The Charlotte News

Friday, March 9, 1951

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports, via Olen Clements, that allied troops had made gaping holes in the enemy lines as they drove ahead four miles in their two-day old new offensive along a 70-mile front in Korea, encountering little resistance. Thousands more enemy casualties were added to the 17,000 killed or wounded in the first two days. The enemy appeared to be fleeing all along the west-central front.

Enemy attacks took place Friday in the east against the South Korean troops and then moved westward against three American divisions, some of the attacks lasting all night.

Enemy prisoners reported being short of ammunition and food and that Chinese soldiers were eager to surrender because their officers usually fled before artillery barrages hit their defensive positions.

The three Western deputies assigned to try to construct an agenda for the proposed Big Four foreign ministers conference said that they were making little progress, as they prepared for a fifth meeting with Soviet representative Andrei Gromyko. An American official said that the two sides were "miles and miles apart", seemingly going backwards. American representative Philip Jessup said, however, that he did not believe the two sides were too far apart on general subjects for the agenda. But Russian representatives said that Mr. Gromyko could never accept the Western agenda and the Western delegates had said that they could not accept the Soviet agenda.

Yugoslavia formally accused Russia of applying military pressure against it and supplying the Soviet satellites with arms and troops to overthrow Marshal Tito. The complaint was being given to the Western powers stationed in Belgrade but not to representatives of the Communist Cominform countries because they were already sufficiently aware of the border incidents and provocations.

In London, Ernest Bevin was stepping down as Foreign Secretary because of ill health. Deputy Prime Minister Herbert Morrison would likely be his successor. Prime Minister Clement Attlee wanted to retain Mr. Bevin in the Cabinet as an elder statesman to advise on foreign affairs and labor problems.

The Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees had approved 23 to 0 the previous day the Connally-Russell resolution, but Senator Alexander Smith of New Jersey requested changes in the measures to clarify that the resolution approved sending four divisions to Europe and that any future troops ought be approved by Congress. The approved resolution said that it was necessary for the U.S. to contribute its "fair share" of troops to NATO but an amendment attached by Senator Smith had said that Congressional approval should be obtained for any policy requiring assignment of American troops to the international army. Senator Walter George complained that the resolution had become overly complicated.

The Senate left the college deferment in the draft revision bill as an amendment to eliminate it was defeated by a vote of 68 to 21. The entire bill was slated for vote later in the day. Only one Democrat, Senator Burnet Maybank of South Carolina, had supported the amendment.

In Rangoon, Burma, a Burmese court freed Dr. Gordon Seagrave who had been sentenced on February 17 to six years in prison for aiding rebels after an appellate court reduced the sentence to time served because of his age and in gratitude for his medical service given to Burma. His defense had been that the rebels would have destroyed the hospital and endangered the lives of the patients and staff had he not provided them demanded medical supplies.

The House Ways & Means Committee disclosed that it was planning a full-scale probe into tax enforcement by the IRB against gamblers and gangsters. The enforcement had been criticized for being too lax by the Kefauver organized crime investigating committee.

Wage Stabilizer Eric Johnston said that some progress was being made in mending the rift between labor and the Government mobilization program. Meanwhile, the Government was imposing a price control on soap which would cut the retail price by one cent per bar. Cotton state Congressmen were denouncing the six-day old raw cotton price ceiling and after a three-hour hearing before Price director Mike DiSalle, said they would take their case to Congress. Employers were given the right to raise the pay of large groups of workers, perhaps including non-union white collar employees, as Mr. Johnston relaxed wage controls somewhat.

Dr. Sidney L. Stealey of Louisville had accepted an offer to become president of a Southern Baptist Seminary to be established at Wake Forest.

On the editorial page, "Eruption in Iran" tells of Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas writing during the week in The New Republic that peasants were revolting all over Asia and the Middle East. The fact had been shown in Iran during the week with the assassination of Premier Ali Razmara, who, more than anyone else, had knit together the disintegrating Iranian government the prior year. Justice Douglas had singled out Mr. Razmara as the leader of a government with "the highest degree of competence and the most liberal viewpoint in recent Persian history".

Even with Mr. Razmara heading the Government, there had been trouble, with closer contact between the Government and Russia and the shutting off of Voice of America broadcasts in Iran. His assassination would increase the turmoil and could precipitate a Soviet-inspired revolution beginning in Azerbaijan and spreading through the rest of the country. The Communists could be expected to take advantage of the resulting instability in the country after the assassination.

Political observers had cautioned for months that Iran might become the next Korea. Conditions were ripe for revolution and any Russian aggression toward the country, it suggests, might therefore occur soon.

"That 'Moral Victory'" finds the State House vote by a simple majority to remove the statewide liquor referendum from the unfavorable calendar and place it on the favorable calendar to be a perennial dodge for House members to keep peace with their Dry constituents and was not true assent by the majority to the statewide referendum. So it was not the proclaimed "moral victory" for the Drys, despite it not obtaining the requisite two-thirds majority. Those who voted for it knew that it could not obtain the required majority.

The Legislature believed that county option had worked well, which was why the statewide referendum measure had failed.

"Pity the Poor Butler" finds the murder-mystery writers overly reliant on the butler as the culprit, such that the butler's presence in a story virtually assured the outcome in most instances. It wonders why the butler couldn't be murdered and the murderer be the grouchy old master, perhaps because of a flirtation by the butler with his wife. It regards burning at the stake to be too kind a fate for such writers of the jejune and banal.

