The Charlotte News

Saturday, June 2, 1951

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports, via Olen Clements, that according to Lt. General James Van Fleet, U.N. ground commander, the Eighth Army had ceased chasing the enemy in North Korea but would continue to block their aggressive movements. He supplied no details of future operations, and censorship was then imposed on reports, the greatest restrictions since the prior December. He said that U.N. forces had inflicted more than 100,000 enemy casualties during the enemy's second spring offensive begun May 16. The Defense Department had indicated 162,000 enemy casualties in that period.

At the point of implementation of the news ban, the U.N. troops had hit an enemy defense line a short distance beyond the 38th parallel.

U.N. airmen hit targets in Pyongyang and set fire to at least twenty boxcars.

Informed officials at the British Foreign Office said that with the Communist spring offensive stopped and a firm U.N. defense line established, the British were taking the opportunity to arrange for peace negotiations. Officially, however, the Foreign Office had no new statement.

Secretary of State Acheson continued his testimony this date before the joint Senate Foreign Relations and Armed Services Committees, saying that a naval blockade of Communist China was being constantly planned but that it was not practical at present to seek backing for it at the U.N. He also said that the U.S. would not allow Formosa to be taken by force and that Hong Kong was of strategic importance to the U.S. He said that despite the presence of the U.S. Seventh Fleet off Formosa, the Communists could still effect landings on the island. He refused to comment on talks at the White House which led to the firing of General MacArthur, saying that the President had instructed him not to discuss the matter. He said that the State Department had concluded that the MacArthur policy of bombing Chinese bases would be unwise. He knew of no present peace moves with regard to Korea. He believed that there was a possibility, though not the most likely one, that the fighting would end in stalemate.

Marvin Arrowsmith reports that the Secretary said the previous day, regarding the December, 1949 State Department report on Formosa, that there was general agreement in the Government in 1949 that no U.S. aid short of armed intervention should be given to save Formosa from the Communists. The State Department regarded Formosa as strategically important though it had advised its consular officers in December, 1949 that it had no special military significance, the statement being made then to minimize loss of U.S. prestige should Formosa be taken over by the Communists, a strategy defended by the Secretary as sound then and in hindsight. Five Democrats had voted with ten Republicans on the joint Committees to release the report while eight Democrats and Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon voted to keep it secret.

In Tehran, right-hand man to Premier Mohammed Mossadegh, Hussein Maki, said that either Iran would achieve its goal of nationalization of its oil or would be "destroyed and all the world with us." The statement came shortly after the Premier had read President Truman's statement to a secret session of the Senate.

In Asheville, N.C., North Carolina American Legionnaires meeting in convention voted to cross the Yalu River into Manchuria to win the war.

Fine, you go do it.

The Government's National Production Authority ordered a new cut in auto production starting July 1, limiting it to 1.2 million cars for the third quarter, a reduction of more than a third from the 1.9 million produced in 1950 in the third quarter.

In London, King George VI was still suffering with the flu, a bout with which he had struggled since May 25.

In New York, at least one Army bomber, and possibly two other Air Force planes, exploded in a mid-air collision over Long Island. A later report said that the third plane involved in the collision had recovered and did not crash.

In Sumter, S.C., three persons were killed and one seriously injured in a head-on collision between a car and a tractor-trailer truck on Highway 76, about three miles from Shaw Air Force Base.

In New York, author John Erskine, suffering from a heart ailment for the prior 18 months, died at age 71. Novelist Fulton Oursler was summoned to the home following the death. Mr. Erskine had written 45 books, including Venus, the Lonely Goddess, published in 1949.

Hot, dry weather pervaded the South on Friday while torrential rain fell in Nebraska, causing floods which drove 200 persons from their homes, and snow fell in western South Dakota, as well as in North Dakota, Wyoming and Montana. Across the Great Lakes, bitter cold winds blew.

As a result of the winds, an acrobat fell and died when a 119-foot pole snapped before 250 spectators at a Detroit carnival.

On the editorial page, "The Big Moment Arrives" comments on Secretary of State Acheson testifying before the Senate committees, the climax of the hearings on the firing of General MacArthur and Far East policy. Secretary Acheson was the lightning rod for Republican criticism of that policy and so would now have his chance to defend Administration policy. He had been attacked for being sympathetic to Communism and had numerous political enemies on the right. The hearing was certain therefore to degenerate quickly into politics, but not merely partisan politics as many Democrats were also opposed to Mr. Acheson.

