The Charlotte News

Friday, January 20, 1950

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the rule change in the House which would have enabled the Rules Committee to bottle up Fair Deal legislation, especially the civil rights bills, had been defeated in the full House by a vote of 230 to 183, thus breaking the Southern Democratic and Republican coalition which had backed the measure in the Rules Committee 9 to 2. To Republican jeering, House Speaker Sam Rayburn bragged on the victory by asking: "Who won the election in 1948, anyhow?" It represented a major victory for the Administration in the House, but the potential for Senate filibusters on important Administration-backed bills still lay ahead.

Through the Justice Department, the Administration renewed its request of Congress to pass the anti-lynch legislation.

The previous day, the House voted 193 to 191 to defeat the Administration-backed bill for an additional 60 million dollars in Marshall Plan aid to Korea, which the Korean Ambassador to Washington and ERP administrator Paul Hoffman had urged as critical to prevent the fall of the country to the Communists. Sixty million dollars in aid had already been earmarked for Korea since the first of the year.

In a formal State Department note of protest, the U.S. threatened to break diplomatic relations with Bulgaria unless the Communist Government withdrew its demand for the recall of American Minister Donald Heath, after a "series of indignities and restrictions" which had made it virtually impossible for the mission in Sofia to carry on its duties.

Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson, asserting that the Selective Service Act was one of the decisive factors in stopping the spread of Communism in Europe, asked the House Armed Services Committee to extend the law, set to expire in June.

Diplomatic officials reported that the U.S. decision to move toward scrapping the diplomatic boycott of Franco's Spain through seeking to influence the U.N. to lift its diplomatic sanctions, had come from the realization that the policy had only strengthened the Franco regime, rather than accomplishing its opposite intended purpose. The policy had been in effect since 1946 when the U.N. resolution was passed. The U.S. had allowed its charges d'affaires to remain in Madrid but had recalled its ambassador. The proposal by Secretary of State Acheson to resume full diplomatic recognition had received general approval in the Senate. The opposition had centered around the fact that Franco was a dictator who came to power at the behest of Hitler and Mussolini.

The Senate Labor Committee, holding hearings on a resolution asking the President to invoke Taft-Hartley to obtain injunctive relief against the three-day work week in effect among coal miners since December 1, decided to invite John L. Lewis to testify the following Wednesday.

The President was slated to present his detailed tax package to Congress the following week, and it was believed that it would propose a moderate increase in corporate taxes while rolling back excise taxes, resulting in a billion-dollar increase in revenue to combat the estimated 5.1 billion dollar deficit for fiscal year 1950-51.

In New York, the retrial of Alger Hiss for perjury was set to conclude this date and the case scheduled to go to the jury for deliberations in the afternoon. Final summations were taking place, after which the judge would instruct the jury.

In Jersey City, N.J., four persons, including three small children, died in a flash fire in a crowded three-story tenement dwelling in the downtown area.

In Wadesboro, N.C., the jury retired to deliberate the fate of two brothers accused of first degree murder in the killing of a New York man. One brother had testified that he had killed the man with a pipe in self-defense after the deceased sought to use a knife and the pipe against him, claimed his brother was not involved, while admitting that they rifled the dead man's pockets after the killing, taking his money, and then threw the body in the water, taking the dead man's car and driving home to Rockingham. He claimed that he did not have robbery in mind at the time of the killing. The court instructed the jury that a killing in the course of a robbery was felony-murder in the first degree.

Flood waters threatened new areas of the South and Pacific Northwest while showing signs of easing in the flood-beset Midwest where more than 20,000 persons were homeless in the Mississippi and Ohio River valleys. The new danger was in Tennessee and Arkansas. Temperatures climbed in the Pacific Northwest following a week of severe cold which had been blamed for seventeen deaths in the region since a blizzard a week earlier.

On the editorial page, "Security Through Terror?" regards the prospect of the development of the hydrogen bomb and the Alsops' piece appearing on the previous day's front page. The President had not yet determined whether the U.S. would develop it, but, as the Alsops had pointed out, it would be developed by the Russians regardless of what the U.S. did, and the piece finds that it would be dangerous to national security therefore not to develop it and be prepared to use it if necessary, as terrible as the weapon was in a moral sense.

