The Charlotte News

Tuesday, March 14, 1950

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that Senator Joseph McCarthy charged before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the State Department had provided a high post to a former Spanish Republican Army officer, Gustavo Duran, despite the U.S. Army having labeled him a Russian agent. Sr. Duran had resigned from the Department in 1946 after serving as assistant to Spruille Braden, first in Havana and then when Mr. Braden became Assistant Secretary of State, leaving the Department when Mr. Braden resigned. He now worked for the U.N. In response to mention of him by Senator McCarthy the previous month, Sr. Duran had denied that he was ever a Communist.

The Senator also claimed that Dr. Harlow Shapley, U.S. delegate to the U.N., had been affiliated with at least 36 Communist-front organizations. Another person, whom he identified only as a "sexual pervert", had been allowed, he claimed, to resign from the Department in 1948 and presently was employed by the CIA. He also asked the Senate investigators to check to determine whether reports that John Service, American consul at Calcutta, had been considered a bad security risk during loyalty board hearings. In addition, he named Dr. Frederick Schuman of Williams College, providing training lectures to U.S. diplomats, as "one of the closest collaborators of Communist-front organizations in America".

In Prague, Foreign Minister Vlado Clementis, a Communist who succeeded the late Jan Masaryk two years earlier, had resigned and Deputy Premier Viliam Siroky had been named in his stead. No reason was given for the resignation. But reports had preceded that a wholesale purge was in the works in the Czech Communist Party regarding charges of Titoism, that is demonstration of excessive independence from Moscow.

The Defense Department announced that Britain would receive B-29 Superfortresses as part of the arms aid program, the exact number being secret. Four would depart Monday from Andrews Field in Maryland.

In Quebec, a man was found guilty of murder and sentenced to hang for planting a bomb on a plane which killed his wife and 22 others.

Off the coast of Rotterdam, a Panamanian freighter struck a wartime mine, killing four crewmen and injuring one more.

The House Labor Committee shelved Federal aid to education, voting 13 to 12 against approval of the Senate bill providing for 300 million dollars in aid, but immediately began consideration of a bill funding school construction. Disputes over Federal control of schools on the one hand and funding of buses for parochial and private schools on the other, the latter defeated measure having been sponsored by Congressman John F. Kennedy of the Committee, could not be resolved.

In Washington, Harold Christoffel, former Milwaukee labor leader, was sentenced to two to six years in prison for five counts of committing perjury before the House Education and Labor Committee by denying he had ever been a Communist, following his conviction for the second time the previous month. The sentence was identical to that following his first conviction in 1948, reversed by the Supreme Court for there having been inadequate proof by the Government that a quorum existed on the Committee when the defendant testified. At the second trial, the Government adduced the testimony of fourteen members of the Committee, a majority, that they were present during the testimony. Defense counsel John O. Rogge had argued that some of the Congressmen perjured themselves in so testifying. In 1952, the convictions were affirmed by the D.C. Court of Appeals. He would appeal again in 1954 after the Supreme Court, in 1953, vacated the sentence and remanded for resentencing, but the Court of Appeals found that it lacked jurisdiction to consider the questions regarding the conviction, as the remand had only pertained to sentencing.

The President, aboard the Presidential yacht Williamsburg, heading to Key West for his vacation, was reported to be seasick and had remained in his cabin since Sunday night. He was said to be feeling a little better this day. The yacht was being buffeted by rough waves all along the coast of the Carolinas. Usually, he had flown to Florida.

Eat some soda crackers.

In Charlotte, state Republicans elected James Baley, Jr., of Marshall as state chairman at the party's convention.

News Editor Pete McKnight provides the second in his three-part series on his interview of Senator Frank Graham, tells of his intelligence and learning, Christian character, strength of conviction, courage to fight for that which he believed, devotion to the country, and belief that the average person could be trusted to do the right thing being unquestioned even by his opponents. Yet, he would be attacked for his liberal tendencies on most state and national issues, as well as for the perception that he reposited too much trust in the goodness of mankind, his critics finding the tendency "soft-headed" and "naive".

In Hollywood, the nine-year old actress who had claimed that her foster mother forced her to lose weight for movie roles by depriving her of her favorite foods such that she no longer wanted to be in movies, ran away from the foster parents' home, repeating the claim that she was still being deprived of food so she could be in the movies. She said that she was hungry and could not stand it any longer. A minister took her to a cafe and fed her a cheese sandwich, pie and milk. At a custody hearing on February 8 to determine whether she would be returned to her birth mother, a judge had advised the foster parents to remove her from the movies and take her back to Texas. The foster parents had agreed but she was reported to be back in the movies.

The problem with the movie acting was not her weight. Truth is as it is. Sorry.

In Auckland, New Zealand, a half-grown leopard escaped from the zoo and an ensuing search had thus far proved fruitless by nightfall.

