The Charlotte News

Saturday, August 18, 1956

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page and inside page report from Chicago that the conclusion the previous night of the Democratic convention, with the acceptance speeches of Adlai Stevenson and his newly nominated running mate, Senator Estes Kefauver, had been characterized by a forgive-and-forget attitude on the floor among the delegations, with the pervading theme being, "We will win," after the delegates had been fighting with one another all week. The previous night, however, they had put on a unity demonstration. Senator Kefauver, who had won a close and drama-filled race for the nomination as the vice-presidential candidate against Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts, after Mr. Stevenson had thrown the issue of the vice-presidential nominee open to the convention, had shared the center stage with Mr. Stevenson at the end, Senator Kefauver, eventually, after a see-sawing contest for the second spot, having come out on top 755.5 to 589, following the shift of votes after the withdrawal from the race of Senators Albert Gore of Tennessee and Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota, with Senator Kennedy at that point leading, only 38.5 votes short of a majority at 686.5. Former President Truman, who had harsh things to say in the past regarding both nominees, tacitly apologized to Mr. Stevenson for saying that he could not beat the President in November. Almost everybody of stature in the party was showing harmony by the end of the night, in contrast to the earlier days of the convention in which Mr. Truman had endorsed Governor Averell Harriman of New York for the nomination and made critical comments of Mr. Stevenson. The nominee, after 19 minutes of uproarious demonstrations to greet him at the podium, told Mr. Truman, "I am glad to have you on my side, again, sir." Mr. Truman, speaking ahead of the two nominees, had touched off waves of laughter by saying that "some stupid fellow I won't name" had been predicting that Mr. Stevenson could not beat the President. He characterized the nominee as a "real fighter", although earlier in the week, had been saying the opposite. He told the delegates not to be concerned about his forecast of Mr. Stevenson's defeat: "Don't let that worry you. That's what people were saying about me in 1948." Senator Kefauver, in his acceptance speech, promised to make it a vigorous campaign against the Republicans, saying that he hoped that the open convention for the second spot would set a precedent for the future, and that it would be very interesting to see whether the process would be followed at the Republican convention in San Francisco the following week.

Saul Pett of the Associated Press reports from Chicago that the Democrats had closed ranks so hard the previous night that they had almost knocked each other off the platform, starting with the crow being eaten by former President Truman during his speech. When Senator Kefauver had mounted the podium for his acceptance speech, he had shaken hands with the former President, an "old friend of the previous 15 minutes". The Senator said of Mr. Stevenson that he was a great campaigner, which he had, according to Mr. Pett, "managed to repress" a few weeks earlier when they were trying to clobber one another in the primaries. Mr. Kefauver had joined Mr. Stevenson at the podium and together they had raised their arms with hands clasped, when up stepped Mr. Truman, who had once been against both of them, followed by Governor Harriman, who had sought to beat Mr. Stevenson for the presidential nomination. "For 15 minutes, the crowd roared and applauded as Democrats paraded to the platform to hold hands with the candidates, smile for the delegates, wave at the cameras. When it was all over and Stevenson finally was allowed to begin his speech, he brought down the house, saying: 'That's more calisthenics exercise than I've had in many weeks.'"

During his acceptance speech, Mr. Stevenson had demanded that the Democratic leadership end the Republican "interval of aimless drifting." He said that there would be a major difference from his run in 1952, in that this time they would win. His 35-minute speech was interrupted by applause 53 times, as he lambasted the Administration and the Republican Party, to wild cheers of the delegates. Of his new running mate he had said: "A great Democrat" who could be trusted in the Presidency "if we are elected and it is God's will that I do not serve my full four years." He did not appear to exhibit much "moderation", a tag which some fellow Democrats had hung on him.

