The Charlotte News
Wednesday, April 23, 1952
TWO EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports, via Robert B. Tuckman, that allied truce negotiators accused the Communists this date of dodging the primary issues regarding truce supervision, the allied demand for a ban on repairing of military airfields during the truce and the Communist insistence on nomination of Russia as a neutral nation for purposes of inspecting the truce. The allies had proposed that only four nations, rather than six, be included as the neutral inspection nations, excluding Russia. The North Korean negotiator continued to insist, however, that Russia met the qualifications of a neutral nation. He said that the ban on airfield repair could be settled by both sides adhering to agreements not to bring additional military equipment, including aircraft, into Korea during an armistice. The U.N. negotiator responded that the Communists continued to evade the airfield issue. The session lasted only 19 minutes.
The other staff officers meeting, regarding the prisoner exchange issue of voluntary repatriation, lasted two hours, and there was no report of what had occurred.
Both groups would meet again the following day.
In the ground war, light patrol contacts and probes interrupted otherwise quiet on the first anniversary of a major offensive by the Communists.
Allied warplanes continued saturation raids on enemy supply lines and there was no Communist jet opposition.
Navy headquarters in Tokyo said that allied warships and carrier-based planes had hit North Korea's east coast on Tuesday with the hardest attack in months.
The Defense Department announced that U.S. battle casualties in Korea had reached 107,668, an increase of 295 since the previous week, 50 of whom had been killed in action and 249 wounded, while the number of missing had been reduced by four.
During a hearing before the Senate Labor Committee, Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon accused the steel industry and other big business this date of trying to implement a "feudal system" in the country, as the Administration took two more steps toward implementing a pay increase in the Government-seized steel industry. United Steelworkers president Philip Murray joined Senator Morse's denunciation. The White House announced that the National Advisory Board on Mobilization Policy, comprised of representatives from industry, labor, agriculture and the public, had decided that the recommendations by the Wage Stabilization Board regarding pay increases for the steelworkers had been reasonable. Secretary of Commerce Charles Sawyer, in charge of the steel mills during the seizure, announced that as soon as he received definite wage and price recommendations from Economic Stabilizer Roger Putnam, he would carry them immediately to the President for approval.
Meanwhile, a Senate effort to force the President to halt the seizure fell just short of the two-thirds majority vote needed, with 11 Democrats joining 36 Republicans in favor of the effort, while 29, including no Republicans, voted against it. A switch of only four votes would have enabled suspension of the Senate rules and permitted action on the proposal to forbid the use of Federal funds in the seizure. Senator William Knowland and fellow Republicans leading that drive, continued their cries of "dictator" aimed at the President and vowed to seek other avenues to stop the seizure.
Treasury agents testified before the House Ways & Means subcommittee investigating the tax scandals that former IRB commissioner Joseph Nunan, Jr., had received over $161,000 between 1945 and 1950 which he either had not reported on his income tax returns or could not explain as proper income, and that $90,000 of that amount had been received by Mr. Nunan during his three-year tenure between early 1944 and mid-1947 as IRB commissioner.
General Eisenhower easily won the Republican presidential primary in Pennsylvania, with nearly 800,000 votes to 150,000 for Senator Taft and 113,000 for Governor Harold Stassen, with most of the precincts counted. His supporters thus demanded most of the state's 70 Republican delegates to the convention, but Senator Taft's supporters said that since the popular vote did not determine delegates, the results were "meaningless". Senator Taft had kept his name off the ballot and had urged his supporters not to write it in. In one contest in the Pittsburgh area where slates of delegates for each of General Eisenhower and Senator Taft were pitted against one another, the Eisenhower slate won four positions, the Taft slate, one, with three races still undecided. Among the 52 other delegates chosen by districts in the primary, the Associated Press showed that 17 leaned toward General Eisenhower, 16 toward Senator Taft, with 19 uncommitted and ten races not yet decided. General Eisenhower came in third in write-in votes in the Democratic primary, with over 10,000, topping Senators Robert Kerr and Richard Russell, as well as Averell Harriman.
On the Democratic side, Senator Estes Kefauver won the primary as the only candidate on the ballot other than the President, who had withdrawn from the race on March 29. His victory, however, did not assure him of delegates, as the 70 Democratic delegates would go to the convention uncommitted.
