The Charlotte News

Friday, May 25, 1951

FIVE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports, via Olen Clements, that allied tanks and troops moved across the 38th parallel this date in Korea on the western front north of Seoul and on the central front northeast of Chunchon, in a now officially designated offensive to hunt down the retreating Communists. The thrust reached four miles into North Korea.

Airmen said that they had killed or wounded 2,000 enemy troops on Friday in strikes on both sides of the parallel, with 500 knocked out at Uijongbu and another 500 on the Chunchon to Hwachon roads.

Lt. General James Van Fleet, ground commander, awarded the Distinguished Service Cross to both Lt. General Edward Almond, Tenth Corps commander, and Maj. General Clark Ruffner, Second Division commander, for their efforts in the offensive. General Van Fleet said that the pursuit tactics were working well and he had no regard for the 38th parallel, that his men would pursue the enemy wherever they fled—even into hell.

The U.S. Army said that Korean casualties through May 23 were estimated at more than a million, 120,000 more than through May 7. Of the total, more than 776,000 were battle casualties and more than 150,000 were prisoners of war.

General J. Lawton Collins, chief of staff of the Army, testified to the joint Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees this date, stating that General MacArthur had violated military orders the previous November by sending American troops to the Yalu River at the border between Korea and Manchuria. He said that he had thought it might be necessary to remove him from command even before he heard that the President was considering doing so. General MacArthur had told the Joint Chiefs at the time that he sent the troops to the Yalu because of "military necessity". The Chiefs did not countermand the order as the move had already taken place. Both Joint Chiefs chairman General Omar Bradley and Secretary of Defense Marshall had testified that they knew of no particular orders which General MacArthur had violated.

General Collins also said that the Chiefs were quite convinced that Russians were flying some of the Chinese planes, and indicated that most of the equipment captured was Russian.

A photograph appears of Senator Lyndon Johnson speaking with General Collins at an earlier Senate hearing.

Dick, you better get on the stick, before Lyndon gets more publicity than you do.

The Atomic Energy Commission and the Defense Department, in a joint statement, hinted that the Government had made the first test of the hydrogen bomb during its recent nuclear tests at Eniwetok Atoll in the Pacific.

A special committee of the DNC selected Chicago as the site for the 1952 Democratic national convention, probably to start on July 21.

Former White House friend John Maragon, who had received entree through presidential aide, Maj. General Harry S. Vaughan, reported this date to begin his 8-24 month jail sentence for perjury. His attorney said that he had been a scapegoat during the influence peddling investigations.

Off Newport, R.I., at least sixteen sailors had died in the capsizing of a Navy motor launch the previous day, casting 135 sailors overboard, with nine still missing.

We were all sea-swallowed...

The mayors of the six Carolinas cities, wherein Duke Power Co. bus drivers were on strike, had abandoned their efforts temporarily to try to effect a resolution of the situation, as nothing had worked, despite unceasing efforts in the previous several days.

Tom Fesperman of The News tells of two Charlotte cab fleets charging the mandated flat rate of 25 cents per passenger, ordered by the City Council to help alleviate problems of transportation during the bus strike. But two other fleets, Yellow Cab and Baker Cab, both saying that they thought the 25-cent fare was optional, continued to charge the metered rate. They said the emergency rate would hinder their operations considerably.

They were not cruising, but were cruising for a bruising if they kept that up.

Bob Sain tells of the domestic workers being hit the hardest by the strike but that almost all of the maids with cars had kept the matter from being worse.

A piece on the reaction to the strike quotes from Martin Chuzzlewit, by Charles Dickens: "What we've got to do, is to keep up our spirits, and be neighbourly. We shall come all right in the end, never fear."

You say. Them Rooskies is after us, the hydrogenated bomb is coming to drop on us, we have to duck and cover, we can't get any meat, half the Government's Commie, half our neighbors are Commie or worse, and now we don't even have no bus to ride to work in.

A flutist for the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra said that he would have to walk to rehearsal this night. Some caught rides with friends and neighbors. But one woman of the city said that she dreaded the first day it rained in the morning.

No, that's when it gets fun.

In Lancaster, S.C., stripper Gypsy Rose Lee was scheduled to unveil the new station of the Lancaster and Chester Railway on June 2. She had been appointed vice-president of the railroad, in charge of unveilings.

On the editorial page, "Wishful Thinking in Congress" finds that the Congress was engaging in wishful thinking that controls might be permitted to slide when they expired at the end of the fiscal year. While the newspaper never advocated controls, it finds them now imperative in the midst of the world crisis, if the 70-billion dollar budget was to be balanced and inflation averted. It sides with the Richmond Times-Dispatch that the country needed to arm both against Communism and inflation.

"Nehru Nods" says it is convinced that a triumvirate of Sam Spade, Sherlock Holmes and The Shadow could trail India's Prime Minister Nehru for a decade without catching him in an unethical action. He had maintained his honor during four years of leadership, no mean achievement in modern times. But recently he had asked the Parliament to pass a constitutional amendment which would place restrictions on freedom of speech and the press.

Many believed that the Indian press at times had behaved irresponsibly, but such an amendment in the wrong hands could act as a means of suppression, after Nehru's tenure ended. The Prime Minister and disciple of Gandhi needed to learn, advises the piece, that there was no such thing as a little censorship.

"Streets and Politics" finds a proposal to get four main thoroughfares in the city widened and paved, adopted by the City Council, to make more sense than some of the previous schemes for relieving congestion in the downtown area.

It goes on to ask some probing ontological questions which you might find the need to answer.

