The Charlotte News
Tuesday, May 1, 1951
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports, via Olen Clements, that Communist troops, preparing for a new attack in central Korea, cut off the water supply to rivers blocking their invasion route, dropping the level of the Han and Pukhan Rivers via the floodgates of the Hwachon Reservoir. Censorship disallowed publication of the amount of the drop in water. The Communists simultaneously shifted their focus to the central front after allied artillery and naval guns disrupted their planned May Day assault on Seoul. There was no report of any substantial ground action this date, with fewer enemy troops seen than at any time in the prior nine days since the offensive had begun. American artillery batteries were relatively silent compared to the prior day, as no enemy troops appeared within range.
Correspondent Jim Becker, with the U.S. Marines in Korea, files a delayed report from Sunday, April 22, at the beginning of the enemy offensive shortly after midnight, as machine guns opened fire on the Marines while Chinese soldiers rushed the position to within point-blank range of Marine guns. The Marine lines held firm in Charlie company and then the Chinese hit Baker company, bayoneting seven Marines as they slept. The fighting continued until 9:00 a.m.
Communist and anti-Communist workers in Asia and Europe staged rival May Day parades, in divided Berlin, in Paris and in major Italian cities. A pro-Western crowd of an estimated 600,000 gathered in Berlin in the Platz Der Republic. In the Eastern zone, a half million demonstrators gathered in support of the Communists.
Senator Richard Russell, chairman of the joint Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees assigned to investigate the firing of General MacArthur and Far Eastern policy, told a reporter that he had asked General Omar Bradley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, to state in a letter to him how the report on General MacArthur's meeting with the President on Wake Island the prior October was prepared. The inquiry would begin on Thursday.
The formerly top-secret 1947 report of Lt. General Albert C. Wedemeyer was released by the Government, disclosing that in 1947 he had advised the President that Korea was threatened by a "Soviet-controlled invasion of North Korean forces." The General had advised against removal of U.S. forces from Korea because the Russians dominated the North Koreans through Communists.
In London, deputy Conservative leader Anthony Eden claimed that it was Labor Government policy, not stockpiling in America, which had caused the acute shortage of raw materials in Britain. Resigned Labor Minister Aneurin Bevin had said that the U.S. was stockpiling raw materials for the Korean war, preventing the Labor Government's rearmament plan from being implemented. Mr. Eden defended the U.S. as providing the necessary aid to withstand Communist aggression, as it had during World War II to withstand Nazi aggression.
Robert Vogeler
As stated by Drew Pearson the previous week, the report of the Kefauver organized crime investigating committee stated that former Mayor of New York William O'Dwyer, currently Ambassador to Mexico, had, both as Mayor and District Attorney, contributed to the growth of the underworld in that city by not taking action against top level gambling, narcotics, waterfront, murder and book-making rackets.
The policy committee of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce urged that representatives of organized labor doff their union label when undertaking defense mobilization. A short time earlier, the United Labor Policy Committee had voted unanimously to end its two-month boycott of defense agencies.
On the editorial page, "A Two-Edged Weapon" tells of Alfred Kohlberg, one of General MacArthur's most ardent supporters, having sent around to newspapers a newsletter in which he said that the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the New York Herald-Tribune had given full support to the President regarding the firing of General MacArthur, while attaching also stories from the Daily Worker and the Communist supporting the President in the matter. He had thus implied that the three respected dailies were in line with Moscow.
The piece finds it a dangerous technique. FBI director J. Edgar Hoover had reported recently that the Communists were distributing literature to families of soldiers fighting for the allies in Korea, in which they urged that the troops be brought home.
General MacArthur, in his speech in Chicago, had said that the objective in Korea appeared to many to be an indecisive campaign of attrition and prolonged duration, while losses of American men mounted, producing anguish to their parents. The piece asks rhetorically whether it was proof of the General being in league with Moscow and answers it certainly was not, but that the issue, as raised by Mr. Kohlberg, was a two-edged sword.
"The Price Tag Is Too High" comments on the Congressional Quarterly piece on the page regarding contributions to Republican and Democratic coffers, saying that the Hatch Act ceiling of $5,000 per contributor had become meaningless because of the ability to get around the limit by spreading contributions among individuals of an organization or family.
The result was that too much money was spent on Federal elections, with at least ten million spent on Senate and House elections in 1950, almost as much as had been spent on the presidential campaign of 1948. A tighter law was needed. As things were, candidates either had to have large resources of their own or obligate themselves during the campaign to large contributors and organizations, thus disserving the best interests of democracy.
"Little Window, Big Window" begins by quoting from William L. Poteat, former president of Wake Forest College from 1905 through 1927, that "...the institution has stood for truth no matter what little window it has shone through." The College, since its founding in 1934, with only sixteen students attending school in a carriage house, had grown in stature over the years and now had 1,684 students enrolled. It had graduated 3,000 ministers since its founding, 1,500 lawyers since 1894 when its Law School was established, and a thousand physicians since its Medical School was established in 1902. Forty percent of practicing lawyers in the state had been educated at the Wake Forest Law School. The College had added a school of religion in 1946 and a school of business administration in 1949. Women were admitted beginning in 1941.
In 1946, the Zachary Smith Reynolds Foundation had offered an eleven million dollar grant on condition that the campus be moved to a 400-acre tract of land in Winston-Salem and build a physical plant capable of handling 2,000 students. In mid-1946, the plan was approved by the Board of Trustees and the Baptist State Convention.
