The Charlotte News
Monday, April 13, 1959
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from Geneva that the U.S. and Britain had asked the Soviet Union to agree to a prompt controlled suspension of nuclear testing on or near the surface of the earth, leaving the problem of other types of blasts for later negotiations. Informants had said that the proposal provided for splitting up the test suspension problem. It had been advanced as the three-power talks resumed after an Easter recess. The first Soviet reaction was reported to be negative. Under the new Western plan, agreement would be reached at once on banning surface hydrogen and atomic nuclear testing, that which had caused dangerous radioactive fallout. Such an agreement would not cover very high altitude and underground atomic and hydrogen weapons detonations, which would be difficult to police in any event and could be covered in subsequent agreements reached after the first problem had been solved. U.S. Ambassador James Wadsworth and British Minister of State David Ormsby-Gore had proposed dividing the nuclear problem into two parts, with the idea of obtaining quick agreement on the types of testing easiest to detect and which posed the greatest risk to the world's health. The sources pointed out that the U.S. and Britain would prefer an agreement covering the entire range of testing, but that the Western powers had recognized that the current conference, which had begun its deliberations the prior October 31, was presently bogged down on East-West differences regarding controls. Presumably, the limited agreement presently suggested as a first step would require less elaborate policing arrangements than a total ban. The Western powers, however, wanted foolproof controls built into any type of agreement which they would sign.
Secretary of State Dulles, returning unexpectedly from a Florida rest to a hospital room, had undergone intensive new medical checks this date in his battle against cancer. An unexpected visit from the President during the day might bring a decision on how long Mr. Dulles would remain in his position. The President was reported to be deeply concerned about the Secretary's continuing illness. A high Republican official said that the President was informed several days earlier that Mr. Dulles had not responded to treatment as well as had been hoped. The President had arranged his 24-hour return to the capital to keep a series of engagements made before he had gone to Augusta, Ga., for a golfing vacation. White House press secretary James Hagerty said that he assumed that the President would add a visit with the Secretary to his schedule. The 71-year old Secretary, a world-renowned figure in diplomatic battles against the Soviet Union for the prior six years, had re-entered the hospital the previous afternoon. Looking haggard and considerably underweight, Mr. Dulles had cut short his Florida rest to undergo a new complete checkup to determine what could be done to arrest his cancer. Mr. Dulles had returned to Washington only a few hours after the State Department had said "it is now desirable he have a period of further medical observation." Many of the worried aides had glumly reported that barring a medical miracle, Mr. Dulles probably would have to set aside the foreign policy chores he loved so dearly. The President was understood to be holding off any decision until the doctors had completed their new series of tests on the Secretary. The President was reported to be still hopeful that Mr. Dulles could serve at least as special advisor during the Big Four foreign ministers conference on Germany, scheduled to begin in Geneva on May 11.
In Indianapolis, it was reported that the woman on trial for murdering her former married lover, had completed her testimony this date in tears, telling the jury that her playboy lover had been killed as she had drawn her small revolver to shoot herself. After the prosecution had completed its cross-examination in only 16 minutes, her defense counsel got her to pin down the motion she had made with her gun in the man's white Cadillac. She replied that she had pointed it toward herself and told him that she would not be around to bother him anymore, wishing to scare him by the fact that she would kill herself in his car. When asked whether she was afraid of more beatings, she said that she was afraid because the man had struck her and had thrown her across the seat of the car. The deputy prosecutor, on recross, asked her whether it was the first time he had beaten her, and she said that it was. She had wept as the jury filed out for a recess at the end of her testimony. As she returned to defense counsel's table, she sighed that it had been an ordeal, that she had a cold, something she seldom had, and that her throat was very sore. Regarding why she had left the scene of the shooting, she had told the prosecutor during cross-examination that she thought that her former lover was following her in his car when she had driven to a secluded riverbank to swallow 75 sleeping pills after the shooting the previous July 31, that she had then become more frightened and wanted to get away. The prosecutor had also elicited from her a repeat of some of the financial details she had given regarding her 15-year affair with the deceased, a married executive, and again she said that he had given her $2,800 in 1957 for the rent of an apartment and to pay off a car loan, and $1,200 in 1958 for rent. She testified that she weighed 105 pounds and measured 5'1" in height.
