The Charlotte News
Tuesday, August 7, 1956
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from Chicago that Adlai Stevenson was preparing to toss aside political tradition in filling the vice-presidential spot on the ticket at the Democratic convention, which would convene the following Monday in Chicago. Mr. Stevenson was supremely confident that he would obtain the presidential nomination the second successive time, although disputed by supporters of Governor Averell Harriman of New York and several favorite-son candidates working to create a deadlocked convention out of which they hoped they might emerge as the nominee. Mr. Stevenson, however, did not appear worried about a deadlock and was already reviewing and renewing his positions on major issues in anticipation of a vigorous fall campaign against the President, convinced during the primaries that the popularity of the President was overrated and that he could be beaten. He had told friends that he was more interested in getting a running mate who would make a first-rate vice-president than in satisfying the usual requirements of geography and voter appeal in the choice, that he wanted a vice-president who would be his personal representative in Congress to push the White House legislative program, and also wanted someone who could perform the same traveling and ceremonial functions which Vice-President Nixon had performed for President Eisenhower.
The President would, the following day, hold his second press conference since his attack of ileitis on June 8, having held the first one the prior Wednesday.
In Hong Kong, reports from Communist China stated this date that Typhoon Wanda had been one of the century's worst typhoons, killing more than 2,100 persons and leaving millions homeless on the Chinese mainland. The known dead were 2,161 and the injured totaled almost the same number. More casualties might be reported when reports reached Peiping from remote areas where communications had been cut. The typhoon had struck the Chinese coast on Wednesday and veered north, penetrating deep into the interior. Winds of up to 150 mph had accompanied the storm when it moved across Chekiang, where most of the casualties occurred.
In Martin, S.D., it was reported that a tornado had torn off the roof of the community hospital the previous night, demolished 40 buildings and caused damage estimated at $500,000, with no known dead or seriously injured despite the storm hitting the residential district of the town.
In Boston, preliminary instructions to the jury venire was occurring this date in the trial of eight men accused of the Brink's robbery of 1950, involving the taking of more than 1.2 million dollars. Both the defense and the Commonwealth had 262 peremptory challenges available to them, and so it was expected that jury selection would take some time. The prosecution expected to call about 90 witnesses and the defense, between 45 and 50.
In Rockingham, N.C., five persons were in the Richmond County jail this date, as officers continued investigation into the slaying of a woman, whose nude body had been fished from the waters of a lake near the town the previous night. A man and his nephew, both farmers of the Laurel Hill area, were being held, along with another man from that town and a woman of East Rockingham, plus another male of Scotland County. The latter had identified one of the men as having taken the deceased woman into the woods and beaten her. She had been the wife of a soldier who was presently overseas, and had been stabbed five times in the back and savagely hit behind the ear and on top of her head. A police officer said that charges might be filed after an autopsy on her body, depending on whether the autopsy found water in her lungs, which would indicate that she had died in Richmond County, and if not, that the charges would be filed in Scotland County, where the beating allegedly had taken place. Her body had been discovered just before dark the previous night when two men who lived near the lake saw it floating in the water. The woman in custody said that the three men had joined their party at a drinking establishment, the Wine House, just across the South Carolina border from Gibson and that the group of six had then proceeded into North Carolina, with the deceased woman having been riding with two of the men while the third man had ridden with the other woman and one of the men.
In Syracuse, N.Y., a letter from a motorist had commented on the traffic officer who arrested him: "He acted in a most courteous manner, approached me like a gentleman and talked to me in the same manner." He had been arrested by a patrolman for driving with the wrong type of registration.
In Peru, Ind., "Old Babe", an Indian elephant who had outlived at least six circuses during a 70-year career, had died the previous Friday at an animal farm and children's amusement park near the town and was laid to rest this date in a massive grave marked by a ring of tarnished parade wagons. Eight other elephants had raised their trunks in salute as the body was tumbled into the grave dug by a power shovel. The owner of the animal farm said that the elephant deserved something better than the glue factory. It had been retired to the farm two years earlier after its last job with the King Brothers Circus.
