The Charlotte News
Tuesday, May 30, 1950
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that Secretary of State Acheson said that the U.S. would not veto recognition of Communist China in the U.N. Security Council. The decision had been reached the previous day in talks between the Secretary, U.N. Secretary-General Trygve Lie and President Truman.
In Tokyo, Communist-led Japanese attacked four American soldiers in the first public fight of the nearly five-year occupation. At least eight Japanese were arrested. Demonstrators at a Communist rally had hurled rocks at American military observers, knocking one soldier down. The demonstrators, urged on by the Cominform seeking a stiffer stand against the American occupation forces than that put up thus far by the Japanese Communists, were seeking the ouster of occupation troops from Japan.
Senator Joseph McCarthy wanted the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee investigating his charges to subpoena the six persons who had previously been arrested in the 1945 Amerasia magazine case. Only one or two of them had ultimately been convicted after pleading guilty pursuant to a plea bargain arranged after illegal searches to obtain evidence came to light. Senator McCarthy had accused John Service of the State Department of having Communist leanings. He was arrested but never indicted in the Amerasia case.
Senate crime investigators of the new Kefauver Committee, investigating organized crime and gambling, said that their surprise visit to Miami had uncovered that Frank Erickson, New York bookmaker, was the "big-shot" of the gambling activities in that city.
The country celebrated Memorial Day this date, then a fixed date rather than on the last Monday in the month, with former Secretary of State George C. Marshall, speaking at Arlington National Cemetery, urging continued support for the U.N. as a weapon in the "fight for peace".
At Hyde Park, N.Y., Senator Herbert Lehman of New York, speaking at the FDR grave site on the grounds of his former estate, said that it was a "base injustice" to lay blame for present relations with Russia on the late President.
In North Bay, Ontario, a fire resulting from an explosion at an oil storage depot raged out of control, causing scores of nearby residents to evacuate their homes.
At Morristown, Tenn., National Guard troops cleared a path for workers to enter through an angry picket line at the American Enka Corp. plant, where violence and arrests had marked a nine-week strike.
In Indianapolis, Johnny Parsons won
the 34th annual 500-mile Memorial Day race
No one was killed.
During the four-day holiday weekend, accidental deaths had totaled thus far 415, of which 269 were traffic fatalities, compared to 290 highway deaths predicted by the National Safety Council for the entire period. The holiday did not officially end until midnight this date and figures reflected totals reported shortly before noon. In 1949, 412 persons had been killed in accidents during a three-day weekend, an average of 137 per day, occurring at a rate therefore of about 65 deaths above that for the current extended period.
Tom Fesperman of The News tells of Willis Smith, runner-up in the Saturday Democratic special Senate primary, being urged to demand a runoff primary, as available to him under law for the fact that the winner, Senator Frank Graham, had not polled a majority, though winning by 50,000 votes out of the 600,000 cast. Mr. Smith said that he was anxious to run on June 24 in a runoff but would not make the final decision until he heard from friends and supporters around the state urging him to do so. Thus far, he reported, the majority of the persons to whom he had talked urged him to ask for the runoff.
Stay home and relax. Then you might live beyond mid-1953. But suit yourself...
We can tell you though that by 1955, Governor Kerr Scott will be in your seat. We can see the future. Stay home.
On the editorial page, "Graham Barden Gets New Job" tells of Mr. Barden of North Carolina acceding to the chairmanship of the House Labor and Education Committee in the wake of the death of chairman John Lesinski of Michigan. Mr. Barden, according to the Washington Post, was regarded as a progressive by Southern standards, a conservative by Fair Deal standards, and an independent moderate by his own assessment.
Mr. Barden generally was against progressive labor legislation while on the committee and so his chairmanship could harm the ability to get progressive measures, such as repeal of Taft-Hartley, out of committee as there was a narrow 13 to 12 margin in their favor prior to the death of Mr. Lesinski. Mr. Barden had fought Mr. Lesinski to a standstill on Federal aid to education, as Mr. Lesinski had insisted that parochial schools be included in Federal funding for transportation while Mr. Barden was opposed to such inclusion. Both voted against the measure which would have left the question to the states to determine.
