The Charlotte News
Friday, February 6, 1959
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from Thomasville, Ga., that the White House had said this date that the President would consider visiting Russia if future developments indicated that it would serve the cause of peace. Press secretary James Hagerty had made the statement in commenting on Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev's informal invitation to the President the previous day to come to the Soviet Union. But Mr. Hagerty stressed that the President had no present plans to make such a visit. (He would ultimately send the Vice-President.) The press secretary earlier had declined comment on the invitation by Mr. Khrushchev, extended informally in a speech at the Moscow 21st congress of the Communist Party. But this date, Mr. Hagerty had volunteered the statement at the President's vacation headquarters, saying: "Premier Khrushchev's invitation to President Eisenhower to visit the Soviet Union occurred in a lengthy speech which contained very hostile references to United States leaders. It seems strange that Premier Khrushchev, if he really welcomes a visit by the President, would extend it in such circumstances. The President has no present plans to make such a visit—in fact, he hasn't received any invitation except through the reports of an off-hand invitation extended in a political speech. Ever since he has been in office, President Eisenhower has always made it clear that he was willing to go anywhere in the world if, by doing so, such a visit would serve the cause of peace. Should future developments suggest that a visit to the Soviet Union or anywhere else would serve to advance this cause, then it certainly would be considered." A bilateral summit between the two leaders would occur at Camp David in September, 1959, and another meeting would be scheduled for Paris in mid-May, 1960, but would be canceled at the last minute after Russia shot down a U-2 reconnaissance plane over Soviet territory on May 1 and held prisoner its pilot, Francis Gary Powers, holding a public trial of him as a spy.
State Department officials had disclosed on Thursday that they had a graphic recording of harsh, barking voices which they said were of Soviet jet pilots shooting down an unarmed U.S. transport plane the prior September 2 near the border between Turkey and Soviet Armenia, killing 6 and possibly 17 American airmen. The recording, as translated, stated: "The target is burning. I will finish him off, boys." The plane admittedly had wandered across the border and over Soviet territory, according to the State Department, but it expressed a suspicion that the crew might have been misled by Soviet radio signals. The recording appeared to have caught Deputy Soviet Premier Anastas Mikoyan uncomfortably in the center of a big lie approach to diplomacy, as he had brushed off several inquiries about the plane during his recent visit to Washington and had treated it as a routine crash. The Russians had turned over the bodies of the six crewmen a short time after the crash, but had consistently denied any knowledge of the other 11 men aboard the plane. As two of the plane's unidentified victims had been buried this date with military honors in Arlington National Cemetery, two members of the Senate Armed Services Committee renewed their demands for acceleration of the defense program. Senator Stuart Symington of Missouri said: "It becomes more and more clear that some day we will have to stand against the growing Communist aggression. We will never put our defenses in a proper position to take that stand by tailoring our defense to a balanced budget." Senator Henry Jackson of Washington said that the attack was the outgrowth of "a weakening defense posture on our part." He added that "a weakening defense posture invites such attacks. The weaker they become, the more adventuresome the Russians become." Senator Richard Russell of Georgia, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said that the incident demonstrated that the cold war could become a nuclear holocaust. He said that the State Department recording would stir a feeling of revulsion throughout the entire civilized world. He told a reporter that "it should increase our awareness of the need for an adequate military defense in this country." He and other members of the Armed Services Committee agreed that the incident raised new obstacles to any negotiation with the Soviet Union. Several Senators recalled recent denials by Mr. Mikoyan of any knowledge of a Soviet attack on the American plane.
In Havana, Alan Robert Nye was reported this date to have denied that he had confessed to plotting to assassinate rebel leader Fidel Castro. The 31-year old former U.S. Navy pilot from Whiting, Ind., reportedly made his denial to U.S. Vice-Consul Hugh Kessler in an interview with him the previous day. Mr. Kessler had declined to confirm the report. Police headquarters had also declined comment. High revolutionary police and military officials had met until late on Thursday night discussing the case. The rebels had arrested the American as he marched in their ranks in Oriente Province the prior December 26, five days before former El Presidente Fulgencio Batista had fled to the Dominican Republic and the revolution had triumphed. Brought to Havana following the rebel victory, Mr. Nye had told newsmen on Monday that he was not involved in any plot against Sr. Castro, but had wanted to fight for the revolutionary cause. Police headquarters announced on Thursday that Mr. Nye had confessed that he had gone to eastern Cuba to kill Sr. Castro and that Brig. General Carlos Tabernilla, head of Sr. Batista's air force, had promised him $100,000 if he did so. The police said that Mr. Nye had made the statement voluntarily and had not been mistreated.