The College had determined that it would take 15.5 million dollars to make the move, of which 7.5 million had been raised. The pieces urges support of the College in raising the rest as it had shown itself to be a worthy educator of students, not only of Baptists, but of all interested in a Christian education.
As we know, Reynolda University now flourishes and has a Big Window.
A piece from the Hertford County Herald, titled "The Big Boys Can Wait a While", suggests that redistricting of State Senatorial districts, required under the State Constitution after every decennial census, could wait two years until 1953, by which time more thought could be given to the plan to insure its fairness.
The Congressional Quarterly, as indicated in the above editorial, provides some of the foremost contributors to the party coffers. The duPonts had given nearly $100,000 to the Republicans; the Mellons, $42,500; and the Rockefellers, $23,000. Five individuals and eight family groups gave the GOP more than $5,000 each, totaling nearly $275,000.
Eleven individuals and four families gave $108,550 to the Democrats. Donors included Averell Harriman, at $5,500, and the Frank and George Frankel family of Houston and New York, at $12,000, the largest single contribution.
The fourteen GOP committees filing statements under the Hatch Corrupt Practices Act contributed over three million dollars. Democrats received 1.36 million in donations larger than $100 but less than $5,000, while the Republicans received in that form slightly less than a million dollars. The Act's prohibition of larger donations than $5,000 per individual was circumvented by spreading the donations of a family over several individuals. It goes on to list the largest individual contributors.
Drew Pearson tells of the President having asked Lt. General Matthew Ridgway, prior to firing General MacArthur, whether he could hold against a Communist spring offensive and General Ridgway had said that he could hold for up to 60 days without reinforcements. The Joint Chiefs expressed complete confidence in General Ridgway, and so the President fired General MacArthur.
Now, twice as many Chinese troops were attacking as during the previous counter-offensive of December, facing only slightly more allied troops. But the allies were holding, unlike in December.
The major change was the new fighting spirit of the allies, for which most of the credit was due General Ridgway. He had done it by moving the infantry off the roads, where they had been vulnerable to flanking maneuvers, training them to fight in the fields and backwoods. He had hired South Korean bearers to carry supplies and ceased reliance on trucks and jeeps. He had also utilized American Rangers, trained in guerrilla warfare.
General Ridgway had moved cautiously, using patrols at every step, whereas the deceased General Walton Walker and Lt. General Edward Almond had raced ahead during the offensive launched the prior November. He also kept a tight liaison between his front-line commands, whereas the Eighth Army and Tenth Corps had to go through Tokyo during the prior November offensive. He had reorganized his command down to the company level, getting rid of incompetent officers, giving the enlisted men new confidence in their commanders. He had also bolstered the confidence of the South Korean troops, as they had fought mightily against North Korean troops but fled in the face of the Chinese. He had integrated the South Korean troops with Americans in a defeat of the Chinese to inspire their confidence.
The isolationist bloc in Congress, led by Republican Representative Clarence Brown of Ohio, had blocked aid to starving India, before the bill was finally jarred loose from the House Rules Committee. Republican Congressman John Vorys of Ohio took the contrary view, arguing for the aid, as had former President Hoover. Mr. Brown continued to argue that it was another plan of Secretary of State Acheson to scatter resources to the winds. The chairman of the Committee, Congressman Eugene Cox of Georgia, changed his attitude on the bill after Speaker Sam Rayburn sent him a message saying that he wanted no more delay on the bill.
Mr. Pearson notes that the House and Senate were set for a final vote on the bill, with the House version providing for a 190 million dollar loan and the Senate version, 200 million, half loan and half grant. Former President Hoover had favored all of the money being by gift.
Stewart Alsop finds the Anglo-American alliance threatened with disintegration, as dramatized by the firing of General MacArthur and the resignation from the British Cabinet by Aneurin Bevin. British planners and military chiefs were more inclined to challenge the basic concept on which American strategy rested, use of the atomic bomb on population centers as a deterrent to Soviet aggression.
The British did not want the U.S. to use the bomb on cities unless Russia first did so, and wanted a commitment that it would not be used except as a tactical weapon against ground troops and military targets. It was believed that the Russians would then not use their atomic bombs on cities.
The British proposal would likely be rejected, however, as to make such a commitment would take away the primary Western deterrent to Soviet aggression, as the atomic bomb, by its nature, was not very useful against targets other than cities. Cities, when hit by the bomb, crumbled onto their inhabitants. In the field, the bomb was not so effective because its destructive range was only a little more than a mile from ground zero. So limited in use, therefore, it did not provide a decisive advantage. Moreover, its expense prohibited use against large numbers of troops spread over hundreds of miles.
He regards the "follies" of previous disarmament to have reduced the country to primary reliance on the bomb in its most ruthless application.
If there were no war soon and General Eisenhower succeeded in building European strength in the meantime, it might then become reasonable to re-examine the proposal of the British.
Robert C. Ruark tells of his friend
Louis Biancolli, who worked for the same New York newspaper as Mr.
Ruark. Mr. Biancolli was a polyglot, which included fluent speaking
of Latin and ancient and modern Greek. He swam five miles at a
stretch, took shorthand at the rate of 150 words per minute, was a
collector of words, and, was a good music critic for the newspaper. He just finished a book on the life of singer Mary Garden
He concludes that he was far more than a reporter, was a combination of Gertrude Ederle, the Metropolitan Museum, the boss at the opera house, the entire Government Cabinet, light heavyweight champion, and the whole of Simon and Schuster. But his real business consisted of writing shorthand and pursuing words, "including obscure dirty jokes in the original Persian."
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