In Raleigh, Governor Luther Hodges predicted this date that the Legislature would fashion its own program for court reform, accepting part of two different plans. The Governor had told his weekly press conference that he felt confident that the lawmakers would make a start on revitalizing the courts, although they might not go as far as the study groups had recommended. In reply to questions, the Governor said that he had found no indication as yet that a special legislative session would be necessary to handle court reform and constitutional revision bills. Court proposals had been prepared by a committee of the North Carolina Bar Association and by a Constitutional Study Commission, which had also drafted other proposed changes to the State Constitution. Both plans involved amendments to the Constitution. The Governor pointed out that the Legislature could either submit to the people a broad constitutional amendment for court reform, to be implemented later, or a more detailed amendment, covering changes to be made in the court system. A broad amendment, to be implemented perhaps two or three years hence, would be easier to handle, according to the Governor. A news reporter said that he had heard some legislators saying anent court and constitutional measures that they wanted "to kill the whole thing and be done with it". The Governor called that "a dangerous attitude to take", that he had detected the feeling of "let's make a start" on court reform, although the first steps might be only small. The Governor had been asked if he felt that the Legislature would pick one or the other of the court plans and he said that they would make their own, taking some of both. He had started the press conference by pointing out two significant events of the previous week, the opening of a large art exhibition at the State Art Museum in Raleigh, honoring its first director, and the opening of the restored Tryon Palace in New Bern, both reflecting credit, he said, on the state. Regarding legislative matters, the Governor said that he would have preferred final House action on a minimum wage bill the previous week, rather than a delay over the weekend. He expressed, however, confidence that the postponement would not hold up passage of the measure. The Governor said that he did not expect final figures on state income tax collections, due April 15, until the first week in May. He indicated that he did not favor a bill, introduced by State Representative Marcellus Buchanan of Jackson County, to provide four additional special Superior Court judges and to make them elected rather than appointed by the governor. He said that it ought to be more flexible and saw no need for an increase in the number of Superior Court judges.
John Kilgo of The News reports that sometimes it did not pay to get out of bed, as had been discovered by a couple of Charlotte. A City police officer had called the situation "the strangest thing I've ever seen." The man of the couple was on his way to work on Friday morning when a car had stopped in front of him at an intersection to make a left turn. He had stopped also, but the car behind him had not, plowing into the rear of his car. The officer had witnessed the collision and he walked over and made his investigation without getting a call. He charged the female driver of the trailing car with following too closely. He said he was just winding up his investigation when he heard another crash, turned around and looked, and not more than 100 feet away, there was another wreck. Only 17 minutes had elapsed between the collisions, and he walked over to handle his investigation of the second wreck, in which a man had run into the back of a woman's car. She had stopped while a car in front of her was making a left turn. The officer looked at the driver's license of the woman and realized it was the wife of the man who had been involved in the first collision. He charged the man who had hit her car with following too closely. The wife said this date that she could not believe it at first, that while she was out there, a little patrol boy had walked up to her and said for her not to worry, that it was just a day for wrecks, that they just had another one nearby. The boy had then discovered that her husband was involved in the other wreck and returned and gave her some advice: "Lady, do you have any children that are old enough to drive? If you do, how about keeping them home the rest of the day?" The woman said that she called her husband at work and told him that she had a wreck just like his, and he had not believed her at first, thought she was pulling his leg. But she told him that she could show him the car with some blue paint on it and he started to believe her. She thought it was funny at present, but it had not been at the time. "I tell you one thing, I went home and stayed there the rest of the day."
In Charlotte, a cold front which had changed April showers into chill rains of winter had given spring a soggy taste this date. Although little more rain was expected, the ground was soft under the weight of the heaviest downpour in months. From Saturday morning through midnight the previous night, 1.82 inches of rain had been recorded at the Weather Bureau station at Municipal Airport in Charlotte. It had brought the monthly precipitation to 2.4 inches. The cold front, which had passed over the city early the previous morning, had tried to nudge the thick cloud masses, but for the previous day, the previous night and during the current morning, the clouds appeared present to stay. Partial clearing was anticipated during the current afternoon and evening, but skies would remain partly cloudy through the following day, with a high of 49, 12 above the 37 of this morning, predicted for this date and a low of 36 and a high of 58 for the following day.
