The Charlotte News
Friday, January 30, 1959
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that directors of the nation's civilian space efforts had said this date that the Soviet Lunik moon shot had been a success. Three experts of NASA testified before the Senate Space and Preparedness Committees this date that the moon shot had demonstrated powerful thrust and a good guidance system. Dr. Homer Stewart, a planner at NASA, said that the same guidance system could direct an ICBM more than 5,000 miles to a target with an error of less than 15 to 20 miles. Questions by the Senators inquiring into military might indicated that the Soviets remained ahead in the race for outer space. Senator Lyndon Johnson, chairman of both committees, recounted the series of spectacular Soviet successes with satellites and then said: "This committee wants to know where we now stand. When can the American people expect to catch up with the Russians?" Dr. T. Keith Glennan, NASA administrator, accompanied by Dr. Stewart and Dr. William Pickering, director of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, had answered questions about the moon shot. Dr. Glennan said that it had proven that the Russians had substantially more thrust or power for satellites and missiles than the U.S. had developed. Dr. Stewart estimated that a power thrust of between 250,000 and a million pounds had been used to hurl the Lunik into space. With advanced equipment, he said, the moon shot vehicle might succeed with as little as a quarter of a million pounds of thrust and if the equipment was poor, it might take a million pounds. He said that the guidance directing the shot was "of good quality" and that its timing indicated an effort by the Russians either to hit the moon or pass close to it. Dr. Pickering said that tracing stations in California had sought to catch the Russian moon shot on its initial phase and had missed, but later received several hours of signals from far out in outer space. He said that other tracking stations had also received weak signals. He said that it did not go past the moon. Pentagon space and missile leaders expected for questioning included Dr. Herbert York, director of research and engineering; William Holaday, director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency; and Dr. Wernher von Braun, the German-born director of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency. Maj. General Bernard Schriever, the top missile man at the Air Force, testified this date, saying that a greater build-up in long-range rockets to counter a "very dangerous ballistic missiles threat" from the Soviet Union was necessary, that the deterrent powers of the U.S. and its chances of survival were endangered by the Soviet possession of long-range missiles. Secretary of Defense Neil McElroy said in his opening testimony that the U.S. did not plan to match the Russians on ICBM production in the ensuing two years, but later said that the first operational base for Atlas ICBM's would be in use the following June at California's Vandenberg Air Force Base.
In Fairbanks, Alaska, it was
reported that a bewildered but proud pair of veteran Air Force test
pilots were trying to digest this date the news that they might soon
swap their supersonic jet planes for a space ship. Capt. Tom Bogan,
35, and Capt. William Bradbury, 33, were informed on Thursday that
they had been chosen, along with 108 other men, as candidates for
man's first venture into outer space. Their names were the first to
be released after the space program had been announced on Tuesday by
NASA chief, Dr. Glennan. Both pilots found it pretty hard to believe.
They had been interviewed by news director Ken Conner of radio
station KFRB, who had learned of their selection from an undisclosed
news source, confirmed by Air Force officials. The two pilots were on
temporary duty at Eielson Air Force Base near Fairbanks from
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, O. Capt. Bogan had flown
an F-106 in subzero temperature tests and Capt. Bradbury had flown
speed tests in an F-101-B. Neither of the pilots would eventually fly
in the manned Mercury, Gemini or Apollo missions. It would, however, take only a couple of more months to narrow the field to the final seven astronauts for Project Mercury—even if Jose Jimenez had not yet made his appearance in pop culture, other than in Mexico
In Richmond, Va., it was reported that the Charlottesville School Board had announced this date that the city's closed two white schools would reopen the following Wednesday on a segregated basis. The Board had said Wednesday that it had chosen to effect an orderly reopening of Lane High School and Venable Elementary School. U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals Chief Judge Simon Sobeloff had the previous day granted Charlottesville a postponement of its desegregation order until the following fall, refusing, however, to stay a Federal District Court order directing the admission of four black pupils on Monday to Stratford Junior High School in Arlington. About 1,700 students from the two Charlottesville schools had been idle since the facilities had been closed the prior September 22 under Virginia's anti-integration laws, since having been declared unconstitutional. About 1,400 of those students had been attending classes in the basements of private homes, churches and other temporary quarters. Lower Federal courts had ordered the admission of 12 black students to the two schools. Meanwhile, preparations had gone forward in Norfolk and Arlington for the reopening on Monday of Virginia's first integrated public schools. In