The Charlotte News

Tuesday, May 23, 1950

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the Big Three accused Russia in separate formal protests of creating a 50,000-man German military force and demanded that it be disbanded. The U.S. note called on Russia to prove its "pacific intentions" by dissolving forthwith the units, masking as a police force created in August, 1949. The decision to send the notes had been made at the recent London conference of foreign ministers. The timing was planned to coincide with anticipated trouble from East German Communist youth set to march on West Berlin the following Sunday.

The civil defense office within the National Security Resources Board was trying to get a program prepared which would show cities and towns of the nation what to do with their available resources to prepare for the possibility of an atomic attack, based on studies being conducted in Chicago and Seattle.

Congressman Sam Hobbs of Alabama, chairman of a 1946 probe of Amerasia magazine, charged at the time with having possession of secret Government documents, leading to six indictments, only two of which led to convictions and fines, one being dropped for insufficient evidence, revealed facts for the first time about the subcommittee's investigation. He said that there had been no attempt, as charged by some Republicans, to conduct a cover-up of the facts at the time but that the subcommittee had not been in possession of any "top secret" documents. The new inquiry into the matter, prompted by charges brought by Senator Joseph McCarthy, was being led by Senator Millard Tydings, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee investigating the McCarthy charges generally, who promised a thorough and unbiased investigation.

Czechoslovakia demanded that the U.S. cut its diplomatic staff to four or five officials. No details were available in the late bulletin.

The Treasury Department informed the House Ways & Means Committee that based on its recommended billion dollars in cuts to excise taxes, it was about 760 million dollars short of offsetting that lost revenue and other tax cuts, threatening a promised veto by the President of any tax bill not providing for the offset either by new taxes or reduced spending.

The House approved authorization of the compromise foreign aid bill for 3.1 billion dollars. Prompt Senate action was expected as the aid had previously been passed by the Senate, cutting 245 million dollars from that urged by the President. It included 100 million dollars for aid to Korea and 84 million dollars to the non-Communists in the area of China. The bulk of the aid, 2.8 billion dollars, would go to Western Europe.

The Senate upheld the President's reorganization plan for the Commerce Department. Votes were scheduled later in the day for two more plans, both dealing with GSA. The Senate had to act by midnight on the remaining 13 of 21 plans submitted by the President which otherwise would become law. The first five plans of the President had been vetoed by the Senate over the course of two weeks, but the previous Friday, it had refused legislative veto of the plan to abolish the Maritime Commission. The previous day, it had effectively endorsed the reorganization of the FTC and FPC by also refusing the veto.

In Charlotte, the City Health Advisory Committee recommended that plans proceed for construction of a half-million dollar health center with assistance from both State and Federal funding.

In New York, singer Ezio Pinza, star of "South Pacific", and his wife had donated their eighteen-room home in suburban Rye, N.Y., valued at a net of $36,000, to the Damon Runyon Memorial Fund for cancer research.

In Yokohama, Japan, a man offered two policemen a drink, from which they died, as it consisted of almost pure methyl alcohol.

A piece by Marquis Childs on the front page tells of the three-way "morality play" at work in the North Carolina Senate primary race between liberal Senator Frank Graham, the saintly political innocent who professed belief that the $7,000 he had saved would be sufficient to wage an adequate campaign, Willis Smith, the wealthy corporate lawyer who was intensely conservative, and former Senator Robert Rice Reynolds, also a conservative. National attention was focused on the outcome of the May 27 race as being a harbinger of things to come in the midterm elections, whether in support of the Fair Deal, generally supported by Senator Graham, or opposed to the program, as were his opponents generally.

On the editorial page, "State 'Socialism' in South Carolina" finds the use of Rural Electrification Administration funds which had been authorized to build high-potential transmission lines for South Carolina's Santee-Cooper Authority, a state agency, to be getting too far afield from the purpose of REA, as Congress had refused to authorize such funding separately on more than one occasion.

"No Place for Sensationalism" wants Senator Clyde Hoey's special subcommittee to investigate the issue of sexual perverts in the Government. It suggests that perverts were not dangerous as were Communists but were nevertheless security risks by being subject to blackmail by foreign agents. The pervert was to be pitied rather than publicly pilloried and so Senator Hoey's subcommittee would be a better method of ferreting out the problem without exposing the employees to public ridicule.

"The Gambling Inquiry" tells of U.S. News & World Report being skeptical of the Kefauver Committee set to investigate organized crime and gambling syndicates in the country, stating that gambling could not exist without the support of political machines on the local level and that it was doubtful that the Senate investigation could penetrate and expose these connections, its primary objective. Even if it did, then the question would remain as to what it would do about it. The piece wonders whether it would recommend Federal action either under existing laws or new laws to be created by Congress.

"How to Grow Very Old" tells of Dr. Thomas J. Gardner of Nutley, N.J., having explained to the American Chemical Society that it was possible to double the life expectancy of the average human being. His process depended on control of cholesterol, lipotropic factors, choline and inositol, as means of slowing the rate of growing old. He had already increased the lifespan of fruit flies by 46 percent.

The piece thinks, however, that while it might be tempting to live longer, the social and economic ramifications resulting from overpopulation would outweigh the individual benefits. It concludes that Dr. Gardner should stick to fruit flies.

A piece from the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, titled "Bussing Veep", tells of marriage not having deterred Vice-President Alben Barkley from continuing to kiss various queens of festivals around the country. His wife, he reported, had not complained.

