The Charlotte News
Wednesday, December 25, 1957
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from the western Korean front that Francis Cardinal Spellman, Archbishop of New York, and Bob Hope met for the first time this date, though both annually visited the troops stationed in Korea. They were guests of honor of Maj. General Thomas Sands, commander of the 7th Infantry Division. During the meal, the Cardinal outlined his heavy schedule for Mr. Hope, causing the latter to state: "Whew! They forgot to put breathing in there."
The Associated Press reports that mild weather across the nation had drawn travelers to the roads and had resulted in a relatively high death toll thus far for the holiday, with 57 having been killed in accidents, 49 in traffic accidents. The National Safety Council had predicted that 180 persons would die in traffic accidents during the 30-hour holiday period which began at 6:00 p.m. Christmas Eve and would end at midnight this night. The non-holiday average death toll for the same number of weekday hours in December was 84. The record for traffic fatalities for a one-day Christmas holiday was 253, established in 1946, while the lowest since World War II was 179 in 1947. For all one-day holidays, the low was 81 for Memorial Day, 1951. The four-day Christmas holiday of the previous year had the highest number of traffic fatalities for any holiday period, 706, with the overall number of accidental deaths having been 884, also a record.
The "World News" column presents mainly other dreary news items.
In New York, about 500 tenants of three Manhattan apartment buildings fled their homes this date as a 75-foot section of a retaining wall, 50 feet high, between two of the buildings and a third collapsed. The superintendent said that he had complained to the City about the building for the previous three months but that they said they had no inspectors to send to it, was told that the department received about 5,000 complaints per year. He told them that the situation was an emergency and they had replied that they were all emergencies. There was no report of any injuries.
In Los Angeles, twelve years earlier, Stanley Slotkin, owner of Abbey Rents, Inc., a rental agency for sickroom supplies, asked his 23-year old secretary what she wanted for Christmas and she had replied, "I'd like to have a new face." He took the woman to a plastic surgeon who straightened her nose and altered her mouth and chin, and he and his wife cared for her as she recovered. They then sent her to a hairdresser and bought her a new dress. The man thus became a year-round philanthropic Santa Claus who gave away new faces, having done the service for 1,200 persons, including men, women and children.
Emery Wister of The News reports that despite the cloudy day, Christmas cheer abounded in Charlotte. The low temperature was 48 during the morning with a high of 58 forecast.
The 26th annual Empty Stocking Fund of The News had collected a record $14,287.16 since the start of the drive at Thanksgiving, providing Christmas for hundreds of needy families.
The Reverend James Fogartie, pastor of the Myers Park Presbyterian Church, provides a sermon titled, "In Search of Christmas", first presented the previous year, about a newspaper reporter assigned by his editor to come up with a novel Christmas story and finding the assignment perplexing.
On the editorial page, "Peace on Earth, Good Will toward Men" reprints verbatim Luke 2:1-20, the story of Christmas.
"The Publisher's Christmas Message" provides the annual message of publisher Thomas L. Robinson.
"The Empty Stocking Is Full of Magic" tells how the Fund had put a smile on the faces of many in the community who otherwise would not have been able to afford a Christmas and thanks those who had contributed to it.
A piece from the Christian Science Monitor, titled "Liberte! Even for the Concierge", tells of the Paris concierge who had informed Parliament that he would take one day off per week and give his subjects one day of freedom. The request was unanimously approved. It then explains the Paris concierge's role.
Don't leave your tooth in the wall.
Drew Pearson, on a good will tour of North Africa with the Harlem Globetrotters, had his column written by his associate, Jack Anderson, who indicates that the Air Force had selected the pilot who would be the first to be launched into outer space, Captain Ivan Kincheloe, training at Edwards Air Force Base in California. He would do so in the X-15 rocket plane. (You remember him, from Freedom 7 in 1961.)
Sometime in 1961, North American Aviation wanted to add a third stage booster to the X-15, to make it, in effect, a three-stage rocket capable of reaching 12,000 mph. (You recall how Freedom 7 did just that, as we all watched it from class on the tv that morning, the classroom in the trailer.)
Tests of the rocket plane would begin over the Arctic Circle the following January, intended to show that the Soviets could bomb NATO allies with missiles. The last Thor missile launch had been a spectacular success—unlike the fizzled Vanguard launch on December 7, slated to carry the first U.S. satellite into orbit, prompting the experts at Cape Canaveral to ask quizzically, "What happened?" Vice-President Nixon expressed his disappointment.
The Thor soared 1,200 miles over the South Atlantic, impacting less than three miles short and a little over one mile wide of its target.
All of that is comforting to know on Christmas, so that you can sleep soundly with visions of sugarplums dancing in your head, knowing that, if need be, we can retaliate instanter against the Rooskies should they bomb us to oblivion in our sleep.
John Van Noppen, professor of English at Appalachian State Teachers College in Boone, provides a biographical sketch of Chapel Hill's Archibald Henderson, educator and writer, considered by many to have been the greatest then-living North Carolinian. The sketch is condensed from its original version in the Greensboro Daily News.
Frank Kendon, in The Small Years, tells of a Christmas in England.
What's the point? We don't live in England. That will just make you wish for something you not only do not have but is undoubtedly long gone with time, making you the more frustrated with modernity.
All the writers took off. We are, too. Any newspaper which doesn't give its employees the day off on Christmas Day is obviously run by some greedy bastards. Give them a paid holiday and give it a rest if you want to spread the Christmas spirit, as the edition was pretty well worthless anyway.
A letter from the State commissioner of labor in Raleigh urges at Christmas remembrance of the most precious possessions, cherished friendships and the loyalty and good will derived from them. He wishes everyone a Happy New Year.
There is going to be a bad recession. Sorry... Many claimed it was because of the ugly new cars, with their dual headlamps, ungainly looking things.
A letter writer indicates that former UNC president and former Senator Frank Porter Graham had stated that the schools were a disgrace to the country, and she says that the schools would continue to be so as long as the youth were taught to defy law and to carry on discrimination against the Constitution.
Framed Edition
Links-Date — Links-Subj.