Are you here or there?

"Women" tells of the average Australian woman marrying at age 24, having a baby weighing 6 pounds, 4 ounces, quarreling with her husband twice per month, occasionally wishing she had married someone else, having a height of five feet, three inches and weighing 128 pounds, in her lifetime buying 350 hats and 450 dresses. It concludes: "Small world, isn't it?"

She needed some exercise more than a hat.

"Harmony on the Council" tells of the week's City Council meeting being harmonious after the previous week of acrimony regarding the controversial appointment by Mayor Victor Shaw of a new City Recorder. The Mayor apologized for his statements the prior Wednesday. The piece was glad to see it as there were more important issues ahead than political bickering over old wounds between Mayor Shaw and his vanquished opponent in 1948, former Mayor Herbert Baxter, now on the Council.

A piece form the Kingsport (Tenn.) News, titled "Chess Pie", tells of newspapers having found out the menu which General MacArthur chose at the country club in Murfreesboro, Tenn., adopted hometown of his wife, and then having printed that he had "cheese pie" for desert. The piece corrects that it was chess pie, for which it lists the ingredients and says it was mighty good.

It was the only fit thing to eat on the menu, other than the rolls, at our elementary school. Chef Boyardee did better than the spaghetti and sauce they conjured up for chuck—which tasted like boiled string covered in leftover tomato juice, with a few chunks of something probably left better to mystery thrown in for good measure.

Anyway, it was better than checkers pie—which usually wound up on the floor after some poor kid or other failed to handle it well.

Drew Pearson tells of the case of George Wheeler, who a year earlier had announced that he and his wife intended to live in Czechoslovakia, and still remained there. He had been suspected of disloyalty by the U.S. Civil Service Commission five years earlier but several persons in the Government came to his defense and he remained therefore in a key job in Germany. The case showed how many people were duped into trusting those with heavy sympathy toward Communism. He provides the details of the case.

Assistant Postmaster Jack Redding, upset that Communist China had been seated at the Cairo conference of the Universal Postal Union, got busy and encouraged anti-Communist countries to send representatives to the recent conference of the Union in Geneva, resulting in that conference voting 10 to 6 not to seat Communist China.

General Matthew Ridgway had informed the Defense Department of a problem with President Syngman Rhee of South Korea, who wanted the South Korean troops to fight independently so that they could better undertake future responsibilities as soldiers. But the South Koreans had fought poorly when left on their own against the Communist Chinese, fought much better when integrated with U.S. troops. Secretary of Defense Marshall, in response to General Ridgway's concern, contacted the State Department and together they informed President Rhee of the problem and that the troops would have to be integrated until the war was over.

He notes that at the Wake Island meeting between the President and General MacArthur the prior October, the President had suggested that new elections be held in South Korea, as the aging President Rhee appeared to be dragging down the fighting effort. General MacArthur, however, was opposed to the idea and so the President dropped it.

Joseph Alsop, in London, after recapping the issues re nationalization of Iranian oil which he had laid forth the previous day, states that the Russians had been hoping for just such a showdown between the British and Iranian Government over nationalization of the oil, triggering the dilemma on the part of the U.S. whether to support the British in any effort to secure the oil by force of troops in southern Iran, enabling in that event the Russians to have the excuse to enter northern Iran under the Russo-Iranian pact.

The Russian ambassador had assured the Iranian Government that it would not enter northern Iran should the British enter the south. That advice had emboldened Dr. Mohammed Mossadegh, Premier of Iran, to act to nationalize the oil. Such a move had played into the Russian hands.

The Russians were eager to enable an opening for the Communist Tudeh Party to take over in Iran and if the U.S. and Britain clumsily were to try to bring Iran to its senses by cutting off oil revenues, as being contemplated, the way would be open for just such a takeover. Yet, there was a danger that the two countries might drift into that foolish approach. The other possibility for peaceful resolution lay in the hope for a more reasonable administration than that of Dr. Mossadegh, an extreme nationalist. The hope for that occurrence had increased in recent days.

The British could not undertake a landing without U.S. support at the U.N., and thus the responsibility lay heavily on the U.S. to determine the course of events.

Robert C. Ruark discusses the plea of no contest of Joe Adonis and his co-conspirators in New Jersey, to State charges of conspiracy to violate gambling laws, for which he could be sentenced to eighteen months in prison, reducible for good behavior to a year. Mr. Ruark understands that sometimes it was necessary, to secure a conviction, for the prosecution to enter a plea bargain on relatively minor charges with hardened criminals, to serve as a high-profile deterrent to others in the syndicates. But he tires of seeing such notorious gangsters as the late Al Capone and Lucky Luciano get off so lightly as they had. It kept the prosecutor's record of conviction high and enabled the books to be cleared of many crimes, just as sometimes multiple murders were pinned on those found guilty of one murder just to clear the books, while somewhere a murderer went scot-free.

He imagines that Mr. Adonis and his "boy friends" were not too worried about their upcoming sentencing the following Monday.

Hal Boyle tells of interviewing the young "Miss Chicken-of-Tomorrow" of Rogers, Ark., whom he regards as "Miss Chick-of-Today", with her "34-inch keel". She explained to him all about chicken. She imparted that she was engaged to a boy now in the Air Force who had been her high school sweetheart and had been very popular. She had to pick out her own engagement ring, which she found a little disconcerting. She had hoped he would be able to obtain leave to escort her to the ball at which she would be crowned in June, but it appeared it would not occur as his duty prevented it.

He chickened out. You better go on up to Lancaster and help Ms. Lee unveil the railroad station.

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