The Charlotte News
Monday, March 9, 1959
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from Berlin that West Germany's Socialist Party head, Erich Ollenhauer, had spent this date with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and had then declared that he thought that the Soviets would make every effort to solve the Berlin crisis without war. Mr. Ollenhauer, head of the number two political party in West Germany, had met for two hours with the Premier at the latter's invitation, after which Mr. Ollenhauer had held a press conference, in which he indicated that he was optimistic about the prospects of an East-West settlement, indicating the impression that on the Russian side, all efforts would be made to solve the problem peacefully and to avoid a conflict. He said that he believed the Soviets were ready to negotiate, wanted to do so quickly and were willing to have "a thorough debate of concrete proposals from both sides." He believed that the Soviets were seeking a permanent solution to the German question. He said that he disagreed with Mr. Khrushchev on many points regarding the Berlin question and an overall German settlement, but in replying to a newsman's questions, added, "There was agreement, however, that there is no question which cannot be solved peacefully, and it was agreed our problems must be solved peacefully." A Soviet communiqué said that the talks had been held in "a friendly atmosphere".
Baltimore Sun correspondent, Bynum Shaw, in Berlin, reported that the will to live was about all the East German people had left after 13 years under Communist rule. Mr. Shaw had spent a week behind the Iron Curtain, indicating from East Berlin that he found the East Germans to have abandoned hope of liberation and reunification, and had also lost faith in the U.S. because they did not believe the U.S. was willing to risk its freedom for their own. He said that it had produced a "strange feeling of bitterness that borders on contempt." The East Germans, he continued, did not believe even that the U.S. would stand by its pledge to maintain the freedom of West Berlin. The Communist governmental system was not receiving much support from the East Germans, but the effects of Communist rule were quite noticeable. One East German banker had told Mr. Shaw that he was thoroughly disgusted with the Communist system, but that the Communists would force the Americans out of Berlin and "it will be only a matter of time before you are forced out of Europe." The man had said that in five years, the Americans would be the "laughing stock of the world. I think the Americans are yellow." Mr. Shaw reported that the Leipzig shop windows were loaded with goods to impress visitors to the city's trade fair, but much of what was shown was not generally available to the East German public. One East German had written that it was "the phoniest setup in the world." Living standards had improved somewhat, but costs of some foodstuffs were unreasonably high, for example an inferior grade of coffee cost $10 per pound and meat was expensive. As for the Communist boast that East Germany would surpass West Germany in two years in production and consumption of basic commodities, Mr. Shaw had quoted one man: "Two years? Maybe in 100 years."
In Fort Bragg, N.C., it was reported that General George C. Marshall's condition had remained unchanged and serious this date at the Army's Womack Hospital. The 78-year old soldier-statesman had been hospitalized after a stroke on January 15, suffering a second stroke on February 17.
