The Charlotte News
Saturday, July 4, 1959
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from Baton Rouge, La., that Governor Earl Long, with all medical caution tossed to the bayou winds, had loosed a well-nigh incomprehensible blast on Friday night at party leaders who were "taking a runout powder". The Governor, 63, only eight days out of a mental hospital, had spoken after a gathering with political cronies who formed the backbone of his re-election campaign team. He said: "It is hard to find leaders now. People take a runout powder. I have never been accused of this and never will as long as God gives me strength to carry on." The only assumption was that the Governor had been crossed by some of the persons in the gathering. He mentioned no names. Dining with him on the eve of his 1959 campaign for re-election were his legal counsel, the State fire marshal, the adjutant general, the State Attorney General and assorted hangers-on. Also in the group was Oscar Guidry, reportedly the Governor's choice as candidate for lieutenant governor on his ticket. Six doctors had warned the Governor a few hours earlier that his ailing heart might not be up to the rigors of a speaking tour. He had four Fourth of July speeches scheduled, at Villa Platte, Eunice, Cameron and Lake Arthur in southwestern Louisiana, and in the evening, he would fly across the state for a "Miss Louisiana" beauty pageant at Lake Providence. Even before he had gotten underway in defiance of the doctors, something had set the erratic Governor off on his tirade. He followed his reference to a "runout powder" by his leaders with an unprintable attack on Louisiana's Democratic national committeeman, Camille Gravel, Jr., an attorney. Mr. Gravel, however, could not be counted as one of Mr. Long's runaway leaders.
In Sierraville, Calif., it was reported that an estimated 900 men were fighting on the Fourth of July to control a Sierra forest fire set by a careless camper. By the previous night, the fire had burned over 21 million board feet of timber across 6,000 acres of steep forest land. A Tahoe National Forest ranger said that they would hit it again this date with borate solution, indicating that five converted World War II torpedo bombers would attack fresh fires which were leaping half a mile across canyons as strong, erratic winds carried sparks and burning embers. The planes dumped borate solution to suppress the flames. The ranger said that they had the fire 80 percent contained the previous night and then the "crazy winds" had come up from all directions and they could not tell which way it was going to jump. It had jumped in several directions, as much as a half-mile at a time. He said that the little town of Loyalton, about 12 miles from the Nevada border, whose 1,000 people had been warned to prepare for possible evacuation, had never been in serious danger, that it was one way the fire had not gone. Some of the firefighters had come from San Quentin, Folsom and Soledad prisons, some from Stead Air Force Base near Reno, Nev., struggling up rough fire breaks gouged by 15 bulldozers, beating out embers with shovels and wet sacks. Two spotter planes and two helicopters located isolated new fires. The ranger said that the helicopters did 100 jobs for them, including spotting, ferrying men and materials, plus other things. He added that he had not asked for professional Indian smoke-jumpers from New Mexico and Arizona, indicating that they were not that bad off yet.
In Washington, it was reported that the Fourth of July had transpired this date with something new added to its historic symbol, that being the 49th star on the flag, representing Alaska, the newest state. The first official 49-star flag had been raised just after midnight at Fort McHenry in Baltimore, where, 145 years earlier, young Francis Scott Key had watched as the British bombardment of the city had taken place, inspired to write the words of the national anthem.
In Philadelphia, it was considered no ordinary Fourth, as it was, in several important respects, unprecedented. Senator Ernest Gruening of Alaska, in a speech prepared for delivery this date in ceremonies in Independence Hall in Philadelphia, stated, "We are celebrating the admission to the union of the largest state in history."
