The Charlotte News
Saturday, June 8, 1957
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site ed. Note: The front page reports that investigators of the Senate Select Committee, looking into the influence of racketeers and organized crime on unions and management, had said this date that the president of the Bakers Union, James Cross, would have a chance to answer under oath testimony which had linked his name with that of a convicted prostitute, Elsie K. Lower, 26, who had taken the Fifth Amendment the previous day and refused to say whether Mr. Cross had beaten her for giving another man a diamond ring and whether he had provided to her union funds from Washington through his Los Angeles aides. Senator John McClellan of Arkansas, chairman of the Committee, said that Mr. Cross would have the opportunity to comment as a witness after the hearings resumed the following Thursday. Mrs. Lower, exhibiting a bloodshot left eye, refused even to reveal to the Committee whether she knew Mr. Cross, but said that she "imagined so" when asked whether she had received union funds from him. John Nelson, who ran Local 37 as a trustee for Mr. Cross, had some sharp exchanges with the Committee as to whether union funds had gone to Mrs. Lower and whether union "goons" had beaten up a 14-year old boy during the picketing of a Los Angeles bakery. In Los Angeles, police said that a 15-year old boy had been beaten up in a strike at his father's bakery on November 6, 1955.
In Vienna, it was reported that the U.S. Consulate this date had taken away the passports from the two University of South Carolina students who had ventured into Communist Hungary on a lark, and had just been returned, released by the Hungarian police the previous midnight after having been held in jail incommunicado since May 26. They were staying in Vienna lodging arranged for them by the Consulate until the State Department could determine whether they should be allowed to continue their hitchhiking tour of Europe or be ordered to return home. They told reporters that they had taken the trip "for adventure and excitement", indicating that while staying at a youth hostel in the border town of Rust, they had picked up information from the local residents about the pattern of minefields and barbed wire guarding the frontier, learning of a strip of land where crossing could be effected without encountering any such dangers, the location to which they had thus ventured on May 26. They had been picked up by Hungarian border guards about two miles inside Hungary, and were then taken to a military compound the following day, and then moved to Budapest and placed in separate prison cells, where they were treated relatively well and provided three meals per day. They had to undergo several interrogations by Hungarian officials, who had asked them about living conditions in the U.S., about their families and whether they had any relatives abroad. They had been given no contact with U.S. diplomatic officials in Budapest during the entire time of their confinement, despite having sought it. They said they planned to go to West Germany, then to Holland, en route back to the U.S. Consular officials were especially annoyed by their statement that they might do it again, with one official remarking: "These boys knew very well what they were doing was wrong. They knew that their passports forbid travel in Hungary. They knew they had no Hungarian visas. They knew they also were violating Austrian border regulations." He said they wanted to talk to them further and try to impress upon them the seriousness of their conduct, and then the State Department would decide whether they were mature enough to be trusted to travel abroad and could show the proper respect for their passports. Austrian police during the morning had discharged the two students to American custody. They probably would have to remain in Vienna for three or four days until the State Department made its decision.
In Norfolk, Va., an Eastern Air Lines DC-7B plane, with its left outboard engine on fire and its propeller running wildly, had made a dramatic emergency landing at the Norfolk Naval Air Station early this date, with all 68 passengers having scrambled to safety, as firefighters sought to extinguish the blaze. The four-engine plane, en route from Miami to Boston, had caught fire as it was flying over the air station at 19,000 feet, according to the pilot. Unable to extinguish the blaze or control the runaway propeller, the pilot and his crew of five had made the emergency landing, where the plane was met by five Navy emergency vehicles which chased the burning plane down the runway and extinguished the blaze. Passengers had used the emergency canvas chute to slide 16 feet to the ground. Only one injury had occurred, when an unidentified woman had sprained her ankle.
