The Charlotte News
Tuesday, January 8, 1952
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that in the discussions between the President and Prime Minister Churchill this date, it was expected that the President would reaffirm the U.S. policy of non-recognition of Communist China, contrary to the British policy of recognition. He might suggest to the Prime Minister that Britain reconsider its position and revoke its diplomatic recognition of China, initiated by the prior Government of Clement Attlee. The previous afternoon session had covered European defense problems.
Congress reconvened this date after having recessed the prior October 20. The President would deliver his State of the Union message to a joint session the next day.
William L. Ryan of the Associated Press tells of Moscow's press leaving little doubt that the successor to Joseph Stalin had been chosen and would be the "glowering sourpuss" of the Politburo, Georgi Malenkov. Great praise had been given him on his 50th birthday, comparable only to the praise provided Stalin. He had been greeted as "co-adviser of Stalin".
In Warsaw, a military court sentenced five Poles to death after their guilty pleas to charges of being spies for the American intelligence service. Their trials had lasted one day.
In Norway, two violent explosions shook two separate coal mines on the Spitsbergen Islands, killing 15 coal mine workers.
Senator Taft claimed that if all the pledges he now held were fulfilled in delegate votes, he would win the Republican nomination, saying that he had pledges from more than half of the convention delegates already. He said that he believed General Eisenhower's statement released the previous day, indicating that he would accept the nomination of the GOP convention but would not actively seek it, only made him a draft possibility for the convention.
The FBI announced the arrests of
eight persons in connection with an international car-theft ring,
specializing in luxury automobiles, seven of whom were arrested in
New York and the other in Hoboken, N. J. FBI director J. Edgar Hoover
said that the ring dealt in the latest model special deluxe
Cadillacs, many of which were sold in Cuba, Mexico, Venezuela and
other countries, for prices as high as $7,500
In Salt Lake City, a teenage boy had been found chained to a bed in a filthy house this date and police officers said that he told them he had been abused sexually by the man who had held him captive, an accused bank robber charged with a $20,000 hold-up during a snowstorm the previous day. The man, a 24-year old used car salesman, was arrested on the bank robbery charge the previous night and admitted the kidnapping of the 14-year old boy, who had been missing since the previous October. The man had served a previous prison sentence in California for robbery, from which he had been released in June, 1950. When he had been arrested on that earlier charge, police had found a sailor bound and gagged in his room, but he was not charged in connection with that incident. The boy had been employed as a car washer and errand boy at the same used car lot where the man worked.
Off England, the weather worsened during the tow of the crippled American freighter, Flying Enterprise, still manned by its Captain, Kurt Carlsen, who remained optimistic, saying everything was okay. The ship was less than a day from England's Falmouth Harbor, its destination by noon the following day. Thousands awaited the arrival.
In Antioch, Calif., a girl dying of leukemia received boxes of watermelon balls and several whole melons at her house, after it became known that she craved watermelon for her sixth birthday, likely to be her last.
In Charlotte, H. M. Victor, nationally known banker, was named honorary chairman of the board of the Union National Bank, which he had organized in 1908. Succeeding him as chairman was George S. Crouch, who had been president of the bank since 1947.
For the first day in quite some time, there was absolutely no news on the front page from Korea, either concerning the armistice negotiations or the war, itself.
On the editorial page, "The News Will Back Eisenhower for Republican Party Nomination" justifies the newspaper's support of the General based on foreign policy having become the central fact of the nation's existence and the General having been the "brilliant commander" of the European theater in World War II, the postwar chief of staff, and now the architect of Atlantic unity in the face of Communist aggression in Europe, therefore making him better qualified than any other Republican candidate to direct foreign policy. It also finds that he was a moderate on domestic issues, that there was great need for re-establishing a two-party system in the nation, especially in the South, and that the General would present a much stronger challenge to the Democrats than would either Senator Taft, Governor Earl Warren or former Governor Harold Stassen, the other three announced Republican candidates. It indicates that there was also a pressing need for restoring public confidence in the integrity of the Government and for rebuilding the prestige of the presidency, which had "badly wilted" under President Truman. It also finds that nomination of the General would be more in line with the will of the people than another candidate nominated by the party bosses. While it shares the conviction held by most Americans that the president ought come from the civilian ranks, it finds that the times demanded the best leadership the country could offer and that General Eisenhower had shown repeatedly by word and deed that he was, first, a good citizen and only second, a good military man, that he honored and respected the supremacy of civilian authority over the military and so would not lead the country into militarism. He also had more experience and had shown greater talent as an administrator and diplomat than any other Republican candidate.
It notes that it was not usual for the newspaper to endorse presidential candidates prior to the conventions, but that 1952 was not a conventional year, and it hoped to have some influence on the convention delegates from the two Carolinas, that they might put aside their ordinary political considerations and vote for the best candidate in each party.
"A Reform a Day Keeps GOP Away" finds that the President's promise to clean up the Administration and put the squeeze on organized crime had left many Americans with an attitude of "show me", that they would believe it when they saw it.
The Justice Department's new drive on racketeering and drug dealers lost considerable force because of the fact that the Department was headed by Attorney General J. Howard McGrath, who had shown either duplicity in the Justice Department tax scandals, incredible naïveté, or both. It suggests, however, that the 93 U.S. Attorneys would likely deliver on the promise of a clean-up, on the prospect of there being otherwise a Republican Administration replacing the present one, in which case they would be out of a job.