Holiday traffic death tolls thus far compiled showed 35 deaths, with six more from drowning and six from miscellaneous accidents, for a total of 47. Sunny, warm weather helped to trigger the presence of hundreds of thousands of holiday pleasure-seekers on the highways during the first phase of the weekend. Safety authorities estimated that some 45 million cars would be on the highways during the extended weekend. But the National Safety Council also feared that some 350 traffic deaths would occur during the 54-hour period which had begun at 6:00 p.m. on Friday and would end at midnight on Sunday. State and local police had bolstered their patrol units in key traffic areas. The most spectacular accident during the early hours of the weekend had been from two cars colliding near Lunenburg, Vt., in which a couple and a man had been killed and another person critically injured. The prediction by the Council was considerably higher than the 340 fatalities recorded during the Memorial Day weekend, also having occurred on Saturday and Sunday. For comparison, the Associated Press had made a survey during the 54-hour non-holiday weekend of June 20-21, finding 240 highway deaths having been reported. The 340 deaths on Memorial Day had been 48 more than the 262 fatalities made in another AP survey in mid-May. Independence Day had last fallen on a Saturday in 1953 when 262 auto fatalities were recorded during the two-day holiday period. Civic and business groups throughout the nation had joined authorities in a massive campaign to keep down the highway slaughter. The Atlantic Junior Chamber of Commerce planned to repeat the previous year's highway coffee break stands to slow down speeding motorists and wake up sleepy ones. In a get-tough policy, the California Department of Motor Vehicles had issued a pre-holiday announcement to drivers indicating that anyone convicted of drunk driving, including first offenders, would have their licenses suspended automatically for six months.
In Muskegon, Mich., a moonlight Fourth of July cruise of a family weekend group had ended in disaster on Lake Michigan this date when a cabin cruiser and a Great Lakes car-ferry had collided. Two persons had drowned and four others were missing and feared drowned, all occupants of the cruiser. At daylight, boats of the Coast Guard had swept the area in search for the missing persons. The cruiser, a 24-foot vessel, had collided during the wee hours and sunk to the bottom in 18 feet of water not far offshore. The two craft had collided just outside the Muskegon Channel connecting inland Muskegon Lake with Lake Michigan. A businessman, 49, owner of the cruiser, and his wife, 43, had been drowned. The missing included their 21-year old son, their 29-year old son-in-law, and two friends, 21 and 24, both of Muskegon.
In Danville, Va., a freight train had struck three men lying across the railroad tracks about a mile east of the town late on Friday night, killing all three. State police identified the men as two 25-year olds and a 26-year old. The engineer of the Atlantic and Danville freight northbound from Norfolk to Danville said that it was on top of the men before he had seen them lying on the tracks.
In Southport, N.C., a gaunt hired hand with financial worries said that he and his wife would decide on Monday whether they would keep their week-old triplet girls or offer them for adoption. The 55-year old overall-clad father said on Friday that they did not want to lose the children, but it was a question of getting some help. He said that he planned to visit his hospitalized wife this date and discuss their plans for the triplets. Since he had first announced that he was not sure the family would keep the girls, he had received telegrams from throughout the nation offering to take the children, and planned to show those telegrams to his wife. As a hired hand on a plantation, he earned about $25 per week and drew $15 per month as a disability pension for head and leg injuries he had suffered during peacetime service with the Army. His 35-year old wife and the three girls had been reported in good condition by a hospital official. He said that the babies had lost some weight, which he described as natural, and that they should gain weight again within a few days. His wife said that she felt much stronger, was looking forward to going home, and did not want to lose the children. The couple had three other children, ranging in age between 12 and 17.
In Southhampton, Pa., three of six children belonging to one family were all born on the Fourth of July, but the sixth child had broken the tradition, having arrived on Wednesday.
