The Charlotte News
Wednesday, January 24, 1951
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that allied troops in a heavily armed patrol moved more than ten miles north of Wonju, through Hoengsong, to within 33 miles of the 38th parallel in Korea before withdrawing this date, while another force to the southeast, recaptured Yongwol, driving across the frozen Han River following an air and artillery attack which caused the enemy to flee.
A force of 500 women soldiers were observed to be fighting as part of a 1,500-troop North Korean force south of Yongwol.
There was no contact with the enemy in the western sector, though a force was observed entering Ichon, 30 miles southeast of Seoul. Patrols continued to sweep the central and eastern sectors to try to maintain contact with the enemy.
U.S. F-84 Thunderjets damaged three of 15 to 20 Russian-built MIG-15s in the northwest sector. The American planes escaped without damage. Maj. General Earle Partridge, commander of the Fifth Air Force, said that 63 enemy jets had been probably damaged or destroyed since the MIGs first began to appear in the war during the prior November. U.S. air losses in the same interval had been only five planes.
Correspondent Elton C. Fay tells of a high Army officer suggesting that winter might become a strong ally of the U.N. forces to hold the Communists in check until the allied divisions could be brought up to full strength in the spring. He said that there was no reason for the U.N. troops to risk launching a winter offensive when winter would do the job for them. He estimated that frostbite casualties among the relatively lightly clothed Chinese and North Korean troops could be as high as twenty-to-one when compared to the U.N. troops. Enemy troops had been found wearing tennis shoes as their only footwear. The enemy also lacked proper field medical care and many of the frostbite victims either were rendered permanently out of action or died. One prisoner recently captured had blocks of ice surrounding his legs and feet and died soon afterward.
The Defense Department released the latest casualty figures, showing 46,201 through January 19, insofar as casualties of which next of kin had been notified. The figure was 1,064 higher than the prior week. Of those, 5,971 had been killed in the Army, 67 in the Navy, 1,325 in the Marines, and 136 in the Air Force. Wounded were 23,792 in the Army, 393 in the Navy, 6,039 in the Marines, and 27 in the Air Force. The total missing was about 9,250.
The Nationalist China Press reported that Nationalist guerrillas in the mainland had disclosed that Russia was organizing a joint Chinese-Russian force of 2,000 paratroopers in preparation for World War III.
Correspondent Preston Grover, accompanying General Eisenhower on his two-week tour of the Western European capitals to assess their capabilities for participation in the combined defense program of NATO, reports that the General had found that the job of building the nations' defenses would be very hard but possible. The answers supplied by each nation, however, to his inquiries, with the possible exception of Britain, had not been pleasing to General Eisenhower. The Western European countries were reluctant to spend money on defense as it would mean further hardship for their people who had suffered privation for the duration of World War II. They feared that war might begin before the Big Three Western powers could do anything to prevent it and that any preparation undertaken at present would only stimulate retaliation by the Soviets. Meanwhile, General Eisenhower had warned them that if they did not act to defend themselves, the Congress would not approve the supply of arms and troops for the NATO alliance. The very fact of General Eisenhower's appointment as supreme commander, however, had gone a long way toward restoring confidence.
Secretary of State Acheson declined to comment on the statement the previous day by Prime Minister Clement Attlee before Commons, indicating a wait-and-see attitude on the U.S.-sponsored U.N. resolution to condemn Communist China as an aggressor in Korea, to determine what the implications were of the most recent Chinese "clarification" of their prior refusal of the U.N. ceasefire proposal. Secretary Acheson also declined to comment on the statement by Prime Minister Nehru of India, criticizing the U.S. for the proposed resolution. Mr. Acheson stressed that preservation of unity among the free nations was uppermost in the intentions of the U.S. The issue of whether there would be further delay in debating the resolution at the U.N. would be discussed this date in the afternoon. Secretary Acheson predicted that there would be action on the matter during the week. He said that two resolutions adopted by the Senate the previous day endorsed the resolution.
At the U.N., Prime Minister Nehru asked for a four power conference and insisted that the Communist Chinese wanted to negotiate a peace. While the U.S. believed that the condemning resolution would ultimately pass, it believed it desirable to have a unified voice lest the condemnation of China appear weak and indecisive. It was likely that U.S. chief delegate Warren Austin would inform the political committee that the U.S. opposed as futile any further ceasefire negotiations.
A late bulletin indicated that the Chinese had sent another communique to India relating to the ceasefire resolution, which a spokesman for India found reassuring but refused to disclose its contents.
In the Netherlands, the Cabinet resigned following political attacks by the Liberal Party on Parliament regarding the Government's defense and New Guinea policies. Premier William Drees was attempting to reform his Catholic-Labor coalition. The criticism of defense policies had been precipitated by the visit of General Eisenhower, expressing disappointment at "inconclusive" interviews with Dutch officials. The Foreign Minister, a member of the Liberal Party, resigned, though an advocate of strengthening the Dutch Army in the face of Government disinclination to spend the money.