It concludes by asking: "Has humanity now come to the end of its long journey to the jumping-off place? Or will sanity prevail?"

"The Shrine and the Hospital" tells of the Shrine Bowl high school all-star football game, played annually in Charlotte for thirteen years, having raised in its most recent effort a record $63,000 for the Shriners Hospital for Crippled Children in Greenville, S.C. That added to the $250,000 collected during the game's history. Such past players in the game as Charlie Justice of Asheville and Wade Walker of Gastonia had gone on to have top college careers. So it provided fun for the fans and players while performing a worthy cause for the Hospital.

High attendance at the games, it concludes, had underscored the need for a larger Memorial Stadium.

"Mr. DeLapp Steps Down" finds that the Republican Party chairman in North Carolina, Frank DeLapp, was understandably stepping down from his job after eight years, as the party in the state was still in a moribund state. It had not been his fault as he had sought to build the organization. The problems were outside his control, partly historical and partly the result of current conditions. He advised the party to follow a moderate course, and not swing too far to the left in trying to out-promise Democrats, creating unrealistic goals, or too far to the right. The piece finds it good advice for a party which had been in disfavor for awhile.

A piece from the Winston-Salem Journal, titled "Birds Have Nests", tells of the Census Bureau having found that a half million persons over 65 had no cash income. Some of these persons were able to work and some were not. The problem of security in old age had been compounded by the move of populations from the farm to the city. On the farm, three or four generations often lived together, with the elderly provided for by the young. But in smaller dwellings in urban areas, that was not as easily accomplished. Families had also reduced in size, meaning transfer of parents periodically from one sibling to another, to lighten the load of caring for the aged, was not as easy. In addition, the number of persons over 65 had increased substantially in the country.

It concludes that all of those factors were the reasons for increasing private pension programs and Social Security benefits and the class of those covered by the law.

Drew Pearson continues his look at gambling operations threatening the autonomy of local, state and even the Federal Government, and the need for investigation and development of laws to combat the problem. Payoffs of $30 to police officers for protection of small gambling operations often led to a habit of accepting bribes, ultimately to induce officers to look the other way in murder cases. Only two of thirteen gangland murders had been solved, for instance, in Kansas City, where boss Charles Binaggio had replaced the old Pendergast machine. Witnesses in that city against the gambling operations had been murdered or badgered into suicide.

Payoffs to politicians enabled these operations to thrive, as in the case of the late Huey Long in Louisiana who had received $100,000 from Frank Costello to permit the existence of his slot machine operations.

In Fresno, California, as Mr. Pearson had recently explained, a new Mayor, Gordon Dunn, had refused entreaties from the gambling kingpins to open up the city to prostitution and gambling, and had refused, at the gambling kingpins' insistence, to replace the police chief, instead sending one of his top law enforcement officers to be trained by the FBI.

Crusading newspapers, as the Fresno Bee and the Kansas City Star, had been able, by revealing the operations, to aid substantially in the effort to bring the gambling interests to heel.

The Federal Grand Jury probe in Kansas City, with the prospect of indictments for income tax evasion and narcotics charges, and the efforts of Tennessee Senator Estes Kefauver in initiating a resolution to launch an investigation into these issues, with an eye toward recommending new legislation to combat more effectively the gambling operations, were also likely to have a major impact.

Marquis Childs tells of a drift toward stalemate in American foreign policy in Europe, partly because of the calculated tactics of the Soviets to lull the U.S. into complacency and partly because of the recent flap over China policy, the latter doing a disservice to U.S. foreign policy. There had even been calls by Republicans for Secretary of State Acheson to resign, forcing him into a defensive stance, utilizing his lawyering skills to argue for the Administration's position on Formosa rather than enabling him to spend his time in creative input to the policy.

Even Senator William Knowland, advocate of military support for Formosa, had admitted recently on "Meet the Press" that the mainland of China was a lost cause, but continued to ignore that reality and support a position toward Formosa which could lead to war. Advocating military aid to Formosa also could lead to curtailment of the economic and military aid to Europe, a dangerous result.

