The Charlotte News
Tuesday, March 24, 1959
FIVE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan had headed home this date after his talks with the President, predicting "we shall succeed" in negotiations regarding Berlin. He conceded that the West faced "a tough talk" in dealing with the Soviets. Mr. Macmillan had left with apparent confidence that the strategy for negotiations leading toward a summit conference, worked out with the President, would avert a military showdown regarding Berlin. In a departure statement at the airport, he had recalled that he had said on arrival the previous Thursday that disputes between the Soviet Union and the Western powers ought be settled "by negotiation and not by force." He said that he had no doubt that as long as "we stand firmly by our principles—as we shall do—the free world has everything to gain from being ready to negotiate." He said that he was grateful to the President for his hospitality and that he considered the informality of Camp David a better background for discussing world problems than the more formal surroundings of most conferences. The main talks had been held over the weekend at Camp David. The Prime Minister said goodbye to the President in a meeting at the White House late on Monday and those who headed the official farewell party at the airport during the morning had been Vice-President Nixon and Acting Secretary of State Christian Herter. The plans called for a meeting of foreign ministers in May, and a later summit conference to direct negotiations with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev. Mr. Macmillan had told reporters that his series of meetings with the President, including their weekend stay at Camp David, constituted "the best conference we ever had in the most enjoyable surroundings." White House press secretary James Hagerty said: "The President told me he thought it was a very good meeting—that getting together like this, sitting down informally and talking over various aspects of the problems was the way we like to do it." In the discussions, Mr. Macmillan reportedly had outlined his personal view that Western leaders ought look forward not just to one but to a number of East-West summit conferences. He had concentrated, however, on getting the President's agreement to project a summit session for the summer, following up an East-West foreign ministers meeting which presently appeared virtually certain to open at Geneva on May 11. Even before that time, it was anticipated that the U.S., Britain and France would soon send notes to the Soviet Union about arrangements for the proposed meeting of foreign ministers, that the foreign ministers would seek to reach constructive agreements on German problems and related issues so that their work would justify the subsequent summit conference at a time and place the foreign ministers would determine.
In Bonn, West Germany, it was reported that West German Defense Minister Franz Joseph Strauss would visit the U.S. between April 12 and 30. He would inspect several rocket research centers and attend an air show in Las Vegas, according to informed sources.
In Bangkok, Thailand, an American businessman this date denied testimony in Washington that he had provided gifts to Edward McNamara of Tampa, Fla., a former U.S. aid official in Laos. The businessman, Willis H. Bird of the Universal Construction Co., which had built roads for the Laos Government, said that the man had bought shares from him, which anyone could do, but it certainly had not been a gift from him, that he had been paid. Mr. Bird was presently president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Thailand. Mr. McNamara, former public works officer with the International Cooperation Administration in Laos, had told the House Government Operations subcommittee that he had received gifts of $25,000 worth of airline tickets, shares and cash from Universal. Mr. Bird said that Mr. McNamara had bought airline tickets from one of his companies in Bangkok, "but we always got paid." He said that he did not know of any contract they had gotten directly because of Mr. McNamara and that he did not think he was a very important person.
In Melbourne, Australia, an aide to evangelist Billy Graham warned Australians this date against phony canvassers who had been going from house to house soliciting money in the name of the evangelist's crusade. The secretary of the crusade said that at no time had it canvassed for funds, nor had it any intention of doing so. He said that the canvassers had been busy in several Melbourne suburbs and had picked up a good deal of money from unsuspecting householders. The Reverend Graham had finished his Melbourne crusade more than a week earlier and was vacationing on the Queensland coast before holding more meetings in Australia. Expenses of the Melbourne crusade had been $171,000, covered by offerings at the meetings and donations from local backers.
