. The reporter indicates that the literary purist might argue that the length of the Governor's sentences left one breathless and his metaphors had occasionally wrestled each other to the ground, for instance, when he said: "That kind of double-faced campaign by the opposition–the vice-hatchet man slinging slander and spreading half-truths while the top man peers down the green fairways of indifference–will not be tolerated by the Democratic Party." In another example, he cites: "… There is righteous ground for objection that the farmer's income is being plowed under 26 percent these past 3 1/2 years by the party that said when it came into power that it was going to be tall in the saddle for big business–and has kept that promise with the highest batting average in the history of American politics." Toward the end of the speech, Governor Clement had recited a litany of what he called Republican sins, his arms up-raised, "sweat streaming from his angry, handsome face, down his blue collar, blue shirt, blue suit." Before each sin of the enemy, he had asked, "How long, oh, how long" would they be tolerated, with a dozen "how longs". At the end, with his fists raised high, he had shouted: "Precious Lord, take our hand. Lead us on!" He finds that the following speech by Eleanor Roosevelt, provided extemporaneously, had contrasted strikingly with that of Governor Clement. She had received special response from the delegates, with a standing ovation and light glistening in their eyes, and, "one imagines, a special something running up their spines."
In a truncated piece, it was reported from London that a compromise was being sought this date to the Suez Canal crisis following the Egyptian seizure of it on July 26, to try to save the pride of both Britain and Egypt in the process. Statesmen and newspapers were delegates to a 22-nation conference set to start Thursday regarding the canal's future, arranged by Britain, France and the U.S. to work out international control of the 103-mile waterway. Prime Minister Anthony Eden and Premier Guy Mollet of France had met with their Cabinets regarding the crisis, while in Cairo, Egyptian Foreign Minister Mahmound Fawzi had begun a series of meetings with diplomatic representatives of countries taking part in the London talks. Egypt had refused to attend the conference but proposed one of its own. There had been reports that the U.S. and India had put forward separate compromise proposals, but those reports could not be confirmed. A British Foreign Office spokesman said that he had no reason to believe the U.S. had changed its views since joining in the three-power call the previous week for international control of the canal. The Indian delegate to the conference, V. K. Krishna Menon, had met with President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt en route to London and then had a long talk upon arrival with British Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd, with the results of the talks not being disclosed.
In Miami, Fla., Hurricane Betsy was reported to have veered away from its beeline course toward Florida this date and forecasters said that if the trend continued, the center of the small but violent tropical storm might never reach the Florida coast. Hurricane warnings had been lowered along the thickly populated southeastern Florida "Gold Coast", from Palm Beach southward early in the morning of this date, as the storm continued its gradual swing away from its earlier northwest course to a more northerly direction. An hurricane watch meanwhile was posted for Melbourne to Brunswick, Ga.
In Miami Beach, comedienne Martha Raye had been taken to a hospital this date in critical condition after an overdose of about 20 sleeping pills. A maid had summoned a doctor after finding Ms. Raye on the floor of her home in the wee hours of the morning about an half hour after the actress had arrived home for the night. Her doctor said that Ms. Raye had been despondent for about a week after failing to obtain a divorce from her fifth husband, a dancer, her petition having been dismissed for failing to fulfill Florida's one-week residency requirement for obtaining divorce. Ms. Raye was also being sued by the wife of her bodyguard, alleging that the defendant had "captivated" the plaintiff's husband and alienated his affections, seeking $50,000 in damages. She would recover.
Charles Kuralt of The News, who was a specialist third class in the Army Reserve, would, courtesy of the Army, cover the testing of the teenager's rocket built in his basement. Mr. Kuralt would be on active duty for the ensuing two weeks at Fort Jackson in South Carolina, and had left Columbia this date in an Army plane for Huntsville, Ala., where the test would be conducted by the Army. Mr. Kuralt had first publicized the 17-year old's rocket in his "People" column in the newspaper. The Army had detached the reporter from his regular active duty chores so that he could follow the progress of the tests of the rocket at the Redstone Arsenal in Alabama.
