The Charlotte News
Saturday, March 7, 1959
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that a wild March snowstorm had tapered off through the Northeast this date after leaving the upper Midwest in the worst late winter weather in a decade. Numerous highways remained blocked in snow-choked sections of Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan, as high winds whipped snowfalls of up to 22 inches into 20-foot drifts. Deaths blamed on the storm had numbered 33, 12 in Iowa, 10 in Indiana, six in Wisconsin, nine in Michigan, two in New York and one in Pennsylvania. The victims had died from snow shoveling heart attacks, traffic accidents and asphyxiation. Winds gusting to 50 mph had swept the heavy snow area as the storm moved northeastward into Canada, and highway crews had given up on efforts to keep Wisconsin and Michigan highways open during the night. Two 300-foot radio towers had been blown down by 45 mph winds in Bowling Green, O., and a house trailer had been overturned while being towed on a highway near Lancaster. Temperatures had taken a sharp dive east of the Mississippi River, with early morning readings up to 20 degrees colder than the previous day.
South Carolina was still feeling the effects this date of torrential rains and high winds which had apparently caused the deaths of at least five persons. There was the prospect of some lowland flooding on the Congaree River below Columbia, on the Wateree River below Camden, and on the Broad River in the Blair area. The Weather Bureau said that clear skies and cooler temperatures would prevail over most of the weekend. Dragging operations on the Wando River in Charleston had been resumed for the bodies of two men, feared to have been drowned when their boat had capsized in wind-whipped waves. A 75-year old man of Cat Island had been saved after clinging to his capsized motorboat for four hours, but had refused medical attention.
In Walpole, Mass., six long-term prisoners had failed in an escape attempt at the Massachusetts State Prison this date and then had holed up in the prison's metal shop with four hostages, including a deputy warden. The six inmates had succeeded in getting through a vehicle door trap beyond the prison's inside wall, but had failed in efforts to scale the high outside wall. They had then retreated to the metal shop with the hostages and demanded that the warden enter and talk with them. The break attempt was reminiscent of a disturbance at the old state prison in Charlestown in 1955, when four inmates had held five hostages for 82 hours before giving up to a citizens' committee. The prisoners involved in this date's escape attempt had included an escape artist serving 41 years for bank robbery, another convicted bank robber and burglar, another bank robber, serving 8 to 10 years for burglary, and two others. Three of them had attempted breaks previously. As soon as the alarm had sounded, 100 state troopers had rushed to the prison from barracks in Cape Cod, southeastern and central Massachusetts. Being held as hostages were the deputy warden, the storekeeper and two guards. There was a report that a milkman who delivered milk at the prison early this date was also being held captive. The prison was located about 23 miles from Boston. State police estimated that the new prison housed between 450 and 500 inmates.
In Spokane, Wash., a search was underway during the morning in the rainy, pre-dawn darkness for a nine-year old girl who had disappeared while selling candy mints the previous afternoon. Scores of volunteers were combing a brush-strewn area inside the city for the girl, who had last been seen late in the afternoon as she had gone around the neighborhood selling candy to raise money for the Camp Fire Girls. The only clues had been two boxes of mints and an empty container, found several blocks apart near a bridge across the Spokane River. The area was in the crook of the river, which made a half circle in the western section of the city. Police had completed a house-to-house search early during the morning without finding a trace of the girl. Dragging operations were to begin in the river at dawn. Hundreds of searchers had combed hillsides and fields in a wide area around the bridge located a block from the girl's home. A score of volunteers continued the hunt throughout the early morning hours. The girl's mother, a schoolteacher at a nearby school, had described the girl as shy by nature, and that she would never stay out after dark. Police said that the girl who weighed only about 60 pounds, was dressed warmly when she had left home. Her father, who was divorced from the mother, had joined the search after being advised of her disappearance at his home in Walla Walla.
