The Charlotte News

Saturday, May 19, 1951

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports, via Olen Clements, that the U.S. Second Division had resisted strong attacks by thousands of Chinese troops on the Korean east-central front this date, killing as many as 10,000 or more of the enemy, while other U.S. forces killed hundreds of North Koreans who tried to attack the outskirts of Seoul, an offensive which immediately had become hung up in the allied barbed wire and minefields. Eighty prisoners were captured, the largest single allied haul of the war thus far. The prisoners said that their commander had told them Seoul was deserted and that they could walk right in. On the central front, the Chinese secured firm footholds south of the Pukhan River but allied forces had not been moved back substantially.

Following the enemy's failed Seoul offensive, American patrols went as far north as Uijongbu without drawing fire.

The whole front quieted during the afternoon but American officers believed that the enemy was merely regrouping. A briefing officer at U.N. headquarters sounded the first optimistic comment since the start of the renewed spring offensive two days earlier, that the situation was "shaping up".

At the U.N., General Matthew Ridgway said in a report that the U.N. air forces had complete dominance of the skies over Korea, despite the increasing number of Russian-built MIGs in evidence. It was the General's first regular report to the U.N. on Korea since he had taken over from General MacArthur as supreme commander on April 11. He said that most of the air battles in the first half of April were in the Sinuiju-Sinaju area, a short distance from Manchuria, where the enemy centered its base of air operations. Communist air losses had been heavy despite the advantage of the haven north of the Yalu.

In Chicago, Secretary of the Army Frank Pace, in an Armed Forces Day speech, praised the Army for its efforts in Korea and especially those of the medical services, saving, with the aid of the air evacuation services, 95 percent of the wounded.

The President, in his Armed Forces Day speech, broadcast to troops in Korea and Japan, made a plea for unity, urging "petty politics" and bickering to stop, and saying that the country was in the midst of one the greatest crises in its history and that unless the free nations successfully met the challenge, the casualties in Korea would be but a drop in the bucket compared to those from the dropping of an atomic bomb. Secretary of Defense Marshall also spoke at the same dinner in Washington. Neither the President nor the Secretary mentioned General MacArthur.

Senator Alexander Wiley of Wisconsin, in a letter to Senator Richard Russell, chairman of the joint Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees investigating the firing of General MacArthur and Far Eastern policy, said that the majority of the committees had a "frantic desire to cover up and whitewash."

The U.S. rejected the Russian proposal for a Pacific Big Four conference to determine the peace treaty with Japan. The U.S. position was that the Russian proposal transmitted on May 7 was a "mockery", designed to "stall" rather than facilitate a peace settlement with Japan.

A Senate-House conference committee reconciling the Senate and House versions of the draft revision bill agreed to lower the minimum draft age from 19 to 18 and a half but failed to resolve differences on universal military training. The committee said that when and if there was agreement on UMT, eighteen year olds could be called for training. The committee agreed, however, that few, if any, men would be drafted under age 19 through 1954, unless the Korean war took a turn for the worse or some other emergency developed.

The Wage Stabilization Board voted 8 to 4, with industry members dissenting, to allow a nine-cent hourly pay boost for 220,000 packing house workers, far in excess of the ten percent maximum wage increase allowed by the Government ceiling.

Edward R. Murrow of CBS had discussed on his radio program the previous night the price for freedom of Associated Press correspondent William Oatis, held captive in Czechoslovakia for a month, being the cessation of Radio Free Europe broadcasts to Czechoslovakia from Munich. He based his assessment on a cable sent from Alexander Kendrick, a CBS correspondent in Vienna, who had refused to identify his source but had found it reliable. The State Department, which had been working through the Ambassador to Czechoslovakia to free Mr. Oatis, had no comment on the report. Radio Free Europe operated as a private entity but with U.S. Government approval.

In Olney, Texas, a tornado, giving only five minutes of warning, roared through like 50 freight trains, wiping out a two-hundred yard section of the town of 5,000 population the previous day. Only two persons were killed while about a hundred were injured. About 50 houses were destroyed.

In Benton, Tenn., a lifelong resident said that he was preparing to move from the town in violence-ridden Polk County because he was tired of dodging every time a car passed for fear he might be shot. Four violent deaths in less than three years had been attributed to the conflict between the established Democratic organization and the Good Government League, formed by veterans. The Democratic leader in the county had been slain in an ambush on May 11. There was prediction of more violence. The county had been without a functioning government since February.