In New York, an official of Billy Graham's Protestant-sponsored New York Crusade said that numerous persons of Roman Catholic background and some of Jewish background were among those making "decisions for Christ" at his nightly meetings in Madison Square Garden. Although a vast majority of them were Protestants, the Reverend Dr. Theodore Taylor, a Crusade official, said that a "significant number" were reared as Catholics and a "very few", as Jews. Thus far, in 24 nights of the Crusade, 14,665 persons had stepped forward to "receive Christ", 763 of whom had done so the previous night, out of about 19,000 persons attending. No statistical breakdown had been made concerning the religious background of those making decisions, and officials declined to estimate the percentage of those from the various faiths. Roman Catholic leaders had advised Catholics not to attend the Protestant-run meetings. The religious background of the New York City population was estimated to be 45 percent Roman Catholic, 25 percent Jewish, 25 percent Protestant and 5 percent Eastern Orthodox. Under a policy determined by the local church-designating committee headed by Dr. Taylor, no cases were referred to Catholic churches. He said that the Catholic church had taken the initiative in putting itself outside of any participation in the Crusade and that they could not very well try to bring their parishes into follow-up work against their stated position.
In Detroit, three small children had been found this date shortly after their distraught mother had telephoned police to say that she had killed them. Officers found the 29-year old woman collapsed and hysterical, and inside her gas-filled house were the bodies of her four-year old son and one and a half-year old daughter in a bathtub partially filled with water, with the other child, six months old, lying in her crib. Police said that two of the children had apparently drowned and the other had died of suffocation. Her husband, a truck driver, was not at home. Neighbors told officers that the mother was a registered nurse at a local hospital. The officers said that she was incoherent and unable to provide an account of what had occurred.
In Conway, S.C., the Horry County grand jury had reported this date that it had found no evidence of misconduct on the part of Sheriff John Henry or his office. Pulitzer Prize-winning editor Horace Carter of Tabor City, N.C., had been largely responsible for the grand jury probe, through reports printed in his weekly newspapers in North and South Carolina. He still maintained that there had been misconduct on the part of some of the Sheriff's deputies. But he said, after being informed of the inaction by the grand jury, that he had never expected an indictment of members of the Sheriff's Department from the Horry County grand jury. Sheriff Henry said that he believed the investigation had been a fair one and that there was never any question in his mind as to how it would come out.
In Asheville, N.C., a witness had testified the previous day that he had seen the McDowell County sheriff with a pistol in his hand, standing over a mortally wounded man seconds after the latter had been shot down on a street in Marion the prior January 28. The sheriff was charged with murder in the trial, with the State presenting only one witness the previous day, indicating that he heard the victim, as he lay in the street, call the sheriff by his first name, and say, "Ashby, you ought not have done me this way." The witness quoted the sheriff as responding, "Wouldn't have, but you said you were going to get me." The victim had returned from Alaska shortly before his death, having left to avoid an appearance before a grand jury probe of illicit liquor trafficking in McDowell County. The sheriff was on a leave of absence from his office during the trial. He had admitted the shooting, but said that it occurred in self-defense, as he believed the victim was reaching for a weapon when he shot him. The State's witness testified that he and his brother were seated in a café when he heard a noise "like a tire blowout", and he then rushed outside to see the sheriff standing over the victim, saying, in response to someone asking where the victim was shot, that he had shot him in the belly. We have to resist the temptation of suggesting that the café was considered a frontier deli.
In Charlotte, a man and a woman were victims of an unknown assailant's shotgun blasts early this date, just after midnight. Detectives were questioning two men who were said to have been at the scene of the shooting earlier the previous evening, but no formal charges had been made by midday. Both of the victims were in the hospital. A man who lived at the address where the shooting occurred had stated to police that three men had been at the house earlier and he had asked them to leave, with one of them having been cleared by the police. The wounded woman told police that she had been sitting in a chair just after midnight when someone had fired a shotgun through a window, causing five pellets to strike her in the left and right shoulders. The wounded man said that he had gone to answer a doorbell at the back door after the woman was shot and that when he had opened the door, he was shot in the right eye and chest. He was hospitalized after it was determined that his lungs had been punctured. He could or would not say who had shot him. Several other persons had been at the scene of the shooting, according to police.
In Raleigh, conference committees from the State House and State Senate had been named this date in an attempt to work out differences between the bills for teacher pay increases passed in each body, with the Senate having voted for a 15 percent increase, as recommended by Governor Luther Hodges, and the House having approved a 16.09 percent increase. The Senate had refused to concur in the higher pay raise the previous night, as part of a 780 million dollar biennial appropriations bill passed by the House, requiring appointment of the conference committee.
