The Charlotte News

Wednesday, November 22, 1950

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that U.N. troops advanced generally against light enemy resistance while B-29 bombers hit Communist battle-staging areas in the northeast sector of Korea this date, in the areas of Musan and Chongjin, about 80 to 125 miles northeast of Hyesanjin where the first Americans had reached the Yalu River the previous day. Reports had it that the Communists were reorganizing the troops at Musan to resist the U.N. troop march toward the Soviet Siberian border.

The U.S. Seventh Division, camped on the Manchurian border at Hyesanjin, sent patrols west and south of the point, and light skirmishes were reported with small groups of enemy soldiers on both fronts, the first opposition encountered by any units of the Seventh.

The 22nd Regiment of the South Korean Third Division occupied Hapsu, a rail and road center 37 miles southeast of Hyesanjin. The 23rd Regiment encountered a Communist battalion seven miles southeast of Hapsu.

At the U.N., the General Assembly's political committee evidenced only slim support for Nationalist China's call the previous day for establishing a commission to investigate Nationalist China's charges of Russian aggression in mainland China. The prospects for the resolution appeared doomed, as France and Australia had joined Britain in opposing it, though the U.S. favored it. The Western opposition was premised on there being no need to add to the U.N.'s burdens regarding the Far East.

Correspondents William Abbogast and Jack Bell report that GOP Congressman Leslie Arends of Illinois claimed that the coalition between conservative Southern Democrats and Republicans in the new 82nd Congress would be strong enough to dominate the House, with a working majority of at least 45 votes. Mr. Arends said that the coalition would not merely be obstructionist but would offer plans of its own as alternative to Administration proposals on both foreign and domestic policy. About 100 Democrats of the 235 in the new House would be from the South, as many as half of whom would combine with 199 Republicans in opposition to much of the Fair Deal program to exceed easily the necessary simple majority of 218 votes. In the Senate, Democrats were lining up behind Senator Ernest McFarland of Arizona to become the new Majority Leader in January, based primarily on his vote against breaking the previous filibuster of the FEPC bill and, with the exception of that stance, his general acceptance otherwise to the President. Southerners would be stronger in the Senate after Florida Congressman George Smathers and Raleigh attorney Willis Smith would replace Senators Claude Pepper of Florida and Frank Graham of North Carolina.

Secretary of State Acheson said at a press conference that, as in the past, he would continue to consult with Republican leaders, including Senator Taft, on foreign policy in the new Congress. He refused to indicate who he had in mind when he had earlier stated that "re-examinists" of foreign policy were just like isolationsts, urging journalists to review the context of his Monday remark.

Southern Railway filed a report with the ICC that there was no ground for challenge to its present practices regarding services to white and black passengers in its dining cars, saying it had no recent complaint from passengers. It was replying to a petition filed by Elmer Henderson that discrimination was still taking place on the railroads in the dining cars as black passengers were being seated by stewards with blacks, and whites with whites, despite the Supreme Court ruling the prior June in Mr. Henderson's case, striking down all forms of segregation and discrimination on the cars as violative of the Interstate Commerce Act. The Railway claimed that Mr. Henderson's complaint posed only an abstract and not an actual situation.

A missionary plane, a DC-3, bound from Chico, California, to South America, via Billings, Mont., had crashed into a peak of Mount Moran in Wyoming, south of Yellowstone National Park, and little hope was extended by rescuers of finding any of the 21 persons aboard alive. Heavy clouds obscured the scene and high winds hampered four mountain rescuers in reaching the wreckage. Witnesses said that the plane crashed into the peak and then burned. It was flying in the opposite direction from its intended flight path at the time of the crash and there was speculation that the pilots were lost.

In Texas, thirty miles southwest of Fort Worth, seven miles west of Godley, a B-36 bomber out of Carswell Air Force Base crashed and at least two crew members were killed. The fate of the rest of the twelve-man crew was unknown, as they had possibly parachuted to safety. The Dillon Funeral Home at Cleburne reported that two injured airmen were en route to the hospital. A witness said that the engines of the plane were making a loud noise as it came down, but that there was no fire.

