The Charlotte News

Saturday, February 25, 1950

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee named a five-member subcommittee, headed by Senator Millard Tydings of Maryland, to investigate the charges of Senator Joseph McCarthy that there were 81 Communists in the State Department, now—or 57 or 205 or 207 a fortnight ago, sold American. Senator Tydings promised that there would be neither a "witch hunt nor a whitewash" in the investigation. The other four members of the subcommittee would be Senators Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., Bourke Hickenlooper, Brien McMahon and Theodore Green. Committee chairman Tom Connally had favored a three-member subcommittee, but yielded on the point.

Generalissimo Francisco Franco and his Falangist organs in Madrid were said to be jumping for joy at the news.

The latest results of the British general elections showed Labour with a slender nine-member majority in Commons, with five seats still in limbo. Prime Minister Clement Attlee vowed that his party would continue to carry on despite the narrow margin of victory. The decision, rather than calling for a new election forthwith, meant that the Government might receive a vote of no-confidence in Commons at a time not of its own choosing, prompting another election.

In Vienna, U.S. Army authorities said that the facts surrounding the death of the Navy captain who had been killed after falling from a train as it entered a tunnel near Salzburg, disclosed that he had died as a result of an accident, not foul play. They found that the ballast along the tracks was disturbed for some distance inside the tunnel, indicating that the captain had lost his footing and tried to regain it as the train dragged his feet along. The train had made an unscheduled stop while repairs were being made to the tracks and the accident occurred just three minutes after it got underway again, suggesting that the captain had trouble reboarding. The captain was a friend of Robert Vogeler, the American businessman recently sentenced in Hungary to fifteen years in prison for spying, and so at first had prompted concern of potential foul play by Communists.

In Pittsburgh, State police protected truck drivers as UMW members picked coal in 10-degree weather and loaded it onto trucks to supply the city. The truckers eschewed the police protection, however, as they said the miners would not work if the police were present. The 65 miners doing the work were covered by the so-called "Kentucky agreement" already reached between coal operators and UMW, covering 40,000 miners in various areas. Previous attempts to bring coal to the city by truck had been stopped by stone-throwing pickets. Windshields of several vehicles had been smashed the previous day as the trucks hauled 4,000 tons of coal to the city.

The entry to the North Carolina Democratic Senate race of Raleigh attorney Willis Smith was welcomed by former Senator Robert Rice Reynolds, also vying for the seat held by incumbent Senator Frank Graham, appointed the previous March as the interim replacement for deceased newly elected Senator J. Melville Broughton. Observers generally saw the entry of Mr. Smith to the race as providing an even more clear cut choice between the liberal Senator Graham and conservatism, as Mr. Smith was more closely identified with the latter position than Mr. Reynolds.

Federal officials were seeking to avert the threatened strike of bus drivers of Duke Power Co., which served Charlotte and five other cities of the state. The strike would begin early Monday if not settled in the meantime. The drivers were seeking, in addition to a raise in wages of 20 cents per hour, a contributory pension fund, arguing that the company had engaged in discrimination against the drivers by raising all other employee wages the prior December by 8.5 cents per hour, that top pay of drivers was only about $280 per month, and that the company had received authority the previous August to raise bus fares by a third, much more than the requested wage hike.

The U.S. Mediation Service had been in contact with the Brotherhood of Railway Trainmen, the union representing the bus drivers, and the local representative of the Service said that he was holding informal meetings with the BRT and the company. Nothing, however, was disclosed indicating any progress toward a resolution. The vice-president of Duke, W. S. O'B. Robinson, said that no strike-breakers would be employed in the event of a strike, but that if the buses could be operated in an orderly manner, the company would do so.

Bob Sain of The News tells of Charlotte business and industry planning to press into service such vehicles as laundry trucks and U.S. Army vehicles to get workers to the job on Monday if the strike went forward.

Emery Wister of The News tells of the Kroehler Manufacturing Co., furniture producer, announcing that it would establish a plant in Charlotte on Monroe Road and would employ about 200 persons in the manufacture of upholstered furniture.

The News switchboard would have new hours starting this night, with the new closing time of 7:30 p.m. All subscribers wishing circulation service were requested to call the switchboard at 3-0303 with their stories, prior to that time.

Otherwise, pilgrim, you will be stuck out on the mainline, without The News—terminated sans story, 30-30.

Part of chapter four of The Greatest Story Ever Told by Fulton Oursler appears on the front page as part of the serialization in The News of the recently published book.

On the editorial page, "The People Are the Pawns" finds the impending strike by the Duke Power Co. bus drivers to be a strike against the people rather than the company. The latter contended that it was losing money on its bus operations. Thus, the company could, without suffering a loss, simply terminate bus service in the six cities, including Charlotte, which it served. Such a result would create major problems for the public in those six communities, dependent on bus transportation.

The 20-cent per hour wage boost sought by the drivers would cause fares to be raised at some future time. The Brotherhood of Railway Trainmen, which represented the drivers, had not justified the demand.

