The Charlotte News
Wednesday, February 25, 1959
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the President this date said at his press conference that the Soviet Union's attitude regarding Berlin was so illogical that it offered little promise for establishment of a just peace. He said that the U.S. would not give a single inch in its determination to preserve the rights and responsibilities of the Western allies with respect to Berlin. He expressed his views in commenting on Premier Nikita Khrushchev's cold attitude toward the proposal by the Western powers that a foreign ministers conference be held regarding Germany. A reporter had asked the President for his views on what the newsman termed the Soviet Premier's informal rejection of the Western proposal, noting that it had come without prior notice to British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan at the very same time the latter was in Moscow for discussion of such matters. The President called Premier Khrushchev's attitude obviously and palpably intransigent. The President also said that if Secretary of State Dulles, suffering from cancer, ever decided on his own that he was physically unable to continue in the position, then even the President could not keep him in the job. Regarding nuclear tests, the President said that he was against writing a veto power into any Western agreement with Russia anent suspension of nuclear testing.
In Wilmington, Del., it was reported that State police had maintained an all-night vigil outside the home of a black family in the all-white suburb of Collins Park after twice dispersing crowds from the vicinity. The second gathering of about 300 people had been broken up by 12 troopers the previous night with the aid of four leashed dogs. Two women had suffered minor injuries and a dozen of the youths had been arrested. The couple had moved into a two-story brick single home early in the day and by noon a crowd had surrounded the dwelling. The woman of the couple had sought help, complaining that deliverymen were unable to reach the home. The troopers had dispersed the first group with little trouble, but the neighbors and the curious who milled about the home after dark had become unruly and the officers were hard-pressed for some time to disperse them. Stones and fair-sized firecrackers had been hurled through several windows of the dwelling. One of the youths, 20, a neighbor, had resisted the officers and had fallen to the ground when they attempted to place handcuffs on him. That boy's mother and another woman had become involved and also fell down while attempting to aid each other. The latter woman charged that a police dog had nipped her shoulder and had torn her fur coat. She had been treated by a physician. The mother of the boy had been treated at a hospital for a sprained ankle and minor injuries. The troopers had then barricaded the area for four blocks in each direction, allowing only residents and those with legitimate business inside the perimeter. A huge searchlight and a public address system had been installed on a truck next to the residence of the black family. The male of the couple said that he was a laborer, originally from Virginia, and had lived in Wilmington for 25 years with his wife and two daughters. He said he had been employed as a laborer by the Du Pont Co. for the previous 23 years. Sitting in the living room of his well-furnished home, he told reporters that he "never reckoned that it would be much of a fuss" when they moved in. He said that they were there to stay and hoped to take his place in the community as a good citizen. He said that his older daughter, 23, was a school teacher in Baltimore and that the other child, 14, was staying for the present with relatives in Wilmington. He said that he had previously lived in a section of Wilmington which had been condemned for a slum clearance project. Collins Park was not a new development, having been constructed about 20 years earlier, with about 750 homes. The three-bedroom home which the family had bought had a current market value of about $12,000.
In New York, it was reported that an attack on Boyd Payton, vice-president and regional director of the Textile Workers Union of America, AFL-CIO, in the Henderson, N.C., textile strike, had prompted William Pollock, the union's general president, to call this date for a Federal investigation. Mr. Pollock had called attention to the violence in Henderson in wires sent to Attorney General William Rogers, the director of the Federal Conciliation and Mediation Service, and to Senators John McClellan of Arkansas and John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts, both of the Senate Select Committee on Improper Activities of Labor or Management. Mr. Pollock's wire to Mr. Rogers had pointed out that the attack on Mr. Payton was "the second instance of anti-labor violence in North Carolina" during the current month. On February 10, he said, Robert Beame, an organizer for the American Federation of Hosiery Workers, had been beaten in Franklin. He said that local authorities had not apprehended the assailants in either case and urged investigation and prosecution to safeguard civil rights in the state under Federal Civil Rights statutes. The wires to the two Senators called for an investigation by the McClellan Committee and charged that the incident in Henderson was "typical of the anti-labor conspiracy in the South." A third telegram to the director of the Conciliation and Mediation Service had sought personal intervention in the Harriet and Henderson Cotton Mills strike, which had begun the prior November 17.