Richmond, a group of segregationists were seeking a test of legislative power with the state Administration. A swift series of events the previous day had brought the developments that school officials in Norfolk had announced the plans to reopen six white secondary schools, closed since the prior September, on an integrated basis on Monday, calling on the public to "show sincere understanding and cooperation to assure a smooth, orderly opening…" Governor J. Lindsay Almond, Jr., had rejected the appeals of a segregationist bloc in the General Assembly for approval of emergency legislation which would have delayed the integration plans in Norfolk and Arlington. A showdown between the forces against integration and the Almond Administration appeared imminent in the Legislature, while at the same time, Alexandria school officials had been called on to defend in Federal court their rejection of 14 applications from black students for admission to white schools. Pressure had been brought to bear on Warren County school authorities for the reopening of the white Warren County High School at Front Royal, which had also been closed since September via the state anti-integration laws. Seventeen black pupils were expected to enter the six Norfolk schools and counsel for the pupils said that all would report on Monday to the schools to which they had been assigned. The school superintendent of Arlington said that Stratford Junior High would open as scheduled on Monday, indicating that they had made detailed plans for the opening and he expected no trouble. Authorities in both communities warned that they would be prepared for any trouble which might develop. The Charlottesville School Board, given 20 days by Judge Sobeloff to submit a desegregation plan to be put into effect in September, planned to meet this date and announce a date for reopening Lane High School and Venable Elementary School on a segregated basis.
In London, it was reported that choking clouds of frightening smog had lifted slightly this date but still rolled their poisonous way across the remainder of Britain. Londoners hoped that the break meant that there would be no repetition of the "yellow death" smog which had killed 12,000 persons in Britain in 1952. Enough fog remained, however, to slow all road and rail traffic. London's airport, 20 miles from the city center, was completely closed in. Dense smog settled on Manchester but a quick break in the western approaches had given ships the chance to run for Welsh ports. Government scientists warned that the concentration of smoke and poisonous fumes in the fog already was worse than on the first day of the killer smog of December, 1952. Weather experts predicted no early break in the fog belt stretching from the Yorkshire moors to the south coast. Hourly readings on automatic measuring devices tended to get worse. The poison content of the fog gradually increased as the black shroud trapped smoke and other fumes which normally would rise away from the public's breathing space. Householders were asked to cut down on coal fires to reduce the smoke. The peak of the 1952 smog had been reached after four days. In London, 4,000 persons had died, mostly because of sulphur fumes from factory chimneys. Ninety percent of the victims in the earlier smog had been older than 45 and already had suffered from heart or chest ailments. Generally, healthy people suffered only minor throat irritations. Doctors warned this date that older persons and patients ought remain indoors and that if they did go out, should wear a mask or cover their mouth with a scarf. Hospitals asked extra staff members to grope their way to work to deal with smog victims. The weather had caused major transportation tie-ups, with 60 ships being held up in the Thames River and London Airport was completely shut down, with Gatwick Airport, 27 miles south of central London, being one of the few major fields still open, so busy with landing planes that none could take off. Reports continued to come in regarding highway pileups involving dozens of vehicles. Fifty automobiles and trucks had tangled in a sequential collision near Birmingham. At least three persons had been killed and some 30 injured on the roads.
In Chicago, it was reported that traffic accidents in the U.S. had taken a heavy toll in 1958, but that the number of persons killed, 37,000, had been the lowest since 1954. The National Safety Council had reported this date that it estimated that 1.3 million persons had suffered crippling traffic injuries during the year and that the cost, including property destruction, wage loss, medical expense and overhead costs for insurance had amounted to about 5.4 billion dollars. The death toll was 1,700 lower than in 1957 and approximately 900 below the total of 39,628 for 1956. Thus the Council found the result to be a saving of 2,600 lives in two years, achieved in the face of a 5 percent increase in highway travel for that same period of time. The 1958 death rate was 5.6 deaths for every 100 million vehicle miles. In 21 of the previous 24 months, according to the Council, the death toll had been lower than the same month of the preceding year. Despite the two-year decrease in fatalities, the death toll was roughly equal to the 1950 population of Portsmouth, O., or Newport, R.I. The previous year's deaths on the highways were 4 percent less than the 38,702 in 1957 and 7 percent less than the 39,528 in 1956. The total compared to the 1954 total of 35,586, which had been the lowest since 1940. The record toll was 39,969, set in 1941. The Council said that there had been sustained improvement in the accident toll.