Drew Pearson tells of former President Herbert Hoover being hurt by the fact of Republican conservative Senators rejecting his plans in several instances for reorganization as presented by President Truman, most recently the plan to reorganize the NLRB by eliminating the position of general counsel, responsible for selecting the cases to come before the Board, a position created by Taft-Hartley. The same GOP Senators who were nixing the plans had been the loudest champions of economy in Government and of former President Hoover as the exponent of efficiency. He provides the record of votes on the NLRB plan and three other nixed plans, transfer of functions of the Comptroller of the Currency to Treasury, and giving executive powers to the chairmen of both the I.C.C. and the F.C.C. Each had been defeated from pressure exerted by powerful lobbies, causing former President Hoover to lament this process.

Mr. Pearson notes that the Jaycees had done a good job of supporting the Government reform plans.

Theodore Sloan had written Mr. Pearson a letter telling of his having worked out a plan in World War I for sending incendiary bombs over Germany via balloons, a plan stopped by President Wilson as inhuman. He explained that a balloon necessary to carry information or such gifts as candy, soap, or other items weighing up to 10 ounces, could be built for about $2 each. Mr. Pearson had suggested the plan to get by radio jamming being employed by the Russians to block the Voice of America broadcasts into Eastern Europe.

An effort by an undercover agent to uncover a bookie reported to be operating in the Senate had resulted in revelation of only one numbers bet.

He suggests that to correct careless atomic energy officials who left secret documents on their desks, they should be awakened in the middle of the night and ordered back to their offices to lock the documents in the safe.

Stewart Alsop discusses the differences between the Defense Department and State Department policies with respect to forming a treaty with Japan having compromised both stability of the prolonged occupation in Japan and, moreover, the ability of the recent foreign ministers conference in London to discuss meaningfully the Far East, as first resolving the problem of Japan remained the linchpin.

The Defense Department had not been in favor of a proposal to which Secretary of State Acheson and British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin had agreed eight months earlier for the U.S. and Japan to form a bilateral treaty under which the U.S. occupation forces would be removed from the cities and U.S. bases placed on the islands. The reason for the Defense Department objection was not entirely clear but probably derived from reluctance to dispense with a direct chain of command or, less likely, the expectation of war, in which case the cutbacks in defense would be criminal.

General MacArthur had predicted that the occupation would become stale after three years and dangerous if it lasted five years. Events had borne out his prescience as the Japanese had grown resistant to continued occupation, both among the Communists and anti-Communists. Whereas eight months earlier, a bilateral treaty could have been formed with little objection, it was now subject to great resistance with a Japanese election coming in June. Much tension had arisen between the Japanese people and the American occupiers, the latter enjoying many privileges not available to the people. In time, this tension could become explosive.

If the Defense Department changed its mind about the treaty after Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson and General Omar Bradley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, visited with General MacArthur soon, then it might nevertheless be too late to form such a treaty. If left unresolved much longer, it could produce universal anti-Americanism in Japan which would undermine the accomplishments of the occupation and soften Japan for ultimate Communist conquest, a heavy price to pay for such indecision.

Henry C. McFadyen, superintendent of the Albemarle, N.C., schools, in the thirty-eighth in his series of weekly articles on childhood education, tells of visiting the elementary schools and examining the art hanging along the walls, being impressed by the images which were based on the children's experience or mental landscape rather than being copied from a magazine. He had been struck by one picture of a valley with a road running through it, painted in an inimitable style. The teacher, seeing his interest, told him that the child could barely read.

Another picture showed a bare tree against brown and red hills, with a mountain lion or similar animal perched on the tree limb snarling at a dog below on the ground. The child lived in an industrial town and yet allowed his imagination to wander to the scene depicted.

He found such painting to be valuable as encouraging the mind to go wandering.

The teacher did not like our white deer we painted in the first grade, on instructions to paint a deer, despite the fact that it was a reindeer. She called our mama and was most concerned. Our mama, a teacher, explained that the teacher, while very nice, was a little crazy and counseled therefore not to pay attention to her art criticism. It was appropriate advice, should you encounter such an errant and unappreciative assay of your early impressionism.

A letter writer from Davidson responds to the May 5 editorial endorsing Willis Smith in the special Senate primary election of May 27, finding the editorial to have misrepresented the Truman Administration record and that of Senator Graham, believes the Senator should remain in Washington.

A letter from the County Commander of the Mecklenburg unit of the American Cancer Society and a representative of the Charlotte Woman's Club thanks the newspaper for its support in enabling the Society to reach its goal of $25,000.

A letter writer supports A. Query Alexander for Sheriff of Mecklenburg County.

A letter writer says that he had heard only that Willis Smith was president of the ABA and had made a million dollars in fees from corporations, concludes therefore that Senator Graham remained his choice in the primary.

A letter writer who belonged to Local 9 of the International Association of Heat and Frost Insulators and Asbestos Workers of the AFL, endorses former Senator Robert Rice Reynolds in the primary, as a consistent friend of labor.

Robert was definitely a friend to Heat and Frost Insulators.

A letter writer supplies a poem from an unknown author which he dedicates to Senator Graham, titled "God Give Us Men".

The poem, actually titled "Wanted", was composed by Josiah G. Holland, and has been paraphrased in its presentation as an addendum to the letter.

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