The Charlotte News
Saturday, October 7, 1950
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the U.N. General Assembly implicitly authorized, by a vote of 47 to 5, a final drive of U.N. forces across the 38th parallel in Korea, by passing the eight-nation resolution providing for taking all appropriate steps to "ensure conditions of stability throughout" the country and for unification and rebuilding of it, with subsequent independent elections under U.N. auspices. Occupation forces were not to remain in Korea any longer than necessary to accomplish these goals. A commission of seven nations would oversee the elections and rebuilding. Only the Soviet bloc opposed the resolution, along with seven abstentions. The South Korean delegate was pleased with the result.
The Ukraine delegate charged that the intent of the Americans and South Koreans was to drive through to Harbin and seize Manchuria, to provide Japan a chief position in Asia.
In Korea, an Air Force spokesman
said that American forces of the First Cavalry Division had captured
Kaesong, two miles south of the border parallel, along the road to
Pyongyang. The North Koreans had made their thrust into the South on
June 25 by way of Kaesong. South Korean troops on the east coast were
reported to be north of Hupkok, within 20 miles of Wonsan, their
apparent objective 115 miles
In Berlin, Communist police doubled their guard on crosstown railways to halt rockets filled with anti-Soviet leaflets, as the Soviet zone elections of October 15 neared. Since the prior May when first employed, the propaganda rockets had proved to be a chief concern for the East Berlin authorities. They had exploded in elevated railway stations, scattering leaflets protesting "Soviet slavery".
The Kefauver crime investigating committee looked into big money operations of former Al Capone gang members in Chicago, focusing on the activities of Paul "The Waiter" DeLucia, alias Ricca, reportedly one of the bosses of the gambling syndicate and a leader of the Mafia, who had also testified four weeks earlier. Mr. DeLucia asseverated that he had received large loans totaling about $30,000 from the operators of a race track and had spent $351,000 since his parole in 1947 from Federal prison, objects of the inquiry to determine whether the parole had been purchased. Senator Kefauver said, echoing the statement of an investigator during testimony, that Mr. Ricca's testimony of the prior day was "unsatisfactory", strained the truth, and that his answers regarding receipt of the loans were "fishy".
The committee also heard from Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson, future Democratic nominee for the presidency in 1952 and 1956 and U.N. Ambassador under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson from 1961 through mid-1965, testifying regarding recommendations on attacking organized crime.
In Des Moines, Ia., the United Lutheran Church in America delegation, in its biennial convention, reported raising 6.75 million dollars for 23 colleges and seminaries across the country.
In Necedah, Wis., a Roman Catholic priest said that he saw the sun whirl clockwise and jump, over the barren farm where Mary Anna Van Hoof claimed to expect her seventh vision of the Virgin. Several women visiting the farm confirmed the vision, but newsmen present said that they saw nothing unusual. Ms. Van Hoof's last vision of the Virgin on August 15 had told her that she should pray to turn back the tide of Communism. No one on that date, however, among the crowd of thousands gathered, reported anything unusual. The La Crosse diocese of the Catholic Church had stated its skepticism of the claims of Ms. Van Hoof. The expected crowd for this day's anticipated vision was about 150,000.
In Raleigh, recently resigned Secretary of the Army and Winston-Salem publishing magnate Gordon Gray would be installed as president of the Consolidated University the following day in an elaborate ceremony, to stretch three days, with individual installations and addresses by Mr. Gray at each of the three member institutions, UNC-Chapel Hill, N.C. State, and Woman's College in Greensboro, the final day to coincide with the penultimate eve of University Day, marking the founding of the University in 1793—four days before Marie Antoinette lost her head and the Carolina Blue Hope Diamond.
Curtis B. Johnson, 74, nationally known publisher of the Charlotte Observer for the previous 34 years, had died the previous afternoon in the hospital after a relapse following surgery three months earlier. The Observer had a circulation of around 135,000 for its daily morning edition and 142,000 on Sundays.
On the editorial page, "The Observer's Able Publisher", a byline piece by News Publisher Thomas L. Robinson, laments the passing of Mr. Johnson, who had been in failing health for two years. He and his associate, Walter B. Sullivan, who had died many years earlier, had acquired the Observer in 1916 when it was small. It had progressed without respite during the 34 years since. Mr. Johnson had kept the news columns clean and unbiased and gave the newspaper an outlook which embraced not only Charlotte but the surrounding territory of the two Carolinas. He had thoroughly loved the newspaper business and had become a newspaper executive by age 25. He had a flair for promotion and was able to increase readership and advertising revenue.