In Henderson, it was reported this date that strikers were in a jovial mood as violence at the Henderson-Harriet Cotton Mills had abated. Crowds of about 150 persons each had gathered outside the gates of the mills' North Henderson and South Henderson plants. Contrasting with the previous day, the mood of the crowd this date was that of gaiety and there was little or no trouble to workers reporting for the early morning shift. The strikers apparently had felt that the note of optimism voiced the previous day by a union representative after a meeting with management and a Federal conciliator had indicated an end to the 15-week strike. The two sides were to meet again this date. There had only been a few cases of cars being pelted by stones this date. Since the plants had reopened on February 16, the strike had been beset by violence. At the North Henderson plant, two female strikers had grabbed the Vance County sheriff and danced in the street with him. Other pickets had attempted jokingly to give their placards to police officers. The change in attitude had come on the heels of the previous day's meeting and a telegram from Governor Luther Hodges addressed to union and management officials, in which he had said that they bore "direct and personal responsibility" to prevent further violence. While negotiations continued, State Bureau of Investigation agents checked into the Monday night beating of Mr. Payton, who had been struck on the head with a pop bottle when he answered a knock at his motel room door, suffering a mild concussion. The agents also were investigating a threatening note received by the wife of a non-striking worker, who said that the note, left under her front door, had warned that her three boys would be killed. Her husband's car had been stoned when he had gone to work on Monday. One incident had occurred the previous night when an employee who had returned to work had sworn out a warrant charging that two strikers had trespassed, assaulted and threatened to kill him.
In Weaverville, N.C., it was reported by the FBI that the local branch of the Bank of French Broad had been robbed this date shortly after noon. Officers said that a man, about 55, had gotten away with about $2,800. They said that he had sped off in a westerly direction in a 1948 or 1949 Chevrolet coupe. He was described as wearing a brown hat and brown clothing. It was the third North Carolina bank robbery in two weeks.
In Raleigh, it was reported that the State Senate Health Committee this date had given approval to compulsory vaccination of North Carolina children against polio. The Committee had unanimously voted a favorable report on a bill by State Senator D. J. Rose of Wayne County, a retired surgeon, which would require, with few exceptions, that all children between the ages of two months and six years be vaccinated against the crippling disease. The bill would now go before the Appropriations Committee to work out details of financing for the vaccination program. That Committee presumably would decide whether the cost would be borne by the state or by the counties. Indications were that the state would pick up the bill for purchase of the vaccine, estimated at about $108,000 per year. Under the bill, parents who could afford to do so, would have their children vaccinated by their family doctors. Those who could not afford it, would obtain the vaccination at the county health departments. One State Senator, of Transylvania, said that he thought that the state ought bear the cost, indicating that the counties had practically all they could bear. Children would be exempted from vaccination in cases where doctors certified that it would be detrimental to their health, such as in cases of allergies, or in cases where the vaccination was contrary to religious beliefs. At a public hearing the previous week on the measure, a doctor of Greensboro had told the State Senate and the State House Health Committee that the measure presented the state with an opportunity virtually to wipe out paralytic polio. The House Insurance Committee, meanwhile, had set up a five-member subcommittee to study the problem of cancellation of automobile liability insurance policies.
Dick Young of The News reports that the first gathering of incumbent males of the City Council to talk over the upcoming municipal campaign had been held the previous night, but when asked about it this date, they had disclaimed any knowledge of "a political meeting". It was established, however, that some male members of the Council had met at the suburban home of a friend for a discussion of prospects of the campaign which would be climaxed with the primary on April 27 and the election on May 5.
