The Charlotte News
Tuesday, July 9, 1957
ONE EDITORIAL
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that Senator William Knowland of California, Minority Leader, had said this date that the President had not closed the door against "clarifying" amendments to the House-passed civil rights bill, speaking to reporters after meeting with the President, indicating that the President was "taking a hands-off attitude toward possible Senate action to soften terms of the measure," with it never having been the President's attitude that when a measure was before Congress, there should not be any clarifying amendments to it. Previously, the President had expressed surprise that Senator Richard Russell of Georgia and other Southern opponents of the bill had described it in such terms as "vicious". Senator Russell had asked for a conference with the President, and White House press secretary James Hagerty said that one would be arranged later. Senator Knowland said that he would be willing to consider changes in the language of the House bill, language which Senator Russell and other Southerners had regarded as reaffirming the authority of the President to use troops to enforce civil rights, Senator Knowland indicating that the Senate could not consider such changes, however, until the bill actually came before the body. The Senator said that he hoped that a vote could be held during the week on whether his move to call up the bill by lengthening the sessions could take place, but that he and his supporters would not decide until Thursday whether to try to hold the Senate in session continuously on Friday and Saturday in an effort to get it to a vote, to overcome a Southern filibuster. He said there would be a serious problem if a vote on the motion was delayed beyond the current week. He said earlier he had told the President that debate on the bill might last between four and eight weeks, or possibly longer.
In Knoxville, Tenn., defense attorneys had asked penetrating questions this date about the "sociological and political science teachings" at the University of Tennessee, in the process of examining a female prospective juror to sit in the contempt trial of 15 co-defendants and John Kasper, the latter from Baltimore, a confirmed segregationist, their contempt citations having arisen from their activities the prior fall in connection with the integration of the Clinton, Tenn., High School. The previous day, several persons with connections to education had been asked similar questions, for instance whether they had attended conferences of the National Convention of the Parent-Teachers Association. The courtroom was again full and before the session, a number of persons had again approached Mr. Kasper, had shaken his hand and wished him well. One teenage girl had leaned over his shoulder after he had taken his seat with the other defendants and provided him a stick of chewing gum. One prospective juror, a 63-year old mortician from Clinton, had been rejected by the defense on cause, after he said he believed that Mr. Kasper was responsible for the racial disturbances at Clinton.
In Paris, Russian-born George Zlatovski, indicted in New York on a charge of spying for the Soviet Union, had stated this date that France had granted to him and his wife political asylum, though a Government spokesman for the Foreign Ministry had denied it, stating that the question of political asylum would only arise if and when the U.S. formally asked for the couple's extradition, which had not yet occurred. Mr. Zlatovski was a naturalized American who had formerly been a lieutenant in U.S. Army intelligence, indicted by a Federal grand jury in New York the previous day, along with his wife, after the U.S. Government had linked them to an international spy ring headed by Jack Soble, currently awaiting sentence in New York as a confessed leader in the spy plot. The U.S. Attorney in New York said that the French Government had been asked to return the couple to the United States even though the offense might not be deemed extraditable.
Secretary of Commerce Sinclair Weeks said this date that the Administration would not gamble with national security by premature removal of the country's total embargo on trade with Communist China.
In Jerusalem, an Israeli spokesman said that five members of a security patrol had been wounded this date in an exchange of heavy gunfire at the Syrian border.
In Moscow, it was reported that the Soviet press had hinted strongly this date that the way was being cleared to expel V. M. Molotov, Georgi Malenkov and Lazar Kaganovich from the Soviet Communist Party, after they had been removed as members of the ruling Presidium the previous week.
In Chicago, it was reported that discovery of element 102, Nobelium, the tenth and newest synthetic uranium element of the atomic age, had been announced this date by a joint international research team from the U.S., Britain and Sweden.
In Tehran, the head of Iran's security department said this date that Iranian authorities had stopped a Communist plot to blow up the huge Abadan oil refineries.
In Rome, it was reported that the death toll of one of Europe's worst July heat waves had risen this date to at least 288, including 52 enfeebled patients in Italy's crowded homes for the aged. Showers appeared to have dissipated the nine-day heat wave across northern Europe. But throughout central Europe and down the Italian peninsula, deaths continued to rise with no relief in sight, following a week of 100-degree temperatures, taking at least 96 lives in Italy. West Germany had suffered at least 68 deaths, 50 of which had been from drowning. Temperatures there were decreasing back to the middle 80's, but water shortage and danger of infection had caused some communities to close public swimming pools. Austria was suffering its worst heat wave since 1873, reporting 35 deaths. The engineer of a local train near Weiner had collapsed and fallen from his cab, and the train had continued to run with no one at the controls until a fireman had pulled an emergency brake. In the Netherlands, 29 had drowned, but temperatures had dropped into the 70's, and in France, 25 had died, plus 12 in Belgium.
