The Charlotte News
Thursday, June 22, 1950
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that John Service of the State Department testified in a public hearing to the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee investigating the charges of Senator Joseph McCarthy, that contrary to the claims of the Senator, Mr. Service had done all he could to resist the domination of China by Communists and that he had never been a collaborator with Communists nor had any role in the acquisition of secret documents from the State Department by Amerasia magazine, the focus of the investigation. Mr. Service had been one of six arrestees in that 1945 case, but was never indicted.
The President said that the country could not afford the 70-group Air Force approved by the joint reconciliation committee the previous day. The Air Force currently had 48 groups. He said that regardless of authorization, the real issue was affordability.
He also said that because he had only invited Democrats, he had not invited Governors Strom Thurmond of South Carolina and Fielding Wright of Mississippi, respectively the Dixiecrat presidential and vice-presidential nominees in 1948, to the Thursday White House luncheon of Democratic Governors from the Governors Conference.
A Senate bill to extend the draft, stripped of segregation amendments introduced by Senator Richard Russell of Georgia, was on a fast track to Senate consideration, to meet the Friday deadline for expiration of the current draft law. Some matters still had to be worked out in the bill and so a stop-gap measure to extend the draft temporarily was likely going to be necessary.
Senator Guy Gillette of Iowa, chairman of the subcommittee on Privileges and Elections investigating complaints of overspending in election campaigns, said that he intended to investigate complaints of overspending in the North Carolina and Florida Senate campaigns, the latter between Congressman George Smathers, the winner, and incumbent Senator Claude Pepper. Senator Gillette noted that newspaper reports on the GOP primary in Pennsylvania's Senate race, won by Governor James Duff, stated total expenditures to have been between 1.5 and two million dollars for both candidates. In North Carolina, Senator Frank Graham had reported the previous week that he spent $11,000 during the initial primary race, and thus far $1,000 during the runoff campaign. Willis Smith's campaign reported a total expenditure thus far of a little over $13,000, of which just over $11,000 had been spent in the first primary. State law permitted expenditure of $12,000 in the first primary and $6,000 in the runoff.
In Redwood City, California, thirty persons were injured, only one of whom seriously, the previous night when a ceiling collapsed over the balcony of the Sequoia Theater, sending ten tons of plaster debris onto patrons. The person seriously injured was not hit by debris but jumped or fell thirty feet from the balcony.
What was the movie?
In Morristown, Tenn., strike-related violence resulted in three men being wounded at the American Enka Corp. plant, and, two hours later, a barrage of gunfire shattering windows. The TWUA local textile workers had been on strike at the plant since March 28.
In North Carolina, the two Senate candidates in the Democratic primary runoff set for Saturday continued to campaign, with Senator Graham still touring the eastern part of the state and Willis Smith visiting Thomasville and Sanford, after an early morning radio address aimed at farmers. The latter would make a statewide radio address this night. He had also made a television appearance in Greensboro the previous night, predicting victory to the press prior to the broadcast. He accused Senator Graham of changing his mind on issues during the course of the campaign and also attacked socialism, dictatorships and boss-rule.
Senator Graham said that he wanted to balance the budget but not right away, for too deep cuts could compromise the effectiveness of the Marshall Plan and set back the world. He also said that he did not think it would be wise to end racial segregation in public schools as it would work a hardship on both races.
In Charlotte, the Soap Box Derby, sponsored by The News, was held the previous afternoon, won by 13-year old Reid Huntley, who delivered newspapers to purchase the materials for the car. It was his third Derby entry and he ran on wheels maintained from his 1948 and 1949 racers. He would next compete in the national race at Akron, O., to be held in August.
On the editorial page, "A Time for Caution" discusses the effort of Piedmont Natural Gas Corp. to purchase Duke Power's gas delivery franchise for Charlotte, a franchise Duke was willing to sell, and then contract with Transcontinental Pipe Line for the gas from a pipeline passing within a few miles of the city. There were two other firms in North Carolina also vying for the service over a larger area of the Carolinas, also hoping to contract with Transcontinental. It urges the City Council to proceed with caution on the matter, to insure that the residents would get the best deal possible.
"Let's Hear Mr. Howson" hopes that the City Council would hear directly from the engineer previously hired for $5,000 by the City to render a report on the necessity of cleaning up the creeks and streams of the city and preventing discharge of polluting wastes into them. The Council had balked at hearing him defend the report because of the cost of having him come from Chicago, but private firms had offered to pay the bill. The Council was also miffed that the engineer had become upset with the City Manager for having municipal engineers and one outside consultant discuss his report.
