The Charlotte News
Thursday, May 23, 1957
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from Alamogordo, N.M., that within the ensuing 48 hours, a young Air Force officer, Captain Joseph Kittinger, would hang suspended in a sealed capsule 18 miles above the earth, higher than man had ever ascended before by balloon, and remain at the altitude for the longest time in history. It would be a final test for the first venture of man into the last tenth of the earth's atmosphere for a prolonged stay of 24 hours. He would squeeze into a three-foot wide and seven-foot tall aluminum capsule on Saturday morning and rise to 95,000 feet above Minneapolis, testing the equipment for an even higher ascent to be made in early June by Major David Simons, who would drift at 110,000 feet for 24 hours, in one of the most grueling tests of human reaction ever devised. Both of the men had been trained for months for their flights, which would break all balloon altitude records.
That's nothing. The previous day, though they did not know it at the time, Albuquerque could have been wiped from the face of the earth.
In Rye, N.Y., a quiet and industrious 14-year old boy had allegedly shot to death his mother and 18-year old sister the previous night during an argument over homework, and he was confined to a mental institution this date. He reportedly had considered killing his family once before, three months earlier. He said that he was "terribly sorry". His father, a public relations executive, magazine writer and former Boston Globe reporter, had suffered a heart attack after learning of the tragedy and was reported in serious condition. Authorities were trying to find out what his motive had been. The district attorney quoted the boy as saying: "It came into my head once before—about three months ago. I just got depressed like, and then unloaded the gun." The district attorney said it did not indicate that he had been planning the action for three months, but only that he had considered the idea once before. He was known in his neighborhood as a studious, cheerful boy who often earned money by cutting lawns and delivering newspapers. His mother had told him to get upstairs and get busy with his homework the previous night, at which point he had gone upstairs, but then returned downstairs after a few minutes, whereupon his mother said that he could not have finished his homework in such a short time and so directed him to go back upstairs. He then went back to his room and loaded his .22-caliber rifle. He had learned marksmanship as a member of the Police Athletic League Rifle Club, an organization concerned with combating juvenile delinquency. His sister at the time was reading in her room, and reportedly had shouted to her brother, "I'm going to tell mother," at which point the boy had fired two shots at her, killing her. The mother had then rushed upstairs, as the father exhorted her not to do so, and the boy had fired six shots at his mother, killing her also. The father then grabbed a second son, 12 years old, and ran to a neighbor's home, where he called police and told them that his son was "shooting everybody". In the meantime, the boy fired several shots through a window, possibly intended for his father and younger brother. The police arrived and were able to take the boy into custody.
In Buford, Ga., seven prisoners sat down at the Buford rock quarry the previous day and tried to break their legs with sledgehammers, with four having succeeded. Three convicts had broken their legs on Monday and three others had failed when they had tried. The director of the corrections department had announced plans to give mental tests to all of the prisoners when news had come of the latest outbreak the previous day, and he said that he hoped the examinations would reveal the root cause of trouble at the maximum-security prison. About 150 prisoners classed as incorrigibles were confined at the quarry. Of those, 41 had broken their legs or fractured leg bones the previous summer in a protest against alleged mistreatment. Could be the rocks.
In Raleigh, the State Senate Judiciary Committee No. 1 this date voted unanimously to report favorably to the full body a bill strengthening the state's obscene literature laws, a bill already passed by the House. The substitute bill in the Senate defined obscenity, which the House bill had not done, with that definition having been adopted from the American Law Institute. If the bill finally passed the Senate, it would make North Carolina the first state to adopt the ALI definition, which read: "A thing is obscene, if considered as a whole, its predominant appeal is to the prurient interest, i.e., a shameful or morbid interest in nudity, sex or excretion, or if it goes substantially beyond customary limits of candor in description or presentation of such matters. A thing is obscene if its obscenity is latent, as in the case of undeveloped photographs." The proposed bill would make it unlawful for any person, firm or corporation purposely, knowingly or recklessly to disseminate obscenity, which, with a few exceptions, would be a misdemeanor, and would cover obscene writing, pictures, records, plays, dances or other obscene representations.