It concludes that the past would be dug up, as it should be, but that thinking Americans would hope that a more clear future would emerge from Secretary Acheson's testimony.

"A Well-Deserved Honor" applauds the award by Davidson College of an honorary degree of doctor of pedagogy to Harry P. Harding, who had retired as superintendent of Charlotte Public Schools in 1949. Dr. Harding had been an outstanding member of the community and served as superintendent of schools for 35 years at his retirement. Former Senator Frank Graham, former president of UNC, had delivered a tribute to Dr. Harding in which he set forth his many accolades and accomplishments, as quoted in the piece.

"Where Men Are Outnumbered" tells of the North Carolina Public School Bulletin informing that the state ranked second to last among the states, ahead of only Virginia, in number of male teachers in the public schools, with 12.8 percent, while the male population of elementary school students was more than fifty percent and 45 percent at the high school level. While the Bulletin did not hold that the number of male teachers had to equal the percentage of male students, it did believe that, with the national average being twenty percent, more ought be male, especially by the late elementary school grades, to afford the necessary advice and role models for the older boys.

The problem, the piece ventures, was lack of money to compete in hiring male teachers.

A piece from the Hertford County Herald, titled "Good News Out of Raleigh", compliments the Legislature, as learned from its bulletin, for its "hold-the-line" position while adding ten new safety promotional representatives to the Department of Motor Vehicles. The Legislature had done less generally in highway safety than in other areas. The State had also stepped up highway and bridge construction more than at any time since the war. It concludes that the Administration of Governor Kerr Scott was not, as critics contended, widening the gulf between urban and rural dwellers, as the the primary road system and the highways serving the cities were indebted to the secondary road program in rural areas for some of the extra funds allocated to the primary arteries.

Drew Pearson tells of denials of some of his stories by their subjects only to be revealed subsequently as having been completely accurate. One such instance was the previous week when he reported a feud between Charles Wilson, Defense Mobilizer, and Eric Johnston, Economic Stabilizer, denied by Mr. Wilson, after telling a third party that the column was accurate.

Price Administrator Mike DiSalle had denied receiving a letter from the President, as Mr. Pearson reported, praising Mr. DiSalle's wit in the Sunday New York Times, using the phrase, "trocar on a clovered bull" to describe its deflating effect on its Washington targets. A spokesman for Mr. DiSalle then called to say that he had to deny the story to avoid getting into trouble with the President.

Another recent instance related to the column reporting that the Army had failed to include noncombat casualties in its casualty figures, which would double the figures, including frostbite and other such noncombat causes. He had also said that General Walton Walker had not been included among the casualties because his death the previous December came from a jeep accident. The Army then denied the story. But recently, General Omar Bradley, testifying before the joint Senate committees, had verified that both facts were correct.

Mr. Pearson adds that the column had made mistakes and when made, tried to correct them. Among such errors was a recent statement that Senator Homer Capehart of Indiana had been solely responsible for suppressing the 1947 report of the Senate Banking Committee on the 1939 RFC loan to the B & O Railroad and RFC administrator and Secretary of Commerce Jesse Jones then in 1944 agreeing to allow B & O to default on repayment with a fictitious bankruptcy amid high profits, with the result that proteges of Mr. Jones were then hired to high-paying positions by B & O. Senator Capehart contended that he was not alone on the Committee in wanting to suppress the report. Mr. Pearson agrees but adds that the Senator was acting chairman at the time and issued the order to suppress the report while the Committee chairman, Senator Charles Tobey, was ill.

Joseph Alsop finds that Secretary of State Acheson could not conceivably last much longer in the position, as even leading members of his own party, including Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn, House Majority Leader John McCormack, Senate Majority Leader Ernest McFarland, Senate Whip Lyndon Johnson, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Tom Connally, and DNC chairman William Boyle, among others, were in favor of his replacement, as he had become a political liability to the Democrats.

The President, however, had responded that Secretary Acheson was doing a fine job and would remain. The Secretary, himself, had said in private that he would remain for the duration of the President's term or as long as the President wanted him in the position.

While Mr. Alsop finds it easy to sympathize with the President, he also believes it "silly to imagine" that Mr. Acheson could remain with so many Democrats convinced that he was political poison for 1952. The President and the Secretary were interested in maintaining the foreign policy and it was threatened as long as Mr. Acheson continued as Secretary.

