The Charlotte News
Thursday, January 1, 1959
ONE EDITORIAL
Site Ed. Note: The front page
reports from Havana that El Presidente Fulgencio Batista had given up
the fight against the rebels of Fidel Castro this date and had fled
Russia and the Western Big Three appeared this date to be edging cautiously toward a face-saving way out of the new Berlin crisis. Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev had caused the tension with his November 10 speech demanding an end to four-power occupation of Berlin, and hinting that Russia would no longer guarantee Western access to the city. In a formal note on Thanksgiving Day, he had proposed that West Berlin be made a "free city" and told the U.S., Britain and France to withdraw their troops, providing them six months to discuss it. Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko had compounded the tension on Christmas Day, declaring that any attempt to keep the Western troops in isolated Berlin by force would threaten a "big war" imperiling even the American continent. This date, in a New Year's Day greeting to the American people, Mr. Khrushchev seemed to be easing off, saying: "There is no dispute or an unsettled issue that could not be solved by peaceful means providing, naturally, all the parties concerned genuinely desire to do so. On our part, we can say that we do have such desire." The statement, made to the Mutual Broadcasting System, had been interpreted as a possible olive branch offering. It had come on the heels of polite but firm U.S.-British-French notes to the Kremlin on Wednesday rejecting his Berlin proposal. It was almost as if the propaganda-wise Mr. Khrushchev already was seeking to start a graceful retreat. His right hand man and troubleshooter, Deputy Premier Anastas Mikoyan, was expected in Washington the following week and U.S. officials were looking forward to his visit to see if it might lead to further easing of the tension, possibly even to an agreement regarding a high-level Big Four conference. Through the previous night, the Russian people had no inkling of the impending visit of Mr. Mikoyan. Apparently, the Kremlin had been anxious to keep the Russian people from knowing that he had applied for a visa. There was some speculation in Washington that the Soviet Government might try to make it appear that he had been invited to the U.S. to avoid any appearance of weakness on the part of the Kremlin. The President had issued a blanket invitation to Soviet leaders early the previous year to come see for themselves what America was like.
The four-day New Year's extended weekend had begun with a relatively safe start on the nation's highways this date, with 27 traffic fatalities having thus far been recorded since 6:00 p.m. the previous evening, plus 9 people killed in fires and three in miscellaneous accidents. Despite miserable driving conditions in large sections of the nation's midlands, traffic deaths on New Year's Eve and the first few hours of the New Year were at about half the rate recorded during the start of the previous week's Christmas holiday. Two persons had been killed and 12 injured in a head-on collision between a car and a bus near Shoals, Ind., on Wednesday night, with 11 of the bus passengers injured, but released from the hospital after treatment.
A series of fires and explosions across the country had taken the lives of 11 persons, including six small children, on Wednesday night and this date. Six persons, including a family of four, had perished in a fire which had swept a three-story building in the northside of Rochester, N.Y., and five others had escaped. The dead there included two 5-month old infants and a two-year old girl. Three children, the oldest of whom was seven and the youngest four, had burned to death when fire destroyed their one-story frame house in Quilcene, Wash., a small community about 30 miles northwest of Seattle. An explosion in a missile propellant plant at Indian Head, Md., had killed two workmen a half hour before the New Year. Two other workmen had suffered third-degree burns and other injuries. An explosion and subsequent fire had virtually destroyed the Navy Propellant Plant 30 miles south of Washington. At Baltimore, fire swept through a storage building at a State mental hospital, but was checked before it could spread to patient quarters. A Japanese freighter had collided with a string of oil barges in the Mississippi River south of New Orleans, and explosions had rocked the area and the freighter and two barges had been set afire, swiftly checked, however, by firefighting tugs.
In Los Angeles, it was reported that two devastating brush fires had run wild in the hills ringing the city this date, forcing thousands to flee and sending scores of homes up in flames. One fire had laid waste to a nine-mile stretch of Topanga Canyon, destroying 80 homes. The other had raced through the Hollywood hills to the outskirts of Beverly Hills. Both fires were believed to have been the result of arson. The flames, flying embers and blinding smoke had provided a nightmarish background to New Year's Eve celebrations in homes close to the fire front. Christmas lights still gleamed from expensive homes from which the occupants had fled. City and County fire officials rushed in nearly 2,000 men to fight the fires, about 12 miles apart. The size of the effort was summed up by a smoke-grimed fire captain surveying the Topanga Canyon scene, indicating: "We can't stop it. Too much wind, too low humidity, too much fire." The Canyon blaze had been the first to erupt, flaring up on Wednesday morning. Fueled by dry winds from the desert, the flames had raced at incredible speed such that residents barely had time to throw together a few belongings in their cars and evacuate. An estimated 4,000 people had been evacuated from the Canyon.