Attorney General William Rogers this date filed suit in Federal District Court in Montgomery, Ala., charging the Board of Registrars of Macon County with discriminating against prospective black voters seeking to register. The suit was the second of its type under the 1957 Civil Rights Act, designed to protect voting rights. An action against the registrars of Terrell County, Georgia, which raised the same discrimination issue, was presently awaiting trial in the Federal District Court at Columbus. The action at Montgomery had named as defendants the Macon Registration Board, Grady Rogers and E. P. Livingston. The latter two in December had announced their resignation as Macon registrars after being ordered by the Federal District Court to produce their records for examination by the Civil Rights Commission.
In Alexandria, Va., a U.S. District Court judge this date turned down a plea by the Alexandria School Board for a delay in admitting nine black students to three public schools the following Tuesday. The judge said at the end of legal arguments that he saw no reason to alter his previous order for admission of the students. The School Board had sought a delay to give it a chance to prosecute its appeal to higher courts.
In Fairfield, Calif., it was reported that an armed kidnaper had abducted a ranch wife from her home the previous night and then was captured this date after a predawn chase in which police cars had pursued him and his victim at speeds of more than 120 mph. The kidnaper had wrecked the car he was driving in a desperate attempt to get out of the police trap. His captive, 65, bleeding and shocked after hours of terror, had been taken from the wreckage, but was not injured seriously. Police had taken the 40-year old man into custody. The sheriff said that the woman, a grandmother, and her husband, 73, a well-to-do chicken rancher, had been playing bridge at a neighbor's house the previous night when the kidnaper had broken into their home. When the couple returned, they had been confronted by the intruder, masked with a woman's silk stocking and carrying a double-barreled sawed-off shotgun. The man forced the male of the couple to lie down on the floor of the bedroom and tied his hands behind his back. He then told him that he wanted $100,000 by the following Tuesday and that he would be contacting him in a couple of days. He said that he would be gone by the time he got loose and so he might as well not call anybody. He then ordered the woman out of the house at gunpoint and into her husband's car. The kidnaper then fled with the woman, after which her husband freed himself and telephoned police. An alarm was broadcast and shortly after 5:30 a.m., a Highway Patrol car had spotted the the automobile racing on a back road near Winters, some 50 miles northeast of San Francisco. The chase had then ensued, with the kidnaper doubling back on roads in his efforts to elude the officers. Although driving at high speeds, the kidnaper fired several shots, according to police, but they refrained from shooting back out of fear of hitting the victim. On Highway 40, police and Highway Patrol cars had lined up abreast and blocked the road. They said that the kidnaper fired a final shot as they closed in and arrested him.
In Philadelphia, a private secretary
confessed this date that she had sought to hire a professional killer
to murder her employer's wife because she was in love with her boss.
The plot had failed because the prospective killer had turned out to
be a police officer. The chief police inspector said that the
secretary, 48, had even gone so far as to make two down payments
totaling $225 toward a $600 fee for the murder. The balance of $375
was to have been collected upon the death of the intended victim. Her
boss, 58, said that he had been happily married for 33 years and that
he was shocked by his secretary's arrest and her expressed love for
him. Police said that he had no knowledge of the murder plot and that
the woman had been his secretary for the previous three years. Police
had arrested the woman the previous day after she had paid $150 to a
city detective posing as a hired killer. Ten days earlier, the woman
had given $75 to an unidentified underworld figure who had tipped off
the police. Neighbors of her boss and his wife had described them as
an "ideal married couple who were entirely devoted to each
other." The undercover police officer who had taken the money
said that he had sat in a car with the woman and the underworld
informant and that the woman would not look at him, that when he
asked her for suggestions on how the killing was to be done, she said
she would leave it to him. This story
And from the prior Tuesday, the day when the music did not die, the surreal interface had begun
In Oklahoma City, it was reported
that for 50 years people in constitutionally dry Oklahoma had not
been bothered by the prohibition law, but suddenly it was being
enforced. Oklahomans were talking more about whiskey and probably
were drinking less than ever before, but were paying more if they did
drink. The reform Administration of Governor J. Howard Edmondson, 33,
was seeking to dry up the state and bring repeal to a vote. He said
that they wanted to give the people a clear-cut choice between
