The Charlotte News

Tuesday, May 27, 1952

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports, via Sam Summerlin, that Communist truce negotiators this date in Korea had made a veiled threat of a new offensive, upon the resumption of the talks after a three-day recess. The talks immediately bogged down again regarding the issue of voluntary repatriation of prisoners, the sole issue blocking an armistice. North Korean General Nam Il, the Communist chief negotiator, again repeated his charges that the allies had been slaughtering prisoners of war, referring to the April 10 riots at the Koje Island prison camp. The U.N. spokesman said that his words could be interpreted as a threat of a new offensive. But the new lead U.N. negotiator, Maj. General William Harrison, passed off the statement as mere propaganda. Another session was scheduled for the next day. This date's session lasted 34 minutes.

The Air Force stated that U.S. Sabre jet pilots had shot down a Communist jet this date in an aerial duel.

In the ground war, action was limited to patrol skirmishes. An Eighth Army staff officer stated that one of the sharpest ground fights of the day had been a 35-minute clash at dawn northwest of Korangpo on the western front.

In Paris, General Matthew Ridgway arrived in Europe to take command of NATO, stating that his experience as supreme commander of the U.N. forces in Korea had convinced him that a sound defense against Communism in Europe could be built from a combination of many nations. Accompanied by General Eisenhower, he rode through the streets of Paris, defying Communist threats to stage hostile demonstrations against him. They had dubbed him "Le General Microbe", in reference to the Communist claims that he had used germ warfare in Korea. There was a massive police presence to deter any incidents or demonstrations. Eight years earlier, General Ridgway had parachuted into Normandy on D-Day.

Also in Paris, France, Italy, the Benelux countries and West Germany signed an agreement to merge their armed forces into a single army of a million men, history's first peacetime international force. It was designed to complement the peace treaty signed at Bonn the previous day by the Big Three Western powers and West Germany. That treaty had indicated that both Britain and the U.S. would consider any threat to the "integrity or unity of the community" a threat to their own security and would respond by consulting together in accordance with Article 4 of the NATO treaty. It was designed to serve notice on Germany, in response to the desires expressed by France, that it must not attempt to withdraw from the European army after building up its armed forces. The agreement also said that the three major powers considered their continued presence in Berlin as essential to peace and would treat any attack on Berlin as an attack upon their forces and themselves.

In Berlin, Communists cut telephone communications between East and West Berlin and 17 long-distance lines between West Berlin and West Germany this date. In addition, eight telegraph lines were shut down. Teletype communications thus far remained unaffected. Russian border guards barred allied military motor patrols, which helped stranded motorists, from Berlin's only highway links with the West. The Russians gave no explanation for the action, just as during the period May 8 through May 17, when the same interruptions were made. It was believed that it could be the first signs of a renewal of the 1948-49 blockade of Berlin.

The Senate rejected by a roll call vote of 35 to 27 an effort to pare more money from the President's foreign aid appropriatrions request, already trimmed in committee by a billion dollars from the requested 7.9 billion. Senator Herman Welker of Idaho and ten other Republicans had proposed the amendment for the additional cut. Senator Henry Dworshak of Idaho had contended that Averell Harriman, head of the Mutual Security Agency, was using the foreign aid program to advance his political interests in the presidential campaign. Senator Frank Carlson of Kansas, one of the leaders in the Eisenhower-for-President campaign, who had just returned from Paris after visiting with the General, had indicated that he would vote for a cut of an additional half billion dollars from the 6.9 billion dollars recommended by the two Senate committees, another amendment to be proposed by Senator Welker and his colleagues. An agreement to limit debate meant that a vote on the bill would likely occur the following afternoon.

Congressman Harold Gross of Iowa told the House that the U.S. was eight or nine years behind Russia in building up its air power because of "one of the most sickening exhibitions of inertia on record." He blamed "brass hats" at the Pentagon for permitting the U.S. to lose the battle in aircraft production. He indicated that shortly after V-E day, the Russians and Americans had discovered the German method for assembly-line production of airplanes utilizing huge presses developed in Germany, the Americans taking two of the presses while Russia had grabbed the largest one, weighing 50,000 tons, leading to their advanced mass production of airplanes. The U.S., Mr. Gross indicated, had not been able to take advantage of the process until 1951 when it brought the two 20,000-ton presses to the country and asked Congress for 210 million dollars to build more presses, and then the previous February, another 400 million dollars for the same purpose. He indicated that the funds had been appropriated but would not result in mass production forgings until 1953 at the earliest, a fact which he cited as crucial in the Russian lead in plane production. He said that the process was 25 percent faster than the currently used airplane production methods and that each 500 planes produced would cost a billion dollars less by using the assembly-line technique.