In Lancaster, O., the bodies of a man, his wife and their five children had been found at their rural home 8 miles northeast of the town this date, with authorities indicating that all of the deaths had been the result of murder and suicide. The sheriff said that the deaths might have taken place as long earlier as the prior Thursday night or early on Friday. The father, 28, had been found dead at the wheel of his locked automobile, parked beside the family's home. In the car with him were the bodies of four of his step-children, ranging in age between six and ten. One child sat beside him in the front seat and another was on the floor of the rear seat, with two others on the rear seat. All had died by carbon monoxide poisoning, according to the sheriff. In the pocket of the father was found divorce papers filed the prior Tuesday by his wife, 29. The body of the wife and a daughter, 11, had been found on a blood-stained bed in the two-story frame home, having been beaten with a claw hammer, shot and then strangled. The sheriff said that the claw hammer had been found in the kitchen, but a search was still underway for the gun used in the slayings. An electric extension cord also had been found around the necks of the victims. The coroner said that it was a case of six murders and a suicide, not elaborating as to the perpetrator of the murders. The prosecutor said that he did not believe the crime had been perpetrated by anyone other than among the seven people involved. Authorities said that they wanted to continue to investigate before making any formal report, but added that it appeared that the father had picked up the children in the car and caused their deaths. All of the children belonged to the mother by a previous marriage and neighbors had described them as "wonderful kids". A neighbor stumbled on the bodies in the car when she had missed seeing the children during the morning. The children had not attended school on Friday and had not been seen that day. The bodies on the bed were in such condition that authorities said that they would be taken to University Hospital in Columbus for autopsies to determine the exact cause of death. Part of the head of the wife appeared to have been either badly beaten or marred by a shotgun blast or bullets.
In Las Vegas, Nev., a teenage beauty wrestled from a bus in the middle of the desert had been charged with robbing a Las Vegas bank of $1,761. The FBI said that the 19-year old girl was belligerent, and was the youngest bank robber with whom they had ever had to deal. "Certainly, she's the prettiest." The girl, a former bank teller in Washington, D.C., had drawn a trail of admiring glances as she strode into a downtown Las Vegas bank the previous day. When the 21-year old female teller had announced moments later that she had been robbed, police had numerous descriptions by which to go. "A beautiful champagne blonde, really a knockout," was the way the teller described the girl who had handed her a note demanding $8,000 and told the teller she was covered by a gun. A female nightclub singer, a customer in the bank at the time of the robbery, described her as "a gorgeous girl". The police broadcast had described her as, "white, American female, champagne blonde, 5 feet 6, extremely good-looking." Detectives had found that the girl had taken a cab to the bank, had it wait for her and then sped in the cab to the bus. The cab driver had remembered her clearly because she was so beautiful. For the same reason, a ticket seller had remembered that she had taken a bus to Reno. The bus was 50 miles along the lonely desert road to Reno when a deputy sheriff spotted it, flagged it down and stepped aboard, walking up and down the aisle looking for "an extremely pretty girl". When he came to the girl in question, he did not say a word, but slapped handcuffs on her. The girl had shrieked, sworn and battled the deputy all the way up the aisle as he dragged her out of the bus and placed her in his patrol car. He opened her purse and said that he found $1,761, with only $2.20 more. The girl had refused to answer questions, but the FBI said that papers in her purse had revealed that she was from Roanoke, Va., and had been a bank teller in Washington, apparently having flown to Las Vegas from the East the prior Thursday. She was arraigned on a charge of bank robbery and held in lieu of $10,000 bond. She was a regular wildcat.
In Trenton, Ga., an Alabama desperado had been shot down and captured this date as he tried to shoot it out with a Georgia sheriff. The police chief had felled the fugitive with a single shot from his .38-caliber pistol. The Dade County sheriff and the police chief had surprised a 38-year old man standing by the road near a railhead crossing. He had thrown his gun into the sheriff's face, but the police chief said he had beaten him to it—whatever that means. He had been wearing a red cap during his desperate flight through Alabama and into nearby Tennessee. (Whether it had the words "Make America" or "Made in Japan" on it, is not indicated.) He was taken to the Tri-County Hospital at Fort Oglethorpe, about 15 miles from the scene of his capture.