In Turin, Italy, a two-car express passenger train had rammed into several freight cars this date and derailed, resulting in the deaths of two persons and injury to ten others. One of the dead had been the assistant engineer of the two self-powered cars. Railroad officials said that the train had been traveling at about 50 mph when it slammed into the freight cars being switched in a small village about 5 miles from Turin. It had left a few minutes earlier on a regular run to Bologna.
It was reported in Washington that the Atlas satellite may have lost its voice from overwork.
Eastern Air Lines and the carrier's
flight engineers settled a 38-day strike the previous day easing
conditions for post-holiday travel, indicating that service would
resume on Friday on its north-south routes. Other routes on its
124-city system would be in operation as quickly as equipment could
be made ready and personnel returned to adequate strength. Eastern
had recalled its 16,000 furloughed employees. A major factor in the
Eastern dispute had been pilot training for engineers, the so-called
"third-man"
In Albany, N.Y., Nelson Rockefeller took office as Governor this date.
In New York, an attorney said that he would initiate a move to free two North Carolina black boys who had been sent to reform school for kissing a seven-year old white girl. Conrad Lynn said that he would act for the NAACP and would appeal to the North Carolina Supreme Court to have the boys freed. He told a press conference the previous day in New York that he felt that the boys were wrongly imprisoned, saying: "There is no question they did not have a fair trial. There were so many constitutional violations, the trial will never stand up." He said that eventually they would free the children. In North Carolina, however, an aide to Governor Luther Hodges said that the boys could be freed from the Morrison Training School any time their parents were willing and able to give them proper care. The Governor had said shortly after the incident in November that the mother of the boys worked and that the two had been in trouble several times earlier, with there being no place otherwise to keep them from trouble. At the time of their juvenile court hearing on November 4, the juvenile judge had reported that the boys were held in jail because the county had no juvenile detention center and because of the "feeling in the last [kissing] case." He said that one of the girls had testified that she was forced to kiss one of the boys, assisted by the other defendant, to get out of a culvert where the boys had found the three white girls, ages 6 to 7. The Governor said that no one had asked him to appoint a lawyer to defend the boys and North Carolina law required such appointment only upon the request of the defendant, except in capital cases where the appointment was mandatory. Mr. Lynn charged that the boys had been held in jail for six days without any charges, a violation of their constitutional rights, as had been the case when the judge had held separate hearings for the girl and her parents and for the boys and their parents, in consequence of which the boys had never been allowed to confront their accusers and answer the charge. One of the boys, 10, had admitted kissing the girl during a kissing game "with other white girls and boys." The girl's parents said that the boy had forced the girl to kiss him, but Mr. Lynn said that he had denied that. He said that the NAACP had decided that the case came within the category of constitutional violations and civil rights cases which it defended. He said that the organization would help move the families of both boys and find them new homes.
At Parris Island, S.C., a sergeant who faced a court-martial on charges of soliciting and accepting money from recruits and of slugging two of them with a mess cup was found not guilty.
