The Charlotte News

Tuesday, January 2, 1951

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that vanguard forces of six Chinese armies, numbering up to 300,000 men, moved to within seventeen air miles of deserted Seoul, as outnumbered U.N. forces retreated up to eleven miles in zero-degree weather. The deepest enemy penetration, according to MacArthur headquarters, occurred six miles south of Tongduchon, 17 miles from Seoul, and only five miles from Uijongbu on the road to Seoul. The allies set up new defense lines, expecting to be attacked within days. Their withdrawal was so swift that they lost contact with the enemy, numbering at least 42 divisions. They left behind, however, thousands of enemy dead in the frozen fields as the enemy troops had suicidally hurled themselves through fields of land mines as others followed, climbing over the dead bodies.

Air action had also been responsible for an estimated 6,000 enemy casualties on Monday.

North Korean Premier Kim Il-Sung had said via radio that the war had the "support and sympathy" of Communist China, Russia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Rumania, and Poland. General MacArthur called this announcement an admission of complicity by these countries.

The British Foreign Office revealed that Russia had agreed to a peace conference with the Big Three Western powers regarding Germany as well as other issues causing international tension.

Britain formally placed all of its troops committed to Western Europe, more than three divisions, under the command of General Eisenhower, recently named supreme commander of NATO. France had promised to supply three divisions as well.

The U.N. General Assembly announced that the political committee would meet the next day to consider the Korean situation and a report by the three-person ceasefire committee on the failure of the truce efforts with Communist China. The U.S. would demand strong action against China, minimally to brand it as an aggressor, for its intervention in the war and drive south of the 38th parallel. India had contended that until the Chinese had crossed the parallel, they could not legally be charged with aggression, but that had now occurred. To label China an aggressor would expose it to diplomatic sanctions, economic sanctions, including a blockade, and military sanctions, a U.N.-sponsored war against the aggressor nation. The U.S. Government had not yet decided which form of punitive action it would seek.

Atomic Energy Commission chairman Gordon Dean declared, in response to rumors to the contrary generated by Senator Owen Brewster of Maine, that the Russians did have the atom bomb, as previously announced by the President in September, 1949, following by a month the detonation in August of that year. Mr. Dean also said that the program to produce an atomic-powered submarine was being accelerated. The AEC anticipated getting more uranium from deposits on the Colorado River plateau.

Lt. General Walton Walker, former commander of the Eighth Army in Korea, killed while heading to the front on December 23 in a jeep accident with a South Korean weapons carrier, was buried in Arlington National Cemetery this date, not far from the grave of General John J. Pershing. A riderless horse draped in a fringed black cape and hood followed the artillery caisson which bore the casket, the traditional military funeral ritual for a military leader. During World War II in France, General Walker had served under General Patton and regarded him as his hero. He had won the Distinguished Service Cross for extraordinary heroism demonstrated during the Battle of the Seine and had won a Silver Star and gold leaf cluster during World War I for gallantry in action in France. The President described General Walker as a military commander with "indomitable courage". The President recommended to Congress that General Walker be promoted posthumously from a three-star to full four-star general.

The expiring 81st Congress sent to the President a civil defense bill giving the Government great domestic powers in the event of attack on the country. It also completed reconciliation work on the 20 billion dollar supplemental defense spending bill. The new Congress would begin at noon the following day.

The President would deliver his annual State of the Union message at 1:00 p.m. the following Monday before a joint session of Congress. He would provide his annual economic message to Congress a week later.

The Supreme Court unanimously let stand, without opinion, the special three-judge District Court panel decision requiring LSU to admit a black student, Roy Wilson, to its Law School, the first black student to be admitted in the institution's 90-year history and the Law School's 44-year history. The lower court had determined that the Law School at the all-black Southern University, operated since 1947, did not provide equal or substantially equal facilities and advantages to that of the LSU Law School. The lower court opinion had relied on the Supreme Court's 1950 decisions in Sweatt v. Painter and McLaurin v. Oklahoma, requiring substantially equal facilities to be demonstrated by the state before segregated state graduate and law school facilities would be deemed Constitutionally permissible under the Plessy v. Ferguson doctrine, requiring such facilities for segregation to pass muster under the Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection clause.