In San Francisco, California's 70-member delegation to the Republican convention would caucus this date, with the outcome expected to have an important bearing on the effort by Harold Stassen to dump Vice-President Nixon from the ticket and replace him with Massachusetts Governor Christian Herter. The Vice-President was due to arrive from Southern California this date to participate in a pre-caucus conference with California Governor Goodwin Knight and California Senator William Knowland, the Minority Leader. Governor Knight had long been cool toward Mr. Nixon, and had said that the California delegation should not endorse him because the President had called for an open convention, although having added that Mr. Nixon would be "entirely satisfactory" to have as a running mate. Senator Knowland and Governor Knight had met for an hour the previous night in the Governor's hotel suite at the Sheraton-Palace Hotel—where, incidentally, President Warren G. Harding had died in the Presidential Suite on August 2, 1923. Senator Knowland said that they had a "social visit" and that "the status remains quo." He later said that he did not have any further comment but that his position on an open convention to select a vice-presidential candidate had not changed. Republican leaders said privately that they had been impressed with the open convention choice of Senator Kefauver, and it appeared to raise the long-odds chance of a Republican shift from Vice-President Nixon as the running mate. Mr. Nixon had stated, on his way to the convention from Los Angeles, that the President was strong enough to carry the country, regardless of his running mate. One Republican follower said that Mr. Nixon's chances to retain the second spot on the ticket had fallen from 100-1 to 5-1. But only a very few delegates gathering for the convention were even willing to speak of "dumping" Mr. Nixon. Mr. Stassen, taking a voluntary hiatus from his job as the President's disarmament assistant, had arrived in San Francisco, saying that his movement was gaining ground. Governor Herter, however, had openly declined to run for the second spot and said that he would not allow his name to go before the convention at the Cow Palace. But no one could predict what Republican delegates would do if they were free, as had been the Democrats in Chicago, to choose anyone they wanted for the second spot on the ticket. The President had said that he liked Mr. Nixon but that the choice of his running mate would be up to the convention.

In London, British Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd called on the 22-nation conference discussing the Suez Canal crisis, following its seizure by the Egyptian Government, to declare unanimously that the canal should immediately be placed under "some international system of control". In a speech prepared for delivery at the fourth session of the conference, Mr. Lloyd said that he did not believe that Soviet Foreign Minister Dmitri Shepilov's idea for a new and bigger conference on the future of the canal was a good suggestion, as it would take a great deal of time to do so and the urgency of the crisis did not permit it. He asked the conference to formulate the principles of a system of international control of the canal and to arrange how those principles should be conveyed speedily to Egypt. Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser had nationalized the canal on July 26. Mr. Lloyd made it clear that Britain fully backed the four-point plan for the future operation of the canal put forward on Thursday by Secretary of State Dulles. Mr. Lloyd's speech appeared soft in tone and free from the bitterness of previous British denunciations of President Nasser.

In Québec, the liner Homeric, packed with 1,000 passengers from Europe, had collided in a dense fog with a moored ship in the harbor this date, but no injuries had been reported. The Homeric had been under tow to its berth when it ripped a gash in the other ship's side and crushed some lifeboats. Harbor officials said there had been no panic on the Homeric, owned by the Italian Home Lines. No passengers had been aboard the other ship, Columbia, a Greek Line-owned ship, which had arrived the previous day from Bremerhaven, Germany. A spokesman for the harbor pilots' office had said that the fog had been so thick that tug crews could not see the other side of the St. Lawrence River, about a half-mile away. A harbor worker reported that the Homeric, which had made its maiden voyage in April, 1955, was proceeding slowly when the relatively light collision occurred.

In New York, the World-Telegram & Sun reported this date that a Brooklyn G.I., whose death had been reported as being from "heat exhaustion", had collapsed during a drill in 110-degree Texas heat the prior Wednesday. An Army telegram to his mother had provided no details, leaving her hysterical. Efforts by relatives to obtain more information had proven fruitless. The newspaper said it had obtained details through phone calls to the public relations office at Fort Hood in Texas. Those details indicated that the Army trainee, 20, had reportedly staggered during close order drill and someone had caught him before he had fallen. An ambulance had then taken him to the hospital where he died less than an hour later, the original diagnosis having attributed his death to heat exhaustion, with an autopsy report indicating that sunstroke may have been a contributing factor. The public information office was quoted as saying that although the recruit was overweight, there had been no medical reason for him not drilling in the sun. His mother said that he had phoned her on July 27, the day he had been inducted, to say that he had been given no physical examination, and she did not know whether he had been given one since. He had been an honor graduate of City College of New York.

