The Charlotte News
Friday, October 6, 1950
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the South Korean troops had advanced another 20 miles northward in North Korea, along the coast of the Sea of Japan, reaching a point more than 75 miles north of the the 38th parallel, approaching Tongchon, aiming toward Wonsan, 32 miles to the northwest, encountering little resistance. At the parallel, 175,000 U.N. troops were reported to be preparing for a massive follow-up knockout blow. Enemy prisoners said that the North Koreans had withdrawn in great haste for a stand at Wonsan.
MacArthur headquarters announced that the North Koreans had suffered 200,000 casualties, including 40,000 prisoners of war.
American air strikes destroyed or damaged 84 vehicles and 101 boxcars.
In the South, the Pohang airstrip would be back in use by Saturday.
Correspondent Tom Lambert, with U.N. forces in the South, reports of the first memorial service at the U.N. cemetery in the area, holding the bodies of both Americans and South Koreans.
At the U.N., during debate before the General Assembly of the eight-nation resolution to unify and rebuild Korea under the auspices of the U.N., Britain assured Russia and Communist China that the U.N. forces would not advance across the Korean border into Chinese or Russian territory. The British delegate also said that the U.N. occupation forces would not remain any longer than necessary to insure unification and pacification of the country and its border with China and Russia. The Assembly rejected, by a vote of 47 to 5, with eight abstentions, the Russian proposal to have both North and South Korean representatives appear before the Assembly as equal parties. It was expected that the Assembly would shortly approve the resolution by a vote similar to that of the political committee, which had approved it 47 to 5 on Wednesday night.
The President set October 16 as the registration date for the special draft of physicians and dentists who were under 50 and who received their education free or had their service deferred during the war so that they could attend professional school. The only exemptions were for those who had served 21 months of active duty. Those drafted would be liable to serve up to 21 months.
A group of scientists who had been appointed by General Lewis Hershey, director of Selective Service, recommended a new draft classification, "2-A(S)", to enable scientists and others training in professional or specialized areas to remain in that classification for the duration of their education plus four months.
Senator John W. Bricker of Ohio suggested that extension of rent controls might be necessary for the duration of the war, when Congress reconvened on November 27, after the elections. Current controls would expire at the end of the year unless extended by localities for an additional six months.
In Brno, Moravia, in Czechoslovakia, eight persons accused of spying for the British and American governments were convicted and two were sentenced to life imprisonment while the others received terms of 12 to 22 years.
In Des Moines, Ia., the National Lutheran Church Convention adopted a statement saying that the U.S. had an "inescapable responsibility" to lead the way to peace in the world and called Russia the major obstacle to peace.
In Culver City, California, Dudley Field Malone, an internationally known attorney, actor, and onetime prominent Democrat, died at age 68. He had been associated with the late Clarence Darrow in the John Thomas Scopes evolution trial in Dayton, Tenn., in 1925. He died in his sleep in the hospital after suffering from a heart condition for twelve years. He had once supported the Democrats but switched to support of Herbert Hoover and Alf Landon in 1932 and 1936, respectively, when FDR ran for President the first two times. He had appeared as Winston Churchill in the 1943 movie, "Mission to Moscow".
In Raleigh, former State Prisons director, J. B. Moore, was ordered to pay a fine of $1,000 and former prison maintenance foreman, A. W. Livengood, was fined $500, following entries of prayers for judgment continued for two years on condition that they violate no criminal laws of the State. Both had been charged with misfeasance of office and had entered pleas of nolo contendere the prior Tuesday. The judge stated that he was convinced that there had been willful misfeasance of office, not merely a technical violation.
The case had arisen the previous June when WRAL radio news director Jesse Helms, the future Senator, reported that Mr. Moore was using prison labor to paint his porch and construct a garage apartment on his property. Mr. Moore had responded that the labor was voluntary, occurring casually during respites from work on a nearby demolition project at N.C. State, supervised by Mr. Livengood, and that the only worker regularly assigned to the work was the trusty who was normally assigned to the director's home. The State had also charged that the materials came from the project and constituted embezzlement from the State. Mr. Moore said that he had bought the materials.
Mr. Helms, however, as we previously suggested, should have been charged with criminal trespass for entering Mr. Moore's private property without legitimate business, beyond the scope of any possible implied consent. That, mercifully, might have saved the state and the nation a lot of subsequent trouble with that cracker.
At Yankee Stadium in New York, the Yankees led 1 to 0 at the end of three innings in the third game of the World Series. The Yankees, who had won the first two games, would go on to win 3 to 2.
Mayor Victor Shaw of Charlotte declared the following day to be National Newspaperboy Day locally.
On the editorial page, "Mr. Stassen's Letter" finds it hard to fathom why Harold Stassen's letter to Premier Stalin, suggesting a citizens' peace conference in Moscow, received such wide attention. It suggests that it was designed to grab headlines and was also impossible of success. Mr. Stassen, serving without distinction as the president of the University of Pennsylvania, was hopeful of becoming the GOP nominee in 1952, as Senator Taft had said he would not seek the nomination, Governor Dewey would likely not want to try a third time and General Eisenhower, who was busy campaigning for the nomination, was said to be in line to become head of the NATO command in Western Europe.