In Beirut, Lebanon, it was reported that Iraqi nationalist rebels had claimed this date that their army was marching on Baghdad to crush the Communist-influenced Government of Premier Abdel Karim Kassem. The latter's warplanes had bombed, apparently without decisive effect, Mosul, a major oil center 220 miles northeast of Baghdad, the seat of a revolt led by Col. Abdel Wahab Shawaf. A war of words had raged between radio Mosul and radio Baghdad. The smokescreen of propaganda had veiled military movements, and had shown bitterly the antagonisms between leftist followers of Mr. Kassem and military men who leaned toward UAR Premier Gamal Abdel Nasser's type of Arab nationalism. Simmering unrest had broken into open rebellion less than eight months after Mr. Kassem had led a bloody coup which had killed King Faisal and destroyed his pro-Western monarchy on July 14, 1958. Conflicting claims and counter-claims had alternated as the day advanced. Radio Baghdad had declared at one time that Mr. Shawaf had been fleeing toward the Syrian border and offered $28,000 for his capture, dead or alive. Later it reported that he had been killed by his own men. The purported news, obviously intended to dispirit Mr. Shawaf's followers, had been accompanied by the reading of hundreds of messages pledging allegiance to Mr. Kassem. Mr. Shawaf had spoken over radio Mosul to deny that he was either fleeing or dead, taunting the Government in a voice strained and at times almost hysterical. He pledged that they would keep fighting to the end, until they wiped out the corrupt regime and victory would be theirs. He told the people not to be misled by radio Baghdad's production of pro-Kassem messages and brushed off the air-raid on Mosul. He said that the Government had felt that the end was near which was why, as a last measure, they had bombed Mosul with the few planes whose pilots were still loyal to the Government, proving, he said, that the Government was dying and using its last weapon. There were varying reports on affairs within Baghdad, a report out of Beirut saying that there were disturbances in the city's streets on Sunday in connection with a large pro-Nasser demonstration, while a traveler reaching Cairo from Baghdad had said that there had been pro-Communist and pro-Kassem demonstrations and that the situation was quite tense. Egypt's Middle East News Agency announced that the Iraqi military governor-general, Brig. Ahmed Saleh Elabdi, had issued an order closing its offices in Baghdad without giving a reason. Mr. Shawaf had told the Iraqi people that he would stay and that the brave Iraqi Army was determined to free the people from "opportunism and misrule". He said that he would fight until Mr. Kassem's "insane dictatorship" was crushed. The people and the Army, he continued, had widely supported their revolt and pledged themselves to fight to the death the "dying dictator and his hired gang who betrayed the principles of the July 14 revolution."
In Harlan, Ky., it was reported that coal miners had made a show of strength during the morning and then retired in a downpour of rain as a United Mine Workers Union strike had started in Harlan County. A caravan of 100 men and 34 cars had driven to Harlan from the mining community of Evarts, and then returned to that community and disbanded. The situation was presently quiet, with a few pickets reported at Highsplint and the Harlan Fuel Co. The strike had affected about 3,100 of Harlan County's 5,000 miners, beginning at midnight on Saturday after last-minute negotiations had failed to produce agreement to a UMW contract by 26 independent operators. The independents were not operating this date, although they posted work notices. Some 200 small truck mines, which were not under the UMW contract, were not working either, their empty coal-hauling trucks having been parked outside homes throughout the county. An air of quiet, but expectancy, prevailed in the hard-pressed area where some 13,000 of Harlan County's 58,000 residents were already on Federal surplus food rolls and another 4,000 were out of work. Five independent operators, who had accepted the UMW contract, had reported that their miners were working. State Police headquarters had sent two extra patrols into the area, but regional headquarters had reported that only its normal complement of troopers were on duty on the highways. A veteran mine operator, who had witnessed the violence-beset mine strikes of the 1930's, had said that the current situation was completely different, that in the earlier strikes, which had brought Harlan County its grim nickname of "Bloody Harlan", had been the result of organizing efforts, and that nothing quite like the present situation had happened previously. The UMW had demanded a two-dollar daily basic wage increase to $24.25 per day.
