The Charlotte News

Thursday, October 2, 1952

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports, via Robert B. Tuckman, that the U.S. Fifth Air Force said this date that one enemy MIG-15 had been shot down and two damaged in a jet battle between two U.S. Sabre jets and four MIGs, southwest of Sinuiju in northwest Korea.

The Air Force announced that allied planes had shot down 107 MIG-15s during the previous three months, including a record 62 in September, and that U.N. losses in the air battles had been seven U.S. F-86 Sabre jets and three F-84 Thunderjets.

In ground fighting, South Korean infantrymen fought to within 50 yards of the top of "Wire Hill" on the east-central front, captured by the Communist Chinese the prior Monday. Late reports indicated that heavy fighting continued. Allied forces defending a hill east of Kumsong on the central front repulsed a heavy predawn attack by 106 Chinese troops, in a 40-minute fight. On the western front, an allied patrol fought its way out of a Chinese trap, inflicting an estimated 30 enemy casualties.

On Cheju Island, U.S. authorities reported that the previous day's rioting of prisoners of war had been a prelude to a planned mass escape of 5,884 Communist Chinese prisoners. The riot had been planned as a signal for the mass escape, but U.S. troops had moved in and broken the back of the revolt. In the resulting gunfire, 56 of the rioting prisoners were killed and more than 100 others injured. The riot had been planned for the third anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist regime, occurring the previous day, the plans for which had been discovered by the commander of the camp on August 24, after which plans were made to stop it. Orders had been given to the troops moving into the camp not to shoot unless attacked. The prisoners had responded with rocks, sharpened tent pole spears, crude knives and barbed wire flails. Some of the prisoners kept coming after they had been shot and had to be shot again before they would stop. At Panmunjom, the truce negotiation site, the Communist delegation protested the incident as a "massacre", in a note delivered to Maj. General William Harrison, the chief U.N. negotiator, by General Nam Il, the lead Communist negotiator. Officials on the island indicated that the compounds were being entered and searched without resistance and the prisoners were obeying all orders, the situation having been stabilized. A spokesman for the prisoner of war command said that teargas had not been used to quell the riot as wind conditions had not been favorable for it.

General Eisenhower, campaigning at Champaign, Ill., declared this date that there was "no sense" in the U.S. bearing the brunt of the Korean War when the South Koreans could be trained to defend themselves, that the job of manning the front lines was for the Koreans. He further stated that the country did not want Asia to believe that the white man of the West was their enemy and that if there had to be a war there, the Asians should be fighting the Asians, with Western support on the side of freedom. He also indicated that the first two world wars and the Korean War might "easily have been avoided", had there been greater precautions taken to strengthen the U.S. militarily. He blamed a lack of leadership for the wars and said that the people needed to decide whether it was time for a change. He said that the country should lead the world into a collective security which could defy Communism "confidently and without war", while making certain that there was no subversion or disloyalty within the U.S. government. At Decatur, Ill., he stated that a Republican administration would be known as one which brought the people justice and fair play, and would do what was best for all of the people and not for special groups. He also criticized the Administration regarding corruption, saying that it would harm the nation's prestige abroad. He again referred to a "series of failures" which had led to both world wars and the Korean War, again laying it at the doorstep of lack of Democratic leadership, though never referring to the President by name.

He appears to have omitted the fact that it was President Harding and the Republican Congress which refused to have the U.S. join the League of Nations, as had been urged by President Wilson in his Fourteen Points, thereby foredooming that organization to toothless status, unable to control the repeated treaty violations, which went unchecked during the 1920s and subsequently, by Germany and Japan in their steady build-up of a war machine. He also appears to have omitted the Depression of President Hoover, resulting from the laissez-faire economic policies of the 1920s under Republican rule, and its redounding effect on Europe, enabling Nazism and Fascism to thrive among the hungry, already humiliated by the loss of World War I and the consequent emasculation resulting from complete disarmament. But those things are just trifles, when compared to the lack of Democratic "leadership".

