The Charlotte News

Wednesday, August 1, 1951

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that Secretary of State Acheson rejected the Communist proposal in the Korean ceasefire talks that the demilitarized zone be set 6.2 miles on either side of the 38th parallel, the point from which the North Koreans initiated the war on June 25, 1950. Secretary of Defense Marshall, he said, had made it clear that any demarcation line had to be defensible and events had shown the 38th parallel not to meet this criterion. He refused to say precisely what U.N. negotiators were demanding as a buffer zone, but other sources had said that it was roughly coterminous with a zone twenty miles above current battle lines.

Pyongyang radio said in a broadcast that North Korea would never accept the U.N.-proposed line as it ran through North Korea. It described the proposed zone as extending 27 miles above current battle lines.

The negotiators from both sides met again in Kaesong for more than an hour this date but refused to budge from their respective positions.

The Defense Department said that U.S. battle casualties in Korea had reached 80,079, an increase of 356 since the previous week, the smallest weekly rise since the weekly summary was initiated the prior August. The total included 11,933 killed in action, 55,891 wounded, and 12,248 missing.

Henry A. Commiskey, 24, became the first Marine in the Korean war to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor. He had killed seven enemy troops in hand-to-hand combat during a charge up a hill the prior September. He was awarded the medal at the White House by the President. There was speculation that the presentation was specially arranged by the President to ease tension with the Marine Corps, following his statements the prior summer calling them the Navy's police force and suggesting that the Marines had a propaganda machine nearly equal to Stalin's.

The October draft call was raised by 6,820 men over the September total, to 41,000. It would be the third month for drafting into the Marines, a total of over 18,000 men. The draft had dropped to a low for the Korean war in July, 15,000 men. The October draft would be the highest call since March, when 80,000 men were called.

The Navy sought nearly five billion dollars in its new budget, 3.5 billion of which would be for new planes. Even that, said its spokesman to the House Appropriations subcommittee, would not produce an adequately modern air arm.

General Alfred Guenther, chief deputy to General Eisenhower, assured the jointly meeting Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Armed Services Committee that U.S. soldiers in Western Europe would maintain their own uniforms and independent status, even in the event of a unified NATO army as favored by NATO supreme commander General Eisenhower. He testified in favor of the Administration's 8.5 billion dollar foreign aid bill.

Secretary Acheson said at his press conference that Communist Hungary was guilty of Nazi-like deportations of its citizens to Russia for alleged political subversion. He said that the U.S. was noting the identity of Hungarian officials responsible for the action and, echoing the President, that the U.S. would present to the U.N. evidence on this matter.

He also said that Czechoslovakia had rejected an American appeal for one of its Embassy officials to visit jailed Associated Press correspondent William Oatis, convicted of espionage, and that the U.S. had in mind taking actions on the matter beyond the economic sanctions already imposed.

From London, it was reported that Pravda in Moscow had printed an appeal from British Foreign Secretary Herbert Morrison urging friendship between the British and Russian people and allowance by the Russians of free exchange of news, broadcasts and tourists. In the same issue, however, it printed a reply which denounced everything he had said, calling the British and Americans warmongers threatening the Soviet Union as "thieves, subversive agents, terrorists and assassins". Mr. Morrison had in June dared Pravda to print his views.

The President, after reluctantly signing into law the new economic controls legislation, just before the deadline for expiration of the old law, called for Congress to amend the legislation to make it a strong price control law. He said the new law was the "worst" he ever had to sign but did so to avoid the lapse of controls. Congressman Charles Halleck responded for Republicans that it was was a proper bill.

Price Administrator Mike DiSalle ordered thousands of prices rolled back or forward prior to the deadline for the old law after delaying the orders for more than a month while the Congress debated the extension measure. The deadline orders avoided immediate compliance with the new law. The office, however, in compliance with the new law, abolished its previously issued meat slaughter quotas designed to prevent a black market in beef.

Hot damn, them Republicans know their hides. Steak again...

