The Charlotte News
Wednesday, June 5, 1957
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page
reports that the President said this date at his press conference
that he would favor a complete ban on testing of atomic weaponry,
provided there would be total and complete disarmament. He said that
he would like to allay worldwide anxiety regarding fallout radiation,
but indicated that the U.S. could never join any ban of testing
unless there were an agreement with Russia against use of atomic
weapons. Questions had been addressed to him about the testimony the
previous day to a Joint Atomic Energy subcommittee by geneticists and
other scientists that fallout radiation from nuclear weapons tests
would damage hundreds of thousands and perhaps millions of yet unborn
persons, producing physical deformities, shortened lifespans, and
mental defects. The President was asked whether, in light of the
testimony, the country should continue with nuclear tests. He
responded that some of the scientists who had made the statements
appeared to have ventured outside their field of competence and that
it appeared to be an organized sort of thing, though indicating it
was not organization in any evil sense, but that he personally
preferred to base his judgment on a study of the situation published
the previous October by the National Academy of Sciences. He said
that he was concerned about fallout danger to future generations but
was also concerned about the defense of the country. He said that the
U.S. had succeeded in reducing fallout in nuclear tests by 90 percent of
what it had previously been. A good portion of the press conference
was devoted to the fallout concern, but in reply to a question, the President had also
said that he did not look with any favor on suggestions that he make
an effort to appear on Russian television and radio to reply to
Communist Party Secretary Nikita Khrushchev, who had made an
appearance the prior Sunday on "Face the Nation"
The President also said that he doubted the U.S. would ever again detonate one of the large hydrogen bombs for testing purposes. He did not explain further what he meant. He said that the Government had determined that the hydrogen bomb, proportionate to its size, was one of the cleanest atomic weapons in terms of radioactive fallout. He said that the U.S. would join an international agreement to end atomic testing only if it was part of a safeguarded disarmament program to prevent the use of nuclear weapons in any future war.
AEC commissioner Willard Libby this date had told the Joint Atomic Energy subcommittee, investigating the effects of radiation and fallout, that nuclear testing was a "small risk" which had to be measured against "the risk of annihilation which might result if we surrendered the weapons which are so essential to our freedom and actual survival." He said that it was not contended that there was no risk, but that there were risks in many human activities, such as the 40,000 annual highway deaths, the risk of drowning at beaches and accidents in the home. That is very comforting to know.
At Yucca Flat, Nev., a small nuclear device had been exploded for the first time from a balloon 500 feet above the surface of the desert in the early morning. It was barely discernible in Las Vegas, about 70 miles distant. The Atomic Energy Commission said that officials at the control point, about 15 miles from the balloon, had seen a brief flash, and several seconds later, the usual mushroom cloud had appeared. Dr. Gerald W. Johnson, test director from the University of California's radiation laboratory at Livermore, which had designed the device, said that from a technical standpoint, the test had been successful. Observers said that it appeared smaller than the detonation the prior Sunday, which was estimated at two kilotons, the equivalent of 2,000 tons of TNT. Newsmen had observed the blast from about 60 miles from ground zero. Radioactive fallout was expected to be maintained at a minimum, according to the AEC. About 45 experiments, including 16 on military effects, had been conducted. One experiment, using several rabbits, had been designed to determine the sensitivity of the eye to a nuclear flash. Eighteen aircraft, most of which were flying support missions, were in the area. The next shot in the series would be on June 10, also from a balloon. This third shot originally had been scheduled for Monday morning, but was delayed twice because of adverse weather.
In New York, the former Margaret Truman, daughter of the former President, had given birth to a six-pound, eight-ounce boy this date, with both the mother and son "doing fine". Her husband, Clifton Daniel, originally from Zebulon, N.C., said that she was "very happy" and that he was tired but also happy. The former President and wife Bess said that they also were "very happy" about their first grandchild. The Trumans had left their Independence, Mo., home by train early this date and were scheduled to arrive in New York City the following morning. The couple had been married in Independence on April 21, 1956. Mr. Daniel had been a foreign correspondent during and after World War II and was presently a member of the New York Times staff. No name for the child had yet been chosen. In Zebulon, the parents of Mr. Daniel were delighted at the news also. They were planning to travel to New York sometime soon, but did not know just when.
