The Charlotte News
Tuesday, January 6, 1959
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page
reports from Havana that provisional President Manuel Urrutia had put
his Government into high gear this date after taking control of the
Presidential Palace and canceling martial law in the capital. Acting
quickly after his arrival on Monday night, he had named José
Miro Cordona, president of the Havana Bar Association, to be Premier,
had announced free elections to be held within 18 months to two
years, had summoned his new cabinet into a post-midnight meeting, and
had rescinded the martial law proclamation and curfew extension
decreed earlier by the provisional government's military chief for
Havana province. He had flown to Havana from Camaguey after a talk
with rebel leader Fidel Castro, who had successfully led the uprising
which led to the ouster of dictator Fulgencio Batista, who had fled
Havana for the Dominican Republic on New Year's Day in the wee hours
of the morning. Meanwhile, Sr. Castro
In Akron, O., an Akron man claimed this date that he and other Americans held prisoner in Cuba by supporters of fallen dictator Batista had been virtually neglected by U.S. officials during the months they had been imprisoned. The 30-year old man told his story at the home of his mother, where he had arrived during the weekend after escaping from El Principe Prison in Havana during rioting in the capital on New Year's Day. He was accompanied by a 23-year old man of Portland, Ore., and a 20-year old man of Pontiac, Mich., who escaped from the prison with him, and they had supported his story. He said that the U.S. Embassy officials in Havana had refused to help them despite knowing that they were American citizens held by the Batista supporters without explanation. In Washington, the State Department said it had no knowledge of the three except via news reports and that the Havana Embassy had been asked for information, but that there had been insufficient time to get an answer. The man who was the spokesman said that he was on a business trip to Havana for a chemical wholesale firm in Hollywood, Fla., when arrested the previous May and thrown into prison without explanation and never told the charge on which he was being held. He had met the other two men in the prison, who had also been imprisoned without explanation while in Cuba, en route to a vacation in Jamaica the previous August. He said that the three were beaten by prison guards and all had become ill because of lack of proper food. They had been warned by the prison commandant to tell U.S. Embassy representatives "how well you're being treated". He said that the three were afraid to complain, but the Embassy representatives could see how thin they were and the bruises on their faces from the beatings. He said that one Embassy representative had refused to get medicine for him, explaining that there was no provision to provide medical treatment for American citizens imprisoned in a foreign country. He claimed that the representative offered no suitable explanation for not taking his case up with the State Department in Washington.
In Chicago, it was reported that the nation's traffic death toll during the 102-hour New Year's weekend had finally reached 377, 13 less than the National Safety Council had predicted prior to the holiday. Final tabulations for the four-day period through midnight the previous Sunday also showed that 61 persons had lost their lives in fires and 113 in miscellaneous accidents, for an overall total number of 551 fatalities. The traffic toll compared with the record 409 set in the four-day New Year holiday of 1956-57. During the four-day 1958 Christmas holiday of the same duration, there were 594 traffic fatalities, 93 killed in fires and 97 in miscellaneous accidents, for an overall total of 784. The record Christmas traffic toll was 706, set in 1956.
In New York, it was reported that fierce and frigid winds had hit the Eastern seaboard this date with winter's severest blow, causing widespread death and destruction amid bitter cold reaching as far south as Florida. At least 19 persons had died in flaming dwellings, with fires also destroying office buildings, stores and warehouses. Many persons in the Northeast corridor had been injured by screaming gales which occasionally reached hurricane force of 75 mph. Sub-zero temperatures had been recorded all over the Northeast, and the mercury had dropped as low as 17 below at Newport, Vt., 26 in West Virginia, and 13 in Virginia. It was not known immediately whether there was any damage to Florida crops, which were hard-hit during icy blasts of the previous winter, but the Weather Bureau said that all indications were that damage would be slight.
In Syracuse, N.Y., a wind-blown fire had killed at least seven student airmen and injured 13 this date as they fought like animals to escape from their barracks dormitory at Syracuse University. The single-story, prefabricated barracks housed 45 Air Force men assigned to the University to study Russian. They were headquartered at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, O. Names of the dead had been withheld pending notification of the next of kin. Fire officials said that the fire apparently had started from a heating unit as the students had slept.
