The Philadelphia Inquirer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 10

Comment Editorials 10 THURSDAY MORNING, SEPTEMBER 18, 1958 'Wait-and-See' On Integration JOHN M. CUMMINGS Leader and Scott No Lincoln-Douglas AT THIS season of the year exactly a century ago Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas were engaged in a series of debates. They were rival candidates for United States Senator from Illinois, Lincoln on the ticket of the new-born Republican Party; Douglas as the nominee of the Democrats. It is recorded that Lincoln won the debates, but lost the election.

Nevertheless, what he had to say in these encounters with the "Little Giant," as Douglas was called, made such a profound impression onthe country that it put him in line for the Republican Presidential nomination in 186G They had a debate in Har-risburg the other night. As in the case of the Lincoln-Douglas encounters candidates for a seat in the U. S. Senate were involved. Gov.

George M. Leader, wearing Democratic The cause of the segregationists in the South feeds upon delay, evasion, and long-drawn-out litigation in holding off enforcement of the Supreme Court's ruling on racially integrated public schools. Governor Faubus and Governor Almond will probably find comfort, therefore, in Attorney General Rogers' announcement that the Federal Government would take no legal action for the time being to insure integration in the public schools of Arkansas and Virginia. The Department of Justice apparently intends toawait the outcome of public demands for a reopening of the closed schools before taking legal action to that end. The "wait-and-see" policy was announced by Attorney General Rogers after a talk with President Eisenhower, and it is probably based on hopes that public resentment in Little Rock, Arkansas and Front Royal, Virginia, over the closing down of schools there following integration orders, will force a capitulation by the two Governors without further action by the Government.

The Attorney General said that "it seems inconceivable that 'a State or community would rather close its public schools than comply with the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States." He added that "the alternatives are closed schools or compliance with the orders of the court." Mr. Rogers is not being realistic. He may think it beyond belief that a State would rather close its public schools than permit the mingling of white and Negro students, but if he had read the election returns in Governor Faubus' recent renomi-nation and had noted the celerity ith which the Legislatures of Arkansas and Virginia had approved school-closing laws as a means of fighting integration, he might not be so incredulous. As to closed schools or compliance with integration being the only alternatives, it is, unfortunately, not so simple as that. The professional segregationists are insisting that there are other alternatives that would permit segregated schooling to go on.

In Little Rock an election will be held September 27 to determine if the citizens there want the four high schools reopened on a racially desegregated basis. If the vote is against integration, we may be sure that Governor Faubus will take steps to rule out admission of Negroes to the white schools. In Virginia Governor Almond is already seeking means to provide segregated schooling for students in the closed Front Royal school. Efforts by some Front Royal parents to have the school reopened by local authorities on an integrated basis were quickly dampened when it was realized what the denial of State aid would mean in heightened taxes. In Little Rock, ministers' groups and others have braved the Faubus malice by clamoring for reopening of the schools.

School reopening on former segregationist basis may be ruled out because it would invite immediate court injunction and perhaps even dispatch of Federal marshals and troops to enforce the court order. But other steps are possible to keep both schools and segregation operation, such as assignment of white children to schools unaffected by integration orders, the remission of taxes to persons who will send their children to private schools, the establishment of so-called "private" schools subsidized in indirect fashion by the State. All such devices and others that may be adopted would be attacked in the courts. But, meanwhile, the segregationists will have bought more of that priceless commodity, time. The Federal Government must be prepared to meet "massive resistance" to the Jaw of the land with massive counter-action, intelligently and alertly applied.

I 1 rx I A REP. HUGH SCOTT lift, tim mm jFv! vN Red China Issue Returns to U.N. A HALT BEFORE IT STARTS The Voice of the People Letters must be brief, written on one side of the paper. The writer's name and address must be signed, not necessarily or publication. The Inquirer reserves right to condense.

colors, and Rep. Hugh Scott, sporting the silks of tha Republicans, jawboned in a television show of limited range in more ways than one. Not having heard the debate, we are in no position to give a blow by blow description of what happened. Nor are we competent to elucidate on the subject or subjects discussed. MOREOVER, we are not going to bracket this debate with the classic performance of a century ago.