In Atlanta, police had found two small children of a man safe and sound this date after a frantic all-night search, but they could not take the little boy to his father as he had requested, for his father was dead, having put the barrel of a shotgun in his mouth and shot himself the previous day after placing his little boy and girl in a day nursery. When the police had gotten to the nursery shortly after 6:00 a.m., the last words of the son, 5, were: "Are you going to take me to my daddy?" The eyes of the police lieutenant had grown misty and he could not tell the little boy and his sister, 3, that their father had shot himself. Instead, he restored them to their mother, with whom their father had been in a tragic argument. It was left to her to break the sad news to the children. The man's body was found on a bed in the family apartment in suburban Blair village, and when the children could not be found, a massive search had begun. More than 500 volunteers combed through an area of 12 miles radius during most of the night. Preparations were made to drag a lake where children's footprints had been found. The mother waited distraught as the search progressed and she was almost overcome at its happy conclusion. At police headquarters, officers reported that the father, a 29-year old chemical company employee, had given confusing information at the day nursery, having left a telephone number, which a nursery attendant had called all night without obtaining answer. Finally, a police officer explained, the nursery operator, hearing of the missing children in radio broadcasts, called the police. A detective said that the father had spent most of the last hour of his life with the children, having been seen with them in a car in front of their apartment in the late morning, having driven off with them and then returned alone about a half hour later. He re-entered the apartment and a shotgun blast had followed. The detective said that the man apparently had stuck a double-barrel, 20-gauge shotgun in his mouth and fired.
In Burbank, Calif., a 16-year old bride who was found dead on Saturday on a hospital lawn had an appointment with an abortionist, according to police. They said that a 42-year old woman had told them that she had arranged an appointment with the abortionist for the dead girl from Beverly Hills. The older woman, who was a convicted abortionist, denied knowing anything about the operation, if there was one. Police said that they were seeking a salesman who had worked with the woman. The young bride's body was found after attendants at a hospital had received an anonymous telephone call. Two needle marks were on her arm and hip. Examiners found no evidence of an abortion, but they said she had recently been pregnant. An autopsy showed a high level of sodium pentothal, an anesthetic, in her body. The cause of death had not been determined. The girl was the daughter of a wealthy merchant and his wife of West Los Angeles. Officers booked the older woman on suspicion of murder. She had been convicted in 1955 of performing an illegal operation and had served a year in jail. She was arrested the previous day in Tijuana, as she had boarded a plane for Mexico City. The 20-year old husband of the dead girl said that he had last seen her on Saturday afternoon in Hollywood. Police said that they were told that the girl had visited a motel near the hospital on Saturday night. Authorities said that a "floating" abortion ring had been operating in the Los Angeles area. Operators customarily picked up patients on street corners and took them to temporary quarters, according to police. It was cases like this one, you moralistic dumbbells, which led to Roe v. Wade in 1973. It was not some godless attempt to kill little, innocent babies.
In Buxton, England, it was reported that an Oxford freshman, who had been trapped for nearly 2 days in a rock crevice 1,000 feet underground, had died this date after rescuers repeatedly had failed in their attempts to extricate him. The 20-year old student, an amateur explorer, had fallen feet first on Sunday afternoon into the "Devil's Hole" of Britain's deepest cave. He had been unconscious since Sunday night but early this date had been reported breathing "quite well" with the aid of oxygen administered to him at intervals. Police announced his death as Britain followed the rescue attempt closely. The husky, 170-pound collegian's shoulders had been wedged so tightly 40 feet down in the S -shaped rock shaft that four attempts to extricate him had failed on Monday, as a rope slipped under his limp arms had broken on each occasion. A young girl, five-feet tall, weighing only 106 pounds, had wriggled her way down into the funnel but had given up after six hours, saying that she had got within sight of the student but was driven back by foul air. She said that if the air cleared, she would go down again later this date. Another route to the trapped student had been sought by a cave expert of 30 years, wearing a frogman suit, searching for a subterranean stream through which he might approach the bottom of the shaft to help work the student free from below. One rescuer said that he was stuck in a sort of hollow corkscrew and that the only way to free him would be to revolve his body in the hole to unscrew him. Other rescue workers, using sledgehammers and crowbars, had chipped away at jutting rocks above the student, but the shaft was only 18 inches wide in some places. The student, son of a cotton executive, had gone exploring in the cave with several friends on Sunday but had strayed from the party. The cave was under a Derbyshire hillside owned by the royal family on the grounds of historic Pevril Castle. Some of the tunnels were only a foot high, circling around an underground lake. The student's cries of "Help me! I'm stuck!" during the early afternoon on Sunday had brought others in the party to the crevice into which he had fallen. One of the party went down headfirst on four attempts to fasten a rope around the trapped student, saying: "It was absolute hell down there." Another rescue worker explained: "You have to walk more than a mile from the entrance to the cave and then crawl 600 feet on your stomach." Then, he could just see the dim outline of the student's body reflected in a storm lamp which had been lowered into the hole.
