The Charlotte News

Tuesday, October 7, 1952

FIVE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports, via Stan Carter, that a major drive by 15,000 Chinese Communists, which had toppled seven allied hill positions in its first rush, had been renewed with full fury this night against two key heights guarding the road to Seoul. After heavy enemy artillery barrages against the hills, the Communists had sent fresh troops up the slopes, which already bore an estimated 1,200 to 1,300 Communist dead. It was the largest enemy assault of the year, though front-line allied officers called it a "limited offensive" stretching across two-thirds of the 155-mile front, unable thus far to dent the main allied positions. The hill positions which had fallen were relatively minor outposts. The enemy had attacked with greatest force against the heights guarding the road to Seoul, at White Horse Mountain and Arrowhead Ridge near Chorwon. The allies had been prepared for the attack for three days, having received advance warning, and stood their ground in most positions, killing hundreds of the enemy in the process. One allied unit had fought and died to the last man in defending a vital hill, the number of dead having not yet been disclosed.

Allied warplanes hit enemy lines across the front this date, destroying two enemy tanks and about 80 bunkers.

The Defense Department announced this date that it would draft 460 physicians and 204 dentists in December, of which 285 of the physicians and 159 of the dentists would go to the Army, with the remainder to the Air Force, bringing the total physicians drafted since July to 1,254.

At Camp Picket, Va., an Army general court-martial this date convicted a private, who was a self-styled pacifist, of willful disobedience to report to a West Coast port of embarkation, and sentenced him to a dishonorable discharge, forfeiture of all pay and allowances, and confinement at hard labor for two years. The soldier had sat out a 12-day furlough and five days of allowed travel time in the railway station at nearby Blackstone, Va., in protest against being in the Army, and then refused to report to Fort Lawton, an overseas replacement depot near Seattle. He was a Jehovah's Witness and said it was against his religious beliefs to be in the Army, telling reporters during his protest that he believed it wrong to kill and wrong to help those directly involved in killing. He had been taken into custody by military police shortly after the expiration of the deadline for his appearance at Fort Lawton.

General Eisenhower, touring Washington and Oregon, virtually ignored Governor Stevenson this date and took on instead the President, regarding water-power development in the Northwest. He was scheduled to give talks in seven cities and towns in the two states, with a major speech at Portland during the afternoon. The previous night in Seattle, speaking to a crowd of 5,000, the General had referred to the President as "an expert in political demagoguery", giving the people "a course in nonsense fiction". He called the Administration a "whole-hog" government operating on the theory that "the Federal Government must do everything for us and to us". He said, "You have been conducted through an underworld of imaginary devils." He stated that his administration would make "full use of private resources plus a local-state-Federal partnership" in reclamation programs. The crowd cheered heartily. An additional 5,000 persons were seated in a nearby high school football stadium listening to the speech through loudspeakers.

The President, in Colorado Springs, this date declared that he had made a "very serious mistake" when he once thought General Eisenhower was qualified for the presidency, saying that he had "betrayed every principle about our foreign policy and our national defense" that the President thought he believed in. He accused the General of trying to win votes "by playing upon the casualties and sacrifices in Korea" and discussing "blunders" which led to the Korean War, when the General had joined in the decision to pull out the troops from Korea prior to the war. He criticized the General for not criticizing and even endorsing the two "moral pygmies", referring, albeit not by name, to Senators Joseph McCarthy and William Jenner, despite their calling General Marshall a traitor for his Far Eastern policy. The President would make a speech in Denver this night, in which he provided a history lesson of professional military men as President and presidential candidates.

