The Charlotte News
Tuesday, May 28, 1957
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that Senate Minority Leader William Knowland of California said this date that the Senate Republican leadership was studying the possibility of trying to force the Administration's civil rights bill out of the Senate Judiciary Committee, chaired by Senator James Eastland of Mississippi. At a press conference after Senator Knowland and other Republican Congressional leaders had conferred with the President at the White House, he noted that the bill had been bogged down in the Committee for weeks, with Southern Democrats on the Committee opposing its enactment. He said that Republicans were "going to make a special drive to get the bill out of committee," that they were considering several alternatives if the Committee did not promptly send it to the floor for debate and a vote. He was not specific as to what the alternatives would be, but said that that they did not intend to wait until the closing days of the session for Senate action on the bill, obviously having in mind the prospect of a Southern filibuster late in the session. On the House side, Minority Leader Joseph Martin of Massachusetts said that the bill was scheduled to come up for debate starting on June 3, and that the House had set aside four days for that purpose.
At the atomic test site at Yucca Flat, Nev., 70 miles from Las Vegas, the U.S. had detonated an atomic device this date, opening a summer series of tests, while disarmament talks proceeded in London, with its ultimate aim being to eliminate nuclear testing. The ten-kiloton device had produced "an unearthly light over the test center", producing a tremendous mushroom cloud at 4:55 a.m. Though spectacular, it was small compared with other tests during the previous five years conducted at the site, being about half the size of the atomic bombs which had destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Bombs of more than 220 kilotons had been detonated at the Nevada test site. After the detonation, 31 aircraft had flown into the radioactive field to photograph the mushroom cloud and track its path as a light wind carried it away. From observation posts ringing the test site, 200 military personnel watched, while newsmen observed from a site 11 miles from ground-zero. The detonation had been delayed since May 16 by adverse wind conditions, and was intended to provide the Atomic Energy Commission with information on radiation measurements, flash effects and fallout. The entire series would continue until September 1 and would include more than 15 detonations, designed "to attain new knowledge important to the defense of the United States and the free world." The fireball of the explosion did not touch the desert floor beneath the disintegrated steel tower, to eliminate the great mass of radioactive dirt which in past tests had been sucked into the air, reducing the amount of fallout in the areas surrounding the test site.
In Chicago, at the four-day annual Southern Baptist Convention, the dedicated country preacher was pictured as "God's man at the grassroots", a "good shepherd who loves his sheep and gives his life for them", according to the Little Rock editor for the Arkansas State Baptist Convention, Edwin McDonald. He said that the opportunist serving the countryside only until a city church would open to him was like "the hireling who abandons the sheep to their fate." There were present some 15,000 messengers from 40 states, taking place at the International Amphitheater. The program centered on the theme of World Missions year, dedicating 1957 to stressing the worldwide Baptist responsibility for preaching the Christian gospel. The messengers would be asked to approve a 1958 budget of 16.5 million dollars, a record amount, to support Convention agencies. C. C. Warren, pastor of the First Baptist Church in Charlotte, was expected to win re-election as the Convention president for a second two-year term.
In San Francisco, a Navy enlisted
man was reported to have gone berserk on a cargo vessel at Treasure
Island this date and shot one man to death and wounded two others. He
had then reportedly held four other men on the bridge of the attack
cargo ship, Uvalde, for more than two hours, until they were
able to get away unhurt. The man in question had been convicted of
stealing a watch and was sentenced to four months in the brig at a
Navy court-martial the previous day, and was classified as a
"prisoner at large", awaiting confirmation of sentence. A
chaplain had tried to persuade him to surrender and then his mother
was permitted to board the ship to talk to him. The violence had
begun in the early morning as the ship, designed to support
amphibious landings during World War II, had been docked at the
island in the Bay in the middle of the Bay Bridge. Six sailors with
rifles had been posted around the ship and six Marines were on the
dock. The commander of the Marines on the island said that there
would be no more shooting unless it was absolutely necessary, that
they would "play it cool" as they had "enough bodies
already" and did not want any more, would wait and see what
would happen. He said that no one had been able to determine what had
started the violence. The commander appears to have been hanging out
some, perhaps, at the City Lights bookstore in North Beach or the nearby Purple Onion
In Raleigh, Kelly Alexander of Charlotte, the state NAACP president, assured the State House Corporations Committee that steps to restrict NAACP activity in the state would not still the "clamor for equality" by the organization and others. A spokesman for the North Carolina Council of Churches, a Raleigh Baptist minister, had joined Mr. Alexander in arguing against the bills, one of which had been sponsored by the Administration of Governor Luther Hodges. Meanwhile, a State Senate committee had given a favorable report to a Senate version of the Administration's registration law to cover the NAACP, while also approving a companion bill to restrict efforts of the organization in pressing lawsuits in the courts. The second bill would set up a definition for barratry, covering efforts in lawsuits by persons or groups with no direct interest in the matter at issue. State Senator J. Spencer Bell of Charlotte, who had voted in the Senate committee against a favorable report for the bills, said that the the latter bill "doesn't aim at the common law definition of barratry," and was the wrong approach. A woman of Chapel Hill, speaking as a private citizen, told the Senate Committee that the proposed law was "contrary to the whole principle that America stands for, that a person should be allowed to go before the courts when he feels justice is not being done."
