The Charlotte News
Friday, July 27, 1951
SIX EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that at the Kaesong ceasefire negotiations this date, Admiral C. Turner Joy, head of the U.N. delegation, presented the U.N. position on the ceasefire line, which would entail a demilitarized zone set up roughly coincident with the present battle line. His presentation took up most of the 73-minute session, the first substantive session after settling the agenda finally the previous day. The Communists then asked for a recess until Saturday, at which time, presumably, they would present their reply. The Communists wanted the ceasefire line at the 38th parallel.
On the fighting front, allied attempts to capture hills in the eastern sector were blocked by the Communists northeast of Yanggu and north of Inje, attacks similarly repulsed the prior day. There was light contact with the enemy northeast of Kumhwa on the central front and moderate resistance was encountered by other patrols south of Kumsong.
B-29s and Fifth Air Force fighters and light bombers continued to hit Communist supply targets in more than 350 sorties this date.
The Army held a press briefing at the Pentagon in which it was stated that the allies had the enemy on the ropes during late May and June in Korea, driving back the Communist offensive and beginning a counter-offensive which cost the Chinese more than 100,000 casualties, but held back delivering a knockout blow to show good faith in the peace talks. Meanwhile, said the prepared report, the Communists were showing bad faith in building up troops, supplies, and weapons since the original peace proposal of June 23. By contrast, one U.N. combat unit had been pulled out of Korea and sent back to Japan.
According to authoritative sources, three regular Chinese Nationalist units, comprised of about 15,000 men, had moved 65 miles into Communist China's Yunnan Province from their refuge in northeast Burma. The units were engaged with Communist Chinese forces and had seized control of an airfield. The push had been ongoing quietly for the prior three months as Burmese troops sought to push the Nationalists out of Burma after its Government had recognized the Communist Chinese Government.
Secretary of Defense Marshall testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that he was shocked at the defense "letdown" by the American people since the start of the truce negotiations and urged approval of 6.3 billion dollars of additional foreign arms aid, plus an additional 2.2 billion in economic aid. He said that requirements would be at least as much also for the following fiscal year, 1952-53, of a three-year program.
In Tehran, a British Embassy spokesman said that a decision would be made soon on whether Britain would resume negotiations on the oil nationalization dispute with the Iranian Government. Special U.S. envoy Averell Harriman, who had been seeking to mediate the crisis with Iranian Premier Mohammed Mossadegh and the Shah, said that he would fly to London this night to present the Iranian position to the British Government directly, to avoid having to send telegrams back and forth.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch linked E. Merl Young, who had been identified by the Senate Banking subcommittee as a primary purveyor of influence on RFC decisions, with DNC chairman William Boyle in bringing pressure on RFC to provide a loan to a St. Louis firm. Two days earlier, the Post-Dispatch had published a story which said that the firm had paid $500 per month to Mr. Boyle for 16 months and $1,000 per month to a close friend of Mr. Boyle, beginning shortly after a $565,000 loan had been approved by RFC, but Mr. Boyle, while admitting the payments, said that they were for legal services he performed, having nothing to do with the RFC loan.
Following an all-night session, Senate and House confreres voted tentatively this date to permit price rollbacks on non-farm commodities to levels prevailing just before the start of the Korean war on June 25, 1950, provided certain cost increases were included. Controls would maintain the ten percent price rollback on beef already in effect but would bar additional rollbacks on beef. Other farm commodities could be rolled back to 90 percent of the price prevailing on May 19, 1951 or to parity. Economic controls were to be extended one year, through the following June. The conference also approved more liberal consumer credit than presently in effect under Federal Reserve Board restrictions.
The Republican attempt to block Secretary of State Acheson's salary by proposing an amendment to the appropriations bill financing the State Department and two other departments, which would have prohibited payment to any department head whose firm had been engaged in business with a foreign government during the four years prior to appointment, failed. Also defeated was a Republican attempt to cut the budget for Voice of America. The Republicans split in both votes while the Democrats remained more solid than usual.
The Government ordered another five percent cut in steel for passenger car production, effective October 1. During the last quarter of 1951, auto production would thus be down 60 percent from that during the six months prior to the start of the Korean war, meaning production of slightly more than 1.1 million cars, about 100,000 fewer than during the present quarter and 400,000 fewer than during the second quarter.
The House unanimously voted formally to end the war with Germany, with Congressman Jacob Javits of New York voting "present". The measure, requested by the President, to make way for finalization of a treaty, was sent to the Senate.
In Somerville, Mass., two armed, masked gunmen, wearing police uniforms and badges, robbed a bank and escaped with over $33,000, in a car driven by a third accomplice. They had missed a much larger sum in the bank. One of the men, holding a machine gun, said, "Don't move or I'll drill everybody."