In Kansas City, Kans., a 26-year old woman from Lewisville, Ark., had found her four children the previous day after searching over much of the nation for 18 months for them. She told a judge that she had last seen them on the night of December 15, 1955 at Piggott, Ark., where the family then lived. She said that she had gone to church, returned home to find her husband and the children missing. Her search had led her to Michigan, Illinois, Tennessee, Louisiana and California, before finally going to live with her parents in Lewisville. Recently, she had been informed of the motor number of a black 1949 model car which her husband owned, and she had written to officials of the 48 states asking each if they had such a car registered. She received replies from all except six states, having received a letter from Topeka recently which said that they did have such a car registered. She then went to Kansas City and hired two attorneys and they obtained a habeas corpus order from a judge the previous day, after which an officer had taken the woman to the address on the car's registration and found her children there, with her husband being at work in a junkyard. The mother was recognized by the three older children, ages seven, six and four, but the baby, not yet three, could not remember her. The judge ordered the father to appear in court and provide his side of the story or he would have no hesitancy in providing the children to their mother.
In Rutherfordton, N.C., a flash flood, produced by several inches of rain during the previous two days, had struck a low area of the downtown this date, driving a number of families from their homes. The waters, which had reached knee-deep in houses, flooding cellars and rising above the hoods of parked automobiles, had receded later in the morning. No injuries had been reported and no damage estimate was yet available. More rain was expected.
In Raleigh, the possibility of a prolonged fight on the issue of a pay raise for school teachers loomed this date as the State Senate Appropriations Committee chairman prepared to report the bill to the Senate floor, after the Committee had voted 13 to 10 the previous day to accept a 15 percent pay raise for teachers, as recommended by its subcommittee and by Governor Luther Hodges. The House Appropriations Committee, however, had rejected the 15 percent pay raise and voted to increase salaries of classroom teachers by 16.09 percent, with that Committee set to meet again this date. The difference between the committees would delay final adjournment during the week, but there was still hope that they might adjourn by Saturday, as the spending bill could be approved in one day. If the two bodies could not agree, the bill would be sent to a conference committee for reconciliation. The House Committee had voted 34 to 24 against the 15 percent increase. About 2.5 million dollars in additional funding would be required to pay the difference between the 16.09 percent increase and the 15 percent increase.
Also in Raleigh, legislation to require the NAACP and other organizations active in the field of race relations to furnish the State Secretary of State annual reports on their finances, including a list of their dues-paying members, had been approved by the House Corporations Committee this date. A plan proposed by Representative Frank Snepp of Mecklenburg County would not have required a listing of dues-paying members. The bill would exempt religious groups, and would only apply to corporations and unincorporated associations whose principal activity was promoting or opposing segregation of public facilities. A Senate committee, meanwhile, killed a bill which would control the retail price of beer.
The News would start the "Famous Fathers Game" on Monday, open to boys and girls 18 years old or younger, offering first and second prizes totaling $300, a gift certificate worth $150 for the father and a $50 savings bond for first place, and a gift certificate for $75 and a $25 savings bond for second place. In advertisements in the Monday newspaper, there would be pictures of many famous fathers, and with each picture, there would be a blank for the contestant to fill in the name of the father pictured. The deadline for entries to the contest would be June 12 at midnight. A list appears of the donating businesses. The contest was in honor of Father's Day, June 16. But you never even told on the front page who won the Mother's Day contest for the best letter indicating, "I love my mother because…" We think you may just be leading the young people on to make fools of themselves by entering these contests, and then not following through by awarding the prizes.
In Columbia, S.C., it was reported that the Central Baptist-St. Peter's church league softball result had not been critical in league standings, but Central Baptist had been relieved to obtain a nine to eight win over Outlaw and Sin, the opposing pitchers, the previous night.
In New York, a male penguin, misnamed Annie, would help dedicate the city's new 1.5 million dollar aquarium this date, when he bit a ribbon wrapped around a smelt. Annie had previously been in the city's old aquarium at the Battery, which had been closed in 1941. The new aquarium of concrete, glass and gray brick was on the boardwalk at Coney Island. Facilities for residents included a huge 100,000-gallon marine pool. An affable walrus named Olaf was the most spectacular resident of the pool, said to be the only walrus in captivity in North America. There were hundreds of other exhibits, including tropical fish, electric eels, sharks, turtles and the penguin.
