The Charlotte News
Friday, February 10, 1950
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that in London, a prosecutor, Christmas Humphreys, read an alleged confession of Dr. Klaus Fuchs to a preliminary hearing on the charges that he provided the Russians secret information on the atomic bomb. Part of the text of the confession is provided. He said that he provided atomic secrets, beginning in 1942, out of a belief in the Communist system during the war, but changed his view after the war and determined that Russia was then engaging in actions of which he disapproved, eventually leading him to decide not to provide further information. He had divided his mind into two compartments, he said, such that he could maintain cordial relations with his colleagues at Harwell, the British atomic research facility, while also maintaining contacts with the Soviets through intermediaries. The court held Dr. Fuchs to answer on the two charges of violation of the official secrets act and set trial for February 28.
We trust that the prosecutor at trial will not be named Hallowe'en Nixons.
Senator Millard Tydings, chairman of the Senate Arms Services Committee and a member of the Joint Atomic Energy Committee, said that information which Dr. Fuchs provided to the Russians might speed their development of a hydrogen bomb.
The President, the previous day, told a press conference that he saw no reason to review the Baruch plan in light of the decision to proceed with the hydrogen bomb and still supported the plan for atomic control, also supported Secretary of State Acheson's statement that the Russians kept agreements only when existing conditions forced them to do so. Several Senators expressed agreement with continued support, without revision, of the Baruch plan.
The Senate passed the bill to provide 88 million dollars in financial aid to South Korea and Formosa, following House approval the previous day. Sixty million dollars of the aid would go to South Korea by June 30. The House vote reversed a defeat of a bill by a single vote two weeks earlier for 60 million dollars of aid to Korea.
The Navy stated that a Viking rocket had been fired the previous day in White Sands, N.M., reaching an altitude of 51 miles. It was the third in a series of ten test firings of the rocket. The Navy said that it could have climbed higher but was terminated when it began veering off of the proving ground.
In Washington, a Federal judge issued an injunction requested by NLRB general counsel Robert Denham, finding that four contract demands of John L. Lewis were illegal. The injunction required that Mr. Lewis respond to a ten-week old bargaining invitation from the Southern Coal Producers Association, without making demands for a union shop, not available under Taft-Hartley, a welfare fund exclusively for UMW members, a clause saying that miners would work only when "willing and able", or a provision for "memorial periods".
U.S. corporations set a record in 1949 for payment of cash dividends, paying out a total of nearly 6.5 billion dollars.
In Washington, a discharged Army veteran was charged with murder after ramming a Japanese souvenir rifle with an affixed bayonet through a bathroom door, killing his wife.
In South Kirby, England, a coal miner who had won 16,000 pounds, about $44,800, drove up to his old mine in a limousine and ask for his job back, as he had become bored.
In Havana, someone stole $50,000 worth of jewels and $2,000 in cash, maintained as evidence in the criminal court safe.
In Wheaton, Ill., a marathon prayer meeting at Wheaton College ended after 38 hours. Some 1,500 students and 110 faculty members had participated in the spontaneous event as classes were suspended. A college spokesman said that the students were happy with the results and believed that "the Lord had dealt with them." The event was halted out of concern that the outside world might think the marathon too showy.
On the editorial page, "On My Honor..." pays tribute to the Boy Scouts of America, celebrating their 40th anniversary.
"Dr. Nourse Tells His Story" supports the statement of Dr. Edwin Nourse, as provided in Collier's, regarding his disagreement with his former fellow members of the Council of Economic Advisers anent interpretation of the Employment Act of 1946 which had created the Council, prompting his resignation the previous October. He believed that the Council should present pros and cons of economic views in a professional and non-political manner and let the President then decide the issue. The other two advisers believed that they should formulate a recommendation and present it to the President and then stand behind him before Congress on any decision he adopted which they had recommended.
The piece suggests that if the Act was not clear enough to specify the procedure to be followed by the Council, it should be amended.
"Time for Plain Talk" finds wise the suggestion of Richard L. Strout of the Christian Science Monitor that the President directly address the people on whether the position of the country in international affairs was morally unassailable and provide the basis for his decision to develop the hydrogen bomb.
"Scholarship Committee" suggests formation of a community committee to match worthy students with available scholarships, prompted by a visit to the community by alumni of Phillips Academy at Andover, Mass., seeking students meriting a scholarship. Most schools had scholarships available but there was no easy way to identify them.
A piece from the Shelby Daily Star, titled "Company for Dinner", advocates charging a minimum of 60 cents to law enforcement officers who regularly dropped by State prison road camps at mealtime, as determined by Prisons director J. B. Moore and his supervisors. Over 4,000 meals had been served to visitors during the previous December and more than 3,400 in January.