Senator Taft's position on foreign policy was now commanding a majority of the Senate on such issues as sending troops in support of NATO and the amendment of Senator James Kem of Missouri which subjected the allies to a sort of loyalty test before they would continue to receive foreign aid under the Marshall Plan. The danger would increase as long as Mr. Acheson remained.

Mr. Alsop suggests that the current testimony by Secretary Acheson before the joint Senate committees might afford him an opportunity to duck out with honor, having made his case. He would likely be able deftly to handle the questioning of such inept Republicans as Senators Harry Cain and Alexander Wiley. Or he could leave on a note of victory should settlement occur in Korea, which now appeared possible.

Robert C. Ruark tells of young reporter Ed Sovola of Indianapolis currently heading to Europe on his first foreign assignment. He did not know whether he would be taken prisoner by the Commies or meet beautiful blonde spies or "get rolled for his wad in a sinister opium drive in Limehouse", but he sure hoped so.

There would be disillusion when he was called upon to cover bloodletting, as it was about the same in Budapest as in Cleveland. He would learn that people were the same everywhere, displaying the same range of characteristics, from the generous to the nefarious.

"But somewhere in his future is the first sight of the sun shining on the snowy spires of Casablanca, his first appreciation of Paris in the Spring, his first sampling of a winy Roman autumn, a London fog, a steamy bullfight afternoon in Spain. No man first sees Gibraltar without a thrill, and the mystic lights of Tangier, viewed from a ship, herald all sorts of fascinating evil."

"...Once tasted, the fruits of foreign meandering are hard to spit out."

Tom Schlesinger of The News, in his weekly "Capital Roundup", tells of Senator Clyde Hoey's investigating committee perhaps ready to release a bombshell bigger than its previous five-percenter investigation, as American-owned ships with American crews flying under foreign flags had been observed shipping goods to Communist China and Russian Siberia. The ships were able to evade income tax and U.S. wage and hours laws as well as U.S. Maritime laws by operating under foreign registries.

Five members of the North Carolina Congressional delegation opposed the loan to India of surplus wheat, while six favored it. Congressman Carl Durham warned that hamstringing the bill with amendments requiring conditions of repayment in manganese and other critical Indian resources might cause India to cut off manganese, mica, and other such vital raw materials essential to U.S. defense production. Other members of the delegation favored the bill on strictly humanitarian grounds, given the prospect of imminent starvation for millions in India.

There were few members of the House around this week as the calendar showed no pending business for each day.

Senator Hoey was absent from Washington, receiving an honorary degree from Bob Jones University amid making his round of commencement addresses.

The Rules and Administration Committee of the Senate voted to discontinue serving free bottled mineral water to the Senators, saving $18,000 per year, a service started a century earlier when Washington's water supply was polluted. The Senators had been drinking 72,000 bottles of the mineral water per year.

The first performance of the renewed "Faith of Our Fathers" by playwright Paul Green on the life of George Washington, begun the previous summer for Washington's Sesquicentennial celebration, was receiving praise for its appeal to families, with lower admission prices and more spectacle than the first version. Mr. Green said the outdoor presentation had a new atmosphere covering the life of Washington from age 27 through the laying of the Capitol's cornerstone 40 years later.

This date fifty years ago, polls in California were showing Senator Robert F. Kennedy somewhat ahead of Senator Eugene McCarthy in the California Democratic presidential primary, scheduled for Tuesday, June 4, the last of the limited primary season, in which Vice-President Hubert Humphrey, overwhelmingly the favorite to win the nomination, had elected not to participate.

Senator McCarthy, surprising winner of the Oregon primary, the first loss ever suffered in politics by any of the three Kennedy brothers—not counting the loss of the vice-presidential nomination by Senator John F. Kennedy in 1956 to Senator Estes Kefauver at the convention—, had nevertheless to win the California primary to be considered a serious rival to Vice-President Humphrey, whose campaign operatives claimed had sewn up the nomination with an overwhelming majority of the delegates already committed, formally or informally, to his camp.

The winner of the California primary, however, would be considered a legitimate contender at the Chicago convention in August, with the chance of causing defections from Vice-President Humphrey, aligned with the Johnson Administration in the minds of many voters and thus associated with the failed policies of the Vietnam War and the foundering Paris peace talks begun less than a month earlier. A Kennedy win in the primary, bringing thus proven popularity with the voters of New York, from which he had been elected Senator in 1964, and California, the two most populous states in the country, with a combined 83 electoral votes out of the 270 necessary to win the general election, could make him an effective challenger.

What would have happened in Chicago, of course, we shall never know.

We know only the close result the following November.

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