In Henderson, N.C., it was reported that a Superior Court judge this date had sternly warned against further violence on the Harriet-Henderson Cotton Mill picket lines, providing sentences to 19 strikers for contempt of court for violating court orders against violence. He sentenced 10 of the 19 defendants to jail terms ranging between 10 and 30 days, while others received suspended sentences upon condition of payment of fines, while still others were only fined. The stiffest sentences had been meted to two men who received fines of $250 each and 30 days in jail. All 19 defendants had provided notices of appeal. They were convicted at trials during the week of violating a court order restraining all persons from violence in the strike and directing that all persons have free entrance and exit from the mills. The judge told the half-filled courtroom that "as long as I'm holding court", such orders will be obeyed. He asserted that the 19 defendants had shown "a willful intention to violate the order of the court." Meanwhile, company officials and representatives of the Textile Workers Union of America were standing by for possible calls from government mediators. The mediation team, headed by a Federal mediator, had scheduled a joint negotiation meeting for Monday afternoon, but had asked that both sides be available for possible preliminary talks during the weekend. Negotiations had been recessed abruptly when bitter strike differences arose during a session on Wednesday, prompting union representatives to walk out. Most of a reinforced contingent of 100 Highway Patrolmen had pulled out of town during the weekend after the mills had closed their operations on Friday, but were expected to return on Monday. One patrol car had been struck by a brick on Friday afternoon when the firm's plant in North Henderson had closed. There had been no arrests. It was the first time that any picket line violence had occurred since 100 additional troopers had been rushed to the scene on Monday night. The 16-week strike had flared into violence when the company had reopened its two plants on February 16. Nighttime explosions, rock-throwing, car-tipping and the beating of a union official had kept the small industrial city on edge since then. At least, there was, thus far, no dwarf-throwing or cat-juggling.
In Montpelier, Vt., it was reported that an anti-nudity bill had been rejected in the State House of Representatives by a vote of 122 to 103. The only nudist colony in the state was at Milton, near the Canadian border, with some 40 members. The chairman of the House judiciary committee said that there were statutes in the state presently covering "indecency in matters of lewdness" and that the bill was therefore unnecessary.
Josephine Crisler, of Arlington, Va., in this date's edition of "Lenten Guideposts", indicates that many knew an individual who had been revitalized by a brush with death, and knew of others whose concept of eternal life gave them an inner radiance. Such experiences, a miracle, a vision or a revelation, set up a chain reaction of inspiration to others. She had had more than one such friend and several had been very young. She had known a 19-year old pilot, killed early during World War II, who had scribbled a poem on the back of an envelope and tucked it in his last letter home, reaching his family the day after news of his death. Some believed that the poem ranked with John Keats and Percy Shelley, the poem being "High Flight" by John Magee, ending with the line: "I put out my hand and touched the face of God." The young poet's mother had told her that she had not allowed herself to think of the crash, thinking instead of what her son would want her to remember. But no amount of self-discipline could completely erase the natural wonder as to what passed through the mind of a loved one when death approached. She finds that there was comfort in the words of an eminent doctor, who had told her: "I have practiced medicine for 40 years. I've seen sudden death, and I have watched lingering death. Few people show any fear of the moment of passing; some, indeed, seem transfigured. My younger brother was like that. At 17, he lay dying of a long and incurable illness. I was sitting beside him, my hand on his pulse, waiting for the end. He seemed too weak ever to move again. Suddenly, he sat bolt upright, crying, 'Oh, isn't that beautiful? Isn't that the most glorious music you ever heard?' His face was radiant, as he fell back in my arms, dead. I, who would have rejected the speculative proof of a theologian, could not reject the fact that my young brother, in the moment of his passing, had seen and heard something incredibly beautiful … something I could neither see nor hear." She finds the most spectacular of all to have been the experience of a woman of Memphis who had met death and no longer feared it, because, as she had told Ms. Crisler, "While I was 'away', I had a glimpse of Paradise." She indicates that lest the reader think the woman was some sort of crank, she was sure that she was one of the sanest, most intelligent and consistently hard-working individuals of her acquaintance, supporting herself and her mother in the highly competitive business of real estate. She presents her story: "We were returning from a visit to our married daughter. A man driving a truck pulled out of line on a hill… He had been drinking... The blacktop road was wet. When he saw us, he slammed on his brakes. I have no memory of the crash." The remainder is on an inside page.