Mr. Lesinski had blocked subpoenaing of John L. Lewis to testify on whether he sent secret signals to union locals during the recent coal strike, to remain on strike despite the court order to return to work, in direct opposition to his public order to return to work. Whether Mr. Barden would continue to block the subpoena remained unclear.
It should be noted that Congressman John F. Kennedy was a member of the Labor and Education Committee and had opposed Mr. Barden on the issue of Federal funding of school transportation, Congressman Kennedy favoring inclusion of parochial schools.
"Weeding Out the Perennials" tells of Ola Ray Boyd, perennial candidate for public office in the state, having received but 5,665 votes, or nine-tenths of a percent, in the Senatorial primary election, while P.C. Burkholder, another perennial, had received 9.4 percent in the Congressional primary, running for the first time as a Democrat, having run twice before unsuccessfully as a Republican. Manley Dunaway had received 11.7 percent of the vote in the State Senate race in Mecklenburg.
Running for office was a relatively inexpensive way to receive publicity, as the filing fee was only $125 in the Senate and Congressional races. Mr. Boyd sold pigs, Mr. Burkholder, shrubbery, and Mr. Dunaway, real estate.
It suggests that to discourage such candidates, a stiff filing fee be charged, as in England, and then refunded if the candidate failed to receive a certain percentage of the vote.
"Culture Is Catching" praises the North Carolina Symphony Orchestra, which was state-sponsored, for bringing culture to the state via 130 concerts, traveling 7,000 miles in 109 days during its fifth annual tour. All of the concerts were free and many were played before audiences comprised mainly of children, who would be the supporters of the orchestra in the future. It thanks the parents for recognizing the importance of passing on the tradition of fine music.
"Bertie and the United Nations" takes issue with Col. Bertie McCormick, publisher of the Chicago Tribune, for saying that anyone who supported the U.N. had to be either a Communist or uninformed. It finds Col. McCormick to be either a Fascist or a fool, more probably the latter.
It places the newspaper at the top of the list of U.N. supporters. The President, Vice-President, Secretary of State, Senator Vandenberg, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Governor Dewey, among others, were strong supporters of the organization. Winston Churchill, Anthony Eden and Clement Attlee of England, along with Paul-Henri Spaak of Belgium, Georges Bidault and Robert Schuman of France, among others abroad, were also strong supporters. None could be labeled Communists or uninformed.
Col. McCormick, it concludes,
sounded as Robert Owen, who had written more than a hundred years
earlier, "All the world is queer save thee and me
Drew Pearson tells of Secretary of State Acheson having convinced British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin, prior to the Big Three conference in London recently, of the value of the plan for German and French pooling of their coal and iron industries. Britain had been reluctant to assent to the plan, proposed by French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman, based on its fear that it could not compete with the free market of a European economic union, as well as its historical desire to keep France and Germany at economic odds for Britain's protection. Secretary Acheson had convinced Mr. Bevin that cooperation, however, was the only path to peace in Europe. Prime Minister Clement Attlee then made a guarded statement to Commons, favoring the plan.
But now the State Department was receiving reports that the British were trying to scuttle the plan or at least modify it to a softer version. The British had concern regarding their sovereignty and worried that the plan would threaten the continued nationalization of British industry, as neither Germany nor France were willing to alter their present economic systems.
The president of U.S. Steel, Ben Fairless, had told the House Judiciary Committee, in reference to the investigations of monopolies, that you could not turn a giant into a dwarf by merely cutting off the giant's legs. To that, Congressman Emanuel Celler had responded that the elephant, however, should not be in a position to say "every man for himself" as it danced among the chickens.
