The Charlotte News
Tuesday, July 14, 1959
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota had formally entered the race for the Democratic presidential nomination this date, a year before the party's nominating convention to be held in Los Angeles. The announcement of his entry to the race, making him the first of a handful of major contenders actually formally to enter the ring, had come via Senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota and Governor Orville Freeman of that state. Senator McCarthy, at a press conference in Washington, while holding an open telephone line to St. Paul with Governor Freeman on the other end, said in response to a question as to whether Senator Humphrey approved of the move: "The candidate knows we are making this formal announcement and of course approves." Senator McCarthy said that Senator Humphrey was ready to compete in Democratic presidential primaries "but is disposed to concede" primaries where genuine favorite sons were entered. None of his likely competitors appeared inclined to follow quickly on his heels.
In Washington, it was reported by the Labor Department that unemployment had risen by 593,000 as two million students and new graduates flooded the job market in June. Simultaneously, employment had surged to a record high of 67,342,000, a gain of 1,326,000, built on strong factory hiring and seasonal increases in farming and construction. Unemployment remained at 4.9 percent of the civilian labor force because of the offsetting increase and decrease, following allowance for seasonal fluctuation. The steep climb in employment, a gain of 4.6 million since February, had seldom been matched in history, attesting to the force of the business recovery, according to Department officials.
In New York, it was reported that a steel strike at midnight this date appeared inevitable, with union and industry negotiators going through the motions of fruitless last-minute bargaining sessions. The chief industry negotiator, R. Conrad Cooper, said that there was no change in the bargaining stalemate, but he and United Steelworkers Union president David McDonald continued talking with fellow negotiators about a possible new contract. Mr. Cooper said that the process of closing down the industry in advance of the walkout was already well along. Mr. McDonald and Mr. Cooper had shaken hands and willingly posed for a news photographer before starting their final round of sessions. The White House said that the President still hoped that the strike could be averted. The slow, systematic shutdown had begun in many mills during the weekend. A number of blast furnaces and open hearth furnaces were completely shut down on Monday, with only a little heat being fed into them to prevent refractory linings from cracking. Companies had transported food, cots and bed clothing into mills for supervisory personnel who had to keep a constant watch on the expensive equipment during a strike. United Steelworkers locals were making picket signs and drawing up picketing assignments and schedules. The steel industry had stuck firmly to its position that any extra wage and other concessions would be inflationary and contrary to the nation's interest. Mr. McDonald said that pyramiding industry profits could pay for substantial pay and other contract increases without accompanying price boosts. In a last-ditch proposal on Monday night, Mr. McDonald said that the union was willing to settle for a package increase in pay and benefits worth 15 cents per hour in each year of a three-year contract. Steelworkers presently averaged $3.10 per hour in earnings, well ahead of most manufacturing workers, but Mr. McDonald maintained that his members were entitled to further substantial increases. The President, for many months, had been urging steel negotiators to be moderate. The steel industry said that its position was grounded on the President's position.
In Washington, Teamsters Union president Jimmy Hoffa had denied this date that he was behind a reported move to seize control of a board of monitors appointed by a Federal District Court to clean up the union. The first overtures for such a scheme, Mr. Hoffa told the Senate Rackets Committee chaired by Senator John McClellan of Arkansas, had been made by Bartley Crum, New York attorney who testified the previous day that attempts had been made to pack the board with union friends. Mr. Hoffa said that he had referred Mr. Crum to the union's attorney, Edward Bennett Williams, "because this was a legal problem." Mr. Williams had said that he was opposed to any such scheme. Mr. Crum had told the Committee the previous day that he was offered but had refused a part in a scheme to replace Godfrey Schmidt as one of three court-appointed monitors. The approach, according to Mr. Crum, had been made through Longshoremen's Union president Harry Bridges, and one of the latter's top aides, Louis Goldblatt. Mr. Crum testified that under the plan, in return for Mr. Schmidt's resignation from the board of monitors, Mr. Schmidt's attorney and monitor fees would be paid in full and Mr. Crum would become a monitor. The