The Charlotte News

Friday, February 23, 1951

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports, via Olen Clements, that two tank-led American forces had punched swiftly up the mountainous spine of central Korea and occupied freshly vacated enemy foxholes overlooking Hoengsong. American forces were within a mile and a half of the burned-out enemy stronghold after advancing four miles, pulling back slightly to dig in for the night.

The allied offensive had moved swiftly along the whole of the 60-mile front, 35 miles from the 38th parallel, without significant opposition, save isolated fight-and-run enemy encounters in certain locations. On the eastern flank, American forces captured Pyongchang without a fight and pushed four miles beyond the town, 25 miles southeast of Hoengsong. On the far western front, an artillery duel took place across the Han River near Seoul and two enemy patrols seeking to cross the river were repulsed.

The aim of the newly initiated "Operation Killer" was to kill, injure or capture as many of the enemy as possible.

The three-person U.N. Good Offices Committee had reportedly made its first approach to Peiping through Swedish Government contacts to try to get China to reconsider peace terms in Korea.

Correspondent Stanley Rich reports that Communist China had admitted that the underground had killed thousands of Communist militiamen and that open defiance was spreading, causing the Government to broaden the grounds for imposition of the death penalty. The move was an attempt to take some of the heat off local governments, with which dissatisfaction was widespread. Peasant opposition to land reform was increasing rapidly, employing armed defiance.

Senate Democrats decided to bring up for Senate action a bill permitting the draft of 18-year olds, previously approved in committee.

Senator Richard Russell of Georgia, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said that he would support Senator Tom Connally, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, in a resolution to endorse in advance the President's commitment to sending troops for defense of NATO. He said that he wanted some changes in the resolution but believed that he and Senator Connally could ultimately reach agreement. The two committees were holding joint hearings on the resolution sponsored by Senator Kenneth Wherry to express the sense of the Senate against sending such troops without prior establishment of a Congressional policy on the matter. The Connally resolution proposed that success of the defense effort required assignment of troops to NATO but that the President should consult with Congress before making specific troop commitments. Former Governor Harold Stassen was scheduled to testify before the committees this date and Governor Thomas Dewey, the following day.

The President had obtained copies of 700 to 900 letters about loans made by the RFC, in an effort to determine whether there was any substance to the Senate subcommittee charge that members of RFC had given loans based on political considerations. The President was upset that one of his trusted aides had been so implicated.

The President planned to fly to Key West for a three-week working vacation, starting March 2.

In Oslo, Norway, the Nobel Institute nominated 28 persons and six organizations for the prestigious Peace Prize for 1951. Nine of the nominees were Americans, including Robert M. Hutchins, for many years chancellor of the University of Chicago, and Justice of the Supreme Court Robert Jackson.

Labor leaders discussed strategy for effecting changes in the mobilization program.

John Daly of The News tells of cotton sales being frozen since the Government order of January 27 implementing price ceilings. Rumors abounded in Charlotte, cotton trading and textile center, as to what might occur in Washington to end the stalemate.

In Raleigh, the North Carolina House voted to ratify the 22nd Amendment limiting elected Presidential terms to two. As the State Senate had already approved the amendment, North Carolina became the 34th state to ratify, with 36 needed for final ratification, to be achieved February 27. (The assiduous researchers at Wicked-pedia have it wrong, as more often than not is the case, indicating North Carolina as the 37th state to ratify on February 28.)

Another letter from a Pogo fan is printed on the front page, this one from Winston-Salem, asking whether the editors knew that a Virginia college had voted Pogo as the college favorite funny.

Didn't hear about that. Learn something new every day though.

According to the "Our Weather" box, the female sensitivity to cooler temperatures was greater than that of the male, but females nevertheless tended to wear less clothing in the cold. It suggests that they bundle up while the male don light clothing, to keep the temperature of the house better regulated.

On the editorial page, "Our Disfranchised Republicans" tells of the Democratic gerrymander in North Carolina having worked since the turn of the century to cancel any potential for Republicans to be elected to Congress. A Republican-sponsored bill before the Legislature sought redistricting, as recently favored by the President. The piece suggests that while the Republican bill was probably, itself, an attempt at gerrymander and thus could not endorse it, the Republicans in the state were of sufficient numbers that simple justice required that complete redistricting be carried out in a manner fair to both political parties.

"The Smith Story" urges giving to Johnson C. Smith University, seeking $200,000 from Charlotte's white community, having collected over $60,000 from the black community, much of it coming from people of limited means. The school had existed since 1883 without asking for public support but increased costs had made the public solicitation necessary for it to remain viable as a quality institution of higher learning.

"The Shrinking Globe" tells of England having developed a jet bomber which had become the first jet to cross the Atlantic, having done so in four hours and 37 minutes while bucking a 90 mph headwind most of the way. The event suggested that America was being brought closer to the rest of the world and that designers of modern technology were not exclusive to the U.S. The British had stayed in the forefront of development of jets, including fighters, bombers and even transports. There was no safety therefore in retreating behind the two oceans.

A piece from the Christian Science Monitor, titled "Pooh Behind the Curtain", tells of Winnie-the-Pooh being banned by the Communist Government in Hungary. It posits that it was likely because Pooh stood for individualism, human fallibility, a willingness to allow truth to prevail, consideration, charity, compassion, mercy and personal dignity. Some might think, it ventures, that it was possibly because Pooh had supposedly invented the game of "Pooh's sticks", which Pravda knew was in fact discovered by a Russian bear. But the attributes it lists, it concludes, had to be the real reason.

