The Charlotte News
Saturday, July 11, 1959
ONE EDITORIAL
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from New York that the steel industry had said this date that it saw no possibility of a contract agreement to avert a strike scheduled for midnight on Tuesday. In announcing that position, R. Conrad Cooper, chief industry negotiator, said that there was no other recourse other than to notify the steel firms later this date to begin shutting down. After an hour-long negotiating session with the Steelworkers Union, Mr. Cooper said, "I regret to announce we see no possibility of an agreement." He said that no further negotiating session was scheduled with the union president, David McDonald, until Sunday morning, "but the outlook for an agreement is not hopeful." The industry spokesman said that the companies again had asked the union to extend labor contracts indefinitely so that bargaining talks could continue while the plants remained in operation, but the union had rejected any further contract extension beyond the two-week truce which would expire at midnight on Tuesday. The two-week postponement of an earlier steel strike threat on July 1 had been granted by the union at the request of President Eisenhower for more negotiating time. But the union the previous Wednesday had turned down the President's plea for a further contract extension. Mr. Cooper had broken off the practice of joint industry-union announcements to meet reporters during the morning to announce the industry's position that it now appeared that no strike-free solution was possible. Thus far, it had been reliably reported from both sides that the top dozen steel firms had stood firm on their refusal to raise wages or benefits resulting in any cost increases. Instead, the industry bargaining team, headed by Mr. Cooper, the vice-president of U.S. Steel Corp., had been insisting on contract changes which would give steel firms more leeway in making work assignments and otherwise slashing operational costs.
In Hollywood, it was reported that 28 homes were known to have been destroyed in a brush fire, possibly touched off by an arsonist, which had swept through 1,000 acres the previous day in the rustic Laurel Canyon. Fifteen other homes had been damaged and 300 persons had been forced to flee for their lives. Most of the homes were valued in the range of $30,000 to $40,000. Seven firemen had been injured trying to save them. A woman resident and her son had suffered burns running from their home as flames raced down upon it, destroying it. A family in a 1959 car had barely escaped when the driver, blinded by smoke, had driven off the road. The occupants had fled on foot. Flames had caught the car moments later and set it on fire. No celebrities' homes were reported to have been damaged.
In Seattle, it was reported that four crew members of a San Diego fishing vessel had been rescued from Puget Sound during the morning when their craft had been rammed and sunk by a seagoing tug. Coast Guard headquarters said that the tug had collided in the wee hours of the morning with the 79-foot fishing boat off the south end of Whidbey Island, about 20 miles northwest of Seattle. An 83-foot Coast Guard cutter had managed to get a line aboard the sinking vessel, but later lost its tow. The cutter and another Coast Guard ship were searching for the wreck in the early morning darkness. None of the crew members had suffered any ill effects from the mishap.
In Houston, it was reported that an Air Force captain who had protested his eviction from a duplex apartment to make way for a general would get to keep his quarters and the general would be housed elsewhere. Eviction notices had been issued the previous Wednesday to two Air Force captains, both doctors, bumped from their base duplex apartments in favor of incoming Civil Air Patrol commander Brig. General Stephen McElroy. The CAP was set to move to Houston from Washington the following month. One of the captains would get out of the service the following month after a two-year hitch, and the other captain was a regular Air Force flight surgeon. The captain who was due to get out the following month, from Boston, said that he had sent a telegram to his Massachusetts relatives to protest to Senators Leverett Saltonstall and John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts. In canceling the order, the base commander, a colonel, said that it was not in the best interests of the Air Force and was not the policy of that base to dispossess captains from their quarters because of the arrival of a general. When the original order had been issued by the acting commander, the regular base commander was away ill. General McElroy said at Bolling Air Force Base in Washington that he was not demanding that anyone be evicted, but that he was entitled to a set of quarters, that he had been in the Air Force for 20 years and could recall quite a few times when he had been asked to vacate quarters for an incoming officer. The Air Force said that they would find some temporary quarters for the general, either on or off the base.