James McGranery was sworn in as Attorney General this date and said that law violators would be apprehended, prosecuted and convicted, with due protection of their civil rights as guaranteed under the Constitution, "without the terror-harvest of the witch-hunt, and without the tumult and chaos that follow in the wake of scare headlines and in the wake of reckless charges and baseless accusations." When he had been named as the successor to fired Attorney General J. Howard McGrath on April 3, Mr. McGrath had advised him to bring a pair of asbestos pants with him to the job. Republican Representative Kenneth Keating of New York said that the only chance for Mr. McGranery to win lasting fame was to forget about the asbestos pants and bring "a stiff new broom and a liberal supply of fumigator."

General Eisenhower won all 22 delegate votes in Connecticut at that state's convention in Hartford, his supporters defeating an attempt by Senator Taft's supporters to elect two delegates. The Associated Press count of delegates now stood at 399 for Senator Taft and 381 for General Eisenhower, with 604 needed to nominate.

In Pittsburgh, two men had tracked down a bloodhound, Duke, which had gotten lost while trailing a prisoner who escaped from the nearby Beaver jail. The dog had been missing for two weeks. The prisoner had been promptly captured by Pittsburgh police in a downtown hotel.

In Cudworth, England, a pink-eyed hen named Jennifer had laid ten eggs in less than an hour, claimed to be a world's record. The farmer who owned the hen said that she had not produced an egg in several days and looked a bit off color, and so he had brought her into the house and made her comfortable in front of the fire, at which point she began laying eggs at five-minute intervals. The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals stated that Jennifer should have died of peritonitis and sent a veterinarian to examine her, but the vet said that she was doing fine and the output appeared as a record to him.

On the editorial page, "A Momentous Week in Europe" tells of the Treaty of Verdun having been signed 1,109 years earlier, dismembering Charlemagne's European empire. Now, the heads of six states comprising much of the old empire in Western Europe, France, West Germany, Italy, and the Benelux countries, were seeking to return to the European concept by creating a European Defense Community. If approved by the member legislatures, it would constitute a single defense force, closely allied with those of the United Kingdom and the U.S. The six countries had already created a European coal and steel community, under the Schuman plan, and had developed an embryonic political superstructure through the Council of Europe.

The peace contract signed between France, Britain, the U.S., and West Germany was also quite significant. It, too, had to be ratified by the signatory nations' legislatures, but if approved, would give West Germany virtual autonomy. It would not be permitted to make a separate treaty with Russia and the Western Allies would have the right to intervene in Germany in case of internal uprising. It would be required to contribute men and materials to the European Defense Community.

While the legislatures of the nations might not approve the agreements, as national jealousies and economic rivalries continued in Western Europe, it had only been three years since a United States of Europe was only a dream, while now it had become an official goal of the European and American governments. It regards the plans being formulated to be revolutionary in scope, which could alter centuries old national boundaries and allegiances.

"Judge Bobbitt and the Supreme Court" indicates that Superior Court Judge William Bobbitt, running for a seat on the State Supreme Court, had convinced his many friends not to wage a militant campaign on his behalf. The piece, however, feels not so constrained and so takes the opportunity to express the hope that Democrats would nominate him for the existing vacancy on the Court in the following Saturday's primary. It indicates that there were several good candidates in the field but that its preference was Judge Bobbitt as the best qualified.

As indicated, he would not win the election, but would be appointed to the State Supreme Court in 1954 by Governor William B. Umstead, and would be appointed Chief in 1969 by Governor Robert Scott.

"Open Letter to Governor Scott" indicates that Governor Kerr Scott's highway engineers had set up an amazing new network of paved secondary roads across the state, but that few people, save rural residents, were actually using them because they were not marked. So it suggests to the Governor that the secondary roads be numbered, that signs be erected and the cartographers informed of the newly paved roads, thereby relieving the burden on the primary roads and introducing North Carolinians to new sections of their state.

