The Charlotte News
Saturday, March 30, 1957
TWO EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that leaders of organized labor this date were awaiting word on whether the Teamsters would back their president, Dave Beck, or dump him in the wake of his suspension the previous day as a vice-president and member of the executive council of the AFL-CIO, based on his having taken the Fifth Amendment before the Senate Select Committee investigating corruption within the Teamsters, in violation of the AFL-CIO executive council code adopted the prior January. The executive council had also ordered a full-scale investigation by the organization's ethical practices committee into whether Mr. Beck had brought "the labor movement into disrepute". Mr. Beck had given every indication thus far of fighting to win re-election the following September as president of the Teamsters.
Meanwhile, the Committee's sources indicated that they were not "half through" investigating Mr. Beck's complex financial dealings, but might not recall him as a witness unless he consented to testify and not again plead the Fifth Amendment, as he had during the week, as they indicated that other witnesses and documentary evidence could provide most of the story.
In Cleveland, it was reported that a million dollars of Teamster pension fund money had been invested in two Cleveland horse racetracks, but Jimmy Hoffa, head of the Central Conference of Teamsters, said that the loan had been made on the real estate and not on the tracks. Confirming a report of the previous day that the loan was to Cleveland Raceways, Inc., a month earlier, Mr. Hoffa said that the land on which the two tracks were located was valued at 4.5 million dollars. A spokesman for the track operators estimated the value of the properties and other physical structures on them as being in excess of 5 million dollars.
Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn had reportedly told the President that if he made a personal request for "temporary presidency" legislation, people would believe that he planned to give up active presidential service. A source said this date that Mr. Rayburn had indicated to the President such advice the previous day during a White House conference with Democratic and Republican Congressional leaders regarding the matter, raised by the President at his press conference the prior Wednesday, with the President having reportedly replied that he did not see how such an inference could be made. At the conference with the Congressional leaders, the President had proposed a constitutional amendment to authorize the Cabinet to decide by majority vote when the Vice-President ought assume temporarily the duties of a disabled President, as acting President, when the President was unable or unwilling to make the decision for himself. (As indicated, in 1965, the 25th Amendment would be passed, and ratified in mid-1967, allowing for such a determination based on a majority of executive branch department heads or such other body as determined by legislation passed by Congress, until such time as the President, himself, determined that he was no longer under a disability and communicated that in writing to the House and Senate, which would then have 21 days to vote by a two-thirds majority to continue the disability.)
Senator Paul Neuberger of Oregon this date criticized what he called "evident disregard of the speed laws and elemental traffic safety" during the President's drive to Gettysburg the previous day. His comment was in response to reporters accompanying the President, indicating that he had been driven to his Gettysburg farm at speeds up to 70 mph, with his car being driven by a Secret Service agent. Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona also believed it was "too fast for anybody", indicating in a separate interview that perhaps the President should "take to the air, where there is less traffic." Senator Neuberger said that such speed by the President's car was "ironic" as there were billboards across the country bearing the President's picture and an appeal to motorists to drive safely.
In Tehran, a U.S. Embassy spokesman said this date that police who were searching for a kidnaped American woman, taken by bandits the prior Sunday, after they had murdered the woman's husband, another American man and two Iranian men accompanying them, had reported finding a witness who claimed to have seen a "foreign lady" on a mule traveling with a bandit gang toward the Iran-Pakistan border. The spokesman denied rumors that the woman had been abandoned by her captors.
In Baltimore, about 50 space scientists had decided to attempt to fire a rocket 2,050 miles into space where it would vacuum up some scientific dirt and return it to earth. The Martin Company had conceived of the plan and explained it in detail the previous day to distinguished leaders in the fields of cosmic ray and nuclear emulsion research and rockets, with the scientists agreeing to form a committee which would move the plan along to the construction stage.
