The Charlotte News
Monday, June 18, 1951
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports, via William C. Barnard, that outnumbered U.S. Sabre jets had downed six Russian-made MIGs and damaged eight others in two large air battles this date and the previous day over Korea, with a total of 118 planes involved. All American planes returned safely to base. The Fifth Air Force flew 490 sorties during daylight this date, including the jet fights.
Indications were that the Chinese might be preparing a new ground offensive as enemy troops appeared in territory which they had previously deserted and replacements were coming from the north.
Allied patrols this date drove more than three miles into enemy territory in the west and slightly more than a mile in the east. Two U.N. tank patrols moved up the west side of the "iron triangle", hitting small enemy bands along the way. Another armored patrol pushing up the east leg from Kumhwa was forced back by enemy mines and mortar fire. The enemy was still engaging in delaying action.
The joint Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees, investigating Far East policy and the firing of General MacArthur since early May, voted to hear only four more witnesses and to end the investigation at the earliest possible date. The chairman, Senator Richard Russell, said the inquiry would end during the week or by no later than the middle of the next week. The remaining witnesses would be Patrick Hurley, former Ambassador to China, Maj. General Emmet O'Donnell, former commander of the U.S. Strategic Bombing Force in the Far East and who had earlier in the year, after return from Korea, stated at a press conference that the U.S. could use with effect the "ultimate weapon" in Korea, Maj. General David Barr, former commander of the Seventh Division in Korea and one-time chief of a U.S. military mission in China, and Vice-Admiral Oscar Badger, former U.S. Naval commander in the Far East. General MacArthur also would be allowed to rebut testimony if he so desired. The Committees decided not to call Averell Harriman, tentatively scheduled to testify.
General Eisenhower announced in Paris the appointment of U.S. Admiral Robert Carney as NATO commander-in-chief of allied forces in Southern Europe.
Former Secretary of the Army Gordon Gray, president of UNC, was granted leave by the Board of Trustees to organize the nation's psychological warfare.
In Biloxi, Miss., Admiral Forrest Sherman, chief of Naval operations, addressing the Mississippi American Legion, cautioned that a U.N. victory in Korea might bring an unwarranted move for disarmament. But he also advised against all-out mobilization to meet the threat of Russian aggression.
An unidentified source in the Air Force told reporters that if the Soviets were to attack, the U.S. had in its air arsenal more explosive power than all the explosions from the invention of gunpowder to the first atomic bomb.
In Paris, the moderates had achieved a majority in the nationwide elections held the previous day, but a majority squeezed by both the left and the right, with the tendency toward the right. The followers of General Charles De Gaulle became the largest single party in the National Assembly, while the Communists won the largest single bloc of the popular vote, with 22.4 percent, less than the 28.6 percent they had received in 1946. Communist representation in the Assembly was reduced from 183 to 110. The Gaullists, disappointed at the result, got 18.9 percent of the vote and at least 115 seats. The centrist parties, Socialists, Left Republicans, Popular Republicans, Independent Republicans, and the Peasants Party, collectively obtained 358 seats. The result would likely be more coalition government at a critical time in the formation of NATO.
In London, informed officials of the British Government said that the British and the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. had agreed to offer Iran about ten million pounds against a future settlement of the oil dispute.
In Havana, a U.S. Marine guard and a janitor were found shot to death at the U.S. Embassy. Investigators as yet had no clues as to the motive behind the shootings. The State Department said that no Government papers were missing and that robbery appeared also not to be the motive.
The Wage Stabilization Board would resume conferences the following day regarding a new policy to hold the line against wage increases. The present order, in effect since earlier in the year, set wage ceilings at ten percent above those prevailing in each industry in mid-January, 1950.
The Administration Congressional leaders informed the President that they would seek to enact stronger economic control legislation before the end of present controls on June 30. They wanted a bill passed to extend the controls for the long-term, not just a 30-day temporary extension.
Senator Herbert O'Conor of Maryland, new chairman of the Senate crime investigating committee, told the delegates to the Kiwanis convention meeting in St. Louis that the only way to eradicate widespread use of narcotics among teenagers was to impose strict penalties, including potentially the death penalty for sellers of narcotics—that having been implied from his statement that a law similar to the Lindbergh law, which allowed for the death penalty for kidnaping for ransom in interstate commerce when the victim was not released unharmed, ought be applied to drug dealers.