In Henderson, N.C., it was reported that the South Henderson Plant of the struck Harriet-Henderson Cotton Mills had resumed operations this date, despite an explosion in its boiler room and acid damage to a number of carding machines. The company president had declined to estimate the damage, but said that it would not halt production. The boiler room explosion had blown out windows, destroyed the oil burner which supplied heat for the mill and damaged a boiler, but no one had been injured. In addition, acid had been thrown on 47 cotton carding machines. The company president said that a small, auxiliary boiler had been used while repair work had started. He added that the mild weather made it possible to continue work while the oil burner was being repaired. In contrast to prior nighttime explosions, all had been calm during the morning as workers entered the two mills past picketing strikers. Police reported that there were no incidents of violence at either the North Henderson or South Henderson plants. Police said that it appeared that dynamite had been placed in a boiler, which helped control temperature and humidity necessary in cotton operations. Police quoted an electrician at the mill as saying that he believed that the plant would be able to operate this date. It had been one of three explosions on Sunday night but there were no reports of personal or property damage at the other plants. Meanwhile, the secretary-treasurer of the striking Textile Workers Union of America said that the contract disagreement which had led to the 16-week strike, was "part of a conspiracy against the South to destroy unionism." The official from New York City told a rally of 750 strikers on Sunday that the jointly-owned Harriet-Henderson Cotton Mills was the fifth firm in the state which had made "almost identical proposals of weakening contracts." He had not named the others. The key issue in the violence-marked deadlock had been arbitration. The strike had begun the previous November 17 after management had insisted that an arbitration clause be removed from the new contract. An attempt to eliminate the clause in contracts had spread to Georgia and Alabama, according to the TWUA representative, as companies in those states had made almost identical proposals to remove such a clause. Boyd Payton, regional director of TWUA, said that he understood that the companies to which the other representative had referred were Crown Cotton Mills of Dalton, Ga., and Cone Mills of Gadsden, Ala. The entire labor movement in the country had been aroused and greatly concerned about the outcome of the Henderson strike, according to the TWUA representative from New York. He had added that the AFL-CIO was behind the rank-and-file and would continue to support them. Union and management planned to confer again this date with Federal and state labor mediators.
In Tampa, Fla., it was reported that the single blast of a 12-gauge shotgun had caused the death this date of a prominent produce dealer as he stepped from a car in the driveway of his home. The 51-year old man had died shortly after midnight of buckshot wounds in the brain and heart. Police said that they had found no motive for the killing, closely resembling several of the 19 unsolved gangland-style murders in Tampa since 1931. The slaying had come on the heels of strong denials by City officials of a statement made in Congress that Tampa had one of the worst crime records in the nation. Representative William Cramer of St. Petersburg had listed Tampa among cities with heavy crime rates as he introduced an anti-Mafia bill aimed at curbing terrorist conspiracies.
Next, they will be trying to frame
In Melbourne, Australia, it was reported that Communists were putting the Western world to shame, according to evangelist Billy Graham, by "trying to clean up Russian morality." He said at a Sunday meeting, "We are living in a time of satanic obsession with sex… Just as in the time of Noah, sin and pleasure persist. More time is spent in theaters than in churches." He had taken time from religious topics to tell his audience of 30,000 that a San Francisco friend had written him to ask why Australia would not send koala bears to the zoo in San Francisco. He said that at the last American crusade in San Francisco, people had prayed for people in Melbourne and that the gift of koalas would be a nice gesture in response. Officials of the Royal Society of Prevention of Cruelty to Animals had protested, however, that koalas could not live outside Australia. Well, what does that have to do with sin in the first place? We shudder to consider it.
John Kilgo of The News reports that people were paying overdue parking tickets in Charlotte faster than ever. A police captain had issued a warning two weeks earlier that the ticket holders had better pay or would have warrants signed against them. He had said this date that ticket holders had paid $1,500 since the previous week in overdue fines. The newspaper story had appeared two weeks earlier, saying that $15,000 in unpaid tickets were outstanding from 1958. The captain said that the previous week was the best they had ever had for receipt of fines, collecting $600 more than they had the week before, and he believed it was the result of the newspaper reporting. But even with the good collection the previous week, about $13,000 in overdue 1958 parking tickets were still outstanding. Tickets paid on time would probably result in a fine of about two dollars, but if a person waited until a warrant issued, it would cost in penalties $13 plus the amount of the ticket.