Monday's sports page tells of the finals this night of the ACC Tournament, in which N.C. State destroyed UNC by a score of 80 to 56. The trick was that, after UNC had beaten N.C. State twice during the regular season, UNC coach Frank McGuire had decided to rest his starting lineup for a majority of the game, liberally substituting every time the game got close, because State was on probation and ineligible in consequence to participate in NCAA post-season play, thus enabling UNC to advance to the NCAA Tournament automatically, win or lose, to play Navy on Tuesday night in New York. In those days, conferences could have but one representative in the NCAA Tournament, and the ACC determined its representative by its three-day tournament. Frank McGuire hated the ACC Tournament because of that fact, and, indeed, despite having had very good teams his last three seasons at Carolina, and several nationally ranked teams in the top five during his coaching tenure at the University of South Carolina during the latter 60's, was able to win the ACC Tournament only one other time in his career, beyond the 1957 national championship team which had gone undefeated, that latter championship having occurred at USC in 1971, against UNC, when center Lee Dedmon for Carolina, in a jump-ball with seconds to go, at the South Carolina jump circle, jumping against a player seven inches shorter, had inadvertently tipped the ball toward the USC basket, received immediately by a South Carolina player and laid in at the buzzer to win the game by a point. We were sorely, sorely, sorely displeased. But, we had no foul language for coach McGuire, well remembering that he had been the old UNC coach who had guided them to their first national championship in the NCAA Tournament. We might have wondered for a few moments about the heritage of young Mr. Dedmon, but we knew also that he had played a very good season, and that was only a passing fancy. We did not, even in our deepest and darkest thoughts, ever entertain any momentary desire for the firing of Dean Smith, even though the prior year, with a very good team, they had managed to go only 18 and 9, losing in the first round of the ACC Tournament to an inferior Virginia team, which had finished second to last in league play, and then losing to an inferior Manhattan team in the first round of the NIT, in those days, because of the limitation of one school per conference, much more competitive than in latter years after the expansion of the field of the NCAA Tournament. But, there were those, in both instances, in 1959, based on the boner of coach McGuire, and in 1971, based on the apparent boner of coach Smith, following on the dismal performance at the end of the season in 1970, with three straight losses, including the regular season finale to Duke in Durham, who, albeit privately, expressed otherwise. Oh what a mistake either would have been, had they been fired, that is.
Of course, had the current UNC administration been in place in 1965, coach Smith would, undoubtedly, have been terminated then or in 1966, and with extreme prejudice, especially with Duke, under coach Vic Bubas, advancing at least as far as its third NCAA semi-final round in four years by 1966, missing only 1965, when State won the ACC Tournament under coach Press Maravich. In 1966, coach Smith had unveiled the four-corners offense for the first time, learned from his coach, Phog Allen, at Kansas, who had played under game-inventor Dr. James Naismith at Kansas, losing in a memorable semifinals game in the ACC Tournament, 21 to 20 to Duke, which was then ranked number 3 in the nation, against a Carolina team with two All-Americans, the second L&M boys, after the first pair of 1959-61, that is the fast-draw Gunsmokers
We note that the margin of victory
by N.C. State in 1959 was exactly matched, with an eerily similar
score, 82 to 58, in February, 2026, when UNC lost to State in
Raleigh, albeit, in that latter instance, without its two top leading
scorers and two top rebounders in the lineup, the VW
So, why in the world have the powers that be at UNC determined in their infinite and unfathomable reasoning that coach Davis should be fired and replaced by an inferior coach, or one, in that single case, who has not coached college in over a decade, and thus is an unproven quantity at the college level in recent times, especially given the changes wrought to college basketball in the meantime by name-image-likeness payments and the open transfer portal? Your guess is as good as ours, but it makes no sense whatsoever and is the stupidest bone-head maneuver we have ever seen in 63 years of following closely Carolina basketball. We do not believe it is going to result in anything better being placed on the floor next season or in the seasons thereafter, and may result in virtually complete desertion by the fan base, the change having been undertaken only for the sake of money, money, money. You people who advocated for this change and brought it about are as crazy as bedbugs. You always hang on to a proven representative. Those who go looking over the fence for the greener grass usually wind up with nothing but barren earth to show for it. That is, we fear, what will happen in this instance. We can tell you that going forward, we will not be pulling nearly as hard for our old alma mater, UNC, for, in the hands of the current generation, it has degenerated into something we cannot any longer recognize, departing from its long traditions in favor of the idea of winning at all costs, a concept championed by the late football coach Jim Tatum, ("winning is everything"), when he came to Carolina in 1956, dying of Rocky Mountain spotted fever in the summer of 1959. It does not pay to go against that tradition, as that tradition is far greater than any single person, any single administration, any group of students or any single student body, stretching back to 1793, four years after ratification of the U.S. Constitution, two years after ratification of the Bill of Rights. Just do not do it. Some pitiful dumbbells before you have found that out. Good luck…
On the editorial page, "The
Future of TV: A Light To Lead" finds that there was very little
implication to be drawn from the newspaper's week-long study of
violence on nighttime television, as the report merely showed that in
the time period from 7 to 11:00 p.m. there were 83 violent deaths in
the course of a week. With the current emphasis on Western drama,
most of the victims had toppled over from gunplay. The 83 deaths had
been compared with 36 actual violent deaths reported in both local
newspapers during the same week. Despite the ratio being 2 to 1, it
finds it no comparative yardstick, as most of the newspaper deaths
had been accidental, including five burning deaths and another five
from auto accidents. Of the five homicides, it was always difficult
to prove any premeditated murder
It reminds that the 83 deaths on television had been written into scripts deliberately, as likely subjects to hold the interest of viewers, resultant of a television industry formula for Westerns and private detective shows, both natural candidates for violence. It indicates that there would be little drama in watching cowboys mending fences or riding with the herd for a half hour, but if they had to shoot it out with rustlers, people would watch.
