The Charlotte News
Monday, September 17, 1956
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that Secretary of State Dulles said this date, after a conference with the President, that there was no American plan to finance the "detouring of the Suez Canal", that the U.S. was prepared to help finance, through the Export-Import Bank, increased exports of American oil to Western nations if transit through the canal was "impractical or greatly diminished." He said that they had not gone beyond the financing of American oil exports in their planning and did not believe they would have to do so, after being asked whether they would bar financial aid to other nations to help them transport oil around Africa to detour the canal. The Secretary was planning to depart for London later in the day where he would participate in a meeting of 18 nations which had failed in their efforts to get Egypt to accept internationalization of the canal, after it had been seized by President Gamal Abdel Nasser on July 26.
In Clay, Ky., four black students had given up their fight to enter the Clay Consolidated School this date after being informed officially of a school board order denying their admission. After they had left, approximately 150 white children returned to classes. The black students had been escorted to the school by an adjutant general of the National Guard, where the order was read on the steps by the school principal. Three of the four students had attended classes the previous week at Clay, which had then been boycotted by its 590 white students. The school board had acted on Friday night after the State Attorney General's office had issued an opinion stating that the four children were illegally enrolled. After the order was read by the female principal, the mother of two of the children reached over and shook her hand, thanking her for her kindness, stating that she would take her children back to an all-black school at nearby Providence. A representative of the Guard said that a contingent would remain in Clay for the time being. The mother of the two children declined to say whether she would participate in a lawsuit planned to be filed in U.S. District Court to require the school board to admit the children, as previously, an NAACP attorney said that he would represent the children and their parents in the action, which would be filed the following day and would name the school board, its members individually and the county superintendent as defendants, seeking an injunction to restrain them from prohibiting the attendance of the children at the school. Meanwhile, at Sturgis, 11 miles away, segregationists renewed their efforts to spur a white boycott at the high school there.
In Gastonia, N.C., a 23-year old black male student from Durham had been enrolled in the Gaston Technical Institute this date, the first black student to enter the branch of the Consolidated University. White students had begun grumbling at the appearance of the former soldier, but there was no indication that there might be trouble. One student said that if he had known the student was coming, he would not have entered, while another said that he did not like it. The director of the school said only that the enrollment of the black student had made the Institute the last part of the Consolidated University to accept black applicants. The newly admitted student said he felt right at home, indicating that he had just finished a two-year hitch in the Army, where facilities were not segregated. He said that he had applied to N.C. State in Raleigh but found that automotive technology was not taught there and was then referred to the Gaston Institute. All other branches of the University, including UNC at Chapel Hill, N.C. State and Woman's College in Greensboro, had black undergraduate students admitted during the current term.
In Atlanta, a House subcommittee opened hearings into "all phases of the cotton situation", hearing from the president of the Georgia Farm Bureau and the Alabama Commissioner of Agriculture, the former complaining that under the soil bank program, the Government paid only 43 percent of parity for cotton and 60 percent for wheat and corn, contending that it was discrimination against the Southern cotton farmer.
In Bodoe, Norway, the body of a second man killed in the sinking of an American freighter had been pulled this date from the icy sea, and the remainder of the ship's 37 crewmen, save five men who had been rescued the previous day from a bobbing lifeboat, were believed dead. The lifeboat had also contained the body of a steward who had died of exposure. Air and sea search continued for other survivors, despite diminished hopes amid low visibility from frequent rain squalls. It was believed that no one could live for long in the icy waters.
In Shelby, N.C., it was reported that a four-state alarm had gone out for a man whom the Cleveland County sheriff believed was the killer of a 58-year old merchant who had lived with his wife on U.S. 74 west of the town, found shot to death and robbed a week earlier. Four slugs had been removed from his body, found in the living quarters at the rear of his combination service station and grill. The search for the man whom the sheriff would not publicly identify had begun the previous Tuesday after piecing together dozens of bits of information. A State Bureau of Investigation report the previous Friday had revealed several identifiable fingerprints and the sheriff and his deputies had spent all weekend checking possible suspects and hundreds of tips, indicating that the leads had been going pretty well. The sheriff said that the murder had been accomplished for the purpose of robbery.