Emery Wister of The News reports that the six-foot homemade rocket had been shipped via commercial airplane to the Arsenal this date, and its builder would be present at the time of its testing, scheduled for the following Tuesday, provided it passed preliminary tests during the ensuing two days and the following Monday, when there would be a preliminary firing test.
In Greensboro, N.C., a truck driver, carrying a load of bricks from nearby Burlington, had gotten two flats, and, needing a place to unload the bricks before he could jack up the truck, arranged to use a nearby front yard. He then decided to return to Burlington for a second load and obtain help for reloading the first batch onto the truck, but, at last report, was still looking for the front yard where he had deposited the bricks.
In Bonnyville, Saskatchewan, councillors of the town described a new steel picket fence around the federal building as a "monstrosity, dangerous and an insult to Bonnyville." It sounds apropos of the way one might describe the three-week debacle among Republicans in choosing a new Speaker, before finally resigning themselves to a person who led the charge against the legitimacy of the seven-million vote victory of President Biden in 2020 and who views a woman's right to choose whether or not to terminate a pregnancy prior to scientifically-demonstrated viability to be "un-Christian", apparently believing it perfectly consistent with a Christian viewpoint, perhaps taking his cues from the least educated and civilized peasant portions of South America, not altogether dissimilar in socio-economic makeup to some districts of his home state of Lou'siana, to renounce a legitimate election in the United States, as if it were Argentina or Venezuela—the establishment of the functional equivalent of which appears to be the goal of the House Republican nuts, including their new Speaker, notwithstanding their loud and noisome complaints about "open borders" allowing into the country Marxist ter'ists and all sorts of father and mother-rapers, a slicked-down, city-slicker version of the same old country-bumpkin demagogic salesmanship of the past pitched from the manure fields of various pastures of non-plenty. When do these nuts realize that they are only representing very limited constituencies within their own systematically gerrymandered districts, not "the American people" for whom they propose to speak without the permission of "the American people" as a whole, those American people as a whole having voted in seven of the last eight quadrennial elections against the positions the Republicans espouse, that they are not, as this new Speaker thinks quite arrogantly, God's chosen and anointed ones, and give up their fight against reality, accord true democratic will in the country before they finally break it permanently with an irreparable ideological rift by trying to resist purely private decisions of individual Americans, right or wrong, having been handed down by the Founders as the inherent right of being a free American, which is why they provided for the First, Fourth, Fifth, and Ninth Amendments, and did not leave everything to the "well-regulated militia" of the Second Amendment or the states of the Tenth Amendment to resolve, as the nuts want?
On the editorial page, "Party Platform: Big Blow, Big Beyond" indicates that Democratic orators, according to the estimates of a statistician, would utter some 75 million words during the week "in already windy Chicago." It finds that those words would fill a thousand novels or make a stack of paper as tall as a ten-story building.
It suggests that none of it would be so painfully put together and phrased more platitudinously, or forgotten more readily, than the party platform to be read the following night, that barring a committee failure to make the civil rights plank acceptably vague, the reading would be attended by a yawn as wide as Convention Hall in Chicago. The delegates would not listen to it, Congress would not act on it, and should a nominee be elected, he would not be bound by it, offering the example of both parties perennially promising to award statehood to Alaska and Hawaii and failing to bring it to a vote in the Senate, where Southerners objected to dilution of their vote and committee chair power by adding two or four Senators to the extant 96. Yet, the drafting of the platform was the most time-consuming task of the conventions, until it was read, and promptly forgotten.
It has a suggestion for a plank regarding alleged Republican giveaways of timber and other natural resources: "The public lands of the United States belong to the people and should not be sold to individuals, nor granted to corporations, but held as a sacred trust," adopted from the 1852 platform of the Free Soil Democrats.
It suggests as a farm plank: "We deprecate the discrimination of American legislation against the greatest of American industries–agriculture…", adopted from the Anti-Monopoly Party platform of 1884.
It quotes from the Democratic platform of 1892: "We condemn the oppression practiced by the Russian government," and suggests it to both parties.
It indicates that the Republicans also could pluck planks from prior files, such as the Republican plank of 1872, sounding like Secretary of State Dulles assessing his record: "Peace and plenty prevail throughout the land. Menacing foreign difficulties have been peacefully and honorably composed and the honor and the power of the nation kept in high respect throughout the world."