In Saginaw, Michigan, Governor Stevenson this date accused General Eisenhower of giving "comfort" to the Soviets by labeling American prosperity as artificial, stimulated by wartime economy. He said such talk was to be expected from irresponsibles and isolationists, but not from "a man who was formerly looked upon as an understanding leader in world affairs". He said that the economy had been maintained on the basis of the country's great productive power increasing total national output by more than the defense burden had increased. He said that the idea that a huge military establishment was necessary for the country's prosperity was repugnant to every impulse he had. He said the real problem of the country was how to produce enough to meet the demands of the second half of the 20th century. The Republicans, he continued, tried to contend during election years that they believed in all of the things which they tried to break in other years. He said that they had voted against the interests of the farmers, laborers, businessmen, consumers, housewives, the children, the old folks, and free friends abroad, that the heart of their philosophy was aimed at "abundance for the few with indifference for the mass of people". In foreign affairs, their "indecision and obstruction" led to war. He said that he did not accuse General Eisenhower of deliberately wanting those things, but had not the "foggiest notion what he as an individual stands for", as his views seemed to change on such issues as tidelands oil, Social Security, farm supports and other matters. The Governor was scheduled to provide a major address this night in Detroit on all phases of the Communist threat, internal and external, a speech which would be televised and broadcast on radio by CBS at 10:30 p.m. EST.

In East Berlin, East Germany showed off its fledgling air force to Nikolai Shvernik, the President of the Soviet Union, in a giant parade in East Berlin's Red Square, where 500 men identified as "air police" marched behind 4,000 soldiers of the new "people's army" and 1,000 "sea police". It was the first public display of the long-rumored "air police". Many thousands of factory workers, blue-shirted Communist youths and other pro-Soviet delegations were on hand to observe the display, scheduled to last four hours, on the occasion of the third anniversary of the East German republic. Other dignitaries from various Soviet satellite countries were also on hand.

In Brunswick, West Germany, four East Germans were sentenced to three months each in prison for "endangering the republic" by collecting confidential information on West Germany on orders of the Soviet Zone Communist Trade Union Federation.

The Prague press announced this date that Dr. Karel Petrzelka had been named the new Ambassador to the U.S. by President Klement Gottwald. The former Ambassador had been recalled to Prague earlier in the year under mysterious circumstances and his brother had been removed earlier in the year from his post as chief of staff of the Czech army, with rumors circulating that the former Ambassador had been arrested on suspicion of having aided his brother in an anti-Communist plot.

The State Department said this date that it was possible that Ambassador to Moscow George Kennan might stay in Europe for awhile as an adviser on Russian affairs, after having been declared by the Kremlin persona non grata in Russia. Elim O'Shaughnessy, the U.S. charge d'affaires in Moscow on a brief trip to Switzerland, took off by plane for the Soviet capital this date to assume the duties of Ambassador Kennan.

The State Department had received a copy of Soviet Moldavia, a Communist publication, in which a story appeared that a manager of a barrel-making shop had claimed all its quotas had been filled up to 150 percent, but the newspaper recounted that the previous fall, a collective farm had purchased five sleighs from the shop, all of which had been defective, plus eight oak barrels, the bottoms of which had fallen out of three and the others were leaking.

It sounds a little like the future of the Nixon Administration.

In the area of Corning, N. Y., up to two inches of snow fell, and one long-time resident said it was the earliest snow he had seen in at least 25 years. It disrupted power in Wellsville and two schools in Hornell were closed because of live electrical wires being down.

In Charlotte, hundreds of volunteers would visit residential neighborhoods this night, urging citizens to register and vote on November 4, four weeks hence. The effort was part of the local Mecklenburg County Get-Out-the-Vote Campaign.

In Utica, Mich., a grocer had about 100,000 zinc pennies, which he was saving in a keg to keep them out of circulation, and when the keg was full, would turn them into a bank. He said that he never liked them as almost everyone confused them with dimes.

In Rossville, Ga., Butch, five years old, had been chained under a burning house and howled helplessly as rescue efforts were blocked by the flames, prompting a passerby to fire a shotgun at Butch to put him out of his misery. But the pellets only clipped his collar, freeing Butch, who dashed off to a cooling brook.

Those parents ought to be in jail.

Not on the page, in the seventh and final game of the World Series this date in Brooklyn, the Yankees defeated the Brooklyn Dodgers, 4-2. It appears to be the first time, incidentally, that the front page of the News never made any direct mention of the Series during its entire week of games, carrying only one brief story the previous day regarding troops in Korea listening to the fifth game on Sunday.

