The Charlotte News
Tuesday, March 10, 1959
FIVE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from Beirut, Lebanon, that Iraq's Government had reiterated this date that it had crushed the weekend nationalist uprising and accused a foreign power, apparently referring to Premier Gamal Abdel Nasser's United Arab Republic, of stirring up the trouble. The rebels, whether by choice or necessity, had maintained radio silence after signing off at midnight with a final claim of control of all of northern Iraq. The victory declarations of Premier Abdel Karim Kassem's Communist-influenced regime via Radio Baghdad had met no further challenge on Middle Eastern airwaves. Mystery still surrounded the insurrection led by Col. Abdel Wahab Shawaf in oil-rich Mosul. Few specific details had been disclosed by either side. Iraq's military governor had voiced the charge of foreign meddling in a broadcast from Baghdad, stating: "We advise this country that is cooperating with imperialism to stop spreading lies, because these will not affect the Iraqi republic. This imperialistic state must know that the people and Army of Iraq are determined to preserve our republic and smash all imperialist stooges." Mr. Kassem's regime had been at odds with Premier Nasser for months over the Iraqi leader's refusal to adopt a policy of Arab unity along the lines advocated by Cairo. Radio Baghdad had repeated its claim, which had been denied on Monday by Radio Mosul, controlled by the rebels, that Mr. Shawaf had been killed by his own men.
In Cairo, a reliable source said this date that the Iraqi Government had declared many members of the United Arab Republic Embassy in Baghdad persona non grata and ordered them to leave Iraq within 24 hours.
In Blantyre, Nyasaland, (present-day Malawi), it was reported that another piece of the British Empire, the green, lush protectorate of Nyasaland, had made a violent and bloody lurch toward eventual freedom. The wave of nationalistic fervor which had swept down the African continent from the north now had engulfed the banana-shaped colonial outpost, about the size of Louisiana. (A map of the area is included with the piece.) The only outstanding African political leader had been arrested and deported, and his followers had poured out of the woods, some with spears, to harass the British administration. Riots and bloodshed had followed the declaration of emergency which permitted the arrests of Dr. Hastings Banda and 150 other leaders of the African National Congress. Nearly 40 Africans had been killed in the early days of the emergency. Backed up by troops and aircraft from neighboring Southern Rhodesia, security forces thus far had been able to avert major clashes, but the end was not in sight. Less than a century earlier, Nyasaland was known only to David Livingstone and slave traders, who found rich pickings along the shores of Lake Nyasa. Not until 1883 had a British consul finally arrived to set up an office in Zomba, presently the seat of the colonial government. He had been accredited to "kings and chiefs of Central Africa." Since 1953, Nyasaland had been one of three territories in the Central African Federation, ruled with a firm hand by Prime Minister Sir Roy Welensky, a former locomotive engineer and heavyweight boxer. Nyasaland had brought 3 million Africans, 7,000 whites and very few natural resources into the federation. Northern and Southern Rhodesia were the other members of the federation, which lay in the same latitude below the equator as southern Brazil. From the beginning, Africans regarded the federation with suspicion. Their leaders had refused to take part in London discussions which had formed it. No thinking African had disputed the economic benefits which flowed from the federation, including roads, hospitals and public buildings. The previous year, Nyasaland had received a cut of more than 5.6 million dollars from federal income tax.