Within the IRB, commissioner John Dunlap was apparently making progress without interference from Treasury Secretary John W. Snyder.
It still urges that the President fire both Mr. Snyder and Mr. McGrath, that he ought to push hard for the reforms proposed by the Hoover Commission and initiate a thorough survey of the foreign aid programs. It gives him credit, nevertheless, for making a start.
"Don't Overlook Hollywood" remarks on the morals clause present in most Hollywood contracts with actors since the case of Fatty Arbuckle, subjecting the contract to cancellation should the artist commit any act which would "tend to degrade him and society or bring him into public hatred, contempt, scorn or ridicule".
It notes that it had been used several times to fire actors for Communist activities rather than immoral conduct, and suggests that as a diversion from the political investigations, it would be wholesome to look at Hollywood and the several film personalities therein who would appear "particularly qualified for expulsion under the morals clause."
A piece from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, titled "Not One of Ours", takes exception to an article in The Nation about the appointment of Frank McKinney as DNC chairman to replace William Boyle, which had noted that apparently the President believed that the Democratic machine politicians of Indianapolis, from which Mr. McKinney hailed, were of a different breed from those of St. Louis, the home of Mr. Boyle. The piece corrects that Mr. Boyle was from Kansas City, not St. Louis.
Drew Pearson recounts a Christmas holiday dinner party conversation in which the President had stated that Grover Cleveland's greatest mistake had been to run again, that he would have been a great President but for that fact. He finds it illuminating of the President's intentions on running again.
The President had been in good spirits during the Christmas holiday, and when someone had ask him about an article in Life which mocked his loud shirts and Florida wardrobe, he stated that they were just trying to belittle him. "A few years ago they called me the best-dressed man in the United States."
Senator Estes Kefauver had rejected a campaign button which bore a coonskin cap and the words, "Coonskin, Not Mink."
Mr. Pearson imparts of the protest entrusted to George Abbott, American charge d'affaires in Budapest, regarding the recently freed four American airmen, after the U.S. Government had paid their $120,000 fines imposed by Hungary for supposed aid of spies. Mr. Abbott had received a runaround by Hungarian officials such that he could not even deliver his protest, and finally lectured an adviser on political affairs in Hungary as to the potential fallout from U.S. public agitation over the case.
Mr. Pearson notes that since the case had been resolved, the Communists in Europe were whispering that the U.S. could not protect its own citizens, let alone European nationals.
Roland Sawyer of the Christian Science Monitor collects a series of statements through the previous three years indicative of General Eisenhower's positions on various issues of foreign and domestic policy, starting with his overall stance of moderation, as favored over the left and right, stated before the American Bar Association in September, 1949.
In that same address, he had indicated that there was a bridge of cooperation available between labor and management.
At an address before Columbia University in October, 1948, the General had outlined his basic view on government, indicating that government should be "forehanded in establishing the rules that will preserve a practical equality and opportunity among us", but that the Federal Government, in performing its functions, should be carefully watched to make sure that it did not "interfere more than is necessary in our daily lives".
In that address, he had also said that the facts of Communism would be taught at Columbia, as the truth about Communism was "an indispensable requirement if the true values of our democratic system are to be properly assessed."
He had also decried those who sought public office on the basis of promising prosperity in exchange for support of their "personal and carefully concealed ambitions." He likewise criticized too much concentration of finance and the power of selfish pressure groups in opposition to the whole.
In an interview of August 3, 1950, he was quoted by the Associated Press as indicating that if he found a Communist as a candidate for the faculty at Columbia, he would not appoint him, but also believed that faculty members should not be subjected to special loyalty oaths, just as there was no special oath for parents or ministers.
In an address in Denver in September, 1950, he had said that efficiency and economy in all governmental expenditures had to be achieved, and that Spartan frugality in all nonessential matters had to take place so that the country could "make the greatest possible contribution to the defense of our way of life."
In an address in New York in McMillin Academic Theater, in March, 1950, he had stated that America was based on three fundamental principles, that individual freedom was the most precious possession, that all freedoms were of a single bundle and all had to be secured if any were to be preserved, and that freedom to compete and readiness to cooperate made the American system the most productive on earth. He also stated his support for the U.N. and favored a U.N. police force with properly defined powers, not interfering in the internal affairs of any nation and without any nation surrendering any rights of sovereignty.
In a press conference in San Francisco on July 26, 1950, he had stated his complete support for the President's guarantee of the government of South Korea, asserted that the North Koreans had to be defeated, both physically and in their intentions.
At a press conference a week earlier in San Francisco, he stated that he would avoid using any force which Americans or other peoples might consider "inhuman", as the country had to stand before the world as "champions of decency". He was not opposed, however, to use of the atomic bomb against a strictly military target, such as a vast warehouse area. But he did not support extermination of the enemy.
In September, 1950, he had stated in Charleston, W. Va., that there could be no universal peace unless there was universal disarmament.
On several occasions, he had spoken against war, regarding it as the least acceptable method to settle disputes between nations.
In July, 1951, he had stated to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee his belief that a European army would help bridge the gap between the European nations, especially that between France and Germany. At the time, he said that he had no suggestions regarding the issue of Spain. He also stated that the Middle East, especially Turkey, was among the most strategically important areas to the United States. He likewise favored a federal union for Western Europe.
Framed Edition
Links-Date — Links-Subj.