The Charlotte News
Wednesday, November 12, 1958
TWO EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from Berlin that Communist East German Premier Otto Grotewohl announced this date that Russia and Communist East Germany planned shortly to negotiate the withdrawal of Soviet troops from East Germany. He told a press conference that by that step, the Communist powers hoped to to force the U.S., Britain and France to withdraw their troops from West Germany and West Berlin. His announcement gave a clue to how the Kremlin expected to implement Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev's announced determination to force the West to evacuate pivotal Berlin. Mr. Khrushchev had demanded in Moscow on Monday that the four-power occupation of Berlin be brought to an end, hinting that the Soviet Union would end its treaty obligation to ensure Western access to Berlin, 110 miles inside East Germany. Diplomatic missions in Moscow had reported this date that the East German mission was circulating an 18-page document charging West Germany with aggressive acts. That document had appeared on Monday, indicating coordination between the Kremlin and East Berlin regarding a drive to oust the Western allies. The U.S., Britain and France had indicated that they intended to stand fast in Germany, protecting West Berlin by military force if necessary. Both the U.S. and Britain contended that the Soviet Union could not, by itself, scrap the agreements reached following World War II for occupation of Germany. Mr. Grotewohl called for the signing of a World War II peace treaty with Germany. Agreement among the Big Four on terms of the Treaty had been blocked by the Cold War, which had split Germany into two camps. All the indications in Berlin were that Russia and East Germany were about to launch a big diplomatic offensive to force the Western powers to acknowledge the existence of the Communist East German Government, which the West had refused to recognize on the ground that it was a Communist puppet without popular basis. It was too early to tell whether the offensive would be accompanied by a war of nerves against isolated Berlin. Mr. Grotewohl said: "I am of the opinion that negotiations will take place shortly between the government of the German Democratic Republic and the Soviet Government over the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Germany. By this means we will encourage the Western powers to follow suit. I believe we will find enough people in both parts of Germany who will fight for that. Thereby we will come one step closer to a peace treaty."
In Paris, it was reported that France was having trouble finding plutonium for its atomic bomb, according to an Army minister this date. The story appeared to conflict, however, with a statement by Premier Charles de Gaulle on October 23, when he had said confidently, "Everyone knows that we now have the means to assure ourselves of nuclear arms and the day approaches when we, in our turn, will take part in tests." France had not yet detonated a nuclear bomb.
In Geneva, delegates to the East-West conference on prevention of surprise attacks had met for 90 minutes this date, then issued a communiqué which gave no indication of agreement.
In Havana, it was reported that after the release of 31 persons from captured airliners, the Cuban rebels had held up this date the return of Army prisoners until the Government explained an alleged violation of a rebel cease-fire.
In Richmond, Va., Governor J. Lindsay Almond, Jr., said this date that he would appoint a commission of state legislators to draft new policy recommendations if Virginia's anti-integration laws were struck down in pending court cases. He told reporters that he had his own idea about the "grave matter" and hoped that the public would understand that he was a defendant in three cases in the Federal courts. He said that as Governor, he was "in the jaws of a vise," but was going to stay with the statutes of Virginia as long as they were vital. If they would be struck down, his purpose was to appoint a representative commission comprised of members of the General Assembly for the purpose of counsel and advice and to receive the suggestions which he would make to them at that time. Nine white public schools in Norfolk, Charlottesville and Warren County had been closed, and three suits had been filed in Norfolk naming the Governor as defendant, challenging the key massive resistance laws. The state had also brought its own test of the constitutionality of the massive resistance package of legislation. One of the Norfolk Federal court suits would be heard by a special three-judge District Court on November 19. That court this date had denied the state's motion to delay the hearing until the State Supreme Court ruled on the test case, that hearing having been scheduled for November 24.
In Morgantown, W. Va., police said this date that they were holding a 26-year old coal miner on an open charge in the dynamiting of the Osage school. The prosecutor would not identify the man except to say that he lived in Osage, about 4 miles from Morgantown. Authorities had said that they believed that the bombing was related to the school being integrated and also expressed the belief that the bombing the previous Monday morning, with no one present at the school, had been set off by outsiders. Initially, local officials had expressed a firm belief that the bombing was unrelated to integration, which was in its fourth school year at the bombed school without previous instances of distress or threats. The school's 240 pupils, including 50 black students, had returned to classes this date in new quarters. The first, second and third graders had gone to the Osage school annex located about 100 yards up the hill from the brick structure which had been damaged by the blast. The fourth, fifth and sixth grade pupils had been holding classes at the annex for several days. The seventh and eighth graders had gone to another school in Morgantown and the ninth graders had attended a junior high school about 3 miles west of Osage. Insurance adjusters declined to estimate the blast damage until all wreckage had been cleared away. Unofficial estimates ranged between $150,000 and $500,000. The building was insured. About 20 FBI agents were assisting state and county officials with the investigation.
In Nicosia, Cyprus, security forces had killed two Greek Cypriots this date after they refused to halt when challenged. The deaths raised the total number of Greek Cypriots killed by security forces on Cyprus in the previous 3 1/2 years to 85.
In Buenos Aires, it was reported that the Argentine Oil Workers Union this date had stuck to its decision to strike at midnight in defiance of a state of siege proclaimed by El Presidente Arturo Frondizi.
