The Charlotte News
Monday, March 17, 1952
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports, via Robert B. Tuckman, that Communist truce negotiators this date accused the U.N. command of carrying out another "criminal" aerial attack on a prisoner of war camp in North Korea, this one allegedly occurring at Changsong, despite "conspicuous markings" on the tents, but admittedly without lighting at the time of the alleged aerial strafing the previous day before dawn. According to the Communists, a British soldier was wounded in the attack.
The staff officers working on truce supervision began picking five ports of entry for troops and matériel on each side of the battle line, following Communist acceptance the previous day of the five-point U.N. package deal proposed on Saturday.
American Shooting Star jets fired on and dropped bombs on Communist troops on the front lines this date, concentrating on the eastern and central fronts, with pilots reporting having killed more than 75 enemy soldiers, destroying 16 guns and 28 troop bunkers, plus damaging a tank. F-86 Sabre jets flew cover for the Shooting Stars and exchanged shots with 12 enemy MIG-15s, reporting no hits. On the previous day, Sabres had destroyed three enemy jets, probably shot down two more and damaged eight in the first air battle in four days. Other Fifth Air Force planes hit North Korean supply lines.
Ground action was minor on Monday, with only light patrol clashes. One allied division had marked St. Patrick's Day by firing green smoke shells at the enemy.
The Defense Department issued a May draft call for 19,000 men, 15,000 of whom would be for the Army and the remainder for the Marines. The call-up would bring the total number of Americans drafted or called to duty since Selective Service had been resumed in September, 1950 in the wake of the beginning of the Korean War, to 913,434, of whom 832,000 had gone to the Army and 81,432 to the Marines. The May call-up was the same number of draftees called up for April. The call-up had been 52,500 for February and 28,600 for March.
The Air Force disclosed this date that it was cutting its public relations staff at the Pentagon by 65 percent.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee delayed its decision on whether to ask General Eisenhower to fly home and testify on the President's proposed 7.9 billion dollar foreign aid bill, as "several" Committee members were absent. Reporters, however, could discern that only Republican Senators Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., and Owen Brewster were not present. Senator Charles Tobey of New Hampshire indicated that there was a 7 to 5 vote rejecting a motion by Senator Alexander Wiley that the Committee "invite" General Eisenhower to testify but to leave the final decision to him. The Committee, however, according to Senator Tobey, then moved for reconsideration of the vote on that motion, and the motion to reconsider carried unanimously. That motion had been offered as a substitute to the primary motion of Senator Brien McMahon of Connecticut, seeking that the Committee "summon" the General. Senator McMahon said that the effect of the day's action was to postpone any invitation to General Eisenhower until after his chief deputy, General Alfred Gruenther, had testified, no date having been yet set for the latter's testimony.
The Government indicated this date that it had "substantial" amounts of steel, copper and aluminum on hand for building commercial projects during the latter half of 1952 and invited contractors to put forth bids for new construction jobs. The Defense Production Administration said that nearly all applications presently pending for industrial and commercial structures would be approved, except projects for places of amusement and recreation. If, however, the steel strike, presently set to start the following Sunday, were to occur, it could occasion a change in this planning. Manly Fleischmann, administrator of DPA, said that if the threatened steel strike occurred, it would have "disastrous" effects on the atomic energy and other vital defense programs, necessitating "the most drastic possible controls" to be imposed immediately. There was some steel stock on hand for many munitions industries, but some important programs, including atomic energy, lacked such a cushion.
Philip Murray, head of the United Steelworkers, postponed until Thursday response to a request by the Wage Stabilization Board for further postponement of the strike, which had been postponed three times since January. The WSB had set Thursday as its target date for issuing recommendations for settling the dispute regarding the union's demand for an 18.5 cents per hour increase in wages and other items. The industry had responded that to grant the raise would necessitate a rise in steel prices by nine dollars per ton, more than the two dollars per ton allowable under current price control regulations. Presently, steelworkers were earning a little under two dollars per hour.
In Arlington, Mass., a lieutenant colonel, commanding officer of the Hanscom Air Force Base at Bedford, was critically wounded and his wife dead, in what police believed was a suicide-attempted murder initiated by the wife, who had left a note saying that she was going to "end it all".