In New York, Billy Graham would resume his Crusade in Madison Square Garden this night after having taken the previous night off to obtain some rest, as he had done the prior Monday. The Crusade would last through July 20.
In Hamilton, Bermuda, it was reported that passengers aboard a British cruise ship, still stuck on a coral reef off Bermuda, had been cheered this date by cleared weather and renewed efforts to pull the vessel free, after a barge had been brought alongside it to receive cargo in an attempt to reduce its weight that it might be floated off the shoal. No attempt had been made to remove the 556 passengers or 300 crew members. The ship had ridden out rain squalls and high seas during the night, and had flashed warnings to other vessels that it was not in control and was a menace to navigation. No one had been reported injured and the ship was not considered in immediate danger as it perched close to deep water. The ship had been en route from Bermuda to Liverpool. Help was on the way…
In Havana, a strong earth tremor this date had shaken Santiago de Cuba, the second largest city of the country, with no damage or injuries reported.
The Miami Weather Bureau this date reported the presence of an area of "below normal pressure" in the Panama Canal Zone, but said that other weather conditions were normal in the tropical Atlantic, Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico.
The President was planning to vacation during the summer at the U.S. Naval Base in Narragansett Bay, near Newport, R.I.
In Los Angeles, actress Gail Russell, 32, had been arraigned on a felony drunk driving charge, and was facing a civil lawsuit claiming $7,500 (or $75,000) in damages as a result of the incident in which she had allegedly driven her new car through a café window on July 4, the suit having been filed by a 21-year old janitor alleging that he had been seriously injured when pinned under her car while cleaning up the closed café. Her preliminary hearing was set for July 19 on the drunk driving charge and she was released on $1,000 bail, telling newsmen that she was "very sorry it happened."
Frank Sims of Charlotte, chairman of the Mecklenburg County ABC Board, had been charged the previous day in an indictment in Raleigh by a Wake County grand jury with registering for a hotel room under a false name, resulting from an investigation of alleged gifts of liquor to legislators in Raleigh during the 1957 legislative session. Mr. Sims had told the State ABC Board earlier that he had registered in a room of the Sir Walter Hotel under the name "A. B. Carter", and the grand jury had indicted him based on a 1921 law forbidding false registration in a hotel. But the law excluded peace officers of the state, provided the officer revealed his true identity to the clerk or proprietor of the hotel, and officials of the hotel would likely testify that Mr. Sims had told them his true identity when he had first checked in, leaving a legal question as to whether he qualified as a "peace officer".
Julian Scheer of The News reports that if the vote on the city limits extension measure was favorable the following Monday, it would not go into effect before 1960 when services would be extended to the newly added perimeter areas, and thus City taxes would not begin until that time. A table is provided to show how much the extension of the city limits would add to taxes of those dwelling in the perimeter areas.
John Jamison of The News reports that County officials this date were investigating whether illegal payments had been made to jurors in the county, following the Superior Court solicitor having excused six of 12 persons selected for jury duty the previous day, challenging the six because they had served as jurors during the previous two years. One attorney had recalled a 1935 public-local law which said that it was illegal to pay jurors who had served more than once in the course of a year, but County officials had not been able to determine yet whether the law was still in effect and whether some illegal payments thus had been made in the past. If the law remained valid, the County had made illegal payments of seven dollars each to some jurors as recently as the previous day. Judge Dan K. Moore, future Governor between 1965 and 1969 and later State Supreme Court Justice, said this date that he was not aware of the old law or whether illegal payments might have been made. Three of the jurors discharged and paid off the previous day had served within the previous six months. Many of those who had been excused by the solicitor had been selected by the Sheriff's Department from off the streets and by ordering deputies around the county to summon men and women for jury duty, after the jurors picked regularly for the venire had been excused. The solicitor said that he believed the jury ought represent a diversified cross-section of all walks of life and that it was not good to have too many retired persons on a jury. Some attorneys said this date that there were quite a number of the informally selected jurors on juries, that they sat near the courtroom waiting to be asked to serve, presumably for the per diem.
In Los Angeles, a woman, 84, had purchased an egg which she had brought to her daughter's home in Los Angeles from her home in Yuma, Ariz., finding it to be without a yolk—which is nevertheless kind of funny.