Robert Stoddard, athletic director and football coach at the Carmel High School in New York, in this date's "Lenten Guideposts", indicates that in the summer of 1956 Jim Mackey had pitched his Patterson Little League baseball team in New York to the championship. The coaches of Carmel High School had looked forward to his entrance to their school, not only for his baseball prowess but also for his football skills. He was big for 14, nearly 6 feet tall and weighed 180 pounds, and could move "with the speed of a young colt." Then, the following year, "Big Jim" had begun to limp and an examination had shown that he had cancer, resulting in an operation to remove his right leg. In September, 1957, he had appeared in school on crutches, a little awkward, but with a big smile on his face, saying he would have to wait awhile for his new leg. If he saw anyone feeling sorry for him, he would start kidding around about how he soon would be able to keep up one of his socks with a thumbtack, and "none of you guys can do that". When the first call had gone out for football candidates, he had asked if he could be one of the team managers, and was told that he could but would have to be with the team every night. He had been, hobbling on his crutches to fetch the sheets of plays, a roll of tape from the first-aid kit or a chinstrap for someone's helmet, and soon his spirit and enthusiasm had begun to permeate the whole team. It was typical that he would fall down. One night, the coaches and team were on the field warming up and Jim had appeared near one end zone on his crutches, lugging the first-aid kit and the coach's set of plays, when all of a sudden, one crutch had slipped on the turf and he had gone down in a heap. The coach's first instinct was to run to help him, but he quickly restrained himself and the other boys, exhorting Jim to hurry up with the plays as he was holding up practice, as he knew that was the way Jim would want it. Jim had struggled to his feet and had come puffing up to them, setting the kit on the ground and said, "Coach, it's a good thing you didn't have me carrying the ball for a touchdown then, 'cause I'd have fumbled it sure as anything." Jim had not missed a practice for four weeks and then one night, he had not appeared and Mr. Stoddard had checked and found that he was back in the hospital for examination. It had found that he had cancer of the lungs and was given six weeks to live. It was decided that he would not be told, to allow him to return to school and live as normally as he could. He soon reappeared on the football field with his usual smile and an apology for being absent for a few days. Mr. Stoddard indicates that it was the habit of the football team to say a prayer before each game, asking for guidance and the will to play in true fellowship. The boys also included in their prayer a word for "Big Jim", and then they closed with the Lord's Prayer. The boys, with Jim's inspiration before them, had swept through an undefeated season and had won the county championship. It was decided to give Jim the football, symbolic of the championship, at the annual banquet, but Jim had been too weak to attend. Several weeks later, he had appeared at a basketball game with the same big smile on his face, but more pale than anyone had ever seen him. They had asked him to stop in at the athletic office after the game and he had come in, leaning on his crutches, beads of sweat standing out all over his face and his big smile covering the pain which lay behind it. Mr. Stoddard had scolded him a bit for missing the banquet, but Jim had said that he was on a diet. Then he picked up the championship football which all the players and coaches had signed and given to him. The remainder is on an inside page.
In Thorshav, Faroe Islands, it was reported that a romantic American airman who had traveled by boat 2,500 miles to reach his bride-to-be had been on the verge of exhaustion this date from all the attention to his romantic safari. It appeared that he had lost a race against time to wed in Iceland, at least for the immediate future. For the moment, the 28-year old of Cleveland, O., said that he was too tired to worry about it. Well-wishers, for all their good intentions, were not helping him any. He said he just wanted to get some sleep, that he had not closed his eyes much since he had arrived at Thorshav because of a lot of phone calls from people inquiring about his plans for the future. He said it was hard on his nerves and that his would-be bride was about to have a nervous breakdown. The couple faced formidable obstacles in regulations of the U.S. Air Force and the Government of Iceland. The young man had set out from his Icelandic base ten days earlier to pick up his fiancee, 20, and rush her back to Iceland for the wedding. She had come to the remote Faroes after a tour as a nurse in Iceland and had to be back by Saturday under Icelandic marriage laws to wed her American boyfriend before he was transferred home on April 2. The young man had run into all kinds of travel snags getting to the islands, which were off regular sea and air routes. The best the young couple could do now was to go to Copenhagen and fly from there to Iceland, arriving at the earliest on Sunday or Monday, a day or two too late.
In London, it was reported that the TV commercial, which had annoyed American viewers for years, had become an issue before Britain's Parliament. Laborite Christopher Mayhew, pushing a bill to ban interruption of programs for commercials, told the House of Commons the previous night that the pitchmen were even breaking in on Westerns at crucial moments. He said that recently, a Western film had been interrupted, "just when the red Indians were about to attack, for an advertisement for a scalp lotion. The only programs not interrupted are religious programs and the discussion panel program 'Free Speech' featuring Robert Boothby, now a peer. Television advertising holds back, it seems, for the Lord God and Lord Bob." British commercial television had begun in September, 1955 as a rival to the non-profit, state-sponsored BBC. The commercial companies had been a huge success in the meantime. Mr. Mayhew's bill would permit commercials only at "natural break" times in programs, the beginning and end of dramatic sketches, or during the halftime of an athletic match. The MP contended that such had been Parliament's intent when it had authorized commercial television.