In Bridgetown, Barbados, a balloon trip of four Britons seeking to span the Atlantic had lasted only three days, as reported this date, the four balloonists having spent 21 more days floating at sea in the balloon's gondola, constructed for double duty as a lifeboat. The three men and a woman had embarked on December 12 from the Canary Islands, seeking to float on the wind 3,000 miles to Barbados, where they had arrived on Monday after a fisherman had picked them up at sea. They had traveled about 1,200 miles in the air and more than 2,000 miles by sea. All four had been on rations of a few ounces of food daily since December 15 and all appeared thin but otherwise in fairly good condition. They had cut loose the balloon in a storm for fear of going to heights where they would lose control and the bag would burst, that following, at one stage, their having jettisoned a radio receiver and sleeping bags to lighten the balloon. Their balloon was called "Small World".
In Wetumpka, Ala., it was reported that a longtime black school teacher had been asked to resign because officials said that she had taught a subject not approved in Alabama schools, voodoo. Trustees of the Cathmagy Elementary School had requested her dismissal as both teacher and principal of the school. The County superintendent said that she was in her 31st year as a teacher and planned to retire anyway. A letter from the trustees of the school to the County School Board recommending her dismissal said, in part, that she had "created undesirable confusion and discord in the school as a result of her voodoo activities," and that they felt that it was "definitely in the best interest of the school … that she be relieved of her position as teacher and principal." The superintendent said that the request would be taken up at the School Board's next meeting on January 16, provided she did not voluntarily resign.
In Danville, Va., two Danville police officers had been wounded and their assailant shot to death in a gun battle in the city's business district early this date. A 24-year veteran of the force, a captain, had been hospitalized with a .38-caliber revolver slug near his lung, his condition having been listed as serious. A detective sergeant, 44, had been wounded in the left shoulder, but had fired back at the man who had shot at his police cruiser, able to kill the assailant, though the latter had been able to run 150 feet around the corner before collapsing.
John Borchert of The News indicates that many Charlotte residents had apparently made a New Year's Day resolution to go to church in 1959, flocking to city and area churches in exceptionally large numbers on the first Sunday of the year. A survey of local churches had found that many ministers believed that the resolutions could be the reason behind their congregations having run as high as 100 persons more than average attendance. The Rev. Tom Stockton of Thrift Methodist Church opined, however, that "the good weather after two Sundays of bad weather" brought out the larger crowds. The pastor of First Evangelical & Reformed Church, Dr. Joseph B. Hennessey, said that he attributed the larger attendance to the service of Holy Communion, indicating, "We always hold a New Year's Communion, and it is always well attended." The Rev. Martin Tilson, rector of St. John's Episcopal Church, said that he believed the good crowd at his church had been caused by many having a "wonderful experience" during the Christmas season. The Rev. Tommy Funderburk, associate pastor of Pritchard Memorial Baptist Church said, "We had a very unusual attendance," indicating that 942 persons had attended the two morning worship periods the previous Sunday. The Rev. Leslie Frerking, pastor of Ascension Lutheran Church, said that attendance on the first Sunday in the new year was "as a rule, slightly higher" than services at other times, but was still nothing that they would call remarkable, nothing like attendance at Easter. The two Jewish temples, Temple Beth El and Temple Israel, had experienced large crowds on the Jewish new year in September, Rosh Hashanah, but nothing exceptional on the first service of the secular new year. Rabbi E. A. Levi of Temple Israel said that the Jewish New Year service was the one which all members planned to attend, that "Every synagogue is jammed for that service."
Alton Blakeslee, Associated Press
science writer, in the first of a three-part series on the 18-month
International Geophysical Year which had just concluded at the end of
1958, reports that over a luncheon table, Germany's Dr. Julius
Bartels had searched a moment for the right words: "We set out
traps for nature. Then when nature does something, we often learn her
secrets." To the professor of geo-magnetism at the University in
Goettingen, that had been the essence of the IGY, the greatest single
hunt in history for knowledge about the earth, sun
On the editorial page, "This Little Fire Engine Was Tardy" indicates that the arrival the previous day of the Institute of Government's report on City Recorder's Court in Charlotte could best be described as anticlimactic, as there had been operations ongoing to improve the Court for months, resulting from the previous summer's startling revelations.
