The Charlotte News

Thursday, May 25, 1950

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the President responded to a suggestion by a Washington Post editorial that he set up a bipartisan commission on national security to examine fifth columns, civilian defense, and determine the size of defense expenditure, by saying that there was no need for a super-government in the country, that he would continue to run it under the Constitution.

He also said that the next defense budget for fiscal year 1951-52 would be lower than the 14 billion for the coming year. He also stated that he was against setting up a voluntary FEPC, as passed by the House, as a proposed compromise measure to the compulsory version being debated in the Senate.

In response to a suggestion by Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota that NLRB general counsel Robert Denham be fired, he declined statement, saying only that his plan, rejected by the Senate, would have eliminated the position.

The President also announced an agreement between Britain, France, and the U.S., reached at the recently concluded Big Three conference in London, to supply arms to Israel and the Arab states for defense of the Middle East to promote internal security of the region. The buyer-state had to assure that the arms would not be used for any act of offensive aggression against another state. Any armed aggression by the nations receiving the arms would result in action by the Big Three in the U.N. to stop it.

In Saigon, the charge d'affaires of the U.S. legation sent a letter to the French and Indo-Chinese Governments indicating that the U.S. would provide economic aid to Indo-China, including the states of Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, but that the principal responsibility for restoring stability in Indo-China would rest with France and the French-backed Government of Bao Dai. The initial amount of aid was thought likely to be 23.5 million dollars, but no mention of the specific amount was made in the communique.

In Seoul, South Korea, officials announced the arrest of more than 200 alleged Communist sympathizers and said that they had thus smashed the attempts of Communist North Korea to influence the coming Tuesday election. The arrestees included a candidate for the National Assembly and high-ranking republican army officers.

ERP administrator Paul Hoffman, testifying in executive session before the Senate Appropriations Committee, said that he had saved 277 million dollars of the Marshall Plan fund during the year and that 120 million might be cut from aid to Britain.

Senator Brien McMahon of Connecticut said that the FBI had set its trap at least two months preceding the Tuesday arrest of Harry Gold as an alleged recipient of atomic secret documents from convicted British scientist Dr. Klaus Fuchs for transmission to the Russians. Mr. Gold was charged with espionage during wartime, punishable by death or imprisonment up to thirty years. The FBI had narrowed its investigation from a list of 1,200 suspects with whom Dr. Fuchs might have had contact, before focusing on Mr. Gold. Dr. Fuchs had told investigators that his contact was a biochemist whose name he did not recall but identified Mr. Gold's photograph as being the individual to whom he passed the information. The third person, to whom the documents were passed, "John Doe" in the indictment, had not yet been identified but was believed to be a Russian Embassy staff member no longer in the country.

The House Ways & Means Committee recommended legal protection for tax evaders who confessed their evasion voluntarily and paid the tax, under an amnesty program previously available only under Government regulations. The Committee was also debating whether or not to recommend taxation of farmer and consumer co-ops, which would provide an estimated 600 million dollars in revenue.

Officials in Cuzco, Peru, said that in the Sunday earthquake, 83 had been killed and 200 injured, with 83 of those remaining in serious condition.

In Kansas City, three more individuals, reputed to be henchmen of recently murdered underworld figure and political operative Charles Binaggio, were indicted for tax evasion

In Oak Ridge, Tenn., a wildcat walkout of the AFL hodcarriers and laborers union members shut down construction of an atomic plant for the Atomic Energy Commission.

In Charlotte, the U.S. Chief Postal Inspector, Clifton Garner, visiting the city for a convention of the North Carolina Chapter of the National Association of Postmasters, said that the recent cuts in the postal service, eliminating twice per day residential deliveries, had not thus far impacted the efficiency of the system. He said that the proposed budget cuts, not finalized in the Senate, would largely eliminate the 79.5 million dollar deficit at which the Post Office Department would otherwise operate, in large part brought about by increased expenses of operation, especially from hikes in pay.

Political writers across the state, in response to a News survey, had determined that Senator Frank Graham would lead in the Democratic Senate primary race in the mountain region of the state on Saturday and possibly narrowly in the Piedmont section, with a large majority in Durham and small leads in Guilford, Forsyth, and other counties of the region, while Willis Smith would carry the Eastern counties, including Wake, location of Raleigh, with the exception of Wilmington and Goldsboro, thought to be for Senator Graham. It appeared that an unusually large number of voters would turn out for the primary.

