The Charlotte News
Wednesday, April 10, 1957
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page
reports that the President had told a press conference this date that
he accepted honest criticism and ignored personal criticism, that
criticism did not affect his health. He had been asked if he was
aware that Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona had characterized his
71.8 billion dollar budget as a betrayal of Republican trust. He said
that members of Congress had a right to their opinions and that
historically there had always been a clash of ideas and methods of
promoting those ideas. Without making direct reference to Senator
Goldwater's criticism of "modern Republicanism", which the
President had been advocating, he said that in present times, the
Government could not limit itself to the processes of 1890
In New York, a couple, Jack Soble and his wife, Myra, had been arrested this date on charges of spying, and pleaded guilty to a single count carrying a maximum prison term of ten years, seeking to escape prosecution on a more serious charge carrying a possible death penalty. The charge to which they pleaded guilty was conspiring with Russian nationals to obtain documents and other material relating to U.S. defense. They had also been indicted on a charge of conspiring to transmit to the Soviet Union secret information vital to U.S. defense, subjecting them to the death penalty.
In Chicago, a Family Court judge ruled this date on whether three young boys, wards of the court for four years, ought be returned to the custody of their immigrant parents who wanted to return to Russia with them. The parents were former Russian nationals who had come to the country in 1950 as displaced persons after being freed from a Soviet slave labor camp, and had been seeking to regain custody of their sons since the previous December. The boys had been wards of the court since 1953 when their parents had suffered mental breakdowns and were committed to the Chicago State Hospital for treatment. Their mother had been released in 1954 and the father had obtained a conditional release in 1955. Two of their sons, ages eight and ten, lived in the Central Baptist Children's Home in suburban Lake Villa, while the third son, age 7, lived in a foster home, and a fourth son, age 8 months, lived with his parents, who said that they also planned to take him to Russia. The oldest son said, however, that the he and his siblings did not want to go to Russia and leave the Home, that they did not feel Russian and did not see their parents often anyway, indicating that he had not seen his mother since the previous Christmas. The parents had been assisted in their court fight by the Russian Embassy in Washington, with a representative thereof having contended that the Family Court had no jurisdiction over the parents or the boys because they were all Russian citizens, demanding immediate release of the children. But the judge had rejected the plea the previous December to turn the boys over to their parents, ruling that they were not competent to care for them.
In Boston, the State rectified a mistake under which a 26-year old man had been sentenced to life in prison for a murder he had not committed after serving 2 1/2 years. The Puerto Rican restaurant worker walked from prison the previous night, wearing a new suit which the State had given him, and with $52 in cash he had earned while in prison. He said that he gave his thanks to God and the people who had helped him, that all of his prayers had been answered one by one, and he hoped that God would bless all of the people who had helped him in the case. He had learned English while in prison. Governor Foster Furcolo and his executive council had skirted a State law to give the man quick release, as a pardon normally could not be granted within a minimum of two weeks after a petition had been filed, but the man was freed within minutes. The State had acted after another man, 34, had confessed that he had killed the 43-year old woman in a Springfield rooming house more than three years earlier, and pleaded guilty to manslaughter the prior Friday, sentenced to between 18 and 20 years in prison. A Superior Court jury in Springfield had convicted the freed man after a "confession" which he had signed had been read into the court record. Upon his release the previous night, he said of the confession that he had written down everything the police had told him to write, that they had pushed him around, pushing him against a steam pipe and hitting him a few times. The police denied that there had been any brutality exerted against him. He said that he was not angry at the State for imprisoning him, that they were all human beings. A legislative committee was considering a proposal to pay the man $60,000 for his unjust imprisonment.
