The Charlotte News
Saturday, June 3, 1950
ONE EDITORIAL
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that six Western European nations, France, West Germany, Italy, and the Benelux countries, had agreed to pool their coal and steel production to strengthen the region economically. Britain declined to join but praised the boldness of the plan proposed by French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman. The U.S. had approved the plan. The pact was notable for bringing France and West Germany together after being historically at odds. Establishment of a coordinating body, to which each of the nations would surrender a fraction of their sovereignty, would be the first step toward implementing the plan. The plan left the door open for any other countries to join.
Thus began what became in 1957 the European Common Market, and later, in 1993, the European Union.
It began for your own economic good, young Briton, not as a "globalist conspiracy" out of Martianville. It is better to listen to the educated than some dummy on the radio trying to sell you something during the commercial breaks, after giving you a nice, shined-up sales pitch in between the commercials, a sales pitch which only benefits his or her corporate sponsors' deep pockets at the expense of your shallow pockets. Has no one ever explained that to you?
In Tokyo, a Communist march on the city flopped, as did a general strike called for this date across the country. The Japanese police had banned outdoor demonstrations in any location. The only gathering was a union meeting held indoors, which attracted 5,000 persons. Both the march and the strike had been called in protest of the rushed trial of the eight Japanese who allegedly had attacked four U.S. Army soldiers and a captain the previous Tuesday during a Communist demonstration against continued occupation. The trial had been ordered by General MacArthur immediately to proceed and resulted in convictions for assault this date in the U.S. military court. One defendant was sentenced to ten years hard labor, while six, linked to attacks on only three of the five Americans, received seven years each, and one, five years.
In Canlubang, in the Philippines, the U.S. Army wanted to court martial a private as a deserter, a private also sought by the Huks guerrillas, intending to kill him as an informer. The private said that he had become bored and joined the Huks "for the hell of it" the prior October 15, after arriving in the Philippines as part of the Army in August. He had surrendered the previous day and said he had a lot of information on the Huks, a claim confirmed by a high-ranking Philippine Army officer, who said he would recommend lenience to U.S. authorities. The Huks had organized during the war to fight the Japanese and since the war had opposed the Philippine Government, receiving supplies, reported the private, from the Communist Chinese.
In Kona, Hawaii, 60 to 80 families had been forced to evacuate as Mauna Loa volcano continued to spew lava flows across hundreds of acres and extending into parts of villages. The flow had begun Thursday night after the volcano had been quiet for 18 months. It was the most violent eruption on record for a volcano in the first few hours, and a vulcanologist predicted that it would last about two weeks. The only rival volcanic eruption for flow of lava in the first twelve hours was Kilauea in 1923.
Some persons were approaching the edge of the flow and playing with sticks until they exploded in flame. Two men in business suits began walking onto the lava but turned back after ten feet, noting that they were not properly dressed for the journey or would go further.
Why don't you go get your kicks with the trio hiding out in Georgia. You will have a better chance of survival in that form of hell than messing around with fiery nature.
In Calhoun, Ga., the three desperadoes, two men and a redheaded, scar-faced woman, remained on the lam from searching police after they had commandeered a Highway Patrol car and its machine gun from a Patrolman in Tennessee two days earlier and later engaged in shootouts with police. They had apparently escaped an 18-square mile wooded area which police had sought to surround, and were reported now to be headed north toward Chatsworth, Ga., in a stolen 1948 Dodge pickup truck, which had its key left in the ignition by the owner. They had holed up at a lumber yard during three wee hours of the early morning, drying out their clothes soaked in a thunder shower and terrorizing the lumber company night watchman. Police had identified the two men, but not the woman. There was no confirmation on whether one had been wounded as thought the previous day when blood was discovered in a vehicle they had used.
They need a banjo tune to go along with their ride. Pick one for them.
In Galveston, Tex., 12.45 inches of rain fell in less than nine hours, flooding the city, but without apparent danger to life.
In New York, a woman shot her four year-old daughter to death as she slept because she feared that people were making fun of her Asian features inherited from her Chinese father.
In Raleigh, Willis Smith promised to provide his statement on Tuesday as to whether he would seek a runoff primary against Senator Frank Graham.
Governor Kerr Scott said that he believed Mr. Smith's delay in the announcement could work to loosen his organization but also might afford more time to raise money. He added that it would take fanatical following to win a runoff and that Mr. Smith did not have that kind of support.
Columnist Bruce Barton provides his piece from 1921 on the interment of the original Unknown Soldier at Arlington, now to be joined by another soldier from World War II.