John Borchert of The News reports that the personality of Billy Graham was as changeless as the Sphinx. The previous day, as he had ridden with the evangelist on the train from Concord, he found the same outlook which had prevailed during the Charlotte Crusade of the previous year. When he had come to Charlotte at that time, Mr. Borchert had talked to those who had known him years earlier and he was told by a man who had known him as a child that he was "as modest now as when he was a boy". His lone public relations representative said that he did not realize he was a world figure. Just prior to the beginning of his Australia and New Zealand Crusade six months earlier, he had suffered with a serious eye ailment. He proceeded with his schedule to Great Britain and to California, and with only a few weeks of rest afterward, had left with his wife to go to London, Paris and Moscow. He had been interviewed constantly by the foreign press and many of the stories getting back to the U.S. had portrayed a man "used" by the Russians, and stirring up storms of protest by Britons regarding his remarks on immoral behavior he had seen taking place in the public parks. As he went from place to place, he reported things as he saw them and rarely replied to criticism. He had been that way the previous day as Mr. Borchert had shown him wire stories of his recent travels, speaking briefly of those who had "misunderstood what I said." He was asked whether the immorality in British parks meant that the results of his 1954 London crusade had been lost, and he replied: "Well, I met hundreds of people who benefited from that crusade while I was in London this time. I couldn't criticize the Britons on their morality without criticizing my own country. I think the British people have a higher standard of morals than the entire Western world." He continually turned the conversation to the future outlook of religious progress in the world, indicating: "We are on the threshold of a new horizon. The time is now for the preaching of God's word."
In Charlotte, it was reported that the tenth store in the Harris Super Market chain would be a $500,000 outlet planned for Shelby. The firm's president, W. T. Harris, announced this date that construction of the building would begin in 60 days on a lot of 80,000 square feet on S. Lafayette and S. Morgan Streets. The Blanton property had been purchased by a realty company for $82,000 and would enter into a long-term lease with the Charlotte-based grocery chain. Mr. Harris said that the Shelby store would contain about 20,000 square feet of sales space, with parking available for 200 vehicles. The completion date was set for early 1960. The chain operated eight markets and one drugstore in Charlotte, Salisbury and Gastonia, and had a gross sales of 15 million dollars the previous year. Harris Super Markets, Inc., employed 340 persons and had an annual payroll of 1.1 million dollars. There would be approximately 50 persons employed in the new Shelby store. Negotiations to find the location in Shelby had been carried on for two years, according to Mr. Harris.
In Penetanguishene, Ontario, it was reported that Queen Elizabeth this date would wind up her tour of western Ontario and would sail for Chicago where a noisy reception awaited her. The young British monarch was reported to be nervous about her appearance on Monday in Chicago. People close to her said that she always got butterflies on the eve of a program in a big city, especially on foreign soil. Now she was going to a city once reputed to be the citadel of isolationist sentiment in the U.S. Not so long earlier, Chicago's then-Mayor, Big Bill Thompson, during political campaign speeches, had threatened to punch the Queen's grandfather, King George V, "on the snoot". The Midwest had changed since those times in the 1920's, but the Queen still felt uneasy about the big moment of her six-week tour of Canada and the U.S.
In Albuquerque, N.M., it was reported that a red-haired beauty contestant's decision to compete in the Miss Universe contest over the objections of her church had started a tempest this date. The young woman, Sue Ingersoll, said late on Friday night that her phone had not stopped ringing after she had announced her decision. The Catholic Church, to which she belonged, had promised to deny the sacraments to her and her family if she competed in the beauty pageant. She expressed amazement that her decision had brought so much interest. She said that her mother had answered most of the phone calls during the day and that she had talked to very few people herself, adding that she did not know how most of the callers felt about her competing in the face of the church's opposition. She was a beauty parlor operator who had been chosen Miss New Mexico the previous month and was designated the state's entry in the Miss Universe pageant. She said that several people had stopped her on the street and commented on the controversy, indicating that they were people she did not even know, asking her what she planned to do. She explained that the people probably had recognized her from pictures in the local newspapers. Most were for her and her decision to compete. A decree issued by Archbishop Edwin Byrne of Santa Fe several years earlier, still recognized, forbade Catholic girls from taking part in beauty contests where contestants had to appear publicly in bathing suits. Well, there is a simple solution. Just do not wear a bathing suit.
