The Charlotte News

Tuesday, March 17, 1959

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that Congressmen of both parties this date had supported the President's renewed vow that "We will not retreat one inch from our duty" in Berlin, stated during his radio and television address the previous night. Some Democrats, however, questioned his assertion that the U.S. now had an adequate and effective military establishment able to deter aggression. During the address, the President had cautiously opened the door to a summertime summit meeting with Russian Premier Nikita Khrushchev, provided foreign ministers would lay advance groundwork for it. Immediate Congressional reaction, however, centered on the President's pledge that the U.S. would fight rather than yield to Russia's demand that allied troops depart West Berlin to enable it to become a "free city", as demanded by the Russians prior to May 27, though there was some indication of that deadline being subject to change with ongoing negotiation. House Speaker Sam Rayburn said that he had listened intently to the President's speech and trusted that his judgment of the situation was correct. House Republican Leader Charles Halleck of Indiana said that the President's speech had demonstrated his full realization of the situation and the kind of leadership they needed, typical of the Republican response. Representative A. S. J. Carnahan of Missouri, a Democratic critic of the President's statements on defense, said, "To hear the President say we are in pretty good shape militarily is, of course, reassuring, but I have some doubt as to whether we are in as strong a position as we should be." The President told the nation, "We cannot try to purchase peace by forsaking two million free people of Berlin." He charged Russia with having deliberately created a war threat to enforce its Berlin demands, and indicated that appeasement would be worse than useless, saying: "War would become more likely if we gave way and encouraged a rule of terrorism rather than a rule of law and order. Indeed, this is the peace policy which we are striving to carry out throughout the world." He also said that the risk of war was minimized if the nation stood firm. He said that whatever would occur, the American people now had and would continue to have "a modern, effective and adequate military establishment." He confidently cited the nation's long-range nuclear bomber force, plus 41 types of missiles either in production or under development, as being powerful enough to resist Communism's challenge, despite domestic critics urging him to spend more for defense.

In Henderson, N.C., it was reported that additional State Highway Patrolmen had maintained observation this date as workers filed into the strike-bound Harriet-Henderson Cotton Mills amid an air of relative calm. Only catcalls and jeers from strikers had disturbed the peace, in contrast to an outbreak of rock and bottle-throwing on Monday afternoon at the South Henderson plant, resulting in the arrest of 26 strikers. Fifty additional Highway Patrolmen had been dispatched to the strike scene because of the latest outbreak, with a lieutenant for the Patrol indicating that it looked like the more patrolmen they had at the plants, the quieter it got. The reinforcements brought to 150 the number of patrolmen on the scene. The lieutenant said that the fierce outburst of rock and bottle-throwing near the South Henderson plant had looked for awhile like it might turn into "a wholesale riot instead of a sortie." About six cars belonging to mill workers had been damaged as they left the plant during mid-afternoon the prior day and the lieutenant said that 35 patrolmen had rushed in and restored order after 40 or 50 men had gathered about two blocks from the mill and began throwing rocks and bottles. There had been a brief melee between the strikers and patrolmen, but no blows had been exchanged. After the initial outbreak, several hundred strikers near the mill began running to the arrest scene. The 26 men arrested had been charged with damaging the automobiles of workers and engaging in a riot with two or more persons present and committing unlawful acts. They were scheduled for Friday hearings in Vance County Recorder's Court and all 26 had been released on bonds of $150 each. The lieutenant described the uprising as one of the worst since the mills had reopened on February 16. Union and management representatives planned to get together with government mediators on Thursday in an effort to reach a settlement in the strike which had begun on November 17, called after the Textile Workers Union of America and the company had been unable to agree on an arbitration clause in a new contract, which the company wanted to omit from the new agreement.

In Raleigh, it was reported that a bill to abolish the civilian absentee ballots in general elections had been killed this date by the State House Committee on Elections and Election Law. The same Committee had earlier reluctantly given its blessings to a measure to abolish absentee voting by civilians in Graham County local elections. The vote for an unfavorable report on the statewide bill was divided, but those who favored the measure did not ask for a head count and the chairman had ruled that the affirmative votes had won. Both Governor Luther Hodges and the State Board of Elections had urged the General Assembly, as previous boards had done, to abolish absentee voting by civilians in general elections, having been eliminated in primaries several years earlier. The Elections Committee had provided to a five-member subcommittee for further study several other measures to amend the election laws. One would change the time for holding primaries from the last Saturday in May to the last Tuesday in June and several members of the Committee had objected to either the date or day change. The Committee had voted a favorable report on a bill to abolish civilian absentee voting in Graham local elections after a Graham Representative had made a strong plea for its passage, telling the Committee that absentee ballots were being sold for as high as $40 each in his county in the last election, estimating that both parties had spent as much as $50,000 in the county during the election. He said that out of 732 absentee ballots cast in the election, at least 500 had been purchased votes, that the practice was out of control and was corrupting the country and would lead to some terrible trouble if something were not done about it.

