The Charlotte News
Saturday, April 18, 1959
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from Augusta, Ga., that the President had named Acting Secretary of State Christian Herter as the new Secretary this date. Mr. Herter had been Undersecretary since 1957, and appeared at the side of the President when he personally made the announcement. He would succeed Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, who had resigned the prior Wednesday because of his continuing cancer. The President said he would send Mr. Herter's nomination to the Senate the following week and swift confirmation was expected. Mr. Herter, when asked whether he planned any change in U.S. foreign policy, replied with a smile that he did not want to get into that until he was confirmed. He also declined to speculate on who would succeed him as undersecretary. He said that he believed it was "a reasonable assumption that the same team will carry on." He said that at the President's request the prior Monday, he had undergone a complete physical checkup at John Hopkins University Hospital in Baltimore and that he had not yet been informed of the results. White House press secretary James Hagerty said, however, that the medical results had been satisfactory in every way. Mr. Herter, 64, had suffered from arthritis of the hips for the previous several years and there had been some concern as to whether he would be up to standing the grueling burden of the office.
In New York, it was reported that rackets boss Vito Genovese was behind bars this date, sentenced to 15 years as the mastermind of an international narcotics ring. A U.S. District Court judge had taken only three minutes on Friday to send Mr. Genovese, 62, to jail, revoking his $150,000 bond and fining him $20,000. As a denaturalized alien born in Italy, he faced automatic deportation for criminal activity. In a last-minute statement to the court, Mr. Genovese said, "All I can say, your honor, is I am innocent." His lawyer filed an appeal and said that he would go before the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday to ask for bail pending appeal. Mr. Genovese, who had been described as "king of the rackets", reputedly had made 30 million dollars in racketeering. Fourteen other codefendants convicted with him on April 3 had received at least a five-year prison term, required under a Federal narcotics law passed by Congress in 1955. The trial had begun on January 5. Among those sentenced was Jean Capece, 30, a mother of an 11-year old boy. She bowed her head and cried softly as sentence was pronounced, receiving the minimum five-year term. The Government had charged that the ring headed by Mr. Genovese had imported heroin from Cuba, Mexico, Puerto Rico and Europe in violation of the Federal narcotics law. Mr. Genovese and Natale Evola, 52, the latter sentenced to 10 years and fined $20,000, both had been delegates to the gangland convention in Apalachin, N.Y., in November, 1957. Vincent (The Chin) Gigante, 30, had drawn a seven-year term, having also been acquitted the previous May of the attempted murder of racketeer Frank Costello.
In Deer Lodge, Mont., heavily armed National Guardsmen had dashed into the inmate-held Montana Prison under cover of bazooka, machine gun and rifles early this date to rescue 16 guards held hostage. They had fought a furious pitched battle with armed inmates before crushing the rebellion which had begun late on Thursday. At least two of the National Guardsmen had been wounded. Casualties among the inmates were not immediately determined. The troops had fired a volley of machine-gun, rifle and teargas shells into the cell blocks where the convicts had centered their resistance. There was answering fire, but it ended, floodlights had come on and the rebellion was over. In its wake, the prison's deputy warden was dead, shot to death when the inmates had seized control at the dinner hour on Thursday. A guard had been stabbed and later was freed. Fifteen of the guards held hostage appeared to be in good condition. The remaining guard had been struck in the face with a rifle butt. Five inmates had also been held with them, described as "stool pigeons" because they had informed prison officials regarding the conduct of their fellow inmates. Their fate had not been determined. The bazookas, normally an anti-tank weapon in warfare, had produced a gaping hole in the south wall of the north cell block where the hostages had been held. National Guardsmen then stormed into the compound and quickly took control. Floodlights bathed the area as the sporadic firing waned and died out. Clouds of tear gas pervaded the air. One guard who had been held hostage said that they were concerned about convict threats to douse them with naptha and turn them into human torches in the event an armed assault was attempted. When they heard the convicts yell that the Guardsmen were coming in, they got mattresses and held them up to the bars of the cells to keep them from throwing in the naptha. They were still holding up the mattresses when they saw a National Guardsman, who told them to get the mattresses out of the way and open the cell, at which point the hostages left running through the main cell block and out through the women's quarters. Another guard had said that he knew he would not get out and had not slept a wink the previous night, but had dozed off sometime this night, waking up at the sound of the shooting.
