The Charlotte News

Saturday, March 25, 1950

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that Senate investigators appeared to be heading toward a showdown with Senator Joseph McCarthy following a Justice Department announcement the previous day that confidential FBI loyalty investigation data on "one principal case", that of the claimed top Soviet spy in the country, had been provided the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee investigating Senator McCarthy's charges that there were Communists in the State Department. The Washington Post had reported that it had learned that the documents did not support the claim of the Senator regarding that individual but did contain some "derogatory information" on the unnamed person. The Senator had made the claim regarding this individual pivotal to his contentions. While not made public, the individual's name was said to be widely known in Washington after being disclosed to the subcommittee by Senator McCarthy the previous Tuesday.

The subcommittee was set to hear Monday from FBI director J. Edgar Hoover and Attorney General J. Howard McGrath.

The President called on Congress to vote the full amount of the Administration's foreign aid requests to strike a "major blow" for peace. House debate had begun the previous day on the foreign aid authorization. The Administration sought 375 million dollars for the ensuing fiscal year, including the Marshall Plan, aid to Korea, authorization for participation in the U.N.'s Palestine refugee program and for technical assistance to underdeveloped nations, the President's "Point Four" program.

The President was said to be considering signing the compromise farm price support bill, approved by the Senate 38 to 31 the previous day. The bill tightened price supports on potatoes and loosened them on peanuts and cotton, thus favoring the South.

In Erding, West Germany, 58 Czechs told of seven anti-Communist crewmen seizing three Prague-bound passenger planes during flight, one at gunpoint, and landing them in the U.S. occupation zone. Only 26 of 85 occupants of the planes chose to stay in the West. The defectors refused to talk to the press to protect relatives left behind in Czechoslovakia. Arrangements were being made to return the 58 passengers and crew who did not wish to remain. An additional passenger was an American.

In Brussels, things had quieted down following the one-day "Stop Leopold" demonstrations, protesting the return to the throne of King Leopold II, believed by many Belgians to have been responsible for turning Belgium over to the Nazis in 1940. The country had a caretaker government following the resignation a week earlier of the coalition Cabinet after having failed to reach a compromise on the return of the King following a plebiscite which favored his return by 57 percent of the vote. The Parliament, split between Social Christians and Liberals, the latter not going along with the plan for return put forward by the former, had to determine the issue.

Columnist Bruce Barton finds that liberals were more clever than conservatives about tuning political messages to the mass audience, just as Evangelist Billy Sunday had set his hymns to ragtime tunes. While conservatives denounced "socialism", liberals called it national planning. Liberals promised national health insurance while conservatives decried "socialized medicine". Conservatives railed at the national debt as liberals called it national investment. Conservatives promoted "private enterprise", while few understood what the term meant. They glorified capitalism, as capitalists were represented by cartoonists as fat men with whips, lording over terrified workers.

Now, conservatives were fighting the "welfare state", which appeared to many to sound as the fairest system imaginable. They should be pointing out, he suggests, that it eventuated toward a police state.

He quotes Ralph Waldo Emerson as having said that there was always a "certain meanness" in the argument of conservatism, "joined with a certain superiority in its fact." He paraphrases that the thinking of the conservative was "sound and good", but it was unable to make it "sound good".

A Turkish airlines plane struck a hill adjoining the Ankara airport and burst into flames, killing all fifteen aboard, including two Americans. It was Turkey's worst air disaster.

The U.S. high commission newspaper in Berlin reported that 29 workers were killed when a Soviet-controlled uranium mine in Saxony flooded several days earlier.

Near Nashville, a truck loaded with ten tons of dynamite caught fire and exploded, killing two persons and rocking the countryside along a radius of 50 miles. The two dead were onlookers who had parked their car to observe the burning truck when it exploded. The driver had escaped the burning vehicle without injury after being alerted by another truck driver of the fire.

In Charlotte, a man described by police as the chief numbers runner in the community was arrested with lottery tickets and an adding machine in his possession. Police said he was one of the first ever arrested in Charlotte on a lottery charge twenty years earlier. Another man was also arrested with him.

In Dallas, Tex., a mysterious acid sprayer had vandalized the seat of a fat man's pants, utilizing a squirt gun. Until the previous day, he had concentrated on squirting girls' legs and shredding their hose, as well as attacking shiny new cars. But a hefty man the previous day had gone for a walk, noticed his hind parts were getting very hot, and then as he sat down, discovered that his pants were gone. A detective said the sprayer was a sadist.

In Houston, Frank "Bring 'Em Back Alive" Buck, famed wild animal hunter, died at age 66 in the hospital from a lung disease. He had roamed the earth as a big game hunter since age 18 in 1911. His film, "Bring 'Em Back Alive", had come out in 1932.

He had caught some wildcats in his time.

