Wednesday, October 24, 1951

The Charlotte News

Wednesday, October 24, 1951

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that 15 allied tanks again battered Kumsong this date on the central front in Korea, while a large jet battle raged in the fourth straight day of air fighting. The tanks returned safely to their lines through enemy artillery fire. The only enemy resistance in the sector was along a ridge line southeast of the city where an estimated 120 Chinese troops were holed up.

The Fifth Air Force said one enemy jet was shot down and another probably destroyed, while one U.S. F-86 Sabre jet was reported lost in the air action, which included between 70 and 150 Russian-made MIG jets. The enemy jets had attacked the Sabres covering B-29s which dropped 150 bombs along a single-track bridge at Sunchon.

The Defense Department announced that U.S. casualties in Korea had reached 92,997, an increase of 2,062 since the previous week, the breakdown of which is not provided in the report. The new total included 13,985 killed in action, 66,535 wounded, and 12,477 missing.

After the Communists ratified the new ground rules, ceasefire negotiations in Korea, discontinued since August 23 at the behest of the Communists for complaints of incursions by the allies to the neutrality zone around the previous site of the talks at Kaesong, were slated to continue at Panmunjom starting the following day, initially to take up where they had left off, regarding where to establish a ceasefire zone. Each of the five-man negotiation teams would contain two new members. If and when the truce zone was established, there still remained the issues of how the truce was to be supervised, how prisoners were to be exchanged, and what recommendations were to be made to each side's respective governments, including the Communist demand that foreign troops be withdrawn from Korea.

The U.N. command had provided a smooth floor, lighting and heating for resumption of the talks in the big tent at Panmunjom. While liaison officers from each side had met in the same tent, it did not have these new amenities. The Communists had accepted the provision of the comforts without argument.

The President said, in an informal talk to the 73rd general conference of the National Guard Association of the United States, that he believed that a third world war could be prevented, a necessity, as otherwise it would mean "practically the end of civilization". He drew laughter from the audience when he told of his parents objecting to him joining the Guard at age 21 because he would have to wear a blue uniform and they had leaned toward the South during the Civil War. He said that in his generation, such disputes had been forgotten as the country had become united within itself and united with other friendly nations across the world striving for freedom.

The President formally proclaimed the end of the state of war between the U.S. and Germany, following a joint Congressional resolution to that effect, passed October 19, marking the end of nearly a decade of a formal state of war between the two nations. The President, in making the announcement, said that it was the aim of U.S. policy to make a peace treaty with a "united and free" Germany but that Soviet efforts had prevented that latter prospect thus far.

In Egypt, the Government sounded stern warnings against anti-foreign rioting, as Britain maintained its armed defenses along the seized Suez Canal. Britain modified its prevention of Canal zone traffic, to allow 250 Shell Oil trucks to pass from Suez to Cairo, but most rail traffic along the Canal zone was still banned and road traffic moved under tight restrictions. The oil trucks had been allowed to pass to prevent destruction to equipment by cutting off the flow of oil. Up to noon on this date, no further rioting had been reported in the country since the previous day when Egyptian police had fired on unruly crowds in Alexandria.

Secretary of State Acheson conferred with Premier Mohammed Mossadegh of Iran at the Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington, regarding urgent U.S. proposals for reopening of negotiations in the oil nationalization dispute between Iran and Britain. The U.S. was seeking a firm agreement with the Premier to resume the talks and establishment of a real basis for conducting negotiations to provide a reasonable chance of their success. While the U.S. was not intent on any particular resolution of the dispute, one suggestion which was reported to have been put forward was that Iran own and operate the oil industry with the help of Western technicians, then sell the output at a discount to the British, who would then market it to Western consumers at a profit.

Senate investigators asked to see RFC records regarding loan applications in which Vice-President Alben Barkley's secretary and a Senate committee lawyer had displayed interest. Stuart Symington, head of the RFC, said that his agency would soon comply with the request and also stated that there was no reason to doubt the secretary, who admitted having made an inquiry regarding a 1.1 million dollar loan application for construction of a hotel in Miami but denied any effort to influence the action.

The IRB announced the suspension of two of its employees in the New York area, but then, without explanation, asked the press to withdraw the story as being premature. The report proceeds then to name the two employees and the reasons originally given for their suspension.

Price administrator Mike DiSalle said that his agency did not intend to remove price controls from beef and beef cattle and that new enforcement measures were under consideration. Pressure had been mounting from the meat industry and some farm groups for lifting the controls. Mr. DiSalle, in a speech the previous night, had accused a majority of the meat industry of fighting price controls "with non-compliance, misstatements, unethical conduct, and illegal and immoral operations".