Bob Slough of The News reports that a UNC student lobby was seeking out members of the 1959 General Assembly to present their case for improvements at the University. A student from Charlotte was scheduled to meet with State Senator J. Spencer Bell the following day to present his case. Other Mecklenburg students were scheduled to meet with Mecklenburg Representatives Irwin Belk, Ernest Hicks, John P. Kennedy and Frank Snepp. The student set to meet Senator Bell said that a University student had been assigned by a student "committee on state affairs" to meet with each of the 50 Senators and 120 Representatives who would make up the 1959 General Assembly. He said that the students would present each member of the Assembly with a booklet titled, "Our Growing University", describing, among other things, the growing operating needs set forth in two budgets. It also pointed out the growth and operating costs of the University and the need for higher faculty salaries, citing also the need for library acquisitions and more aid for research. The student lobby, probably the largest in the state not registered with the State Secretary of State Thad Eure, was asking the Assembly members to "remedy over-crowded conditions and prepare for future growth of North Carolina's colleges and universities by submitting a bond issue for higher education in North Carolina to the electorate this year." The booklet, prepared by the student committee, pointed out the need for $8,689,836 in capital improvements during 1959 through 1961. The student said that students were attempting to show the Legislature that "we are in turn interested in the University" by furnishing them with the informative booklet and by answering questions. He said that he was quite interested in a section of the booklet which covered the need for a new and adequate student union at the University, pointing out that the present union, Graham Memorial, had been constructed in 1931 and represented only a third of the building proposed to fill the needs of a student body of 2,600, whereas the present student body was comprised of 7,500 students. The committee on state affairs was comprised of 15 students, including the student body president, Don Furtado. (Eventually a new Student Union would be built, along with a new undergraduate library, and a student store, in a complex of three buildings next to Wilson Library, in 1968.)
In Great Bend, Kans., about 15 youngsters who lived along the Missouri Pacific Railroad in the town figured out a way to return the good deeds of a freight train conductor. Almost daily, the youngsters gathered to watch the freight train go by and the conductor tossed candy and bubblegum to them. With the help of a couple, the children fastened a box of candy to a hula hoop and handed it to the conductor as he rolled by on his caboose.
In Dallas, Tex., a man had heaved a snowball the previous day and said that he had accidentally packed it with a $20,000 diamond ring he had been wearing. A search with a mine detector had not yet turned up anything.
In London, actor Alec Guinness
On the editorial page, "The Minutes of the Last Meeting" reviews the goals and achievements of the newspaper during the previous year and confesses along the way to some bloopers.
Drew Pearson, in Fairbanks, Alaska, indicates that the latest Texas story was that evangelist Billy Graham's definition of claustrophobia was: "An Alaskan in Texas". It was a story which delighted Alaskans because, as the largest state prepared officially and formally to become a state, it was bursting with pride and preening its feathers.
When the Democratic national committeewoman from Alaska, Helen Fisher, had gone to Washington for the last committee meeting, she had packed four suitcases, three containing clothes to last her through the customary sessions in the smoke-filled rooms, and the fourth containing smoked salmon and other fish edibles from Alaska. The airline had lost the first three suitcases containing her clothes, but she remained happy as she still had the suitcase containing the fish.
Alaska bristled at criticism "like a Kodiak bear surprised in a berry patch", and when word had been published in Alaskan newspapers that Mr. Pearson was about to report on a radio program that hamburgers cost a dollar, signs appeared in Fairbanks restaurants which said: "Drew Pearson Never Ate Here—Hamburgers 35 cents". On a Fairbanks television program during which he had been hauled over the coals because of a garbled Associated Press dispatch which stated that he had criticized Alaska, the Fairbanks Chamber of Commerce had sent him three hamburgers for a dollar with instructions that he choke on them in front of the television camera. Alaskans had fought hard for statehood and they did not even want their hamburgers belittled, wanting to make it clear that they had an area one-fifth the size of the other 48 states, more timber perhaps than all of the other states, gold, copper and precious metals, bigger crops, potatoes and cabbages than any place else in the world. He says that they also had some beautiful scenery, atrocious weather, the biggest mosquitoes and the most energetic people to be found in any of the states.
A few years earlier, the Soviet press had been talking about the American "steal" of Alaska as if preparing for a drive to get it back. The idea of getting Alaska back could not have been very serious, but the description of the 7 million dollar price tag for Alaska as a "steal" had been accurate. Alaska was a much bigger steal than even Moscow realized, for neither most Russians nor most Americans knew that the 7 million was a concealed payment for the cost of sending the Russian fleet to guard San Francisco and New York during the toughest months of the American Civil War. In 1863, with Confederate raiders getting bolder and the British hoping to split the South from the North, President Lincoln was afraid that Britain and France might formally recognize the South. He had sent Bayard Taylor with a personal letter to Foreign Minister Gorchakov of Russia asking for help. It had been secretly agreed that in case France and England recognized the South, Russia would ally itself with the North and attack any British fleet which came within hailing distance of the North. Part of the secret understanding was that the North would pay for the cost of the Russian fleet operations, which was later worked out through the purchase of what was considered worthless Alaska.