We have found no evidence that this Western
On the editorial page, "The Consolidated University Can't Exist on Peanuts and a Pat on the Head" indicates that out of all of the statistics piled on the desks of the members of the General Assembly during the week, one bundle had stood out, the Hodges Administration's tight-fisted budget recommendations for the Consolidated University. At a time when the University was on the threshold of a great and challenging new era of educational leadership, it had been offered peanuts and a pat on the head, which would simply not do.
The progress of the state was dependent, to a large extent, on the progress of the University and when the University was starved, the state tightened its belt. The three units of the University, at Chapel Hill, N.C. State in Raleigh and Woman's College in Greensboro, had proud histories and collectively had fulfilled the mid-19th Century definition of Cardinal Newman: "A university is a school of knowledge of every kind, consisting of teachers and learning from every quarter… It is a place where inquiry is pushed forward, and discoveries verified and protected, and rashness rendered innocuous, an error exposed, by the collision of mind with mind, and knowledge with knowledge."
It finds that never had an institution lived the ideals so well as the University had during the 1930's, having been "a lighthouse in storm of trouble for the South. Its teachings and its research sustained the formidable fate of millions of Southerners."
The state and region again faced grave problems and the University's active leadership was again needed to provide a stronghold of learning and an outpost of light on the region's new social and economic frontiers. Fresh stirrings in the University under its president William Friday had offered North Carolinians renewed hope that the challenge would be answered. Governor Hodges had adopted the bold new plan for a Research Triangle as a pet project and there was hope also that the Governor and the Advisory Budget Commission would provide at least some of the funding needed to spur the renaissance.
The funds recommended by the Governor's budget, however, would not maintain the present quality of research and teaching at the Consolidated University's three institutions. It finds that the question was no longer whether the University was going forward, but rather how far backward it would drift if the Administration's budget was adopted. The most serious problem was the depletion of the faculty. The University could not presently compete with its sister institutions for top-flight teaching talent. Unless reasonable increases in faculty salaries were allowed, important people involved in vital teaching and research assignments would be lost, a loss which would cripple the Research Triangle as well as the University. The Research Triangle would emphasize applied research, but the universities in the area had to supply the basic research program if the applied research would reach its highest potential.
That point and several others had been made the previous Monday by chancellor William B. Aycock of the Chapel Hill campus in a report to the UNC trustees on the budgetary crisis at that institution. He had said: "The essential new personnel requested must be provided or it will be necessary either to curtail the research functions of the University, or enrollments, particularly at the graduate level, must be frozen. Piling more work on an already overworked faculty is not an alternative. Sooner or later the distorted view that a professor enjoys a leisurely life must be exploded. The primary reason that the people in this state have a university in fact as well as in name is largely because of the determined and dedicated effort on the part of hundreds of faculty members. In what other way can you explain how a state which ranks almost at the bottom in per capita income, even among Southern states, can say, in truth and with pride, that the University of North Carolina is among the top 20 or 25 institutions of higher learning in the United States?
"The members of the General Assembly must make a choice. Will we continue to have a University or not? North Carolina cannot afford to make a wrong choice and I am confident the needed funds will be provided to enable the University to grow greater as it grows larger."
It indicates that it also was confident that the state would choose wisely and that it had to do so, for its future was at stake. "North Carolina and the University must go forward together."
"Nobody Profits from Strike Violence" indicates that it was more than unfortunate when mob action displaced reason, as it would color attempts toward industrial harmony for some time to come, promoting ill will between neighbors, increasing the gap between management and labor and providing a signal of wariness to others who would establish businesses within the state.
It indicates that it was not trying to enter into the dispute for or against the strike at the Henderson Mills, but seeks to inject the thought that pitched battles would do no good, that property damage and personal injury would not settle a strike, coming instead from a meeting of the minds after compromise across the bargaining table. Violence on either side would only increase resistance for such a compromise.