Emery Wister of The News
reports that the Pepsi-Cola Co., which had its beginnings with a pharmacist in New Bern, would erect a multi-million dollar
plant for manufacture of soft drink syrup on the North Carolina coast
sometime during the current year. Plans for the project had been
announced in Charlotte this date by Pepsi-Cola president Herbert
Barnet and chairman of the board Alfred Steele, at a meeting of
Carolinas Pepsi-Cola bottlers. The executives had not said how much
the plant would cost or where it would be located. They did say that
it would be erected adjacent to one of the several large sugar plants
on the coast and that it would employ several hundred persons. They
would open the plant the following year and company executives were
presently looking for a site. The plant would serve bottlers in the
Carolinas and Virginias and would be the company's fourth
syrup-producing facility in the country, constructed because of the
tremendous growth in business which the company had enjoyed in the
area. The executives were on a swing of company offices, conducting
"Ad-O-Rama" sessions, in which advertising and marketing
sessions were held. The meeting in Charlotte was being held at the
Barringer Hotel and would last through the following day. Mr. Steele
was the husband of actress Joan Crawford, and she had accompanied him
to Charlotte but had been confined to her bed by illness this date.
You go down there and demand your free Pepsis, or tell them that you
will not attend the next Joan Crawford movie
A photograph on the page shows Alan Robert Nye, the soldier-of-fortune convicted of a plot to kill Fidel Castro, greeting his mother at the airport in Chicago after he had been freed on condition that he leave Cuba. He could be in more trouble as he allegedly had admitted setting fire to three F-51 fighter planes in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., after learning that the planes were to go to Cuba.
Whether any Spanish guitars
In Denver, it was reported that the U.S. used 170 billion gallons of fresh water daily for industrial, domestic, and irrigation purposes, about four times as much as it had 50 years earlier. Don't forget that fact, as there will be a test on it later.
In Flint, Mich., it was reported that many retiring employees went home with a wristwatch as a token of a job well done after their last day on the job. A man, who had retired after 41 years with the Buick division of General Motors, had gone home with a two-ton lathe which he had used for nearly 30 years. He bought the lathe from Buick for $62, after the firm had purchased it originally for $3,414 in 1929. The retired auto worker planned to put the lathe in his garage, saying, "I just want the pleasure of owning it and looking at it."
In Ceres, Calif., it was reported
that a man named Filbert Brazil had petitioned the Superior Court to
change his name to Gilbert Brazil, because he was fed up after 44
years of listening to corny jokes about nuts
In Garden Grove, Calif., it was reported that the wife of actor Lash LaRue had socked him with the phone after he had hit her during an argument. Then, according to police officers, Mr. LaRue's sister-in-law had clobbered him with a mop. After five stitches in his scalp, he had been booked at the police station on suspicion of assault, battery and disturbing the peace.
In Cape Elizabeth, Me., it was reported that a bowl of chili had blown up the previous day and set fire to a barge. Authorities said that the chili, which had erupted on a hot stove, had set fire to the eating and living quarters of the crew, though no one had been injured. A fishing vessel had pulled alongside and extinguished the fire.
And insofar as the first ever four-color ad in the newspaper on page 5-A, thanks to their ability to use the Charlotte Observer's fancy-dancy color press, in the wake of the transfer a week earlier of ownership from Mr. Robinson to Knight Publishing Co., someone appears to be lying. If you want to wear grey shoes, it's okay, but don't claim they are colorful.
On the editorial page, "Third Parties: The Shore Dimly Seen" finds that, as in 1948, the rebel yells among Democrats were loudest in the Deep South. From Virginia to the Gulf, neo-Dixiecrat oratory was insistent and forbidding. Occasionally, the words were accompanied by deeds of more than ordinary significance.
Arkansas had just become the fifth state which would refuse to bind its Democratic presidential electoral slate to vote for the national party ticket in 1960. Others were Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi. Yet, those unpledged Democratic electors could only muster a maximum of 49 votes in the electoral college. (In 1960, 6 of 11 electors in Alabama would cast their ballots for Senator Harry Flood Byrd, and all eight would do so in Mississippi, despite Senator John F. Kennedy carrying Alabama by 55 to 41 percent over Vice-President Nixon, and 36 to 24 percent in Mississippi, with the plurality remainder of that state's popular vote won by the uncommitted slate.)
It finds that more states would likely be added after Democratic leaders from the South and the North would debate for another year, but that it was extremely unlikely that the strength of the dissidents would make a third party anything other than a nuisance in 1960.