In Laurinburg, N.C., it was reported that cleanup had begun from the tornado which had passed through several communities during its 150-mile course on Monday night, including Jefferson, S.C., and Rose Hill, N.C. One man of Sampson County had lost his wife, his four-year old son and his house in one instant, standing as a symbol of the death and destruction which the twister had caused, including six people killed, injuries to dozens of others and much destroyed property. A minister of Beaver Dam had lost his house and his church, indicating that the wind had thrown his wife through the doors to the far side of the house and had taken her shoe off. He had returned about an hour later to what he thought was his home and found only a pile of boards. A motorist and taken his wife and four-year old son to a Roseboro clinic. He said that they would just have to begin again. In Laurinburg, a surgeon said that a baby due in two weeks to a woman seriously injured when the family's home had collapsed on her, had "a good chance" to survive. In Robeson County, 20 had been injured and 85 homes were demolished or damaged. In Sampson County, four people had been killed, 39 injured, and 40 homes demolished or damaged, and in Duplin County, 29 had been injured and 17 homes had been demolished or damaged. In Marlboro County, S.C., the sheriff estimated that the damage there would amount to a million dollars. In and around Wallace in that county, 25 houses had been destroyed and the local school was believed to be beyond repair. Near Rose Hill in Duplin County, a black woman, who operated a store, stood beside the flat concrete slab which was all that was left, indicating that she had just finished paying for the jukebox, and wondered where it had landed. (It probably hit a rock after rolling a piece down the road.)
Emery Wister of The News
reports that whether frost or freeze would nip the tender young peach
crop in the bud or whether growers would reap a rich harvest in the
summer would likely be determined in the ensuing ten days. Peach
growers were expecting their best crop in a decade, clearing the
first hurdle during the morning when a frost had nipped only lightly
at the trees. The growers indicated that April was the critical month
for the crop, with one grower indicating that he had lost his peaches
Peach smoothies, with a little honey and wheat germ thrown in for good measure—try those and you will live longer and appear younger, and have more energy in the process.
There had been a light, scattered frost covering the countryside during the morning, but it had done little or no damage to young plants and shrubs. One nurseryman commented that he covered some azaleas the previous night but could not get around to all of them, and yet the uncovered ones remained just as pretty this date. No more frost was due for several more days, according to the Weather Bureau. There was a predicted high of 70 this date, and 74 the following day, with a low the following day expected to be around 42, with this date's low being 34. Scattered showers were likely again by Friday.
Charles Kuralt of The News reports that the Charlotte Classroom Teachers Association president this date had indicated that the recommendation of Governor Luther Hodges the previous day that teacher salaries be raised by 15 percent was a "song and dance". The Harding High School teacher said that the revised plan of the Governor would not satisfy the teachers or solve the problem, charging him with "manipulating figures" and "tampering with the statistics of the State Board of Education" in his message to the General Assembly on the matter. She said the plan would give principals and superintendents a raise at the expense of teachers, that while they had no bone to pick with superintendents and principals, there was a shortage of teachers and they did not feel administrators ought receive raises when they were being cut. North Carolina teachers ranked sixth in the nation in their level of college training, but were 38th in pay. The Governor said that any attempt to increase the percentages beyond his recommended amount would be "risky". He said that the State School Board could take the money he recommended and raise teacher pay beyond the 15 percent average and still provide supervisory employees the 10 percent raise they had requested, but he advised against doing it that way and instead recommended that the raises be imposed across the board. The Board of Education would distribute raises ranging between 17 percent down to 9 percent, with the average at 15 percent and starting teachers to obtain the largest increases. The average teacher salary would be raised to $3,600 for a nine-month term under the Governor's plan. The plan proposed by the Board of Education had been for 19.3 percent salary increases with an extra week of work, which had been considered to be "an absolute minimum" by the teachers of the state.