In Sweetwater, Tex., rattlesnake hunters, 5,000 of them, had descended on a huge West Texas ranching area the previous day and captured 3,000 of the venomous snakes. There was no estimate of the hundreds killed in the roundup which covered 45 ranches in Nolan and Fisher Counties. The 3,000 snakes weighed 3,000 pounds, but the largest had been bagged by an individual of Sweetwater, who had brought in one weighing 7 pounds, collecting a $50 prize. Two professors from Wayland College in Plainview, had captured the most snakes, 275, receiving a $75 prize. Prizes of $25 had gone to each of them for catching the snakes with the most rattles, 16, and to another man of Sweetwater for the smallest snake, 14.75 inches long. Entrants had come from Massachusetts, Ohio, South Carolina and Oklahoma, as well as from Texas. One cowhand, who chose to watch the hunt from his jeep, said, "It just proves that Texans have company when they go plumb loco." Some hunters caught rattlers by throwing nets over them while others used forked sticks holding their heads to the ground until they could be thrown quickly into screen-wire cages or sacks made of heavy cloth. Rattlers were lazy and sluggish in the late winter, but veterans conceded that there was no easy way to catch one, without getting a bite.
In Pocatello, Ida., it was reported that a beauty expert had said that the ponytail hairdo might be on the way out. A cosmetology instructor at Idaho State College said that it was one of several close-to-the-head styles which placed continued tension on the hair follicles or socket. Enough of the tension, she said, and traction alopecia could result. She explained that it was a condition which caused the hair to fall out. She also said that prompt treatment by a beautician generally would head off the problem. Best not pull that back in a pony, lest you wind up as G.I. Jane.
On the editorial page, "Assembly Should Pass Bell Plan Intact" indicates that the aimless drift of the state's 1959 General Assembly had ended the moment court reform had become a live issue. Both the Senate and the House had received bills covering recommendations of the North Carolina Bar Association's Committee on Improving and Expediting the Administration of Justice. Thus, after 33 days of considerable dilly-dallying, legislators could now prepare to render the most important single decision which was likely to come from the current session of the Legislature. The decision would not come easily, as the committee's proposals had already encountered a rival court plan proposed by the State Constitutional Study Commission. Furthermore, heavy opposition was developing to several individual features of the Bar Association's plan.
The need, it finds, was for statesmanship above and beyond picayune considerations. The Bar Association's committee, headed by State Senator J. Spencer Bell of Mecklenburg County, had made the most stringent study of judicial operations ever attempted in the state. It exposed the mess which passed for the administration of justice in the state, especially in the lower courts. Since 1868, a crazy-quilt of more than 1,400 small courts had been established with interlocking, overlapping and conflicting relationships with no administrative control. The result had been delay, confusion, expense and inefficiency to the most sensitive governmental field in the state.
To correct the consequences of nearly a century of neglect, Senator Bell and his colleagues had proposed a general reform which had the virtue of utter simplicity. Basically, its recommendation was for a unified system of justice to be administered by the State Supreme Court. The chief justice would be the executive head of the system and it would be broken down into three divisions, the Appellate Division, composed of the present Supreme Court, the trial court of general jurisdiction, composed of the present Superior Courts, and the district courts. The district courts would handle the business presently being transacted by the hodgepodge of local recorder's-type courts and justices of the peace. The justice of the peace system would be replaced by magistrate courts which would be part of the district court system. The fee system in the justice of the peace courts, whereby justices of the peace relied for their payment on assessed costs collected from persons appearing before them, would be abolished.
To ensure effective leadership, modern management and careful supervision, the Supreme Court would make the rules for the unified system of justice. District Court judges and magistrates would be appointed by the chief justice from nominations from senior resident judges in the Superior Courts.
Senator Bell's proposed reform, it finds, was eminently sound and would improve both the quality and efficiency of justice in the state, placing prompt, inexpensive justice within the reach of every person in the state. Obviously, it indicates, many attempts were being made to tamper with the proposal. It finds it a shame as it was carefully balanced to assure maximum benefits, and that any weakening of it or its provisions would weaken the whole mechanism. It urges that it was in the best interests of the state to pass the Bell plan intact.