The Fund for the Republic had recently compiled a comprehensive survey of the television industry, reporting that the average audience for "Gunsmoke", a top favorite in recent years, was 47,073,000. It was an unusual Saturday night when somebody was not riddled with bullets, with good invariably triumphant with a smoking six-gun. (Did it subconsciously mean Chester Goode?)
If the public felt that 83 violent deaths was far too many in a week's nighttime viewing of television, then it was the public's responsibility to protest. But that did not happen. "Gunsmoke", for instance, according to the survey, had drawn an average of 25 letters per program or .0027 percent of its audience. No mention had been made of how many of those 25 were in favor or against the show. So the sponsors and the network had to surmise that they were on the right track.
Television, bound as it was to capitalistic profit, had to produce a dividend for its sponsors and the best method devised for popularity of a given program had been the ratings index. Dramatic shows, especially those with violence as a basic theme, were among the ratings leaders. That was merely a reflection of the public taste.
It finds that the crux of the entire argument for or against violence and the mediocrity of supporting scripts lay within the television industry itself. Television was still in its childhood, walking before it could run, having content to cater to its viewers, and had, in the main, become an entertaining device for those millions who watched. It questions, however, whether television, a great potential force, would remain merely a mirror of society and whether it could afford to sit in the audience of public influence and never take the stage to speak.
Individual stations offered something akin to the latter idea with "public service" programming, but the network was almost stripped of any such programming to inform or educate as it did not make money. It was to be hoped that the spirit of television would change at some point and that there would be an industry desire to lead, strong enough to convince the sponsors and public alike. It would be a slow transition but one with purpose, which could match the unlimited possibilities of the medium itself.
Incidentally, Dino, we have it on the hush-hush and q.t., smoked Kents, not L & M's, but, in the spirit of public service messages, smoking is harmful to your health, whether the coffin-nail variety or that of the gun, and, as we do not wish to encourage either emulation or immolation, in Vietnam or other places, such as Iraq and Iran, we stress that it was awhile back. Stick to the VW's, or the functional equivalent, for better mileage on the highway, preferably, in the 21st Century, the electric varieties.
"The Page 1 Rocket: Several Ideas" finds that a spot check of out-of-town newspapers had pinpointed the journalistic feeling about Pioneer IV, but a mere four days later and 412,000 miles out in space, the news of the effort to pass the sun had all but left the front pages of the papers, with a NASA spokesman saying, "Pioneer IV is gone forever."
Once a space probe quit sending signals, there was not much to write about unless it turned up as a slice of burnt toast in seeking to reenter the atmosphere. It had created a problem for NASA as they needed to keep launching space probes to keep the public interest engaged and had appeared to have had a hard time of it with Pioneer IV, regardless of its golden nose cone.
"Our rockets need flair, showmanship, something to keep them in the news." It suggests installing a radio which would transmit Edward R. Murrow's sex-for-sale program, so that the newspapers could use it again. It could bring in the local news angle with tape recordings from major city officials. The flight itself could be sponsored through Madison Avenue outlets of government. John Cameron Swayze would be a natural for those commercials, perhaps utilizing a remote-control television hookup if he did not want to go along on the trip. For the youth of America, the most popular rock 'n' roll combo ought be placed aboard the spacecraft in person, though their sound would likely confuse every Communist monitoring station. Their sacrifice would be remembered by music lovers and the press. It finds that they should also be lost in permanent orbit, as that was show business.
Someone may have been revisiting "Flying Saucer the 2nd", from the summer of 1957. We happen to remember it very well, as it was included in our older brother's record collection, and presented to us a shiny object of wonder at which to wonder, who wrote the book of love?
When things become tense and you are in a situation without a record player at hand, just play the record in your head. It sometimes works wonders, as long as the record is not "Eve of Destruction", which got stuck in our head also, for quite obvious reasons in 1965.