In San Francisco, it was reported that two couples at nearby Millbrae were exchanging partners, according to the husbands involved. A man who was an operator of a garden and pet supply company and a doctor said that their wives had gone to Reno together the previous week to obtain divorces. The men said that the couples had formed a close friendship during the prior two years and had discovered that one husband and the other wife were fond of sports while the other husband and the first husband's wife liked color photography, music and painting. About two months earlier, they had decided to work out an amicable swap of spouses, with agreeable property settlements without alimony or child support. The women planned to remain in their present homes with their children and the men would exchange homes. One couple had four children under age 11 and the other couple had two under age nine. One husband said that there was "a little sadness at parting", but that they would continue to visit in each other's homes and see the children, who had been provided a full explanation. He said there was a lot of mental strain involved, however, and that they were finding out who their friends were.
They had better stock up on peaches for the summer.
On the editorial page, "Teacher Pay: A Real Necessity" indicates that Governor Luther Hodges had come to a sound and defensible position on teacher pay increases the previous day, meeting both the condition of public sentiment and the State's treasury in recommending an average 15 percent salary increase for teachers. Though it fell short of what teachers and the State Board of Education regarded as an adequate increase, it was a fair and realistic adjustment of his earlier recommendation for a 9.1 percent increase.
It finds that the Governor was attempting to shore up teacher morale without placing State finances in a dangerous position. The assignment of 34.5 million dollars in surplus, non-recurring revenue to operating expenses in the form of salary increases for teachers and other State employees nevertheless involved some risk, but the Governor believed that the risk ought not be enlarged beyond a 15 percent increase, and his opinion had to be given great weight.
It suggests that the state had not done enough for its teachers and it was regrettable that it could not do more in a time of diminishing professional morale and increasing shortage. But there was room for some optimism as public sentiment had been aroused in support of betterment of the teachers' lot, and vigorous and imaginative leadership could capitalize on that interest in developing a long-range program for betterment of the schools generally.
The Governor had returned to the subject the previous day with considerably more clarity than had accompanied his previous appeals for increased local support of schools. He proposed a thorough study of each county's ability to support properly its schools. Data from a study would be used in development of a State school aid program designed to stimulate local support as well as to provide an improved minimum program. The total cost of buildings, operating expenses and teacher salaries could be allocated between the State and the 100 counties based on each county's ability, with the State putting up so many millions of dollars which would be given to the counties by a formula prescribed by law, according to the Governor.
It urges that all schoolchildren in the state had to be provided with the educational essentials of good teachers and an adequate curriculum. The Governor's proposal of an immediate increase in teacher salaries and studied redesigning of State school aid represented a good way to achieve that goal, and the Governor's school program, it concludes, deserved sympathy and support from the General Assembly.
"Happy Anniversary to the Colossus" indicates that 1922 had been a good year for barnstorming pilots and basement tinkerers, with the barnstormers replaced by commercial aviation and the buzz in the basement becoming the 50,000-watt clear channel hum of the "Colossus of the Carolinas", radio station WBT. It is happy to salute the station on its 35th anniversary.
It had begun life in a man's basement as an experimental station, barely able to extend its broadcasts beyond the county line. Now it was picked up in at least 468 counties in every state on the Atlantic Seaboard. The station's history represented the history of radio generally in the country, having received the first commercial license of any station on the Southern seaboard, placing it in the company of KDKA, WGY, WLW and WOR as a pioneer in broadcasting.
When radio appeared on the scene, everyone listened and was affected by the broadcasts, carrying entertainment for the first time far and wide into people's homes. The impact had been so tremendous that listeners began to feel that whatever came from their receivers had the quality of everyday truth. It suggests that it was probably no accident that the most famous of all radio programs, the presentation by Orson Welles and the Mercury Theater of "War of the Worlds" by H. G. Wells, broadcast at Halloween in 1938, had been a complete work of fiction which many listeners misinterpreted as a report of an actual event.
Not long earlier, a popular comedian had begun his broadcast with the offer: "Just write in, folks, and we'll send you $5,000 worth of secondhand sneakers, six miles of dental floss, an all-expense vacation in Youngstown, Ohio, and a screen door equipped with 200 flies." It finds it hardly surprising that many people had written in quite seriously seeking each of the gifts.
