The Charlotte News
Saturday, April 11, 1959
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page
reports from Tokyo that Communist China had disclosed this date that
anti-Communist Chinese were fighting beside Tibetan rebels and
admitted that the revolt still seethed in the Himalayan kingdom.
Peiping Radio claimed only that the uprising had been crushed in the
area of Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, and said that Communist troops
were "now proceeding successfully to put down the armed
rebellion in other places." The Chinese Nationalist Government
on Formosa said that about 100,000 Tibetan nomads, sword-wielding
Goloks, had joined the revolt in the north. The broadcast said that
the large quantity of arms seized in fighting the Tibetan rebels had
proved that they were helped by anti-Communist Chinese still fighting
in the old Sikang Province of China, which bordered Tibet in the
southwest along the Yangtze River, a wild, mountainous region with
ranges surging sharply up to 24,900 feet and separated by canyon-like
gorges. The disclosure that the rebels in that region, possibly
remnants of Chiang Kai-shek's army on the mainland, had been taking
part in the Tibetan rebellion had come in a report to the Chinese
Communist Central Committee. Chang Kuo-ha, one of the top Communist
Chinese experts in trying to convert Tibet to Communism, was quoted
as saying, "The upper strata of reactionaries in Tibet are
closely linked with the rebels in the former Sikang Province (now
part of Communist Szechwan)." Chang said that the fugitive
Republicans, preparing for the 1960
campaigns, this date had elected Senator Thruston Morton of Kentucky
as national chairman and had decided to hold their presidential
nominating convention in Chicago. Senator Morton, 51, a supporter of
President Eisenhower and friend of Vice-President Nixon, had been
chosen without opposition to succeed the retiring RNC chairman, Meade
Alcorn of Connecticut. The national committee had approved Chicago
for the convention, to start July 25, 1960, almost immediately after
a site selection committee had recommended that city over five others
bidding for the convention. It would take the Republican Party back
to Chicago, where, 100 years earlier, in 1860, it had nominated
Abraham Lincoln for the presidency. (If you nominate Mr. Nixon, don't
expect a repeat of history for your party
Julian Scheer of The News reports that according to Charles Rhyne, a Mecklenburg County native and former president of the American Bar Association, the first giant step toward getting the nations of the world to seek peace through law rested squarely on the shoulders of the U.S., that the concept of a rule of law of the world to replace a rule of terror "can spread like wildfire", provided the United States knocked out the Connally Reservation, named for former Texas Senator Tom Connally, which limited U.S. participation in the U.N. International Court of Justice at The Hague, amending the U.S. ratification of the U.N. Charter in 1945 to bar the Court's jurisdiction over domestic matters as determined by the United States. Mr. Rhyne, had told newsmen the previous day and attorneys from ten Southeastern states and the District of Columbia, the previous night, of the consequences of the Reservation. Mr. Rhyne headed the ABA's Special Committee on World Peace through Law, and hoped that meetings such as the two-day session ending this date at the Barringer Hotel in Charlotte would arouse public sentiment throughout the world in favor of international law to solve world problems. He said that the Suez situation of 1956 had actually been "a legal matter" and that law might have offered a solution to the crisis. He pointed to the current Berlin crisis as possibly another case in which an opinion by the International Court of Justice could be sought. He pointed out that the International Court, however, had not been effective, as most of the major nations did not accept it as a court where cases could be tried.
Regional conferences on the theme "World Peace through Law" were being held in Boston, Dallas, Chicago, San Francisco, in addition to Charlotte. Mr. Rhyne said that he hated to admit it, but it was true that Charlotte had been selected for personal reasons of his own. He wanted to hold a meeting in his home bailiwick and had brought his family with him. He had traveled a quarter of a million miles in his role as president of the ABA and was a goodwill ambassador for the state. He said that everywhere he went, whether in Russia, Manila, or India, he had met North Carolinians who had come up to him and said hello, all marveling at his North Carolina accent. He said that, having lived so long outside the area, he had not realized that he still sounded like a North Carolinian.
