The Charlotte News
Wednesday, June 19, 1957
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the President said this date at his press conference that the civil rights program was moderate and decent and not aimed at persecuting anyone, that he was badly disappointed that some people believed it involved an intent to disturb the rights or social order of a particular section of the country. The bill, which had passed the House the previous day, was now headed to the Senate where there was expected to be great controversy over the efforts by Republicans and liberal Democrats to speed Senate action on it. The President also said that Russia's latest disarmament proposals were a hopeful sign deserving of earnest and sympathetic study, but added that he was not suggesting that the U.S. ought agree to any unlimited and unconditional suspension of atomic weapons testing. He defended the refusal of Gordon Gray, head of the Office of Defense Mobilization, to turn over to a Congressional committee certain documents bearing on the accelerated amortization granted to the Idaho Power Co. He also mentioned the international furor over the case of William Girard, but refused to discuss it for fear that he might damage his case.
Solicitor General J. Lee Rankin was determining whether to appeal directly to the Supreme Court and skip the Court of Appeals after a Federal District Court judge had ruled that the State and Defense Departments lacked constitutional authority to turn over William Girard to Japanese civil authorities for trial on manslaughter charges for having shot, while on duty as an Army soldier, a Japanese woman who was scavenging metal at an Army firing range. He had claimed that the shooting was only an accident and that he had meant to shoot over the heads of the scavengers, in an attempt to scare them, and had been assigned the duty by his commander to protect the range against scavengers. Mr. Girard's lawyers had sought his release on habeas corpus before the District Court, which denied the writ but enjoined his delivery to Japanese authorities, the Court ruling that his surrender to the Japanese civilian authorities would violate his rights under the Constitution, presumably, though not being specific in its holding, due process, as he had been acting pursuant to Army orders at the time of the incident and it was conceded that he acted within the scope of his duty, and thus was entitled to trial before a military tribunal in accordiance with the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The Defense and State Departments had concluded, however, that under a treaty with Japan, it was proper to have him tried in the Japanese civilian courts to avoid an international incident, with the rioting in Formosa having just occurred in May following the acquittal by a court-martial of an American soldier for the killing of a Chinese man whom the soldier had accused of peeping into his home. In Tokyo, Japanese officials said that the decision of the District Court would endanger the Mutual Security Treaty between Japan and the U.S. unless the Supreme Court reversed the decision. Japan's Justice Minister said that the ruling was not binding on Japan and that it would go ahead with the trial of Mr. Girard, who had since been discharged from the Army. The judge to whom the case had been assigned in Japan said that the trial would begin around the middle of August. The Supreme Court would take up the case on an emergency basis and in July would render a decision reversing 8 to 0 in a per curiam decision the District Court, finding that the treaty reserved the decision to the Congress and the executive branch to determine whether to turn an American accused of crime in Japan over to Japanese authorities, which did not offend the Constitution. Justice William O. Douglas did not participate in the decision.
In Washington, Japanese Prime Minister Kishi had arrived this date for three days of high-level talks, which he said might open a "new era of Japanese-American relations."
In Suez, Egypt, traffic was resumed in the Suez Canal this date after a 12-hour stoppage caused when a British tanker had run aground 25 miles north of Suez.
In Algiers, French officials this date reported that 19 rebels had been killed and 37 taken prisoner when a Foreign Legion unit had staged a surprise attack in western Algeria.
In Dayton, O., an F-84F jet fighter plane had crashed a short distance northeast of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base this date, but the pilot had survived, suffering burns from a fire which had ignited after the crash.
In Washington, Teamsters official Frank Brewster testified in his trial for contempt of Congress this date that it was on advice of his counsel that he had refused to produce records and answer questions before a Senate subcommittee the prior January.
Also in Washington, Teamsters vice-president Jimmy Hoffa, through his attorney, claimed this date that evidence against him had been obtained by an illegal wire-tap, but the Government had denied it.
Senator Harry F. Byrd of Virginia this date sharply challenged claims of Secretary of the Treasury George Humphrey that the Administration had reduced the national debt and Federal spending.
In Trenton, the head of the New Jersey law enforcement council said this date that it had testimony that John Cooney, former president of the Loyalty Insurance Group, may have misappropriated two million dollars over a 20-year span.
In Grants, N.M., about 38 passengers had been bruised and shaken up when a freak accident caused emergency brakes to deploy on Santa Fe Railroad's westbound El Capitan streamliner, with no one being hurt seriously.
