The Charlotte News
Thursday, January 29, 1959
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that Senator Paul Douglas of Illinois and 14 other Senators had joined this date to introduce a sweeping civil rights bill aimed at ensuring racially integrated schools. The measure was the same bill which Senator Douglas had sponsored without success in the previous session of Congress, and would authorize 200 million dollars of Federal funding for a five-year program of grants to speed integration. In a speech before the Senate prepared for its introduction, Senator Douglas called the bill meaningful and constructive, but said "the results of our recent efforts to curb the filibuster have undoubtedly dimmed the outlook for the passage of such a measure." He had led a campaign during early January to cut from 68 to 50 the number of votes required to effect cloture of a filibuster, a method by which Southerners had frequently killed civil rights legislation. Instead, the Senate had changed the rule to require two-thirds of the Senators present and voting. Under grant provisions of the bill, funding would be available to local communities which wished to comply with Brown v. Board of Education and its progeny in cases where, as in Georgia and Virginia, the state threatened to cut off funding or close the schools. The grant provision would also authorize funding for school facilities in areas where the chief problem preventing integration was the lack of adequate buildings or other physical equipment. Help also would be provided for hiring additional teachers if needed. In addition to the grants, 2.5 million dollars per year for five years would be provided for such things as surveys and conferences on integration. A clause similar to one which had been removed from the 1957 Civil Rights Act would authorize the Attorney General to begin civil actions against those who deprived others of equal rights based on race, color, religion or national origin. The measure would authorize the filing of compliance actions in school cases in connection with approved integration plans when the HEW Secretary certified that all efforts to secure compliance through conciliation, assistance and otherwise had failed, preventive action against state or local officials and others acting under state law in cases denying equal protection, though the Attorney General would be permitted to sue only upon a signed complaint and when in his judgment the person involved was unable to seek effective legal protection for himself, and suits by the Attorney General against those who attempted to prevent local officials from according persons equal protection of the law or who acted to hinder the execution of court orders for equal protection.
In Richmond, Va., the Legislature was expected this date to determine whether it agreed with Governor J. Lindsay Almond, Jr., that the state was powerless legally to prevent school integration regarded as imminent in three communities. The Governor had said at the opening session of the emergency General Assembly on Wednesday that he knew of nothing he could do to avert token integration. Six closed schools in Norfolk might reopen the following Monday on a desegregated basis. Arlington had been ordered to admit four black students on Monday to a white junior high school, and Charlottesville was also proceeding with plans to reopen its two schools closed in the integration dispute. Charlottesville and Arlington school officials planned a last attempt this date to obtain a stay of integration from the chief judge of the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Baltimore. A group of Southside legislators whose districts had heavy black populations indicated that they might reach a decision this date on whether to attempt to go further than the Governor had proposed. They said that a resolution was being studied which they believed might serve to deter any integration. Emergency legislation, other than dealing with appropriations, would require a four-fifths majority of the 40-member State Senate and the 100-member House. In outlining his program, the Governor had asked the Assembly to provide for state tuition grants of up to $250 each for pupils declining to attend integrated schools, and for repeal of the compulsory school attendance law, proposing that after acting on that legislation, the Assembly would recess pending formulation of a long-range program by a commission which the Governor would appoint. The Governor said that Virginia was at the end of the legal line in trying to preserve the traditionally segregated school system, but pledged to continue the fight he had waged against integration and to fight to minimize integration in the future. He said that the state had not surrendered and "does not surrender now."