He also had many ties in the community in business and the professions, notably those in the newspaper business. He was philanthropic, establishing in 1936 the Fresh Air Camp for underprivileged boys, and later donating a large tract of land, buildings and a fund to the YMCA which continued to operate the camp. He also established a Benevolent Association, which donated thousands of dollars to various charities.
Mr. Robinson concludes that Charlotte had lost an able publisher who had done much as a good citizen to improve the city and surrounding area.
"Criminals and Politicians" finds the assurance by Senator Estes Kefauver that the committee he chaired investigating organized crime and gambling syndicates across the country was proceeding fairly, without intent to harm or help anyone, to be meaningful given the Senator's high level of integrity. He made the statement in response to a contention by Senator Owen Brewster that Republicans were encouraged by the disillusioning facts brought out re big city Democrats. It concludes that the attempt thereby by Senator Brewster and others to politicize the effort and draw from it political capital for the elections would be of little benefit to the country.
"Jokers in the Law" tells of the problems of the McCarran bill sped through Congress and passed over the President's veto, including the forced deportation of distinguished refugees from Communist countries, who were aiding the Government in its fight against Russia. Another provision refused entry to any immigrant from Spain who subscribed to the Fascist totalitarian regime of dictator Francisco Franco, though Congress had also voted to provide Spain a 62.5 million dollar loan.
The FBI had agents secretly join the American Communist Party in an undercover capacity. But the registration requirement could risk exposing them and if they refused to register, subject them to prosecution. The Justice Department and J. Edgar Hoover had opposed the bill.
Congressman Clarence Cannon of Missouri had introduced a bill to simplify and clarify the law, and eliminate some of its faults. It hopes that the Congress might take another look at it after the elections.
Harry Golden
The Hebrew prophets likewise sought
foremost intellectual advancement, as had the Persians even earlier.
Of all the commercial advancement of that civilization, the Persian
poet's song remained: "If thou has two pennies, buy bread with
one, and with the other buy a hyacinth for thy soul
He suggests that for all of the
commercial advancement Charlotte had undergone, it was time to "buy
a hyacinth
Bob Sain of The News comments on National Newspaperboy Day, urges respect and appreciation for the hard work involved in delivering the daily newspaper to doorsteps. He provides a long list of prominent persons who had been newspaperboys, including General Eisenhower, former President Hoover, General Omar Bradley, Chief Justice Fred Vinson, Justices William O. Douglas and Tom Clark, Governor and future Chief Justice Earl Warren, Governor Thomas Dewey, Senator Arthur Vandenberg, former House Speaker Joe Martin, David Sarnoff, Gene Tunney, Jack Dempsey, Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Joe DiMaggio, Walt Disney, Alan Ladd, and John Garfield.
Lucy Mouring McGriff of Charlotte provides a poetic tribute to the newspaperboys.
Sample:
A lesson he's learning,
That many may never know,
The value of earning,
Whether an executive, or
A man with a hoe.
We would add:
If you throw that thing
Hard again at our door,
We shall impart a ring
To your core, heard from
Here to Nantucket.
Drew Pearson tells of how the backstage maneuvering by Alcoa had caused the Munitions Board to be deficient in stockpiling of aluminum, not begun until August 4. Such problems had caused mobilization director Stuart Symington to tell the President that the stockpiling program was not proceeding at all.
He recounts the history of Alcoa's opposition to stockpiling during World War II. They had assured that there was enough aluminum in August, 1940 to supply American needs and British orders. Leon Henderson, later OPA head, and others in the Government, however, disagreed, arguing to no avail that production should be increased. The shortage that followed helped to break the monopoly held by Alcoa on aluminum production, as Reynolds Metals and Henry Kaiser entered the field at the urging of the Government. But the Government also financed, interest-free, a giant plant for Alcoa's sister company in Canada, Alcan.
Whereas aluminum prices had risen by 200 percent during the World War, to 67 cents per pound, and remained at that level long afterward, because of the competition precipitated by the shortage in World War II, prices had fallen 15 to 20 cents per pound and the price currently was 20 percent below prewar levels.
On September 25, Alcoa had placed an ad in the New York newspapers saying that there was plenty of aluminum. But there was a shortage, as the Agriculture Department had to cease building aluminum storage bins and aluminum was being allocated. Alcoa was trying to persuade the Munitions Board to purchase aluminum from Alcan. Arthur Vining Davis, chairman of Alcoa, was also a large stockholder in Alcan, and his nephew was its president.