In Brest, France, it was reported that two large oil tankers had collided and burst into flames in darkness and fog off Brittany this date, taking the lives of eight sailors, with more than 50 having been rescued, rescue efforts having been impaired by the fear of explosions from the burning ships and the fog. Ten of the rescued had been seriously injured, and as of late during the afternoon, none of the seamen were reported missing. Both of the vessels were still burning eight hours after the collision and one was reported settled low in the water.
In Florence, S.C., it was reported that roving reporter Bev Ballard of the Morning News had left for an assignment in Cheraw, 40 miles away, but the newspaper had received a telegram from Martinsville, Va., which read: "Picked up short, stocky man near Society Hill who said he was going to Ft. Bragg, N.C. … Told him I would take him to Cheraw... He stuck a gun in my stomach and said, 'North Carolina', … so we headed for North Carolina." The reporter was unharmed but had lost $20, and indicated that the hitchhiker had forced him to drive on, then made him throw away the ignition keys when the car ran out of gas near Martinsville.
The year's first big heatwave had concentrated this date in the Atlantic Coastal area, shrinking in the face of an eastward moving cold air front from Canada, which had finally brought respite to the Midwest. Since the prior Saturday, the weather, including floods, storms and high temperatures, had accounted for at least 234 deaths, with 206 of them from heat prostration or drowning. Floods had accounted for 28 deaths.
John Jamison of The News reports that city officials had received hundreds of telephone calls the previous day and this date complaining about traffic jams at busy intersections because of traffic lights going haywire or being completely out, seeking to blame the city traffic engineer, Herman Hoose. But the actual problem had been lightning from a storm on Monday night which had upset signal timers at several major intersections. At one intersection, a motorist reported waiting ten minutes before being able to squeeze through and continue on his way to work, that intersection having caused traffic jams both the previous day and this date. The timers were now back in regular operation, after maintenance personnel had struggled with them since the storm. No traffic accidents had been attributed to the signal timer issue.
Dick Young of The News reports that a recommendation by Charlotte Fire Chief Donald Charles to investigate the cost and procedure for fighting aircraft fires at Municipal Airport had been made this date by the airport manager, in the process of reporting to City Manager Henry Yancey on the crash of an Air Force jet at the airport the prior Friday. He had said that if the Chief's recommendations were adopted, the airlines should be required to pay the pro rata cost of such equipment based on their number of flights daily and the value of the aircraft involved, indicating that the requirement could be implemented by the passage of a city ordinance which could be enforced through the Office of Aviation Safety of the Civil Aeronautics Administration. The airport manager further recommended that a crash truck belonging to the airport, in the custody of the City Fire Department, should be returned to the airport. He also indicated that the Fire Department, the Police Department and airport personnel ought be commended for doing an excellent job in controlling the fire after the crash of the jet.
In Memphis, a Louisville paint manufacturer said that what the country needed was not a good five-cent cigar but rather a good depression, indicating that it would solve what he believed was the country's swing away from "basic values", explaining his point of view to a group of public school teachers at Memphis State College, finding the country to be in "serious condition", indicating that many countries at one time or another had enjoyed prosperity but had since disappeared, warning that the U.S. could go out of existence just as they had, "...and believe me we are going."
In Ascot, England, the babe with the
biggest bust in British show business, Sabrina, whose real name was
Norma Sykes, had gate-crashed the hallowed royal enclosure at the
Ascot races the previous day. She was known in the British Isles as
"Television's Dumb Blonde", having become famous by
standing in front of cameras and breathing, with her upper
measurement being 41 inches. Her appearance had created a greater
sensation than the victory of an eight-year old gelding, Bonhomie, in
the feature race of the day, paying 76 to 1 odds. No one who was
divorced was allowed into the royal enclosure, but Sabrina, dressed
in a low-necked, flowered organdy, had walked into the enclosure
without a ticket while the man at the gate was groping around the
royal turf for his eyeballs. Several duchesses hissed, "Scandalous!"
while others among the royalty found it "Shocking!" A
reporter who encountered Sabrina had asked her what she was doing in
the royal enclosure and she giggled that she was looking for the
lady's powder room. After a 15-minute search for it, she departed,
with many royal males looking on with deep interest. Queen Elizabeth
and the other members of the royal family did not appear to notice
her. Her manager had told the press later that her neckline had a
"cowl effect" and was "all right at eye level",
"quite proper for the royal enclosure". Queenie really got into the race
In Raleigh, Governor Luther Hodges
and state dairy princess, Pat Simonds of New Bern, combined their
efforts to milk a Jersey cow on the west lawn of the State Capitol
building, although not receiving much milk from Buttercup, a part of
the herd at N.C. State. The program, sponsored by area dairy
industries, initiated a judging contest later in the day when an area
dairy princess would be chosen, with five girls from eight counties
composing the Raleigh area to compete for the honors and the winner
to compete in a state contest in Winston-Salem on June 17 as part of
the June Dairy Month activities
On the editorial page, "Annexation Means More Than Taxes" indicates that the City Council reportedly was trying to grease the skids for annexation by delaying discussion and final action on a large new budget.