Nevertheless, the report had contained one or two useful suggestions, one having to do with warrants processed by the Court, the Institute recommending that they be pre-numbered at the printer, helping authorities to keep a closer check on them and guarding against any more mysterious disappearances. The Institute had also frowned on the questionable practice of permitting the use of a rubber stamp of the judge's signature on official court records, but that had already been taken care of by the City Recorder, Basil Boyd, who now signed his own name on the records. Otherwise, the Institute had little to offer in the way of advice.
It indicates that the improvements which had been made would not have been but for public demand for reform, and fortunately, the public had awakened to its responsibilities in time to prevent an even more serious breakdown in the administration of justice, for the Recorder's Court had operated in a terrible state of disrepair. In the meantime, the public had learned its lesson, that there had to be eternal vigilance.
"Congress Returns to Hickory Sticks" indicates that the 86th Congress would convene the following day with Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson and Speaker Sam Rayburn "twiddling their hickory sticks and gazing off deceptively in the general direction of the Rio Grande (and 1960)". It suggests that perhaps the freshman members would not throw spitballs at those august and venerated teachers. Yet, every question in the coming session would turn on the power and politics of the newcomers.
It regards the big public question in the new Congress to be whether the much-heralded "liberal" power could make its conquest of rules, traditions, and personal moguls, and then emerge as a coherent force. In preliminary organization, the Senate would witness two battles of the vague "liberal" impulse against tradition, the first pitting Senators Paul Douglas, Hubert Humphrey, Jacob Javits and others of both parties against the tradition of practically unlimited debate, the filibuster under Rule XXII. Senator Johnson had been hard at work sharpening his switches for those who, as the foregoing Senators did, packed the zip-gun of anti-filibustering.
The second battle would pit Republican Senators George Aiken and John Sherman Cooper and their wing of the party against Senator Everett Dirksen, "the high priest of conservative leadership who claims the mantle of the fallen Senator Knowland," as minority leader. Senators Aiken and Cooper and their group reportedly believed that it would be an all-out fight to shed the crust of ancient Republicanism for the modern, a fight to keep their party alive.
In the House, where Speaker Rayburn held power over legislation and procedure, the big question was of the same pattern. The liberals, reinforced by the midterm elections, prepared for an open assault on the Rules Committee, which set the tone of House action and about which the odor of magnolias lingered from the South.
But when organizational rough edges were hammered out, it wonders what would be next. That was the question to which no one had an answer, least of all the Congressional leaders.
The skirmishing would begin with the budget and continue with farm legislation, civil rights, the continuing failure of small businesses, funds for housing, conservation and education, the scandal regarding regulatory agencies, and control of union and pension funds. Then there would be the issue of foreign aid and defense spending.
"The dunce stool will be warm and likewise the hickory sticks will be well used. Perhaps—who knows?—a few A's will be given."
"Wheels for Senatorial Claustrophobia" indicates that Democratic Senators, because of their overwhelming 64 to 34 majority in the new Congress, were going to be bunched up like sardines left of center when the Senate convened. Some said it would be like a crowded schoolroom, and it had claustrophobics worried.
It wonders what would occur if Senate Majority Leader Johnson and Senator Douglas were to lock horns over the filibuster, or if Senator Harry F. Byrd clashed with Senator Hubert Humphrey over an item in the budget. "Can they stand, fists up, toe to toe, ranging in a fighting circle without barking shins?"
Republican Senators would be so far from each other across the aisle that they would need to communicate by smoke signal.
It suggests that there was only one solution to the problem on the left, to put the Senatorial chairs on rollers and grease them well. Just as the fight would warm up, say, on whether to spend 30 billion dollars for a rocket, Senator Johnson would wheel up the gangway, descend and mightily shove the squabblers across the aisle to patch it up.
Or when Senators Herman Talmadge of Georgia and James Eastland of Mississippi and their group felt conservative on a given day, they might coast together across into another wing of the chamber to brood in silent majesty.