Julian Scheer of The News reports from Raleigh that the News & Observer had reported that a large portion of the Legislature was somewhat shook up this date following an exposé in the Raleigh newspaper of an age-old practice in the body, presenting pictures and stories across the front page in what was billed as a revelation, that suppliers of spirituous inebriants were supplying their goods to members of the body each week—a major problem across the nation at present, lending to already aggressive tendencies in the population left over from the war and being transmitted by osmosis and the tv screen to the younger set, steadily but surely every goddamned day. Some members were quite upset about the publicity. Local Wake County ABC enforcement officials said that there was nothing to the report, and that the state's chief liquor lobbyist had no comment. Nevertheless, nine cases which had been clearly marked with labels of whiskey distilleries had been brought to the Sir Walter Hotel the previous day, with the question being whether they were intended for lawmakers. A minister of the Calvary Baptist Church in Raleigh had told the newspaper that he knew liquor was being unloaded at the hotel each Monday, that hotel being the residence for most of the legislative delegation during the course of the session. The News & Observer had thus dispatched photographers and reporters to the scene and they had snapped pictures and reported stories to substantiate the allegations, reporting that an automobile had pulled up to the rear of the hotel and the nine cases had been removed by a bellboy and his helper. The man who had been identified as the deliverer, who was a resident of Raleigh and a whiskey salesman, declined comment for The News. The Raleigh newspaper had reported that the cases had gone to a particular room registered to an individual who apparently did not exist, though the room was paid for by Frank Sims, a registered lobbyist for the North Carolina Association of County ABC Boards and chairman of the Mecklenburg ABC Board. Mr. Sims also had no comment. Staff members of the News & Observer said that they had witnessed distribution, by a bellboy to various rooms in the hotel, of small packages which contained whiskey. The minister said that he would give out a list of 33 names, 28 of whom were members of the Legislature, who had received free liquor. The chief law enforcement officer of the Wake County ABC Board was contacted and had warrants drawn up to search the particular room in question, registered to the person who apparently did not exist. That officer had told The News this date that the warrant was not executed the previous afternoon because he had been informed by the Raleigh newspaper that the cases had been removed. He said that he was contacted, however, shortly after midnight and was informed that the cases were in that particular room, that he, accompanied by police officers of Raleigh, had searched the room and found nine cases, all of which were sealed, containing ABC literature and printed matter. He assumed that the cases were like those which had been delivered before noon the previous day, each box bearing the name of various liquor manufacturers. He added that under ABC regulations, every liquor salesman was allowed three cases of liquor per month for use in showing his product to city and county ABC boards in making sales. It still remained a mystery as to whether the cases had originally contained the literature described, and whether the small packages distributed by the bellboy on the ninth floor of the hotel were actually bottles of liquor. The deliverer of the packages appears to have been doing well, as he had a 1957 Buick in which to make his deliveries. But what was taking place on the ninth floor? Were legislators busting head?
In Charlotte, employment at Douglas Aircraft Co.'s Charlotte ordnance missile plant had surpassed the thousand mark, with a big push to come in the fall, several of the employees having been transferred from Tulsa, and 12 to 15 additional persons to come from Tulsa to staff important positions at the plant. The Hercules and Ajax Nike missiles were being produced at the plant and it was now being tooled up for a major job to come, with the technicians from Tulsa including tool designers, a production planner, a production control foreman and an assistant tool grinding foreman in the cutting shop. Miss Kitty out in Dodge City wants it to continue.
In Fairmont, Minn., a three-year old boy who had suffered a nine-inch gash on his face when bitten by the family farm dog, would have minimal scarring and disfigurement, according to a doctor this date, after surgeons had sewn 63 stitches to close the wound, which they described as "almost unbelievable". A doctor said that the wound was healing nicely. The boy had been playing in the farmyard the prior Friday when his mother heard him scream and the family dog snarling. The mother had run from the house to find the boy on the ground and the dog standing over him, whereupon she drove the dog away and ran to the fields to summon her husband. Doctors at the hospital had worked for 2.5 hours to close the wound, which started just below the mouth and ran down along the jaw bone almost to the boy's jugular vein, and then upward to the ear. An inside wound continued for another two inches, coming out by the left ear, which also was badly cut. The boy was released from the hospital the previous day. The mother, who had three other small children, said that she had been outside with the boy and had gone inside to attend to her baby when she heard the dog snarl and saw that it had her son down and was still standing over him. She said the dog, as she ran toward it, looked like it was ready to bite her son again, finding it very unusual, as the dog had been around the children all the time. She said that the dog had been running behind the tractor all day and was probably tired, probably did not want to play and that perhaps her son had stepped on his foot or something. The nine-year old dog was under observation, but had shown no signs of rabies, according to doctors. The mother said that the family planned to dispose of the dog. Take it to the gravel pit in South Dakota.
In New York, Dr. Maurice Lewi, who was 99 and devoted to cigars, whiskey and the human foot, had died the previous day. He was founder and president of the New York College of Podiatry and was credited with almost single-handedly raising podiatry to professional status. He had been confined to his apartment since the previous November but had continued to run the affairs of the College. Even in his later years, he had continued his custom of staying up late, attending the theater and opera and playing poker with friends into the wee hours of the morning. He smoked between 12 and 14 cigars per day, until a doctor had recently talked him into cutting down to eight, and he drank whiskey regularly, once stating, with a twinkle in his blue eyes, "I do as I please and I never waste energy resisting temptation."
On the editorial page, "Look Once, Look Twice, Look Again" indicates that Charlotte residents were taking a long, horrified look at the proposed budget for the City of 12.1 million dollars, that if all departmental requests were granted, the tax rate would jump from $1.73 per hundred dollars of property valuation to $2.01. There was no such startling increase anticipated, as some administrative cutting was presently going on by City Manager Henry Yancey, and subsequently would occur within the City Council. But no one either thought that the line could be held at $1.73.
