The Charlotte News
Monday, October 29, 1951
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that no progress had been made in the Korean ceasefire negotiations at Panmunjom, as there remained disagreement on the location of the buffer zone. The two sides would again meet the next day.
In ground fighting, screaming Chinese troops charged an allied-held hill southeast of Kumsong but failed to regain the positions which U.N. forces had taken three days earlier. According to an allied spokesman, Kumsong had been neutralized but was not yet occupied because of heavy enemy gun emplacements behind the town. On the western front, U.N. forces moved forward as much as 1,200 yards. In the eastern sector, allied forces seized a hill and gained up to 1,000 yards after turning back three separate attacks during the night.
In the air war, between 80 and 90 enemy jets were sighted over northwest Korea but had not been aggressive and avoided engaging allied planes, the first time in nine days the enemy had refused to fight. Enemy ground fire, however, had shot down two allied planes and there was no chance that the pilots had survived. The prior day, enemy and allied jets battled for the eighth consecutive day, and one enemy jet was shot down and another destroyed in three battles involving 64 U.S. Sabre jets and 160 enemy jets.
Visiting Korea, Army chief of staff General J. Lawton Collins said that the allied forces would have to stay in Korea for some time if a ceasefire was not arranged. He also said that it would not be practical to withdraw allied troops immediately in the event an armistice was reached, as the South Korean Army would need the help of the allies for some time to come.
In Tokyo, Anna Rosenberg, Assistant Secretary of Defense in charge of manpower, told a news conference that 12,000 to 15,000 American combat troops would be sent home at the end of the following month under a new point-rotation formula, provided in the piece.
In Egypt, a British military spokesman said that the previous night an Egyptian woman was killed and her male companion wounded by British troops when they fired on their automobile as the couple tried to crash through a British roadblock in the Suez Canal zone. An Egyptian officer immediately made an official protest.
Meanwhile, Egypt, through its State Council, had the previous day approved general mobilization of manpower and drafting of all Egyptians between 18 and 50 in case of war or threat of war.
In Jakarta, Indonesian Premier Soekiman told Parliament this date that the August discovery of a gigantic left-wing plot against the lives of Indonesia's top officials, from President Soekarno down, had resulted in the arrest of 15,000 persons. He said that several members of Parliament and a number of Government officials had been among the plotters. Unofficial reports published the previous summer had said that the left-wing movements in Indonesia were receiving aid from Communist China.
Members of Congress predicted a hot debate in the following year regarding the new National Security Training Commission's blueprint for universal military training, which envisioned eventual training of 800,000 youths annually at a potential cost of more than two billion dollars per year.
In Vatican City, Pope Pius XII spoke at length on the subject of birth control and warned Catholics against possible misuse of the so-called "rhythm theory" of marital relations. He generally warned against birth control as being contrary to the objective of marriage, "procreation of new life and its education".
In New York, a threatened showdown in the waterfront strike had failed to materialize this date, while the docks remained closed in the face of the wildcat pickets. There was no sign of non-strikers seeking to cross the picket lines.
In Lake Charles, La., the arraignment of five journalists on criminal charges that they defamed 16 public officials and three admitted gamblers during an anti-gambling crusade was postponed because the journalists had appealed to the State Supreme Court for a determination whether the special judge assigned to the case could properly hear it and whether an assistant Attorney General could act as prosecutor because the District Attorney had recused himself as one of the persons defamed in the case, the defense contending that a local attorney should have been appointed as special prosecutor.
Princess Elizabeth and her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, prepared to bid farewell to Canada and head toward the U.S. They were scheduled to arrive in Washington on Wednesday for a two-day visit with the President and Mrs. Truman.
In Rochester, N.Y., a woman saw a small gray bird fly into the yawning mouth of her four-year old son, following which a doctor treated him after the bird pecked him twice before departing. The piece suggests that a bird in the hand was more comfortable than one in the mouth.
On the editorial page, "A Worthwhile Project" finds appropriate Duke University's Consensus Project, directed by Dr. Cornell Hart, a sociology professor, intended to analyze all of the evidence available from Senator Joseph McCarthy and the State Department, including all material available from newspaper editors and columnists and other public officials, to determine the truth or falsity of the claims of Senator McCarthy with respect to alleged Communists within the State Department.
It praises the effort, as it would be the first objective study of the phenomenon, casting aside emotionalism on both sides of the issue. The best way to put to rest McCarthyism, it offers, was not through further McCarthyism but rather by a careful, reasoned study to determine the truth of the matter. It says that it would await the results of the Project with great anticipation.
"Restitution Does Not Amend Fraud" finds that the City Treasurer, in determining, because of full restitution, not to prosecute a man who had flattened pennies for use in the parking meters instead of nickels and consequently had cheated the City out of $8.50, had been unduly forgiving. The crime, it suggests, was against the State and deserved something more than the mere opportunity to make up the difference.
"The South Needs Two Parties" agrees to an extent with the Charleston News & Courier and John Temple Graves, the latter being the exponent of ultra-conservative Southern politics and the former likewise being a conservative newspaper, that the South needed to determine what it would do in the event that either the President or his counterpart were nominated by the Democrats on a platform similar to that of 1948. But it departs from them on the notion of founding a third party, led by someone such as Senator Harry F. Byrd of Virginia.