Any agreement which Mr. Stassen might reach with Stalin would be meaningless in any event, as Secretary of State Acheson had already made clear. The U.N. supplied the proper forum for discussion of peace. It recommends therefore dismissing Mr. Stassen's letter as merely a political gesture.
"Another U.N. Victory" finds that since the eight-nation plan to unify and rebuild Korea had passed the 60-member political committee of the U.N. by a vote of 47 to 5, it was a foregone conclusion that it would pass the General Assembly when the vote was finally taken. It views it as imperative, to allow the other U.N. troops massed along the 38th parallel to cross with the South Koreans while the North Koreans were in disarray and on the run.
General MacArthur's headquarters had said the previous day that, with the U.N. vote, they no longer considered there to be any political bar to crossing the parallel, that the decision now solely depended on the right timing militarily.
"DiMaggio Does It Again" tells of the Yankee slugger hitting a low ball into the stands in the
top of the 10th inning of the second game of the World Series for the
winning run against the Philadelphia Phillies the day before in
Philadelphia. It finds "Joltin' Joe"
While the Series was now running true to predicted form, with the Yankees having won the first two games, the good pitching demonstrated by the Phillies, limiting the Yankees thus far to only three runs, meant that anything could happen.
"The Magic of Autumn" tells of the slow onset of autumn in the South displacing the heat of summer, as the red-tinged leaves of the elm and nearby perennially green oak approached their death sometime in late October, leaving only the evergreens, "eternally young", to give the woodland life. For now, kids still played baseball in an empty lot "while down the street another shouting group tosses and kicks a football." It concludes that the Southern autumns, while slow to arrive, were worth the wait.
A piece from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, titled "A Sunflowered Suggestion", tells of Kansas Congressman Errett Scrivner recommending to the President that he surrender his yacht, Williamsburg, to the Navy. But, the piece urges, the President needed the getaway on the Potomac from Washington, including the Congressman, and the Navy had enough ships in mothballs to tide it through the war.
Drew Pearson tells of Secretary of State Acheson having urged the President to deliver a fireside chat on October 12 to urge the American people not to fall for the Russian peace offensive, to avoid being lulled by the apparent Korean victory into appeasement, to remind them that Western Europe remained the prime objective for Russia. He wanted the President to point out that the Russians had 75 divisions in East Germany and were stockpiling huge quantities of food and raw materials.
Senate Majority Leader Scott Lucas was apt to turn out doggerel on certain issues. His latest, anent oil, went:
Who is this old man oil
That raises hell in committee toil?
Open the door and let him in
Hear him speak straight from the
chin.
Remember boy—he's a wily
He looks like "Hit" and
acts like "Muss";
He's a traveler
Gushing and running from town to
town
Because of unpatriotic war materiel manufacturers and raw materials dealers, the cost of the Korean war had been increased by about five billion dollars. And the President had not yet imposed price controls. Medical and surgical supplies had risen substantially, with glycerin, for instance, rising 114 percent in cost and rubber surgical gloves climbing from 17 to 25 cents per pair.
High octane jet fuel cost 30 percent more and fuel oil was up by 54 percent. Radio equipment for aircraft had risen as much as 175 percent, while the Navy paid 10 to 12 percent more for ship parts.
Zinc for batteries was up 62 percent. He lists numerous other items as well which had risen in price, such as cotton for summer uniforms, up 50 percent, and wool for winter uniforms, up 61 percent.
Secretary of the Air Force Thomas Finletter was taken on a hair-raising ride in an F-80 fighter jet over Fort Worth, Tex. He was only told the purpose of the ejection lever beside his seat at the end of the flight.
Joseph Alsop, in Tokyo, finds that the crossing of the 38th parallel by the South Korean forces was only a first step, that sooner or later the whole of the U.N. forces would follow. He asserts that the original June 25 U.N. resolution had tacitly permitted the U.N. forces to do so, providing the authorization for the South Korean forces to go forward.
The next question was whether the Chinese or Russians would intervene. He finds that it would be insane for either to do so now, as they could have done so and tipped the balance to victory two months earlier, but had refrained.
The Chinese had two armies on the Yalu River, comprised of about 150,000 men, with no air power, poor logistical support and other infirmities. The Russians had about 500,000 men in Eastern Siberia, including air force and naval personnel, and the Chinese also had other armies elsewhere in Manchuria.
The next question was how much strength the North Koreans had remaining after the loss of nearly 200,000 men. It was believed that they had about 100,000 men north of the parallel, most of whom, however, were conscripts and trainees, with few among them of the hardcore Communist officers and units who had fought so determinedly in the South. It would not be too long before the organized North Korean forces ceased to exist.