"Eating Crow Becomes a Pleasure" indicates that it had been April and they were feeling some spring oats, the only explanation it could offer for an editorial needle applied to Charlotte's excellent Little Theater in 1958. The Mint Drama Guild had scheduled a production of The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams and it had been applauding the idea. Then it had suggested, as an aside, that since the Little Theater had been devoting itself mainly to "frothy material", such as Gold in the Hills or the The Dead Sister's Secret, Charlotte residents were looking increasingly to the Mint for fine drama.
A member of the cast of Gold in the Hills had then given the editors an icy lecture in a letter about show business and it had been taken to task by fans of the Mint for "making trouble". It had eaten crow then and was now prepared to request of its own free will another helping. It was not taking back any of the admiration expressed for the Mint Drama Guild, as under Dorothy Masterson, it was still contributing greatly to Charlotte's cultural scene. The recent private reading of "Under Milkwood" by Dylan Thomas had been an interesting case in point, and it still had affection for the Mint.
The reason it was willing to eat crow again was solely because the Little Theater had proved to it and to Charlotte what a fine, artistic job it could do with good dramatic material, for instance its current offering, The Heiress, a dramatization by Ruth and Augustus Goetz of the 1881 novel by Henry James, Washington Square, first produced in New York in 1947. It finds that director Thomas Humble and an excellent cast had made nothing short of a wonderful performance, hardly "froth". It had been beautifully mounted, tightly drawn with some of the best acting it had seen at the local playhouse in quite some time. The performances of Ray Rawlings, Pat Lee, Bernice Terheun and James Cremins were superb, as had been the direction of Mr. Humble, and the set.
It finds that it was little theater at its best and that the city was quite fortunate to have the services of Mr. Humble and Mrs. Masterson, both adding something distinctive and refreshing to the community's cultural climate.
"Tell 600 People and It's No Secret" indicates that the oft-quoted and much-publicized coach Frank McGuire of UNC's basketball team had managed to censure himself again. As an aftermath of a brawl at Wake Forest College in Winston-Salem earlier in the season, involving UNC, ACC commissioner Jim Weaver had verbally whacked coach McGuire, among others, across the knuckles in delivering his findings.
The reprimand had rankled Mr. McGuire, which was natural, but, as a public figure, he had made a further misstep. Writing an open letter to 600 members of the UNC Educational Foundation, which was the athletic boosters club, Mr. McGuire had complained: "I emphatically do not agree with [Mr. Weaver's] judgment, and I truly believe he is prejudiced, having been the athletic director at Wake Forest for a number of years." His comments had then appeared on sports pages across the state, including that of the News.
It finds the stopper to have come when coach McGuire had allowed that his letter had not been intended for the press. It suggests that a letter to 600 people could not be kept secret, as it did not know six people who could be honor-bound with a confidence. "Pooh and balderdash." It finds such a pose of naïveté to be difficult to believe.
It hopes that the conference commissioner would take a tolerant attitude, attribute the unfortunate letter to Irish temper and take no further action, but says it could not blame him if he invited coach McGuire to a private session in the league's woodshed.
Fire him at once. He's a loser.
A piece from the Richmond News Leader, titled "Mountain Bird, with Tail-Plume", indicates that one of the nice things about the Japanese, "a strangely schizophrenic people", was the deference in which they held their Imperial family. It had been reading some editorials from Japanese newspapers, which in other respects were thoroughly modern publications, speaking with an antique grace of the approaching marriage of the Crown Prince and his commoner bride, Mishiko Shoda.
One such publication had issued
congratulations and felicitations, indicating to the Crown Prince:
"You once composed a beautiful poem: 'In the valley verdant with
fresh grass, appeared a mountain bird with white tail-plume
trailing.' This poem seems to be symbolic of the ideal girl you have
met and makes our hearts warm to you." (Yes, white tail-plume
trailing. Very heart-warming
Another publication indicated that the Crown Prince ought serve as a good model for the youth of Japan and it had been its hope that he would approach the selection of his bride with an open mind and with an attitude rich in love, in a manner befitting the youth of the present. It had offered its praise, now that its hope had been realized.