Julian Scheer of The News tells of a judge presiding over a term of Superior Court in Burke County trying to find a remedy for arthritis in his leg. He had been seen limping around the courthouse in Morganton and stated that no one appeared to have a remedy for his problem. He had been to several doctors and spent $300 thus far without relief. He had fined a man during the current week's session of court a penny for assaulting his estranged wife and $100 for assaulting her alleged lover. Judge J. C. Rudisill was retiring from the bench after having been one of the most colorful and respected judges around, with newspaper people liking the way he ran his court, and lawyers and solicitors appearing to thrive on his system, whereby a defendant who told the truth was well treated, especially when a first offender. Members of the Mecklenburg County bar would miss him and so would a number of his other friends in the area. Judges J. Frank Huskins and Dan K. Moore—the latter to become Governor between 1965 and 1969 and thereafter to be appointed to the State Supreme Court by his successor, Governor Bob Scott—, held court in air-conditioned courtrooms, while the state's only female Superior Court Judge, Susie Sharp, to be appointed to the State Supreme Court by Governor Terry Sanford and eventually becoming Chief Justice, was holding court in an uncooled courtroom. While Judge Huskins was presiding over criminal cases, Judge Moore held court in the commission room, which had two new air conditioning units. Judge Sharp did not hold court long at the Courthouse, but Mr. Scheer believes the commissioners ought do something about it. Meanwhile, she had invested $3.07 in a seat cushion. (That borders on contempt.)
In Los Angeles, childhood actress Margaret O'Brien was probably through with having to make court appearances to obtain approval of contracts as a minor, having done so for 15 years, as she would be old enough to vote the following January 15 and would no longer need a court's approval. She had been authorized by a court the previous day to enter into an agreement with Maggie Productions, which had signed her to play the title role of "Maggie" in a television series. She owned one-fourth of the company and would start the series at $2,500 per episode.
In Louisa, Ky., 11 years earlier to the date, "Shorty", 18, and "Grandma", 79, had hiked 25 miles from the mountain community of Catt Creek to be married. (It seems only yesterday...) Now, their respective ages were 29 and 90 and although Grandma had shrugged off the anniversary as just "another day", she said she was still satisfied with their marriage. She complimented "Shorty" for his home-loving ways, saying he had never stayed away from home for a single night in their 11 years of marriage. She did criticize him, however, for hardly being able to get up in the morning to build the fire when it was cold, even with three quilts and two blankets. After county health officials had advised her that she had high blood pressure, she had begun spending most of her time in an over-sized rocking chair and had given up the old pipe which she had loved, but said she still liked to chew raw burley leaf occasionally. The most major marital crisis they had faced had occurred the previous year when fire had destroyed their log cabin, where Grandma had lived for 75 years. But Shorty hewed timber and built a new one, though Grandma said she was not fully satisfied, despite electricity having been made available and the donation of new household goods. "Hit hain't the same," she said.
On the editorial page, "UNC Trustees: A Bad 'Reform' Fails" indicates that the State House had decided to do nothing about the shameful system of selecting trustees for the Consolidated University of North Carolina.
Before it had decided to stall the matter by referring it to a study group, the House had almost adopted a "reform" which would have made the present political auction system even more unpalatable to sensible citizens. That latter attempt had failed by one vote to divide the 100 trustees equally between the 100 counties of the state, which would have accomplished nothing more than assuring that the board of trustees, like the General Assembly, would be unrepresentative of population.
Where a man or woman lived in the state had little, if anything, to do with their potential value as a University trustee. It suggests that the trustees ought be chosen on the basis of interest in the University, capability of contributing something of worth to its direction and their willingness to devote time and energy to do the job. Such a choice would be impossible unless reasonable reforms in the selection system were forthcoming, which should consist of finding some alternative to the legislative log-rolling and political bartering which now had a large influence on selection.
It ventures that probably the best solution would be to empower the Governor, as a representative of all of the people, to recommend trustees, while retaining the Assembly's right to appoint them. Complete Assembly control of choosing trustees had not excluded qualified persons from the board, but the goal, it urges, should be the inclusion of more qualified persons.
"Keep the Fallout Question in Focus" indicates that the Senate Internal Security subcommittee's temporary delay of its investigation of nuclear fallout was most welcome, as subcommittee counsel Robert Morris could use the additional time to ponder the wisdom of his attempt gratuitously to portray scientists opposing continued hydrogen bomb testing as part of a Communist conspiracy.