It belongs, rather, with such nonsense as the Dil-worth-Meehan debate of a few years back when erudition squared off with absurdity in the Academy of Music. According to the skeletonized dispatches from the State capital, the debate ended with ene of the participants, Governor Leader, missing from the scene. Before taking his precipitate departure he accused Scott of accepting $2000 as a fee in a pardon case of some years ago. Without even pausing for a reply, the Governor then took off. Scott called him a "hit-and-run artist" and said he (Leader) misrepresented the facts.

There were, we suppose, other matters of equal weightiness under discussion and if ever they are wafted in this direction we'll let you know. IT MAY be doubted that anything plucked from the obscurity of this so-called debate will go rolling down the corridors of time, as the saying has it. The Lincoln-Douglas debates are still studied in our schools and colleges; they are avidly read by statesmen and by scholars. "A house divided against itself cannot stand." Who said that? Lincoln, of course. He said it in discussing the Kansas-Nebraska act to permit the extension of slavery to the northwest territories.

It set forth in a few words his conviction that this nation could not exist permanently half slave and half free. One hundred years later we have something of the same condition segregation, which falls little short of slavery, in the South; integration in the North. In somewhat modified form the same old battle lines are drawn. Above the tumult you can almost hear the warning sounded by Lincoln In a time of utmost national peril, the warning that a house divided against itself cannot stand. Nothing as substantial in the light of conditions today came out of the Harrisburg jabbering.

One hundred years ago they had a big giant as well as a little one. WASHINGTON BACKGROUND Democrats Up Claims On Basis of Maine Vote By JOHN C. O'BRIEN Inquirer Washington Bureau WASHINGTON, Sept. 17. IN AN exuberant mood since the Maine election, the Democratic Senate and House Campaign Committees are revising upward their earlier estimates of the number of seats they expect to gain in the November election.

A few months back, the Democratic leaders thought they would be doing well if they added 30 seats in the House and two or three in the Senate. Since the Maine election they have upped their estimate of House gains to between 50 and 60 seats. About gains in the Senate, they are less certain. Addition of 60 House seats would swell the Democratic representation to 293, which would give the party a margin over the Republicans which it has not had since the early days of the New Deal. The optimism of the Democratic House Campaign Committee is predicated not only on the Democratic trend indicated in the Maine results but upon the normal tirrn-over in favor of the party out of power in a midterm election, the high cost of living and the decline in the President's popularity as measured in opinion polls.

ALTHOUGH some political observers do not put as much stock in the Maine results as a barometer of political trends as they used to, members of the Democratic House Campaign Committee profess to be lieve that the political behavior of the Pine Tree State is PORTRAITS By James J. Metcalfe MY FLOWERS FOR YOU I like to give you flow- ers, dear A beautiful bouquet And if I could if afford it, I Would order some each day Enough to fill your vases all ith every fra-'-:) grance sweet And then a thousand more, my love To strew beore your feet I do not Jtare the ans to buy The smallest flower mart But 1 do have and offer you The blossoms in 1 my heart The flower 'q of devotion and The i bloom of loyalty And one forget-me-not to crown Each happy memory These are my humble tokens of The love 1 1 have for you These are my promises, dear one To make your dreams come true. THE PUBLIC PULSE To the Editor of The Inquirer: I want to commend The Inquirer for saying editorially on Sept. 10, "Don't Defend the Offshore Isles." It takes courage for a newspaper to propose such a policy, which, at first blush, may ppear to be an unpopular one. It is not unpopularand it is logical.

The U. S. should not be dragged into a possible atomic World War by attempting to defend the Chinese offshore islands of Quemoy and Matsu. The U. S.

has never agreed to defend these islands. It's unfortunate that through the recent course of events we have permitted ourselves to be placed in the frightening dilemma of apparently abandoning the Chinese Nationalists or running the risk of atomic war. We should not "dump" Chiang, but we must not permit him to lead us into a dangerous It's about time our national Administration was made aware of the public "pulse ratings" on this situation. O. A.

