The Charlotte News

Tuesday, December 11, 1951

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports, via Robert B. Tuckman, that Communist truce negotiators withdrew a tentative offer to allow allied rotation of troops in Korea and, after accepting the U.N. demand that the prisoner-of-war question be tackled immediately, pressed for a flat release of all war prisoners after the signing of an armistice. The U.N. negotiators favored a regulated exchange of prisoners on a "fair and equitable" man-for-man basis. The withdrawn offer had been made along with agreement to two other U.N. demands, based on the contingency of U.N. agreement to behind-the-lines inspections during the armistice by neutral nations, rather than teams from each side, as the U.N. wanted. The offer had been withdrawn before an allied response to it, after the Communists claimed that a U.N. plane had bombed and strafed the security area surrounding their Kaesong headquarters. Neither side, however, appeared to desire to attach great importance to the incident.

A U.N. spokesman said that the U.N. held about 135,000 enemy prisoners and estimated that the Communists held 70,000 to 85,000 South Korean prisoners and 12,000 to 14,000 other U.N. prisoners, most of whom were Americans. The story remarks that the latter figures did not coincide with a U.N. report on atrocities by the Communists against prisoners of war.

In the air war, U.N. jets probably destroyed two enemy MIG-15s and damaged two others in two air battles over northwest Korea, involving 62 allied jets and 115 enemy MIGs, with all allied jets returning safely.

In the ground war, U.N. troops repulsed a probing attack by an enemy squad in a half-hour engagement on the eastern front while allied patrols on the central and western fronts reported only light enemy contact, with few allied casualties.

In Paris, the Big Four nations announced agreement this date on setting up a disarmament commission but remained at loggerheads on what type of arms treaty should be adopted between the differing proposals offered by the Soviet Union and the Big Three Western powers, as well as regarding how the commission should operate. The Big Three wanted the commission instructed to construct a step-by-step plan for arms reduction, beginning with a worldwide census of arms and a foolproof system of verification. The Russians demanded immediate and unconditional prohibition of atomic weapons and one-third reduction of all armament and armed forces. It was believed that the West had a sufficient majority of the General Assembly on board to vote for its plan, but to take advantage of that majority would have left the question of whether Russia would serve on a commission instructed to work out a plan on the basis of the Western proposal.

In a decision announced by Justice Harold Burton, the Supreme Court held, 7-0, that the Lorain (O.) Journal had violated the Sherman Anti-Trust Act by refusing to accept advertising from merchants who patronized a competing radio station. The decision upheld a lower Federal court ruling. Justices Tom Clark and Sherman Minton took no part in the decision.

Before the House Ways & Means subcommittee investigating the tax fraud scandals, Attorney General J. Howard McGrath testified, defending the propriety of a $5,000 commission received by former Assistant Attorney General Lamar Caudle, previously in charge of the tax division, on the sale of a $30,000 airplane by an individual who was an associate of two New York businessmen who were under indictment on charges of tax fraud. Mr. McGrath said that he had approved of the commission payment at the time when Mr. Caudle had asked him about it. He refused to pass judgment on Mr. Caudle, while saying that he held no brief for any indiscretions he might have committed. He said that the President had fired Mr. Caudle without giving a bill of particulars to Mr. McGrath and that he had not recommended his dismissal because he did not have "real cause" to suspect the integrity or honesty of Mr. Caudle at the time. An Assistant Attorney General testified that the FBI had reported certain unspecified "derogatory information" about Mr. Caudle to Attorney General Tom Clark in 1945 when Mr. Caudle was first hired as Assistant Attorney General in charge of the criminal division. The files showed that no investigation was done of Mr. Caudle at the time of his appointment by FDR, though, according to Mr. McGrath, such investigations were customary. At the time, Mr. Caudle had been the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina.

James Marlow reports on Mr. Caudle, saying that he liked to talk and that the previous day's testimony before the House Ways & Means subcommittee had proved no exception, as he gave long-winded explanations in most of his answers while being as "bright and sunny as a Salvation Army Santa Claus ringing his Christmas bell on a street corner". Once, he had paused in mid-answer and apologized to the committee after realizing that he had not been answering the question asked. In another instance, when the committee asked him if he had ever won a large bet at the racetrack which he had frequented, he not only answered affirmatively that he had once won $1,701 on a daily double but went into prolonged explanation of the time, place, kind of day it had been, who was sitting in front of him and behind him, and how he had sprinted down just at the last minute to place his $10 bet on a horse, Socko, about which he had heard rumors of it being a good bet. But when the committee asked him how he had heard those rumors, he immediately became vague and his face turned ashen in embarrassment. It was not clear whether it related to the "shakedown" testimony of the Chicago lawyer who claimed that gambler Frank Nathan had offered him expensive protection against "tax troubles" through Mr. Nathan's claimed "connections" in Washington, allegedly including Mr. Caudle.