Winston Churchill had warned two years earlier that there was danger of drifting too long with the Soviets, that the best chance to avoid war lay in bringing the matter to a head, with the West taking the lead in seeking settlement, not engaging in useless argument with the Soviets, but dealing with them on a "fair, realistic basis". Mr. Childs regards the caveat as wise, a move which would jar the U.S. out of its complacency.

But another potential harmful result from overly stressing China was the production of disunity among the democracies, as Britain and other allies had already recognized the new Communist Government. That was not the result of the Labor Government but a national policy enjoying broad approval, as borne out by British editorials appearing in conservative and liberal organs.

Some diplomats were wondering why Mao Tse-Tung had been in Moscow for nearly a month without any agreement being reached with Russia, causing speculation that there were differences over Manchuria or some other sensitive point.

One of the reasons, he concludes, for ineptitude in the past in Far Eastern policy was the insistence by advocates of the Chiang regime that all U.S. efforts be utilized in support of the Nationalists, rather than supporting opponents who could have been used to correct the graft and inefficiency which led to widespread opposition to the Nationalists among the Chinese people and consequent reluctant support of the Communists as an alternative. The past failures presented no reason to compound these mistakes by trying now to provide military support to Chiang on Formosa, with the attendant risks of war and loss of unity among the allies.

A letter from David McConnell, prominent Charlotte attorney who was stationed in the Far East during the war, sent to an unnamed member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, is reprinted with permission of the author, regarding Far East policy. He favors giving money and ammunition to General Claire Chennault that he might form anew the Flying Tigers unit which was so successful against the Japanese in China during the war, posits that it could defend Formosa from the Communists without commitment of U.S. Army and Navy forces. He asserts that a line had to be drawn against the Communists in the Far East, as it had been in Greece with respect to the Balkans region, to prevent "the tentacle of the Communist octopus" from more easily reaching out and choking the U.S.

Robert C. Ruark, in Sydney, tells of the Conservative victory recently over Labor in Australia and New Zealand not necessarily being the harbinger of an end to socialist policy there. Many to whom he had talked regarded the result in Australia as only a temporary respite from Labor policies, releasing economic controls. But Labor had brought great prosperity and lower taxes for the workers, plus a 40-hour work week. So what would happen three years hence depended on the performance of the new Government in continuing this prosperity with fewer controls in place.

A pending amendment to the Constitution would outlaw nationalization of industries, but that required a referendum, which Australians were generally fond of declining to approve.

The Conservatives would likely abolish double taxation on imports, which had discouraged trade with the U.S. and encouraged it with Mother Britain. The strikes which had crippled the country's economy were subsiding since the Conservative victory.

But even in time of prosperity, the country had been saddled with restrictions and constant shortages of goods.

Brief account of the brief 16-minute inaugural address of the new "President" in 2017—the bitterest sounding and least conciliatory, especially given the fact of a relatively narrow electoral "win" after substantial loss of the popular vote, of any such address on record: America First, last, and, therefore, least. Give the Government back to the people, i.e., the large corporations, as, hey, they are people, too, Sucker. Don't ask how we intend to give the Government back to the people, as that will become perfectly clear later on. And the rest can go to hell. Build bridges, highways, and all kinds of stuff to employ workers at home making American products—which then will cost far more than the foreign imports and have the effect therefore of reducing buying power for most Americans. But what the hell? Who promised you a Rose Garden? That belongs to the new President. Billionaires get to do whatever the hell they wish. Build a wall to keep out those we don't want. Employment, jobs. Unity, good, but who needs it? Putin good; Democrats bad. Go to hell. Ask only what you can do for yourselves because Government sure as hell is not going to be responsive to you in the next four years. Clap, clap, clap, clap-trap. Let's get off these cold steps, as it is very boring to stand here and read a speech full of platitudes and empty generalizations, and go grab some cats.

And to the individual on YouTube who found this pathetic speech "mesmerizing", we can only pity you, as you would likely also find a piece of blank cardboard laying in the garbage mesmerizing.

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