The piece urges again that the matter be submitted to arbitration by both sides, thus far resisted by the BRT while accepted by Duke, and that it then be settled short of strike, to avoid the great disservice to the people.

"Socialism Suffers a Set-Back" suggests that while the Labour Party was not repudiated in the British elections, its socialistic program of nationalization of industry had suffered a severe body blow. Leaders of both parties believed that Labour did not have a sufficient majority to work effectively and that another election therefore would need be held soon.

There was an absence of interpretive stories on the wires, contrary the usual course after such an election, because it was difficult to assess the meaning of the results, as the primary difference in the campaigns of Labour and the Conservatives was that the latter promised to halt nationalization in its tracks whereas Labour promised extension of the policy. Conservative Leader Winston Churchill had, late in the campaign, also urged a Big Three conference to settle atomic control, and that issue may have caused some Britons to cast their ballots accordingly.

But, it finds, the election had confirmed the move away from socialism which was evident in the recent results for Conservatives in Australia and New Zealand. It suggests that the reason might be that socialism, as supposed in theory, looked far different in practice.

"Rout of the British Commies" finds that the complete defeat of the British Communist Party in the Thursday general election was one of its more interesting sidelights. Not a single one of the hundred candidates of the party on the ballots won a seat in Parliament, whereas of 21 such candidates in 1945, two had been elected. The average vote per Communist candidate also dropped from about a thousand to 800.

It concludes from this result that the meaning of Communism was better understood in 1950 than in 1945, that there was less need to fear the Communists who operated in the open in a democracy than those who functioned in the shadows. It hopes that the result in Britain would calm some of the anti-Communist hysteria in the United States.

"An Answer to a Reader" takes exception to the letter of Harry Golden on this date's page, which had criticized the idea that Charlotte adopt for itself the concept of Winston-Salem's "Committee of 100", a group of local leaders, none of whom were elected public officials, who investigated various issues of interest to the community and then made reports and recommendations.

The piece finds that the various issues facing Charlotte during the ensuing decade would benefit from the work of such a voluntary organization, costing the taxpayers nothing to educate the people as to the overall picture regarding the needed improvements and their costs, without being colored by special interests and politics. It would not, it asserts, be a "cops and robbers" outfit as Mr. Golden had suggested, but would fill a void of leadership in the community.

A piece from the Christian Science Monitor, titled "Case of a Collie Named Tip", tells of Tip having fallen in love with his owner's automobile such that when it was sold, he would not eat. The new owner finally was summoned by Tip's master to bring the car nearby so that Tip could become reacquainted with his quiet lover with the big horns and major heat spouting from its mouth when turned on. Tip then took up residence with the car, rather than his master.

The piece finds it insulting to understand that perhaps man's best friend was really only attracted to the accouterments of the master rather than the master, himself. But it consoles the distraught feelings with the final judgment that Tip was an aberration, "an atypical, abnormal, egregious teratogenetic canis familiaris", or that the whole story was just a tall tale from Texas.

Once, we bought a car which a very vain duck had adopted as its mirror, enjoyed preening to its reflection in the painted swooping curved bend of the steel along the side. We bought the car in Pennsylvania and then drove it to North Carolina. The duck, to our amazement, followed us all the way and, therefore, had to be shipped back by air to Pennsylvania, with special cabin privileges accorded, that it might be able to utilize the mirror during the entire flight. It had refused to go otherwise, even referring to us as a "quack", or something not entirely discernible.

Drew Pearson tells of wire-tapping by the Army and Navy, not the FBI, having increased to the point that it was more prevalent than even during the war. Journalists were being monitored to find out where they got their exclusive information. Senator Joseph McCarthy had received a tip from HUAC that the Committee had a secret list of 400 names of alleged subversives, prompting the Wisconsin Senator to phone Congressman Richard Nixon of the Committee to inquire about the 400. He did not tell anyone else about it, but then Senate Majority Leader Scott Lucas asked him about the secret report of the 400 names, of which Senator McCarthy denied knowing anything. Senator Lucas insisted that he did, saying that they had "the clippings". Senator McCarthy then said that he had only mentioned the matter over his private telephone line. Nothing more was said about it by Senator Lucas.

—Yeah, Bob. See? They all do it.

—Yeah, that's right. When we do it, they are all over us.

—Kill someone? Pearson?

—No, Bob, let's not. If they found out about it, it could be messy.

Mr. Pearson believes that, knowing State Department personnel as he did, Senator McCarthy was way off base, that there were no Communists in the Department, that the Senator had gotten the names from a list of subversives investigated by the previous Congress three years earlier and that those still employed by the Department had been investigated by the loyalty board and cleared. The persons he claimed were Communists had been cleared by HUAC and the House Appropriations subcommittee as well.

Twenty years earlier, one of Secretary of State Acheson's friends, Prentiss Gilbert, had gotten into trouble with reactionaries in the Department for merely visiting Progressive Senator Robert La Follette of Wisconsin. Passed for promotion, Mr. Gilbert called on Mr. Acheson to represent him as his lawyer. Mr. Pearson finds it remarkable that Mr. Acheson had then gone on to become Secretary and that Wisconsin had gone on to elect Senator McCarthy.

