The Charlotte News
Tuesday, May 19, 1959
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports from Geneva that the U.S. had warned Russia that the President would refuse to attend the summit conference if Premier Nikita Khrushchev set a new deadline for a Communist squeeze play on West Berlin. Informants said that the American warning had been prompted by a suspicion that Mr. Khrushchev would try such a maneuver if the Big Four foreign ministers conference currently underway in Geneva turned out to be what he considered to be a failure. Secretary of State Christian Herter had told Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko in plain words at a dinner party a few nights earlier what the U.S. reaction would be. Meanwhile, the Western foreign ministers mapped out a counter-attack against Russia's drive to break up their master plan for a German peace settlement. Mr. Khrushchev had originally set May 27 as a deadline for the Western allies to end their occupation of West Berlin, indicating that on that date he would give the East German Communists control of the Western allied supply routes to West Berlin, but later postponed that deadline indefinitely. Should he revive it and hand over traffic control to the East Germans, it would present the danger of a Berlin blockade. The U.S. reportedly was determined to reject any summit conference held under any such Soviet threat. Mr. Gromyko had assured Mr. Herter that the Soviet Union had no ulterior motives in proposing a peace settlement at present with divided Germany. Mr. Herter had reminded Mr. Gromyko of the May 27 deadline and said that the existence of any deadline made it difficult to believe that the Soviets did not have hidden purposes. Mr. Gromyko said that he was sorry that Mr. Herter had mentioned the deadline and that he had not planned to bring it up in Geneva except possibly at the end of the conference. To Mr. Herter, that sounded as if it might be a veiled hint of a new threat.
Also in Geneva, it was reported that Mr. Gromyko had been accused by Western diplomats this date of pulling a fast one on Secretary Herter with a parliamentary trick in the previous day's Big Four conference session. As chairman for the day, the Soviet Foreign Minister had called on an East German spokesman when the Secretary of State had been supposed to get the first chance to speak. Some members of the U.S. delegation said that the action amounted to a double-cross and officials were highly irritated. Mr. Herter was putting on his glasses when Mr. Gromyko had taken him by surprise with the announcement that the East German Foreign Minister, Lothar Bolz, would speak. There was no previous Western agreement to protest such a maneuver and since Mr. Herter was evidently caught off guard, he let Mr. Gromyko's maneuver go unchallenged. The Western ministers apparently had now reached an agreement, however, that if Mr. Gromyko tried it again, they would protest instantly. Under rules agreed on the previous weekend, Mr. Gromyko had the right to call on a German speaker only if there was no objection from any of the Western foreign ministers. Mr. Gromyko had notified British Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd that he intended to call on the East German Foreign Minister.
The President advised Congress formally this date of plans to help Britain and France develop atomic weapons and submarines. He submitted agreements which the country had signed with the two nations on May 7, with those pacts set to go into effect automatically within 60 days unless vetoed by both the Senate and the House. The agreement with Britain, the only other Western nation presently producing atomic weapons, provided for U.S. assistance in the military application of atomic energy. Details were not made public. The pact with Britain provided for transfer of nonnuclear parts of atomic weapons and atomic weapons systems, provision of special materials for research development and production of military facilities, and the furnishing of certain other atomic materials and byproducts. The U.S. agreed to sell France a quantity of enriched nuclear fuel for use in development of an atomic-powered submarine. At present, that project had not progressed beyond plans for a land-based prototype propulsion system. In a brief message to Congress, the President noted that under an Anglo-American agreement of the previous July 3, there had been a provision for certain exchange of nuclear information between the two countries. The new agreement, the President said, "has been developed to further the goal of our mutual defense." He said that it was gratifying to note that the new pact also would result in conservation of scientific and technical manpower, effort and capital which would otherwise be required to meet the two nations' corresponding but separate requirements. The decision to sell to France nuclear fuel for development of atomic-powered submarines recognized, according to the President, "the relationship of this assistance to the mutual security of the two nations, and the contribution to joint defense arrangements which transfer of this material will make." In line with the provisions of the Atomic Energy Act, the agreement with France did not call for transfer of any secret information relative to the construction of atomic weapons.