The leopard may be headed to Oklahoma City, to avenge the death of the leopard which jumped the zoo barrier there a couple of weeks earlier, only to be lured back by poisoned meat, killing it. Be on the lookout. This one may be incensed and bent on vengeance.

News sports editor Furman Bisher was in Florida to cover spring training camps in baseball, starting with the Washington Senators in Orlando, and then going to Winter Garden to look at the Charlotte Hornets.

Not mentioned on the page were the results of the quarterfinals the previous night and this night of the National Invitation Tournament in basketball, taking place in New York at Madison Square Garden. At the time, the twelve-team Tournament was considered as prestigious as the eight-team N.C.A.A. Tournament, to take place between March 23 and 28, including several top ten teams in each tournament, and the two finalists in both tournaments, Bradley and CCNY. The N.I.T. had six of the top ten teams in the final Associated Press poll, with an average ranking of 6.2, and nine of the top fifteen, whereas the N.C.A.A. had five of the top ten, albeit with a higher average ranking of 3.8.

This night, eventual champion of both tournaments, CCNY, would clobber two-time defending N.C.A.A. champion Kentucky 89 to 50 and Duquesne would nip La Salle 49 to 47. CCNY was unranked in the final A.P. poll, tied for 27th in the voting, and Kentucky was number three. Duquesne was ranked 6th and La Salle 10th.

The previous night, Bradley, ranked number one in the A.P. poll, had beaten unranked Syracuse 78 to 66 and 9th ranked St. John's had topped 8th ranked Western Kentucky 65 to 46. The winners would meet in the semi-finals on Thursday, with Bradley topping St. John's 82 to 72 and CCNY beating Duquesne 62 to 52. The finals would be on Saturday, with CCNY beating Bradley, 69 to 61.

CCNY had never been ranked above 7th all season and that had come in the early weeks. Its last ranking had been February 21 at number 20 among twenty ranked teams.

On Monday night, the teams with the taller boys had worn out faster than the smaller victorious teams.

N.C. State, finishing 27-6 and winning the Southern Conference regular season title and tournament, was ranked fifth in the A.P. poll but would participate only in the N.C.A.A. Tournament, finishing third, after losing to CCNY, 78 to 73, in the semi-finals. The Wolfpack had been selected for the N.C.A.A. Tournament over Kentucky after the Wildcats refused to participate in a playoff to determine the better team from the Southeast. Judging by the teams' relative performance against CCNY—even if results against common opponents are always a bit of a dubious indicator of team strength—there may have been good reason why Adolph Rupp shied away from the showdown with Everett Case's team. Memories, however, fade...

Parts of chapters thirty-two and thirty-three of The Greatest Story Ever Told by Fulton Oursler appear on the page as part of the abridged serialization of the 1949 book.

On the editorial page, "A School Problem" addresses Bob Sain's summary of Albert Lynd's Atlantic Monthly article on modern education, complaining of it being too practically oriented while abandoning provision of a cultural background to the student. The reason for the trend was teacher training in the teacher colleges, stressing teaching of "socially useful" skills rather than the traditional three r's. The schools excused the trend for the fact that so many students were dropping out of high school and not going to college. But, the piece finds, that attitude penalized the good, motivated students to benefit those who were less interested in education. There was a need for technical training for some, but it should be separate from the main body of students who demontsrated greater ability.

The piece suggests that teacher training be coordinated by someone of the stature of Dr. Robert Hutchins of the University of Chicago, and that it be steered away from the trend of "pseudo-specialization".

"Taxes and Medical Costs" advocates that Congress allow full deductibility of medical expenses to replace the current tax law which allowed a deduction for only that portion above five percent of total income. It suggests that such a tax change would be more beneficial immediately to the average citizen in reducing the burden of medical costs than the President's compulsory health insurance program.

"Firearms and Children" tells of three Reidsville children, ages five, three and 18 months, finding a firearm in the home and the five-year old then using it to play cowboys and Indians, shooting the 18-month old boy in the head, killing him, and grazing the head of the three-year old.

It urges parents to be forewarned, to keep firearms out of the reach of children and under lock and key. Children became accustomed to shooting their toy guns at each other and were not aware of the difference between real and toy firearms.

"Mania for Make-Up" discusses a piece from the Sunday supplement regarding Geraldine Brooks, an unknown actress, who had taken a small role in an Italian movie, "Volcano", directed by William Dieterle, in which he would not allow her to have makeup or even to comb her hair. The result was a natural beauty, sans the made-up look of Hollywood. It hopes that the Hollywood make-up personnel would be curbed in their "mania for monotony", as the new look was refreshing.

Bob Sain of The News discusses, as indicated above, "Quackery in the Public Schools" by Albert Lynd, appearing in the current edition of The Atlantic Monthly, regarding the teachers of teachers, "superpedagogues", at the colleges and universities who were training the teachers in superficial techniques of teaching rather than in dedicated study of specific fields. The Teachers College at Columbia University, for instance, taught a course titled "Social, Psychological and Economic Foundations for the Enriched Teaching of Textiles and Clothing", dubbed Clothing 225. A thirty-day course at another college sought to teach the outstanding writings of the world from ancient times to the twentieth century. Another thirty-day course taught what had been occurring during the past fifteen years in government. Such desultory treatment of vast fields of knowledge was obviously designed to stress teaching technique rather than impart substantive knowledge.