The Wage Stabilization Board extended indefinitely its allowance of cost-of-living wage increases.

Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas favored a full investigation of the RFC loan to a St. Louis printing company which had come shortly after payments to DNC chairman William Boyle, which the latter described as legal fees not connected with the loan.

The House Post Office and Civil Service Committee recommended an increase in Federal employee pay by $400 per year.

In Birmingham, England, the local mint, a private company, had to cut back making coins for want of copper, zinc and nickel used in the process.

In Milan, the Italian priest who proposed to marry a girl, 21, from Chicago was expelled from the priesthood by the Roman Catholic Church. He said, upon receiving this news, that he was now free to marry the girl and would do so. The girl had tried to throw herself out of a police station window on July 28 after being taken into custody in Milan for the sake of national security after coming to the country with the expressed desire to marry the priest whom she had met while he visited Chicago.

In Chicago, as pictured, an eight-year old boy, testifying before a coroner's inquest, tearfully repented throwing a set of barbecue tongs at a seven-year old playmate, accidentally stabbing and killing the other boy.

In Youngstown, O., a mysterious silver balloon, 150 to 200 feet in diameter, was drifting high over the earth at an altitude of between 30,000 and 50,000 feet, moving toward the East Coast. No one could account for its source after it had first been spotted over Cleveland. It had no basket for occupants.

On page 15-A, radio and television critic John Crosby discusses the preponderance of quiz shows on television.

On the editorial page, "Another Get-Acheson Drive" tells of the Republicans trying again after failing to pass an amendment to the departmental appropriations bill which would have deprived Secretary of State Acheson of his salary by preventing pay to department heads whose former firms had done business with a foreign government during the four years prior to appointment. Now, the effort was focused on preventing the State Department from administering the foreign aid program on the premise that 6.3 billion of the 8.5 billion dollars sought to be appropriated was for military aid and hence should be directed by the military. They also wanted to remove from the State Department the Point Four program of technical assistance to underdeveloped nations.

The piece thinks that, politics aside, having the aid program administered by one department made sense and would entail less duplication of effort. Having Point Four administered by a separate agency made no sense. It concludes that legislation should be for the people and not against an individual.

"Let's Give the Voters a Voice" favors North Carolina and other states adopting presidential preference primaries to take the nominations by each party from the party chieftains meeting in convention every quadrennial and placing the selection process where it properly belonged, with the people.

If North Carolina did so, it opines, the President would be ranked below such potential Democratic nominees as General Eisenhower, Senator Paul Douglas, Chief Justice Fred Vinson, and Governor Adlai Stevenson.

"Mundt's Political Alliance" tells of Senator Karl Mundt leading an effort to form a coalition in the 1952 elections between conservative Republicans and Dixiecrats, as he had suggested in U.S. News and World Report.

It finds that this indirect approach to try to achieve a victory was only an attempt to deceive the electorate and that it would be better to form a cohesive party around someone such as General Eisenhower as a candidate on a states' rights domestic agenda and an internationalist foreign policy. Voters would not wish to vote for the brand of isolationism being touted by Senators Taft, Wherry, Hickenloooper, and McCarthy. To resort to subterfuge, it concludes, underestimated the intelligence of the voters and would threaten the effort of the Republicans to send President Truman "back to Missouri".

"Teacher Supply and Demand" tells of a study in the current issue of State School Facts having informed that the output of teachers by North Carolina colleges and universities was out of sync with the needs of the schools. More secondary school teachers were being turned out than needed while elementary school teachers were in shortage. The discrepancy made little sense in terms of salary as the teachers were paid about the same, with black elementary school teachers paid slightly more on average than black secondary school teachers.

It suggests that the imbalance ought be corrected by closer liaison between the N.C. Department of Public Instruction and the colleges so that students would understand the need for elementary school teachers and the consequent greater chance of employment than in the secondary schools.