In Boston, it was reported that tropical storm Cindy, reduced to a slashing ocean storm, had flicked New England this date on its way northeast to the Bay of Fundy. Heavy rain, lashed by high wind, drenched coastal areas during the night but no substantial damage had been reported. The storm had eased by midday in southern New England but extreme southern Maine was warned of occasionally heavy rain until the afternoon. The Weather Bureau at Boston during the morning had pinpointed the storm as being ten miles off Provincetown on the tip of Cape Cod, heading northeast at 25 mph. Boston had reported 2.37 inches of rain in 12 hours. Block Island, off Rhode Island, had 2.2 inches in 24 hours, driven by gusts of wind up to 68 mph during the night. Baby tornadoes, spawned by Cindy, had swirled through an area near Portsmouth, Va., at Westover on the James River, southwest of Richmond, and at Nags Head, N.C. No injuries were reported and damage was not extensive.
In Eclectic, Ala., it was reported that a courageous small-town banker, angered because two bandits had threatened to kill him and his family, had shot one to death and had seriously wounded the other to foil a bank robbery this date in the town. The 31-year old banker, his pregnant wife and three-year old daughter had been held hostage for about an hour before he had subdued one of the holdup men by throwing scalding water in his face and beating him on the head with the robber's own pistol. Earlier, the bandits had kidnaped a police officer and robbed a bank of $250. The man who was the general manager of the Bank of Eclectic, had killed one of the robbers during the wee hours of the morning with a shotgun charge to the chest and had seriously wounded the other who had received the hot water treatment, with a charge to his hip. The dead man, 24, was the son of a Montgomery night watchman. His 26-year old companion was taken to a prison hospital in Montgomery in serious condition. The latter had a criminal record dating back to 1950 when he had been sent to the same prison for five years for two cases of burglary and grand larceny and burglary in Montgomery County in 1953. The two men had kidnaped a city policeman after asking him to drive them out onto a highway where they could hitch a ride. The officer said that he was scared to death and said little silent prayers, hoping for a miracle. He said that one of the men had taken out a pistol and stuck it to his temple and told him he would blow his brains through the windshield if he did not do what he told him to do. The pair had taken the officer's pistol and ordered him to drive to the banker's home. At the home, the bandits had ordered the officer to summon the bank official to the door by telling him it was the police. They then forced their way into the home and held the police officer and the banker's pregnant wife and three-year old daughter captive. One of the bandits then forced the banker to accompany him to the bank while the other man stayed in the house and stood guard over the captives.
John Borchert of The News
reports that swift action had apparently saved the eyesight and life
of a three-year old Charlotte boy, who was believed to be out of
danger this date after treatment the previous night at Presbyterian
Hospital. The American Red Cross had flown a rare serum, still in the
experimental stage, to Charlotte from its Washington research
laboratories to stop the spread of an infection called vaccinia. One
shot of the serum, known as Hyper-Immune Vaccinia Gamma Globulin, was
believed to be enough to check the spread of the cowpox vaccine which
the boy had accidentally rubbed into his left eye. His six-year old
sister had been vaccinated within the previous month for smallpox in
preparation for entering school in the fall. Shortly after the
vaccination, the boy, who had not been vaccinated for smallpox,
rubbed his sister's arm and contacted the vaccine. He rubbed the hand
on his left eye and the infection had begun. His mother said that
they had noticed something wrong with his eye the previous Saturday
and they just thought it was a stye as they had just gotten his sister
cured from "sties"—in a pig's eye, you say. By Monday, however, the condition had not cleared
and the boy was taken to an eye specialist who saw him on Tuesday and
again on Wednesday. A pediatrician was consulted, and he had read
about a new serum under experimentation to cure the disease, which
had been 40 percent fatal. He consulted the Red Cross and they called
Washington and had the serum rushed to Charlotte. The disease had
spread to the boy's right eye and face by the time the serum had been
administered. The pediatrician said he believed the boy looked better
this date and that the disease took a varying amount of time to clear
up, with the body usually doing the healing. The pediatrician said
that persons who had been vaccinated would not contract vaccinia,
indicating that they liked to get children vaccinated before they
were one year old. The serum had been produced from the blood of
humans who had been vaccinated with the smallpox serum 6 to 8 weeks
