The Charlotte News
Wednesday, January 23, 1952
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that officials in Washington were determined to exhaust every reasonable means of obtaining an agreement on armistice in Korea and expressed hope that the present deadlocks in the air field and prisoner of war issues would eventually be resolved. The officials conceded, however, that negotiations could drag on for many more weeks. Secretary of State Acheson was said to have told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee recently that the number of concessions made thus far by the Communists provided a basis for hope that they would be reasonable on the pending issues. The officials indicated that U.N. supreme commander General Matthew Ridgway was under no political instructions to refrain from undertaking an offensive if he considered it necessary, but also had no particular objective toward which to drive, the U.N. forces having attained possessions which were suitable for a defensible armistice line. Moreover, the present winter conditions made an offensive by either side virtually impossible in the coming weeks. The U.N. countries had committed all the forces which, under present policy, they were willing to send into battle.
This date, staff officers from both sides were arranging protection for captured American and other prisoners from air attack in POW camps in North Korea, in the wake of a complaint by the Communists that allied planes had bombed such a POW camp the previous week, killing 20 Americans and injuring many others. Both sides agreed to reveal the location of processing camps where prisoners were first questioned after capture. The U.N. command delivered a map Wednesday showing locations of the U.N. POW camps in South Korea and the Communists had indicated that they would deliver their map on Thursday. The Communists indicated that their camps held approximately 11,500 allied soldiers, including about 3,200 Americans. They were believed to hold less than a hundred non-Korean civilian internees, most of whom were missionaries and diplomats. No other progress was made in the talks this date.
The U.N. command this date indicated that its planes had bombed part of the Kaesong neutral zone the previous Thursday and also had probably strafed a Communist truce convoy the previous Friday. It blamed the Kaesong incident on the accidental release of a bomb instead of a wing-tip gasoline tank, which the pilot intended to jettison to lighten his load. The bomb had hurt no one and caused no property damage. The second incident, according to U.N. command headquarters, had been caused by the Communists appearing to take advantage of special markings guaranteeing immunity from attack and the fact that an earlier convoy had already passed heading south, meeting the day's quota for immune passage southward.
In Paris, Russian delegate Jacob Malik asserted to the U.N. political committee that the U.S. payment of $120,000 in fines to obtain the release of the four American fliers forced down in Hungary on November 19, alleged to have been spies, demonstrated that they had, in fact, been spies—an argument guilty of the post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy, if there ever was one. The airmen, according to the Air Force, had lost their way while en route from Germany to Yugoslavia and the maps and radios aboard their plane were standard equipment. The matter had come up in debate before the political committee over admission of new members, including Hungary, to the U.N. A U.S. delegate, Ernest Gross, had indicated the previous day that one way Hungary could prove its eligibility for membership would be to reverse the verdict against the airmen and refund the fines.
In Berne, Switzerland, Swiss Federal police indicated this date that they were holding a man, believed to be Rumanian, in connection with the mysterious death of Marine Captain Eugene Karpe, a former U.S. military attaché in Bucharest, who had fallen or was pushed from a train in Austria on February 24, 1950. His death had never been explained. At the time, he was on his way to the U.S. after serving three years in the diplomatic post. Robert Vogeler, the American businessman previously imprisoned in Hungary and a friend to Captain Karpe, believed that the death was connected with his case. At the time, a briefcase, believed to contain important papers, was found to be missing from Captain Karpe's belongings.
In New York, Captain Kurt Carlsen, the hero who had maintained the helm of his stricken American freighter, Flying Enterprise, for nearly two weeks after the worst Atlantic storm off England in 50 years, finally losing the ship to another storm while it was under tow to Falmouth Harbor in England, was provided the go-ahead to return to sea after the presiding officer of the Coast Guard board of inquiry told the Captain the previous day that he realized he had been through an ordeal and hoped that it would not repeat. He told him to go back to the sea with his best wishes. The inquiry had been convened to determine whether improper loading of cargo had been at fault in the matter, causing the ship to list to 60 degrees in the storm, but the Captain stated that the storm had been at fault. The findings of the inquiry were not disclosed and were forwarded to Coast Guard headquarters for final determination of whether there was any negligence on the part of the ship's crew.
Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee said that he would definitely disclose his intentions of whether he would be a Democratic presidential candidate at a press conference he had scheduled for later in the day.
A Missouri Democratic national committeeman, John Mangle, stated this date that there was no doubt in his mind that the President would not be a candidate for re-election. He said that he, personally, favored having the President run again. Mr. Mangle had been the source, according to the News editorial on the subject the previous day, for the Saturday report by Marquis Childs that the President had decided not to run again and would throw his support to Governor Adlai Stevenson of Illinois. The News editorial, however, had apparently mangled Mr. Mangle's name, calling him Nangle. Meanwhile, Governor Stevenson had discussed politics with the President the previous night, but discounted reports that he would seek the Democratic nomination, saying that he was a candidate for re-election as Governor of Illinois and nothing else.
There's definitely some'un wrong
with all 'at mangled nangle dangle spangled stuff
James Webb of North Carolina resigned this date as Undersecretary of State and the President named David Bruce, presently Ambassador to France, as his successor. Mr. Webb would later head NASA from 1961 through 1968, guiding the space agency through its initial manned programs, Project Mercury and Project Gemini, and the pre-moon landing Apollo missions, resigning a little over two months before the first lunar-orbital mission at Christmas, 1968.
Price administrator Mike DiSalle announced this date that he would quit his job to run for the Senate from Ohio. The present incumbent, Senator John W. Bricker, a Republican who had been Thomas Dewey's running mate in 1944, was up for re-election in 1952. The exact date of Mr. DiSalle's departure was yet to be determined. The Ohio Democratic primary was scheduled for May 6. Mr. DiSalle had been head of the Office of Price Stabilization since December, 1950, when he resigned as Mayor of Toledo to accept the position.
In Elizabeth, N.J., there were demands that Newark Airport, nearby the city, be moved, in the wake of two crashes of large airliners in Elizabeth during the previous 38 days, the latest of which, occurring the previous day, had killed 28 persons, including former Secretary of War Robert Patterson, when the fog-bound American Airlines plane crashed into a residential area, killing five persons on the ground, including a mother, her two children, and another child. Senator Ed Johnson of Colorado said that the Commerce Committee, which he chaired, would make a study or investigation of all angles of the crash, including the location of the Newark Airport, the destination of the crashed plane. Thirty-eight days earlier, a Miami Airline C-46 had crashed on a non-scheduled flight to Florida, after it caught fire on take-off from the Newark Airport and crashed into the Elizabeth River, less than a mile from the site of the previous day's crash, killing 56 persons aboard, the second worst commercial airline crash in history to that point.
In Mt. Clemens, Mich., the previous night, a 15-year old boy shot and fatally wounded his father, a deputy sheriff and former minister, during what police had described as an argument over a television show. The remorseful boy had prayed most of the night for his father's recovery, said that he loved him and wanted him to live. No charge had yet been filed. At the time of the shooting, the family had been watching a television mystery show, when the father entered the living room and turned off the television set, stating that, for religious reasons, he did not think the children should watch that type of show. The mother and father then argued about the matter, and the son, in the kitchen cleaning his 16-gauge shotgun, heard his father hit his mother. He then loaded the gun, walked into the living room, instructed his younger sister and younger brother to get out of the way, and shot his father in the back. He said that he knew right away he was wrong.
Just another instance of guns in the
home protecting the sanctity and security of the entire family
against intruders
Near Charlotte, an official of the Charlotte Mercantile Company was killed in the early afternoon when his car struck a bridge near Pineville, after missing a curve. There were no other casualties.
Hospitalized servicemen who attended First Lady Bess Truman's teas at Blair House, temporary residence of the First Family while renovations were ongoing at the White House, received invitations only after the teas had taken place, general invitations to the Army and Navy hospitals being extended in advance, then names provided at the gate when the attendees arrived, the invitations made up afterward for their benefit to show friends and family.