In Rotterdam, The Netherlands, a British motor vessel had struck a wreck this date three miles from the Weser River off Germany's north coast and was reported to be sinking.
In Henderson, N.C., it was reported that the five-month textile strike, beset by considerable violence, had been ended the previous night after a conference between management, the union and Governor Luther Hodges had produced an agreement after 3.5 hours of negotiation. Textile Workers Union of America Carolinas leader Boyd Payton asserted that the agreement was one they could live under, but told a crowd assembled outside the company's main office that everyone was not going to work on Monday morning. Strikers, he said, would make up the second and third shifts which the company president planned soon to resume. About 400 non-strikers, who faced verbal abuse and occasional barrages of pop bottles and rocks from the picket lines, would keep their jobs on the first shift, which had been operating since February 16. Wages were not an issue. The company's objection to renewing the contract, which had expired the previous year, had been a clause which provided for arbitration of all work disputes. After the two mills had reopened on a limited basis, the rights of non-strikers and the union dues check-off had also become issues. Under the agreement, the arbitration issue was compromised. The president of the company, who had said he would have liquidated the business before giving into the strikers, declined comment on the agreement. It had to be ratified at a union meeting on Sunday, but the membership had given its negotiating committee full powers to act. For most of the 1,200 union members, the agreement meant the end of five months without pay. Mr. Payton said that non-strikers would hold their rights only on the job they were performing when the strike had ended. If they were removed from those jobs for inefficiency or any other reason, the jobs would immediately revert to the persons on the job when the strike had begun. He said that the old contract provision regarding arbitration would apply to disciplinary action and that all other matters were subject to arbitration by mutual consent, with the union having the unrestricted right to strike in the event the company refused to arbitrate. He said that there would be no check-off of union dues under the contract, but the company had agreed to erect dues collecting booths at each mill. Governor Hodges had driven to Henderson late on Friday afternoon amid renewed excitement that both sides might be heading for agreement. He had met for about three hours with both sides before the agreement was reached.
Jerry Reece of The News reports that the largest number of City Council candidates in the previous 20 years would appear on the ballot at the time of the municipal primary on April 27. A total of 41 persons had filed for the race at the filing deadline the previous day. The executive secretary of the elections board said that records going back to 1939 showed that never before had there been so many candidates. In 1939, when there had only been 11 wards in the city, 33 candidates had filed for the Council race. In 1949, with 38 precincts, 36 persons had filed. She also said that more precincts were represented by candidates this time than at any other time she could remember, as the 41 candidates lived in 22 of the city's 33 precincts. Six persons had also entered the race for the School Board, in addition to the two incumbent members already announced. The number of Council candidates would be reduced from 41 to 14, who would appear on the final ballot on May 5. Half that number would then be elected. The piece provides a list of the candidates.
Julian Scheer of The News reports that Herb Shriner had provided laughs at the Charlotte Executives Club the previous night and then retired to a quiet corner with his Business Week magazine. He had a former TV show, "Two for the Money", and was quite funny. He had arrived in Charlotte the previous day with his wife after a flight from Morgan City, La., where he said he had a business deal. What the executives did not know the previous night was that he, too, was also an executive. He said that one had to be versatile, as week by week television was obsolete for the comedian. "It is the impractical way to do it. Bob Hope and Jack Benny know it. I'm just lucky I came out with my life after 'Two for the Money'." He said he kept doing new things and kept people surprised. He had spread his talents over many fields, working on a book he would publish about shipwrecks, studying skin diving for enterprises in that field, doing narration on an album he had produced on sounds from the submarine U.S.S. Nautilus, and also preparing other serious "sound" recordings, doing a concert tour with him on harmonica accompanied by symphony orchestras, doing a film or two on people shot from field locations, doing a one-man Victor Borge-type show, nightclub appearances, and speaking dates. He said that doing those things, he did not burn out so quickly. He had not exhibited the slightest hint of humor in the statement.
