The Charlotte News
Tuesday, July 29, 1952
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that Southern Democrats who had refused to take the loyalty pledge at the Democratic convention the prior week, were contending that there was still considerable uncertainty in the South regarding Governor Adlai Stevenson.
South Carolina Democrats would decide the following month whether they would support the party nominee in the November election, when they convened their state convention on August 6, at the urging of Governor James Byrnes, who had declined comment on the national ticket. The Governor said that he would have voted against the party platform had it not been for the fact that the South Carolina delegates had not been seated until after the platform was adopted, based on the refusal of the delegation to take the loyalty pledge required by the convention for continued participation, which had required that the delegates ensure that the names of the nominees appear on the state's ballot in November.
Virginia Democrats, another state which had refused to take the pledge, led by Governor John Battle, were awaiting the meeting of the state central committee, with the Governor having no comment in the meantime. The Virginia Democratic chairman, William Tuck, took the position that the Virginia delegation's refusal to take the pledge had released it from any commitment to support either the platform or the ticket and that the state convention could be reconvened by the state committee if the leaders so desired.
In Louisiana, another state which had refused to take the pledge, Governor Robert Kennon said that the 100-member Democratic state central committee would decide whether the Louisiana party would support the national ticket.
In Mississippi, there was a move among some of the Democrats to try to place General Eisenhower's name before the state Democratic convention when it reconvened the following month.
Y'all gon' be so'ely dis'ppointed when, come a couple of yea-ahs down the road, afta ye new hero, the Gen'ral, appo'nts that Commie sympathiza, Ea'l Wawren, as head of the Su-preme Cou't, and he tu'ns ye skuuuls ova to you know who, lock, stock and barrel. Yessuh. Ye gon' have to gi'd ye daughtas, maybe send 'em up theya to the private skuuuls to protect theya valued chastity and hona.
In Springfield, Illinois, Governor Adlai Stevenson began the process of clearing up his executive duties, set to resign his position as Governor, following his rousing reception by thousands of well-wishers the previous day when he returned home from the Democratic convention as its nominee. He had told a cheering throng that he would fight for election with all his heart and mind and soul, and sought their prayers or at least their understanding. He had spoken from the Sagamon County Courthouse lawn, the scene of Abraham Lincoln's famed speech of 1858, in which he had warned against "a house divided" by the issue of slavery. An estimated 25,000 persons had jammed the railway station area, lined the route of the ten-block parade, and the south side of the Courthouse Square to provide the Governor a hero's welcome. The train ride from Chicago to Springfield had been a whistle-stop affair, with the Governor providing campaign speeches along the way.
A picture shows the sister of the Governor, Mrs. Ernest L. Ives, who lived on a farm near Aberdeen, N.C., which could become the "Little White House" were the Governor to win election, as since his divorce, his sister had often served as hostess for official receptions.
General Eisenhower was planning to address the 53rd annual encampment of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Los Angeles on August 5. His executive assistant, Arthur Vandenberg, Jr., said that the speech would be entirely non-political. It would likely be his first formal speech since being nominated on July 11 at the Republican convention, and would be carefully observed for hints of his foreign policy stance. Mr. Vandenberg indicated that the General had plans to return to California in the fall for a full campaign tour of the state.
Major John Eisenhower, 29, son of General Eisenhower, arrived in Korea this date for combat duty, and had been assigned to the Third Infantry Division. He had departed the U.S. a week earlier, bidding farewell to his parents during a stopover at the Denver airport.
In Tehran, bitter attacks on the U.S. highlighted a debate this date in which the Iranian Parliament overwhelmingly approved Premier Mohammed Mossadegh's program for economic and social reforms to avert national bankruptcy. One deputy, right-hand man to the Ayatollah Seyed Kashani, the country's leading religious figure and a close supporter of the Premier, demanded the ouster of all Americans from the country. Anti-U.S. feeling had been pervasive since the July 21 riots which had ousted former Premier Ahmed Qavam, whose tenure lasted only a few days, but it was the first such outburst in Parliament.
