The Charlotte News
Saturday, August 18, 1951
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports, via Robert B. Tuckman, that the four men of the subcommittee formed to try to resolve the impasse on the ceasefire zone in Korea were seen huddled around a map this date, though no official report was being presented on the subcommittee talks. They would meet again the following day, indicative of no resolution yet having been reached. Chief U.N. negotiator Vice-Admiral C. Turner Joy released a statement again stating U.N. insistence upon the ceasefire line being drawn along current battle lines and rejecting again the Communist demand that the line be drawn along the 38th parallel. Whereas the five-man delegations from each side had failed to make headway in resolving the impasse, the subcommittee appeared to be making progress in a less formalized atmosphere, as the sound of laughter again was heard emanating from the conference room. The previous day, Peiping radio had said that the subcommittee on Thursday had taken the "first step" toward finding a solution, though not stating what the first step was.
U.S. and Communist jets fought two air battles over northwest Korea this date, in the first large-scale air action in the war in more than a month. One enemy fighter was reported by headquarters damaged in the first engagement and another "probably destroyed" in the second. All of the American F-86 Sabre jets in both battles returned safely. Twenty-eight Sabres had engaged with 24 Russian-type MIG-15s in the second fight, while in the first, 29 Sabres had taken on 30 MIGs.
In ground fighting, U.N. and Communist infantry fought hand-to-hand battles at both ends of the battle line the previous day, while in the center of the front, one allied patrol probed to within sight of Pyonggang and then withdrew under enemy fire. In all, there were five small patrol skirmishes within the sector which at one time comprised the "iron triangle" of the enemy. Chinese troops attacked in the west, in the Yonchon sector, 35 air miles north of Seoul, but were repulsed, with 31 Chinese killed and 33 taken prisoner.
Three Senators, led by Senator Taft, said this day that if the ceasefire talks failed in Korea, the U.N. forces might have to strike the Communist Chinese with the sort of warfare which had been proposed by General MacArthur, that is bombing of Chinese supply bases within China and imposition of a naval and economic blockade. Senator Richard Russell, chairman of the joint committees which had investigated the firing of General MacArthur, said, though not making reference to General MacArthur's plan, that the U.N.'s answer to a failure of the ceasefire talks would certainly be "vigorous" warfare against the Communist Chinese.
In West Berlin, police reinforced
their patrols after receiving tips that young Communists attending
the East Berlin "peace festival" intended to provoke
disorder. On Wednesday, a border riot had occurred, with about 14,000
blue-shirted East Germans trying to invade West Berlin with a "peace
march" and, as police sought to stop them, began
throwing sticks and stones. The festival would end with a mass
meeting the following day, with Communist leaders hoping for a
turnout of a half million people
In New York, a man had taken 17 or
18 aspirins, the equivalent of 12 sleeping pills, a quarter pound of
DDT, a quart of wood alcohol, and turned on all five gas jets in the
kitchen, in his failed effort to commit suicide, was reported to be
in good condition
In Turin, Italy, the general prosecutor of the province said that an Italian court would try the two former American soldiers in absentia for the alleged slaying of their wartime O.S.S. commander should the Government be unable to extradite them to Italy for trial. Both men had denied complicity in the 1944 murder and vowed to resist any attempts to extradite them. It was alleged that two Italians had assisted them in the killing during a mission behind German lines during the war. An Italian judge had, for the time being, refused the application of the prosecutor for extradition on the ground that more investigation of the case was necessary.
Economic Stabilizer Eric Johnston approved a policy whereby, temporarily at least, wages would be allowed to rise and fall with the cost of living. He said, however, that the whole stabilization program would have to be reviewed the following spring. The new policy had been proposed by the Wage Stabilization Board, to last until March 1, 1952.
In Detroit, Colonel Keith Compton, flying an F-86E Sabre jet fighter, finished first in the transcontinental Bendix Trophy Race, but was not necessarily the winner, as the flight times of the eight planes in the race from California first had to be determined. Colonel Compton's speed for the 1,920-mile race was, unofficially, 556.37 mph, a record if determined officially, smashing the former mark of 529.614 set in 1949.
In Wrightsville Beach, N.C., T. J. Lassiter, publisher of the Smithfield Herald, was elected president of the North Carolina Press Association, and other officers were also named. Thomas L. Robinson, publisher of The News, was named to the board of directors. The Association passed resolutions condemning the government seizure of La Prenza in Buenos Aires by Argentine dictator Juan Peron, and the Czechoslovakian Government prosecution and conviction for espionage of Associated Press correspondent William Oatis. Senator Clyde Hoey was made an honorary member of the Association.
In Jamaica, Kingston, silent for 18 hours during the passage of a hurricane over the island, provided a fragmentary report that the city had experienced winds of 80 to 90 mph or higher. There was no mention of damage or loss of life.