If you've never heard of him, you are not alone, but that doesn't mean anything, as there are a lot of people of whom we have never heard, who nevertheless are quite appropriate and contribute much to society, entertainment, and otherwise. And there are many people of whom we have heard, whom we wish we had not.
On the editorial page, "The End of a Tar Heel Nightmare" indicates that the settlement the previous night of the bitter Henderson textile mill strike was as welcome as springtime after a long, hard winter. It had ended one of the unhappiest chapters in the whole history of labor-management relations in the state.
It had only been through the tireless efforts of Governor Luther Hodges that an agreement had been reached and North Carolinians everywhere owed him a large debt of gratitude.
It finds, however, that nothing could rid the state of the memories of the terrible events which had made the strike one of the angriest on record, including violence which had begun months earlier, continuing until the time of the previous night's crucial sessions. The dynamiting of a mill official's home on the prior Thursday night was a particularly cowardly act of irrational terrorism. Such abominations distorted labor's moral image and drove both sides in labor disputes to violent extremes of animosity and action. The result was a flight from responsibility, ethics and human decency.
There had been several other outrages during the strike, too many for the people of the state to remember with charity.
Free trade unionism was one of the pillars of democratic society and the right to organize, to bargain collectively and to strike, and even to voice political opposition to existing government, were accepted within the framework of the law. But a democratic society expected something in return, a sense of duty to the community and a concern for moral standards of public behavior. Pious protestations to the contrary notwithstanding, pitifully little behavior according those standards had been exhibited in Henderson. Neither the union leadership nor the mill management had been successful in preventing acts of brutality. There had been fires, dynamiting, beatings, threats, intimidation, deliberate destruction of private property and frequent use of firearms. The community had lost a $60,000 payroll over 21 weeks. Business had suffered and innocent citizens who had no connection with the dispute had been terrorized. Local law enforcement officers had been unable to control the situation. State Highway Patrolmen, needed elsewhere in the state, had to be diverted to Henderson for weeks. Volunteer "night watches" had been set up. But none of those measures had been entirely successful and Henderson had been living in a state of emergency, with the economic effect having been terrible.
There had been intransigence on both sides, and both sides had been guilty of acts which almost seemed to be calculated to invite more trouble. The suffering had not been confined to Henderson or Vance County. The people of the state had shared the consequences, and the long civil disorder had done great and perhaps irreparable damage to the state's good name.
North Carolina could thank the fact that it was now over, but a chore remained in the examination of its causes and effects and the discovery of ways to prevent such a thing from ever happening again.
"A Rosy Prospect for Charlotte Voters" finds that the 1959 political season in Charlotte had opened with enthusiasm as vigorous competition was promised for the mayoral race and all seven City Council seats, the healthiest prospect which voters had faced in years. Prior to the filing deadline date, there were few indications of competitive ardor, but all of that had changed with the formal entry the previous day of four well-known businessmen under the banner of the newly organized "Citizens for Better Government". The five incumbents had been challenged and there were no longer any sure winners.
In the mayoral race, there was also hot competition between incumbent James Smith and Councilwoman Martha Evans.
Politically, it finds it the best thing which could happen to Charlotte, as the voters would have a difficult choice in the April 27 primary and then in the May 5 municipal election.
Incumbents and challengers deserved to have their platforms and performances put to the sternest possible tests, the only way government at any level could attain the soundness of purpose and logic of mind which were representative of the highest political ideals.
On April 6, it had complained editorially about the lack of candidates in the Council race at that time, hoping that an element of competition would be added. Its hope had been realized and local government's future was therefore rosy.
"Bright Youth Balances the Scales" indicates that unfortunately the news of youth at present in the newspaper was too often within the lawless category, with stories of muggings, break-ins, robberies, vandalism and other violence involving teenagers. The brighter side was buried by the dramatic impact of those stories.
Julian Scheer's "Close-Up" column had taken the other tack recently and it was glad for it. He had pointed out that he was baffled by the list of projects at the Chapel Hill science fair. Mecklenburg high school students had gone in for such things as paleontology, "The Comparison of a Monocot with a Dicot" and the "Bohr Theory of Atomic Structure". They were the bright young students who, by their work, counterbalanced the violent weight at the other end of the scale.