GOLATO Philadelphia, Sept. 14. TnE BRAVE POLICEMEN To the Editor of The Inquirer: What is this country coming to? We have a President, his Secretary of State, and a few Congressmen, bravely trying to be internationa1 policemen. But what do they police? In the Middle East they support opulent monarchs ruling medieval serfdoms. In the Far East they seek to maintain hostile coastal islands off China, a concept as preposterous as Britain trying to maintain control of Staten Island.

God help us. ALBERT II. JONES Narbcrth, Sept. 15. Before the present session of the United Nations General Assembly has ended, the world may know a good deal more about the real aims of the largest nation.

that is not a member of the U.N. Red China. The session has opened, auspiciously for the West, with the election of Charles Malik of Lebanon as president, over the opposition of the Arab and Communist blocs. Today the Assembly will begin to get down to cases, with Secretary of State Dulles setting forth the American position and Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko slated to answer him. The biggest threat to peace, however, of the kind the U.N.

was set up to handle, does not involve any nation whose delegate will be present in New York. Far across the world. Red Chinese shelling of the offshore island of Quemoy, now held by the Nationalists who do represent all of China in the U.N., has once more raised the war danger. Unquestionably it will be in the minds of the U.N. delegates.

Once again, Russia and the Soviet bloc, 50 Years of The Monitor' "It is my request," wrote Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy, "that you start a daily paper at once." At any time, as all newspapermen know, that request would be unusual. In 1908, coming from the founder of the Church of Christ. Scientist, it was considered wholly unique. Yet.

a hundred days later, the first issue of the Christian Science Monitor rolled off the presses, and editions have continued to roll on weekdays since then. Most Americans, and millions of people in other countries, have learned in the past 50 years, that the Christian Science Monitor is not a religious newspaper in any narrow sense of the word. It is owned by the Christian Science Church; it is run by a staff of professional newspapermen, whose aim has always been to spread enlightenment by means of thorough and discerning coverage of the important news of the world. The able and widely respected Erwin Canham, editor of the Monitor, has written a history of the paper from its beginnings to the present, when six daily editions are read all over the United States and in 119 other countries as well. The title of this book, "Commitment to Freedom," aptly sums up the combination of calm and informed reporting with quiet adherence to principle which has held thousands of Monitor readers' even in places where it is received days or weeks after publication.

The loyalty ot those readers is in itself a tribute to the influence and quality of this distinguished paper. We are proud to add our own congratulations to the Monitor on its first 50 years, and best wishes for fruitful years ahead. of all students) wasted about half his time in school. Think of the tremendous waste to these gifted students! We could encourage the gifted student by discovering him at an early age and giving him studies that are commensurate with his interests and intellectual ability. To do this would require having a few more teachers of proven ability.

It might cost more to pay them a decent salary, but in view of the paltry sums we now pay it would be worth it. INTERESTED Upper Darby.Sept. 13. perhaps with other support, no doubt will try to get Red China into the U.N. Once more the delegates will be reminded of the time eight years ago, when another Malik Jacob Malik, of Russia had walked out, that the U.N.

condemned the lawless aggression by the Chinese Reds against the Republic of Korea. At that time. Red China tried to "shoot its way" into the U.N'., and was rebuffed. Now Red China again is shooting and still trying to get into the U.N'. If those tactics continue, we cannot, see how the U.N.

can do anything but keep Red China out. Even if the Commifnist regime in China now agrees to settle the Quemoy issue by negotiation, there will be strong objections to opening the U.N. doors right away. Having failed to enter the U.N. by use of force, Red China may change her tactics.