In Jackson, Mich., at the Southern Michigan Prison, where rioting inmates had burned down the prison chapel in 1952, prisoners had fought again the previous night, but this time by the Marquess of Queensbury rules, to earn money to rebuild the chapel. It was the first time in nearly 20 years that the public had been allowed to enter the world's largest walled prison. Some 1,600 persons, of whom more than 300 were females, paid a dollar each or more to see the fights. Light heavyweight champion Archie Moore was the referee of two of the nine bouts. The fans crowded into the main auditorium, which still bore the scorch marks from the fire started by the prisoners five years earlier. The warden said that it went to show that "you people will do anything to fight sin. If we had billed this strictly as an athletic affair, it wouldn't have drawn 15 cents." The fights had raised more than $1,600. A group of about 50 trustys had been permitted to observe the fights, but no other inmates had been allowed out of their cells. The prison athletic director, Rocky Parsaca, who had been a star football player at the University of Detroit during the 1920's, had asked if anyone wanted to challenge Mr. Moore for his title, at which point Billy Tisdale of Detroit, the prison's light heavyweight champion, stood up and offered himself for the challenge, and after seeing him successfully defend his prison title, Mr. Moore said that he could be a very good boxer even outside of prison. Mr. Tisdale, 23, still had about two years left to serve on his 7 to 15 year sentence.
Julian Scheer of The News reports that according to the Kershaw, S.C., News-Era, during the week in Kershaw, the editor and publisher of the newspaper, Bill Richards, claimed that he had been attacked physically by Mayor Arthur Jones on the prior Wednesday. Mr. Jones was remembered as one of the lawyers who had defended the men charged in the flogging case in Camden of the local bandmaster, Guy Hutchins. Mr. Jones had been Mayor for eight years in Kershaw, but had lost in Tuesday's election. Mr. Richards claimed that Mr. Jones had entered the newspaper office and whipped him about the head and shoulders with a stick, believed to have been a ruler, while Mr. Richards was typing out a story, had then risen to greet the Mayor, when, without warning, the latter had begun striking him. Mr. Richards said he had previously been struck by Mr. Jones during an open Town Council meeting, that he had not returned the attack and instead had left the office through a rear door. Mr. Richards said that Mr. Jones had made some remark to the effect that he would "show" him, as he started the attack in the meeting, and that the Mayor had cursed him as he left the building. Mr. Richards believed that the Mayor was upset about some story which had appeared in the newspaper, which he believed must have contributed to his defeat.
Mr. Scheer also reports that it was comparatively easy to escape prison in North Carolina and that prisoners in the state who learned quickly that they did not have to be masterminds to escape, took advantage of the laxity of the statewide system of prisons. In 1956, 1,008 prisoners had fled from prison units within the state, and in the current year, more than 150 prisoners had already escaped from one of the state's 94 prison units. Most returned either by capture or voluntarily, with 954 having been returned the prior year. Prison officials were not concerned as they believed it was all part of "the system", which they said was good. The plan in the state was different from other states in that instead of having one or several high-walled prisons, there were "camps" spread across the state. Two such units were located in Mecklenburg County, a black misdemeanor camp near Douglas Municipal Airport and a white misdemeanor camp near Huntersville. At the camps, the program consisted of both work and rehabilitation, with the prisoner, provided he proved himself, given much freedom. But the problem of escapees was constant and aggravating, with statutes so worded that they did not provide an answer. Prison officials, however, had come to accept the fact and worried only when cost of apprehension became too high. Thus bloodhounds at the camps were busy all the time. The 1,008 escapees of the prior year represented only about 6 percent of the total prison population, numbering in 1956 18,256, about the same in 1957. About 15,000 of those prisoners were released from confinement every day and around 13,000 were classified as "honor" or "A" prisoners, with most of the escapees coming from those upper classifications because they were not closely guarded. Most of them could not be fired upon if they attempted escape. At Huntersville, for instance, two prisoners walked away from a stone quarry, stood on a bank and whistled at a guard, and when the guard turned and saw them, they waved and strolled away. The previous year, about a dozen prisoners had fled the Huntersville camp, with the men having been convicted of misdemeanors and thus protected under law from any form of armed assault by guards. The guards at Huntersville carried only sidearms, primarily for self-protection, and the guard houses at opposite ends