In Montgomery, Ala., it was reported that a man, about 30, had been fined $25 in costs in city court the previous day for breaking out all the windows in his mother's home in a fit of temper. The judge asked him what kind of work he did and he replied, "Window washer."
On the editorial page, "From the Declaration of Independence" quotes verbatim from the document of 1776.
It is always worth repeating that the Declaration is not part of American law. It is a part of the American Revolutionary spirit, obviously, as it was the initiator of that spirit in document form. But only the Constitution and the laws formed under it, both the case law and the statutory law, constitute the law of the land.
"The Prudent Patriots & A Lost World" suggests that like a forgotten World War II Marine who had said he was fighting in Guadalcanal for the right to drink a Coca-Cola, it sometimes lost sight of the real significance of the Declaration of Independence. It suggests a certain understanding of the casual patriots on the streets of Charlotte who, when asked what July Fourth was all about, had variously replied: "Suppose it's a holiday just like Sunday… We should all go to church"; or as an 11-year old boy had said, "It's when we shoot fireworks"; or, simply, "Beats me." It finds such hard honesty to be harder to come by for editorial writers, but decides to borrow from it on this date.
It indicates that any visitor to the Library of Congress in Washington could stand before the shrine where the Declaration of Independence was kept under glass, and note how Thomas Jefferson's antiquated script filled the crinkled parchment with marks of delicate age. Physically, the old writ was a delicate survivor from a "lost world", and long exposure to 20th Century air would speed its crumbling decay. That delicacy often seemed, symbolically, to escape those who said with great confidence that at present the need was merely to preach the Declaration against the Marx Manifesto.
It urges consideration of the great age of the ideas, that they were not just American ideas nor had they sprung full-grown from Mr. Jefferson's mind. He had cribbed them from the 17th Century Whig defender, John Locke, who had cribbed them from an obscure clergyman to legitimize the capture of the British throne by the Whig magnates from the Stuarts.
It suggests that many of the drafters and signers of the document at present would hardly pass muster before a Congressional committee, and one wondered whether they would be welcome at a White House stag dinner. Benjamin Franklin, who was suspected to have amended "sacred" rights to "self-evident" rights in an early draft of the document, was a main instigator of the Declaration. And he had been a gentleman acquainted with the skeptical climate of 18th Century France, and knew those French "philosophers" who prepared the grave for the Bourbon monarchy. Samuel Adams, a brewer from Boston, was one of the principal hotheads, and perhaps the most radical seditionist one could imagine. "All in all, the Declaration was written and signed by eggheads with a lively contempt for both political and social orthodoxies of their day, by bad debtors, by deists who believed in a 'natural' God and prayed seldom, if ever, in public."
It suggests that at present, few would dare to engage in the scrutiny of the bases of loyalty which had been their business in writing the Declaration. It ventures that people might listen politely to Mr. Jefferson's proviso that "governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes," but would shy away from his doctrine that "the tree of liberty must be watered, from time to time, by the blood of tyrants."
It finds that the technique of hard honesty revealed little in the Declaration which did not give off the musty smell of a "lost world", like the 18th Century from which it had come. In half the world at present, the right of revolution was in vogue, but not in the spirit which had prevailed in Philadelphia in 1776.
It indicates that even the hard-bitten look at the strange document was not enough, and its reservations about the Declaration were akin to the harsh words which Mr. Pickwick had heaped on his friends because he loved them. If its origins were far away, the sense of freedom which inspired the radical document lived on. "It makes us less passionate and more prudent patriots of 1959 [to] catch our breath, as we reflect what it meant to devote to a single, daring conspiracy, 'our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.'"
"Art? The Competition Will Be Terrific" indicates that the Washington Post had gloomily remarked how ironic it was that Congressman Francis Walter's investigation of the Moscow art exhibit bordered on political censorship of art, something which the U.S. hotly condemned in the Soviets.