On the editorial page, "Shelve the Shame and Build Anew" finds it a shame that there had been an apparent collapse of interest in the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra, responsibility for which had to be shared by the community and the organization's directors. Only a new burst of interest and dedication could save it from slow death. It was undergoing a genuine crisis but one which still could be overcome.
A combination of problems had plagued the Symphony for years, with controversy involving the conductor, performers and potential performers having accounted for some of the problems. But the present crisis arose primarily from the apparent inability of the board of directors to mobilize and maintain genuine enthusiasm for the Symphony, with the board failing to elicit sizable support for it from the grassroots of the community.
It urges that the Symphony could not be allowed to die, and even if it could be sustained on a shoestring budget, then it should be, as the city needed a symphony and a good one. Cutting corners during the coming season did not need to be fatal to it, as it could survive without high-priced guest performances and a permanent conductor. The interim could be used for soul-searching about the manner in which the sagging fortunes could be repaired, with some organizational streamlining and future operations planned with more boldness, imagination and vigor than in the recent past.
The city had the resources to support a creditable symphony and had the people who would give their support to it, provided they were properly mobilized. It urges the community to get to work on it.
Here is how to do it: Commission a composer who will take as his or her subject NASCAR, and run with it, with each movement titled, respectively, Ford, Chevrolet, Dodge, and Nash-Rambler, with a special coda, denominated "The Checkered Flag". The prelude will, of course, bear the title, "Start Your Engines". They will be turning them away at the door for every performance. The only possible problem is a copyright suit by P. D. Q. Bach.
"The Fifth Amendment Is Here To Stay" questions whether the Fifth Amendment offered the same protection at present as it did when it was ratified in 1791, having been asserted by assorted Communists, racketeers and rapscallions.
It indicates that in a decision of the Supreme Court, which had garnered little notice, there had been a reassessment of the Amendment. The case involved New York lawyer Max Halperin, indicted with two others for conspiracy to defraud the Government. When he had appeared before the grand jury, he invoked the Fifth Amendment, and he and his co-defendants had been indicted. At the trial, he responded to the same questions on which he had previously asserted the privilege, and his prior refusal to answer was used by the prosecution to reflect on his credibility at trial as an inconsistent statement. (The facts are somewhat more complicated. Mr. Halperin had responded to the same questions at trial by asserting that his association with a co-defendant was innocent of any criminal misconduct, whereas before the grand jury, he had asserted the privilege and refused to testify as to whether he knew the co-defendant. The prosecutor then cross-examined him at trial on the alleged inconsistency between the assertion of the privilege before the grand jury and the subsequent testimony on the same subject at trial and the trial court had also instructed the jury that they could use his prior silence before the grand jury on the same matter on which he tesitified at trial to assess his credibility. The Supreme Court found that there was no true inconsistency at issue such that Mr. Halperin could be cross-examined on credibility, as Mr. Halperin had asserted the privilege before the grand jury with the statement that he did so while asserting his innocence of the charge of participation in the alleged conspiracy, distinguishing the facts from that of a prior Supreme Court holding arising in a different factual context.) The Supreme Court found the allowance of the cross-examination and the trial court's instruction on the point to be prejudicial error, reversed and ordered a new trial. (Similarly, it is impermissible, under the 1965 holding of Griffin v. California, applicable to the states via the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, for a prosecutor to comment at trial on the silence of a defendant in the face of a criminal accusation, as that transgresses the privilege against self-incrimination, and so the principle involved in the holding in Halperin, a Federal case, forecasts the decision in Griffin, though the 1957 case was not cited therein.)
Thus, the Court had indicated that those who asserted the privilege could not be regarded as being necessarily guilty of wrongdoing, thus bolstering the traditional precept in law that a person was presumed to be innocent until proven guilty. Justice Hugo Black, in a concurrence joined by Chief Justice Earl Warren, and Justices William O. Douglas and William Brennan, had stated: "I can think of no special circumstances that would justify use of a constitutional privilege to discredit or convict a person who asserts it. The value of these constitutional privileges is largely destroyed if persons can be penalized for relying on them."