The third chapter of The Greatest Book Ever Written, by Fulton Oursler, appears on page 14-A, anent the Old Testament story of Noah and the Ark.
Given the subject of Robert Ruark's column this date, we figured they might jump ahead to Jonah and the whale. We shall just have to wait.
On the editorial page, "An Old and Familiar Refrain" finds that the House and Senate clamor for economy in the wake of the President's budget message earlier in the week had a familiar ring, having been made similarly in 1949, 1950, and 1951, as well in earlier years. Long ago, taxpayers had discovered that the cries of economy were empty of meaning. During three of the previous five years, Congress had spent more money than the President had sought. Lone battlers for economy, such as Illinois Senator Paul Douglas, knew that when they took the floor in favor of economy measures, they would get little support from their colleagues.
While the President might be justly criticized for wanting to spend a lot of money and wanting to launch expensive new programs, the strongest criticism, the piece opines, had to be laid at the feet of Congress, as it was unwilling to increase taxes enough to pay for what was being spent. So, it recommends that the promises of economy be taken with a large pinch of salt. The truth was that a majority of the membership of both houses did not really want to economize, and the machinery of Congress was no longer adequate for handling the large budgets, even if a majority were to favor economy.
"Snafu in High Places" remarks on a story which had appeared in the newspaper the previous day by News reporter John Daly, creating the strong suspicion that the Defense Establishment and the Agriculture Department were working at cross purposes, placing yarn spinning mills in a bad predicament. On the one hand, military specifications for some cotton yarns were unnecessarily high and it was now possible to meet them without using long-fiber American cotton, already in shortage, or spending American dollars to import Egyptian cotton. The Agriculture Department was hoping for a 16-million bail cotton crop in 1952, compared to 15.3 million bales the previous year, and promised a loan support price of 33 cents per pound.
As a result, the yarn was not being produced, employment was not being provided, and American cotton was not being consumed. Spinners in the Charlotte area believed that the military specifications were more rigid than necessary and, it suggests, if they were right, that meant that the taxpayer was footing an unjustly high bill, just as in many other areas.
"Mr. Jones on Economy" remarks on a letter to the editor from Congressman Hamilton Jones, appearing in the letters column this date, discussing his activity on behalf of the unenacted portions of the Hoover Commission recommendations, particularly those two bills before the Committee on Veterans Affairs, of which he was a member. He indicated that Congress had already passed 55 percent of the recommendations of the Commission for which he had voted, but finds that statement misleading.
It explains in detail what those recommendations were, and corrects that Mr. Jones had not voted every time for the recommendations approved. Passage of many of the measures had been by voice vote in the House and Mr. Jones had opposed one of the minor recommendations which was enacted. But on most of the 45 bills, no individual votes were recorded.
It does commend his increasing enthusiasm for economy legislation, but finds that his test would come later, and it remained to be seen whether he would oppose attempts to water down those bills. He had voted at the start of the session for an 800 million dollar per year military pay boost and it would take quite a bit of reorganizing for the rest of the session to save that amount of money.
"We're All in This Together" tells of Mecklenburg County and the City of Charlotte having mutual interests, despite occasional disagreements on matters such as the proposed extension of the runway at the Municipal Airport. With the growth occurring in the urban and rural sections of the county, planning was necessary to achieve the benefits of growth. Recognizing that fact, the County Commissioners were planning to create a County Planning Board and adopt a zoning ordinance. It approves the moves, finding it highly beneficial to all of the people of the county, protecting property owners from haphazard expansion and preventing development around the fringe of the city which could harm future City administrations. It hopes that both the City and the County would hire a professional concern with wide experience in planning to conduct an adequate survey of the entire metropolitan area.
Drew Pearson recommends that the subcommittee investigating taxes look at Iowa Governor William Beardsley, whose case was referred to the Justice Department by the Treasury Department without a recommendation as to whether or not he should be prosecuted. Justice initially made a negative recommendation for prosecution when Lamar Caudle had been the head of the tax division. But after he was fired by the President, the Governor's case was referred to Attorney General J. Howard McGrath, who made a quick check and found that it was the first time in eleven years that Treasury had sent a case to Justice without any recommendation. The Attorney General, therefore, referred the case back to Treasury, asking for its recommendation.