"Boy Scouts Reflect a Period of Change" indicates that when it was growing up, the Boy Scouts had been a vital part of a youngster's life, as there was no television, and movies were limited to a Saturday afternoon with "Buck Rogers in the Twenty-Fifth Century" on the radio. Scouting had been king in the 1930's, with less competition, sufficient to take care of a small-town boy's free hours.
It finds that summer camp had been the greatest time and that even those who could not afford uniforms had stood proudly at evening retreat in ragged but attentive line. The meetings had been best when a game period had been declared after the serious business of the night. It had taken strength of purpose to hold fast in a contest of "Capture the Flag" when the lights went out.
"Our atomic age youth is given a far stronger program today. But they can never feel the thrill of buying with hard-earned money, that first 'official' Scout knife after wearing a hand-me-down uniform for a couple of years." It says it had known that there were such things as Explorer scouts, but they had been a rare breed. It had now occurred, however, that the category was to evolve with new purpose, program and dress, in what was Sunday best 20 years or more earlier. The modern Explorers were to be in a pilot program involving citizenship, business training and other current subjects.
It finds that its motley band would have scoffed at wearing a coat and tie as a uniform, but that, at the time, the Ivy League had not been formed, a duck tail belonged on a bird and delinquents were people who never paid their taxes.
A piece from the Christian Science Monitor, titled "Unclaimed 'Place in the Sun'", indicates that a question which fascinated climatologists and especially "'kibitzing'" laymen was whether weather phenomena followed recurring patterns. To the climatologists, the objective was greater understanding, leading possibly to some degree of adaptation, if not control, while with some laymen, it fears, something of superstition came into play and answers were likely to be thrown into the same category as "'woolly bear'" caterpillars and groundhog shadows.
It finds that the obvious limitations of those signs brought up the questions of whether caterpillars on the Hudson grew wide bands of "'wool'" and if a groundhog in Pennsylvania saw its shadow, it would impact the weather for the winter in Montana and Arkansas.
It indicates that St. Louis was facing that question in reverse, as one local meteorologist noted that the city's three destructive tornadoes, in 1896, 1927 and 1959, had occurred exactly 31 years and four months apart, having determined that they were in sunspot cycles. Another meteorologist, however, had responded: "Nothing but coincidence!"
It asks what the sunspots did to Gardner's Neck, Mass., or to Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, on February 10, 1959, and why the tornadoes zeroed in on St. Louis.
"No civic pride, especially not that seasoned variety characteristic of venerable cities, is like to tempt St. Louis into claiming this 'place in the sun.'"
Drew Pearson indicates that Congressman William Dawson of Illinois, who acted as the top Congressional watchdog, had ordered the Comptroller General to audit the President's White House expenses. Mr. Dawson was chairman of the House Government Operations Committee, which guarded against Government extravagance. He was disturbed at the high cost of running the White House, particularly since the President had been seeking economy. The President was spending more than 5 million dollars to operate the White House during the current fiscal year, more than double the 2.47 million which former President Truman had spent in his last and most expensive year in office. That included such upkeep as servants, gardening, office, staff, etc., but did not include the maintenance of helicopters, airplanes, two yachts and the total budget for the executive establishment. On top of that doubling of expenses, the President was asking for a $332,000 increase in the ensuing year at the same time he was ordering everyone else to economize.
In a confidential letter to the Comptroller General, Mr. Dawson had called for a full accounting of the President's bills, intending to compare each item with what Presidents Roosevelt and Truman had spent. Mr. Dawson could not understand why the President, who entertained much less than the prior two Presidents, would be spending so much more to run the White House.
Mr. Pearson notes that the total Eisenhower budget for the executive offices was presently 52.7 million dollars, including the National Security Council, the Budget Bureau, and other offices operating under the White House. President Truman had spent a total of 6.7 million on the executive offices during his last year in office. And the President was seeking 91.9 million for the ensuing year, including the new Civil and Defense Mobilization offices.