A Kansas grain dealer testified before the Senate Agriculture subcommittee studying shortages of government-stored grain, that a deceased Government surplus property official had demanded a share of his profits on storing grain and that he had verbally agreed to give away 35 percent of the profits at a time when he was seeking renewal of his lease on the Government-owned buildings. He indicated, however, that he subsequently withdrew from the deal upon advice of his attorney. He said that the lease on the buildings was renewed by the War Assets Administration about a month after he entered the profits-splitting agreement.
It continued to rain along the course of the Missouri River, beset by flooding the previous week, as new destruction occurred upstream from Kansas City and dikes were being shored up in the latter area. The Army Corps of Engineers estimated that damage so far had reached 54.8 million dollars, including nearly 30 million in agricultural damage.
In Jackson, Michigan, heavily armed State police prevented mutineers at the Southern Michigan Prison from breaking into the prison arsenal this date, as the prisoners sought to use as bargaining tools the ten prison guards they were holding as hostages. Governor G. Mennen Williams entered the negotiations with the prisoners, following a demand for his participation by the leader of the insurrection. The prisoners indicated they were protesting brutality in the prison and wanted reforms. They warned that they would kill the hostages if they were rushed by guards and police. The warden had promised that there would be no mass punishment if the prisoners surrendered and freed their hostages unharmed.
In Rahway, N. J., 231 prisoners engaged in a five-day mutiny at Rahway State Prison Farm surrendered to authorities late the previous day, freeing unharmed the eight guards they had held as hostages. They were promised a survey of parole procedures and that there would be no corporal punishment against the inmates who had participated in the uprising, their only two latest demands. One of the guards said that they had been treated well by the prisoners. Earlier in the day, Governor Alfred Driscoll announced that he would appoint a committee to investigate the State's prison system.
Five thousand employees of the Western Electric Company in Winston-Salem, Greensboro and Burlington were directed by the Communication Workers of America to strike starting on Friday morning, after contract talks held at the Hotel Robert E. Lee in Winston-Salem had not reached a resolution of the dispute.
In Chattanooga, a young Yugoslavian woman, who had been in the U.S. only 13 days, hitchhiked with her husband 45 miles from an Alabama farm to a hospital where she gave birth to a daughter. The husband indicated that they had fled Yugoslavia because they feared the Russians. They had been married in Austria in mid-1949 and had applied for admission to the U.S. through the displaced persons program, arriving in New York by airplane on April 9. Since that time, they had been working at the farm in Alabama and had started walking toward Chattanooga early on Monday.
In Memphis, a 41-year old woman walked into a service station to talk about politics, wearing nothing, while the men present tried to appear nonchalant as she strolled among the gas pumps. Soon, the cops arrived with a blanket, but she declined to provide them her address so that she could stop to obtain clothing on the way to jail, saying that she had nothing to hide. She was charged with disorderly conduct and indecent exposure.
On Page 12-B, News sports editor Bob Quincy tells of the Charlotte Hornets baseball team possibly set to be the first team in the Tri-State League to hire a black player.
The third article in the series by Dr. W. C. Alvarez, on "How To Live with Your Nerves", not on the front page, may be read here, provided you can calm
On the editorial page, "Steel" suggests that in 1962 or 1972, Americans might look back at the present steel dispute and wonder how so many legislators, writers and citizens had become so worked up regarding results but had demonstrated such little interest in remedies. When the President had seized the steel industry, the major public interest was continued production to avoid potentially paralyzing the allied military capacity in Korea, the continued rearmament of the U.S. and its allies in Europe, and civilian production, a shutdown of which would have been financially disastrous not only to the steelworkers but also to management. The Government seizure, therefore, had served the public interest, as production continued. It maintains that it was the most important issue in the entire dispute.
It makes room for the President having been able to invoke instead Taft-Hartley and obtain an injunction of the strike for 80 days, during which a Presidential board would have considered the matter and issued recommendations. But the dispute had already dragged on since the beginning of the year without resolution, and no agreement appeared on the horizon. It was also doubtful that Congress would have done anything in an election year. Seizure therefore had appeared as the only realistic option for continued operation of a vital industry, and that was the big problem of the day.