Drew Pearson finds that use of the Taft-Hartley Act by the President to stop the coal strike could not have come at a worse time for the country or at a better time for John L. Lewis, by getting the latter off the hook with the miners who were complaining of the short work week and blaming their economic woes on Mr. Lewis. Now, they would be ordered back to work, that which they had wanted to do all along.
Republicans outside Ohio were complaining that Senator Taft's fund-raising efforts were siphoning money from their campaigns.
The playboy of Communist China, General Chen Yi, was in trouble with the spartan Mao Tse-Tung because of the General's lavish parties.
Senate Majority Leader Scott Lucas was doing an excellent job of pushing the President's program through Congress.
Congressman Richard Nixon was planning to run for the Senate in California and hoped that Congresswoman Helen Gahagan Douglas would lose in the Democratic primary to incumbent Senator Sheridan Downey, as Mr. Nixon thought Mr. Downey would be easier to beat. He believed that Ms. Douglas stood for something whereas Mr. Downey had been on all sides of every issue.
Senator Forrest Donnell of Missouri had objected to religious proportionality in the displaced persons bill being pushed by Judiciary Committee chairman Pat McCarran of Nevada, citing freedom of religion as the grounds for not making religion a test for admission to the country. In consequence, the provision was stricken.
Did you catch that, DT'ers? Freedom of religion goes beyond the different sects of Christianity to embrace all religious beliefs, including Judaism and Islam. Nor do we seek to circumvent freedom of religion by asking some slick lawyer how we might get around that and keep them out.
General MacArthur had informed the Joint Chiefs that the Russians had shipped, via the Trans-Siberian railway, 20 unassembled submarines to North China where they would be assembled at Vladivostok and Komsomolsk, increasing Russia's submarine complement in the Pacific to 90.
U.S. Ambassador to Moscow Alan Kirk had reported that there was a spy scare in Russia, such that hundreds of persons had been arrested in the Ukraine on suspicion of spying, and Russian workers were being urged to report suspicious activity.
A special Moscow courier, believed to be Andrei Gromyko, had been sent to Sofia to urge the Bulgarian Government to withdraw its demand for withdrawal of the U.S. minister. Moscow did not want the U.S. to break diplomatic relations with Bulgaria and then close the Bulgarian legation in Washington, as it provided a good listening post.
In Shanghai, a riot of 20,000 Communist textile workers took place against Communist authorities, following a wage cut and announcement that the annual bonus would be converted to bonds. The rioters tore down pictures of Mao and Chu Teh, resulting in the arrest of a hundred workers.
The chief lobbyist for American aid to the Franco regime in Spain had, during World War II, given a party in Vichy to celebrate the capture of Manila by the Japanese.
Congressman John Lodge, brother of Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., of Massachusetts, might run for the Republican Senatorial nomination from Connecticut instead of Time-Life publisher Henry Luce.
Marquis Childs tells of the Republicans being pleased with the success of the party's box-supper rally, which had attracted many young people. One Republican, however, made the observation that if you gave away tickets to a chicken supper and had Fred Waring for entertainment, you were bound to attract people.
The platform was general in nature, with a few barbs thrown in for good measure. It had to be in a mid-term election year, to accommodate broadly different House and Senate races.
The farm plank was a good example of a general plank which sought to please both the Midwestern interests who wanted high farm support prices while also placating Vermont Senator George Aiken's desire for flexible farm supports and coops. In the end, it said little or nothing.
An effort to denounce bipartisan foreign policy received almost no support.
Robert C. Ruark finds justification in development of the hydrogen bomb as a means of playing hardball with the Russians, as Bernard Baruch had urged recently.
He cites an example of a friend who had been an ace flier during the war and had several medals to prove it but did not wear them heavily, had no conscience about anything he did during the war, regarded it as practical necessity, including an instance of actual murder. He had knocked a German's Foch-Wulf out of commission and saw the pilot about ready to bail out to safety over Germany. He realized that the ace flier would be back in the air the next day, able to shoot down Allied planes and men. As the German was one of the best fliers he had ever seen, he made an instant decision to zero in and cut him in half with his machine gun.
Such were the "desperate practicalities" of war. Such was the H-bomb.
A letter writer comments on the editorial regarding the New Jersey medical plan, and opines that the country should do as much as needed to help people help themselves but should not engage through a Government health care plan in providing what they ought provide for themselves.
A letter from a senior member of the Society of Residential Appraisers provides the definitions of various terms pertinent to property revaluation for tax purposes, definitions which he believes would clarify some confusion on the matter.
A letter writer thanks the newspaper, the American Business Club, and various businesses and the public for supporting the recent piano marathon in support of the March of Dimes drive.
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