He
needs a new script
In Gastonia, a National Guardsman was sentenced to five days in jail under military regulations for being absent a third time for weekly Thursday drills.
What
happens the fourth time?
On the editorial page, "MacArthur the Politician" finds that in a recent speech by the General in Boston, which he had prefaced by saying that he had "neither partisan affiliation nor political purpose", he had shown both tendencies, implicitly attacking the Administration as "compromising with Communism" and producing a "socialist state and slavery", through "propaganda, fear and deception".
The piece finds it to have echoed the sentiments of such partisan Republicans as Senator Joseph McCarthy, Senator Taft, and such GOP organs as the Chicago Tribune. He said that forces allied with Communism had infiltrated the press, the radio and the schools and that Soviet propaganda dominated U.S. foreign policy. It reminded of the statements of General De Gaulle in France: "Damn the Communists, damn the incumbents—I am above party politics."
It finds him a great soldier and great American, but not so inspiring as a politician. It prefers "Quaker [Senator Paul] Douglas" or "Affable Ike".
"Indispensable to What?" finds that the comment of Senator Owen Brewster of Maine that General Eisenhower was "the indispensable man in Europe" to have been merely an attempt to encourage the President to insist on keeping General Eisenhower as the supreme commander of NATO so that he would not be available as a candidate for the GOP nomination against Senator Taft, whom Senator Brewster supported. No man, it concludes, was "indispensable".
"Truman's Debt to Douglas" finds that since the President had won Illinois and its 28 electoral votes in 1948 by a mere 33,000 votes, he owed that victory to Governor Adlai Stevenson, who won by 572,000 votes and Senator Paul Douglas, who won by 407,000 votes, providing all the more reason for the President to have made appointments to three Federal judgeships from Senator Douglas's list of four acceptable nominees.
"The Sterling Hicks Parole Plea" finds understandable the sympathy of friends of the Charlotte radio engineer, after his conviction for attempting to blow up the WBT radio tower over a labor dispute, but also thinks that their plea for his clemency should be given no consideration as Mr. Hicks had not yet even begun to serve his two-year sentence.
He had won a new trial on appeal but his second conviction had been upheld by the State Supreme Court on May 3. His sentence was stayed pending his petition for writ of certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court, which he had since abandoned, causing his surrender to be set for August 8. He would thus not be eligible for parole for at least six months thereafter, a fourth of his sentence, and would need await that time like any other prisoner before clemency should be considered.
"Ruark the Hunter" finds that while the columns of Robert Ruark on big game hunting in Tanganyika had a "fetching novelty" about them, the whole subject left the editors cold, as the hunter, with his array of guides, guns and superior intelligence had an unfair advantage over the animals being hunted. It prefers the fiction of Edgar Rice Burroughs, for at least Tarzan had engaged the animals hand-to-hand.
"Which Wire Service Do You Read?" provides verbatim, side by side, two stories, one from the United Press and one from the Associated Press, on the same matter out of Vicksburg, Mich., as previously reported on the front page of The News in an earlier A.P. version of the story, regarding the woman who advertised for a husband who could support her sick mother and a man who responded to the ad.
We leave it to the journalism instructors, or the law school professors, across the landscape as a means for honing students' skills of discernment between variant fact scenarios. You will have three minutes to read the stories and provide first a list of all of the variations. You will then have ten additional minutes to complete an essay. For journalism students, critique the style of each piece and state which, in your opinion, is better, providing your reasons. For law students, assess whether the offer contained in the ad, once answered and accepted, is, based on the U.C.C., contractually binding in all respects on both parties, providing your rationale for your conclusion.
Begin.
Drew Pearson tells of Secretary of Interior Oscar Chapman having told the President of an impending shortage of gasoline and heating oil, perhaps necessitating by winter rationing and heatless days. More steel was needed for pipeline for increased domestic oil production, an increase caused by the Iranian oil nationalization crisis, potentially spreading to other Middle Eastern countries which supplied Western European oil needs. That shortage meant that the U.S. would need make up the difference to maintain Western Europe on a track of rebuilding its defenses.
The natural gas industry had over-expanded and did not have the pipe to deliver gas to its customers. It would be necessary, he told the President, to issue a stop order on further installations of natural gas home heating units. Without it, the Appalachian region would suffer a serious shortage in the event of even two weeks of subnormal temperatures the next winter.
There was plenty of domestic coal available for domestic and Western European needs, but coal cars were lacking, again requiring steel.
Secretary Chapman also estimated that the country would need an increase in production of nearly a million tons of aluminum per year.
Mr. Pearson notes that these needs and shortages showed why the events in the Middle East, including the oil nationalization crisis in Iran, the assassination of King Abdullah of Jordan and riots in Egypt, were so important to the U.S.