Also in Raleigh, members of the House Roads Committee had voted 17 to 9 to deliver an unfavorable report on a bill providing for mechanical inspection of motor vehicles, the opponents asserting that it was the wrong approach to safety.
Julian Scheer of The News reports that gambling in Charlotte, strictly small-time in recent months, had been at a virtual standstill this date following police raids on "butter and eggs" lottery operations. An alleged kingpin of the lottery racket and 12 players had been arrested the previous night, with City Police having raided a residence where the kingpin was arrested, while three other detectives conducting the raid had arrested alleged players as they came into the residence to place their bets. Detectives had confiscated a pile of duplicate lottery tickets, some cash, and a .25-caliber pistol. All of the accused players had been released on bonds, and preliminary hearings were set for May 25. The wagers ranged from a penny or two to 50 cents, and none of the seized tickets found the previous night had been for more than the latter amount.
Dick Bayer of The News reports that a 28-year old man from Florida, accused of check forgery, was in his sixth day of a hunger strike at the Mecklenburg County Jail, vowing that he would never be brought to trial on the charges. He had been arrested at his Florida home on May 18 and said he had eaten only one meal since that time, consisting of steak and potatoes brought to him by Charlotte detectives the prior Sunday in Jacksonville, Fla., during the trip back to face the charges in Mecklenburg. The previous day, while talking to another prisoner, he had collapsed and was taken to the hospital by two officers for examination. Police reported that doctors had told him that he was suffering from malnutrition and suggested that he be given glucose to restore his strength, but the man had refused. He said that he did not want to make any trouble, but did not want the "sugar water" pumped into him. He said that he would refuse medical treatment as long as possible and that the only thing which could possibly change his mind would be pleas from his wife. He had been living with his wife, originally from Charlotte, while working in Florida as a welder, and police had arrested him after notices from Charlotte reported that he had stolen several company checks and forged them, obtaining money under other forms of false pretense. He said he had smoked as many as three packs of cigarettes per day since he had started his fast almost a week earlier, and had lost 26 pounds in the process, now weighing about 148. He denied contemplating suicide, but maintained he would never be brought to trial. He said part of his trouble was that he was simply not craving food because of his troubled mind. He said that he had financial troubles at home and that his family, including two children, would be better off without him, as would anyone he had ever known.
In Sacramento, the California Senate rejected by a vote of 31 to 9 the previous day legislation to suspend the state's death penalty for a six-year trial period.
In Redding, Calif., fire had destroyed an elementary school, but starting this date, the students in the lower grades would attend classes at a church, while the upper grades would study in a tavern and dance hall.
In New York, an 18-year old son sat hopelessly in jail while an agonized mother and father sat despairingly at home, with the father wondering what he could say to his son which would have meaning, prove love, faith and hope. The father owned a motel in Rensselaer, and on May 8, his son had been arrested with another youth at Hartsdale, when police had caught up with their speeding car, finding inside a rifle, 500 rounds of ammunition, a pistol, two revolvers and 48 bullets. On May 10, he had been transferred to the county jail at Elmira to be held on suspicion of burglarizing a gun shop on March 29. As he sat in jail awaiting the grand jury, his father could have obtained for him temporary release on bail, but his father had not, instead turning to God for help. After ten days, he had written his son that God had answered him, and he sent a copy of the letter to the New York Herald Tribune, which the newspaper had published this date on the front page. It encouraged his son not to feel bitter, that there were other sons of ministers, newsmen, rich men and poor men sitting in other jails all around the country and that he was not alone in his misery, as were neither his mother nor himself. He told him that he could be sitting at home if they had decided to put up the bail for him, but that getting him out of jail at present would not solve anything, as the big problem was to discover how he got there and that it would not do him any harm to sit there and think about it for a few weeks, that he could hardly be suffering more than his parents. He encouraged him to pray, and that the solution might appear to him, that it took a mature mind to understand God and that God's laws were absolute, acted automatically, and that whatever was asked in God's name had already been provided for, that the sins for which forgiveness was asked had already been forgiven, that it was the men and women with the minds of children who caused all the trouble and heartaches in the world and that it had taken his father more than 50 years to grow up, which he believed was the main reason his son was now sitting in jail. "Crimes are committed by people who have never grown up and by the sons and daughters of people who have never fully grown up." He said that there was only one man who had ever reached the zenith of mental maturity, and that had been Christ, who had taught that people must live and love and understand each other. He said that too many people were wrapped up in a small, selfish world of their own making, and he urged his son to take the letter to heart and that he would never again need to worry about his future, as God would take care of it for him. He said that when the authorities had meted out the penalty for what he had done, and he finished serving out that penalty, he and his son would go fishing and that when they got back home, they would be a lot closer to God and would grow up together.
