The Charlotte News
Saturday, August 4, 1951
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the Communist ceasefire negotiators at Kaesong in Korea said that they would not alter their demand for a ceasefire zone around the 38th parallel. No progress was made at the end of the day of talks.
In Tokyo, an educational division of allied headquarters surprisingly released information for the first time that the allies wanted the demilitarized zone north of the current battle lines, between the Yalu River and the battles lines, previously described by sources familiar with the talks as being coterminous only with a zone about twenty miles north of the battle lines. There was no explanation why this release came from the educational division, which normally dealt with picturing the American way of life to the Japanese. The announcement on the ceasefire zone was issued as "background material". Earlier, an allied spokesman told reporters that it would be a "serious error" and the "wildest sort of speculation" to suggest that the allies were desirous of such a line north of the battle lines.
Late in the day, General Mathew Ridgway hastily called a meeting in Tokyo at which Chinese interpreters were present. The subject was not known, though speculation ran that it concerned the release of the statement by the educational division of allied headquarters. The meeting lasted more than five hours and did not conclude until around 3:00 a.m.
Attacking U.N. troops ran into stiff enemy resistance supported by mortar and artillery fire on the western front west of Yonchon this date. On the central front, U.N. forces repulsed an enemy attack which began the previous night. Only patrol activity was otherwise reported.
Fifth Air Force planes flew 208 sorties against enemy supply and transportation facilities.
In Tehran, the British Cabinet mission arrived to resume negotiations with the Iranian Government re the oil nationalization dispute. The British delegation would meet with mediator Averell Harriman this night and then with Premier Mohammed Mossadegh the next day. It appeared both sides were ready to compromise, with Iran ready to negotiate regarding the parts of nationalization affecting British interests, considered a major concession after Premier Mossadegh previously had said he could not relent from the national stance of nationalizing all British interests without precipitating widespread disruption in the country.
In Berlin, fifty of the youths gathered for the "third world youth festival for peace" inquired about defection to the West before the festivities began. They said that they were an exploratory committee to see what kind of accommodations would be available for them and other refugees to follow, but were persuaded to return to the Eastern sector as West Berlin did not have sufficient accommodations.
Senator Pat McCarran, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, told one of the President's two nominees to the Federal bench in Illinois who was not approved by Illinois Senator Paul Douglas that tradition and precedent were not with him on confirmation. Hearings were set to begin on the nominee, Joseph Jerome Drucker, having been delayed for a week on the other nominee, Cornelius Harrington, at the request of the Justice Department. Senator McCarran told Mr. Drucker that in his 18 years on the Committee, the situation in which a home state Senator opposed the nomination had arisen perhaps four or five times and each time the same result occurred, failure to approve confirmation.
In the wake of the dismissal from West Point of 90 Cadets, the majority of whom were members of the football team, for cheating on exams, demands arose on Capitol Hill for an investigation. Senator Milton Young of North Dakota wanted a probe of the possibility that overemphasis at the Academy on football had led to the breakdown in the honor code. General J. Lawton Collins, chief of staff of the Army, had suggested as much in a statement to Congress on the matter the previous day, saying that practice time had cut down on the football players' ability to keep up in class.
Probably Commie-inspired. There is a Commie on the coaching staff. Get him before he tackles you and turns you into a Red.
In Manby, England, a four-engine Royal Air Force bomber completed a 4,128-mile polar flight from Fairbanks, Alaska, in 19 hours, 34 minutes, with a crew of ten and a British newsman aboard. It had flown to Fairbanks the prior week.
In Los Angeles, a Manhattan Beach
councilman who married a woman subsequently charged with embezzlement said that he
was through with her after eleven days of marriage, accomplished in
Las Vegas. Until July, she had been the secretary-treasurer of the
credit union at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, O. An
audit showed $50,000 missing out of the five million to which the
woman had access. An FBI agent said the woman admitted spending
$1,000 on her trip west. The woman's second husband, a Dayton barber,
said that they were still married and he had not contemplated a
divorce. The woman was a grandmother through children with her first
husband. The councilman said that she told him she was a widow of a
wealthy Detroit manufacturer who died two years earlier. He was
disillusioned
In Saranac Lake, N.Y., a four-year old girl, who fell out of her parents' car, fell into the arms of a policeman after he noticed the rear car door ajar and anticipated the fall.