The result was not a professional teacher in the traditional mold, but rather an adept at leading a discussion on such things as a democratic solution to traffic problems. Practical education was being stressed over supplying cultural background to the student.

The average parent, chary about correcting educators, could do little to remedy the trend, except to run for the school board and register a protest. Mr. Lynd had concluded that the best solution was to send the student to a private school.

A piece from the Dallas Morning News, titled "Strike Violence Has New Aspects", finds that the recent coal strike had involved dynamiting of independent mines and intimidation of workers, brought about through the Communist underground, as revealed by columnist Victor Riesel. It concludes that mob violence had the same object, whether by the Klan or organized labor, to extend its powers by defiance of the law. Labor had benefited from the law in recent decades and should not be allowed to have it both ways, to broaden its power through defiance. It urges labor leaders to consider the public welfare.

Drew Pearson tells of the Air Force developing a supersonic propeller for the B-36 which would enable it to fly 10,000 miles at supersonic speeds, overcoming the objection of the Navy that it was too slow not to be intercepted by Soviet jet fighters.

Senator Joseph McCarthy had asked advisers what would get him re-elected in 1952 and the advice was three-fold, push the St. Lawrence Seaway, urge a closer working relationship between the Great Lakes states and Canada, and finally be tough on Communists. But he had taken the latter advice too much to heart, causing great consternation among his fellow Republicans, including Father Edmund Walsh of Georgetown University who had given him the latter advice. His witch-hunt of the State Department was distracting to the foreign service at a time when foreign relations were in delicate balance. Republicans could no longer make broad charges of Communists in the State Department as Senator McCarthy had for the previous month made specific charges of there being 207 or 205 or 81 or 57 Communists in the Department. Thus far, the only real pro-Communists he had mentioned had already left the Department, usually forced out.

Moreover, Senator McCarthy had a background which did not bear up well to scrutiny. In 1943, he was challenged by the State of Wisconsin for not reporting income from stock investments. He claimed it occurred while he was in service and not a resident of Wisconsin, despite his having maintained his position as a judge in Wisconsin during the period. Eventually, he was permitted to settle the matter. Relatives contributed $18,000 to his 1944 losing Senate campaign, but each relative had far less income, based on the icome taxes they paid, than such a contribution would indicate. As a judge, he had granted quick divorces in two days to two couples, represented by attorneys who had contributed to his successful 1946 Senate campaign. He had also violated Wisconsin Bar ethics relating to judges by using his position on the bench in aid of his campaign travel, resulting in a recommendation of disbarment, not followed, however, by the State Supreme Court.

Mr. Pearson concludes that such was the record of the man now most vigorously challenging the records of State Department employees.

Joseph Alsop, in Frankfurt, West Germany, reports of having visited East Germany along with three other newsmen, permitted during the annual Leipzig Fair. He found the Eastern sector in a state of slavery, remindful of the world of Nineteen Eighty-Four created by George Orwell, a slavery built on the model of the Soviet Union.

To build the Communist state, it was necessary to keep the masses in a condition close to abject poverty, but with enough means to have a basic diet on which to labor and enjoy a "peculiarly nasty" beer at the local pubs where the radio issued forth propaganda. Living conditions were stark.

Above the proletariat were the bureaucrats, those which Mr. Orwell had called the "inner party" and the "outer party", the former being the industrial managers and the latter being petty functionaries and officials. They enjoyed gradations of luxury above the workers, but still were living under the heavy shadow cast by the state.

East Germany had the means in its industrial base to become more advanced in redevelopment than the West, and yet the West was ahead in reconstruction. While the East was busily engaged in rearmament, the object was to maintain the proletarian slaves in a submissive state.

Henry C. McFadyen, superintendent of the Albemarle, N.C., schools, in the twenty-eighth in his series of weekly articles on childhood education, stresses college preparation. He says that if a student received mostly A's and B's in a good high school, wanted to go to college, had an I.Q. of at least 100, and had developed good study habits, then he would be a good candidate for college. Otherwise, it would likely be a wasted effort and wasted money.

Once the decision was made to go to college, then the curriculum ought be tailored to suit the preparation, including at least four years of English, stressing good and clear writing, a year and a half of algebra, a year of plane geometry, two years each of history, science, and a foreign language, the latter susceptible to being skipped if a course of study such as engineering would be pursued, in which case mathematics, especially geometry and trigonometry, ought be stressed in lieu of foreign language.

Application should begin by the fall of the senior year.

He adds cynically that none of the above would apply in the case of good football players, who needed neither grades nor money to go to college.

That is not a very nice thing for you to say regarding our student-athletes.

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