In Charlotte, a fifth grade student had brought to school a Spitz-chow puppy, and the teacher told him he would have to take it outside. He pleaded, however, to keep it for a half-hour, the period of time for which he had rented it for a dime from another fifth-grader, who was conducting a dog rental business. There was no death or jail time involved—yet.
On the editorial page, "The Senate Carves Another Headstone" says that the state was spared a lot of expense and nonsense the previous day when "congressional-style" reapportionment was laid to rest by the State Senate, not putting before the people a measure which was so obviously defective on its face.
It would have denied relief to the urban areas due relief under the State Constitution, while giving additional advantage to the rural areas already over-represented in the General Assembly by denial of the Constitution's mandate for reapportionment following every decennial census, not accomplished since 1950.
The Assembly would not follow the Constitution, would not consent to the compromise which had been suggested by a commission report whereby thickly populated areas would have fair representation without placing rural areas under their domination, and would not accept the suggestion that it appoint a reapportionment commission to relieve the Assembly of its unwanted duty to reapportion, and now would not submit to the people the radical congressional-style plan.
It concludes that, as a television comedian was fond of saying, "here we are", finding it more than a little comical that the Senate had taken the position that it was afraid to do its sworn duty, afraid to let another body assume the duty, and afraid to ask the people to remove the stigma of its disobedience to the State Constitution.
"County Has a Role in Water Crisis" indicates that the water crisis threatening Thomasboro could not be taken lightly by anyone in the metropolitan community, as Thomasboro was not an isolated island of outlanders, and its health and welfare affected the health and welfare of the whole area. It thus finds it unfortunate that legal considerations and the substandard physical condition of the water lines in Thomasboro would not permit the City to come to that small community's rescue by connection of City water lines temporarily to the private firm's water lines which had served the community, after the private firm would cease operation at the end of May.
It finds that the City Council's hands were apparently tied as the health risk would be too great to enable the connection. It says that if the residents of Thomasboro were not able to do the job themselves, then it would become the responsibility of Mecklenburg County to help, and that the County Board of Commissioners should not shirk that responsibility.
"The Chameleon Has a Human Cousin" indicates that the ostensible 2.5 billion dollar defense budget cut made by the House Appropriations Committee actually had boiled down to a 1.2 billion dollar cut, with the remainder being merely the result of bookkeeping changes.
Both the President and Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson regarded the 1.2 billion dollar reduction as a danger to the country's security, with the President having said the previous day at his press conference that it would directly cut the guided missile and aircraft programs.
It indicates that 11 months earlier, there had been controversy about 1.1 billion dollars, also concerned with air power for defense, but not as a cut, rather an amount forced on the Defense Department which did not want it and said it did not need it. To economy-minded groups, Secretary Wilson had been the man of the hour at that time. But Congress insisted on the appropriation, not accepting Mr. Wilson's judgment that the nation would be secure without it.
Now, with the election past, Congress did not want to provide Mr. Wilson the 1.2 billion dollars which he said was necessary to keep air power strong, and the groups which had praised Mr. Wilson's judgment on defense economy 11 months earlier were now picturing him as a free spender.
It wonders whether it was the threat from the Soviet Union or merely the political winds which had changed in the interim, finding it to be the latter, that this was an economy year, "come hell or hydrogen bombs."