The city had many essential services to perform and was obligated to perform more services than ever before in the city's history, with rapid expansion of the population, and the budget would have to be tightened until it was a model of efficiency and economy, with luxuries having to wait, as 1957 was a year for necessities only.
"The Legislature's Haste Makes Waste" indicates that the General Assembly had decided this date that it was time to pack up and go home, immediately apparent to those in the galleries observing, as the floors of the House and Senate chambers had "more resembled a rush-hour in the wheat pit than they did forums of lawmakers."
That adjournment fever had its effect on legislation. It finds it understandable, after four months being in session and it now being hot in Raleigh, that the legislators would be eager to get things done and depart, as they were now having to expend their own money to remain to transact the people's business. But it finds that haste would only make waste, with almost 50 public bills remaining on the Senate calendar and many more awaiting action in the House, with many of the most important matters still to be determined—apparently, amid a late spring alcoholic haze.
It cites the state minimum wage issue as deserving all of the time and attention which the Legislature could provide it, as well as the efforts by some extremists in the Legislature to single out the NAACP for public punishment, deserving of statesmanlike stances, with the attempt to railroad that bill through the Assembly in the final rush needing stern resistance. Tax bills were also deserving of more than hasty scrutiny, along with many others.
It indicates that if the press of legislative business was becoming too great for one long biennial session, then provision for an annual session ought be passed, as it predicts that sooner or later, that would have to occur anyway, and so the sooner, the better.
"Science & Religion: A New Alliance" indicates that Psalm 8, which stated, "Thou has made him a little lower than the angels and hast crowned him with glory and honor," to have been an answer which was completely satisfactory in an age of faith to the Psalm's question, "What is man that Thou art mindful of him?"
But in an age of doubt, it had become fashionable to answer in a different way, that man was at best an animal and at worst an animated machine, the view of science. The gap between religion and science had become an accepted fact of the new enlightenment, a gap which it finds to be closing at present.
As an inspiring illustration of the strengthened alliance between science and religion, it cites a statement by a leading Charlotte surgeon, Dr. Hamilton McKay, speaking recently in Richmond, Va., to the graduating class of Union Theological Seminary, calling for a closer spirit of cooperation between seminaries and hospitals, noting that it was no longer possible "to draw such a fine line between the mental, spiritual and physical ills which befall mankind." He said that trained teams of doctors, working together in harmony, were needed to minister to the "total needs" of the patient.
It indicates that it was Dr. Carl Jung who had said that the large majority of people he treated needed religion more than anything else, including psychiatric analysis. Dr. Robert Millikan, distinguished physicist, had said that the purely materialistic philosophy to which men of science had previously subscribed was "the height of unintelligence." John Tyndall, an earlier physicist, said that religious feeling was as much a verity as any other part of human consciousness.
It suggests that both science and religion could aid man in his eternal quest for knowledge about himself, that no conflict between the two was necessary, with one field merely reinforcing the other and both seeking a common goal, truth.
But you see, today, 67 years on from 1957, we have such complete idiots in Congress who take the position that science is "evil" and that "Christian nationalism" is the new and proper way to look at the world, one which has to be enforced in and by law, that if one does not perceive the world in that way, one is at one with the Devil and thus to be eliminated by law, violently if necessary, this being the new, enforced thought-speak of the new far-right, further out in right field than any previous "far right" in modern history, at least since the early 1950's, only now more pervasive than ever, taking over what once was the Republican Party, now more properly called Magaville, U.S.A., being advanced in its thought processes by the vicissitudes and vagaries inherent in more democratized media and the ability to put forth whatever ignorant bile one wishes on a daily basis to spew to whatever audience one might attract for views and attention, such as by doing handstands on video and other such self-immersed tripe of neurotic, moronic, insane people, some of whom have been elected to Congress from their native bailiwick's favorite liquor hangouts. Such people think that their way is the only way, and that the rest can just take the highway and do as they will, in another state, another country, in another world, if necessary, but that they will be out of their world, one way or the other. This is their thought process, and by "they", let us not quibble. We mean Magaville, U.S.A., the most divisive movement in America since McCarthyism, having its birth from the very same personages, such as, notably, Roy Cohn, by way of Machiavelli.
There is nothing Christian about this movement. It is the antithesis of Christianity or anything of true religious worth. It is hate and spewing of hate for personal economic and political gain, to lord over others to make the inherently weak in mind, morals and integrity feel empowered over their resisters and impeders.
And CNN, especially of late, and its British CEO to the contrary notwithstanding, and their new generation of namby-pamby, milquetoasted commentariat, seemingly trying out for the amateur hour which is Fox Propaganda, is not going to shift gears suddenly and take our democracy away from us and make it into a Trumped-Up dictatorship, to try to pump up its sagging ratings, sagging as surely as the faces of its commentariat, promoting every lie which Don Trump and his loyal retinue of obeisants spew on a daily basis as if gospel, while promoting President Biden, just as Fox Propaganda has been promoting for the past five years, as some aged and elderly out-to-pasture, fumbling-for-his-words poor, old, nice guy who just is no longer with it, where it's at, and so—the while, completely ignoring the completely divorced-from-reality Don Trump, still claiming he won the election in 2020, not speaking in parables or riddles, but simply uttering nonsense every time he exercises his jaws, the only candidate left in the 2024 presidential race who, in fact, cannot put two thoughts together in succession which lead one from the other in logical sequence, from sharks, sinking electric boats, to cannibalism, to Joe Bi-den, something any old person could do from the grandstand, moving blithely from one topic to the next without hesitation because no logical flow is guiding the thought process, devoid of any thought at all, cunning or otherwise, just random stream of consciousness about any old thing which happens to pop into his mind of the moment, yet confirming thereby his constituents' similarly unguided thought processes, spinning inevitably into the dark pit, before a few hundred blithering idiots gathered to provide a smattering of applause here and there to his blithering idiocy.