"A Suggestion for Fairer Reporting" tells of Editor & Publisher having quoted an observation by Alan Barth of the Washington Post, who had indicated that when they published headlines that Senator Joseph McCarthy had spewed charges of treason or espionage against a career foreign service officer or economic adviser to the President or a university professor having no connection with the Government, they did so at the behest of the Senator, inflicting on his victim an irreparable injury, especially as they knew that the Senator did not have corroboration for his charges. Editor & Publisher had commented that it did not know how that practice could be avoided, as journalists could not establish themselves as infallible judges of the accuracy of statements and so should stick to reporting.

The piece finds, however, that the present system had so many abuses that there was plenty of room for improvement in fair news coverage, by creation of a Washington research bureau as a tool for the journalist. Such a bureau would provide objective background information on issues and personalities, and furnish it to member publications. Because of the rush to get out stories, sometimes information imparted by someone like Senator McCarthy went unchecked, whereas the research bureau could help in that regard. It could counterbalance character assassination and set the record straight when a politician strayed from the facts, deterring that kind of behavior.

It allows that many newspapers did their best to maintain a balanced perspective, but that keeping the record straight on a large number of public issues was such a huge job that it went beyond the file of any reporter, the morgue of any newspaper and the function of the wire services. It hopes that news executives and Editor & Publisher would give consideration to formation of such an organization.

A piece from the San Francisco Chronicle, titled "Gone to Pot", quotes a Penn State professor offering quotes from two pundits, who had indicated that the "earth is degenerate in these latter days" and "children no longer obey their parents". The children loved luxury, had bad manners, showed contempt for authority, disrespect for their elders and loved to chatter in place of exercise. They challenged their parents, chattered in front of company and tyrannized their teachers.

The professor then revealed that the first quote was from an Egyptian priest writing in 4000 B.C., and that the second was from Socrates.

Drew Pearson again discusses lobbyists in Washington and finds that the group now pulling the wires to defeat the President's pending veto on the tidelands oil legislation giving the rights back to the states possibly surpassed all previous lobbying efforts. It was not being directed by the oil companies as they had been promised that their leases would be protected under Federal operations of the tidelands. Senator Spessard Holland of Florida and former Senator Sheridan Downey of California had been pressuring the oil companies to stay in line.

The object of the lobbying was the Senate, where a handful of votes one way or the other could determine the issue on override of the President's forthcoming veto of the legislation. The lobbyists were trying to persuade Senators who opposed giving the tidelands oil to the states to be absent when the vote was taken rather than reverse themselves on the issue. Such Senators as Warren Magnuson of Washington, Robert Kerr of Oklahoma and Estes Kefauver of Tennessee were already away, the latter two campaigning for the presidency. Senator Kefauver, however, had already wired the Democratic Majority Leader, Ernest McFarland, asking him to postpone the vote until June 3 when Senator Kefauver would return from his speaking engagements in California. The Senator would support the President's veto.

Among those seeking to pull the strings in the Senate on behalf of the tidelands oil issue, in addition to former Senator Downey, were House Speaker Sam Rayburn, William McAdam, former publicity man for Senator Taft, and Governor Allan Shivers of Texas.

Those who had talked to Governor Shivers during his visit to Washington, including Speaker Rayburn and Senator Lyndon Johnson, had gotten the impression that he was worried about his chances for re-election against his opponent, Ralph Yarborough.

Parenthetically, it would be the rift between the liberal wing of the Texas Democratic Party, represented by then-Senator Yarborough, and the conservative wing, represented by Governor John Connally, which would ultimately draw President Kennedy to Texas on the ill-fated party-healing trip, November 21-22, 1963.

Joseph & Stewart Alsop find that the House and Senate were determined to deal with the defense and foreign aid budgets as Lizzie Borden, giving 40 whacks to defense and then 41 to foreign aid. The chief source of the cuts had been organized groups of business lobbyists, the most important being the Chamber of Commerce, followed by the National Association of Manufacturers and the Committee for Economic Development.