It indicates that the inevitability of larger budgets and taxes was a municipal reality which could not be hidden by studied indifference or temporary neglect. The budget for the coming fiscal year would not impact residents of the perimeter areas proposed for annexation as they would not be taxed until 1960. But people did not like paying taxes, and paying city taxes was one of the realities of annexation if city government was to serve the people.
It indicates that joining the suburbs with the city might seem less attractive when compared with the necessity of city taxes, but seemed more than attractive when there was an effort to imagine the suburbs without the city.
One might say it was akin to a cow's teats without provision of milk.
"Hodges Picks a Pair of Winners" tells of Governor Luther Hodges having selected for the top two jobs in the state's newly streamlined governmental machinery a pair of vigorous young professionals, Paul Johnston, appointed the director of the newly created Department of Administration, and Willard Babcock, appointed director of highways.
Mr. Johnston had served as the Governor's administrative assistant since January, 1955, had valuable legal experience in New York, had been an assistant professor of public law and government at UNC and an assistant director of the Institute of Government in Chapel Hill. He had been the Governor's strong right arm for more than two years and was the acknowledged expert on State Government.
Mr. Babcock, 40, was a transportation engineer who was a member of the N.C. State faculty and a consulting engineer with a national reputation. As a native of Boston, he had become a member of the faculty at age 22 and was awarded a full professorship in 1952, having begun his consulting engineer practice, specializing in traffic and transportation, in 1948, having already helped 35 communities in the Carolinas to unsnarl their traffic, including Greensboro, Durham, High Point, Raleigh, Salisbury, Statesville, Asheboro, Burlington, Laurinburg and Spartanburg. He was the sought after career official for leading the highway reorganization, as was the aim of the legislative act creating the position, changing the character of the leadership from a purely political appointment to one with career expertise.
It finds that both were young enough and energetic enough to help the state significantly achieve a new era of progress and accomplishment.
"Hypocritical Males" indicates that Senator Margaret Chase Smith of Maine had flatly refused to sign a Senate resolution heaping lavish praise on the late Senator McCarthy, while her less fussy male colleagues, many of whom had voted three years earlier to censure the Senator in late 1954, had signed the resolution without protest.
"'Frailty, thy name is woman!' said Shakespeare. He might better have substituted: 'Hypocrisy, thy name is politician!'"
"Weep Not for an Exasperating
Era" finds it inevitable that the death of Peggy Hopkins Joyce
"Not the real but the mythic prompted their praise—a literary stereotype, a Bohemia of expatriation, bathtub gin, joy and wisdom, muckraking and reform, Ziegfield Girls, sudden sophistication, and sex in the rumble seat. They seemed to be worshiping again at the same old monuments Leslie A. Fiedler wrote of in 1955: 'Those underdraped figures and noble poses still declaring, 'Be Free! Be Lost! Have Fun! Make it New!''"
The mourners, it finds, were dealing with only an image of the Twenties, one in part invented by the period and in part reconstructed by the survivors as a kind of "morning after" glow, an era which, nevertheless, had overestimated the worth of its achievements, just as the present underestimated the value of its achievements. It concludes that it was fine to shed a tear for a departed soul but not for a departed era. "If we reflect at all on the Roaring Twenties we reflect with a smile."
A piece from the Henderson (Ky.) Gleaner & Journal, titled "Fishing", indicates that women had many erroneous ideas about men's leisure time activities and it supposes that those misconceptions would continue. Psychologists believed that there were fundamental differences between male and female approaches to many problems, indicating that a woman's nervous system was different from a man's, something of which the piece believes that any husband and father could have informed the psychologists and psychiatrists, but it seemed more authoritative if the latter ran complex experiments and devised complicated charts to illustrate what everyone already knew.
It finds that fishing presented an apt illustration of the divergent viewpoints, with a woman judging fishing by the results, not understanding that a man needed to go fishing at the start of spring, despite the fact that $50 might be spent on fishing equipment to catch a dollar's worth of fish, that it was not about the catch but rather about the feel of the sun, wind and rain on the face, being alone at the edge of a meadow creek or sitting in a boat on a peaceful pond, getting away from the pressures of the office and factory and enjoying nature, returning home a bit tired physically but refueled in heart and mind after a day of fishing. "And of course, there is always the chance he will bring home a good one."