And as to the recent "assassination attempt" last Saturday, in which one person was tragically killed, we are not so certain that it was, in fact, that which it appears to be. There are reasons to believe, given the history of Trumpville, U.S.A., and its tendency toward violent insurrection and anti-government rhetoric and action, which is championed by the head Trumpville Mayor, that the event may not be that which it appears to have been on its superficial plane. If no one else will say what a lot of people are thinking, we shall. For we know acting when we see it, and everything about the duck and pumping of the fist afterward, suggests a pre-planned event, as crazy as that may superficially sound.
The timing of it is highly suspect also, combined with the sudden dismissal a mere two days later by the judge in Florida, who, unfortunately, was appointed to lifetime tenure on the Federal District Court bench by Trump, though scarcely qualifying for that appointment, nakedly showing her extreme bias in dismissing the case against him, at least for the time being, for his reprehensible withholding of classified documents not belonging to him as a former occupant of the White House and refusing, repeatedly, to cooperate in surrendering them voluntarily, not, therefore, having withheld them only by mistake, and even bragging to others, who had no clearance for receipt of classified information, that he knew he had them, the judge holding in that case, alone among jurists who have weighed in on the issue numerous times since the 1970's, that the office of special counsel is unconstitutional and not authorized by Congress, in complete and arrogant denial of the fact that special counsel status has been accorded in one form or another since the Grant Administration in 1875 and is quite constitutional, completely authorized by Article II, Section 2, Clause 2, permitting Congress to vest in the heads of departments the power to appoint designated inferior officers of the Government, and is merely that authorized exercise of executive prerogative on the part of the Attorney General to appoint a special counsel in certain cases, to remove those certain cases, insofar as possible, from the appearance of any political bias, such as might be suggested by the bringing of the case in those certain cases, involving political personages or the close kin to political personages, in the normal course by U.S. Attorney offices across the country in the various districts.
Next, this person in Florida will declare the whole U.S. Government unconstitutional, including herself, hoping that it will all shake out in the new Trumpville, U.S.A., where she will be deemed by the Mayor as the new Chief Poobah of the Trumpville Judiciary. (Indeed, could not a more plausible argument be put forth than the one she has posited regarding the position of special counsel, that all of the Trump appointments to the Federal judiciary are void as a matter of law, in view of the now-proven election fraud in 2016, occurring just prior to election day? We only pose the question, which must be read carefully and with due regard for the Supremacy Clause trumping state law decisions, though entitled to full faith and credit under the Constitution in each of the states.) We stand in contempt of this Duke-educated person. Being granted life tenure sitting as a judge does not mean being anointed with a private fiefdom in which one is a dictator. There remain limits of that power dictated by overwhelming and consistent legal precedent which even a footnote by one member of the Supreme Court cannot summarily ignore or overturn.
Magaville and its Mayor, however, having apparently never taken too many courses in civics, do not understand this set-up obviously, view it as a conspiracy designed to prevent them from getting "justice", which is to say that if our side is on the hook, then the other side must also be on the hook, and if not, there is no equal "justice" because "they all do it", the cynical view adopted from Machiavelli, which can justify anything, including cold-blooded murder, including the Holocaust which took place in Europe, orchestrated by Nazi Germany.
In short, Magaville is the new Nazi Germany, and all of its adherents and supporters are what those equivalents in that country in time were, including the knee-bending individuals who have claimed over the months previously to be opposed to their tactics, but now who are seen to be what they are, nothing but Magaville adherents and neophytes to the cause, having been dedicated to it in fact all the while, just wanting to be seen for a bit as opposed to gain political backing, fighting only for themselves and their own little political hides, just as Nazism took hold of Germany, a formerly democratic country, in the 1930's, gradually developing out of the studied example set by Mussolini in Italy during the 1920's and promoted further through Hitler's Mein Kampf. It is nothing more nor less than Nazism warmed over.
No one in their right mind in the world of 1945, including those still in their right minds in brainwashed Germany, much mourned the death, self-inflicted in the end, which came to Adolph Hitler. We must not forget that the prior July 20, an effort had been made, by careful placement of a bomb inside a briefcase beneath a conference table at a remote Fuehrer-bunker, to kill die Fuehrer. By a mere quirk of fate, which one might ascribe to the Mephistopholean power being conjured through various German myths of time and times, ushered from reality through the mad arras in the recesses set forth by Friedrich Nietzsche and his Ubermensch and along with an assortment of Wagnerian characters to lend color to the act, the briefcase exploded in such a way that the immediate impact was received by a leg of the table and not Hitler's more tender parts, save his right arm, which was apparently mildly injured, while many others around the table were seriously debilitated or died.
Was Hitler therefore spared by some Norse gods to proceed with more of his mercurially routinized Gotterdammerung orders for death so that he could ultimately die by his own hand at a time of his choosing, as the Russians proceeded toward his bunker in Berlin on the ensuing Walpurgis Night?