It recalls young Jimmy Blackmon, son of a Charlotte News advertising man, who had been featured in the newspaper for his rocketry. At last report, he had been building his future on two fronts, at Cal Tech and on a missile production line during the summer.
Naturally, every student would not become a rocket expert, but it helped to prove that no younger generation was heading en masse to be fire stokers in the nether regions. It finds that the brighter students were the only hope they had left, now that so many had struggled and failed to improve the lot of the human race. "Now that our visions are beginning to dim and reality's blade has cut deeply, it is a heartening thing to look upon such good works and be glad."
A piece from the Richmond News
Leader, titled "Shakespeare, Western Style", indicates
that something unusual, irreverent and exciting would happen to
Shakespeare in Britain during the summer. A group of Texas college
students intended to tour the British Isles, presenting A
Midsummer Night's Dream in a Wild West
The comedy, originally set in Athens and a nearby wood, would be transposed to the frontier before the turn of the century. Ten-gallon hats, rawhide chaps and bright bandannas would replace silks and ruffs. The male members of the cast would tote six-guns instead of swords. The fair Hermia and the other females would wear bustles. To complete the Texas motif, the production began with a rousing rendition of "Home on the Range", to which the company square danced. Yet, not a single line of the play was altered.
It finds that it would be something to see and hear, especially if the young Texans could make "methinks" sound convincing. If the play were to go over, perhaps the company's repertoire would be expanded, the piece finding infinite possibilities. Hamlet and Laertes, instead of dueling, might face each other with six-guns on a dusty street. King Lear could become an old prospector, whose idiot nephew joined him in mournful choruses of "Cool, cool water". It finds that Caesar might make a dandy U.S. Marshal, charged with cleaning up Cleopatra's hellish Alexandria.
Purists would be horrified and Shakespeare scholars might lament, "but the durable Bard has survived three and a half centuries. Not even Texas can touch that record."
We don't like it. Aaron Copland's
"Rodeo" meeting Shakespeare
We once saw a presentation of Twelfth Night staged as if set on a 19th Century Southern plantation. That did not work so well either, though it was possible to ignore the scenery and costumes and concentrate on the presentation generally, which was acceptable. It was also free, in an open-air setting by an urban lake, and so who was to complain of its merit?
Drew Pearson, in Miami, indicates that news that the inexorable spread of cancer had finally forced the resignation of John Foster Dulles as Secretary of State had come to Miami as the author of the cancer bill was eating lunch in a little restaurant. Former Senator Claude Pepper, presently an attorney in Florida, indicated that it had been over 20 years since they had introduced the bill creating the National Cancer Institute in 1937, the bill having passed and carried an appropriation of $500,000, though not appearing at the time to have enough money to operate. Thus, he continued, in 1946, he and Senator Matthew Neely of West Virginia had introduced another bill appropriating 100 million dollars to be spent until consumed to fight cancer. That bill had never passed and since then, several Senators had died of cancer, and now Mr. Dulles was suffering from it. Senator Neely, himself, had died of cancer. Senator Robert Taft had introduced a bill to appropriate 75 million dollars to fight cancer, which also had not passed, and he had died of the disease as well. Senator Kenneth Wherry of Nebraska, Senator Arthur Vandenberg of Michigan, and Senator Brien McMahon of Connecticut, all had died of cancer.
He said that the Government had been appropriating an average of 20 million dollars per year in recent years to fight cancer and Senator Warren Magnuson of Washington had been a leader in carrying on that fight. Senator Pepper wondered, however, what would have happened had a more generous appropriation been voted earlier when they had first urged it.
Mr. Dulles had come to Florida full of high hopes and optimism, believing himself to be on the way to recovery. His doctors had told him that because of his age, they had been able to block the spread of the cancer cells, that in older people, cancer did not spread as rapidly as in younger persons. So Mr. Dulles felt confident that he could represent the U.S. at the foreign ministers conference. He even hoped to guide U.S. policy in preparation for the summit conference. He was seeking rest and recuperation in Florida. At Hobe Sound, however, Mr. Dulles had begun to feel pains in his neck. Going to the U.S. Air Force hospital at nearby Palm Beach, he had been X-rayed and it disclosed evidence of cancer. The Air Force doctors advised that he return to Washington immediately for treatment.
