The Charlotte News
Tuesday, October 14, 1952
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports, via George A. McArthur, that allied infantrymen had launched their heaviest ground attack in nearly a year and taken portions of two Chinese-held hills, two knobs of "Triangle Hill"and, two miles to the east, a portion of "Sniper Ridge", on the central front in Korea this date. The two peaks anchored the old Communist Iron Triangle supply and troop massing area. About 17 miles to the west, South Korean troops continued to attack the Communist Chinese troops at their last foothold on White Horse Mountain, where the enemy still held two low knobs on the northwest ridge line. The fighting on the Mountain had continued for eight straight days and had cost the Chinese an estimated 10,000 casualties. U.N. and Chinese soldiers also fought on "Finger Ridge", "Christmas Hill" and west of the Pukhan River.
Allied warplanes hit front-line positions of the Chinese.
At the U.N. in New York, the seventh
General Assembly convened
In Baltimore, George Grammer, accused of killing his wife and then faking her death in an automobile accident, was stated by the prosecutor in opening statements of the court trial to have committed the murder because he had fallen in love with a Canadian secretary at the U.N. headquarters in New York. About 120 witnesses were listed for the case and evidence would be produced showing that Mr. Grammer and the secretary had registered as man and wife at a hotel, where they stayed for ten days before departing and going their separate ways. Mr. Grammer and his wife had been married in Winston-Salem in 1939, but a year later, for unknown reasons, they were remarried in Baltimore.
In Houston, General Eisenhower, celebrating his 62nd birthday this date, addressed a crowd of more than 15,000, calling for the South to rise up in political rebellion against the Democratic Party. State Attorney General Price Daniel, the Democratic Senatorial nominee, introduced the General, stating, "Because of you, Texas can no longer be taken for granted by any political party." Mr. Daniels said that he planned to vote for the General and that the Texas Democratic Party was "fed up with Trumanism" and being used as a "whipping boy". The General said that the Administration was "weak-kneed and soft-headed", "power-hungry", consisted of "power mongers" and "reckless drivers", and had been "discredited". Police estimated that 65,000 persons had gathered in the square outside the Civic Auditorium where the General spoke, but others estimated the crowd to be considerably smaller. The General had provided a speech on states' rights the previous night in New Orleans, stating again that he supported state ownership of tidelands oil, and warning against encroachment of the Federal Government on the rights of the states. The crowd had given the General at least the welcome given Governor Stevenson the previous Friday, and some thought it greater.
In Casper, Wyoming, Governor Stevenson stated this date that the Republicans preferred "slogans, emotion and confetti" to facing up to their record on the campaign issues of peace and prosperity. He said that the Republicans had a long record of isolationism in foreign affairs and inaction in domestic affairs. He expressed "sorrow" and "dismay" at the tactics adopted by General Eisenhower at the behest of the "Old Guard reactionaries" of the Republican Party, who had "opposed every measure to build up America's strength and America's alliances against the Communist conspiracy." It marked the start of a 6,000-mile plane trip to the West and Texas.
In Cincinnati, UMW president John L. Lewis began a personal campaign tour for Governor Stevenson, having already delivered two quick speeches in West Virginia for the Governor. The UMW convention formally endorsed the Governor the previous day. It was the first time that Mr. Lewis had campaigned unreservedly for the Democratic Party since 1936, when FDR faced Governor Alf Landon. He had supported Republican Wendell Willkie, however, in 1940, and opposed both parties in 1944 and 1948. Mr. Lewis said that General Eisenhower was a professional soldier, educated and trained in the arts of warfare, and lacked background in economic matters. He said that he would "issue commands to regiment the population according to the will of his masters who made him". He described the General as the candidate of "the country club aristocracy of America".
In Cairo, Prince Mohammed Abdel Monem, second cousin to King Farouk, had been appointed regent of Egypt to supplant the three-man regency council, which had been appointed after Farouk's abdication of the previous July, to rule in the name of the King's son, Fuad II.
In Vienna, the Kremlin's ace propagandist, author Ilya Ehrenburg, had arrived in the city to prepare what world Communism called the "greatest peace meeting in the history of mankind", the World Peace Congress, set to open in Vienna on December 5.