In Englewood, N.J., a youth had shot and wounded two patrolmen the previous night while the officers had been questioning his companion. One of the patrolmen was in critical condition in the hospital this date. The shooting had caused a large-scale manhunt for the two youths, described as about 21 years old. More than 200 policemen had fanned out over eastern Bergen County, conducting a house-to-house search of the area and setting up roadblocks as far north as Orange County in New York. The seriously injured patrolman, who was a 27-year old father whose wife was expecting a second child, had been hit by bullets in the abdomen, left arm and left cheek, and had undergone emergency surgery, receiving the last rites of the Roman Catholic Church. His partner, a 29-year old patrolman, had been shot once in the arm and was also taken to the hospital, but his condition was described as not serious. The two patrolmen had just gone on patrol when they spotted the two youths walking in a fashionable area and stopped them, with the less seriously injured officer starting to frisk one of them while the other youth stood by, suddenly producing a .22-caliber revolver and firing. The patrolman who was frisking his companion was a crack shot on the police pistol team and managed to fire three shots but was unable to say if he had hit either of the two youths. Valid stop and frisk? No, provided the only articulable circumstance justifying the stop was that provided, that they were walking in a fashionable area and looked out of place.
Bob Slough of The News, in the fifth of a series of articles examining the state's juvenile court system, its origins, operations and deficiencies, reports that there were two different groups which had suggested possible solutions to the problem of lack of uniformity in the state's juvenile court system. One suggestion had been included in a report of the Committee on Improving and Expediting the Administration of Justice in North Carolina, the committee headed by State Senator J. Spencer Bell of Charlotte. The other had come from a survey of the National Probation and Parole Association, prepared for the Governor's Youth Service Commission. The Bell Committee report had been the most recent, indicating that it was at the local level, the so-called "courts of limited jurisdiction", where there was the greatest need for change in the state. The Committee believed that the present function of all existing trial courts ought be embraced within a new division of local trial courts consisting of district courts. Superior Courts would be excluded from the new division, but justices of the peace and such special courts as juvenile and domestic relations would be included. The district court, suggested the Bell Committee, ought sit in at least one place in each county, but might sit in several locations. The court would sit where there was any substantial amount of business to be done. The Committee reported that in all probability the district court would try crimes below the grade of felony, including violations of municipal ordinances, and civil cases involving not more than a fixed amount, perhaps $2,500. The Committee suggested that each district have a chief judge, while in the less populous districts, that person would serve alone and in the more populous districts, there would be one or more associate judges. In districts with more than one judge, case assignments would normally be handled so as to route the cases of the same type to the same judge, insofar as was practicable. That system of specialized judges, to some extent, would replace the existing system of specialized courts. Each district judge would vary the procedure according to the type of case being handled. The other suggestion, made several years earlier, had come from the Governor's Youth Service Commission. In 1956, it had recommended a system of family courts for the state. The survey of the National Probation and Parole Association completed in 1957 had backed up the Commission's plan. That group had proposed to create a system of state-administered and financed family courts so as to provide the state adequate coverage. The system of courts would be a separate, autonomous division within the court structure at the level of and a part of the Superior Court system of the state, with the judges elected or appointed in the same manner and at the same salary as Superior Court judges. There would be transfer to those courts of all jurisdiction presently placed in domestic relations courts, plus adoptions, divorces and any other domestic or juvenile matters presently defined by North Carolina law, but not included in the domestic relations court's jurisdiction. It would make all proceedings in the family court, to the extent possible, civil, rather than criminal. The districts suggested by the NPPA and study commission would be determined by geography and potential caseload. Districts would be set up so that a judge could hold hearings on any given county's cases at least once per week. Eighteen districts were recommended, ranging in size at that time from a population of over 350,000 to one of 131,000 and in number of counties between one and twelve. Caseloads would range from about 4,000 in the one-county district to less than 1,000 in an eight-county district. With population fluctuations during the previous several years, however, the caseload total might have to be changed. The family court plan, however, had not made it through the 1957 Legislature. Officials in Raleigh decided that the entire state court system needed study and that was when plans for the Bell Committee had been set up. That Committee's court reform suggestions would get their first real test in the 1959 General Assembly, which would open in Raleigh on February 4.