British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin was stricken with a bout of pneumonia. He had been in poor health for two years.
The chairman of the House Banking Committee, Representative Brent Spence of Kentucky, said, after a meeting with the President, that the Administration was preparing proposed legislation to strengthen the whole price control machinery and provide for effective control of food prices, which under existing legislation were not subject to a freeze unless prices were above parity. The Congressman said that some commodities were currently above parity and thus there would be no need to amend the legislation at present. According to Office of Stabilization officials, a price freeze was expected to be issued the next day, with a wage freeze to follow on Friday.
The National Production Authority banned the use of nickel in car trim and nearly 400 other civilian products to conserve the short supply for defense and essential civilian uses.
In Larned, Kan., six men, armed with a gun and a knife, escaped from a ward for the criminally insane at the Larned State Hospital the previous night. It was believed by officials to have been the largest escape from the institution in its history.
They hadn't l'arned nothin'. Prob'ly'll go home and drowned their mamas for fixin' to drowned them when they was helpless, little babies down by the river.
In Medina, N.Y., a man, 104, who had voted in 1864 for Abraham Lincoln in his run for the second term, died the previous day.
But, at 17 or 18, did he vote legally? Perhaps, his vote ought be subtracted.
In Raleigh, a bill was introduced in the State Senate to ban stock car racing, and another to fix speed limits at not less than 20 mph in school zones during school hours, leaving it to local ordinances to set the limits. Some municipalities had illegally set limits at 15 despite State law requiring the minimum set by a local ordinance to be 25.
So you could have the school zones at 65, if you wanted? Leave 'em off, pick 'em up, move 'em out.
Another bill, opposed by the State Medical Society and the head of the State Board of Health, would permit chiropodists to diagnose and provide medical, surgical, mechanical, manipulative or electrical treatment to the feet. What about heat treatment? While down there, how about a shine?
On the editorial page, "Mob Violence in Tar Heelia" tells of a gang of white nightriders breaking into the home of a black man the previous Thursday in Columbus County, N.C., adjacent to Horry County, S.C., wherein a number of incidents of racially motivated mob violence had occurred in recent months. It recommends bringing the individuals to prompt justice.
The Sheriff at Whiteville, however, had not made the incident public for four days, explaining that he delayed to aid the investigation but that no one had been able to identify the men involved and no clues had surfaced. The piece thinks the Sheriff should should have announced the occurrence immediately to call public attention to it and perhaps expose the culprits or at least obtain State resources in the search for them or leads to their identities. The people, it suggests, would now demand that Governor Kerr Scott exercise his responsibility, to see that law and right prevailed.
"Growth of the Highway Fund" presents more information, as stated by the Municipal Roads Commission, favoring the use of existing funds for improvement of city streets rather than raising gasoline taxes and license plate fees to pay for the nine million dollars needed for the program. It again finds ample evidence that there would be sufficient money in the existing Highway Fund for the purpose.
"Joint Hearings Needed" recommends savings of taxpayer money and expedition of legislation by expanding the practice of holding joint House and Senate hearings, as followed in atomic energy, taxation, reduction of expenditures, the economic report, and a few other matters. The recent inquiry into the Administration proposal to expand the draft to include 18-year olds was an example, in which the House and Senate committees had to hear separately from the same various witnesses.
"Exercise in Italics" finds interesting a letter from a cosmetics house, replete with plentiful italics to describe its nail polishes and lipsticks, concluding, "... you've never worn a lipstick like this before!" The piece concludes, "And that sounds like fair warning."
A piece from the Baltimore Evening Sun, titled "Names into Nouns", tells of the New York Times editorial page column, "Topics of the Times", having discussed the addition of "Babbitt" and "Babbittry", adapted from the work of the recently deceased Sinclair Lewis, to the set of names of fictional characters transformed into nouns or adjectives, such as malapropism, benedict, legree, Rip Van Winkle, etc. Some were borrowed from other languages, as quixotic or tartuffe.
But no author, it finds, had probably donated more than Charles Dickens, with Scrooge, Fagin, Chadband, Uriah Heep, Pecksniffian, Micawberish, podsnappian, and Pickwickian all culled from his works. It remarks that recently one of the most respected colleagues of the editorial writer had referred to a "rather Dickensian character".
While referencing Shakespeare's contributed terms, as "Hamlet" and "Romeo", it does not mention that "dickens", as in scared out of someone or can't tell what it is about something, owes its earliest attribution to Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor.
Richard Strout, writing in the Christian Science Monitor, tells of attending the inaugural of Governor James Byrnes of South Carolina, and notes his impressions, with a Southern twist, gathered disjointedly from it. He concludes by asking rhetorically why a former Senator, Supreme Court Justice and Secretary of State would want to become Governor of his home state, answering, "Why, honey, how could he do anything else, sho' nuff?"