In New York, some 300 dockworkers resumed handling of military cargo at Staten Island, braving catcalls and boos from wildcat strikers. Most of the port remained shut down by the strike.

In Statesville, N.C., a mother and her four small children died in a fire at their home and police were investigating the possibility of foul play, as parts of the skulls of all five victims were missing, either the result of explosion or injuries inflicted prior to the fire.

On the editorial page, "The Shame of the Senate" praises the President for his recess appointment of Ambassador Philip Jessup to become a member of the U.N. delegation, after the Senate Foreign Relations Committee had refused to report out the nomination with any recommendation and thus shelved it without a vote. Senators Alexander Smith of New Jersey and Guy Gillette of Iowa had voted against confirmation in the subcommittee on the basis that, in the case of Senator Smith, Mr. Jessup "symbolized" Administration policy toward China, and because, according to Senator Gillette, there was a lack of public confidence in Mr. Jessup. Both Senators, however, had expressed complete confidence in his ability and loyalty.

Late in the investigation, it had been revealed that the alternate delegate, Dr. Channing Tobias, had been affiliated with nine organizations which were considered Communist fronts, five more than those with which Mr. Jessup had been affiliated at one time, and yet, to avoid conflict with the NAACP, Senator Smith had voted to confirm Dr. Tobias, and the subcommittee had reported out approval of the appointment, which then passed unanimously in the full Senate.

The discrepancy, says the piece, showed the extent to which partisanship, fear and timidity had taken hold of the Senate, as charges were brandished against reputations, principally by Senator Joseph McCarthy.

The President, in contrast, it concludes, while possessed of many faults, had the courage of his convictions and had insisted on fair treatment of appointees, so had made the recess appointment of Mr. Jessup.

"Flirting with Disaster" tells of the local Jaycees finding numerous problems in school fire safety when they observed fire drills recently at the Charlotte schools. It advocates no effort being spared to provide adequate safety for schoolchildren in the community and so urges that the Jaycees' recommendations be adopted to expand the Fire Prevention Bureau to enable it to develop and supervise adequate safety precautions in the schools.

"An Absurd Proposal" finds that Councilman Basil Boyd, having already proposed that the taxicabs in the city be allowed to have the option of charging on the basis of a metered rate or a flat-rate, the latter prompting rental of cabs by the companies to the drivers that they might make a profit, now proposed that cab drivers pay the companies 7.5 cents per mile for the use of the vehicles, with the company then providing maintenance and upkeep, while the driver paid operating costs, including gas and oil. The piece finds the proposal absurd, worse than Mr. Boyd's previous proposal, and reiterates that the existing meter system was working well and so there was no reason to go back to the old flat-rate system.

"Comics and Crises" finds that since there was no way effectively to control world crises, it had found that turning to the comics section of the newspaper provided relief. It proceeds to describe the occurrences currently within various strips, including Li'l Abner, Kerry Drake, Terry and the Pirates, Rex Morgan, Little Orphan Annie, Dick Tracy, Pogo and Blondie, but concludes that the rest were too realistic.

A piece from the New York Times, titled "Traffic Toll", tells of it being a fact that by December, the millionth death caused by U.S. traffic accidents would inevitably occur, based on estimates of the National Safety Council. The prior August, traffic fatalities numbered 3,560, more than any previous month during the year and the largest August death toll since 1941, eleven percent higher than that of August, 1950. Traffic deaths occurring prior to September 1 had numbered 23,030, seven percent more than those in the same period of 1950. It suggests that these figures were due warning for motorists to exercise greater caution in operating their vehicles.

Drew Pearson describes the very secretive process by which the Department of Agriculture released its future crop analysis to the press. The secrecy stemmed from a leaked report in 1905 regarding the prospective cotton crop, out of which many speculators made huge profits, when opening and closing of Venetian blinds at the Department had clued outsiders to the contents of the report. Thus everyone was now locked in a room, including Secretary Charles Brannan and the press, the latter required to remain behind a white line until precisely 3:00 p.m., when the report was released at the word "go", stated by a Department representative.