Drew Pearson tells of open fighting being rumored between the Chinese and North Koreans. Most of it was attributed to accidental friendly fire, but apparently some was the result of actual revolt, as in an instance of January 19 when the Chinese quickly crushed a revolt after killing 150 North Koreans. American intelligence did not believe a serious rift was imminent but there was a strange inferiority complex detected among Koreans generally with respect to the Chinese. The South Korean troops who fought bravely against the North Koreans turned and ran readily in the face of the Chinese. To avoid this problem, Lt. General Matthew Ridgway, ground commander, had integrated the South Koreans with American units to enable them to see great numbers of dead Chinese and gain confidence in fighting them, disabusing them of the myth of their invincibility.

White House insiders were concerned with the increasing mood changes of the President, no longer his usual optimistic, cheerful self. Since the turn of events in December in Korea, coupled with the loss of his close friend and press secretary Charles G. Ross, and the assassination attempt by two Puerto Rican nationalists on November 1, he had become somber and often irritable. The change in general demeanor had convinced Democratic bigwigs that he would not again run in 1952.

Mr. Pearson congratulates Assistant Secretary of the Army Archibald Alexander for efficiently handling the Army's procurement and munitions program. The Army had placed record orders for 2.5 billion dollars worth of equipment between January 2 and 23 and would probably break that record during February, with orders for 3.5 billion dollars worth of Army vehicles.

Marquis Childs discusses inflation, relates of an incident in which a woman argued with a grocery store clerk who had marked up a dozen eggs while she was shopping, after she had selected her dozen from the rack, telling him she would not pay the higher price. It reflected the fast-paced increases in food prices and consumer frustration with it.

Every element of the economy was contending for more or less regulation to their advantage. If inflation was to be checked, three steps had to be taken by the Government as soon as possible. Interest rates had to be raised by the Federal Reserve Board to stem the flow of capital into the economy by reducing the availability of easy credit. The Congress would have to pare down the Administration's proposed 71 billion dollar budget to the point that there would be a surplus, not merely a balanced budget. To enable such a surplus, taxes would also have to be raised.

Germany during the 1920's provided historical example of what happened to a society under runaway inflation, with the middle class largely destroyed and turned to Hitler for salvation.

Robert C. Ruark finds society rife with scandal, from organized crime as revealed by the Kefauver committee, to New York cops quitting to avoid testimony regarding police involvement in bribery with respect to organized crime, to former Congressmen J. Parnell Thomas and Andrew May, sent to prison, respectively, for fraud against the Government and rigging Government contracts, to the perjury convictions of Alger Hiss and William Remington and the conviction of Judith Coplon for taking secret Justice Department documents for transfer to a Russian.

But he does not want all of that scandal coalescing around the alleged fixing of college basketball games through payola to players. It implied the cynical age in which the country had entered. (He refers, without mentioning the school, to the betting scandal allegedly involving players of CCNY, defending national champions of 1950, as well as other schools of the time.)

He finds the game of basketball silly, with too much subjectivity in enforcement of the rules and too many whistles stopping play, so not sensibly lending itself to the attention of the corrupters.

"Basketball is a game played by five men on each side, plus substitutes. That the boys would bother with it, when they control bigger games already puzzles me much. It seems too much like shooting gnats while the eagles fly by, except that today nothing seems too small to escape the avarice of the spoiler."

A letter writer responds to an advertisement, appearing in the newspaper February 21, for the Tennessee Williams play, "A Streetcar Named Desire", being presented in Charlotte, finds it to be an "exhibition of such filth which masquerades under the name of legitimate drama." She had not seen the play, though had read it, and was not surprised that it garnered top reviews and awards, including the Pulitzer Prize, during its Broadway run, as New York drama critics, she asserts, had been notorious for decades for permitting public staging of "lewd and lascivious" faya. She, as a motha and a taxpaya, is disgusted that "this scum" was allowed to be exhibited in Cha'lotte in a publicly suppo'ted buildin'.

A writer from Gastonia finds that whoever had asked Congressman Walter Judd of Minnesota to speak in the pulpit of a Charlotte church to tell the parishioners what was wrong with the country and the world must have subscribed to the Biblical statement that a prophet is without honor in his own country.

A letter writer from Huntersville finds that Senator Willis Smith was showing the weakness in office which had been apparent during the campaign, regarding his lack of knowledge of foreign affairs. He finds that the publishers of The News had closed their eyes in endorsing Mr. Smith, but that in the recent editorial, "A Question for Mr. Smith", the newspaper appeared to be trying to help him find the right path. Most people, he opines, even children, understood why the country was in Korea, but Mr. Smith appeared unable to do so.

A writer, apparently with a good deal of sardonism in play, thanks Governor Kerr Scott for opening the eyes of the citizenry of the state to the true meaning of brotherhood during Brotherhood Week when he responded recently to a black reporter's question as to when the Greater University system would be integrated, by saying it would be a slow and gradual process but that true equality could not be achieved in this life, that if it were to be realized, St. Peter would be there to "ring the bell". He found the Governor to exhibit great wit in that response, alluding to Death as the great equalizer, but, as John Dryden had commented, "Great wits are sure to madness near allied; and thin partition do their bounds divide."

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