In St. George, S.C., it was reported that the three-year old son of a young mother had playfully pointed at her what he thought was a toy pistol, pulled the trigger and she had fallen to the floor mortally wounded. The 27-year old mother had died of the gunshot wound the previous day. Police said that she was shot on Sunday while on a visit to the trailer home of a family in Harleyville. The mayor of Harleyville, who had investigated the matter, said that the tragedy had occurred as the child and mother had entered the trailer. The boy picked up a .22-caliber target pistol which he thought was a toy. The bullet entered the left temple of his mother.
In Raleigh, a colonel of the State Highway Patrol denied this date that patrolmen were given "arrest quotas". He had told the Senate Judiciary 1 Committee that neither pay raises nor promotions were based on the number of arrests made. He said that their rating sheet had 14 categories and the word "arrest" did not appear on it. He added that when they found a patrolman not making arrests, his supervisor had a duty to find out why, as it was inconceivable that no arrests would be made when they had 50,000 to 60,000 collisions per year. His testimony had been offered during consideration of a bill to permit patrolmen to make arrests without warrants in certain cases for offenses not committed in their presence. They would be allowed to halt drivers upon receiving information via radio, telegram or telephone from another officer. The bill was aimed at reducing the number of high-speed chases on the highways. Action on the measure was deferred pending further study. The colonel said that the bill would be "of tremendous help in cutting down a lot of high-speed chases." State Senator J. Spencer Bell of Mecklenburg said that he thought it was important to have the bill pass, even at some risk to personal liberty.
Jerry Reece and Dick Young of The News report that the City School system would have to add to a proposed six million dollar bond request of the County School system if it wanted to share in the proceeds, according to officials of both systems this date. The County School Board had voted 3 to 1, with one member absent, the previous day to ask the County Commission to call a school bond election within the ensuing 60 days. County School superintendent J. W. Wilson and City School business manager John Dunlap had both said this date that the request was strictly for County school needs. Mr. Dunlap said that the City had just as much definite needs as did the County and their request for bond money would have to be added to the County figure. While the 6 million dollar bond issue requested by the County did not include any funds for the City schools, City school officials had maintained that they could present their own pressing needs. A member of the City School Board said this date that the question of the City system's participation would probably be discussed at a special meeting of the School Board the following morning. That meeting was primarily called for appointment of a successor of a resigned member, but it was anticipated that the City's financial needs would also be discussed.
John Kilgo of The News reports that a woman in Charlotte was not sure, but thought that the stork had come again. A neighbor said that she had looked out her window and what she saw had caused her to run to put water on her face. All of it was caused by two swans who decided they would take a little stroll down the middle of a road. When they had reached the woman's yard, they decided to take a rest and walked around the yard for awhile and then went out in the front yard and sat down side-by-side and sunned themselves. The woman said: "They looked happy with themselves and they had necks that looked like velvet. We've got this little Boston terrier who likes to think he's brave and he ran out into the front yard and barked at the birds as loud as he could. He was expecting them to get up and fly off but they just flapped their wings and made a tremendous noise; and the dog is the one that flew." The woman said that her little daughter, who was in the second grade, was scared to death of the birds. "She had pressed her nose against the window and said, 'Mama, I'm not going to wear anything red to school today because it might attract their attention.' But the other schoolchildren went around the birds and didn't seem at all afraid—the children or the birds." The woman called the County police and told them about the swans, but late in the morning, the swans had become restless and strolled away. The last time she had seen them, they had been walking down the road together. She said that they just had a little baby on March 9 and she thought the stork had come again. "And I guess if that were the case my mother would be ready to sing her swan song."
On the editorial page, "Turmoil Can Stunt a State's Growth" indicates that the state's economic future would depend, to a large extent, on wise political leadership in the desegregation crisis. Evidence presently available indicated that racial turmoil had a disastrous effect on the industrialization of both Arkansas and Virginia. Arkansas had seen investments in new and expanded industrial plants shrink from 130 million dollars in 1956 to 50 million in 1957, to 25 million in 1958.