In Atlanta, a 31-year old divorcee had, according to police, drowned her baby boy in a bathtub to increase her chances of winning the affections of a new love interest, an attorney who had defended her second husband the previous August on auto theft charges. She said that she knew that no man wanted another man's children. She had been arrested a week earlier for the drowning and charged with murder. She had admitted in a statement that she had choked her son and then put him in the bathtub and sat on him. She said that he had gotten on her nerves by spilling fingernail polish and remover on the furniture and crying and whining.
In Rangoon, Burma, a Chinese woman who previously had four sets of twins in four years was now expecting a fifth pair. She said that she was not worried, but her husband, a general merchant, said, "This must stop."
In Seattle, the Coast Guard was upset because the previous day, a 26-foot fishing boat, reported overdue in the Strait of Juan de Fuca on the 80-odd mile voyage from Neah Bay to Port Townsend, Washington, had caused the deployment of three Coast Guard planes, spending a total of 9.1 hours in the air and covering an area of 2,000 square miles, plus two Coast Guard ships, cruising over 900 square miles, with 40 crew members of the ships and planes putting in 250 man-hours, in addition to numerous telephone calls, teletype messages, and radio messages. Then it was learned the previous night that at mid-morning, the owner of the boat had put in at Port Townsend, and the man who had called the Coast Guard originally about the fishing vessel being overdue had decided not to call the Coast Guard to report its arrival because of the toll charge of 40 cents, which he could have reversed.
On the editorial page, "On Emphasis in the News" tells of the President's frequent criticism of the editorial pages of American newspapers having not concerned the editors. It offers that because a majority of newspapers had backed the Republican Party candidates in recent presidential elections, it did not follow that they were either wrong or dishonest, that it was possible they were right and probable that they were completely honest.
It asserts that The News had very stringent standards in reporting political campaigns and that every member of the staff had instructions to provide the opposing parties and candidates absolutely even space in the news columns, an "inflexible policy" which kept the news columns and the editorial page of the newspaper completely separate. It finds that a small minority of newspapers did not follow that precept and used the entire newspaper as an editorial weapon, thereby jeopardizing the good name and prestige of the American press.
Roscoe Drummond of the Christian Science Monitor, which had extremely high ethical standards, had recently been traveling with General Eisenhower and Governor Stevenson, and had noted that the Governor was not receiving an even break in the news columns of daily newspapers across the country. He found that newspapers were engaged in one-sidedness in covering the news of the campaign and slanting much of it, that hardly a day went by when special staff writers were not covering General Eisenhower and Senator Nixon, while none were assigned to cover Governor Stevenson, even in Illinois, where newspapers devoted four to ten times as large headlines to the Eisenhower side of the campaign as they did to the Stevenson side, when both were making comparably important addresses. He also found that Illinois newspapers published large pictures on the front page of the General campaigning, while relegating pictures of the Governor to the inside page. He suggested as a remedy that one of the large foundations ought finance an objective, thorough analysis of the 1952 news coverage of the campaign.
The piece indicates that such a study might help, but that the final responsibility for a responsible press had to be on the newspaper publishers, that if the right to freedom of press was abused, it would endanger the free press they sought to safeguard.
We shall make deceivers of the editors, as the number of pictures since September 1 on the front page of either General Eisenhower or Senator Nixon outnumber by eleven to four the number of pictures of Governor Stevenson or Senator Sparkman, through this date, counting as one the six-picture photo montage of the General on September 26, during his visit in Charlotte. Of those, one was of Senator Sparkman and four were of Senator Nixon, the latter surrounding the expense fund. That imbalance was made worse by the fact that Governor Stevenson was far less known to the electorate than General Eisenhower.
That bias aside, if the editors had
gotten a whiff of Fox News
"The ROKs Prove Their Mettle" finds that the South Korean soldiers had demonstrated their fighting prowess in the battle for White Horse Mountain, and showed that they were now manning major portions of the front lines and doing a very good job of it. South Korean military casualties exceeded those of Americans and all other U.N. forces combined, and Korean civilian casualties also were very high. Secretary of Defense Robert Lovett said that South Korean troops had 50 percent more soldiers killed than Americans, 40 percent more wounded, and four times as many missing. There were presently 18 U.N. fighting divisions on the peninsula, and ten of those were South Korean. The South Korean division, however, was smaller and less well-equipped than its U.S. counterpart.