How about an unindicted co-conspirator, who make prize catches?
Drew Pearson indicates that in the London disarmament discussions, Russia had taken over much of the U.S. disarmament plan while the U.S. was bickering over the Old Guard Republican prejudice against modern Republican Harold Stassen as the disarmament negotiator, and regarding the traditional determination by Secretary of State Dulles to put reunification of Germany ahead of peace with Russia.
The Secretary had always bowed when anything German approached, dating from his time as attorney for New York banks when he urged the American public to invest prior to World War II in eventually worthless German bonds. Thus, when West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer was concerned about his re-election and demanded that German unification be placed before disarmament, the Secretary became concerned, with bickering over Mr. Stassen having been one of the byproducts of it, resulting in domestic politics entering the problem of peace, allowing the Russians to obtain credit before the world for taking the initiative on that which the U.S. had been first to propose, the banning of tests of hydrogen bombs, which had been proposed secretly by the U.S. while the Russians had done so publicly.
Mr. Pearson indicates that Mr. Stassen was an excellent negotiator, tough, charming, tireless, who could sit through hours of wrangling and diplomatic abuse, and emerge smiling, urging that they return to the primary point. Even career diplomats who did not particularly like him admitted that he had given disarmament a genuine chance for success. But the more he appeared to be close to success in the talks, the more he was subject to being undercut at home, having been the subject of more leaks as an American diplomatic negotiator than anyone in several years, with every move which might discredit him being leaked. If Secretary Dulles had any long discussion with him during which he voiced criticism, it was leaked as a reprimand to Mr. Stassen, as was any time he stepped on the toes of allies, characterizing it as a diplomatic bungle.
Mr. Pearson indicates that the reason for the leaks was that Mr. Stassen had aggravated the Old Guard Republicans by opposing Richard Nixon for a second term as vice-president at the 1956 Republican convention, and they realized that if he were to succeed at disarmament, his political star would suddenly soar to dangerous heights. Thus, every time he appeared on the verge of success, the men around Vice-President Nixon became concerned. Not only was the peace of the world at stake, but also the presidential nomination for 1960, despite the fact that the peace should not be mixed up with domestic politics.
In consequence, Mr. Stassen was brought home from the London conference when Western allies claimed he had gone over their heads and given a "talking paper" to the Soviets, a paper which he had also provided to the French, British and Germans, but the allies believed that he should have only been talking to them until the West agreed on a common front. Mr. Stassen had believed that the two powers, the U.S. and the Soviets, had the key to disarmament and that if they could agree, the others would join. Allied ambassadors promptly protested to Secretary Dulles that Mr. Stassen had gone over their heads, and the Secretary pretended he knew nothing about it and brought Mr. Stassen home, when he actually had known about it, as Mr. Stassen had kept him informed about everything, having been provided advance authority from Mr. Dulles to talk privately to Soviet Ambassador, Valerian Zorin. Mr. Dulles had become upset only by the fact that Mr. Stassen had allowed himself to be caught.
Mr. Nixon may have picked up the same trait in other, more sinister contexts later on, from Mr. Dulles.
Doris Fleeson indicates that the two new appointments to the Atomic Energy Commission which its chairman, Lewis Strauss, had persuaded the President to make were designed to obtain for him what he had been denied by law, the post of principal officer of the five-man Commission. The two new appointments were of former members of the Truman Administration, John Floberg, former Assistant Secretary of the Navy and presently a Washington lawyer, and John Graham, former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, presently a financial and business consultant in Washington. Both were of unquestioned integrity, amiability and personal charm, having shown capability in their previous roles. But they also had no knowledge of atomic energy, though too gentlemanly to be conspiratorial, a field in which Admiral Strauss was supreme.
They lacked the prestige to command an audience, as could Thomas Murray, the retiring member of the Commission, whose dissents from the views of the chairman had been greeted respectfully all over the world. Mr. Murray, a conservative Democrat, was an engineer-inventor who had accumulated millions with his successful patents and in his profession. The two new appointees, accustomed to cooperation and not command, would be unlikely to set up separate channels of communication with the Senate-House Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, as had Admiral Strauss when he had been a minority member of the AEC during the Truman Administration, prompting Mr. Murray to do the same with respect to Democrats, exhibiting political skill in the process.