It indicates that, actually, the only hope of a third party was to cheat both regular parties of a majority and thus throw the election into the House. States' righters, carrying five states, had failed to influence the election in a close 1948 race between President Truman and New York Governor Thomas Dewey. Unless the whole South could be mustered, implying wholesale desertion of the Democratic Party by such stalwarts as Senator Lyndon Johnson, Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn, Senator Richard Russell of Georgia and Governor Luther Hodges of North Carolina, chances of a hung election were quite slim.
Even if the election could be thrown into the House by such dissidents who could exercise power disproportionately to their number, it questions to whom they would turn. Since the divisive issue was civil rights, it was not likely that the Republican ticket and platform would be any more palatable than that of the Democrats. The potential penalties would also be great in Congress, where, despite liberal Democratic gains in 1959, Southern conservatives still occupied positions of power and prestige on committees. Democratic differences with the 1948 party bolters had been hastily reconciled for practical reasons. Internal insurrection could produce different results in the future.
The fact remained, however, that the two-party system was still the best arrangement for all concerned, representing, as former DNC chairman and Postmaster General under FDR, James Farley, had once observed, "the genius of our representative democracy", one party entrusted with power to carry out the will of the majority, the other, vigilant in criticism but always loyal in opposition. There were common grounds which had to be sought in both U.S. parties. The search for them involved temporizing on divisive questions but also providing time for public discussion to proceed, for information to be disseminated, for experience to accumulate and for the resolution of conflicts.
It finds that the alternative was a jumble of special interest groups which, even in a coalition, were in disagreement, and in national crises, were often too disunited to act. The U.S. had frequent experiences with third parties, most of which had been unsatisfactory. That always seemed to float on seas of discontent. While such waters were plainly present in the South of 1959, as in 1948, the shore was "dimly seen".
"Baseball's Patriots Must Be Prepared" wonders if there was a traitor who would not predict winning baseball for the Charlotte Hornets in the current season, and if so, it urges letting him be found out so that patriots would hang him by the heels from the nearest foul line. It wants no summer soldiers, only eager hands and a hard-bitten corps of volunteers to defend Griffith Park, where the baseball team played, against the enemy.
For the first time in many seasons,
the parent Washington Senators' shackles had been cast away and
Hornets management now stood largely alone. Phil Howser, the team's
manager, had turned to the community for help, and Charlotte had to
answer or expect a long, hot summer of cheering for "The Little
Rascals" or Perry Como's seasonal replacement—or perhaps listening to a bopper, a former Rascal, since deceased in an L.A. fracas, listening to a transistor radio cocked to his ear while following the hounds in search of a pair of chained escapees, or, later in the year, after the baseball season and most of the football season, following another manhunt via radio down in Mexico, on the trail of a pair of desperadoes who had driven from Kansas by way of Las Vegas before hitchhiking, to find the lost treasure in empty soda bottles, and cheeseburgers with onions
"It's not really a sport. It's hope in a cause, faith in a team and no love lost for the visitors. It's emotion, joy and despair, seasoned with the scent of hot dogs. Equality is part of it, too. The little man can star. The underdog's chance is good. Justice dusts home plate but errs like all of us."
It finds that Abner Doubleday, who invented the sport, had been correct, that it was a sorry world in which there was no baseball. The Hornets carried on a great tradition the coming Thursday night, at the first home game. "Win, lose or extra innings, there should be a thunder roll of applause to shake Magnolia Ave. by the roots. Our team will take it from there."
"The Second Battle of
Gettysburg" indicates that historically, North Carolina had a
very real heritage in the alien land of Gettysburg
But now, as the centennial of the Civil War approached, the second battle of Gettysburg had begun, with suburbia and commercialism threatening to obliterate much of the national shrine. At the entrance to the grounds from the Washington road, for example, souvenir stands, beer parlors and junkyards were entrenched. An 80-acre tract, where most of the first day's action had taken place, would be for sale as a housing development on July 1, if the National Park Service could not obtain the territory. The trouble was that the agency had run out of vital money for the acquisition. The NPS had already lost an appropriations skirmish in the House, and the Senate would hold hearings, probably during the current month, in a subcommittee.
Commercialism had infiltrated the
Yankees' lines also. Hard by the site of General George Meade's
headquarters were planned a miniature golf course and fantasy land.
On the Confederate side, General George Pickett's men, if a
reenactment
During the current fiscal year, the NPS had sought $750,000 to purchase 350 strategic acres. It had a three-year plan which would cost 2.4 million dollars, with much of the money for clearing the man-made obstructions ringing the present national property.
