The Charlotte News
Wednesday, August 8, 1951
FIVE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports, via Olen Clements, that the U.N. and Communist negotiators still had not resumed negotiations at Kaesong as no acceptable response had been received by General Matthew Ridgway from the Communists assuring that no further repetition would occur of the Saturday incident in which armed Communist soldiers were present in Kaesong in contravention to the prior agreement regarding neutrality of the conference site. Neither the Peiping nor Pyongyang radio broadcasts had mentioned this night the new demand of General Ridgway, instead making reference to there being no U.N. response yet to the assurances provided from North Korean General Kim Il Sung and General Peng Teh-huai that Kaesong neutrality would be observed. This latter reference was apparently to a message, however, which had been communicated to General Ridgway on Monday, which he found insufficient.
The Defense Department announced that U.S. battle casualties in Korea had reached 80,430, an increase of 351 since the previous week, the smallest rise since the first weekly summary in August, 1950. The new total included 11,954 killed in action, 56,213 wounded, and 12,261 missing.
Congressional military expert, Congressmen George Mahon of Texas, cautioned against U.S. "complacency" and warned that in his judgment there was only a minimum hope that the difficulties with Russia could and would be resolved short of a decade-long war.
Senator Brien McMahon of Connecticut, co-author with Representative Abraham Ribicoff of the Congressional resolution declaring friendship with the Russian people, said that the U.S. would lose no time in injecting more truth into the Iron Curtain crack made by Russian broadcasts of the resolution. Moscow radio had broadcast the resolution the previous day as well as its transmittal letter from President Truman.
The East Berlin world youth festival, which had welcomed a half-million blue-shirted Communist youths, was hemorrhaging, as 60,000 of the youths strolled into West Berlin seeking a good, square meal. The East Berlin host committee had been reprimanded by the East German Communist Government for inadequate arrangements, including an arrest for supplying inadequate rations and medical care. The young people said that the festival food lacked something.
Red dye No. 9...
An effort by Senator William Benton of Connecticut to expel Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin from the Senate was given to the same Senate subcommittee, chaired by Senator Guy Gillette of Iowa, which had investigated the previous fall campaign for the Senate in Maryland between incumbent Millard Tydings and the eventual winner, John Butler. Senator Kenneth Wherry of Nebraska, the Minority Leader, said that the effort against Senator McCarthy had been inspired by the DNC, to remove the focus from William Boyle, its chairman, regarding the latter supposedly having received payment from a St. Louis firm for influence regarding that firm's receipt of an RFC loan. The DNC said that the claim was untrue.
The Senate Rules Committee voted 9 to 3 to approve the subcommittee's report on the Butler-Tydings race, which had concluded that a "despicable 'backstreet' type of campaign" had been run on behalf of Mr. Butler. Voting against the approval of the report were Senators McCarthy, Wherry, and William Jenner.
Farm experts expected Government limitations on exports of cotton to be eased on the basis of an official forecast of a bumper crop of 17.2 million bales.
In Mississippi, unofficial returns in the Democratic gubernatorial run-off primary from more than a third of the state's precincts gave former Governor Hugh White 18,479 votes to 18,105 for newcomer Ross Barnett, and 16,908 for Lieutenant Governor Sam Lumpkin, with Paul Johnson, Jr., trailing with 16,353. Govenor White would eventually win. Mr. Barnett would be elected Governor in 1959 and Mr. Johnson would be his successor in 1964.
In two Virginia State Senate primary races, an anti-Byrd-machine candidate won in the heavily industrialized district in the Newport News shipbuilding area, while another anti-organization candidate won in Alexandria, Fairfax, and Prince William Counties. Organization Democrats won in two other close races.
In Allendale, S.C., two buses, loaded with workers on their way to the atomic energy plant near Augusta, collided early this date. The State Highway Patrol reported that at least 35 of the workers were injured, eight critically. One bus had attempted to pass the other near an overpass, causing the passed bus to roll down a 25-foot embankment, landing upside down.
In Wilson, N.C., a fire swept through the edge of the downtown business district, destroying one large tobacco warehouse and damaging other buildings, causing an estimated one million dollars in damage. About 5,000 spectators watched the Wilson firemen battle the blaze. The origin of the fire was unknown.
John Daly of The News tells of Price administrator Mike DiSalle reporting to an audience of about 400 businessmen in Charlotte that during the ensuing several years, there would be a "ruinous price-wage spiral" within the complex of the great expansion of defense production and decrease in civilian goods production. That was so, he continued, even if the Korean War ended right away, unless the national economy were continuously and broadly restricted.
On the editorial page, "On Casting Stones" relates of Congressmen who liked to lecture on good behavior having received their just desserts from a Philadelphia Presbyterian minister, who said during the week that Senators who had nothing to say about the "horrible Maryland election" had no business criticizing the West Point Cadets who had been expelled for cheating, that the Cadets were probably copying the ideals of those who appointed them, that dishonesty in the American Congress had become an international scandal, and that now was the time for all to scorn those seeking political office or business advantage by violating principle. He found that the only hope lay in the increased effectiveness of the Christian Church, and called for an "epidemic of integrity".