In St. Louis, an airline stewardess, 20, told police that she had fatally shot a company official during a quarrel the previous day after he had accused her of dating other men. The victim was married with two children, had been shot six times. The stewardess said that she had fired until the gun would not fire any more. She indicated that after he had accused her of associating with other men, he said that he was going to kill her and asked her to retrieve his gun which she had taken from him previously. She then did so and opened fire as both began entering the vehicle from opposite sides.
Her story seems flawed.
In Rocky Mount, N.C., 48 patients had been evacuated safely from the Atlantic Coast Line Hospital after a fire had erupted, confined to the attic of the brick and concrete hospital building. No one suffered injury and the fire was brought under control after 45 minutes.
It was tax filing day in Charlotte and around the country, and hundreds of persons had crowded the Builders Building first floor corridor to file their 1951 Federal returns.
Mary O'Curry of The News tells of the celebration of St. Patrick's Day around Charlotte among the Irish surnamed, though no green beer was being given away for free, no parades were being held, and nobody was leaving their job to celebrate, as in such places as Savannah, Charleston, New York and other Irish strongholds.
In North Hollywood, head of Republic
Pictures, Herbert Yates, 72, and actress Vera
Hruba Ralston, 31, were
honeymooning, after having been married the prior Saturday at the
nondenominational Little Brown Church of the Valley. Mr. Yates was
credited with guiding Ms. Ralston, a former Czech skater
A 24-page special section for gardeners was included in this date's News, edited by Cora A. Harris, News garden editor.
On the editorial page, "Kefauver Accepts Challenge" tells of analysts having wondered whether the vote for Senator Estes Kefauver in New Hampshire had been a vote against the President or a vote for the Senator. Senator Kefauver believed that the vote had been for him and not simply against the President, and so he had decided to enter the Florida primary against Senator Richard Russell of Georgia.
Florida had been the scene in 1950 of the victory of Congressman George Smathers over Senator Claude Pepper for the Democratic nomination and election to the Senate. Furthermore, the people of Florida had not received the television transmission of the Kefauver crime hearings and so were not as familiar with them as were the people of New Hampshire. Yet, Senator Kefauver was opposed to Florida Governor Fuller Warren, who had opposed the Kefauver crime investigating committee and had dared Senator Kefauver to enter the primary. It suggests that, therefore, the voters might find the Kefauver-Warren dispute more distracting than Senator Russell's bid for support. A loss in Florida could damage Senator Kefauver's reputation nationally as a vote-getter.
It ultimately thinks that his success or failure would depend on what the New Hampshire result actually had meant. If, as had been posited by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, it was a vote against the President, then Senator Kefauver had little chance to win in Florida, where the anti-Truman sentiment would likely inure to Senator Russell.
"A Memorial for Charles B. Aycock" tells of the former Governor at the turn of the century needing no further eulogy but deserving a more permanent monument to his large role in the state's history, advancing public education and the principle of equal opportunity. Thus, it finds it appropriate for the Aycock Memorial Commission to honor him by sponsoring a $40,000 statewide campaign to restore his birthplace at Fremont. It had marked April 4, the 40th anniversary of Governor Aycock's death, as the date for the appeal.
It quotes from his last speech, given in Birmingham, just before his fatal heart attack in 1912, indicating that he had canvassed the state for four years on behalf of the children of the state and sometimes on Sundays, when they asked him to speak in church, had always talked about education. His last speech to the people of the state, never delivered but published posthumously, had included the statement: "EQUAL! That is the word! On that word, I plant myself and my party—the equal right of every child born on earth to have the opportunity 'to burgeon out all there is within him'."
It concludes that the restoration of his home would establish an appropriate memorial to the man who showed that the way to a full destiny lay in the education of the state's people.
"They Needed Saying" tells of the investigation into the oil tanker deals having not placed Newbold Morris, the new Federal ombudsman charged with investigating corruption in the executive branch, in the best light. He had headed a charitable foundation which was the sole owner of a Nationalist Chinese shipping firm engaged in oil trade with Communist China right up until the start of the Korean War, and in some other goods six months into the war. Mr. Morris's law firm was counsel for the shipping firm and large profits had been made on a small cash investment.