In Birmingham, Ala., it was reported that two children had written notes to their mother, as their father had kept a log of events of the few minutes preceding the time when he and the children had lost consciousness and died of carbon monoxide fumes in the family automobile. The log of the father said: "It is now 7:55. The engine is idling and the motor has been on 10 minutes. I am beginning to get sleepy. My heart is speeding up and pumping fast. My eyes are droopy but otherwise normal. We're talking about God and heaven…" Sheriff's deputies did not reveal the contents of the children's notes but said that the sense of each had been that the children agreed with their father's plans for their deaths. The deputy coroner had ruled that the father had killed his only children, a ten-year old boy and an eight-year old girl, and had taken his own life on Sunday night. The coroner said that notes found in the car indicated that the 34-year old aircraft company electrician was despondent, but he declined to elaborate. Neither friends nor relatives gave any motive for the deaths. The mother said that there had been no trouble between her and her husband, to whom she had been married for 12 years. She stated her disbelief in what had occurred and believed that it had to be a mistake. The family had only recently moved into a new medium-priced home and had not yet had a telephone installed. Neighbors said on Monday night that the woman had been given sedation and put to bed. When the bodies had been discovered in a lonely spot near suburban Homewood on Monday, the father was still clutching the tape which the coroner said that he had used to bind a garden hose to the car's exhaust and lead it into the car. Carbon monoxide fumes had caused their deaths. The daughter was found in the front seat beside her father, with her dolls on her lap and other toys beside her. In the backseat lay the body of the boy, with his schoolbooks at his side. The car apparently was parked soon after the father had left home Sunday night, reportedly to take the children skating. The mother had spent a worried, sleepless night before reporting her family missing on Monday morning. The police chief of Homewood found the scene when he noticed the car parked in a lonely spot for several hours. The ignition key was turned on and the gas tank was empty.

In Indianapolis, it was reported that a defendant facing the death penalty had said this date that she would rather go to the electric chair than receive a life prison sentence for the slaying of her married lover outside his younger girlfriend's apartment. The middle-aged career woman told newsmen during a recess on the second day of her first-degree murder trial of her preference, and indicated that even the possibility of time off for good behavior or commutation of a life sentence would not make any difference to her. Jury selection was still ongoing in the case, the process having begun the previous day.

Leonard Engel, in his second installment on heart surgery being performed on a fictional composite patient, a 13-year old girl with an innate heart defect, an opening in the muscular wall between the chambers of the heart, the right and left ventricles, tells of it being, in time, if left uncorrected, a terminal condition, for causing irreversible changes to the blood vessels of her lungs. The girl, fictionally named Joyce Wilder, was in the University of Minnesota hospitals during the morning instead of at home in Phoenix, because the advance of medicine had brought heart surgery into being. A way had been found to operate inside the heart and repair her type of heart defect. The two nurses had finished covering the operating table and nearby equipment with sterile drapes and were busy taking instruments from sterile packs and lining them on the big Phelan instrument table. The circulating nurse had opened the packs, careful not to touch the instruments or the inside of the packs, as she was not scrubbed and would contaminate them. An intern studied the anesthesiology, while in the corner near the sponge scale, Dr. Herbert Warden, a senior resident nearly finished with a grueling five-year program of training in surgery offered by Minnesota to young surgeons who proposed to stay in medical school teaching, pulled on a rubber glove. He had played a key part in the development of heart surgery in Minnesota and would assist in the operation. Joyce was wheeled into the operating room on a stretcher to a point alongside the operating table. She remained awake, and the nurse asked her to hang on to her sheet and edge over to the operating table, which she did. Dr. Warden then approached her and wished her a good morning, introduced himself, then told her to put a blood-pressure cuff on her arms so that they could keep track of her blood pressure, and to strap a plate to her leg to enable placing of a tube into a vein in her ankle to provide blood and medicine, assuring her that she would not feel anything as they would give her a shot of novocain. He then motioned to the intern, who came over and began scrubbing the patient's left ankle with a germicidal soap. When the intern had finished, one of the nurses handed Dr. Warden a sterile swab which he dipped into a bottle containing an orange-colored antiseptic and he quickly applied it to the area which the intern had cleaned, then injected the novocain. The patient had inquired of the type of scar she would have, whether it would be straight, and the physician replied that it would instead be slightly curving, like an oxbow. The remainder of the piece is on an inside page.