Intensive training of the South Korean Army had begun about a year and a half earlier. Training was difficult, as Japan, which had ruled Korea until 1945, had deliberately excluded Koreans from technical and leadership training. The current South Korean chief of staff had been only a company commander in the Korean constabulary in 1947, when he had started his military career. His four lieutenants at the time were now generals. About 600 South Korean officers had now gone through Army schools in the U.S. and a training program was in progress in Korea. But it would still take awhile before a competent military leadership among the South Koreans could be established.
It concludes that despite these advances, it was unrealistic to believe that South Korea could, alone, confront the Communist enemy, even with U.N. air and sea support. It adds that the more Koreans became involved in the fight on the allied side, the less credibility could attach to the propaganda of the Communists regarding American "war-mongers", resulting in the Communist Chinese troops wondering who the real aggressor was, as they were pushed back by South Koreans defending their homeland.
"Are You Thinking about This Election?" tells of the most recent Gallup poll having asked the question whether each respondent had given much thought or only a little thought to the presidential election, finding that 45 percent of respondents had thought very little about it. Based on educational level, 44 percent of those with grade school had thought much about it, those with high school, 60 percent, and those with college, 78 percent, while the remainder in each category had thought only little or nothing about the election.
The piece thinks there was no cause for rejoicing in those percentages, finds it incredible that 22 percent of college graduates had thought little about the election, which it regards as "one of the greatest decisions in our political history", finds further amazement in the fact that 40 percent of high school graduates had virtually ignored it.
It indicates that it was essential that elections be decided by the majority of eligible voters, and that if the decision was to be wise, was likewise essential that voters be well informed.
"Autumn Fairyland" recommends to readers that they travel the Blue Ridge Parkway during the coming weekend, as the approach of cold weather had been slow, thus leaving the leaves in variegated display. It indicates that until the traveler reached the 3,000 or 4,000-foot level, the transition to the full display of colors was not complete, resulting at that elevation in a fairyland effect, with nature at its gayest.
A piece of from the Atlanta Constitution, titled "'Nothing Lately' for Jimmy", tells of Vice-President Alben Barkley telling the story of a candidate having once come home to campaign for re-election, finding that one of his constituents for whom he had done many favors was now against him, asking the constituent whether or not he had appointed his brother postmaster, his sister to a job in the tax bureau, and his father to a job in the highway department, and after receiving affirmative answers to each question, asking why it was that the constituent now was against him, receiving the reply that he had not done anything for him lately. A South Carolina Democrat had used the story to represent the problem presently facing Governor James Byrnes.
Drew Pearson provides the financial background of Senator John Sparkman, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee. He indicates that in 1942, the Senator, while still a member of the House, had phoned Mr. Pearson to tell him that he was about to place his wife on the payroll, as the column had been writing about members of Congress who were doing so. He had said that his wife would actually work in the office. Mr. Pearson notes that while he had revealed members of Congress who had relatives on the payroll who did no work, he had been careful to point out those who did do work, such as the wife of Senator Irving Ives of New York, the son of the late Senator Arthur Vandenberg of Michigan, and the wife of former Vice-President John Nance Garner of Texas.
Senator Sparkman had earned about $9,500 in 1944 before taxes, about $13,000 in 1951, with the average interim income being about $11,000, against which he paid an average income tax of about $2,300 per year. In addition to his Congressional salary, he had received $75 per month in rent from a six-room house in Huntsville, Alabama, plus $400 per year in rent from a 160-acre farm near Huntsville. During his 16 years in Congress, he had made a total of $2,000 from lecture fees and $950 from two magazine articles. His wife had received a base salary of $4,500, plus overtime to bring her salary to about $6,500 per year. She also owned 49 percent of a radio station in Albertville, Alabama, the other owner being the husband of the Senator's niece. The Senator's capital investments included $50,000 in life insurance, about $20,000 in government bonds, about $10,000 in investment certificates, $675 of stock in a vending machine company which sold insurance at airports, and a $35,000 home in Washington. He had purchased the home in 1947, paying $15,000 in cash from converted government bonds, with the remainder in the form of a mortgage, of which about half had been paid. He had a savings account in Huntsville, containing about $3,000, and a checking account in Washington, containing about $1,000, plus a 1950 Buick and a 1946 Chevrolet.