Mr. Pearson indicates that it would take some time for historians to evaluate the occurrences of the previous two weeks, but in rapid succession two of the most resolute leaders of the Western world had dropped out of current history. First, Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, "the incorrigible, unflinching foe of appeasing Russia," had decided to retire for his old age. Then, Mr. Dulles, a close friend of Dr. Adenauer, and supporter of a rigid stand for the reunification of Germany on Western terms, had been forced to the sidelines by his cancer.
Joseph Alsop indicates that within two weeks Chancellor Adenaur had accepted stepping aside as Chancellor to become the ceremonial president of West Germany and John Foster Dulles had resigned as Secretary of State because of his cancer, the latter resignation climaxing an amazing display of stoic fortitude, coming at a critical moment in the nation's affairs. "The most ordinary human sympathy compels one to wish that this astonishing old man might have achieved his grimly pursued aim."
He finds it a modest aim, trying to hold on until the West had resolved the current Berlin crisis. It was a great misfortune for the Western allies that Mr. Dulles had to step aside. His loss was as the greatest single element of strength in the Administration and his departure meant losing the one Western leader whose knowledge and authority could not be challenged, even by his most bitter enemies.
Together, the two great changes in the West's leadership meant the beginning of the end of an era. (As indicated, Chancellor Adenauer would be convinced, internally and externally, to remain in his position, which he would continue to occupy until October, 1963.) Mr. Dulles and Chancellor Adenauer, like the President, Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and Premier Charles de Gaulle, were all old enough to have experienced World War I, not as mere boys, but as grown men. Mr. Dulles, who had risen in the world more rapidly than the others, had been a fairly significant junior member during the time of the negotiation of the Versailles Treaty. The era would come to its final close, for all practical purposes, when President Eisenhower would end his current term.
He indicates that it had been a great and fruitful era, particularly marked by a revolution in the relations between the U.S. and the rest of the world, but that a new era was long overdue nevertheless. Ideas made an era and the dearth of seminal and fresh ideas in recent years had become frightening. In domestic politics, the conservatives still sounded like parodies of former President Hoover, while the left were still pale and timorous imitations of FDR. In foreign affairs, the great innovations had been made after World War II had ended, but the first Truman Administration had been the cut-off point. NATO, for which the basis was laid in 1948, had been the last major development. The second Truman Administration was barren of fruitful new departures, as the brave response to the challenge in Korea, though admirable in itself, was only a decision to cope with a disaster which had been invited by the preceding disarmament program of President Truman and Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson.
Under President Eisenhower, despite the talk of a "dynamic new foreign policy", the barrenness had continued. With all of his stature, energy and angry determination to hold the line for freedom, Mr. Dulles had offered no fruitful new inventions, as there was nothing novel in such devices as SEATO, which only mimicked NATO, but lacked NATO's substance.
Time had not stood still after 1948, as the last decade had witnessed a gigantic upset of the world balance of power, based on the Soviet Union's military and economic growth. There was a long series of peoples in the ex-colonial areas, such as the Middle East, on which the Western allies were still heavily dependent. Yet no reasonably safe and reliable way of coping with either of those ominous exigencies had been suggested by any of the existing Western leaders.
Secretary Dulles had carried on a holding operation, not always successfully, but with courage and self-sacrifice. He finds it tragic that he should be removed from the scene at the moment when the need was greatest for his special talent and unusual strength of character. But the need was also great for fresh ideas always coming from a new era.