Ms. Fleeson suggests that the chairman would thus experience little difficulty in getting around them, as he had done ever so effortlessly with the scientists he had previously selected for the Commission. They would provide a plausible facade for his operations, giving the public the appearance of an independent Commission while complying with the law and the stated intent of Congress, when, in truth, he had created a situation in which the inexperience of the new appointees, in combination with the compliance of the existing members, absorbed in the scientific aspects of nuclear fission, would provide the chairman near absolute power, eliminating dissent.
As it was, Admiral Strauss wore three hats, as the President's adviser on atomic energy and the only member of the Commission to whom the President talked, as a member of the National Security Council, as well as being chairman of the Commission. Now, becoming the principal official on the Commission, he would effectively operate as a department of atomic energy, acting as a secretary with Cabinet status, with the other four commissioners being the equivalent of assistant secretaries for operations, not policy.
Because the President lacked information about nuclear energy except for its military aspects and did not understand the purposes of the law creating the AEC as a nonpartisan agency under civilian control with special responsibility to Congress, the chairman had been able to effect all of his new power. The President had often been provided misinformation by the chairman, as in the Dixon-Yates case, one of the more personally embarrassing episodes of his first term, passing on that misinformation to the public. Admiral Strauss also had the complete cooperation of White House chief of staff Sherman Adams, who ran the daily routine of the President and was his voice in the establishment of domestic governance, except during crises, it being improbable that the President saw anything substantive or anyone important not approved by Mr. Adams, a former Governor of New Hampshire, who had been at the center of every controversy involving the power issue. Because of his influence in the Administration, it was the only issue on which the President had been completely consistent, in spite of political reverses in the Northwest where he had vainly placed his personal prestige on the line, and endured the humiliation of having to cancel the Dixon-Yates contract.
New England had resisted efforts to ameliorate the region's economic issues by introducing public power, much cheaper than power provided by the private utilities. Whenever the activities of Mr. Adams were brought to the fore, he pleaded separation of powers vis-à-vis Congress, and Congress was reluctant to join in that issue, with Democratic liberals conflicting with Admiral Strauss also having convictions about the necessity for a strong executive.
It would be difficult, because of their impeccable backgrounds, to oppose the appointments of the two new members of the AEC, and Mr. Floberg was a Republican and Mr. Graham, a Democrat, satisfying the nonpartisan part of the law creating the Commission. President Truman had been persuaded to appoint Mr. Floberg as Assistant Secretary of the Navy as an act of grace to then-Navy Secretary Francis Matthews, to whom Mr. Floberg was related by marriage. The latter's connection with the Chicago Tribune, represented by his law firm, ensured the support of Senator Everett Dirksen of Illinois in his confirmation. The Senator was the unofficial Senate spokesman for the White House and was expected to succeed Senator William Knowland as Minority Leader.
Mr. Graham was a member of an old and wealthy North Carolina family and he and his wife had been popular in the Truman Administration. Representative Carl Durham of North Carolina was presently the chairman of the Joint Atomic Committee. Mr. Graham's sister, of Boston, was the RNC committeewoman from Massachusetts, a former secretary of the national committee and former deputy administrator of the Civil Defense Administration. Thus, Mr. Graham was also not expected to have any trouble being confirmed.
Admiral Strauss had also been careful to select a Catholic in Mr. Floberg, replacing Mr. Murray, also a Catholic.
Members of Congress, who believed in the need for a strong AEC of diversified talents, would be bitterly disappointed, but would have little opportunity to oppose the new appointees because of their careful selection by Admiral Strauss. Congress had little trouble with a previous selection by the Admiral, a lawyer-politician who was shown to have been one of the trustees of a widow whose husband had owned a bank, with the appointee having wound up, along with the trustees, owning the bank while the widow was left with a modest pension. Republicans had not wished to defend the appointee on the Senate floor, and his name was ultimately withdrawn.
The record showed that anyone who challenged Admiral Strauss's authority on atomic matters disappeared from the scene, and his achievement of even greater dominance over atomic policy would be of great concern to U.S. allies.
Mr. Murray had his greatest differences with the Admiral over what he felt was excessive secrecy by the Commission, a view shared abroad, especially by Britain, and it was known that in the National Security Council, the Admiral had consistently sided with Joint Chiefs chairman Admiral Arthur Radford in attempting to dampen the efforts by Harold Stassen to achieve a disarmament agreement with the Soviets. The British had privately declared that if they had been given more access to U.S. findings on atomic matters, they might never have developed and exploded their own hydrogen bombs.
Members of the Joint Committee disliked Admiral Strauss for his pride, but because he knew what he was doing with respect to nuclear energy, Senators had concluded that he must have an aim, which they believed was to shape the destinies of atomic energy by ensuring that control of its peacetime use and profits would always remain in private hands.
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