At any rate, by the end of this session, the world may see how much if anything the Chinese Communists have learned in the past eight years. The Red Terror Goes On Now that the United Nations General Assembly is in session, it would do well to take another look at what is going on in Soviet-dominated Hungary. News has leaked out that four more leaders of the tragic 1956 revolt have been secretly tried, convicted and sentenced to prison terms. These convictions follow, of course, the brutal execution of former Premier Imre Nagy and General Pal Maleter, top leaders in the abortive rebellion. It is plain that the Red masters of Hungary have not changed their ways since the killing of Nagy and Maleter and that the terror goes on.

It goes on because, for one thing, there is no legal protection in Hungary against the Russian overlords. Only the other day it became known that about one-third of the lawyers in Hungary have been disbarred, because of their nonconformist views. The remaining lawyers, with very few exceptions, were ordered to pool their practices and work under governmental controls. Since the 1956 revolt Hungary has repeatedly rejected U.N. directives, would not even permit U.N.

observers to enter the country. It is more than time that the U.N. demanded, with determination, that Russia get its boot off Hungary's neck. Bobby and Eddie There was no Broadway ticker-tape welcome to Bobby Fischer when he returned from Europe the other day. No crowd was on hand to greet him when his plane put down at Idlewild.

His arrival went unnoticed in the gossip columns. Eddie Fisher spells his name without a In the days before Bobby came home with barely enough money in his pocket to buy a sandwich, Eddie was getting scads of publicity. His every move was watched closely in New York and Hollywood. Eddie, a singer, was in something of a jam. Bobby Fischer, you see, is only a chess player.

At 15 he achieved in Europe the distinction of being one of six persons in the world to be recognized as masters in this age-old game of kings and queens, of knights, bishops, castles and pawns. They say it takes brains to play chess, even an ordinary game. Brooklyn's Bobby Fischer is proficient to an extraordinary degree. Eddie Fisher, the singer, his wife, Debbie Reynolds and Liz Taylor, relict of Mike Todd, have been linked in the sensational news of the day. It's one of those New York-Hollywood triangles.

Some of Eddie's admirers are fearful. He was hissed the other night on the Steve Allen show. Bobby Fischer has brains. He is one of the world's best chess players. May become champion some day.

Using chess terms, he might say that Eddie is a knight in tarnished armor who moved out of his castle to become the pawn of a designing queen. HOUSING FALLACIES To the Editor of The Inquirer: In his statement on pub'ic housing, Mayor Dilvorth evidently took his information from the original concept of public housing legislation, while completely ignoring what is actually practiced in Philadelphia housing projects. "Over congestion" for instance. There are at least two projects near me, at 3d Christian and 13th Fitzwater, where the new population will greatly exceed the original one by more. Also "providing housing for persons displaced "by slums." The average number of dwellers later admitted to public housing is about one-third of those displaced.

Excluding those ineligible because of high income, the remaining two-thirds cannot get into public housing because of the questionable procedure of the Philadelphia Housing Authority. What happens to these two-thirds? They simply move into other neighborhoods and then proceed to create new slums. Furthermore, Philadelphia public housing docs not cater to the low income group as originally intended. Rents vary from $25 a month to $65 a month, in addition to a Federal subsidy of about $20 per month per family. Now a man able to pay $G5 per month can find private housing much more readily than the man able to pay only $25 per month.

Yet housing turns away the $25 per month family in favor of those who will pay them higher rents. The Mayor can exercise his dynamic leadership for better housing results if he takes another careful look at the entire housing situation, both public and private. 1SADORE RUGOWITZ Philadelphia, Sept. 15. LAWS OF THE LAND To the Editor of The Inquirer: Many thanks for your most timely, informative, and excel-, lent editorials which are greatly appreciated and read by countless others as well as myself.

Some people are beginning to learn, much to their chagrin and embarrassment, that the rulings of the U. S. Supreme Court are the laws of this land for all Americans and the Court will not be defeated. GEORGE W. BLOUNT West Chester, Sept.