In Mooresville, N.C., it was reported that two youths of the town had been shot early this date during a break-in at a service station three miles north of the town. The Iredell County sheriff had identified the wounded youths as being a 20-year old male and a 19-year old male. The sheriff said that the owner and operator of the service station had fired six times at the two after they had removed the air-conditioning unit from a window and started into the store. The owner, who had been the victim of four break-ins during the previous year, had been sleeping in the store at the time. The older of the two youths had been felled by a bullet which had entered his abdomen, and was taken to a hospital where his condition was listed this date as critical. The other youth had fled and walked about two miles to his girlfriend's house where he was picked up by law enforcement. He was wounded in the leg by a bullet which had entered his thigh and gone through his leg. Burglary charges against both youths were pending. The break-in had occurred in the wee hours this date and the owner said that he heard a noise and had gone into the room of the store where the break-in had occurred. He said that the youths had an iron pipe which he thought was a gun and so he opened fire with his .38-caliber police special. One of the youths fell immediately when he opened fire and the other had run.
Bob Slough of The News reports that the Charlotte Fire Chief, Donald Charles, had said that four new fire stations would be needed to provide adequate fire protection for property in the area to be annexed to the city on January 1, 1960, indicating that plans for the new stations ought be initiated as soon after annexation as possible. He had made the proposals in his annual report to City Manager Henry Yancey, including new stations in the Thomasboro, Woodlawn, Sharon-Amity and Shamrock perimeter sections. His proposals were based on the recommendations of the National Board of Fire Underwriters. He said that any delay in providing the protection would jeopardize the first-class insurance rating which the city presently enjoyed.
A report indicates that the first
week of publication of The News in the plant of
the Charlotte Observer, had gone "much more
smoothly than we had expected," according to Brodie Griffith,
editor of the newspaper. The newspaper had been purchased the prior
Sunday from Thomas L. Robinson by the Knight Publishing Co., also
owners of the Observer. This date was the sixth
day that the newspaper had been printed in a plant six blocks removed
from the news department, according to Mr. Griffith, and the staff
had been delighted with the results. He said it could be attributed
to the painstaking preparation and untiring efforts by personnel of
the Observer's mechanical departments. He
particularly praised Ron White, the Observer's
production manager, who had planned and supervised the movement of
the News production operations to the Observer,
and Frank White, the Observer's composing room
foreman in charge of the transition in that area. Mr. Griffith said
that News executives had received much favorable
public reaction to the "superior appearance of The
News since we began printing the paper on the magnificent
presses of The Charlotte Observer. And on Monday
we have something coming out in The News which
would have been impossible on The News' old
press, affectionately known as 'the Old Lady'
We can't tell no difference, 'ceptin' maybe that there's even less news of any account on the front page, already increasingly a problem for some time.
In Grand Tower, Ill., it was reported that a visit with a bearded hermit, who had built his own house and made his own shoes and ground his own corn with a homemade mill fashioned from two pieces of limestone, was like stepping back into the previous century. The man, 61, had lived alone for 15 years in a wooded area near the Mississippi River in southwestern Illinois, with no road to the clearing where he had constructed a one-room log house. The bearded woodsman had few complaints, but suffered a shortage of flax thread, which he used to make his shoes from discarded tire casings. Cotton thread did not wear well, he said. He had built his heavy grindstone mill for corn, which he grew in the clearing. He grew most of his food and anything else he needed, thread, tobacco or lard, he got by bartering with his neighbors. He said that he did not remember the last time he had gone to town. He received no pension relief money, but once in awhile traded a few hours of work for a distant neighbor for a few things from Grand Tower, a town of less than 1,000 people. His house was the work of a 19th Century craftsman, having learned woodworking as a boy and having been employed in a sawmill until 1910, not far from where he presently lived.
In San Francisco, it was reported that a bank guard had found a note which read, "You are very cute, but I'm afraid I'll have to take all the money." The would-be robber apparently had gotten cold feet and fled, leaving the note on the floor, it having not been determined for which teller the note had been intended.