As a good deal of confusion occurred and persisted for years afterward in the public mind regarding what these various decisions did legally, the distinction should be borne in mind that the pre-Brown v. Board of Education decisions were holding on case-by-case factual analyses that the facilities in question were not in accordance with Plessy separate-but-equal requirements, while in 1954, Brown overruled the 1896 Plessy doctrine as no longer Constitutionally viable because in 58 years it had not fulfilled its intended function of providing separate-but-equal public facilities in the society. The strategy which was adopted by the N.A.A.C.P. in bringing these school cases was deliberately to attack the graduate and professional schools first, as they were the most vulnerable to attack, and then to pursue segregation within the entire public school educational system, finally achieving the result of eliminating the separate-but-equal doctrine with a finding in Brown that state action to achieve segregation was, per se, unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment and that public schools had to eliminate government-enforced segregation "with all deliberate speed".

The reason education, transportation and areas falling within the purview of the First Amendment were attacked first before other public but non-state operated accommodations as theaters, dining facilities and inns was, first, that the Fourteenth Amendment is not implicated unless there is state action and, second, because the courts recognize fundamental rights expressly stated in the Constitution as being entitled to a higher level of scrutiny by the courts, requiring a showing by the state of a compelling state interest to justify discrimination in exercise of these rights, than the right to be free from discrimination in matters not implicating such an expressed, fundamental right. Because typically privately operated facilities open to the public do not involve state action to enforce the discrimination, thus not implicating the Fourteenth Amendment, the 1964 Civil Rights Act had to be passed to eliminate such segregation, justified as substantially affecting interstate commerce and thus within the power of Congress to regulate, just as Congress had previously banned discrimination on trains operating across state lines.

Richard Krebs, who, under the pseudonym "Jan Valtin", had written an account of his espionage work for both Russia's secret police and the Nazi Gestapo in his 1941 book, Out of the Night, serialized in The News in June-July 1941, and ultimately becoming the enemy of both Russia and Germany, died of pneumonia at age 45 in Chestertown, Maryland, where he had lived for the prior six years.

As it was at the point of conclusion of that serialized account that we at first decided in 2008 to end this project, only to reverse that decision a week later after a brief respite and continue, at least through the end of 1941, thence forward since, this point in time might provide a perfect place to bring this project full circle and call it quits. But, that would not be appropriate in the middle of the Korean war, and so we continue.

On the editorial page, "The Francophiles' Dilemma" wonders how such Senators as McCarthy, Wherry, Brewster, McCarran and Taft, who had been critical of the Administration's Far East and European policies, would react to the President having re-established full ambassadorial relations with Franco's Spain, taking away their political thunder in advocating such restoration of relations. It questions how the named Senators could continue to support former President Hoover's isolationist recommendations to withdraw to the nation's two shores and be consistent in their advocacy of bringing Señor Franco into the anti-Communist sphere.

"Fear—Our Greatest Enemy" finds FDR's statement in his 1933 first inaugural address, that the only thing the country had to fear was fear itself, having a new and equally appropriate meaning in 1951. For the first time in the country's history there was fear that the country might not be able to survive as a democracy. It was uncharacteristic for Americans to be cowering in fear of anything, as proved amply in 1917-18 in World War I and in 1941-45, after Pearl Harbor. But the current fear of military weakness in the face of a fight was palpable. Healthy respect for the enemy was beneficial but fear led to panic and mistakes.

It counsels keeping FDR's advice firmly in mind, in which case, it posits, the country would emerge from its dark hour into victory.