It sees no wisdom in such statements and finds it to hearken of possibly the beginning of a new wave of national hysteria, similar to that initiated by the late Senator McCarthy. In originally announcing the probe, Mr. Morris had not said that he had any evidence that the American scientists had been motivated by Communist sympathies, instead indicating that he would call some of the scientists and see what he could dig up, suggesting a witch-hunting, headline-chasing probe.
The main question before the nation was whether nuclear weapons testing was causing no significant damage to humans, as Government scientists had testified, or whether they were causing shorter lives and adversely impacting health, as some of the private scientists contended. That question was in the capable hands of a subcommittee of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy and the piece indicates that it had to be resolved on the basis of the best scientific evidence available rather than being confused and obscured by "irresponsible spy chasers". It finds the question to be one of competence of the charges brought by the private scientists, led by Nobel Prize winner, Dr. Linus Pauling.
It was well known that the Soviets wanted hydrogen bomb testing ended, but Americans had a right to seek proof that the tests were substantially safe without being likened to Communist sympathizers.
"Lend an Ear to Home-Grown Sounds" indicates that composer and symphony conductor Aaron Copland had recently stated that one would undoubtedly embarrass any typical group of intelligent people if they were asked to name three native-born symphonic composers living and composing in present-day America. He had gone on to say: "Nowadays you run the risk of being greeted by Mozart or Tchaikovsky every time you walk into your bank or your barbershop. Everyone, willy-nilly, is a potential music lover. It is clearly ironic that in such a time, America's composers are so relatively obscure."
American music was, the piece indicates, dying on its feet for lack of an audience, giving rise to Mr. Copland's lament, and the curators of U.S. culture too often deprived audiences of sufficient opportunities to judge contemporary music for what it was worth.
The Charlotte Symphony Orchestra, it ventures, perhaps did a better job than many of its big-city counterparts in sprinkling its programs with the finer efforts of contemporary composers, albeit still leaving something to be desired. At its final concert of the season, when the audience had been invited to make program suggestions for the ensuing season, a mimeographed list of "possibilities" was provided which had all but omitted the modern masters.
Surveys by the composers' committee of the Symphony League and the National Music Council had indicated that the omission was national in scope, with those organizations and others having campaigned for home-grown music for years. During the 1939-40 season, it had been noted that only 8 percent of all compositions performed by U.S. symphony orchestras had been composed by native Americans. During the 1954-55 season, another survey was taken and the percentage was precisely the same as in 1939.
It ventures that it was not because American composers were not producing, with Henry Cowell, William Schuman, Walter Piston, Roy Harris, David Diamond, Peter Mennin, George Antheil and Paul Creston having composed more than 50 symphonies. Charlotte's Lamar Stringfield had produced at least nine major orchestral compositions.
Nor was it the case that U.S. composers had turned out artistically inferior product, with American music having reflected much of the greatness and vitality of the country. In addition to the composers already mentioned in the piece, men such as Charles Ives, Roger Sessions, Virgil Thomson, Howard Hanson, Leonard Bernstein, Samuel Barber, Norman Dello Joio, Alexei Haieff, Alan Hovhaness, Wallingford Riegger, and Mr. Copland had created great music.
"Musical greatness did not die with Brahms. It lives on. It needs only to be heard to be appreciated."
"There Is Still Hope" indicates that things were not nearly so bad as they seemed, with a World Health Organization report making the observation recently that it looked, after all, "as though man may succeed in outwitting the insect." It says that it felt better already.
A piece from the Robesonian in Lumberton, titled "A Pioneer Bumper", finds that a new "wonder car" had been designed by the experts at the Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory to cause accidents to be "as painless as possible" by encircling the automobile with a padded bumper attached directly to the chassis through shock-absorbers.
It indicates that if the apparatus, described as "sleek and powerful", caught on, then the Cornell experts might be getting around to an idea which had originated in Robeson County.
Many years earlier, prior to World War II, a man named Ed Semon had operated a garage at St. Pauls and had spent a lot of his time working on a safe car, the principal feature of which was an encircling bumper made from I-beams. The beams were fastened together to form a continuous channel rail around the car, with a V-shaped front, similar to the bow of a boat, on the theory that if such a car encountered an obstruction, the bumper would receive most of the impact with little damage to the body of the vehicle, and if two such cars collided, the V-shape of their front bumpers would cause them to sideswipe, with the edge of one channel rail fending off the other, avoiding a rollover by either car.