We make no pretense of having the answer, any more than we do as to why Don Trump apparently turned his head at just the right moment to avoid being struck fatally by an AR-15 deadly round, the same gun which Democrats have been seeking for years to ban, while most Republicans and all of the MAGAT's think it a goody-goody for the Christmas tree with which to go happily hunting into the woods to kill helpless creatures to make their sissified, emasculated persons seem more powerful than they, quite pitifully, actually are in reality, among the least powerful persons among humanity, for having completely and wantonly abandoned all faith in anything truly spiritual and having abandoned all logic and reason in the process, despising science and any true religion, opting for the personality cult of one individual, the grand Poobah who tells them all which they want to hear to make themselves feel better about their lack of purpose and strength and any approximation to truth through reason. Such people always follow that pattern.
What
preserved Hitler on July 20, 1944
Somehow, given the rhetoric of Don Trump, and his exposed manifold crimes, taking place since just before the 2016 election and extending through and beyond the last days of his time in the White House, the 34 felony counts on which a jury recently convicted him and for which he still awaits sentencing while out on bail so he can attend the Magaville, U.S.A., nominating convention, and the remaining 54 counts against him still to be adjudicated, and which, inevitably, will be, we think that was not the sparing agent. We do not know whether the sparing agent was the same which saved Hitler that day in 1944, but it is wise always to study carefully history and retain it in its accurate form to draw wise analogies from which to learn. Those who ignore history, as the old saw goes, are condemned to repeat it.
Why, we might ask, did another man running for the presidency in 1968 not turn his head fortuitously in another direction, after being directed through a hotel kitchen pantry, in a hotel still owned by the family of former Army Private G. David Schine, resulting in a fatal bullet wound in the back of his head, just to the left of his right ear. We have wondered about that question since the early hours of the morning on June 5, 1968, when we first heard the news of the likely fatal bullet wound, a bullet wound which, inevitably, led to the election of Richard Nixon the following November, regardless of whether Senator Kennedy would have won the nomination, as strange as that ensuing concatenation of events might suggest.
Do the twisted fates only, for at least a time, favor those who engage in violent and despicable rhetoric, designed to undermine democracy in favor of the rule of kings? We do not presuppose to have the answer to that one either, but offer it only as a means of trying to approximate truth through reason.
After the bullets of 1968, following only less than five years after the bullets of Dallas, the phrase "ballots, not bullets" became quite popular. We subscribe to it, as bullets never remedied any situation except to beget more bullets, in never-ending retribution and counter-retribution, ad nauseam and ad infinitum.
But, at the same time, an "attempted" assassination last Saturday does not suddenly alter or call off a political campaign, or stop inevitable questions about whether it was truly "attempted" or a mere political ploy, whether concocted solely in the mind of the shooter or in implicit or explicit concurrence with others, such as that nut in Austin, Texas, who, on his program a few months earlier, had a guest who suggested that the assassination of Don Trump would only be the beginning of the righteous elimination of all of the "deep state" operatives in the United States in response by the MAGAT's, the "blood bath" which would follow to be "only the beginning", and then proceeded to provide his hit-list of targets, which included former President Bill Clinton and former Senator and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, among many others, both Democrats and Republicans, anyone, in short, who had shown a tendency to disagree publicly with Don Trump.
Thus, is it any wonder that the shooter in the instance in question had, at some point, Don Trump signs in his front yard and was a dedicated shooter at the shooting range, with his AR-15 "hunting rifle" close by his lonesome side?
A piece from the Sanford Herald, titled "Rain Gear", indicates that in the North, men dressed for the weather, that in Boston, for instance, one would see a merchant, a lawyer or a salesman "hurrying through the drizzle and slush in neatly buttoned, well-cut storm coat, lightweight overshoes, and hat of hard felt. He is likely to carry a black umbrella, perhaps with silver-tipped handle, of tough fabric so thin that when folded the thing resembles a walking stick."
But in the South, a change in the weather was regarded as an emergency, as hardly any man appeared to own a raincoat, depending instead on "a garment of synthetic rubber and uncertain origin, likely split and patched with Scotch tape, that hangs from season to season on the office hat rack. If the mercury slips below topcoat temperature, he can be depended upon to dig out a moth-eaten relic of Army days and drape it over his shoulders as an extra garment—refusing to discover that it no longer will button about him. He has owned no overshoes since he lost a pair in the sixth grade cloak closet. As for hat—well, have you ever studied the collection of caps, toboggans and hoods that show up with each precipitation, even the extended ones?"
It suggests that the Southerner's rain gear might be evidence of expectation of the weather to be clear and mild, or perhaps reflected a desire to break from civilization's props and battle nature on even terms, that whatever the answer was, the Southerner had no good excuse for the cold which dogged him during wet days.
Drew Pearson tells of Congressman James Roosevelt, previously one of the strongest backers of the 1957 civil rights bill, having written a letter to Attorney General Herbert Brownell which indicated that he might accept the Southern view regarding trial by jury for those to be charged with contempt for violating the voting rights of black citizens under the bill. The letter of Mr. Roosevelt coincided with increasing skepticism on the part of many firm advocates of civil rights as to whether the traditional right of trial by jury ought be weakened, the point consistently driven home by Senator Sam J. Ervin of North Carolina, the chief Southern spokesman opposing the civil rights bill in its current form.
Mr. Pearson indicates that if Congressman Roosevelt changed his mind on trial by jury, it was certain to influence many Northern Democrats and might enable the bill to pass at the current session of Congress, as Southerners would be hard put not to accept it if it were amended to provide for trial by jury. Mr. Roosevelt had written to Mr. Brownell that there were many proponents of the measure who were seriously troubled as to whether or not there was basic validity in the arguments of such "distinguished opponents" as Senator Ervin, a former judge in North Carolina and former Justice of the State Supreme Court.
