The Charlotte News
Friday, June 28, 1957
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page
reports from Lake Charles, La., that Hurricane Audrey
In Pensacola, Fla., a man from Belmont, N.C., listed as missing and presumed dead in a Gulf fishing boat tragedy, had walked into the office of the operating company this date, and a second man who had been listed with the crew had also been located. The 80-foot boat had sunk in the hurricane-lashed water off Galveston, Tex., the prior Wednesday night, after leaving Pensacola on June 11. The company president had also been located in Pensacola, after also being listed by the company as among the missing crewmen. It was explained that the captain of a fishing boat usually signed on a crew just before departure and the company normally did not receive the list of the crew until the return of the vessel. Company officials said that they believed nine men had been aboard the vessel when it had engine trouble on Wednesday morning and was taken in tow by a Coast Guard cutter, with the towline having broken when the seas had swelled in advance of Hurricane Audrey. The cutter reported that the fishing boat raised auxiliary sails and proceeded toward Galveston in full gale winds, striking an oil drilling platform 11 miles from Galveston, where it sank. The Coast Guard had been unable to find any of the crew.
A woman of Belmont said that she was "prepared for the worst" until she heard the news of her husband's good fortune this date, after an official of the firm for which he worked called her brother-in-law and passed the word that her husband was safe.
The hurricane was presently moving up the Mississippi River Valley, and was not likely to reach the Carolinas. At noon this date, it was reported in the area of Memphis, moving northeastward, with winds having diminished to only 17 mph. A high of 90 was forecast for Charlotte during the current afternoon and the following afternoon, with Sunday forecast to be about the same. The low in Charlotte was 71 this date and the low for the following day was forecast as 70, with a prediction of scattered afternoon and evening thundershowers this date and the following day.
In Indianapolis, it was reported that a flash flood swept a commuter bus into a creek at Zionsville this date, drowning two women and trapping several other passengers, after hurricane-spawned cloudbursts had swept across Indiana.
At the atomic test site in Nevada, an atomic test weapon had failed to detonate this date, the third misfire in the history of nuclear tests at the Yucca Flat proving ground. The failure had prompted a team of scientists to enter the area to undertake the job of disarming the powerful device. The Atomic Energy Commission said that a power failure had been responsible for the misfire. Nearly 2,000 Marines had crouched in trenches 4,500 yards from the detonating tower and about 150 newsmen and official observers had been on News Nob at the scheduled hour of detonation. The atomic weapon, named "Diablo", the sixth in the summer test series, remained in silence at the end of the countdown. When it became obvious that there had been a misfire, the observers were permitted to remove their dark glasses but were cautioned to keep their backs to the tower as a protection against the blinding flash of a potential detonation. A captain among the Marines present said that there were some "unprintable comments" after they had waited so long for something which did not occur.
In San Francisco, Secretary of State Dulles denounced Communist China this date as an uncivilized, hostile regime and said that it would be "folly" to establish relations which would enhance the Communists' ability to hurt the U.S. and its allies.
In Rome, Admiral Arleigh Burke, chief of U.S. Naval Operations, declared this date that Russia had built the world's second-largest navy with the aim of preventing Western use of European and Asian waters.
In Bonn, West Germany, a Government spokesman said this date that West Germany could "under no circumstances" provide the Soviet Union a blanket promise to renounce atomic weapons.
In Taipei, Formosa, the flareup in the war between the Chinese Communists and the Chinese Nationalists had tapered off further this date, with the Communists on the mainland having lobbed only 56 shells overnight at the offshore islands, and the Nationalists having returned fire.
A Senate Judiciary subcommittee this date approved legislation to open only "relevant" FBI information to inspection in criminal trials.
In Huntsville, Ala., Army Col. John Nickerson, Jr., who had pleaded guilty on Tuesday to 15 specifications of disobeying orders by turning over secret documents to newspaper editors and members of Congress, and was now engaged in the sentencing phase of his court-martial, implied again this date that he believed the Air Force would accept an inferior ballistic missile before it would accept that of the Army.
In Port Clinton, O., the bodies of a 31-year old woman and her two young daughters had been found this date in the family automobile parked in the garage at their home, with the motor still running.
Dick Bayer of The News reports that halls and offices in the City Police and Fire headquarters this date had been filled with reverberations from the previous night's budget session of the City Council, which tentatively had passed an $85 monthly raise for police patrolmen and sergeants and Fire Department privates and drivers. The Council had also voted to cut vacations of employees with 15 years of service or more back to two weeks from three weeks, which had been granted the previous November. One detective wondered where the incentive was to remain in the law enforcement profession, as most of the officers were too old to start a new career and could not afford "to buck things like this." Another detective questioned why the Council had given them the three-week vacation and then had taken it away. According to the Police Department, there were 59 men with 15 years or more of service who would lose the extra week of vacation.