earlier. The family had moved to Charlotte from Florida late the
previous year. They were natives of Charlotte and had first moved
three years earlier. They had four children ranging in age from four
months to two years old, in addition to the infected boy and his
sister. (You could just skip all 'at complicated science stuff, 'void the gol'tism, and give 'im a little shot o' bourbon 'bout ev'ry four hour er so, you know, like ol' Doc Adams there on the Gunsmoke, and he'll be up an' at 'em, spry as a daisy in no time flat, doin' the jig
In Charlotte, the Men of the Year were giving thought to the Man of the Year for 1959. The award had been established by the newspaper in 1944 as a recognition of outstanding service to the city during the year. The person would be selected late in December by the previous Men of the Year and the announcement of the selection would be made in the newspaper on the last day of the year. The Men of the Year at a mid-year luncheon meeting had been advised by Brodie Griffith, editor and general manager of The News, that the recent change in ownership of the newspaper would have no effect on the award, that it would continue on the same basis as in the past. The award was based on service beyond the call of duty and the rules governing the award provided that "persons holding salaried elective political positions are avoided. Civic affairs weigh far more heavily than commercial affairs, and a general, accumulated distinction is not enough. The candidate must have made notable contributions to the community in the year under consideration." The Men of the Year attending the mid-year luncheon were Coleman Roberts, who had won the award in 1944, Cecil Gilchrist, who had won it in 1945, George Ivey, the winner in 1947, Col. J. Norman Pease, the 1948 winner, H. H. Everett, who had won it in 1952, James McMillan, the 1953 winner, John Erwin, the 1954 winner, J. Spencer Bell, the 1955 winner, John Stickley, the 1956 winner, Carl McGraw, the 1957 winner, and Oliver Rowe, the 1958 winner. Henry Dockery, who had won it in 1949, and John Watlington, Jr., the 1951 winner, were absent. Deceased Men of the Year were J. B. Marshall, the winner in 1946, and David Ovens, the 1950 winner.
In London, it was reported that
Brendan Behan, still ruffled, and rumpled but subdued, had rolled
into a Bow Street court this date and was fined five shillings, the
equivalent of 70 cents, for being drunk in public. The thirsty Irish
playwright had pleaded guilty. The magistrate had asked whether
anything was known about the defendant, and a court official replied,
"Not in this court, sir." A chuckle rippled around the
public seats and the bleary-eyed Mr. Behan had grinned. Since his
arrival three days earlier from a drying-out course in a Dublin
hospital, he had been hitting the bottle and the headlines day and
night. He was author of the play, "The Hostage"
On the editorial page, "Joe McCarthy's Tarnished Heyday", an editorial book review of Senator Joe McCarthy by Richard Rovere, indicates that from 1950-54, the controversial Senator, portrayed in the book with wit, subtlety and no little charity, had been hailed as a new messiah of patriotism by a large number of Americans and as an odious new Grand Inquisitor by a sizable opposition. In his short term of eminence, the Senator had dashed through the temple, knocking down images of every sort.
The State Department, according to him in 1950, harbored a varying number of "card-carrying" Communists. He had also charged General George Marshall, once Secretary of State, as being "a front man for traitors" and "part of a conspiracy so dark as to stagger the imagination." He charged that the universities of the nation bred Communists by the dozens, although allowing that Nathan Pusey, when he had become president of Harvard, was not, he thought, ever a Communist. He had insulted his fellow Senators, libeled university professors from the immunity of the Senate floor, slapped Secretary of State Dean Acheson on the back in a Senate elevator and wondered why he blushed and why his mustache bristled. He had threatened to subpoena a former President to appear before his subcommittee. He charged the Protestant clergy of America with being a breeding ground for Communism, and moved from there to attack the Army and finally President Eisenhower for "21 years of treason".
He had been born to a poor and crowded Irish home in Wisconsin, surrounded by scandal as a member of the bench of that state, had been an intelligence officer who later posed as having been a "tail gunner" during World War II, had been elected to the Senate in 1946, with his first words after he stepped off the train in Washington having been, "Hell, it's raining." After some shady dealings with the real estate lobby and after an attempt to gain publicity by defending "mistreated" Nazi soldiers involved in the Malmedy massacre of December, 1944 during the Battle of the Bulge, Senator McCarthy was desperately in need, by January, 1950, of a dramatic issue to secure his re-election in 1952.
