The Charlotte News
Monday, November 12, 1951
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page
reports, via Robert Tuckman, that the U.N. ceasefire negotiators in
Korea had accused the Communist negotiators of insisting on a phony
ceasefire line for the purpose of stalling the talks, that the effort
to establish a line based on current battle lines and not subject to
alteration except by mutual agreement meant that negotiation on the
remaining issues could drag on indefinitely under a de facto
ceasefire. Maj. General Henry Hodes, head of the two-man U.N. subcommittee, paraphrased from Hamlet in reference to the Communist position, said that there was "method
In ground action, U.N. troops, encountering light to moderate resistance, seized two hill positions southwest of Kumsong, pushing back the enemy three-quarters of a mile. Low overcast clouds hampered aerial strikes.
In Paris, at the U.N. General Assembly meeting, British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden, adopting a mild tone, called on the Russians to put aside major world issues temporarily and seek a gradual solution to the Cold War. He urged the Soviets to accept the proposal by the Big Three for a census of arms and inspections by non-nationals, in an effort ultimately to reduce armaments, and urged Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Vishinski to reconsider his abrupt rejection of the plan. He urged that the war in Korea be ended, that Germany be reunited through free democratic elections, that a treaty be adopted ending the occupation of Austria by France, Britain, the Soviet Union and the U.S., and that Italy be admitted to the U.N. He implied that the atmosphere was not yet ripe for a Big Three meeting of the heads of state, as urged the prior week by French President Vincent Auriol.
In London, a qualified British Government official stated that Prime Minister Churchill was willing to go to Russia alone to see Premier Stalin if President Truman rejected the idea of a Big Three meeting. The official said that the desired meeting would be high on the agenda of subjects to be discussed by Mr. Churchill when he visited the U.S. with Mr. Eden in January.
The agreement by the President, vacationing in Key West, to meet with Mr. Churchill had prompted reports that a new loan to Britain was in the offing.
Two newspapers in Rome had printed stories claiming that the Russians had jailed the British atomic scientist Bruno Pontecorvo, missing since October, 1950, on the belief that he might have been trying to obtain Soviet atomic secrets for the Americans. Previously, it had been believed that he had defected to Russia.
In response to a letter written by a retired Army captain asking the President if the captain's criticism of the Administration had prevented his dead son from receiving the Congressional Medal of Honor, the President's press secretary Joseph Short said that the President would not tolerate any tampering with the procedures which were set up for the award and that the President did not know the father or about any of his criticism of the Administration.
In Buenos Aires, Argentine voters had returned El Presidente Juan Peron to office for another six-year term after a record-breaking turnout at the polls, with El Presidente receiving nearly twice the vote of his principal opponent. El Presidente was popular.
In Rangoon, a three-judge Burmese court acquitted Dr. Gordon Seagrave of aiding a rebel leader and set aside his previous conviction by a high court. He had previously been freed from jail after an appellate court commuted his sentence to seven months. He had sought reversal of the treason conviction so that he could return to his hospital work among the tribesmen of North Burma.
In Hot Springs, Ark., Southern governors turned to consideration of civil rights this date as some present stiffened their opposition to any effort to beat the President in the 1952 election. There was outspoken resistance to a states' rights revolt among Democrats, a surprise development at the conference, where pro-Truman forces dominated the first day. House Speaker Sam Rayburn was scheduled to address the conference this night and was reported ready to call for party loyalty from all Southern Democrats, regardless of the nominee. Governor Fielding Wright of Mississippi, the Dixiecrat vice-presidential nominee in 1948, first brought up the civil rights issue as chairman of the conference, stating that states' rights was a concept in which the South believed and took pride in defending, that the people of Mississippi were determined that segregation would not be ended.