In Miami, Fla., it was reported that a 41-year old woman and a young preacher had been arrested Monday after a detective said that he posed as a professional killer in an alleged plot against the woman's husband. The mother of three grown children and the 25-year old preacher were booked for investigation of conspiracy to murder her 45-year old husband. The detective who said that he played the killer for hire had arrested the woman and stated that she had given him $100 as a down payment in the $1,000 deal to kill the husband. The alleged installment plan murder drama had been played out in the preacher's car while a hidden tape recorder and motion picture camera recorded it. The woman had signed a statement in which she said that she wanted to hire someone to kill her husband. The preacher denied any connection with the plot. The woman was quoted as saying that she wanted her husband killed so that she could obtain $30,000 in insurance proceeds and because he had been mean to her children by a previous marriage. Later she said that her husband had little insurance and that she wanted him killed because he would not let her go to church with the preacher, who shared the woman's home. The woman and the preacher, according to the husband, attended church and prayer meetings several times each week and the preacher's presence in the home had caused arguments. The preacher had moved into the home about three months after he had met the couple at a revival meeting. The husband said that the preacher was the only member of the three who could read and write, and had therefore taken over the husband's financial affairs. He told the press that the preacher had let him retain his overtime pay for spending money. He earned $60 per week as a truck driver. Officers said that the husband's account with a loan company indicated that his wife had borrowed $100 shortly before her meeting with the detective playing the role of the hired killer. The meeting had been arranged after two Miami men, approached on the subject of killing the husband, had gone to police with their stories. The preacher's religious meetings had been conducted in various homes in suburban Hialeah. He told police that he was from southeast Missouri, but could not recall just where.
In Ventura, Calif., the trial of a woman accused of masterminding the murder of her daughter-in-law was nearing its end this date, with several witnesses scheduled to reappear, as the prosecutor put finishing touches on the case against the outspoken 54-year old defendant. The woman was charged with hiring two men to kill her son's 30-year old pregnant wife. Jealousy toward the woman who threatened to take her son, also 30, away from her, had been advanced by the prosecutor as the motive. The jury of eight women and four men were expected to get the case within the next day or so. The previous day, they had heard courtroom spectators applaud when the judge had turned down a defense motion for a mistrial. The defense attorney argued that questioning of the accused about 11 marriages, to which she had admitted, had been intended to prejudice the jury against her and to degrade and disgrace her. The judge had taken only a moment to consider the motion before denying the mistrial. The defense attorney had asked that the record show the loud handclapping which had followed, but the judge said that he did not hear any applause, only a disturbance. The son had testified that three weeks after his wife had vanished the prior November, he had dated a woman in San Francisco without telling her that he was already married. He said that he discussed with his mother, prior to finding his wife's body, whether she had any part in his wife's disappearance. The son had testified that his wife's disappearance had caused him great concern, that he had talked to his mother about it, indicating that he knew that his mother did not like his wife and that he was suspicious of everyone. The son had insisted that his mother was incapable of the crime she was accused of committing. Throughout the trial, the defendant, who was facing the death penalty, from time to time had interrupted proceedings to shout, "That's a lie!" or "You're a liar!" at the district attorney, and had been admonished again the previous day by the judge for her outbursts.
In Beverley, England, it was reported that an old soldier had chosen death to dishonor and had appointed his own executioner, having tricked a 20-year old recruit into shooting him through the chest. The coroner decided the previous day that the 45-year old soldier had committed suicide nevertheless, just as if he had jumped in front of a train. The retired quartermaster sergeant had worked as a steward in the officers' mess of the Beverley barracks and was in trouble over a discrepancy in the mess accounts. A member of the local shooting team, he walked into the armory and had begun examining a rifle, then handed the rifle to a private who was on a weapon-cleaning detail. The private said that he had reached out for it and the other man had said to him to pull the trigger, and so he reached out with his right hand and squeezed the trigger. There had then been a blast and the other man had slumped dying to the floor. The private said that he had no idea that the gun was loaded. In a letter that he had left for a lieutenant colonel, the dead man mentioned the shortage in his accounts and said that he had let him down badly and had to pay for it the only way he knew, that he did not want to die but that there was no other way out.