The parcel post rate was set to rise October 1 an average of 25 percent, to increase revenue by more than 100 million dollars per year to the Post Office.

In Charlotte, the search continued for the slayer of the Charlotte woman on Monday afternoon as she slept with her four-year old daughter in their cottage home. An afternoon posse comprised of at least 400 persons from the county had initially searched far into the night for any evidence on the identity of the slayer but were unable to produce any clues. Since Monday, county police had arrested 50 black men as suspects but none had been charged. The little girl, who was cut on the head in the assault, identified the killer as a tall, thin black man.

Book-page editor Bob Sain reviews Abel Anders by Frank Borden Hanes of Winston-Salem and finds him able enough to fill the shoes of Thomas Wolfe as a novelist.

On the editorial page, "A Program for the Far East" tells of William R. Matthews, editor of the Arizona Daily Star, having developed a ten-point plan for resolving Korea, in between the positions of limited warfare favored by the Administration and expansive warfare into China, favored by General MacArthur. His plan entailed reinforcing the Army sufficiently to drive the Chinese back to the strongest natural defense line which could be found in North Korea, to dig in along that line with barbed wire and set up traps with mines and tanks, recruit and train Korean troops to man the system, backed up by several armed divisions of U.N. troops, start the reconstruction of Korea to get the Korean people on the side of the U.N., make formal peace with Japan to enable it to develop its strength, proclaim the determination to defend the Pacific islands and Singapore, never again to place troops in Asia, support guerrilla actions by the Chinese Nationalists on the mainland, maintain a friendly government in Formosa, and bear in mind that organized Communist power could not be defeated in China but only at its source in Russia.

Mr. Matthews believed his program sought to limit objectives and accept peace without victory. The piece concludes that it would avoid general war with Communist China, without sacrificing any of the benefits of the Korean intervention, and merited consideration.

"A Question of Ethics" finds, commensurate with the national mood for better ethics in government, that a City Councilman who had been sharply critical of Mayor Victor Shaw for favoring a judge as City Recorder should have recused himself from the debate for the fact that he was an attorney and often disagreed with the judge in question, was also promoting an attorney with whom he practiced for the position.

"Dr. William Marvin Scruggs" laments the death of the prominent Charlotte surgeon who died the previous day of a heart attack at age 61. It says that he had contributed to the community in many ways, including numerous acts of philanthropy, and would be greatly missed.

"The Missing Element" finds that Governor Kerr Scott, speaking in Winston-Salem, having criticized the Legislature, the Powell bill to provide for State-funded city streets, and Mayor Marshall Kurfees for having lobbied for the bill, to have set everything right in the universe. It paraphrases Robert Browning: "Scott's in his heaven;/ All's right with the world."

A piece from the Engineering News-Record, titled "A Plan for Off-Street Parking", tells of Des Moines, Iowa, finding parking at a premium and having done something about it through a 1.25 million dollar bond issue to be retired over 19 years. Seventy-five percent of parking meter income would be used to finance off-street parking and the remainder would go to maintain the meters. The City had also built a conventional garage with five levels, for 350 cars, with a nine-story elevator building for 450 more cars.

Drew Pearson tells of White House aides getting the President into as much trouble trying to cover up his impolitic letters as the President had in writing them. Recently, Congressman John McGuire of Connecticut called at the White House and discussed with the President the subject of appointing an ambassador to the Vatican, something the President for long had wanted to do but for pressure on the one side by Protestants and on the other by Catholics. The President said to Mr. McGuire that when he got around to appointing an ambassador he would give him the concession on rosaries. The remark was passed around in good humor by Congressman McGuire but eventually was picked up as an offhand offensive remark by the President communicated in one of his infamous letters, prompting aides to encourage him to write a letter to the Congressman implying that it was his remark about the concession on the rosaries which the President enjoyed.

Mr. Pearson notes that the President had been criticized by Protestants for appointing more Catholics to Government positions than any previous President, including Attorney General Howard McGrath, Secretary of Labor Maurice Tobin and Secretary of the Navy Francis Matthews. He had worked against intolerance toward all faiths and had appointed a special committee on religious and racial tolerance.

The Army was preparing for use of new weapons in Korea, which included atomic artillery shells, remote-controlled anti-aircraft guns, a new, light supertank capable of outfighting anything of its kind, and use of radioactive rays to contaminate enemy objectives and produce a no-man's land without doing harm to the civilian population, who would have time to clear out before the poisonous radioactivity became lethal, lasting then several weeks. Such processes had been developed and were being tested. Underground explosions, about to be tested in the Aleutians, would also produce the same effect.