Yet, neither the Congress, the President nor the public demanded establishment of machinery to remedy that problem. Instead, the Senate was busy trying to tack on a rider to an appropriations bill which had nothing to do with operating the steel industry, just to voice its disapproval of the seizure. The President boasted of his claimed inherent executive powers in such a situation. And there were widespread demands for the President's impeachment regarding the seizure, a call led by columnist David Lawrence.
U.S. News & World Report claimed that strikes would bring socialism as other industries, including oil, coal, rubber, aircraft, aluminum and electrical appliances, would also become "candidates for seizure" as strikes occurred in each one.
It finds some of the criticism warranted, as the Wage Stabilization Board had recommended generous increases in wages and other benefits for labor, and the President had denounced the industry for its high profits while refusing to accept the WSB's recommendations. It suggests that labor might rue the day when the President assumed this obstinate position, for if the President could proclaim wage and working conditions for an industry which had been seized, a subsequent President's action might hurt labor.
It finds, nevertheless, that restriction of the President's powers, curtailment of funds for operating the steel mills or impeachment were not answers. "The need is for some instrument between the Taft-Hartley .22 rifle and the elephant gun of seizure." When that point was found, it posits, reason would prevail. It suggests that perhaps a labor court might be established, to which disputants in essential industries could take their cases when they could not agree through collective bargaining. It finds that the country was not going to hell or to socialism, that it had survived greedy management and greedy labor, "Presidents more ornery than the present one" and who had paid less attention to the Constitution, depression, famine, wars and revolutions. It therefore finds it would take care of the steel dispute without breaking stride.
"Three Hectic Days in Cairo", in the third by-lined piece on the editorial page from News editor Pete McKnight, now in Jerusalem, as part of his tour of the Middle East, summarizes each of his three days in Cairo. On Saturday, he had interviewed the U.S. Ambassador, Jefferson Caffery, Sami Semica Bey, chief of the press department of the Egyptian Foreign Ministry, had lunch with Fred Zusy, a longstanding Associated Press correspondent in Cairo, had a long afternoon session with a member of the Embassy staff, and then dinner with Ernie Hill, a Middle East correspondent for the Chicago Daily News, and his wife.
On Sunday, he had visited the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, where a wise-cracking Arab guide showed off the collection taken from the tomb of King Tutankhamen, toured the Citadel of Saleh-el-Din, visited the Pyramids aboard a camel, and in the evening interviewed two top Arab spokesmen.
Then on Monday, he had another session with officials at the U.S. Embassy regarding U.S. policy in the Middle East, had a discussion with a young secretary at the British Embassy regarding Britain's answers to the charges leveled by the Arab League, conducted an interview with Lt. General W. E. Riley, the U.S. Marine commander who supervised the truce between Israel and its Arab neighbors, had lunch with Dr. John Badeau, president of American University and Professor Philistin of his staff, had another interview at the British Embassy in the afternoon, followed by an interview with the Grand Rabbi of Egypt, attendance of a tea given by Ambassador Caffery, dinner with a U.S.-educated psychiatrist and old friend of a Queens College educator, Dr. Floyd Spencer, and then had a late night chat on the front porch of the hotel with Mr. Hill and Ed English, Press Wireless chief in Europe.
Because of this active schedule, he had delayed writing about Egypt until his arrival in Jordan, complicated by Egypt's rigid censorship on outgoing mail. He adds that they had received a friendly official welcome in Egypt and had found the same sort of reception in Jordan.
Drew Pearson, in Paris, writes an open letter to his daughter in Los Angeles, telling her of his observations of Parisian life and recounting his prior visits to Paris since the conclusion of World War I, at which time he had first visited the city. His second visit had been in 1927, en route to the Geneva naval conference which was designed to carry out the disarmament goals of Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points. But at that conference, several shipbuilding companies, including Geneva, Bethlehem Steel, Newport News Shipping and others, had lobbied against the agreement, and because the French, Italians and Japanese also lacked enthusiasm for it, the conference had failed. He had visited again the following year, as Secretary of State Frank Kellogg negotiated the Kellogg-Briand Pact to outlaw war. Then, in 1930, Secretary of State Henry Stimson sought again at the London naval conference to curtail the weapons of war. But even the isolationist President, Herbert Hoover, had refused to endorse the proposed treaty and the conference failed. It was, Mr. Pearson posits, at that point that the seeds of World War II had been planted.