People didn't and still don't talk like that in the South unless they are deliberately putting you on. They might have proceeded to give you a fine lecture on the history of states' rights under the Constitution and how it was unwise to cede power to the Federal Government, especially as it was infested with Communists, etc. They might even, under the rose, have used the word "Negro" a couple of times, in relation to "problems". But no one would have said, "sho' nuff", even if'n they were drunk.
Drew Pearson tells of many in Congress believing that the country could not afford to lose the relatively few men who were born in the depths of Depression in 1932 and were now 18, similar to the objection of Winston Churchill to FDR when the latter wanted Britain to lend the bulk of the men to the opening of a second front in Europe, that the young British generation of 1914-15 had been so decimated in the Battle of Flanders that he would not want to risk losing another generation so soon. Thus, a compromise was being suggested in Congress to enable continuing of education along with military training.
A group of people from Wooster, Mass., comprised of Methodists, Baptists, and Mennonites, called on Congressman George Bender of Ohio recently and asked him to pray with them on their knees to ask for divine guidance for the new Congress. He did so.
The 1939 dollar was now worth only 27 cents because of inflation, as found in a comparison across time of the prices of 28 commodities compiled daily by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. He provides examples.
Members of the Administration would occasionally admit that blame for inflation went straight to the White House, as the President had the authority from Congress to impose price and wage controls since the prior August. He had not picked the experienced men to handle price and wage control, such as Leon Henderson, Chester Bowles, Paul Porter, and Bernard Baruch, still around from the Roosevelt Administration. The reason, posits Mr. Pearson, was that President Truman had an apparent inferiority complex with respect to FDR appointees.
Congressman Usher Burdick of North Dakota compared the attacks on Secretary of State Acheson to those on William H. Seward, Secretary during the Civil War, when newspapers were demanding that Mr. Seward be fired and contended that President Lincoln could not be trusted. Mr. Burdick, the writer of several historical works, cautioned that cool heads led the way to victory.
Marquis Childs discusses the negative impact of the statement to a press conference by Maj. General Rosie O'Donnell a few days earlier, that he favored dropping of the atomic bomb on China and that the Chinese would "understand the lash when it's put to them." General O'Donnell had just returned from Korea where he had commanded the Far East Air Forces. Mr. Childs regards his statements as good propaganda for the Soviets to broadcast behind the iron curtain, as it suggested imperialism by atomic warfare. Moreover, the destructive force of one or more atomic bombs dropped on China would hardly lead to a welcome of Chiang Kai-Shek, should he ever be able to return to the mainland.
Britain and Western Europe would likely vote for the U.S.-sponsored resolution in the U.N. to brand China an aggressor in Korea, but the prospect of atomic warfare as a consequence would cause considerable perturbation in Europe and possibly lead to disintegration of the Western alliance.
Mr. Childs recommends therefore a positive statement by the President or the Secretary of State, setting forth the intended limits of American action, at least insofar as current circumstances would warrant, and in that way clearing the air.
Joseph & Stewart Alsop continue their analysis begun the day before regarding the evident Soviet preparations for war against Yugoslavia and increased mobilization in Eastern Europe, in Poland and East Germany. There was also the prospect of an invasion by Communist China of Indo-China, with a force of 250,000 ready when the Sino-Russian joint staff would give the order to march. In addition, there were one or two Russian divisions, plus puppet forces formed from Japanese prisoners, on the island of Sakhalin, with air access to the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido.
The preparations both on the border with Indo-China and in Europe constituted a departure from previous Russian policy, and almost all of those preparations had been undertaken during the prior six months since the start of the Korean war. Previously, Russia had intended to take Western Europe without risking war, by consistently demonstrating Russian power and Western weakness, precipitating a series of resignedly demoralized surrenders. But when the U.S. responded in Korea, Russia's plans were upset. Its current plans were to be carried out regardless of the risk of general war as a result, starting with the plans to attack Yugoslavia in the spring.
At least, they venture, that was the darkest interpretation of the available evidence. It was in Russia's best interests, however, to avoid such a war and so Western observers believed that there would be no war in 1951. Yet, they warn, the Kremlin was capable of miscalculating their own interests, as they had done by stimulating the attack by North Korea on South Korea, arousing U.S. mobilization which had lain dormant since the end of World War II.
They conclude therefore that the country would ignore the Soviet preparations at its peril.
A letter writer writes an open letter to Mayor Victor Shaw of Charlotte and the members of the City Council, regarding the lack of necessity of the no-parking zone for St. Paul Baptist Church, as services were held only on Sundays, causing the ban to be required only at that time, rather than becoming a hardship for all citizens simply because parishioners parked there.
A letter writer takes to task the letter writer who had questioned the receipts by the Reverend Billy Graham for his revival in Atlanta, says that if a ball game came to town and attracted crowds, no one would question the take at the gate, and that support of the work of saving souls for God was worthy of contribution.
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