In Pusan, a South Korean military court dismissed charges against seven national assemblymen arrested the previous May during a period of martial law declared by President Syngman Rhee, deeming the charges unsupported by evidence.
The settlement of a threatened aluminum strike at Alcoa and the return to production of steel had set the nation's economy on a firm footing for the first time in two months. The aluminum strike had been set to start this date, which, if effected, would have cut off more than 20 percent of the nation's ingot aluminum production, vital to the manufacture of airplanes and other defense items. The Wage Stabilization Board, on the eve of its final appearance before disbanding after Congress had stripped it of most of its dispute-settling powers the previous month and replaced it with an altered board, announced the settlement. It indicated that the new contracts for the aluminum workers would provide for an increase of the equivalent of 21.4 cents per hour in benefits, including a modified union shop. Meanwhile, steel companies were taking shortcuts to speed up production, after resolution of the 53-day steel strike the prior Thursday.
The WSB would be replaced by a new board, without powers to make recommendations. It would still be composed of members equally representing industry, labor and the public.
In Bakersfield, California, two sharp earthquakes were felt early this date, starting two fires and causing frightened residents to flee to the streets as windows were broken and bricks fell from previously damaged buildings from the earthquake a week earlier. The two tremors had been felt throughout Southern California, including Los Angeles, but had been strongest in Bakersfield. A prior earthquake on July 21 had left 18 dead, 12 of whom had been in Kern County. This date's two quakes had not been as pervasive as the previous one, felt as far away as San Francisco to the north and San Diego to the south. There was no additional damage to the town of Tehachapi, which had been at the epicenter of the prior quake.
In Whiteville, N.C., the judge presiding over the cases of 71 Klansmen defendants, who had pleaded guilty, along with Imperial Wizard Thomas L. Hamilton of Leesville, S.C., in several flogging cases arising in Columbus County during the previous two years, delayed their sentencing from this date until the next morning.
In Charlotte, two persons were killed almost instantly and another seriously injured when the car in which they were riding overturned on Eastway Drive, a short distance from Central Avenue, early in the afternoon. The car had overturned several times after failing to make a sharp curve and risen 25 feet into the air before sliding along the ground for about 150 feet.
In Philadelphia, an infant who had been born weighing just 2 1/2 pounds and pronounced dead at the time of birth 52 days earlier, was still alive and now healthy, after being found wrapped in a newspaper by an alert police officer who had heard a noise coming from the newspaper, opened it, and found the baby alive. The infant had been sent home from the hospital this date, healthy, after spending the intervening time in an incubator. The child's mother had called it a miracle and so named the baby Mary.
On the editorial page, "Egyptian Coup Promises Reform" indicates that because of the tight press censorship which Egypt had enforced since martial law had been declared the prior January, it was risky to draw firm conclusions from the previous week's events. The military hero of the Palestine War, General Mohammed Naguib, had seized control of the Army and the Government, and ousted some of the former Army bosses. He had tossed out the well-meaning but ineffectual Premier Hilaly Pasha in favor of Aly Maher Pasha. King Farouk, famed international playboy, had been forced into exile after abdication from the throne in the face of an ultimatum, in favor of his infant son, who would ultimately become king in later years, provided the monarchy survived.
At first, it appeared that the coup was a political revolution aimed at overthrowing the vicious economic feudalism which had maintained Egypt's 20 million peasants in bondage to a few landlords. General Naguib had promised to stamp out corruption and bribery in politics in the country. But then, on Monday, the leader of the dominant Wafdist Party, Mustapha El Nasha Pasha, returned to Cairo after a vacation, hailed the ouster of King Farouk and praised the nationwide drive against corruption. But his party had been the chief architect and beneficiary of that corruption, suggesting that General Naguib's pledge was superficial and unlikely to bear fruit.