Julian Scheer of The News continues the story about a 17-year old Charlotte youth who had built his own rocket in his basement, to be tested by the Army at its Redstone Arsenal in Alabama. It's not rocket science...
Emery Wister of The News tells of the mystery of the dead fish in Freedom Park having been solved, that it had been the lack of oxygen and not chemicals which had killed them 12 days earlier. The fish had also died during a hot July several years earlier and a report to be issued by the Health Department would also solve that mystery, indicating that three major factors produced a lack of oxygen, thick vegetation in the water, ducks, whose waste consumed oxygen, and high temperatures, which lowered the oxygen content of the water.
A cool front had arrived in Charlotte to prevent the temperature from breaking another record, having little impact on the previous day's temperature, however, which had set a new record for the date and a new high for the year at 102, three degrees above the 98.9 set on August 6, 1930, the previous high for the date. The previous high for the year had occurred on June 25, at 100. The predicted high for this date was 91, with a low of 71 forecast for the following morning and a high of 92 for the afternoon. This date's low of 69 came as welcome relief.
On the editorial page, "McKeon & the Corps Belong Together" suggests that the Marine Corps ought keep Staff Sergeant Matthew McKeon, who had been acquitted by the court-martial of the most serious charges of involuntary manslaughter and oppression of recruits resulting in the deaths of six Marines under his command as a drill instructor, when he force-marched them through a tidal creek next to the base in a nighttime exercise the prior April 8, the tribunal having found him culpable for simple negligence and drinking on duty, sentencing him to nine months at hard labor and a bad conduct discharge.
It indicates that his mistakes had been enormous, resulting in the needless deaths of six men and that he had deserved the severity of the punishment which a conscientious court had prescribed in the face of Marine Corps commandant General Randolph Pate having attempted to direct a verdict of acquittal by his testimony. But in the particulars of the punishment, it asserts that the court had erred by ordering the sergeant discharged, that a longer prison term probably would have been more fair and probably more acceptable to the sergeant, that the Corps and the sergeant could not be separated logically, as he had made his mistakes out of devotion to the service and in the practice of disciplinary methods on which the Corps knowingly had depended while officially disapproving of them. While the mistakes had been his own, the situation which permitted the mistakes had been embedded in the tradition of the Corps. The court had admitted as much by its refusal to convict the sergeant on the charge of oppression of recruits, having been convicted not for marching the troops into the creek, but for failure to take precautions against the dangers of the creek.
It finds that discharge of him would have two unfair effects, saddling him with the entire responsibility for the tragedy and, beyond punishment, permanently marking him with disgrace.
The Corps had announced plans to reform its training program to eliminate the cruelties and safeguard against such tragedies occurring again, and it suggests that the sergeant ought have an equal opportunity to reform and to do so within the context of the Corps he had been trying to serve.
"Nixon's Good Advice for Politicians" indicates the Vice-President Nixon had made some knowledgeable remarks on the South's race problems in weekend speeches to North Carolina church groups. Acknowledging the chasm between regional custom and the Brown v. Board of Education decision, Mr. Nixon had said "political demagoguery will aggravate, not solve the problem."
It finds it good advice and the best they could hope for was that the Vice-President and other campaigners in the fall would remember it. It recalls in sorrow his earlier advice to party workers to seek political benefit from Brown, which he attributed to "a great Republican Chief Justice." It finds that demagoguery could become the tool of those who supported the decision, as well as those who opposed it, finding it particularly apparent in the last session of Congress, when amendments to the school construction bill, prohibiting funding to districts which continued racial segregation, had been used as political weapons both to attract votes and to defeat bills which deserved consideration on their own merit.
"The solution of a great social dilemma needs more service to the 'fundamental religious and moral ideals' than church groups alone can render. The impact of political leaders upon the public, particularly during the partisan strife of a presidential campaign, is great. Their power of leadership can rival that of churches."
It concludes that what Mr. Nixon had said to the church groups in the mountains of the state regarding political demagoguery had sounded good and would sound even better from the political stump.