He notes that when Senator Tom Connally was asked to have the Foreign Relations Committee investigate Senator McCarthy's charges, he replied that he had more important things to do than go on a "skunk hunt".

Congressman Fred Crawford of Saginaw, Mich., who had spent a weekend in jail rather than take release on his own recognizance, out of pride for having been initially denied a cash bail, following his arrest for punching a farm hand who doubled as his office boy, was having a dalliance with his young secretary. Prompting the assault was a remark by the farm hand, who had befriended the Congressman's wife, that the secretary had lied to Mr. Crawford "again". Even the Congressman's 17-year old son, a friend of the farm hand, who witnessed the assault, helped to swear out the warrant against his father.

Tom Schlesinger of The News, in his weekly "Capital Roundup", tells of North Carolina Representative Robert Doughton, chairman of the House Ways & Means Committee, having said recently that the current tax bill before the Committee was the toughest of his 40-year career in Congress because it was seeking to reduce taxes while increasing revenue, a trick the accomplishment of which Mr. Doughton had yet to figure out.

A society reporter for the Washington Post had been told by Mrs. Gordon Gray that her husband, presently Secretary of the Army, could not turn down the post as UNC president as it was the most flattering of his career, with over a hundred men having been considered for the position.

Senator Frank Graham's prediction, as one of three minority members of the Senate Judiciary Committee voting against the displaced persons bill, that the bill, by the time it got to the floor, would be more liberal than the bill shoved through the Committee by its chairman, Senator Pat McCarran of Nevada, was turning out to be correct. The bill was expected to be the subject of a fight on the floor and seven members of the Committee had already demanded a more liberal measure.

Senator Clyde Hoey's Investigating subcommittee had hired a former commander of the North Carolina Highway Patrol, Howell Hatcher, as its lead investigator.

The Senator said that he was preparing a report on the Maritime Commission, as urged by Drew Pearson late in the prior year. He also said that no new hearings into the five percenter scheme were scheduled, though the matter still remained open to further investigation. He indicated that he had been over-quoted in the press regarding holding of hearings on Senator Joseph McCarthy's charges of Communists in the State Department, that the matter properly should be investigated by the Foreign Relations or Judiciary Committees.

The entire North Carolina Congressional delegation, with the exception of retiring Congressman Alfred Bulwinkle, would be up for re-election.

Senator Graham was being flooded with invitations to speak across the state and was planning to accommodate them during weekends.

Rumors had been floated that Senator Graham, who grew up in Charlotte, was related to Evangelist Billy Graham of Charlotte, but it was not true.

Playwright Paul Green, writing the dramatic portion of a musical drama to celebrate the Sesquicentennial of Washington, was not going to ask Jan Sibelius, the Finnish composer, to write the music after all, in the wake of numerous complaints demanding an American composer. He would acquiesce.

A piece from the New York Times, titled "The Twelfth Sign", remarks of the Zodiacal sign of Aquarius, the water-bearer, passing into Pisces, the fish, hearkening the arrival of the vernal equinox and spring.

A letter from Harry Golden, as stated in the above editorial, objects to Charlotte adopting Winston-Salem's "Committee of 100" to investigate and issue recommendations on matters of local interest. He thinks it would devolve to a virtual vigilante organization of "cops and robbers", that such investigations ought occur only within the established official legal mechanisms. He suggests that a "much more cosmopolitan Charlotte" than Winston-Salem had long ago outgrown such "'frontier' experiments".

A letter writer questions whether the "welfare state", consistently belabored by The News, was wrong for the ordinary citizen when it came to such things as compulsory health insurance and Federal aid to education, but alright for the corporations when they received incentives and subsidies, when the Federal and State governments cooperated to build roads so that the auto manufacturers could thrive. He believes that the President was correct when he said that the Republicans were using "scare words" such as "welfare state" and "socialism" to describe the efforts of the Administration to solve Twentieth Century problems, while the GOP wanted to revert to using McKinley-era methods.

He concludes that FDR would receive more votes from the people dead than all the Republicans combined.

A letter writer finds the words of Daniel Webster instructive, to the effect that following the Bible was the way to prosperity and that ignoring it was the path to certain catastrophe.

A letter writer forwards a statement from a man in Houston who sent out a letter to all members of Congress in protest of the FEPC bill, saying that the best argument against the bill was the President's own blast at Drew Pearson, that no "SOB" was going to tell him who to hire and fire.

The latter comment of the President had come in the context of Mr. Pearson's protest a year earlier at the Argentine Embassy in Washington for Maj. General Harry Vaughan, the President's military aide, having received a decoration from dictator Juan Peron.

What exactly that has to do with fair employment opportunity and non-discrimination in hiring and wages based on race, color, nationality, or religion, only the letter writer and the idiot he quotes from Texas could possibly conjure. Was General Vaughan or a competitor for his position, unknown to anyone else, a member of a "suspect classification", a protected minority interest?

Leave it to an ignorant, conservative racist to pluck up a non sequitur comparison of apples to oranges and think it cleverly humorous.

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