In Gastonia, N.C., 24 hours of steady questioning were expected to end late this date with a break in the case of two skeletons found in the ashes of an abandoned farmhouse, with a sheriff's department detective indicating that four people being questioned in the deaths would probably be either charged or released late in the afternoon, that all they knew thus far was that they had not had any sleep, but had learned a few things, declining to state what they were. He said there was a possibility that the four suspects would be taken to Raleigh for lie detector tests, as the men had consented to submit to the tests. The sheriff indicated that the men had been killed in the farmhouse and then burned to cover up the crime, but could offer no motive. The four men being questioned had all admitted being with the two dead men until early Saturday morning. The two men had been reported missing on Friday night and the farmhouse, located near Cherryville, had been burned to the ground early Saturday morning, with the two skeletons discovered the previous day by a farmer who was poking around in the ashes.
Dick Young of The News tells of City Manager Henry Yancey completing ten years of service in the capacity, twice longer than the tenure of any previous city manager in the history of Charlotte, dating back to 1929. Included in his achievements had been the initiation and completion of Independence Boulevard, helping to relieve Charlotte's traffic congestion, initiation of a program for elimination of railroad grade crossings on the east and west of the central business district, the construction of a crossline railroad as the first phase of that project, appointment of Charlotte's first traffic engineer and the establishment of a traffic engineering department, adoption of a zoning ordinance to regulate growth, widespread expansion of water and sewer facilities, a citywide program of street sign installation and enlargement of radii at street corners, plus extension of the city limits. Mr. Yancey had been a city manager for 31 years, longer than any other living city manager in the nation, having originally started in Charlottesville, Va., in 1925, where he served in that capacity for eight years, before moving to Durham in 1935, where he also stayed for eight years, interspersed by a two-year stint in Petersburg, Va., and then having served in Greensboro for three years before coming to Charlotte in 1946. When he first came to Charlotte, he received a salary of $16,000, when the Governor received only $6,000. He did not receive a raise for five years, boosted then to $18,000, followed by another five years before he received his current $20,000. A note indicates that Mr. Young had covered the activities of every city manager Charlotte had, beginning in 1929, listing each and his tenure.
In Pittsburgh, a man fried a chicken as a present for his mother on her 89th birthday, and it tasted pretty good until his wife discovered that he had fried the chicken in grease into which she had mixed mouse poison, prompting the man and his mother to be rushed to the hospital and provided antidotes, to which both had responded quickly and were discharged.
In Hollywood, actress Jayne
Mansfield had returned from New York the previous day with an
entourage including her five-year old daughter, Jaynie Marie,
weightlifter Mickey Hargitay and two chihuahuas. Unnoticed in
Hollywood before her appearance in Broadway's "Will Success
Spoil Rock Hunter?" she told newsmen at the airport that she was
grateful to New York for what it had done for her, but now that she
was back in Hollywood, wanted to stay for 99 years. She would begin
work on the film "Do Re Mi" with Tom Ewell, who had starred
with Marilyn Monroe in "The Seven Year Itch", released in
mid-1955. Her film would be retitled "The Girl Can't Help It"
before being released in December, obviously shot very quickly, at
least as to her role
A new feature, "The Country Parson", started this date in the newspaper, described as "witty, sharp one-sentence sermons" which would appear daily, providing "realistic observations about the world" guaranteed to cheer up the reader. The Parson had been created by two male active church members who were eager to teach men that "a love of God can be a gay experience, not a sad one."
Here also is the "People" column of Charles Kuralt, regarding the Children's Nature Museum planetarium in Charlotte.