It suggests that the endorsement by the Whigs of General William Henry Harrison in 1836 would be just right for a plank on the President's record: "The support we render … is by no means given to him so solely on account of his brilliant and successful service as leader of our armies during the last war, but that we view him also as the man of high intellect … uncontaminated by … hackneyed politicians."
It concludes that there was nothing new under the sun, and that there would not be within the party platforms.
We note that in its sardonism on the topic, it heavily leans toward the more moderate slight when speaking of the potential for Republican platform culling. That, of course, is no shock, as the newspaper was solidly Republican in its editorial points of view by this point, even if not all of its reporters so leaned.
"School Assignment: A Realistic Decision" tells of the City School Board action in meshing its assignment machinery with the State assignment law having been timely and realistic, with the new regulations to cause little disruption in the familiar pattern of pupil attendance, as students would return to the schools which they had attended during the previous term and first-graders pre-registered the prior spring would maintain the assignments given them at that time. It also finds the rules for assignment of newcomers and reassignment to be simple and clear, with parents making written application and the assignment to be made by the school superintendent, acting for the Board. The Board would hear applications for reassignment and adequate provisions had been made for appeal of its decisions.
It finds the State assignment law to be the most reasonable and workable piece of school legislation passed since the Brown v. Board of Education decision of 1954-55, leaving assignment in local hands and giving local school boards the opportunity of judging assignment applications on the merits of each case and within the context of local conditions.
It opines that if used wisely and courageously by the boards, the assignment law could provide a key to just and proper settlement of problems raised by Brown. It finds that the Board had shouldered the responsibility which rightfully belonged to it and could be counted on to discharge properly those responsibilities.
And, no doubt, as we have it on good authority will definitely occur, men will land on the moon the following International Geophysical year, 1957-58.
"The Big Profit and Angry Expectoration" indicates that it was the first weekly anniversary of the expensive expectoration of Ted Williams, and the movie rights remained unpurchased, but indicates that if the reader had not heard anything about it, they should not feel cheated as it could happen again, as Mr. Williams had said, "I'd spit again at the same people if I could afford it."
It indicates that if the calculations of U.S. News & World Report were accurate, he could not only afford it but would profit by repeat performance, that it was the IRS who could not afford it, as it would treat the $5,000 fine imposed on Mr. Williams by the management of the Boston Red Sox as a "business expense", reducing his $100,000 annual income by that amount and his income tax by $4,200, leaving a net loss to Mr. Williams of only $800. (Maybe Trump can try that with some of his fines for violating court orders, as he has enough sleazy accountants around him at least to make the attempt. Caveat: We do not recommend it, unless he wants another potential indictment for tax evasion.)
Moreover, it indicates that fans of Mr. Williams were raising $5,000 to pay the fine, which would constitute a tax-free gift, making his profit $4,200.
It concludes that Mr. Williams was free to spit whenever and wherever he wanted, but that in the interest of reducing the national debt, it hopes that he would aim at rocks henceforth.
A piece from the Greensboro Daily News, titled "'All Roads Lead to Charlotte'", tells of the Charlotte News being disturbed about Charlotte being left off the highway signs, having related in an editorial of a woman who had driven across the country from Arizona to New York and then down to Florida, disappointed by not seeing signs announcing the mileage to Charlotte at least 150 miles away from the city, knowing that Charlotte was along U.S. 29 and worrying what had happened to the city. The editorial had then stated that the traveler, reaching Greensboro, had been relieved because, even though it had not grown much in 20 years, at least was still there, then had hurried through the "skimpy traffic" of that incorporated municipality, still without any sign of Charlotte, until she reached Salisbury, 40 miles away. Upon reaching Charlotte, she found it "colossal", but observed that the "tank-towns" had received better notice along the road.
The editorial wonders what was meant by "skimpy traffic" and wishes somebody from the editorial department of The News would get caught in the morning or afternoon rush hour jam around Greensboro or try to find a place to park about any time of day. Some of its Charlotte friends had telephoned to say that while they were in Greensboro, they had gotten lost and would like guidance. It expresses surprise that, given Charlotte's colossalism, everyone did not know precisely where it was and how to get to it without the benefit of road signs, and suggests that it would be happy if someone were to erect signs at the Golden Gate, Key West or in Bangor, Maine, telling precisely how many miles it was to Charlotte and in which direction, or merely have it posted that all roads led to Charlotte. It adds that if a motorist could not see how Greensboro had grown in the past, the driver could not possibly read the road signs anyway and would be too much of a risk to trust on the road.