The Senate asked defense leaders this date for the facts "with the bark off" on the nation's military might and outer space program. Senator Lyndon Johnson, opening public hearings with a prepared statement, said that his watchdog Senate Preparedness subcommittee wanted a "plain, unvarnished and unadorned" accounting of what had happened to the nation's preparedness program. He said that they were interested in defense as an issue and wanted to know where the country stood, desiring a clear-cut answer. He said they were not concerned with "rosey optimism or with finding scapegoats", that they wanted facts "with the bark off". He said that his group wanted to find out whether the U.S. was doing everything it reasonably could and should do to ensure the defense of the country and the free world against military aggression, and whether it was doing everything it reasonably could and should in the exploitation of outer space. The Senator asked witnesses during the first two days of the hearings to dispense with prepared statements. Hearings this date and Friday would be open, but the subcommittee planned to hold closed sessions at times during later testimony. Members of the new Senate Space Committee, chaired by Senator Johnson, were asked to participate. Secretary of Defense Neil McElroy and Joint Chiefs chairman General Nathan Twining were to be the first witnesses. Air Force generals who would be asked to testify included chief of staff Thomas White, commander of the Strategic Air Command, Thomas Power, and commander of the Air Force Ballistic Missile Division, Bernard Schreiver. General Twining had told newsmen that Russian boasts about production of ICBM's did not mean a thing, that the Soviets did not have an operational ICBM. Mr. McElroy had told newsmen that there was fully adequate retaliatory power for the country against an aggressor's attack. The two had taken part in shaping the defense budget and had supported it in their Congressional testimony. Senator Richard Russell of Georgia, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said on Wednesday that he believed the U.S. was superior to the Soviet Union in overall nuclear destructive power, adding that there was no question that the Soviets now were ahead in ocean-spanning and shorter-range missiles and that it could take 2 to 3 years to close that gap.
In Santa Monica, Calif., it was
reported that America was mass-producing one of its most reliable
missiles in a form so simple that crews could fire them in volleys on
15-minute notice, even from mobile bases. The missile was the
1,500-mile Thor, a combat-ready weapon which also was a war horse
The President this date renewed with fresh emphasis his call for lower price supports to cut the cost of Federal farm aid and encourage greater sales. In his special message to Congress, he said that price support programs were "excessively expensive" and that crop control programs did not effect control. Citing the big accumulation of surpluses and the large outlays of Federal funds on farm programs, the message said "the need to reduce the incentives for excess production has been explicit" in the three special messages on agriculture which he had previously sent to the Congress. He said that expenditures under present programs went largely to a relatively few large farmers. Dispatched to Congress along with the message had been a memorandum from Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson, giving specific details regarding operation of present programs, particularly those affecting wheat, tobacco and rice, and outlining possible changes in farm laws. The President took notice of Democratic proposals for changes in farm programs and cautioned against adopting some of them. "Difficulties of the present program should not drive us to programs which would involve us in even greater trouble." He said that he referred to direct payment programs, which could soon make virtually all farm people dependent for a large share of their income on annual appropriations from the Federal Treasury. He said that he also referred to various multiple price programs which would tax the American consumer so as to bring sale for feed and exports at lower prices. In general, his recommendations would make no drastic changes to present programs, only allowing the Agriculture Department more flexibility in setting price supports for products required to be supported by the Government. Under such authority, lower supports and thus lower Government outlays would be expected to follow.
In San Francisco, it was reported that a Navy court-martial of a 38-year old seaman accused of wartime desertion had resulted in his conviction but also a lenient sentence of six months of hard labor. He was pleased with the result as he could have been sentenced to life imprisonment. He had been arrested at Yuba City, Calif., in a farm labor camp after being a fugitive for 13 and a half years, during which time he had acquired a wife and three children under a different name. Because of extenuating circumstances, the Navy ruled out the possibility of the death penalty, usually applicable in wartime desertion cases. The five-member Navy tribunal apparently had been impressed by the character testimony regarding his subsequent life. He testified that he had missed his ship in May, 1945 because he had been on a drinking spree and was living with a waitress who later became his wife. In addition to the six-month sentence, he was dishonorably discharged and reduced in rating from fireman first-class to apprentice.
In Fukuoka, Japan, it was reported that the Japanese Government had apologized this date for a drunk stevedore who had sought to make Soviet Ambassador Nikolai Federenko take a drink with him on a train. The 33-year old man had also expressed regrets, saying that he mistook the Russian for an American, the only type of non-Asian which most Japanese ever encountered. The Ambassador had shrugged his shoulders and said that it did not matter. The incident had occurred in the dining car of a train the previous night. The man in question had entered the car, thrown some money on the table where the Ambassador was eating with his interpreter and an official of the Japanese Soviet Society, and demanded that the foreigner have a drink. The Russian had walked away. The man grabbed the official of the Soviet Society and said, "You can drink the American's wine but won't drink mine." He had then struck the man and later hit a railway guard who boarded the train, but was overpowered and turned over to police.