In Sacramento, it was reported that fishermen were seeing something strange in a lake near the city, a five-foot alligator, having no idea how it had gotten there. The zoo director of Sacramento had suggested to the fishermen that they wait until they saw the alligator on the bank sunning and then "just grab him by the tail and tie him up."
In Chicago, it was reported that the keeper of the Brookfield Zoo was looking for eels for seals, a pair of harp seals having arrived recently from Newfoundland, which would not eat fish, clams, or squid, with the zoo director indicating that they therefore needed live grass eels.
In Elizabethton, Tenn., it was reported that when a woman had sought help to evict a skunk living beneath her home, a police officer had tossed a teargas bomb under the house, after which the skunk had remained but the woman and her children had to evacuate.
In Redondo Beach, Calif., as shown
in a photograph and accompanying caption, a group of 13 first-graders
had established a "world record" by fitting into a
standard-size hula hoop. Look at what the nation's youth are coming
to… Is it any wonder that they would grow up to be the younger part of the
"Woodstock Generation"?
On the editorial page, "The Necessary Instrument of Progress" finds that the state had a moral responsibility as well as a practical stake in the establishment of a state minimum wage law. Even the currently proposed 75-cent measure, barely hanging on in the State House, would help tens of thousands of state residents out of despair. House action on the legislation already resembled a chart of atoms at work, political particles having been constantly breaking off from one nucleus to join another in both the committees and on the floor. The bill had squeaked out of the Labor Committee by only the margin of the chairman's tie-breaking vote, and was later subjected to a barrage of amendments and attempted amendments during floor debate, which was both unmanaged and unmanageable.
A series of exemptions had been added which ran the gamut from bowling alley pin boys to babysitters, some, it finds no doubt justifiable, while some were plainly ridiculous. It had been obvious from the beginning that minimum-wage advocates would have to bend some to establish the principle of wage floors, with the larger triumphs worth the pretzel-shaped designs in their social consciences.
It finds that large barriers still lay ahead, and that the previous day's bitter rearguard action which delayed the final reading in the House for four days, had given everyone, as observed by Representative Watts Hill, Jr., of Durham, a chance to lobby except those most affected by the legislation, who could not afford lobbyists.
It finds that North Carolinians had to depend on the honor and integrity of their elected representatives on this vital issue as on all others, and it suggests that most already realized that the legislation was a fair, sound, carefully reasoned and necessary instrument of progress which could help obtain higher purchasing power for the people, increase per capita income and build a healthier, more prosperous economic future for the state as a whole.
"Make Umstead's Present Really Count" indicates that Raleigh legislators had a good time during the House celebration of Representative John W. Umstead's 70th birthday. He had been liberally kissed by female House clerks and then had received a present from fellow delegates, tied with the wrappings of 86 signatures.
The gift was a bill to authorize the State Hospitals Board of Control to build and operate a school for retarded children. Representative Umstead was chairman of the Hospitals Board and the training facility had been his key project. With 86 supporting signatures, the veteran Orange County leader could battle for his school with imposing strength, with the only deterrent being its cost.
The 4.5 million dollar plant for the western region was offered as a substitute for the proposed new legislature building, the cost of which was estimated to be the same amount. Despite the House strength offered, the champion for the retarded and mentally ill was bucking one of the pet projects of Governor Luther Hodges, whose conviction was firm that the Legislature's physical expansion was a dire need, as it was.
Nevertheless, it sides with Representative Umstead when it came to the most pressing case, the mentally ill of the state, who had received shabby treatment for too long, with the few state facilities for training and care jammed, only to become worse.
It believes that a headcount of present legislators would show that the training school appropriation would pass, but that there would be an inevitable delay. But if the Legislature was sincere in its best wishes to the Representative, it would be able to endure confined legislative conditions to help the mentally ill.
