The Charlotte News
Wednesday, December 21, 1949
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the President, speaking at the Arlington carillon memorial for the dead of World War II, said that there would never be another war if the people "sick of blood-letting" could have their way. But, he added, while the captive peoples "are made to respond to our handclasp with a mailed fist, we have no choice but to stand ready in self defense."
In Tokyo, Russia angrily quit the four-power Allied council for Japan rather than respond to General MacArthur's discussion of the Soviet failure to complete repatriation of Japanese war prisoners, which he estimated to include 374,000 dead in Soviet prison camps from brutal treatment in "disregard for humanity". The Soviets had returned some 1.3 million prisoners in four years and American and Japanese authorities had pressed for the return of more than 300,000 others. The Soviets had returned 94,000 the previous summer and claimed that only 10,000 "war criminals" remained.
Senator Arthur Vandenberg, returning to Washington after a stint in the hospital, told reporters that the Marshall Plan should be "sharply reduced" and that the recipient nations should begin to engage more in self-help. He also said that Communist China was not ready for recognition by the U.S., that it would be when it showed that it had control of China and would abide by international law, a status it had not yet achieved. He asserted that full diplomatic recognition should be accorded Franco's Spain. He stressed that there was no "me-tooism" in the Republican bipartisan foreign policy as it was subject to full debate while decisions were being made. The objective of the Republican Party, he added, should be "to restore the American system to safe foundations before it is too late, and to gear dependable progress with national solvency and individual freedom."
Across the Communist world, birthday
tributes were provided Josef Stalin, called the "inspirer of
creation" by one Moscow newspaper headline. Artists vied with
one another to produce the most heroic statue of the Prime Minister,
and new songs and poems
In Boston, chief of Naval operations Admiral Forrest Sherman, speaking before the Chamber of Commerce, said that there was ample evidence of a reawakening of Russian maritime ambition, and urged maintenance of America's superior force of aircraft carriers to keep open the vital sea lanes.
In New York, in the retrial of Alger Hiss for perjury, Mr. Hiss, contradicting the claims of Whittaker Chambers, denied that he ever headed any underground Communist apparatus or that either his brother or former Assistant Secretary of State Francis Sayre ever had. Mr. Hiss said that a handwritten report which he prepared anent the seizure in Moscow of Ruth Marie Rubens in December, 1937 and subsequent efforts by American diplomats to free her, which wound up in the possession of Mr. Chambers, was given by him to Mr. Sayre, not Mr. Chambers. The defense presented evidence that at the time, the Rubens matter was public knowledge and that two articles had appeared about it contemporaneously in The New York Times.
In New York, the espionage trial of Judy Coplon was again continued because of a pretrial hearing in progress regarding a defense motion to suppress the wiretap evidence. The trial would begin two days after the judge made his ruling.
In Detroit, unknown plotters had set
a huge dynamite charge, consisting of 39 sticks tied in Christmas
wrapping, at UAW headquarters on an outside stairs leading to the
basement, but it had failed to detonate. Police said that it was enough
dynamite to blow up a city block. One of two fuses burned to within
an eighth of an inch of the dynamite. The detonator at the end of the
second fuse failed to work. The police had searched the premises
after receiving an anonymous tip of the presence of explosives.
Security was increased at the facility. The union offered a $25,000
reward for information
In Covington, Tenn., a 19-year old boy killed his 17-year old childhood sweetheart with a gun while she was at her place of employment in a hardware store and then shot himself fatally. The previous summer, the boy's brother had used the same gun to kill his father-in-law during a family quarrel and then shot himself fatally. The Sheriff had reluctantly returned the gun to the boy at the insistence of his mother who said he wanted it as a souvenir.
In Aberdeen, S.D., a 30-year old automobile salesman killed his former sweetheart and then himself with a pistol as they sat together in a parked car.
Tom Fesperman of The News, continuing his look at Federal urban redevelopment aid, remarks again that the bill to allow use of the Federal money was killed by the 1949 North Carolina Legislature at the behest of the real estate lobby and would have to await approval in 1951. All of the surrounding states meanwhile had accepted Federal aid for the purpose and were beginning redevelopment of slum areas. He urges organized efforts of the major cities in the state to lobby the Legislature for acceptance of the money at the next biennial session.