Democrats who had taken a look at the President's spending believed that his own extravagance generated from his Army background when G.I. servants, cars and planes were always at his disposal, and because of his millionaire golfing partners who lived in luxury but had been drumming home to the President that he had to reduce school, farm and welfare spending. Democrats also pointed to the fact that the President's intimate, former Secretary of the Treasury George Humphrey, of National Steel, had championed the economy for most interests except his own. He had called the St. Lawrence Seaway a "socialistic ditch" until the Mark H. Hanna Co., which he formerly headed, purchased iron ore deposits in Labrador and needed the cheaper transportation provided by the Seaway. During his time as Treasury Secretary, Mr. Humphrey had reversed himself and fought vigorously for the same Seaway he had formerly denounced. He had also opposed too fast tax write-offs for companies other than his own, claiming that they added to inflation and gave favored companies an unfair advantage over competitors, making that statement in 1954. But Congressman Albert Thomas of Texas had rejoindered that they were not so bad when one got a 315 million dollar tax write-off for National Steel or when receiving 11 million dollars in write-offs for Mr. Humphrey's Canadian Ore Co., asking him why, if the write-offs were so bad, he did not repeal them.
Mr. Pearson indicates that other members of the President's "golfing cabinet" included William Robinson, head of Coca-Cola, Barry Leithead, president of Cluett, Peabody & Co., and Clifford Roberts of Reynolds & Co.
Walter Lippmann indicates that the President's budget was now a "football in a political scrimmage", with both parties pretending that they were struggling to balance the budget when, in fact, neither the Administration nor the Congress had shown any sign of being willing to vote for the taxes essential to balance the budget. As of the present, both parties regarded the income tax rates as untouchable, having been fixed in 1954, the date when the President had reduced taxes. The President's budget plan, if certain fancy calculations were accepted, could be brought into balance, but only if Congress would raise postal rates and increase gasoline taxes. Since Congress was certain to reject new taxes, the official theory of the Democrats appeared to be that they could balance the budget by cutting down on what the President had sought in foreign aid.
Both parties had worked themselves into a jam which, considering the state of the world, was not inspiring. The Republicans had gotten themselves into a position where they would have to save on spending for domestic American needs, such as in education and public facilities, and almost certainly national defense. But the Republicans had been inspired by the President to spend abroad on foreign aid the sums which they would like to spend domestically.
Meanwhile, the Democrats had worked themselves into the embarrassing position whereby the party of Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman, as well as Adlai Stevenson, were threatening to save on foreign aid to spend more at home.
He finds that there was something inherently absurd in a situation in which the Republicans were posited as the globalists and the Democrats as the isolationists, and he questions whether such a topsy-turvy situation could have developed had politicians of both parties not forgotten the realities of the national needs while playing politics with the budget and with taxes. He finds that what had happened to them was that they had become entangled in a dogma which few of the members of Congress and none of the leaders in Washington had the courage to challenge, that being that the budget had to be balanced if possible, and if impossible, requiring at least a serious attempt at it. The dogma which confused the situation and the position of both parties was that the budget had to be balanced without raising income tax rates, treating the income tax rates of 1954 as sacrosanct.
He indicates that once the dogma was accepted, the budget could not be balanced except by two equally unacceptable means, one being to balance it by taxes on consumption, that is, sales taxes, and the other being to balance the budget at the expense of national defense and foreign policy, as well as internal public needs and development. Neither could be done, as the Congress would not impose a sales tax and the country could not afford the cut to defense and foreign aid.
He indicates that there had to be a revival of national leadership at both the White House and in Congress or there was no prospect of balancing the budget for the recalcitrance of both sides, and the present proposed budget did not support national interests domestically or abroad and would thus have to be supplemented in the near future by extraordinary appropriations. While that was going on, the country would have to pay the price of having neglected national needs because it was too soft and too timid to tax itself enough.