It finds that the Post had something in that comment. But from the President's words at his Wednesday press conference, it took it that its gloom was a bit misplaced. The President said that next time he would put on the selection committee "one or two people that, like most of us here … are not too certain what art is but … know what we like and what America likes."
It indicates that when one considered that America liked so many different things that America did not like any one thing too much, it seemed a sound principle. It suggests that in North Carolina, for instance, the State Art Society had set up a magnificent museum of old masters in Raleigh, and that the Ackland gallery was now open in Chapel Hill. But the latter was the same locus which had spawned a light-hearted art movement called "BRAT" a few years earlier, abounding in elaborate compositions of cardboard, wire-hangers, strands of human hair and daubs of paint. It indicates that it had a girlfriend once who "liked" mobiles, the suspended three-dimensional pieces of American art, and had once conceived a mobile which had something to do with a bearskin. "We like our old masters, goodness knows, but we also are fascinated by the paint slingers who dribble paint on canvas from stepladders, and the artistic rebels of every description."
It suggests letting the President's principle of "what America likes" be applied. "The gloomy journalists of Washington needn't worry. The competition will be terrific."
Of course, no one in 1776, in 1789 or in 1959 could have foreseen that a bunch of short-sighted, single issue du jour morons would cast enough ballots, while organizing to foreclose the vote to large numbers of Democrats, especially minority voters, by striking them from voter rolls in key swing states, to elect an artist of the barnyard gallery to the highest office in the land, who would seek in turn to make a mockery of established art, replacing it with cheap gilted doo-dads everywhere, deliberately seeking thereby to anger the opposing party, even threatening now to demolish the one Washington memorial to our most recent assassinated President, holding it hostage unless he gets his childish desire, contrary to law, to have his name plastered on it as a co-memorial to himself, as obscene as that concept is to at least two-thirds of the country who find this man despicable to his core, without any redeeming personal quality or public policy, a lying, solely self-interested reprobate who would have been, no doubt, shot as a traitor by General Washington, had he been conscripted to serve in the Continental Army and claimed he could not walk all those miles because of bone spurs, that he preferred the way of the Chinese emperors and Russian tsars, that he should be carried. As President Biden said recently, "What a loser..."
A piece from the Asheville Citizen, titled "Real Cool", indicates that Canadian-born Glenn Gould, touted as one of the world's rising young pianists, had said that he could not stand air-conditioning for it dried up his skin. He wore a cloth cap and heavy overcoat, knee-length jacket, gray muffler and gloves in the air-conditioned room. He was also a hypochondriac, packing his pockets with all types of potions, and lowered his piano stool an inch per year. He had been asked why he did not sit on the floor, to which he responded, "What, and have people think I'm eccentric?" The piece concludes: "Well, now, perish the thought."
Drew Pearson indicates that when a South Carolina states-righter who preached economy went to bat for a Yankee shipyard for the purposes of costing the taxpayers extra money, the taxpayers needed to know about it. It illustrated how the American people were dishing out unnecessary dollars, partly because of weak-kneed top brass in the military who wanted to curry favor with Congressmen. In the case he references, Vice-Admiral John "Dutch" Will, who had just retired from the Military Sea Transportation Service to become head of American Export Lines which benefited from MSTS, was involved. Even more involved was South Carolina Congressman Mendel Rivers, whose heavy drinking while on Congressional junkets abroad had shocked both Americans and Europeans.
He indicates that one would not find the story in any Congressional committee report or Pentagon press release, but he provides the facts regarding a strange operation inside the Navy Department. The Power Equipment Corp., primarily owned by Joe Kelly of Connecticut, had made a low bid of $142,860 to repair the USS Randall, which was operated by Admiral Will's Military Sea Transportation fleet. The ship was delivered to the Power Equipment Corp. in Brooklyn for overhaul on March 3. Three days later, the company owner was clamoring for more money to take care of "extra work". G. D. Cross, Brooklyn port engineer for MSTS, ruled that the "extras" would have to be rebid. Mr. Kelly promptly started applying pressure, asking a friend in the Pentagon, James Goode, to arrange an appointment with Admiral Will, and simultaneously Mr. Kelly was pulling more potent strings.