John Daly of The News tells of resumption of negotiations taking place in the dispute between Duke Power Co. and the bus drivers and mechanics over the demand for a ten percent pay boost. Contracts were prepared for signing, as the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, representing the drivers and mechanics, had reached basic agreement with Duke, with a few details left to be determined.
On the editorial page, "Smith and Hoey—Hand in Hand" tells of Senator Willis Smith having told the voters a year earlier during his primary campaign for the Senate against incumbent Senator Frank Graham that he would try to follow in the footsteps of Senator Clyde Hoey, the senior Senator. Thus far, he had on most issues, having voted with Senator Hoey on all matters save three. Those three were his vote in favor of a 3.5 million man military rather than the President's desired four million, his support of a resolution expressing the sense of the Senate that the President should not send more ground troops to Europe without Congressional approval, and his opposition to an Administration bill to relocate agencies out of Washington for their protection against atomic attack. In each case, Senator Smith had voted against the Administration position and that adopted by Senator Hoey, and each such matter for which he voted had passed.
The piece concludes that Senator Hoey had usually been right in casting his vote on military matters and foreign policy and that therefore Senator Smith could do worse than to follow his leadership in these areas.
"The Big Trucks Are Still Speeding" tells of the majority of speeders on the highways of the state being truck drivers, in part because the Highway Patrol had relaxed its enforcement against speeding trucks, allowing them to proceed at the 55 mph car speed limit with impunity when the truck limit was 45. The Greensboro Daily News wondered whether the speeding trucks were being called to the attention of the State Utilities Commission and the ICC, and, if so, what the agencies were doing about it. The piece wonders also what had happened to the industry's much touted self-regulation.
"A Human Problem" writes of an excerpt in Life from the yet to be published Strange Lands and Friendly People, by Justice William O. Douglas, anent Iran. He wrote of an ancient people in what was once called the cradle of civilization, beneath which was a rich deposit of oil on which the British Empire was dependent to a great extent and for which Russia would be willing to sacrifice much to acquire.
The oil, and its continued availability to the West, was connected to the living standard in Iran, as Iran lacked the resources on its own to operate the oil wells, and even should it develop the ability, it was so corrupt that the people would see little, if any, benefit from the nationalization.
Justice Douglas's anecdotal account made diagnosis of the problem easy but finding a solution remained difficult. For Point 4 technical assistance to the country would likely do little good as most of the aid money would wind up lining the pockets of the wealthy and not for the intended purpose of helping the people. The solution therefore would be to have a U.N. supervisory group which could oversee such aid, to insure that it was spent properly for its intended purpose. But that such a staff could be created in the near future was doubtful as the nationalistic Government of Iran was unlikely to allow any outside supervision.
The historical record of British imperialism made it harder to convince Iran that the West had good intentions, while the Soviets had no such track record in the Middle East. To convince the Iranians would require something concrete to counteract the long history of colonial exploitation.
A piece from the Tryon (N.C.) Bulletin, titled "The Policeman's Lot", tells of the Tryon police chief resigning, bringing to mind the many duties of a police officer, especially that of being the most visible representative of the people of the community. What the individual officer did told the outside world what kind of mayor, city council and people a community had. It hopes that in naming the new chief, the Commissioners would take into account this important consideration. A friendly policeman was a sign of a friendly community.
R. F. Beasley of the Monroe Journal writes of the head of the North Carolina chapter of the N.A.A.C.P., Kelly Alexander, having said that with the court-ordered desegregation of the UNC Law School would eventually come desegregation of all public schools in the state. Suits were already pending in Lee and Davidson counties, in addition to the Durham case.
Governor Kerr Scott had said that he believed that Mr. Alexander did not speak for most black leaders in the state and that if integration did take place, black students would lose the benefit of having black teachers, as borne out by the fact that there were few black teachers by comparison in the North.
Mr. Beasley offers that since the schools were controlled by whites, it was unrealistic to think that in the event of desegregation, the schools would employ black teachers to teach integrated classes. He believes that the Federal courts could no longer intervene as the people would not accept integration, and for it to work, the people would have to do so.