On January 7, 1950, at a dinner at the Colony Restaurant in Washington, the regent of Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service had suggested "communism" and the Senator responded, "That's it. The government is full of Communists. We can hammer away at them." (It should be noted that it was reported at the time that he was randomly assigned a topic by the RNC for Lincoln Day dinners, and the topic was Communism in the Government, at which point he came up with his varying numbers of Communists in the State Department, starting with 205, eventually reducing that to 57, of which none were ever finally adjudicated as such.)
Mr. Rovere, a Washington correspondent for the New Yorker, had given the effect in the book of a Hamlet musing on the skill of Yorick. It finds that there was something distant and foreign about the atmosphere of the McCarthy era, almost a valley of dry bones. It was hard to believe that Senator McCarthy had done what he did, and it was equally hard to believe that the American people had allowed it to happen as they had.
Essentially, the book, as its title implied, ignored the era for the man and the mirror for the image it reflected. It finds that if Mr. Rovere was correct about the Senator, with his evidence well-arrayed, the exploits of the man became all the more surprising.
The Senator was portrayed as a nihilist, a rebel without a cause, a seditionist who led "a flight from reality" and a cynic possessed of a bland ignorance of the wreckage which he had caused in quite a few public lives and in quite a few parts of the Government. By his own admission, the Senator "discovered" Communism some two weeks before his famous speech at Wheeling, W.Va., when he had labeled the State Department as the Red Haven. After his censure by the Senate in December, 1954, he lost interest in his Great Inquisition and then subsequently concentrated his attention on soybean speculation, an old interest, and alcohol, until he died in 1957.
It finds that Mr. Rovere had made the Senator live. But the shouts of his idolaters and the bright firebrands of his enemies were all but gone. The effect was often one of comedy, that is the art of showing how people could make fools of themselves. The talent of provoking people to make fools of themselves was a talent which Senator McCarthy fully possessed. It finds it an episode fit for the pen of an Aristophanes, how the U.S., basking in postwar grandeur and responsibility, if in some confusion, had agreed to hand over the power of political censorship to a clever, but cynical and shallow "prefect of morals".
Many Senators, journalists, clergymen, and members of the public at large had considered him a liar, a cynic, a humbug, a charlatan from the beginning, and many of them had said so outright, including Mr. Rovere in the pages of the New Yorker. Others, such as the late Senator Robert Taft and Vice-President Nixon, had seen in the buffoon an effective knight with which the Democrats might be unhorsed. Many "didn't like his methods" but considered his mission an honorable and essential one, and if the messiah was a bit shabby, he was the only messiah they had.
As the Senator's lone, nihilistic fight took its course against America's "establishment", all except a few adversaries accepted the terms of the fantasy. It was accepted as gospel that the essence of the Communist threat, which was admittedly real at home as well as abroad, was something like a cloak and dagger conspiracy. "Wearing the cloaks, flashing the daggers, however, there were no foreign spies or saboteurs. There were 'traitors' in places where one would least expect them—in places of privilege, education, taste, and political responsibility." Mr. Rovere had pointed out that the Senator was one of the greatest nonconformists America had produced, having attacked every institution which to most had stood above reproach.
The threat of Communism, as the Senator had implied in Wheeling when he opened his crusade, had come mainly from "people born with silver spoons in their mouths". It was a simplistic conspiracy, the kind which children and indifferent adults could rally to root out, with the help of the Senator, and perhaps, also J. Edgar Hoover. If people accepted Senator McCarthy's definition of the "Communist threat", many Americans also accepted his implicit canons of good "Americanism" or "patriotism". When attacked, according to Mr. Rovere, "what many did was to supply wholly gratuitous information intended, apparently, to show McCarthy that they were men in possession of exactly the kind of virtues he should admire… Many felt impelled to show that they were dues-paying Redmen or Epworth Leaguers or Lions."
Even Secretary Acheson had joined the chorus, telling the American Society of Newspaper Editors: "There is no need for anyone to be defensive about the Department of State. It was a splendid body of men, including such figures as 'George McGhee, of Texas, a former oilman… Willard Thorp, a former partner of Dun & Bradstreet… Paul Nitze of Massachusetts, a former partner of Dillon, Read.'"
The author's wry comment on that practice was among the best passages in the book: "Not only was the defense humiliating to those who employed it, but it raised the delicate question of what the large sections of the population who had never been Eagle Scouts and might have been in the bad graces of Dun & Bradstreet would do if attacked by McCarthy."