Bob Slough of The News, in the fourth of a series of articles examining the state's juvenile court system, its origins, operations and deficiencies, reports that other states operated their juvenile courts in a variety of ways, that jurisdiction was not always the same. The juvenile age limit ranged between 16 and 21 and the selection of probation staff was different state to state. A study by the Institute of Government in Chapel Hill had revealed the operations of juvenile courts in five other states, California, Florida, Kentucky, Illinois, and Maryland. In California, the Superior Court exercised jurisdiction over juveniles and when so acting was designated as the juvenile court, that judges of that court in each county designated one of their number to hear all juvenile cases. The juvenile age limit was under 21 and the court had jurisdiction over dependent, neglected, and delinquent juveniles. The court's probation officers were appointed by the judge upon recommendation of a seven-man probation committee appointed by the judge. In Florida, the county court had juvenile jurisdiction, except that each county could establish a separate juvenile court if it desired. Eight special county juvenile courts had been established by Florida statutes. The juvenile court judges were elected for four-year terms and had to be attorneys or former juvenile court judges. They could not be under age 25 and their salary was paid by the county. The age limit for juveniles in Florida was under 17. The juvenile court had jurisdiction over dependent and delinquent children and if the child was 16 and charged with a capital felony, the child had to be transferred to the criminal court. If the grand jury indicted for the capital offense, the juvenile court had to waive jurisdiction irrespective of age. The judge appointed a counselor who selected an assistant. Both had to have bachelor's degrees or have been court counselors in Florida, or had four years of experience at children's work. The counselor hired other employees with the judge's approval. In Illinois, the circuit and county courts had juvenile jurisdiction and when exercising such jurisdiction was known as a family court. The county court judge was judge of the family court except in counties of more than 500,000 population, in which case the circuit court judges designated one or more of their number to hear cases under the family court act. The juvenile age limit was under 18 in cases of dependent or neglected children, under 17 in cases of delinquent males, and under 18 in cases of delinquent females. The juvenile court had jurisdiction over dependent, neglected and delinquent children and also had jurisdiction over adults contributing to the delinquency, neglect, and dependency of juveniles. The court appointed one or more persons of good character as probation officers and the chief probation officer had to have one year of experience in social welfare work. In Kentucky, the county court in each county held juvenile sessions, with the county judge being the judge of the juvenile court. The juvenile age limit was under 18. The court had jurisdiction over children neglected, dependent or charged with a crime. Other courts still had jurisdiction to determine guardianship, custody, adoption and termination of the rights of parents. The juvenile court also had jurisdiction over persons encouraging delinquency or neglect. The county judge appointed the chief probation officer and assistants. He might also appoint voluntary probation officers without pay. In Maryland, the circuit court for each county sat as the juvenile court, except in Montgomery County, where the judge was appointed by special judicial council. The juvenile age limit was under 18. The court had jurisdiction over any delinquent, dependent, neglected or feeble-minded children and also to determine paternity. The juvenile court did not have any jurisdiction over offenses under the motor vehicle laws other than manslaughter by automobile, unauthorized use or occupancy of a motor vehicle or operating a motor vehicle under the influence of an intoxicant. The judge appointed suitable persons to act as probation officers.
On an inside page, the fourth in the five-part series on murder in the country and some possible remedies for it, appears, by Dr. Ralph Banay, well-known criminologist and former head of the psychiatric clinic at Sing Sing Prison in New York.
On the front page appears a photograph which might suggest some clever disguises for Halloween, 1959, at least in the case of neighborhood Commies and revolutionists.
On the editorial page, "Local Lawmen Support a Just Cause" indicates that private prejudice and public apathy had combined to defeat Motor Vehicle commissioner Edward Scheidt's plan for intoxication tests in 1957. If the law enforcement officers of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County had anything to say about it, the 1959 Legislature would be a different story. City and County police representatives had made a strong pitch for "some type of scientific test for intoxication" the previous day and the dual endorsement had been firm enough to impress any legislators who heard it.
Another attempt would be made to obtain appropriate legislation through the 1959 General Assembly, a major point in Mr. Scheidt's program and a major shame, it offers, should the lawmakers turn their backs on it again.