Then, in 1936, when Hitler sent his troops to take the Ruhr and Rhineland and its vital source of iron and steel, the tools of war were vested in his hands, making it only a matter of time until war began again.
Those events, complicated by the worldwide depression, had inexorably led to World War II.
He next visited Paris after the war in 1946, when Secretary of State James Byrnes had seen the hope of a lasting peace fade at the Paris peace conference, "dashed on the rock of Russian recalcitrance." Europe at that point began to lose hope again, and when Mr. Pearson next visited with the Friendship Train in 1947, Europe was starving, strikes had hit the shipping and railroad industries, Communism was on the march, and he had never seen Paris in such a depressed state.
Then, the Marshall Plan worked miracles and restored Europe's hope, though there was still danger lurking underneath that optimism in the form of inflation and resentment against the U.S. for forcing rearmament.
He suggests that the greatest danger in Europe presently was the skillful propaganda campaign being waged by Russia against the concept of the NATO army, especially the inclusion of West Germany in its formation. The Kremlin saw it as the first step toward European unity, which it knew would mean prosperity, strength and hope, soil in which the seeds of war and Communism could not thrive. He urges, therefore, that the ensuing six months or so were crucial in that they could either make or break the European army and, with it, European cooperation. It would all depend on who became the next president, how much the Congress might curtail budgets for European defense, the extent to which bickering occurred among the Allies and the continued success of Soviet propaganda.
He concludes that as he watched the French children playing in the park below his hotel, the ensuing six months might determine their futures 10 to 15 years down the road, whether they would again be forced to don uniforms and go to war. It would take a lot of understanding and patience by the American people and by the Allies in Europe to achieve the goal which was within their grasp.
Lathan Mims, in the second in the series of Associated Press articles on the growth of the textile industry in the South and its transplant from New England, discusses the efforts of organized labor to enter the industry in the South, finding it difficult. The CIO had entered the South in 1946 under "Operation Dixie", targeting the textile industry with thousands of dollars worth of organizing efforts. From the standpoint of number of union locals established and total membership accumulated, however, the effort had failed. Yet, the prospect of unionization had produced a major influence on the Southern textile industry.
Union leaders denied the typically offered reason for the move south of the textile industry, that the worker was more productive in the South, pointing instead to the lack of union organization depressing wages, whereas Northern industry was organized.
Unions attributed their failure in the South to solid opposition from whole communities, where campaigns were organized within schools, churches and in the press against unionization. Southern racial prejudices had been fanned in the process. Workers were satisfied with the $1.26 an hour earnings and higher living standards, compared to earlier times when pay was $15 per week or less for a 60-hour week. The unions claimed that the higher wages had resulted from the limited amount of unionization established, forcing unorganized mills to follow suit. Management disagreed and claimed that they had new, enlightened relations with labor such that labor was voting against unionization in NLRB-sponsored elections.
Of the South's 600,000 textile workers, the Textile Workers Union of America claimed 70,000 dues-paying members and the United Textile Workers of America, 40,000. The union representatives admitted that their position was weakened by the Southern strike the prior year, involving more than 40,000 workers, failing because it had been ill-timed, coinciding with a recession in the industry, causing management to be none too eager to engage in negotiations. Since that strike, the TWUA had not regained contracts at five large mills, though the union still retained bargaining rights.
The TWUA position was that time was on their side as the workers eventually would desire better conditions and pay, and so they were content to organize slowly, awaiting mistakes by management. Management countered that improved conditions meant that workers did not desire or need organization. They did not claim that these new conditions came from generosity but rather from social changes across the country in the prior twenty years and the recognition that it was smart business to have a contented work force. Employers believed the changes were as positive for them as for the workers. One had even indicated that he would close his plants rather than return to the "fatback days"of twenty years earlier.
A letter writer urges the widening of 36th Street from the Concord Road to the Plaza, providing reasons why that would be salutary. Good luck…
A letter writer from Lagos, Nigeria, seeks pen pals in and around Charlotte, says that he was an African boy, 16, stood 5'3" in height, had a "clear-cut face with bluish eyes, dark brown hair and fair in complexion." His hobbies were stamps and postcard collecting, view cards, snapshots, photography, exchanging goods and pen pals.
He also includes the name of his brother, whose alias was "Young Ajax", and their address, and provides his alias, "Blessed Babs".
They would only be 83 and 81, respectively, today, should you wish to write.
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