Mr. Semon had his safety rail built to encircle a 1936 Plymouth, calling it a "Safe-O-Car", and proceeded to try to sell the idea to automobile manufacturers, but had been unsuccessful, with one of the reasons for rejecting it having been that it was too rigid. Fenders and radiator shells presently crumpled in accidents but absorbed a lot of the force of impact. Mr. Semon believed, however, that they had rejected his idea so that they could sell more replacement body parts. (They had probably rejected it because other, conventional cars would have been encountering the equivalent of a small bulldozer or steam locomotive, with not so safe results.)
The shock-absorbing bumper designed at Cornell apparently would produce the same crash-absorbing effect. So it now appeared that a similar design to the "Safe-O-Car" was on its way to being incorporated into American cars.
In the meantime, it ventures a guess that the 1936 car, with its heavy, encircling steel I-beam, probably had not survived the wartime scrap metal drive.
Drew Pearson tells of it having been an impassioned plea by Secretary of State Dulles which had finally caused the President to reverse himself regarding turning over Army Sgt. William Girard to the Japanese for a civilian trial regarding the homicide of a Japanese woman who was shot by the sergeant while she was scavenging scrap metal on a firing range which the sergeant was assigned to guard. The President had started out firmly behind the Army and Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson in believing that Mr. Girard, since having been discharged from the Army, ought face a U.S. court-martial. But then Secretary Dulles had injected the future of American-Asiatic policy into the argument, warning that resentment against American soldiers in Asia was so great that it might require withdrawal of U.S. troops from nearly every Asiatic country. Japan, he informed, had even threatened to scrap the mutual defense treaty if Sgt. Girard were tried by the U.S. and not Japanese civilian authorities. Secretary Dulles had also warned that trouble was brewing in South Korea, where six South Koreans charged an American soldier, Sgt. John Wilson, with an alleged robbery. A U.S. Army sergeant in Formosa had been acquitted by an Army court-martial on charges of killing a Chinese citizen for allegedly peeping into his home, an acquittal which had precipitated the Formosan riots recently. That had played into Communist hands and aroused Asiatic populations to a dangerous pitch. Secretary Dulles had also given the Cabinet a new version of the accidental killing of the Japanese housewife on the firing range, indicating that Sgt. Girard was believed to have deliberately coaxed the Japanese woman onto the range by offering to allow her some scrap metal for which she was scavenging, and then, when she got close, fired an empty cartridge case from a grenade launcher to scare her, with the shell case accidentally hitting and killing her. Secretary of Defense Wilson had disputed that version offered by Secretary Dulles, claiming instead that Sgt. Girard had fired in the line of duty and was thus under the Army's jurisdiction. The President had sided with Mr. Wilson until Mr. Dulles had argued that the entire Asiatic relations, including those with the Philippines, were at stake, and then reversed himself.
One important potential trouble spot, Mr. Pearson advises, was in Greece, where all Americans working for the Government still had the extraterritorial right of trial in their own courts, no matter what they did. The State Department had long wanted to change that status, but the Army opposed the change despite the Greeks resenting it bitterly.
The Supreme Court decision earlier in the week, divorcing General Motors from Du Pont, would create some problems for retiring Secretary of the Treasury George Humphrey, to become head of National Steel, 28 percent of which was owned by Mr. Humphrey's former company, M. A. Hanna Co. Since Du Pont was now not permitted to own 23 percent of G.M., it would be difficult for the Hanna Co. to maintain its 28 percent of National Steel without also running afoul of the antitrust laws, in this instance, the Clayton Act. Mr. Humphrey had built up the Hanna Co. to become one of the most powerful industrial holding companies in the country, including coal, iron, steel, nickel, rayon and even biscuits. His son had now succeeded him as head of the company and Mr. Humphrey, himself, was to become head of the affiliated National Steel. Mr. Pearson indicates it would be interesting to see whether Attorney General Herbert Brownell would now start an antitrust lawsuit against Mr. Humphrey in his new job.