The law only needed to make scientific tests for intoxication admissible in evidence in the state and set a scale of evidentiary values for interpretation of the tests. General Statutes section 20-138 provided that it would be unlawful for any person who was under the influence of intoxicating liquor to drive a motor vehicle on the highways of the state. The State Supreme Court had said that a person was under the influence of intoxicating liquor within the meaning of the statute when the person had drunk a sufficient quantity of intoxicating beverages to cause him or her to lose the normal control of their bodily or mental faculties, or both, to such an extent that there was an impairment of either or both of those faculties.
Presently, the law left the matter of determining impairment to eyewitnesses, usually police officers, who could be subjectively wrong. If the guilty were to be convicted and the innocent protected, the testimony of eyewitnesses needed to be supplemented by physical evidence. There were several different ways to measure intoxication, with the generally accepted principle that there was a direct correlation between the amount of blood-alcohol and the effect that the alcohol had on the individual. Body fluids other than blood could be used in tests because alcohol attained the concentration in all the tissues of the body which contain water. An equilibrium was attained, for example, between the concentration of alcohol in the blood and alcohol in the urine or in the breath.
The most common objection to alcohol testing was the argument that some people were less affected by given concentrations of alcohol than others. While true, recognizing the varying alcohol "tolerance" of individuals, scientists had established standards for interpreting the tests which were fair to all. Those standards had been tested and approved by the American Medical Association and the National Safety Council.
It indicates that no one ought be forced to take such a test, that physical compulsion to provide a blood sample, blow up a balloon, provide a urine specimen or submit to a spinal tap would possibly constitute an unconstitutional means of securing evidence, in violation of the Fourth Amendment. It suggests that the statute ought not allow the prosecution to comment upon the defendant's refusal to submit to a test. (Of course, in most states, refusal to take a test results in automatic suspension of one's driver's license for a given period of time under implied consent laws, that is that one impliedly provides consent when one acquires a driver's license to be tested upon request by a peace officer, though a refusal does not, per se, constitute an admission of being impaired.)
It concludes that such a law was needed to aid the judge and jury to reach more accurate and just decisions in drunk driving cases and the General Assembly ought oblige.
"Do His Remarks Apply in Georgia, Too?" indicates that Senator Herman Talmadge of Georgia had to be aware that his amendment to the Constitution to provide exclusive control over schools to the states and localities was only a pipe dream. Because of its origin and purpose, it was unlikely to clear Congress or even the Senate, where a two-thirds majority in each house was necessary for sending it to the states for ratification. It indicates that one could speculate that it was an enunciation of policy more than any seriously conceived piece of legislation.
In combination with Senator Lyndon Johnson's civil rights bill, it would keep pressure off the schools where the South cooperated more steadfastly regarding voting rights for blacks. But Senator Talmadge had accompanied his bill with statesmanlike words. Remarking on "the unspeakable hypocrisy of using children as pawns of political expediency," he had said that the "real losers of [closing schools to thwart desegregation] unfortunately will be those who will have the least to say about it—the schoolchildren of the South and their parents."
It finds that his words had a direct bearing on the present crisis in Georgia which had been for some months the scene of a tense combat of words between parents and state officials. In those verbal maneuvers, newspaper, clergy and PTA spokesmen in Atlanta had made known their wishes to keep the schools open even if it meant some desegregation. But the state's political leaders, including Governor Ernest Vandiver and Senator Richard Russell, vowed their determination to enforce state law and close them. The fact was that the parents in Georgia had plenty to say about closing schools and the ruling political coterie had ignored them.
It finds that in the abstract, Senator Talmadge had great concern for the parents and children, but the fact remained that their positions had been so far disregarded in Atlanta.
"In the 'Hinterlands,' a Show of Pride" indicates that Charlotte should not take umbrage over the revelation the previous day in the newspaper that sports extravaganzas outdrew the arts in Charlotte. The cheering thing was that attendance at cultural events had grown during the previous decade to the point that anyone could dream of comparing it to the turnstile count at wrestling matches and baseball games.
"Let's face it. Only a small minority of Americans read serious books, listen to serious music or seek serious programs. But it is more significant to know whether this minority is increasing or diminishing than to know how large it is, for historically it has never been more than a minority. Likewise, it is more important to know whether popular tastes are rising or declining than to know precisely how high they are, for they have never been especially high by discriminating standards."
It finds that the most encouraging thing in Charlotte was that attendance at cultural events was increasing and that the level of taste in the community was rising, indicated by the number and variety of cultural events which the people of Charlotte supported and reflected in the high quality of the arts in the area of what had once been called the "cultural hinterlands".
