The Charlotte News
Monday, March 13, 1950
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that Senator Joseph McCarthy told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that he had heard reports that a named former Navy scientist, familiar with the country's "topmost secrets", was an admitted Communist and proposed an investigation of the matter. He also named employees of the State Department who he claimed had displayed Communist sympathies, including the wife of the scientist in question and Owen Lattimore, State Department consultant and presently director of the Walter Hines Page School of International Relations at Johns Hopkins. Senator McCarthy claimed that Mr. Lattimore was one of the top architects of American foreign policy.
The President sent to Congress plans to reorganize a long list of Federal agencies and to abolish the National Maritime Commission and shift control of the merchant fleet to the Commerce Department. He also called for abolition of the office of general counsel for the NLRB, a position created under Taft-Hartley. The House or Senate had 60 days to veto the plans or they would become law.
The House Ways & Means Committee rejected by a party-line vote of 15 to 10 an effort to slash excise taxes by a billion dollars. The Democrats, however, passed a resolution saying that the Committee would approve excise tax cuts of more than the 655 million dollars recommended by the President and that it would seek to close tax loopholes, vigorously enforce tax laws against tax evaders, and pass other tax changes as means of recouping the lost revenue.
In Cardiff, Wales, an investigation
began of the crash
Near Cochran, Ga., a car carrying a couple to the hospital with their ailing baby broke down on the side of the road and numerous motorists passed without stopping, until finally a farmer stopped, picked them up and took them to a Sheriff's Deputy who carried them to the hospital. The baby, however, was dead on arrival from pneumonia.
The President's yacht Williamsburg was buffeted by large waves off North Carolina, carrying the President to Key West for his vacation.
In Winston-Salem, Mayor Marshall Kurfees announced his candidacy for the U.S. Senate Democratic primary against Senator Clyde Hoey. He said that he had high regard for Senator Hoey but believed the people wanted new blood in the Senate. He said that he would continue in the meantime as Mayor.
News Editor Pete McKnight, in the first of a series of three articles, relates of an interview with Senator Frank Graham, 62, who had been associated with UNC for 34 years, nineteen of which as its president, building the institution into that which had been termed an "oasis of culture in the Sahara of the South". He said that he believed the main part of his job at the University had been finished, prompting him finally to accept Governor Kerr Scott's appointment to the Senate a year earlier in the wake of the death of newly elected Senator J. Melville Broughton. Initially, he had declined the appointment.
The series of interviews complemented those of former Senator Robert Rice Reynolds, presented earlier, and those to follow with candidate Willis Smith.
A part of chapter thirty, continuing into chapter thirty-one, of The Greatest Story Ever Told by Fulton Oursler appears on the page as part of the abridged serialization of the book.
On the editorial page, "Natural Gas for the Carolinas" tells of Piedmont Natural Gas Corp. asking the Federal Power Commission for approval of its plan to build a natural gas pipeline from Texas to the Piedmont area of the Carolinas, and into the port cities of Virginia. Virginia's Commonwealth Natural Gas Corp. opposed the plan as that company sought to serve Virginia. But without extending the line to Virginia, Piedmont could not make the operation profitable enough by only serving the Carolinas.
Meanwhile, Carolina Natural Gas Corp. was also seeking to access an existing line owned by Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Corp. to serve the Carolinas.
The people did not care which company was given permission to serve the Carolinas, but only wanted some service for natural gas, cheaper, hotter, and cleaner than other types of fuels, coal and oil. At the time, there was no natural gas service.
"Nothing to Lose in This Deal" urges the City to put in a request for Federal funds for slum clearance and redevelopment from the quickly depleting fund of 200 million dollars. The City did not have to wait for the 1951 Legislature to approve receipt of the funds and there was no commitment by putting in a request.
"The New Church" tells of church membership reaching an all-time high of 80 million persons, that the presence of the atomic bomb on the world stage had caused a turn to matters spiritual. Yet, the turn to religion had begun before 1945, had been in flower since the 1880's with the great revival. By 1920, 40 percent of the population belonged to a church, compared to 20 percent in 1880. In 1950, it was 55 percent.
The piece ascribes the growth primarily to the intrusion of the machine age and the greater number of churches in the country. No longer was there the easy refuge of rural life to which to retreat, a church in nature as it were, as in times past. Now, the church presented such a refuge from the hustle and bustle of modern life. The church in the meantime had learned not be so didactic in its presentation, instead acting as a guide for dealing with problems.
"Loophole for Congressmen" tells of a proposed bill to require a roll call in the House whenever a bill was presented necessitating an expenditure. As it was, one-fifth of the members present had to approve of a roll call before it was required. Having a record vote on such measures would deter spending. But, it concludes, the bill would wind up pigeon-holed, as few Congressmen would want to be known back home as voting for spending. The Congress often spoke of economy but rarely practiced it.
A piece from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, titled "Citadel of Direct Action", tells of Vaulouse-Fontaine, France, passing an ordinance against using or carrying atomic bombs within the town limits. A problem existed, however, in that the town was so small, it was not listed on the maps and so enemies might not be able to respect its borders.
Herbert Nichols of The Christian
Science Monitor tells of the 40 winners of the Ninth Annual
Science Talent Search, high school seniors who had been invited to
Washington to display their various projects, ranging from a robot
which played tic-tac-toe to a "Klein" bottle
Drew Pearson tells of Josef Stalin during the war having held America up as an example of the attainment of goals to which the Russian people ought aspire. Consequently, it was requiring a great deal of propaganda to tear down this image. But the demolition had not yet been accomplished and so the way was still open for America to make friends with the Russian people. During the early stages of the war, with all its privations, the Kremlin was quite unpopular with the people. As Russia began to win the war, however, the hostility changed to more positive attitudes because the people were given more freedoms by the Russian Government than they had ever enjoyed and modified capitalism was permitted to flourish. The Government and the people were brought closer together. But after the war, the old system returned, with purges of intellectuals and massive propaganda campaigns, and with it, the decision to spread Communism across the world.
But the situation was even worse inside Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, and Hungary, where unrest was seething, ripe for American exploitation. The political trials in these countries were designed to set a negative precedent against anyone demonstrating sympathy to Americans.
The Voice of America was doing a good job of broadcasting about the American system into areas behind the iron curtain but was handicapped by a lack of funds. Such efforts were the only means to achieve peace and thereby avoid another war.
Joseph & Stewart Alsop again discuss Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson's economizing measures on defense having depleted American military strength, on the average by a factor of two dollars for every dollar trimmed. That was so despite the Secretary's claim that he had increased strength. The latter claim was based on a preliminary assessment versus a final assessment of the results of the economizing effort. The Alsops find the economizing to be "insane" in light of Russia's dedication to building up their military, especially with regard to the depletion of the American Navy, in the face of the Russian development of the German Schnorkel submarine, without any counter-measures being developed by the U.S. They further find Mr. Johnson's deception "irresponsible" and heading the country for a "disaster".
Robert C. Ruark finds that his wife had traveled too much, bringing home an assortment of mementos which made him feel as though he were living within a Pagan ritual. If he found her practicing voodoo, he warns, with one of the figurines she brought back, he intended to report her to the police.
A letter writer thanks the newspaper for presenting The Greatest Story Ever Told and requests a copy of the free tabloid form of the first fourteen chapters being offered by The News.
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