While it was expensive, it urges considering the money request against the 90 million dollars which the executive branch had sought for new aircraft, 15 million of which was for three jet transports.
It finds that Gettysburg deserved better treatment regarding the grounds on which men of both sides had battled valiantly, to escape a barrage of empty beer cans, discarded hotdogs and split-level service stations. It suggests that a public call to arms was in order and urges the bugler to sound "Assembly".
Harry Golden, writing in his Carolina Israelite, in a piece titled "The Sweet Sixteen Party", indicates that in his last issue he had wondered what had happened to the "Sweet Sixteen" party, regretting its loss from the American scene. Since that time, several subscribers had written to him to say that such parties were still around and that there were even special greetings cards, which he had received, which one could buy to send to the girl who was having the party. He finds that it was still a "Sixteen" party but no longer "Sweet".
Now, it was more swank, with punch and canapes, usually held in the dining room of an expensive hotel. The boys and girls were not contemporaries. His correspondents had informed him that no 16-year old girl would be found dead going out with a 16-year old boy, that she went out with a "man", a college freshman. In fact, if the "Sweet Sixteen" girl could not get a Williams or a State University freshman, there would not be any boys at the party at all.
At sixteen, the young girl had lost her sweetness. She knew about henna rinses, the use of heavy rouge and was old enough to chain smoke.
One of his correspondents had told him that she functioned at those parties as an entertainer, analyzing the girls' handwriting, saying that she found her best approach to be to ask each girl what she wanted to do when she got out of college and that 90 percent of the girls had written, "I want to be a child psychologist," but invariably had to ask how to spell "psychologist".
After the entertainment had come the
presents. There were no longer 25-cent bottles of cologne, most of
the young girls receiving a gift of jodhpurs and boots from a
specialty shop, and sometimes jewelry. Along with the spontaneity,
the kissing game had vanished from the party. In some ways he finds
it a little sad to think that the sweet sixteeners could no
longer savor the joy of being young, despite Pat Boone
Drew Pearson suggests pity for Secretary of Labor James Mitchell when the President would not agree with his policies, forcing him to do exactly the opposite of that which he was telling labor leaders. As a further result, he had not appeared before the House Ways & Means Committee the previous week when it had been considering the important bill requiring Federal standards for states to qualify for labor compensation. Privately, Mr. Mitchell was in favor of the bill, but the White House had told him to oppose it. Thus, Undersecretary of Labor James O'Connell had appeared before the Committee instead. When Representative Hale Boggs of Louisiana had inquired as to where the Secretary was, whether he was ill or indisposed, the reply was that he had a personal appointment out of town which he had made every effort to adjust to the timing of the Committee but found himself unable to do so. Later investigation, however, had shown that all day long, Secretary Mitchell was in his office just a few blocks away from the Capitol.
White House press secretary James Hagerty was quite competent 90 percent of the time, but had his low moments. Mr. Pearson finds that one such moment had been when he blasted the story by CBS reporter Daniel Schorr regarding the prospective resignation of Secretary of State Dulles as "about as low a form of reporting as I know of … about as irresponsible reporting as I know of." The blast had followed shortly after another low moment which Mr. Hagerty had experienced in the Crescent Bar in Washington when, at 1:30 a.m., he demanded service at the bar, against Federal law in the District of Columbia. One had to sit, not stand, while drinking in the nation's capital. When the manager had insisted on serving Mr. Hagerty at a table, as required by law, the latter had gone outside and come back with a police lieutenant, demanding that the latter make the manager enforce the law. Since the manager was already enforcing the law, and since Mr. Hagerty had been in Washington for six years, long enough to know it, the officer finally persuaded him to calm down and obey the law by drinking at a table.
Uncensored reports from Egypt had indicated that Premier Gamal Abdel Nasser was gnashing his teeth so vigorously over Iraq's exit from the Arab bloc that he might exit from the Communists, this time for keeps. The Premier had played Washington off against Moscow for six years, first obtaining a promise from one for the Aswan Dam, and then a promise from the other for economic aid, and then arms.
The latest development in the Near East seesaw was a move by U.S. Ambassador Raymond Hare to increase U.S. economic aid to dictator Nasser in case Russia would withdraw its support.