prohibition and repeal. Whiskey bills and referendum proposals were
before the Legislature. An attorney from Muskogee was directing the
crackdown on bootleggers as the public safety commissioner heading
the Highway Patrol. He had staged periodic roadblocks across the
state, seeking to stop the flow of illegal liquor from Missouri,
Kansas, Texas and Arkansas. In the previous month, whiskey had gone
up one dollar to $1.50 per pint, if a person could find it. A
bootlegger had said that he could not serve his people, "but one
thing about it, they're not fussy anymore. I've had people begging me
for Scotch
In Raleigh, legislation was introduced in the State Senate this date to make it mandatory that all children in North Carolina under six years of age be vaccinated against polio. State Senator D. J. Rose of Wayne County, a physician, and State Senator J. Carlyle Rutledge of Rutherford County, had sponsored the measure which had the backing of a number of health groups in the state. Governor Luther Hodges, in his biennial message to the General Assembly the previous day, had urged the Legislature to consider it. Only in cases where administration of the polio vaccine would be contrary to the religious views of the parents and in cases where doctors certified that it would be detrimental to the child's health would the vaccine not be required. The act provided that parents of children between the ages of two months and six years would have their children vaccinated by a physician. In cases where the parents were unable to pay for the vaccine, it would be administered by the county health department free of charge. The State health officer strongly endorsed the compulsory vaccine. He pointed out that the legislation had been urged by the State Board of Health, the State Medical Society, the State Congress of Parents and Teachers, the State Association of County Commissioners, and the North Carolina Public Health Association. Senator Rose, a retired surgeon, said that his bill was the first compulsory polio vaccination legislation introduced in any state and that it would cost the state not more than $108,000 per year, while at the present time, they were spending more than $400,000 for treatment of polio. There were 1,494 new cases of polio in the state in 1957 and the Senator added that care of a single case cost more than $50,000.
Elizabeth Prince of The News indicates that although the state's free supplies of Salk polio vaccine pursuant to Federal appropriations were almost gone, there was no shortage of the vaccine. The chief epidemiologist with the State Board of Health in Raleigh had said the previous day that the supplies of vaccine bought for free distribution under the Federal program were about depleted and estimated that there were 1.9 million children in the state still in need of one or more doses. The City-County health officer, Dr. M. B. Bethel, who had attended a Greensboro meeting the previous day of state medical society members, health officials, National Foundation representatives and public relations men, said that there was no shortage of vaccine at the local health department. Officials of drug distributing firms in Charlotte, when contacted during the morning, had said that there was plenty of Salk vaccine available. Dr. Bethel estimated that there was vaccine enough for 1,800 doses available at the public health department at present. He said that the department had given several hundred doses each week the previous summer and during the winter, the average had dropped to between 100 and 150. He said that they knew the population was not adequately vaccinated and that people in the lower economic and literacy scale were those who were lacking. To enable public health departments to provide free shots, a state medical society committee studying the problem had recommended that local governments be asked for appropriations to purchase the vaccine. Dr. Bethel pointed out that Mecklenburg and Guilford Counties had already done so. The local funds provided jointly by Mecklenburg and Charlotte had not yet been depleted. Federal funds were to be used for vaccine for all persons under 20 and pregnant women, those particularly susceptible to polio. Because of the locally appropriated funds, the public health department in Charlotte had been able to provide vaccine to all persons under 40, the recommendation at the meeting in Greensboro the previous day. The regional medical director of the U.S. Public Health Service offered its help in making surveys of towns to determine the need for the vaccine. He had said that the vaccine bought with Federal appropriations would be exhausted within a week. The State Board of Health, he said, fully endorsed the proposed compulsory vaccine bill which was introduced this date in the General Assembly. The bill had been endorsed also by the Mecklenburg County Medical Society. A number of the state's major colleges, including Queens in Charlotte, required the vaccination. It was also compulsory for schoolchildren. Oh please don't tell the residents of Magaville, USA, that news or they will swear that we are living under Communism and will damn the country to hell. Live free of compulsory vaccinations or die! God damn right. If God had intended vaccinations, we would've all been born vaccinated. God damn right!