Secretary of Defense Neil McElroy said this date that he would stay on indefinitely in his position, making the announcement to newsmen at the White House with his new deputy, Thomas Gates, Jr., standing at his side. They had just conferred with the President. He said that he had suspended his plans for departure and did not know when he would be leaving, if at all. Asked whether it meant that he intended to stay in the Cabinet indefinitely, he replied that it was the best way to put it. The President the previous day had picked Mr. Gates, who was retiring as Secretary of the Navy at the end of the month, to succeed the late Donald Quarles as Deputy Secretary of Defense. There had been speculation that the President had persuaded Mr. Gates to stay on at the Pentagon by telling him that he was in line to become Secretary after Mr. McElroy.
The nomination of Admiral Lewis Strauss as Secretary of Commerce had won Senate Commerce Committee approval this date by a vote of nine to eight. The Committee action sent the nomination to the Senate floor with a recommendation for approval, with the Senate vote possibly to occur later in the week. Three Democrats on the Committee had joined with six Republicans to vote in favor of confirmation. Eight Democrats had voted against confirmation. Senator Warren Magnuson of Washington, the Committee chairman, had announced the outcome after a closed meeting which climaxed 16 days of combative hearings on the nomination. The Committee division was in doubt until just before this date's meeting when Senator Frank Lausche of Ohio had announced he would vote for confirmation, making him the third Democrat to favor confirmation.
In Washington, it was reported that former Secretary of State John Foster Dulles this date continued to grow weaker in his fight against cancer and pneumonia. The State Department said that he was being given painkillers and was generally comfortable. The medical bulletin was the third in two weeks to report weakening of his condition. He was reported to be conscious but sleeping much of the time because of the pain-killing drugs which were being administered to him.
In Taipei, Formosa, it was reported that President Chiang Kai-shek, 72, was leaving the door open for a third six-year term when his present term expired the following May. Nationalist China's leader was said to have told the Kuomintang Party that he had no desire to make the Communists happy by quitting the Presidency.
Also in Taipei, it was reported that a discarded practice shell had exploded on a firing range in central Formosa the previous day, killing four boys collecting scrap metal in violation of an Army ban. The scrap metal dealer was trying to remove the shell when it had blown up. The dealer and three other persons had been seriously injured.
In St. Joseph's, Mo., it was reported that a torrent of water up to ten feet deep had surged through the north side of the city late on Monday night after a cloudburst had occurred north of the city. One man had drowned. Despite widespread damage, there were no reports of missing persons. Property damage had been tremendous, but no one could yet estimate the monetary loss. The managing editor of the St. Joseph News-Press made a tour of the area, saying that the damage was terrific and unbelievable as to its extent inflicted in such a short time. He had found it a miracle that no one else had been killed. The downpour on the north slopes of St. Joseph, a city of 79,000, had been measured at 4 inches in one hour. It was one of a series of thunderstorms which had produced at least two tornadoes across the Missouri River in northeastern Kansas. Farm buildings had been smashed by twisters near Hiawatha, Everest and Dentoh, Kans., about 25 miles west of St. Joseph. No one had been injured.
