The Charlotte News
Thursday, October 5, 1950
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the South Korean troops of the Third Division seized Changjon, 60 air miles north of the 38th parallel, against an all-day enemy stand three miles south of that town. Other South Korean troops engaged a previously bypassed force of 1,200 enemy troops in the hills west of Hwangpo, 35 miles south of Changjon. American pilots reported seeing efforts by the North Koreans to re-establish the line from which they had attacked South Korea on June 25.
General MacArthur's headquarters said that the matter of American troops joining the South Koreans north of the parallel was now only of military consideration, rather than political, after the U.N. General Assembly the previous day had passed the resolution to reunite "the whole of Korea" and rebuild it under U.N. auspices, implicitly giving authority to cross the parallel.
American officials in Tokyo estimated that some 25,000 men, women, and children had been murdered and buried hastily, if at all, in makeshift graves by the retreating North Koreans. The officials said that the figure might actually be much higher. They also feared that several hundred American prisoners taken into North Korea would be massacred. A list of the estimated numbers at various locations is provided, including 10,000 massacred in the area around Seoul and between 5,000 and 6,000 at Taejon.
The Navy reported that the American minesweeper Magpie had been sunk by hitting a floating mine off North Korea, resulting in 29 men missing. It was the third ship sunk in Korean waters, including two destroyers. Floating mines were banned under the Hague convention.
The U.N., after passing the resolution to unite and rebuild Korea, moved ahead with plans this date to implement it. The American-backed eight-nation sponsored plan to occupy the country for a limited time until U.N.-overseen democratic elections could be held plus economic rehabilitation, passed the political committee by a vote of 47 to 5 the previous night, with only the Soviet bloc opposing. Seven member nations, six of which had been chosen, would be appointed to a watchdog commission to oversee the plan. It was hoped that India would accept as the seventh member. India had abstained from support of the plan and favored a compromise between the eight-nation proposal and the Soviet-backed plan, a compromise which had failed the previous day to win approval. The Soviet plan had failed by a vote of 46-5. It was superficially similar to that of the majority but would have placed North and South Korea on equal footing and ignored the aggression by North Korea.
Mobilization coordinator Stuart Symington said that he would seek quickly seek to reach an overall agreed policy on sharing of manpower among the various requirements of the defense program.
In Vienna, Communist demonstrators blocked all rail traffic into and out of the city for three hours this date. The protesters appeared to be angry over the failure of their call for a general strike the previous day. The Communists seized the post office at Baden, the Soviet military headquarters, and the previous night occupied the communications center at Wiener Neustadt in the Russian zone. They were driven away by police from a third such location, at St. Poelten, 30 miles west of Vienna.
Failed GOP presidential candidate in 1948, Harold Stassen, put forth a proposal the previous day to have a citizens' peace conference with Soviet Premier Josef Stalin. It was met with mixed reaction in the U.S., the State Department disavowing any official blessing, and silence from Moscow. The State Department, however, said that if Stalin agreed to the conference, Mr. Stassen, president of the University of Pennsylvania, would receive a passport for the trip to Moscow. The letter proposing the conference was read over the Voice of America, thus reaching behind the iron curtain.
In Yorktown, Va., the President left his yacht Commander on the Chesapeake Bay at 9:15 a.m. and took a brisk 2.5-mile walk before resuming the cruise, having been earlier frustrated in his attempt at 5:45 by rain.
It's fun to walk in the rain, even better to run in the rain.
In Erie, Pa., a New York Central Railroad flyer proceeding at over 60 mph ran into a derailed freight oil tank car early in the day and exploded. No one was killed, though 40 to 50 were injured.
Don't run
In Philadelphia, the New York Yankees led the Phillies 1-0, following the second inning of the second game of the World Series, after winning the first game 1-0 the previous day. The Yankees would go on to win the game 2-1 in ten innings.
On the editorial page, "Cotton Farmers Have Long Memories" finds that with the war and cotton production down from 16.25 million bales to 9.5 million bales since the prior year, cotton prices had gone up to 41 cents a pound from 29.5 cents a year earlier. With release, in consequence, of cotton acreage restrictions by the Government, there would be a temptation by farmers to return to the one-crop system which had worked to deplete the soil and harm farmers, the cotton industry, and the overall economy of the South ultimately during the era when cotton was king. It concludes that the farmers, who had since learned to diversify in North Carolina, would not be so unwise as to succumb to this temptation.
"One Step at a Time" finds it wise that City Councilman Basil Boyd had relented in his opposition to the bus route extension plan put forward by the City Traffic Engineer, Herman Hoose. The plan was necessary for Duke Power Co., which operated the buses, to continue to make a profit while also expanding service to other parts of the city, necessitating curtailment of some existing routes, the latter having been the objection posed by Mr. Boyd.
"Fires and More Fires" tells of the Fire Department reporting that for the 212th time since 1942 and the 46th time during 1950, they had to put out a fire in the old Tremont Avenue quarry where trash dumping was a problem in the big hole left behind. It finds it good reason to undertake the proposal that the City gradually fill in the hole by controlled dumping of garbage and then filling it over with dirt.
Just don't let the methane build up
underneath or you'll regret
A piece from the Durham Herald, titled "Mr. Truman Is Doing Pretty Well", finds the President defying his many critics in this time of crisis and handling the job well and in a statesmanlike but firm manner. He had gradually replaced his cronies with top-level people in the field of foreign policy, starting with Dean Acheson as Secretary of State and General Marshall as Secretary of Defense. He had vetoed the McCarran anti-subversive bill and by doing so, had the better of the argument in his veto message, that the bill would only complicate the course of finding out and inhibiting the worst activities of truly subversive groups in the country. His prompt action in Korea through the U.N. had been statesmanlike and firm, putting the blabbermouths charging U.S. complicity in causing the Communist takeover in China to shame, while enhancing American prestige abroad.