It finds nothing new about the chameleon or its human cousin, the politician. But those who rejected the judgment of the President and Defense Secretary on defense needs also had to accept responsibility for the weakening of defenses. It suggests that if Congress insisted on the cut, it would be in no position to complain during future crises, as it had during the Jordan crisis, that all responsibility was on the President.
"Why Advertise Inspections in Advance?" indicates that when a special City Council committee had made a spot check of the municipal jail, they had found everything spic and span.
It finds it, however, not surprising, as they had notified the police chief that they were coming and when they would be there.
It indicates that jails should be spic and span, but that in view of what the grand jury had said about conditions at the jail earlier in the month, the members of the Council should have dropped in without advance warning.
A piece from the Reporter, titled "The Sky Grab", indicates that when outer space attracted the interest of attorneys, it supposes that rocket travel was not far off and that canny eyes were already being trained on heavenly real estate. It finds that at the spring meeting of the American Rocket Society, two space lawyers had warned the members that a "no man's land" existed beyond the ionosphere and that unless some jurisdiction were established soon, space travel would lead to a nationalistic squabble for control. They had conceded that it would be unrealistic to argue that national sovereignty extended for hundreds or thousands of miles above the earth, but asserted that anything up to 50 miles might reasonably be assigned to the territory beneath it, and that within that limit, space platforms could serve as customs offices and immigration control, with the understanding that beyond that limit, space would be internationalized.
It finds that it had seen too many such understandings to regard them as a serious check on imperialism, that once the strata of lower space were filled with emigrant Englishmen, Iron Curtain refugees and American exurbanites, the old itch would reassert itself. "Some Fuhrer will demand for his Volk a literal place in the sun. A little Pharaoh will seize the canals of Mars when no one is looking. A descendant of Admiral Byrd will solemnly plant the Stars and Stripes on the dark side of the moon. And the Russians will grab off some satellites that they can really manage."
It finds it certain that the earth would play a key role in the firmament and has no doubt that there would be a Kipling to proclaim the Earth Man's burden.
Drew Pearson indicates that the highest level diplomatic conference in 178 years of U.S. diplomatic relations had been held the previous June in Panama, with more presidents of sovereign states being present to meet with President Eisenhower than anywhere or at any other time in history. The meeting had been greeted with great fanfare in the Latin American press, deliberately encouraged in that vein by American diplomats. Some Latin American presidents who had hung back, doubting the advisability of attending the conference, had been urged by U.S. ambassadors to be on deck.
When the President was willing to leave his hospital bed after his ileitis surgery, it had been intimated that major things would occur at the conference. His trip to the conference was not merely to convince the American public that he had recovered, according to the diplomats. A committee was appointed at the conference to carry out the long-range Plan for Pan Americanism, a committee headed by the President's brother, Milton. It held several meetings and at present, ten months after the conference, it was bringing forth its recommendations.
Most Latin American diplomats had believed that the U.S. would at least set up a fund, similar to the Middle East doctrine fund, to battle Communism and develop Latin America. They saw money being sent to Poland, Yugoslavia, Saudi Arabia and Southeast Asia, believing that a revolving fund of around 100 million dollars was the least which would result from the unprecedented meeting the previous year in Panama. Instead, an annual total of 3.388 million dollars was recommended, of which the Latin American governments would have to put up about half. There was also a fund of nearly 20 million set up to fight malaria during a five-year period, but that fund was contingent on further negotiations with various organizations.
Mr. Pearson indicates that the projects adopted had been healthy and worthwhile, but the amounts to finance them were considered minuscule by the Latin American diplomats, that it should not have taken such a high-powered meeting to put across such a program, which could have been adopted by the Pan American Union, itself.
The projects included 1.1 million dollars for expanding the Institute of Agriculture in Turrilba, Costa Rica, to study the effect of nuclear energy on agriculture, and for two other agriculture centers to study the diseases of bananas and cocoa in Ecuador and temperate diseases in Uruguay. Another $275,000 was put up for the study of workers' housing, an additional $500,000 for scholarships, $120,000 for technical assistance, $210,000 for public relations, and $90,000 for a nuclear energy agency, all of those to be annual expenditures, provided that each government would approve them. One Latin American ambassador had remarked that they were not communistic enough to obtain any real help from the U.S.
