NOTES IN THE NEWS

...School integration has begun, slowly...

...Yet until recent years San Antonio was for generations a completely typical Southern city in its segregation patterns...

...The latest resolute step forward came when the student sit-downs began in the South...

...San Antonio, with all its exceptional characteristics, brings into sharp relief the tragic lack of leadership in much of the rest of the South...

...The WisNot Exactly the Tunnel of Love consin Congressman has proposed a Point Four Youth Corps for young American men and women to serve in technical assistance missions...

...Senator Kefauver has agreed with many of these recommendations and has suggested as well that competition be restored to the drug industry by compelling licensing of patented drugs, and that small firms be strengthened by Food and Drug Cornmission inspections of all drug facilities...

...The effectiveness of racism as a political tool has been blunted...

...Weinstein recommended several corrective measures to the committee: f Only genuine research costs should be claimed as such...

...Light from the Sunshine State A shining example of the kind of courageous political leadership that could quicken the pace of achieving first-class citizenship for Negroes was the recent statement by Governor Leroy Collins of Florida...

...Martin A. Seidell's and Haskell J. Weinstein's testimony regarding a division of the Charles Pfizer drug company included these charges: Much of what the drug industry calls "research" is really promotion of products and financing of meaningless "studies" which serve no scientific or medical purpose, but are intended to keep the brand name of the drug before the medical profession...

...The achievement of this goal, without strife or bitterness and with little fanfare, highlights another characteristic of San Antonio—perhaps the most important—which, unhappily for the nation, makes it unrepresentative of the South...

...But our newspapers are usually busy looking the other way when much the same thing happens in a portion of what we are pleased to call "the free world...

...It was conceived as a continuing effort to share our wealth of knowledge and skills with other peoples so that they could more rapidly develop their own human and material resources and improve their standard of living...

...It has been suggested that enlistment in the youth corps might be an alternative to military service under the present draft law...

...The final phase of the Kefauver investigation, now beginning, is aimed at finding methods of correcting abuses, and bringing some sense of regulation and responsibility into an industry which literally gambles with life and death for the sake of more dollars...

...This vital factor is the quality, the courage, and the foresight of its leadership— religious, political, business, and civic—which has faced, in interracial harmony and cooperation, the great challenge of integration with firm, positive measures, carrying the community along without a single major adverse incident...

...But the world's needs have scarcely been scratched, and President Truman's "bold new program" has been much diluted by excessive caution, a military-minded Administration, and a Congress cool toward economic aid...

...Still another factor is its relatively small Negro population—only six per cent, less than in many a large Northern city...

...But most important, Governor Collins opened the way to the development of a climate in which peaceful solutions to racial problems may be found...

...So far the drug industry has made no move to lower prices or clean its own house...

...In the eleven years since the inauguration of Point Four, thousands of American technicians in every conceivable social and scientific field have gone to every part of the earth to train and teach other peoples to help themselves...

...Drugging the Public Senator Estes Kefauver's doggedly persistent inquiry into the high cost of drugs and the enormous profits of the drug industry has concluded its fact-finding phase and has now moved into a search for solutions to the problems uncovered...

...When the Supreme Court handed down its historic opinion, Catholic Archbishop Robert E. Lucey had already desegregated San Antonio's parochial schools, peacefully and in orderly fashion, in defiance of then-existing law...

...We stand in considerable awe of the power of the Madison Avenue machine, but with Senator Estes Kefauver, a tough and resilient opponent, leading the fight for the consumer, there is genuine hope for basic reform...

...3. Blank ballots—the only way electors could vote against Chiang— were thrown out as invalid...

...As outlined by Representative Reuss, they are: First—To make additional technical manpower available to U.S...

...San Antonio is on the way to becoming a completely "open city...

...There is one publication which charges a fee for publishing an article—and then sells reprints to the drug firm which uses them in promoting the drug among doctors...

...Carter Products, which has a virtual monopoly on tranquilizers, made a net profit in 1958 of thirty-eight per cent, and the family of its president, Henry H. Hoyt, enjoyed a tidy $5 million return for that year alone—not including Hoyt's handsome salary...

...Many religious and civic leaders of Houston and Dallas, in the truly "deep South" of eastern Texas, have been impressed by their neighbor's success, and are striving on an interracial basis to emulate San Antonio's peaceful efforts...

...The testimony of the parade of witnesses which began last fall has revealed layer after layer of deception, profiteering, and monopoly, much of which has been reported in these pages in recent months...

...f Sales of an antibiotic found to have "side effects" that are harmful, or even fatal, were stepped up by an advertising campaign which virtually ignored this danger...

...Drs...

...Alone among governors of southern states, Collins announced that he was establishing a statewide bi-racial advisory committee on race relations and urged cities to take similar action "to consider local racial grievances and find ways...

...Before any demonstration occurred, thirty lunch counters were desegregated...

...f The price to the consumer should appear on each piece of advertising going to physicians...

...The candle lighted by the governor of the sunshine state brightens the darkness of the massive resistance of other Southern governors, and dispels some of the shadows of the President's massive indifference...

...Tallahassee officials, who have twice rejected Collins' suggestion, resorted instead to tear gas, arrests, threats, and abuse of Negro and white students involved in civil rights protest demonstrations...

...The legislation which Reuss has introduced in the House (and an identical bill brought before the Senate by the late Senator Richard L. Neu-berger) asks for a non-governmental study to determine the practicality and advisability of such a corps, with recommendations to be returned to Congress within a year...

...San Antonio's tradition of solving its racial problems before they explode in violence or hate goes back at least to the period before the 1954 school desegregation decision...