In Kannapolis, N.C., it was reported that the Cannon Mills Co. had informed its 20,000 textile workers that their basic hourly wage would be increased from $1.12 to $1.25 per hour. The statement did not say when the increase would take effect.
In Miami, Fla., it was reported that University of Miami physics students had reacted angrily to word that nearly 70 percent of them had flunked their final examinations. When the grades had been announced the previous day, the glass of a bulletin board on which the grades had been posted had been broken, some students had wept and others assailed their professors as indifferent teachers or theorists. Several jumped in their cars and raced wildly around the campus to blow off steam. Police were called but no arrests had been made. Still others complained to Miami newspapers, appeared on a radio show and said that they would seek aid from the University administration through what one student termed "the weight of public opinion." More than 400 students had started the freshman physics course and of the 319 who had finished it, 221 had failed and 48 had received D's, providing them no credit toward graduation. Forty-two had taken second-year physics and 30 had failed, three receiving D's. The chairman of the physics department said that the whole cause had been bad preparation by the students. They needed to petition for grading on a curve.
On an inside page appears the fifth and final article in the five-part series on the increasing trend of murder in the society and possible remedies for it, by Dr. Ralph Banay, well-known criminologist and former director of the psychiatric clinic of Sing Sing Prison in New York, this date setting forth his views as to how capital crimes might be prevented.
On the following Monday, the News
Spotlite Series would explore the possibilities of opening one's own
business in a series titled "A Business of Her Own",
written by New York City free-lance writer Beth Brown. The five-part
series would tell inspirational stories of six women who mixed
ingenuity with ambition to set themselves up in business. A hobby,
bowling, had indirectly led one woman to open a letter-service
business while another, specializing in exotic sweet goods, had
opened a candy store in the heart of Times Square. Those and other
enterprising women now had firmly established themselves in the
business world. What about the prostitutes chronicled the previous
week? Every type of business woman ought be represented to obtain a
full picture of the scene
On the editorial page, "Bribery Will Get You Nowhere, Senator" finds that the proposal of Senator Paul Douglas of Illinois to offer Southern communities Federal "bribes" to integrate their schools was at best dubious and at worst palpable nonsense, demonstrating only the Senator's ignorance of the South and its people but also a deep and debasing cynicism regarding the cause he was supposedly championing. It finds the bill to be an insult to the South and to sincere champions of social justice who based their arguments for desegregation on principle rather than pocketbooks.
It indicates that a sizable portion of the South might desegregate its public schools during the ensuing decades, and when and if it occurred, it would not be because of dollars coming from Washington but because Southern communities had yielded on a principle of law.
It finds that the issue at stake was not merely political but involved pride, prejudice, outrage, tradition and more than a little purple passion, conditions which were real and personal. The Southern attitudes were too old to be changed overnight and the change, when and if it would come, would not be from a political stratagem.
It finds that to suggest that integration could be bought with a 200 million dollar Federal slush fund was to suggest that principles came pretty cheap and suggested that Senator Douglas was more interested in impressing certain voting blocs in Illinois than in solving a serious and infinitely complex social and legal problem. It does not believe that he seriously thought that integration could be bought.
It finds that the trouble with such people as Senator Douglas and Senator Herman Talmadge of Georgia on the other side was that they stirred up so much dust with their impossible and outrageous schemes that sensible people could not see the real issues as a whole. It finds them to be mainly comic figures, with a touch of pathos. "Unfortunately, we are involved in serious business and the present need is for serious thought. There ought to be a way whereby the professional whooper-up could be put on ice for a few months so that the voices of the virtuous could be heard."
"Give a Cheer for that Man in Raleigh" indicates that North Carolina taxpayers owed Governor Luther Hodges at least one cheer. The Governor had refused to say the previous day whether he would recommend a tax increase to the 1959 General Assembly, but had come out solidly for a pay-as-you-go system of collecting state income taxes. Such a plan, if adopted, ought result in a handsome multi-million dollar windfall in non-recurring revenue for the state during the ensuing biennium and could make a tax increase unnecessary.