Another newspaper had spoken of the Crown Prince as emerging from the "the heavy chrysanthemum curtain" of Imperial tradition. It finds it a pretty image. Other papers had been flooded with poetry and tribute to the couple.
It indicates that the last crown prince in America who had married while their father was in the palace had been the Roosevelt boys, and that no one had ever written any poems about James and Elliott.
Drew Pearson indicates that his wife had long been telling him that a newspaperman with one deadline per day could not afford to milk cows with two deadlines per day, and that he was now following her advice. He was about to be a former milk farmer and wanted to shed some light on the current milk war in the nation's capital and on the milk problems in the rest of the nation.
During the spring, about a thousand milk cows would be sold in two Maryland counties alone, sold for hamburger or to bigger, more successful farms. His own cows would follow shortly thereafter because the dairy farmer was squeezed between three large millstones, the high cost of farm labor and machines, the big dairy combines, and Jimmy Hoffa.
In Baltimore, the price of milk paid to farmers had dropped the previous year by 71 cents per can or at the rate of 1.5 cents per quart, while the price had gone up to the consumer by a penny per quart. In Washington the previous year, the Teamsters, which set all local milk wages, had received an increase of eight cents per hour plus another seven cents coming in the ensuing June. Meanwhile, the farmer shipping milk to Washington had suffered a reduction of 92 cents per cwt. can since Secretary of Agriculture Ezra Taft Benson had taken office in 1953, or the equivalent of two cents per quart. During the same period, prices had gone up for the Washington consumer by 3.1 cents per quart. Thus, the Teamsters and the middlemen seemed to be doing alright while the farmers and consumers were caught in the squeeze.
The big dairy combine which had now challenged the farmers cooperative to a milk war in the Washington area to reduce prices further was National Dairy Products, though it operated under the local name of Chestnut Farms, part of Sealtest. It was not just a little neighborhood dairy but one of the largest milk combines in the world. It not only handled dairy products, but also bread, vegetable oils, and margarine, which competed with dairy products. From all of those it had made over 44 million dollars in 1957 after taxes, and had accumulated an earned surplus the same year of more than 255 million dollars. It was the company which had now challenged the Maryland-Virginia milk producers, a farmers co-op, to a price war in the nation's capital.
He finds that what most consumers and farmers had forgotten was the fact that National Dairy Products was the largest beneficiary from the Benson cheese deal, pursuant to which the large dairy and cheese companies had received a large windfall profit from selling cheese to the Agriculture Department a few days before Mr. Benson was planning to drop the price, then purchasing it back from the Department at a cheaper price, in the meantime never having even moved it out of their own warehouses. After the column had reported that cheese deal on June 6, 1955, and after Representative L. H. Fountain of North Carolina had placed the dairy combines on the griddle, they were forced to refund to the Government, and National Dairy Products had been ordered by a Federal judge to refund $404,547. The farm co-op against which Chestnut Farms and National Dairy Products had declared war in Washington also believed in tight-knit organization, as it had to do so, with the Teamsters on one side and a large milk combine on the other. It had been in trouble with the Antitrust Act for operating its own retail dairy. The primary difference between it and the Teamsters was that the latter were not subject to the Antitrust Act as a union. Aside from that fact, the farmers, though they cussed out labor, had organized exactly as had labor to place a floor under the price they received for their labor on the farm.
He indicates that those were some of the intricacies of producing milk and if dairy farmers did not organize as did labor and big business, they would lose their shirts, as some of them did anyway. Probably what was needed, he suggests, was a commission to regulate milk in the same way the price of electricity was regulated, as both were public service commodities.
If he wants to get way ahead of the curve, he should talk with Senator Lyndon Johnson's friend and aide, John B. Connally of Texas, and suggest to him stronger price supports for milk.