The MSTS had to answer to the House Merchant Marine Committee and the House Armed Services Committee. High on the list of both committees was Congressman Rivers, and through an intermediary, Mr. Kelly had arranged for Mr. Rivers to call Admiral Will. The Congressman had begun the conversation by asking what the trouble was over the extras and then asked the Admiral to see Mr. Kelly, even though he did not come from South Carolina. Mr. Kelly got in to see the Admiral on March 10. While Mr. Kelly was still seated across from his desk, Admiral Will had called his commander in Brooklyn, Rear Admiral D. T. Eller, and ordered him to negotiate with Mr. Kelly.
That fast action showed what a Congressman who meddled with taxpayer money could do when he applied pressure. It also showed how some Pentagon officials listened to any hint from Congress. As a result, Power Equipment was paid an extra $104,394 for the extra work, about two-thirds more than the original low bid of $142,860. Mr. Kelly and his Power Equipment Co., however, still were not satisfied, and Mr. Kelly returned on April 25 with a demand for another $129,000. The pressure from Congress continued as Congressman Rivers had already telephoned Admiral Will and had introduced a flattering biography of him in the Congressional Record.
When queried about the pressure, Mr. Rivers had pretended complete innocence, having admitted telephoning Admiral Will about Mr. Kelly, but having no explanation as to why he was helping someone outside his district obtain extra money from the taxpayers.
Joseph Alsop indicates that the inner circle of the Government had been shaken and alarmed by a "Hitler-like" interview provided to Averell Harriman by Premier Nikita Khrushchev. The crude threats of the Soviet leader and the brutal tone and unprintable language he had employed was considered to mark a new phase in the world situation. Mr. Khrushchev had seized the opportunity of the visit by former New York Governor Harriman on Tuesday of the previous week to say things to the Government that he could not have said in any other way.
The U.S. Ambassador to Moscow, Llewellyn Thompson, was not a possible channel, according to Government sources in Washington, because no accredited representative of the U.S. could have permitted himself to hear Mr. Khrushchev out to the end. As a private person, however, former Governor Harriman was under no obligation to break off the conversation.
Beginning in the Premier's Moscow office, the meeting had been prolonged at the Soviet leader's country villa, where Anastas Mikoyan, Deputy Premier, and others, had joined the group. Yet, the fact that Mr. Khrushchev was really speaking, not to former Governor Harriman, but through him to the President, had been made clear. At one point, when the Soviet leader was emphasizing his readiness to use military force to get his way in Berlin, he had said to Mr. Harriman, "You must tell your President what I have said." Mr. Harriman had replied that he was traveling as a private person, with no right to receive messages for the President. Mr. Khrushchev said at that point that he would therefore tell him.
In fact, Mr. Harriman had done exactly as Mr. Khrushchev had desired, immediately sending an account of all which the Premier had said through the Moscow Embassy to Washington, requesting that the account be closely held for the time being, apparently because he was under contract to publish his own story of the trip to Russia. Meanwhile, the impact had been sharp in Washington. Grave concern spread from group to group. Consequently, it was now possible to describe at least the purport of the Harriman-Khrushchev meeting, which was being compared to the famous meetings between Lord Halifax and Adolf Hitler and Hermann Goering in the time leading up to Munich in 1938.
The misleading first reports of the Khrushchev-Harriman meeting, while emphasizing Mr. Khrushchev's "inflexibility", had given pride of place to Mr. Khrushchev's alleged desire to "improve relations" with the U.S. As was his habit, Mr. Khrushchev had mingled a fair amount of sweet talk about the charming possibilities of peaceful coexistence with the hectoring and the menaces. But he had also indicated plainly that the first step toward improved Soviet-American relations would have to take the form of a series of sweeping concessions to his viewpoint and wishes.