Joseph Alsop, in Madison, Wisc., finds that the Wisconsin Democratic primary the following year in the race for the presidential nomination would be "dark and bloody ground", where the battle would be joined long before the Los Angeles convention.
In Madison, as elsewhere in the state, there were already advanced rumblings of the conflict which lay ahead. For instance, Governor Gaylord Nelson was already nervously proclaiming that his party's Wisconsin primary would have to become a free and fair fight, with all holds barred and no unkindly feelings about the outcome. The present front-runner for the nomination, Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts, had gone into Milwaukee the prior Thursday and had been attracting capacity crowds since. The other Democratic candidate who was active, Senator Hubert Humphrey of neighboring Minnesota, was coming to the state very soon.
Those principal contestants looked eager for the fight, but were not. Senator Humphrey did not want to fight for Wisconsin because of the strong possibility of his defeat on home turf. Thus, his political partner, Governor Orville Freeman of Minnesota—to become Secretary of Agriculture in the Kennedy Administration—, had sought to wrap up Wisconsin via the favorite-son device, with the help of his friend, Governor Nelson. That had not worked and now Senator Humphrey had made up his mind to fight. But Senator Kennedy was now having second thoughts, wondering whether he needed to risk his massive support in other states in a messy, chancy Wisconsin primary.
The logic of the situations of the two active candidates made them the foreordained victims of one another. The inactive candidates might remain inactive, but Senators Humphrey and Kennedy were all but forced to fight it out. Outside his home territory, Senator Humphrey had almost no solid support anywhere. Furthermore, his nomination would drive large numbers of Southerners from the party, given his strong civil rights stand since his first run for the Senate in 1948, introducing the civil rights plank which had caused the Dixiecrat revolt at the convention, led by then-Governor Strom Thurmond of South Carolina. Thus, Senator Humphrey had to prove his magnetism by defeating the front-runner in one or more primaries, for if he bypassed the test, he had to give up his presidential aspirations.
Senator Kennedy had widespread support but needed something extra to overcome his two handicaps, his Catholicism and his unnaturally youthful appearance. The surest way for him to get that boost was to win in one or more primaries, and Wisconsin was a tempting place to begin.
There were other reasons also why Wisconsin was a natural battleground. For one thing, the late Senator Joseph McCarthy had been from the state, and Wisconsin was now one of the new resurgent states supporting the Democrats, partly because most of the old LaFollette Progressives, whom young Robert LaFollette had fruitlessly led into the Republican Party in 1946, had now transferred again to the Democratic Party. Partly also it was because the McCarthy wing of the Republican Party in Wisconsin had put on its best imitation of the Gadarene swine since the day the swine themselves had frothed at the mouth and run over the cliff.
Primarily, however, the Democratic triumph in Wisconsin had to be credited to able younger men of the type who had achieved the party's post-Truman rebirth in many other states as well. Governor Nelson, Senator William Proxmire, state Democratic chairman Pat Lucey, and many others, had worked hard and long, beginning from nowhere, with their rewards having been the governorship, a majority of the lower house of the Legislature, half of the Wisconsin Congressional delegation and one of the Senate seats. Thus, Wisconsin was presently a meaningful scene for a Democratic presidential test.
In addition, the state would afford a fair test between Senators Kennedy and Humphrey. Superficially, the locale of the duel would seem to favor Senator Humphrey. The Wisconsin pattern of a union between the original Democrats and the LaFollette Progressives was similar to that in Minnesota regarding the Democratic and Farmer-Labor Party alliance, which Senator Humphrey had helped to bring about. Indeed, when both Wisconsin Senators had been Republicans, many local Democrats had treated Senator Humphrey as their own Senator.
Moreover, Senator Humphrey had
powerful support in the labor groups, in the farm cooperatives and in
the rural electrification associations. Surprisingly, however,
Senator Kennedy still had the edge at least for the present. A
majority of the Wisconsin politicians were leaning his way. Even
those who were for Senator Humphrey would say something like, "Yes,
Kennedy's ahead today, but wait and see how it shapes up after
Humphrey has done some of his old-fashioned, hard-sell campaigning in
the state." Part of Senator Kennedy's edge derived from
Wisconsin's high percentage of Roman Catholics, but primarily,
according to the local politicians, his edge had to be attributed to
his remarkable general appeal to all groups in the voting
rank-and-file. If the appeal did not weaken, Mr. Alsop concludes,
that was a useful sort of edge
Mr. Alsop had addressed in similar terms the subject of the incipient Wisconsin primary battle twice the previous month.