Incidentally, we know from prior
experience a few times that there is or was a road sign at the
Western terminus of Interstate 40, just outside of Barstow,
California, which provides the exact number of miles to Wilmington,
N.C., the Eastern terminus of the highway, along which we have driven
the full length, at least as far as Winston-Salem, non-stop on three
separate occasions. It was Christmas each time, providing incentive
to obtain our destination by a particular point in time. We
accomplished the goal each time, and with nothing stronger than
coffee and loud
Drew Pearson indicates that the column had conducted a poll of 600 editors of newspapers which published the column all over the country, and included an average cross-section of both Democratic and Republican papers, asking them whom they believed was the most effective candidate for vice-president. The results were that they chose Governor Christian Herter of Massachusetts ahead of Vice-President Nixon, and Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee ahead of either Senators Stuart Symington of Missouri, John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts or Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota, the latter of whom received only a scattered number of votes. Governor Herter led 41 percent to 37.5 percent over Mr. Nixon, with Secretary of the Treasury George Humphrey registering 11 percent. Senator Kefauver polled 35 percent, leading Senator Symington, with 26 percent, Senator Kennedy, with 16 percent, and Senator Humphrey, with 4.5 percent.
Former President Truman's statement on civil rights had been mild, compared with the private views he had shared. Less than a half hour before his public testimony, he had told Senator Humphrey that the Democrats should take a strong stand on civil rights, making their position clear, and as for the Southern reaction, he said, "You know, we got along without those boys in 1948."
Southern leaders had agreed at a secret caucus to behave as Southern gentlemen and not cross-examine black witnesses testifying in favor of civil rights. But Georgia firebrand John Sammons Bell had blurted out, "I agree not to cross-examine Negroes, but I don't know if I can resist cross-examining those labor leaders." A Louisiana delegate had then shouted, "If this is going to be an anti-labor meeting, I'm walking out right now," at which point Mr. Bell had backtracked.
Governor Averell Harriman was the most persistent candidate in the race for the Democratic nomination, working 20 hours per day, visiting and telephoning delegates, and for a full month prior to the convention, had telephoned former President Truman on a daily basis to obtain advice. Mr. Harriman had also personally spoken with nearly every delegate supporting Senator Kefauver, who had withdrawn from the race two weeks before the convention, endorsing Adlai Stevenson, though releasing his delegates to vote as they wished. He telephoned Senator Kefauver's Iowa chairman four times, whereas Mr. Stevenson had only sent him an impersonal telegram. Other delegates had received as many as 13 communications from the headquarters of Governor Harriman in a single day.
A surprise visitor to the Democratic convention was Chief Justice Earl Warren's daughter, Virginia, visiting the Stevenson headquarters and greeting his campaign lieutenant with a gleeful kiss. She explained that she loved conventions so much that she decided to attend both of them.
Gwen Gibson, reporter for the New York Daily News, had sought to sneak an advance copy of the Democratic platform by posing as a Young Democrat volunteer worker, helping to mimeograph a lengthy platform, which turned out to be that of the Young Democrats, worthless.
Former Secret Service agent John Walker had caused surprise when he entered the Democratic platform meeting, as he was a dead ringer for Senator McCarthy.
Eleanor Roosevelt, who had indirectly caused Mr. Stevenson to take a stronger public stand on civil rights, had not intended to do so, but she had. Mr. Stevenson had received a proposed civil rights plank the previous week, which had been approved by Mrs. Roosevelt, causing him surprise that she had approved a very mild statement which did not even mention the Brown v. Board of Education decision. At one time, Mrs. Roosevelt had been the chief person in the White House who needled her husband on civil rights, urging him to push a Fair Employment Practice Commission regarding wartime jobs under Government defense contracts, but the previous week, though not the author of the civil rights statement, she had approved it. Mr. Stevenson thought that the Brown decision needed to be included in the plank and held a meeting with his advisers, among whom were James Finnegan, his campaign manager, and his assistant, Walter Johnson. They agreed that Brown was now the law of the land and that its interpretation of the Constitution could not be ignored within the plank, believing that the approval of the plank by Mrs. Roosevelt omitting mention of it would play into the hands of both Governor Harriman and the Republicans, that it would be wise for Mr. Stevenson to make his views well known in advance. As a result, he made a deliberate statement supporting Brown, and his television interview in that regard had been no accident.