He says that he has no hostility to blacks as individuals or as a race and wanted to see them have good schools such that their economic improvement would continue. He thus deplores the "agitation" being undertaken by Mr. Alexander and those pressing the lawsuits to end segregation of the primary and secondary schools.
He recognizes that there was some truth in the idea that separation of the races in the schools caused humiliation to black students and marked them as second-class citizens, as the experts had testified was the case during the recent suit in Federal court in Charleston to desegregate the schools of Clarendon County—a case eventually made part of Brown v. Board of Education, to be decided three years hence, overruling Plessy v. Ferguson separate-but-equal doctrine as having not achieved in 58 years its intended purpose, and ordering an end to segregation of public schools, in 1955 stating the timetable for doing so as being ''with all deliberate speed".
Mr. Beasley goes on a bit more and
concludes that "in the cause of amity
You get them outside agitatas, especially the ones all hepped up on that Commie W. J. Cash's book—as Mr. Beasley made implicitly plain five years earlier—, and you gonna have some trouble, boy. They may be superiah in some individual cases but, generally speaking, they's inferiah, and so you gonna have problems—down heya in Mon-roe.
Jesse fawevah!
Drew Pearson discusses two brothers-in-law of Chiang Kai-Shek, T.V. Soong and Dr. H. H. Kung, both of whom were living in the U.S., working hard for the China lobby. Dr. Kung had been the lawyer for former Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson and had large holdings in the Philippines and Formosa. Mr. Pearson finds that it might or might not be significant that Mr. Johnson had been a staunch advocate of Formosa. Dr. Kung had also called upon Senator Styles Bridges, who received in 1948 $2,000 as a campaign contribution from Alfred Kohlberg, the front man for the China lobby and a friend of Dr. Kung.
Senator Bridges in 1948 appointed former Senator Worth Clark of Idaho to go to China and make an impartial report on the Nationalist Government. But Senator Clark had been a member of the law firm of T.V. Soong, and thus was a paid lobbyist for the China lobby. Part of his expenses had also been paid by the Nationalists. Senator Clark returned recommending that more aid be given to Chiang, a recommendation which obviously could not have been reached impartially.
Marquis Childs tells of paralysis spreading over the Government by excessive investigation into the past. He quotes Prime Minister Winston Churchill from June, 1940: "If the past undertakes to sit in judgment on the present, then surely the future will be lost."
The Government's loyalty program was one aspect of this retreat into the past, digging up skeletons which in the current context of the times sounded worse than they were at the time they occurred. For during the war, the Russians were the country's allies, fighting a common enemy in the Nazis. And thus belonging to a pro-Russian organization in that time did not necessarily mean sympathy with Communism or lack of patriotic fervor. Such loyalty tests were deterring good people from entering Government service.
An example was Raymond Swing, who had recently given up a lucrative job with the Liberty network to go to work for Voice of America. Mr. Swing had written for Reader's Digest and the Saturday Evening Post. Now, he found that because he had joined an organization during the war which promoted friendship with Russia, he was, despite being cleared for the job by the FBI, being subjected to scrutiny for his loyalty.
Such mudslingers as Senator Joseph McCarthy would make men of prominence think twice before entering on Government service. Even so prominent and unquestionably patriotic a person as General Marshall had come under attack by Senator McCarthy. Anyone, therefore, could be subjected to the loyalty microscope.
The President had bypassed an opportunity to name, with the Congress and the Supreme Court, a commission to study the issue of loyalty tests, and instead chose to name his own commission headed by Admiral Chester Nimitz. Mr. Childs suggests that even if Gabriel had been picked to head such a commission, it would not have gained acceptance, leaving the country to continue to inflict wounds on itself from the loyalty program.
Robert C. Ruark tells of people passing up $25,000 per year jobs to remain in $15,000 jobs because it was not worth the loss of job security to earn the difference when taxes ate up so much of the increase. He finds taxes strangling the country, taking away incentive to earn more money, thus stifling initiative, a problem he finds inexorably to lead to either Communism or Fascism.
He concludes that when a person lost interest in making money, that person had been deprived of power, and the same was true of the nation.
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