In Moab, Utah, it was reported that a couple plucked from a rugged riverbank had waited this date for search efforts to disclose the fate of the man's parents whom they had last seen bobbing away through dangerous Colorado River rapids after their pleasure boat had capsized. The California couple were missing and presumably drowned. The man said that he was able to get his wife to safety by grabbing her hair and yanking her to shore, but that his parents had been swept down the rapids. They were in one of more than 400 boats which had made an annual 200-mile pleasure cruise down the Green River and up the Colorado in eastern Utah. The boaters had been warned before starting not to get too close to the cataract, a raging funnel of water which hurtled through 40 miles of jagged Colorado River canyon. The near-vertical canyon walls rose 800 to 900 feet above the river. The rapids were a few miles down the Colorado from the point at which it was joined by the Green. The man said that he and his family had been cruising near the river junction early on Sunday and noticed another boat which seemed to be in trouble. They stopped to give assistance and while they were working, they apparently lost their sense of direction and when they started out again, had gone the wrong way, and before realizing it, the boat had been swept into the rapids, was swamped and capsized. Both couples had worn life jackets and the man said that they leaped to the gunwales when they realized the swirling rapids would capsize the boat, but then were thrown out. A private pilot from Green River, Utah, had seen the younger couple while making a routine flight to check for river-run stragglers, as they were on shore signaling distress. He dropped a note saying that help was on the way. A rescue boat had then picked up the couple and brought them to Moab for examination, finding that they were in good condition. Though people had survived runs through the cataract, they had done so in large, well-equipped rubber rafts, and others had drowned attempting it. Helicopters and other planes had been ordered to fly up and down the cataract during the morning seeking a sign of the missing couple. That which was believed to be their battered boat had been spotted bobbing in a whirlpool in the canyon on Monday.
Ann Sawyer of The News reports that the path had been charted for City schools to feed their hundreds of needy, hungry children. The chairman of the "hungry kid" study committee was scheduled to impart that news to the Social Planning Council during the afternoon. He said that his committee had determined that there was a definite need, that the responsibility for feeding the children rested with school authorities, and that a plan for solving the problem was feasible, that the plan had partially been drawn. He said that a written report would not be given at the afternoon Council meeting and that he would not go at that time into detail about ways of feeding the children who went hungry because their parents could not afford school lunches. The newspaper had learned, however, that written reports were being prepared during the morning for possible distribution at the meeting. Although the chairman would not discuss the suggestions his committee had made to school authorities for handling the problem, it was understood that the committee favored serving of a standard plate lunch in grades one through twelve. The standard lunch was now served only to children through the sixth grade. Students in the City junior and senior high schools had a choice of food in the lunchrooms and that practice prohibited the schools from receiving subsidies through the Federal school lunch program.
John Kilgo of The News reports that two County schools in Matthews and Pineville were fire traps and that both were in violation of the North Carolina building code, according to the County fire marshal, who said this date that the situation at both schools was "extremely dangerous". He indicated that if fires started in either of the two schools, the buildings "would go up like kindling". The Matthews School building had an old wooden stairway in the middle of the building, which was used more than any other stairway in the two-story structure and was not enclosed. The floors in the building which housed 15 classrooms were also made of wood. At the Pineville School, wooden and unenclosed stairways were located at both ends of the main halls. The floors at the latter school were also wooden. The Matthews School building was 52 years old and the Pineville building was 46 years old. The fire marshal said that the stairways would serve as a chimney or draft and help the fire spread, that it was a dangerous situation and he recommended that they be corrected immediately. The County School superintendent, J. W. Wilson, said this date that officials recognized the fire hazards in the schools the previous year but did not have the money to correct them. He said they did not want to tackle their most expensive operations the previous year because they had too many other improvements to make. Although the amount of money needed to correct the fire hazards of the two schools was not immediately available, Mr. Wilson said that those corrections were to be made in the coming summer. At Matthews, the wooden stairway in the middle of the building would be torn down and replaced by two fire-proof stairways. At Pineville, both hazardous stairways would be torn down and replaced by fire-proof structures. The superintendent had said the previous day that the County Commission would not cut the County school budget requests for the year so that the corrections could be made. The State Building Code stated: "All stairways in school buildings over one story in height of fireproof or semi-fireproof constructions shall be enclosed with a noncombustible partition having a fire resistance of not less than one hour."
The newspaper notes that beginning the following Monday, one of the world's most respected and comprehensive news services, that of the New York Herald Tribune, would begin in The News. It would bring readers a new dimension of the news. "The Herald Tribune's modern approach to news—the story behind the story will supplement The News' local, national and international news coverage." Among the famous Herald Tribune bylines were Marguerite Higgins, Edward Crankshaw, Earl Ubell, Robert Toth, Clementine Paddlesworth, Terry Ferrer, Patrick O'Donovan and Richard Lowenthal. The first Herald Tribune News Service feature which would appear in the newspaper would be "The World of Ivan's Wife", a woman's page story presented in six parts beginning on Monday, a series on the Russian woman presented by a female reporter, answering such questions as whether the Moscow housewife could get domestic help, the latest childcare theories, beauty hints, and the female worker in Moscow.