Marquis Childs tells of worry in the State Department over the situation in Iran, where world war three could be ignited any day. Iran produced nearly a third of the Middle East's two million barrels of oil per day, just behind Saudi Arabia in production. Iraq added another 165,000 barrels and Kuwait, 420,000.

Iran had voted to nationalize the oil, almost wholly controlled by the British under the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. The trend could sweep the entire Middle East. American oilmen, who dominated the oil from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, privately vented their indignation at the British for creating the situation, saying that the British could have entered a 50-50 sharing arrangement with the Iranian government the prior January, roughly the same basis under which American companies operated.

A study had shown that the British had taken in taxes 225 million of the 400 million dollars in profit of the Anglo-Iranian Co. in 1950, whereas it paid only 30 million dollars in taxes to Iran's government, though it was hard to know whether the figures were accurate. In 1949, gross profits of the company were only 120 million and the figures for 1950 had not been released. But the responsible Iranians believed the figures to be true, supplying the impetus for nationalization.

Meanwhile, the British were suspicious of Americans operating behind the scenes, ready to take over after nationalization.

Stories out of London told of British paratroopers being alerted to go into Iran to protect British interests. Those who understood Iran knew that such an action would be futile and might inspire Russia to use the threat as justification for aiding Iran under its pact with the country.

Mr. Childs adverts to the Atlantic Charter of August, 1941 between FDR and Prime Minister Churchill, in which both governments agreed to endeavor to further the enjoyment of all states, whether victor or vanquished, of equal trade terms and the raw materials of the world needed for economic prosperity. He regards them as "noble but forgotten words".

Robert C. Ruark finds that roadside dining, once tolerable, had vanished as a lost art, as he had discovered during his recent road trip to Miami from New York. He believes that any establishment with neon on the outside and a jukebox on the inside to have caused the chefs to believe that it no longer mattered what they served amid such grandiose surroundings.

He decided that if he ever achieved "a haven called Mockingbird Hill", he would be armed with a 12-gauge shotgun for purposes only concerning him and the mockingbirds. He was puzzled as to why food was purposefully spoiled in the kitchens, with horseburgers coming out as gray and curled at the edges and hot dogs winding up as pieces of synthetic rubber.

There were exceptions to this rule if one knew the local places, but one had to ask the sheriff for that advice.

Tom Schlesinger of The News, in his weekly "Capital Roundup", informs that Charlotte's bid to reopen the Navy shell plant active during the war would depend, according to Navy officials, on how the Korean war progressed.

Congressman Harold Cooley of North Carolina, chairman of the House Agricultural Committee, was disappointed in the effort by the cattlemen trying to win repeal of the beef price rollback orders by the Government. He attended the meeting with Price Stabilizer Mike DiSalle and rose to say that he had expected a lot of beefing but not so much bull from the cattlemen.

Mr. Cooley had told several jokes before 400 Department of Agriculture workers in which he reportedly used the term "nigger" several times. He also told of a preacher who was preaching about the parable of "the five wise virgins and the five foolish virgins", and Mr. Cooley found the percentage of Virginians too high. About 150 people, mostly black, departed the meeting in protest of his remarks. Later, Mr. Cooley said that he was not sure whether he said "nigger", but that if he had, he felt no need to apologize, as his "record of friendship with Negroes" was known and that he meant no disrespect, that any person who took offense was hypersensitive.

The current anti-U.S. feeling being whipped up in India regarding the delay of the grain legislation for the population nearing starvation would not help the mission of former Senator Frank Graham to try to bring peace in Kashmir.

Senator Willis Smith's son, Alton, had recently enlisted in the Marines and was stationed at Parris Island, S.C.

The 176th anniversary of the signing of the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence was observed in Washington with a dance sponsored by the N.C. Democratic Club, and "'the only known copy'" of the document on display.

Representative Thurmond Chatham of North Carolina said that he would never again complain of Washington heat after experiencing Managua, Nicaragua, while attending the inauguration of President Anastasio Samoza, with California Congressman Carl Hinshaw. Both Congressmen said that the temperature never fell below 100 and they had to attend the ceremonies in formal dress. Both said that the U.S. popularity in Nicaragua was at a peak, as the American flag received the heartiest applause among the flags of the 33 nations who sent representatives.

Framed Edition [Return to Links
Page by Subject] [Return to Links-Page by Date] [Return to News<i><i><i>—</i></i></i>Framed Edition] Links-Date Links-Subj.

')}