It suggests that if the President continued to grow as he had in the prior five years, history would show that the country was better served than it had any reason to expect in April, 1945, when he suddenly was cast into the role by dint of the death of FDR.
Bill Sharpe, in his weekly
"Turpentine Drippings", snippets from newspapers around
the state, tells of one from the Pocketbook in Morganton,
which told of a weekly prayer meeting in which the parson had asked a
deacon, with increasing imploration on each successive attempt, to lead the group in prayer, to which three times came no
response, until finally, the deacon awakened to say: "Lead
yourself. I just dealt
John Wesley Clay, of the Winston-Salem Journal, suggests, after visiting Chicago recently, that cities, as dogs, each had its own personality, New York being in a hurry, Chicago proceeding at a more leisurely pace. He had seen no gangsters but did not prowl on the streets much during the nighttime.
The Spotlight suggests using empty milk cartons as standby flares for the car when in need of roadside light at night, as the wax coating on the cardboard would burn when lit, like a big candle.
The Twin City Sentinel of
Winston-Salem tells of a violinist at a church performance who broke
a string in the middle of his piece and, unlike most
Must have happened over there at the
damned church
The Pocketbook tells of a seven-year old girl responding to a question at school whether she was a boy or girl by stating that she was a boy, after which the teacher told her mother that she should be placed in a class with problem children for being psychologically confused. When the mother queried the girl as to why she had made such a reply, she said that when she was asked a dumb question, she provided a dumb answer.
And so forth, so
Drew Pearson provides from acquired intelligence information what Russia probably had in mind when it stimulated the North Korean invasion of South Korea. Russia was convinced that the U.S. would not resist such an effort and had planned a series of revolts to follow the Korean action, in Formosa, Tibet, French Indo-China, a civil war in northern India, invasion of Yugoslavia and Greece, an attack from Azerbaijan in northern Iran, and a drive to push the three Western allies from West Germany. The Russians believed that in consequence the anti-Communist governments in France and Italy would fall and Communist replacements installed, as in Czechoslovakia.
But when the President decided immediately to provide air support and then commit troops under the U.N. resolution, those plans were foiled. The Politburo was dumbfounded. Plans to invade Formosa and Yugoslavia were scrapped or at least delayed.
The current peace efforts by Russia's delegation at the U.N. was designed to lull the U.S. back into appeasement. There would follow rioting and exploratory probing in Germany and probable uprisings in Azerbaijan, added to Communist successes in Indo-China. Appeasement would exacerbate this trend.
Harold Russell, the armless veteran who had appeared in "The Best Years of Our Lives" in 1946, gave the President some advice recently when he visited the White House as commander of the Amvets, to wage "preventive strength" rather than preventive war against Russia and to leave the conference table at the U.N. open for discussion of peace. He also criticized Congress for not passing an excess profits tax. The President agreed.
Civilian war mobilizer Stuart Symington had assigned the role of preparing cities for atomic attack to his brother-in-law, Jerry Wadsworth, a socialite who got the job only by family connection, as he was also the son of New York GOP Congressman James Wadsworth.
Robert C. Ruark again looks at the investigation in New York City into police corruption, receipt of payoffs by gambling operators. Suspicion had grown since Mayor William O'Dwyer had quit to become Ambassador to Mexico that he had taken a powder to avoid becoming embroiled in the investigation. Governor Dewey charged that Boss Ed Flynn of the Bronx had arranged for the President to appoint Mayor O'Dwyer Ambassador, and Washington sources had it that the President was now upset for Mr. Flynn getting him involved in the mess with the appointment.
Reports said that Ed Pauley, former DNC treasurer who was forced to withdraw as nominee for Undersecretary of the Navy in 1946 because of his reported promise to try to influence the tidal oil lands issue by indicating, according to former Secretary of Interior Harold Ickes, that he could raise substantial money for the Democrats in 1944 from big oil companies, was in Mexico and reportedly entertaining Mr. O'Dwyer, while a multi-million dollar oil development loan to Mexico was pending.
A former police officer had been able to afford an expensive house and Cadillac and his brother, who was still on the force, was being found in contempt for forgetting the names of ten cops who were supposed to have been entertained by Harry Gross, the self-confessed gambling boss who spread large amounts of money around to bribe cops.
The Police Department had suffered in prestige as a result of the investigation which Mr. O'Dwyer had called a "witch-hunt". New Yorkers wondered why he had run off to Mexico.
Max Hall lists the seven tallest structures in the world, starting with the Empire State Building, which was growing, with the addition of a new television antenna tower at the top, from 1,250 feet to 1,520 feet. Next came the new WCON-TV transmission tower in Atlanta, at 1,057 feet, followed by the Chrysler Building, at 1,046 feet, the radio tower at Budapest, the Eiffel Tower, the television and radio tower of WKY in Oklahoma City, and the 60 Wall Tower, an office building at 60 Wall Street in New York, at 950 feet.
He had recently seen the WCON-TV tower, close to downtown Atlanta, and found it impressive, standing on its own and appearing in the style of the Eiffel Tower.
The
"Better English" answers for the day is: "manners" should be "manors";
pa-trone; Appalachian
Framed Edition
Links-Date — Links-Subj.