The effort to set up the British influence in the Suez Canal Zone and in the Sudan as a bogeyman, was designed to fool the people. Also, there was the continued technical state of war with Israel, further confusing the politics of the country, making it difficult to tell the real issues from the phony ones. Despite Egypt's military power being inconsequential, as demonstrated by its disastrous defeat in the Palestine War, its geographical position was of enormous strategic importance in the overall planning for Middle Eastern defense. Internal instability in such an oil-rich state inevitably benefited Communist agitators.
Britain had promised to move its troops swiftly into the area if British lives and property were endangered, as had been the case in the January riots in Egypt. It urges that the U.S., also, should be prepared to move swiftly to give its moral support to General Naguib, if, as he had promised, his regime would usher in a new era for the peasants. It observes that economic feudalism was on its last legs in the Middle East and that the U.S. had to support the legitimate aspirations of the people of that region, if it was to hope to hold them on the side of the West in the worldwide struggle against Communism.
"Brien McMahon—A Great Fighter" tells of the Senator from Connecticut who had just died the prior day, at age 48, from cancer, having once summed up his reasons for fighting against economic wretchedness abroad through his tenacious support of the Point Four program, by saying that either you shrugged your shoulders and gave a resigned sigh or resolved to do something about it. He had understood the awful import of the atom bomb, as well as that of hunger and poverty across the world, and, it finds, the nation was poorer for his passing.
Having come to the Senate in 1945, he quickly became chairman of the joint Committee on Atomic Energy and the widely recognized lay expert in the field. In 1950, he had made the proposal that the billions of dollars being spent for arms development could instead be devoted to worldwide economic development were Russia to agree to a genuine peace. Many of his proposals had died because of American apathy or tension with Russia. He had pleaded in vain for widespread dispersal of Government agencies to prevent concentrated attack by the enemy and had been one of the leaders in the fight for adequate civil defense, but saw the funding for it slashed as sharply as that for Point Four.
It finds that the Senator had tried desperately to awaken the country to its dangers and the needs of the hour, and that his warning voice and tireless efforts would be "sorely missed".
"A Dictatress Dies" regards the death, at 33, of dictatrix Evita Peron, who had risen from poverty to great influence in her native Argentina as the wife of dictator Juan Peron. She had been adored by millions of peasants and feared by newspapers or officials who dared to disagree with her. For all of her "ruthless cunning", she had done much for the people of Argentina, including giving the right of the franchise to women, shirts to the shirtless decomisados, organization to the workers, and expanded charity for those living in poverty. But these results had not come to pass for her humanitarianism but were rather the result of her lust for personal power and hatred, driving both her and her husband to "excess after excess, suppression of freedom and thought."
Dictatorship, it observes, having entrenched itself with promise of betterment, lost its benevolence. She would be more remembered for her "revengeful greed than for social gains she sponsored, and properly so."
Well, maybe, until Hollywood would
come along and make some silly movie out of a silly Seventies
Broadway musical, portraying her as a folk hero to the masses.
Ignorance and blindness to history know no limits. One day, there may
come a hailed musical
"TV—Its Effect and Challenge" tells of those who had followed the two conventions closely having caught up on their sleep by this point and wishes to offer some observations on the first two nationally televised political conventions. The Democrats had billed their convention as a "streamlined" affair, whereas it finds that it would have been more appropriately titled an "endurance contest", as the polling of the delegations had caused many viewers to depart their sets. Many of the delegates appeared to have simply wanted to get their faces on television. They seemed to desire using the demands for polling of the delegations as a delaying tactic to perform behind-the-scenes work, seeking changes in delegate positions. It suggests that the politicians in the future should weigh this questionable tactic against the fact that on Friday night, the nomination balloting was so delayed that Governor Stevenson did not get to make his excellent acceptance speech until after 2:00 a.m., causing many potential voters to have missed seeing it. (And without cable tv, vcr's, or the internet, there was no replay available, just the word of mouth transmitted by the night owls, who proclaimed it great or lousy, or somewhere yawningly in between.)
Anyway, the Democrats will not learn the lesson, even twenty years on, though it may have been the result of the spell cast by Mr. Nixon or some his supporters who traded in witchcraft when it suited their purposes—ultimately, however, coming home to roost, as such spells always end badly for the casters.