IRB commissioner John Dunlap reported to Secretary of the Treasury John W. Snyder that the number of tax fraud cases turned over to the Justice Department for prosecution had increased two and a half times over those of the previous year during the third quarter, while the House subcommittee was investigating the scandals. There was also a sharp drop in the number of cases in which civil penalties were sought in lieu of criminal prosecutions. The report also indicated that 46 IRB employees had been fired and 22 resigned while under investigation, between the beginning of the year and the end of September. In all, at least 103 IRB employees had been terminated in the previous 11 months, 68 of whom had been fired.

The White House stated that it would be in "very bad taste" for the Rose Bowl Tournament of Roses Parade to have a float showing the President playing the piano and "burlesquing mink coats and deep freezes", a reference to two previous Administration influence-peddling scandals. The idea for the float had been put forward by the Jaycees of Temple City, California, the president of which had telegraphed the White House for the President's reaction.

Mrs. Herman Talmadge, wife of the Georgia Governor, had started her own mink ranch in Lovejoy, Ga., and is shown in a photograph inspecting one of her animals.

She would not have to wear a cloth coat. The caption does not indicate, however, whether they only drove a 1950 Oldsmobile.

In Ellicott City, Md., State police and local officers were moving in at daybreak on a nearby wooded area where they believed a dangerous cop-hater was hiding after abandoning his stolen car. The suspect was wanted on a first-degree murder warrant in the slaying of a Cleveland police officer the previous Saturday and was known to be heavily armed and dangerous. The State police and local officers had been fired upon by him as he hid in a stolen car parked along the side of the road adjacent to the wooded area which they were now searching. The abandoned car contained a shotgun, deer rifle and 200 rounds of ammunition. The Cleveland officer had been killed when he apparently went to a room the suspect rented as a storage drop for his burglary loot, to check on his driver's license after seeing a 1950 car, which police indicated the suspect had stolen in San Francisco, in front of the rooming house. Less than a month earlier, police said the suspect and an accomplice had held up a Seattle policeman, taking $60 and his revolver, which police believed was used in the killing of the Cleveland officer.

In Summerville, S.C., two mothers and seven children burned to death in a pre-dawn fire which destroyed their five-room frame home. Only the children's grandparents managed to escape the fire. The origin of the fire had not been determined.

In Asheville, three North Carolina businessmen were found guilty in Federal court of operating a tax refund racket and were fined a total of $6,000. Each was sentenced to two years in prison, suspended on condition of payment of the fines. Their racket had been to purchase the estimated refund of taxpayers together with a power of attorney to collect the refund check from the Government, and also to increase the number of exemptions of clients so that they could obtain larger refund checks.

In Beverly Hills, actor Franchot Tone pleaded guilty to a charge of battery for allegedly spitting on columnist Florabel Muir. Mr. Tone publicly apologized before the courtroom to Ms. Muir and was provided a suspended 45-day jail sentence and placed on probation for one year, with a fine of $400.

On the editorial page, "Candidates for the Hall of Shame" nominates its candidates for the most shame-worthy persons in the news during the year 1951. E. Merl Young headed the list for his wife's mink coat scandal, followed by former IRB collector James Finnegan, dope peddler Waxey Gordon, bookie Harry Gross, Max Siskind and his associate William Boyle, Maxwell Shapiro, Lamar Caudle, Sam Mussman, and a host of others, including the gambling kingpins, basketball fixers and underworld figures, too numerous to list without quoting the entire piece.

The piece concludes that the "fast-buck guys", numerous though they were, remained the exception in society, but would exist and prosper as long as public apathy permitted.

"A Simple Rule of Conduct" tells of IRB commissioner John Dunlap having set forth a rule for IRB employees which, it ventures, could be followed profitably by all government agencies in their relations with private citizens. He had stated in U.S. News & World Report that all Bureau employees were strictly prohibited from accepting gifts or favors, even including acceptance of lunch from a taxpayer or their attorneys, which he deemed not a good practice.

The piece thinks that if everyone in government followed this simple rule, they would remain free from suspicion and prevent their agencies from becoming subservient to pressure and influence.

"A Change in Editorship" tells of Santford Martin stepping down as editor of the Winston-Salem Journal after 40 years in the position and 24 years as editor of the associated afternoon Twin City Sentinel. He would serve only as editor of the Sunday Journal-Sentinel after February 1. Taking over in his stead at the Journal would be Reed Sarratt, formerly of The News and more recently, associate editor of the Baltimore Evening Sun. Mr. Sarratt would supervise a staff of four editorial writers.

It indicates that in the past, editors, in addition to writing editorials, were also expected to write news stories, read proofs, make speeches, take part in civic matters, and do odd jobs. The result had been that many editorials, while prolix, had little of substance to say. Now, the trend at newspapers was toward specialization, with editors supervising a staff of writers while others at the newspaper usually performed the other functions. Readers were better educated and informed than they had been 40 years earlier and demanded therefore a more substantive editorial column than in the past. Mr. Martin, for instance, had served as the secretary to Governor T. W. Bickett, between 1917 and 1921, while he continued his editorial duties for the Journal.

It praises the long service of Mr. Martin and also pays its devoirs to Mr. Sarratt—who would remain at the Journal until 1960, when he became executive director of the Southern Education Reporting Service in Nashville, which compiled and disseminated information on school desegregation efforts.