of the camp were usually vacant. Felons were supervised by regular armed guards, but they were a minority among the prisoners, with 86 percent of the prison population being comprised of misdemeanants, housed separately from the felon population. Not many prisoners below the "honor" or "A" grades attempted escape, and almost no prisoners escaped the two maximum security units, Central Prison in Raleigh or Ivy Bluff Camp in Caswell County. There was often no real reason for a prisoner's escape, according to Prisons director, W. F. Bailey, who said that they just took off and that they would ask them why they had done it, with the prisoners usually unable to provide an answer. He said that if the reason was negligence of prison officials, the latter were dealt with sternly. Most prisoners had no definite plans when they escaped, many simply heading for home, with itchy feet being more of a serious malady when they were assigned to camps close to home. Many of the riots and disturbances in the camps had been stirred by young prisoners with energy to burn. Sometimes, a prisoner crossed a state line, and the Department often simply sat back and waited until the prisoner became involved in new criminality, resulting in fingerprints leading to his return. Through March 15 of the current year, 149 had escaped from the prison units and records showed that 156 prisoners had been returned to the camps during the same period, many having escaped earlier. While prison officials said that they favored the freedom given to the top-grade prisoners, they did not turn their backs on escapees, and under state law, a two-time escapee became a felon after conviction of the two escapes. That person then became the subject of more rigid surveillance by armed guards. The 15,000 prisoners who were out of confinement each day worked at a number of jobs, working in State office buildings in Raleigh and on highways, doing repair and maintenance work, with many working on prison farms and in prison industries. For that work, a prisoner received what was known as "gain time", credited time off from their original sentence, also helping to pay for the cost of confinement. The two maximum-security units in the state received the long-term prisoners and those who presented custodial problems. There were also ten "close custody" units which housed prisoners who had not yet proven themselves fit for freedom. There were then 79 "medium security" camps, including the one at Huntersville.
In Huntersville, it was indicated that with the number of prisoners escaping from the state's prison camps the previous year, some of the state's busiest employees were the bloodhounds. One bloodhound was named "Man" and another was "30", which, along with others, patrolled the woods and fields in search of escapees. The dogs lived at Mt. Pleasant at the prison camp there. "King" was not a full-blooded hound, and one ear was damaged and his face was not pretty, but he was a workhorse, covering one to five miles each day, capable of wearing down two or three men in an all-night chase. During the practice workouts, prison employees laid out a trail, which they allowed to "set" for between 30 and 60 minutes, before letting "King" pick up the scent, which he would run down until he found the source. The dog received special praise for his work around streams and creeks, having once crossed the Rocky River near Mt. Pleasant three times in pursuit of an escapee and never losing the trail. He had doubled back scores of times, crossing many tracks, and still managed to stay on the heels of a fleeing convict. The officials said that the dog could go for nearly 24 hours and still have power for a strong finish. They were gentle dogs when they finally came upon the escapee, making no distinction among men, possibly just licking the escapee's hand.
Don't tell the present Governor of South Dakota that in 2024, as she will demand, no doubt, that all of such worthless dogs be taken to the gravel pit and shot in the head, along with the smelly scapegoats.
On the editorial page, "The Twisting Road to the New Deal", an editorial book review by associate editor Perry Morgan, examines The Age of Roosevelt: The Crisis of the Old Order, by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. He indicates that there had been some grumbling about the book and that there might be more, with the first criticism coming from Time, which suggested that Mr. Schlesinger had been too quick and too glib in his judgments on a tumultuous 14-year period between 1919 and 1933.
He suggests that orthodox historians might agree that as a book of history, it lacked perspective. Mr. Schlesinger had made some uncharitable indictments of the Republican Administrations of Presidents Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover, finding condemnation for them to come directly from the horses' mouths. He had found that while the "old order" of government by business had been static and unresourceful, its effects had not been, that in the period studied, the U.S. ranged from opulence to grinding poverty, from soaring idealism to bleak, bitter cynicism, from smug contentment with the religion of business to fearful expectation of revolution.