Mr. Roosevelt had asked Mr. Brownell whether such an amendment as proposed would effectively destroy the practical workability of the proposed law, how Federal juries were chosen, whether the method was the same in each state or area of the country, including the South, whether the method of Federal jury selection provided to the Department of Justice the ability to see that a jury would properly represent all sections of the community, whether, regardless of whether the Department of Justice had such power, the Federal District Courts had the power to see that Federal juries were truly representative of the entire community, and whether there was any middle ground which Mr. Brownell could advocate if his answer to the first question was in the affirmative, such as granting to the U.S. Courts of Appeals the right to order a trial by jury, where, in the opinion of the appellate court, the lower court judge had been capricious or arbitrary in finding the defendant guilty of contempt.
Mr. Pearson indicates that Mr. Brownell had not yet replied to Mr. Roosevelt, which had been requested for the first week of June, at which time the civil rights bill was set to come up for debate in the House.
Joseph Alsop, in Baghdad, indicates that nearly four decades had passed since the last Sultan of the Ottoman Empire had officially created the last legal "Bey" or "Pasha", but that the peoples of the Arab lands were now awarding those titles nevertheless to fellow citizens who appeared worthy enough or powerful enough to deserve them.
In Iraq, however, there was only one real Pasha, Nuri Pasha As-Said, who had been Prime Minister 15 times and remained undefeated. Mr. Alsop indicates that in calling on him for an interview, he observed that he did not surround himself with the trappings one would expect of a virtual dictator and did not appear as a man of power. He was rather slow and "pretty deaf", extremely affable but hard to talk to. "But first impressions are suddenly corrected when you notice the hawk's curve of the nose cutting down, as it were, into the outward amiability of the smile; when you catch the half-mocking note that creeps into the voice as it utters safe political platitudes; and above all, when you briefly catch a direct glance from the hooded old hawk's eyes."
He had indicated at the outset that the meeting between King Saud of Saudi Arabia and King Faisal of Iraq had been a great success and that Arab unity was most important and to be desired, that there had also been real improvement in the condition of Jordan, but indicating that he did not wish to say whether the events in Jordan and the meeting between King Saud and King Faisal would anger Egypt, as he did not believe in commenting on or interfering in the affairs of brother Arab states. He believed that the general position in the Middle East had become better in recent months, but that there would never be security and stability until the Palestine problem was solved. All of those matters, with the exception of the reference to Palestine, were delivered without inflection of passion or deep feeling, but there was no doubt that he believed all of that which he stated, though not thinking there was much point in having to say it.
The Pasha knew where all of the levers of power were in his country and if the peaceful levers failed him for awhile, as had occurred on occasion, he was ready to use his highly efficient Army and police force to restore order. Thus, there was not much point in making speeches, giving interviews, offering explanations, appealing to popular emotions, or wasting time in other such fruitless ways. It was therefore difficult to make him come to life for an interview for publication. He would speak evocatively off the record, frankly discussing the greatly increased American role in the Middle East, or bitterly reciting his own feelings and difficulties when the British, with whom he had always been close, had delivered their attack on Egypt the prior November 1, in concealed partnership with the Israelis, who had just attacked a few days earlier.
But there was only one moment when he was simultaneously vivid, interested and willing to be quoted, that having been when a question arose regarding the comparative mildness of the Iraqi reaction to the Suez crisis. While having been a very tense time, the demonstrations and police actions were picnics compared to the "bloody horrors" which Iraq had gone through in the past. He said the reason for it had been that they had acted promptly to keep order and the fact that it was easier to do so was the "political first fruit of our development program. Our people have jobs. They live better now. A man making a dinar a day on a steady job does not take a few cents from an organizer who wants him to join a riot. It is as simple as that."
Mr. Alsop comments that after he had heard precisely the same thing from a disappointed opposition leader, he was disinclined to believe the Pasha's practical response and was inclined to wonder about the double standard of modern political judgments, as to why the name of patriot was provided the Egyptian dictator, Gamal Abdel Nasser, "with his oratory and his bomb plots and his agents and his almost complete carelessness of his people's welfare; and meanwhile why condemn the Pasha, with his much milder government and his great development program intended to give the Iraqi people the means to be truly free".
Robert C. Ruark, in Southport, N.C., indicates that the little fishing village where he had spent a good deal of his youth, close to his hometown of Wilmington, was the "most sophisticated hamlet" he had ever encountered, with every fourth man a character. Nobody ever really left it and a lot of people had come there by accident, some swimming, some walking and some riding mules, "but since the day they changed it from Smithville to Southport, nothing and nobody has changed."
He recounts of a few of the local characters, including his great uncle who was an holy roller who spoke in tongues, but says that he liked the black folks the best, recounting of anecdotes also involving them. "Here is a town which will tell you that three-thirds of the village has got money. Here is where the seersuckers grow in the garden, and woodpecker society is a bore. Here is where you can hear somebody's footprints just as plain.
"There was a day when a disorganized G.I. committed suicide and the cook was called to the phone. 'He did?' she asked, on a rapidly rising inflection. 'He did?' Then the voice dropped. 'What time?' she asked, and hung up, obviously satisfied.
"It is a fine and funny town, and as an old friend of mine once remarked, I am highly delightful to be back again."
Surely, after all of his worldwide travels, however, Mr. Ruark had come to understand that there was nothing thereby unique in Southport, that any number of small towns in North Carolina, and any number of small towns virtually anywhere would have much the same number of characters and anecdotal stories attached to it as told, apocryphally or not, by those who were familiar with its history.