"Call it mass culture if you like, but at least it is mass culture with a great deal of vigor." It suggests that the captains of culture in the city ought be proud.
Paul Flowers, writing in the Memphis Commercial Appeal, in a piece titled "'Dixie'—100 Years Old", indicates that during the winter of 1859, on the sidewalks of New York, Daniel Decatur Emmett, one of the originators of the black minstrel show, had been having a hard way to go, with things tough in show business such that his boss had commanded him to write a "walk-around" or "hooray" song for a show. Mr. Emmett had traveled in the South and he repeated the phrase frequently heard among show people, especially when things were bad. They thought of sunny skies and warmer air and sighed, "I wish I was in Dixie." The line had burned itself into his mind and he hurried into a nearby tavern, and wrote "Dixie".
The song gained immediate and immense popularity in New York and soon had spread over the country. Two years later, in a spectacular performance in New Orleans, it was the grand finale, the words and tune having so stirred the minds of the Southern audience that it had been adopted as the war song of the Confederacy.
Thus, "Dixie" was 100 years old and while the nation was preparing for all sorts of Civil War centennial observances, it suggests that perhaps they ought to get in practice with some special occasion to commemorate "Dixie's" 100th anniversary.
The refrain, "Look away", has always been the most emblematic of the region's long past, characterized all too often by a high level of obscurantism, though certainly not uniformly.
Drew Pearson indicates that three Soviet freighters, loaded with arms, had been steaming up the Persian Gulf toward the only part of Iraq which touched the sea, ominous evidence that the oil-rich country was slipping behind the Iron Curtain. American intelligence had carefully followed the progress of the three Soviet ships, which carried the first Communists arms shipment to Iraq, which previously had relied upon Western arms and until the previous summer had been a member of the Baghdad Pact. More than 200 Soviet military advisers had also arrived in Baghdad to help the Iraqi Army convert from British to Russian equipment. Yet, when only nine American military advisers had been stationed in Baghdad, Radio Moscow had accused the former Iraqi Government of being an American puppet.
A secretary for Congressman Lawrence Brock, new Democrat from Nebraska, had telephoned the House Document Room recently for a particular bill, unsure as to whether it was House Resolution 133 or Joint Resolution 133. When asked if she knew the subject matter, she replied that it had something to do with outer space. What she had sought turned out to be the Joint Resolution, the subject of which was said to dwell in outer space but which ought be in the inner hearts of man, a proposed constitutional amendment to "recognize the authority and law of Jesus Christ." Parenthetically, such an amendment, he fails to point out, would have conflicted directly with the First Amendment Establishment Clause, and would have thus only generated confusion in the Constitution, with one amendment directly in contradiction to another.
Speaking of which, if you can read in this indictment anything other than the amateurish and dangerous rambling exertion of whims and fancies of an amateur "attorney general", the most disgracefully so in American history, whose corruption now exceeds even that of John Mitchell and Harry Daugherty, operating only as the personal attorney of El Presidente, catering at every major move to the revenge whims and dotage fantasies he entertains with his midnight tweets, in contradiction to freedom of speech and, now, even to freedom of the press, on equal footing in the Constitution with freedom of religious belief, and a vehicle, in this instance, for such biased and gross overstatement as to be laughable on its face, divorced from any objective, unbiased view of the situation as it actually transpired, suggestive of false statements having been conveyed to the grand jury to procure it, then you must have some special, mystical, secret understanding of the law and the Constitution which exceeds our own and is not in the document, itself, or implied by anything in it. We advise therefore of your right to remain silent and not to tell anybody, as it may brand you as a neo-Nazi, neo-Fascist anti-democrat of the lowest order and worthy only of profound disrespect by anyone who believes in the Bill of Rights and who would think that such things as criminal charges for such conduct in pursuit of the freedom of the press would only take place in such places as Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Communist totalitarian countries, of which the current regime in the executive department of the Government now stacks up as a prime representative and exemplar historically. This is what happens when you get a Cabinet stocked full of lying bitches and bastards bent on furthering spent dastardly canards and flying witch pitched spell casters with magic, damned wandies aimed at the mentally infirm and brainwashable waifs and wastrels about whom the regime's representatives care otherwise not one whit, would as soon shoot them in the face in the road along with their rights to protest and the right to cover it as a free press, should they be in disagreement with the regime's policies being illegally foisted on the people in violation of court orders and in plain violation of the Fourth Amendment and Fifth Amendment due process. As an abstract concept, exercise of "freedom of speech" about that only with which one agrees is not true freedom of speech, as the Supreme Court has repeatedly stated through time. Nor is "freedom of the press" coverage of only events with which one agrees in a manner with which one agrees. The far-right media in the country, one would think, would thus be the first to defend coverage of an event unpopular with many, and yet...