A report had come from Henderson that the Textile Workers Union of America there was appealing for calm in hourly radio broadcasts but that the advice had been ignored and that more clashes had followed on both sides, including the bushwhacking of a labor representative which had put him in the hospital.
It stresses that violence only focused the attention of the country on Henderson and the state. "Where emotions have taken over the state stands to take a black eye which will take time and money and promotional good will to repair."
"Tranquility Attacks from the Kitchen" indicates that a report from New York told of tranquilized beef being the best. Food editors had gathered and steaks from steers shot full of happiness had won by a margin of 25 to 9.
It suggests that it might not be long before cheerful foods were on the scene, a natural for Madison Avenue. It could foresee the copy reading: "Chock Full o' Cheer", "Hap-Hap-Happy Hash", "Be Glad with Globurgers" and "Listen to the Happy Hawg Song".
"If cattle can be drugged into docility for a better product, why not vegetables and fruits?" It suggests "Tranquilized Tomatoes Taste Better", "This Celery Slept in the Sun" and "Modern Science Has Flavorized Our Oranges."
It suggests a few more and indicates that the age was not over yet, that tranquility would be the most important product.
That would carry over to the moon-landing in July, 1969.
A piece from the Greensboro Daily News, titled "Something for the Birds", indicates that supermarkets were thought to have already reached the ultimate in packaging and processing, with grated cheese and graham cracker crumbs which hurried housewives could purchase in plastic bags ready for the mixing bowl. And there was also "Pickle for Salad" already chopped up to save the burdensome chore. One could buy chopped salad to eliminate the necessity of having to get a lot of different green things together and cutting them up. Coffee cake could be made in a bag and put on the table without dirtying a single pot, pan or spoon. One placed an egg, milk and the coffee cake mix in a plastic bag, squashed it with one's hands and poured it into a pan which came with the box.
It indicates that it was hardly news that the kitchen had succumbed to progress and that food was scarcely touched by human hands anymore. That had been coming since the first brand of pancake mix. Television had only given food manufacturers, and non-cooking housewives, the excuse for the TV dinner.
But anthropologists would probably date the decline of American society from the first sale of ready-mixed birdseed. Grocery stores and feed stores were now stocking it. "What a sign of the times. A few years ago people were willing to crumble up breadcrumbs and throw table scraps to the birds. Now you can buy bait for bird watching.
"How effete can we get?"
Drew Pearson indicates that ordinarily there was nothing which so riled Congress as to have a Cabinet officer tell its members an untruth. Admiral Lewis Strauss, the Wall Street banker and former head of the Atomic Energy Commission, was now seeking confirmation as Secretary of Commerce, and had been either caught or charged before Congress with seven untruths or attempts to cover up the truth. He lists five of the untruths or deceptions which Congress had found against the Admiral.
Regarding underground bomb testing, on March 6, 1958, Admiral Strauss, as AEC head, had announced that its underground test in Nevada was "recorded at Los Angeles to about 250 miles air line from the shot mesa. This was the maximum distance at which the shock was recorded." Harold Stassen, however, member of the White House staff, had previously stated that the same test had been picked up on "every seismic instrument within a thousand miles." It had also come out that the underground blast had been heard 2,500 miles away in Alaska. Caught red-handed, Admiral Strauss had squirmed and alibied before the cross-examination of Senator Clinton Anderson of New Mexico, but had provided no adequate explanation for the deception.
Regarding radioactive contamination near Detroit, in announcing the establishment of a fast breeder atomic reactor at Lagoona Beach outside Detroit, the Admiral had claimed that it would be safe for the people of Detroit by the time it was completed in 1960. But he had suppressed a memo written by his own scientists which said: "It appears doubtful that sufficient experimental information will be available in time to give assurance of safe operation of this reactor unless the present program of the AEC is amplified and accelerated. The committee does not feel that the steps to be taken should be so bold as to risk the health and safety of the public."
Regarding dirty hydrogen bombs, when Senator Anderson had charged that the Administration was taking nuclear bombs out of its stockpile and inserting something which made them dirtier, that is more radioactive, Admiral Strauss had countered with a denial. That dispute had raged back and forth, with Senator Anderson and Representative Chet Holifield of California getting the better of it. Finally, Admiral Strauss had written a letter to Representative Carl Durham of North Carolina, on the Joint Atomic Congressional Committee, complaining that Senator Anderson had called him a liar four times.
