The Charlotte News

Wednesday, December 31, 1958

ONE EDITORIAL

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from Havana that Cuban Army forces this date had smashed a rebel attempt to capture Santa Clara in central Cuba and were driving the insurgents eastward, according to the Government. Rebel broadcasts had conceded that the savage fighting had moved north and east of that city, which controlled highways from Havana to eastern Cuba. Fighters, bombers, artillery, tanks, armored cars and infantry had been reported attacking rebels everywhere in Las Villas Province, of which Santa Clara was the capital. A rebel broadcast had said that forces in the town of Cruces, just west of Santa Clara, "are no longer able to resist in the face of attacks by tanks. There are numerous dead and wounded." Government sources had placed rebel casualties in the street-by-street fighting in Santa Clara at 3,000 killed or wounded. Government sources had asserted that aerial attacks alone had inflicted 2,000 casualties on the rebels. Government losses were not indicated but one informant had said that the Army was killing three rebels for every soldier lost. Prime Minister Gonzalo Guell told newsmen, following a conference with El Presidente Fulgencio Batista, that the rebels had been smashed at Santa Clara, indicating "all is going well and our troops are pushing toward Camaguey Province", which lay between Las Villas and Oriente, the rebel stronghold at the eastern end of the island. The rebels appeared to be in a bad way. One rebel commander was heard radioing urgently for reinforcements. The Government was known to outnumber the rebels in Las Villas by possibly as much as ten to one. Warplanes had machine-gunned rebels holding out in Trinidad, in southern Las Villas, and in other sectors of the eastern and northeastern portions of that province. Rebel broadcasts, which had been stating that the overthrow of El Presidente was imminent, stopped talking about the fighting in the latter province. Then the rebels claimed new successes in Oriente. They said that they had captured the city of Guantánamo, 27 miles north of the U.S. Navy base of the same name. All is well. The rebels are done. El Presidente is safe.

In Miami, Fla., it was reported that a Louisville school teacher, snatched off a plane by Cuban secret police in Havana, said this date that his troubles had been caused by a simple question. He had asked a man at the airport how far Fidel Castro was from the city. He said that after that, "swarthy looking men started chasing me and my friend [another Louisville schoolteacher] and the next thing we knew we had been pulled off our plane. They weren't nice. They didn't exactly string us up on a pole and whip us, but they did everything they could to be mean and ugly." The 22-year old teacher and his 38-year old friend had been scheduled to stop at the Havana airport for 40 minutes before resuming their flight home the previous day. The teacher said that they had decided to get a look at the Spanish restaurant in the airport and had been walking back to the plane when he was asked the wrong question. Cuban officials said that the teacher and his friend had shouted "Viva Castro", which the teacher denied. They had been released late the previous day and had caught a flight to Miami. He should have said, "Viva Fidel", so that then, if anyone objected, he would be able to say with proper credulity that it was simply a holiday greeting, similar to Adeste Fideles and that, perhaps, his Spanish was a little rusty.

The Western Big Three had called on Russia this date to discuss the entire German problem, including Berlin's future, at a new four-power conference, rejecting firmly any such talks under menace or the threat of an ultimatum. In similar notes, the U.S., Britain and France had flatly rejected Premier Nikita Khrushchev's proposal to turn West Berlin into a so-called "free city", had denounced as a violation of international agreements the Premier's announced plan to turn over Soviet controls in East Berlin to the East Germans, and had served notice that the three Western allies intended to keep their forces in West Berlin to protect the freedom and security of the more than two million West Berliners. In offering to talk over the German deadlock, the U.S. said in a 2,000-word note that it was "ready at any time to enter into discussion with the Soviet government." The note had emphasized that the proposed talks would not be on the Berlin problem alone, but ought embrace "the wider framework of negotiations for a solution of the German problem as well as that of European security." The note had mentioned the need to discuss Western proposals for free all-German elections or "any other proposal genuinely designed to secure the unification of Germany in freedom." No date or place had been suggested for the talks and there was neither any hint of the level at which the discussions would be held. Some Western diplomatic officials were known to be thinking in terms of a Big Four foreign ministers conference sometime the following spring. Responsible authorities meanwhile had expressed the belief that Deputy Soviet Premier Anastas Mikoyan's forthcoming visit to Washington was part of a Soviet maneuver linked to the Berlin crisis. Many diplomats saw the trip, which would start during the first week of January, as a Kremlin move to take some of the teeth out of the tensions created by Mr. Khrushchev's announced plan. Mr. Mikoyan, who was expected to arrive on Saturday or Sunday, might disclose some Soviet formula, it was believed, which would avoid any head-on clash between East and West regarding Berlin's future.

In London, it was reported that Britain this date had sharply rejected Russia's proposal for changing the occupation status of Berlin, but had offered to discuss Berlin's future within the framework of the German problem as a whole.

In Taipei, Formosa, it was reported that a three-day New Year truce initiated by the Chinese Nationalists had gone into effect this date. Quemoy islanders had come out of their shelters upon hearing that the Communist command in neighboring Fukien Province had agreed to the Nationalist appeal for a 72-hour cease-fire.

House investigators called this date for a continuing and broadened probe of Federal agencies by the new Congress. It was a major recommendation agreed on unanimously by the subcommittee whose investigation of the efforts of former White House chief of staff Sherman Adams on behalf of his longtime friend, wealthy Boston industrialist Bernard Goldfine, had led to the resignation of Mr. Adams.