Mr. Morgan finds that Mr. Schlesinger had used creative art in recounting the 14-year history brilliantly, such as in a passage from 1930, during the second year, as Elmer Davis had put it, of President Hoover's promised "Abolition of Poverty": "In a Philadelphia settlement house a little boy of three cried constantly in the spring of 1930; the doctor examined him and found that he was slowly starving. One woman complained that when she had food her two small children could barely eat; they had become accustomed to so little, she said, that their stomachs had shrunk. In November the apple peddlers began to appear on cold streets corners, their threadbare clothes brushed and neat, their forlorn pluckiness emphasizing the anguish of being out of work… The shadows deepened in the dark cold rooms, with the father angry and helpless and ashamed, the distraught children too often hungry or sick, and the mother, so resolute by day, so often, when the room was finally still, lying awake in bed at night, softly crying."
He finds no less moving a dramatic
vignette which the author had drawn from the bloody textile strike in
Gastonia, N.C., when poverty-stricken workers
He indicates that the thesis of this volume was not so much revolving around FDR, as three planned volumes in the series would follow on the New Deal—The Coming of the New Deal and The Politics of Upheaval, to be published in 1958 and 1960, respectively, this first volume ending on inauguration day in March, 1933, and the second volume to cover from 1933 to 1935 and the third volume, 1935-36, with a fourth planned volume on the remaining Roosevelt years never having come to fruition. The first entry was instead about the main currents of thought and action which the author conceived as setting the stage for the New Deal. Those who had contributed were the populists, middle-class reformers, settlement house workers, muckrakers, progressives and the leaders of Theodore Roosevelt's New Nationalism and Woodrow Wilson's New Freedom.
The author argued that there was a tradition of liberal reform running from populism to fruition in the New Deal, alternately hopeful that the world had been saved for democracy and cynically determined that the country had made its fortune but lost its soul, with a tradition nonetheless finally pulled together into vindication by the New Deal. Mr. Morgan, however, finds that the book was much more than an argument as its author had a remarkable talent for analogy, artfully suggesting them and actively engaging the reader's own knowledge of events in a discovery of perspective.
A remark, for instance, by Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon during the Coolidge Administration that "government is just a business and can and should be run on business principles", as related in the book, sounded much like Secretary of Commerce Sinclair Weeks prior to the presentation of the present 74 billion dollar budget in 1957.
In 1920, as returning peace had wrecked liberal hopes for an active, interventionist Federal Government in domestic matters, President Wilson's Attorney General, A. Mitchell Palmer, had suddenly discovered a gigantic, revolutionary "plot", indicating: "Like a prairie-fire, the blaze of revolution was sweeping over every American institution of law and order a year ago. It was eating its way into the homes of American workmen, its sharp tongues of revolutionary heat were licking the altars of the churches, leaping into the belfry of the school bell, crawling into the sacred corners of American homes, seeking to replace marriage vows with libertine laws, burning up the foundations of society." On New Year's Day, 1920, the Attorney General had conducted a series of raids, capturing more than 6,000 "radicals" but only three small firearms. He had been motivated by the political capital of the ashes, as the fire was already extinguished.
Mr. Morgan also finds the book to be a lesson in the evolution of leaders and political parties, as often Presidents and parties were playthings of events, coming to power seemingly locked to certain eternal principles, but changing as events transpired. The Wilsonians had declared in reference to Theodore Roosevelt's New Nationalism that the difference in economic policy of the two parties was "fundamental and irreconcilable", but the gulf had been easily bridged, as President Wilson had been accused of stealing President Roosevelt's platform. Similarly, the Wall Street Journal recently had stated: "The Eisenhower men … see sharp distinctions between their thinking and that of the New Dealers. Part of the difference they see represents a state of mind. One top Presidential adviser illustrates the point with Mr. Eisenhower's school construction program: 'We went into it with tears in our eyes,' he says. 'The New Dealers would have done it with abandon.'"