Doris Fleeson, in Los Angeles, indicates that in a move of great potential significance to the policies of California, Democratic businessmen were organizing to participate in the development of the Democratic Party's issues and candidates. That was news in California and former President Truman, persuaded to act as recruiting agent for the new endeavor, had put it bluntly to a luncheon gathering of its leaders, saying: "I'm glad to see Los Angeles Democrats out in the open. Before it's been a case here of Democrats Anonymous." His audience had acknowledged the point with laughter and explained later in their defense that they had all helped Governor Pat Brown and expected to go on doing so. Their questioning of the former President also indicated that they were expecting to see another Democratic president in 1961.
Mr. Truman had promised to advise them on his choice well in advance of the convention, saying that he hoped that one candidate would, by that point, have a really commanding lead, as he did not want to see another Madison Square Garden of 1924. He had not said why he feared such another convention, which saw a struggle between New York Governor Al Smith and William McAdoo, son-in-law of the late President Woodrow Wilson and former Secretary of the Treasury, leading to a compromise candidate, John W. Davis, but he had indicated earlier that he thought one was possible. (Mr. Truman would eventually endorse, in advance of the convention, Senator Stuart Symington of the former President's home state of Missouri.)
Democratic Associates, as a new business group was called, was only a week old, small and presently more than a little miscellaneous. It included John Anson Ford, an old-time liberal, and oilman Ed Pauley, who had been loyal to President Truman but to few if any Democratic candidates within California. A grandson and namesake of Woodrow Wilson's Secretary of Interior, Franklin Lane, had spoken in the organization for the younger generation. It was, however, a start and one which needed to be made for the greater health of the party, whose business and professional supporters had long been isolated by pressures, both internal and external.
The situation was of great profit in many ways to the California Republicans and they had sedulously exploited it. For that reason, Governor Brown had approved the formation of the group, even though it might give him fresh difficulties in his task of impartial umpire of the party's blocs and factions.
It was hardly to be expected, for instance, that the Council of Democratic Clubs, who had done the footwork for the great victories of the recent past, would not want to share generously with business spokesmen who remained aloof. Labor in California had always divided its allegiance statewide, supporting Republican Governors Earl Warren and Goodwin Knight, for example, but having strong Democratic roots. It, too, might suspect the Greeks presently bringing gifts, such as Mr. Pauley.
Yet, the chance for reconciliation existed because Governor Brown was a personal and political moderate and because all had so much to gain by fortifying their present hold on the state government. If the clubs and labor put the light in the window for Democrats from the business community, it ought help to solve their financial problems and the party base. The businessmen would need to remember that they were largely self-isolated and that present triumphs had been won without them.
A letter from J. R. Cherry, Jr., indicates that he had read a letter in the April 3 edition from the president of the League of Women Voters of Charlotte, urging long-term foreign aid. He regards the letter as having been largely devoted to left-wing platitudes and abstractions, lacking much of any realistic review of the foreign aid issue. He says that he would provide some hard facts on the nearly 15-year old foreign aid "extravagance". He indicates that $50 of American aid for every person in Bolivia, totaling 129 million dollars, had not prevented a violent anti-American demonstration the previous month there. Neither had American aid for six years corrected the "economic stupidity" which had put Bolivia on the brink of bankruptcy at present. India and Indonesia, recipients of U.S. aid, had moved closer to the enemy's ideology. Large grants to Communist enemies in Yugoslavia and Poland had done very little to persuade them that the "American Way" was superior to the "Communist Way". The 7 billion dollars in direct or indirect aid to Britain had been given at a time when a Socialist Government was in power, and it had been U.S. money which had greatly assisted in instituting socialized medicine, nationalizing the Bank of England, the gas, electric, railway, canals, and coal mining enterprises. He wonders whether it was surprising that many self-respecting, liberty-loving British had little respect for the "thoughtless, sloppy philanthropy of their American cousins." He allows that certain foreign aid had served the country and the free world interests, as in Turkey, Spain, Formosa and South Korea. But he finds it high time that the country think in terms of ceasing the greater part of foreign economic aid within the ensuing few years, rather than expanding it. He also indicates that the minor portion of it which served the country's interests to continue ought be administered by frugal, honest and intelligent public servants who kept fully abreast of developments in the countries receiving the aid.
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