In Cleveland, O., the co-president of the new United Church of Christ indicated that because of the cumbersome nature of any other name, the members of the church might be compelled to refer to themselves simply as Christians, as opposed to various denominational names.
In Dallas, a flustered young father won an argument with a maternity ward nurse the previous night, unraveling a baby mix-up which had left two mothers with the wrong infants. The 23-year old father had gone to the hospital to take home his wife, 19, and their two-day old daughter. But as the nurse handed him the infant, he protested that it was not their baby, to which the nurse said, "Don't be ridiculous," holding the baby beside his wife's face and indicating, "She looks exactly like her mother." The couple then departed, until they discovered ten minutes later that a name tag on the sleeping infant's wrist had another family name. They then returned to the hospital and found that another mother, who had been presented the original couple's infant, had decided that it was not her own and had checked the wrist of the baby and found another family name. Hospital attendants phoned police and a squad of officers halted the first couple. The mix-up was resolved and the appropriate babies were returned to their proper parents.
On the editorial page, "A Muffler for Park Board Backfires" finds that the Park and Recreation Commission might be the most bumbling governmental body in the contemporary history of the city, warranting grave doubts of its capacity to transact competently the public's business.
There was a pattern of disregard for businesslike procedures, suggesting that the chairman was seeking to run a one-man show, with the Commission's actions not reflecting the mature judgment which ought be expected from the considerable talents and integrity of its members. It explains a few such episodes and suggests that it might bolster public confidence in the Commission's ability to function properly and encourage hope for public support of the needed expansion of recreation facilities in the city were the Commission to familiarize itself with Robert's Rules of Order and abide by the accepted procedures of deliberative bodies, including the holding of public meetings, providing ample notice of the meetings, establishing policy by motion and vote, and keeping adequate records.
As it was, it appeared to be a part of governmental machinery which was backfiring and running without a rudder.
"Police Chiefs Just Don't Seem to Last" finds that the tenures of police chiefs were usually short, with exceptions such as Chief Frank Littlejohn in Charlotte and FBI director J. Edgar Hoover.
It indicates that the reasons for the ouster of James Powell as head of the State Bureau of Investigation and his replacement by former Charlotte chief Walter Anderson were hotly disputed, with the SBI being very tight-lipped about its operations, leaving citizens to choose between the explanation provided by State Attorney General George Patton, who not only had the legal power to discharge Mr. Powell but a reputation for integrity and judiciousness in his decisions, or the explanation provided by Mr. Powell, himself. There had been no evidence that Mr. Powell had been the victim of a political hatchet job, and the new head of the SBI had enough experience, including a prior stint in the same post, to make the SBI work smoothly. It hopes that he would do so.
"What Is Too Much Togetherness?" indicates that Esquire magazine had appeared determined to break up the happy American home, in defense of the harassed male, the head of the family who had too much family and not enough vacation. The question was whether husbands and wives ought take their vacations together or separately.
Edith Efron, writing in the current issue of Esquire, had said: "The American husband and wife, because they spend more time together than the couples of any other civilized nation, have finally become the Bobbsey Twins act of the Western world." She contended that the American male spent more of his time at home than the working man of almost any other nation. She asserted that whether in magazines, on billboards, or on television, people were being constantly confronted with the husband and wife team showing that the "inseparable couple is the only possible form that happiness can take in our monogamic society." Even on vacations, the husband and wife team, plus the children, traveled together, and so she posed the question as to when each spouse got a vacation from the other.
The piece suggests that it was perhaps the reason that the male was becoming increasingly feminized, doing the dishes, changing diapers, cooking outdoor meals, going to the PTA and even learning to operate the washing machine and dishwasher. Maybe it was also the reason that the wife had become increasingly masculinized, as she handled family finances, attended to the painter, the plumber and the carpenter, chauffeured the children from school to meetings and back again, and often went out to take a job on her own.
Some husbands went to conventions and enjoyed some freedom, "whether they throw chairs out the hotel window or just have a beer with the boys. Others go on fishing or hunting trips, where the little woman wouldn't be caught dead anyhow. As for the wives, about their only chance for a vacation is to go home to Mother—and that's not always a vacation after all, for the children usually tag along."
It quotes from Kahlil Gibran, the poet best known for The Prophet: "Let there be spaces in your togetherness." It says that for its part, the wife had already planned their vacations for the ensuing three years, together.
A piece from the Christian Science Monitor, titled "Pity the Poor Monster", indicates that at present when one mentioned a good legend, within a few days someone had organized a 30-man expedition to verify or debunk it, no one seeming to care that verification could kill a legend faster than debunking, that the legend had to remain hazy to be any good.