The News Spotlight Series for
the following week, to begin on Monday, would be titled "They
Licked Heart Attacks", showing how Senator Lyndon Johnson,
comedian Eddie Cantor, and actor Lee J. Cobb had all suffered heart
attacks and fought a long, hard climb back to normal living. The
author of the five-part series was Alfred C. Roller, featured writer
on the New York World-Telegram and Sun, author of a number of
previous Spotlight series, including "The Virus and You"
and "Contests—the Winner Wonderland". The new series
would provide inspiration to all heart sufferers and for those many
who would be stricken in the future, would offer a guide in fighting
the way back to health. It would be a special feature of February
Heart Month. For starters, don't smoke
A photograph appears of a woman from Omaha holding in her hands tiny kid gloves, shrunken after her roommate, a kindergarten teacher, had accidentally placed them in an automatic washer with other laundry. The woman planned to have the gloves bronzed and mounted on bookends to remind her roommate that they should not be washed.
On the editorial page, "Take a Deep Breath and Think Big" indicates that none could say as of the present whether the 1959 General Assembly was "progressive" as advertised or merely meddlesome, as it was too early to tell.
Governor Hodges had called the previous day for progress in his biennial message to the Legislature. It had been what the state's special study commissions had sought as they charted a course into a potentially abundant future. It meant simply hospitality to new ideas, a firm grasp on reality and a capacity for easy adjustment to contemporary needs. The Governor had sketched some of the possibilities in his message and he could have gone further, but it finds it to have been overall a good message, bolder in many respects than the final biennial messages of most of his predecessors, firmer of purpose than some of his own recent speeches.
It was only a partial unveiling of the Governor's program, as some of the more important elements would come later in his budget message. Other major matters, the revision of the State Constitution and court reform, for instance, would be subjects for special messages. That which had emerged the previous day was a generally liberal program aimed as much at the future as at the present, concerned primarily with the many ways in which the state could be provided with better public schools and colleges, better health and welfare services, more roads and highways, a more diversified agriculture and industry, improved tax laws and a better functioning state government.
The Governor's strong pitch for a state minimum wage law, his request for an additional 13 weeks of unemployment benefits "under emergency conditions specified by law", his endorsement of the incentive plan for public school finance, his support of more equitable property tax laws, and his abandonment of the perennial demand for a statewide liquor referendum had all been welcome. Equally important had been his encouraging recap of the state's industrial progress and his grasp of the problems confronting municipal governments.
It adds to his message that a willingness to scale the barriers of orthodoxy and tradition when the situation called for fresh thinking and new ideas was an imperative.
"The First Stirrings of the City's Web" indicates that City Manager Henry Yancey had gone to the mayor's desk and unrolled a map which showed a portion of Thomasboro. Members of the City Council had clustered close as Mr. Yancey explained that City water lines were to be extended into that area.
Thomasboro had been the primary contender for City services, especially water, for a long time since the private company serving it had ceased to function for lack of profits. As of June 1, 1957, the County Government had taken over the operation of the water system, but at a cost of $50 per day. At the end of July, most of the 85 families involved had organized their own water company and had begun to operate the antiquated system which the County had taken over on an emergency basis.
Now, genuine relief was in sight, but the actual work of laying pipe and tapping customers into it would take time. Mr. Yancey had said that they had to start somewhere.
He had also won approval for his plan to retain draftsmen to complete perimeter water and sewer plans.
With the coming of 1960, wells would be abandoned, the fire department's operation complicated and City officials would have many new names bringing in their problems with annexation of the perimeter area. The new water lines to Thomasboro were but a small part of a major transition to take place during the year, which had to be followed by major strides if the City's obligations to the perimeter were to be met in a reasonable time.
"A Gridiron Pitfall outside the Stadium" indicates that the college administrator was no longer safe behind his academic bars while students and alumni detrenched their football coach for a losing season. It had happened at Northwestern University, whose team had been waging a successful television skirmish in the "Quiz Bowl", a mental contest against other collegiate contenders in the field of general knowledge. Northwestern had been victorious over Columbia, Pittsburgh and Brown-Pembroke. But, as sportswriters would inevitably say, "You gotta lose sometime." And they had eventually lost to Georgetown University.
While it had not been a bad television season, 3 and 1, it had not been good enough. Northwestern's coach had been the dean of students, James McLeod. His days were numbered after his team's defeat, as a dummy labeled "McLeod" had been found hanging outside the school's administration building.
"Only in Raleigh" indicates that a local radio newscaster had offered an intriguing thought during the week when he broadcast "… that Governor Hodges had offered Representative Addison Hewlett a Superior Judge courtship."