Complaints were pouring into the office of the Housing Expediter that landlords were raising rents again for servicemen in military areas. One commanding officer urged the Government to restore controls within a 50 mile radius of Camp Atterbury in Indiana.
J. Edgar Hoover had issued orders to field agents not to provide local authorities with secret lists of Communists, despite some cities having passed local ordinances against Communists.
Ambassador Alan Kirk in Moscow cabled the State Department that millions of Russians were being forced, for unknown reasons, by the secret police to leave their homes in five Soviet Asiatic Republics. Rumors were that the Russians were developing atomic bomb plants in the regions, Kazak, Tadzhik, Turkmen, Uzbek, and Kirghis.
American machine guns and 75-mm artillery were now being used by the Vietminh under Ho Chi Minh in Indo-China to fire on the French. The U.S. had provided the weapons to the Chinese Nationalists, who sold them to the Communists.
Robert C. Ruark discusses baseball, says that he had always resented the fact that baseball was associated with patriotism, that it no more deserved the status than any other sport, boxing or "horse playing".
The sport was run as a dictatorship, the players being treated as chattel, "subject to sale down the river". It had no special kinship to Betsy Ross or John Paul Jones, and George Washington had never played it. Yet, one would think the Declaration of Independence had within it a complete set of baseball rules.
But, he asserts, the game pointed up a nobility in man as an individual and as part of a team which was appealing to the nation, the ability to respond to emergencies, the ability of David to defeat, on occasion, Goliath, of war heroes Sergeant York and Butch O'Haire.
The Dodgers had been noble in their stretch drive but fell into Grecian tragedy in not being able to complete it. The Phillies had won the pennant with a home run in the tenth inning. But for a homerun by Peewee Reese, accomplished by the ball freakishly sticking to the wall, the Phillies would have won it sooner.
There were three better teams in the league in 1949 and 1950 than the Yankees and yet they had charged to take it over. When DiMaggio slumped, another player stepped up. When the pitching staff faltered, young Whitey Ford became a miracle hurler.
The game was honest and depended on class, was largely free of "meddlesome interference by incompetents."
He concludes that he would pass up the U.N. during the week to cheer for the Yankees in the World Series, but without resorting to a recitation of the Bill of Rights or the Gettysburg Address.
John M. Bruner of the Associated Press discusses the Idaho Senate races, in which, in the special race, incumbent and former Republican Senator Henry Dworshak, appointed by the Governor to fill the seat following the death of Democratic Senator Bert Miller, faced Claude J. Burten, a newcomer and professor of political science at Ricks College. In the regular race, Herman Welker, an attorney, faced the Democrat, a former Senator, Worth Clark, who had defeated Senator Glen Taylor in the primary. Senator Taylor had defeated Senator Clark in 1944. Much of the color had left the race with the defeat of the former country-western singer, who had been the running mate of Henry Wallace on the Progressive Party ticket in 1948, thus becoming susceptible to the "fellow traveler" smear.
The Idaho Democratic platform did not endorse the Brannan farm plan or the Columbia Valley Authority, as most of the Democratic candidates endorsed neither. Republicans were opposed generally to the Fair Deal.
For the first time in its history, the state had a woman nominated for Congress, Gracie Pfost, a Democrat, facing a physician, John Wood.
Tom Schlesinger of The News,
in his weekly "Capital Roundup", tells of Senator Frank
Graham backing the underdog Phillies in the World Series
Both Senators received a large volume of mail concerning the McCarran anti-subversive bill, following their respective positions on it, the favorable mail going to Senator Clyde Hoey and the opposing mail to Senator Graham.
Washington Sesquicentennial officials were recommending that Paul Green's "Faith of Our Fathers", the outdoor drama on the life of George Washington, return for a second season the following May. It had been attended by 50,000 persons during its 1950 initial run, less than expected. Mr. Green said that he was planning to rewrite the pageant and bring some Indian characters into the cast to appeal to the younger audience.
Senator Graham joined the nine other Senators who had voted not to override the President's veto of the McCarran bill in issuing a statement urging its modification. He was the only Senator in the group not returning to Congress. He also denounced the hypocritical Communist opposition to the bill, saying that they should not be casting themselves as defenders of the freedom they would seek to destroy.
Congressman Thurmond Chatham of North Carolina, who had originally voted in favor of the McCarran bill, also voted to uphold the President's veto of it. He said that he had read it more carefully before the second vote.
Five incumbent Senators had already been defeated in the primaries and three others were not running for re-election. Only six House incumbents had been upset in the primaries, five others had died, and 27 would retire.
Framed Edition
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