And Fifty-Five Years Ago This Summer

F

rom an undated (summer 1960) teletype dispatch found in a box:

(RACE—SUBS PVS) A Negro couple won a victory today in their fight to move into an all-white suburban area northeast of Portland. Federal District Judge William East issued an injunction stopping the Richland Water District from condemning the property where Mr. and Mrs. Rowen M. Wiley want to build a house.

The Water District contended the construction had to be stopped to prevent contamination of a nearby well. The Wileys said racial discrimination was behind the move.

Judge East upheld the Wileys, saying he found no evidence the water district even tried to find out how sewage was to be handled on the property.

The testimony included statements from a white resident, Raymond W. Hewitt, who said he circulated a petition against the Wileys. Hewitt added: “We do not like to have colored people live in the neighborhood.”

The Wileys also had won in an earlier test of the state’s new anti-discrimination law. They complained property handlers were keeping them from buying a house solely because of their race. The property handlers denied that, but last Saturday were ordered to make certain property available for sale to the Wileys.

In the meanwhile the Wileys had purchased the property in the Richland District, planning to build there.

Still pending is a damage suit brought by the Wileys against the Water District.

(GOLDEN) A civic club in Greenville, South Carolina, has canceled a talk by best-selling author Harry Golden. He had planned to discuss a subject entitled, “The Moral Issues of Integration.” Officials of the Greenville Kiwanis Club said the club was deluged by protesting phone calls.

—Dash—

(In Charlotte, North Carolina, Golden said people are frightened all over. He said he told them, in Greenville, that it’s silly for South Carolina—a state which produced a great general like Francis Marion, the swamp fox, to be worried about a little fat guy making a speech.)

(FEATURE) And in Washington, Shirley Temple, the one-time child movie star, has told Vice-President Nixon that Soviet Premier Khrushchev is no softie. She said that during the Soviet premier’s visit to this country last year he grabbed her hands and put them on his stomach as a friendly gesture. Shirley reported she found the round Russian’s stomach was firm, not soft as she had expected.