In Pontiac, Michigan, a 15-year old boy, having just lost both of his parents in a traffic accident on Saturday, was now the eldest of 11 orphaned children. The accident occurred when a car filled with beer-drinking teenagers crashed head-on into the couple's car, resulting not only in the parents' deaths but also that of four of the five teenagers in the other car. The family had just moved into a nine-room home six weeks earlier, their first which could easily accommodate all of the children. Now there was discussion of arranging their adoption.
In Yonkers, N.Y., residents threatened to seek a pay reduction for their police force if the officers continued handing out traffic tickets at the current pace, as the tickets had suddenly increased after voters had rejected a $500 per year pay increase for the patrolmen in the previous Tuesday election. While on the day before the election, only 73 tickets had been issued, during the two days after the election, the number had increased to 1,934. Officials were investigating the reasons for the sudden increase.
Another Gallup poll appears, this one testing popularity of various prospective GOP presidential candidates among 2,774 Republican county chairmen across the country, finding that Senator Taft was the overwhelming favorite, with General Eisenhower polling about 37 percent of the Senator's favorable ballots, followed by Harold Stassen, General MacArthur, Earl Warren, and several others. Senator Taft led in all sections of the country, but was particularly strong in the Midwest and Far West. General Eisenhower ran second in all sections, with greatest strength in New England and the Middle Atlantic states. In the twelve states outside the South which furnished more than half of the Republican delegates, the county leaders even more strongly favored Senator Taft.
In a Gallup poll the previous week, a general population of respondents had stated their preference for General Eisenhower over all competing Republican and Democratic candidates.
On the editorial page, "Middle East Muddle" remarks on the proposal made by the U.S., Britain, France and Turkey on Saturday to create the Middle East Command to provide mutual security to the region along with social and economic advancement.
But, it finds, the countries of the Middle East were not interested in defense, rather in land, food and clothes, as shown by a recent U.N. report on the region which had stated that in most of the area, a large proportion of the cultivated land was owned by large landowners, generally absent. A land reform bill had been introduced in the Syrian parliament, but the landholders who dominated the body had boycotted it, leaving the question without a sufficient quorum for consideration.
Stewart Alsop, currently in Cairo, had reported that the Egyptians wanted to boot out the British and the aristocratic Pashas, the native landholders under whose rule the masses had long lived in semi-serfdom. He reported that Communism was not a major factor, but that both Communists and non-Communists alike wanted land reform and were gaining strength. Mr. Alsop believed that the preferred course was to provide the moderate and rational Egyptians a sense of participation and self-respect. Instead, the Western powers were offering defense against an aggressor of whom Middle Easterners had scarcely heard and about whom they did not care.
The President, in his address of the previous Wednesday, had suggested that if armaments could be reduced, perhaps one day the country might get on with its desired course of combating want and human misery.
The piece believes that the emphasis implicit in that approach was wrong, that the war against human misery could not wait for reduction of armaments, and that allocating a couple of million dollars to such a program in the Middle East and elsewhere could easily be accomplished by deducting it from the billions devoted to defense and do far more good in the global war than investing in more superbombers and supercarriers.
"June, 1950" tells of the Saturday Evening Post's Washington editor, Beverly Smith, having written in the magazine an article which helped to restore events of that fateful month leading up to the Korean War to their proper perspective. He told of former Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson having recalled that Secretary of State Acheson had initially opposed the protection of Formosa until, after "violent discussion", Mr. Johnson convinced him to reverse his position. Mr. Smith had found that no one else present at the meeting could recall any such violent discussion and did recall that Mr. Acheson had been the one who originally proposed sending the Seventh Fleet north from the Philippines to protect Formosa at the outbreak of the war.
Mr. Smith also reminded that no one, including General MacArthur, had believed at the time that the Communists had a strong position in Korea. The President had been criticized for calling the war a "police action", but Mr. Smith had clarified that he only had replied affirmatively to a reporter's question asking whether it was a "police action", right after the fighting began on June 25. Later that week, fourteen Congressional leaders had been called in to participate in the discussions with the President and no one then had questioned the propriety of his decisions, the general attitude being earnestly supportive. When the President's statement on using the Navy and Air Force in the campaign was read to the House, the members had risen to their feet and cheered, while in the Senate, Republicans as well as Democrats praised the President's leadership and appealed for united, nonpartisan support.