"A Thing of Beauty from Baptist Hollow" indicates that when Bobby Lee Brown had been pitching at "Baptist Hollow", before Wake Forest College moved to Winston-Salem, there had been plenty of bleacher fans who thought he had "the stuff".
He had been an adequate pitcher in professional baseball, but had pitched a no-hit, no-run game the prior Saturday, albeit in the minor leagues with the Augusta team. It finds it to have been a thing of beauty, even if in the minors. Baseball fans rarely got to see a no-hitter. Mr. Brown, 22, brimming with ambition, had given them an eyeful the prior Saturday night and it had become the sports event of the summer. It reiterates that those who had seen him pitching at Wake Forest against UNC, N.C. State and Duke had thought he had the stuff, and he had.
"No, You Can't Get Plastered Anymore" indicates that the American tippler could take his choice, either getting "oiled, boiled, fried, juiced, soaked, soused, potted, pickled, primed, polluted, grogged, cooled, cropped, skunked, stoned, stinking, stupefied, boozed, befuddled, blinded, lit, lushed, looped, limp, loaded, liquored up, tanked, tight, inebriated, intoxicated, or just plain drunk." But he could not get plastered, according to the Arizona Lath & Plaster Institute, which claimed that use of the word in that context offended the dignity of plasterers.
It finds a sharp protest in order, lest the oil industry also file a complaint, along with the association of chefs, crock-makers, stonemasons, skunk farmers and possibly even the pickle lobby. The result would be that the nation would have to go on the wagon or give up its colorful speech for fear of offending some puritanical special interest group. Otherwise, a whole new argot would have to be adopted to reference inebriation. "Perhaps an old soak could get truncheoned and without soiling anybody's honor—or bowstring, bethwhacked and bewildered, as the saying goes."
It indicates it was prepared to do battle to preserve "plastered", telling of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch having already produced evidence linking the term to the old custom of "plastering" wine, which consisted of treating wine with plaster of Paris "to improve its color and increase its alcoholic content."
It concludes that the Arizona Lath & Plaster Institute had better count its blessings, lest some disconsolate lush in, say, Hoboken, would announce loudly that he was going out and get lathed—which then might catch on.
A piece from the Chicago Daily Tribune, titled "When They'll Shake", indicates that in England, one could not speak to a royal person until the royal spoke first and that touching a royal was a criminal offense. Mrs. James Forrestal, widow of the former Secretary of Defense, had discovered the rule at the Ascot racetrack when she addressed Queen Elizabeth and reached out to touch her, whereupon two guards immediately seized her and hustled her away. The same thing had happened recently at Comiskey Park, where several youngsters, carried away with enthusiasm for baseball royalty, had barged onto the playing field and sought to shake hands with Mickey Mantle, at which point they also had been seized by the police and ejected from the park.
It indicates that anyone who sought to shake hands with a notable person ought pick out a political candidate, such as Adlai Stevenson or Governor Averell Harriman, who delighted in shaking hands. Richard Stengle, the Democratic candidate for Senator from Illinois, had shaken 212,000 hands since the previous March and was trying to make it a million by the November election, knowing the exact number by a device he carried around in his left hand which recorded every shake. (But what if he was shaking his hand other than in enveloping that of another, producing an inaccurate count?)
Many politicians had won high office by the hand-shaking method, regardless of other qualifications, at which point they adopted the practice of the Queen and had bodyguards to prevent the peasants from bothering them.
Drew Pearson tells of Congressman James Roosevelt of California, whose work in Congress had been more effective than his work as a husband, having found a new conflict of interest case inside the Administration, involving the largest monopoly in the nation, AT&T. Mr. Roosevelt had found that a total of 25 AT&T employees or retired employees were either employed or had been employed inside the Administration, influencing the Justice Department in settling an antitrust case against their own company.