Regarding British censorship, after the first Russian Sputnik had been launched on October 4, 1957, the British had wanted to announce that they had made notable progress in controlling hydrogen radioactivity, which would have helped allied prestige and the rest of the world but might have hurt American prestige. It was reported from London that Admiral Strauss had demanded that the British not make the announcement, but he had denied it. Technically, the denial had been accurate, because the British had not achieved success, only partial success. Senators, knowing all of the facts, chalked it up as another deception by the Admiral.
Regarding credit for the Shippingport, Pa., reactor, when Westinghouse had unveiled the first peacetime atomic reactor at Shippingport, credit for the achievement had been taken in full-page ads in various newspapers on behalf of Westinghouse and the AEC. The inside story of who had deserved the credit, however, had come out at a Congressional hearing on December 25, 1957, at which AEC member Tom Murray had testified that he and Admiral Hyman Rickover, father of the Nautilus atomic submarine, had conceived the idea of the Shippingport reactor, despite opposition from inside the AEC.
Robert C. Ruark, "somewhere in Uganda", indicates that if he had cattle with him he might be raided for his wealth and speared to death, as there had been over 200 such raids in Karamajoa the previous year. Cattle raiding went on all the time in the closed district, with ensuing bloodshed, and the naked locals still adorned their arms with trophy scars, the right arm for men killed and the left arm for women. The situation had not changed in the 50-odd years during which the white man had been there.
With wild game passing, as the native flocks further encroached into the cleared scrub of the wilderness, the Karamajoans' cattle herds were increasing greatly. Like most African herdsmen, the naked black Karamajoan did not care for money, and did not wish to sell his cattle. An official had told Mr. Ruark the previous day, when he had met him accidentally in the bush, that the answer to overcrowding of grazing space was to slaughter 30 percent of the burgeoning herds. He said that if that were done, there would be such massive tribal warfare that they would have to push an entire army into the area to settle it. The game had eventually to go and tsetse-breeding bush cleared to make room for the cattle. Some 6,000 head of game had been slaughtered in another part of Uganda just recently, to clear the tsetse bush and make room for expansion of cattle and people.
He indicates that the people who had been reading so much about the new Africa and the dreams of a federation of African states could not have pushed deeply into the back country. For instance, an American scientific expedition at Lake Rudolph had to be protected by a platoon of riflemen and machine gunners against the foray of a tribe called Gelabba, whose young men swept in from Ethiopia merely to blood their spears. They did not raid for cattle or loot, just for killing to prove their manhood and vent their youthful jubilation, much as students organized panty-raids in the spring.
Spear-blooding expeditions were still quite common in the area and there were often border forays by another cheerful Abyssinian tribe whose young men could not marry until they had proved their worth by handing a slain opponent as a tribute to the father of the bride.
In some parts of Africa at present, the situation was exactly the same as in the old beau geste days in North Africa and the Sahara, with small bands of uniform Askari, headed generally by white officers, who sought to preserve the peace, swooping down on the raiders, to get back the stolen goats and cattle and to discourage light-hearted killing for sport.
He finds it to paint a baleful picture of one world on a grand scale, that if murderous clan rivalry existed within one branch of a tribe and intertribal rivalry existed inside one area, and a murderous hatred was cherished against the fellow across the river in the next area, he had small hope for a united Africa within several lifetimes, if ever. He finds that Africa at present could be roughly compared to the Caribbean and South American communities, but enormously magnified in number. "Shadowed by 90 percent illiteracy, colored by cruel custom, haunted by witchcraft and ghost-worship, and bloodstained by hatred of the next man who may live no more than 10 miles down the road."
Among the tribes there was little or no written communication and a variety of thousands of dialects such that a man living in an African Connecticut might be unable to talk to the African equivalent of New Hampshire. There were various shades, heights, weights and cultures of the people, and they had to be welded together, but the question was into what, a new type of slavery, a succession of big and little wars as in the days of the Zulu aggressions and the Bantu sweeps north, with the potential for evil influence to pit tribe against tribe to create a malleable chaos?
