The Charlotte News

Tuesday, December 23, 1952

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that four allied Sabre jets clashed with eight enemy planes this date, and one MIG jet was shot down. Air Force and Marine planes struck a troop concentration in northwest Korea and other planes dropped bombs on the east airfield at Pyongyang as the Communists were seeking to repair the airstrip. Enemy troop and supply centers near Pyongyang had been struck the previous night by 12 B-29s.

On the ground, allied raids and Chinese probes led to short engagements along the frozen, snow-covered front. On the western front, an allied raiding party sent about 80 enemy soldiers fleeing through an artillery and mortar barrage which killed an estimated 30 enemy troops. All of the enemy probing attacks were repulsed after short fights.

In Paris, French President Vincent Auriol formally accepted the resignation of Premier Antoine Pinay after the latter, in office for nine months, had earlier submitted it in an announcement on the National Assembly floor after part of his coalition majority, the Catholic Popular Republican Movement, had refused to support him in the first of three new confidence votes on a 1953 budget. President Auriol had sought to talk the Premier out of the resignation this date but had failed to change his mind. It marked the end of the 17th government since liberation from the Nazi occupation in 1944. It also marked the end of the "Pinay experiment" which had sought to protect the purchasing power of the franc by fighting devaluation while rolling back prices wherever possible, seeking to establish a balanced budget in the country, the issue which caused his backers to break ranks. Narrow majorities on recent votes had made it certain that without the full backing of the coalition, the opposing votes of the Communists, the Socialists and the Gaullists, backers of General Charles de Gaulle, could throw out the Cabinet.

In Verona, Italy, at least five persons had been killed this date when a Milan-to-Venice train, filled with Christmas travelers, left the rails, causing one car to be smashed to splinters, after which a fire erupted.

The National Association of Manufacturers refused again this date to assist the Truman Administration in re-constituting the Wage Stabilization Board, following the resignations of the seven industry members in protest of the President's overturning the earlier WSB decision to cut by 40 cents the $1.90 per day wage increase negotiated between the UMW and the coal mining companies, which had followed the resignation of the chairman of the WSB, Archibald Cox, who had also resigned in protest of the President's decision. The NAM president said that the President's action in nullifying the wage cut, which the WSB found would be inflationary, had destroyed all possible effectiveness of the WSB.

The British cruiser Kenya radioed this date that passengers and crew of the stricken liner Champollion, which had run aground 500 yards from shore during a heavy storm, had been taken ashore off the coast of Lebanon, but that about 30 of the 238 persons aboard had reportedly drowned. Twenty of the passengers, desperate after being buffeted by gale-force winds for 24 hours, had sought to swim ashore, and another ten bodies had washed ashore after a lifeboat capsized. About 50 persons had made it ashore by swimming. Both the storm and a misinterpretation of shore signals were believed to have been the cause of the ship's grounding. Of the 238 persons aboard, 108 were passengers, some bound for Bethlehem for Christmas observances.

In Washington, the Air Force stated that a preliminary investigation of the Moses Lake, Wash., air disaster which had resulted the previous Saturday in the deaths of 86 persons aboard a C-124 transport loaded with servicemen returning home, had not determined any problem with the planes themselves, which would require their grounding. The Air Force had not yet determined the cause of the crash, in which the plane had crashed in flames shortly after takeoff. The plane had been test flown the previous day and everything had checked out satisfactorily. The pilot had more than 2,000 hours of flying time, including more than 400 hours in C-124s. The weather at the time of the crash was well above the minimum requirements for takeoff.

In Frankfurt, Germany, a private, a wounded war veteran, was acquitted by an Army court-martial of sexually assaulting an 18-year old American girl and robbing two soldiers, but was sentenced to three years in prison on two minor charges, absent without leave from his post and wrongfully appropriating an Army jeep and pistol. He was also dishonorably discharged. The verdict was subject to review.

In New York, a Marine sergeant, 19, hurled a phosphorous grenade, along with an uncomplimentary remark, into a bar crowded with Puerto Ricans, injuring 14 persons. Police eventually fatally shot the Marine as he tried to escape. He had gone to the bar with a sailor and an airman, and then rolled the grenade like a bowling ball into the establishment located in Harlem, shouting, "I'll show these Spics something." The explosion had blown out windows of the tavern, throwing the neighborhood into an uproar. Police then chased the Marine for nine blocks until one patrolman shot him in the head after he turned and knifed the patrolman. Police arrested both of the companions, one of whom had surrendered during the chase and the other having surrendered after first finding refuge with his father, who called police and escorted his son to a church for prayer. Most of the injured were released after treatment for cuts and burns. A narcotics agent, who reportedly had tracked a narcotics suspect into the bar, remained hospitalized. A police officer, who had gone to the bar after becoming suspicious of the three servicemen entering, also was among the injured.

In Raleigh, Noel Yancey, in another in a series of articles on the upcoming 1953 General Assembly, tells of a majority of the legislators answering an Associated Press questionnaire by having stated themselves undecided on the multi-million dollar bond issue to modernize the state's primary highway system.

In Charlotte, well-known local attorney Charles W. Tillett fell or jumped to his death from the eighth floor of the Law Building, where he had his offices on the sixth floor. His body landed on the sidewalk outside the building entrance, directly across the street from a house where a woman and her teenage son were wrapping Christmas gifts as they saw Mr. Tillett hit. He had entered the building shortly before 1:00 p.m. and asked the elevator operator to take him to the eighth floor, which she had questioned for the fact that he usually asked to go to his offices on the sixth floor. Detectives found dust disturbed on the windowsill of the eighth floor stairway window and surmised that Mr. Tillett had gone out at that location. During the morning, he had withdrawn $750 from an account and deposited it in another account in his wife's name. He had recently undergone treatment at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, from which he had returned on December 15. The story does not offer any speculation by investigators as to whether his death was suicide, but it would later be determined to have been so. Mr. Tillett had been an observer at the U.N. Charter Conference in spring, 1945, and in that capacity, had written several articles at the request of The News, and, thereafter, became a recognized proponent of the U.N. at the national level, testifying on occasion before Congress and writing magazine articles on the subject. He had been a loyal Democrat, having attended the 1944 convention as a delegate from the state, had been a recognized civic leader, serving on the Charlotte School Board, and had been a member of the UNC Board of Trustees. His wife, Gladys, had been former vice-chairman of the DNC and the U.S. representative at UNESCO, and served after her husband on the UNC Board, remaining active after her husband's death in the U.N.

Also in Charlotte, heavy rain which had prevented flights from taking off during the morning, had cleared by noon, enabling passengers to continue their holiday travel. Buses and trains, though not hampered by the weather, had begun to show the signs of Christmas strain on travel, as many servicemen chose those means of conveyance to return home for the holidays.

In New Orleans, a bookie was arrested during the weekend near the fairgrounds racetrack, after he had taken a bet from a policeman acting undercover. The officer said the man wrote up the bets on the side of a house within viewing distance of the track and then washed them off, removing the evidence after each race. To acquire the evidence, the police had to remove the marked boards from the house.

In Charlotte Amalie, Virgin Islands, the wife of New York television star Peter Donald won a divorce suit on the grounds of general incompatibility.

On the editorial page, "An Example for Tar Heel Republicans" indicates that 558,000 North Carolinians had voted for General Eisenhower in the election, narrowing Governor Stevenson's victory margin to less than 100,000. Some had been registered Republicans but most were registered Democrats, and yet nothing had been done since the election to hold those Democrats permanently in the Republican camp.