On the editorial page, "Turks Turn Iron Jaw toward Soviet and Fight Disease & Hunger at Home", a by-lined piece by News editor Cecil Prince, writing from Istanbul, says that the visitor in the city was first impressed by movement, "pulsating crowds surging in all directions at once."
Dr. J. O. Bailey, on leave from UNC's English Department to teach during the current year at Robert College and the University of Istanbul, had said: "Since the beginning of history, Turkey has been the bridge between Asia and Europe. It is more than that today. It is the link between yesterday and tomorrow." He and his wife had been in Istanbul for a year teaching English and American literature, while witnessing startling evolutions in Turkish life and culture, the wife of Dr. Bailey finding it wonderful and exciting, making them almost sorry that they had to return to Chapel Hill.
Since World War II, the Kemalist movement in Turkey, which entailed Westernization plus nationalism, had been completely revitalized, with presently new measures being taken to reshape Turkey's political, economic and social concepts and institutions.
The U.S. had no better friend in that part of the world and the Soviets had no more determined enemy, with one high official in Turkey in the foreign office remarking that Cyprus was only a trifling problem at present, while the real problem was the Soviet Union on its border. It represented a real problem for the peace of mind of the country and its security. "But this plucky, iron-jawed republic betrays no fear—only a grim realization of its vulnerability and a determination to resist intimidation in any form."
Turkey was still a victim of its oriental past, with traces of Middle Eastern feudalism still visible. Its most famous institution was perhaps Istanbul's Grand Bazaar, a seemingly endless series of tunnels, caves, arcades and tiny shops which entered the sides of the city's hills. The tunnels had been dug as a protection against bandits in medieval times and had once been used to stable the sultan's cavalry, now containing 3,000 shops along 40 miles of streets under one roof, where one could purchase virtually any type of handicraft.
Modern Turkey was, however, passing from village handicrafts to major industrialization, with the change occurring so fast that the country's economic growing pains were acute. The Turkish currency was artificially pegged by the Government at about 5 to 1 U.S. dollar, with tourists able to get a much better exchange rate, up to 20 to 1, on the black market, which existed nearly everywhere.
A counselor to the Prime Minister and former undersecretary of state in the Ministry of Economics had said that they were having economic troubles because they were spending so much on progress, but believed they had to hurry along because of the Soviet threat, with progress in agriculture having to match the progress in manufacturing.
Life in the 33,000 villages of the country was dismal and difficult, and despite Government efforts to improve it, the increase in rural income had been followed by a strong migration to the cities, resulting in small-shack communities, including huts built overnight, despite being forbidden by law. Once those huts were erected, they remained standing, with such communities generally being without water, roads, electricity or basic sanitary safeguards. Such conditions had heightened the danger of Communism and the fear of it among the upper classes.
Not long earlier, Mahmut Makal, a teenage schoolmaster, had published an account of village life in the country, which had included so much detail that he was imprisoned for a time under the mistaken belief that he was a Communist.
The Westernization of the country was one of the wonders of modern civilization. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the dictator who had died in 1938, had begun a social revolution which was without parallel in the Islamic world, discarding sultans, fezzes, harems and establishing the Republic of Turkey, bringing in teachers, doctors and social workers, eliminating the veils of women and giving them education, self-respect and an equal place in the life of the country. But the dictator had also fostered the exaltation of the Turkish national state and Turkish people as a balance to his Westernization program. He had encouraged language reform during the 1930's, which involved the Sun Language theory, the idea that all languages of the world were derived from Turkish. Under it, Turkish historians had proclaimed that most of the great peoples of the past were either true Turks or were elevated to their positions through Turkish influence.
Unlike their Arab neighbors, the Turks had their own brand of nationalism, which had contributed to their political stability and friendliness toward the West. Many Turks were embittered about Cyprus, but some were not, as one young Turkish journalist had proclaimed: "Unless the island is partitioned and Turkey gets its rightful share, we will fight!" But an Ankara correspondent of one of four leading newspapers in Istanbul stated: "Of course, partition of the island is the only sensible solution. But it will no doubt be worked out peacefully through the United Nations."
Mr. Prince finds that most Turks would dislike the idea of having an island completely under the domination of Greece just 40 miles off the coast of Turkey, but many were not so sure that the U.S. would not come to Turkey's rescue if that were imminent, as they commonly believed that they were holding the line against Communism in that part of the world and that the U.S. had an obligation to help them.
"Despite the reluctance of the United States to get involved in a local dispute, America is popular here. 'It is a Cadillac country and we are still driving horse-carts and Chevrolets,' is the way one of the young Turks expressed it this week. 'But one day with America's help, we will be driving Cadillacs, too.'"