In Fort Worth, Nelson Harris, a figure in the Green Dragon narcotics case, was killed when his car exploded as he tried to start it. His pregnant wife and the near-term fetus were also killed when she sought to intervene to help her husband out of the burning car. A police detective described the killings as typical of gangland operations. Mr. Harris was an aide to Dallas gambler Herbert Noble, whose wife was killed in the same manner a year earlier.

VEPCO asked the Federal Power Commission to set an early date for oral arguments on its application to build a hydroelectric plant at Roanoke Rapids, N.C., following a ruling a week earlier by an FPC examiner that it was authorized to do so, a ruling pursuant to request by Secretary of Interior Oscar Chapman to reopen the matter as he disagreed with the examiner's first ruling approving the construction by private utility. An appeal of the second ruling was filed by the Virginia REA Association.

Senator-elect Smith of North Carolina said that he had appointed John Slear of Charlotte as his private secretary. Mr. Slear had served in that capacity with Congressman Hamilton Jones of Charlotte.

The "Our Weather" box tells of November 22 being St. Cecilia's Day, traditionally ascribed the power to predict the weather of winter by the weather of the day.

Whether it possessed that power, figuratively, thirteen years hence may depend on one's perspective regarding subsequently occurring events.

In St. Louis, as pictured, a man driving a 1949 Pontiac convertible hit an eight-point buck darting out of the woods into his path, preceded by a black cat, doing $200 worth of damage to his left front fender.

On the editorial page, "Fighting in the Dark" finds that while the first American troops had reached the Manchurian border the previous day at Hyesanjin without firing a shot, American intelligence warned of large contingents of Communist troops forming over the border. Intelligence had appeared peculiarly deficient in Korea thus far, as the original invasion on June 25 had not been anticipated and North Korea's fighting strength and resolve had been underestimated. Following the September 15 Inchon landings, the collapse of enemy resistance had not been anticipated, just as the Communist Chinese intervention had not been predicted, or their recent, sudden withdrawal.

Failure of intelligence not only complicated fighting but also diplomatic efforts to resolve the Chinese and Korean issues. It appeared inexplicable as thousands of anti-Communist South Koreans should have been able to penetrate the veil of secrecy in the North and among North Korean troops in the South to find out such information.

"The South and Its Future" informs that while the South was better off than it ever had been economically, no single Southern state had an average per capita income equal to the national average. It asks how long such would be accepted as the norm, provides the answer that it would do so as long as the South was content to ship its raw materials to the North for manufacture into high-priced products and as long as it ignored the advice of scientists that there were immense opportunities in the South for manufacturing to flourish.

It praises the work of the Southern Association of Science and Industry in Atlanta, operating on a shoestring budget, for its expert advice in such areas. It had decided to expand its operations and to that end was, for the first time, seeking public contributions of $5 for annual memberships, to supplement its primary funding from industrial and business members. It makes exception to its rule of not generally endorsing such private fund-raising efforts to urge support of the Association in its drive, as it had done much to encourage economic and business growth and progress in the South.

"Unexpected Result" tells of potato farmers voting on whether to continue marketing agreements entitling them to price supports, with the results showing that in nine states thus far conducting such elections, seven had rejected price supports. Only in New Jersey had the issue carried the necessary majority for passage.

The American Farm Bureau claimed that the rejection was based on opposition to Government regimentation.

The piece thinks that it might be that simple but doubts it, finds that the farmers probably realized that the public had grown weary of price supports being responsible for artificially high food prices and so were voting to jettison the concept before it jettisoned them. It adds, however, that if in fact they were tired of regimentation, then "bully".

A piece from the Christian Science Monitor, titled "Unfair to Parents", finds too heavy-handed the ad being broadcast and printed in newspapers by the American Television Dealers and Manufacturers, quoting psychologists that television was necessary to the happiness and well-being of children. Children needed to be educated to the notion that there were more important things in life than money and the latest gadgets.

Americans had purchased seven million television sets, as fast or faster than resources and responsibilities would allow. Children had a peculiar way of convincing parents to purchase the latest gadgetry. To add to that coercion in this advertising campaign made television more suited to instilling displeasure than goodwill. It hopes that parents would be able to practice restraint and tell their children that they would only purchase what they could afford without sacrifice of essentials.