Walter Lippmann indicates that Rowland Evans, Jr., had written a column recently about a major effort being made by the Administration and among Democratic Senate leaders to work out arrangements for the conduct of foreign policy, necessary even when the Administration had a commanding majority in Congress, and with the Democrats having a commanding majority, there could be, at least theoretically, a series of stalemates with the Democrats refusing to support the President, especially if a measure required money. The Administration, by the same token, could refuse to act on various projects which the Democratic majority wanted.
During World War II and afterward, when the principle of bipartisan foreign policy had been established, the basic problem was how to persuade a majority in Congress to support major programs initiated by the executive branch. There was the conduct of the war itself and the question of adherence to the U.N. and to the other international institutions, such as the World Bank, the Monetary Fund, and UNESCO. There were the large reconstruction measures, such as the Marshall Plan and the formation of NATO. In all of those cases, the practical political problem had been how the Democratic Administrations of FDR and Harry Truman could obtain the support of the more or less predominantly isolationist Republicans. During the war, that was accomplished by a general patriotic unanimity, and after the war, it was done when Senator Arthur Vandenberg, who had been an isolationist, changed his mind and carried with him the bulk of the Republicans.
The situation at present was somewhat different, as the Administration's line of policy was not to initiate great international projects but to defend the status quo, resisting firmly when any non-Communist position was challenged, but not delivering any substantial challenge to any existing Communist position. There was always talk about German reunification and there had been some talk about the liberation of the satellite nations, and yet there was no indication that any moves were contemplated which would change the status quo and lead to the reunification of Germany or to freedom for the satellites.
The U.S. would refuse to withdraw its troops from West Berlin, and nothing was contemplated which would challenge the Soviets to remove their troops surrounding Berlin and holding of East Germany, Poland, and Eastern Europe in captivity.
The Democrats would support Secretary of State Dulles in refusing to give up anything under duress. But even if they were agreed among themselves in some kind of constructive initiative, the Democrats would not be able to compel the Administration to adopt it. Congress could lead the Administration to water, but it could not make the horse drink. Congress could not conduct the foreign policy of the country and it should not seek to do so. Its proper role was to insist on being informed and in a position, therefore, to hold the executive branch accountable and to debate intelligently and responsibly what had been done or what Congress was asked to approve before it was done.
Mr. Evans had said in his article that some Administration officials were thinking about "the re-creation of an elite corps of totally-informed legislators who are continuously privy both to basic administration designs and to the information on which policy is being based." If what the officials had in mind was to give members of Congress all they wanted or needed to know, they were thinking of something which ought to be done as a matter of course. But in doing it, there should be no talk about setting up "an elite corps" of specially privileged Congressmen. The true elite in the formation of foreign affairs were the members of Congress who would take the trouble to study foreign affairs and to keep themselves informed. The problem of Congressional-executive relations was perennial, but was complicated at present by the way Mr. Dulles conducted his office. Washington was the center of a worldwide coalition and Mr. Dulles was in command of the nation's foreign relations. As such, he needed to be in Washington most of the time, except for extraordinary occasions.
Mr. Lippmann questions why he should have thought it necessary, for instance, to travel from Mexico City to San Francisco to deliver a speech with could just as well have been delivered in Washington and why he had to go to Karachi, Pakistan, just as Congress was about to meet, with Cuba in turmoil, as Russian Vice-Premier Anastas Mikoyan was about to arrive in Washington, and as the situation in the Middle East was confused and explosive.
The Secretary often defended his travels on the ground that face-to-face confrontation with foreign statesmen could settle problems quickly which could not be settled so quickly through diplomatic channels. But the fact was that while he was off on his travels to settle various things, he was really out of personal touch with what might be happening in a dozen other places, and in his absence, there was no one at the center of things in Washington who had genuine authority to make a decision.
His personal diplomacy also downgraded the embassies abroad and all of the foreign embassies in Washington, with the Secretary teaching the world to think that nothing of real importance could be settled except by him personally, that all other contacts, except in a summit meeting where he was, were of secondary importance.