fees were due to Mr. Schmidt anyway for his services and expenses, and Mr. Crum was trying to obtain them on behalf of his client, Mr. Schmidt, who was so broke as a result of not being paid the due fees that his electricity had been turned off the prior week. Mr. Crum also testified that on Thursday of the prior week, Mr. Williams had told him that if he did not testify further before the Committee, the due fees would be paid by Friday to Mr. Schmidt—who had been the attorney for the dissenting Teamsters who had brought the suit in Federal District Court opposing Mr. Hoffa being made president of the union on the basis of fraud in the 1957 union election, resulting in the appointment by the court of the union monitors, including Mr. Schmidt. Mr Williams testified that he had not made such a proposition to Mr. Crum regarding his testimony before the Committee. (Senator McClellan found the representations of the two attorneys, plus an attorney who had attended the luncheon with Mr. Williams, who tended to corroborate the version of Mr. Williams, so divergent that he referred the matter to the Justice Department for possible action. Nine days later, Mr. Crum would file a supplemental statement with the Committee indicating that he had not intended to imply that Mr. Williams had offered him a bribe not to testify, Senator McClellan then stating that it reinforced the need for the Justice Department to investigate the matter for possible perjury. Mr. Crum, 59, would die in his sleep of a sudden heart attack the following December.) Mr. Williams also testified that he had, during the course of his representation of the Teamsters, objected in court to the fees charged by Mr. Schmidt and two other attorneys for the dissident Teamsters, finding them "unconscionable" fees, and had also sought through the court Mr. Schmidt's removal as monitor because of a conflict of interest by his representation of certain clients who had cases against the Teamsters, and that thereafter, Mr. Schmidt, through Mr. Crum, had offered to resign voluntarily pursuant to a proposed settlement agreement whereby the motion to remove him would not be opposed, provided he was paid his sought fee, that, however, the negotiations were perfunctory and nothing ever came of the agreement, that Mr. Schmidt remained as monitor and his fee continued to be opposed by Mr. Williams as counsel for the Teamsters, as it was still opposed at present, and that Mr. Schmidt had resigned some weeks earlier in the wake of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals finding in Cunningham v. English that there was a potential conflict of interest and recommending to the District Court that it review therefore Mr. Schmidt's appropriateness as a monitor, expressing no opinion on the matter. (Certiorari on that case was denied by the Supreme Court the following December, with a rare opinion attached by Justice Felix Frankfurter.) Mr. Crum testified that Mr. Hoffa had been behind the scheme to replace Mr. Schmidt as a monitor. Mr. Crum had also testified that he had been warned that if he took the place of Mr. Schmidt as monitor, Pepsi-Cola would not be delivered by the Teamsters, and that he thought that Mr. Hoffa, though the threat was communicated through others, was behind that threat. Mr. Crum testified that his firm represented Pepsi and the company would have been considerably impacted had the threat been put into operation and that it thus entered his thinking in refusing to succeed Mr. Schmidt as monitor. Mr. Hoffa had denied this date that he had approved the plan to pay Mr. Schmidt only upon his resignation as monitor and said that Mr. Crum was referred at all times to Mr. Williams. He also denied having discussed Pepsi-Cola with the intermediary whom Mr. Crum said had relayed the threat of non-delivery. Mr. Crum also testified, in response to questioning by Senators Barry Goldwater and Homer Capehart, with follow-up by Senator John F. Kennedy, that he believed Mr. Hoffa and Mr. Bridges, together, could rig a combination between the Teamsters and Longshoremen, in controlling the transportation system of the nation, more powerful than the Federal Government, and that Mr. Bridges wielded excessive power over the selection and election of senatorial, congressional and gubernatorial candidates of both parties from Hawaii based on his stranglehold of union labor there and, consequently, the sugar plantations which had once controlled Hawaii's economy, now, controlled, said Mr. Crum just five weeks before the admission of Hawaii to the Union, by the Longshoremen's Union. Don't forget about the significance of Pepsi-Cola, Dallas, Joan Crawford and Mr. Nixon, in November, 1963, or Senator Capehart, sugar plantations and the island of Cuba in October, 1962. Sometimes, it is such associations and runs of the mind, easily retained by the not too swift but who are in the know, which precipitate world events of momentous consequence, brought on by little men seeking greater stature than their mediocre minds and inadequate education would ordinarily permit, especially dangerous when their little fiefdoms are challenged.