In Massapequa, N.Y., it was reported
that four men with a variety of ordinary occupations, who allegedly
had decided to take up a new profession, bank robbery, had been
arrested early this date less than 15 hours after a fast-moving but
amateurish $72,321 robbery had taken place the previous day. Officers
had burst in on three of the men counting stacks of bills at the home
of one of them, the police action having been so fast that none of
the men had a chance to grab at any of the guns in a small arsenal
beside them. One of the raiding officers said that the look on their
faces was "unbelievable". The arrest of the four so
quickly had been attributed to painstaking detective work based on
the slimmest of clues, an incident seemingly unrelated to a bank
robbery. Detectives had received a tip that one of the men, a 27-year
old plumber of Bay Shore, had gone to New York recently to purchase a
pair of handcuffs. He had been picked up for questioning late the
previous night, less than eight hours after the robbery at the point
of a machine gun of the Security National Bank in the Long Island
community. Officers thought that there might be some connection with
recent robberies in which victims were handcuffed, although none had
been used at that particular bank robbery. The man denied buying any
handcuffs, according to authorities, but finally admitted that he had
bought some grotesque face masks. Such masks had been used by the
bandits who had held 12 persons at bay in the bank for three minutes
while scooping up cash. Finally, the man had broken down and admitted
taking part in the bank robbery and then implicated the three others.
Police had failed to locate any of the other three men until they got
to the home of one of them, a 44-year old tavern keeper of West
Babylon, who had living quarters in the same building as his tavern.
Peeking through a slit in a blind, the officers had seen three men
sitting around a kitchen table placing money in neat piles. Near them
had been two machine guns, two rifles and a revolver. Two of the men
also had revolvers in their pockets. The officers decided to try to
crash through a door leading from the outside into the kitchen. An
inspector had given orders that, if the door were locked, police were
to shoot off the lock and enter with guns blazing. The door was not
locked and in an instant, the police were in the room with guns
drawn, shouting for the men to put their hands up. None of the men in
the room had made a move to resist. Police said that all of the money
taken in the robbery had been on the table. They said that the first
man they had questioned had whistled in astonishment when told later
how much had been taken from the bank. Police quoted him as saying
that he thought that it was "only a small country bank" and
that the loot probably had totaled about $10,000. All four men were
said to have signed statements admitting participation in the robbery
and two acknowledged their amateurishness by admitting that they had
never cased the bank beforehand, that none of them had ever been in
the bank and that it was not even selected for the robbery until just
before it had taken place. Officers said that the four had merely
decided a couple of weeks earlier that they would try a bank robbery.
A stolen car, with plates stolen from another automobile, had been
used for the getaway. The four were charged with assault and armed
robbery. Despite their apparent lack of planning, the bank robbery at
first seemed to have all of the earmarks of a professional job, the
four men having breezed in with guns in hand and wearing
Halloween-type masks. They had quickly started stuffing paper
shopping bags with bills, though a hitch had developed after three
minutes with the appearance of a customer, who had fled after a
glimpse through the door, rattling the robbers and then causing them
to flee. There were eight million stories in the Naked City
In Henderson, N.C., it was reported that all was quiet in the cotton mill strike picket lines this date as the Textile Workers Union of America prepared to bring charges of unfair labor practices against the Harriet-Henderson Cotton Mills. Boyd Payton of Charlotte, the TWUA regional director, said that papers bringing the charges were being mailed this date to the NLRB's regional office in Winston-Salem. The two TWUA locals involved in the long, violence-marked strike had voted unanimously on Monday to bring the charges. The previous night's quiet had been in sharp contrast to Sunday night when at least three blasts had been set off in the Henderson area. One of those explosions had damaged the boiler room and boiler at the South Henderson plant. Company officials also reported that acid had been thrown on 57 of the mills' 150 carding machines. Mr. Payton had disclaimed any union responsibility for that damage, saying that he did not know how it could be blamed on the union as their people were not in there and there was no way for them to have gotten in there, that he was confident that the person responsible had no connection with the union. Union and management had met in a half-hour session on Monday but had made no progress.
In Harlan, Ky., it was reported that the striking UMW had peacefully displayed their muscle again this date with a 40-mile motorcade through the heart of the Harlan coal mining area. The UMW had struck 26 independent rail mines and more than 200 small truck operations at midnight on Saturday with the promise of a union official that "not one damn ounce of coal will be mined" until the 1959 contract was signed. Operators claimed that the contract, calling for a two dollar per day increase in base pay, would bankrupt them. The new contract, signed by most of the nation's soft coal operators, allowed for $24.25 per day.
