The Charlotte News

Saturday, October 12, 1957

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from Chattanooga, Tenn., that the Chattanooga Times stated this date that a German missile team working on the Jupiter IRBM project in Huntsville, Ala., had tried unsuccessfully more than a year earlier to obtain permission to launch a satellite. The report said that the effort was prevented by former Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson, who had recently retired in favor of Neil McElroy. It was said that Mr. Wilson did not want interference by the Army in the satellite program assigned to the Navy. He had reportedly made the decision on the advice of an advisory panel of scientists who had advised anent the Navy Vanguard program since 1955. Army officials, according to the report, believed that the Pentagon was prejudiced against the Jupiter because it was developed by a Federally-employed team of missile scientists rather than by private industry. The report said that the satellite would have been launched with a Jupiter test vehicle estimated to have obtained an altitude of 600 miles, based on a report from September 26, 1956.

In Copenhagen, it was reported that a dog would be aboard the next satellite to be launched by the Soviet Union, according to three top Russian experts who made the comment as they passed through the city the previous day on their way home from the international meeting in Washington regarding the International Geophysical Year. One of the scientists said that radio messages would report to ground observers on the dog's condition while it would orbit. He said that his own dog had been sent aloft 62 miles in a rocket some years earlier in a trip which had lasted about 20 minutes, the dog having survived in good condition.

John Harris of the Associated Press reports that U.S. observers had obtained a blurred photograph of Sputnik and the third-stage of its launch vehicle as it crossed the sky over North America this date, obtaining a good look at the satellite. The blurred photo was taken by the Harvard Observatory at Cambridge, Mass., while a moonwatch team on the roof of the Observatory saw a white object which the observers believed was the satellite, itself, and of a brighter object which they believed was the rocket stage. The orbiting satellite appeared to be maintaining a speed of 10,000 mph in its eighth day of orbit. Scientists in Pasadena, Calif., would seek to photograph the satellite with a special tracking camera, contingent on the weather and visibility. A spokesman for the National Bureau of Standards in Boulder, Colo., said that Sputnik should remain aloft for several months. It was reported in London that the rocket section had picked up speed and outdistanced the satellite.

In Strasbourg, France, seven nations of the Western European Union, a branch of NATO, denounced the U.S. this date for letting the Soviets get ahead in military science.

In Washington, it was reported that a U.S. District Court judge would rule Monday whether to grant the request of 13 Teamsters members to bar Jimmy Hoffa from becoming president of the union at the expiration of Dave Beck's term on December 1, as the dissenting group of Teamsters contended that the Miami Beach convention which overwhelmingly elected Mr. Hoffa the previous week had been rigged with delegates supporting Mr. Hoffa. Both Mr. Beck and Mr. Hoffa had been accused by the Senate Select Committee investigating misconduct in unions and management and by the AFL-CIO of misuse of Teamsters funds and consorting with underworld figures. The AFL-CIO was threatening to oust the union as a result. The group wanted the Court to set aside the election and appoint a caretaker for the union pending selection of new delegates at another convention, and issue an injunction in the meantime against Mr. Hoffa assuming the presidency.

In Little Rock, Ark., it was reported that churchmen prayed for a peaceful solution to the school integration crisis. Eighty-five churches of all faiths in the area scheduled prayer meetings and invited all churches throughout the state and nation to take part. Downtown merchants said that they would give employees time off to attend services and some said they would pause for a moment in silent prayer when the church bells pealed. Between 15 and 20 of the participating churches had black congregations. The Episcopal bishop of Arkansas said that they were trying to emphasize the non-political nature of the call to prayer, that they were "simply trying to start on our knees" in seeking a solution. The prayer meeting was called after some 700 people responded to an invitation of 24 Baptist ministers who said that the only way to resolve the crisis was for the nine black pupils who had entered Central High School to return to the all-black high school "where they legally and morally belong." A Baptist minister had prayed before television cameras for the removal of the Federal troops. Meanwhile, Governor Orval Faubus, laid up with the flu, said the previous day that the Federal Government would have to spend 24 million dollars to maintain National Guard pay through the end of the school year in May, indicating his belief that the federalized Guard and the Army paratroopers would have to remain that long.

The editorial page is here. "New Life for a Tradition of Greatness" tells of a student at UNC on February 1, 1871 having stated, "This old University has busted and gone to Hell today." The incident had been recalled by new chancellor William B. Aycock at his installation ceremonies this date, Founder's Day at the University. Mr. Aycock stated that the University did not die "because within this then-tiny village and throughout this deeply distressed state, there were laborers and watchmen still imbued with the undying spirit of Davie, Caldwell, Swain, Mitchell, Phillips, Ruffin, Manly and others... The growth, development and progress of this institution became a thrilling and inspiring story of vision, courage, sacrifice and dedication manifested by countless men and women under ... able leadership."

The piece finds it an accurate reflection of the source of the University's greatness through the years while also providing to present North Carolinians in another era of uncertainty and challenge Mr. Aycock's confident credo as he followed in the footsteps of the earlier University leaders he had named. It expresses confidence that Mr. Aycock would meet the same high standard of leadership as his predecessors and that he was following in the "Chapel Hill tradition".

It cites for example his take on academic freedom, that "a true university must seek out, examine, assemble and interpret facts. It must seek new ideas, new forms of knowledge, new values and new artistic standards in order that mankind may continue to grow in understanding and wisdom..." He went on to say that an institution of learning could not freeze knowledge or doctrine merely because it was suitable to an individual or group, regardless of how highly placed. He quoted Voltaire as having said, "By what right could a being created free force another to think like himself?" Mr. Aycock added, "And by what authority does one say that he has found the final truth for the youth of our land? History does not record a single successful effort to fix or freeze knowledge. The discovery of truth is yet so far from the high noon of achievement that it must still have upon it the dew of the morning. It is not our function to implant in students a standard pattern of beliefs and attitudes—even our own. Each person's soul is unique and his own mental processes are a reflection of that uniqueness of soul..."

It finds the words meaningful, helping to illuminate the Chapel Hill tradition and that, like his immediate predecessor, Robert House, the new chancellor would be a part of a continuing mechanism which preserved a great university's greatness.

As Robert Browning said: "Leave we the unlettered plain its herd and crop;/ Seek we sepulture/ On a tall mountain, citied to the top,/ Crowded with culture!/ All the peaks soar, but one the rest excels;/ Clouds overcome it;/ No, yonder sparkle is the citadel's/ Circling its summit!/ Thither our path lies; wind we up the heights/ Wait ye the warning?/ Our low life was the level's and the night's;/ He's for the morning!/ Step to a tune, square chests, erect each head,/ 'Ware the beholders!/ This is our master, famous, calm, and dead,/ Borne on our shoulders."

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