Drew Pearson tells of General Eisenhower having quietly informed GOP supporters that he would not be interested in the party's nomination for the presidency if isolationists continued to control the party. He would not be interested in running just to hand the Republicans a victory and thereby provide political patronage long absent. He did not want to be responsible for getting a Republican isolationist Congress elected, contrary to his own efforts at internationalism. He was concerned that the GOP internationalist wing had been dormant for the prior two and a half years and was not pleased at the way the Taft isolationist wing had become dominant in the party machinery. There were also attacks on the General abounding, from both the Chicago Tribune and the Gerald L. K. Smith-type hate-mongers.

He follows up on his previous day's report on the attempts by the Chicago Tribune to obtain favorable tax treatment on its new composing facility, by listing other businesses which had also sought and failed to obtain such treatment on the premise of their new facilities being necessary to the national mobilization effort and thus entitled to accelerated amortization over five years. The New York Daily News had sought such treatment on a new building used to store newsprint. The Chicago Tribune Syndicate sought the accelerated write-off for providing "news services". M&M sought it for expansion of its candy-making plant on the argument that it supplied M&M's to the Army. Quaker Oats had tried it on a new plant for producing hominy grits.

Marquis Childs discusses the hasty bilateral deal with Spain whereby the U.S. promised Spain arms, training and equipment for its Army in exchange for access to ports and, perhaps later, air bases, finds it likely to have been a foreign policy blunder in the long-run.

First, the corruption and chaos in Spain meant that the aid would likely go for naught as reports of foreign observers had it that the Spanish Army was ineffective and that officers routinely sold Army gasoline on the black market. American military attaches had provided far more optimistic reports on the Spanish armed forces than did those of France and Britain. These American military observers may have been influenced by what they believed the U.S. wanted to hear, the worst aspect, says Mr. Childs, of the entire situation.

Senator Pat McCarran, chairman of the Committee on Internal Security, was the chief proponent of this new alliance with Spain. He had also been chief sponsor of the McCarran Act, which prevented former members of nationalist foreign parties from entering the country, including not only Communists and Fascists therefore, but also Falangists in Spain.

Mr. Childs finds that reports currently being written by well-meaning persons favoring aid to Spain could be taken from the files later and used to show disloyalty by showing Fascist sympathies, just as files were being brandished before witnesses who, during the war, had favored aid to Russia.

The most serious problem, however, was the stretching of the American effort abroad, already stretched to the limit. Moreover, any alliance with Spain was sure to anger Western allies, perhaps beyond the abilities of General Eisenhower to repair, as he had after the U.S. a year earlier had decided to build up West Germany's army to the consternation of the French.

Francisco Franco had promised to reshuffle his Cabinet and restore the monarchy as part of the deal with the U.S., but if pessimists were proved right regarding the cosmetic nature of these changes and the likely continued denial in Spain of basic liberties, even General Eisenhower might find it hard, he concludes, to rescue the situation.

Robert C. Ruark, in Tanganyika, tries to convey how the hunter felt regarding his prey, that it was not the thrill of the kill which motivated the hunter but rather the seeking of a trophy, the tusk of an elephant, the mane of a lion, etc. The animals who were shot were those already turned out by the herd as being too old and so the hunter served the purpose of ending the animal's life humanely compared to its fate in the wild, being torn apart by other predators. Moreover, the meat of the animal could be used by the African villagers in most instances.

He suggests that no one who wore animal hides, such as leather shoes, or furs or ate beef and pork or fish appeared to complain about the slaughter of the animals which produced those hides, fur or meat.

"I suppose anyone who kills willfully is basically vagrant from spiritual perfection, but I will listen to arguments only from bona fide vegetarians who do not wear fur coats or leather shoes."

Sounds like a grand rationalization for uselessly killing wild game in Africa.