On the editorial page, "Geneva, One Week to the Winds" indicates that the foreign ministers at the Geneva conference had thrown a week to the winds, not surprisingly, as it was the way diplomats got down to work.
The revelation the previous day that the West was willing to negotiate separately on the primary issue of divided Berlin had put a stop to the treadmill and the conference appeared to be moving toward the "moment of truth". The French and West Germans, who would have prolonged to the "package" bluff, were not happy that the secret agreement to treat Berlin separately had so soon come to light. But the game was bound to end sooner or later, and with both East and West holding fast to irreconcilable positions regarding Berlin and with possibly unlimited war hanging in the balance, it was no time to torture the world's nerves with fantasy. Diplomatic gain did not come in bulky packages and seemingly the West would have learned the peril of packages from the immediate postwar experiences at Yalta and Potsdam in 1945.
The ministers during the current week would sharpen their focus to the manageable proportions of Berlin. The Russians presently held in abeyance their threat to turn over control of the access routes to Berlin to the East Germans, likely waiting to see whether the West would pay the price of acknowledging that the Communists governed East Germany and East Berlin. The minimum Western position was equally vague, in that it desired that the Russians admit that the East Germans would be their "agents", even if Russian troops were withdrawn, which did not answer the question of what the West would do if those "agents", puppets in more direct language, blockaded Berlin's Western sector. Lacking inside information, no one really knew to what extent the East Germans would be "agents".
It found that the confusion yielded a key fact, however, that the West was unlikely to make any headway in dealing with Moscow until it recognized in some way that Communism was stable or at least established within the satellite nations. It finds that it would no doubt give Secretary of State Herter and the others pause, that once the West took the step of admitting the political hold of Communism behind the Iron Curtain, the central myth of U.S. policy since 1947 would be gone. The West would have given up symbolically the dream that the East Europeans did not really want to be Communists after all, that, given the chance, they would hold to their style of democracy and liberty and show defiance to Moscow.
Whether that would be done by the West would have to be decided by the policymakers at Geneva. The idea that anti-Communism was a moral as well as political crusade had been the amulet of the West and casting it aside would be a calculated risk at best, as it was only a possibility that the Russians really wanted to stop at the existing status quo and rest for awhile.
It finds that, fortunately, there was hope that new events would reduce the urgency of a "moral struggle". China might become a menace to Moscow greater than the West. Religious certitude, of the type which Nikita Khrushchev and John Foster Dulles had exchanged for several years, had a tendency to slip away sometimes in the press of events. The "politiques" who mediated the fiery religious disputes of the 16th Century had been thought wicked by absolutists on both sides. But perhaps they had saved Europe. Once the Western ministers recognized Communism in Berlin or East Germany by dealing with it, they would be "politique" to the religious anti-Communists. If they made the free world livable and diminished the threat of war, their gain would make their compromise seem less wicked to the rest of the world.
"Protecting 'A Sacred and Moral Trust'" indicates that the General Assembly was on the verge of making hash of necessary legislation in the sensitive field of confidential communications between clergymen and their communicants in the state. Efforts had been made early in the session to write into law a principle of human behavior almost as old as religion. The proposed law provided that "no clergyman, minister, priest or rabbi of an established church shall be required to testify in any action, suit or proceeding concerning any information which may have been confidentially communicated to him in his professional capacity under such circumstances that to disclose the information would violate a sacred or moral trust, when the giving of such testimony is objected to by the communicant."
That was in line with traditional practices and similar to the laws of many states. But it was now being proposed that in addition there would be inserted language which would obliterate the principle its sponsors had sought to protect, permitting a trial judge to compel the disclosure of any information if, in his personal opinion, it would be in the interests of the administration of justice.