A letter from Charles Crutchfield, executive vice-president of Jefferson Standard Broadcasting Co., responds to Julian Scheer's revelation that television was bloodier by a ratio of 2 to 1, stating that he had no idea that it was that bad. He indicates that he had found the article interesting and revealing, but took exception to the statement that Hamlet was a "so-called 'classic' drama", stating that if Hamlet was not a classic, then nothing was, but indicates that he would write Shakespeare immediately and suggest that he delete all of the mayhem. He quotes from the week's edition of Broadcasting Magazine: "When newspaper and magazine writers run out of things to say, they often resort to a trusted but specious device—counting the fictional murders on the air to prove that television (it used to be radio) is educating the young in crime and violence. We saw a show on television the other night, and it had six murders—all gruesome. Now, if the quality of television is to be measured by the incidence of mayhem, the show we saw ought never to have been brought to the air. Six murders in one program? Think of the effect on the kiddies. In case you want to write your Congressman about this outrage, the show was 'Hamlet' and it was broadcast on CBS-TV." Mr. Crutchfield further indicates that if they wanted to label Hamlet as a so-called classic, the thought had occurred to him that possibly the newspaper and its readers might be interested in what some of the other newspapers around the country had to say about the presentation. The New York Herald Tribune had stated: "The production emerged as one that was exciting, beautifully staged, and swiftly paced… All the performances were first rate... The direction by Mr. Nelson was most efficient and the settings by Bob Markel truly magnificent." The New York Journal American had said: "A brilliantly clarified triumph of speeding up and simplifying the long, complicated tragedy… A fast, fine triumph." The Chicago Tribune had stated: "… the top show of the year … will make every viewer look forward to the next opportunity to meet Shakespeare..." The Washington Post and Times Herald had said: "One of the greatest programs ever offered to the TV audience… May have given an entire generation a new idea of Shakespeare's worth… A glorious evening, a TV triumph..." The Boston Herald had said: "… A glorious evening of television … skillful and superb performance... Live and vibrant production…" He goes on to present similarly abstracted comments from the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the Detroit News, the Los Angeles Times, the United Press International, and the Associated Press. Mr. Crutchfield ends by quoting from Hamlet, "Good night, sweet Prince."
A letter from E. L. Gluck, chairman of the board of WSOC Broadcasting Co., channel 9 in Charlotte, comments on the same March 3 article, indicating that they had apparently not done much reading of fiction, as a number of the classics were a bit gory also. He finds that they had missed one point, that one of the programs viewed had six murders, all gruesome, that being Hamlet. He says he would not expect to read of such horrible details in the newspaper, either in the news columns or on the comic page. He signs it, "Yours for less realism everywhere." He adds a P.S. to the artist who had drawn the caricature with the piece, indicating that a television screen was not square as he had drawn it, but oblong with a horizontal dimension greater than its vertical dimension in units.
A letter from William Scruggs, Jr.,
promotion manager of WSOC, indicates that Bret Maverick had been in
town this date asking for them and indicates that they should not be
surprised if he paid them a visit
A letter writer from Spartanburg, S.C., indicates that forced purchase of any type of insurance was dangerous and represented dangerous thinking, that the highways needed to be rid of irresponsible drivers to protect life and property, taking licenses away from drivers when the facts warranted it and jailing overt offenders who endangered others. He says that he had recently driven to California in 4 1/2 days in a four-cylinder American-made car, traveling never more than 55 mph, and could not see why he should be forced to pay for the carelessness of other drivers. He would gladly pay more for supervision and more justified suspensions, more attention to the greatest offenders on the highways, but was not his brother's keeper, to help them obey the law while not paying penance for their continued wanton flouting and breaking of the law.
A letter from the pastor of Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Ascension indicates that he had lived in Charlotte for 28 years and watched its phenomenal growth and progress, and had no difficulty believing the most optimistic forecast for the future, but was distressed by what appeared to him to be lack of foresight in view of those forecasts. He cites East Morehead Street, where it was claimed that it would have the heaviest traffic load in the city in the future, and therefore ought have at least six or eight lanes for traffic, whereas it now only had four. Until recently, the deed restrictions required a 60-foot building setback which was more than adequate for future widening of the street, but the zoning authorities had now permitted a 20-foot setback and already there were at least two buildings under construction or completed which would make it extremely difficult ever to widen the street to the proportions needed. Some years earlier, before zoning laws had been established, his church had sought permission of all property owners in the area to extend a small wing of the church building by 15 feet over the setback line, more for aesthetic reasons than utilitarian ones. They were prevented by one negative voice from among the property owners, but they felt that there should be a setback of 40 to 45 feet minimum. When Charlotte's population reached 300,000 or 400,000 or more, there would be downtown arteries and plazas of majestic proportion, and he questions whether it was not the time to make provisions for such development. He also indicates that the community college was a wonderful thing, but also terribly expensive, that any modern college campus required an investment of millions. He indicates that his denomination was presently spending almost ten million dollars on a campus which they had originally thought they could build for 3 to 4 million. The cost of operation had also risen steeply and, nevertheless, the community institution was needed and worth the tremendous outlay of money. But he wonders whether no one would object to the plan to build and operate two such colleges in the Charlotte area, when there was rapid change in the social structure and when students of different races were already attending the same schools, especially in higher education. He questions what the picture would look like ten years down the road and how they could justify the expenditure.
Framed Edition
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