In Little Rock, Ark., it was reported that a segregationist leader had said this date that Little Rock schools would never be integrated "because the people are not going to put up with it." Amos Guthridge, attorney for the segregationist Capital Citizens Council, said that the group would resist any future school integration with everything at its command, adding, "We don't mean in the courts, we mean by action." When pressed, he said that it was possible "such things as public protest rallies" might be included. The School Board intended to open Little Rock's four public high schools in September. Governor Orval Faubus had kept the high schools closed during the 1958-59 school year to prevent integration. The previous month, a Federal court had struck down the state school closing law utilized by Governor Faubus. The statement of Mr. Guthridge had been made as the School Board had prepared for a meeting this night to fix high school registration dates and discuss the use of the pupil placement laws of Arkansas. His announcement of an all-out fight against integration had been the first major statement made by the Council since May 25, when voters had recalled three militant segregationists from the Little Rock School Board. The election had stemmed from a purge of 44 teachers ordered by the trio of members. After the election, most of the teachers had been reinstated. According to Mr. Guthridge, the School Board and all of their cohorts were trying to make the laws acceptable to the public so that they would cease to resist.
In Charlotte, it was reported that a delegation from the Little Rock School Board was scheduled to arrive in the city the following day to discuss North Carolina's pupil placement law. Everett Tucker, Jr., president of the Little Rock Board, had told the Arkansas Democrat this date that plane reservations had been made for three men, and they would leave Little Rock the following morning. Mr. Tucker said that a conference was scheduled in Charlotte the following day with City Schools superintendent Dr. E. H. Garinger, the attorney for the Charlotte School Board, and for as many members of the City Board as could attend the meeting. Similar arrangements had been made for Thursday in Norfolk, Va., according to Mr. Tucker.
Ann Sawyer of The News reports that increased water and sewer rates for Charlotte residents would bring in $355,000 more than needed to put the system on a self-sustaining basis. The "profit" of water and sewer services would be used by City Council members to help keep the tax rate down. In a budget session the previous night, the Council had voted to increase City water rates by 10 percent and double the sewer charge.
John Kilgo of The News reports that a robbery attempt by two young boys had fizzled the previous afternoon when they had given themselves away by making a temporary getaway too fast on their bicycles. The boys, 12 and 13 years old, had been picked up and talked to by County police. Police said that the robbers had made their criminal debut at the By-Pass Gulf Service Station on the Highway 29 bypass the previous day late in the afternoon. The operator of the station said that he thought that something was up when one of the boys said, "Let's get out of here." He said that the boys had been sitting around the station and "acting funny", and then had walked around to the back of the station and returned, when one of them had said that they should get out of there. They then got on their bikes and took off. The station operator had gone to the back of the station and saw a couple of dimes lying near an old tire. He looked in the tire and found a wadded up chewing gum box, with his money in it, which the boys had gotten from the drink machine, with his key. He called police and said that the robbers were heading south. Police said that the boys had admitted the attempted robbery for $3.90. One boy said that he had taken a dime and bought a drink on the way home. The station operator said that he had gotten his money back and his key.
In Bennington, Vt., it was reported that for 37 years, two brothers had sought a missing third brother, and the previous day had found him a few hours before he had died of burns. The search by the two brothers from Oswego, N.Y., had ended at the deathbed of their brother, 59, of Manchester. He had died in the hospital of burns suffered a week earlier when fire had swept a cabin in Winhall. He had rallied briefly just before his death and was able to recognize his brothers, ages 65 and 47. The brothers said that they had not seen their brother since 1922 when he had walked away from their home after a family squabble, vowing "never to be heard from again." Not until death and pain had closed in on him had he broken that vow. He then told police that he came originally from Oswego and police of that community had been able to notify and locate the brothers to bring about the reunion. Manchester residents had known little of the third brother's background or past.
The newspaper admits having jumbled
the signals on "Jumbled", the cartoon puzzle which had once
appeared daily in the newspaper, having left it out, thinking that
the readers no longer cared for it. The mail had proved them wrong
and so they were returning it to the newspaper this date, placing it
on the front page. Henceforth, it would be on the inside of the
newspaper, as it had been for many years. See if you can figure
On the editorial page, "It's the System that Needs Attention" indicates that Mecklenburg Superior Court Judge W. H. S. Burgwyn had echoed the concern of many Mecklenburg residents the previous day when he had ordered a grand jury investigation of justice of the peace records.
It posits that if the 1958-59 debate over court reform had done nothing else, it had awakened the layman from a deep sleep and for the first time in nearly a century, there was widespread awareness of deficiencies in the administration of justice in the community. It was something more than mild curiosity. Where magistrate's courts were concerned, it closely resembled a case of the jitters.