The piece hopes that his sermon, delivered at the National Presbyterian Church in Washington, would have an impact on that area.
"Courageous Act" suggests that sometimes the President acted like a real President, as during the week when he had vetoed two new veterans' pension proposals, one of which would have increased from $60-$72 to $120 per month the pensions of war veterans disabled by non-military causes, and the other, to have removed dependency as a requirement for non-service-connected death pensions to widows of veterans married 20 to 40 years after the wars in which they had fought. The President could have signed them both without controversy, but he wisely had turned thumbs down, saying that the cost of the first proposal would approach $400 million per year and that the second would require the extension of the non-dependency rule to widows of veterans of World Wars I and II.
He had shown more political courage, concludes the piece, than the Congress had displayed in passing those bills and deserved the commendation of the American people, who already had to endure heavy defense expenditures.
"A Law That Needs Changing" tells of Senator Jenner of Indiana having exaggerated when he called Social Security administrator Oscar Ewing a "Socialistic-minded dictator" for the reason that Mr. Ewing had cut off Federal public assistance grants to Indiana residents.
Mr. Ewing, it finds, had been simply carrying out the mandate of the Federal law, forbidding the opening of welfare rolls to public inspection. He would have been negligent to have ignored the Indiana Legislature's action to make public its relief rolls.
That did not mean that the Federal law was a good law, but it had its points, preventing welfare recipients from being paraded before the public and scheming politicians from using the relief rolls to troll for voters. But also the taxpayer had a right to know how and where his money was being spent. The Federal Government, moreover, was not the only source of public assistance, as state and local governments also put up matching grants, and therefore, they should have a voice in the regulations governing the spending of relief funds.
The House had passed legislation which would abrogate that Federal law and allow states to open their relief rolls to limited inspection. The piece recommends that the Senate do likewise.
"'Rebellion' in Texas" tells of a rebellion among Texas housewives against withholding the Social Security taxes for their domestic servants, finds it amusing. The IRB had raided their bank accounts and the matter was more serious than it appeared. The millions of American housewives who accepted the small bookkeeping chore of paying these taxes were much more in the American tradition, it opines, and more inspiring than those in rebellion in Texas.
"Frankie and the Press" tells of Frank Sinatra having troubles in Mexico after heading down there to be with Ava Gardner, with whom he had been romantically linked by the pundits of Hollywood, who followed the couple south of the border. In Acapulco, a photographer had taken their picture at a nightclub, at which point Mr. Sinatra's bodyguard threatened to shoot the cameraman, and Mr. Sinatra and his friends proceeded to destroy the photographic plate and damage the camera.
Mr. Sinatra said that it was a private affair and he did not need to talk to anyone, that it was not the press who made him famous but rather his singing and the American public.
The piece concludes that Mr. Sinatra, as long as he was a star singer, could not avoid being the object of attention, especially when in the company of Ms. Gardner, that he could not "have his cake and eat it."
A piece from the Greensboro Daily News, titled "Sick 'Em, Boys", tells of the Asheville Citizen and Charlotte News having engaged in an argument regarding Southern cooking, which seemed to have reached a climax in a bet by the former against the latter, that the News "had never got down wind of a Tennessee Never Fail Cake."
The piece suggests that because it had been wagered on the basis of a Coolidge dollar, the bet appeared spurious, and that the "Never Fail Cake" was just as unobtainable as the other subjects to which it had been linked, all in apparent ruse.
The piece concludes that if both newspapers wanted to start a new argument with the Daily News, that would be fine. The editors would be vacationing at an undisclosed destination during the ensuing two weeks, where they would find genuine Southern cooking, the establishment of which did not turn upon freakish or impossible bets.
Drew Pearson relates that HUAC was about to begin hearings on the Communist spy ring in Japan which had sent to Russia the secrets of the Japanese high command. He states that he had told the story in the column three years earlier, on December 21, 1948. General MacArthur would not authorize release of the story officially. In December, 1948, the late Secretary of Defense James Forrestal had cabled General MacArthur seeking release of the story, but it was not provided. He recapitulates the story printed in the column in December, 1948.
He notes, as he had in 1948, that some of the Japanese spy leaders now headed the Japanese labor unions, and one of them, Ritzu Ito, was a leading Communist.
Senate crime investigators had reported undercover links between big-time gambler, William Johnston and the Jackson Construction Company of Jacksonville, Florida. Mr. Johnston had donated $100,000 to Florida Governor Fuller Warren's campaign, and now the construction company had received $180,000 worth of State contracts. The IRB was probing the income taxes of Governor Warren.
Ambassador to Mexico William O'Dwyer had sent an angry telegram to the Senate crime investigating committee, accusing it of ulterior motives by leaking a rumor that he was involved in a million-dollar check sent to New York City. Senator Herbert O'Conor, chairman of the committee, was provided permission by the State Department to have his committee look at the canceled check, and when done, it was discovered to be a lend-lease payment from the Mexican Government to the U.S. Government. Senator O'Conor had cabled Ambassador O'Dwyer that he was in the clear.