Not reported on the front page, in the N.C.A.A. regional finals this night in New York and Kansas City, unranked CCNY, winner of the equally prestigious N.I.T. on March 18, shaved number five N.C. State 78 to 73 in the Eastern Regional, and number one Bradley barely got by unranked Baylor 68 to 66 in the Western Regional. In the regional consolation games for third place, number two Ohio State clobbered 1947 N.C.A.A. champion and number four Holy Cross 72 to 52, and unranked Brigham Young demoralized seventh ranked U.C.L.A., coached by John Wooden in his second year as head coach of the Bruins, 83 to 62.

The national final, between Bradley and CCNY, and third place consolation game, between N.C. State and Baylor, would be played the following Tuesday night in Madison Square Garden. Stay up late, night owls, as the final will not start until 10:15 p.m., Eastern Time.

The two-time defending national champion Kentucky Wildcats, ranked number three in the final Associated Press poll, had not been invited to the N.C.A.A. Tournament in deference to N.C. State from the Southeast, after the Wildcats had been beaten badly by CCNY in the quarterfinals of the N.I.T., 89 to 50.

Better luck next year.

Part of chapter fifty-six 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, "Next Item of Business" finds that with the State Board of Elections reversing itself and approving the appointments to the local elections boards by the eight Western counties, it could proceed to consider the charges of misconduct against the election officials in those counties. Governor Kerr Scott had said there was a large file on the matter, which had been turned over to the State Attorney General and the State Bureau of Investigation.

The piece finds that a good thing but also insists that the law be followed allowing for public hearings of officials accused of misconduct. The local election officials could not simply be summarily removed as the State Elections Board had initially attempted to do by not reappointing them.

"A Long Step Forward" finds the City Council to have taken a wise step toward progress in asking the Federal Government to set aside $700,000 of the 200 million dollar fund allocated for urban slum clearance and redevelopment. The funds did not commit the City to anything until the State General Assembly approved the enabling legislation, no sooner than early 1951, and the City then made a final decision on slum clearance. It finds the program to be a good one, giving new hope to slum dwellers while permitting cities to remove unhealthy, blighted areas which added greatly to government costs while not contributing appreciably to revenue.

"Touche!" finds the Raleigh News & Observer, in its zeal to get Senator Frank Graham re-elected, having taken issue with Senatorial candidate Willis Smith for his offer to represent, pro bono, the election officials in the eight Western counties who were contemplating taking the State Elections Board to court for not having appointed the members of the local boards selected by the counties. The newspaper took him to task primarily for it being a campaign stunt rather than any true concern for the rights of those unfairly treated.

The piece thinks the newspaper was reacting to the fact that Mr. Smith had gotten the better of Governor Kerr Scott with his offer, as he suspected that part of the motivation for the effort was to elect Senator Graham. It thus appears to the piece that Mr. Smith could now proclaim, "Touche!"

"Spring for a Day" tells of the weather in Charlotte appearing as spring even if the trees remained naked. A girl drove a convertible with its top down and her hair blowing loose.

"It was Spring all right, for a day—anyway."

A piece from the Twin City Sentinel of Winston-Salem, titled "Cold Germ a Concealed Weapon", advises cold sufferers to stop going to work feeling sorry for themselves and instead stay at home to avoid spreading germs. It suggests that, as with concealed weapons, there might one day be a law making it illegal to enter a public place with a respiratory disorder.

Drew Pearson finds that while the President claimed to be the friend of small business, his record was not completely in support of that position. The Small Business Committee had been authorized a month earlier but no members had yet been named to it. Big business was receiving an increasing number of defense contracts as competitive bidding had been sidetracked. The oil lobby had received the secret blessing of the President on the natural gas bill, in deference to Senators Robert Kerr and Lyndon Johnson. It was explained that House Speaker Sam Rayburn and heavy campaign contributions from the oil interests were responsible for the President's support.

Yet, he notes, the DNC, finding public pressure against the bill, had been quietly urging Democrats to vote against it. Oil lobbyists had been working to prevent Senator Jim Murray, a friend of small business and opponent of big oil, from becoming chairman of the Small Business Committee.

Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands had visited the Stork Club in New York as a guest of toy manufacturer Louis Marx, and after being introduced to Leonard Lyons, asked what was so special about him, to which Mr. Marx replied that he had four sons.

Former Army Major George Racey Jordan, who had claimed that the late Harry Hopkins, aide to FDR, had provided secrets to the Russians during the Yalta Conference, had written a book about his unproven claims, titled Red Pipeline to Moscow. He hoped to sell the first 100,000 copies to the Republican Party.

General Omar Bradley went for a submarine ride while his ordinarily faithful pilot refused to be submerged, remained on dry land. After the voyage, the General presented his "deep dunker card" and also provided one to his pilot, which had a zero for the depth to which he had been submerged.