A long, hard look at the records was definitely in order and it ought be a continuing process. Occasional spot checks were not good enough. But even prolonged scrutiny evaded the central issue, the unsatisfactory nature of the system itself, encouraging abuses. No experience in modern government was as disillusioning as a visit to a jaypee court. For one thing, the visitor discovered that magistrates earned a fee in a criminal case only if they found the defendant guilty. The visitor also learned that most magistrates were wholly unlearned in the law and, as often as not, unlettered as well.
There were exceptions, with a number of able and intelligent justices of the peace who did know the law, but those were the exceptions and not the rule. Even if the magistrate was unselfish enough to overlook personal interest in the verdict, the question was whether the defendant left the court with any respect for a judicial system which placed his liberty and property on such a biased scale, finding it doubtful.
The vicious system was but one dark aspect of the problem, with another being the great number of justices of the peace, more than 1,000 operating courts of one sort or another in the state at present. There could be more in the future. The basic law actually allowed the election of three magistrates from each of the state's 1,027 townships. One additional jaypee could be elected for each 1,000 people living within each township. On that basis, Mecklenburg was entitled to 152. On top of that, the senior resident Superior Court judge could appoint additional justices of the peace and so might the General Assembly. The Assembly in 1957 had named 692 of them.
It finds that the result was that magistrates actually competed for "business", with the accuser in criminal litigation and the plaintiff in civil litigation benefiting accordingly.
There were other distasteful aspects of the problem, with the employment of justices of the peace as collection agents, their failure to follow proper trial procedures, the frequent absence of records which would permit evaluation of their civil business, and their private counseling by attorneys who also appeared before them. A grand jury could examine records, check dates and add columns of figures, but could not reform, that being for the General Assembly and the voting public. The Assembly had refused to act in 1959, but if enough judges, grand juries and ordinary citizens expressed concerns about the situation, it has the feeling that legislators would take a wholly different approach to the problem in 1961. "For the good of us all, they'd better."
"Mr. Bohlen Is the Wrong Scapegoat" indicates that the Corn Belt Senators had come to life over the weekend, not surprisingly, as it seemed more likely that Secretary of State Christian Herter would ask Charles Bohlen, an old hand at Moscow tricks, to take over a special Soviet Affairs Desk at the State Department.
The anti-Bohlen cabal, comprised of Senators Bourke Hickenlooper of Iowa, Karl Mundt of South Dakota, Andrew Schoeppel of Kansas, Henry Dworshak of Idaho, and Barry Goldwater of Arizona, had made an old game of opposing Mr. Bohlen. They had mustered 13 votes against him when, in 1953, President Eisenhower had appointed him to succeed George Kennan as ambassador to Moscow. They had applauded when Secretary of State Dulles had exiled him to Manila in the Philippines, and now, despite the Senate having nothing to say about the internal State Department change contemplated by Secretary Herter, they had set up the familiar tune. The Corn Belt opposed Mr. Bohlen more as a symbol than as a man. Senator Hickenlooper and his cabal represented an inland voting group whose grievances against American policy toward Russia were positively historic, dating back to World War I, when the U.S. had cast its lot against Germany. They viewed the Bolshevik excesses in Russia and the subsequent spread of Soviet power in Asia and Eastern Europe as the result of perfidious mistakes on the part of American policymakers, not the result of Russian initiative. Mr. Bohlen was, to them, the effigy of the policy they hated.
He had gone with Ambassador William Bullitt as part of the first diplomatic mission to Moscow and had been with FDR at the Yalta conference in early 1945, and had forcefully defended the Yalta agreements against their critics.
The real issue was whether the State Department was to be deprived of an able and proven expert on Soviet affairs because of the wistful historical view of Senator Hickenlooper and his friends. They had attempted repeatedly to make a scapegoat of Mr. Bohlen, who had no executive power and could not be held responsible for the successes or failures of FDR 14 years earlier. Mr. Bohlen was known to the Russians as a tough-minded advocate of American policy, difficult to handle in an argument.
It hopes that Secretary Herter would ignore the Senators, who were at best attacking the wrong man at the wrong time at the expense of American diplomacy, and would go ahead and put Mr. Bohlen where the country could use his invaluable knowledge of Russia. He was acquainted with the stability of the Russian system, its gains, the power of its influence in the world, but had seen much of the trickery and tyranny of which Moscow was capable, and his analysis of those peculiarly Soviet blends of sincerity and deviousness, sun and ice, concession and bluster, was sorely needed in Washington.