On the editorial page, "Emissary to Washington" comments on the coming Senate primary in the special election between Senator Graham, Willis Smith and former Senator Robert Rice Reynolds. It reaffirms its endorsement of Mr. Smith on the basis that the Senate needed to be a check on the President, and that Senator Graham, for all his good points personally, was a "Welfare State man" in the eyes of the editorial, standing for essentially the same things as the President, even if differing at times on methods to achieve them.

Mr. Smith, by contrast, opposed the Fair Deal program. And since the editors opposed the leadership of the President and the "Welfare State" and the "drift toward state socialism" which he represented, they supported Mr. Smith.

They allowed that Senator Graham was the more distinguished and altruistic of the two, but find Mr. Smith also creditable in his own right. They stress that everyone who voted for Senator Graham would be underwriting the Truman program and if that was not the purpose, they should re-examine Mr. Smith.

Why don't you take your ridiculous "argument" and shove it where the moon don't shine?

"The General Motors Contract" finds the new contract between G.M. and the UAW to be important as being for a duration of five years and guaranteeing workers during that period a stable income without interruptions by strikes while assuring stockholders likewise, along with preserving the nation's economic stability. The contract continued the cost of living increases and decreases based on the Government index, with a floor on decreases, as well as providing a standard of living bonus of four cents per hour each year.

It also broke through the $100 per month limit on private pension plans established by other union agreements and provided a nice health insurance program.

Both sides appeared happy with the agreement and G.M. stock rose $2.25 per share in its wake, to $89.75, its highest value since 1929, before dropping back slightly.

The contract showed that labor and management could cooperate to produce a satisfactory agreement for both sides and avoid costly strikes.

"A Precedent Is Set" approves the action of the City Council, operating under a new law, in annexing an 82-acre residential section to the city. The law permitted cities to grow slowly rather than by huge acquisitions requiring approval from the Legislature and the voters. When the city thus acquired eleven square miles of additional territory at the start of the year, it had trouble furnishing essential City services to the residents. The new method enabled assimilation with fewer problems.

Bill Sharpe, in his weekly "Turpentine Drippings", snippets from newspapers across the state, tells of one from the Smithfield Herald which related of a candidate for the House with a placard stating what he opposed, including higher taxes, Communism and Socialism. When he appeared in person at a store, the patrons wanted to know what he was for, having been apprised by the poster of what he was against, to which he replied that he was for the House of Representatives.

The Rocky Mount Evening Telegram told of the Jackson (Miss.) Daily News reporting of the South African tax collector explaining to a native, inquisitive anent the reason for taxes, that they supported the government in supplying protection and an education for the citizenry, as well as provision of care for the sick and food for the hungry, to which the native expressed understanding, comparing it to his dog needing to be fed such that he would cut off its tail to provide it meat to eat.

The Twin City Sentinel of Winston-Salem seeks to dissipate the dilapidated image of peanuts, as conveyed by its use in such phrases as "he works for peanuts" and "peanuts politics", as peanuts constituted a major cash crop in the South and in North Carolina. So it promotes peanuts as a food to diminish excitement, explaining why they were so popular at sporting contests.

And so forth, and so, so, so on, and back and forth, into fourth and on down the road...

Drew Pearson tells of top Democrats not being happy recently when they reached Chicago and learned that a half million dollars had been raised to welcome the President. Donations had been determined by the IRB to be deductible as charitable donations because of the "non-political" nature of the event. The local Democrats had mailed the ruling to potential donors to solicit donations, including a list of Democratic political activities in the mailing. Eventually, irritated DNC chairman William Boyle showed the appeal to the President.

He notes that the Chicago Daily News and former Congressman Everett Dirksen, running for the Senate to unseat Majority Leader Scott Lucas, had made the most of the contributions by the liquor interests to the Truman reception.

Vice-President Alben Barkley had delivered a compelling address on the life of Thomas Jefferson at an otherwise bungled dinner in Chicago, preceding the arrival of the President.

Congressman Thurman Chatham of North Carolina had been absent from Congress a lot in recent times, excused initially by Mr. Pearson for the loss of his wife eight months earlier. But now, he pulls back the excuse as apparently parties at the Congressman's North Carolina home were also a reason for the absences. Recently, Mr. Chatham took the wife of a Reynolds tobacco official to the Baptist Hospital in Winston-Salem at 2:30 a.m. with a bleeding gash in her head, which he said occurred when she fell on a terrace at his home, with other guests present. He allows for the possible truth of the explanation, though the woman's husband did not arrive at the hospital until 5:00 a.m., but again reiterates that the absences might have another explanation than the death of his wife.