There was a very significant backstage battle ongoing inside the White House regarding civil rights. When General Wilton Persons, brother of the former Governor of Alabama, had stepped into the job of White House chief of staff, he had given the staff fair warning that he wanted them to remember that he was wrong on the issue and wanted them to fight him on it. Now, General Persons was using his powerful influence to keep the President from taking any leadership on civil rights, but the White House staff was not following his instructions by "fighting" him on it. In fact, White House counsel Gerald Morgan, second in power to General Persons, had joined in urging the President to keep hands off the civil rights controversy. General Persons and Mr. Morgan were willing to let the President pay lip service to civil rights but urged him not to help implement the Supreme Court integration decisions in any way.
On the other side, Attorney General William Rogers was working behind the scenes to line up the full power and prestige of the White House behind the Supreme Court. He wanted to ban Federal projects, for example, in areas which refused to comply with the Court's integration orders. Mr. Morgan thought it sounded too punitive. As a result, the lines had been drawn inside the Administration regarding school integration. The President was now following the advice of General Persons.
New York's busy new Governor Nelson Rockefeller had found time to make only one change in his Commerce Department, rushing through the appointment of Oren Root as deputy commissioner. Mr. Root had started the bandwagon rush for Wendell Willkie in 1940, which wound up with the latter's presidential nomination by the Republicans. Mr. Root's confidential assignment was to wangle Federal contracts for New York businessmen.
While other big-name Democrats were maneuvering for the 1960 presidential nomination, New York City Mayor Robert Wagner had quietly launched a campaign for the vice-presidency.
Walter Lippmann posits that it would be a good thing if the Congress could deal with civil rights legislation early in the session, as later, especially in the spring or summer, there would likely be too many distractions with the annual effort to pass a plethora of late bills and the likelihood of spectacular events in foreign relations. He indicates that for the ensuing few months there would be an opportunity to pay attention to the great issues involved in civil rights.
Legislation to protect the right to vote had a far better prospect than legislation directed against segregation in the public schools, standing a much better chance of passing without any serious filibuster and for being accepted and observed in all except the deepest and darkest parts of the South. He finds a close connection between the degree of resistance to a bill in the Senate and the degree of resistance to a law in the states affected. For all practical purposes, one could say that civil rights legislation which was opposed by virtually all of the Southern states would in practice be nullified in the Southern states.
Beginning in the late summer of 1957, it had become clear that the road forward in Congress was that of legislation to protect the right to vote. That had been demonstrated in the Civil Rights Act of 1957, signed into law in September, the first civil rights legislation of any kind to pass Congress since Reconstruction. That Act authorized Federal intervention in the states to protect the right to vote and was passed without a filibuster after the Administration agreed to delete what had been known as Part III, which would have authorized Federal intervention against segregation in the public schools. That distinction between votes and schools remained at present as the distinction between what Congress could deal with effectively and what it could not hope to legislate regarding or enforce if it could so legislate.
The distinction was at the core of the compromise on the rules about cloture to stop a filibuster which Senator Lyndon Johnson had put forth at the beginning of the session. In that compromise, the Southerners in effect had agreed not to filibuster against legislation to protect political rights if they retained the power of filibuster against legislation about social rights. Rule XXII, as amended, said effectively that legislation could be killed by filibuster if the whole South was united against the legislation.
The existence of the distinction had now been confirmed as the working rule both by the President and by Senator Johnson. The President had recognized it at the National Press Club conference on January 14 when he was asked the question: "In 1957, Congress passed at your suggestion a civil rights bill dealing largely with voting. Do you think the Congress should pass civil rights legislation dealing specifically with problems arising from school segregation?" The President had replied: "I think when we get into the field of law here we must be very careful. I do believe in the law concerning voting…" A few days later, Senator Johnson had introduced his program to protect civil rights, a bill to extend the life of the Civil Rights Commission, created by the 1957 Act, to do something about the bombings in the Southern states, to set up a mediation and conciliation service in racial conflicts and to give the Attorney General subpoena powers under the voting rights law. Regarding the central distinction between voting rights and school desegregation, the President and Senator Johnson agreed in principle.