"Get Thee Hence; We Want Helicopters" indicates that while Charlotte had been imagining having a helicopter service, a Winston-Salem man, Thomas Davis, president of Piedmont Airlines, had tried to crash-land the vision into reality, as he believed that area helicopter service was still 5 to 6 years away.
Piedmont apparently had more than token interest in the area, and Mr. Davis had allowed that he would do more than dabble "when we think it can be made into a paying proposition." He pointed out that only New York, Chicago and Los Angeles had helicopter services and that those were subsidized by the Federal Government for carrying mail.
"Bah and junebug, Mr. Davis.
Take your pessimistic viewpoint and depart. We'll have none of that
around here." It indicates that Charlotte would have the "flying
barbershop fans
"See, Mr. Davis? These are but a few possible flights. Just wait until the boys at the Chamber of Commerce put their minds to work. We're only amateurs."
"Jazz in Church: A Provocative
Effort" suggests that the jazz experiment at a Norwalk, Conn.,
Sunday service had provided an interesting omen. The curious had
jammed an Episcopal church to hear the Russ Martino Quartet play at
the service and heard the "Twentieth Century Folk Mass"
Reaction had been mixed, with the comments ranging from "fine" to "like a cocktail party". The Reverend Anthony Treasure, the rector of the church, explained that it was an attempt to translate ancient liturgy into a contemporary setting. The composer, Geoffrey Beaumont, an English vicar, had written his jazz mass after being told that most church music was foreign to the majority of church-goers.
It finds it unfortunate, but true, that most of the world's great music had been written for the church, that there were full symphonic arrangements for the chancel, and that even the dance had once been an interpretive medium for religious services.
There were several local churches which emphasized fine music, but regarding any educational process, any church services were only affording weekly exposure. It finds the biggest fault with Protestant musicianship to be the steady hymnbook decline. The "familiar" tunes were couched in difficult, archaic scoring, and lyrics often consisted of outdated platitudes. It advocates for reform, not merely modernization or domestication, but creation of timeless additions to the repertoire of church presentations. It suspects that transient jazz was not the answer, but wagers that no one had nodded during that service.
Don't worry, within a little more than a decade will come the rock operas centering around the Bible, making it all relevant once again to the young and impressionable, while ensuring big box office to the producers of same on and off Broadway.
A piece from the Reporter, titled "Short and Long Division", indicates that listening to the President's recent television broadcasts, it had noticed the statement, "In global totals our friends are contributing over 200 ground divisions … to the task of defending the free world." It had found the statement reassuring, but had also had its curiosity piqued as to how that round figure had come to be.
A man from their Washington office had gone to the White House where he was told that the figure of "200 divisions" was "always" used for that purpose and that a further breakdown would have to go through the Pentagon. There, their reporter was told that any breakdown would trespass on the area of "classified information", but the reporter was once again reassured that the number 200 was "always" used and was official.
Unaccustomed as it was to military intelligence work, it found it nevertheless incumbent on them to sit down with pencil and paper, a few newspaper clippings and a couple of standard reference books, to total the figures as much as they could. But no matter how hard they tried, they could not hit the 200 number. If they took only the divisions of those countries with which the U.S. had close and reliable alliances, it fell far short, and if it counted the police and armies of all countries with which the U.S. had some type or other of mutual defense pacts, it came out far too many.
"So we soon gave up this particular numbers game. Any reader who has a penchant for puzzles can continue on his own. We shall only remind him that if he arrives at either more or less than 200 divisions, he has made a mistake somewhere. For remember, that number is official."
Drew Pearson had written this date's column earlier from Mexico City, which had been included on his recent tour of the Caribbean, indicating that the best and stablest friend which the U.S. had around the approaches of the Panama Canal was Mexico. It did not mean that Mexicans could not be very vocal in their criticism of the United States, not living up to the Listerine ad that "not even your best friend will tell you." They did tell the U.S. what they thought, but primarily, Mexico had become more stable, more confident in itself and more friendly than any other southern neighbor.