Consistent with that notion, the dean of the Harvard Law School, Erwin Griswold, as quoted in Halperin, had earlier stated: "Too many, even those who should be better advised, view this privilege as a shelter for wrongdoers. They too readily assume that those who invoke it are either guilty of crime or commit perjury in claiming the privilege."
The piece finds that a moral issue was involved in the assertion of the privilege, as well as the legal issue. There remained some doubt in the minds of many Americans as to what could be morally inferred from the legally justified assertion of the privilege. It cites an example of a school bus driver who might be asked by a school board whether he peddled dope to schoolchildren, that if he refused to answer under the Fifth Amendment, the school board would likely feel morally bound to discontinue his services.
It concludes that the privilege was properly available to the guilty as well as the innocent, as one of the safeguards of liberty and justice which placed the burden of proof on the accuser rather than the accused.
As we have commented before, the basic logical reason for the burden of proof being on the prosecution is that the prosecution is bringing the charge and it is quite difficult to prove a negative. The presumption of innocence is only a natural consequence of that burden of proof being on the prosecution. The presumption, in other words, is rebuttable by the prosecution showing beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty of the charged crime. These are not mere legal technicalities, as some people try cynically to suggest, but are at the basic root and foundation of our jurisprudential system, without which, there is no law, only star-chamber type pronouncements and inquisitions, fit only for autocratic states. If the prosecutor fails to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt, the defendant is not just "getting off" by dint of a quirk in the law, but rather has, while not truly being found "innocent", as "not guilty" is another way of saying that guilt has not been proved, nevertheless been found by a fact-finder not to have committed the charged crime because of insufficient evidence proffered to show guilt.
An abstract and rather intricate example of that principle arises from a hypothetical rendition of the case in the news the previous day out of Hackensack, N.J., involving the former Marine found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced automatically to death for there having been no jury recommendation of mercy. Had the defendant, instead of pleading guilty in 1971 to second-degree murder in exchange for an indicated sentence whereby the remainder of the active service was suspended on condition of a five-year probationary term, chosen to proceed to a second trial after his conviction was reversed by the Federal courts on habeas corpus because of the involuntariness of his confession and certain admissions made to State-appointed pychiatrists during his initial custodial detention, would he have been convicted, assuming an honorable application by a second jury of the presumption of innocence
Leaving aside practical considerations that the case was notorious in 1957 and received great local publicity, involving as it did the brutal murder of a 15-year old girl, resulting in his first conviction and long-avoided death penalty having been likely generally known to the pool of potential jurors even in 1971, what would have been the evidence remaining against him after exclusion in the second trial of his confession and admissions? The defendant's bloody shoes matching plaster-molds of footprints found at the scene of the murder, collected by police from a garbage pail at the direction of defendant, likely would have been deemed inadmissibly tainted on retrial, as the basis for the search had been the admissions and confession of the accused at the time, thus likely fruit of the poisonous tree. Likewise would have been the bloody trousers and socks, with blood consistent with the type-O blood of the victim and inconsistent with the type-A blood of the defendant, located independently by the police in the woods after they had been discarded by the defendant, but only through his tainted confesssion and admissions as to the fact of his having discarded them and why, despite the pants, with the socks in the pockets, having been discovered in a different location from that which he had specified, and so also likely to be held inadmissible as fruit of the poisonous tree. The original statements of the defendant's wife to police regarding the blood-stained pants belonging to her husband, could not be admitted at a second trial either, as she had not been apprised of the privilege of a spouse not to testify or provide a statement against the other spouse. Nor would the defendant's own admission of ownership of the various items of recovered clothing have been admissible for it having come within the tainted confession and admissions, and as to the pants and socks, only after he was confronted with his wife's tainted statement. For the same reason, his knee injuries, examined and photographed during the tainted custodial investigation, and his statements about how he got them, would be inadmissible, though a prosecutor might argue persuasively that the examination and photograph of them, apart from the explanation, might be considered sufficiently independent of the tainted statements and unduly prolonged custodial detention without Miranda-type warnings to be admissible. The State, however, had no independent evidence that the defendant had ever been with the victim on the night of the murder or at any other time other than from his own tainted confession and admissions. And every bit of evidence the authorities obtained from the defendant's residence was accomplished without a warrant based only on the probable cause obtained from his tainted statements, and any consent, which the District Court stated was not obtained, would have been, in any event, vitiated by as much coercion as found by the District Court to be attendant the confession and admissions, and thus also excludable. Though the defendant was fingerprinted during the tainted detention, no fingerprints were in evidence to connect him with the crime scene or the victim.