It indicates that the tragicomic dishonor which the Senator evoked from the country had ended abruptly in 1954 when the Senate had censured him. Mr. Rovere had written: "No bolder seditionist ever moved among us." But suddenly he was fallen. If the smears which the Senator had recklessly encouraged had faded, with much of his other tomfoolery, surely there was some of his powerful legacy in every attempt to retreat from responsibility, to conceive that responsibility in infantile terms, or to belittle the patriotism of government, from the Supreme Court to the U.S. Information Agency.
It finds that a comparative sobriety had returned to the country, "but we are not yet quite grown up."
A piece from the New York Herald Tribune, titled "The Soviet Press Has Its Day", indicates that recently the Soviet Union had celebrated Freedom of the Press Day, with cartoons and editorials on the subject in all of its newspapers. According to the Soviet view, only the Communist press was truly free. An editorial in Pravda expressed "sympathy for exploited colleagues in capitalist countries."
It concludes: "Thank you, Pravda—and our sympathies to you. It must've been a difficult day."
Drew Pearson indicates that it was not often that election of a state senator attracted much attention, but the glamour-packed battle for State Senator from Alexandria, Va., the one-time district of George Washington, was being watched all over the South, as its outcome would determine whether Virginia continued with its moderate integration or would close its public schools. It would also partially decide the future of Virginia's potent Byrd machine. The romance and red roses of the first families of the state were tied up in the personalities of both candidates. Fighting for the Byrd machine and the probable end to the public school system was Marshall Beverly, cousin of Senator Harry F. Byrd, and great-great-grandson of John Marshall.
Fighting against the machine was Senator Armistead L. Boothe, descendant of Confederate General Lewis Armistead, who had died on the field in Pickett's charge. Mr. Boothe was also the son of a man who had served for 50 years on the Virginia Democratic executive committee. Battling on each side were such old Virginians as Fitzhugh Lee Opie, a member of the famous Lee family and collateral descendant of George Washington, supporting Mr. Beverly. Supporting Mr. Boothe were Mary Walton Livingston, whose great-grandfather was one of the historic statesmen of Virginia, and the Charles Ravenels, the prime aristocrats of Alexandria, Mr. Boothe's wife being a daughter of that family. Thus, Old Virginia was fighting Old Virginia over the issue of whether to put a handful of black children into half a dozen schools or to close the public schools. Mr. Boothe, though a segregationist, said that the schools ought be kept open under the plan of Governor J. Lindsey Almond.
Not only was Old Virginia fighting Old Virginia as though crude invaders from Boston or Philadelphia were upon them, but they were doing it with invective seldom heard among the Virginia gentlemen. Mr. Boothe, a Rhodes scholar and one of Virginia's outstanding legislators, had broken with the Byrd machine and thereupon, the latter had picked a Byrd relative to try to oust him from the State Senate.
Mr. Beverly, strictly a know-nothing, had given a remark in a debate with Mr. Boothe recently, that there were about 400 members in the Virginia Legislature and there were 100 Representatives and 40 Senators.
If Mr. Boothe was defeated, the narrow vote in the Virginia Legislature could result in defeating Governor Almond's school plan, but if he was re-elected, all of the South would be watching.
UAW President Walter Reuther had tipped off members of that union that he was not serious about backing Senator John F. Kennedy, despite their flirtation. Mr. Reuther still favored Adlai Stevenson for the presidency. But if Mr. Stevenson was knocked out of the Democratic convention for the nomination, he would throw his support behind Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota.
Robert C. Ruark, in Palamos, Spain, says that he had forgotten a thing about Spaniards called "pundonor", or personal pride, with which all Spaniards were enormously endowed. He had not met an impolite Spaniard nor one who would grovel, whether rich or poor. "Pride is what the Spaniard wears as a badge."
Producer Sam Spiegel, a movie producer, was charging up and down the Costa Brava where Mr. Ruark lived, in an enormous yacht, looking for a place to house Elizabeth Taylor and her director, while Mr. Spiegel was shooting a sequence in a little bay nearby. His production manager had stopped by Mr. Ruark's home and asked him to help them find a house for two weeks in August, the impossible month on the coast. He had started to say "impossible" and then thought that he had to be in New York on August 1, and that his wife ought to go to England, and so he decided to rent the movie moguls his modest hovel and charge them about $5,000 per week for two weeks.
