The Charlotte News

Tuesday, December 9, 1952

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports, via Milo Farneti, that four allied Sabre jets had engaged with two Communist MIG-15s over North Korea this date and one enemy jet had been destroyed, with the other escaping back into Manchuria. The U.S. Fifth Air Force reported 155 enemy vehicles having been destroyed by B-26 Invader bombers, along roads reaching south from Pyongyang, Samdung, Yangdok and Suan. Fourteen B-29's dropped 140 tons of high explosives on four targets in North Korea.

In the ground war, the front remained relatively quiet amid temperatures still hovering just above zero.

Allied warships fired their big guns on Communist front-line positions, while carrier planes hit Chinese and North Korean areas along the east coast.

At the U.N. in New York, Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Vishinsky departed for home with the comment that the work of the U.N. General Assembly as an instrument of peace had not been satisfactory. He apparently had referred to the Indian compromise resolution, passed the prior week by the Assembly, which provided for a five-nation commission to resolve repatriation of prisoners in Korea, the remaining roadblock to an armistice, a compromise plan which the Soviet bloc of nations had opposed, passing 53 to 5, with one abstention by Nationalist China, which thought the plan unworkable. Mr. Vishinsky wished the American people holiday greetings, and a Happy Christmas and New Year "to the people who are fighting for peace".

The Supreme Court this date began hearing oral arguments in the school desegregation cases, arising from four states and the District of Columbia, the final decision to affect 13 other states maintaining completely or partially segregated school systems. Most of the 300 seats in the courtroom were allotted to lawyers, law clerks, attorneys and other court officials, with about 50 seats available for the general public, and the line this date for those seats had been one of the longest since the oral arguments the previous spring for the President's steel-industry seizure case. It was anticipated that arguments would continue through Thursday, taking up ten hours of time. The NAACP, led by future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, representing the parents of black students, was seeking to overturn the doctrine of separate-but-equal, asking the Court to hold it unconstitutional, as further discussed on the editorial page below. John W. Davis, the Democratic presidential nominee of 1924, would be among the attorneys representing the school boards and districts, on the argument that the states had the right to classify their students by race, sex, age and mental capacity, and that the 14th Amendment only required substantial equality between the schools, that segregation was not therefore per se unconstiutional.

In Chattanooga, Tenn., a black Baptist minister, 67, from Washington, was hospitalized after charging to the Chattanooga Times that he was brutally beaten by two white "ruffians" for refusing to take a back seat on a Greyhound bus during a trip from Atlanta to Chattanooga. He said that he had taken a seat in the middle of the bus, but that the driver had ordered him to the rear, whereupon he told the driver that he was an interstate passenger and was not compelled to ride at the rear of the bus—a contention previously upheld by the Supreme Court. Subsequently, the two white men approached him as the bus neared Acworth, Ga., and assaulted him with fists, knocking him to the floor and kicking him. He had cried for help but none of the other passengers or the driver came to his assistance. The two assailants had disembarked at Acworth, where two policemen then boarded the bus and threatened to place the victim of the beating in jail. He said that he was in such misery and pain that he decided it would be better not to resist any longer and so took a seat at the rear of the bus. Eventually, an official of the bus company arrived in Acworth from Atlanta and offered him medical assistance and he informed him that he would go on to Chattanooga. The preacher said that he was touring the South to raise money for the National Hospital Foundation, an organization he had founded and headed, which sought to obtain a proportional share of hospital beds to meet the needs of black patients. Southeastern Greyhound said that the complaint was being investigated.

Defense Mobilization director Henry Fowler and Economic Stabilizer Roger Putnam had said the previous night that they were hopeful of persuading a new set of seven industry members to take seats on the Wage Stabilization Board with the 14 public and labor members, after the seven industry members had quit the previous weekend in protest of the President having overturned the WSB decision to cut 40 cents from the negotiated $1.90 per day wage increase for the UMW coal miners. The chairman of the WSB, Archibald Cox, had previously tendered his resignation as well, after the President's decision was announced the prior week. Administration officials appeared determined to keep the Board operating under its new chairman, Charles Killingsworth, who said that industry members of regional boards who had tendered their resignations were reconsidering, and that it was not the mass exodus by industry members which it had first seemed.