That left only the independently verifiable fact that defendant had borrowed his friend's Mercury between 6:30 and about 9:45 on the night of the murder, that the car had two bloodstains in it, one on the driver's seat and the other on a mat, though apparently not typed, and the missing baseball bat from the back seat area of that car, a bat owned by the car's owner, which was found "ingrained with blood", though again not typed, discarded off the road a short distance from the sand pit where the victim's body was discovered. (Only the defendant's pants, socks and shoes were typed as O, consistent with the blood-type of the victim, according to the 1958 State Supreme Court opinion, and those would be inadmissible in the hypothetical second trial as derived only from the tainted statements by the accused.)
And there was also room for reasonable doubt to be raised by the defense from among the other friends of the defendant who knew the deceased or had access to the areas containing the remaining blood evidence in the case, the car and the baseball bat, and the scene of the crime, including "D.H." who had dated the deceased by his own admission on several occasions, had seen the victim's sister walking on the evening of the murder and was observed by the victim's sister driving by, alone, at around 50-60 mph at between 9:05 and 9:10, even though he had something of an alibi, adduced from the testimony of his employer and some friends, though not for the whole of the time during which the autopsy indicated could have encompassed the time of the victim's death, which could not be determined precisely because of about 12 hours having elapsed between the time of the autopsy at 1:00 p.m. and the time of death, and the fact of it having been cold at the time, a fact which the autopsist stated could have altered the time beween death and the onset of rigor mortis, on which he based his estimate of time of death. (William F. Buckley's statement in the 1971 interview with the freed defendant, linked above, however, that one critical factor for him in being convinced of the defendant's innocence was that the autopsy determined time of death between 12:00 and 1:00 a.m., a time for which the defendant had an alibi, at least from some indeterminate time within 30 minutes of 9:45 onward, the time it would have taken him after a phone call to the Mercury's owner at 9:15 to drive the Mercury back to the owner's home, was not dispositive, as the time of death, according to the autopsist, could have tracked back to an earlier time, even earlier than 11:00 p.m., as the victim had last been seen alive by anyone, other than from the inadmissible admissions of the defendant, at 8:30 when she departed the friend's house to walk home, and was not seen on the street by her sister between 8:40 and 8:50 when she walked from their home to the friend's home to find out her sister had left twenty minutes earlier. The State had theorized that the defendant had picked up the victim on the street as she walked home, knowing her casually, and had driven her to the sand pit at between 8:30 and 9:00, that soon thereafter, the defendant had begun forcing his attentions on her, prompting her resistance and exit from the car, that, fearful of her telling her parents of the encounter, he then grabbed the baseball bat, followed and hit the back of her head with the bat, thereafter dragged her unconscious body to the sand pit and killed her by bludgeoning her head with rocks which bore her blood.)
And there were other doubt-raising details to be gleaned from both the State Supreme Court's recitation of the facts and that by the Federal District Court in May, 1971, the latter reversing the conviction after remand from the Supreme Court in 1968 to hold an evidentiary hearing to determine the voluntariness of the confession and admissions. Would the totality of that doubt, in the abstract, apart from prior publicity of the case and any probable knowledge of it by the potential second trial jurors in Hackensack, have been sufficient to warrant a jury in finding failure of the prosecution to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, without the tainted confession and admissions and the fruit derived from that poisonous tree being admissible at the second trial? You be the judge, bearing in mind that, notwithstanding the way we have worded the inquiry for the sake of argument, the burden always remains with the prosecution to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt and never shifts in the case to the defendant to raise doubt, that being, however, the proper role of defense counsel arguing the case to the jury in summation, assuming, for obvious reasons, that the defendant would not have testified in a second trial.