Walter Lippmann finds that the President was in serious political trouble from a rebellion within the Republican Party, having come to the conclusion that it was profitable politically to oppose him, only three months after his support had been virtually universal in the party, following his landslide victory of the prior fall.
Senator William Knowland, Minority Leader, was running for the presidency in 1960 on an anti-Eisenhower platform and there were only a handful of Republican Senators standing by the President. The Vice-President was proceeding as a "submarine in hostile waters, mostly submerged, and when he must come to the surface, he shows as little of himself as possible for anyone to shoot at."
The Democrats, who, under the leadership of Senator Lyndon Johnson, had once been a great help to the President's program, were now proceeding under the belief that if it was good politics for Republicans to oppose the President, it was even better politics for the Democrats to do so.
The uprising threatened to go well beyond the size of the budget, with a grave danger, for example, that Senator Knowland, backed up by Senator Bourke Hickenlooper, might cause the Senate to humiliate the President by failing to ratify the treaty on peaceful uses of atomic energy. If that were done, the Republican Senators would be making a mockery of the Republican platform, in which it had been declared that "one leader in the world today towers above all others and inspires the trust, admiration, confidence and good will of all the peoples of every nation—Dwight D. Eisenhower." The treaty, now before the Senate and which ought to be ratified at the current session, would place no burden on the budget. The international agency which the treaty would set up would have some administrative expenses, but the American share would not exceed two million dollars per year. Nor did it involve any gifts to foreign governments. The fissionable materials to be delivered by the U.S. to the international agency would be furnished on a business basis and not as a gift. Thus, if ratification were to fail, it would be because the Republican leadership was opposing the President on an important issue of policy, and not because it was trying to reduce the budget.
It would not only humiliate the President but would do great damage to the confidence of the nations of the world in the pledges and promises of the Government. The history of the treaty provided unanswerable proof that if it were not ratified, the U.S. would have misled the 80 nations who had followed the leadership of President Eisenhower. The treaty was known as the Statute of the International Atomic Energy Agency, carrying out the proposals which the President had made on December 8, 1953 when he addressed the General Assembly of the U.N. and outlined the functions of such an agency, his so-called "atoms for peace" proposal. Of the nations that would have to be involved, the Soviet Union was principal, according to the President at the time, and he had said that he would be prepared to submit it to the Congress with every expectation of its approval.
There was thus no doubt that it was an American-proposed treaty launched officially in the presence of the U.N. by the President, and had taken nearly three years to negotiate, with representatives of the U.S. playing a major role in that process. The previous October, the draft of the treaty had been adopted unanimously by the conference at the U.N., in which 81 governments, including the Soviet Union, had been represented.
At that time, the President was running for re-election on a platform, adopted unanimously by the Republican convention, to which both Senators Knowland and Hickenlooper had been delegates, subscribing to the platform. It included the statement: "President Eisenhower has inaugurated and led a strong program for developing the peaceful atom—a program which has captured the imagination of men and women everywhere with its widespread positive achievements."
Just prior to the November election, the President had sent a message to the U.N. conference of the 81 nations who had approved the treaty, indicating, "I wish my country to be among the first to recognize by official action what you at this conference have accomplished." He had gone on to say that once the agency was established, the U.S. would make available to it "nuclear materials that will match in amount the sum of all quantities of such materials made similarly available by all other members of the international agency." It was a public promise and as far as Mr. Lippmann is aware, Senator Knowland had not raised any protest or caution against it.
The text of the treaty had been discussed for seven months, but yet Senator Knowland, as Republican leader, had not made up his mind about it. If he did not do so soon, there was little likelihood that the treaty would be ratified in the current session of Congress, potentially delaying the effectiveness of the program under the treaty for the better part of a year.