"Kerr Craige Ramsay" laments the sudden death by heart attack at age 42 of the State Speaker of the House and a potential candidate for governor in 1956. It finds that he had been a warm and friendly man, with ability and character, bringing high ideals and ethics to government. While there were many men with such high standards, few were willing to undertake the heavy burden of public service, leaving open the way for demagogues, fools and influence peddlers to move into government. It finds that the state could ill afford to lose such a person as Mr. Ramsay at such a time.

A piece from the Congressional Quarterly describes the coalition of Southern Democrats and Republicans who had often joined during 1951 to rebuff the President's domestic policy. In one out of every six roll call votes, when majorities of both parties voted the same way, the result had been adverse to the Administration. Only one of those rebuffs came in foreign policy. The President and his Congressional supporters had suffered 21 defeats in 128 bipartisan roll calls, where majorities of both parties voted the same way. It provides the details.

Drew Pearson finds that the House Ways & Means subcommittee investigating the tax scandal was doing a superb job except when it came to investigating its own chairman, Congressman Cecil King of California for alleged exertion of influence in some tax cases in California. He indicates that his research staff had found some documents which the subcommittee had overlooked, which indicated that Mr. King had brought pressure on the Justice Department in favor of an old friend facing tax investigation, and also fought to maintain a loophole in the tax laws at the behest of this old friend. He provides the details.

Many Republican leaders were admitting privately that there could be a Democratic victory in 1952, notwithstanding the tax scandals involving the Administration, if the Republicans became overconfident. They could lose New York and Pennsylvania, won by Governor Dewey in 1948 by relatively small margins, which could be overcome by a Democrat consolidating the vote which had gone in 1948 to Henry Wallace, who had run on the Progressive Party ticket. California had voted for the President in 1948, despite its Governor, Earl Warren, having been the vice-presidential nominee on the Republican ticket. The total vote of those three largest states represented about a fifth of the population, which, with the solid South and a few other states, would enable the Democrats to win.

He again reminds readers to send in their postcards to select a Republican candidate for the presidency, the results of the poll to be sent to the RNC as a way of expressing the people's choice for the nomination in lieu of more than a handful of presidential preference primaries, with a similar poll to follow for the Democrats.

But, is not this poll a bit skewed on the basis that after January 1, the postcard rate would double to two cents, thus, presumably, unless Democrats were given an opportunity to vote prior to that time, forcing Democrats to put in their two cents worth, whereas Republicans were only being asked a penny for their thoughts? It's not right. There should be an investigation. Where is that nice man, Mr. Noxon, Narson, whatever? He can head the committee.

Stewart Alsop, in Tehran, tells of observers in Iran suggesting that it would be lucky if the country were not in Soviet hands within a year. He adds that no amount of luck would prevent that occurrence if American policy continued to consist of a "blend of wishful thinking and inertia."

The realities were that the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. was not going to regain its former position in the country, even if a settlement might be reached with Britain to get the oil flowing again. But such a settlement would not be possible as long as aging Premier Mohammed Mossadegh remained in power. And the Americans and British lacked the ability to effect his displacement.

British support for a new leader, once a sine qua non, was now virtually the kiss of death. The new U.S. Ambassador, Loy Henderson, had adopted a stance of aloofness from Premier Mossadegh, contrary to the approach of the prior Ambassador who had been cozy with him. But an effort by the U.S. to unseat the Premier would only strengthen his hand.

The U.S., however, was not powerless in the situation. For any Iranian Government in power in the near future would require U.S. aid of some sort to escape financial disintegration, a point on which both the British and U.S. embassies were in agreement. They were also agreed that financial collapse would come within the ensuing three months, at which point the Communist underground would have its opportunity to gain power. But Premier Mossadegh was reliant on that prospect to obtain the American aid to prevent such a Communist takeover.

Premier Mossadegh would eventually be overthrown with the help of the CIA in August, 1953, during the Eisenhower Administration.

Robert C. Ruark finds suspicious the resignation of IRB counsel Charles Oliphant shortly after being accused in hearsay testimony before the House Ways & Means subcommittee of supplying the "connections" in the "shakedown" scheme which the former Al Capone attorney from Chicago claimed gambler Frank Nathan had told him would be, for a $500,000 fee, a means of preventing "tax problems" through use of his supposed "connections" in Washington. Mr. Ruark posits that if Mr. Oliphant had been wholly innocent of the claims, then there was no reason for his resignation. He also wonders why the President, known for standing by his friends, would so readily accept the resignation of Mr. Oliphant, after having fired Lamar Caudle as head of the Justice Department's tax division.

He also wonders, if the President was so honest as he appeared to be, how he could not know that there was such graft and corruption ongoing within his Administration, unless he was stupid.

He thinks the President was not "clean-handed" in the abrupt firing of General MacArthur or in the continued support of his embarrassing cronies, such as General Harry Vaughan, his military aide. He also finds suspicious the sudden appointment of former Mayor of New York William O'Dwyer, in the midst of a police scandal which had involved his time as District Attorney and Mayor, to become Ambassador to Mexico.

He concludes that as a voter thinking this way, he had to have become "a little outraged".

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