In Hollywood, a studio spokesman
reported that actress Linda Darnell and her four-year old daughter
were on the island at the time of the storm, also resulting in the studio being
unable to get in touch with the crew shooting a film
On the editorial page, "Time for Action on Truck Plan" tells of the City Traffic Engineer having sent to the City Manager in January a plan for trucking operations within the city, a plan which was scientific, well-documented and fair to everyone concerned. It was endorsed by the Charlotte Motor Freight Carriers Association, the Charlotte Planning Board and the Charlotte Parking Commission. But since January, the report had gathered dust while the big trucks continued to travel already-crowded mid-town streets.
During the week, the City Council had finally turned its attention to the report but then, after a few superficial comments, put it aside until a public hearing could be held on September 20. It hopes that the outcome of the hearing would be adoption of the reasonable report, implementation of which was necessary for a solution to the long-term problem.
"Wow! What an Advertisement!" tells of a recent story in the Wall Street Journal being, perhaps, of some interest to the City Council as it considered the spending of $3,500 for a survey of municipal parking. The Journal had interviewed hotel and restaurant operators in several American cities to try to find out why their business was diminishing, finding a dearth of parking space in downtown areas to be the most oft-stated reason.
If, as the city's private parking lot operators claimed, there was no parking problem in Charlotte, then the City Council ought spend the money to prove the fact. If it proved true, then, it posits, the Chamber of Commerce could ballyhoo the fact as a great advertisement for the city, that a study had determined that there was no parking shortage downtown.
"… In the Minds of Men" tells of "professional" college football being glamorous and thus easily peddled to alumni and the public. By contrast, it was unlikely that 50,000 people would ever gather on a college campus to watch "four debaters hurl scintillating syllogisms at each other".
The University of Kentucky had devoted $690,000, a tenth of its total operating budget, to athletics. The Louisville Courier-Journal had reported that despite University president Herman L. Donovan having warned that dozens of capable instructors were leaving the University because of inadequate salaries, that warning had not been well promulgated or heeded, as various alumni rushed forward with their checkbooks to pay for the recruiting of a promising young halfback, while a brilliant physics instructor left for better pay at an Eastern university. It also bemoaned the fact that the Legislature had voted four million dollars for a new basketball arena, while its members ignored the University's need for teachers, classrooms and laboratories.
The piece suggests that what was true in Kentucky also held for Virginia and North Carolina. The struggle for the future of civilization was not taking place on the football field but rather in the minds of students, and would not be won by wingbacks, instead by those who followed the Shakespearean admonition that "learning is but an adjunct to ourself".
Euclid had informed Ptolemy I, King of Egypt, that there was no "royal road to geometry", after Ptolemy wanted to skip the first thirteen parts of Euclid's Elements. It concludes that no one since had found any short-cut to learning, and if it were to be found, it would not be set off by rosin lines marked ten yards apart.
"War Is Evitable" suggests that the prefixes "in-" and "un-" posed many silly situations, for example, "ravel" and "unravel", meaning the same thing. But the most absurd of these absurd results came in such phrases as "war is not inevitable", used even by The News, when what one was really saying in that phrase was that war was evitable, meaning "avoidable". It says that it was going to dedicate itself to return to good usage of this perfectly useful word.
Evitably so.
A piece from the Twin City Sentinel of Winston-Salem, titled "FBI 3,000; McCarthy 0", posits that there was an advantage in checking the loyalty of Government employees, not only in uncovering and exposing subversive agents and removing them from the Government, but also in forcing out of the Government those not yet caught but placed in jeopardy. Although Senator McCarthy had failed to discover any proven subversive agents, the FBI could cite a much better record in investigative aid of the Loyalty Review Boards, established in September 1947. Since that time, the FBI had completed its investigation of about three million people, 99 percent of whom had been cleared.
Had not about 1,450 employees resigned while under investigation and another 1,026, after their investigation but before their cases had been adjudicated by the boards, the number of dismissed employees on a finding of disloyalty would have likely exceeded the 500 out of the 11,619 cases before the boards in 1950.
It concludes that the FBI and the loyalty boards had done the nation a great service in rooting out subversive agents, whereas Senator McCarthy, who had made a lot of noise, had failed to prove a single one of his sensational charges.
"As Communist catchers, the FBI agents rank better than Senator McCarthy by a score of approximately 3,000 to 0."
The editors note parenthetically that Drew Pearson's column for this date had been written by two assistants, and that because the subject was Westbrook Pegler, also the subject of the "Pitchmen of the Press" piece below, they decided to substitute another column, by the Alsops.
Joseph & Stewart Alsop tell of responsible officials in Washington being a great deal more worried about the Soviet decision to attend the Japanese peace treaty conference at San Francisco than they were admitting publicly. They expected Andrei Gromyko to arrive in San Francisco with the familiar olive branch in one hand and bludgeon in the other, and worried that he might succeed this time in isolating the U.S. from its allies.