It regards the evidence, however, as not yet clear and so reserves judgment, for the time being, on Mr. Morris's role in the deals. It expresses admiration for the way he had stood up to the Senate inquisitors, especially Senator Joseph McCarthy, indicating that he had resented the aspersions cast on him by Senator McCarthy and referred to "diseased minds" within the chamber, ascribing, to the Senator's face, "character destruction" as being his business. The piece believes Mr. Morris had expressed things that needed to be said and did so in a "glorious, seething rage and indignation" which stirred its applause.
It concludes that Mr. Morris's complimentary remarks regarding Senator Hoey's fair and decent questioning reminded that Congressional investigators did not have to be tormentors.
"Texas Has Nothing on Old North State" tells of North Carolina growing tired of Texas brag, that Texans were dependent on North Carolina for many products, including the cowpuncher's pants, which probably came from the largest denim mill in the world in Greensboro, for his underwear, which probably came from Winston-Salem, his blanket for the cold nights on the prairie, probably from Chatham Mills at Elkin, his hand-rolled tobacco, probably Bull Durham or Duke's Mixture, and the paper in which he rolled it, from the largest cigarette paper plant in the nation, located near Brevard.
Too, the hose on the legs of Texas women probably came from North Carolina, which manufactured 40 percent of the nation's hosiery. And the largest household textile mill in the world, Cannon Mills, was in Kannapolis, with the largest damask mill in the world, at Roanoke Rapids. The state also led the nation in production of wood furniture and manufactured more bricks per capita than any other state. North Wilkesboro boasted the largest mirror-manufacturing plant.
It also observes that only in North Carolina would one find the Venus fly-trap growing profusely.
It concludes that if a Texan ever made it over Mount Mitchell, the highest peak east of the Mississippi and El Paso, he would probably take a "big swig of illegal hooch", of which North Carolina was a leading producer, then go to Raleigh and ask for his state's annexation.
We do note that in 2019, basketball teams from the state of Texas have been giving the unmistakably best college basketball team in the state a bit of a hard time the last couple of years, though on this year's card, at least until the Final Four, there appears only one potential such opponent, that being Houston, an unlikely candidate to meet the state's best team in the Midwest Regional finals. Anyway, it's none down and six to go, Texas entry in the way or no.
Drew Pearson tells of the President needing, within the ensuing few weeks, either to read "the riot act" to Defense Mobilizer Charles E. Wilson, which could cause him to resign, or stand pat and watch the mobilization program continue to lag. If he did the latter, it could endanger defense externally and the nation's economy internally. American industry, operating in high gear, was finding fewer military orders than expected, causing weak spots in the economy to occur. The supposed aluminum shortage was now surplusage, and steel imported at high prices from Belgium and Luxembourg was rusting on the docks for lack of buyers.
He posits that there had been three reasons for the failure of mobilization, the first being Mr. Wilson having allowed the military to handle procurement instead of running it himself, the second, derivative of the first, being consistently inefficient military procurement, and the third being gross underestimate of the nation's productive capacity.
The result was that during World War II, the country was producing 94,000 airplanes per year, whereas now it was doubtful whether it could reach a goal of 15,000 planes per year by mid-1953. Presently, only 675 planes per month were being produced, about half the amount in weight being produced at the time of Pearl Harbor. That left the nation woefully behind Russia in airplane production, both in the types of planes and in quantity. Were it not for the courage and training of American pilots, the U.S. would be in bad shape in the air war over Korea. In addition, the country, as a result, had fallen below its promises to Europe for war matériel. The problem boiled down to inefficiency in military procurement, where the planning of the Joint Chiefs had failed to be put into the stream of production. Poor planning because of the demand for perfection had been part of the problem and another part the result of constantly changing designs. He provides some examples in tanks and trucks.
He promises another column shortly on mobilization inefficiency.
Joseph & Stewart Alsop suggest that the President, while considering whether or not to run again, might be pondering the prospect of Governor Adlai Stevenson, the President's choice as the Democratic nominee other than himself, choosing as his running mate Senator Richard Russell, who had also announced for the Democratic nomination primarily as a goad to the President not to run again.
The Alsops regard Senator Russell as a moderate Southerner, who had supported many New Deal and Fair Deal measures, and had never been one of the Truman haters. In fact, the President had been indebted to Senator Russell for his handling of the inquiry into the dismissal of General MacArthur a year earlier. The Senator's name was always mentioned with respect and admiration in White House circles.