In so weighing the evidence, you cannot simply assume that the confession and admissions must have been accurate or the accused would not have uttered them, and so assume from your prior knowledge of the case, regardless of the rules of the case applied to exclude the admissions, that the statements are in evidence when they are not. There is a reason for the exclusion, again, not just as a legal technicality to punish the prosecution for overstepping its bounds in extracting the admissions by subtle coercion. The Federal District Court determined that the will of the accused was overborne by the persistent questioning by a team of skilled interrogators over a long period of hours without the accused being permitted any sleep or respite or admonition of his rights to remain silent and to have an attorney present during questioning. While not using the literal "rubber-hose treatment" to extract the confession and admissions, another form of mental coercion was used, as the Federal court delineated. Thus, one cannot place any reliance on the accuracy or truthfulness of the confession and admissions, including any admission of guilt of the crime. In a practical sense, the exclusion of such a tainted statement is to ensure the validity of any such properly taken statement, that it is truly given voluntarily and accurately, without promise of lenience, as was implicitly provided the accused when the interrogators brought up another case where an accused received only seven years after confessing to murder of his brother, or resort to such emotional appeals as religion and conscience, as was done, as well as communicating false statements regarding the accumulating evidence, which made the weight of it seem to the accused to suggest a fait accompli from which he could not escape, and so, combined with the other factors, causing him to succumb to the pressure, assuming that, to accommodate the interrogators and prosecutor and perhaps gain their favor for receipt of lenience, he tells them what he believes they wish to hear. Should the resulting unreliable statement from such a process be used to obtain a conviction?
Nor can you, of course, resort to the subsequent 1976 stabbing and kidnaping incident for which the defendant was found guilty in San Diego and sentenced to life without possibility of parole. Aside from that case not having occurred yet in 1971, without the prior plea to second-degree murder in 1971 and the prior reversed conviction and death penalty verdict from 1957 persistently hanging over him after his release in 1971, could it be honestly said that the latter incident would have occurred anyway? Did one thing, in other words, lead to the other
It should also be noted that the yellow-press treatment of the case, as with virtually all such notorious cases involving violent, bloody death, which later branded the freed defendant as a "con man" who "duped" Mr. Buckley and others into helping him to be freed in 1971, ignores the facts that he was only released from custody in 1971 but was still a probationer and thus not "free", and also that he pleaded guilty to second-degree murder. Thus calling him a con man who duped anyone is rather strange and appears to blink, long after the fact, some of the key points of the reversal of his conviction. But little else would be expected from the yellow press which does not sell print without some sensational headline and hook from the hookers who incessantly write the crap and routinely undermine and mock the American justice system in the process.
"'Mighty Proud of Not Being Proud'" indicates that the Hartford Courant in Connecticut had just learned that Jody Elizabeth Shattuck, Miss Georgia of 1957, had in fact been born and bred in Connecticut. The newspaper said that some months earlier it had commented on the fact that New England girls hardly ever won national beauty contests anymore, and now it found that the explanation was that they raised them while others showed them off.
The newspaper had also noted that a man from Gastonbury, Conn., had been one of the pioneers in starting the peach industry in Georgia. "The Yankee peddler, the Yankee schoolteacher, the Yankee missionary have all sprung from Connecticut to bring wares, learning and salvation to less favored folk."
The piece objects, suggests that the peach trees would have withered and died in New England's rocky soil, that the Yankee peddlers and others had not come to the South to sell but rather to settle, and it would not be surprised if the whole state of Connecticut moved into a corner of Georgia, with about 12 times the area, finding that it would do "those Yankees a world of good, actually. Would teach them humility. For if there is one thing that distinguishes us southerners from our po relations from up yonder it is that we are mighty proud of not being proud."
A piece from the Greensboro Daily News, titled "Of Soda-Jerking Days", indicates that the Raleigh News & Observer, in a nostalgic piece about the departure of the "male soda clerk", had bemoaned the sort of individual who never did exist. It finds that the soda fountains usually had high school or college-age youngsters behind them and when the fountain business slacked off during the winter months, one of the regular drugstore clerks tended to the soda fountain. Business picked up on Saturdays, during court week and on first Mondays, and, if possible, some lad around town was added for those occasions. As soon as school was out, the summer soda jerk assumed a full-time seasonal job.