Virginia's failure to attract new industry during that time of "massive resistance" to school desegregation had been the subject of a Washington Post report during the week by Benjamin Muse. He had said that it was not generally realized "that 1958 was a year not of progress, not of standing still, but of retrogression in this field." The reason was that corporations were not enthusiastic about establishing manufacturing plants in localities where the permanent availability of public schools was in doubt.
But there was also a somewhat subtler reason which applied to both Arkansas and Virginia, that the school mess had consumed nearly all of the time and attention of the leaders of both states.
But the situation in North Carolina provided a sharp contrast. Mr. Muse had stated: "North Carolina has a larger Negro population than Virginia; it has its branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and it is under the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. It has had token integration for several years. But North Carolina leaders declare proudly that no schools have closed and no schools are going to close in that state. While Governor [J. Lindsay] Almond was setting about the liquidation of [Virginia's] public school system, Governor Luther Hodges of North Carolina threw himself into a tireless and imaginative campaign of industrial promotion. A quarter of a billion dollars of new investments was attracted to his state in one year."
It indicates that it was the way it should be in North Carolina, and its residents owed to themselves the obligation to comply with the law, to keep their schools open and to maintain standards of order and decency. "After all, the state has its heritage and its future. To do otherwise would only dishonor the one and defraud the other."
"Now's Time To Act on Revaluation" indicates that a plan for continuous reappraisal of property for tax purposes was at last receiving serious study. The proposal had been presented to the County Commission the previous day and it would receive scrutiny for a week before being discussed at a public meeting the following Monday.
It posits that an early revaluation of both real and personal property was a public necessity. The last property revaluation had been in 1952, too long earlier, as values had changed drastically during the intervening seven years and the resulting inequities had distorted the entire tax structure in a dynamic period of growth and progress. It counsels that much thought had to be given to the mechanics of any revaluation, but that there was no escaping the necessity to act at once and that the Commission would be expected to come up with a suitable plan without delay.
"The Complete Circle" indicates that State Representative Ed Kemp of High Point carried a loaded bill, it having been reported that he advocated a study commission to study the study commission already studying. Representative Kemp wanted his commission to study means of selecting study commission members.
It indicates that now that the problem was coming full circle, there was only one question, whether it would be a salaried job or the group would work on a commission.
"'Intervention' Was a Long Time Coming" suggests that, if anything, Governor Luther Hodges may have waited too long to intervene in the tumultuous Henderson mills textile strike, though his reluctance had been understandable. It was imperative that labor and management be given every opportunity to settle their differences through ordinary channels and under normal circumstances, official pressure would be inappropriate.
But from the start, the Henderson situation had not been either ordinary or normal, in time having become a civil disturbance which was endangering the lives and property of the public at large. By the previous weekend, there had been 16 bombings, one near-riot, several gun battles, fires, street fights and a great deal of property damage. A number of people had been injured and more than 150 arrests had been made. The disorders had been sustained without any significant letup over several weeks, making hash of North Carolina's commendable record of labor-management peace.
Governor Hodges had not been sitting by idly, having worked quietly in the background to effect a settlement long before he summoned representatives of both sides to his office the previous day. But the kid-glove approach had been unsuited to the circumstances and it was evident by late February that a sterner approach was required. Now, the public's patience had been strained to the breaking point and an arbitration formula which would resolve the dispute could be found. It urges that Governor Hodges ought keep the top labor and management representatives in continuous session until it was found.
Meanwhile, the Governor could never again allow an incredibly violent labor dispute to drag on so long before stepping in himself with an official shillelagh.
"What Shall We Do with Vicki Gone?" tells of Vicki the elephant having been auctioned off, along with the rest of the Airport Zoo, and suggests that perhaps a tear should be shed, as Vicki had brought the city a measure of backhanded fame and provided four years of page-brightness for the Greensboro Daily News. Never to be forgotten was the memory of a wildly flapping Life photographer taking himself from the route of Vicki's charge, when it had escaped from the zoo and gone into the jungle surrounding the airport.
Now the elephant and its playmates had been auctioned away to provide for building progress, and it wonders if studies in other cities had shown a zoo to be a profitable operation. It suggests that in the near future, it would be worthwhile for local officials to pick a study group, and if admissions into an amusement park could pay for feed and salaries, then land ought be tucked away until initial investment costs could be met.