On the editorial page, "Plan To Reform Highway Commission Offers New Tools for Big Job Ahead" indicates that new proposals to reform the administrative machinery of the state's 70,000-mile highway system were admirably sound, that Governor Luther Hodges had disclosed the broad outlines of the plan which could place highway management on a thoroughly sensible basis for the first time in years, reducing the present unwieldy State Highway and Public Works Commission to a smaller statewide policy-making group with an outstanding expert as an executive-administrator to supervise the highway program, and finally severing the Prisons Department from the Highway Commission.
The proposals were part of a preliminary report of a highway study commission authorized by the 1955 General Assembly, with more detailed recommendations to be offered later. The Governor had given his enthusiastic endorsement to the basic program, and the piece finds it the best answer yet advanced to the urgent needs for sweeping modernization of the system.
It indicates that between 1921 and 1930, the state had set an example for the nation by the manner in which it had tackled its highway needs, but times had changed and improvements were needed for management and maintenance of the vastly extended highway network. All of the current proposals would be subject to approval by the 1957 General Assembly, and it suggests that those genuinely interested in the progress and welfare of the state would not hesitate to implement the reform program presently taking shape.
"Ask the Man Whose Married to One" indicates that if the Charlotte League of Women Voters ever needed a testimonial, it could always turn to its "husband's auxiliary", as it knew of a half dozen or so husbands who got their politics unabashedly from their wives, would not mark a ballot until they had a long talk with the spouse who was a member of the LWV.
It finds it a high tribute to the work of the League, even if not speaking well for the husbands' political astuteness.
The Charlotte League was opening a supplementary fund-raising drive this date, and it finds it cast in the same mold as approximately 1,000 other local leagues across the country, a nonpartisan organization commendably dedicated to keeping the public informed on governmental problems and getting out the vote, richly deserving of community support. They dug determinedly behind leading local issues, such as city and county taxes, smoke abatement, urban redevelopment, slum clearance, governmental consolidation, and many others, and also tackled important national and international issues.
The League had supported the U.N. and NATO, battled against the Bricker amendment to limit the President's treaty-making powers, had been a booster of world trade and supported measures to promote international economic development and technical assistance. It had shown laudable courage when its "Freedom Agenda" had been under attack in 1954 by the American Legion. It had worked fearlessly for reforms in government, never backing away from a scrap.
It had candidly described its own record as not being totally successful or one of total wisdom in the choice of goals and means, but also said that it had established an impressive record since 1920, remarkably objective and hard-working.
It concludes that in Charlotte, everyone could be proud of the League and its accomplishments, especially those, of whom the writer says he was one, among the "husband's auxiliary".
"The Inscrutable Historical Markers" tells of historical markers in North Carolina pointing out that in a house on U.S. Highway 42 in Wilmington, Whistler's mother had been born, and on a field 135 yards northwest of a point on U.S. Highway 301 in Fayetteville, Babe Ruth had hit his first home run in professional baseball in March, 1914. Some 800 additional historical markers across the state displayed other historic events taking place nearby. A lot of hard work went into the placement of the markers and the presentation on them of accurate information.
It indicates that it was impressed that the Advisory Committee on Historical Markers made earnest efforts to see that new markers were fairly distributed throughout the state and that they referred to all phases of the state's history. Documentary evidence had to be presented before any statement was placed on a marker, and the Committee was doing a good, conscientious job.
But it also finds that it was difficult to spot many of the markers, including the two which it had pointed out, of which it had never been aware until reading about them in the Guide to North Carolina Historical Highway Markers. The motorist could stop on the shoulder and walk back 100 yards or so, but only Sunday drivers had time to do so. It finds that it was reasonable that the markers should be either larger or highway turnoffs placed near each of them, though it had not been done in all the years since the markers first had begun to be placed. It concludes that perhaps historical markers were supposed to be seen but not read.