A piece from the Christian Science Monitor, titled "Lost in the Fronds", finds that an Oscar for the best work in plastic by a supporting designer would go to the set man at Twentieth Century-Fox who kept the palm trees in "South Pacific" from looking substandard. According to the studio, the palm trees on location in Hawaii had not looked authentic enough and so Hollywood-created plaster and plastic ones had been shipped to the location to add authenticity.
It finds it in keeping with a grand tradition of changing plots because famous authors did not know how to turn out a good story line, substituting starlets for charwomen to improve the tone of social dramas and generally playing hanky-panky with the original intent of the artist and nature.
It wonders, however, what would become of real palm trees when millions of moviegoers got the idea that they were inferior to the ersatz version. It suggests they might fall into the same disrepute as the symphony orchestra whose treble response did not measure up to its own hi-fi recordings, or as the works of the old masters, grimed through aging, not so bright as the new reproductions available from joining a book club.
"But the 'South Pacific' crew have a vested interest in real palms—in such Hollywood adjuncts as Sunset Boulevard, Palm Springs, and Indio—so maybe they'll find a way of slipping a few into the script without disenchanting any evenings."
Drew Pearson indicates that Senator Joseph O'Mahoney of Wyoming had argued on the Senate floor recently that it was dangerous to rush legislation through the body, and that the Senate should not bypass Rule 14, requiring legislation to go through an appropriate committee, referencing the civil rights bill which had recently passed the House. The previous week, Senator O'Mahoney had nevertheless rushed the so-called "FBI bill" through the Senate Judiciary Committee in record time, only to have other colleagues prove that haste made for sloppy legislation, as the FBI bill, designed to protect FBI files in the wake of the Supreme Court case of Jencks v. U.S., was now found to have loopholes which would set back judicial procedure for many years. Senators Sam Ervin of North Carolina and John McClellan of Arkansas, both former judges, appeared concerned over the haste with which the bill had come before them on the Judiciary Committee. Now, Southern legal experts pointed out that if the civil rights bill were to pass, the South would benefit most from the right to examine pertinent portions of FBI files, for the FBI would be sent into the South to investigate violations of civil rights under the pending bill. Senator Ervin had spent weeks arguing for the right to a jury trial, as an amendment to the civil rights bill, whenever an offending party under the bill was found in contempt for violation of a court order protecting minority rights. But under the decision, defense lawyers would have the right to examine statements made to the FBI, in an effort to impeach the testimony offered against their clients, whereas the FBI bill would curtail that right. Yet, Senators James Eastland of Mississippi and Olin Johnston of South Carolina, also members of the Judiciary Committee and opponents of civil rights, had been among those who wanted to approve the FBI bill in record time.
When Attorney General Herbert Brownell testified before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee, Senator O'Mahoney had asked whether there were any further questions, to which counsel for the subcommittee had answered in the affirmative, questioning the Attorney General on whether it was true that his bill merely clarified Jencks, and did not change other judicial proceedings, in reply to which, the Attorney General merely said that the bill spoke for itself. Senator O'Mahoney, however, stated in reply to the question that he believed the bill did exactly what subcommittee counsel had implied.
The bill had been provided to the subcommittee by Assistant Attorney General William Rogers, and Senator O'Mahoney had apparently not studied it as carefully as he did most bills. The latter had spent weeks defending the Supreme Court when President Roosevelt had wanted to override it, but on this occasion had spent only a few hours studying the FBI bill to override it. Legal experts now believed that the FBI bill would override not merely the Supreme Court, but years of judicial procedure worked out by the courts and the American Bar Association to protect individuals from oppressive Government tactics. They believed it would permit the Government to prosecute corporations in antitrust cases without giving them the right to see files of a competing firm on which the prosecution was based, that in tax cases, the Government could seize an individual's files and financial statements, and the taxpayer would not be able to access them, that it would eliminate Rule 16 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Judicial Procedure, the right of discovery.
Mr. Pearson indicates that to obtain a clearer picture of what the FBI did, it was necessary to examine the case of Tom Mooney, a California labor leader convicted in connection with the bombing of the San Francisco preparedness parade in 1916, in which Mr. Mooney had been released 23 years later because the State of California had withheld exculpatory evidence in his trial, to which his attorneys had no access as they could not reach the State's files. Since that time, the right of discovery under Rule 16 had been established by the Federal courts, with the approval of Congress, pursuant to which any citizen being prosecuted for crime had the right to see documents which the Government had taken by judicial process. The new FBI bill would eliminate that rule, probably the reason, speculates Mr. Pearson, that Attorney General Brownell had hemmed and hawed and did not answer the question as to whether the bill only clarified the Jencks case.