Or on the Republican side, when either Senator Dirksen or Senator Aiken had vanquished the other for the minority leadership, the winner could give the loser a powerful shove and send him whirling off to pasture in the gangway.
It suggests that there were infinite possibilities, and some legislation might pass also.
A piece from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, titled "Dame Gossip Meets the Queen" indicates that Queen Mother Elizabeth was unquestionably kind to a gossip columnist whom she had met at the Women's Press Club in London, and perhaps too kind to the institution of gossip. Evidently, she had been taken aback when, in response to her question, "What do you do for your paper?" came the answer, "Gossip," for at first she said only "Oh," with a pause for reflection. Then she added graciously: "That's all right. I suppose, if it's kept within bounds, then it can be quite gay."
It indicates that gossip could be a number of things, beginning with the malicious, and frequently false, usually trivial. "It may be token envy or insecurity in the gossiper more surely than it reflects unfavorably upon the object of the gossip. But perhaps, as Queen Mother Elizabeth's comments suggest to us, all this may be the fault of the gossip-monger rather than of the genre itself. If there is going to be any of it at all, we rather agree with the Queen Mother—gossip should be gay."
Drew Pearson indicates that most people did not realize it, but the selection of the President was frequently influenced by events two years in advance of the election. He suggests that two events were currently occurring which could influence the choice of the next President, one being in Albany, N.Y., and the other in Washington. In Albany, Governor Nelson Rockefeller was planning a series of forthright reports which would be issued by the Rockefeller brothers and would cover such vital problems as housing, highways, the concentration of big city populations, foreign trade, education and civil defense. The reports would be written by college professors and scientists, the type of men who had masterminded FDR's New Deal. The first report was scheduled to be released at about the time of the governors' conference the following July. Those reports, coupled with an expected forthright Rockefeller Administration in New York, and joined with the fighting bloc of Republican liberals in the Senate, would set the stage for rejuvenation of the Republican Party. Planners in the party expected to build in that way the ability to attract Democratic and independent voters, planning to contrast the Rockefeller liberalism with old-line Rayburnism in Congress.
In Washington, a series of secret
huddles had been taking place between Speaker Rayburn and a small
group of Democrats who wanted to liberalize the Rules Committee so
that legislation affecting millions could not be bottled up by two
members of that Committee. Specifically, the revolt was aimed against
Congressman Howard Smith of northern Virginia, who would debate at
length "The Love Life of the Raccoon" or "Diseases of
the Horse", but who had frequently prevented debate on slum
clearance, sewage disposal
If a secret ballot were held in the Democratic caucus, Mr. Rayburn would probably be reversed on the question of the Rules Committee gag. But if the vote were in public, he would be upheld. It would be largely up to Congressman Mel Price of Illinois, chairman of the Democratic caucus, a man with a fine record, but who also feared Speaker Rayburn.
Marquis Childs indicates that former President Truman had told a half dozen of his closest confidantes in New York and Washington that he intended early in the new year to endorse Senator Stuart Symington of Missouri for the 1960 Democratic presidential nomination. In private talks with associates from his Administration, the former President had expressed the conviction that by making the decision early, he could determine the course of the convention and perhaps head off a bitter contest for the nomination. In 1956, Mr. Truman had waited until the Democrats had met in Chicago to declare for then-Governor of New York Averell Harriman for the nomination. At a mass press conference at the Blackstone Hotel, he had said that the 1952 nominee, Adlai Stevenson, if nominated again in 1956, could not win. He outraged the ardent supporters of Mr. Stevenson, and the convention, ignoring his counsel, chose Mr. Stevenson for a second time.
Among Mr. Truman's associates were those who doubted the wisdom of his current decision, believing that it would be wiser for him to continue the line he took publicly, that the Democratic Party had many good candidates and that when the convention would meet, they would choose one of them. Some of Senator Symington's supporters were known to feel that an endorsement by Mr. Truman might even harm his prospects for the nomination, as he had repeatedly insisted that he was not a candidate.
But Mr. Truman, who had never lacked confidence in his own political wisdom, particularly following his extraordinary victory against all odds in his re-election in 1948, seemed sure that he could carry the day. It was possible that he might be dissuaded, but he had always followed his own convictions with forthrightness.