Marquis Childs discusses the tendency of Congress during the dog days of summer to become crotchety, unless it obtained a six-week recess after which they could return refreshed in the fall. Rather than take a recess this year, the Administration had settled on the "grindstone approach". Senate Majority Leader Ernest McFarland hoped to be done with business by September 15, at which time the Congress could adjourn.
In the meantime, not a single regular appropriations bill had been finally passed by both houses. Foreign aid in the amount of 8.5 billion dollars and the military budget of 60 billion were items still in the committee stage. September 15 was only a target date, and it was more likely that October 15 would be the date of actual adjournment. Congressmen meanwhile were stuck without their families, who had already gone home for the summer, and the average Congressman had political chores back home to which he must attend, divided between his chores in Congress.
Mr. Childs describes the hypothetical average day of the Congressman during this period. As his hypothetical ending of that day, he suggests that the Congressman would then write a note to his wife saying he was getting fed up with all of the Congressional routine and felt that he could make a better living, perhaps, practicing law back home. He would not tell his wife that the realty agent had told him that the place in which they were living in Washington was about to be sold and that they would have to find a new place to live.
"So on and on it goes, and ahead is '52 and still another campaign."
The third installment in the series "Pitchmen of the Press" from the Providence (R. I.) Journal, tells again of Walter Winchell, for the second day in a row. Mr. Winchell had 25 million listeners each Sunday night tuning in to his radio broadcast. On March 5, millions of people heard him say:
"Washington. There may be
another super bomb. Hydrogen-tritium—tritium—t-r-i-double-t-i-u-m.
Hydrogen-trittium bomb. That's the first time, I think, those words
have been used over the radio.
"The H-T—the initials—are the President of the United States."
The piece remarks that it was hard to tell from this statement whether Mr. Winchell meant that the elements of hydrogen and tritium were so named as a sentimental gesture toward President Truman or vice versa. In any event, 33 days earlier, on February 1, the New York Times had reported, through Pulitzer Prize winner William L. Laurence, that a triton bomb had been developed in which the basic element was tritium, a hydrogen isotope of atomic mass three. Mr. Laurence had spelled it "tritium", with only one "t" in the middle. And radio news had that story the night before the Times printed it. So, while Mr. Winchell had uttered the word "tritium" 34 days after it had first been mentioned on the radio, he was, the piece points out, the first to misspell it.
One of the major portions of his show was "tips to the papers." On the night of February 5, he had announced: "New York Mirror and Boston Record: That rumor last week that the insurance people in the Brinks hold-up are hedging, was unfounded. The companies have already paid out over one million dollars." He did not indicate, however, that the same rumor circulated by him in the broadcast a week earlier had been presented as an "inside tip".
In another of such "tips", on March 19, he had said Gypsy Rose Lee would become a disc jockey at the Diamond Horseshoe, a New York nightclub, but then three weeks later, he had to announce that the deal was off.
In another instance, when interest was high in the euthanasia trial of Dr. Hermann Sander, Mr. Winchell had tipped that any action against Dr. Sander in New Hampshire would start "the greatest civil liberties case in United States history". Subsequently, Dr. Sander was suspended by the New Hampshire medical board and his license thereafter revoked, but riots as a result did not materialize.
Mr. Winchell had also juxtaposed the Alger Hiss perjury trial verdict to the daily race at Hialeah, revealing that the jury vote was 10 to 2 for conviction and specifying the jurors who had held out, comparing it to the "daily double on any track". The following day the New York Journal-American quoted one of the jurors as saying that the first poll during deliberations was 9 to 3. Mr. Winchell had even missed the daily double. The next weekend, he insisted that those who had played numbers five and eight, the numbers of the jurors he had supposedly revealed, had won plenty at the track.
Most newspapers ignored Mr. Winchell's tips. When he had revealed that Mildred Mayo, the actress daughter of the head of the Mayo Clinic, might elope at any moment, that tip, directed to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, had been ignored by that newspaper, and Ms. Mayo remained uneloped and unmarried.
The "Congressional Quiz" asks why Frank Costello had been indicted by a Federal Grand Jury in New York for contempt of the Senate, answering that he was indicted on nine counts for refusing to answer questions before the Kefauver Senate criminal investigating committee hearings in New York the previous March, not being willing to discuss his net worth and income taxes, and in 15 hours before the committee, permitting only his hands to become telegenic.
It also asks whether the average Congressman went on record when roll-call votes were taken, answering that they did, and in the present 82nd Congress, members were going on record more than in the 81st Congress, that the average Senator went on record 91.8 percent of the time, and that the half-year figure for 1950 had been 89.2 percent. In the House, the average for the first half of 1951 was 89.7 percent and 85.9 percent for the first half of 1950.
A piece from the Durham Herald tells of the "Better English" quiz having asked what was wrong with the sentence: "He accepted of our hospitality, and the party was enlivened with his tales of adventure." The piece answers, "Why, the so-and-so just talked too much."
That's not the correct response. Correctly, he ought be saying: "He done accepted all our hospitality and the party, and him, too, done got all lit up with his adventure stories which he done told pretty good." And the final answer, obviously, was Robert C. Ruark and his Tanganyika stories.
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