The Charlotte News
Friday, January 5, 1951
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that Chinese Communist troops had pushed southward this night to Wonju, center for an important allied escape route, 55 miles east of Seoul. Seven Communist armies, comprised of about 210,000 men, were moving from Chunchon toward Wonju, with the apparent aim of destroying the retreating Eighth Army out of Seoul. After destruction of the port facilities at Inchon, the Eighth Army moved southward by land. Four cut-off South Korean regiments broke through Communist roadblocks and reached the U.N. lines north of Wonju on Thursday following a four-day battle, permitting allied lines to be drawn tighter around Wonju.
Eighth Army commander Lt. General Matthew Ridgway said that everything was going fine in the withdrawal, but hundreds of thousands of Koreans had been unable to escape Seoul prior to the takeover by the enemy. There were no allied losses in the Inchon area.
U.N. planes were now bombing Seoul and abandoned Kimpo airfield, using in the latter attack rockets and napalm. The Air Force flew 193 daylight sorties the prior day plus 35 night attacks. Air observation estimated 5,300 vehicles moving south during the day.
A high, unnamed Army officer denied that there had been a rout of U.N. forces in Korea during the well-planned withdrawal. He said that the Chinese and North Koreans together numbered 850,000 in North Korea, of whom 450,000 were being held in reserve. Six Chinese armies of about 30,000 troops each were at the front with another five in reserve. The Chinese had re-equipped nineteen North Korean divisions, ranging in number between 2,400 and 9,000 men each, armed with a large number of automatic "burp" guns. The right flank of the U.N. forces had been reinforced in recent days. Rivers no longer supplied natural defense lines as they were frozen. Tanks could now cross the Yalu from Manchuria. Infantry could cross the Han to the west of Seoul. There was a steady flow of enemy vehicular traffic from the Chosin Reservoir area and on the western side of the peninsula.
The Defense Department announced that American casualties in Korea numbered 40,716, an increase of 1,851 since the prior week. Of those, 6,031 had been killed in action, 27,997 wounded and 6,148 missing. The Army accounted for 33,184 of the casualties, the Marine Corps, 6,212. The casualties, per usual procedure, were more than those enumerated, pending notification of next of kin for others.
Russia agreed to resume negotiations for settlement of the eleven billion dollar lend-lease account from World War II.
Senator Taft declared before the Senate that the President had no power to commit American forces in defense of Western Europe without approval of Congress. The President had said the previous day that there was no question that he had such authority under the NATO pact. Senator Taft also claimed that the President had, without Congressional authorization, committed U.S. troops to Korea.
The Defense Department planned to ask Congress to reduce the draft age from 19 to 18 and tighten deferments and exemptions for draft-eligible men between 19 and 25. The new terms would allow 17-year olds to enlist with their parents' consent. The Department also planned to seek extension of the term of draft induction from 21 to 27 or 30 months.
The Government was drafting an order that all businesses give 30 days' notice before raising prices, effectively freezing prices for a month on all items except farm products which were largely exempt from price control. It was designed to freeze prices while the newly created Office of Stabilization formed its staff and determined the proper course on controls to stem inflation.
Anthony Accardo, reputed Chicago underworld gambling boss, refused to answer questions pursuant to the Fifth Amendment regarding bookie operations in Chicago and Miami before the Senate Kefauver Crime Investigating Committee, and the members voted to recommend that he be cited for contempt.
In Tulsa, Okla., police attempted to link a hitchhiker sought for a $100 robbery of a car near Oklahoma City on the previous Saturday with the disappearance of an Illinois family of five believed to have been killed by the hitchhiker. The family's car, generally matching a description of a car into which the hitchhiker was seen entering, was found with its seats caked in blood and punctured by bullet holes north of Tulsa. A person generally matching the description of the hitchhiker obtained a ride into Tulsa after claiming that his car was stuck in a ditch. He then left in a taxi. There were no fingerprints, footprints, bloody trails, or bodies discovered at the scene. The car's odometer had over three thousand miles added since the family had departed on their trip to New Mexico from their home in Illinois, a distance of only 600 miles.