Mr. Lippmann finds it to raise the issue of the moral responsibilities of the party leader in the Senate, whether or not the leader had responsibilities beyond the ordinary individual Senator responding to merely conscience and the dictates of the Senator's constituents. Because the party leader had power beyond the individual Senator, he questions whether or not he had obligations which went beyond the individual Senator, including the obligation to caution the President before the latter committed to a major project, if the leader could not support it, and, if so, he questions whether the leader should, in that instance, resign his role as leader. He finds it not good public morals for the Republican leader to place the President in a position where, by the action of his own party, he stood in serious danger of being repudiated and humiliated in the presence of the whole world.
Joseph Alsop, in Beirut, Lebanon, indicates that there were many things about Premier Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt which wanted of clarification, such as the nature of his connection with his supporters in Russia. Yet the source of his power in the Arab world was still the central matter which needed explaining. He finds that a good place to look for that explanation was in the agreeable and prosperous country of Lebanon, where the prospect of an election had provoked the most flagrant Egyptian intervention.
The leaders of the Government party, President Camille Chamoun and Prime Minister Sami el-Solh, were not Arab feudalists of the old pattern, standing instead for progress and good government, with such great popularity that the wiseacres said they would surely win at the polls. They also had guts, as proved by their forthright pro-Western policy, requiring guts in the Arab world at present. Because of that policy, the President and the Prime Minister were being attacked by their "Arab brother" in Egypt, Premier Nasser, with every weapon at his command. Despite their popularity, the two men feared Premier Nasser's attack. Otherwise, President Chamoun would almost surely have sent home the Egyptian ambassador because of his shameless local political activities, restrained by the fact that it would have likely been a handicap at the polls.
The Lebanese were rich in health, education, welfare and standard of living, with the masses being far better off than the masses of any other Arab country, as the majority of them understood the benefit of good government, the reason why the President and Prime Minister enjoyed such popular support, denied to like-minded men in other Arab countries. In those other areas, the masses remained quite ignorant and poor, unable to conceive of the good things which wise government could do for them through time, the actual reason, for instance, for lack of popular enthusiasm for the wise Iraqi development program. They had not demanded the good things and while they were politically conscious, did not ask their political leaders to talk practical good sense. It provided the ideal opening for the Arab leaders of whom Premier Nasser was both the master and archetype, who had won mass support by venomous but powerful emotional appeals to ancient and justified hatreds.
Precisely because the hatreds were justified, President Chamoun and Prime Minister Solh feared Premier Nasser, despite their own strength. But the fact that all of those hatreds had a solid basis in the many tragedies of Middle Eastern history, did not alter the character of Nasser-style Arab nationalism.
As with all movements which relied on an appeal to hatred, that nationalism, which attracted so many young people and idealists, was nonetheless an inwardly ugly movement, capable of such dark treachery as the bomb plot against King Saud of Saudi Arabia, organized by the Egyptian military attaché. In propaganda and in organization, it employed every device in the Fascist handbook. Recently, for instance, Premier Nasser had seized the most respected independent newspaper printed in Arabic.
Through hatred, the nationalism won support, but it was also a betrayal of the masses to whom it beckoned. For every practical Arab interest presently called for equal friendship with the West. Yet Premier Nasser was moving increasingly toward an overt cold war with all of the Western powers, including his recent rescuer, the U.S., which stance would condemn the masses he led to another generation of squalor and suffering.
Mr. Alsop concludes that one could not help having sympathy somewhat for Arab politicians who were tempted to make the easy appeal to hatred, instead of the difficult appeal to national self-improvement. But in judging that nationalism, which claimed the sympathy reserved for nations struggling to be free, he finds it important to remember its true character as well as the strong mass support which it commanded.
A letter writer wonders why Billy Graham of Charlotte was way up in New York City saving people, when there were still lost souls to be saved in his own hometown, commenting that salvation began at home.
A letter writer from Hickory comments on the story on the Reverend Graham in the previous Thursday's newspaper, the writer finding him to be a wonderful preacher who had accomplished wonderful works for the Lord and Savior. But he finds the newspaper had made a mistake in the headline, "Graham Converts 485 First Night", that it had actually been Jesus who saved, not man.
A letter from the major of the Salvation Army expresses appreciation to the newspaper for the publicity given them in connection with the first official act of new Mayor Jim Smith, finding the photograph and article in the newspaper to have been of tremendous value to them.
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