Marquis Childs indicates that by failing to name an immediate successor to Secretary of State Dulles, the President had left an area of confusion and uncertainty on the eve of diplomatic negotiations which might prove to be the most critical since the end of World War II. He had not contributed to the usefulness of Undersecretary Christian Herter, the Acting Secretary, even though he ultimately would appoint him as Secretary. The President's announcement from Augusta of the Dulles resignation appeared to reflect little understanding of the situation which had developed during the two months when the President had clung to the belief that Mr. Dulles would return to his duties. During that time, Mr. Herter had responsibility without authority and his position had been difficult to the point of impossibility. The President had never given him an indication of who might succeed Mr. Dulles, instead having clung to the belief that the latter would again take up the burden, refusing to consider what might occur if he did not.
The uncertainty had been accentuated during the meeting in Washington of the Western foreign ministers and the NATO Council at the tenth anniversary of NATO, with the foreign ministers being acutely aware of Mr. Herter's dilemma. They admired him for his quiet professionalism, even though in some areas he could not define U.S. policy. It could not be defined because Secretary Dulles was too ill to give more than casual attention to the continuing problem of the Berlin challenge and a divided Germany. Refusing to recognize that fact, the President had insisted on assuming that sooner or later Mr. Dulles would return. At Augusta, the President said that Mr. Herter would attend the conference of foreign ministers which would open in Paris on April 29, and the following meeting with the Russians beginning on May 11 in Geneva.
What had been apparent for some time was that the U.S. had to have a Secretary of State at those meetings with full authority as well as comprehensive knowledge of what had gone on before. The split in the alliance could be healed only by a firm U.S. lead toward the end of a compromise on the negotiating front the West would present at Geneva. The split between Britain and West Germany was minimized in official quarters in Washington, it being described as a difference over tactics rather than substance. British lack of precision was blamed for the West German misunderstanding of the true intent of Prime Minister Macmillan's reconnaissance mission to Moscow to meet with Premier Nikita Khrushchev.
Nevertheless, if the West was to present a strong united front at Geneva, the successor to Mr. Dulles had to have full support and Mr. Dulles understood that, as one of his hallmarks had been an unfailing professionalism. He had been increasingly aware, as the President seemingly had not been, of the difficulties of Mr. Herter's position. It was why he insisted on moving up the date of his resignation by at least a week.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman J. William Fulbright of Arkansas had given quiet support to Mr. Herter, having pointed out that the Administration, with little more than 18 months left, could not expect to bring in an outsider who would have so much to learn on the eve of the important confrontation with the Russians. Mr. Herter and Senator Fulbright would have a good working relationship, important when the two parties controlled different branches of government.
No matter who was finally chosen, Mr. Childs finds it worth remembering that Mr. Dulles, as Secretary, had been unique. No one would have the authority, experience and knowledge which he had brought in the almost single-handed direction of American foreign policy. In his working relationship with the President, his ability to germinate the concepts which the President had adopted was irreplaceable.
A letter writer indicates that she had read the comments in the newspaper from religious leaders on the problem of unwed mothers and found them to be the "most asinine tripe" she had ever read. "With such preachers in the orthodox churches it is obvious why so many are going to Hell." She finds the reason for unwed mothers to be simple, that some man was back of it. "It is clear to me that sex-unrestrained men cause it all. Even the preachers ought to deduce that, though I wouldn't expect newspaper editors to do so. They would believe a stork is doing it—if they reason at all. You have to attack it at its source, in this case, men. You will have to treat the cause—men—instead of the result—bastardy."
For all her apparent misandry, she offers no real solution of how to go about what she suggests. It is completely true, however, that if all men were eliminated, there would be no illegitimate children. But… The writer had apparently had some raw experiences.
A letter writer indicates that she and her husband had recently bought a house in a pleasant neighborhood, only to find it overrun with dogs. She had been informed that Charlotte had no leash law and wonders whether it meant that the wearing of tags legally permitted dogs to tear up and use their shrubbery and lawn, thus making it unsanitary and unpleasant for them to use. "Does Charlotte aspire to be a city or just a country town?"
A letter writer from New York, the chairman of the 1959 Campaign for the United Negro College Fund, thanks the newspaper for its editorial of March 23, "UNCF: A Challenge and Bright Hope", finding that the comprehensive statement of the case for the United Negro Colleges and its sympathetic account of their struggle and accomplishments had given heart to the Fund's thousands of volunteer workers and supporters.
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