The Berlin problem was the most immediately crucial in the wide range of problems discussed. The line which Mr. Khrushchev had taken on Berlin was typical of the whole. On the one hand, he admitted the existence of certain limitations on Western powers which they could not accept, arrangements which would mean the installation of a Communist regime in West Germany or even in West Berlin, and denied desiring that result. On the other hand, he was equally insistent that he had made his last offer on Berlin, that being the Soviet plan to make Berlin a "free city" with a Western presence in the form of reduced garrisons but with all control of the right of access in the hands of the East German puppet government. He insisted that the Berlin negotiations had to be resumed on the basis of that offer. Otherwise, he said with emphasis, he would have to carry out his threat to confront the Western powers with an accomplished fact, by signing a peace treaty with East Germany.
More important, he backed up the political threat with the crudest sort of military threat, in strong language indicating a warning that the Soviet Union would provide immediate military support to the East Germans should the Western powers attempt to assert their established right of access to West Berlin after a peace treaty had acknowledged the territorial serenity of the East German government.
The Soviet Government or Mr. Khrushchev, himself, had said those things previously. Most notably, Mr. Khrushchev had talked of using force to sustain the alleged serenity of East Germany at the outset of the Berlin crisis the prior November, a speech which had caused the State Department to assert that "Khrushchev had got himself out on a limb", and to argue that a "face-saving arrangement" was needed in Berlin to permit the Soviet leader to retreat from that limb with reasonable dignity.
But even regarding Berlin, there were two major and ominous novelties in the Khrushchev-Harriman interview, the first having been that Mr. Khrushchev had no desire to get off the supposed limb and that, in reality, he did not regard himself as being out on a limb regarding Berlin. Second, the interview was no mere speech, possibly intended as propaganda, but a personal discussion with a highly placed American, frankly intended to be repeated to the President. At no time in the past had Mr. Khrushchev talked in that manner to any American, including the reporters from the U.S. he had previously received.
For those reasons, the interview had been compared at the State Department to the message of Mr. Khrushchev to the President the previous September at the height of the Quemoy crisis in the Formosa Strait, which the White House found too offensively threatening and so had returned it to the Soviet Embassy. On that occasion, Mr. Khrushchev had written that "to touch off a war against Peoples' China means to doom to certain death sons of the American people and to start the conflagration of a world war." On that occasion, the crisis had subsided in the end without an American retreat or a world conflagration. But now, the interview, which could not be returned, was causing more concern than caused by the returned note of the previous September.
In addition to Berlin, the interview had covered many topics, some of them even cheerful, and had touched on other grave problems, including the Far Eastern problem. Reasonably detailed outlines of what was said about those other problems were not yet available. But the main theme which ran through the whole discussion, including that on Berlin, could be reported on good authority. The need to "face facts", as Mr. Khrushchev liked to put it, was the main theme. The central "fact" to be faced was the great change in the world balance of military power. Mr. Khrushchev had stressed that point in an extreme manner, brandishing his missiles, fondling his hydrogen bombs and generally flexing the Soviet Union's military muscles, claiming their invincible superiority. It was mainly that aspect of the interview which had caused it to be called in official circles, "Hitler-like".
The interview had been further marked, according to reliable reports, by Mr. Khrushchev's violent and unrestrained attacks on certain Western policies and personalities. In those passages, Mr. Khrushchev had used the language which was described as unprintable by those who ought to know. Finally, Mr. Harriman was reportedly much impressed by the extreme self-confidence, amounting to downright arrogance, which Mr. Khrushchev had displayed from start to finish. One sign of that self-confidence, apparently, was the air of good humor which seldom left Mr. Khrushchev, even when he was making his most extreme claims and uttering his crudest threats. In short, according to the State Department, "this interview was not Hitler-like because there was any screaming or frothing at the mouth; it was Hitler-like because of the hard substance of Khrushchev's words."