The Governor's support for a state withholding system had been timely and necessary and was a "must" piece of legislation for the new General Assembly. Despite the Governor's belief that there was little sentiment against it, some opposition was developing on the basis that it would mean extra expense for employers.
It indicates that there might be some expense but that it would be insignificant as Federal income tax deductions were already being withheld. Moreover, other states, such as Colorado, Delaware and Kentucky, had positive experiences with their withholding systems in place. All states which had installed a pay-as-you-go plan had increased their revenue from around 10 percent to as high as 25 percent because it was more difficult to evade the state income tax law if the money was withheld by the employer. The honest taxpayer was penalized by the present system, as eventually he had to make up for the tax-dodgers' share from his own pocket. It thus finds the pay-as-you-go system not only fairer but easier for all concerned and that common sense virtually demanded its adoption by the 1959 Legislature.
"Chief Justice-Baiting Is an Old Sport" indicates that both the President and Chief Justice Earl Warren had stoutly denied that either had said nasty things about the way the other was doing his job, the result of an article by the New York Herald Tribune's Robert J. Donovan, who reported that the Chief Justice had been irked by the President's hands-off policy on the Supreme Court's desegregation decisions, while the President was reportedly upset about the Court's brisk crackdown on security measures.
The President at his press conference of the prior week had cited what he had taken to be the precedent of history, that he did not believe it to be the role of the chief executive to express approval or disapproval of court decisions.
It suggests that the President ought be reminded that he was missing out on one of the ancient presidential sports, chief justice-baiting. Many Presidents had verbally gone after Chief Justices in a political maneuver to subdue them. Presidents Jefferson and Madison both had tried the sport, as had Presidents Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, FDR, and even in a milder way, Harry Truman. Similar to "dishing the Whigs" in British politics, it was a diverting blood sport which came with being President.
It offers a word of caution, that only strong Presidents had cared or dared to enjoy the chase. "At this point, any evidence of strength in the White House would be welcome. So if the peace pipe smoke doesn't taste good, Ike, puff it out."
"The Positive Approach" indicates that the Wall Street Journal had reported that the President's advisers reported that he had become convinced that talking to a few Congressional leaders was not enough, saying that they believed that to put his program through the heavily Democratic Congress, he would have to embark on an active campaign to develop more support for his ideas among the voters themselves. Republican leaders hoped that one form it would take would be dramatic, imaginative veto messages.
A piece from the New York Times, titled "No Tax-Exempt Hippos", indicates that the New York City government might be subject to criticism on other grounds but that one had to admit that when there was a Park Department surplus hippopotamus to sell, it drove a hard bargain. It was no small feat to get Bertie the hippo safely born in the Central Park Zoo and reared to the age of two years and a weight of 1,200 pounds. Then to find a purchaser at $2,450 at the Denver Zoo had resulted from fine salesmanship. But Bertie had been sold for delivery inside the city and so a 3 percent sales tax had become instantly payable, amounting to $73.50.
It had taken a lot of feeding to build up Bertie, with the Parks Department estimating that the bill for raising the hippopotamus to where it was old enough to leave his mother's side had been about $800 in food and an untold amount of manpower and overhead.
"Obviously the only way you can afford a loss on every hippopotamus is to sell a great many. Mass production, that's the thing."
Drew Pearson indicates that Harlem Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, who had hurried to Havana to get into the spotlight, had sought to buy a round of drinks recently for a group of Fidel Castro's bearded rebels, but the rebels had politely declined, explaining that it might reflect on their movement. It had taken Mr. Powell's most ingratiating manner to persuade them finally to accept cigars, which they smoked at considerable fire hazard to their beards.
Vice-President Nixon had been responsible for the Justice Department announcement that former El Presidente Fulgencio Batista of Cuba would not be granted asylum in the United States. As soon as the dictator had fled Cuba for the Dominican Republic on January 1, Mr. Nixon had gotten on the phone and called his close friend, Attorney General William Rogers, to make sure that Sr. Batista was not allowed in the country. Ever since the Vice-President had been stoned the prior spring in Venezuela, he had realized the danger of even giving the appearance of American support for dictators. Henceforth, the State Department would adopt the policy of a frigid handshake for dictators and a warm embrace for the democratic leaders of Latin America.