The Chamber had avoided any frontal attack on the national security program, but had charged that the military services had been engaged in "pure waste of 5 billion or more" per year, and urged saving by across-the-board cuts, as the Senate and House had done. The Chamber admitted that they had no documentation to back up their charge, and their figure appeared to be the result of "mystical contemplation", plus conversations with Congressman Edward Hebert of Louisiana, who also had no documented proof.

The House had offered no rationale for its four billion dollar cut in the defense appropriation, which would put off the American military preparedness date until 1957. When the House cut 700 million dollars from the economic aid section of the foreign aid bill, it ignored the problems of Britain, France and other NATO nations, and appeared to be leaving to the Administration the job of keeping the Allies happy.

The Alsops suggest that the West could never defend itself if this process of cutting the defense and aid programs continued. Secretary of Defense Robert Lovett and deputy Secretary William Foster were both brilliantly able and stoutly conservative, having no desire to waste taxpayer money. Thus, cutting their already conservative budgets could not help but result in canceled orders for planes, tanks, and other weaponry.

Notwithstanding these facts, they indicate that the unit cost of American defense was outrageously and dangerously high, the result of several factors, one of which was that the U.S. infantry battalion had 50 percent more men and 13 percent less firepower than the Soviet counterpart, another being that the Joint Chiefs did not think nationally, and a third being the high pay of the military manpower, which Congress had just raised. They indicate that if the critics of Secretary Lovett had the political courage and knowledge to attack those issues and others similar to them, they would be completely justified.

Robert C. Ruark tells of Ronny Graham becoming a Broadway hit in "New Faces", a revue which was packing in the patrons without a single star in the cast. He had been touting Mr. Graham since he had first seen him in the nightclubs nearly three years earlier. Mr. Graham thought in reverse clichés and was "pure poison" when he began to take something apart. One of the skits in the revue was a composite of the high-brow entertainment to which the country had been subjected in the previous year or so, such as "The Consul", "The Cocktail Party" and other such fare. Mr. Graham developed a satire for his closer, called "The Great American Opera".

After a recent performance, he was approached by Gian-Carlo Menotti, who told him that he had written "The Consul" and that it was the first time he had ever really enjoyed his own opera.

Mr. Ruark indicates that in the previous couple of years, Broadway had been "mired down" in revivals of George Bernard Shaw plays and Shakespeare, long-dead musicals and adaptations of adaptations, while new actors had been few and new ideas practically nonexistent.

He finds that actress Alice Ghostley had emerged triumphant from the revue and was sure to become a star in the business. A Frenchman named Robert Clary would also be around for a long time, and had talent reminiscent of Maurice Chevalier.

He believes that a new generation of theatrical talent was emerging and was glad to see his old friend had hit it big at last. He indicates that the reader would be seeing Mr. Graham and his "simian leer" in their dreams, but only in their bad dreams as "[n]o self-respecting dream would include Graham in it."

A letter writer objects to a sentence in a story appearing in the newspaper on May 24, which had suggested that the woods were full of McEwens, indicating that the number of persons bearing his family surname was actually small within the county, including only 28.

A letter writer responds to another writer who had urged white people to speak up for black citizens. She thinks that "colored people should be trusted with kindness and they should not want to sit up with white people." She says that she knew that some people were unkind to blacks but that there should be separate buses and taxis for them. She favors "treating the Negro right but let them stay in their place and not mistrust them for we are all human beings and we can be kind to them if they live right while around us." She knew that God did not want "us" to mistreat anyone and that it did not cost anything to be kind—or, for that matter, to be a condescending nitwit, basing interaction and rights on skin color.

A letter writer indicates that it was time to clean house in the present regime of County Commissioners and vote for men who would stand for economy in the County Government. He provides a list of those he urges the voters to consider.

A letter writer expresses disgust at a story he had heard from a reliable source that a man had fallen 45 feet and was carried to a Charlotte hospital, where treatment was delayed until some responsible person signed for his expense, finds it contrary to Christianity and basic humanity, asks what Jesus would do.

A letter from a minister at Wilson Memorial Presbyterian Church finds that repeatedly the country had found non-Christian leaders occupying major positions and that if they advocated injustices for a people or minority races, they could be assured of achieving the positions they were seeking. He urges readers not to be responsible for shedding one's neighbor's blood, instead putting men in responsible positions who were Godly and fair-minded, not afraid to stand up for that which was highest and best in life.

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