Only two Senators of the far right, James Kem of Missouri and Arthur Watkins of Utah, and one Representative, since-defeated Vito Marcantonio of New York, had questioned the President's right to send U.S. forces without formal approval of Congress
The piece suggests that it was well to keep these facts in mind moving forward into the election year, when undoubtedly conflicting statements would be bandied about in opposition to the President.
"The Split, Spun Taxpayer" tells of business booming for tax lawyers after passage of the tax bill, seeking to find loopholes for their clients in big business. Business Week had revealed that the tax lawyers had found an obscure provision of the new law affecting the "split-up", the "split-off" and the "spin-off". It proceeds to define each type of transaction, with the goal of avoiding heavy taxation on corporate profits. The article had suggested that if one did not get "smart legal advice", then taking advantage of the split-up, the split-off, or the spin-off might be lost.
The piece wonders: "How about those of us who can't afford the smart boys? Guess we'll spin in, down and out."
"'Middlebrow' Musician" regards the death of Sigmund Romberg, composer of "The Desert Song", "The Student Prince", "Blossom Time", "Maytime" and dozens of other musicals which had long been appreciated. To Mr. Romberg, jazz was lowbrow, symphony, highbrow, while he wrote "middlebrow". He was a first-generation American, originally from Hungary, immigrating via Vienna at age 21 and obtaining his start as a pianist in a New York café. It regards "One Alone" from "The Desert Song" and "Deep in My Heart" from "The Student Prince" as being chief among the many songs for which he would be remembered.
Candidly, it is unfortunate that, deep in our hearts, so soon after the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings, the ones which stick out the most...
Drew Pearson tells of the Truman Administration, despite the President having campaigned in 1948 on the basis of protecting the country against big business, having awarded the cheap Government water power from Hungry Horse Dam in Montana to the Anaconda Copper Company, despite vigorous protest by the Justice Department for it violating the principles of the Sherman Antitrust Act. That was so, despite the company having twice been convicted of war frauds during World War II for selling defective copper wire to the armed forces, which, had it not been discovered, could have resulted in loss of American troops in battle. Ironically, the Harvey Machine Company of Los Angeles had been about to receive an RFC loan to help put it in the aluminum business in Montana when its wartime record of producing defective Navy shells was questioned and the loan was held up. Mr. Pearson suggests that it had been appropriate to do so but that the record of that company was "saintlike" compared to that of Anaconda, the details of which he proceeds to provide.
Marquis Childs, in Sacramento, tells of organization Republicans in California, for the most part, seeking to exclude popular Governor Earl Warren, overwhelmingly re-elected to a third term in 1950, from the 1952 presidential picture. He was considered a compromise candidate between opposing factions within the party should there be a deadlock at the convention. Governor Warren, however, had stepped on important toes in pursuing a constructive and progressive program, notably those of the oil interests for his backing of a gas tax to pay for much-needed improvements in the highway system.
The consequence of this move was a smear campaign organized by an organization which called itself Partisan Republicans of California, which had mailed out a circular contending that Communists and New Dealers were expected to try to impose on the Republican Party Governor Warren, Harold Stassen, and General Eisenhower. It devoted a section to each of the three prospects, referring to Governor Warren as a "New Deal wolf in sheep's clothing". The principal financing for the attack appeared to be coming from the oil interests and Gerald L. K. Smith, the fascist who had established headquarters in Los Angeles. The Council of Republican Women, according to information received by the Governor's office, had recently split on what was, in essence, a pro-Smith and an anti-Smith line.