He had taken the idea to his Spanish cook, her niece and the general housekeeper, however, each of whom thoroughly rejected the notion, the cook saying, "I will not have that woman in our house!" When Mr. Ruark asked her why, she responded: "Married too much. Anyhow I don't like picture people. They get up too early and sit up too late." He reminded her of the money he could make and the tips she could make and that her niece might even be able to appear in the movie. Then the niece said: "No. You don't need the money and I don't need the tips. Also I don't want to be a movie star. We put a movie company in here and our house would be a house of crazies. All picture people are loco." She said that they would do anything for Mr. Ruark and for any friend of his and gladly, but they were not for rent, walking off like a bullfighter. Her aunt agreed: "We work for you in our house. We do not work for the man of the yacht or for la Señorita of the many marriages."
Thus he had resigned himself not to be able to boast that Elizabeth Taylor had graced his poor fishing cottage on the Costa Brava. "The kitchen is up on its pundonor again, which is to say hind legs. Mr. Spiegel was able to do 'African Queen' and 'Bridge on the River Kwai,' but he has a logistical problem in Christina, Carmen and Ysabel that the most talented production manager will never be able to solve. I guess everybody will just have to live on Sam's big boat."
A letter writer from Gaffney, S.C., finds that the editorial of July 8, titled "Democrats Should Fire Paul Butler", had hit the nail on the head. He thinks it too long that "Blowhard" Butler had been spouting off and doing his best to disintegrate the Democratic Party, seeming to work under the delusion that he and he alone was lord and master of the party and the only one capable of choosing the next Democratic presidential nominee. He finds that his trouble was that he wanted to select a nominee on regional grounds rather than on leadership qualities. As Senator Thomas Dodd of Connecticut had stated in a letter to Mr. Butler, "… It is the man who is important, not the place where he lives." The writer had found that Mr. Butler had put his foot in his mouth when he said that no Democrat from the South or the Southwest should or could be nominated for the presidency. He was not close friends with Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson of Texas and the nomination and election of the latter would mean no political plum for the DNC chairman. He thus also favors, as had the editorial, that Mr. Butler be fired, and also favors giving him to the Republicans, in which case, he believes the Democrats could not possibly lose in 1960.
A letter writer comments on the same subject, finding Mr. Butler's attacks on the party's own Congressional leaders to be surface signs of the deep internal chasm of irreparable splits which wrecked the party. He finds that Senator Johnson had limited himself thus far to using the Senate as a personal publicity forum while lending covert support to the "Stop Kennedy" movement, and that the feathers would fly when Senator Johnson opened his own campaign drive for the convention votes. He finds the discord among Democrats to be nothing new, believing that the party could be called the "Party of Repudiation".
A letter writer from Concord indicates that for some time he had been planning to write about the editorial page and express his appreciation for the many fine editorials which had appeared lately. He had been a reader of the newspaper for some time and wherever he lived in the state, he always had the News mailed to him. He commends the editorial recently, titled "Dixie in the Court of Public Opinion". He also commends "The Democrats Should Fire Paul Butler". He hopes that the latter would get something going for the party to have a new chairman.
A letter writer indicates that the Shreveport Times had warned its readers that recent publicity to the effect that 39 million Protestants had given President Eisenhower the go sign on admitting Communist China to the U.N. had been a falsehood. A so-called study group appointed by the left-wing National Council of Churches, made up of only a few thousand members, most of whom were inactive, was responsible for the report, he says, which had first been publicized by the New York Communist Worker, and later reported in quite a few liberal publications. Thus 39 million, squeezed down to size, was actually only a handful of the real Protestants of the country. He indicates that the National Council was thus misrepresenting Protestantism in the country and that it was most reprehensible. "Certain well-known minority groups of radicals and left-wingers in various Protestant organizations are doing some deliberate lying and calling it propaganda. Not 15 percent of Protestant Christians believe that Red China should be given a seat in the United Nations. It would be just plain stupid for any free nation to be linked up with any barbarian country such as Red China or any other Russian-controlled nation…"
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