It finds it an unwise and unreasonable change, as it ought not be within the power of a judge to order a clergyman to violate a sacred or moral trust. It might be that the Legislature could compel a betrayal of conscience, but even advocates of unlimited legislative power might draw back from that ultimate conclusion.
It indicates that John Stuart Mill had once observed: "A state which dwarfs its men, in order that they may be more docile instruments in its hands even for beneficial purposes, will find that with small men no great thing can be accomplished."
"Even a Marble Suffers These Days" indicates that in Texas in a town named Humble, they had an economic problem at an elementary school such that the boys could not play marbles anymore. The poor shots in the crowd played for keeps, lost out, bought more marbles and lost again. The school superintendent noted frequent intra-class warfare sparked by the losers and thus promptly banned the game.
It indicates that the value of a marble was nil, another victim of inflation. It had not always been the case. In "olden times", a small sack of marbles was princely wealth. They were jealously hoarded and the only time one committed them in a game for keeps occurred when the owner figured that he had at least an even chance. A prized shooter marble was never in competition and certain rare cat's eyes and aggies stayed in the bottom of the sack.
It hopes from the Texas story that the boys would not be discouraged and would continue to play on Saturdays. Even though they might involve 100 marbles instead of ten, somewhere along the line they had to learn the right way to knuckle down and shoot from taw. It finds it one of the most important lessons in all of youthful years.
They've lost their marbles.
Hopefully no image
A piece from the New York Times, titled "Five Crimson Doves", indicates that wild columbines were in bloom, "enriching shade-dappled ledges with gold and scarlet and spangling the air with the early butterflies they attract. Unseasonal heat has hurried them past their prime in many places, but where the shade lies deep in the hilly woodlands they will be glorifying the rest of May and even early June."
It goes on, concluding: "The
columbine is not a picking flower. It is a wilding and it belongs in
the leaf mold on the rocky ledges, along with hepatica and the
anemones. It's a flower to admire where it grows, as much a part of
the hillside woodland as the wood thrush and the drumming partridge.
Here and there it creeps down to the quiet back roads, and often it
grows beside the busy brooks that only fishermen know. But mostly it
keeps to the rocky hillsides, companion of the birches and the
bloodroot and wild ginger, and always it glorifies May, a
gold-and-crimson bangle for a fine May day
Drew Pearson indicates that the precedents which Admiral Lewis Strauss had set forth for restricting information to Congress the previous week, allegedly based on those of George Washington, had been quoted, as they had been repeatedly by the Eisenhower Administration in narrowing the information given to Congress and the American people. The question of "executive privilege" was important at present, as Senators Joseph O'Mahoney of Wyoming and Tom Hennings of Missouri, among others, believed that a vote to confirm Admiral Strauss as Secretary of Commerce was a vote to make official and permanent his refusal to answer Congressional questions, thus permanently narrowing the already narrowed field of information.
Russell Wiggins, executive editor of the Washington Post and Times Herald, president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, and a relentless seeker of the truth, had probed into the secrecy precedents, finding that the first and major test of whether President Washington was to give embarrassing information to Congress had occurred after General St. Clair's force of 1,400 men had been surprised by an Indian attack near Miami, O., on November 5, 1791, with the loss of 900 men. The disordered defeat had been highly embarrassing to the executive branch, but the House had passed a resolution to investigate it and demanded the records. President Washington called a meeting of the Cabinet to decide whether the confidential papers ought be sent to Congress. The minutes of that Cabinet meeting, as set forth by Thomas Jefferson, had been revealing.
Mr. Jefferson recounted that: "Hamilton agreed with us as to the power of the House to call on heads of departments… But he thought himself not so far subject as to be obliged to produce all the papers they might call for. They might be secrets of a very mischievous nature." At that point, Mr. Jefferson added parenthetically, regarding the founder of the Republican Party, Alexander Hamilton: "Here I thought he began to fear they would go on to examining how far their own members and other persons in the government had been dabbling in stocks, banks, etc.…" Mr. Jefferson had concluded: "Finally agreed to speak separately to the members of the committee, and bring them by persuasion into the right channel. It was agreed in this case that there was not a paper which might not be properly produced: that if they should desire it, a clerk should attend with the originals to be verified by themselves."