Flash flood waters from the Big Thompson and Cache La Poudre Rivers hit northern Colorado this date in the wake of torrential rains, claiming five lives at a flooded resort midway between Loveland and Estes Park and causing many to have to abandon their homes and cars. The waters also flooded parts of Fort Collins, including the campus of Colorado A & M College.
On page 9-A, book-page editor Bob
Sain explores the private-eye mystery genre in his column, "After the Bookends", books
involving the "gentle art of boozing and bruising". Any
schmoozing and cruising?
On the editorial page, "Truman Is Running Tra-La Tra-La" treads the same ground which the Alsops, Marquis Childs, and Drew Pearson had trod of late, insisting that signs were plentiful that the President obviously intended to run again in 1952. You can read those signs for their inaccurate inferences, but as they already have been amply covered recently and the run never came to be, there is no need to dwell too much on them.
It concludes: "The President is running, all right. He's running hard and fast. And unless the Republicans match his political wizardry with a few tricks of their own, Mr. Truman may hornswoggle the American people out of another four years in office."
Well, maybe he should have. But the fact was that more probably than not, these tea leaves being read by the political opinion columnists of the time were deliberately planted and stimulated by the Administration to try to avoid the concept of the sitting President being perceived as a lame duck as he entered his last year and a half in office with a war going in Korea potentially to be resolved in the ceasefire talks, the economy stable but threatened, and his political power in Congress clearly on the wane.
As to the chief complaint through time against the President, probably apt, that he did not possess the dynamic leadership ability of his predecessor, especially when it came to public discourse and the delivery of a resounding speech, the same would be true of his successor, President Eisenhower. The country missed FDR and the optimism he not only exuded but communicated, the notion that there was a steady hand at the tiller, a perception President Truman could never succeed at instilling in the broad mass of the American people for very long. President Eisenhower conveyed that impression for most of his term, but perhaps in the process appearing so steady as to represent too much the status quo, unwilling to rock the boat. And he, too, lacked the communication skills necessary in an age of radio and now television, something of which President Kennedy would become a prime exponent, ushering politics into the modern age of telegenic personality, for better or worse, though mostly for the better in the case of President Kennedy, himself, not always so with his emulators through time on both sides of the aisle.
And as for the Great Pretender, Mr.
Nixon, the bastion of the ... well, enough said
"A Lesson for the Future" reviews the Senate subcommittee report on the 1950 smear campaign conducted by Senator John Butler's campaign in defeating incumbent Senator Millard Tydings of Maryland—as covered the previous day on the front page—, including stump speeches by Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy and concocted composite photographs of Senator Tydings supposedly standing and smiling with Earl Browder, former head of the American Communist Party. The report had not found Senator Butler worthy of rebuke though it found he had been "negligent" in his direction of campaign staff, who ran the "backstreet" smear campaign, largely originating from out-of-state operatives.
It finds that variations of the smear technique had been employed in the 1950 Senate primary races between Willis Smith and interim Senator Frank Porter Graham in North Carolina and between Senator Claude Pepper and Congressman George Smathers in Florida, and there were signs such techniques might resurface in the 1952 elections.
While the report would not rectify the wrongs of the past, it might alert the electorate to be aware of the "deliberate debasing of political ethics and thus help to prove the other Lincolnesque line about fooling all of the people all of the time."
"No Time for Back-Sliding" tells of a report that several Charlotte property owners were planning to oppose full enforcement of the section of the slum-clearance building ordinance which required bathing facilities in each dwelling unit. It suggests that such a move would get little attention from the realtors and property managers, who had given their strong support to the ordinance, which had done a lot of good in the city since becoming law in 1948. It urges that they and the City government must never weaken in their resolve to rid the city of the blight of substandard dwellings.