Former President Truman stepped out of an elevator at the Blackstone Hotel in Chicago, where he caught an Associated Press photographer ogling a beautiful girl, asking him what he was doing, to which the photographer said he had better not say, to which the President replied: "I know what you're doing. You're looking at a girl." Pulling the photographer along with him, he then said, "Come with me or I'll call your wife."
Joseph & Stewart Alsop, in Chicago, indicate that they did not count themselves among those who considered themselves smarter about politics than former President Truman. The former President's endorsement of Governor Harriman appeared to have persuaded half the delegates at the Democratic convention in Chicago that they had a lot more political savvy than the former President, "the greatest old pro of them all." They were wondering why he had done it.
The Alsops venture that it was because he wanted to see Governor Harriman nominated and believed that, with the former President's help, he had a chance, even if a narrow one. While it was a long shot, the former President had won long shots before. He had helped to persuade Governor Harriman early on to declare his candidacy, which they admit was perhaps not difficult to do. The Harriman camp were well aware that they needed Mr. Truman at every opportunity and barely gave him time to drink a toast in peace when he had gone to New York for his daughter's wedding.
In the week before arriving in Chicago, Mr. Truman had told the Missouri national committeeman that he was for Mr. Harriman and that he would be pleased if the Missouri delegates stuck to favorite-son candidate, Senator Symington, for at least the first two ballots to enable the Stevenson bandwagon to be stopped. But even on the train to Chicago, he had told his personal entourage that he intended to maintain public neutrality regarding his choice.
They indicate that it was a fair bet that the influence of Judge Samuel Rosenman, a dedicated supporter of Mr. Harriman, had finally convinced him to make the choice public, just before he held a press conference. Just before attending the press conference, he had made a trial run of his statement regarding Mr. Harriman before his special intimates, such as Leslie Biffle, Charles Murphy and Donald Dawson, showing excitement over the thing he was about to do. At least half the members of his circle were not delighted, fearing trouble ahead when, as they believed would occur, Mr. Stevenson would again garner the nomination. In any event, they believed that Mr. Harriman could not be nominated, a conclusion increasingly spreading through the Chicago convention.
But the Alsops conclude that when Mr. Truman gambled, it was always wiser to defer judgment until one found out how the bets would pay off in the end.
The Congressional Quarterly indicates that Republicans were facing tough odds in the current election year for repeating their 1952 capture of both houses of Congress. A total of 153 electoral votes in 12 Eastern states, which had voted heavily for FDR in 1944, as they had for General Eisenhower in 1952, could provide the key to their repeat of the 1952 Congressional election, in which they had ridden the coattails of Mr. Eisenhower who had captured 145 of those electoral votes, losing only the eight in West Virginia to Adlai Stevenson.
But if the four states which had voted for General Eisenhower by less than 55 percent, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Delaware and Massachusetts, were to shift to the Democratic column in the general election, the Republican ticket would receive only 90 electoral votes to 63 for the Democrats, which could prove fatal as the Democrats were favored to regain the entire South and to make inroads in the Midwestern farm states.
The odds against Republicans in the East were clearest in terms of Senate, House and gubernatorial races, as in each case, the Republicans were defending more seats than the Democrats. Of five Republican Senators seeking re-election, three, Prescott Bush in Connecticut, John Butler in Maryland and James Duff in Pennsylvania, faced potentially strong Democratic opponents. In both Connecticut and Pennsylvania, Democrats had replaced Republican governors in 1954. The primary Republican hope in the East was in New York, where Senator Herbert Lehman had not yet decided whether he would seek re-election, while a Republican candidate for the Senate seat would not be selected until September, possibly State Attorney General Jacob Javits. The only other Democratic seat at stake was that of the late Senator Harley Kilgore of West Virginia, which was likely to remain Democratic.