The retired deputy chief of the Army Corps of Engineers, Major General J. Stewart Bragdon, had a son who had been an inspector for the Engineers' project in French Morocco the previous summer. He had not applied for the job but word had been passed to the contractor to hire him. He was hired, despite having no past construction experience and was placed on the payroll at $400 per month, with transportation, meals and medical expenses paid by the Government. His job only lasted for the summer, in between school years. Mr. Pearson thinks that it presented an easy way to finance an overseas trip if one's father happened to be an important general in the Army Engineers.
Recently, off-the-record remarks of Senators on the Interior Committee were captured, in which Senator Jim Murray of Montana wanted to know whether Senators could claim a share in Indian oil rights by being adopted into the tribe. Former Secretary of Agriculture, Senator Clinton Anderson of New Mexico, criticized the Department for giving away oil leases by drawing names out of a hat—akin to the draft lottery, though they used a spun hopper. The chairman of the Committee, Senator Joseph O'Mahoney of Wyoming, indicated that he did not believe he and Senator Murray had been adopted by those particular tribes after they had found the oil.
Speaking of Indians and oil rights, as a follow-up to our Monday diatribe against the pall-mall media circus which surrounded the Battle of the Mall People
Well, there was a lot of need for coolers back then, especially in those two war zones, at least in the 1850's. Who knows? Perhaps it is code
Our aim is at the boobs in the media who ran with this story when all indicators and 15 minutes of careful analysis of the available cellphone footage on YouTube would have proved this man unworthy of belief. We do not discount the service to his country which he did perform, even if he had some problems going AWOL three times during his four-year stint, and graduated as a private, a Gomer Pyle sort of
Perhaps, viewing the instant episode in its most forgiving light, he was confused by the melange of talk and faces of different colors in his general vicinity on the Mall, absent apparently of many police given the child's shutdown of the Government over his adamant stance to obtain his Wall to keep out the Tourists, such that the man reacted in a state of suspended rational perception, but still in an inappropriate manner given his age, approaching 65, and consequent life experience.
But, really, this purely media creation of a divisive nature, developing out of amateur cellphone videos submitted by people who have learned thus to promote themselves and any cause they may have by setting up a handy-dandy mark, must stop being promoted, as it helps no one, certainly not Native Americans or any other group of Americans, and serves as a distraction from the more important substantive issues of the day, only boosting in the Trumpies the sort of xenophobia which is characteristic of the current Administration—an equal and opposite reaction, following some strange law of physics, we suppose, to the OMAGA Administration which preceded it, for which, for the sake of full disclosure, we voted twice, being over 18 at the time, and for which we would vote again if we could, and often.
Again, following the precept of Voltaire, we may disagree with what you have to say, but will defend to the death your right to say it, as long as it is not a big lie, designed to divide people and create devilish confusion, in furtherance of a semi-hidden agenda. Sometimes it is a big mistake, leading to misrepresentations which are unintended, but that is no excuse for repetition of the same conduct for having gotten away with it once, with impunity and forgiveness. We are running out of patience with the current state of sloppy, accelerant-inspired "journalism", especially of the broadcast variety, with emphasis on broads, and that cheap form of print which merely parrots what has been broadcast, often in such errant English as to be scarcely intelligible.
We would urge the man to rethink his statement of "forgiveness" of the 16-year old high school student and consider coming off his high battle horse and offer, instead, to the high school student a much deserved and heart-felt, drum-felt apology for having drummed up so much horse's-ass venom directed at him, which could otherwise affect him adversely and quite unfairly through several years of his young life. He is nearly 65 and ought know better than to behave as a superannuated teenager, engaging obstreperously with teenagers who were not in the least harming him or anyone else. Had he been their teacher in the classroom, being confronted with noisy and boisterous students who ought be studying their lessons, that would be a different context and probably would have justified his approach. But that was not the case. In his recent interview, the young student appeared reasonable and even overly solicitous, in our estimate, toward the man in question, given the behavior.