In Paris, Premier Antoine Pinay taunted Communist deputies this date as sellers of hangman's ropes, as the deputies yelled in rage at the Premier in the National Assembly. The Premier was defending his 1953 budget of more than 11 billion dollars, on which he was seeking a vote of confidence. A Communist deputy had shouted to him "leather merchant", for his ownership of a small leather tannery in central France, urging him to tell them about hides. M. Pinay retorted: "Everyone earns a living as he can. I sell hides—you sell ropes," appearing to reference the recent purge trials in Prague, where eleven former top Czech Communist officials had been hanged for treason the previous week.

As pictured, Isaac Ben-Zvi, "the good Samaritan of the Samaritans", was elected as Israel's second President, succeeding recently deceased "father of Israel", Chaim Weizmann.

In Aberdeen, Wash., a grounded 7,200-ton freighter with 37 crewmen aboard had remain stranded on a Washington beach through the night, but the Coast Guard said there was no immediate fear for the safety of the crew, that weather forecasts for later in the day, however, predicting winds of 40 mph, were ominous. A commercial tug would attempt to haul the stranded freighter from the beach at early morning tide. The freighter had been riding high without a load during its voyage from San Francisco to Grays Harbor when it had run aground the previous day.

In Richmond, Va., Associated Press correspondent Paul Duke indicates that he, probably like the reader, had been skeptical of "Lady Wonder", the "talking" horse, and so had decided to interview the filly. But after a half hour "chat", he had come away scratching his head and wondering. Others had been wondering since it had been reported a few days earlier that the horse had provided a tip which had led to the discovery of the body of a four-year old boy missing from his Quincy, Mass., home for nearly two years—though police had cautioned that the horse needed their considerable help to make the "statement" appear as more or less accurate. Since that report, the owner of the horse had been besieged by requests to interview the horse by telephone, but had told people that it was better to question the horse in person. She had made an exception regarding a missing 19-year old woman from Eggertsville, N.Y., and an unidentified resident of Chicago who had recently disappeared as well. The horse had flabbergasted Mr. Duke when it correctly answered most of his 15 questions, by means of poking its chin against levers containing numbers and letters. The horse had been responding to questions for more than 20 years, at three questions for a dollar. In 1928, two Duke University psychology professors had tested the horse and concluded initially that there was no reasonable possibility for signaling to prompt the answers, either in a conscious or unconscious manner. In Durham, the Duke para-psychologist had recalled this date examining the horse in that earlier time, making a number of trips, along with his wife, a deceased professor, to investigate the claims that the horse could read minds. They had concluded that it showed some telepathic abilities, but by the following year, additional training and public showings had built up a system of signals which had become evident, as set forth in their two reports, the first saying that the horse had ability and the second ... continued on another page.

As indicated, the unfortunate suggestion by "Lady Wonder" that a missing nine-year old boy, mute, from Exeter, R.I., who had disappeared the previous September—the date of the "Checkers" speech—, was hurt but alive, on a truck somewhere in Kansas, as pictured on the page this date, turned out to be completely false, as the child's skull would be discovered a year later in the woods near the point where he had disappeared in Exeter, apparently not the victim of foul play, but simply having become lost, unable to cry for help, either starving to death or having been the victim of the elements or wild animals.

In Raleigh, Governor Kerr Scott told a press conference this date that though his Administration had made many small mistakes, none had been major. He had stated in a speech the previous night in Burlington that he was unaware of any mistakes during his time as Governor. He clarified that a mistake in the eyes of one person was a virtue in the eyes of another. He said that if he had it to do over again, he would ask each person in his Administration to provide an undated resignation at time of appointment, that since the Governor had no veto power and could not succeed himself in North Carolina, he needed to control the things which he could control. He said that his press conferences had helped him more than they had helped the press, giving him an idea of what people were thinking and wanted to know. He said that as long as one had an ultimate goal in view, the way one got there, as long as it was honorable, did not make too much difference.

In Charlotte, a well-known textile machinery executive was starting over again after a bankruptcy and recent fire. He had applied for incorporation papers from State Secretary of State Thad Eure in Raleigh, authorizing a capital stock of $300,000. The company's building on Wilkinson Boulevard had been destroyed by fire nine days earlier. The bankruptcy had stemmed from a Government claim that past taxes were due.

In Chicago, a Transit Authority streetcar motorman of four months had gotten his long-awaited chance to drive a CTA bus the previous day, but after package-laden Christmas shoppers had jammed into the bus on the Loop during rush hour, he took off on a ten-mile express trip to the Southwest Side, not making a single stop to allow passengers to alight, instead proceeding directly to the bus barn, where he jumped from the bus, walked into the superintendent's office and told him that he was through, turned in his identification badge, saying that he had spent ten years in the Army but could not take driving the bus. A relief driver was summoned to take the 50 distraught passengers to their proper destinations. A CTA spokesman said that the driver could not quit, that they would fire him.

