The Charlotte News
Friday, August 23, 1957
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that before the Senate Select Committee probing misconduct by union and management, Jimmy Hoffa, in his fourth consecutive day of testimony, said that he had agreed the previous month to "look out for" the family of labor racketeer Johnny Dio should the latter have to go to prison for his role in the alleged conspiracy to blind labor columnist Victor Riesel or, under separate charges, for income tax evasion, facing on the latter charges up to 20 years in prison. Mr. Hoffa had acknowledged the previous day that in 1953 he had dealings with Mr. Dio regarding the latter's organization of New York taxi drivers, but insisted that he did not know that Mr. Dio had a record of alleged anti-union shakedowns. This date, Mr. Hoffa said that he still maintained a friendly relationship with Mr. Dio, but still claimed he had a faulty memory, stating repeatedly that he could not recall whether he had business dealings with Mr. Dio. On one occasion, in responding to such a question by a Committee counsel Robert F. Kennedy, Mr. Hoffa said, "I don't know what you mean by 'business'." He said that two or three years earlier, he had helped to arrange for Mr. Dio to demonstrate to the Teamsters Union and some truck line operators in Chicago a two-way radio device, when Mr. Dio was an official of the Link Radio Co. of New York, but said that he would not call that a business transaction. He said also that he had an option on some Florida real estate known as Sun Valley and that Mr. Dio had bought lots there, but that he also did not consider that a business transaction. (You know, like, business, you know, like maybe making an offer someone can't refuse over lunch.)
The transcripts of the Committee hearings have been more or less restored at the "Internet Archive", following its ongoing recovery from a cyber-attack a couple of weeks ago, but they remain unviewable online because of a corrupted format. You can, however, download the full Volume 13, containing Mr. Hoffa's testimony, and read it, via the Table of Contents, here. If you want the prior volumes containing the testimony preliminary to Mr. Hoffa's appearance, use the same basic link, substituting in the link in the address bar of your browser the number of the volume, 11 or 12, for 13 in "13unit". We shall endeavor to provide the links for the transcript for each of the days of this week when the "Internet Archive" fully recovers.)
In London, it was reported by British news agency Reuters that 41 young Americans had almost been mobbed by cheering Chinese youths when they arrived in Peiping this date. The young people had been cut off from the outside world for nine days while crossing Siberia and northeast China on the Peiping Express from Moscow, and had inquired of the press almost immediately on arrival what the reaction in the U.S. had been to their visit to China. When told that the President said that they were ill-advised in going and were doing a disservice to their country, a voice from the American group said, "We will soon set him right." An X-ray technician from Los Angeles said that he was an American citizen and so was the President. As the train had pulled into Peiping's main station, a crowd of about 100 Chinese began chanting, "Long live world peace." As the Americans stepped onto the platform, they were immediately surrounded by a handshaking, clapping, back-slapping crowd, which pressed flowers into the hands of the Americans. A young actor from Brooklyn, with difficulty, unfurled a large American flag and the cheering redoubled, as the band began playing "John Brown's Body". Most of the students found the train trip to have been wonderful, except for one UCLA student, formerly of Chicago, who had been sick most of the time, but was now recovered.
In Munich, West Germany, a spectacular parachute delivery of U.S. soldiers and heavy equipment had been unloaded with precision this date, including more than 1,200 men and some 57 tons of jeeps, trucks, howitzers and other heavy armored vehicles, unloaded from Fairchild C-119 flying boxcars and floated safely to earth 1,200 feet below.
In Fort Sill, Okla., a lieutenant colonel, charged with four counts of negligent homicide in the training exercise deaths of four soldiers, had testified this date in his court-martial, contradicting testimony of another officer.
In New York, evangelist Billy Graham told a crowd of 17,000 persons at Madison Square Garden the previous night that the city would become "a real hell" unless the church took a positive stand for righteousness, that the church had to take a more militant stand against juvenile delinquency and slums and for adequate housing for lower income groups. He said that gambling was one vital local problem which had to be the concern of the church. He said that 300 to 400 Broadway theater people and others in the entertainment business had made "decisions for Christ" since the beginning of his Crusade in the city on May 15. Following the previous night's sermon, a total of 481 persons had made such decisions.
In Pittsburgh, a troop-carrier plane had crashed south of the airport in the early afternoon this date, according to the Civil Aeronautics Authority, with it not known immediately whether there were any troops aboard.
In Brentford, England, a 35-year old florist had been accused this date of stealing 600 bars of gold, worth $56,000, from a British European Airways truck traveling to London airport the prior May.
Senator Warren Magnuson of Washington this date proposed a special session of Congress each November and December, to be entirely devoted to Federal budget legislation.