Zoos and botanical gardens were popular places, but were also expensive to create and maintain. But Charlotte could begin in a small way, building for the future with open, remote-type exhibit areas instead of the small, dark cages still in use in many locations.
Any time exotic creatures of nature could be sensibly displayed, they would be superior to book illustrations, and the relaxation offered by a park plus a zoo would attract thousands of people to Charlotte every year. It suggests that consideration of it ought be given for the future.
As indicated, the North Carolina Zoo, located near Asheboro, below Greensboro, more centrally located to the state as a whole than Charlotte, would be established in 1974. In the meantime, we had to venture to Cincinnati for our first zoo visit one August Sunday afternoon in 1967, just afore the day the running stopped
A piece from the Manchester Guardian, titled "Dangers of British Television", indicates that many were the ills to which television had exposed man, that almost every physical affliction had been attributed to it in recent years. Children developed eyestrain through sitting on the floor and looking up at the screen and dental trouble from cupping their chins in their hands and grinding their teeth. Everyone ate too many sweets and biscuits while watching television. The more elderly got digestive trouble from eating a heavy meal first and then reclining in an armchair at the wrong angle for digestion. Spinal ailments also had developed from the wrong posture. It finds that there had to be cases, though unrecorded, of cold feet, hot feet, aching necks, chilblains, shaking hands and bad tempers. The latest thing to be found, recorded in the current British Medical Journal, was angina pectoris brought on by excitement.
It finds that the oddest point from the discovery was perhaps that "Westerns", which were mainly responsible for the trouble, left the Welsh patient unmoved, leading it to posit that perhaps Wales was not only full of mountains but so full of Welsh ponies charging about in do-or-die dramas that Welshmen never turned a hair. "What are they doing in Wales that they can see all this excitement on the screen and never get angina like ordinary mortals? It must be the Welsh Sunday that keeps them always at concert pitch."
Drew Pearson, beginning a series of columns on the problems faced by the U.S. in the Caribbean, where he had been traveling, begins in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, indicating that there was a French 75 cannon of World War I, lolling beside of which were Haitian soldiers stripped to the waist, enjoying the spring sunshine, supposed to be guarding northwest Haiti from the new menace which worried the Caribbean, that being Fidel Castro and his movement.
Just 50 miles across the water was Cuba's Oriente Province, where Sr. Castro hid and fought. Across the passage, thousands of Haitians had sailed, seeking work on Oriente sugar plantations. Three times per week, until recently, there had been beamed across the passage broadcasts from Radio Progreso, exhorting Haitians to rise up against President François Duvalier, who worried about the Haitian exiles and Haitian sugar workers and Sr. Castro's bearded warriors who were expected to invade Haiti.
The invasion might be classified as just another tempest in a country which had been wracked by tempestuous revolts since Toussaint L'Ouverture had kicked the French from the world's first black republic. But for Americans, it would be extremely important for two reasons, that the U.S. would be right in the middle and that Sr. Castro had his eyes on the entire Caribbean. His invasion of Haiti would not be aimed at President Duvalier, who had been educated at the University of Michigan as a doctor and who held uncertain reign over the black republic, but rather at Generalissimo Rafael Trujillo, who held tight rein over the Dominican Republic.
Sr. Castro had sworn "death to
dictators
He indicates that it might be a long
time in the making, but for the moment, the lineup in the Caribbean
was the Three Democrats versus the Three Dictators, that is,
President Romulo Betancourt of Venezuela, Governor Munoz Marin of Puerto
Rico, and Sr. Castro, versus Luis Somoza of Nicaragua, Francois
Duvalier of Haiti, and Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic—Los Presidentes
He indicates that the description was not entirely accurate, as M. Duvalier had been elected, and Sr. Somoza had inaugurated democratic reforms, while Munoz Marin governed part of the U.S. Nevertheless, in a loose way, that was the lineup in the Caribbean rivalry, with the U.S. sweating in the middle. The U.S. predicament had resulted from the embarrassing fact that it did not want to back dictators and yet at the same time could not tolerate war. Under the nonaggression pacts of the Pan American Union, the U.S. was pledged to intervene with other nations to protect any member from attack. Yet, if there was intervention to protect Haiti and the Dominican Republic, the U.S. would be in the position of defending the top dictator of the Caribbean, Generalissimo Trujillo.