16. THE BEST HELD BACK To the Editor of The Inquirer: We are all hearing the clamor for more teachers of higher quality in order to meet the greatly increased need for scientists and technicians. This approach, the giving of a little more intensive training to most of the students is questionable. Would it not be wiser to conserve and nurture the comparatively few students capable of profiting from this more rigorous instruction? It is generally agreed that approximately 5 percent of the student population is intellectually capable of fairly easy accomplishment of the schooling required for professional or scientific work. Yet these brighter students are denied rapid advancement and are held back to the pace of the class.

One eminent psychologist estimated that a child with an I of 140 (1 percent What Do You Want to Know? Submit questions in writing and sign name and BULB LOST ITS TIP How did the electric light bulb lose its tip? Had it something to do with an accident involving a scrub woman? E. S. The glass tip wasn't lost. It were concentrated on eliminating the tip by tubulating the glass chamber in a position allowing the tip to be covered by the base of the lamp. With discovery or such a method about 1923 the objectionable tip was chopped off and hasn't appeared since.

Mr. Cox never heard any story relating the fact to a scrub woman. PEWTER What is pewter made of? H. J. M.

Pewter is an alloy consisting chiefly of tin in combination with other metals such as copper, lead, antimony and bismuth. The amount of tin has varidd from the early Roman 75 percent to the 90 percent of more recent times. MONTY'S BIRTHPLACE We are having an argument about the birthplace of Field Marshal Bernard L. Montgomery, the great British Army leader in the Second World War. What was the name of the town and was it in Ireland or England? D.

K. Although the family home was at Movillc, County Donegal, Northern Ireland, the hero of El Alamein was born in St. Mark's Vicarage, Ken-nington Oval, London, England, 70 years ago. His father was an Episcopal bishop. still a reliable indicator of what will happen throughout the Nation.

They point out that in the past whenever the Republican vote in Maine has fallen below 60 percent of the total, the Democrats have taken control of Congress. Except in the mid-term election of 1954, the rise and fall of the Republican Congressional percentage In Maine has been followed by a similar rise and fall in the number of Republicans elected to the House In the following November. This has been the pattern in the last seven mid term elections in the bellwether New England State. In 1954, the decline in the percentage of the vote cast by Republicans in Maine indicated a probable overall loss of Republican seats in the House of more than 40 seats. Actually, the Republicans lost only about half that many.

IN THE election this month the Republican vote was 8.2 points below their normal percentage. This would indicate a Nationwide gain for the Democrats of more than 60 seats the Democratic strategists are now expecting. But since Muskie was a candidate in this electionthis time for a seat in the United States Senate the strategists are discounting the apparent Democratic trend in Maine by 2 or 3 points. The Democratic Senate Campaign Committee is counting on a gain of one scat from California, tvhere they believe Rep. Clair Englc, the Democratic candidate, will defeat Gov.

Goodwin S. Knight for the seat held In the present Congress by Sen. William F. Knowland. Earlier they had also counted on winning Sen.

Irving M. Ives' seat in New York and Sen. Edward Martin's seat in Pennsylvania. In the last few days, the realists on the Senate Campaign Committee have been listing these two contests as doubtful. ftfu HFMabcIpfua Inquirer ESTABLISHED Vt L.

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the inqIJIrFits platTorm To print the new a accurately and fearlessly, but never be foment ith merely printing the news; to strut alwaya to uphold the principle of our American democracy, to war relent, sessly aa amst alien "mrrs." to fight Intolerance, to be the friend who trf in(j oppressed; te tlemand equal Justice lor employer and employed; to work for he advancement of industrr in Philadelphia and Pennsylvania, to oppose political hypocrisy and corruption; to be it. te be flair and abote all to be unswervingly independent; fight and wr.cr to rs fighting tc muntain the ssnrliiy peraooal liberty and the inviolability of human rights. I' V-n, 1 it was given the bum's rush at the earliest opportunity. Sharp glass points cn the round end of lamp bulbs were considered objectionable as soon as they blazed on the scene, according to Robert C. Cox of the Philadelphia Electric Company.

In the early days of lamp making efforts.