In Pittsburgh, 15 men had been trapped in an underground sewage tunnel for nearly 3 hours this date before being rescued, with none injured. They had been trapped after a fire, set off by an electric motor of a locomotive, had blocked the tunnel entrance.
In Timmins, N.C., rescuers during the morning had uncovered the body of a 15-year old boy as they dug into a mass of debris wedged partially down a 1,400-foot mine shaft, about ten feet below the level where a 16-year old boy had been rescued the previous night. The boys had fallen into the shaft while dropping stones to hear the echoes. Three other teenagers had been able to reach safety when the timbers covering the hole had collapsed. The shaft had 30 feet of water at its bottom and was blocked with earth, stones and rotted shoring timbers from the 20-foot level downward for an unknown distance.
In Charlotte, police working with Federal authorities had confiscated one of the largest stores of benzedrine tablets ever taken in the area. The drug, classified as amphetamine sulfate, was believed to have been destined for illegal sale to long-distance truck drivers who used them as a stimulant to remain awake. The chief of detectives in Charlotte reported that from 1,200 to 1,500 tablets had been found in the trunk of an automobile by an officer the previous evening, with the tablets bringing about a dollar per dozen on the open market. The captain said that two people were being held for questioning regarding the drugs. About 18 months earlier, several persons connected with truck stops in the area had been indicted for illegal sale of the same type of pills.
On the editorial page, "A Mirror for the Peevish Councilmen" finds an element of mystery in the increasingly querulous attitude of some members of the City Council toward experts hired to advise the Council, going beyond mere rejection of the advice of the experts and descending fairly regularly into disparaging remarks about their qualifications and careless complaints about their conduct.
During the current week, Council members Steve Dellinger had been displeased with the report by the City engineer and accused him of "trying to take over the place". Council member Ernest Foard, who, just a few weeks earlier, had seemed astounded by the Council's rejection of a recommendation by city planners, now complained without investigation about the work of the Air Pollution Control director, intimating that the latter was exceeding his authority in recent weeks. Traffic engineer Herman Hoose had also received criticism, as had planners and zoners, as well as the job classification director.
It indicates that there were times when the experts were wrong and there were times when they were correct, but that because of various pressures, the Council believed it had to override them, finding that it was not normal for the Council to ridicule publicly the professional help handling the everyday chores of the municipal government when the experts' correctness compared favorably with that of the Council on such matters, that it did the Council no credit, inviting disrespect of competent and hard-working officials in a municipal government which was quite a bit above average, appearing to observers to invite disrespect for the Council members, themselves.
"The County's Problem Was Different" indicates that the County School Board's decision to deny requests for reassignment to 27 black children to formerly all-white schools had not been unexpected, as it was known that the County faced graver problems than had the City in attempting to meet the requirements of the State pupil assignment law.
The County system was far-flung, without clear-cut district lines and following unusual population patterns, presenting a unique set of circumstances. Yet, the County Board was also faced with the legal necessity to demonstrate conscientiousness and good faith in the protection of individual rights, and could not accept that the pupil assignment law had granted it a blank check to extend segregation indefinitely regardless of discrimination. The school authorities had the responsibility under the law of assessing the "varied local school problems" and developing a plan to solve them. The courts, in turn, were responsible for determining that the action of the authorities constituted "good-faith implementation" of the Brown v. Board of Education decisions of 1954 and 1955, the latter implementing decision mandating desegregation "with all deliberate speed".
In the opinion of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, the Supreme Court had not decided that the states had to mix persons of different races in the schools, but rather had decided that a state could not deny any person based on race the right to attend any school it maintained, that the Constitution did not require integration but forbade discrimination.
The piece thus finds that the test was the presence of discrimination as applied to each individual applicant for reassignment to a white school. On the basis of lengthy investigations, the County School Board had found each of the applicants in question lacking sufficient reasons for a transfer and thus denied each petition. The Board assured any dissatisfied parents that they could appeal the decisions and that a prompt and fair hearing would be held. After that administrative appeal, they could appeal into the courts, which could exercise "practical flexibility" in determining remedies and reconciling public and private needs.
It indicates that it had to be assumed that the County School Board had performed its duty conscientiously and with due regard for the protection of individual rights and the public at large, and that it had to be assumed that it knew the variety and complexity of local problems.
It concludes that the Board's difficult decision was worthy of the same respect accorded that of the City School Board of the prior month, which it finds had been equally difficult. (On July 23, the City School Board had approved five petitions for transfer of black students to four formerly all-white schools in Charlotte.)
"There Is Gloom in the Klavern Tonight" tells of a Klan softball team within the Chattanooga, Tenn., commercial softball league, about which the Northern press had become quite indignant, as had a lot of people in Chattanooga, with three teams sponsored by large industries having withdrawn from the league in protest.