The Senator was the son of a tenant farmer in Alabama, and it had always been his ambition to own a farm.
When the Senator had been asked whether it was not difficult to live on a Senator's income, he replied that it was not easy but that it could be done, and he knew plenty of members of Congress who did. He said that he tried to save ten percent of his income every year, and usually came pretty close to doing so. He set aside $50 each month for government bonds. When asked whether he sent out Christmas cards, as Senator Nixon had sent out 25,000, the Senator said that unfortunately he did not but did not wish to reflect on anyone who did. (Senator Nixon had lots and lots of friends, all of whom looked forward to Santa Claus.)
Senator Sparkman said that he did not use all of the money allotted him by Congress to run his office and of the $98,000 allotted to the Small Business Committee which he chaired, he had not used $15,000.
The column had reported on June 1, 1946 that in contrast to Senators Elmer Thomas of Oklahoma and John Bankhead of Alabama, both of whom had speculated in the cotton market on the basis of government information, "Honest John Sparkman", then the House Majority Whip, had turned down offers of money from constituents whom he had helped and who wanted to contribute to his campaign in return. In one instance he had returned $500 deposited to his bank account by a constituent whom he had helped, explaining that he had been doing his job and could not accept the contribution.
Mr. Pearson notes that the RNC had sent a special investigator to Alabama to probe Senator Sparkman's past life, and the investigator had interviewed the Alabama gambling fraternity along the Gulf Coast, as well as Phil Kastel in New Orleans, the former partner of Frank Costello, the New York gambling kingpin. But thus far, the investigator had not come up with anything.
Doesn't he have a little dog?
Joseph Alsop, with the Eisenhower campaign, tells of General Eisenhower's personal staff commonly referring to his visit to Wisconsin as the "Terrible Day", with the main question having confronted them of whether the General had dealt with the issue of Senator McCarthy adequately. He wanted less to do with the Senator than with Senator William Jenner, who had also implied that General Marshall was a traitor for his Far Eastern policy. The General's staff believed that he could not avoid appearing with Senator McCarthy on the platform at the big meeting in Milwaukee, but they planned not to invite him to travel through the state with the General's train. To emphasize the point, they had included in the General's Milwaukee speech a statement praising General Marshall.
But then Wisconsin Governor Walter Kohler, Jr., who had long been pro-Eisenhower and anti-McCarthy, went to Governor Sherman Adams, the General's campaign chief of staff, and pleaded against snubbing Senator McCarthy, as it would hopelessly split the Republican Party in Wisconsin and lose the state for the Republicans, making a martyr of the Senator. Governor Adams then persuaded General Eisenhower to remove the matter on General Marshall, as the Governor believed that defeat of the General would hand over the party not only to Senator Taft, but especially to such men as Senators McCarthy and Jenner. The General's staff concurred and also believed that men such as Senator McCarthy could be handled by the General as President. The expedient course, therefore, was to placate the Senator and avoid division of the party.
There was a comparable explanation for nearly every other compromise in the campaign, such as the half-promise to replace American troops on the front lines with South Korean troops. The General had been besieged daily by scores of Republican leaders, urging him to make a flat promise to end the Korean War. The General, however, had resisted such political expediency. Initially, the General, not being familiar with the Korean War situation, believed that replacing South Koreans on the battle line would provide a partial way out of the war for Americans and so made the suggestion to escape some of the pressure from the Republican professionals, causing damage in the process, as the promise was not capable of being fulfilled in the near future.
The Congressional Quarterly looks at the black vote in the presidential and Congressional elections, finding it more significant in the industrial areas of the Midwest and East than in the South. Both the DNC and RNC had placed emphasis on winning the black vote in about a dozen critical Northern states. That was so despite a greater proportion of the population in the South being black than in the North, as a greater percentage of Northern blacks voted than did Southern blacks, because elections in the industrial states of the Midwest and East tended to be closer than in the South, and because the black population of the North was primarily concentrated in the large industrial centers of states with a large number of electoral votes.