"This Loophole Ought To Be Plugged" indicates that fire burned occupied and unoccupied structures with the same impartial fury, and, consequently, it was more than a little silly for Charlotte's fire prevention experts to inspect buildings which were in use and shun abandoned structures.
A case in point was the old Charlotte Chemical Laboratories building on Templeton Street, which had exploded and burned the previous week, injuring 13 persons. Following the blast, Fire Chief Donald Charles had said that the city's Fire Prevention Bureau "lacks authority" to check vacant structures.
There only needed to be added some fine print to the ordinances or regulations to allow it to be accomplished. The responsibility to protect the public against such occurrences, regardless of source, ought not be affected by the abandonment of a building, which was not necessarily harmless and could sometimes be extremely dangerous, as in the event the previous week. It says it would await the full report of Fire Chief Charles regarding the explosion and fire, but that the observation could be made at once that there ought be no peculiar boundaries on fire prevention.
A piece from the Hartford Courant, titled "It's the Stupidity", indicates that one of Hartford's respected citizens had appeared in the lobby of the Hartford Club the previous day without his coat and necktie, and with his collar comfortably open. His friends had come to congratulate him and remark on how cool he looked, but no one else had doffed their coat and all had submitted to the necktie around their necks.
At about the same time, a young man had walked through the lobby of a building in Hartford wearing a pair of light, sensible shorts. A group of men and women fellow workers had been gathered around a coffee wagon, vainly seeking coolness through iced drinks. As they saw the sensible fellow, they hooted and hollered at him, much as dogs might attack an outcast among them, when he was plainly the most sensible of the lot.
It indicates that there was no cause at once so noble and futile as the attempt to get the human male to act like a rational being during hot weather, by doffing conventional habiliments and adapting himself to the weather conditions. It suggests that it was likely that readers of the piece had legs encased in two hot cylinders of woven material, a binding strip of cloth around the neck, and if a community leader, also a coat. "For a civil leader would as lief be caught in downtown Hartford in his under drawers as without the jacket to his suit.
"Thus do we demonstrate the fundamental insanity of the human race, or rather of the subspecies homo insapiens Americanus. In what we call backward countries, where the prevailing weather is little different from what it was here yesterday, they are more sensible."
Drew Pearson indicates that sometimes it paid to look behind a Congressman's votes or speeches to see what motivated them. When Congressman Samuel Stratton of New York had defended retired admirals and generals working for large corporations, however, one did not have to look for the motive as he had been quite frank about it. Mr. Stratton, the former Mayor of Schenectady, N.Y., and presently representing that district in Congress, had testified frankly that the biggest business in Schenectady was General Electric and that he wanted retired officers working for G.E. to keep the defense contracts in New York and not allow them to go to other companies in California. That had borne out the point made by Congressmen Edward Hebert of Louisiana and Alfred Santangelo of New York, together with Senator Paul Douglas of Illinois, that retired officers were hired to lobby.
General Electric, however, was not doing badly, being the third largest on the list of defense contractors, receiving more orders from the Pentagon than any other company in the U.S. except for Boeing and General Dynamics, with nearly a billion dollars worth of orders during 1958 and presently outranking former Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson's old company, General Motors. The company also ranked fifth on the list of firms employing retired military officers, with a total of 35 having been hired after they had left the Army, Navy or Air Force. The list included such well-known military men as Admiral William Fechteler, former chief of Naval personnel, who had helped pass on promotions of many officers presently holding top jobs in the Navy Department. Another top brass hat hired by G.E. was General John Montgomery, who had an interesting record of sliding in and out of the military service and private business. He had left the Air Force as a temporary major general to take a lush salary with American Airlines, and was later hired by G.E.
Congressman Stratton, former Joint Chiefs chairman Admiral Arthur Radford and other defenders of brass hats drawing corporate salaries, contended that they did not have any real influence with former colleagues. General Montgomery, however, had enough influence with the Air Force to have them put up a battle with the Senate for his promotion as a reserve officer. When Senator Margaret Chase Smith of Maine had found that the confirmation would mean a tax bonanza for General Montgomery, the Senate had refused to confirm him.
Mr. Pearson indicates that those were just two of G.E.'s small army of retired officers hired to help the company's billion dollars worth of defense contracts.