As Mr. Wiggins had summed it up: "The House demanded the papers. The Cabinet agreed that the House might institute inquiries. It thought it might call for papers. It thought the President should exercise discretion, but in this case decided to make all the papers available."
Joseph Alsop, in Geneva, indicates that a small yet dramatic episode of Andrei Gromyko's recent dinner for his colleagues at the Geneva foreign ministers conference was worth describing for the modest hope it offered. At the party held the previous week, Secretary of State Christian Herter was, as usual, disinclined to self-assertion. British Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd had led the talk, which was friendly. At a certain moment, however, Mr. Gromyko had chosen to expatiate on his own restraint and amiability, pointing out that he had never yet tried to get his way by repeating Nikita Khrushchev's threat to sign a peace treaty with the East Germans without further delay. Thus, Mr. Gromyko had exhibited, without brandishing, the Soviets' weapon-in-reserve for bringing the Berlin crisis to an immediate head. After signature of such a treaty, for instance, East German highway controls would at once replace Soviet controls on the Western access routes to Berlin.
Mr. Gromyko had turned to Mr. Herter with a seeming-friendly smile and added that he hoped the Western allies would be careful not to force him to abandon his remarkable self-restraint. There had been a moment of silence until Mr. Herter answered, unsmiling: "I cannot decide what others do or say, but I wish to make one point absolutely clear. The United States will not go onwards to a conference at the summit under any sort of threat."
As the story was told by those who ought to know, there had been another moment of silence and the conversation was then resumed in another tone and on other topics. Thus, in a single short exchange, Mr. Gromyko and Mr. Herter had summed up the reasons for comparative optimism which the previous week had produced.
The Soviets' omission of their usual open menaces, noted by Mr. Gromyko, was one of several encouraging omissions. The failure to insist at great length on full admission of the Czechs and Poles to the conference was another sign of the same kind. Still another was Mr. Gromyko's own relatively human demeanor. Two years earlier, Mr. Khrushchev had told Mr. Alsop with a grin, "Even our glum comrade Gromyko can be taught to smile on occasion." He finds that at the party, Mr. Gromyko, after many painful lessons, was grinning like a novice candidate for Congress.
He regards the signs as far from being decisive and yet hopefully, the Western representatives, who were most expert in dealing with the Soviets, had now begun to rule out the worst possibilities. The Soviets had begun the Berlin crisis with naked military menace. The Geneva conference had opened in the echo of Mr. Khrushchev's latest bout of bomb-rattling. The differences of viewpoint between the British and the other Western allies still constituted a standing temptation to the Soviets to try to divide the alliance by creating an atmosphere of tension and alarm. If that method was not to be used, the outlook was at least considerably brighter than it might have been.
The somewhat negative improvement in the outlook was coupled with something more positive, that the Western experts were increasingly inclined to think that the Soviets planned it to pave the way to the summit with something which could at least be taken as evidence of good intentions, even if it was not very strong evidence.
Previously, the price which the Kremlin had paid for a summit conference in 1955 was the liberation of Austria, which had been a good, hard, solid price. In the new world situation, nothing like that could be hoped for, but the Soviets might make the concessions which would lead to an accord in principle on halting nuclear testing, as desired by the Kremlin, loathed and feared by Premier Charles de Gaulle, wishfully desired by the British public opinion and tepidly regarded by the U.S.
If the Soviets merely gave way a little on nuclear test controls, they could count on a strongly favorable reaction in the present state of world opinion. Perhaps, according to the experts, Mr. Gromyko would go even further and might create the conditions for an acceptable solution of the crucial, desperately dangerous Berlin problem.
He indicates that if those hopeful forecasts proved halfway correct, it would also prove that Mr. Khrushchev had subjects which he wanted to discuss at the summit conference other than Berlin and the division of Germany. The Berlin crisis would have partly served as a lever to force discussion of those other subjects. U.S. Ambassador to Moscow, Llewellyn Thompson, had long maintained that Mr. Khrushchev had something to say of great importance which he wished to say only in person and only to the President. That special thing which he wished to say could turn out to be the central topic of the summit. Whatever it might be, Mr. Alsop regards it as worth hearing, though unlikely to be pleasant to hear.