Mr. Roosevelt's examination of the case, one of the most important brought during the Truman Administration, had shown an inside deal between AT&T and its wholly-owned subsidiary, Western Electric, to freeze out other electronics manufacturers. With electronics being vital to guided missiles and national defense, it was imperative to have as many firms engaged in that field as possible. But after the antitrust division had spent several years preparing for a showdown trial, Attorney General Herbert Brownell had negotiated a face-saving consent decree permitting AT&T and Western Electric to continue their monopoly relationship. Mr. Roosevelt now contended that the consent decree was an inside job.
The Justice Department had now publicly admitted that Adolph Wenzell, working for the Government during the Dixon-Yates deal, had constituted a conflict of interest, but it had taken two years for Mr. Brownell to admit the fact. For months, the fact that Mr. Wenzell had been working inside the Budget Bureau had been carefully hushed up, and attempts by Congress to subpoena information about him had been refused, while inquiries by Mr. Pearson to the Bureau and the White House had been rebuffed. But the previous month, in an official charge before the Federal courts, Mr. Brownell had labeled Dixon-Yates a conflict of interest.
Doris Fleeson tells of Senator Estes Kefauver having performed a rare act of political grace in yielding to Adlai Stevenson the prior Tuesday, well before the first ballot at the Democratic convention, set to start the following Monday in Chicago. It had enabled Mr. Stevenson to be free of delegate deals which would carry a price tag and free to choose his vice-presidential running mate.
At the same time, Senator Kefauver had paid off old foes, former President Truman, Speaker Sam Rayburn and Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson, who had refused to embrace Senator Kefauver or to spare his feelings in the process. They had intended to be kingmakers in Chicago and now the best they could do would be to make trouble.
Senator Kefauver had lost his momentum when beaten by Mr. Stevenson in the California primary in early June. Governor Averell Harriman of New York was proposing that Senator Kefauver join forces with him to procure a convention deadlock, assuring the Senator that such a move had the tacit support of former President Truman. Senator Kefauver perceived that Mr. Stevenson's counter would be to seek support in one or more of the big favorite-son delegations, the most likely being Texas, under the control of Senator Johnson, and would propose him for the presidential nomination. Senator Johnson was a political operator par excellence and he would have the astute support of the permanent chairman of the convention, Speaker Rayburn. Senator Kefauver had learned firsthand in 1952 what it could mean to have Mr. Rayburn for or against him. He had visions of his enemy, Senator Johnson, or the choice of the Senator, possibly Senator Stuart Symington of Missouri, a bridge to former President Truman, on the ticket with Mr. Stevenson, who would then be beholden for the nomination to the South, in general, and to Senator Johnson, in particular.
At about that point, Mr. Truman had abandoned discretion and said that Senator Kefauver would not be his choice, making it clear that Governor Harriman would be the major beneficiary of an alliance between the Governor and Senator Kefauver. A manager for Senator Kefauver, who was close to the former President, had told Mr. Truman that it was the last straw. Eventually, Senator Kefauver decided to back Mr. Stevenson.
She indicates that the episode was much more than a chapter in convention politics, but an important installment in the continuing struggle for control of the party. Just as Harold Stassen was seeking to replace Vice-President Nixon on the Republican ticket, to ensure succession for a liberal Republican, Senator Kefauver had moved to keep liberal Democrats on top. The liberals were already worried that Mr. Stevenson owed the South too much and was too committed to a moderate course. Yet the split of their support between Mr. Stevenson, Senator Kefauver and Governor Harriman had helped to create the situation, whereas now, Senator Kefauver's supporters could help Mr. Stevenson free himself of the Southern tag.
Democratic liberals were grateful and would be particularly happy to see Senator Johnson more or less isolated, as in their view, he had deliberately obscured the party fight on President Eisenhower, and some insisted that he and other Democratic Congressional conservatives would prefer the President to a strongly liberal Democratic president.
Robert C. Ruark, in Palamos, Spain, tells of reading that New Jersey, a state which had often permitted criminals to serve in office and served as a sanctuary for major mobsters, had decided that Jersey City was too delicate to permit a rock 'n' roll concert because of the fear of riots. He suggests that one would think that each generation invented sin and that juvenile delinquency was a product of the television age. The habit of young bucks kicking up their heels and making mischief had been well-established prior to the rock 'n' roll craze, which he regards as a "brief vogue" because of the frailty of the art form.