On November 11, 1921, after all of the great men of the nations had left and night had come, three dim figures, who appeared to know each other well, emerged from the mist and stood beside the tomb. After each had read the inscription, one spoke, saying that things were improving for the Unknowns, as he had fought at Thermopylae with Leonidas, falling with him, along with the other 299, all being left without marker and name to mingle in time with the dust and rocks. He added that the Romans had swept over the Greece for which he had died and so wondered whether his death at age 28 had been worth it.
The second Unknown said that he had fought with Charles Martel at Tours, and the third said his death had come against Napoleon at Waterloo.
Each of them thought that the end of their earthly travail had come in the world's last great battle.
Then the three disappeared and the moon stood guard above the silent grave.
Mr. Barton favors an inscription not
on the stone but rather to be written in the dictionaries of the
future: "War
A group of London-bound British war brides and their children, seeking to visit home, were having to go by a circuitous route from Oakland, California, via DC-4, to Hartford, Conn., Miami, Havana, Bermuda, the Azores and Paris. They had been scheduled to go via New York, Gander, Newfoundland, and Shannon, Ireland, but Britain had prohibited a landing permit to Icelandic Airways which shared the charter with Transocean Airways.
Tom Fesperman of The News tells of schools in Charlotte adjourning for the summer recess.
Have fun while you can. Korea may await some of you older ones.
On the editorial page, "New Voting Pattern in North Carolina", a by-lined piece by H. Mack Bell, finds that more than a majority of the Eastern North Carolina "Black Belt" counties, centers of resistance historically to the dominant state political machine, had shifted into the column of the political organization of Governor Kerr Scott, in the Senate primary of the previous Saturday, voting for Senator Graham. Also, about two-thirds of the Western counties, normally faithful to the traditional Democratic machine formed at the turn of the century by Senator Furnifold Simmons, and the "Shelby dynasty", heir to the Simmons machine, as represented by former Governor and current Senator Clyde Hoey, the late former Governor O. Max Gardner, and the Webb family, had switched to support of Senator Graham—albeit after the previous report that Senator Hoey had endorsed Senator Graham.
Mr. Bell finds that the Eastern switch was the result of support for the liberal economic program of Governor Scott and Senator Graham. The Western switch appeared to be the result of dependence on aid and patronage from the Scott Administration. Senator Graham's personality, record and qualifications also figured into the mix.
He thinks the reasons for these
patterns to have been explained in a 1949 book by V. O. Key, Jr., Southern Politics in State and Nation. (Oh,
no, we're going back to first semester, freshman year, Poli. Sci. 51,
Southern Politics, in Beard Hall, pronounced as "Bear". That was a lot of reading every week, Professor
Black
Dr. Key had explained that the breaking up of the socially responsible but economically conservative state political machine and the formation of an organization headed by liberals, based on several disparate elements, had transformed North Carolina politics to its present status.
In the Eastern counties, the white voters had not fallen for the race-baiting of the Willis Smith supporters, with Senator Graham also taking more of the counties where the black population ranged between 40 and 60 percent. Economic considerations appeared to outweigh any other factor in his majorities amassed in the normally anti-machine "Black Belt" counties of Edgecombe, Hertford, Bertie, Caswell, Greene, Lenoir, Nash, Wilson, and Martin. He also collected pluralities in counties which had at least twice shown opposition to the state machine candidates, Hyde, Vance, Wayne, and Washington, each having a black population in the stated range, where memories of the Depression tended still to be vivid, especially among farmers, and the need for rural electrification, telephone lines and roads, as urged by Governor Scott, was great.
Mr. Smith only carried four of the counties with heavy black populations, Halifax, Northampton, Warren, and Franklin. His other source of Eastern strength came from counties which normally voted with the state organization, Chowan, Camden, Gates, Pasquotank, Perquimans, and Granville.
In the Western part of the state, Senator Graham carried two-thirds of the counties which in 1944 had voted either for Thomas Dewey in the national election or provided him as much as 35 percent of the vote. Dr. Key had suggested that in such counties, the Democratic political leaders, because they were actively contested by Republicans, were especially desirous of support from the state organization. That probably had explained, posits Mr. Bell, the strength of Senator Graham.
He concludes that time would tell more precisely whether these apparent changes in the Democratic Party in both the Eastern and Western sections of the state, gravitating toward the new, liberal Scott machine, would become solidified.
Well, with the exception of the coming runoff, it would, more or less, until you reach 1972, relating back to 1950 in more ways than one...