When he departed the Cabinet, Mr. Humphrey would avoid the responsibility of whether to charge the Du Ponts a capital gains tax when they sold their General Motors stock. Since the Government was forcing the sale of the stock, it was debatable whether the sellers would be charged a capital gains tax, which would equate to an extra half billion dollars to the Government if the Treasury decided to collect it. But that would have to be decided by Robert Anderson, the successor to Mr. Humphrey.
Old Guard Republicans shuddered to think that a Supreme Court Justice appointed by the President, William Brennan of New Jersey, had written two of the most historic and liberal opinions of the year, which might have been expected from Justices Hugo Black or William O. Douglas, but not from an Eisenhower appointee. Justice Brennan had written both June 3 opinions, that divorcing G.M. from Du Pont and that in Jencks v. U.S., requiring production of FBI files for in camera inspection by the trial court to determine their potential use by the defense for impeachment, in a situation where the Government wanted to base its prosecution in part on those files.
Walter Lippmann indicates that, despite the U.S. China policy remaining unchanged, there had been a change of feeling about it, with the number of true believers in it having dwindled to the point that they were able to control the policy because no one in a responsible position had developed a reasonable alternative. That change in feeling had caused the perfunctory reaction in the U.S. to the Formosa riots recently and to the British abandonment of the special trade restrictions. There had been a general feeling that even if the China policy was still the best possible policy, it was a poor policy nevertheless, as all of the U.S. assets were deteriorating, with Chiang Kai-shek getting older and his chance of ever restoring power on the mainland having disappeared. His Army, though large in numbers, was also growing older and could not recruit many Chinese. Communist China was still being denied a seat at the U.N., but only because friends of the U.S. were willing to defer temporarily to the U.S. position, even if the allies disagreed with it. But otherwise, there was surely a majority in the U.N. who would vote to provide the Communist Chinese the China seat.
As the Formosan riots had indicated, within Formosa there was a general sense of frustration, with the Chinese who had fled there being contained inside the island, an unhealthy situation whereby they were safe, subsidized and yet without hope of returning to the mainland. It was inexorably heading toward a situation in which the Chinese on the island would be induced to join the Chinese on the mainland to work out a deal after the death of Chiang. Such a deal would place Formosa back under the rule of the mainland Government. Only a counter-revolution on the mainland, highly improbable, could make that prospect change.
The weakness of the China policy was that the U.S. was saying one thing about Formosa and doing something very different, saying that Chiang's Government was the legitimate and rightful government of all of China, while keeping Chiang tied down in Formosa and not helping his Government recover the territory on the mainland, of which it was supposed to be the legitimate sovereign. To do so would involve the U.S. in a war and the U.S. had thus not objected to having word passed to Chou En-lai on the mainland that there would be no military invasion there. Although officially, the U.S. did not recognize the Government of Mao Tse-tung, unofficially the U.S. was compelled to recognize its existence. For some time, the U.S. had been conducting diplomatic negotiations with Communist China in Geneva.
Thus, while U.S. legal policy was that there was one China with Chiang being the head of its legitimate government, the real policy was to have two Chinas, separated by the Seventh Fleet, with one on the mainland and one in Formosa. The real policy was fundamentally sound and correct, corresponding to U.S. commitments of honor, to the political realities in the Far East and to U.S. strategic interests. But as things were at present, it had a fatal weakness in that it was almost certain to break down because it had no legal and political basis and thus the Chinese had every incentive to break it down.
Mr. Lippmann says that his view was that the object of the China policy ought be political settlement with all the Chinese based on the principle that Formosa was to have special status, with the U.S. proposing that under the protection and guardianship of the U.N., Formosa would be recognized as autonomous, demilitarized and neutralized Chinese territory with its own seat in the General Assembly. If Communist China agreed to such a settlement, it would become the basis of a peace treaty.
Joseph Alsop, in Beirut, Lebanon, tells of an approaching election in which the Government was doomed to defeat in a fair vote, with the opposition parties having resorted to mob violence and acts of individual terrorism. They had wanted martyrs and by almost literally pushing their unfortunate followers upon the guns of the security forces, they had made martyrs in the recent riots. Above all, they had wished to avoid at all cost the proof that any Arab country could decisively reject in a fair vote the peculiar brand of Arab nationalism being peddled by their real leader, Egypt's Premier Gamal Abdel Nasser.
Thus, with the active help of the Egyptian, Syrian and Communist agents who swarmed in Lebanon, the opposition parties had sought to make the coming vote appear unfair by the simple expedient of staining it with blood.