As a commercial property, radio had taken a backseat to television, but had learned to live with itself and in so doing, had actually increased its audience and bolstered its potential. There were more radio sets at present in American homes than ever before, as radio continued to be a necessity even in the age of television.
It concludes that WBT, as both a pioneer and leader in the field, had contributed mightily to radio's durable appeal, and had done so with excellent showmanship and a deep sense of civic responsibility, congratulating it on its achievement and wishing it well in the years ahead.
"Security Served by Diplomat's Death?" indicates that authorities in Cairo had labeled the death of Canadian Ambassador to Egypt Herbert Norman as a suicide, after he had fallen from the roof of an apartment house. But in Ottawa, one member of Parliament had called it "murder by slander" on the part of the U.S., by the fact of the Senate Internal Security subcommittee having revived and publicized a discredited claim that Ambassador Norman had been a Communist.
It suggests that it was hard to believe otherwise, as well as the claim by the subcommittee that its action might "have an important bearing on our internal security." It wonders how that could be. The Canadian Government in 1951 had rejected the Committee's hearsay evidence that Ambassador Norman had been a Communist, indicating that they had reposited full trust in him based on his work and on thorough security checks which had cleared him of all suspicion.
Despite that position, however, the subcommittee had taken another swipe at his integrity and, inferentially, at the integrity of the Canadian Government.
It indicates that if the subcommittee had any real evidence of subversion or intent of subversion, it would have passed it quietly to the Canadian Government. But the subcommittee, which had provided evidence before of having a fascination for internal hysteria, might give an occasional thought to the external security of the U.S., as it had hardly increased the stature of the U.S. in world affairs with such cruel and callous disregard of the sensibilities of fair-minded men.
A piece from the Christian Science Monitor, titled "Man Bites Tree", tells of a Staten Island bank manager who had been kidnaped at gunpoint, taken into a car and driven to a remote part of town, then handcuffed to a small tree while his abductors had driven away with the combination of his bank's safe deposit vault. But the man had freed himself within three hours, in time to foil the robbery by phoning police, after gnawing through the tree to which the robbers had handcuffed him.
It insists that the account be preserved, as too often tales once widely believed came to be doubted, as that of George Washington having cut down the cherry tree. It suggests that one day, someone might write a book to prove that a Staten Island banker had not gnawed through a tree to escape and save the depositors' money. But he had done so, it assures, and the moral of the tale was even more substantial than the event, that being that he was not the only banker who would have done such a thing under those circumstances.
Drew Pearson was taking a brief vacation, substituted by his partner, Jack Anderson, who indicates that the long personal feud between the top House Republicans, Minority Leader Joe Martin, and Congressman Charles Halleck, might be headed for a showdown, as both were quietly polling their friends to see who had the most support among Republicans. They had not gotten along since they had run the House together during the 80th Congress between 1947 and 1949. The personal friction had been fanned to white heat by the White House, which sometimes ignored Mr. Martin and worked through Mr. Halleck. Mr. Martin was upset at being bypassed, complaining to colleagues that he would not have a minority to lead after the 1958 election, if things continued as they were going. Mr. Halleck had been whispering around the cloakrooms that Mr. Martin had promised the previous January to step aside and let him lead the Republicans in the House, claiming that he had been double-crossed while vacationing in Florida.
He wanted to rally enough Republican members behind him to control Republican policy in the body, and if he could muster enough votes, he might attempt to oust Mr. Martin as the leader, though Mr. Anderson notes that it was not likely until the next new Congress in 1959. But Mr. Martin had no intention of giving the leadership to Mr. Halleck. He had been buttonholing colleagues and asking them where he stood, finding that most of the old veterans stood with him, though Mr. Halleck had made inroads among the younger members, potentially developing into a serious rift within the Republican high command.