He again answers gripes from G.I.'s who had sent him mail. A sergeant with the Eighth Army in Korea found irksome a quote attributed to General Mark Clark that enlisted men in the Army were spoiled, as he believed it was the brass hats who were spoiled. Mr. Pearson responds that General Clark, chief of the Army's field forces, had four enlisted men assigned to him as personal servants, including a driver, a cook, and two house orderlies. Army chief of staff General J. Lawton Collins had six servants. Air Force chief of staff General Hoyt Vandenberg had four and the new chief of Naval operations to replace recently deceased Admiral Forrest Sherman would have thirteen.
A soldier's wife from Mobile, Ala., had written asking why a general's wife got to go to Japan to join her husband whereas she, a lieutenant's wife, could not. She also understood that automobiles and pets were being shipped to Japan though there was no room for dependents. Mr. Pearson responds that her information was correct, that General Matthew Ridgway's wife and General O. P. Weyland's family had been shipped to Japan while the dependents of all others had been barred since mid-July, 1950. At least 544 personal cars had been shipped since the ban went into effect, plus an undetermined number of pets.
A recruit at Lockland Air Base in Texas wrote that the hospital on the base was full of ptomaine poisoning and wanted Mr. Pearson to investigate. He responds that it was 590 cases of diarrhea, not ptomaine poisoning, caused by a virus which got into a leafy vegetable because of improper drainage. The Air Force was fixing the drainage system.
Marquis Childs, in Ottawa, tells of the Canadian Government favoring indirect, rather than direct economic controls, as the lack of national urgency would cause direct controls to be ineffective over any extended period and would, unless abandoned in a short time, begin to erode the foundations of free enterprise. But the indirect controls being applied were nevertheless stronger than the direct controls just passed by the U.S. Congress.
For example, in Canada, down payment on a new car had to be 50 percent, with only 12 months to pay, and tight credit restrictions applied on most other installment transactions. The Government had budgeted for large surpluses and as a result, the national debt had been reduced by about 15 percent between 1946 and 1950. With defense spending nearly quadrupled, sharply increased taxes had been made necessary. At least 45 percent of the increased tax burden had come from sales and excise taxes, resulting in higher prices to restrain consumer purchasing and hence inflation.
This form of control hit at every sector of the economy and neither labor nor business had been able to get the Government to backtrack.
The contrast with the U.S. was the result, Mr. Childs believes, of Canada having a responsible Government with party responsibility maintained with discipline. "Wild men are not permitted to run off in every direction making mincemeat of party policy." No Canadian politician had used the fact that there had been a Canadian Communist spy ring discovered in lower Government positions in 1946 to attack all civil servants and thereby undermine confidence in the Government. He thus finds the contrast "mighty refreshing".
Robert C. Ruark, in Tanganyika, tells of their new home being in a "monkey swamp" on the River of Mosquitoes, Mto-Wa-Mbu. It was known for its dou-dou, Swahili for plain bugs. He had never seen such an array of insects, of all colors and sizes, which bit him incessantly.
The insects respected division of labor. Mosquitoes did not bite when the tsetse flies were biting and vice versa. When they stopped biting, the caterpillars, bees, and ticks took over. His swollen body as a result was such that he was recently admired by a female warthog. Poisons were useless against these mosquitoes and tsetse flies.
But the caterpillars were the worst as they left a red track which then began to burn and afterward was sore for a week. His white hunter, Harry Selby, who faced all manner of wildlife without fear, had been known to scream in horror and drop his pants quickly to be shed of an intrusive caterpillar. He said that he preferred seeking gutshot leopards in the bush.
Clothes were no protection against these insects. Nothing could be done to ward them off and so one had to relax and let them feed, "but when a man gets knocked cold by a hurtling grasshopper as big as a loaf of bread, it is time to pack up and come home."
Let's hope so.
A letter writer from Pittsboro comments on a debate between two letter writers on the worth of the New Deal and Fair Deal philosophies versus free market and free enterprise concepts. After explaining his background, the writer suggests that what was needed now was a sense of individual responsibility, something he had not been able to find emphasized in current political concepts.
A letter from former Mayor and present City Council member Herbert Baxter explains, in response to an editorial, why the City tax rate had increased from $1.48 per hundred dollars of valuation in 1940 to $2.15 at present. The people during the decade intervening had voted a school tax of 25 to 50 cents and an increase in recreation from two cents to eight cents. Deducting those increases from the current rate, left a difference of only 36 cents or about 25 percent in the prior decade attributable to City Council increases. He finds a 25 percent increase in the cost of running the City indicative of good management. The cost of living increases in the interim had necessitated this rise.
The editors note that Mr. Baxter's claimed 25 percent rise in the cost of running the City was somewhat misleading as the appropriations for 1940-41 were about 2.5 million dollars and for 1951-52, 7.5 million, meaning an increase of over 200 percent. They assume Mr. Baxter meant a 25 percent rise in the City tax rate.
Framed Edition
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