A piece from the Greensboro Daily News, titled "How To Cure Peanut-Fed Hams", indicates that We Came Home to Warren Place, by Grace and Gilbert Stephenson, an account of their retirement to a Northampton County plantation, would be worth its price if for no other reason than for the recipe for curing "real country hams". The lost art had been preserved for posterity in "Cap'n Will" Stephenson's own words: "'Cap'n Will' or William Maddrey Stephenson, cousin and childhood companion of Gilbert Stephenson, is now a neighbor." His recipe was given in a first-person narrative form: "January is the best month for killing our peanut-fed hams. I prefer a green (fresh) ham weighing 15 to 18 pounds. I use plenty of salt, rubbing it in thoroughly on the skin side of the ham. On the other side, I sprinkle one-third of a teaspoonful of saltpeter to give it color. I sprinkle the ham with 3 tablespoons of sugar and cover it well with salts. After seven days I remove this salt and apply more salt. I let this salt stay on two days for each pound weight of the ham. Then I remove as much of this salt as possible. Next, I get a large pot of very hot water into which I put a good anti-skipper compound. I dip the ham into the water, take it out immediately and give it a good rerubbing. Next, I mix a gallon of blackstrap molasses and two pounds of black pepper. I cover the ham completely with the mixture and let it stand for an hour. I hang it up in my smokehouse. I have a hole in the door just large enough to take a stovepipe. Outside the house, I have a tin heater. I run the stovepipe through the hole in the door. I make a fire in the heater of applewood, sassafras and hickory." He then smoked the ham for about two hours per day for as many as five days. After the ham had been cured, it was a good idea to take it down and sprinkle it with black pepper to keep the skippers from getting into it. The ham attained its best flavor when it was between eight and 12 months old.
The piece indicates that neither of the authors of the book could guarantee the success of a ham prepared by that method, as curing of a ham required an instinctive hunch, but the editors of the Daily News were convinced that the recipe ought be reprinted for its unquestioned historical value.
If you eat enough cured ham, you will likely suffer a heart attack forthwith—in which case you will need to consult the coming week's Spotlight Series.
Drew Pearson indicates that Secretary of Defense Neil McElroy was one of the most likable and loyal members of the Eisenhower Cabinet. As a big-businessman who had once sold soap to millions as head of Procter and Gamble, Mr. McElroy had always taken time out to help his fellow man. Before entering the Cabinet, he had served as chairman of the National Education Conference and served it well. In the Cabinet, he still took time to help raise money for educational projects. As Secretary of Defense, however, he had been given a budget to defend and whether he liked it or not, he had to defend it, part of his loyalty. It explained why the public had been given such a confused picture of the nation's defenses.
On January 22, for instance, Secretary McElroy had informed a press conference that there was "no positive evidence" that Russia would have an operational ICBM before the U.S., giving the impression that the U.S. missile position was safe and secure. But on January 29, when heckled by Senators, the Secretary admitted that the U.S. did not plan to match missiles with Russia and had no plans for catching up. He was still being loyal to the President, but on that occasion was under oath and hard-pressed by the Senators. He argued that he did not want to put all of the nation's eggs in one weapons basket. Admitting that Russia had more ICBM's, he pointed out that the U.S. had other weapons to offset them, mentioning several weapons systems, not mentioning that some of them did not yet exist.
He had listed the Minute Man, which would be an excellent solid-propellant missile which would not require the cumbersome, time-consuming countdown necessary for liquid-fueled missiles, but would not be operational for another five years. While he was boasting of it to the Senate, he was curtailing money for its development. He had also listed the IRBM, saying that the U.S. had them in England, one reason the country did not need to spend so much on ICBM's or long-range missiles. But with only a dozen IRBM's in England and by the end of the year to have only about 75, the comparison was small to Russia's estimated 750 medium-range missiles.
He had also listed the Polaris missile, fired from submarines, as one reason for not needing more ICBM's, and yet the first Polaris would not be ready until late 1960.
He had argued that U.S. bombers posed a deterrent, another reason the nation had not pushed ahead with ICBM's. But Russia had bombers also, having a total of about 18,000 to 20,000 combat planes of all types, while the U.S. had only 13,000 of all types.