Mr. Morgan finds the book to explain how the country had gotten on the road it was now traveling and whether one liked the road or not, it was worth discovering how Mr. Schlesinger believed the country had taken it. He indicates that Time had criticized the author's fondness for splicing narrative with quoted passages, Mr. Morgan finding it a dangerous technique but also one which did not cheat the reader of such a valuable picture of President Harding as displayed, for instance, in the passage: "Wilson, living on in Washington, watched Harding with supreme contempt. It was reported that the former President had coined the phrase 'the bungalow mind' to describe his successor. And indeed, it was not inappropriate that the year in which Sinclair Lewis published his famous novel saw Main Street take over in 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. For Harding exuded the atmosphere of a sleepy Ohio town—the shady streets, the weekly lodge meetings, the smoking-room stories, golf on Sunday morning, followed by a fried chicken dinner and an afternoon nap. Alice Roosevelt Longworth, the daughter of another Republican President and the wife of the Speaker of the House, could never forget a typical White House scene—the President's study filled with cronies; cards and poker chips on the table; whiskey and tall glasses on the trays; the air thick with cigar smoke; a general atmosphere of unbuttoned vests, feet on the desk, and spittle in the cuspidor. 'Harding was not a bad man,' observed Alice Longworth. 'He was just a slob.'"
"J. Luther Snyder: A Loss Deeply Felt" tells of the loss of Mr. Snyder, who had died at age 83 the previous Monday. He had been the manager of the first Coca-Cola bottling company in the Carolinas and had enjoyed remarkable success as a businessman, having extended through time his operations to include a chain of ten plants located in Charlotte, Gastonia, Monroe, Concord, Lincolnton, Shelby, Statesville, Lexington, Salisbury and Albemarle, known in the Carolinas as the "Coca-Cola King".
First of all, he had been a citizen of Charlotte with pronounced ideas about the responsibilities of citizenship. For decades, he had worked for the common good of the community and its peoples, with contributions in the civic, religious and philanthropic areas. He had been a quiet man but firm of conviction and spirit, having great faith in the city's capacity for growth, repeatedly demonstrating his faith, most particularly during the darkest days of the Depression, when he had served as president of the Chamber of Commerce.
It concludes that Mr. Snyder's achievements and contributions would not be forgotten, and had gone a long way toward developing the pattern of progress for Charlotte.
Drew Pearson indicates that U.S. officials were interested to learn that the son-in-law of Soviet "dictator" Nikita Khrushchev, Alexander Startsev, had walked unannounced into the offices of the National Agricultural Workers Union in Washington recently and started asking questions about American farm workers. His official title was the first secretary of the Soviet Embassy, and he was accompanied by another Russian diplomat. They explained casually that they represented "one of the embassies in Washington." When the NAWU president asked them which one, Mr. Startsev hesitated and then said, "The Soviet Embassy." They explained that they wanted to know about the problems of agricultural workers, and the NAWU president gave them some background on his small union, which had been started by Southern sharecroppers in 1934.
Mr. Startsev explained, when his comrade had asked for the composition of agricultural workers, that he meant the race or nationalities of them, receiving the response that most were black in the South and Mexican in the Southwest. Mr. Startsev asked about the membership requirements, and was informed that any farm workers 16-years old or older could join the union, and when asked about the number of members, he was told that only 50,000 of the nation's two million farm workers were organized. When Mr. Startsev then asked why they were not in unions, the president of the NAWU told him that the workers were scattered and were not covered by protective legislation, one reason that union headquarters were located in Washington and not in a more rural part of the country. The two Russians had asked a few more routine questions, accepted some union literature and started to depart, when the president of the NAWU inquired as to whether they were agricultural specialists, to which they replied that they were not, that they were only interested in all agricultural problems. The NAWU president reported the visit to the State Department, which was at a loss to explain it.
Mr. Pearson points out that since Mr. Khrushchev had taken charge of the Kremlin, he had personally dealt with Russian agricultural problems, demanding more crop production, and had approved the exchange of Russian and American farmers in 1955. His son-in-law in Washington had a reputation for being a studious, hard-working diplomat. American air officials, who had negotiated with him, said that he was a straightforward, tough negotiator.