Governor Stevenson was overhauling his radio and television speaking plans to make room for at least four additional "fireside chats". George Ball, a Washington lawyer who was executive director for the Volunteers for Stevenson—and subsequently would serve prominently in the Kennedy Administration—, distributed a plan which the Republicans had adopted to present General Eisenhower hourly on radio and television stations in 49 normally Democratic counties across twelve states. Mr. Ball said the air would be "thick with political soap suds and gooey with tasteless bubblegum" from a "super-colossal, multi-million-dollar production" designed to sell candidates like soap or hair tonic. The Governor had delivered his first fireside chat from Chicago the previous Monday, and wished to respond to the Eisenhower soap suds with more of those chats. He allowed State employees an extra hour off for lunch this date, in case any wished to attend the Eisenhower rally in downtown Springfield. General Eisenhower had politely turned down the Governor's polite invitation to have lunch with him at the Executive Mansion.

Well, just be that way, snooty. Too busy selling soap, probably.

Senator Tom Connally of Texas, who was retiring from the Senate, said that he would support Governor Stevenson for the presidency and would very likely campaign for him in Texas. He predicted that the ticket would win in that state, despite the opposition of Governor Allan Shivers, who, along with Senator Connally's successor-nominate, Price Daniel, the State Attorney General, had endorsed General Eisenhower. General Eisenhower would win the state.

The President, continuing his whistle-stop tour from North Dakota, Montana and Idaho into Washington, spoke at Spokane the previous night, indicating that he was sorry to see the "abject surrender" by General Eisenhower "to the reactionary, vindictive wing of the Old Guard". Part of this speech was delayed by yells, whistles and cries of "give 'em hell, Harry" and "pour it on". He parodied the "I like Ike" slogan with a refrain indicating, "I like Ike, but—" He drew laughter when he called it a "damn lie" that taxes could be reduced by slashing government expenditures for national defense, as General Eisenhower and other Republicans had been contending. He also said it was "the craziest thing I ever heard of" to have a fixed limit on spending for defense. His estimated crowd in the National Guard Armory was 4,000, with 1,500 others outside unable to obtain entrance, after some 10,000 had applauded and waved as his motorcade drove eight blocks from the train station to the Armory. The President told reporters aboard the train that he was having the time of his life, and appeared to be enjoying himself as he walked, smiling, among the reporters. At Troy, Montana, he had called the Republicans the "generals' own party", saying that they had General Motors, General Electric, General Foods, General MacArthur and General Martin, a reference to Senator Martin of Pennsylvania, General Wedemeyer, and "their own five-star general who is running for president, and I understand he will carry some other generals around with him to give him a hand in the political campaign." He added that every general of whom he knew was on the list, except general welfare, which was ranked in with the "corporals and privates in the Democratic Party". He said that if all the generals voted for General Eisenhower and all the privates, for Governor Stevenson, the results would be obvious.

The Republicans were sending out a "truth squad" of Senators to engage in a verbal battle with the President during his whistle-stop tour. RNC chairman Arthur Summerfield stated that the President was lowering his high office "to the role of hatchet operations, dealing in distortions, irresponsible slanders, and, I regret to say, political prevarications", such that it was time for the Republicans to act. They were planning to roll out Senators Eugene Millikin of Colorado, Bourke Hickenlooper of Iowa, Homer Ferguson of Michigan and Francis Case of South Dakota.

What? Where is Senator McCarthy, the very living personification of Truth and Dignity?

In Moscow, Prime Minister Joseph Stalin, in a 50-page article for the Communist Party magazine, Bolshevik, on the eve of the Communist Party Congress, scheduled to open the following Sunday, said this date that a war between the capitalistic countries was more probable than a war between capitalistic and socialistic countries. He corrected "certain comrades" who had been arguing that since World War II, the prospect of war between the capitalist countries had ceased to be inevitable. His statements that a war between the capitalistic and socialistic countries was not likely appeared to contradict a statement which he had made in 1927 to an American workers' delegation visiting Moscow, that such a war was inevitable to settle the world conflict between the two competing systems. That statement, following the Leninist principle, had often been repeated in the Soviet press in recent times. The Prime Minister had told Pravda on February 16, 1951, that a new world war could not be considered inevitable for the time being, but went on then to criticize the U.N. for its action in Korea.