The right of discovery of exculpatory evidence in a criminal prosecution would be held by the Supreme Court in 1963 in Brady v. Maryland to be constitutionally mandated by due process.
Joseph Alsop, in London, tells of Soviet Communist Party Secretary Nikita Khrushchev, during an interview with Mr. Alsop, having applauded heartily the turning of the vast structure of Soviet industry upside down. He was gloating over the radical reorganization of Soviet industry, something another leader might have greeted as an unfortunate necessity. Mr. Alsop suspects that the trait of showing pleasure in bold and radical new departures for their own sake had been at the root of the repeated disagreements between Mr. Khrushchev and the cautious Soviet Foreign Minister V. M. Molotov, "the old wheelhorse" Lazar Kagonavich, and the shrewd, cynical Georgi Malenkov, former Premier. He finds it clear that their numerous differences regarding foreign and domestic policy had been brought to a head by Mr. Khrushchev's industrial reorganization plan.
As Mr. Khrushchev had pointed out during the interview with Mr. Alsop, the plan was and continued to be a direct attack on the vested interests of "tens of thousands" of the most highly placed officials in the Soviet Union. Mr. Khrushchev had said, with sardonic cheerfulness, "These gentlemen are now to be sent out into the provinces to do more productive work." The opponents of the industrial reorganization had supported the minority members of the all-powerful Presidium, whose primary industrial coordinators' efforts had failed to satisfy Mr. Khrushchev, leading them apparently to join the three active enemies of the latter, Messrs. Molotov, Kaganovich and Malenkov, when the issue was finally joined.
At different times, Mr. Molotov and Mr. Khrushchev had told former U.S. Ambassador Charles Bohlen that Presidium decisions were taken by vote. With 11 members, the opposition had five votes and Mr. Khrushchev had six, but included two members who were unpredictable. Based on published documents, the opposition appeared to have won during the visit to Finland of Messrs. Khrushchev and Premier Nikolai Bulganin. Mr. Alsop believes it was likely the time when the "'anti-party group'" "'tried to change the composition of the party's leading bodies elected by the Central Committee.'" But with Mr. Khrushchev thus threatened with expulsion from the Presidium, he had turned for support to his adherents in the party apparatus, especially Marshal Zhukov and the Army. A special meeting of the party's Central Committee had been called. After Messrs. Khrushchev and Bulganin had returned from Finland on June 15, until June 29, when the Central Committee meeting had ended, the struggle had taken place, revealing much about the structure of political power at present in the Soviet Union.
Mr. Alsop finds that it would be interesting to know the relative contributions to the final outcome made by the two elements supporting the victory of Mr. Khrushchev, those being the officer caste headed by Marshal Zhukov and the party apparatus headed by Mr. Khrushchev. In the final outcome, Mr. Khrushchev had been completely triumphant. In the new Presidium, Messrs. Mikoyan and Bulganin might venture to argue and urge caution, but only Marshal Zhukov appeared to have the power to offer direct opposition. He was believed to confine his interest to military and strategic questions, however, including the important problems of retaining control of the satellite empire. "There is not the slightest reason to suspect that Khrushchev sees those questions differently from Zhukov. There are even some reasons to think he sees them largely through Zhukov's eyes."
Robert C. Ruark, in Palamos, Spain, says that every couple of years he checked in with his tough-talking surgeon in Houston to see if he still had a head, heart and liver, as well to exorcise some of the bugs which one was apt to collect from drinking other people's water in other people's climes. He had come away with renewed respect for modern medicine, which he proceeds to detail.
He encourages young women to enter nursing to resolve a shortage in that profession, with public relations lacking, preserving an old concept that nurses were paid only $35 per week for 24-hour duty, suggesting that the wages soon would be raised to a level commensurate with the job.
A letter writer from Asheville comments on a law in the state which refused employment in public jobs to persons over 45, finding that most people over that age would therefore vote against persons over 45, eliminating more than half of the State Legislature and many other public officials. He says that many citizens in various states were forming Over 45 Clubs, refusing to purchase products made by firms who refused to employ people over age 45 or to vote for any candidate for public office who had anything to do with imposing such laws. The letter writer had been in Arizona for many years, where they had kicked out public officials when they did not suit them, whereas North Carolina was different. But he finds that many people were becoming fed up with the idiotic law regarding an age cut-off for public employment.
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