As a result of television, the piece posits, the viewer often knew more about what was going on in the convention than many of the delegates and newsmen on the floor, at least one gallery spectator having kept up with what was occurring by listening to a portable radio.
To have listened to the contentions of the Virginia and South Carolina delegations, one would have thought that the delegates would have been guilty of gross violations of their state laws to have subscribed to the loyalty pledge, requiring that the delegates, for continued participation in the convention, assure that the nominees' names appeared on the ballot in their state. Had there been informed newsmen providing the coverage, it ventures, they could have made the delegates looks sillier than they did, and possibly caused them to be more inclined to use reason in the face of having their arguments instantly analyzed on the air.
It finds that the conventions needed
more editing by the telecasters
A return to normal tv fare, it finds, was dull by comparison to having watched history unfold in the living room. It hopes that the broadcasters would exploit the public interest in these events in the future and support the demand for the right to televise Congress, as it asserts that having television cameras present in the chambers would tend to inhibit Congressmen who might be hams for the camera, as the television editor would have the ability to switch to other, more newsworthy subjects in such event. It also suggests that perhaps the day's events could be summarized in an evening news program on television.
Those things will never happen. It's Howdy Doody time... Hi-o Silver...
Drew Pearson tells of the most dramatic of the numerous after-midnight huddles during the Democratic convention having taken place between 4:00 and 6:00 a.m. at the Congress Hotel the prior Friday, in protest against the so-called alliance between the big-city bosses and the Dixiecrats. It had been held just seven hours before the balloting for the presidential nominee had begun and was designed to stop the nomination of Governor Stevenson. Neither Senator Kefauver nor Averell Harriman had been present, but most of their followers had been, including Gael Sullivan, Senator Hubert Humphrey, Congressman Chet Holifield of California, Democratic chairman of New York Paul Fitzpatrick, Congressman FDR, Jr., Governor Mennen Williams of Michigan, Senator Blair Moody of Michigan, UAW president Walter Reuther and Senator Paul Douglas of Illinois. As the meeting had opened, Mr. Reuther had criticized Senator Douglas for contending that there was an alliance between Governor Stevenson and the big city bosses, indicating that his favored candidate, Senator Kefauver, had come into the convention with the largest number of delegates but had lost the momentum. Senator Douglas had not responded when Mr. Reuther contended that he was not going to allow anyone to place a Dixiecrat label on a candidate whom labor supported. Finally, Senator Douglas had softly replied with the question whether it was not a big city boss-Dixiecrat alliance which had seated the Virginia delegation, after it had refused to take the loyalty pledge. He asked whether Mr. Reuther thought they had done wrong by trying to prevent Virginia from being seated, to which Mr. Reuther responded that it was not a question of right or wrong. Senator Douglas stated that he thought they were doing a constructive job of breaking up the alliance between the bosses and the Dixiecrats and that if there was no agreement on that, there was no sense in staying in the meeting, and so he left.
Mr. Roosevelt did not share Mr. Reuther's view that they ought sound out Governor Stevenson anent his view of the Dixiecrats and the bosses, saying that he believed actions ought to speak for themselves and that there was no use in contacting people regarding their views. If Governor Stevenson could live with himself in the "unholy alliance" between Illinois boss Jacob Arvey and Senator Harry F. Byrd, then it was well that they knew it presently, as it had been Governor Stevenson who had put Averell Harriman in the race in the first place, having urged him to run the previous spring in a speech by the Governor at Roosevelt College. He had also kept Mr. Harriman in the race through the last minute of the campaign. If Governor Stevenson wanted to make his position clear, all he had to do, said Mr. Roosevelt, campaign manager for Mr. Harriman, was to hold a press conference.
At one point, Senator Humphrey had interjected the observation that nobody loved the bosses more than this group did, except when they disagreed with the group.