Ralph McGill, in a piece from the Atlanta Constitution, tells of Governor-elect James Byrnes of South Carolina having made a firm, plain statement the previous week regarding the Klan and its recent violence in Horry County, that while the Klan membership was small, people in foreign countries were unaware of the fact and so it was necessary for the people of any state to put down the organization because of its harm to the country at-large. He thus served notice to the Klan that during his tenure as Governor, the State would enforce the laws and not tolerate vigilante interference from the Klan. That such a statement had not been made in past years gave added stature to Mr. Byrnes.

Nothing had helped Communist propaganda more than the Klan and its acts of violence, often joined by local sheriffs and police officers, making it possible for Communist propaganda to claim that law and justice in America was a lie. Moscow radio issued news on every such racial disturbance in the country.

Mr. McGill informs that he had in his possession copies of letters from a Florida Klan leader scorning the offer of sale of the Klan membership list for Georgia, claiming it to be worthless. He had said that he had been banished from the Florida Klan for preaching violence and had now obtained refuge in Georgia. A successful criminal defense lawyer in Jacksonville had financed an anti-Semitic hate sheet but there had been no rush to support it.

Communists in the South were also not faring well. Their only help had come from the failing Klan, the reason why members of the Communist Party who had joined the Klan had sent small financial contributions to the organization.

After listening to the above-linked speech of Mr. McGill delivered at Kansas State University in May, 1967, regarding the development of the South in modern times, the listener might compare it to the commencement address by W. J. Cash delivered June 2, 1941 at the University of Texas, and then also read the 1967 Red Clay Reader account by Mary Cash Maury anent Cash's last months before his death on July 1, 1941, both available via the header's bank of links. The two men, who had met in March, 1941 in Atlanta, had a similar view of the South, as well as a similar public-speaking cadence. It was probably not mere happenstance that Mr. McGill mentions Cash and The Mind of the South at about the 13-minute mark of the 1967 address, as Joseph L. Morrison, Cash's first biographer in 1967, had contacted Mr. McGill during the year or so prior to this address for his memories of the 1941 Atlanta meeting. Whether Mr. McGill had borrowed a recent tape transfer made by Professor Morrison from the original recordings of Cash's address and listened to it, we do not know, but the 1967 speech bears an uncanny resemblance at times to Cash's 1941 speech on the South, right down to Mr. McGill's occasional stuttering over the same words, such as "civilization".

Drew Pearson provides kudos to his old political enemy, General Harry Vaughan, for having campaigned to have the servicemen wandering Washington since the start of the Korean war provided entertainment by adapting of the old Belasco Theater for the purpose, presently a Government warehouse for Treasury Department files. The Department had thus far refused to release the theater to the American Legion for the purpose because transfer of the files elsewhere would cost $20,000. But then an Army commander had offered to transfer the files for free in Army trucks, at which point Treasury said it would cost $75,000 for new storage space. General Vaughan, realizing the value of entertainment for boosting the morale of soldiers, had done his best to cut the red tape necessary to allow the theater to be used by the Legion. Thus far, however, the effort had not met with success.

During the President's recent trip to his home in Independence, Mo., local residents noticed the increased security around him since the attempt on his life at Blair House by two Puerto Rican Nationalists on November 1. A local iceman who delivered ice to the venue of a speech by the President was met by two Secret Service agents and a new method for ice delivery was prescribed, whereby he was instructed to leave his knife, his ice pick and tongs on his truck and carry in his arms the 50-lb. block of ice to the door. At that point, the block was washed twice before being handed to a worker inside. Another change noted was that spectators who could normally see the President drive by slowly on his way from Kansas City to Independence were frustrated by the limousine and following Secret Service car, with seven agents aboard, flying by at speeds in excess of the 25 mph speed limit. On the roof of the Muehlebach Hotel, where the President normally stayed when in Kansas City, three Kansas City detectives were stationed during the "damned cold" nighttime and early morning hours.

He notes that the hometown folks looked forward to a time when their most famous resident would again be just plain "Harry".