"Those 'Re-Examinationists'" looks at Secretary of State Acheson's recent remarks regarding the new trend by some Republicans in Congress toward isolationism, that they were "re-examinists", akin to the farmer who went out every morning and pulled up his crops to see how they were doing. Senator Taft, who was one of those unnamed "re-examinists" who wanted to look anew at all foreign and defense policy, found Mr. Acheson all wrong, that to re-examine the Administration's policies was not necessarily to tear them out by their roots. Arthur Krock of the New York Times also had objected to Mr. Acheson's characterization while expressing general respect and support of him.

The piece, however, finds Secretary Acheson wholly correct in the assessment that the re-examinists, including the recent speeches by former President Herbert Hoover and former Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy, both recommending retraction of defenses from the Far East and Western Europe to the insularity of the two oceans, represented a new pack of isolationists only clothed in different garb.

"Memo to Fast Drivers" provides a table compiled by the N.C. Department of Motor Vehicles, showing the number of accidents during the first nine months of 1950 which had occurred at various speeds just prior to impact and the percentage of those which were fatal. It demonstrates, not surprisingly, that the higher the speed, the greater the chance of fatalities, ranging from .6 percent at 0-5 mph, 1.5 percent at 21-30 mph, and 4.7 percent at 51-60 mph, to 19.3 percent at 71 mph or higher.

It counsels that driving fast was foolish as it cost fuel economy, in addition to increasing the risk of an accident and death as a result. Finally, it advises that if drivers were not fazed by those facts, then at least they should consider the occupants of the other vehicle.

You should not say things like that, as it could egg on some of the misanthropic ones to drive even faster.

A piece from the Wall Street Journal, titled "The Postman Rings Twice", finds no one surprised at the postman ringing twice, as letters presented the medium by which a writer could let loose a torrent of unchecked emotion and passion, so much so that it was unusual for letters written in passion not to look ridiculous when later read, long after the moment of inspiration had passed.

Cardinal Richelieu had boasted that he could hang any man for what he had written in but six lines. Friederich Nietzsche had called the postman the "agent of impolite surprises". In the case of public figures, the surprises were often impolitic as well.

Yet, it concludes, so strong was the compulsion to write that even a hangover could not cure the insatiable habit, which Erasmus had termed, "Crescit scribendo scribendi studium."

A piece from the Louisville Courier-Journal disfavors the approach to foreign policy advocated by former President Hoover, finding that it would, if followed, produce a vacuum in Europe and Asia into which Communism could move with comparative ease. The country would be forced to depend on its own oil and mineral resources while the enemy would have access to fresh supplies. The country, with 155 million people, would be opposed by peoples 15 times that number organized along military lines. It would leave no peace and no basis for negotiation. Surrender or acceptance of terms on which death would be preferable would be the only alternatives available.

Secretary Acheson had made these points clear. The oceans no longer acted as a barrier in the jet and nuclear age. The Arctic Circle was a frontier over which jets could fly, as well as over the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

Drew Pearson tells of Atomic Energy Commission chairman Gordon Dean having informed the House Appropriations Committee, upon questioning by Congressman Albert Thomas of Texas as to the purpose of the expenditure of three billion dollars over four years on nuclear energy, that the expenditure had been wisely made and had placed the country well ahead of Russia in development of nuclear energy.

After months of investigation by a subcommittee headed by defeated Senator Claude Pepper of Florida into the 1947 wiretapping of Howard Hughes undertaken using a Washington police detective under the direction of Senator Owen Brewster, a friend to TWA competitor Pan Am, no discipline of the Senator had occurred, no unfavorable report had issued, and he had not even been required to testify before the subcommittee. In fact, Senator Pepper had taken a trip to Europe with Senator Brewster, as both were delegates to the Inter-Parliamentary Union. But the investigator for the subcommittee had issued a report, which would be suppressed for stepping on too many toes, regarding the police-state tactics being used in Washington such that businessmen and politicians alike were afraid of having their conversations wiretapped. The latter report said that either the police detective or those who had contradicted him had committed perjury. Moreover, an investigator for Pan Am, Henry Grunewald, had finally testified before the subcommittee and, with impunity, refused to answer certain questions, despite others having been indicted for invoking the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. Mr. Grunewald, he says, had too many influential friends for whom he had done favors to suffer that fate.