Yet, the Senator's announcement that he would run for the Democratic nomination had been a warning to the President that he would split the party wide open if the President chose to run again. Most of all, Senator Russell, however, was a loyal Democrat.
A Stevenson-Russell ticket appeared to be a way out of the dilemma. Governor Stevenson was by no means unpopular with Southern leaders and was an old friend of Governor James Byrnes of South Carolina and actually a cousin to Senator Russell. He had strong feelings about states' rights, albeit not hinged to civil rights, and government economy, views which were welcome in the South.
The Southern leaders who did not really wish to break up the party and realized that the convention could not repudiate all of the 1948 civil rights plank would likely stay with the party, provided a Southerner was nominated as the vice-presidential candidate.
Senator Taft was known to oppose compulsory fair employment legislation, and General Eisenhower was believed to be opposed to it, leaving Northerners nowhere else to go but to Governor Stevenson in the event of his nomination.
Eventually, Senator John Sparkman of Alabama, a moderate, would be the Democratic vice-presidential nominee with Governor Stevenson.
Robert C. Ruark tells of Ty Cobb having published a segment of his memoirs in Life, suggesting strongly that the Major Leaguers of 1952 were a "flock of bums" for the most part.
Mr. Ruark wonders what might have ever happened to the art of accurate tobacco-spitting, no longer acceptable in polite society. In the days of Mr. Cobb, having started in the majors in 1905, the boys of summer were rough-hewn, straight from the plows and tiny towns, wore "thuggish caps and were often not allowed in the better hotels." They had given all of their time to baseball because there was not much else for them to do or many other places where they were welcomed. "The badge of proficiency then was the iron-man pitching stunt, and tight, strategic ball played as dirty as they could get away with." As Mr. Cobb had indicated, baseball had departed from being a precision sport to becoming a battle of home runs, with pitchers relegated to pawns rather than principals.
Mr. Ruark views Mr. Cobb as being correct in titling his piece, "They Don't Play Baseball Any More". He points out that they did not box bare-knuckled anymore, either, and that there were few horses being employed as common carriers, that the bow-and-arrow had also become passé as a method of warfare, "but we still have wars, and they have become no less popular with the masses."
A letter writer from Pinehurst expresses appreciation for the children's section of the newspaper recently begun on each Monday. She indicates that she ran a small, private kindergarten and first grade and showed her pupils the new section of the newspaper, asking them whether anyone would wish to draw a picture and tell its story for the paper.
We shudder to think.
Another letter writer expresses the same sentiment.
A letter writer from Gaffney, S.C., in the first grade at Central School, also thanks the newspaper for the Children's News.
A letter writer, 10 years old, also appreciates the Children's News, especially Caddy Dick, but cannot figure out Zoo's Who, yet thinks it very nice. Her brothers, 12 and 14, liked it, too.
Zoo's Who always bothered us, too
A letter writer thinks the section a Wonderful Idea.
A letter writer from Laurel Hill, nine years old and in the fifth grade, expresses like for the section.
A letter writer from Kings Mountain indicates that her 5 1/2 year old daughter liked the comic section of the newspaper, especially "Nancy" and "Blondie", and believed that the children would enjoy the Children's News section also.
A letter writer says that he liked the newspaper very much, as it had exciting stories and poems in it, and would like the editors to add a few more pages, as he liked to read like grownups. He likes most the cartoons and the puzzles and wishes that the Children's News would have headlines like the regular paper.
A letter writer in the seventh grade at Oakhurst School indicates her dislike for the Children's News, finds it too "babyish" and urges that they provide some entertainment for junior high school kids.
Yeah, that age group provides most
of the news which presently appears on the internet, right? And on
Fox News?
A letter writer likes the Children News very much but thinks it could be improved by having a story of the week.
A letter writer from Monroe, nine years old, who attended Benton Heights School and was in the third grade, enjoys the Children's News, and indicates that her favorite hero was General MacArthur because "he fought to make our country free."
A letter writer, age 7, wants more pages in the Children's News.
Just read the rest
A letter writer was enjoying Children's News "very, very much", as it had the most wonderful things in it, and her mom and dad also thought it was wonderful.
Sorry, we don't have a Children's
News edition for you to review. But it definitely sounds exciting and
very, very wonderful
Framed Edition
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