Finally, he had testified that the U.S. would have a squadron of ICBM's operational by the following July, with a complement of ten ICBM's in a squadron. That, however, was not true and both Senators and newspapermen covering military matters knew it. They knew that the nation would have a squadron of ICBM's ready only by January, 1960, by which time one part of their guidance system would already be out of date. Later, Secretary McElroy had been man enough to correct that statement, saying that the squadron of ten ICBM's would not be ready in July.
R. H. Shackford, Scripps-Howard Newspapers correspondent, in the fifth and last in the series of articles on Communist China, examines the international significance of Mao Tse-tung's "chain gang" system of communes, how it would impact the rest of the Communist world, what the reaction would be in the neutral, underdeveloped areas of Asia and Africa which looked admiringly on China's industrial-agricultural results but tended to overlook the slavery which produced them, whether the Kremlin, previously unchallenged in Communist ideology and practice, would tolerate Mao's grab for leadership of the world Communist movement and whether they would dare put the brakes on Mao or be forced to keep up with his extremism, whether there was a chance that the Kremlin might eventually decide that Communist China and its total mobilization of 650 million hungry and land-starved people was a greater threat than the "American imperialists", and whether the Chinese people themselves would take the new form of enslavement, including abolition of the family, docilely or whether they would risk another revolution on the order of Hungary in 1956 and an inevitable bloodbath for millions of people.
Mr. Shackford indicates that there were no answers to those and dozens of other questions at present but that there were signs of alarm in Russia's Eastern European satellite empire and that even the Communist faithful were wondering if what Mao was doing to the Chinese people in the name of "the road to communism" was in store for Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, etc. By comparison, the Russian brand of communism looked good, such that people in places like Poland were joking about it by saying, "Thank God the Soviet Union is between us and China!"
Wherever it was that Mao was leading China and the rest of the world, his commune movement raised a kind of fascination and speculation for the long-run, including the questions of whether it was possible that Mao's chain gang empire would succeed sufficiently so that cold war tensions between the U.S. and Russia might diminish in the face of what might come to be considered a common Asiatic threat. Communist China and Russia had the longest common border in the world and China had three times as many people as Russia. But the Soviets had nearly 2 1/2 times as much land.
There was no sign of such a break at present, although the elements for such a situation were there. The relationship between Communist China and Russia had never been easy and had become more complicated since the death of Joseph Stalin in March, 1953. It was unlikely to be easier if Mao could boast that he was the first to lead a nation from the transition stage of socialism to the Marxist Utopia, communism. With Mao racing ahead and Premier Khrushchev seeming to want to hold back, it would be difficult to maintain the pretense of "equal partnership" between Russia and Communist China. Both sides had too much at stake to risk a break at present, but even so, Mao had flexed his muscles in international politics as well as ideology.
The previous August, Mao had summoned Premier Khrushchev to Peiping to treat both the Communist and non-Communist world to a public tarnishing of Mr. Khrushchev's prestige and dignity. Mao had also thrown his influence first against the Titoist movements in Eastern Europe, the most sensitive part of Russia's empire.
Mao's six-month old commune campaign had caused Moscow Radio and press to carry official announcements of the move but had conspicuously refrained from any comment about them, let alone showing praise.
Deviation in theory or practice from the "line" decreed by Moscow long earlier had been the principal Communist crime. Tito was a right deviationist in the eyes of the Kremlin and Trotsky had been a left deviationist, wanting to move too fast for Stalin along the Communist road. In Communist jargon, therefore, Mao was a mid-century Trotskyite, which for 30 years had been a fighting term in the Communist fraternity. He concludes that the question was whether Premier Khrushchev would "fight".
Doris Fleeson indicates that the sky had not fallen during the week when a small number of black students had quietly entered previously all-white schools in Arlington and Norfolk, Va., comforting Southern moderates, though they knew that the issue of desegregation, which had poisoned Southern politics for a decade, was still noxious further south.
Virginia's form of massive resistance, which had been overly advertised as the hope of the South, had finally crumbled from orders by the courts, both Federal and the State Supreme Court. As expected, the law of the land applied in Virginia as in other places. But the fact that when the chips had been down and compliance had become mandatory, compliance was peaceful, had been a genuine triumph for moderates. They had been having a tough time in the South recently and that victory in applying common sense and peaceful means was possibly the most important thing which had come from Virginia's trial.
There were no hotheads and agitators present in either Norfolk or Arlington to mar a significant occasion and both the communities were prepared to accept the decisions of the courts, whether they liked them or not. There were no sneers or catcalls and both white and black students had been models of decent behavior.