The soda jerk was not, as the News & Observer had claimed: "A cross between an Irish bartender, the town crier and a psychiatrist." He knew which of the regular customers wanted lemon, a dash of cherry syrup or even ammonia in his or her Coca-Cola, but his store of information did not go far beyond that. He was interested in the girls who came in and frequently kept other customers waiting while he overdid the service for them, even sitting down at the table and chatting with them while they sipped their soft drinks or ate their sundaes.
The soda jerk primarily grumbled about having to scrub the fountain every morning, wash and put the glasses on the drain board every night before closing, and condemned audibly and more frequently in his mind those who messed up tables for him to clean, while griping about customers who came in just around closing time and kept him waiting for between 15 and 20 minutes while they dawdled over what he had served them.
The life of the soda jerk fell in many instances upon pleasant ways, but if the Raleigh newspaper thought that all was merriment, camaraderie and ease, it suggests that they should have worked behind the soda fountain over one July Fourth in the manner in which North Carolina towns had once celebrated them, with a countryside attendance whose appetite for cool drinks and ice cream was insatiable. It says that its soda-jerking days were thankfully one era which was well behind.
Drew Pearson indicates that his column had been the first to reveal that former Congressman Franklin Roosevelt, Jr., had been hired by dictator Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic, and so he deems it only fair to report on other relatives of those in high places who had been "playing footsie with the Caesar of the Caribbean." The list included the son-in-law of Secretary of State Dulles, Robert Hinshaw, the brother-in-law of the President, Col. Gordon Moore, and the former Assistant Secretary of State in charge of Latin American affairs, Henry Holland.
The chief source of Dictator Trujillo's wealth was the Dominican sugar industry, owning most of the sugar mills in the country, and so it was no accident that Congress the previous year had increased the quota of Dominican sugar admitted to the U.S., taking the action despite opposing pressure from beet sugar growers in the Rocky Mountain states and the cane growers in Louisiana.
In 1954, Mr. Hinshaw had offered to help Sr. Trujillo get his sugar quota increased, and the dictator had sent his personal plane, a luxurious flying yacht, to fly the daughter of Secretary Dulles, Mr. Hinshaw and their children to the Dominican Republic, where they remained for three months in a beautiful seashore hotel, running up a large bill, during which time Mr. Hinshaw had sought to promote several deals with the dictator, finally overstayed his welcome and Sr. Trujillo paid his bills. When asked by the column why he had not registered as a foreign agent, as required when an American worked for or accepted funds to represent a foreign government, Mr. Hinshaw stated that he did not do any work for Sr. Trujillo. When informed by the column that some people registered when they received expenses from a foreign government, Mr. Hinshaw admitted that his expenses had been paid, but did not agree that he should have registered.
Under the Foreign Registration Act, there was nothing wrong with an American working for a foreign government, but it was stated that the American public had a right to know when someone was so working. The law firm of Secretary Dulles had been registered in the past as working for various foreign governments, as had been the law firm of former Secretary of State Dean Acheson, and it was a criminal offense not to register. He notes that the Justice Department had recently indicted John Frank, a former FBI agent who had wired the palace of Sr. Trujillo for sound, for failing to register as a foreign agent.
One former high official who had helped get the sugar quota increased for Sr. Trujillo had been Mr. Holland, the former top official in the State Department for Latin American affairs. He had scarcely departed the Department when he went to the Dominican Republic, making several trips and also joining the payroll of Sr. Trujillo's mining consultant, William Pawley, the former U.S. Ambassador to Brazil.
The most highly connected of Americans in the Dominican Republic was the President's brother-in-law, Col. Moore, retired from the Army, frequently at the White House. His appearances in the background of the President's nationwide telecasts had not hurt his prestige in Washington, where much depended on influence.
Marquis Childs indicates that the power of Congress to investigate had been carried to an extent that it had become virtually a separate and somewhat autonomous function, independent of the power to pass legislation, a view held by those who saw the resignation of Dave Beck as president of the Teamsters Union as being a direct consequence of the investigation by the Senate Select Committee on racketeering and organized crime influence within unions and management, thus far heavily focusing on the Teamsters.
Mr. Beck was also under indictment for evasion of income taxes and whether he could obtain a fair jury trial in the current climate was a question.
There were likely to be even more shocking revelations from the Committee when it would begin delving into the situation in New York, highlighted by the recent dismissal of the pending indictment against Johnny Dio for having been involved in a conspiracy to blind labor columnist Victor Riesel, after the Government's key pair of witnesses refused to testify because of underworld intimidation.