They had been through the legends of
the Abominable Snowmen and the attempt to capture Venusian
The monster could flee to some nearby lake, but it wonders who ever heard of a Lochy Lochy monster or a Loch Oich monster, finding the idea monstrous.
"We're afraid the jig is up, and LN will have to stay and face the TV lights—without makeup or teleprompter—or be declared imaginary. If we hear any new legends we're going to keep them to ourselves from now on."
Drew Pearson indicates that at his "harmony" breakfast with Republican Congressmen, the President had reported that his foursome golf match with Japanese Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi had ended in a tie. An unidentified guest had quipped, "That sounds like 'customer' golf to me." Representative George Meader of Michigan said, "Yes, Mr. President, people may think that you and the Prime Minister weren't trying very hard to win over each other," to which the President had responded: "We were playing a high-low point match and it worked out that way. Senator Prescott Bush was the Prime Minister's partner and the translator was playing with me." He added that the golf match had produced a friendly reaction in the Japanese press, indicating that one of the Tokyo newspapers had pointed out that unfriendly nations might negotiate at a conference table, but only friends played golf with each other.
As usual, the President strolled from table to table answering questions and trading banter with his guests. When asked about a comment in a recent speech by Democratic Representative Bob Sikes of Florida, in which the Representative had suggested that Democrats ought receive equal time with Republicans at White House breakfasts, the President said that he was paying for the meals out of his own pocket and if the Democrats wanted to come, it was all right with him, provided the Government helped him pay the bill, suggesting that they ask Mr. Sikes what he thought about that. Representative Harry McGregor of Ohio praised the quality of the breakfast bacon and said he was taking it for granted that such good bacon had to come from Ohio.
While Senator Frank Church of Idaho made his first Senate speech, his eight-year old son, a baseball fan, was sitting in the gallery, sitting beside the Senator's secretary, both watching while other Senators swarmed over Senator Church to congratulate him. His son thought the speech was sensational, as did the Senator's secretary, his son commenting that "the Boise Braves made 11 runs in the third inning."
Attorney General Herbert Brownell had not yet ordered the FBI to investigate the big highway scandal in Indiana, in which the head of the carpenters union had been caught cashing in on land which was certain to be bought by the Federal Government for highway projects. Ordinarily, the FBI would be asked to investigate the matter immediately, but the Justice Department merely said that the Attorney General was "evaluating the situation to ascertain what the facts are." Yet, Federal money was involved, and Senator Albert Gore of Tennessee, who had discovered the scandal, had sent all of the facts to Mr. Brownell and urged him to take action. Despite that action, Mr. Brownell was stalling. The head of the carpenters union and his father, who had been previously the longtime head of the same union, were among the few labor leaders who had consistently supported the Republicans, and the present head of the carpenters union was one of only two Indiana delegates to the Republican convention in Chicago in 1952 who had voted for General Eisenhower. In addition, a famed Republican lobbyist from Indiana and a power in the American Legion was a good friend of Mr. Brownell. Mr Pearson concludes: "Maybe two and two make four—in politics as well as arithmetic."
Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona, sometimes called "the Senator from Calizona" because he spent so much time in La Jolla Beach near San Diego, had been getting into more absentee trouble with his constituents, having a home in La Jolla and a home in Phoenix.
Doris Fleeson, in Williamsburg,Va., writes about the recent Governors' Conference at which the President gave a speech urging a study of the return to the states of state functions taken over by the Federal Government through time, received with limited applause and primarily in "dense silence".
She regards the simple truth to be that the governors believed that they knew a lot more about the subject of states' rights than the President and had formed their own judgments, not wishing to devote time and energy to reversing long-established trends toward the Federal Government taking over many functions formerly left to the states. They were not excited about the prospect as outlined by the President.
She indicates that there were potential side effects from the speech. Black leaders had urged the President to visit the segregated South to lend support to the effort to integrate schools in the wake of Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 and 1955, as well as to integrate other public facilities on a case by case basis. He had consistently refused to do so. Now, he had made a speech in Virginia, which had led the fight to circumvent Brown, urging a revivification and preservation of states' rights. Southern governors believed that his effort would garner attention for what they referred to as "the extended debate" on the Administration's civil rights program. They also suggested that they had heard his urging of states' rights before, when he had campaigned in the South. In the same manner, the President had hurt his Federal aid to education bill, which he had urged.
"But the partisan fever is low. It's hot and the governors do try to keep this conclave reasonably unpolluted."