He notes that 95 percent of the defense contracts were let on a negotiated basis, without competitive bidding. It meant that a retired officer could and sometimes did tip the contracts scales one way or the other.
David S. Broder looks at the primaries for 1960, the piece being accompanied by a map of the various primaries and the dates on which they would occur, bearing in mind that in those times only a small number of the primaries were more than so-called "beauty contests", with no delegate commitments resulting for the conventions. He indicates that fewer primaries with more favorite sons was in prospect for the Democratic presidential nomination, with 15 states and the District of Columbia scheduled to hold primaries, while Alabama might hold one at the option of the party executive committee. Three states which had held primaries in 1956, Alaska, Minnesota and Montana, had abolished them, and there were no new states added to the list.
Favorite son candidacies had been launched in 12 of the 16 states with primaries, and only in West Virginia, Nebraska, New Hampshire and the District of Columbia did the local leaders seem willing to let the national candidates battle unimpeded for victory. None of the four was remotely "crucial", and in the first two, the primary results did not control the voting of the delegates at the convention.
It appeared certain, however, that some of the favorite son states would be invaded by Senators John F. Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey because, as front-runners, they had to run and win in the primaries to keep their hopes alive. Supporters of Michigan Governor G. Mennen Williams were looking for spots to test his strength, and some advisors of Senator Stuart Symington believed that he ought enter a few primaries, while others disagreed, arguing that Senator Symington could wait for either Senator Humphrey or Senator Kennedy to fall by the wayside. New Jersey Governor Robert Meyner and California Governor Pat Brown had concentrated thus far on keeping rivals from running in their home states. Adlai Stevenson and Senator Lyndon Johnson, possible compromise choices at the convention, wanted to avoid the primaries completely.
Mr. Broder indicates that in the maze of conflicting plans, the pattern could be discerned eight months in advance of the first primary. He undertakes a synopsis of each primary, starting with New Hampshire on March 8, indicating that Senator Kennedy was almost a certain entry there, with local support for Senators Humphrey and Symington, but both being doubtful starters.
In Wisconsin, on April 5, Governor Gaylord Nelson wanted Senator William Proxmire to run as a favorite son, and the latter was weighing his decision. But Senator Humphrey definitely wanted to run in Wisconsin and if he were to enter, Senator Kennedy might also enter.
In Illinois, on April 12, Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley was expected to control most of the delegation, but some contests for district delegates might develop between backers of Senator Kennedy and Senator Symington. It was the home state of Adlai Stevenson, but he did not figure in the primary.
In New Jersey, on April 19, Governor Meyner's favorite son status probably would be respected.
In his home state of Massachusetts, on April 26, Senator Kennedy was almost certain to enter without contest.
In Pennsylvania, on April 26, the dominant voice would be Governor David Lawrence, but Senator Kennedy and perhaps others might enter the preference poll in hopes of garnering some delegates.
Alabama, on May 3, was not a mandatory primary, and likely would be overlooked by the national contenders if it were held.
In the District of Columbia, on May 3, Senator Humphrey was likely to run, but Senator Kennedy almost certainly would not, and others were doubtful.
In Indiana, on May 3, there might be a favorite son move for Senator Vance Hartke. Senators Kennedy and Symington had strength there and might decide to enter.
In Ohio, on May 3, Senator Kennedy had told Governor Michael DiSalle, who wanted to be the favorite son, that he might run against him. Governors Williams and Meyner also had backing in the state.
In Nebraska, on May 10, the primary was wide open, but it did not control the voting of the delegates.
In West Virginia, on May 10, the same situation was true as in Nebraska.
In Maryland, on May 17, Senator Kennedy had put possible favorite son Governor J. Millard Tawes on notice that he might face a fight. Senator Symington also had ties in Maryland.
In Oregon, on May 20, a favorite son boom had been launched for Senator Wayne Morse, but the new law required the State secretary of state to enter all serious contenders except those who filed an affidavit that they were not candidates, and even those reluctant candidates could be forced onto the ballot by a petition of 1,000 voters. A real battle, he indicates, was likely there.
In Florida, on May 24, the favorite son move was for Senator George Smathers, likely to keep others out of the state, although the Senator had not committed himself yet to run.
In California, on June 7, Governor Brown's campaign to freeze out the competition from his home state seemed to have succeeded thus far.
In South Dakota, on June 7, the primary was conceded to Senator Humphrey, who had been born and raised there.