Where the investigation would lead regarding new legislation remained uncertain. Committee chairman, Senator John McClellan of Arkansas, had introduced a "right-to-work" amendment to the civil rights bill, similar to the provisions in 17 states, forbidding compulsory union membership under union shop contracts, the Federal amendment seen as an effort by Senator McClellan to burden the civil rights bill so as to defeat it. But there was growing sentiment for right-to-work legislation at the Federal level, with Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona being one of the most persistent advocates of it, having been considering introduction of the same type of amendment as a civil right in itself.
Union leaders and others had suspected that right-to-work was a front to destroy the trade unions, with Senator Goldwater leading the charge, denied by the Senator, stating in a letter to Mr. Childs that he took issue with the claim, saying that he had been speaking out against the misuse of union funds, insisting that his targets were not only dishonest use of money by Mr. Beck but also that of Walter Reuther, head of UAW, for taking compulsory dues of members belonging to one party and spending it on candidates of another. He went on to condemn the violence at the Kohler plant in Wisconsin and the Perfect Circle plant in Indiana, and the use of about a million dollars by David McDonald, president of the United Steelworkers, from union funds to obtain his union election. Senator Goldwater said that he staunchly defended the right of workers to organize as long as the unions did not infringe the rights guaranteed by the Constitution.
He had thus implied a power of Congress to investigate not only dishonest conduct but also immoral conduct, opening new territory for committees.
The charge had often been made that committees had long earlier encroached on the right of free thought and expression, and if they now were investigating immoral conduct, they were setting themselves up as a censor to an extent which would have astonished the Founders.
Robert C. Ruark, back in New York, says he was with evangelist Billy Graham's battle against Satan in New York. He says his own history of being saved went back to Billy Sunday, a reformed baseball player who had started itinerant preaching from tents for a small fee on the "corn pone circuit". He remembered, in response, having given up smoking for a week and stopped his cutting of school for nearly a month after his grandfather had dragged him to hear the evangelist.
He says that his great-uncle had been a Holy Roller who spoke in unknown tongues. He remembered a lot of camp meetings in and around his home territory at the Cape Fear River, where everyone, including the preacher, was full of sin and eager to admit it. People would confess to sins they never knew they had so as not to be left out. He always felt they were bragging a little.
At the black revival meetings, he was imbued with an even more powerful sense, as they seemed to be more intimate with the Lord than were the white folks. "They treated Him as a friend, and they were even a mite tolerant of the Devil." The meetings were held usually in the woods, "amid an aura of fried fish, home-made whisky, and hand-sewn chocolate cake. The preacher was always fat, off his tithe of fried chicken and scuppernong wine, and he invariably sang bass and had a personal feud with the Devil. He also brought enlightenment to the Sistren, and I have checked just recently on one divorce proceeding in which the preacher was confronted with 25 co-respondents in a dee-vorce suit. Everybody stood up staunch and hollered, 'It's a lie!'"
He had the feeling that Dr. Graham was missing some props in his fight against evil, not having fried chicken, fried fish, firelight and a "good Devil-biting bass singer". "And Madison Square Garden, as a site for scourging sin, seems just a touch sterile when one considers the recreational possibilities of the piney woods."
A letter writer suggests that the economy had expanded enormously without a corresponding increase in court facilities locally, and to keep up with the increasing caseloads, the courts leaned more heavily on the advice and assistance of the bar. He finds that when someone among the bar abused court processes, it was rare that they were disciplined by the bar. He suggests that control of the courts by the bar had been illustrated during the previous few years when the Legislature had authorized some additional Superior Court judges, appointed by the governor on recommendation of the bar associations, when obtaining the recommendation required behind-the-scenes activity by successful appointees, and in election campaigns, a candidate for judge could not hope to be successful without the support of the bar association. He finds that judges were only figureheads, rubber-stamping decisions already made in the coffee shop, over the telephone or on the golf course, with the innocent litigant paying in loss of property and human rights. He suggests delegation of authority by judges to referees, and finds that a program of court reform proposed by State Senator J. Spencer Bell to be a step in the right direction.
Framed Edition
Links-Date — Links-Subj.