Cobalt and copper supplies would be cut to radio and television manufacturers, though both would receive enough supply to continue to operate so that their plants could be converted when necessary for defense work, probably later in 1951.

Lead, zinc, aluminum, and tin would also soon be restricted. Manufacture of beer cans would soon be banned or cut sharply, not to mention natural rubber toys.

Nothing is sacred.

Joseph & Stewart Alsop find that the predictions for the new year by knowledgeable observers had it that the "final crisis" between the free and slave societies would begin in 1951, probably offering the option of surrender by easy stages or total war. The Alsops recommend being resolute and not to be lured by false hopes.

They hope in the coming year for leadership equal to the status of the nation. It had been nearly six years since the death of FDR and five and a half years since the defeat of Winston Churchill during the Potsdam Conference of July, 1945. Since that time, a change had come in discerning the problems for the country. Between the start of World War I in 1914 and the Versailles Treaty, it was relatively easy, by perusal of daily events, to keep abreast of the country's problems. But it had not been so easy since 1920, and increasingly so to the present. The democratic leaders' jobs had become increasingly difficult vis-à-vis the unilaterally acting dictator. The democratic leader had to analyze the facts correctly, make a statement to the people, often when it was unpopular to do so, await a decision by the people, and only then act. The dictator had only to issue a fiat.

When the leader took the easy, optimistic course and failed properly to inform the people, he betrayed his position of leadership, much as had Prime Ministers Stanley Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain in England in the latter Thirties. The Alsops equate it to treason for never calling upon the people to render a decision until doom was at their doorsteps.

They counsel the lawmakers in Congress to remember what they represented, how great the country was and how careless the Congress and leadership could be. If borne in mind, they conclude, the new year, if not one of peace and happiness, would surely be a year of hope for better times to come.

Robert C. Ruark wishes for the new year that the flying saucers would turn out to be real and land in every major capital of the world, fueled by an undiscovered substance and composed of strange metals. Out would come little green men, two feet tall, with radar eyes, sonar ears, and rocket guns.

He thinks that it would properly frighten the public in consequence of which alliances would form between every nation on earth to fight the common enemy from Mars or wherever the unearthly invaders had originated, not dissimilar to the effect on the public resulting from the 1938 broadcast at Halloween by Orson Welles of the radio dramatization of War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells

He believes that the sudden threat of extinction to everyone suffered in common would provide a sufficient scare to jolt the world into realization that the politicians, planners, scientists and professors could not always provide a fix for every problem. This invasion would trump the novelties of both television and the jet plane.

While Americans were busy indoctrinating the little green men to democracy over the course of a century and figuring out ways to replicate them as servants to the human population, the Russians also would be busy with them. The result would be peace for many years, as Communists and capitalists would be forced to unite for common protection.

It would provide "time to go fishing, time to shoot quail, time to play poker and eat steaks and drink whisky and read books and make love. And, maybe, even to pray."

Well, in just eight months you will have your wish granted, albeit without the little green men, and then you can go back to your bar buddies and tell them all about it, and how sorry it was as an experience, as everyone thought it was just a silly movie and so changed nothing.

A letter writer from Pittsboro lauds the editorial of December 22 on former President Hoover's speech, but also agrees with the former President's idea that the nation needed to realize that it could not contain Russia and China in Europe and Asia, though he does not agree to the extent of any reneging on NATO pledges. He disagrees with the Alsops' recommendation that Secretary Acheson would have to be sacrificed to restore bipartisan foreign policy and confidence therein, finds that such an approach would not advance the country.

A Quote of the Day: "A harp always reminds me of a piano with its clothes off." —Starkville (Miss.) News

Ninth Day of Christmas: Nine Pianos Harping.

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