Nevertheless, the Klan team remained in the league and had gone on to the Tennessee State Softball Tournament in Nashville, before being defeated by the Maryville, Tenn., First Baptist Church team 2-1 in double elimination. A Knoxville pitcher had hurled a no-hitter at the Klan team to complete the job.
It suggests that it was a good way for the Klan to go to the showers and that perhaps there was a meaningful bit of symbolism in it for the boys in the cow pastures.
A piece from the Manchester Guardian, titled "Royal Reception", tells of a Paris correspondent finding one of the more striking anniversaries likely to be remembered, that of a royal reception given just over a century earlier to the first giraffe to arrive in France, a present from the khedive of Egypt to King Charles X, the giraffe having arrived at Marseille from Alexandria with a French consul, three cows which provided the giraffe its milk ration and three grooms, greeted with a fireworks display. It had been feared that transport by road might break the giraffe's legs and so it walked the 500 miles to Paris, creating sensations along the way in hundreds of villages.
It was protected from rain by a two-piece suit of tar-lined cloth, wore a neck cloth, a military hat and a sword. Wherever it passed, schoolchildren were given a holiday and in many villages it walked under floral arches.
When it reached Paris, after the King had formally accepted the gift, the giraffe was installed in a zoo and was the theme of songs and a play, with giraffe dresses, hats, hairstyles, cups and bowls popping up.
But then the hoopla faded and the giraffe died in Paris at age 21, completely forgotten.
Drew Pearson provides some inside information regarding the recent acquittal of Jimmy Hoffa in his trial for conspiracy to bribe lawyer John Cye Cheasty, staff member of the Senate Select Committee investigating labor and management, to provide Mr. Hoffa inside information from the Committee, Mr. Hoffa having contended successfully that he had provided Mr. Cheasty a retainer fee only to employ him as co-counsel for the Middle States Teamsters, not knowing until after his arrest that Mr. Cheasty was employed by the Committee.
Mr. Pearson had already told of one of the gimmicks used during the trial on behalf of Mr. Hoffa, the placement of a full-page ad in the Washington Afro-American, designed to appeal to the majority black members of the jury, plus, in the same newspaper, the appearance of an appealing column by Samuel Hoskins, who had told, among other things, how Mr. Hoffa, "long before the Supreme Court dreamed of its May 17, 1954, school decision, was on the desegregation firing line. Within the Teamsters' membership are 167,000 colored truck drivers. Many more persons of color had important positions within the Hoffa organization. When Hoffa becomes president of the sprawling Teamsters' organization, the opportunities in this direction will increase tenfold. But on the other hand, if this champion of labor is crushed by the anti-labor forces which also are anti-civil rights, the cause will suffer immensely. Such are the issues in the Hoffa-Fischbach bribery trial." (Co-defendant Hyman Fischbach, a Florida attorney, who had known Mr. Cheasty and had set up the meeting between the latter and Mr. Hoffa, had been dismissed from the case before the end of the trial because his attorney had become ill.)
Another black newspaper, the Chicago Defender, in contrast with the Afro-American, had published another side of Mr. Hoffa's attitude toward blacks. Esther Payne, an energetic reporter for that publication, had reported: "While Hoffa was proclaiming his love for Negroes, a lawyer with a long memory reached back to 1944 when a battery of lawyers for President Roosevelt's FEPC secured an appointment with Hoffa to cite the discrimination in the Teamsters Union against Negro truck drivers on cross-country trips. When Hoffa entered the room, he curtly informed the group that there was no need to open their briefcases, as he had only one statement to make and that would be all, with no questions allowed. Then he repeatedly said his union had no intention of putting Negro truck drivers on long hauls because the new equipment provided a space for sleeping in the cab of relief drivers, and no white would want Negroes in such intimate quarters. Secondly, drivers used facilities of hotels and motels over the route for sleeping, and they didn't intend to be mixed up with Negroes. After he finished his statement Hoffa arose and stomped out of the room."
Mr. Pearson notes that former heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis had also received his expenses for travel to Washington to appear in the courtroom with Mr. Hoffa, meant to insinuate that the latter was a great friend of black people.
Walter Lippmann indicates that Washington had been reacting calmly to the events in Syria, probably because they had been foreseeable for some time and were not surprising, those events stemming from the basic situation among the Arab nations in the Middle East, that being that the great powers were rivals competing for their favor and that there was rivalry among the Arab ruling classes who were competing for the support of the great powers. For those reasons, there had never been any chance that all Arab countries would line up with the U.S. under some form of pan-Arab Eisenhower doctrine. As the U.S. had been making deals with one group of Arab countries, another group, Syria, Egypt and Yemen, had been making tentative deals with the Soviet Union.