In New York, authorities probed this date more deeply into the case of the blinding by acid of labor columnist Victor Riesel, searching for the underworld master mind of the attack, after FBI agents had cracked most of the case the previous day when they had arrested two former convicts, followed by four other arrests. But the person who had put up the money to finance the attack apparently remained at large. The FBI said that the assault had been designed to prevent the crusading columnist from telling a Federal grand jury about labor racketeering. None of those arrested had been linked by authorities with labor activity. The individual who had actually hurled the sulphuric acid into Mr. Riesel's eyes the prior April 5 had been found slain with a bullet in his head the previous month. The FBI said that he had been eliminated because some of the acid had splashed on his face, leaving scars, which left him "too hot" for the underworld. The authorities indicated he had collected $1,000 for the attack. One of the two former convicts under arrest had been the front man for whomever had arranged the attack, said to have received between $180 and $200 to persuade someone to hurl the acid. The other man had pointed out the columnist to the person hired to hurl the acid, as Mr. Riesel stepped out of a Broadway restaurant. Each of the men were being held on $100,000 bond, charged with conspiracy to obstruct justice, conviction for which would result in a maximum of five years in prison. The other four arrested persons were being held as material witnesses.

Jim Scotton of The News reports from Rock Hill, S.C., that police had picked up a local man and woman whom they believed might be the pair who had held up and robbed a grocery store and service station operator of $480 the previous afternoon between Charlotte and Pineville. The robbery victim was to go to Rock Hill this date to see if he could identify the pair as the robbers, both of whom were white, though according to the chief of detectives, the man had a dark complexion. In providing his description to police, the victim had identified the man of the couple as being black, and the detective said that the two otherwise fit the description. The couple had driven to the store and the woman had asked for a dollar's worth of gas, then walked into the store while the man remained in the car. The victim said that he had gone inside the station after pumping the gas, that the woman had asked for two cans of milk and a box of crackers, and when he turned, the woman had stuck a foreign-looking pistol in his side and said: "Never mind. Don't move or I'll kill you." The man had then come into the store and first taken his wallet, which was empty, whereupon the woman reached into the cash register and took out the bills. The man then tied the victim to a chair with rubber-covered wire, telling the woman to leave the change as they were in a hurry. The man then put snuff over the victim's eyes, partially blinding him, and they then fled in an older model, black Chevrolet. Road blocks placed by police in North and South Carolina had failed to apprehend the two robbers. A passing motorist had noticed something wrong at the station and notified a Highway Patrolman, who was stopped to apprehend a speeder about a mile up the road. He was first to respond to the scene of the robbery, but the pair had fled by the time he arrived.

In Carthage, N.C., the trial of a college youth charged with raping a 21-year old school teacher had ended this date in a mistrial, with the jury having reported that it was hopelessly deadlocked at 11 to 1. The judge ordered the defendant, a 22-year old male who was a junior at N.C. State, held without bond for trial at a later term of court. He had been charged with raping the teacher on the night of May 26 while they were on their third date. The teacher testified that it was a "second chance" date for the male, adding that on an earlier date for a fraternity dance in Raleigh, he had asked her to spend the night with him at a motel. Much of the testimony of the defendant and the teacher had conflicted sharply, with the defendant insisting that he had not raped the teacher but rather she had been "passionate and cooperative". Two physicians testified that they had examined the teacher and concluded that she had been "painfully and violently raped". She testified that she had anticipated that they would attend a movie together, but instead the defendant had driven to an isolated rural area where the alleged attack had taken place. The jury had first reported their deadlock after six hours of deliberations the previous night, and the judge ordered them to deliberate further, calling for a report 2 1/2 hours later, at which time they reported that they were still hung and that there was no chance, according to the foreman, for a unanimous verdict. After the judge questioned six of the jurors, he declared the mistrial, without asking how the jury was divided at that point.

In Los Angeles, creamed lobster had been served to prisoners at the City jail the previous night, after the State Fish and Game Commission had confiscated 1,000 pounds of illegal Mexican lobster and turned it over to jail authorities. The senior chef said that every customer had been happy.