Thus, for the time being, it was the way forward, to use the Federal power to enable qualified blacks to vote. If that could be accomplished, it would make a great difference. "For insofar as the Negro people are able to vote in the deep South, there will be, as Senator Johnson said, 'plenty they can do to help themselves.'"
Doris Fleeson indicates that while Republicans were complaining at Des Moines about the President's failure to lead his party, the President was playing bridge at his Maryland mountain retreat with his crony, George E. Allen of Mississippi, who had parlayed a few Southern jokes into a host of corporate directorships and a large share of the world's goods. The Camp David bridge weekend in fact typified the dollar-sign image which disturbed the Republicans. The President had always preferred as his personal associates men who, like Mr. Allen, were associated strictly with money-making and the heads of the great corporations, ready-made symbols of "big business" and "vested interests", labels which the Republican Party now was seeking to shed.
During the first Eisenhower term between 1953 and 1957, the White House staff had achieved at least an apparent proportion between the President's work and play hours, his political and personal associates. But with his increasing need for relaxation, he had spent much more time with the type of person such as Mr. Allen and much less with the politicians. As Samuel Johnson had long ago reminded Lord Chesterfield, no man was well pleased to have his all neglected, be it ever so little.
The Republican leaders simmered, especially those who were members of Congress, but they recognized that the President was stronger than his party and, until after the 1956 election, had managed a reasonable facsimile of nonchalance. They had also been able to pretend, until Bernard Goldfine's vicuna coat fell heavily on the shoulders of former White House chief of staff Sherman Adams, that it was all the fault of Mr. Adams. The smashing defeat in the midterms in the fall had now removed the inhibitions of many of them, as the meeting at Des Moines had shown.
They were also aware that if the President were ignoring them in favor of the nation's scientists, community leaders and molders of public opinion, it could be turned to the advantage of his party. But even the most conservative politician learned in the practice of his trade that no one group could be relied on for counsel, that a balance of pressures was the only safe guide.
For the most part, if the President did not get political advice from his big business friends, it would be bad advice, not true of Mr. Allen, who had come up through the political jungles and was able to tell the President the exact score at Des Moines. But Mr. Allen was playing the role with the President which he had done with Presidents Roosevelt and Truman, the role of the friend who presented no problems. Insofar as the long record showed, no cause or difficulty had ever seemed to him important enough to cause him to step out of character. The President had a defense in his quarrel with the Republican Party, as it needed him and would put him to work for which, in important respects, he was not suited. Now it was complaining that he was different, when in fact it was not he who had changed. What Washington was more curious about was what solution could be found for the ensuing two years when the uneasy marriage of the two had to persist. The Government could not fall, as it would in Britain, and the power, used or unused as it might be, still rested in the White House.
A letter writer from Cheraw, S.C., indicates that South Carolina and its people were to be congratulated on the election of youthful Governor Ernest Hollings. He indicates that they had just completed a study of his first message to the General Assembly and agreed that the time was overdue for a withholding tax, as the state needed the revenue from the people who were employed there and paying tax in other states where they lived. A sales tax also ought be placed on feeds for stock animals and removed from medicines for the sick and suffering. He also agrees that young people should be prohibited from purchasing beer and wine at places such as motels and lunchrooms or cafés and that the age to obtain a driver's license ought be at least 18 or 20. He wonders why the state could not build good schools for all, as the sales tax collected for the first half of 1958 had been 22 million dollars. He advocates that working people ought have a state minimum wage law similar to the Federal law as there were many underpaid employees in the state not employed in interstate commerce. He also thinks that the Legislature ought do something for the poor and working people of the state, as they had worked for the money groups long enough.
A letter from the director of the Children's Nature Museum in Charlotte thanks the newspaper for its article titled "Success Story for 1958", indicating the intent of the Museum to expand its services to the community as well as documenting what they were actually able to do during the previous year in trying to achieve its intended purpose.
Framed Edition
Links-Date — Links-Subj.