Vice-President Nixon was turning down engagements more than three weeks in advance, and those sending him invitations, with few exceptions, had been told to try again three weeks before they wanted him, stirring speculation that the Vice-President was keeping his calendar open in case the President's health might take a turn for the worse.
One reason for the shift of General Lyman L. Lemnitzer from the Far East to the Pentagon, as the new vice-chief of staff of the Army, had been to relieve Army chief of staff General Maxwell Taylor—who would ultimately succeed General Lemnitzer in 1962 as Joint Chiefs chairman, on the eve of the Cuban Missile Crisis—from having to attend so many cocktail parties. Protocol demanded his presence at receptions almost every evening and he was so tired of the circuit that he had started looking around for someone to help out with the social chores. It would be bad diplomatic manners for him to send anyone less than his vice-chief to represent him at Washington functions. The present vice-chief was field commander General Williston Palmer, who would not flinch in the face of an enemy, but ran like a rabbit from cocktail parties. He was considered around the Pentagon to be a social dud.
Walter Lippmann, in London, indicates that a few days in London had reminded him how much foreign policy was a reflection of domestic and internal affairs and feeling. Objectively, Britain was adjusting to the new role in the world shown by the disaster at the Suez Canal after their invasion with the French the prior November 1. While there were few in Britain who would deny that the readjustment was necessary, there was also no enthusiasm for it, as the British were accustomed to a large role on the world stage; but the change had to be done.
The change was underway and the effects were visible in the budget, in military planning and in foreign policy, but Mr. Lippmann indicates that he had an impression that neither of the two parties, Labor or Conservatives, had yet begun to talk affirmatively about the work of the future, and neither had given up the idea that the future would entail the same glory as in the past. But that which had occurred since the previous summer lay heavily on the spirits of the British people, who did not understand what had occurred. There was no accepted history of how Britain had fallen into such a disaster in the Middle East. Yet, there were deep and acute emotions of patriotism, remorse, injured pride and frustration.
The Macmillan Government was standing by the Suez policy while preferring not to explain it, hoping that the whole disaster would be treated as something which was best forgotten. The Labor Party was not of one mind on the matter and did not speak clearly about its causes, consequences or remedies.
There was some evidence that the process of letting time be the cure had begun, letting new problems which would arise override the old preoccupations, such that those with whom Mr. Lippmann had discussed the matter agreed that provided the U.S. protected the flow of oil from the Middle East, there would be little popular regret about Britain's changed position in the region.
He indicates that it might also be significant that Lord Salisbury's resignation had not appeared to have divided the Conservative Party or shaken the Government. As he was the great representative of the old British position in the world, the way in which his resignation had been received appeared to prove that the country had just about accepted the change in Britain's position.
Marquis Childs indicates that experts in Washington, who had been studying every word of Communist Party Secretary Nikita Khrushchev's plan for reshaping the system of Soviet industry, believed it had been forced by the most severe internal crisis the Soviet Union had undergone since the land collectivization program of the early 1930's. His proposal to decentralize control over industry had come from the painful discovery that a system which embraced between 250,000 and 300,000 enterprises could not be run through the orders of Government commissars in Moscow. Once production had begun to shift from heavy industry to consumer goods, even if gradually, the Soviet system of iron authority over every phase of life had begun to creak and groan.
Economic specialists believed that as long as the Soviet system was geared to production of iron, steel and heavy machinery, it worked up to a point. But once the relaxation had begun, with the householder able to purchase a few simple articles never before available or in such scarce supply as to be negligible, the trouble had started.
While the small group of men at the Kremlin would never admit it, what was missing was the mechanism of the market economy, the function of price as it governed supply and demand in the market place. Whether anything approaching a consumers' economy could operate without that mechanism was the question believed to be plaguing the Soviet masters. The substitute would be a vast army of bureaucrats fixing prices or a system of government cost-accounting constantly threatening to break down under its own weight and by reason of its essential unreality.