In McMinnville, Tenn., a five-year old girl had swallowed an oversized portion of popcorn while her father had been winning the vice-presidential nomination in Chicago. The girl and her two sisters, ages 14 and eight, had watched the Democratic national convention on television the previous day at their farm home near the town, and had made popcorn after lunch, then just sat, watched, and hoped. The eight-year old girl said that she did not think her daddy was going to win. Senator Kefauver's son had spent the day working on the farm.

In New York, actor Robert Stack had been assigned a leading role in "The Lord Don't Play Favorites", a drama with music to be presented on the NBC series, "Producers' Showcase", on September 17—a cross between "The Rainmaker", which had premiered on Broadway in 1954 and would be released as a motion picture the following December, and "The Music Man", to debut on Broadway the following year and to be made into a motion picture in 1962. Other members of the cast would include Buster Keaton, Louis Armstrong, Kay Starr and Dick Haymes. Mr. Stack, incidentally, who would subsequently achieve household recognition in the popular television series, "The Untouchables", had been friends with John F. Kennedy when both were young men, circa 1940-41.

As we have previously recounted herein, once, by chance, we happened by a Safeway parking lot in Burbank at around 9:30 p.m. in August, 1976 during our first visit to Los Angeles, wherein an episode for a television program starring Mr. Stack was being taped, and we paused to take a look. Some two hours later, after they had filmed a simple sequence of Mr. Stack entering the store, which had to be re-shot at least five times or more, as either he missed his mark inside the store or some other technical issue had arisen, each time, between shots, the crew having to dim down again the sheen from the cars and their headlamps and redab the actors with make-up, the scene was finally wrapped, at around 11:30. In between each effort, Mr. Stack, standing an arm's length away out by the trucks and trailers, continually muttered to himself, as he nervously examined his wristwatch, "Let's shoot this mother," apparently wanting to get home before midnight. Until today, we had never seen the episode of which the brief scene was a part, and never knew its subject matter, as we were far too busy with studies the ensuing year to watch any of this short-lived series, lasting only a single season. Dubbed "Most Wanted", a Quinn Martin Production, the particular episode was "The Wolfpack Killer", appearing to have been based loosely on the SLA and Patricia Hearst saga, which had occurred primarily in the Bay Area of San Francisco, in the vicinity of Sacramento and around Los Angeles in 1974 and 1975. As also recounted previously, we attended three or four times the Federal bank robbery trial of Ms. Hearst, during February, 1976, primarily to see the renowned F. Lee Bailey as her defense counsel, as we prepared to start law school the following year. The segment of the episode which we saw being taped starts at the 20:38 mark and lasts all of ten seconds. It appears to have been shot at the Akron Store, which was a chain of Southern California stores at that time, but we are certain the scene we saw was at a Safeway. Perhaps, Safeway objected because of the subject matter, as a Safeway in Seattle had been the object of a bombing in September, 1975 by the "George Jackson Brigade" in protest of the recent arrests of Ms. Hearst and other SLA members, prompting the presence of heavy security during the fall of 1975 and into 1976 at the Safeway Stores. So perhaps they changed the venue and even reshot the whole scene the next night. We had never made the association before as we just assumed that there had been a scripted murder inside the Safeway during some sort of robbery which Mr. Stack's character was assigned to solve. We had no idea it was the Wolfpack. In any event, they got the mother shot and in the can, even if the series did not make it very long or capture anyone's imagination, including our own, as the scene we saw did not exactly suggest itself as an invitation to novel or illuminating television, as had earlier QM productions from our youth, especially "The Fugitive" and "The Invaders". At the rate of shooting, it must have taken them a couple of months to complete the entire episode, though not exactly evident in the finished product. "Boring" was the operative word. What can you say but that it was typical television in the 1970's, having devolved steadily, for the most part, to jejune drivel, an occasional made-for-tv movie having been the exception to prove the rule. When the actors are forced to stand around muttering to themselves in a Safeway parking lot late at night and examining their watches, we suppose you could not ask for much.

On the editorial page, "Democrats Field Their Strongest Team" finds that the Democrats had nominated the strongest ticket possible in Chicago, with Mr. Stevenson and Senator Kefauver being the party's best-known figures and both being proven vote-getters who had traveled many of the routes they would retrace during the general election campaign in the fall.