In Lisbon Falls, Me., three children and their stepfather had perished in a fire early this date leveling their two-story home. Neighbors said that the 30-year old laborer had been trapped in an attempt to rescue his step-children. One of the children had reportedly pushed her mother to safety through a second-story window and then had become trapped as a door had shut on her. The mother, who was expecting in July, had been hospitalized with burns, shock and possibly a broken leg. The children ranged in age between 10 and 14, with a fourth child having been staying with a relative. A neighbor said that he was awakened in the wee hours of the morning by his dog barking, had looked out and saw the neighboring dwelling to be a mass of flames. There is no indication of the cause of the fire.
The sports page indicates that UNC would play Navy, coached by former UNC coach Ben Carnevale, in Madison Square Garden this night in the first-round of the NCAA Tournament. UNC had been an automatic qualifier as the ACC representative despite being bombarded by N.C. State on Saturday night in the finals of the ACC Tournament, 80 to 56, because of the ineligibility of State to play in the NCAA Tournament based on its two-year probationary status for improper player recruitment. In consequence, UNC coach Frank McGuire had liberally substituted his starters to rest them for this night's game. North Carolina had been ranked number 5 in the nation before the Saturday night game, but had dropped to ninth in the following day's final poll of the season, while State, previously tenth, had risen to sixth. Eventual national champion, the University of California, remained 11th.
We are having a premonition
On the editorial page, "The Community's Patience Is Strained" finds that the breach between the City and County governments over operation of the property appraisal office as a combined operation was as unnecessary as it was unseemly and would not occur if City and County tax operations were merged under a single supervisor of great ability.
It concludes that the community's patience was already strained and it was more interested in governmental efficiency, economy, and public convenience, than in the question of whose beef was justified or whose pride had been bruised, that what it wanted now was action.
"This Crisis Gets the Silent Treatment" finds that there was a strange other-worldliness about the Berlin crisis, containing the threat of a major explosion, with at least the possibility of war if things went badly during the coming conferences. Yet no one of its acquaintance was particularly moved by any sense of urgency or even equipped with an elementary awareness of the potential peril. It finds that lack of awareness true of other places as well across the nation.
Henry Kissinger, a distinguished foreign affairs expert, writing during the week in the New York Times, had, it finds, put his finger on the painful truth: "We are sliding toward a crisis for which the American people have not been prepared."
It finds it small wonder that the nation's allies were becoming nervous about its intentions, with there being the additional danger of the Soviets translating that nervousness into weakness and irresolution.
With Secretary of State Dulles seriously ill, the responsibility for alerting the nation to the challenge was squarely on the President. It could not be handled by functionaries or by a few off-hand remarks in a Presidential press conference. Something a bit more suitable to the seriousness of the occasion was in order and it urges that the President had to go before the people with a frank and open discussion of America's necessary role in Germany, Central Europe, and the world. It urges also that he would need to make it plain to the nation and the West that the U.S. was prepared to spend what it would take to maintain its responsibilities.
It finds it particularly important at the time for the President to dispel any notion that U.S. policy was paralyzed by pacifism. While the nation's dedication to peaceful methods was basic, a willingness to use force, if necessary, to defend vital interests was the only policy becoming the responsibility of a great nation. "Peace is our objective but it cannot be bought at any price."
"Exercise" asks whether the reader realized that U.S. cigarette production the previous year had reached 22,253,788.3 miles, having been stated at the conclusion of its own exhaustive medical survey based on the 1958 record crop of 470 billion cigarettes stacked end to end at 3 inches each, in the king-size version.
It finds that they were in the days of a somewhat cosmic approach to cigarette advertising, and being able to shoot production figures 22 million miles into space maintained one's mental processes in shape for a thinking man's filter.
"Rep. MacDonald Plays Don Quixote" indicates that Representative Torbert MacDonald of Massachusetts had taken a stance of a one-man band to trumpet a blast against rock 'n' roll. He had decided that Congress had inadvertently debased itself the previous year in passing a bill to provide low-cost fourth-class mail for recordings, which, naturally, would include some rock 'n' roll.