The President imparted to Congressman Harley Staggers of West Virginia that Elkins, W. Va., to which Mr. Staggers had invited the President, was named after Stephen Elkins of Missouri, who had won his fame as a West Virginia Senator and whose father, Kit, had been a close friend to the President's grandfather. He continued that one day, his grandfather and Mr. Elkins were discussing the Civil War, the latter asking the former who he thought would win it, to which Mr. Truman's grandfather answered, without hesitation, the North, because of its raw materials, industries, and manpower. In response to his grandfather's inquiry as to why he asked the question, Mr. Elkins had said that he wanted to be on the winning side. Mr. Elkins then switched from being a Democrat to a Republican and his son, the Senator, then also became a Republican. The President added that Civil War standards for picking the winner in politics, however, no longer applied.
Marquis Childs discusses the 52,522 neuropsychiatric patients under care by the V.A., out of the total 96,662 patients, over half of the patient population. The Hoover Commission reported that an insurance company, in an actuarial study, had predicted that 250,000 beds would be needed by the V.A. by 1975 and that three-fourths of those would be for mental patients.
A number of doctors and psychiatrists had testified before Senate and House committees that the amount of money devoted to research on mental illness should be increased from the ten million dollars allotted in the President's budget to around 26 million. The House increased the amount to 15 million but the desire for economy prevented allotting more. The matter now was with the Senate.
Meanwhile, the rivers and harbors bill had millions of dollars in pork added to it when it finally passed.
Mr. Childs finds therefore shortchanging this research to be shortsighted and a form of false economy.
Robert C. Ruark finds that the society handled sex as if it had been just discovered, leading to confusion. Since the Kinsey report, there was a lot of salaciousness masking as pseudo-science. Sex had seemingly become an industry rather than a natural function. He favors separation of the "smoking-car anecdote" on sex from the "leg-show lecture". He finds that exposing the Kinsey report to children was a bit much and that too many parents were heaping onto children responsibilities for sex that they were not mature enough to handle.
Young matrimony was being complicated with undue psychological analysis. The female bosom had become an industry, as had been legs for ages. And so had sex, "which just isn't the popeyed miracle we make of it today as the explanation of everything."
The series of articles on childhood education by Albemarle, N.C., educator Henry C. McFadyen, which had begun on September 7, 1949 and proceeded weekly every Tuesday after the third installment, ended the previous week, having lasted for the 1949-50 school year. Whether, incidentally, Mr. McFadyen was superintendent is unclear, as he was originally so identified when the series began but later was credited with being only the high school principal.
Four brief editorials from around the state are presented on the primary election. One from the Asheville Citizen comments, anent the record primary turnout of 600,000, that a heavy vote was a good vote, regardless of whether Willis Smith decided to demand a runoff primary following the plurality victory by Senator Frank Graham.
The High Point Enterprise says that Willis Smith would have an uphill fight to win a runoff primary based on the 50,000-vote margin of victory for Senator Graham. It had endorsed Mr. Smith and found Senator Graham "unfit" for the Senate, suggesting that he would continue the "Socialist trend" in Washington, and so was glad that Mr. Smith, as his campaign manager had indicated, would apparently call for a runoff, even if he was now a long-shot to win.
The Greensboro Daily News finds that Governor Kerr Scott's influence in the rural counties remained strong despite attacks on him. It favors a runoff primary and hopes that the ensuing campaign for such a primary would be run more cleanly than the initial campaign.
The Winston-Salem Journal finds the campaign to have been the dirtiest in a generation, possibly more than any other prior campaign in the state's history. The people of the state, it suggests, ought be proud of the size of the turnout, showing that democracy was strong. But the people also had a stake in the type of campaigns being run by the candidates, and so hopes that a second runoff campaign would be run more cleanly.
It also hopes that all of the people would read a portion of a recent address by Senator Graham in which he had counseled that differences in the country could be resolved without hate, that majority rule could be had without tyranny, and that the country should be a place where respect for the past was not reaction and hope for the future was not revolution.
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