Joseph Alsop indicates that in the language of "Alice", the political situation in the Soviet Union was getting "curiouser and curiouser." He suggests that it might even turn out to have more impact on the Berlin crisis than the ritual consultations between the President and Prime Minister Harold Macmillan.
He finds that the latest enigma was the abrupt replacement of the chairman of the State Planning Commission, Josif Kuzmin, by his own deputy, Alexei Kosygin—to become in 1964 Premier, succeeding Nikita Khrushchev, sharing power along with Leonid Brezhnev, the latter as Communist Party Secretary. Mr. Alsop indicates that in American terms, it was like the sudden, unexplained replacement of the Secretary of the Treasury plus the director of the Budget Bureau. He finds the evidence too conflicting to be made clear as to who had been doing what to whom, but that the shift had been linked to inner party politics in some way.
He indicates that what made the latest enigma so interesting, however, was that it was placed at the end of a considerable list of other enigmas, which, taken together, indicated that there were several contradictory forces still at work within the Kremlin behind the façade of Mr. Khrushchev's seemingly monolithic control.
He proceeds to present the enigmas, starting with the fact that the party secretaries, the equivalent of party bosses, of two provincial districts and the ultra-important Moscow district, had been recently disciplined and cashiered, having been charged with having conducted agitation in the party cells in their districts, and especially in the military cells of the party, against measures to discipline the so-called "anti-party group" of Mr. Khrushchev's enemies at the party congress the prior January. He finds that it had to mean that Mr. Khrushchev had tried and failed to get the party congress to use severe measures against his enemies and had to mean further that he was opposed by the Red Army at that time.
Another enigma was that at the party congress, the wicked "anti-party group" had been endlessly denounced, with special shrillness by the now-demoted Mr. Kuzmin. Nikolai Bulganin, Mikhail Pervukhin, whom Mr. Kuzmin especially had attacked, and Maksim Saburov had come before the congress and groveled in proper form. But the primary original members of the group, Georgi Malenkov, V. M. Molotov, Lazar Kaganovich and Dmitri Shepilov, had all been notable absentees and non-grovelers. He posits that this enigma fit neatly with the first one.
The third enigma he notes was that prior to the party congress, an attempt had been made to transfer Mr. Khrushchev's single-most influential enemy, Mr. Molotov, from his ambassadorial post in Outer Mongolia to the Soviet Embassy in the Netherlands. Mr. Molotov was believed to be in close contact with the Chinese Communists, who were in turn believed to be taking a major stand in the inner party intrigues in the Kremlin. If Mr. Molotov had gone to The Hague, the contact with the Chinese would have been broken, but he had not gone, although the Dutch did not object.
A fourth enigma, which was also prior to the party congress, was that a much-touted plenum of the Central Committee of the party had been held in Moscow. After the plenum, the unprecedented step was taken of publishing the transcript of the discussions. The main points discussed had been the familiar sins of the anti-party group, and the glories of Mr. Khrushchev's agricultural program. The break with precedent implied a desire to intimidate the political opponents. The absentees at the plenum were noteworthy, with those attending almost exclusively being the provincial party leaders, who had always been mainly pro-Khrushchev. Among the key people at the top in Moscow, only Mr. Khrushchev, himself, had appeared and spoken.
Mr. Alsop indicates that all of those enigmas combined suggested that the enormous power presently concentrated in Mr. Khrushchev was only conditional power as of the present, that if he had indeed tried and failed to discipline his enemies more sharply and to ship Mr. Molotov to The Hague, then he could not, as of the present, be the absolute master in the Kremlin. He must have had enough opponents, who were probably old Stalinists for the most part, to prevent him from carrying all before him in the most crucial of all areas, that of inner party politics. That fact, in turn, had undoubtedly had enormous meaning in terms of the Berlin crisis. Mr. Alsop suggests that it might mean that Mr. Khrushchev had threatened Berlin because he had to conciliate the Stalinist advocates of a hard line, or it might mean that he was taking a great personal gamble to win such a victory, so that no one would dare oppose him. Either way, he suggests, it might not be easy for Mr. Khrushchev to back down in the manner hopefully predicted by U.S. policymakers.