Mr. MacDonald had said: "I view with absolute horror the prospect of federal subsidies for performers such as Elvis Presley … Dicky Doo ... and all the other hundreds of musical illiterates whose noises presently clutter up our jukeboxes and our airways." He had added, "By this ruling the United States government has for all intents and purposes officially stamped rock 'n' roll as educational material… Putting such rock 'n' roll classics as 'Itchy Twitchy Feeling' and 'Stagger Lee' in the same category as recordings of Bach, Brahms and Beethoven is a horrible perversion of the intent of Congress."
He sought to have the fourth-class mailing privilege for rock 'n' roll halted immediately. It indicates that while it cheered his fortitude in his quixotic stand, it warned him that he should sing further public lyrics out of reach of the nation's teenagers, as it had seen youthful reaction during rock 'n' roll shows at the Charlotte Coliseum and they had been just cheering for somebody. "We'd hate to view the remains of Rep. MacDonald if this same cheering section decided to unite against him."
"Higher Education?" quotes from the Council for Basic Education Bulletin: "At East Carolina College, North Carolina, 20 men and women are enrolled in a course for credit called Camping Techniques, the purpose of which is 'to acquire skills in simple outdoor living.' The highlight of the course is a camping trip during which the students learn such skills as canoeing, cooking and fishing. Presumably, the marking system calls for a B for a well-browned batch of pancakes and an A for catching a 12-ounce trout."
A piece from the Raleigh News & Observer, titled "The Mad March Days", indicates that March had been the first month of the year on the old Roman calendar, suggesting that the child of Mars had perhaps come first because after four weeks of his incredible tantrums, anyone could stand the other 11 months. March was usually three sheets in the wind, with all the grace and aplomb of an irate bull on rollerskates, always badly in need of psychiatric treatment. March was the wild man from Borneo, laden with cash and out to terrify the town on his spree. It combined the snide subtlety of a wicked magician with the vicious infighting tricks of a harbor thug. It could change from icy cold to downy warm in a flick of the fingers. Then, it stood with its fingers crossed behind its back as foolish young buds leaped out to enhance the deceptive sunlight. And just as the buds began to dance with the fires of mid-April, March reached back into its bag and threw ice or killing frost on the knees of the trees.
February, it finds, was "a gaunt man sucking his crusty thumb for sustenance, and April is a meadow filled with birds. March stands between a combination of all the ancient sailors on liberty and all the Saturday night drunks come to town. But March is the very opposite of this age of ultra conformity, and we need him badly, just to show up the astonishing differences."
Drew Pearson finds that the more one looked at the record of Chin Bok Him, czar of northern California gambling, and that of his friend, former Congressman John Allen, the more one wondered how the President had ever appointed Mr. Allen to the "Little Cabinet". The record of the Chinese gambler and the former Congressman had been set forth in Federal District Court in San Francisco and Oakland, and there was no reason why the White House could not have examined it before making Mr. Allen Undersecretary of Commerce.
Chin Bok Him had been sentenced to ten years in jail and fined $20,000, threatened with deportation, for cheating the Government in income taxes on $133,967 in gambling income. He was sometimes called "The King of the Cabbage Patch" and had been convicted after the record of the Allen Trust Fund had been brought into court and it was shown that thousands of dollars in cash, won from gambling, had been brought by Mr. Chin to Congressman Allen's law office and then siphoned off through devious methods into real estate and other business ventures, thus enabling Mr. Chin to avoid payment of taxes on the gambling profits.
Although Congressman Allen's brother had pleaded an attorney-client relationship, the Federal judge had ruled that the Congressman had "translated his activities into those of an accountant", not an attorney, and as a result, the brother had spent hours on the witness stand admitting that cash had come into the trust fund and then had been invested in various business enterprises. Mr. Allen, when queried about the transactions at the time of the trial, had said that he was simply acting as a lawyer and did not worry about where the money had come from, not knowing of the history of the funds or of any other trustee accounts. The U.S. Attorney had charged in Federal District Court, however, that the Government had traced two million dollars of the Chinese gambler's money to a single company, the "Gerdon Land Corporation", set up for Mr. Chin by the Allen law firm. All except one share of stock had been owned by Mr. Chin, that single share having been owned by the Congressman's brother.