Joseph Alsop finds it to be somewhat late to be adding to the commentaries on the attack on Senator Johnson's leadership by Senator William Proxmire of Wisconsin, but he regards two important things still to be said, the first being that grumblings from independent-minded progressives were always heard when the Congressional leadership was strong, often justified, and yet there was no historic justification for Senator Proxmire's most specific complaint, that Senator Johnson had the habit of making his own plans of action without consulting his colleagues in a party caucus. Senator Johnson did not hold party caucuses, but then no other strong leader in the Senate or House had ever held routine party caucuses.
Under that forgotten rule, the old tyrant of the House, Congressman Joseph Cannon, had been happy to caucus his cowed fellow members at frequent intervals, and the same was true of the Senate leaders of the time. But the strong leaders who came afterward, when the rule was changed, would no more have called a caucus to ask what they should do next than a good infantry captain would ask the sergeants and privates of his company when he ought to order the next patrol.
All of the great Speakers of the House after Mr. Cannon, Champ Clark, Nicholas Longworth, John Nance Garner, and Sam Rayburn, had been more or less benevolent autocrats, with Mr. Rayburn still being a benevolent autocrat. Autocracy was more difficult in the Senate. Yet Senators Joseph Robinson of Arkansas and Robert Taft of Ohio, the only two Senate leaders other than Senator Johnson who had truly led the Senate during the previous quarter century, had ruled differently. Senator Taft viewed his position almost as a military command, and Senator Robinson not only held no caucuses, he never consulted anyone except Senators James Byrnes of South Carolina and Pat Harrison of Mississippi. Otherwise, he seldom spoke to other Senators except for the purpose of issuing orders. Senator Robinson had led almost entirely by the favors he dispensed and the great fear he inspired.
The willingness to lead, the habit of command, the sense of responsibility of a good field commander, were all essential qualities in any strong legislative leader. Senator Proxmire could have his caucuses, but he would also have weaker leadership. He would not wish to enter a caucus whose vote was binding.
He thus wonders whether Senator Proxmire would be more ready to pay the price of weak Congressional leadership, a question raising a deeper point that also needed to be brought out, that a special need for strong leadership in Congress had been created by the present state of the Presidency.
President Eisenhower had come to office with the anachronistic conception that an American President ought to reign but not rule, preside but not decide. Countless instances of his habit of handing on to Congress the task of making what were essentially Presidential choices could be cited. His treatment of his 1957 budget was the most extraordinary example, another being the President's recent agriculture message, stating the factors of the terrible farm problem, but hardly beginning to recommend a clear-cut solution.
Since his illnesses, the President had even been less eager and active in wielding White House powers than he had been during his first term. The U.S. had other Presidents, some much admired, such as Calvin Coolidge in his time, who had taken the same approach, but by an accident of history, the U.S. had never before had such a President in a time of danger and crisis. The present was such a time. And the American system was a purely presidential system, such that the body politic now resembled a human body in which the heart muscles were no longer eager for their unending task, although the body was called on to great exertion. Strong Congressional leadership could never substitute for strong Presidential leadership, any more than machinery could substitute for the human heart. But strong Congressional leadership could serve to do what was done by one of those external, plastic heart pumps, helping to get the body politic through a rough patch.
Senator Johnson's strong leadership had done precisely that on the issue which had aroused the ire of Senator Proxmire and some other Northern Democrats, the issue of Senate rules and civil rights. Without Senator Johnson's courageous, firm-handed and national-minded intervention, that issue alone would have turned the American Government into a public shambles, in the midst of the Berlin crisis.
He concludes that under those circumstances, the nation was lucky to have two such men as Mr. Rayburn and Senator Johnson leading the Democratic majorities in Congress, and, caucus or no caucus, he wishes them good luck.
Robert C. Ruark, in Palamos, Spain, indicates that his enthusiasm for Boris Pasternak, who had authored Doctor Zhivago, had never quite managed to reach a seething and bubbling point and continued to dwindle with the recent uproar regarding his bootlegged poem. He finds that if Mr. Pasternak had been anything other than Russian, he would swear that the furor over him and his Nobel Prize-winning novel was nothing more than a cleverly conceived and masterfully executed stroke of publicity designed to peddle a book, through which he says he could not make it half-way and would wager had not been completely read by 95 percent of the people who had bought it just to be fashionable.