The peril of that unreality was believed to have been impressed on Mr. Khrushchev and others in relation to the artificial rate of the Russian ruble as compared to other currencies of the world. One of the most startling changes announced at the same time that Mr. Khrushchev's plan had filled two-thirds of all leading newspapers, had been that rubles would be sold for foreign currencies at a premium. In 1950, the value of the ruble was artificially fixed at four to the dollar. At the new premium rate, an American would be able to buy ten rubles for a dollar, and similar bonuses for other major world currencies had been announced. It was hoped by the Soviet bosses that they would thereby obtain a more realistic idea of the cost of machinery and commodities which they imported. Under the artificial rate for the ruble, they had been operating in the dark.
Those studying Mr. Khrushchev's proposal believed that the more relaxation which occurred, the more trouble would accumulate for the little group undertaking to run a dictatorship without a dictator.
The specialists who were of that view did not expect that in the foreseeable future the cumulative trouble would produce anything similar to a revolution. If they were correct in that analysis, the Kremlin leaders would be increasingly harassed by the need to adjust to inevitable alterations in the system in the direction of further liberalization. They would thereby be kept busy, but would not be so hard-pressed as to seek to distract their own people with the kind of foreign adventure which could lead to war with the West.
It was an optimistic view, differing sharply from that of Soviet escapees and underground leaders, such as Vladimir Poremsky, president of the National Alliance of Russian Solidarists, known as NTS. Mr. Poremsky, who claimed to direct an extensive underground inside Russia, had first seen a "major upheaval" which could come at any time, taking the form of extensive rioting, with events coming to a climax in the refusal of Soviet troops to fire on the rioters, which would signal the end of the regime.
Americans who appeared to know the Soviet Union best, however, saw nothing akin to that drama in the near future. There was widespread discontent, sometimes erupting into open protest, such as the riots in Tiflis and the student attacks on some aspects of Soviet life. But it was more the result of passive boredom with the tiresome, unceasing propaganda which appeared increasingly false and unrelated to the drab oppression of Soviet life.
The experts agreed that Communist indoctrination had not transformed humans into Communist robots, either in the satellites or in Russia, itself. That, in itself, was an enormously hopeful conclusion.
A letter from the director of the North Carolina State Prison Department, W. F. Bailey, thanks the newspaper for its Saturday edition, with its front page story on escapes within the North Carolina prison system. He regards it as a good presentation on their escape problem and indicates that the pictures accompanying the article had been pertinent and timely.
A letter from the president of the Junior League thanks the newspaper for its generous news coverage of their activities during the year, indicating that the staff members had been very cooperative and perceptive in interpreting their volunteer service program to the public.
A letter writer from Rock Hill, S.C., finds tyranny and persecution to be the current lot of Jews in Egypt, who appeared to be fleeing from that country to Israel. He suggests that soon they would be retelling the story of Moses in the form of the Passover holidays, which would rekindle their hope. Their laws and ethics had emerged from the bitterness of slavery, the same laws which formed the foundation of the U.S. Government. The modern exodus, a bitter memory of their ancient exodus from tyrants, had brought to mind the thought that no one could be free until all were free.
A letter writer says that she was back home after a few days in Memorial Hospital, where she had an operation on April 3 and returned home the following Friday. As she was recovering her strength, she wishes to impart of Memorial being a grand hospital, finding that every doctor who had visited her room had been good and kind, and the nurses had been sweet and kind as well, meaning a lot when a patient was lying flat on her back. She assures that no one need worry if they had to go to the hospital at Memorial, where one obtained good attention and good food.
Do they have peach smoothies? If not, you had better tell them to put them on the menu in the summertime. Beds will be emptied more quickly as people heal more rapidly and get to go home. And you have a ready market for all of the peaches. You can throw some strawberries in, too. We always include a couple of raw eggs as well, because everyone needs the eggs, but be advised of the salmonella risk in eating raw eggs, as you do not want to wind up in the hospital because of your smoothies and defeat the purpose.
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