Mr. Pearson provides an illustration of how the tax evasion scheme had worked, as shown in court. Mr. Chin had brought $6,000 into the Allen office in April, 1945, and the following day, had brought in more than $25,000. On April 20, he had brought in $4,900, with nearly all of the deposits having been in cash. The money, after being deposited in the trust fund of Mr. Allen, was then invested in real estate and other ventures all over Central California. Mr. Chin filed tax returns showing no profit during that time. When asked on the witness stand about some of the transactions, Mr. Allen's brother had replied that he did not know and was just following the system which had been set up by his brother before he became his partner in 1942.
The Congressional Quarterly reports that labor leaders had won the latest round of a significant court battle testing their right to compel members to support their political and lobbying activities. The North Carolina Supreme Court, on February 25, had determined that workers who had to join a union to retain their jobs could also be compelled to pay dues to support the union's lobbying and political efforts, even though they opposed the objectives of those activities. There had been only one dissent to that decision, which had reversed a lower court ruling against the unions.
But the Georgia Supreme Court had ruled against the unions on a technical point in a nearly identical case in 1957, and was expected to reaffirm its decision when the same case would come before it for final disposition the following month. The Georgia court had already declared unanimously that it did not believe one union member could constitutionally be compelled to contribute money to support ideas, politics and candidates which he opposed.
The fact that there were two opposite decisions by two states made it virtually inevitable that the U.S. Supreme Court would take up the issue.
At stake were the multi-million-dollar lobbying and political education activities which had given labor unions a powerful voice in Congress and national affairs, with most of those activities being financed from union dues. The plaintiffs in both cases had argued that they ought not be forced to pay dues for such purposes. In both cases, the suits had been filed by employees of the Southern Railway in an effort to block enforcement of a union shop contract between Southern and various railroad brotherhoods. Under a union shop contract, all workers were required to join the union within a certain time, usually 60 days, after they had been employed.
Congress, in 1950, had approved union shop contracts on the railroads even in states, as in Georgia and North Carolina, where right-to-work laws were in place, forbidding such contracts generally. The Supreme Court in 1956, in Railway Employees' Dept. v. Hanson, had upheld the constitutionality of the union shop amendment to the Railway Labor Act. But in that decision, the Court had used significant language: "The only conditions to union membership authorized by … the Railway Labor Act are the payment of periodic dues, initiation fees and assessments… The financial support required relates, therefore, to the work of the union in the realm of collective bargaining… If assessments are in fact imposed for purposes not germane to collective bargaining … or if the exaction of dues … is used as a cover for forcing ideological conformity or other action in contravention of the First Amendment, this judgment will not prejudice the decision in that case…"
It indicates that the language of the opinion had been interpreted by some lawyers to mean that workers covered by union shop contracts could be forced to pay dues only for their share of the union's collective bargaining work and not for other purposes, such as lobbying or political education. That had been what the Georgia Supreme Court had held in its ruling on the technical point in 1957. But the previous week, the North Carolina Supreme Court had interpreted the language differently, indicating that "the required financial support embraces all activities of the [union] reasonably related to its maintenance as an effective bargaining agent," including lobbying and political education activities. They had said that there was no issue of "forcing ideological conformity" on union members by requiring them to support union lobbying and politicking because "in all other respects, [they] are free to speak and act according to their own desires even if by so doing they speak and act at cross-purposes with the unions."
It indicates that at the moment, railroad unions in North Carolina could collect dues from unwilling workers to support their lobbying and political education work, while railroad unions in Georgia could not, it being left to the U.S. Supreme Court to resolve the conflict.
In Ellis v. Brotherhood of Railway Employes, the Supreme Court in 1984 would hold that there was no First Amendment infringement from such compulsory union dues for activities outside collective bargaining, and to the extent there was, it was justified by the governmental interest in harmonious management-labor relations.