Secretary of State Acheson was so tired after the London conference that during the voyage home, he gave strict instructions that he was not to be disturbed, no matter how many speeches made about him by Senator McCarthy.

The President greeted a truck driver who had saved a little girl's life on a highway outside Louisville, named "driver of the year" for the act. The driver asked for an autograph for his young neighbor with the middle name Truman, which the President obliged, saying that the boy ought to be a lifelong Democrat with such a middle name.

Stewart Alsop tells of American policy toward Russia having to be based on guesses as to the answers to a number of questions, such as how many atom bombs the Russians would have by 1954, when Stalin might die and what would then transpire, how much resistance was present in the Soviet satellite countries, the strength of the Communist parties in such countries as France and Norway, and whether the Russians were willing to risk war over Berlin. The chief guesser was the director of the CIA, Rear Admiral Roscoe Hillenkoetter, about to leave the post by prearrangement after three years. The likely successor, who would in fact become the next director, was General Walter Bedell Smith.

The State Department wanted a person who would not be a creature of the Pentagon, someone who would be independent of everyone in the Government except the President. General Smith was considered to possess that independence. Mr. Alsop also discusses other names mentioned for the post, the primary alternative candidate being William Foster of ERP, also perceived as independent.

The final decision would be that of the President, who had to have complete confidence in the director, especially true under President Truman, who regularly studied the intelligence reports. The appointment, he concludes, was of utmost importance at that stage of the cold war.

Robert C. Ruark tells of having been young, poor, and confused, as well as old, poor and confused, but never having the urge to run amok with a gun and shoot people on the sidewalks, as one read about consistently in recent times. In New York, James Fortunato, 16, was killed by Tony Scarpati, 17, in a gang battle involving about thirty members of two teenaged rival gangs, started over a 15-year old girl—for which young Mr. Scarpati would be convicted the following December and sentenced to 15 years in prison.

He refuses the "sociology con" about poverty, heredity or environment being at fault. He says that he received a degree in sociology and it had never made him a single dollar. He had stolen, lied, lived in squalor, fought over girls, drunk whiskey, gone hungry and thirsty, and slept in parks. But he had never packed a gun to shoot people for kicks.

Billy Rose, the showman, had been born in a slum, as had the late former Governor and 1928 Democratic presidential nominee Al Smith. Joe DiMaggio had run around with hoodlums all of his earlier life. None of them had murdered anyone.

He rejected therefore the notion that economic deprivation caused such problems. Jobs were easy to get and, if not, relief could be had. Thirty young people could not all have been psychopaths.

His hunch was that the rod had not enough been used to instill discipline at home, leaving too many spoiled children. He tells of meeting an indoctrinated young Nazi during his tour of duty in North Africa during the war and finding that striking him with his Colt .45 suddenly freed the Nazi of his past indoctrination, making him "as tame as cream".

Mr. Ruark, perhaps because he fought in the war, forgets the impact of the war on the family and the absence for years of a male influence in many homes as a result during a crucially formative period of youth, while the mother was working in a war factory, leaving junior to roam the streets untended, resulting in a dramatic rise in juvenile delinquency, according to the FBI crime statistics of the time. Once society had gone down that path, the older delinquents fed the younger ones and a chain was started which was hard to break.

His Colt .45 was best left in North Africa, as that mentality, bred of frustration with junior's seemingly irremediable behavior, was, unfortunately, perhaps part of the problem for older males of the time, passing on wartime violence to their offspring or adoptee rather than offering a true remedy. His concluding idea that baseball was a better game than murder has its points, but some children inevitably would not care for baseball or other sports, or would only take up the bat for use in street combat.

Hence, we received from the gentle gods rock 'n' roll, albeit still only partially resolving the issue of how to tamp down the effects of the sometimes lethal cocktail of adolescent hormonal urges, mixed with inadequate adult supervision and the confusion of urban life in modern times, fast cars, emulation of stars, and the desire to enter bars at too tender an age to understand the problem thus created. Leaving off the latter or its equivalent in escape via drugs was a key to being able to turn off at will, through a properly balanced ego overseen regularly by an instilled superego, the urges of what Freud called the "id"—temperance being a quality for which Mr. Ruark, unfortunately, could not present much of a positive role model, as he would wind up drinking himself to death by 1965 at age 50. But he turned 15 in 1930, in the depths of the Depression and during Prohibition, in Wilmington, N.C. Yet, David Brinkley, if five years younger, came of age there, too, and also entered journalism.

Who knows? Chet...

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