Robert C. Ruark, in Palamos, Spain, indicates that he was happy about Queen Elizabeth's short side trip in America on her current visit because she enriched any land she touched. "I have watched this kid work, and nobody ever works harder at making the old cliché, 'word of any Englishman,' stand up on a stack of Bibles." But he was glad he was not covering her because he had done so a few years earlier in Australia and New Zealand and it had aged him before his time.
He relates that he was minding his own business, fishing in New Zealand, when the Reader's Digest had cabled: "Need anecdotal queen piece three weeks deadline how?" He had cabled back: "Uncan."
Then he started picking up stories in New Zealand and managed to hit Australia at the same time the royal party had arrived. The anecdotes had mounted and so he cabled: "Maybe can." After a week or so, he cabled: "Can do."
He had finally written the piece from the front porch of a dak bungalow in the Madhya Pradesh of India, where he was shooting tigers. He had made the deadline and found shooting tigers to be a cinch after following the Queen around.
A couple of incidents had not made the Digest piece, one having been when he saw the Queen get sore at Prince Philip, saying some words which could only be constructed as unloving, as she kicked the limousine sharply with her royal boot. The tantrum arrived after the fact of the Prince having been out on the town with some of the boys he had known when he was working with them for the Royal Navy in Sydney toward the end of World War II.
He also relates that it was not generally known that Her Majesty weighted the hems of her skirts, to keep an errant breeze from trifling with the royal knees, because she was a touch bowlegged. She had been laying a wreath at the Cenotaph in Maron Square in Sydney, and she had to bend over to place the wreath. An Aussie, standing behind her, had commented loudly in fresh Australian chest tones: "Cripes, Liz, I didn't know ye was bandy." At that point, the man's wife had hit him over the head with an umbrella and knocked him stiff as a plant.
Because the Queen was loved, the entire roads from Sydney to Palm Beach, about 30 miles, were lined with people on the off chance that she might pass. Every house was hung with bunting, so much so that Sir Frank Packer, the publisher of the Sydney Telegraph, had enjoined his son Clyde to get out of the newspaper business, corner the paper-flag concession, and follow the Queen on her tours.
Mr. Packer, who had recently been knighted, also published the Woman's Weekly, a tremendously successful publication. The Queen had sat for a color photograph for the cover and expressed a desire to see it ahead of publication. Mr. Packer, who dressed in the manner of the late Heywood Broun, that is to say sloppily, had shown up at her principal garden party in striped pants and a dove-gray topper, with a copy of the Woman's Weekly stuck in his hip pocket, with his coattails hiked up over the bulky magazine. He presented the issue to the Queen, and it was so fresh that it got ink on her gloves. Mr. Ruark wonders if the incident did not account in part for the fact that Mr. Packer had recently become Sir Frank.
He indicates that the Queen was a magnificent woman, holding a half of the world together with her charm with harder work than any American housewife ever dreamed of, wondering how she kept from going nuts from the consummate boredom of expecting various things and reviewing other things, interviewing at various places and holding state receptions, attending various activities. "But as I seem to remember saying in the Digest piece, God save their gracious Queen, because she is certainly worth it to the world."
A letter from the district executive of the Boy Scouts of America indicates that on behalf of the Mecklenburg County Council of the Boy Scouts, he thanks the newspaper for its coverage of the Scouts on their canoe trip from Charleston to Charlotte, indicating that their help had made it possible for many people to follow their progress up the river. He says that they were proud of their boys and of the public support they received, and that they were all looking forward to another canoe trip, but on that occasion, downstream to Charleston.
A letter from J. R. Cherry, Jr., comments on the Saturday editorial book review of Senator Joe McCarthy by Richard Rovere, whom Mr. Cherry refers to as an "egghead"—a term he often used disparagingly. He indicates that the editorial did not disappoint him, as it had "loomed large and blasphemously—again, as I expected." He admits that Senator McCarthy had been a controversial man. "You and many other liberals and assorted socialists and Communists despise him; I and many other conservatives admired him. Your opinion of him will probably never change; I'm certain mine never will! But let The News be fair and objective about what is fed the general public about Joe McCarthy."
In our estimate, the editorial book review, and probably the book, itself, had bent over backwards to be more than objective, probably too much so on that historical scoundrel. It is not at all surprising, of course, that his assistant, Roy Cohn, became a chief political mentor for His Highness, the dictator.
Framed Edition
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