According to the Census Bureau, about ten percent of eligible voters in the country were "non-white" in 1950, including American Indians and Orientals, in addition to blacks. The Quarterly showed that 22.8 percent of persons eligible to vote in eleven Southern states were non-white, while in the border states, the percentage was 9.4, in the Middle Atlantic states, 6.2, the central region, 5.2, the West, 4.8, and in New England, 1.6 percent. There were about 9 million blacks of voting age in the country, of whom about 5 million resided in the South. But in 1948, more Northern blacks than Southern blacks had voted in the presidential election. Of the approximately 3.5 million black votes in 1948, as estimated by the RNC and DNC, no more than a million had been cast in the South.
Estimates for the 1952 election had the black vote at about four million, with only one to 1.5 million to be cast in the South. As example, Ohio had 25 electoral votes and Texas had 24, and in 1948, the President had carried Ohio by only a little more than 7,000 votes, while he carried Texas by over 468,000 votes, demonstrating why the Northern black vote could become decisive in the large industrial states.
A letter writer wonders, regarding the adulation of General Eisenhower, whether if one's house needed wiring, the owner would call a plumber because they knew he was a good plumber, or would call an electrician. She indicates that while the General was a good military man, he was not acquainted with anything in government but the military part of it, and she favors leaving him as a General.
Senator Nixon would always call the plumber. Probably better, though, than calling in the house painters, who were on reserve for special events.
A letter writer from Washington, presumably in North Carolina, indicates that the readers of the newspaper concerned with the infestation in the Government by Communists should be gladdened by its endorsement of General Eisenhower.
A letter writer congratulates the newspaper for endorsing General Eisenhower, putting "principle ahead of party" and setting aside a "90-year old prejudice"–whatever that was supposed to mean, as the newspaper was 64 years old and had regularly endorsed Republicans throughout most of its history.
A letter writer says that she was disappointed in the newspaper's endorsement of the General, but finds that the newspaper had been fair to both sides and thanks it for enabling people to vote in its straw poll, wishes that people favoring Governor Stevenson would work as hard as those who favored General Eisenhower.
A letter writer from Davidson congratulates the newspaper for endorsing General Eisenhower and finds that in the recent column by Drew Pearson, his statement, regarding the fact that Senator Nixon had achieved the vice-presidential nomination by being disloyal to Governor Earl Warren and delivering up the California delegation to the General, had referred to the "vice-presidency" rather than the "nominee", as if Senator Nixon was already Vice-President, causing the writer to wonder whether it was merely a slip or Mr. Pearson was making a prediction.
He was definitely predicting. Is your name Dick, too?
A letter writer from Ocean Drive Beach, S.C., finds General Eisenhower's recent derogatory reference to Governor Stevenson's "Hahvad" accent having inadvertently divulged three typical techniques embodied in current Republican campaign strategy, those being a direct appeal to the prejudices of the less-educated, an invitation for the Democrats to join in mudslinging, and a substitution of ridicule for reason in a platform desperately short of the latter. He finds that a political party was in tough straits when its chief appeal had to be made to emotions of those voters who, based on history, "would be the first to feel the repressive hand of its social and economic policies were it returned to power in Washington."
A letter writer from Cheraw, S.C., congratulates the newspaper for its endorsement of General Eisenhower and its editorial explaining that endorsement, finding it well-written, concise and truthful.
A letter writer from Greensboro comments on an editorial in which the newspaper had quoted opinions of General Marshall expressed by Senators McCarthy and Jenner, and another by General Walter Bedell Smith, director of the CIA, and then asked readers to take their choice. He indicates that he would take all of them and that it was only necessary to add two words at the end of General Smith's testimony, "stupidity and gullibility", for if it had not been for Senator McCarthy, Alger Hiss would have "still been making our foreign policy."
That demonstrates how incredibly
uninformed you are, doctor, as Mr. Hiss, before Senator McCarthy had
ever come into the picture in February, 1950, with his charges of
Communists in the State Department, and even before Congressman Nixon
and HUAC in 1948 delved into the relationship between him and
Whittaker Chambers, had, in 1946, become the president of the
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a position for which he
was recommended by Justice Felix Frankfurter. Try to stay abreast of
the news, and rely less on bottles of Catsup
Framed Edition
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