Perhaps not at 16, given our deference then to our elders, but later, had some person uninvitedly intruded into our immediate space in such manner, aggressively with a drum in hand, beating it loudly in our ears, we would have held up a hand in motion to stop while telling him loudly, in clearly enunciated words, to do so and back off
Semper Fi...
Marquis Childs discusses the determination of the size of the military budget, ultimately decided by the President, altering the basic plan put forward by the Joint Chiefs. The change moved the target date for combat readiness from 1954 to 1955. To this point, all calculations for readiness were based on the 1954 date. The efforts to accelerate rearmament by France and Britain had been premised on that date.
The President justified the change by the fact that Administration economists were telling him that there would be a deficit at the end of the current fiscal year, as well as an even bigger deficit the following year. Congress would not raise taxes any further, and he believed that the country could not afford to allow the deficit to grow larger. The change had already been forecast at the NATO Council meeting in Rome.
The military planners who had relied on the 1954 target date were going along with the change, as were the civilian defense secretaries, with the proviso that they did not know what lay ahead in terms of potential Soviet aggression.
Others, such as Senator Herbert Lehman of New York, believed that the President ought to stick to a firm course and place the responsibility on those refusing to cut taxes. Some observers believed that the change in date would set a dangerous precedent, enabling Congress to make cuts indefinitely, for if 1954 turned out not to be such an important target date, then there was no reason to believe that 1955 was any more emergent.
Robert C. Ruark tells of his wife fixing for him recently whale steak, which sold for 98 cents per pound and had no bone, fat, or gristle. The average Norwegian whale would yield about three tons of tenderloin, thus better than steers in terms of yielding meat. He does not believe, however, that whale would ever replace beef, as whale to him tasted fishy, though not extremely so, especially if served with plenty of onions.
He supposes that it might catch on as long as the diner did not know in advance what they were being served, much as when he had unwittingly partaken of sheep's eyes once in Morocco, not becoming acutely ill until later, after he was tipped as to the contents of the oyster-like dish. He had also at one time or another sampled both goat and horse and found them edible, if not very tasty. He also had reason to believe that a Swahili cook had once served him a zebra chop.
The Eskimos and Scandinavians had consumed whale for years and appeared inordinately healthy. The dish was good for staying trim and therefore should appeal to women. He indicates that he had learned to eat anything put before him, as long as it was not eggplant. He concludes that as long as whale remained around a dollar per pound, he would continue to eat it, but hopes that his wife would refrain from saying, "Thar she blows!" whenever she served dinner.
A letter from Congressman Hamilton Jones of Charlotte, as indicated in the editorial above, responds to a letter of January 8 from the newspaper on the subject of enactment of the remaining recommendations of the Hoover Commission. He had also read the editorial of January 5, "Reform Bills Rot in Committee", and approved of the part of it which pressed for enactment of further recommendations of the Commission, and especially that part which urged that the bills be removed from pigeonholes and brought before the respective committees to which they were referred for hearings. He goes on to defend his record on this matter, as indicated in the above editorial.
A letter writer remarks on a recent
piece on the editorial page, titled "What I Know about Girls", by Louis Redmond,
having found it pleasing. He says that there were many "Little
Girls" who had grown up to become part of the telephone
business. He does not indicate, however, what connection
A letter from a minister at St. Paul Presbyterian Church in Charlotte thanks the newspaper for its January 10 editorial, "Persecution Works Both Ways", anent the Catholic protest against the dedication of a Baptist chapel in Bogotá, Colombia, finds that what the editorial had said needed to be said, and that the facts which it related needed to be understood by larger numbers of people.
The editors remark that the newspaper had received a letter regarding the Klan, signed "Jack Davis", but, upon inspection of the city directory, had found several persons under that name and so requested further identification before publication of the letter. If you are Mr. Davis, you might want to drop them a line so that they can print your letter. We would like to know what you had to say about the Klan, as it is always a subject of the most profound interest.
Framed Edition
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