Robert C. Ruark, in Palamos, Spain, indicates that the massive beer riots in Johannesburg, South Africa, in which 4,000 or 5,000 outraged black women had run amok in protest against destruction of their illicit liquor stills, contained a few sermons which were not funny.
The first aspect of the huge demonstration had better comparison to the indignation which might be expected from West Virginia hillbilly moonshiners if too many revenuers messed around with their stills. The big, strong, black women had raided the beer halls, taken mugs out of men's hands, and destroyed thousands of gallons of municipally-made brew. They also had burned down the brewery, and several lives had been lost in the commotion.
In Durban, another stronghold of apartheid, there was another massive riot, with people killed, trucks overturned, whites evacuating homes, and the police firing into the menacing crowds. That was not coincidence.
He indicates that when he was in Africa a couple of months earlier, he had talked to some frightened white South Africans who had just returned from the Union for a visit back home. "South Africa, where the harshly religious Boers have maintained a stern control over the natives—apartheid—or strict segregation even as to transportation and store purchase as well as living quarters, is popularly supposed to be the last outpost of the white man in Africa."
He indicates that his friends did not think so, believing that the Union of South Africa might be the first to fall with a resounding crash by the sheer overweight of numbers, and through violence, not legislation. There was hatred of natives for whites in South Africa which was not measurable elsewhere on the continent. And there was still an ancient hatred between the Boers, the old Dutch Huguenot stock, for the "rooinek"—the redneck—as the first Dutch settlers called the British with whom they battled.
As with all sternly religious people, who lived with Bible in one hand and haphaan, or gun, in the other, the Boer of olden times was a harsh person. He believed that he was chosen of God, that the land he took on the great overland treks was his, and that the Kaffirs, Bushmen, Zulus and incidental tribes who got in his way should either be killed or enslaved. He refused to pay taxes to the British, and he refused to leave his land once he had outspanned his oxen permanently. He believed that fertility of ground, cattle and people was his God-given right to oversee. He bred openly with the native women, taking slave girls as concubines. He notes parenthetically that there was even one tribe called "Bastaard", resulting from the unions between the Boer voortrekkers and a tribe called Griqua. What was called "Cape coloured" had figured strongly in the trouble which the South Afrikaners were presently in, with the vast hordes of segregated blacks.
There had been a chance a few years earlier that the Cape coloureds, who numbered into hundreds of thousands, might have been the bridge between the white man and the black man in South Africa. But some stern Boer throwback suddenly had decided to return the coloureds to "blanket" status, taking them out of their special category and lumping them with the pure Negroes. That included segregation of all sorts, whereas before the Cape coloureds had enjoyed an approximate status of the Goanese, for instance, being scorned neither by the Indians who formed half or the Portuguese the other half. That return of the Cape coloureds to blanket status, he believes, had lost the war for the white South Afrikaners at that point because the bridge of communication was replaced by a gulf of hatred.
In the recent riots, such a simple but important thing as the right to make beer could lose a country. He reminds that America had started a revolution based on tea in Boston.
We note parenthetically that whether the "rooinek" perhaps somehow formed the basis in our subconscious for the name of our sketched vehicle provided to FoMoCo in fall, 1958, the Reanek, which later became the Falcon in fall, 1959, we couldn't say. We have no memory of hearing that word uttered, perhaps in the context of some program on South Africa, and, of course, we could not read at the time. But one never knows. Stranger things have happened. In any event, it was not intended as a reflection on the car we designed and gave to Ford free of charge.
And, speaking of Zulus, in reference to the upcoming UNC football game against TCU in Ireland this coming Saturday, we offer this recently, serendipitously viewed film segment
Framed Edition
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