The Kremlin would go to very great lengths to prevent Japanese rearmament, allowed implicitly in the treaty, negotiated deftly by Republican foreign policy adviser John Foster Dulles.
Russia had the capability of landing a small army of Communist-indoctrinated former Japanese prisoners on the undefended northern Japanese island of Hokkaido, but to be successful, had to include Soviet air and naval support, which, if done, would almost certainly precipitate a third world war. Thus, it was more likely that the Russians would engage in an indirect course, keeping the Korean ceasefire talks just ahead of breakdown, as Mr. Gromyko would arrive in San Francisco offering reason, saying that the Korean War could be settled on an acceptable basis, despite the extravagant demands of the U.S., and that the great problems of Asia, such as the future of Formosa and the recognition of Communist China, could also be settled, if only the signing of the Japanese peace treaty were postponed. He might also say that the treaty would not be tolerated by Russia or China, as the Kremlin had already stated, as it would permit "imperialist" Japan to be re-armed by "imperialist" America, ignoring the fact that the Sino-Soviet alliance provided for just such an eventuality. He would also likely say that the Korean War would not be expected to settle following an "illegal and aggressive" Japanese peace treaty.
Officials would be surprised if he adopted any other course. And the treaty was already being denounced as "a white man's treaty", not just in Russia but across Asia, including India, Burma and Indonesia, which were unlikely to sign the agreement. Moreover, Britain and France were not enthusiastic about the treaty. The British would not mind having the U.N. admit Communist China and the Formosa question settled in favor of the Communists. The British might view an offer to settle the Korean War on reasonable terms, in exchange for discussing such matters, to be a tempting package.
Mr. Dulles, with the full backing of the State and Defense Departments, was convinced that a defensible, sovereign Japan was absolutely essential to ensure Asiatic balance of power and that the treaty had to be signed without delay, lest the Japanese would conclude that the Russians were actually calling the shots in Asia, leading then to a rush to join the Communist bandwagon in Japan.
For these reasons, the U.S. had concluded that it would, if necessary, alone sign the treaty, even if that path was freighted with dangers, notably separating the U.S. from its Western allies, a result sought by the Soviets.
The Alsops conclude, therefore, that a grave crisis might lie ahead in the San Francisco conference, set to convene September 4, and, as in the past, a firm stance would be requisite to avoid calamity.
"Pitchmen of the Press", in the eleventh in the series of articles from the Providence (R.I.) Journal, discusses the syndicated column of Westbrook Pegler, read, according to the Hearst syndicate which distributed it, by 45 million readers daily across 200 newspapers, for which he was paid $90,000 per year. The estimate of readership, however, was based on the optimistic view that three persons read the column per newspaper sold. If true, roughly the same number of Americans who cast their ballots each quadrennial in the presidential elections read the 800 or so words of Mr. Pegler for about four minutes each day.
On January 13, he had engaged in a violent attack on ten words, "At Harvard he rowed on the crew and played football," from a book by FDR's physician, Dr. Ross McIntire. During the 15 weeks of the study between January and April, 1950, Mr. Pegler had written 72 daily columns, 33 of which were devoted entirely to attacks on the Roosevelts, and 23, to attacks on the Truman Administration, which Mr. Pegler blamed on FDR. Ten columns were on unions and the remaining six, on miscellaneous matters, though not without significance—the subjects of which the article delineates—, for even there, Mr. Pegler could not resist an occasional attack on FDR.
It suggests that a psychologist might conclude that Mr. Pegler was obsessed with the topic of the late President. During the 15-week period, he devoted himself to proving that the late President had been a traitor to his country, that he was somewhat an effeminate mama's boy, and an unfaithful husband with a secret attachment to another woman.
In his column of January 24, he had posited that recognition of Russia in 1933 was an act of treason by FDR. He found it more tragic than any defeat the country had suffered in battle, made worse because "it was wrought by a vain, willful man". But, says the piece, the fact was that Russia had then existed for 16 years, during which every major power in Europe had recognized it by 1925. He returned to the topic on January 25, saying that recognition of Russia was the beginning of the "decline of the United States".
The piece muses that it would be unfair to call Mr. Pegler a Marxist simply because he agreed with the Communist line that capitalist America was in decline.
Part of the late President's treachery, according to Mr. Pegler, was his carefully laid plan to destroy the Constitution and place Muscovites in key Government positions. On January 28, he had declared: "There is absolutely no doubt that Roosevelt did permit Communists to filter into the Government, well knowing, for he was an all-wise leader, that Communism was fundamentally hostile to the American Constitution which he was sworn to uphold."