Strange battles had taken place in the Senate, with two Senators fighting each other, arguing with each other, trying to pile up votes against one another and yet being the best of friends. Two men on opposite sides in the recent filibuster debate happened to be close friends, Senator Lyndon Johnson and Senator Clinton Anderson of New Mexico. Senator Anderson had been with Senator Johnson when the latter had suffered his heart attack in July, 1955 at the home of his friend, George Brown, in Warrenton, Va., and it had been because of Senator Anderson's insistence that a doctor had been finally summoned, as Senator Johnson thought that he had merely suffered a case of indigestion. Senator Anderson was also a strong advocate for Senator Johnson for the presidency, as he believed that Senator Johnson had more qualities of leadership than any other Democrat on the horizon and had even warned Senator Johnson that he should not get stamped with defending filibusters because it would seriously impair his national political chances. Despite their differences on filibustering, the two continued to be good friends.
The most mysterious event in the entire recent visit of Soviet Deputy Premier Anastas Mikoyan had been how he happened to go into the office of Deputy Undersecretary Douglas Dillon all smiles and emerged 45 minutes later all frowns, to blast the State Department for continuing the cold war. Now that Mr. Mikoyan had returned to Moscow, the inside story of what had happened could be told. Earlier in his tour, Mr. Mikoyan had talked to various businessmen about purchasing steel pipe in the U.S. He said that Russia would buy the pipe from any company which had it for sale and could use 12,000 miles of it. That had been greeted with such enthusiasm that the Deputy Premier did not expect any difficulty in obtaining an export license. But the Defense Department had become alarmed over the purchase and Mr. Mikoyan had approached Deputy Undersecretary Dillon completely unaware of Pentagon frowns on the matter, thus had been all smiles on entering the meeting, but when told politely by Mr. Dillon that Russia could not make the purchase, had emerged with frowns.
Doris Fleeson finds that a Federal court order in Arlington, Va., to enroll four black students in a junior high school had the potential for creating just across the Potomac a situation similar to Little Rock in 1957. The possibilities found everyone playing a waiting game, the President and the White House being silent, the Department of Justice expressing cautious optimism, not admitting or denying that it had special plans for dealing with the situation, the Civil Rights Commission having no power to act. Nor did Congress at the present time, though it would react decisively to violence.
Arlington appeared quiet as the zero hour approached regarding the order. Its influential citizens were not of one mind on the merits of integration, but they appeared to be in agreement that their people wanted to maintain the schools opened, forming the basis for the Justice Department's hopes that the Federal Government would not have to intervene.
Spokesmen in Arlington also insisted that if outsiders would only stay away, they could handle the problem. Such insistence, she finds, was routine in situations of the kind and it might be true, but the principal hint of trouble the prior Monday had come from the local Defenders of State Sovereignty and Individual Liberties, a segregationist group which had brought unremitting pressure on Governor J. Lindsey Almond, Jr.
One thoughtful Virginian had argued that the Defenders would have lost when and if only one black student entered a Virginia public school, and he was, therefore, less optimistic than others that the Arlington matriculation could be achieved peacefully. Because of the proximity of Arlington to Washington, its experiences would stand as symbols of the national will to a greater extent than in Little Rock and the response of Washington could not be delayed. There would be little room for maneuver and volunteer peacemakers.
The Federal Government had already been compelled to enter the situation at Norfolk because it had so many employees there, both civilian and military. HEW Secretary Arthur Flemming had announced that he would make funds available for schools for 500 children who actually lived on the Norfolk Navy base. It was not to be anticipated that the Federally-employed parents of about 5,000 other Norfolk schoolchildren would be patient regarding such a limited solution. At some point, Washington would have to face up to the fact that its employees had to have schools for their children or they would look for other employment.
She finds that latter fact one of the little discussed facts of life with which those who awarded Federal contracts in the Pentagon had been dealing for many years. Southern legislators had placed immense pressure on them for new plants in their less developed areas where per capita income tended to fall below the national level. Yet the types of weapons presently being produced for defense demanded the highest kind of technical skills and the employees who had such skills were almost entirely of an educated class who would not work in areas where schooling for their children was or might become a problem. If the Federal Government could not give them assurances, they would simply seek employment in the private sector.