The President had invited the 19 Republican governors to lunch and to engage in strategy huddles with White House staff. The effort was worth their while as Republicans were handicapped by the fact that there were 29 Democratic governors and that Congress was under the control of Democrats, with the chance to improve the situation in 1958 when there were 33 governors up for re-election, among whom were 20 Democrats, with 12 of the Democratic states and eight of the Republican states doubtful. The Democrats had been making uninterrupted gains at the state level since the start of the Administration in 1953 and if the trend were not checked the following year then it could cause problems for the 1960 Republican presidential nominee.
Robert C. Ruark finds that culture had finally come to New York by way of Chicago and New Orleans. To him culture was not having to kiss "16 dames you don't like before you can sit down in a saloon", "smooth booze, quiet, and a gentle air of controlled wickedness", "pretty people to look at the barkeeps that keep bar instead of holding court." There was a joint in town not open to the public which fulfilled his needs, a "mellowed saloon in the Gay Nineties fashion, without singing waiters, which can be entered only by a key which you own", called the Gaslight Club, a branch of the original Chicago effort.
He proceeds to describe it. He disclaims that he was hustling the place as the public could not get in and the membership waiting list was long, but insists that it was the only place of which he knew "where all the beer is imported, all the Scotch is 12 years old, and the youngest bourbon just come seven." It was a great success and appeared hand-tailored for the "Rhet Beuregard-type cuhnels" such as himself. "If we can just foist a little of its kindred culture on that jungle of peculiar drinking laws, Washington, D.C., life will not have been in vain." He finds it a pity that it was not open to the public but suggests that the reader might sneak a spy in and start one of their own in their own hometown. "Culture is indeed a wonderful thing."
If you regard sitting around with a bunch of middle-aged and older men drinking liquor to be "culture", you need to find a new life, for your old one will probably end by 1965 in your late forties, early fifties, as did the life of Mr. Ruark from his excessive indulgence in "culture" of the type he describes.
A letter writer addresses the recent problems arising with the Charlotte Symphony, indicating his belief that a city of the size of Charlotte ought grow culturally as well as industrially, commercially and economically, that when the subject of culture was expressed, it normally arose in terms of artistic expression through various media. Charlotte had its Little Theater, representing the spoken arts, the Mint Museum, representing the pictorial arts, the Choral Society, the Oratorio Singers and the Opera Association, representing the vocal arts, and the Symphony, representing the instrumental arts. The Chamber of Commerce, when promoting the city, emphasized the presence of a symphony orchestra. He suggests that the Symphony belonged to all of the people, not just selected groups. A "committee of seven" had been appointed to examine the past, present and future needs of the Symphony, and he knew personally several of the members, but did not believe that in 15 days they could solve the economic problems of the Symphony or any of its other problems. He believes they should request the dissolution of the present board of the Symphony and recommend appointment of a steering committee comprised of prominent and responsible leaders in the community, regardless of whether they knew or appreciated music, as long as they appreciated the role of symphonic music as a cultural advantage to the city.
A letter writer from Cheraw, S.C., comments on the Supreme Court's ruling reversing the lower Federal courts regarding Communists, whom he believes had "worked to destroy that which we have as a free people under the Constitution." He wants to know why the Court ruled in favor of the Communist Party by upholding some of their practices and having some released and granted a new trial, apparently referring to the June 17 decision in Yates v. U.S., in which the Court, 6 to 1, reversed the convictions under the Smith Act of 14 defendants, five of whom were freed because of insufficient evidence to support the convictions and the other nine remanded for retrial based on erroneous instructions, with Justice Tom Clark dissenting and new Justices William Brennan and Charles Whittaker taking no part in the decision. "We should all be glad when 1960 comes. Maybe by that time the American people will wake up and realize where our nation is headed under the present and future policies of the present administration and maybe they will demand a change without Nixon or Warren and Brownell, or any with such as their ideas are. For it's not for all the people, just their few. We need some men as the late Senator McCarthy to expose some more of the policies of some people and their intentions."
Well, now, let's see heyeh, those Kennedy brothas, they kind of liked old Uncle Joe, and so...
A letter writer says that recently there had been a carnival sponsored by the McCrorey Branch YMCA operated in Charlotte, at which an unfortunate incident had occurred "of a distressing nature, wherein a teen-age Negro woman was sexually molested by a white employe of the carnival." It had been promptly and thoroughly investigated by the YMCA management and the results of the investigation had been reported to the chief of police, Frank Littlejohn, who not only banished the carnival from further operation in the city but also had apprehended the culprit in Wyoming, to which he had fled, and returned him to Charlotte, where he was tried, convicted and sentenced to between five and 15 years in prison. He indicates that Chief Littlejohn believed in protection of all citizens in the community and preserving law and order.
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