In Raleigh, Lt. Governor H. P. Taylor named State Senator Alton Lennon—to be appointed U.S. Senator by future Governor William B. Umstead in 1953 when Senator Willis Smith would die—to be chairman of the Committee on Propositions and Grievances, apparently to handle the legislation pending to establish a statewide referendum on whether to retain the ABC system for controlled sale of alcohol or to extend it to every county of the state.
The Associated Press chose the New York Yankees as the sports team of the year for their four-game sweep of the World Series over the Philadelphia Phillies the prior October.
On the editorial page, "The Governor's Speech" finds Governor Kerr Scott's message to the General Assembly the prior day to have been calm and moderate. He proposed consolidation of progress made in the state but not stoppage of progress under his "Go Forward" program, articulated in 1949 when he took office. That program included advances in schools, roads, broadened electric power and telephone access in rural areas, and improved health facilities.
He defended his spending program which had worked out to the advantage of the State, despite having drawn criticism from many quarters including the News.
The address had some weaknesses. He failed to address a formula for using State road funds for improvement of city streets. He asked for additional health facilities but did not list them. He apparently had no further plans to strengthen the State Utilities Commission, in need of it.
Overall, however, it was a good summary of the first two years of his program.
Many of the lawmakers who complimented his address added the caveat that they would wait and see, however, what he would say in his economic message to them the following Monday night.
"Mr. Patterson States the Case" finds that the recent radio speech to the nation by former President Hoover, advocating withdrawing of the nation's defense to the two oceans, had been a mixed blessing for stimulating the counter-argument to return to isolationism. Prior to the speech, Americans had not been pressed to defend the internationalist position incorporating NATO and the Marshall Plan.
One of the most convincing salesmen for the internationalist point of view was former Secretary of War Robert Patterson, whose December 31 letter to the editors of the New York Times is published on the page this date. It finds the letter to pose a convincing argument against the isolationist views embraced by Mr. Hoover.
"The Briton Misbehaves" tells of a report from the Manchester Guardian in England that the House of Commons was so beset by serious disorder caused by booing of M.P's that the newspaper had researched the prior history to find precedent for the conduct. One case was uncovered of a "doctor of the Civil Law" who had spoken too low and long, provoking the House to "hawk" and spit at him to cause him to cease. In 1601, a top Royalist member had claimed the Royal prerogative so often that the House "hemmed and laughed and talked" in response. Nodders were turned out of the House at one point in its history because they snored.
It finds that if that sort of behavior occurred in Commons, the Congress might be forgiven for an occasional argument or altercation on the floor or in the Congressional cloak rooms, for instance, "a blast of billingsgate from a Wisconsin freewheeler."
A piece from the Atlanta Journal, titled "Investment in the Future", tells of the 1948 North Carolina Educational Commission having recommended expenditure of 150 million dollars over ten years to build and improve schools. The state was already the leader in the South in investment in schools. Local communities had since raised 75 million dollars through bond issues, half the ten-year goal. The State had supplied an additional 50 million, half appropriated directly and half by a statewide bond issue.
The program would provide 10,000 new classrooms with facilities for 300,000 children.
By the method of long division we done learnt, that's pert near 353 per classroom, i'n't it? That seems like a awful lot.
It concludes that fifty years earlier the state had been a "vale of humility and poverty" until Governors Aycock, Alderman and McIver—all later becoming dormitories at UNC—manifested their crusade for public education. It finds the ensuing progress to have been a miracle made possible by honest and efficient government.
That still seems like a awful lot of people to crowd into just one classroom.
Former Secretary of War Robert Patterson, as indicated in the above editorial, has his letter to the editors of the New York Times printed on the page, in which he provides a counter to the new isolationism being advocated by such persons as former President Hoover and lays forth the rationale for continued internationalism under NATO and the Marshall Plan.
Defense of Britain would be impossible if the Continent were overrun by the Soviets, an inevitability should the advice of Mr. Hoover be followed, leaving ultimately the U.S. alone in the world to wage the fight against Communism. Moreover, the U.S. would be reneging on the pledge under the NATO treaty, ratified by the Senate in a bipartisan vote requiring two-thirds affirmance. To lose Western Europe to the Soviet sphere would relinquish a productive capacity far in excess of the Soviet Union and its satellites and enable the Soviet bloc to have superiority to U.S. productive capacity and resources necessary to produce war materiel.