Marquis Childs discusses the accusations of Senator McCarthy, reminding that his original claim in February was that there were 207 "card-carrying Communists" in the State Department, reduced to 57 persons just a few days later. Thus far, not one Communist had been shown to be in the State Department. That the Senator was acting on his own was belied by the fact that RNC chairman Guy Gabrielson, speaking recently in Lincoln, Neb., had implicitly endorsed the charges by saying that Communism had been too long tolerated within the Government and had to be driven out.

Republicans in the Senate were seeking the loyalty files compiled by the FBI, which would, if allowed, break with a tradition followed since the Founding of not allowing executive branch confidential files to be reviewed by Congress.

Mr. Childs urges that the Senate call J. Edgar Hoover to testify as he had strenuously objected to the defense request in the first trial of Judy Coplon the previous summer, seeking the FBI files in that case, full of hearsay reports which the director believed would compromise all future investigations of the Bureau. He urged the Justice Department to dismiss the case before revealing those files. It was likely therefore that he would object now as well.

Mr. Childs speculates that the Republicans might want the President, who was considering limited access at the White House to the files pertinent only to those individuals named by Senator McCarthy and regarding the specific claims he raised, to deny the request so that they could claim that the White House was covering up for the State Department. But if granted, he asserts, those making the request ought have a clear understanding of the consequences of doing so, inevitably obtaining information which would leak to the press. Mr. Hoover had already stated that he did not want the Gestapo-like powers provided the FBI by the House amendment to the National Science Foundation bill, making the FBI judge and jury, as well as investigator, of the loyalty files, requiring the Bureau to provide recommendations on whether investigated persons were appropriate security risks.

Robert C. Ruark discusses the new journalistic examination of homosexuality and perversion in light of the fact that the State Department had recently fired or forced the resignations of 91 persons for being subject to being compromised as homosexuals. One highly placed official had hired others who in turn had hired others, all of whom were homosexuals.

Unlike the pervert who was likely to venture into criminality, the homosexual was irresponsible though not typically dangerous. But there was a problem in official employment in that the homosexual was constantly in fear of being exposed and thus subject to blackmail. Thus, it was likely that such a person, as in the case of the State Department, would surround themselves with other homosexuals to insulate the matter.

He suggests that the problem was central to the weakening of America's position all over the world as it caused a weakness in a service which had to be above reproach. He concludes that while homosexuals could be regarded as having the right to pursue their own lifestyle in most businesses, they were not suitable for official positions of heavy trust.

Tom Schlesinger of The News, in his weekly "Capital Roundup", tells of Congressman Graham Barden of North Carolina, whom Francis Cardinal Spellman had called a "bigot" for his sponsorship of a Federal aid to education bill which the Cardinal believed was discriminatory against Catholics, having wound up voting with his Catholic colleagues on the Labor & Education Committee when they voted 13 to 12 to reject the Senate-approved 300 million dollar aid to education bill, which would have left to the states the decision whether private schools could use Federal funding for bus transportation. He decided that the bill had no clear definition of public schools, would allow for too much Federal interference with education, and contained a loophole through which funds could be used for private or church schools. He believed that it was better to have no bill at all and let those who had blocked his alternative bill take the responsibility for refusing aid to the public schools.

Voting with him were Congressmen John Lesinski, the Committee chairman, John F. Kennedy, Thomas Burke, and Thomas Werdel, all Catholics. Congressman Barden believed that if the bill had passed as written, the Supreme Court would have found the portions dealing with aid to church schools unconstitutional. And the bill likely in any event would have been defeated on the House floor because of the religious issue.

Congressman Barden's alternative bill had been approved by a House subcommittee the previous summer, after which Cardinal Spellman and other Catholic leaders attacked him. He had received as many as 500 letters per day the previous summer, about 10 to 1 in favor of his position. Many Protestant groups had made Mr. Barden a cause celebre as a result.

Parenthetically, Mr. Schlesinger's older brother, historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., after serving as a speechwriter for both the 1952 and 1956 presidential campaigns of Adlai Stevenson, would become an adviser and speechwriter for President Kennedy, beginning in 1961, serving throughout the Administration.

Five North Carolina House incumbents with opposition in the primaries were odds-on favorites to win re-nomination.

Senator Clyde Hoey shook as many as 400 hands in a day during this season when high school seniors came to Washington for a tour. His record while Governor had been 900 handshakes in a day.

Senator Frank Graham's "Meet the Press" television appearance had been postponed.

Senator Hoey averaged three Coca-Colas per day, started drinking them while in law school studying late at night.

Senator Hoey had opposed the President's middle-income housing bill, whereas Senator Graham had supported it.

Mr. Schlesinger provides the voting record the previous week of the North Carolina delegation in the House.

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