The New York Times reported this date that Teamster president Jimmy Hoffa had killed plans for a move by the union to cut off deliveries of vital supplies to police installations in New York. The newspaper said that Mr. Hoffa had notified his local aides the previous day that he would tolerate no interference with regular police operations as an outgrowth of union picketing of police headquarters. After conversing with the aides by telephone from Washington, Mr. Hoffa, according to the Times, said that there would be no stoppage of trucks or any other services as a result of the picketing. The newspaper added that Mr. Hoffa declared that the picket lines would be "for advertising purposes only". The plans of the union to picket the Police Department had prompted Police Commissioner Stephen Kennedy to say that unionization of his force would make Mr. Hoffa police commissioner. He said at a press conference: "I say again, if the police are unionized, I advise the people not to waste their money paying the police commissioner a salary. Hoffa would be the police commissioner, so why waste the money?" Mr. Kennedy was the target of the planned picket protest because of his fight against reorganization of the Department. An announcement on Monday night, Henry Feinstein, a Teamsters official, said that picketing of police installations would begin on January 12 in an effort to cut off fuel deliveries and other supplies. Mr. Feinstein headed a nationwide drive, approved by Mr. Hoffa, to bring all policemen, firemen and other state, county and municipal workers into the Teamsters.

Old strikes continued to plague two of the nation's major airlines this date and Government officials showed signs of increasing annoyance with the prolonged disputes at Eastern Air Lines and American Airlines. The National Mediation Board had sent a strongly worded recommendation to Eastern and its striking flight engineers to take immediate steps to settle the strike, which had begun on November 24. The Board urged arbitration, if necessary. Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona suggested that the strike of the pilots at American could lead to Federal legislation outlawing strikes in transportation industries. The threat of a walkout against a third major airline, National, had diminished somewhat when the Airlines Ticket Agents Association had formally accepted an offer from the National Board to mediate the Association's dispute with the company. The Association was preparing a strike vote against National in protest of the dismissal of an agent in New York. The National Mediation Board had told Eastern and the engineers in a telegram that "your economic tug-of-war must come to an end… [You] must now yield to the right of the public to have adequate air transportation by agreeing on a peaceful method to settle this dispute." The Board suggested that all engineers return to work "without discrimination and with seniority unimpaired." Talks ought be held for five days, it said, and then a settlement ought be signed, with all still unresolved issues going to arbitration. Eastern had accepted the recommendations promptly, on condition that the striking union would do likewise. The piece does not address whether the "third-man" issue relative to the engineers had been resolved.

In San Francisco, Hawaiian Textron, Inc., had announced this date that it was withdrawing the S. S. Leilani from passenger service between Hawaii and the West Coast immediately, the firm indicating that passengers holding reservations had been notified and refunds were being made. No Hawaiian New Year for those unfortunates.

In Raleigh, North Carolina's effort to attract industry had broken all records in 1958, according to Governor Luther Hodges, who reported that industrial expansion during the year had totaled more than 253 million dollars in value. He had also said that improved economic conditions had lessened the revenue-hunting chores for the 1959 General Assembly.

Julian Scheer of The News reports that Oliver Reagan Rowe, Charlotte industrialist and civic leader, had been named the The Charlotte News Man of the Year for 1958, the announcement having been made this date by Men of the Year of former years, who annually made the selection. Mr. Rowe was 56, an engineer, an executive vice-president of R. H. Bouligny, Inc., and was extremely active during the previous year in City-County school consolidation, United Community Services and other civic activities. News publisher Thomas L. Robinson and general manager Brodie Griffith were also members of the committee who did the selection, but only voted in case of a tie. The award had been established by the newspaper in 1944 to honor the citizen who made the greatest contribution to the community during the year. Mr. Rowe had long been known for his civic endeavors and had become one of the city's and county's best-known speakers during 1957 when he had taken the stump to "sell" City-County school consolidation. He was born in Newport, Tenn., on December 12, 1902 and his family had moved to Charlotte when he was a young boy. He had graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering in 1925 from UNC, where he had been named "Best Student" by the Yackety Yack, the school yearbook. (A header of the piece identifies his undergraduate work as having been instead at N.C. State, which would appear more apropos to receipt of an engineering degree, in which case the yearbook would have been the Agromeck. But the decision of the judges is final: he received his degree from UNC, in the days when they had an engineering department, before it all went over to State.) During the summer of 1922, while seeking work to help pay his expenses, he had met R. H. Bouligny, who, the year before, had started a small electrical engineering and contracting business, beginning a life-long friendship. Mr. Rowe had early assumed joint leadership in the firm and it had grown into one of the largest of its kind in the Southeast, extending from West Virginia to Florida and into the Midwest. They worked for utility companies in the construction of power transmission lines, substations and generating plants, and also made automatic block signals for railroads, electrical systems for industries and power distribution systems for municipalities. He had been named president of United Community Services during 1958 and had led their organization with vigor and enthusiasm, with it exceeding its $1,083,000 goal and expanding its activities in another area. The previous December, he had been active in the establishment and continual growth of the permanent United Community Foundation, a group which accepted gifts made for charitable, civic and educational purposes in the community. His indelible mark in 1958, however, had been in education, concentrating on two areas, the Charlotte Community College system and the school consolidation issue. He had long been an advocate of a strong community college system and had worked long and hard for local and state support of it. He had pushed hard for the approval of a local bond issue which would give Charlotte and Carver Colleges support. He presently served on the board of trustees and as chairman of the vital finance committee. He had preached for a strong liberal arts college system rather than a vocational educational system.

On the editorial page, "Oliver R. Rowe: Man of the Year" provides the qualifications of Mr. Rowe and congratulates him for receiving the well-deserved award.