In New York, the engine of a crowded Pennsylvania Railroad commuter train, normally carrying between 850 and 1,000 commuters, caught fire in a tunnel under the Hudson River this date and hundreds of commuters were made ill by acrid smoke which billowed through the three-mile long tube. Initial reports said that three passengers and three members of the crew of the train had been taken to Pennsylvania Station medical offices for inhalator treatment.

In Hong Kong, a man without a passport this date began his third week as an unwilling passenger on a Hong Kong to Macau ferry, and the end of his endless travail was not in sight. He appeared to be doomed to ride the high seas, as the Flying Dutchman, unto eternity. He had boarded the ferry at Macau on September 18, but Hong Kong authorities would not allow him to land because his papers were not in order, and so he returned to Macau, which could not fix his papers, sending him back toward Hong Kong. The ferry company wanted to be rid of him, as he had never paid a fare, but could not throw him overboard. He had sneaked aboard the ferry initially and had been paying nothing for his roundtrips, though had enough money to pay for his meals for the time being. He said that he was an American, but the American consulate general said that he was not. He claimed that his name was M. P. O'Brien, but friends said that the surname was actually a contraction for his real Hungarian name, and that he had been known for a time in Shanghai as an "unrecognized American" who once held American papers but had lost them. The State Department told consular officers that he had been in Shanghai for several years under several aliases. He had left Shanghai in September with Communist permission, and the Portuguese had allowed him to enter Macau on condition that he would leave within a week. Police said that he would enter dry dock with the ferry unless he obtained a better set of papers, but they had no suggestions on how he might go about doing that. The piece concludes that Mr. O'Brien could not be reached for comment, as he was at sea.

As we said, fight the fare increase...

UNC had been forced to cancel its next two football games, one at the University of Georgia in Athens and the other at N.C. State in Raleigh, because four students had been afflicted with polio, one of whom was fullback Harold Davidson. Frankly, it was just as well, as they weren't doing too hot, having lost their opener to Texas 28 to 7 the prior Saturday—and it was destined to go downhill from there.

We rather like the current edition, even if their record does not yet reflect their strength shown on the field, especially last Saturday against Clemson. The national sports press needs to take their collective heads out of places wherein they should not be, and realize that it was not Clemson's bad play but UNC's good play which resulted in the final score, a one-point loss to the number one team, who may yet have to face UNC again in Charlotte at the end of the year. We shall see. We make no predictions. We know that they have three losses in five games, the losses decided by a total of ten points and each going down to the last minute or less, but they have also played one of the tougher schedules thus far in the country, a schedule which will become considerably easier, for the most part, the rest of the way. At least, there was no "off-side" on-side kick on Saturday, as that which was robbed of UNC in 2015 in the ACC championship game against Clemson. And there was no pizza.

We are glad that no games have to be postponed anymore because of polio.

Alright, you in the back, smart mouth. Yeah, you. That's right. If you haven't anything more to say than that, you can just get up and leave, right now. Go on, get out. Just not going to tolerate that kind of... No.

The newspaper prints some more excerpts of entries to the contest for the two $25 bonds, one for a student and one for an adult, for the best two letters regarding why it was important to register and vote. Hurry up, as your entries must be postmarked by midnight Saturday. Surely someone, other than the letter writers, is going to talk about Dick. If you are not going to talk about Dick, at least talk about the little dog Dixie.

On the editorial page, "No Political Issue Here" finds it fortunate that the political issue regarding the off-hand statement by General Walter Bedell Smith, director of the CIA, that he believed there were Communists in every Government agency, including the CIA, had died aborning. General Smith had made the statement in the context of a deposition in the libel action filed by Senator Joseph McCarthy against Senator William Benton, after having been asked whether he believed that there were Communists in the State Department in 1947, stating that he did and that he believed there were Communists even within the CIA, but that he did not know who they were. He went on to say that the Communists were so "adroit and adept" that they had infiltrated nearly every security agency of the Government.