A letter writer from Rock Hill, S.C., comments on a story by George Cornell on the front page of the newspaper on May 22 regarding evangelist Billy Graham's Madison Square Garden meeting, in which he had emphasized in his sermon that Christ was a Jew and that his disciples were Jews, that the Bible came from Israel and that Israel had "a great and glorious future." In a February 21 address before the Israeli Knesset, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion had said, "We shall not forget that we share with the American people a common attachment to the heritage of the Bible." The letter writer indicates that despite the Administration's pressure against Israel, Americans would pray that peace and justice would come to the land of the Bible and Americans would reaffirm the biblical prophecy that the Jewish homeland would blossom into a land free from terror and the threat of creeping murder in the night from its neighbors. "The visions which are personified in the ideals of peace, justice and equality are the visions of Israel's prophets."
A letter from J. R. Cherry, Jr., indicates belief that the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Council on Human Relations was comprised of "'southern apologists'" and was essentially dedicated to integration. He posits his letter as an open one to the Council and to Irving Carlyle, Winston-Salem attorney who had spoken to the Council on May 23, excerpts of which had been printed on the editorial page on May 24. Mr. Cherry says that he was at least a sixth generation American and native North Carolinian, but a young man with an "old fashioned" idea that love of country was among the noblest thoughts man could think. "I love my country; I love also the southern section where not only I came into being, but where this republic, in large measure, was conceived, cradled and grew great. I feel no shame or embarrassment for southern traditions and institutions. On the contrary, I believe them, on the whole, to be magnificent!" He says that he had profound regard and respect for the Constitution, "save the 14th Amendment, which I believe was conceived in revenge and hate toward southern ancestry, and, on the basis of historical fact, was enacted illegally by a hostile administration." He says that he was prepared not only to fight to preserve the Constitution, but to die for it if necessary. He says that he had a young daughter—always the last refuge of scoundrels, to bring up their brood of chil''en back on the ol' homestead, as if that gives the speaker some distinct category of "patriotism" on which to stand, which others, lacking chil''en, would inevitably not have, being Commies, not having cast their fruit on the waters and multiplied, or maybe it was bread—and then his daughter would be taught all which had thus far been stated by him, and that his wife and he expected to rear her in the "finest traditions of her country and section." (Was she a C-section, too? If so, we have something in common.) "Without an iota of malice toward the Negro race as a whole, I solemnly swear that while I live, she will not matriculate in a school of mixed whites and Negroes." (Now, see? That's where you lose all commonality with us, being a complete fascist and borderline Nazi.) "Should the unhappy time, when all levels of government simultaneously dictate that I send my flesh and blood to an integrated school, then I would have no honorable alternative, as a free American, but to engage in overt, violent rebellion against government, in defense of my birthright." (Now, there you go again, leaving us not only behind, but casting us into the deep blue sea, as you do not know whereof you speak, just as those who condemned Christ and consigned him to the cross. You got absolutely nothing from your four years at UNC, a most regrettable waste of an education, just as with your much older fellow alumnus who often writes from Pittsboro, also a despiser of integration as inevitably leading to "amalgamation of the races", though not being so despicable as to countenance violence in the name of resisting it. But he, no matter how old-fashioned, is a lawyer and you, Mr. Cherry, most definitely are not. Perhaps you are just too stupid to realize that you are advocating that which Communists are being thrown in jail for advocating, namely, the violent overthrow of the government. You, if everything is equal in the justice system in 1957, ought to suffer the same fate. It would do you no harm, as you are the ruthless, little tattletale, who turned in your fellow student while an undergraduate, a graduate student minding his own business, getting his Atomic Energy Commission scholarship ripped from him merely because you violently disagreed with his stand on Communism in campus debates. We saw your kind even much later at UNC, in the era of Nixon, but we are not tattletales, and so will speak no further on that.) He goes on to say: "Construe it you will that this statement emanates from a 'crackpot.' [That, we do.] I can join no more distinguished company than the founding fathers of this republic!" (That, you don't.) He indicates to the newspaper and apparently to Mr. Carlyle that they outwardly pleaded for "'moderation'", but he finds, "stripped of egghead gobbledygook, that 'mousy' word simply means supine submission to the personal sociological beliefs of the Supreme Court which, for the last few years, has shown not but naked contempt (involving four or five major decisions) for the great document which it solemnly swore to defend." He regards the path of moderation not to be the path of freedom or accomplishment, saying that one might perhaps eat moderately but that in matters involving the intellect, a person who thought moderately either thought little or thought in terms of compromise or betraying the fundamental truths and principles upon which the republic was established.
He apparently never read either the preamble to the Declaration of Independence, or the preamble to the Constitution, both of which presaged the 14th Amendment, born out of the terrible carnage which had ripped the country apart over slavery for four years in the Civil War and had resulted, upon its denouement, in the first assassination of a U.S. President, arguably leading in direct sequence to the fourth, 98 years later. But, of course, Mr. Cherry had been grossly misled by the likes of Senator McCarthy and his forerunner in the message, Congressman Nixon. As we have suggested before, Mr. Cherry would feel right at home today among the MAGATS. He could write script for the scripted propagandists at Fox and the Aussie's other networks and publications, from Sky News to the New York Post, and the rest of that kitty-discard daily crap-sheet form of yellow propaganda, which, regrettably, is now being chased, quite obviously, by others, particularly by CNN, desperately seeking to catch up in its third place in the ratings war, with its latest CEO being a bottom-line bottom-feeder champion, veteran of the BBC, in his native country, and the New York Times, developing a better bottom line for both, but serving the public in terms of truly unbiased news coverage far less, we opine.