On the editorial page, "Key Issue in Segregation Cases" indicates that the Supreme Court would begin this date hearing oral arguments on segregation in public schools, and comments on the decision in a municipal golf course case, an excerpt of which is reprinted on the page for the benefit of readers trying to follow the current school desegregation case, which would commonly become known as Brown v. Board of Education.

After outlining the golf course decision, which upheld the separate-but-equal doctrine of Plessy v. Ferguson, thus finding segregation not per se unconstitutional, it indicates that the school desegregation cases before the Supreme Court differed in one respect, as with the graduate and professional school cases: attendance at public school was compulsory, not voluntary. Federal Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge John J. Parker had indicated that distinction in the Clarendon County, S.C., case, joined with the Brown cases, indicating that the law had to take into account the wishes of parents regarding the upbringing of their child and his associates in the formative period of childhood and adolescence, thus not finding segregation per se violative of the Fourteenth Amendment and maintaining the viability of Plessy.

The editorial suggests that because forcible attendance at non-segregated schools would be against the will of parents, it would be the act of a "totalitarian state", especially as the Constitution, by omission, had left public education to the states, and because truly equal separate facilities satisfied Equal Protection under the 14th Amendment. The newspaper thus expresses confidence that the Supreme Court would not hold segregation per se unconstitutional. It indicates that, while the courts might keep pressure on the states to provide better school facilities for black students, segregation could not and should not be abolished by Federal judicial decree.

Surprise, surprise, surprise…

"An Investment in Our Future" indicates that on the following Saturday, the voters of the city and county would have an opportunity to approve or reject several bond issues totaling $17,800,000, and provides explanation and comment on the different measures. If you feel like you need that education before voting, feel free to read about it.

"An Example for Tar Heel Legislators" indicates that legislators of the state could profit from the example of Norwegians, who, for over 100 years, had a "Peasant Clause" in their Constitution, which allotted 100 seats in Parliament to rural areas while only providing 50 to urban districts. Many people had migrated to the urban areas in recent decades, but the seat allotment had not changed, resulting in urban dwellers not having as much voice in their government as did the rural dwellers. The Norwegians had changed their Constitution to provide representation roughly equal to the population. The majority Labor Party, which stood to lose seats by the change, had nevertheless supported the new allotment.

The principal newspaper of the Labor Party supported the change as being expressive of the will of the people.

In North Carolina, for example, Mecklenburg and Guilford Counties had only one State Senator apiece, despite those counties having populations of over 197,000 and 191,000, respectively, whereas Edgecombe and Halifax Counties, as one district, had two State Senators, with a combined population of only 110,000. It goes on making similar comparisons of representation of disparate numbers of people across the state.

It suggests that the Democrats in the Legislature had canceled the right of the minority Republicans to be represented in Congressional districts through gerrymandering of districts each decennial.

It hopes that in the coming 1953 Legislature, some of the spirit shown by the Norwegians would be adopted, says that if the Democrats disregarded such matters and did not provide long-overdue reforms in representation and redistricting, they would reflect discredit upon the party by denying citizens the right of roughly equal representation.

Federal District Court Judge Robert Wilkin, as indicated in the above editorial, in an excerpt from a decision reprinted from U.S. News & World Report, in a case involving an effort by black citizens of Nashville, Tenn., to use a municipal golf course, holds that Federal law neither commanded nor prohibited segregation and that the separate-but-equal doctrine of Plessy v. Ferguson of 1896 remained the law of the land, and thus, insofar as separate facilities substantially equal to the white facilities were maintained for blacks, segregation could pass muster under the 14th Amendment Equal Protection clause.

The Court cites the case of Beal v. Holcomb, cited by the plaintiffs, where segregation of a municipal golf course was struck down because equal opportunity had not been afforded, albeit while preserving the principle of segregation. The decision also goes on to distinguish other similar cases cited by the plaintiffs.

It finds that segregation had not only been recognized in Constitutional law and judicial decisions, but also was supported by "general principles of natural law", because "as nature has produced different species, so it has produced different races of men." The opinion indicates that the Government did not attempt to make law or enforce law which was contrary to the general will of the community, but did attempt to preserve and protect basic legal rights of all persons.