She suggests that in neither community had that been an accident. Both Arlington and Norfolk had the advantage of being served by deeply responsible newspapers. In neither community had there been any outlet for demagogues. In both, the clergy had taken a notable part in preparing the way for peaceful change. In both, the best citizens, including important men and women from the business community, had been at work to produce a calm atmosphere.
The hard-core segregationist states, such as Alabama, South Carolina, Mississippi and Georgia, still had to face up to the realities before them. Georgia would probably get its chance before the new school term in the ensuing fall. So too might Louisiana, as court cases affecting schools in both Atlanta and New Orleans were nearly ready for decision.
Wherever it was possible, diehard segregationists would seek to use the issue against Southern border state Senators who would be up for re-election the following year. While Senators James Eastland of Mississippi and Allen Ellender of Louisiana were likely not to be affected by the issue, Senator John McClellan of Arkansas could be. It would not deeply impact Senator Lyndon Johnson in Texas or Senator John Sherman Cooper in Kentucky. But there might be attempts to apply it to some degree to Senators Richard Russell of Georgia and John Sparkman of Alabama, not because either had shown any softness on the question of segregation, but because ambitions of others would be seeking to use the issue against them. The only issue in that case would be that neither had succeeded in halting the slow progress of desegregation.
One Senator who might benefit from the situation in Virginia was Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee, the most moderate of the Southern Senators. With Virginia no longer maintaining its lost cause on Tennessee's northern border, the voices of moderation could be heard more clearly in Tennessee.
A letter writer indicates that now that the weather was really rotten for awhile, he hoped that the "confounded meddlesome newspaper men" were satisfied. There was no sign of sunshine on Groundhog Day and when the poor critter had come out of its hole, "it looked like the welding torches in a shipyard when you blasted away with them infernal light bulbs stuck on your cameras." He had thus seen his shadow because of the photographers and they had even made a man's eyes water when they took his picture at the police station.
A letter writer indicates that one could tell one's friends when a person got sick, down and out and broke, as they would stand by that individual, but the ones who loved a person only when he had money were not friends at all. She says she would rather have friends than money.
A letter writer from Hickory, a doctor, indicates that his experience with tobacco had come the hard way and for that reason, was not afraid to call Governor Luther Hodges or anyone else a liar who claimed that there was anything good about tobacco. At age 7, an older brother had confronted him with a demand that he take a "chaw" from a nasty plug he had pulled from his overalls and chew it as long as he did his, cutting off a big squid for himself and a smaller one for the writer. He indicates that the tobacco was not in his mouth five minutes before he began to get sick, and in another minute or so, the world began whirling with a tremendous speed, and he had fallen to the ground with a thud and remained unconscious for 24 hours, or so his mother had later told him. "The nastiest damned man I ever saw was a fellow from Lexington County, S.C." He had lived in luxury early in his life in a large frame mansion in the upper reaches of what was presently called the Murray Lake and was said to have lighted his cigar or pipe with folded five or ten-dollar bills. He had died perhaps the poorest man in South Carolina and had it not been for the help of the writer's father, he would have starved to death. He had been a small man with a big nose and a big head and would pinch up a plug of tobacco and stuff it up his nose. "Just how any decent hombre could look on a filthy devil like that and not get disgusted with tobacco is a question beyond my credibility." He wonders how many of the children were classed as morons at present from the effects of smoking cigarette stumps and other cast-off tobacco. "They pick such filth up from the streets, gutters, roads. And if their heads are swimming in classes, whose pants should receive several damned swift kicks?"
Amen, brother.
A letter writer from Newton indicates that he had noticed in Norfolk that the minority popular vote ruled and "they liked not to have let the man with a nice majority vote in Arkansas take his seat in our Capitol"—referring to Dr. Dale Alford, segregationist, who had narrowly defeated Congressman Brooks Hays in the midterm election primary, albeit under some questionable circumstances at the polls. He wonders whether it meant that the democracy had "about gone to Communist dictatorship". "Hitler and some other dictators have taken over in mysterious ways. Wake up America."
He sounds like the typical resident of Magaville, U.S.A., today, soundly brainwashed by salesmanship to believe the exact opposite of reality, the inversion technique of convincing people that the opposition was doing that which the sales artists were performing in such plain view as to seem transparent while in the process remaining opaque to the mesmerized among the sold, impressed by the magicianship.
Framed Edition
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