David S. Broder indicates that a Republican candidate could be elected President in 1960 even if the party as a whole did no better than it had done in 1958 in the midterms. He could be elected without carrying a single state of the once-solid South and could win without carrying any of the border states. He could also lose Alaska, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon and Rhode Island and still be able to win. All he would have to do was to run between one and five percent ahead of the Republican Congressional ticket in the 23 remaining Northern states, even if the Republicans in those states did no better than they had in 1958.
He indicates that it was the surprising fact demonstrated by an analysis of official 1958 election returns by the Congressional Quarterly. The analysis which was released this date made available for the first time a breakdown by Congressional districts of the official returns of the 1958 races for governor, Senator and Representative.
He asks, however, whether it was reasonable to suppose that anyone whom the Republicans might nominate in 1960 could run 1 to 5 percent ahead of the Congressional ticket. The Quarterly figures showed that the President had run 5.6 percent ahead of the Republican Congressional ticket in his 1952 victory, and 8.7 percent ahead in 1956. New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller had run 5.8 percent ahead of that state's Congressional ticket in 1958. Four other Republicans, Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona, Governor Mark Hatfield of Oregon, Senator J. Glenn Beall of Maryland and Governor Christopher Del Sesto of Rhode Island, had run even farther in front of the Republican Congressional ticket in their states in 1958, but none of them was considered a presidential hopeful.
Vice-President Nixon, in his last solo race when he had run for the Senate in 1950 from California, had run 7 percent ahead of the Republican Congressional ticket, but that showing had been marred somewhat by the fact that Mr. Nixon had run with then-Governor and now-Chief Justice Earl Warren, who had run 12.8 percent ahead of the Congressional ticket and 5.6 percent ahead of Mr. Nixon.
Governors Rockefeller, Hatfield, and Del Sesto and Senators Goldwater and Beall, on the other hand, had all topped the tickets in their own states in 1958.
He indicates how a Republican presidential victory could be achieved without any basic improvement in party strength. In 1958, when the Republicans had been drubbed in the Congressional races, Republican candidates for the House had received a majority of the statewide vote in only six states, with 30 electoral votes, those states having been Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Utah, Washington and Wyoming. He supposes first that in 1960, Republican Congressional candidates did not improve their showing anywhere and that the Republican presidential nominee would run even with the Congressional ticket, enabling him to win only the same six states and thus 30 electoral votes. He next supposes that he would run 1 percent ahead of the Congressional ticket, which would enable him to win Arizona, Delaware, Iowa, Kansas, New Jersey, Ohio and Pennsylvania, with an additional 98 electoral votes, bringing the total to 128. If he were to run 2 percent ahead of the ticket, he would gain Idaho, South Dakota, Vermont and New York, with another 56 electoral votes. By running 3 percent ahead of the ticket, he would gain Minnesota's 11 electoral votes, bringing the total to 195. If he were to run 4 percent ahead of the ticket, he would have 50 additional electoral votes from Indiana, Maine, Michigan and Wisconsin. Finally, if he were to run 5 percent ahead of the ticket, he would win Illinois with 27 electoral votes, with 272 in all, three more than needed for election.
He reminds that Governor Rockefeller had run almost 6 percent ahead of the ticket in New York and that Mr. Nixon, with a boost from then-Governor Warren, had run 7 percent ahead of the ticket in California. He regards it all as enough to give pause to the Democrats.
A letter writer proposes a no-tax bill to be passed by Congress for those who received a small government pension. She says that every time she went to the store, the clerk took out a couple of pennies of tax, that she was taxed here and taxed there. She suggests that if the government did not want almost a quarter of her check back, she might be able to buy a needed pair of shoes. She suggests making tags of light metal and placing a person's Social Security number on it, enabling the person with a government pension, old-age benefits or public welfare assistance to purchase things tax-free.
Speaking of taxes, we just purchased from Germany an item which cost $55, only to find out from the carrier that an import duty of $20 was added to it, which we then had to pay to receive the item. Gee, thanks, Jesus Donaldo Trumpista, for all the gifts via your Trojan Horse full of illegal tariffs for the people. Wow, with generosity like yours, we should all be broke in a couple of more years of your demonstrated salesmanship par excellence! That will teach us to buy only American, right? Even when the item in question is not available in America, and if it were, would likely cost twice as much out of the gate. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Don Trumpista, and your Trumpistadores, in and out of Congress with you. You are due a Rockefeller salute!
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