It suggests that, instead, a two-party system in the South, with a healthy Republican Party, would mean that the region would no longer be taken for granted by the Democrats and thus would be given more input to party policy.
"The Product of Apathy" provides the figures for automobile accidents during the month of August in North Carolina, reaching an all-time high of 3,404, an increase of 38 percent over August, 1950, with the death toll at 93, an increase of 19 percent over the same month the prior year. The death toll in 1951 through August was at 650, compared to 580 for the first eight months of the previous year.
It notes that the 1951 General Assembly, despite the special highway commission appointed by the Governor recommending tightening of traffic laws and improved enforcement, remained apathetic, along with the public. It urges a change, lest the figures cited would grow only worse in time.
A piece from the Atlanta Constitution, titled "Schools or Filling Stations?" urges a cancellation of various private construction projects for commercial purposes rather than short-changing the construction of public schools because of the necessity to devote a large percentage of steel to the defense effort. Many had complained that automobile production was not being curtailed, but the automobile industry used sheet steel, whereas construction steel, not interchangeable with the sheet steel, was necessary for the construction of schools. It concludes that while business expansion was important, it was more important to have an educated citizenry into the future and priorities therefore needed to be set.
Drew Pearson provides a rundown of the various members of Congress taking junkets during the recess. More than two dozen members were conducting "surveys" of South America during November and December, while others went to Europe, the Middle East and elsewhere around the globe. He provides details.
Notably, neither Senator Richard Nixon nor Congressman John F. Kennedy were on his list. Congressman Kennedy was, along with his brother, Robert, and his sister, Pat, touring India, Japan, and other areas of the Far East. Whether this trip was a "junket", that is a trip at taxpayer expense, or was paid for out of their own pockets is not known. More than likely it was the latter, as Mr. Pearson otherwise would have included Congressman Kennedy's name.
Joseph Alsop tells of the professional politicians of the Democratic Party being nervous because it appeared that Secretary of State Acheson was not planning to resign his post, as had been contemplated earlier in the year. It had been conventionally believed that he would be replaced by Chief Justice Fred Vinson, who would then become the 1952 Democratic nominee after the President stepped aside. Several months earlier, the President had even said that if he did not run, he would prefer Chief Justice Vinson as the nominee. But the President had remained mum on the issue recently.
Democrats believed that Chief Justice Vinson could beat anyone on the Republican side except General Eisenhower. The Chief Justice, however, had signaled to his old political friends that he would not go from the bench directly into party politics and no post reasonably attractive to him appeared available other than Secretary of State.
Those close to Mr. Acheson were convinced that he had no intention of resigning. Mr. Alsop speculates that if, however, a truce were completed in Korea and Mr. Acheson returned from his present trip to Paris and Rome in a position to claim successes, he might decide to retire gracefully.
Mr. Acheson would remain as Secretary of State through the end of the term and Chief Justice Vinson would remain in his position until his death in September, 1953. The reasoning prompts speculation on who the President might have chosen to replace Chief Justice Vinson had he resigned. Mr. Alsop offers no clue. Perhaps, either Justice Hugo Black, Justice William O. Douglas or Justice Robert Jackson might have gotten the nod, enabling the President effectively to obtain two appointments for one resignation. In that event, of course, Governor Earl Warren would not have become Chief in 1953. Previous speculation on the matter had suggested that Attorney General J. Howard McGrath would be appointed to fill any new vacancy on the Court, though perhaps not as Chief.
Robert C, Ruark again complains of the military call-up of men who had served in World War II instead of drawing on the pool of college students. He finds the practice wholly unacceptable, especially as such persons as a Davis Cup tennis player and Glenn Davis, who had played football for Army during the war and now played professional football, were being exempted from service. He says that he had no personal stake in the matter as he had been disabled by an injury incurred during his Navy service during the war.
"We been there, bud. Let somebody else go now, until the situation gets desperate enough to demand maximum effort from all hands."
A letter writer complains that the fall television football schedule for college games had two open dates locally, November 10 and 24, because of the Davidson versus North Carolina State game and the UNC versus Duke game, respectively. He believes that ticket sales for those games would not be harmed by the broadcast locally of games otherwise broadcast nationally. He urges owners of television sets to pass on their feelings to WBTV, Jefferson Standard Broadcasting Company, owner of that station, or to Westinghouse, sponsor of the weekly games.
A letter writer from McBee, S.C., tells Protestants that they need not fear the Catholic Church, of late the object of criticism because of the implicit sovereign recognition of the Vatican by the President's now-withdrawn appointment of General Mark Clark to become Ambassador to the Vatican. He says that without the Catholic Church, there would be no Protestant religion in the country and there would be no country in which to practice religion. He explains his argument, based on Catholic explorers who had discovered America and other Catholics who had been instrumental in the development of the country.
But should not Protestants be a little worried about over-population of the planet, in light of Pope Pius XII's statements remonstrating against all forms of birth control as contrary to the purpose of marriage?
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