Dick Young of The News tells of another compromise having been reached by the City Council, voting 4 to 3 to ask for 600 new public housing units after proposals by individual Councilmen were received for between 700 and 1,000 units. The number was 200 more than originally approved by the Council earlier. Mayor Herbert Baxter angrily said that he did not think the additional 200 units or the 600 total would help "one iota". He chastised one Councilman for "umphing" everything he said.
On the editorial page, "Stalin—Epitome of Everything" finds the Communist world celebrating the 70th birthday of Josef Stalin with a list being sent out to all the State-controlled press outlets and to various institutions to present the matter in bold print.
It finds that in the Western world, the people planned the birthday of the Master whose memory remained after 2000 years to combat the slavish will imposed by Stalin and his ilk.
"Noise, Noise, Noise" tells of The New Yorker finding that the captive audience aboard buses, trains, and at Grand Central Station, where a new public address system had been installed, were beset by noise everywhere. The buses and trains of Washington had just been allowed to use radios. The piece thought that the passengers should hear only the noise of the trains and buses, and the piece agrees.
"Denfeld Is Still Pouting" tells of Admiral Louis Denfeld, who had been forced to step down as chief of Naval operations for his resistance to military unification, having turned down the command of the U.S. Naval forces in the Atlantic based on his belief that the charge of disloyalty leveled at him by Navy Secretary Francis Matthews would place him in a compromising position with leaders of other nations.
The piece finds the excuse not convincing as the repositing of enough confidence in him by Secretary Matthews and the President to hold the position was enough to dispel the charge of disloyalty except with respect to unification. It perceives him as intrigued with his role as martyr and ventures that if so, he should resign from the Navy.
"The Christmas Seal" urges giving to the campaign which had been conceived first in 1904 in Denmark by a postal clerk who had the idea of selling special stamps to raise money to build a sanatorium for children suffering from tuberculosis. Then a woman in Delaware, Emily Bissell, forwarded the idea in the U.S., to build a tuberculosis hospital in Delaware. The drive was in its 43rd year in the United States.
A piece from the Greensboro Daily News, titled "Let Bob Run", finds that if former Senator Robert Rice Reynolds wanted to run for his old Senate seat against Senator Clyde Hoey, then he should do so without objection. There was nothing better, it finds, than a clear-cut choice which the former Senator would afford in the race.
Drew Pearson tells of American G.I.'s spending Christmas in Germany the previous year having raised $247,000 to provide Christmas for German children of the American zone. In 1949, the American Legion was conducting a toy drive the day after Christmas to collect toys for the children of Europe. He urges giving to the drive, which would distribute the toys through the CARE program.
He tells of Captain Arleigh Burke—future chief of Naval operations under President Eisenhower—being passed over for promotion because of his leadership of "Operation 23", a propaganda arm of the Navy which had promoted the Navy at the expense of unification of the armed forces. The President had ordered his name removed by Navy Secretary Matthews from the promotions list, despite recommendation for promotion to rear admiral by the Navy promotion board. After doing so, Secretary Matthews resent the promotions list to the White House where it now sat.
A general survey of municipal water supplies, performed in light of the drought in New York, had shown that big city water supplies were drying up while the nation generally had adequate water. The answer to the problem was establishment of reclamation projects for the cities of the East, taking a lesson from Los Angeles which had a 200-mile long aqueduct to supply water from the Colorado River. New York would need draw its water from the Hudson. He relates of hydroelectric projects being planned for the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest.
But the Eastern cities with the worst problem were those adjacent to polluted rivers. Man was probably the only animal which drank his own sewage. But worse than that was the chemical pollution. The worst of the lot was the Delaware River around Philadelphia where so much treatment had to take place that the water was nearly comprised entirely of chemicals. Another problem was seawater seeping into the ground water, with which cities like Los Angeles and Miami had to contend. It also impacted Brooklyn with its water table below sea level. The water shortage might cause Brooklyn's strict restrictions to be relaxed, putting the water supply at risk of contamination.