He says that he had missed the Bunny Hug and the foxtrot, but had been in on the Charleston, the Black Bottom, the shag, the jitterbug, the Lindy Hop, bebop, the cha-cha-cha and "other popular delusions of the madness of crowds." They had all been more or less condemned as a sure passage to perdition, and old folks wondered what the younger generation was coming to, his parents having informed him that the foxtrot was a thing no nice girl did, and that dancing cheek to cheek was little short of seduction as a menace to the commonweal. He says that his generation had raised just as much hell as those of the modern era. They had crashed theater doors in crowds of hundreds, usually after a football rally. Every year, there was a pitched battle between hundreds of students when the juniors tried to rush the senior steps.
They stole gasoline from strange cars and he had once gone to jail for one night as punishment because he chickened out and quit running when a cop started pegging .45 slugs at him, at a point when he was 19, the night after he graduated from UNC. He says that the Carolina students had gone to Durham and beaten up the Duke students, and vice versa. He says that he had painted the statue of old Buck Duke blue at least 10 times. They drank bootleg whiskey and fought at dances, and he had made the bootleg liquor, having acquired the raw alcohol from Texas Guinan's younger brother in Durham and had taken it to Chapel Hill, where some said that he made very tasty gin in Grimes Dormitory.
They necked and petted and did most of the other things college students were known to do. (College students? They were doing that in the sixth grade in our day, or, at least, so we heard through the grapevine. By college, things had advanced well beyond necking and petting, in an age of widely available contraception.) Yet, they were not "bad" boys. Most of them were now lawyers, doctors, senators, bankers and businessmen, one of their number having recently married Margaret Truman, and several had become ministers of the gospel and of the state. The one abstemious student among them had recently shot his wife, child, dog and himself to death after practicing for weeks on tin cans with a pistol. (That's always the refuge of drunks, to suggest that the abstemious one was bound to become a mass killer. We remind again that Mr. Ruark would die in 1965 of liver failure at a relatively young age. And, it's a fact that most people who wind up killing their families or others are either on drugs or quite saturated with alcohol, witness the story out of Rockingham on the front page of this date. So don't believe everything you read in the newspaper.)
He concludes that he did not think rock 'n' roll could be called catastrophic in its effect on modern youth, that youth had always been a little nuts and generally grew out of it into stodgy sanity.
A letter from a former Army officer, who had served in World War II and Korea, indicates that military leaders had reached a new low with the conviction and sentence into disgrace and hardship of Sergeant McKeon, having convicted him of a crime resulting from an unfortunate accident, which could have happened to anyone who had ever been assigned and entrusted to command directly troops in any service. He says that Marine officers directly supervising recruit training were responsible for the accident, rather than the sergeant. "Officers are always directly responsible for supervising and directing the activities of enlisted personnel regardless of the rank or assignment of such men. With the exception of Marine Gen. Puller, it appears that the Marine officer Corps in its entirety has lost that so widely advertised courage and has failed to defend and protect an enlisted Marine who followed an age-old military policy."
A letter writer from Concord agrees with a previous letter writer and his suggestion regarding the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra. He indicates that Charlotte was a large enough city to merit a first-rate orchestra leader and the fact that James Christian Pfohl had led the orchestra during its growth phase did not necessarily qualify him as its present leader, as orchestras of repute had been known to outgrow their conductors.
A letter writer says that he had arrived in Charlotte on June 30, 1915 and had watched it grow, but had never thought that after 40 years, he would see four hours, six days per week, which would remind him of Russia, referring to the peak traffic hours. The police and parking meter attendants were on the job while motorists raced on Sylvania Avenue at speeds up to 60 mph or more. He wonders when they would get the no left turn in the territory, to keep the traffic moving. "Let's keep them rolling, instead of standing."
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