He finds that to be the fundamental cause of the discontent with NATO, not only of General Charles de Gaulle, who had not been consulted enough, but also of the smaller NATO powers who had to get too much of their news of the alliance from the newspapers. The remedy was not to set up another committee of consultation but rather to upgrade the existing diplomats, which could be done as soon as Mr. Dulles communicated seriously with the foreign embassies in Washington and through the American ambassadors abroad. If that were to become the practice, it would no longer be assumed that nothing of first-rate importance could happen except when the head of a state or a foreign minister embarked in an airplane on a flight abroad.
"And if our diplomacy were conducted in an orderly fashion, with the Secretary of State in the capital..., there would be far more opportunity for those informal contacts with Congress upon which understanding and good feeling depend."
Marquis Childs indicates that liberal Republicans in the Senate, who numbered 12 by a charitable count, were making valiant sounds of battle. But the difficulty, as more candid members of that group admitted in private, was finding a piece of the political terrain on which they could stand. As Eisenhower Republicans they found the President dug into a position offering them no comfortable shelter. The President was going all-out for economy and balancing of the budget and if his preliminary statement on the size of the ensuing budget meant anything, all expenditures would be deeply cut except for armaments, where there was to be an increase approaching two billion dollars over current expenditures. Even the Development Loan Fund, which was to be expanded to a billion dollars per year, was to be held to the present level of 700 million.
He finds it reminiscent of the stand taken by President Herbert Hoover after the Congressional elections of 1930 had gone against the Republicans. The enemy in that earlier time had been deflation, with rapidly mounting unemployment. As viewed from the White House at present, the peril was inflation, but the remedy proposed was like that of 1931 and 1932, to cut costs, save money, and balance the budget.
As Mr. Hoover had struggled to hold the line and "restore confidence", the Democratic opposition had a field day. House Speaker John Nance Garner and similarly positioned Democrats were proposing as much as 300 million dollars for relief of the unemployed. The Republicans in Congress had been demoralized.
Mr. Childs believes something like it could occur again and the liberal Republicans knew it only too well. The Democrats were bound to come up with spending programs, more defense, more foreign aid, more dams, highways, waterways, etc., which the White House would try to defeat. For those who were unemployed, for farmers who faced a further decline in farm prices in the coming year, for the West where the tide of industrialization had slowed, those programs would have an appeal.
The liberals had in Senators George Aiken of Vermont and John Sherman Cooper of Kentucky two able candidates for the Republican leadership. Senator Aiken's record was in sharp contrast with that of the conservative candidate, Senator Everett Dirksen of Illinois. An analysis by the Congressional Quarterly showed that on several issues, Senator Dirksen had voted against the Administration, taking an isolationist and conservative stance. In every instance, Senator Aiken had voted for the Administration, as had Senator Cooper.
One of the major complaints in the group was that the President had given them no recognition. Senator Alexander Wiley of Wisconsin, the ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee, felt deeply that he had never had his due appointment to international commissions and delegations. Senator Aiken, ranking member of the Agriculture Committee and a leading authority on farm problems, felt just as strongly that Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson had ignored him in policy-making.
Regardless of how the contest came out for the Minority Leader, with the odds favoring Senator Dirksen at present, the liberals felt that by taking a stand together, they were bound to get more recognition. They would have impressed on the country the fact that there were a dozen or more Republicans actively opposed to the stand-pat positions of the majority of Republicans, and they would always have the issue of civil rights on which they could count for deep divisions within the Democratic Party.
He finds it not merely an ideological debate with an honorary office as the reward for the winner, as many of the liberals and those in the swing group between the conservatives and liberals were up for reelection in 1960 and so was a question of survival for them, since the trend which had swept so many Democrats into office in November might still be running. With his military background, the President was a firm believer in staying strictly to channels in any and all negotiations. The departure of White House chief of staff Sherman Adams had opened the White House door somewhat. But liberal Senators who had talked to the President recently had found him no more receptive to their problems and their ideas than in the past. They would have to stand on their own feet and on the record they were able to make if they were to stand at all.
A letter writer from Salisbury wonders why people would choose a young person for preacher, finding that a well-educated man was not much good as a preacher until he got to be about 40 years old, and was a much better preacher at 50 than at 40, and at 60, was beginning to get to the place where his wisdom had started to become ripe. By the time he was 70, his experience began to sound like it had common sense and by the time he was 80, he had become a sage. "If people want that world of peace they will have to depend on the wisdom of age in place of the rashness of youth."
Eighth Day
Framed Edition
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