Thus, there was a tricky game afoot of power politics and the U.S. had to expect to have losses as well as gains. Gains had been made in Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Lebanon, but now there had been a loss in Syria with its recent military coup. The whole region was in flux and neither gains nor losses could be regarded as permanent.
It might turn out that the new military dictatorship in Syria was firmly under Soviet control, but there was a major difference between a contiguous and non-contiguous satellite, that is one which could be reached over land by the Red Army and one which could be reached only by sea and air. While the Red Army could march into Hungary to occupy it and crush the rebellion of the prior fall, that would not be as easy were there to be such a rebellion in Syria, especially with Iraq allies being interposed. Egypt and Syria vis-à-vis the Soviets were in the nature of outposts rather than true satellites.
It was generally agreed, as the President had said at his press conference during the current week, that the coup in Syria did not call for any reaction under the Eisenhower doctrine. The coup was a successful intrigue in which the legal government of Syria had acquiesced and probably had even connived to bring about. The basic principle of the Eisenhower doctrine was that the U.S. would intervene only at the request of a legitimate government, and in the case of Syria, the legitimate government was hostile to the doctrine and to the U.S.
Mr. Lippmann suggests that the correct course was the one that the Administration appeared to be following, to leave the initiative to Syria's neighbors, allowing them to decide on the only action possible, whether the new Soviet government ought be placed in quarantine. That was the limit of the action which could be taken and there could be no intrigue under the Eisenhower doctrine unless Syria first openly made war on one or more of its neighbors, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon or Israel. And as Syria was under Soviet influence, it would probably not be encouraged or permitted to do anything which would precipitate a general war.
Mr. Lippmann suggests that in retrospect, it looked more as if Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas had been correct in asserting that the crucial mistake of the U.S. in the Middle East had been the abrupt rejection of the Aswan Dam for Egypt, as that had not only touched off the calamitous series of events which had begun with the seizure by Premier Gamal Abdel Nasser of the Suez Canal Co. a year earlier, but had also deprived the Western world of the chance to cooperate with Egypt in a great project which was of vital interest to the Egyptian people. The fact of the U.S. withdrawal, combined with the rude manner in which it had been accomplished by Secretary of State Dulles, had excluded the U.S. from the chance to exercise friendly influence, leaving the field open to the Soviets and making it certain that Premier Nasser's demagogy would be turned against the U.S. all over the Arab world.
It was probably true that Premier Nasser did not want and would seek to avoid complete entanglement with the Soviets, as the principal idea of his foreign policy appeared to be that he could profit most by keeping the Soviets and the West bidding against one another for Egypt's loyalty. To do that, he had to be independent enough to keep both sides guessing, which, it could be supposed, was what he meant when he talked about a "positive neutrality".
Robert. C. Ruark, in Palamos, Spain, finds that the U.S. was too eager about cutting down the Army, especially curtailing of the draft. He indicates that a great deal of any military life was plain drudgery, much of which was unpleasant and without imagination, at least based on his Navy experience during World War II. He says that he generally got better service from the comic-book readers in the Navy than the "brain boys who read Proust in their spare time and went over the hill in port." Loading five-inch shells into magazines was below their dignity. Keeping their quarters clean bored them and not being allowed to smoke on watch was deemed an invasion of their privacy.
"My slow Joes, on the other hand, were almost happy to get off the farm or out of the steel mills." They were frightened of authority, and when you hollered, "Jump," they jumped. As far as he knew, they did not brood over menial chores and hit their watches with regularity.
"And there'll always be room for the buck private who is dumb enough to do what he's told, go where he's sent, and die if he must. We need the Einsteins, true enough, in increasing proportion, but in any war anybody's got to do the dirty work, and the caliber of his skull makes very little difference."
A letter writer from Great Falls, S.C., suggests that if most newspaper editors and correspondents had concerned themselves with properly observing the faulty acts of the President during his first term in office and had described those faults truthfully, as they were beginning to do presently, he would not have been re-elected with such a tremendous landslide. When queried at his press conferences about the reasons for his changes in positions, he usually replied that he did not understand a matter correctly in the first instance or did not know all of the facts. He claimed that if 800 million dollars was not restored to the foreign aid bill cut by the House, the security of the country might be adversely impacted. The writer indicates that the Senate might get scared and help to restore it, but he believes that another billion cut from it would not impact the security of the country. He believes that particularly cutting aid to Yugoslavia, Poland and some of the Arab countries, and even India, would not in the least impact security, that those countries would not, in the event of war, help the U.S., and that the country should not enter a situation where its own arms supplied to some of those countries might ultimately be used against it in a war.
Framed Edition
Links-Date — Links-Subj.