Stewart Alsop finds that the Senate hearings regarding the corruption within the Teamsters Union had been thus far wonderful theater, with union president Dave Beck cast perfectly in the central role, and the chairman, Senator John McClellan of Arkansas, using a dry monotone to ask questions in a "Dragnet" motif, forcing Mr. Beck repeatedly to take refuge in the Fifth Amendment. Committee counsel, Robert F. Kennedy, had been fine as the idealistic young crusader, and even Senator McCarthy had done "a reasonably convincing imitation of McCarthy, although the old, familiar growl sounds, somehow, like a voice from the grave"—which description proved prophetic, as Senator McCarthy would die on May 2.
But he finds that the hearings had been more than just good dramatic theater, comparable in some ways to the Pecora Commission investigations during the last year of President Hoover's term, in 1932, seeking the cause of the October, 1929 stock market crash, exposing the arrogance and irresponsibility of an important segment of big business, setting the backdrop for the New Deal to come.
He suggests that the hearings into the Teamsters Union would also likely have important consequences, one of which had been suggested by Senator Irving Ives of New York, a member of the Committee, when he warned Mr. Beck that the open shop for union labor might be "the upshot of what you are doing today." At present, some 18 states had passed the so-called "right-to-work laws", weakening labor's bargaining position by outlawing the union shop. Despite a concerted drive by conservative interests, led by former Congressman Fred Hartley who had co-sponsored the Taft-Hartley Act, passed over President Truman's veto in 1947, the unions had been able to head off right-to-work legislation in most of the important industrial states thus far. But following Mr. Beck's arrogant performance before the Committee, Mr. Alsop ventures that it would be a brave legislature which would vote against such laws, and that there was a chance that a Federal right-to-work law would pass the Congress in the form of an amendment to the 1957 Civil Rights bill, assuming that bill reached the floor.
If that bill reached the floor, an amendment restricting labor's political activities would certainly be introduced, probably by Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona, also a member of the Senate Select Committee investigating the Teamsters. Such an amendment would have an excellent chance of passing, because of the arrogance demonstrated by Mr. Beck. It suggested why the Northern Democrats were nearly as worried about the performance by Mr. Beck as his own fellow labor chieftains, despite the fact that Mr. Beck and most of his cohorts had supported the Republicans, who liked to charge that the Northern Democrats were supported by a large slush fund provided by the unions. Actually, money passed under the table from labor for Democratic candidates was a small fraction of the political contributions from business, most of which went to Republicans.
But it was true that Democratic candidates in many Northern industrial states, notably in Michigan, Wisconsin and western Pennsylvania, were greatly or even wholly dependent on labor money and other help from labor. Even without legislation to restrict political activity by labor, the Democrats in such areas would suffer. They would be hurt because labor would be very cautious in the political atmosphere created by the investigation of the Teamsters, and the Northern Democrats would also be hurt because they were identified in the public mind with union labor, just as Republicans were identified with business.
There were predictions on Capitol Hill that the McClellan Committee investigation, especially if it were to continue to put on a good show for months to come, would cost the Democrats control of the House in the 1958 midterm elections, regardless of which, the drama would almost certainly have far-reaching political after-effects.
Robert C. Ruark, in Palamos, Spain, indicates that something which had never been successfully explained to him was why the gentlemen who worked on salary for the police and the FBI ought not obtain some of the rewards offered for the capture of public enemies, such as Willie Sutton, John Dillinger, Louis Lepke, and more recently, George Metesky, who had admitted planting the numerous bombs in and around New York City for the previous 15 years, until finally recently caught.
He suggests that the response might be that the police were only doing their jobs and that if a reward was placed on the apprehension of criminals such that police could share in it, the police might become gun-happy and deprive the state of the job of proving the suspect guilty, an event which occurred on occasion even without the incentive of a reward.