"What's the Matter with LaFollette?" wonders why Senator Pat McCarran's Judiciary Committee was dragging its feet in confirming to the Subversive Activities Control Board Charles LaFollette, named as chairman, after recommending confirmation of three of the appointees, only holding back on Mr. LaFollette, who had a long and distinguished career in Indiana politics and had served on the Nuremberg tribunal as deputy chief counsel. He was the only Republican named to the Board after the departure of former chairman Seth Richardson.
The Washington Post suspected that Senator McCarran did not like Mr. LaFollette's past outstanding work in the field of civil liberties or his present scrupulous regard for the rights of witnesses during the hearings on Communists.
It concludes that whatever the reason, further delay would only handicap the Board and if the Senator waited much longer, he would lend credence to the notion that he was not interested in enforcing the law which he drafted and pushed through Congress "in a moment of hysteria" in 1950, requiring registration of the Communist Party.
A piece from the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, titled "Passion in USSR", tells of a dreary tale emanating from the Communist youth newspaper in Russia, the junior Pravda, criticizing Konstantin Simonov, one of the leading poets of Russia who had won the Stalin prize in literature. The newspaper criticized him for writing sonnets only about "him and her", not about her "sharp, flexible brain" or finding passion regarding her "social significance".
It finds it sad, as all poets, even those tending to the macabre from Dante to Poe, eventually wrote about "him and her", as opposed to the social concerns of the young Soviets. So dreary a goddess as the Soviet Union "must surely inspire exceedingly drab poetry."
Drew Pearson tells of a rash of speeches occurring in Congress recently, all from Republicans, attacking either Secretary of State Acheson or the Voice of America, under State Department control. All of these speeches were mimeographed copies produced by a backstage ghost-writer for canned presentation. The ghost writer had in fact even misspelled some of the names of the Congressmen tapped to make the speeches.
The ghost writer who wrote the speeches was Robert Humphries, formerly on the staff of Assistant Secretary of State Ed Barrett while the latter had been editor of Newsweek. Currently, Mr. Barrett was in charge of State Department propaganda. While at Newsweek, so much propaganda from the National Association of Manufacturers began to appear in the magazine through Mr. Humphries that Mr. Barrett was about to ease him out when he resigned and took a job as Republican Congressional Committee ghost writer. Such was why he was now waging a battle against the Voice and the State Department.
Senator Tom Connally recently gruffly answered a question of Senator George Malone of Nevada by saying he hoped the Senator stayed happy.
Senator Walter George of Georgia did not show up for important votes on the premise that he was writing the tax bill, not thereby, suggests Mr. Pearson, doing the taxpayers' business.
Congressman Foster Furcolo was planning to run against Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., of Massachusetts and, notes Mr. Pearson, the Senator might have trouble within his own party as Sinclair Weeks, national GOP treasurer, was contemplating a run. Congressman Furcolo would not be the Democratic nominee to topple Senator Lodge in 1952.
Marquis Childs suggests that the "scare talk" about inflation from the President and his assistants was overripe, finds that while there was a longer range threat of inflation, there was, according to the economic experts, no imminent crisis. They predicted that the cost of living index would remain steady through the end of the year, possibly rising from its present mark of 185.2 to 190 by January, but that even that was not probable.
They predicted rents to rise right away but much of it had been absorbed, as food prices were likely to decline in the face of bumper crops. Food was weighted three times to one against rent in computing the index.
Things could change with climate changes, drought, more floods, etc.
The Office of Price Stabilization had not yet settled on a policy. Price Administrator Mike DiSalle had demonstrated toughness and skill to a degree few expected after so many others had turned down the job, but one of the final alternatives which his agency might have to adopt was "self-pricing" for industry. That was a way of giving industry the job of fixing inflation, leading the average consumer then to wonder why his salary check would not go far enough.
Joseph & Stewart Alsop again write of the Chinese Communist split with Moscow, toward creation of an independent Communist regime, not quite so independent as the Tito regime in Yugoslavia, but nevertheless not the traditionally obeisant satellite as found in Eastern Europe. Mao Tse-Tung clearly had in mind a co-equal partnership with Moscow in which China would be the dominant Communist force in Asia, similar to Russia's role in Europe.