In Detroit, it was reported that only one of Chrysler Corporation's eight final assembly plants was operating this date, as a strike of 8,000 unionized office workers and engineers had entered its second day. The UAW, which represented both the strikers and Chrysler's approximately 70,000 production workers, had expressed hope that the strike would not force the shutdown of Chrysler's efforts to turn out 1959 models. UAW leaders instructed the strikers not to post picket lines around the auto plants at shift change, as union members traditionally did not cross picket lines. The UAW leadership was trying to enforce its desire to keep Chrysler's auto assembly lines going while at the same time giving full support to the striking office workers and engineers. Chrysler said that its work picture was changing almost hourly because of union walkouts and company shutdowns of some units based on parts shortages. Company officials said that the only Chrysler assembly plant operating as of mid-morning was at Newark, Del., where 2,000 workers turned out Plymouths and Dodges. No new negotiations between the UAW and Chrysler were scheduled. Talks had been suspended indefinitely after failure to reach a new contract.
In New York, John L. Lewis, head of the UMW, had stalled negotiations for a new soft coal wage agreement by demanding that the industry refuse to handle non-union mined coal, which represented about a fifth of the nation's total.
In Atlanta, police this date held
two men for questioning about a fire bomb tossed into a truck at the
strike-bound Atlantic Steel Co. plant. The flaming missile had landed
in the truck cab on Monday, setting fire to and seriously burning a
man. Some people are just as mean
In Boston, it was reported that the last of the big-city political bosses, James Michael Curley, had died at the age of 83. He had been a Democratic leader for more than half a century, serving four terms as Mayor of Boston, one term as Governor of Massachusetts and four terms as a Congressman. His last years had been marked by slowly declining health and he had long been under treatment for diabetes. His death came as doctors performed an emergency operation in an attempt to clear a clotting of the artery which supplied the small bowel. He had also served two terms in jail, the first one at the turn-of-the-century for conspiracy in connection with taking civil service examinations for another man, and five months in 1947 in a Federal prison in Danbury, Conn., in connection with a mail fraud case.
In Auckland, New Zealand, it was reported that the first landing at the South Pole during the current Antarctic summer season would be made on Sunday, as announced by the American headquarters for Operation Deepfreeze this date.
On the editorial page, "Who's Crying over 'Conservatives'?" indicates that columnist David Lawrence, a vocal spokesman for the American right-wing, had, among other such a spokesmen in the wake of the midterm elections, forecast an era of irresponsibility and had gone so far as to suggest that unless the U.S. adopted the parliamentary practice of changing executives with legislatures, the Constitution would be doomed.
There was generally talk of chaos with the defeat of such "conservatives" as Senators William Knowland, who had run in the California gubernatorial race, John W. Bricker of Ohio and William Jenner of Indiana, leaving the mantle of "conservatism" in Congress on the "improbable shoulders" of Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona. It was said that evil days were present.
Not until Congress would convene in January and the legislative program would begin would the American electorate learn precisely what the recent election meant. Mr. Lawrence and other Cassandras were correct in that no one knew to what extent powerful, well-heeled unionism would be calling the shots for the officials it had helped, in many cases, to elect.
But it suggests that the early tears for "conservatism", for particularly that type of Senators Jenner and Bricker and their club, were wasted, for only by the wildest exertion of imagination could it be said that they had limited themselves to "conservative" causes.
It finds that the election highlighted as much as anything that the voters were growing weary of and less gullible about mossbacks, and, indeed, right-wing radicals, who paraded as conservatives. It finds it an indignity to the history of real conservatism to have so many claim it so fraudulently.
Some years earlier, Richard Hofstadter, who had done much to enlighten the students of politics on the riddle of alignments and labels, had compiled a catalog of the causes which many so-called "conservatives" claimed, finding that in many instances militant status-consciousness, of either the slipping or the climbing kind, bred "pseudo-conservatism".
The piece questions, for instance, whether it was conservative to advocate "crackpot constitutional amendments" to repeal the income tax, to cripple the President's treaty-making power, to hobble the Supreme Court by limiting its jurisdiction, and whether it was conservative to play demagogue to a transient national hysteria about domestic "subversion". It also questions whether it was conservative to oppose Social Security, old-age benefits, and even the school-lunch program, to denigrate international organizations with labels such as "treason" and "one-worldism". It wonders whether McCarthyism was actually a conservative movement.
"The pseudo-conservative will in many cases say yes; the classic conservative would look upon such questions as rhetorical. And of course labels have little or no meaning when they can be stretched like a rubber glove to fit any politician's hand. To some of the late unlamented stars of the American right-wing, who were dealt their come-uppance on Nov. 4, perhaps all these causes were 'conservative' but it is doubtful that the father of them all, Edmund Burke, or for that matter his classic American cousins like Hamilton, Morris, Randolph, Calhoun or Webster, would agree."
It finds that classic conservatism had not had a great deal to do with the political modes of the moment, a fact with which many American conservatives had never come to terms.
It suggests that perhaps the leaven which created classic conservatism was a conviction that government was only a means, qualified by the cynical feeling that government could not give those things really worth having, that it could only make their pursuit possible by creating a decent society. John Maynard Keynes, so often blasted by right-wingers for what they took to be his hopeless radicalism, had been conservative when he said: "Economists may not be the guardians of civilization; but they are the guardians of the possibility of civilization." It suggests that the same could be said of politicians, perhaps even "radical" Democrats, perhaps even experimenters. It finds that the truth might be that among the new "radicals" in Congress, against whom such fearful warnings had been raised, there were those who were closer to classic conservatism than those such as Senator Bricker or Senator Jenner ever were or could be.
As we have fallen behind, there will be no further notes on the front page or editorial page of this date, as the notes will be sporadic until we catch up.
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