At present, Mexico was one of the few countries in the world where foreign capital not only could be invested but could also be withdrawn without restriction, except in the petroleum, transportation and soft drink industries. It was easy enough to put money into most countries, but quite tough to take it out. That was not the case in Mexico, as capital could be removed or profits taken out at any time the investor wanted. The result had been 1.7 billion dollars of foreign capital invested in Mexico, of which 78.8 percent came from the U.S., plus a steady, healthy growth of local industry. That had helped to make Mexico City the biggest in all of Latin America, larger than Buenos Aires or Rio de Janeiro, close behind Chicago as the third largest city in the Western Hemisphere.
Mexico was also one of the few places outside the U.S. where a person could go from rags to riches, as had, for example, Cesar Balsa, the former hotel bellhop in Barcelona, Spain, who presently owned five hotels in Mexico. Migrating to Mexico a little over a decade earlier, Sr. Balsa now owned the El President hotels in Mexico City and Acapulco, plus three others, and would soon operate the Maria Isabel, the latter being a 600-room palace being built by Simon Patino, the Bolivian tin magnate, in honor of his daughter of that name. Sr. Patino was financing the project, the largest hotel in Latin America, and would lease it to Sr. Balso, the son of a hotel barber in Barcelona, who had begun life as a bellhop and now operated the largest hotel chain in Mexico. Increasing numbers of American conventions were coming to Mexico and Sr. Balsa had already booked conventions for 1961.
The real reason for Mexico's present bustling system of free enterprise was that the revolution presently convulsing Cuba had hit Mexico 40 years earlier, with a whole series of revolutions having churned the country at that time, involving expropriated American ranches and oil companies, upsetting of the reigning oligarchy, quarreling with the Catholic Church and subjecting the country to an upheaval not unlike the Russian Revolution of 1917. That upheaval had now settled down to a one-party, slightly left of center Government which leaned toward labor and had not seen a revolution in years.
Joseph Alsop indicates that among the small number of Americans who were aware of the factors in the problem, there was nearly breathless excitement regarding the rebellion in Tibet, which they believed could shake the Chinese Communist regime more profoundly than the rebellion in Hungary had shaken the Soviet regime in 1956. Everything depended on whether the Communist Chinese Government could swiftly drown Tibet in blood, as had the Soviets in Hungary. If that would occur, the rebellion would only reveal to Asia the ruthlessness of Chinese Communist imperialism. Judging by Indian Premier Nehru's reaction, however, the Asians were more likely to be intimidated than indignant.
The war-like Khambas of eastern Tibet had already maintained their rebellion for two years and the attack on the Dalai Lama was likely to inspire the tribes of northern and western Tibet to join them. The odds seemed to be against prompt suppression of the rebellion by the simple technique of human massacre, and if the rebellion, which had simmered for about two years, actually continued for another year, it was questionable as to what would occur.
Geography was the only reason for the grave question existing as a question, as geography not only provided the tough Tibetan mountaineers an inestimable advantage over the better-armed Chinese soldiers, who were not accustomed to a country with lowlands 14,000 feet above sea level. Much more serious, geography also considerably multiplied the cost of maintaining adequate Chinese anti-guerrilla forces in Tibet. The Chinese armies presently in the country had been much exaggerated, not numbering many more than 60,000, though now being hastily strengthened. They could suppress the rebellion by the following fall at the latest, if they could prevent the rebels from planting their summer crops in Tibet's limited area of arable valley land. But 120,000 men was a conservative estimate of the total force which would be needed for that kind of summer campaign should the rebellion not collapse in the meantime.
In such anti-guerrilla operations, many of the guerrilla-chasers would have to be widely dispersed in small packets, unavoidably requiring air supply from Lhasa and other Tibetan centers, causing the requirement of an additional need for some transport aircraft and aviation fuel. With supporting aircraft, the fuel for the planes, their own ammunition and their food, forces numbering 120,000 in Tibet would also need a minimum of 10,000 tons of supplies each month, the minimum tonnage required after a wide allowance made for the Chinese soldiers' knack of doing much with little.