On the editorial page, "Soviets Plan While Americans Prattle" indicates that the previous week, the campaign had dealt with U.S. foreign policy, as the President condemned some of the actions and advice of General Eisenhower while he had been supreme commander of the Allied forces in Europe during World War II and, after the war, as chief of staff of the Army, while the General had already been making charges against the Administration for bungling in advance of Korea, and at Yalta and Potsdam, for permitting the Soviets to have East Germany in such a way that they held a degree of control over access to West Berlin.

Meanwhile, in Moscow, Premier Joseph Stalin delivered one of his infrequent major pronouncements on foreign affairs, stating that a war between the capitalist countries was more likely than a war between the capitalist countries and Russia. He said that the Soviet Union would not attack the capitalist countries. He also said that the actions of Communist parties outside Russia might lead to "the retirement of warlike government", as those non-Russian parties did not pursue the purpose of overthrowing capitalism and the establishment of socialism by revolution.

Also the previous week, the Kremlin had demanded that Ambassador George Kennan be recalled. The piece regards the latter event as further proof that Russia had no peaceful intentions toward the U.S., demonstrating that the Soviets did not want a man of Ambassador Kennan's knowledge and ability in a position to observe Soviet actions at close range.

It thus regards Premier Stalin's statement that the Soviet Union would not attack the capitalist countries as "so much hogwash", as it was not accompanied by any conciliatory moves which might warrant its belief. It was rather part of a calculated campaign to divide the Western allies and lull the non-Communists of Western Europe.

It posits that while Russia had been formulating its long-range foreign policy, most American policy-makers had been attacking each other, seeking to place blame for failure of past policy. The discussion had regarded the Far East, Korea and China, with no mention by the two major candidates of the Middle East and little regarding Western Europe.

It finds it disturbing that neither party was making long-range proposals designed to offset the Soviet attempt at splitting the allies. The British detonation of their first atomic bomb in Australia was another example of disorganization among the allies in the face of organized Communism. It suggests that with unification ongoing in Western Europe, the Europeans might conclude that they should go it alone and become a strong third force which would be a bystander in the event of a U.S.-Russia conflict. That, it urges, was the attitude sought by the Russians, preliminary to a Communist overthrow, and was the attitude which NATO was designed to offset. "Thus, while America orates and looks the other way, Russia moves and Europe wonders."

"For a Less Biased JCS" tells of Dr. Vannevar Bush, the engineer and administrator who authored Modern Arms and Free Men and had headed, at various times during the previous 13 years, the National Advisory Commission for Aeronautics, the National Defense Research Commission, the Office of Scientific Research & Development and the military's Research & Development Board, having proposed recently to remove command functions from the Joint Chiefs and make them instead military advisers to the President, causing the chain of command to go directly from the President to the civilian department heads and officers from the various services. It indicates that adoption of the proposal would result in greater unification of the services and less bickering between the military branches. At present, the President relied on military advice from representatives of the services who were responsible for execution of the policies and subject to the pressures of their fellow officers. Effectively, the Joint Chiefs was in the position of a top-level board of conflicting advisers, with each member tempted to take care of his own service ahead of national military policy.

It thus supports Dr. Bush's proposal.

"Absentee Voters" reminds voters that if they were planning to be out of town on election day, it was time to apply for their absentee ballots, and provides the relevant information for doing so.

"Everybody's Campaign Fund" tells of Beardsley Ruml, the finance chairman of the Democratic Party, who had helped to set up the pay-as-you-go withholding tax on incomes, having stated recently that the initial response to a new campaign fund-raising scheme had been "too fantastic for words".

It hopes that the campaign would work well, to take the burden off large donors and spread it among a number of people, doing away with the prospect of satisfying special-interest groups. The plan of Mr. Ruml called for donations of five dollars from Democrats who wanted to help the ticket, in return for which they received a certificate of thanks signed by Governor Stevenson. The concept stirred enthusiasm among grassroots voters, freed the candidates and their parties from obligations to big donors, and offered a greater potential fund for party activities.