He indicates that the job of being a cop was greatly underpaid, considering the danger attached to the job. Salesmen who sold very well obtained bonuses as incentives, and Mr. Ruark sees no reason why an incentive should not be given to law enforcement officers. Through history, some police had become so passionately interested in unsolved crimes that they gave up months or even years of their own time to run down clues to find a suspect.
He distinguishes his suggestion of bonuses from insurance companies who wanted their jewels back or a bank which wanted the return of its loot, from the merit system in the South, whereby fines were used to pay magistrates and "hick speed cops with a quota system to fill." He finds the latter system to be graft, where the motorist or alleged vagrant was brought before a kangaroo court for the precise amount the person had on them.
In the average case, he finds, in which there was a major reward, it would not be provided without a conviction, and took a lot of duty beyond the normal amount to eventually catch the suspects. He thinks that some incentive pay in the form of rewards would help morale and efficiency of the police or the FBI and result in a return of better police work.
He neglects to mention another factor militating against such a system, in that it would necessarily pit various law enforcement agencies against one another such that rather than working in cooperation, they would work at odds to see who could land the suspect and thus take advantage of the reward. Indeed, within police organizations, there exists sometimes competition between officers for credit for a particular arrest, especially one which is high profile. In short, it would likely prove disastrous to efficient police work, for many reasons. The best incentive was one which already existed and still does, that being promotion through the ranks.
A letter writer suggests that the uproar about lowering the voting age from 21 to 18 was "a lot of baloney", that the kids of that age were "only interested in pelvis twichers [sic] and rock 'n' roll", and probably would not use the ballot if they had it, and that if they did, they would likely write in Elvis Presley for every other office. He finds that just because a kid was old enough to shoulder a rifle did not mean that he was enough well-developed mentally to decide the destiny of the country. "Deliver us from the blue jeans set. We've got troubles enough already."
A letter writer from Hamlet thinks that if a person was old enough to enter the Armed Forces or register for the draft at 18, they were old enough to vote, and that if other states could lower the voting age to 18, so should North Carolina.
A letter writer from Jackson Springs responds specifically to the editorial about lowering the voting age, and disagrees with it, finding that 18-year olds had to register for the draft and so were old enough to vote.
A letter writer from Cheraw, S.C., says that for the previous three weeks he had been following the Senate Committee hearings into corruption within organized labor, thus far focusing on the Teamsters, and believed that the housecleaning was long overdue, but that it was better that it occurred late than never. He indicates that labor had been taken for a ride for too long by those who were not fair or honest toward those making an honest living. He does not find fault with the labor leaders who were fair, honest and law-abiding, as labor had come a long way during the previous 30 years. He appeals to labor to clean its house and rid itself of those who were not honest or fair with those who did the work. He believes the Committee to be doing a fine job of exposing the way things were in the big unions. He also warns Wall Street bankers and big business to get their houses in order, as the Congress would next investigate them after it was finished with labor. He says that while it was being promoted that the country was more prosperous than ever, he could not see the results, with a "high-priced depression at present", wanting some committee to find out where the profits were going and who was getting them, and, above all, how they were getting them and getting by with it, whether labor or business.
A letter writer thanks the "young guardians of the corners", the cross-walk guards, who in the early mornings, afternoons and evenings, regardless of weather, with their only shield of protection being a pole, a flag and a yellow coat, halting hurried passersby to ensure the safety of schoolchildren. "These future politicians, doctors, teachers and other leaders or segments of our country's foundation are on their way to school."
You are very welcome.
A letter writer finds that the best site for the new health center would be "that mosquito-breeding ditch in the upper end of Independence Park containing 6 1/2 acres." He indicates that those who said there would be no parking area were ignorant of the surroundings, that there would be room for the building and a parking space for it for the ensuing 50 years. "That filthy, stinking place in the hollow at Memorial Hospital is not fit for a dog pound. That Sugar Creek stinks in hot weather worse than a dead dog."
How about a live goat? Or a Governor
who wears about 50 pounds of eye makeup and looks as a result like
Countess Dracula trying to imitate Rasputin?
The question is yet to be resolved
Framed Edition
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