"Better Social Security" tells of the two bills produced by the House and Senate on Social Security expansion needing some reconciliation, but basically agreeing in the need for expansion of the program, to raise benefits and expand the coverage to ten million people not previously covered. Business was backing the expansion program, which had few detractors in Congress, the Senate having passed the bill 81 to 2. The aim was to establish a program with universal coverage on a pay-as-you-go basis.
"Barefoot Days" tells of
strolling around in the warm summer grass
Put your shoes on, moron.
Drew Pearson again discusses Congressman John Wood of Georgia and his delay of the investigation into Communist influence in Hollywood while he was chairman of HUAC during the the 79th Congress, at the instance of a friend from Georgia, an obscure attorney hired by MGM head Louis B. Mayer to sidetrack the investigation, leaving it to the 80th Congress in 1947, with Republicans then holding the majority, to bring the investigation to fruition, resulting in the contempt citations against the Hollywood Ten for refusing to disclose whether they had ever been members of the Communist Party. Even during the latter period, however, Mr. Wood continued to work for the benefit of Mr. Mayer and the movie industry people called before the Committee. He asked Mr. Mayer friendly questions when the latter appeared before the Committee on October 20, 1947, deflecting criticism from Mr. Mayer for his having produced "Song of Russia", starring Robert Taylor. He imparts a section of the colloquy between Mr. Wood and Mr. Mayer, in which he allowed Mr. Mayer to express his lack of support for Communism and his belief that it undermined the fundamental concepts of human rights and liberties worldwide. No one else on the Committee had asked him a single question.
Marquis Childs discusses the decision before Congress whether to ratify the U.N. Genocide Convention, outlawing genocide. The origin of the Convention developed from the Nazi atrocities of the war. He suggests that, as with gambling and alcohol prohibition, a law would not necessarily work to eradicate the evil. But the Convention would at least provide a start in the right direction, just as murder laws had to evolve out of primitive societies.
John Hersey, in his novel The Wall, had presented a moving account of individuals caught in the grip of mass extermination by scientific methods, as undertaken by the Nazis.
The ABA, however, had raised objection to the law as going beyond U.S. law in some respects. The New Orleans States had presented a series of articles on the subject, explaining that one section of the Convention made it criminal to cause "serious bodily or mental harm to members", potentially thereby exposing Americans to sanctions for mere expression of free speech deemed to cause "mental harm".
Such problems needed to be addressed, but, he concludes, the overall idea was one which needed support. After the proper amendments, therefore, he urges ratification.
Robert C. Ruark tells of teenagers being spoiled brats, acting as delinquents, carrying zip-guns, riding around in hot-rods, setting fires in theaters, or making unnecessary noise in pubic places. He suggests that the problem was too little of the rod laid to the hind parts of the youths at home. They were the little brothers of the big brothers who had gone to war, and were, he suggests, frustrated by the heroics in the family of the older sibling, thus needing to make up for the deficiency by making as much noise as possible.
A letter writer from Laurinburg attacks Governor Kerr Scott, whom he sees as having "crammed down the throats" of North Carolinians Senator Frank Graham by appointing him in March, 1949 to the seat vacated by the death of newly elected J. Melville Broughton, finds that the Governor had been using State transportation to conduct the campaign for Senator Graham, thinks he ought be investigated and removed.
A letter writer finds Senator Graham to represent "extreme" leftism and "State Socialism", plumps for Willis Smith.
A letter writer finds Willis Smith to represent the "'Safe, Conservative, Sane'" approach to government represented by President Hoover, the same mentality therefore which had caused the Depression, that Senator Graham, the writer's former history professor at UNC, would continue to foster the ideals of the New Deal and Fair Deal, which had brought prosperity to the country through regulation of business. He finds it therefore no smear to label Mr. Smith a "Republican", that he had no business trying to ride into office on a "wave of narrow prejudice".
A letter writer thinks the FBI had complete reports on the Communist affiliations of Senator Graham and that Mr. Smith had a past of clean affiliations among corporations who were his clients, thus intends to vote for Mr. Smith in the Saturday runoff election. He also claims that black votes were being purchased on behalf of Senator Graham in the Oaklawn section of Charlotte.
Framed Edition
Links-Date — Links-Subj.