General Eisenhower had proposed recruitment of military-age refugees from behind the Iron Curtain into a volunteer foreign legion in support of NATO, recruits from Russia, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and the Baltic and Balkan states. The British, who supported refugee committees of their own, opposed any large independent fighting force comprised of foreign refugees, in part because the proposed legion would be equipped, armed, and trained by the U.S. and because of fear that the fanatical hatred possessed by the refugees could not be controlled and might erupt into war as soon as arms were issued to them. Army chief of staff General J. Lawton Collins was also skeptical of the plan, saying that the Joint Chiefs had no faith in troops under refugee command, pointing out that refugees could volunteer for the U.S. Army. General Eisenhower had responded, however, that few refugees had enlisted, as they did not want to be integrated among strange American troops, but would nevertheless like to have their shot at Communists in control of their countries.

Meanwhile, a group of Senators had introduced a resolution proposing a Senate investigation of the refugee status in Western Europe, where they were incessantly questioned for weeks by U.S. counterintelligence, the CIA, and military intelligence before being turned loose to find a job in a weak German economy or forced to remain in refugee camps. The Senators who sponsored the investigation were Richard Nixon and William Knowland of California, Wallace Bennett of Utah, Styles Bridges of New Hampshire, Owen Brewster of Maine, Frank Carlson of Kansas, Robert Hendrickson of New Jersey, Irving Ives of New York, Mike Monroney of Oklahoma, Herbert O'Conor of Maryland, George Smathers of Florida and Alexander Wiley of Wisconsin.

The President's statement is reprinted regarding his rationale for the recess appointment of Ambassador-at-Large Philip Jessup to be a delegate to the U.N. After recapitulating the procedural stance in which the nomination wound up pigeonholed by the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee considering the confirmation, he reviews Ambassador Jessup's considerable qualifications and background for the position, including five previous confirmations for positions of great trust, three of which were as a delegate to the U.N. He had been praised by Warren Austin, lead U.S. delegate to the U.N., for his previous work in the delegation. He had been criticized for a position supposedly taken at a meeting in 1949 at which he was not even present, when the President rejected a proposal to terminate aid to Nationalist China. Even two of the three subcommittee members, Senators Smith and Gillette, who had voted against his confirmation, had gone to great pains to make it clear that he was loyal and possessed of great integrity.

The President concluded therefore that there was nothing in Mr. Jessup's record or qualifications which should prevent him from serving properly as a representative of the United States to the General Assembly of the U.N. and so he made the recess appointment, the President's Constitutional prerogative when Congress is adjourned.

Marquis Childs tells of the Congress having taken two important steps toward rebuilding the strength of the West, in appropriating 57 billion dollars for defense at home and another seven billion for military and economic aid in Europe and Asia. But doubt would remain for many in Western Europe as to whether this vast expansion of armaments would in fact translate to peace, an issue in the upcoming British election to occur the following day.

In the British campaign, Labor claimed that Winston Churchill's old-fashioned Tory approach to such trouble centers as Iran and Egypt would mean either big or little war. It was anticipated that the Liberals might join Labor on this foreign policy issue and perhaps sufficiently so to vote Labor back into power. The Liberals were comparable to the independent voters in the U.S. The way the Liberals voted might determine the outcome of the British election, just as the independent voters might do so in 1952 in America.

But Mr. Churchill could argue, based on his warning many times in the previous four years of a dangerous drift away from the prospect of any settlement of the differences between East and West, that he had sought a realistic path toward peace. He believed that it was necessary to negotiate directly with the Russians to avoid a cataclysmic third world war. Should the Conservatives win the election and Mr. Churchill again be installed as Prime Minister, it was unlikely he would be able to arrange such a Big Three meeting, as President Truman had repeatedly stated that he would not meet with Stalin except in Washington and would engage in negotiations only within the context of the U.N.

A letter writer from Blacksburg, S.C., thanks a previous letter writer for her praise of the printing of the daily "Evening Prayer" on the front pages of the News. She agrees that it provided joy and inspiration to many people and also expresses her appreciation.

A letter writer from Greenville, S.C., thinks that the recent editorial in the newspaper regarding smoking in the schools contained much common sense. She agrees that it was difficult to tell the younger generation what to do when parents, teachers, and preachers smoked, but also that the fact did not necessarily make the practice right.

She relates of having taken an artist to view a local production, during which he fidgeted the whole time because he was unable to smoke, could not enjoy the show at all.

She regards smoking as dulling perceptions, tantamount to slavery, and defilement of the "temple of God", which, when done, according to Paul, would be destroyed by God.

A letter writer also responds regarding the topic of smoking on school grounds in the city and wonders who was to blame when the child saw his parents smoking. She knew a child whose father was a drunkard and lived to see all of his three sons become heavy drinkers. She suggests that all parents had to answer to God for everything they failed to do to make their children better.

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