He notes that one solution proposed was a series of desalinization plants to convert seawater into drinking water. But geologists claimed it would be more expensive than to build reclamation projects for obtaining fresh water from the rivers.
Marquis Childs discusses the prospect for the Fair Employment Practices Commission bill, being made the first major piece of legislation to be brought before the Senate in the 1950 Congressional session, as promised by Senate Majority Leader Scott Lucas. It was a chancy maneuver as it would cause filibuster by Southern Democrats and risk delay or defeat of the remainder of the Fair Deal programs.
But the Democrats also believed it would provide political advantage by highlighting the difference in domestic policy from that favored by the Republicans and put their conservative stances on the spot. Republicans had joined with the Southerners in the first session to to pass a rule to make it more difficult to bring civil rights legislation to a vote. Many Republicans worried about Senator John Bricker's urge to Southern Democrats to join Republicans in a coalition, not wanting it.
In order to win a national victory, the GOP had to be perceived as liberal, especially in black voting districts. One proof was in the New Jersey gubernatorial race won the previous November by GOP Governor Alfred Driscoll over the political machine of Jersey City boss Frank Hague, with strong support in the black districts. The Governor had worked for civil rights programs, including fair employment practices, and had benefited from that effort in the black precincts.
Many Republicans wanted to turn the party further to the right. But doing so, he asserts, would likely result inevitably in a national loss in 1952. He suggests instead a talk with Governor Driscoll and the realization that if the party went a bit more to the right, it might find itself "right off the map."
Frederick C. Othman, substituting for vacationing Robert C, Ruark, tells of shopping for new chinaware to meet his wife's Christmas wish to place their crockery on a better footing than that of their dog. She wanted a plain American-made pattern, rather than the fancy ones made abroad. It was expensive, because of a real gold band around the perimeter, but it was the best made, according to the saleslady.
He decided to go ahead and break the bank with the purchase. But there was a hitch. The saleslady told him to wash the dishes only in a gentle detergent by hand and not in a dishwasher. He and his wife had a new dishwasher and the saleslady was aghast at the prospect of using it to wash the gold-banded china. So he asked the service representative of the dishwasher manufacturer and he, also, was aghast, said the gold would come off the dishes.
Mr. Othman, however, with substantial investments in both purchases, was determined not to be deterred by the advice and would wash the dishes in the dishwasher. If the gold came off, he promises, he would sue three large corporations, including the dishwasher soap manufacturer.
A letter from J. R. Cherry, Jr., criticizes The News for being in lockstep with the Washington Post's sardonic reprinted piece, "The Plot to Win the War", in which it found that the American Communist plotters taken to task since the war had been, for the most part, only Government officials who were plotting to win the war with the Allies, including Russia. Mr. Cherry also finds The News, in "Fulton's Folly", unduly lacking in vigilance by dismissing the testimony out of hand of former Major G. Racey Jordan re the supposed transfer of information and atomic materials to Russia during the war at the instance of former Vice-President Henry Wallace and deceased FDR aide Harry Hopkins. He believes the newspaper was acting in response to the suspicions raised by Drew Pearson and Walter Winchell rather than the Congressional hearings on the matter, and that it was tossing around the term "hysteria" irresponsibly, that it needed to be more vigilant.
Mr. Cherry is, we understand, forming early his own committee to re-elect the President in 1972.
A letter writer objects to the News's inclusion of Bruce Barton as a front page columnist on Saturdays, tells of him being of the team "Martin, Barton, & Fish"—presumably in reference to former Congressman Hamilton Fish of New York and House Minority Leader Joe Martin of Massachusetts—, immortalized by FDR as symbolic of the Republicanism which thought a "little" depression was not such a bad thing. Mr. Barton, he informs, grew up in the "silk stocking" district of New York and thus never knew hard times, did not understand that an "humbling" depression as he had described in his December 17 piece, was not merely humbling to the people who starved.
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