Robert C. Ruark, in Palamos, Spain, says that when he was a boy, one went to school, raised one's hand to go to the restroom, usually was retained after school for flinging spit balls or paper airplanes or dipping the neighbor's pigtails in an inkpot. "Even the Penrods and Tom Sawyers managed to behave slightly while being forcibly subjected to the rigid trinity of the inexorable 'R's'."
"But now I'm confronted with the theorem that in order to instill a little rudimentary Chaucer and simple subtraction into modern minds, we are faced with the necessity of either drugging the little dears or basting them briskly about the sitzplatz." One school of thought had it that tranquilizers for the unruly "hyperactive, difficult children" was the appropriate remedy needed to nudge them to quell the beast which dwelled within, the theory being employed in The Bronx, where sterner things had happened.
Now, in Stamford, Conn., they had recently conducted a secret poll among teachers and they had reported anonymously that out of 14,000 pupils there were approximately 800 "persistent disciplinary problem pupils." In the elementary grades, there had been some 350 bad ones out of about 9,000. About 500 out of 5,000 in the junior and senior high schools were "stinkers". The teachers recommended that the younger ones be paddled and the older be expelled "when all other means of control failed." The teachers blamed parents for the state of anarchy in the classroom, indicating that "working mothers not at home" and "materialistic parents" and "permissive parents" were primarily responsible for the misconduct in school.
He puts himself with the Stamford group, in principle, since he did not see how pill-taking would tranquilize "some little highbinder who ought to be in reform school into thinking that 'Pippa Passes' might compete with a horror movie." He regarded the provision of tranquilizers to be forgiving the child for being a little animal, developing "a candidate for a life of steady substitution of personal responsibility to other people's fancied frailties." That which baffled him most was how the autocrat of the classroom had lost control of the mischief-makers in the first place. He wonders what had happened to authority such that cops were necessary to patrol the school while the teachers whimpered that they could not control the overgrown oafs.
He finds that it was someone's fault but was not sure who could blame it entirely on the students, positing that a Marine sergeant would have little difficulty "with the darlings of the switch-blade educational set."
He suggests that it boiled down to whether one drugged them or battered them into an unwilling acceptance of knowledge and he wonders whether it was worth the effort. "From what I read they seem more tailored for a stretch in the workhouse than a scholarship to college."
A letter writer believes that Unitarianism was a dying force in American life because the intelligent man's subscription to the philosophy of ethical relativity had been rudely shaken by two world wars characterized by unprecedented bestiality and manifestations of inhumanity sufficient to shake the optimistic faith of the most durable of Dr. Panglosses. Unitarianism, which was inspired by the noble belief that the truth was hardly the exclusive province of the Christian church, was inextricably tied to the doctrines of ethical relativity and would subside in force as the world in general and America in particular groped toward a system of absolute values. In the scholarly world, a lecture titled "The Diversity of Morals", delivered by Morris Ginsburg before the Royal Anthropological Society, had served to indicate that the doctrines of ethical relativity were under ever increasing scrutiny in academic circles. In America, Sebastian da Grazia's The Political Community: A Study of Anomie, was a penetrating study of the dangers of skepticism and by implication of such tolerance as characterized the Unitarian movement. John Schaar's Loyalty in America, inspired largely by reflections on McCarthyism, was replete with evidence that America was moving toward such ironclad notions of conformity as would make Unitarians like Ralph Waldo Emerson or Francis Bellamy turn over in their graves. He finds that Unitarianism was best described by poet Robert Frost's opinion that every man had the right to go to hell in his own way, and, while the cultural apogee of American history, hardly served the needs of a mass society scared out of its wits by the prospects of nuclear war.
A letter from the president of the North Carolina Federation of Republican Women thanks the newspaper for its news coverage provided to the recent National Federation of Republican Women board meeting held in Charlotte. She believes that the Charlotte newspapers sought to keep citizens informed about what was going on in the social, economic and political areas of life, but found that other sources were sometimes remiss in that regard at the national level, and so was particularly happy that the newspaper had covered the national board meeting. She hopes that in the future it would also cover such meetings even when they occurred in other cities.
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