Robert C. Ruark tells of television, ever since the Kefauver committee hearings on organized crime and gambling during the latter part of 1950 and into the spring of 1951, having become a major factor in determining the nation's political future. For instance, Rudy Halley, counsel to the committee, had just come from out of nowhere to win the position of president of the New York City Council, placing him second in command to the Mayor, and likely therefore to become an eventual candidate for mayor and possibly governor. Television had made him a star. He conducted his campaign largely via television, even appearing as narrator on the television program, "Crime Syndicated".
Mr. Ruark finds that somebody with the genial charm of General Eisenhower might win election over somebody better qualified but not so telegenic. This type of appeal was nothing new in politics, as both FDR and Winston Churchill had won over audiences via radio during the war with their ability to turn phrases spoken with a flair for dramatics.
"We really have the bull by
the tail in this television assist to campaigning. It augurs an
almost impossible discipline on the voter, who must remember that he
is not voting for Dagmar or Captain Video
Calling all Trumpies: be on the
lookout for a lost adult mind which you apparently abandoned
A letter writer from Huntersville
responds to the letter of Friday by A. W. Black and his attack on
hillbilly music being played over the radio. The writer thinks that
he was referring to Fred Kirby
Now that's not fair. Mr. Black's letters had provided great entertainment over the period of years prior to his long writing hiatus, starting three years earlier. You must not have been around then to appreciate the entertainment value of his many letters. Take it from us, that, not unlike those nuts today out in Austin, Texas, Mr. Black could keep you in stitches. He was, first and foremost, a subtle comedian, who was simply misunderstood and taken too seriously by some.
By the way, while on the subject of the nuts in Texas, it appears that YouTube is not keeping its own determined policy to ban the nuts from its platform, as several users are daily posting the programs of the nuts and complaints about the practice go unheeded and ignored. What gives? Either state publicly that you do not intend to enforce your ban any longer, lift the ban, or strictly enforce it. But don't go about stating publicly that you intend to ban the nuts, and then wink and nod in private and do nothing when others are posting their videos to your platform with impunity. Nothing could be more hypocritical. YouTube appears to want it both ways, the bastardized traffic from the nuts' videos, while stating publicly that they deplore the hate and defamation being expressed therein and so ban them. The hate and defamation in those videos continues to stream daily, defamation being the watchword of the nuts in Texas, even if obviously stated as comedians as no one could be that nuts in reality.
A letter writer tells of the Republican Party having become associated with the carpetbaggers who came into the South after the Civil War during Reconstruction and organized the black vote, and that despite the fact that many had settled down in the region and become good citizens, the damage had been done, such that the Republican Party remained weak. He thinks Democratic appeal to blacks through such proposed programs as the Fair Employment Practices Committee was just as exploitative as the promise during Reconstruction by the Republicans of "40 acres and a mule", neither of which could actually be brought to fruition. He believes that black citizens had the right to equal protection of the laws, to participate in free enterprise, vote and participate in the democracy as any American citizen. But then he questions why that was not good enough for the black citizen, wonders what they wanted. He suggests that blacks should vote intelligently and patriotically and that in so doing they would be respected and continue to make progress.
He says that he was once a Republican candidate for the State Senate and had opposed FEPC and lost several hundred normally Republican votes by his stand, but would do it again, as he believed FEPC would provide special privileges for blacks.
"So it is."
That Republican lady down 'ere in
Mississippi running in the Senate runoff race knows what her
electorate's all about, don't she? Yessir, she ain't gonna miss a
public lynching, goin' down 'ere. Yessir, that's the stuff, girl.
Let's hear more of that talk. That's good. Reminds of the good ol'
days of Ross Barnett. That's what we need, is a good public lynchin'.
That 'll put 'em in their places, won't it? Vote for her. She's good.
She knows how to wind the clock back and make us all feel young
again
A letter from the chairman of the joint committee for U.N. Week thanks the newspaper for helping to make the week a success in Charlotte.
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