Mr. Pearson finds prophetic a statement during the spring by Governor Paul Dever of Massachusetts regarding whether the President would arrange plans for the Chicago convention, stating that nobody would ever see his hand. Lending credence to the statement, in a room of Chicago's Blackstone Hotel, the suite of former DNC chairman William Boyle and close friend of the President, there had been a private phone connected to the White House, and on the second floor of the convention hall there had been a small office with another private phone connected to the White House, from former Attorney General J. Howard McGrath, DNC chairman Frank McKinney, White House secretary Donald Dawson and former Senator from Illinois, Scott Lucas, who maintained that he was defeated for re-election because of Senator Kefauver's organized crime committee hearings. That group, on instructions from the White House, had wanted to continue the Thursday night session until dawn, if necessary, and were finally stopped only because the fire marshal had indicated there might be danger of a major fire if the session continued.
Joseph & Stewart Alsop, in Chicago, compare the aftermath of the two political conventions to the old rituals of the Druids, in which the king of the old year was led to the altar to be killed in sacrifice, to rise again in the body of the king of the year to come.
They, however, pay tribute to the American convention system, despite its illogical organization, sordidness in many of its aspects, and possessed of so little rhyme or reason that foreign spectators were driven nearly mad with puzzlement. Yet, the system worked, perhaps showing the American political genius to mingle pragmatism with tradition in just the right proportions.
Many of late had been talking of abandoning the conventions in favor of a national primary, but the Alsops suggest that such a change would inflict upon the country the burden of having two elections in each four-year cycle when one was bad enough. Moreover, the national primary could not achieve the delicate balance of regional viewpoints, personal and popular interests, and economic and social influences, accomplished by the conventions. It was also impossible to imagine such a primary doing better than the 1952 Democratic and Republican conventions, providing the country with two excellent candidates for the presidency.
When the delegates took their seats and finally began to cast ballots for the nominees, the cheapness which often characterized the lead-up to the balloting, tended to fall by the wayside and the delegates adopted "a genuine collective care for the future of the country". Also, every convention had its moments of individual generosity and high character, which persisted in memory after all of the anger and bitterness had faded.
For instance, in the 1952 Republican convention, they recall General Eisenhower's warm gesture in quickly calling on Senator Taft following the General's nomination, and the courage and defeat which Senator Taft had shown in those hours. From the Democratic convention, they recall the way the President had placed national interest above petty personal irritation to help put over the nomination of Governor Stevenson, as well as the magnanimity of Averell Harriman, who never failed to fight for his cause while thinking of himself only secondarily, though he had not been well served by some of his liberal supporters.
Thus, they conclude that the Druids could not have done as well, and that the convention system had many positive attributes going for it.
Robert C. Ruark tells of observing that many producers of consumer goods were adding extras to their products to stimulate sales, such as special ice trays or a pint of free orange sherbet with a gallon of ice cream. For the previous decade, the customer had been a bum, facing shortages of consumer goods and the resulting contempt for the consumer by the manufacturers and purveyors.
Supply had caught up with demand in most commodities and consumers were getting some of their old spunk back. He smiled every time he passed a particular empty building in his neighborhood, after the greedy owners had sought a hefty rise in rents from the tenants, who refused to pay the difference, moved, and ultimately forced the landlord to sell, with the result that the building had been empty for nine months with no buyers, while the previous tenants were down the block in another building and doing fine. He had noticed some increased cordiality among salespeople which had been missing in recent years.
But he was not vindictively joyous at this new triumph and wished prosperity to continue, while wanting it to be more mutually shared with consumers than it had been in the past. It was nice to be courted by the producers and sellers. He concludes that someday the dollar might even bounce back to its old dignity.
A letter writer indicates that if the City Fathers were concerned about the city's desperate parking problem, they should set the example and provide parking spaces at City Hall, where, he observes, it was almost impossible to find a space while conducting business there, even while paying parking fines for illegally parking elsewhere.
A letter writer indicates that he admired the three Southern states, Louisiana, South Carolina and Virginia, in refusing to take the loyalty oath at the Democratic convention, and believes that the delegations from those states had been "kicked around and ignored and almost thrown out" of the convention because of the pledge set up by the "Northern radicals", Senators Herbert Lehman of New York, Blair Moody of Michigan, and Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota. He believes that the three state delegations would return home to campaign for General Eisenhower.