"A Blast from Atlanta" praises the Grand Jury in Fulton County, Ga., for digging into liquor licensing and recommending that all licenses should be canceled as having been issued under a mismanaged system and that violators of the liquor law be prosecuted. The piece finds that it demonstrated that State control of the liquor business, as in North Carolina, was preferable to issuing private licenses, as in Georgia, as the North Carolina system had not been plagued by such mismanagement or the weakening of the integrity of local government officials. It also finds that a grand jury could be a potent force for good when it dug into matters rather undertaking only superficial investigations.

A piece from the Greensboro Daily News, titled "In re: Home Work", finds the Legislature too concerned with international and national affairs rather than being enough concerned with state and local matters within its normal purview. It was considering a proposal to endorse a constitutional amendment to have a 25 percent limit on Federal taxes as well as considering abrogating the 1949 Legislature's endorsement of world government. It advises tending to its own knitting.

Drew Pearson writes from Belgrade, Yugoslavia, that it was likely Russia, if it followed the military strategy of Count Karl von Clausewitz, would order an attack on Yugoslavia during the spring, as the German war strategist had taught that the time to wage war was when the country taking the offensive was strongest and the potential enemy weakest. The beginning of European rearmament under NATO would present a last opportunity for Russia to take advantage of this cold philosophy of war.

Marshal Tito was quite frank about the danger of attack on his country after he had dared to depart from the Kremlin party line. He believed that the Russians would attack in April or May, but if June passed without an attack, there would be none in 1951 and possibly for some time into the future. If they were to attack, he said, they would drive through the British zone of Austria, skirt one side of Trieste and advance down the unguarded Dalmatian coast, cutting off the Adriatic ports, making it impossible therefore for the U.S. to send aid. He said that he was not worried about attack by satellite armies, as the Hungarians, Poles and Czechs would not fight. But if the Red Army attacked, that would pose a different problem. He said that he did not intend for Yugoslavia to become an appendage of either Russia or America.

American aid was supporting the 32 Yugoslav divisions but the question remained whether they would fight, as the Yugoslav troops had readily folded in 1941 when the Germans attacked. American military observers who had inspected the Yugoslav troops, however, found them well-trained and moderately well-equipped. Tito's partisans had fought in the mountains of Herzegovina during the war and knew how to fight. The Yugoslav leaders realized that they would be executed if the country were taken over by the Soviets and so had every reason to resist.

Mr. Pearson predicts that Yugoslavia could not survive an attack by Russia and the satellites without U.S. aid. He suggests that perhaps the attack would not come, that instead a peace proposal might be put forward by Russia, to try to relax rearmament until a more favorable time presented itself for waging aggression.

Marquis Childs begins by discussing the Senate Banking subcommittee investigation of favoritism at RFC in obtaining Government loans, urges that the investigation ought also delve into Senators and Congressman who had placed pressure on RFC directors. The game on Capitol Hill, he says, was for the pot to call the kettle black and vice versa. The Republicans were raising a hue and cry about RFC while they belittled and condemned the efforts of Democrats to expose the shenanigans of Senator Joseph McCarthy and the Chicago Tribune to defeat Senator Millard Tydings the previous fall in the Maryland Senate race.

Many responsible writers had said that an alliance existed between Senator Taft and Senator McCarthy and it had been reported that Senator McCarthy would be appointed attorney general in a Taft cabinet.

Eleanor Roosevelt in her column had, he says, cited the knocking off of Senator Margaret Chase Smith by Senator McCarthy from an important investigating committee and Senator Taft's failure to intervene as being indicative of this alliance. (He may have confused Mrs. Roosevelt's column in this connection with that of one of the others he mentions who had discussed the alliance, Doris Fleeson, Stewart Alsop, or George Hall of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, as Mrs. Roosevelt's column never mentions Senator Smith in this regard, only refers to the McCarthy-Taft alliance twice, the other not occurring until the following October.) Senator Taft claimed, however, that he did not know about the controversy and was not consulted by Senator McCarthy. But the Tribune had reported that Senator McCarthy said that he had consulted with other Republican leaders before taking the step.

One of the claims of Taft supporters was that the Senator was above petty partisan squabbles and represented integrity. But, opines Mr. Childs, integrity ruled out justifying any means to an end and if Senator Taft was willing to use McCarthyism to try to obtain a partisan victory for Republicans and himself, many would find that he had forfeited his integrity in the process.

Robert C. Ruark finds it too bad that the Ambassador to Mexico, William O'Dwyer, former Mayor of New York, felt too under the weather to fly to New York to testify before the Kefauver organized crime investigating committee. Many witnesses, including New York police officers, also failed to appear because of claimed illness.

He finds it inconceivable that a deadly secret virus had afflicted everyone in the country, but it seemed so.

Forgetfulness was also a popular problem.

He reiterates his sympathies for Mr. O'Dwyer. "We trust he will recover in time to testify in better days, and hope we live to see it. Pass the Kleenex, dear. Kerchoo!"

A letter writer, having read the prior letter regarding the plight of the black citizen in the country, urges consideration of how the Indian population was treated, that half of all Navajo children died of starvation or tuberculosis before age 6. Yet, she urges, they were the only real Americans. She thinks the country was so busy providing housing and better conditions for black citizens that it had neglected the plight of its Indian citizens.

A letter from a Republican candidate for the Legislature in 1950 finds the fact that Senator Taft was coming to Charlotte only to speak to a small group of active admirers at a dinner, as arranged by the Young Republicans, to ignore the broad base of admirers who would turn out for him and be energized by his address in a public place.

A letter writer from Greenville, S.C., finds the groups which advocated against a return to prohibition were endorsing evil and continuing the flow of liquor into the community under the guise of State control, which had only increased the flow. She wonders what kind of place was being built for the children and grandchildren.

Why, they all gonna get liquored up and slosh around in the party wine.

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