The brunt of it had fallen on Lebanon's three leaders, President Camille Chamoun, Prime Minister Samiel-Sohl and Foreign Minister Charles Malik. The mob violence had been controlled but a new campaign of terrorism had been started when a Syrian, no doubt one of the agents of Premier Nasser's ally, Col. Abdel Hamid Serraj, had tossed a primitive dynamite bomb into one of the crowded streets in the center of Beirut at around noon.
It was thus no wonder that Mr. Malik ushered his guests, including Mr. Alsop, into the study with an Arab preoccupation unsuited to an evening at home. Greetings had hardly been exchanged when there had been a screech of automobile tires somewhere down the street, followed by a loud, dull boom. Mrs. Malik had brought drinks and then said casually that there had been another bomb. Mr. Malik simply said, "Of course", and launched unconcernedly into a discussion of the recent events in Lebanon. The telephone rang and it was President Chamoun, and after he had hung up, Mr. Malik said to his wife that they were standing firm.
A tough-looking security officer assigned to the neighborhood had entered the room, saying that he had seen the bombers and had gotten the license number of their vehicle, which was a Syrian car, saying it was like the previous fall when the Egyptian military attaché had been throwing his bombs, with the security agent indicating that he had been on that case, too.
Mr. Malik, after ascertaining that no real damage had been done, indicated that perhaps it was only by doing such things that they could learn of the real danger of their situation. He than continued with a pointed analysis of the Egyptian Government's new and more conciliatory attitude to the U.S., Britain and one or two other Arab countries, such as Jordan and Egypt, indicating that Premier Nasser obviously wanted a breathing spell to unfreeze Egyptian assets frozen in New York and London. But the real test, Mr. Malik had said, was not whether Premier Nasser was temporarily polite to the Lebanese Government but whether the Premier continued his venomous hostility to the allies of the West, his active support of the enemies of the West and his close cooperation with Communists and fellow-travelers in other Arab countries. The situation in Lebanon at present was proof enough that Premier Nasser had not yet changed in any fundamental way.
Mr. Malik added that if Premier Nasser was really willing to devote himself to rebuilding Egypt and if he proved by deeds his readiness to allow other Arab lands to work out their own futures, then a "new look" should be taken, thus providing the only sensible answer to the great problem raised by the jink in the Egyptian policy line, which Mr. Alsop had discussed in his column two days earlier.
Doris Fleeson indicates that many Democrats in and out of Congress were unhappy about the contradictory actions of their Congressional majorities in the present struggle regarding the budget and defense. Republicans were split on the issue and their actions were dramatic because they were focused on the great personality of the recently re-elected President.
Conservative Republicans felt they had been betrayed and liberal Republicans were enraged at the apparent stupidity of their party, turning its back on the President, who had led them out of 20 years in the political wilderness. As a result of that conflict, the intraparty fight was real and not a sham battle, with the people involved acting like New Dealers, creating the excitement which alone aroused the voters.
In contrast, the Democrats appeared to be merely feeling poorly and piddling around, with no one having mustered a good hate in the old Democratic manner such that the party could choose sides, engage in a fracas and attract attention. Democrats were only trailing the Republican opposition to the President and were thus boring the public, not attracting votes, campaign funding or involving fun.
The reason for the confusion was that no sure guides were appearing to the voters' state of mind. Members of Congress were receiving mail which had never been lighter on a supposed major issue as the budget. One member of the House from the Midwest had remarked on it with a tart comment on the weather.
Former President Truman could bring greater pro and con mail into his office than President Eisenhower had done with both his budget and foreign aid speeches. Others found it unbelievable that voter reaction was so tepid.
In a larger sense, the failure of both parties in Congress to present a picture of party responsibility faithful to a coherent philosophy of government signaled far-reaching changes. Some experienced politicians were almost frightened by it. They believed that Congress and the country had become so accustomed to leaning on a strong President that progress was impossible without one. They viewed Congress and the President as abdicating responsibility.
The group of Democrats who wanted to tie the party to an expanding economy with all of its costs and risks were privately vocal, having found no one to carry on the fight against Senator Lyndon Johnson's Majority Leadership in the Senate, reflecting Southern conservatism. Those Democrats would not dare upset House Speaker Sam Rayburn and did not know what to do.
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