In 1977, the Supreme Court had held in Abood v. Detroit Dept. of Education that a union representing public employees could charge such "agency fees" as part of dues, but not for activities which were not "germane" to collective bargaining, such as political activities. The Supreme Court, however, in 2018, in Janus v. American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council overturned the latter decision and held that such "agency fees" as part of dues were violative of the First Amendment and that such fees could not be extracted from nonconsenting public employees by a public employees union.
A letter from the national director of Aerial Phenomena Research Group in Seattle, Wash., indicates that they had been advised that "unidentified flying objects" had been seen over the Charlotte area on January 27, 1959, and because of their deep scientific interest in all such aerial phenomena and their desire to solve the riddle of the so-called "unidentified flying objects", they were seeking assistance in locating witnesses to the sighting, asking that witnesses send a report and diagram of their observation to their office, with all names to be held strictly confidential unless otherwise stated. It indicates that they were a non-salaried scientific research group whose purpose was to investigate and analyze reports of aerial phenomena and possible related incidents.
Well, here is our report
A letter writer indicates that following World War II, a new spirit had begun to erupt in Africa, with the previous three months having been a period of great significance, as the entire continent was seeking self-rule and independence. He finds it nothing new in the minds of Africans, because Africans as a whole were conditioned to a type of liberty and freedom which Western civilization and Eastern forces could not understand. He finds the fate of the world hanging in the balance with the Berlin issue and the May 27 deadline imposed by the Soviets. He finds that everywhere in Africa there was blood and yet no war. There was indiscriminate slaughter, carnage on defenseless people and no one was protesting against the atrocity. In 1956, France and Britain had made a deliberate attack on Egypt in the name of a policing operation. In Algeria, there was bloodshed and France had thought that it could make a part of Africa become a part of France, a ridiculous proposition. Tunisia was threatened, as some of its villages had been bombed by French planes, perhaps bought from the U.S. In East Africa, the Mau Mau had almost been destroyed and Jomo Kenyata was still in jail. The leader of the nationalist movement in Nyasaland had been exiled by the Government of the oppressor. As a result, 26 Africans had died within 24 hours. The only secret behind that atrocity was that the African wanted to manage his own affairs and be respected as a human being. In South Africa, the situation was worse and the zero hour was drawing near. Even in Angola, eruption appeared close. In the Congo, 74 men had been killed in that savagery of the system called colonialism. Yet Berlin remained in the limelight. He wonders how long the U.S. and Russia would be patient with the inhumanity ongoing in Africa. He indicates that the average African looked on the U.S. as a peace-loving country, as people who believed and understood why Jesus had become Christ, rebelled against the Roman authorities and had died on the cross. He finds it surprising that a Christian nation would remain silent in the face of the savage carnage. He urges people to act before May 27. He hopes that the black race would come out of humiliation without bitterness against the white race.
A letter writer compares 25 years earlier with the present, indicating that at the earlier time, the U.S. was the strongest and most influential country in the world and its word respected. The Soviet Union had no influence and no one had respect for it, and they had not been strong. But now, he finds, the U.S. was stronger financially but less influential and weaker than the Soviets. He believes that had the U.S. not given away so much unwisely, it would not have such little influence at present among the various nations. He examines the conferences held between the U.S. and the Communists during the previous decade, finds that nothing of any great magnitude had been accomplished for the reason that the Soviets had not intended to make any agreement unless it would be for their advantage. The Soviets were familiar with American weaknesses, and had the U.S. been wise and not engaged so much in wishful thinking, it would not have wasted all the years with such conferences. He indicates that the nation had been engaged in appeasement 26 years earlier and was seeking the same now, that it had lost much earlier and was losing again now. He understands that the conferences, at least according to some, had kept the nation out of a third world war and that it was better to substitute talk for fighting. "It is just too bad how little these so-called diplomats understand. The war that they think they prevented should have been more welcome than the one we will have to fight in the not too far future." He urges that if the country did not take a firm stand in the Berlin situation and would let the Russians have the upper hand, a war might not start in the current Administration, but, as usual, the Republicans would prepare it fully for the Democrats to start.
Framed Edition
Links-Date — Links-Subj.