The coalescing of the old pros in the party around Senator Symington as a compromise candidate was seen in the report that Jacob Arvey, the Democratic national committeeman from Illinois, was prepared to start working for the Senator. Mr. Arvey had helped to initiate the boom for Mr. Stevenson which had resulted in his first nomination in 1952.
As those experienced Democrats saw it, the party dilemma in 1960 was that Senator John F. Kennedy would come to the convention with the largest bloc of delegates, opposed by a combination of Northern liberals, with Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota as their torch-bearer if not their avowed choice. The battle which could ensue, particularly since Senator Kennedy's Catholicism and the allegiance of Catholic voters in the big cities would be in the background, could destroy what seemed at present the party's excellent chance to win the presidency. That was the fear of the experienced politicians from the Truman Administration and explained what appeared to be a growing determination to make Senator Symington the natural and inevitable choice and thereby avoid a showdown.
Senator Symington's voting record was, by the progressive standards set forth by the Americans for Democratic Action, almost perfect, but he also did not frighten the conservatives, who felt that basically he was one of them. He had overwhelmingly been re-elected to a second term the previous November and had maintained friends in every camp. He had served as the first Secretary of the Air Force under President Truman, and his supporters believed that his continuing concern for strengthening America's defenses had helped to keep him in the forefront as a national figure.
Mr. Childs finds Mr. Truman's role in the party, as the Democrats faced a difficult decision for 1960, to be interesting. Some critics were beginning to say that his forthright and often violent statements which captured the headlines tended to stamp the image of the troublous past on the party and identify it with the former President's era.
But the Democratic National Committee was about to ask for Mr. Truman's permission to make his 75th birthday on May 8 the occasion for a great national rally, with a closed-circuit television show equivalent to "This Is Your Life", celebrating the nation's most famous Democrat.
Mr. Childs concludes that whether Mr. Truman launched a drive to determine the nominee months in advance of the convention or whether he withheld, he was bound to have a lot to say about the politics of the coming presidential year.
Doris Fleeson indicates that it was almost certain that Dr. Dale Alford, who had beaten incumbent Representative Brooks Hays in Little Rock, would be seated in the new Congress pending an investigation of the election. It was only a little less likely that he would be seated as a Democrat. A sampling of the temper of returning members of the House indicated that when voting solely on the question of legality, they would overturn the three to two recommendation of a subcommittee of the outgoing House and vote to seat the segregationist Dr. Alford, whose victory had been a shock to liberals and moderates everywhere.
Nevertheless, it appeared equally likely that although Dr. Alford would be seated, there would be an investigation of the circumstances of his election, though some members expected that a report of that investigation would be a long time in coming and few expected it much before the end of the new Congressional session. The prevailing opinion among members of the House appeared to be that whether he was entitled to his seat or not turned entirely on legal, rather than sentimental or ideological, questions. Members, including some outstanding liberals, pointed out that he had been certified as elected by the state of Arkansas and to the fact that his opponent did not appeal that verdict. As a practical matter, they declared, since Mr. Hays had not contested the election, the only result of a finding against Dr. Alford would be a declaration that the seat was vacant, thus requiring a new election. Mr. Hays had said that in such event, he would not be a candidate.
The House was slow to pass moral judgments on its members and there were numerous precedents for doing what apparently was going to be done in the case of Dr. Alford. It had been pointed out, insofar as his being seated as a Democrat, that the House normally accepted its members as being what they said they were. Even if he were refused status as a Democrat, precedents required the majority party to take care of committee assignments of so-called independent members.
Regarding the other question at present which would be decided early in the new session, that of the continued power of the Rules Committee to prevent the House from voting on controversial legislation, the answer still depended almost entirely on the mood of Speaker Sam Rayburn when he returned from Texas. Rumors were that he liked things as they were. Within a few hours of his arrival, he would receive the liberals of the body, who it was now claimed numbered about 160, in the person of Representative Chet Holifield of California, one of the ablest and most distinguished members. It would be his task to persuade the Speaker to hold a meeting with a committee of liberal members to discuss the complaints against the Rules Committee, and if the Speaker should refuse to meet with the informal committee, it would probably mean that any further revolt would not be real but just for the record.