Doris Fleeson indicates that in the earliest presidential campaign in years, labor was getting ready actively for 1960. There would be exceptions, but the primary targets would again be the Republicans.
David Dubinsky, president of the International Ladies Garment Workers, had sounded the tocsin. He had told his union's convention in Miami that the way had to be cleared for "a positive rather than a negative government." He was a member of New York's Liberal Party, but was speaking for the Democrats against the Republicans. Labor had learned much about politics since the time when it had gone down to defeat with "Jumping Joe" Ferguson in the effort to purge Senator Robert Taft. That had been the nadir of labor's political reputation in the country, if not its fortunes. It had learned much since that time.
One of the things it had learned was to remain quiet about what it was doing politically. At present, labor rarely bragged in public of its power and did not openly threaten its foes. It had learned the hard way that the political choices made by its officers could not always be effectively communicated to its members.
It had recently done its most effective work in that area and there was little doubt that in the 1958 campaign, labor had voted more solidly than ever before, with perhaps more members of labor unions having voted than had ever voted in a non-presidential campaign. Labor had been helped by the presence of right-to-work proposals on the ballots of several states.
A secret discovered by labor's political experts was now paying off, that being that a powerful factor in a union man's vote was his wife's opinion. With remarkable assiduity, labor had been cultivating the wives of the rank-and-file for four years. The effort had paid off and now, not only union women but the wives of union men constituted the most formidable political weapon in labor's arsenal. The two women who headed that work, Esther Murray in the East and Margaret Thornburgh in the West, were personally unassuming. They had, nevertheless, become among the most influential women in American politics.
Labor's political education committee was presently holding a series of 20 area meetings of local officials in preparation for 1960. An AFL-CIO officer said that the meetings were for the purpose of "studying our navel." Actually, the meetings were being held as a reassessment of labor's performance in 1958 and as a preview of 1960 techniques. The meetings had been quite successful and were doubled in number in the current year so that they would be smaller and supposedly more effective. The attendance had remained as high as when far fewer meetings had been held. A recent workshop in Cleveland for labor leaders from Ohio and Pennsylvania had drawn 1,500 people.
Labor had now forged and was perfecting an organization which in many states was far better manned than the organization of either major political party. Whether leaders of national labor liked it or not, the organization was beginning to produce candidates. That was not the intention, but for those schooled in the mysteries of politics, it probably was the inevitable result.
A letter writer indicates that the approaching summit conference was being anxiously awaited by the people all over the world in the hope that it might bring a satisfactory solution to the Berlin situation. He finds that most statesmen, politicians, members of Congress and many wise laymen had faith that the conference could bring good results. He was not anxious to disillusion anybody or discourage hope, but as a realist who observed things as they really were, he could not agree with them because he knew their names and that nothing constructive could result from the conferences which would benefit humanity. He indicates that the previous 14 years should have been sufficient evidence for everyone to know that the Communists had no intention or desire to live in peace with non-Communist countries, as their only aim was to conquer the whole world for Communism without any compromise. The reason that they promoted conferences was that they were their only outlet for world propaganda. He regards their signed agreements as being worthless because they casually broke them. NATO was currently meeting the challenge for its future survival and the Soviet Union had frequently tried to bring friction between the NATO nations, continuously looking forward to find the weak links among them and then exploiting same. The Berlin problem was their test. The only country he feared might weaken was England, which was always "ready for appeasement". He warns that if the U.S., England and France were not firm in their demands and instead gave in to the Soviets, it would affect not only Germany but the whole world.
A letter from the executive director of Junior Achievement of Charlotte expresses his appreciation for the editorial which had appeared on May 7, titled "Charlotte's Bold Experiment Paid Off", indicating that the newspaper had been very helpful during the previous year in educating the people of the city about Junior Achievement.
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