On the subject of Dr. McIntire's book, White House Physician, he said that he could not determine whether the words regarding rowing and football were deliberately misstated, but his research had shown that young Mr. Roosevelt had not participated in contact sports while at Harvard. But the Harvard Athletic Association, says the piece, had informed Mr. Pegler that FDR had rowed on several house crews, though not on the varsity. And while there was no record of him playing football at Harvard, he had written his mother at the age of 17, while at Groton: "We played football all afternoon… As it is the last line-up before the game… I got both knees banged again and my head cracked, but very hot water and massage took down the swelling… Mr. Sturgis has been made a first substitute so I now fill his place at halfback, having been moved there from end…"
Richard Nixon played football at Whittier College.
No, that's not nice. He was not captain of the trick-plays special team.
Mr. Pegler appeared to believe that part of the pre-planned Roosevelt legacy was to perpetuate his memory indefinitely, and thus spent a large portion of his column seeking to tear down that memory, even extending to the microscopy of whether he actually played football or rowed at Harvard.
On February 7, he had written: "Democracy has tried to corrupt the Republic and substitute emotional popular rule by means of initiative and referendum." Thus, he attacked democracy as well as FDR. The previous year, he had testified before a Congressional committee: "I am not interested in democracy, except to oppose it." On February 8, in reference to the New York Young Republicans, he had written: "Instead of saying, 'Democracy is no good, so to hell with it', this Republican organization goes wheedling for votes with promises of modified democracy." He had referred to the "Marxian organization called Americans for Democratic Action", and had said, "We have even more prominent Communist Republicans."
Among his heroes was Vivien Kellems, the Connecticut female manufacturer who had been in the headlines for refusing to pay the Government's withholding taxes for her employees. Another such hero was Gerald L. K. Smith, the racist, anti-Semitic, anti-Catholic propagandist. That was so despite Mr. Pegler, himself, being devoutly Catholic. At one time, Mr. Pegler had even advocated revival of the Klan.
Among his descriptions of FDR were that he was a "culprit", "a ghastly betrayer", and "a conniver". On March 17, he had written: "Some Democrats say it is terrible to say such things about a crook because the crook is dead." He had contemptuously referred to the late President as "the late Mahatma" and "Emperor Moosejaw I", and before he had died, shortly after the President's return from Yalta, had described him as "a feeble Fuehrer with one foot in the grave".
On April 22, 1950, ten days after the fifth anniversary of the death of FDR, Mr. Pegler had written: "In the five years since the death of Roosevelt, great progress has been made to discredit him, his wife and those of his progeny who have, with characteristic effrontery, continued to trim suckers in their old man's name, to exploit his grave as a pitchman ballyhoos an embalmed whale… The day will come when patriots will profane the core of the Hyde Park honkatonk." Thus, he apparently engaged in wishful thinking for the time when someone would deface the simple marker on FDR's grave, which only bore inscription of his name and his birth and death years.
We correct that this series had originally been published between June 25 and July 11, 1950, not 1951, and so the period of study of each of the four "pitchmen" was from January through April, 1950.
Tom Schlesinger of The News, in his weekly "Capital Roundup", tells of Comptroller General Lindsay Warren of North Carolina having said that Congress would never cut enough from the budget until the members began to economize on their pet projects. He had been appointed by FDR in 1940 to a 15-year term and only Congress could fire him before the end of that term. The arrangement was built into the law to prevent a President from firing the watchdog on the budget. Mr. Warren had informed Congressional committee after committee that the opportunity to cut the budget was in Government functions which Congress had authorized. He practiced what he preached, for instance in the new General Accounting Office which would open on September 1 with a 25 million dollar building rivaling the Pentagon in size with 10,000 employees, Mr. Warren had economized on space to provide two of the seven floors for use by other Government personnel.
Mr. Warren had spent 18 years in the House before becoming Comptroller General. He had no opponents in eight of his nine races for reelection. In his ten years in the position of Comptroller General he had recovered 718 million dollars for the Government, finding it illegally or improperly paid out to contractors. During the previous five years, he had cut the GAO staff by half from 14,904 to 7,063, saving additional millions of dollars. Thus, Mr. Warren was not a typical "bureaucrat" in the usual epithetical use of the term.
Senators Clyde Hoey and Willis Smith of North Carolina were opposed to televising Congressional hearings, after siding with the minority in a 38 to 13 vote in favor of upholding contempt citations when witnesses refused to testify before committee hearings because they were televised, broadcast and filmed, a vote based on Senator Harry Cain of Washington having sponsored a resolution to withdraw the citations.
Price Stabilizer Mike DiSalle, after speaking in Charlotte, praised regional OPS director Ben Douglas for doing a very good job and also complimented John Daly of The News for likewise doing a "whale of a job" in his reporting on Mr. DiSalle's speeches.
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