A report by a Senate Labor-Management subcommittee on the Western Electric workers' strike would say that while the parent company, A. T. & T., actually dictated labor policy for the entire Bell system, the union was forced to deal independently with local companies, and that wage chaos existed in the Bell system, with over a hundred wage schedules for operators alone, with different rates in different states and regions of the country. The Communications Workers of America had told the subcommittee that they believed the wage of $36 per week as the top rate for operators after eight years of service was unfair. The subcommittee found that Newark equipment installers, the object of the strike, made only 91 cents per hour as a starting rate while skilled laborers earned $2.12 per hour, and that after eight years, the telephone worker still earned a penny less than unskilled labor. But Bell had such a monopoly on the telephone industry that its skilled workers could not quit and find work with a competitor. Bell had also received 394 million dollars worth of rate increases since the end of World War II, considerably more than its wage increases in the same period.

Marquis Childs tells of the threat from the forces under the leadership of Moscow-trained Ho Chi Minh in Indo-China, able to pass at will back and forth across the border with China to receive supplies and support, having been the case since the Vietminh had driven the French from posts along the border. The retreat of the French had raised serious doubts as to whether the French Army could hold the line even though receiving aid now from the U.S.

It was likely that the French would soon seek U.S. bombing support, which, if provided, might eliminate the threat to Hanoi and the rich food-producing region in the North. Yet, so much of the Communist operations depended on guerrilla infiltration along mountain trails and through dense jungle that bombing, in itself, might not be very effective in wiping out the Communists.

The French had agreed to furnish arms to an army of loyal Vietnamese who would fight alongside the French, but such concessions should have occurred much earlier in the fight. The French would likely not achieve support among the Vietnamese in the areas they controlled absent assurance of full independence in the near future, putting an end to the claim that the French were intent on defending defunct colonialism, disappearing throughout Asia.

Both in the State Department and in ERP, there was discussion of alternatives to assist the French failing effort.

Mr. Childs believes that a French declaration granting independence to the Vietnamese by a date certain had to occur, along with an immediate request by France and the U.S. that the U.N. create an advisory commission for Indo-China, to enforce the grant of independence and observe and report on further aggression by Communist-led forces. He offers the caveat, however, that even such a move might be too late. But those knowledgeable of the region believed that it would win over the majority of the non-Communists in Indo-China who also rejected colonialism.

Thus far, there was no evidence, unlike in Korea, of direct intervention of Communist China on behalf of Ho's forces. But his access to the Chinese frontier gave him refuge to obtain supplies, refresher training and rest. It was similar to the way things had been in Greece before Yugoslavia closed the border to the Communist guerrillas fighting there in the north.

The British, by granting independence to India, had saved part of their economic position and political status in the country, a positive action which might serve as an object lesson to the French.

Joseph & Stewart Alsop find that "hell hath no fury like a contributor scorned", as the President was learning after two of the most important contributors to his 1948 campaign, New York businessman James Bruce, former Ambassador to Argentina, and current Ambassador to Argentina Stanton Griffis, were now demanding their rights. Both had been blocked thus far by Secretary of State Acheson and Undersecretary James Webb from achieving their goals of being named ambassadors, respectively, to London and Paris.

Both men had only been able to establish in Argentina warm relations with dictator Juan Peron and his wife, Evita. Mr. Acheson and Mr. Webb posited that such was not enough to justify appointment to such important embassies as London and Paris.

An oft-repeated rumor was that the President had informed Mr. Bruce that he would have liked to have appointed him to be Ambassador to Britain but that "they", meaning Mr. Acheson and Mr. Webb, had objected, and so he had to appoint the "telephone fellow", Walter Gifford, whose name he could not remember.

The current Ambassador to France was the able David Bruce, brother of James, hurting the chances of Mr. Griffis to succeed him because of Ambassador Bruce's ability, and also the chances of James Bruce to become Ambassador to Britain because of the oddity of having two brothers heading two of the most important American embassies.

After the unexpected victory in 1948, the President had let go able men, as James Forrestal at Defense and George Marshall at State, and replaced the former with his chief money-raiser, Louis Johnson. But in the midterm elections, the voters had rejected this approach to politics. The President's appointment of General Marshall as Defense Secretary and firing of Mr. Johnson had conveyed his awareness of this problem since the start of the Korean war the prior June 25. If, however, he appointed Ambassadors Griffis and Bruce to their desired posts, it would show that he was relapsing to the former approach.

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