It had been recommended by some that the cost of the campaigns be borne by the Government, and that donations beyond a fixed amount be made illegal. It regards that approach as having several disadvantages, including the impossibility of enforcment at the state and local level. It regards the sounder approach as appealing to the grassroots, per the Ruml plan.

"At Long Last" tells of two lame ducks on the County Board of Commissioners having proved their worth during the week by becoming the deciding votes on the issue of the County Government's contribution of its $7,500 share of the cost of the countywide tuberculosis survey. The survey would aid in early detection and would reduce the cost of treatment, and so was well worth the expenditure. With that $15,000 to be contributed by the City and County, the next step was to line up $10,000 from the local tuberculosis, heart and cancer associations, qualifying the community for $100,000 from the U.S. Public Health Service, to pay for X-rays of each person in the community at a dollar apiece.

Drew Pearson, in Los Angeles, relates of the inside facts regarding General Eisenhower's favorable tax treatment on his wartime memoir, Crusade in Europe, which reportedly had saved the General about $500,000 in taxes. Afterward, Congress had adopted an amendment to the law closing the loophole. The General had written to the Undersecretary of the Treasury, Archibald Wiggins, in December, 1947, relating that the publishers had proposed that he turn over the complete bundle of rights to them, such that he would no longer have control over the manuscript after the sale, producing no further income for him after a lump-sum payment. He asked the question as to whether the Treasury would regard the transaction as capital gains or ordinary income, and two days later the IRB commissioner replied that ordinarily, response to such an inquiry would take a month or longer and he believed the book appeared as a capital asset which the General would have to retain for six months after its completion before selling it to obtain capital gains tax treatment. A week later, a partner of Ambassador Joseph Davies, Donald Richberg, wrote to the IRB commissioner indicating that he was acting as a volunteer adviser to the General on his memoirs, and raised some technical questions about the capital gains tax, to make sure that the contract with the publishers met the requisite IRB regulations.

The General then waited nearly a year, during which time he completed the book and held it six additional months. He then wrote another letter to the IRB commissioner, who replied in December, 1948, acknowledging that the General had sold his memoir to Doubleday & Doran, Inc., on October 1, 1948, six months after its completion, thus giving his approval of the capital gains treatment on the lump-sum amount of $635,000 received from the sale of the manuscript.

South Africa had threatened to pull its troops from Korea if the U.S. supported the Arab demand for an investigation of racial segregation in South Africa. The loss of these troops would have little effect on the U.N. military strength in Korea, but would be a psychological setback, as it would constitute the first break in the united front. India, Pakistan, Indonesia and Burma had asked the U.N. to investigate apartheid in South Africa. The issue continued to loom over the U.S. delegation at the U.N.

Joseph Alsop, aboard the President's train in California, tells of it being frankly admitted that the Democratic campaign strategy had gone slightly awry, as Governor Stevenson had not made the impression with the American people which had been planned during September, with the tour of the President then to follow. The failure was evident among the large crowds who were turning out everywhere to see the President. The President's entourage acknowledged the problem. In the West, Governor Stevenson remained an unknown figure to most of the people, just four weeks from the election. Meanwhile, the President was attracting enthusiastic audiences, pouring it on the Republicans with "inexhaustible vigor", such that it would be hard for Governor Stevenson to recapture his rightful place at the head of the ticket.

He cautions, however, that it would be misplaced for the Republicans to take from that situation complacency. Perhaps those already committed to General Eisenhower regarded it as rude and coarse of the President to campaign in such fashion, attacking General Eisenhower, but in California and the Northwest, the enormous numbers of people turning out to hear him remembered that the General had been saying some pretty harsh things about the President, and so saw nothing improper about him giving as good as he got. They also gleaned a lot of unpleasant truth from the President's recitals of the Republican record in Congress on such issues as public power. The President's form of campaign appeared to be going over well and other Democratic big guns were beginning to take to the hustings as well, especially Senator Estes Kefauver, who would carry weight in the West.