A piece from the Christian Science Monitor, titled "'Obviously'", finds trouble with two uses of the word, one by Col. Robert McCormick, publisher of the Chicago Tribune, who had said that anyone who supported the U.N. was "obviously a Communist or uninformed", and the other by Senator Taft who said that the U.S., in determining to arm other nations around Russia, intended "obviously an aggressive move". It finds the latter statement one of which the Russians could make good use in their propaganda.
It does not agree that to build up Western Europe militarily and economically to parity with the Red Army and Russia was aggressive behavior, but rather "imperatively defensive". It concludes that it had tried to understand Mr. Taft but could not.
Drew Pearson tells of Senator Taft having called him a liar for reporting recently that the Senator had entered a deal with the Southern Democrats, specifically Senator Richard Russell of Georgia, to deliver six Republican votes in abstention to the cloture vote on filibuster of the FEPC bill, led by Senator Russell and 19 other Southern Democrats, in exchange for delivery of Southern votes to block the President's plan for reorganization of the NLRB by eliminating the position of general counsel, created by Taft-Hartley to dilute the power of the Board by giving the counsel authority to select the cases to be brought before it.
He says that Senator Taft could have been more creative than simply to call him a liar, not even resorting to the color utilized by the President the previous year when the latter called Mr. Pearson an "S.O.B." for criticizing Maj. General Harry Vaughan, the President's military aide, for receiving a decoration from Argentine dictator Juan Peron.
He lists the other times he had been called a liar, starting with FDR having referred to him as a "chronic liar" in the summer of 1943 for reporting that Stalin was upset because Secretary of State Cordell Hull had failed to consult Russia regarding the preliminary terms of Italian surrender. But six months later, in March, 1944, confirmation of the story began to appear, when Stalin demanded a third of the Italian Navy and it became known that he had designs on the Italian colonies, being determined to break British-French control of North Africa and the Mediterranean. Since that time, tension between the U.S. and Russia had grown. But Mr. Pearson does not doubt that both the President and Secretary Hull had diplomatic reasons for their denials of the report at the time.
He fails to include the statement by FDR that Mr. Pearson was a "calumnist" by trade.
Senator Elmer Thomas of Oklahoma had also called him a liar for reporting in May, 1946 that he had been speculating in cotton through his wife while making speeches on the Senate floor which would impact the price of the commodity on the market. But two years later, the Agriculture Department confirmed the report.
Five-percenter John Maragon, now in jail for perjury before Congress, had denied a story by Mr. Pearson and called him a liar.
And he goes on to elucidate the claims of lies in his reports on the executives at the Tanforan racetrack in San Bruno, California, receiving help from General Vaughan in getting building materials supposed to go to veterans; on Congressman Andrew May, who went to jail for Government contract fraud; regarding the White House denial in fall, 1940 that the Administration had agreed to send 50 destroyers to England in exchange for island bases; his report that when Minnesota Senator Ernest Lundeen was killed in a plane crash in 1940, he was on his way to deliver a pro-Nazi speech written by George Viereck, a paid agent of Hitler, subsequently sent to jail; and the charges of corruption within the Huey Long gang, which implicated Louisiana Governor Richard Leche and DNC committeeman Seymour Weiss. All of these instances and still others had resulted in charges that Mr. Pearson had lied in the reports, the claimed facts of which, however, being later confirmed.
He promises to come back to the issue of his differences with Senator Taft, having gotten too steamed up over the lying issue to leave space for any more this date.
Marquis Childs finds Secretary of State Acheson's report to Congress on his trip to London and Paris for meetings with the Big Three and NATO foreign ministers to have been a record of achievement. But criticism was being raised, by some that it was not enough to bring the necessary Western European defenses to reality within 12 to 18 months, and by the isolationist side, that the commitment to NATO would lead America into a war.
The requested foreign military aid was 1.222 billion dollars, a billion for the NATO nations and the remainder split between five others, 120 million for Turkey and Greece, and 102 million for Iran, Korea and the Philippines. Given the geographical coverage, the amount seemed very small, signaling what Mr. Childs believes was the principal weakness of the policy of strength through containment.
He views the decision to provide military and economic aid to the Bao Dai regime in Indo-China, supported by the French, barely mentioned by the Secretary in his address, to be possibly "the most fateful decision taken" during the Secretary's trip. Ho Chi Minh's guerrillas were causing great problems for the French army of 150,000 troops, and obtaining replacements in France was proving difficult if not impossible. Thus, there was likely no limit to the amount of aid necessary to put down the Communist revolt there. Moreover, allies in Southeast Asia believed that the country was making a mistake as Bao Dai could never be considered anything more than a puppet, unable to rally support from the people, leading therefore to another China in the making, despite the U.S. aid.