Mao had developed a theory of Chinese revolution which, according to the seven articles recently published to coincide with the 30th anniversary of establishment of the Chinese Communist Party, was an "enrichment of Marxism-Leninism", viewed as the essential basis for solving the "problems of revolution in the colonial and semi-colonial countries", expressly including "Vietnam, Burma, Indonesia, Malaya, and the Philippines", with India, Japan and other countries in a secondary, less urgent category.
This brand of revolution which Mao favored was violent.
From the Soviet point of view, the idea of an equal partnership with Mao and China was a losing proposition, though one which the Kremlin might accept for awhile. The Soviets regarded the Chinese Communists as upstarts. The fact that their revolution was one of violence meant that a break with the Kremlin could just as likely increase as diminish their hunger for power throughout Asia. The impulse of China to expand in Asia might also stimulate the Soviet impulse to expand further. And if competition developed for expansion of Communism, Stalin's expansion would have to exceed that of Mao to contain the Chinese.
Thus, the Alsops conclude, Mao's challenge to the Kremlin did nothing to give the West ground for complacency. But it was worth noting that Mao was not a satellite stooge and was not likely to become one without a Soviet struggle, that being "one of the central facts" of the time.
Tom Schlesinger of The News, in his weekly "Capital Roundup", tells of the North Carolina Congressional delegation deciding that the states had undisputed rights to the tidelands oil, contravening Supreme Court cases which had held that the Federal Government had exclusive rights therein. The House for the third time passed legislation surrendering the Federal rights. A previous bill had been vetoed in 1946 and another had died in the Senate in 1948.
In the Senate, the effort was being made to substitute the amendment of Senator Lister Hill of Alabama, to devote proceeds from the estimated 40 billion dollars in royalties from the tidelands oil off the shores of four states to all of the states for education.
Senators Willis Smith and Clyde Hoey of North Carolina had not yet announced their positions, though they likely would follow the House lead.
The testimony the prior February of William Webb of Statesville, N.C., regarding his advocacy of increasing taxes on mutual insurance companies, tracked word for word the July testimony of Professor O. Glenn Saxon of Yale, who appeared on behalf of the National Tax Equality Association. Representative Daniel Reed of New York said that the Association was trying to raise lobbying funds of 31 million dollars to put pressure on the Senate in connection with the pending tax legislation.
The Greensboro Daily News and Raleigh News & Observer had approved of Senator Smith's first Senate speech, lasting only two minutes, favoring conflicts-of-interest legislation, approval which delighted the Senator. He said that he intended to use discretion in making Senate speeches, as "windjammers" never got to be the head of the class. He denied, however, having higher aspirations.
The Senator, who regularly opposed public housing, had found conditions in housing at Camp Lejeune and Cherry Point "deplorable" and wanted to take some of his colleagues, primarily from the Midwest, on a tour of the facilities. He also intended to take them on a cruise of the Inland Waterway, as most of them had never seen water before.
The investigating committee chaired by Senator Hoey was making a preliminary investigation into the charges uncovered by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that DNC chairman William Boyle had received payments from a firm which obtained an RFC loan, payments which Mr. Boyle said were legal fees having nothing to do with the loan. The Senator said that no formal proceedings would occur until after the grand jury probe of the matter.
The North Carolina versus Maryland football game in College Park on October 20 would be televised in color. If you happen to be one of the four or five people in North Carolina with a color receiver, be sure and have the motor in the back of the set properly serviced and greased a day or so before the game. Parenthetically, Jim Tatum, later head coach at UNC, coached the Terrapins at the time, eventually leading to a national championship for Maryland in 1953.
Senator Smith considered Alexander Barmine, former Soviet brigadier general now in the State Department in the Russian division, to be one of the "clearest-headed witnesses" to appear before the subcommittee on Internal Security, after he said that Owen Lattimore, occasional State Department consultant on the Far East, and reporter Joseph Barnes, had been considered Moscow's men during the mid-Thirties. Mr. Lattimore had responded that the charge was "pure poppycock".
Where's Jesse?
Framed Edition
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