He says that the gout which he had been suffering in camp was noticeably better after a beer and the absence of a spear in his stomach. He says that he would touch on the subject again before he concludes the series.
A letter writer comments on the editorial on traffic safety in which it was admitted that those in authority did not know how to cope with it. He finds it a simple matter to understand, that there was a lack of understanding by those in authority of the American public's manner of thinking and that they did not react to fear from any source. He says that all articles in the newspaper and in the Charlotte Observer had been based on that thought. He finds the fact to have been established when Ed Scheidt, commissioner of Motor Vehicles, had installed his system of unmarked cars and requested that the public act as stooges. The Legislature had curbed the action to some extent, but now, he indicates, if Mr. Scheidt and all other heads of police departments could understand the fact that the public was not ready for a dictatorship, and would quit trying to be Wyatt Earp off television, and realize that they were only employees of the public, were paid to carry out the laws made by the duly elected officials and conduct themselves as gentlemen, then they would be getting some place. He objects to the "circus act" of mass license inspection the day after licenses expired, to silly questions on driver's license examinations, the waiting lines for automobile license tags, when offices ought remain open until 8:00 p.m., police parking on strips between the curb and sidewalk in violation of the laws and giving tickets to drivers who made a left turn on a light marked "No Turn". He finds that some were amused, some disgusted and an open challenge given to the hot-rodder. He says that he had never received a traffic ticket and so it did not affect him personally.
A letter writer seeks to inform the public of the Charlotte Bible Institute which recently had opened in the city. She says it was a "fundamental, pre-millennial, and evangelistic school", offering four courses, Studies in the Gospel of John, the Old Testament, Music, and Sermon-Building and Church Organization. She indicates that there was no tuition or charge and no scholastic requirement to attend the school, that it was held every Tuesday night for three hours and the public was invited to attend.
A letter writer finds that baseball could no longer be called the Great American Pastime, "nor is it the holdup of a stagecoach near Long Branch." The fad now was to stage a holdup of the lone branch bank. He says that student criminals were given visual demonstrations in the use of every deadly weapon ever created by man, making heroes of the life stories of every hoodlum from the days of Kit Carson and Jesse James through the careers of Machine Gun Kelly, Pretty Boy Floyd and John Dillinger, impressing the fledgling thug thoroughly with the cheapness of human life, all via the television. He finds that even if they were captured and convicted, some "chicken-hearted jury" would recommend mercy, and a "spineless parole board" would order their releases so that they could return to endanger further everyone's lives. He indicates that George Randall, chairman of the State Parole Board, had only the previous week registered a serious objection to a proposed law making life imprisonment mandatory for persons convicted a fourth time of a felony. He wants the lives of the public protected from thugs, from drunken drivers with many convictions, and children and grandchildren protected from the sex pervert with long lists of offenses. "Mr. Randall would have cringed no doubt, at the sight of a horse thief hanging in the old days, and argued, 'That's not the answer.' Well maybe it wasn't. But anyhow he never stole another horse did he?" He urges that until society would overcome its "chicken-hearted attitude", or just its "plain stupidity" and determined to mete out justice properly to the "hoodlum" when he was brought to justice, "May God have mercy on our silly souls, for cur lives just ain't worth a plugged nickel." He urges making the motto, "Safe for Our Citizens; Hell for Our Hoodlums."
A letter writer from Albemarle, the manager of a furniture company, indicates that they were interested in an article several weeks earlier in the newspaper regarding the loan racket being pulled on small businesses and wanted to report that they had been approached by the same people.
A letter writer indicates that since World War I, during the Administration of Woodrow Wilson, the nation had gone increasingly in debt. After that war, millions of dollars had been given to most foreign nations which had been affected by the war and each year since, the give-away program had increased. He wonders how much longer it could go on and whether it had ever occurred to the members of Congress who had no concern for the welfare of the American people that the American taxpayers were under no obligation to pay taxes to support foreign countries. He asks where there was a country in the world which had ever done anything for America. He urges the election locally of sound businessmen to represent the populace on the City Council, so that they would stop interfering with private business as they had done with one citizen several months earlier and left him with a building half finished, and were now trying to stop a man almost out of the city limits from using his own building based on zoning law.
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