In the end, the case ruled therefore that segregation was not per se unconstitutional or unlawful, that it was "a natural tendency which in the progress of man's political, social and spiritual evolution may change or disappear; but that it would be inexpedient and unwise to attempt to prevent or prohibit it (or enforce unrestricted association) by judicial decree."

This notion would, of course, be overturned in Brown v. Board of Education in May, 1954, holding that the doctrine of Plessy had not accomplished, in the public schools, its intended purpose during its 58 years of existence, and, therefore, the separate-but-equal doctrine could not be deemed any longer to afford Equal Protection, thus finding segregation per se unconstitutional.

Subsequently, in 1956, the decision in the Nashville golf course case would be set aside by the District Court in light of cited intervening cases by the Supreme Court holding segregation of public facilities per se unconstitutional, and the relief sought by the plaintiffs granted.

As the historic 1964 Civil Rights bill was being debated in Congress, to be passed and signed into law by President Johnson on July 2, 1964, extending, pursuant to the Commerce Clause, the rights to equal access to private businesses open to the public and operating in interstate commerce, the issue of such access was still being "debated" in parts of the recalcitrant Deep South to and beyond passage of the law. On June 21, 1964, the three civil rights workers, seeking to register voters, arrested for an alleged traffic violation in Philadelphia, Miss., would disappear after their late-night release from jail on a Sunday, their bodies found in an earthen dam a month and a half later, killed by a "posse" of Klansmen, including the local deputy sheriff, Cecil Price, and some of his friends.

Drew Pearson tells of former Price administrator Mike DiSalle having called upon the President to make an emergency report on whether he should jettison price and wage controls, writing a recommendation that they should be maintained, after consulting with both Republicans and Democrats and having lunch with Bernard Baruch, the father of price controls. Mr. Baruch had been adamant about retaining the controls, saying it would be dangerous to drop them, as an emergency might develop during the coming Administration which would make them necessary. When Mr. DiSalle had also conferred with Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., liaison to the new Administration, the former asked the latter to send to the Office of Price Stabilization a Republican observer, who could become familiar with the problem. When he conferred with Secretary of Defense Robert Lovett, he was told that keeping 3.5 million men under arms, even without new equipment, would cost a total of 25 billion dollars per year, requiring that some controls be maintained to prevent inflation.

Presidential aide John Steelman had advised the President to end controls, as a way of getting off the hook with regard to the dispute between the UMW and the coal industry vis-à-vis the Wage Stabilization Board and its decision previously to cut 40 cents from the agreed $1.90 per day wage increase for the coal miners.

Secretary of the Air Force Thomas Finletter would recommend to the Republicans as he left his post that more atomic bombs be sent to Europe in order to discourage Soviet aggression. He would give the opposite advice with regard to the Far East, warning against use of atomic weapons or taking any step which might spread the Korean War. He believed that the atomic bomb could be used as a deterrent in Europe, but could ignite a third world war in Asia. He would warn his Republican successor that the defense budget could not be trimmed at all for at least two years, that a 143-group Air Force did not allow enough reserve planes to compensate for losses, and that the best insurance against war with Russia was a powerful strategic bomber fleet, capable of penetrating to the heart of the Soviet Union. He would probably advise that the defense budget could be cut in two years to about 30 billion dollars, of which he believed the Air Force should obtain the largest amount. He would condemn, however, meat-axe cuts by the Congress, such as the indiscriminate cut of 130 million dollars the previous year, thereby retarding Air Force readiness by two years.

The Pentagon was seeking to have Senator Wayne Morse removed from the Senate Armed Forces Committee, as they did not like his persistence in probing into military expenditures abroad. The Senator had recently returned from a trip to Europe and North Africa, asking afterward disagreeable questions about military spending and writing a letter to Undersecretary of Defense Foster to obtain an exact cost figure on certain operations. In reply, he had received misleading figures which meant nothing. The Senator again wrote Mr. Foster, demanding that the Defense Department quit giving him the runaround, threatening otherwise to make public the efforts at concealment.

Joseph Alsop, in Bonn, West Germany, finds that the Schaumberg Palace, from which Chancellor Konrad Adenauer ruled the country, served as a pretty good symbol of what had happened in West Germany since the end of the war. The palace had been far from improved by the war, but was the best which Bonn had to offer when the new West German Government had been established. It was hastily patched up to serve as the executive residence and then refitted in the North-German-Lloyd style which so many Germans liked. Its refreshed look bespoke renewed prosperity on the horizon, forecasting the ability of Germany to build a new life from the ruins.