If Mr. Pasternak had not jumped, or been pushed, into a refusal to accept the Nobel Prize, his novel would have been in translation for a very select few wishful highbrows who professed to see profound sermons in unbearably unwieldy stones. Mr. Pasternak had constantly bleated about his great love for his native land, but he had beat the brains out of his native land regarding its current situation and had enlisted the world's sympathy as a brave man speaking his mind against the Soviet monster. But as far as Mr. Ruark could read, all he had done was to bootleg his book first and his poem second amid a furious whimpering as he backed off from his stand.
The book had not been published in Russia and until the publicity had come along, the Russians seemed to think quite kindly of Mr. Pasternak, having installed him in a respectable country villa, or dacha, "and if he had a wine cellar to fit all the various sizes of glasses which I saw on a photo of his dining table, the inner man of Pasternak was not suffering—at least not below the gullet."
Mr. Pasternak had frequently said that he did not know that his book was loaded and that all he had wanted to do was to be let alone to brood. But he wrote a poem, once again knocking his native land, and gave it to a British newspaperman to smuggle out of the country, and then wailed that he was betrayed.
Mr. Ruark personally wishes that Mr. Pasternak would stop moaning about invasion of privacy while simultaneously providing interviews and making magazine covers. He suggests that if his hassle with the Soviet Writers Union still continued, perhaps he could smuggle himself down the back stairs and make it to a border if things were so touchy around his dacha. He suggests that the Soviets might even supply him with a passport to leave, to get him off the free list of subsidized writers.
Instead of impressing Mr. Ruark as a self-starting martyr, Mr. Pasternak reminded him of a man who wrote a lot of foolish love letters and then seemed painfully surprised to hear them read aloud in court. But one way or the other he wished that he would make up his mind whether he loved his land or hated it badly enough to die for the privilege. He had become weary with the book, the author, the Soviet Writers Union and the Soviet Government, and would bet that a close poll among Nobel Prize winners would show a similar reaction. He suspects that there were times when they wished they might have chosen another author with less flair for personal publicity, more definite defense of his work and few cutglass goblets on his simple table in his simple hut.
A letter writer comments on an article in the newspaper on March 5 on studying one's automobile insurance policy, indicating that the article had used a West Virginia policy to indicate that no medical benefits would be available to an insured whose car wheel would fall on him. He indicates that the standard family automobile policy in North Carolina would pay all reasonable expenses, medical, surgical, funeral, etc., for injuries caused by accident while occupying or being struck by an automobile. He finds that in the example used, the car had struck the man if the wheel pinned his hands down and that companies in the state would pay without any court action.
But what if the jack had fallen by some untoward action of a malefactor with malice aforethought?
A letter writer agrees with a prior letter writer that "Catholic dictators" ought remain in Spain, Cuba and South America, and not come to the U.S. "Everyone knows the Catholic Church is nothing but a political machine with a pagan religious doctrine and it is a fact that they do not believe in religious freedom. Of course, they believe in religious liberation when they are a minority such as they are in America until they gain control." She wants God to save the country from having a president who was bound to Rome, and indicates that the highest office in the land should be a symbol of freedom. She suggests that the seventh grade student, who had responded originally to the letter, should go further back than the history of the U.S. and study the general history of Europe, taking a look at Spain and Colombia. "Do the Protestant people have the freedom the Catholic Church has? Hardly."
We don't know what the hell she's talking about in that latter statement but she apparently thinks that she does.
A letter writer from Hendersonville responds to an article in the newspaper on March 4 which stated that the financial problems of the aged were getting more attention, indicating that he could attest to the correctness of that statement, as he was 84 years old and his Social Security had been raised from $30 to $33 and his old age assistance reduced from $29 to $26 with no warning or reason provided.
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