That was happening at a time when the decision of the election remained in tenuous balance. Most of the polls were showing General Eisenhower with a comfortable lead, but Elmo Roper had announced that half of the electorate had not yet made up its mind, while the other half favored the General by 27 percent to 23 percent for the Governor. Mr. Alsop indicates that the latter poll coincided with his thinking, as well as that of other reporters on the President's train. They had inquired of several thousand people along the way regarding their voting intentions, and all agreed that at least half remained on the fence between the two candidates.

He indicates that perhaps the undecided vote would finally go to General Eisenhower based on his continued denunciations of corruption, Communism and bungling. But it was also possible that those continued general themes, mingled with the appeals to the Taft Republicans, would cause the undecided voters to grow suspicious of Republican intentions. The President was working hard to reinforce those suspicions.

Robert C. Ruark tells of his television always going on the blink at the wrong time, with the score tied, two outs, and a man on third for his club. It always happened whenever he wanted to see something special, such as the World Series, a new fall comedy or maybe Dinah Shore. Many people, he observed, were able always to obtain the programming they sought, but not him.

He had the same trouble with watches, cameras, and airplanes. He figures that he had something which caused mechanical things not to work. But the problem also occurred with horses, as he could ride "the most sedate and spavined nag yet fugitive from the glue pot and he immediately thinks he is a second Seabiscuit." Every horse he tried to ride suddenly took off, and one had jumped through his owner's dining room window with Mr. Ruark aboard.

He concludes: "Well, the lights just went out again, merely because I touched a lamp accidentally. We'll finish this some other time, after I've hung a length of chain to my coattail, like the big trucks, to provide an escape hatch for the static. Consolation is I'm safe from capital punishment in this state. The electric chair couldn't handle my case. I'd short it out."

A letter writer from Gastonia praises another letter writer of September 29, indicating that when the Republicans had last been in power, there had been the worst depression in history, taking a "great Democrat", FDR, to extricate the country from it. She suggests that every time President Truman mentioned balancing the budget, the Republicans complained the loudest and yet claimed they would cut taxes and stop the war in Korea. She wonders whether the country wanted a full-fledged war with Russia, which it was not prepared to fight. She praises Governor Stevenson for writing his own speeches and not looking over his shoulder for someone to put words in his mouth. She questions whether General Eisenhower thought and acted for himself.

A letter writer from Laurinburg criticizes an editorial of October 1, accusing the President of McCarthyism in his speech calling attention to General Eisenhower's blunders regarding Russian intentions at the close of World War II. He finds that the point of the President's speech was not to criticize the General for a mistake, but rather to suggest that the General, having made the mistake, should acknowledge it rather than blaming the Administration. He suggests that the newspaper might be spared embarrassment by the Republicans turning over their foreign policy entirely to "My Boy" Nixon, as he "at least has the virtue of consistency in such matters" as universal military training, first supported by General Eisenhower and then, consistent with the stance of Senator Taft, criticized. He finds a fascinating feature of the campaign to be that many independent newspapers were gradually turning to support of Governor Stevenson after having originally given tacit support to General Eisenhower, having come to realize that the General's touted qualities of candor, intellectual honesty and independence had been less evident than those same qualities exhibited in Governor Stevenson. It hopes that the newspaper would not use the President as a whipping boy to obscure its recent disappointment in the inconsistency of the General. He concludes that the Democrats needed at least one newspaper in Charlotte that they could read "without getting ulcers".

A letter writer responds to another letter writer who had criticized Senator Nixon, indicating that the previous writer had also thereby criticized millions of Americans who acquired automobiles, washing machines, homes and other possessions on credit. She indicates that many people of her acquaintance had homes costing three times more than their annual salaries, while Senator Nixon's total debt of $38,000 on his two mortgages was only a little more than twice his annual income. She also finds that the previous writer's suggestion that there was no "Republican banker or business tycoon who would turn over the management of a peanut-stand" to Senator Nixon, was misplaced, as the contributors to his expense fund fit those descriptions and thus considered him a good business risk.

We are not entirely certain that Senator Nixon would appreciate your defense, as you appear to be saying that a bunch of millionaires contributed to the expense fund on the basis that they fully anticipated that the Senator would make their investment quite worthwhile in his votes on legislation.

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