The Charlotte News

Wednesday, January 11, 1950

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that key Democratic members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee accused Republicans of playing politics with foreign policy in their criticism of Secretary of State Acheson and the President for refusing to send a military mission to defend Formosa against potential attack by the Chinese Communists from the mainland. The Democrats suggested that the Republican critics were trying to develop a campaign issue for the mid-term elections. Republicans countered that they only wanted what was best for the country.

Secretary Acheson, who had spent the previous day in executive session with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, went before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on this date to explain and defend Far Eastern policy. According to Senator Tom Connally, Mr. Acheson had told the Senate Committee the previous day that Japan, Okinawa, and the Philippines would form an "impregnable line of defense" in the Pacific without Formosa. Mr. Connally said that the Secretary had also said that the most America could do for Southeast Asia, including Burma, Indochina, Thailand, India, and Indonesia, was to provide encouragement and technical support under the President's "Point 4" plan to develop industry and advanced agriculture in underdeveloped nations.

But other members of the Committee disputed this rendition of the statement regarding an "impregnable" defense line, quoting Mr. Acheson as instead deferring to the Joint Chiefs for the assessment. Senator Homer Ferguson said that economic aid would not stop Communism and an aggressive policy was needed for the purpose. Senators William Knowland and Alexander Smith said that the Secretary had not changed their position favoring the military mission.

Meanwhile, Nationalist orders for U.S. tanks and armored cars were being filled on an expedited basis. The orders, placed the previous year, were paid from the 125 million dollars in military aid which Congress approved for China in 1948. The President had said that the Nationalists would be allowed to purchase more arms as long as they paid with their own money.

The results of a News survey of six persons in Charlotte regarding Formosan policy appear on the front page and on page 6-A. The first response, from a professor at Queens College, favored military intervention, asserted that it was necessary to stop Communism.

The captain of the Flying Arrow, the American merchant ship which the Chinese Nationalists had fired on 30 to 40 times two days earlier, said that the ship had been sufficiently repaired to enable it to limp to another port for final repairs. Against State Department warnings, the ship had sought to run the Nationalist blockade of the Communist-held port of Shanghai when the attack took place on the Yangtze River approach. Two U.S. destroyers were standing by to escort the ship to any port other than Shanghai.

According to Presidential press secretary Charles G. Ross, the President would likely deliver the following week his message to Congress regarding taxes and provide more specificity as to his proposed "moderate" tax hike.

John L. Lewis told 66,000 striking miners of captive steel company mines and one coal company mine to return to work on a three-day week beginning the following Monday.

Two American professors had been missing on a hike for eleven days in the mountainous area of Northern Luzon in the Philippines.

In Sallis, Miss., two white men wanted for the murders of three black children had been captured by a heavily armed posse, following a 57-hour manhunt for the pair. A third man allegedly involved in the murders had already been arrested. The district attorney stated that the men, who had been drinking heavily, had entered the family home the previous night with the stated intent to "kill the whole family". One of the three accused the head of the family, a sharecropper, of lying about him.

Near Boone, N.C., rain hampered the continuing search for two gunmen who had left behind stolen property in a wrecked car which they had set on fire.

A three-year old boy was sad because his dog had been found dead after disappearing when the boy was too sick to play with it.

Faye Emerson filed for divorce in Mexico from Elliott Roosevelt, son of the late President.

Clark Gable and his new wife, the former Lady Ashley, waved farewell to fans at dockside as they departed Honolulu.

Winds up to 75 mph caused damage in New York and New Jersey.

Northern California and Oregon were recovering from rain, snow and high winds which had lashed the area and left Highway 99 blocked with snow between the two states. The storm had moved into the Rockies.

Weather: Can't live within it; can't live without it—irrespective of what the Trumplanderkinders claim.

On the editorial page, "Ten-Year Platform—VII" again addresses the ten-point program for the progress of Charlotte during the ensuing decade, as set forth by News reporter Tom Fesperman on January 2, this time stressing the need to build a new civic auditorium to replace the Armory-Auditorium, cold, barn-like, and unsuited to the type of performances for which auditoriums normally served as venues.

There had also been a suggestion that a sports coliseum be located on the same site with the proposed new auditorium. The piece finds the prospects for the auditorium better than ever.

And, in 1955, Ovens Auditorium would open next door to the new Charlotte Coliseum, both still extant on Independence Boulevard.

"The 'BB' Gun Menace" finds that an ongoing investigation to determine whether parents of children who inflicted injuries with BB guns could be held criminally liable for negligence, was potentially salutary as current law on BB guns and air rifles allowed only for confiscation by law enforcement until the parents claimed the guns.

It urges that it was criminally negligent for a parent to allow a small child to use such a weapon around playmates. It was also stupid, as the parents, themselves, might become the victims.

As 24 children since the previous Christmas had suffered eye injuries, including in two cases loss of an eye, there were likely dozens of others who had been shot elsewhere on the body. One child, for instance, had shot himself in the finger.

It urges again that parents consider the problem before providing their child with a BB gun or air rifle.