Robert C. Ruark, in Palamos, Spain, suggests that any day it would be likely that the newest nightclub comic's opening spot would begin: "Funniest thing happened to me today on my way to the studio. I was driving along and somebody pushed a rock off a bridge and shattered the windshield. The baby'll live, but we're worried about my wife and Uncle Eb." He suggests that it was what was called a "laff riot, if one can go by the fun-loving standards of some hearty youths who recently started toppling boulders off a bridge on the Westchester Parkway," leaving one 16-month old child hospitalized and two cars heavily damaged.
He indicates that it was not quite so funny recently when a crowd of similar comedians invaded a subway train and had themselves a real pre-holiday ball, pulling knives on the passengers, slashing the seats and jerking the stop cord, bringing the subway to an abrupt stop and throwing passengers to the floor.
"Juvenile fun is not limited to mere mayhem, today, or even to kicking a man to death to steal his clothes. Some of the standard gags recently reported, sure-fire laugh-getters, have been: Spinning a blind man around until he falls, and then making off with his pencils; pouring lighter fluid on a cat and setting it afire; the usual breaking of radio antennas; smashing windshields on cars; slashing tires… But that's kid stuff."
One youth recently had beaten his aunt to death because she had cut off his television ration. "He was a lusty child, a 14-year-old who was able to: Slug her, knocking her down, whereupon he kicked her. Broke an empty soda bottle over her head. Battered her with a lamp until it spattered. Swung an ax at her so hard the head flew off. Hammered her with the jar of a power paint-sprayer. Stabbed her eight times in throat and body with a kitchen knife. He was planning to hang her when fatigue overcame him, so he washed his bloody clothes and went peacefully to sleep." He told police that he had just gotten mad.
Mr. Ruark suggests that perhaps they were raising more robust delinquents because of force-feeding of health-giving proteins and plenty of green vegetables, although in the instance of the boulder-dropping, the cop said that he thought that the boulders were too heavy for an average teenaged prankster. He disagrees, in light of the latter case of the aunt-killer, as it would have done credit to a task force.
Whatever the reason for the wanton destruction and criminal amusement which afflicted the metropolises at present, it saddled his generation with a shocking lack of imagination. "The tougher echelon of my set hove an occasional dornick through the window of a vacant house: kicked over a trashcan and occasionally, on Hallowe'en relocated somebody's Chic Sale to greener pasturage."
He is afraid that his gang had been a bunch of squares, devoid of true inspiration, possibly because they had no television or child psychiatrists. "We even went so far as to obey teachers and seldom smoked marijuana in the little boys' rooms."
A letter writer from Salisbury indicates that whereas in the past sword-fighting was one of the manly arts, that time was gone, along with knife-fighting for the most part. There was enough killing on the highways and other accidental deaths to satisfy most people at present. But, all in all, people were getting less bloodthirsty and he suggests that perhaps the time would come when they would feel that they did not need blood as a part of their religion, and then they could start marching toward a bloodless day where all people would die in bed from old age.
A letter writer says that he considered all of the members of the City Council to be good citizens, good businessmen and his friends, and that their decision as to whether to allow City employees to join a union ought be in the negative. He suggests that if there were a strike of bus drivers and trouble arose, a City policeman could not do his sworn duty if he belonged to a union, as no man could serve two masters. Thus he believed that unionization of City policemen made no sense.
A letter writer indicates that the cartoonist on the editorial page had quoted the President as saying: "I think it is a sad sort of thing," in reference to when the voters had put him in the White House and put the nation's business into the hands of others. He indicates that the voters could now see that they had voted for the wrong candidate. "But there is no use to grieve. There are so many people that cannot see until someone puts glasses on them." He hopes that people who would attend the Democratic Convention in 1960 would stay away from Senator Kennedy's publicity. "Let's get someone who will fit the party. We do not need any leadership from Rome. We had a fair sample of that with Al Smith and Hoover."
The Epiphany for 2026: No political violence, including the kidnaping of foreign leaders or the acquisition of sovereign foreign territory by the United States, lest political violence in reprisal be inevitable. Tend your own rose garden.
Framed Edition
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