You will, no doubt, feel quite happy
and at home in the political world of 1968. Others, however, yet
unborn though perhaps in the womb during this long, hot summer, might
feel quite differently. Don't forget it…
A letter writer from Bluffton, S.C., finds that the newspaper editors were "victims of the Lattimore-State Department-Smedley-Roth-Gunther-Stein-pro-Communist propaganda". She had been in Peking when the Communists had taken over its province and the heads of the few who had voted no had been hanging in baskets on Lantern Street a few days later. She had heard "anti-anti-Communist" Eric Sevareid say that one whole province had gone over to the Communists, proving that it was a people's revolution, to which she says, "Nuts." She indicates that Mao Tse-Tung was one of the Kremlin-indoctrinated products and that Madame Sun Yat-sen had been another.
She goes on in that vein for quite some distance, nearly over the edge, before finally declaring her support for the election of General Eisenhower, who, she believes, would bring about the end of the influence of such persons as Owen Lattimore, Far Eastern expert and occasional adviser to the State Department, as well as others who had been challenged by Senator Joseph McCarthy as having sympathies with the Communists. She, as a Democrat, concludes with a question: "How long will our Democratic press place the prestige of our corrupt party and its even more corrupt leaders before the security of this nation and its people?"
But the facts are that the bulk of the nation's press had opposed FDR from 1936 forward, as they had President Truman in 1948, opposing also any prospect of his running again in 1952. Why don't you get out a few old newspapers and actually read for a change, rather than spouting a lot of nonsense based on your anecdotal observations in China.
You also will feel very much at home, no doubt, come the year 1968 and for the ensuing four years, until...
Don't forget those babies in the womb.
A letter writer finds that the uncomfortable heat of the previous few weeks had again pointed up the problem of the stray and unlicensed dogs wandering around the city streets and being crushed on the county roads, urges that it was time that the City and County authorities took steps to eliminate the danger. He believes that the public was too sentimental about dogs, that "other than filling the void for those who have no one else to love them, dogs are just about completely useless, and a waste of energy and resources." He comments that the food bill for dogs in the country was over 20 million dollars per year and that the cost of dog funerals was just about as much, added to which were dog hospitals, sanatoria, dog psychiatrists and dog clothing. He thinks that the total would be enough to clear all of the slums in the Western Hemisphere.
Well, now, there is about to come a dog on the scene in September, who, while not becoming as lovable to the public as had been Fala in his heyday, will become just as famous, albeit tainted with a great deal of unfortunate notoriety in the process, not the oblivious dog's fault, but hardly "completely useless". Some dogs have great utility.
A letter writer from Pinehurst comments on the editorial of July 26, "Southern Agriculture Looking Up", finding it interesting and refreshing for its candor, and suggests that, while it might not have been so intended, was in fact an appeal to every Southern farmer, as well as to all farmers generally, to do their utmost to maintain the Democratic Party in power in 1952. He indicates that any progress made by farmers had been the result of the Democratic policies of the prior twenty years under the New Deal and the Fair Deal. The Republicans had never done anything for the farmers and, he finds, were unlikely to do so in the future. He suggests comparison of the farm planks between the two party platforms. He had come to North Carolina in 1929, when agriculture had certainly not been looking up, but was so far down that there was serious doubt that it could ever even get up to its hands and knees again. "Now look at it and read your editorial comment about its improvement. Quite a different picture, isn't it?"
You, perhaps, along with us, may find yourself crying on the day after election day in 1968. In any event, we have quite a couple of decades ahead, because of these idiots on the scene now who want change just for the hell of it, scared by the McCarthys and Nixons, proclaiming that it was all pink and socialistic, headed inexorably toward Communist totalitarianism, anti-free market, national bankruptcy for propping up the world. Wait until you see the recession of 1958...
Framed Edition
Links-Date — Links-Subj.