A letter from John Clark, member of the UNC Board of Trustees, responds at length to the editorial of July 18, which had criticized him for his stand in being willing to shut down the prestigious UNC graduate program in Spanish rather than admit to the doctoral program a qualified black applicant, holder of a master's degree from the University of California, and also shut down the Medical School for the same reason. He starts by suggesting that the ire of The News must have been triggered by his calling attention to the activities of former FDR and Truman aide David Niles, "one of the leading conspirators against Southern white people", as it had been reported that Thomas L. Robinson, publisher of the newspaper, also hailed from Boston, the hometown of Mr. Niles.

The editors parenthetically note that neither Mr. Robinson, originally from Boston, nor editor Pete McKnight, a life-long North Carolina resident, knew Mr. Niles.

He continues that the charge was untrue that he had attacked Gordon Gray, president of the University, for his urging change in the policy of admission to the graduate and professional schools, making it contingent only on qualifications, irrespective of race, creed or color.

He thinks the move to put a "Negro girl in the dormitory with white girls and permit her to entertain boy friends in the same sitting room with white girls" was not for educational purposes but to accommodate Eleanor Roosevelt, Anna Rosenberg, Mr. Niles, and N.A.A.C.P. executive secretary Walter White.

He reiterates his desire to suspend the graduate program in Spanish at least until the North Carolina College for Negroes in Durham could arrange to provide such a program.

He had disfavored five years earlier the University receiving money from the Rosenwald Fund, which, he says, carried a picture of a "Negro boy teaching white girls". He had then asked a teacher in social anthropology, receiving Rosenwald funds, whether he thought the white man, black man, bushman, pygmy, gorilla and baboon were of the same family and he had replied that he did. He regards the inference to be drawn from that conclusion to be that they were all brothers under the "fatherhood of God", entitled to attend "brotherhood meetings".

His ancestors, he continues, had been in North Carolina a long time, since before May 20, 1775 when the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence was signed, and his grandfather had guided through the Legislature the bill establishing free public schools, as memorialized by a sign placed along Highway 29, between Charlotte and Concord.

He opposed the "corrupt political machine in Washington", as exemplified by such persons as Senator Hubert Humphrey and Attorney General J. Howard McGrath, and "politically-minded Federal judges assuming authority to dictate policies governing" the institutions of higher learning.

He could not understand why the Board had started a move in March to integrate the UNC Law School before the final Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals decision in the case of McKissick v. Carmichael, which ordered, based on the 1950 Supreme Court decision in Sweatt v. Painter, the admission of qualified black applicants for want of a separate but equal facility in the N.C. College for Negroes Law School.

He finds objectionable the picture appearing in the Pittsburgh Courier of two interracial couples dancing at an N.A.A.C.P. event in Atlanta, couples who had also taken part in a meeting at Woman's College in Greensboro, and were "doubtless" paid by the Communists.

The Communists in New York had instructed the schools not to allow singing of Christmas carols and had printed Communist literature with the theme song, "I want to be like Stalin".

He hopes that the day was near when the "evil influence" of such "city slickers" as Senator Humphrey and Attorney General McGrath would be broken.

He needs to tune in to the boys and girls on the radio out in Texas and he'll feel better then to know that he has comrades in arms who respect the Rule of Law as it was intended by the Almighty, to keep the races separate and not dancing with one another or attending the same school parties or engaging in other such godless, Communist-inspired behavior which will inevitably lead to the intermixing of the races and invitation to baboons and pygmies to the brotherhood meetings down at the Klavern where Christmas carols can no longer be sung and only songs praising Stalin are acceptable because of the Communist invasion of the country, even unto the highest levels of government.

A letter writer says that after listening on the radio to the speech by General MacArthur to the Massachusetts Legislature, he had to turn off the radio, overcome with emotion from the "touching experience". The General had said that he got fired for trying to effect a truce in Korea and that now the ones who had fired him were trying to do that very thing.

The writer thinks it highly unfair to allow the General to continue to think that such was the reason for his firing, says that the last time anything comparable occurred must have been when God punished Moses for smiting the rock to draw water for the Children of Israel, then gave the water to them anyway.

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