...But this possibility is by no means an essential part of Reuss' proposal, and we would hope that any study of the plan would not emphasize this feature as one of its recommendations...

...Leroy Collins has spoken out forcefully for civil rights on several occasions, although a Northern liberal would regard his general approach as one of cautious moderation...

...The plan would call for two- or four-year college students or graduates to enlist for a minimum two-year period for work overseas under both government and privately sponsored Point Four programs—work which would utilize their special training and talents...

...One important factor is its substantial Mexican-American population, with its strong Latin cultural influences...

...We are confident that many thousands of our college students would be eager to take advantage of the enormous opportunities which would be opened to them by such a program...

...The community accepted still one more change in its Southern social customs with ease and grace, and, on the whole, with indifference...

...In an unprecedented radio and television talk deploring the tough resistance to lunch counter sit-downs in Tallahassee, the state capital, Collins said it was "morally wrong" to deny Negroes lunch counter service...

...But in spite of obstinate resistance, Governor Collins' courageous leadership has brought progress in Florida...

...Point Four of President Truman's proposals was to be a "bold new program" which would bring to all the world the benefits of America's great technical and scientific resources...

...The Heart of Texas The city of San Antonio, deep in the heart of Texas, is without question a Southern city, but there are characteristics of this community of a half million people which set it somewhat apart from the "typical" city of the deep South...

...But the closing days—and nights—of testimony uncovered practices of the drug industry more serious and sordid than the profiteering charges...

...f To introduce a new drug, the company prepared literature for doctors claiming a record of "more than a year's clinical testing" when the drug was only four months old, and the testing cited involved only one of the component parts of the drug...

...2. The constitution was suspended for the day because the constitution of Nationalist China forbids a third term and Chiang already had two...

...A more constructive approach, it seems to us, would be to eliminate the military draft and establish the Point Four Youth Corps as a voluntary peace army bringing new life, new ideas, and new skills to peoples all over the world...

...Today, San Antonio is almost completely integrated in its public facilities, schools, parks, buses, swimming pools, golf courses—and now its lunch counters...

...But there is hope that San Antonio's example on the fringe of the South may bear fruit elsewhere...

...instead it has launched a huge propaganda campaign to persuade Congress, the public, and the press that the Kefauver committee's findings are false...

...Anyone who doesn't see the difference between the free elections in Nationalist China and the rigged elections in Communist China is obviously a tool of the Kremlin...

...It is not required to do this by law . . . but by simple moral justice...

...Two doctors, one of whom had succeeded the other as medical director of a leading drug firm, both testified they had resigned in protest against the company's "perverted marketing attitudes" and advertising, which they found misleading, sometimes dangerous, unethical, and offensive to their "sense of morality...

...Protestant, Jewish, and Catholic leaders of both races quietly conferred with department and variety store management...

...If there is "any department of a store the management does not wish to make available to all," Collins declared, "I think the management should close down...

...f A public health agency should be given responsibility for evaluating drugs before marketing...

...This attitude," charged the governor, "has brought about conditions of which I am frankly ashamed and has led to an atmosphere which is disgraceful...

...The root of most of these unscrupulous practices is greed—anything to boost sales and swell profits, already at record-breaking heights...

...From that time forward, San Antonio's public doors have opened one after another, sometimes before Negroes themselves actually raised a hand to knock...

...Advertising should emphasize the generic name of a drug and only mention the trade name...

...It is this lack of leadership on the part of responsible government officials, more than any other factor, that has placed a back-breaking, heart-breaking burden on the Negro, forcing him to fight a bitter, costly, and sometimes bloody battle for the freedom and equality guaranteed him in the Constitution...

...agencies and to private agencies carrying out economic, medical, educational, and community development programs in underdeveloped friendly foreign countries...

...We concur heartily with the basic objectives of such a youth corps...

...Many so-called "scientific articles" on new drugs in medical journals are prepared by the drug houses themselves...

...Formosa, so glowingly described in our press as the "bastion of freedom in the Far East," held an election for president recently, and here is what happened: 1. Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek was the only candidate allowed on the ballot...

...Now a bold new idea for implementing the Point Four concept has been introduced by Democratic Representative Henry S. Reuss...

...The drug industry as a whole realizes a net return, after taxes, of twenty per cent, more than any other industry...

...Negro spokesmen said they expect all restaurants to desegregate shortly, and that hotels and motels would be next to open their doors...

...1 Physicians are not alerted to the fact that some drugs clear up symptoms but leave the basic condition uncorrected...

...Second—To assist in broadening the understanding by the peoples of other nations of the ideals and aspirations of Americans, through close contact with young Americans participating in the Point Four Youth Corps...

...Significantly, it was only two days later that Jackie Robinson, the Negro baseball star, was the guest speaker at an interracial banquet which had been arranged long in advance of the lunch counter opening...

...The success of his example made it easy for the public schools to follow suit...

...Because this group is overwhelmingly Catholic, a religious balance prevails in San Antonio which is rare in the Protestant South...

...Point Four Rejuvenation In his better days, when former President Harry S. Truman laid down a four-point foreign policy program in his inaugural address of January 20, 1949, he wrote into the language a term that has become a worldwide symbol of the generosity, the concern for others, and the creative imagination of the American people...

...Free World Election Whenever a Communist country conducts an election, the American press has a field day deriding the absence of choice as the voters are handed ballots containing a single slate representing a single party...

...Third—To offer our young people an opportunity to serve their country in a stimulating way, while broadening their understanding of the problems facing other peoples and nations...

...4. More than 85 per cent of the people of the island are native For-mosans (Taiwanese), but they were allotted only two per cent of the votes in the electoral college...

...to live and work in harmony...