Hitler had been defeated by a coalition of nations, as had Napoleon before him. If the U.S., as the strongest member of the coalition, withdrew, it would collapse, giving Stalin the inroad to conquest of Western Europe for which he had long hoped.
Drew Pearson tells of conservative and liberal Senators alike being alarmed by the conspiracy which had been waged to defeat the confirmation of now-confirmed Assistant Secretary of Defense Anna Rosenberg, on the false basis that she had been sympathetic with Communism for her alleged former membership in the John Reed Club. The rumors were circulated by reactionary Gerald L.K. Smith, Benjamin Freedman, employed by the Arab League to obtain arms for Moslem countries, former Communist Ralph de Sola, Senator McCarthy, and conservative radio commentator Fulton Lewis. Mr. Freedman had put Mr. De Sola, the chief witness against Ms. Rosenberg, in touch with Senator McCarthy and Mr. Lewis.
He proceeds to marshal the evidence for these facts from the Senate record of testimony. In the end, the effort to discredit Ms. Rosenberg had failed, as it was shown that she had never been a member of the John Reed Club. She was then unanimously confirmed.
Joseph & Stewart Alsop discuss the coming State of the Union address to Congress by the President, set for the following Monday. They suggest that with an increasingly partisan and isolationist Congress, the speech needed to unite the "worried and divided" country, as well as meet the pending world crisis which threatened the very survival of the country.
Yet, the President, according to
insiders, proceeded on his usual course, with staff meetings
accompanied by Maj. General Harry Vaughan's jokes, plus the
President's endless hours at his desk, interrupted by occasional
poker parties and weekends on the Potomac. The only outward display
of tension was his somewhat quicker showing of temper than usual, as
manifested by the letter to Washington Post music critic Paul
Hume in December anent his review taking to task daughter Margaret's
operatic performance
But courage, they posit, was not all that was required in the present crisis. The President had to be able to unite the country's allies, rearm the free world, and control the economy. He had to be able to discern good from bad advice. And the need to perform all of these tasks at once depreciated his simple courage, especially as the President lacked the ability to analyze complex facts, evidenced by his lack of perspicacity with regard to Soviet aggression. He also lacked the ability to communicate to the country complex facts in a convincing manner, as shown by his ineffectual speech recently declaring a national emergency. He also lacked the ability to marshal the necessary national action. And those three abilities were essential for an effective democratic leader.
That situation, however, did not necessarily have to turn out bad, they conclude, as long as the country and the Congress took the President for what he was, being "grateful for his decency and bravery", without a father figure to whom to look but nevertheless being led by a good man.
What do you do when you have a "President" in time of crisis who lacks not only all of those three essential skills, but also is neither decent, honest, nor brave, only picks on his perceived political enemies, the weaker the better, no matter how petty the grievance, in tweet-tweets every morning? all to the apparent delight of his naively juvenile but dwindling core support.
Marquis Childs finds the Democratic choice of Senator Ernest McFarland of Arizona to become Senate Majority Leader to be indicative of deference to Southerners, as he had been selected over Senator Joe O'Mahoney of Wyoming. While Senator McFarland voted with the Democrats 93 percent of the time, Senator O'Mahoney was a stronger proponent of the New Deal-Fair Deal values, such as working for public power distribution at lower cost to consumers and against monopolies.
The choice made Northern Democrats uneasy as they recognized that elections could not be won nationally unless Northern Congressional seats were won by Democrats, who won only when they championed welfare and economic legislation appealing to the voters. The Northerners also knew that it would not be possible to have a status quo policy.
The Southern Democrats, for the most part, disagreed with the new isolationism in foreign policy, had supported NATO and the Marshall Plan, based on both an ideological conviction and realization of the necessity to sell Southern commodities to European markets.
The new Senate Whip was Senator Lyndon Johnson, who had been working through his subcommittee on military preparedness to effectuate industrial mobilization for defense. Senator Tom Connally, also of Texas, was likewise a champion of security through cooperation with Western Europe.
Twelfth
Framed Edition
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