House seats were expected to be competitive and close in many of the 71 Congressional districts held by Republicans and 58 held by Democrats, but almost twice as many Republican seats, 23, as the 12 Democratic seats, had been won in 1954 with less than 55 percent of the vote.
In the gubernatorial races, Republicans were defending four seats while Democrats, only three. The Republicans had a definite edge in New Hampshire and Vermont, and the Democrats, in Rhode Island and West Virginia. But major fights were shaping up in Maine, where Republicans hoped to unseat Governor Edmund Muskie, whose upset election in 1954 had broken a long Republican tradition in that state. And Democrats hoped to unseat Republican Governors J. Caleb Boggs and Christian Herter in Delaware and Massachusetts, respectively.
Robert C. Ruark, in Palamos, Spain, writes prior to the finding by the court-martial in the case of Staff Sergeant Matthew McKeon, who had been found culpable for simple negligence and drinking while on duty and not culpable on the more serious charges of negligence leading to death and abuse of recruits, in the forced march he led as a drill instructor of his platoon into a tidal stream where six Marines had died the prior April 8, sentenced to nine months hard labor and a bad conduct discharge from the Marine Corps. Mr. Ruark indicates that no matter how it came out, he wished to pass on some random considerations given him by a professional Marine colonel who had stopped off recently to see him, not providing quotes directly from the colonel.
He indicates that boot camp was strictly designed to put iron into a Marine's soul, stripping the recruit of dignity, rights, and all personal privilege, working him to death, shaving his head, punishing severely for trivial violations of discipline and drilling to desperation, seeking to make the recruit tough. Especially in war, drill sergeants were instructed to throw out the book and instill such hatred in the raw recruits that they concentrated fiercely on showing up the tormentors. The recruit learned maneuvering under live bullets, ran obstacle courses to toughen the muscles and improve coordination, marched quick-step under full pack for miles, learned to go without water and to make his way into swamps at night.
That was to prepare the recruit for the day when the swamp would be a jungle full of cutthroats, mosquitoes, snakes and bullets seeking to end his life. He had to be able to do everything as well as his non-com and his officers, who, in turn, were supposed to do everything as well or better than the recruits.
Thus, after a couple of months of that training, the Marine became a Marine, could grow his hair out, put on his snappy uniform and swagger among the girls, not a soldier, sailor or airman, but a Marine. (You know, like Oswald or Whitman… Though, in both cases, the influence which led them to their ends probably grew more out of the soil of Sixties extremism existing in Texas than, per se, the iron discipline of the Marines.)
At that point, the drill instructor became his best friend and they drank beer together and went out on the town, and when raw recruits came under his direction, he remembered everything which had been done to him and improved on the training technique. Two years after boot camp, hardened warriors were laughing pridefully over the horrors of indoctrination, each bragging about cleaning latrines with a needle or a 25-mile march in broiling heat under full pack, now regarding it as a badge of pride.
As for Sergeant McKeon's drinking, Mr. Ruark, still presumably writing as the colonel, says show him a sergeant who would not drink when he could get it and he would show a desk clerk, not a Marine. He relates that during the war, when his comrades could not buy it, they made it, regardless of Articles of War which prohibited it.
Taking a peacetime training group on a night hike was not like flying a jet in wartime and if Sergeant McKeon had a couple of shots of vodka before doing so, he failed to see what it mattered, as long as he was sober enough to muster his men. "A good Marine functions drunk as well as sober, because he is a Marine, not a Girl Scout." (A drunk Marine also gets people killed, whereas most Girl Scouts do not.)
He says, still in persona, that he looked back on his boot-training with a great deal of satisfaction, and he had obtained his during peacetime before World War II, "when the monsters really had time to think up some ordeals for the young and soft." He had come out of it thinking that he was just as good as anyone in the Corps.
He concludes by saying that perhaps some bad things would be eliminated by the court-martial and perhaps good things would result, but if they ever were to employ a soft boot-training, there would not be Marines anymore, just dog-faces. "And the colonel spat."
Framed Edition
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