"Free Ride for Many" tells of a recent study by the local Welfare Department determining that only 57 of 205 persons studied were covered by the Social Security law. The remainder, including 53 farmers, 50 homemakers, 43 domestic workers, and two who had never worked were not covered. They received old-age assistance, provided from general tax money jointly by the Federal, State, and local governments. But their benefits averaged $42.02 per month, whereas Social Security benefits averaged only $19.88 per month. Most of the Social Security recipients thus had to receive also direct welfare assistance.

The bill presently pending in Congress to expand benefits and the class of those covered would remedy the problem and so it favors its passage in the Senate, having already easily passed in the House during the prior session.

"Tar Heel Pioneer" quotes a citation presented to Dr. George Cooper by the Planned Parenthood Federation of America for establishing birth control in North Carolina as an integral part of the public health service, making it the first state in the country to do so.

While birth control remained controversial in some locales, North Carolinians appeared to have realized the problems inherent in the poor having too many children. The piece therefore seconds the citation and congratulates Dr. Cooper.

Drew Pearson tells of a labor union, the United Textile Workers, having an income tax fraud case which, though delayed for over a year, the Justice Department might still prosecute. It was in contrast to a case which he had previously described involving a six million dollar tax fraud attributed to an oil company which the Government allowed to be settled for three million dollars and no criminal prosecution. The textile union had induced membership at the Simmons Mattress Company in Roanoke Rapids, N.C., by showing workers how to save on taxes by swearing falsely on returns that they had various deductible expenses and made deductible church contributions.

After a year had passed, the Justice Department referred the matter to the U.S. Attorney in Greensboro, but he had opposed criminal prosecution because the three organizers responsible for the advice to commit tax fraud had not received any remuneration for their efforts and that a prosecution would devolve to a battle between labor and management, as the union had contended that the company had spawned the investigation to discredit the union and thereby dissuade its employees from joining. That was where the case stood.

Marquis Childs tells of the advice of sending a military mission to protect Formosa having originated with General MacArthur, even though he had maintained a low profile regarding the issue, refraining from public statements. His position had influenced Senators William Knowland of California and Alexander Smith of New Jersey to view the matter likewise. Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson had also favored intervention as had the Joint Chiefs, influenced by General MacArthur.

The General felt relegated to obscurity since the war, resented the fact that General Marshall had given him only a week of free vacation time at a fashionable resort after the war, when other prominent generals and many subordinates were receiving triumphant welcomes stateside. He had determined not to return to the U.S. until invited by both houses of Congress—a vow he would keep.

Mr. Childs suggests that if Republicans were in control of both houses, they might try to pass such a resolution but otherwise, the General would likely remain in Japan as a silent force indefinitely. And, as a five-star General, he was not required to retire, so could stay there as long as he pleased.

Joseph & Stewart Alsop discuss what they regard as a deception being practiced on the American people by Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson's program of economizing on the defense budget. Mr. Johnson, in an address recently to the National Association of Manufacturers, had said that the cuts could be made without compromising security. Yet, consideration had been given recently to withdrawal from Japan, Okinawa, and the Philippines—which formed the line of "impregnable" defense without resort to Formosa, which, according to Senator Tom Connally, Secretary Acheson had described to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee the previous day.

They find that the process of impairing national security had begun in the fall of 1948 when the President rejected the pleas of then-Secretary of Defense James Forrestal to implement the Joint Chiefs' "requirements plan", that is the minimum necessities for adequate security, and substituting it with the "capabilities plan", that which was capable of being done within the existing funding.

The Pacific defenses were weak, no stronger than at the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor. It might not be of consequence as there was no longer a Japanese Navy vying for control of the region, but only a small effort had been initiated to combat the new radar-proof submarine of the Russians, adapted from the German U-boats captured at the end of the war. Thus, new chief of Naval operations Admiral Forrest Sherman had correctly stressed improvement of the Navy's anti-submarine capabilities. But that could not be accomplished within the economy being imposed by the Defense Department. Without that development, Japan and Okinawa would be cut off and left exposed, compromising Pacific defenses generally.

Furthermore, the "requirements plan" of the Joint Chiefs had called for 70 Air Force groups, whereas the economizing measures would winnow the force down to only 33 modern groups by 1955, resulting in abandonment of fighter and tactical aviation as primary weapons. Meanwhile, intelligence sources reported that the Soviets were making great strides in that type of air strength.

They find that, without these efforts being honestly shared with the American people and gaining their approval, a scandalous deception by the Defense Department was being practiced.

Robert C. Ruark, in Honolulu, tells of the beach boys proliferating in the islands, with the task of showing tourists how to surf, swim, and canoe. They cared nothing of money or real estate and had a unique inner circle, into which outsiders were not normally invited until the tourist proved he was worthy of respect by not acting as a tourist.

The beach boys were uncomplicated by psychiatric complexes, their lives consisting of music, sunshine, friendship, whiskey, romance, poker, and measured conversation.

Mr. Ruark wishes that he could be one of their number but finds short his qualifications as he could not handle a surfboard, dance the hula, romance the girls, or achieve the social eminence enjoyed by the beach boys.

A letter writer supports the New Hampshire doctor accused of murder for the euthanasia of a patient suffering from terminal cancer, asserts that to relieve suffering was a good thing, that God had performed the first operation when Adam was put to sleep.

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