The tonnage of supply might seem trivial, he remarks, until one took a look at the best of the available supply routes, consisting of the new military road running from Lanchow in northwest China through the barren wastes of Tsinghai and across many terrible mountain passes to Lhasa. No road in the world traversed such threatening terrain, ideally suited to guerrilla attacks on convoys, and the length of the road was close to 1,200 miles. Furthermore, a truck setting out from Lanchow to Lhasa could not carry any more supplies if it carried its own fuel for the round-trip. Thus, the convoys of military supply trucks had to be sustained by great numbers of additional trucks to establish wayside fuel depots. Considering the character of Chinese transports, 10,000 trucks was a fair minimum estimate of the overall number needed to provide 10,000 tons of supplies per month in Tibet, which could not be accomplished through coolies, as there was no food along the road and the A-frame brigades could not even carry their own rice requirement out of Lanchow.
In addition, the minimum required 10,000 trucks amounted to nearly a quarter of the entire road transport capacity of Communist China. Fuel for transport, air transport and road transport constituted the three most critical shortages in China at present. A prolonged and obstinate rebellion in Tibet would impose an increasingly unbearable strain on all three critical areas of shortage. And that strain would come just when Communist China's morale and resources were already strained to the utmost by the vast upheaval of the communes program.
He finds that certain results were easily predictable. The inhuman difficulties of the communes program would be at least doubled by continuing rebellion in Tibet and the difficulties between Russia and China would also be increased as Russia would surely be asked to help. If the Tibetan rebellion was long in process, the equation could produce a far more startling result, as the strain of the communes plus the strain of Tibet could imaginably equal a general explosion.
"This sounds like daydreaming, and at this stage it is daydreaming. But it is sometimes useful to contemplate the other side's troubles, when the Western alliance has so many troubles of its own."
Robert C. Ruark, in London, indicates that when and if New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller signed a new law, teachers would be permitted physically to chastise teenage pupils, "using reasonable force in a moderate degree." He had also come across a survey of Pearl River, N.Y., which said that high school students were wistfully inattentive in the morning because they did not know how to eat breakfast.
The primary argument regarding the bill in question, which had passed the Assembly and the State Senate the previous year but had been vetoed by former Governor Averell Harriman, dealt with the degree of force to be used. Whether the bill might define a slap, a rap over the knuckles with a ruler or a stout beating with a hickory stick as "moderate force" remained to be seen.
Mr. Ruark believes that the haggling begged the point, for judging from what he had heard of the conduct of some of the youths who considered school as workshops for zip guns and verdant fields for armed blackmail, the average teacher ought enroll at the nearest gym for a swift series of lessons in jujitsu. He does not advocate "Teach" packing a rod but believes that a pair of brass knuckles and certainly a stout sapling might prove handy in maintaining order in the classroom, that a stout baseball bat might be a suitable weapon, or even better, "the saloon keeper's favorite shillelagh, a sawed-off pool cue."
He says that he was raised "rough and salty. A noggin of Jamaica rum, neat, got me out of bed, and a slab of salt horse and one weekly biscuit was enough to have me standing whale-watch in the cross-trees before I jumped ship and swam 10 miles to school every day. It is needless to say that I was the teacher's pet, and she allowed me to sleep until noon, knowing full well I'd make up the homework as we dallied after school over a pipe of dry canary. Maybe I was the only kid in the eighth grade with a full beard, but Gad, sir, they don't raise children the way they used to."
Wethinks he exaggerates a mite.
A letter writer from New York indicates that sound money meant more to more people than any other issue presently before the nation, that 115 million life insurance policy owners were ready to listen to a call for action to protect their loved ones. He suggests that the fumbling fiscal policies had carried more than halfway toward disastrous inflation and it had to be solved quickly. He suggests to the President that the people did not want a "ten-cent dollar" and that he ought veto every bill which would needlessly hurt life insurance policy owners, holders of government bonds, Social Security cards and company pensions.
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