Drew Pearson, in Naharia, Galilee, indicates that when General George Marshall, as U.S. special envoy to China, had recommended that Chiang Kai-shek bring two Communists into the Nationalist Cabinet to head off China's swing toward Communism in 1946, he had been later heavily criticized on the floor of the Senate by Senators McCarthy and William Jenner as the tool of Communism and a traitor to the country. When John Carter Vincent, diplomat and expert on the Far East, concurred with General Marshall that it would be wise to form a coalition between the Nationalists and Communists in the formation of a new cabinet, he had undergone several years of loyalty board investigations, after which Secretary of State Dulles had fired him, not on the basis of disloyalty, but for the exercise of bad judgment. John Davies, also a member of General Marshall's staff in China who had concurred in that decision, was fired by Secretary Dulles on the same basis. He concludes that it was how Mr. Dulles had treated career diplomats who had guessed wrong, even though such non-career Republican diplomats as Patrick Hurley, also Ambassador to China, had concurred with them at the time.
In 1953, during the first year of the Eisenhower Administration, Secretary Dulles had gone to Cairo to meet with President Gamal Abdel Nasser, where he heard him talk of Egypt's downtrodden masses, his hope to end starvation and generally to revitalize the nation.
Though Mr. Dulles had made a fortune and his reputation as a shrewd Wall Street lawyer, he had made disastrous mistakes in his judgment, one of which was his urging American investors to purchase German bonds in the pre-Hitler era and another had been telling American audiences in 1938 that the dictators of Germany, Italy and Japan needed more room for their restless peoples, having indicated that Germany would be a necessary bulwark against the Soviets. That came after Hitler had already seized Austria through Anschloss, the Ruhr, the Rhineland and the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia, a few months before the September 1, 1939 blitzkrieg into Poland, igniting World War II.
Secretary Dulles, in 1953, had listened to President Nasser and made another disastrous mistake, deciding to bet American policy in the Near East on supporting Mr. Nasser in his effort to rebuild Egypt, then pulling wires with the British, all but demanding that they withdraw from the Suez Canal area. Secretary Dulles had appointed Henry Byroede, a West Point colonel, as Ambassador to Cairo, and immediately obtained approval for 30 million dollars of U.S. economic aid for Egypt. A year later, President Nasser was berating the importation of diseased American chickens. He had told Col. Byroede that Egypt stood in every respect with the West shortly after he received word that the U.S. was providing dollars for Egyptian defense. But at the same time, he was telling Arab leaders that they were in a position to ruin the West if they went to work. Mr. Pearson concludes that it was the disastrous mistake made by Secretary Dulles, when he had fired two career diplomats for their errors of judgment regarding China.
Stewart Alsop, in Walworth County, Wisc., tells of the Republican farm county which had voted by 3 to 1 for the President in 1952, ready to vote for him heavily again. But if Adlai Stevenson could improve his 1952 vote by a substantial margin in Republican strongholds such as that county, he could come close to winning the presidency. Mr. Alsop indicates that after spending long hours interviewing farmers in the county, in the company of a professional public opinion expert, it appeared to him that the determining factors would be, first, whether the unhappiness of farmers in the county would be translated into an important number of Democratic votes, and, second, whether the vice-presidential nominee, Senator Estes Kefauver, mysteriously well-liked among farmers, could transfer some of his popularity to Mr. Stevenson, who was not liked by farmers at all.
He finds that the farmers were not by any means as unhappy in that county, a rich dairy area, as they were in the hog and corn country of Iowa, where Mr. Alsop previously had gone and found a surprising turn of sentiment against the Administration. But even in that county, including among those who were staunch Republicans, there was definite discontent. There were some farmers who said things were not too bad, but more often the sentiment was that everyone else in the country was enjoying prosperity except the farmers, or that the middle man got everything, leaving the dairy farmers with seven cents per quart of milk. Yet, it was not certain that the discontent would be translated to Democratic votes. The peace issue was extremely effective there, with one farmer commenting that the women believed that the President would keep the peace, and among the most critical of the Administration, the belief still existed that the President had ended the unpopular Korean War.