We've a suggestion to the intellectually dishonest Newspeak artists at CNN: Merge with Fox to improve your ratings, as, in terms of content, you are practically there as it is—no longer even watchable without wretching in disgust, except to Trumpies and those tending toward being Trumpies, that is, Nazis. Gut luck...
The very idea of injecting yourselves into a race for the Presidency, not reporting news but touting alternatives to the duly selected nominee, as selected by a vote of the people in each state primary and caucus, of a major party after the nominating process and all primaries are over, because of a cold on the part of the President at the June 27 debate, ignoring his body of work for 3.5 years, yawning in its face, in fact, and ignoring his more recent public appearances since the debate, except every possible selected moment which you can excerpt of a momentary hesitation or stutter, having your talking heads then shake their heads in disapproval on cue just like the little paid-whore puppets that they are, acting the while for the sake of attracting Fox-on-Crack viewers.
Close your eyes and it's H. V. Kaltenborn in 1948 or Walter Winchell in 1956, and "the news"—for suckers, filthy lucre and ratings, exaggerating and highlighting polls which always appear in the opposition's nominating convention week, in this instance showing little or no meaningful "bounce" in any event, being driven the while in the chosen direction within an echo chamber by the very talking-heads you present daily, and never minding the fact that polls these days mean less than ever before because of the changing media environment which leaves access by pollsters to most Americans increasingly difficult as most Americans, to escape the plague of boiler-room roll-o-dex phone-sales harassers with their come-on pitches, have opted for communication means which do not expose them to such crap-artists or, thereby, to pollsters.
The only people devoid not only of mental acuity but also of intellectual integrity are those bottom-feeding, bottom-line freaks at CNN and any of its handmaidens following suit, worse than Fox and its hell-hole dwellers, as everyone has known where they stand since they and their whores took to the airwaves in 1996, under the Aussie's command. Shame on you...
Now, you present the take of Bob Costas. Who the hell in their right mind cares a fig for what Bob Costas thinks about anything, let alone politics? Are you just completely that divorced from the thought processes of the American people? You are literally on insanity watch at this point, truly. You're digging as deep as you can for that Trump voter, to try to find some appeal to that pig on any base level you can. Why don't you go digging around in your video archives and try to find out what John Wayne may have thought of Joe Biden. How about Pinky Lee?
We'll be damned if we shall let our country be dictated to and taken over, lock, stock and barrel, by an Aussie and a Briton interested only in money, ratings and sensational, manufactured "news" stories, not reporting of fact, those individuals knowing nothing of American democracy or its true political history, coming out of a system of parliamentary overhaul whenever needed, every other day if need be, egged on by a sensationalistic and party-owned press, not merely every four years as we do in America. You are not going to like the result of this effort to clone your clownish parliamentary system onto America, should it continue even another day. The Royalists at CNN's management, now obviously loyal to Don Trump for as long as his entertainment value lasts, maybe through Saturday, can take a hike. We watch you silly Nazis no more. Some of them have even now adopted haircuts which seem right out of the Nazi barber-shop hairstyle pictures.
A letter writer addresses a letter of a previous contributor on the prior Thursday, finding that Billy Graham, without doubt, was "one that God has chosen, for he has accomplished much toward the building of His kingdom." He is certain that Billy Graham did not question God but yielded to His will and let God decide whether a crusade would be held. He expresses certainty that when Christ felt that Charlotte was ready for Billy Graham to preach there, God would send him to Charlotte, and in the meantime, if Billy Graham did not question where God sent him, "why should you or I".
If he had a perfect crystal ball, however, as we do, he could look into it to the following summer and see that before the evangelist would preach in Charlotte, a thunderstorm would hit the locus of the meeting, and blow the roof off the Coliseum, albeit after the evangelist had finished his sermon in San Francisco at the Cow Palace, and not injuring anyone at either venue. Could, divining portents, however, that event be interpreted by interpreters—though we remained quite mum about it at the time, perhaps conflating the two stories, not wishing to speak out of turn—, as being suggestive that holding such mass religious meetings in modern venues meant for sporting contests and concerts, purely secular activities, was displeasing to God? We only raise the question for people so dead certain of themselves and their own take on matters, as this writer. Holding a contrary view does not mean devil worship or even necessarily decrying the substance of the message of the evangelist being delivered. But the manner of it and the carnival atmosphere surrounding it, its reverence to personality-driven hero worship, becomes very disturbing, both then and now. There were those who found the ever-present tan of Mr. Graham to be the most attractive part of his sermons. And that is quite disturbing. He did have a commanding voice, however, which was unforgettable once heard.
But whether Je-he-sus would have approved, we do not pretend to know. And if you do, you have a distinct problem which needs to be addressed. Perhaps start with the philosophical question as to whether you find something enchanting about watching anew the crucifixion, as if it were happening today. Is the represented sacrifice for your sins something which you wish to see repeated again and again, to convince yourself that the sacrifice was real 2,000 years ago?
We saw that confused and muddled image at the time leading up to and after the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963. A generation's new sacrifice does not provide expiation for present sins but only compounds them. A human sacrifice is a horrible and primitive thing, spanning back thousands of years into human history, repeating itself aboriginally from time to time, serving nothing but the furtherance of negative impulses against humanity.
What did the thu-hun-derstorm in June, 1958, which blew the roof off the Charlotte Coliseum, me-he-an to you? Where were you that Su-hun-day afternoon? Do you recall it and where you were when you got the news? We do. The black and clear plastic hassock fan was whir-hir-ring away in the tv den, formerly the dining room until the tv age came along, at our grandparents' home in Shelby, both of whom, incidentally, liked to listen to Mr. Graham but could not stand even a minute of Mr. Nixon.
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