In addition, Russia had recognized Ho as the legitimate leader of Indo-China and would likely therefore lend its support to his guerrillas, potentially drawing the U.S. and Russia into an undeclared war on a battlefield where most of the disadvantage would be to America.
But in proposing to provide aid, the State Department response was to the critics in and out of Congress who had warned of the dangers of another China in the making in Indo-China without such aid. Yet, directly supporting Bao Dai ignored the U.N. as an intermediary, where such a leader as Prime Minister Nehru of India might have been enlisted as a peacemaker, one who understood better than any Westerner the aspirations of peoples who had lived for long under colonialism.
Robert C. Ruark tells of feeling like the woman who had limped into New York City recently complaining of having been hit by a barstool in Far Rockaway, when he read that Judy Coplon, twice convicted of taking documents from the Justice Department and intending to give them to a Russian agent and sentenced to fifteen years in prison, had married an attorney she met during her trial—not her defense attorney, as he mistakenly believes. He finds her behavior detestable and deserving of the death penalty as traitorous, excuses her co-defendant, Mr. Gubitchev, who had been deported in lieu of serving his sentence, for the fact that Russia had its agents in the country just as the U.S. had its agents in Russia.
And he allows no credence to her claim of having been in love with Mr. Gubitchev and intending no espionage, contending instead to have been directed by her bosses at the Justice Department to compile the material she had in her purse at the time of arrest when going to meet Mr. Gubitchev.
He was revolted by the press description of her wedding dress, which he notes was reportedly red, found the whole affair less susceptible to being dignified than the recent marriages of Shirley Temple and Ingrid Bergman, the latter legitimizing her dalliance after the wide press coverage of her illegitimate child with director Roberto Rossellini.
He finds Ms. Coplon quite as unsavory as she had been presented in the press, that she was simply a spy against her own country.
Tom Schlesinger of The News, in his weekly "Capital Roundup", reports that Capitol Hill sources believed there would be no Senate runoff primary in North Carolina, based on the 50,000-vote plurality of Senator Graham, as insiders assumed that Willis Smith could not overcome that deficit through the 60,000 votes which had gone to former Senator Robert Rice Reynolds and a fourth candidate. Both camps were rumored to be out of money, and Senator Graham would have an easier time raising new money based on his impressive showing.
Through the North Carolina primary of the previous Saturday, liberals had scored victories in Pennsylvania, Oregon, and Alabama, with Florida being the only loss, when Congressman George Smathers beat Senator Claude Pepper in the Democratic primary.
The Washington Star found it disconcerting that two anti-Fair Deal candidates as Mr. Smith and Senator Reynolds had managed to poll more than 50 percent of the vote, especially as North Carolina was considered a bellwether Fair Deal state in the South. The New York Times, however, saw the result as a vote of confidence for Senator Graham and the Fair Deal.
Senator Clyde Hoey had no comment on the primary, but said that it had been the "meanest" campaign he could recall in state history.
Representative Graham Barden was being opposed in his accession, by virtue of seniority, to the chairmanship of the House Education and Labor Committee in the wake of the death of chairman John Lesinski. The objection centered on Mr. Barden's opposition to Administration policies on labor and education. But conventional wisdom was that it was the wrong time for the President to challenge the seniority system in an effort to dislodge Mr. Barden, as it could also adversely impact Senator Graham in a runoff, as well upsetting other North Carolina committee chairmen, as Robert Doughton of Ways & Means and Harold Cooley of Agriculture, along with other Southern Democratic committee chairmen.
Labor leaders also opposed Mr. Barden for voting "wrong" on labor issues almost all the time.
In education, he was considered a crusader for Federal aid to public schools, controversially opposing aid of any sort, including bus transportation, to private and parochial schools.
He had opposed the final compromise ERP extension bill the previous week, the only member of the North Carolina Congressional delegation to do so.
There was no North Carolina opposition to 13 million dollars worth of Federal participation in construction of a new high-speed parkway between Baltimore and Washington.
Zoomy, zoomy, zoom...
Incidentally, we still remember on that October day, taking the mid-term examination, or perhaps one of two such exams, outside in this area, before the rearward building was there, the only time we ever took a test outside in our entire educational career, that, because of some idiot in a very large class seeking to free him or herself from exam responsibilities by having called in a bomb threat just before exam time. It was a good thing it was warm and did not rain. If the threat had carried shards of reality behind it, we suppose that we might not be here to relate the tale, but prior experience in that regard of the good Professor proved sapient and fair. We would not have wanted to prepare for that exam, one of our first in college, twice. Let's get to it
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