In New York, it was reported that Irishmen had gathered this date for the St. Patrick's Day parade, with an estimated 120,000 sons and daughters of Erin, or reasonable facsimiles thereof, having assembled in 62 battalions for the Fifth Avenue march in honor of Ireland's patron saint. The old avenue, more accustomed to high fashion than Irish jigs, had taken it in stride, even sporting a green traffic stripe. Police had worked all night erecting barriers to restrain an estimated million spectators. The parade was expected to last about five hours. Harry Hynes, a portly, ruddy-faced Irishman attired in high silk hat and tail coat, was making his debut as producer of one of the oldest, biggest and most splendid annual parades in the country. It was the first time in 24 years that the event was not under the guidance of John Sheahan, sidelined by illness. The music of the day from hundreds of bands provided places in the parade had included such Irish favorites as "Garryowen", "The Wearing of the Green", and "O'Donnell Abu". Among the musicians had been the St. Laurence O'Toole Pipe Band of Dublin, wearing green kilts with navy blue jackets trimmed in green and white. Patrick Brady, secretary of the band, considered the chance to play in the parade "a great honor and a great achievement." The "Fighting 69th", officially the 165th Infantry Regiment of the New York National Guard, with its 38-piece band, had been given the honor of showing the way along Fifth Avenue for the 108th consecutive year. Grand Marshal William J. O'Brien, resplendent in a cutaway and topper, wrapped in a bright green, white and orange sash, was given the top spot in the parade. But Mark White, who had first marched in the parade in 1878 when he had been 12 and was a drummer boy in the 165th, planned to ride in a weapons carrier this date. The official reviewing stand at 64th Street and Fifth Avenue had been occupied by Governor Nelson Rockefeller, Lt. Governor Malcolm Wilson, Mayor Robert Wagner, Mrs. Catherine Byrne, lord mayor of the city of Dublin, Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts, and former New York Mayor William O' Dwyer, who had been born in Ireland. (Whether, incidentally, by dint of coincidence, Irish fate, or something else, the last parade of President Kennedy was set to travel Harry Hines Boulevard in Dallas, after the luncheon at the Trade Mart, to return for departure from Love Field, instead becoming the route to Parkland Hospital, five months after his departure from Shannon and his promise to return one day to see its face again.) New York's first parade in honor of Saint Patrick, who had introduced Christianity to Ireland in the Fifth Century, had been held in 1762. Since that time, the city, which counted twice as many Irish among its population as did Dublin, had traditionally greeted the feast day with an eye-filling spectacle replete with shamrocks, blackthorn sticks, kilts and colleens.

Unfortunately, Lt. Muldoon would get it in the line of duty this date in The Naked City, passing on to the great other series in the sky, first, however, dealing with Norman and that business out at the motel. Maybe, had they been driving the new Pontiac rather than the old jalopy..., even if during the confrontation, it somehow changed from a 1950 Oldsmobile, perhaps the one owned by the current Vice-President in 1952, into a 1957 or 1958 Dodge, similar to the two-door version without a hubcap which sat below the balcony at the Lorraine that evening. Anyway, Popeye Doyle would have been proud of the way he went out.

Bob Slough of The News reports that in Charlotte, the celebration of St. Patrick's Day was quiet, with even the Irish green conspicuously absent from the attire of downtown shoppers. Nobody danced the Irish jig on Independence Square. A spur of the moment parade, set for late morning by radio announcer Grady Cole, had failed to materialize, with Mr. Cole indicating that there would be no parade as he could not obtain a band, but later having vowed that he would have the parade even if he would be the only person in it. One man had been waiting on Independence Square for something to happen regarding some celebration, sporting a bright green shirt and a broad grin, but was dismayed at what he witnessed. He said he had not seen anybody with green on during the day and his spirit had been dampened a bit by the fact that there would be no parade. He said that he had always taken part in the parade and was 82 years old. He reminded that Saint Patrick had driven all of the snakes from Ireland. He hoped that Mr. Cole would arrive at around noon. Another man was sporting a black tie with a touch of green in it, saying that he had a little Irish blood in him and that one had to have a little green on during the day, but confessed that it had not dawned on him that it was St. Patrick's Day. A woman said that she had known it was St. Patrick's Day, but had not worn any green and had not seen anyone else wearing green. A man from Huntersville also had known that it was Saint Patrick's Day and had also failed to wear green.

In London, it was reported that 18 London University students had claimed the world record this date for squeezing into a telephone booth at the same time, beating the previous record of 17 set by students of North Staffordshire University at Keele two weeks earlier. The British phone booth was 3 feet square and stood 8'4" tall, and the students had crushed together in three layers of six each.

On the editorial page, "It's Time Rip Van Raleigh Awakened" indicates that some legislators had called it "greed" when Charlotte's threadbare community college system had gone to Raleigh seeking funding the previous week in search of another pittance for capital improvements. It finds that the requests, if anything, were too modest. Charlotte had asked for a $925,000 share of the 1.5 million dollars in matching funds earmarked for North Carolina community colleges during the 1959-61 biennium by the Advisory Budget Commission. The State Board of Higher Education had recommended that Charlotte receive 1.325 million.