But there still remained the question of guerrilla warfare. That, however, did not promise to be significant, provided the South Korean Government of President Syngman Rhee proved wise. There had actually been no cases of true guerrilla warfare thus far in Korea, the inaccurate press reports to the contrary notwithstanding. It was likely that some of the disbanded units would now seek to coalesce around some form of guerrilla fighting, and a base for them would likely be set up in Manchuria. But the guerrillas south of the Yalu River would obtain little sympathy or aid from the locals and so would not long be able to exist.
So, he concludes, it was not only probable that the Korean fight would be carried through to its finish to unite and restore all of Korea, but the prospects were fair for finishing the job in short order and in a tidy way.
Morrie Landsberg of the Associated Press discusses the coming November 7 election in California, finding that the Korean war had impacted both principal contests, the Senate race, between Congressman Richard Nixon and Congresswoman Helen Gahagan Douglas, and the gubernatorial race, between incumbent Earl Warren and Democratic opponent James Roosevelt. The latter was a one-sided affair, with Governor Warren expected to win easily his third four-year term, with the Governor effectively having ceased to campaign actively after the June primary when he received the largest vote of his career. Mr. Roosevelt sought to establish that Governor Warren was a "wobbly" Republican, for his ability to capture Democratic votes, and reminded that he had been the GOP vice-presidential nominee in 1948, claimed also that he was not so progressive as he made himself out to be.
In the Senate race, the war had served to heighten the feud regarding the question of subversives. The candidates had not yet stumped much, as they had been busy in Washington since the primaries. Ms. Douglas presented herself as a solid New Dealer and opposed to "witch-hunting" committees, had voted against the McCarran anti-subversive bill—patterned after the Nixon-Mundt bill insofar as requiring registration of Communists and Communist front organizations, with criminal penalties for failing to do so, as well as barring Communists from Federal Government employment, adding the potential for civil internment of subversives in a declared national emergency. Mr. Nixon, an active member of HUAC, decried what he perceived as the danger from the left and opposed the Truman Fair Deal program in all major respects. Ms. Douglas, in a debate with Mr. Nixon, had asserted that there were only 52,000 card-carrying Communists now in the country and that the Communist influence was thus on the wane. But Mr. Nixon had responded that the number was not conclusive, as Communist parties had come to power in many nations without being in the majority.
As election day neared, the campaign rhetoric would become quite nasty as Mr. Nixon would accuse Ms. Douglas of being "the pink lady", a reference to her being supposedly a fellow traveler for her voting record being simpatico with primary-defeated American Labor Party Congressman Vito Marcantonio of New York, albeit a charge started in the California Democratic primary by her opponent, publisher Manchester Boddy; and Ms. Douglas would coin the lasting phrase "tricky Dick" for Mr. Nixon's wily political chicanery, the "dirty tricks", taken to another level over time, which ultimately would serve to end his political career in 1974, with not a little poetic justice
Mr. Landsberg concludes by pointing out that California voters registered as Democrats but generally voted Republican for state offices, while consistently for the Democratic ticket nationally since 1932.
That latter trend, incidentally, for the most part, still holds true, albeit interrupted in the gubernatorial races by Pat Brown twice, in 1958 and 1962, and son Jerry Brown, four times, in 1974, 1978, 2010, and 2014, and by Gray Davis in 1998 and 2002, the latter term abruptly terminated by an aberrant recall in 2003; and interrupted in the presidential races by General Eisenhower in 1952 and 1956, by Mr. Nixon, in 1960, 1968, and 1972, an established trend which continued through 1988, until returning since to the Democratic column, starting with the victory of Bill Clinton in 1992.
Mr. Nixon, of course, would lose to incumbent Governor Pat Brown in 1962 and then retire A
letter writer from McBee, S.C.,
congratulates the Government for the victory in Korea, says that a
few weeks earlier he had sent a letter lashing out at the doubting
Thomases. He finds the generation keeping its rendezvous with
destiny. The rest of the world properly looked to America as the
"watchdog of freedom".
A
letter writer tells of recent
robberies on Roslyn Avenue in the Smallwood section of the city, in
need of street lights. He urges residents of the area to contact him
and they could begin a petition to present to the City to obtain
proper lighting. The residents could not even find their way to the
bus at night without a flashlight.
A
letter from the chairman of the
Board of School Commissioners thanks the newspaper for publicizing
the needs of the Charlotte schools and enabling thereby passage the
previous Saturday of the five million dollar school bond issue. He
also commends the editorial of the previous Monday, taking exception
to the fact that only about ten percent of eligible voters had cast
ballots.
A
letter writer finds that since the
newspaper was urging occupation of North Korea and unification, he
wonders what its position would be if, after a free election, the
vote was for a Communist government. He also asks rhetorically
whether South Korea had freedom before the war.
A
letter from the co-chairmen of the
advisory committee on the school bond election thanks the newspaper
and the school authorities for their support.
Framed Edition
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