Chancellor Adenauer, "aged but indestructible", as leader of the Christian Democrats, offered his visitors an "impenetrable façade of irreconcilable contradictions". He was so provincial that he hated to be more than 50 miles from his native Cologne, and yet no one better understood men, nations and the world. He was notoriously wily, and yet when he said that he would do something, invariably he did it. He was profoundly cynical, and yet he had worked and was working toward a bold idea of a democratic Germany incorporated into a united Europe.

His once formidable opponent, Dr. Schumacher, had succumbed to an accumulation of illnesses and wounds, and the latter's successor as leader of the Social Democrats would not be able to challenge the Chancellor in the same way, leaving the Chancellor with no real equal as a challenger.

The Bonn Government, once considered an experiment, had become viable as a true Government, with an authority recognized by the whole German people. At the same time, West Germany had achieved an extraordinary recovery, with factories and houses everywhere replacing rubble and ruins, and jobs opening for the great mass of postwar refugees and unemployed, providing a decent place to live again.

The Chancellor always said that it was foolish to talk only about Germany, and that France and Italy and other European nations had to be included in the conversation, as well as Europe's relation to the West.

The Schuman Plan for pooling of iron and coal resources had been put into effect, and in Luxembourg, Germans, Italians, Belgians and Netherlanders were preparing to open a single, united European market for coal and steel, and to give Europe a common steel industry worthy of a market of 150 million people. West Germany's Defense Minister and its two generals had nearly completed practical, detailed planning for a European Army. The Chancellor was convinced that he could get the German Parliament to accept both the European Army and the contractual agreements which would officially end the Allied occupation. He could look forward to a time when those achievements would be capped by a truly European political authority.

Frederick C. Othman indicates that his spare bedroom, as well as all of the hotel rooms in Washington, were booked solid for the Inauguration Day ceremonies on January 20, and he urges his friends and relatives not to make further pleas for a place to stay. He would be pleased when, finally, the President-elect took the oath of office and he and Mamie spent their first night in the White House.

He says that the preparations for the inauguration were interfering with his routine, as he found it hard to park his car on Capitol Hill, as most of the parking places were covered up by the construction of the inauguration platform. He finds that the appropriation of $155,000 to build the platform, less the salvage value of the lumber, was a little high for a few minutes of oath-taking and speech-making. But it was traditional, as would be the ensuing parade from the Capitol to the White House.

Tickets for the parade route were on sale, ranging in price from $3 to $15, depending on how close each spot was to the Presidential reviewing stand. The higher-priced tickets were already sold out, but a few of the $3 tickets remained for the area around unfashionable Fifth Street.

Mr. Othman says that he had been catching a bus home from a stop in front of the White House, but that the rising grandstand was making it difficult even to flag down the bus.

The ball after the parade could only be attended by official invitation, and then cost $12, unless one wanted a seat in a box, which was $37.50. For those who simply wanted a souvenir, a bronze medal had been cast, for $3.06.

He finds the prices high, but that the Republican promoters had earmarked most of the profits for local charities. The hotels had not raised their prices and most of the restaurants had also promised to maintain current prices. But Mr. Othman doubts that he would get to eat on Inauguration Day and believes he would be lucky to get home.

A letter writer from Cheraw, S.C., indicates that he was a Democrat who had not voted for General Eisenhower, but had never doubted his honesty and sincerity and, after seeing his appointments to the Cabinet, had more confidence in him. He finds that he was being fair and ready to head his own team. He tells of the people of his section being pleased with the appointment of Martin Durkin as Secretary of Labor, and finds the other posts to have been filled by men with experience in the appropriate fields. Senator Taft's anger and resentment at the appointments was of no moment, as he had not been elected. He points out that Presidents Roosevelt and Truman had appointed Republicans to key posts during their Administrations—notably, Secretary of War Henry Stimson and Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox under FDR in 1940, and Secretary of the Navy and subsequently Defense James Forrestal, as well as Secretary of Defense Robert Lovett under President Truman, plus Republican Supreme Court appointments under both Presidents. He urges supporting the new President.

A letter writer finds the President-elect's trip to Korea to have been patriotic in undertaking such a dangerous trip to try to win the peace, thinks it one of the most heroic deeds which any American had ever performed. She prays that God would protect the new President "in his greatness of courage and understanding, his determination, faith and courage—these cannot fail."

Mr. Nixon needs your prayers more than he does. You had better pray for the plumbers also.

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