But there was very little love for Mr. Stevenson among the farmers, with one indicating that he was "just not the man for the job" and another finding him kind of obnoxious. Another believed him a "millionaire playboy who controls most of the railroads"—obviously confusing him with Governor Averell Harriman, the wealthy railroad man.
But Senator Kefauver was quite popular, having accumulated a higher vote than the President in the spring primary in a number of strongly Republican farm counties in Wisconsin, and could cut into the substantial majority which the President had accumulated in 1952 in Walworth County were he at the top of the ticket. It was thus likely that the Senator would be appearing in that county before the campaign ended, but the question remained whether a vice-presidential candidate could sell the whole ticket. Mr. Alsop finds that the answer would depend in part on Mr. Stevenson, as Senator Kefauver could not do the job alone. Mr. Stevenson had to erase the mental image of himself as the traditional city slicker, an image which appeared to be held throughout the Midwest farm belt. If he could alter that image, it was not at all impossible that he might substantially increase his vote in those areas.
He had found informally that in Walworth County, Mr. Stevenson might do between 5 percent and 10 percent better than he had done in 1952, when General Eisenhower had defeated him by 76 percent to 24 percent. He concludes, therefore, that the election was not in the bag for President Eisenhower.
A letter writer from Morganton calls attention to independent voters of a change made by the 1955 Legislature in marking ballots when a voter desired to split a ticket—and so if you are voting in the November election, you had better read it closely.
A letter writer counsels use of direct action against those defying the law, Constitution and the word of God to carry on discrimination, as well as action against use of tax money for such defiance of the law, Constitution and the Bible.
A letter writer says that the 14th Amendment had been written by Congress at a time when it had a hostile and revengeful attitude toward the Southern states, right after the Civil War, when there were 37 states and President Andrew Johnson had formally proclaimed that the former Confederate States would again be made part of the Union. He says that it had been passed by Congress only after the Southern members had been disqualified from voting on it, although they had been able to vote for the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery. He claims that without the Southern members, the required two-thirds of the Congress had not approved the amendment to send it to the states for ratification and so it was illegal. And he goes on with this time-honored silly and false argument, concluding that he wanted to ask how the justices of the curent Supreme Court knew any more about the legality of the 14th Amendment than had the justices of 1896 in Plessy v. Ferguson.
The editors note that even the separate-but-equal doctrine of Plessy had been based on that Court's interpretation of the 14th Amendment.
This is the same letter writer who had written a letter two weeks earlier, and often wrote such nonsense to the newspaper.
The simple reason as to why his argument does not work, even when studiously posed with proper attention to detail, lies in the old adage of not being able to see the forest for the trees, or to be clever, the Forrest for the trees across the river
A letter writer encloses an open letter to Mayor Philip Van Every expressing his appreciation to him and the City Council for the opportunity that they had to present their case the previous Wednesday regarding separation of church and state and the blue laws, finds it heartening that the Mayor believed not only in separation of church and state but also in the right of the people to be heard according to democratic principles. He says that he believed with Paul, the Apostle, that "the powers that be are ordained of God", quoting from Romans 13:1. He says that they had prayed for the Mayor and Council in their church and would continue to do so. He hopes that they would do all they could to make Charlotte a place where the Sabbath would be remembered, in accordance with Exodus 20:8-10.
But that is the Old Testament, and Saturday is the Jewish Sabbath. It says nothing about Sunday, and so you only need to maintain one or the other. And, in full, Romans 13:1 says: "Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God." Thus, in context, the "powers" of which it speaks are the powers of God, not any old powers that be, contrary to your apparent belief, and, incidentally, that of the new Speaker of the House in late 2023. God, we suggest, did not anoint and ordain, for instance, Hitler and Mussolini with any power, unless one includes the Norse gods of the nether regions within the conception of "god".
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