The Charlotte News

Thursday, August 14, 1952

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports, via William Barnard, that U.S. Marines had repulsed two fierce Communist attacks the previous night and this date retained their newly-won hold on "Bunker Hill" in the western sector of Korea. The battalion-sized enemy assaults, preceded by a three-hour artillery barrage, were the third and fourth futile attempts to recapture the ridge, which had been taken early on Tuesday by the Marines. A U.N. briefing officer indicated that enemy casualties had been heavy on the hill, just four miles from the Panmunjom truce talks site. It was believed by U.N. officers that if the enemy failed to take the hill within a week, based on recent patterns, they might give up the effort. Enemy machine gunners early this date infiltrated the crest of nearby "Siberia Hill", which had also been captured on Tuesday by the Marines. Allied troops managed to quiet those guns within 15 minutes. Allied patrols fought two stiff fights early this date in brief raids on enemy-held positions north of Korangpo and west-northwest of Chorwon.

Sam Summerlin reports from the western front of the wounded from the "Bunker Hill" fight, aboard a hospital train. One wounded Marine screamed: "They're all dead, but we've got to get them! We can't leave those guys for the Goonies!" That was the Marine nickname for Chinese soldiers. Two doctors and litter bearers struggled to keep him quiet, while the other wounded remained silent. The Marine continued to yell, swinging his arms wildly about, asking for his helmet and indicating his determination to choke the enemy soldiers to death. Mr. Summerlin describes in detail some of the other wounded and one of the soldiers who was burned red from his feet to his waist. They had come by helicopter and ambulance to a tent hospital behind the front and then were being moved by the hospital train to larger, better-equipped hospitals in the rear.

In the air war, allied planes continued to strike at enemy positions this date, the Air Force indicating that they had knocked out nine troop bunkers and three gun positions, and killed or wounded 20 enemy troops near "Bunker Hill". Other planes hit enemy supply concentrations in the vicinity of Pyongyang and enemy front line positions.

New DNC chairman Stephen Mitchell spent 25 minutes this date conferring with the President and an hour with various members of the President's staff, then told reporters that there would be complete cooperation between the President and Governor Stevenson in the conduct of the presidential campaign.

In Denver, General Eisenhower rejected an invitation from the President to receive a confidential briefing on the international situation. He indicated by telegram that he believed it was his duty to remain free to analyze Administration policies publicly and that it would be unwise and result in confusion in the public mind should he accept the invitation. Governor Stevenson had participated in such a briefing on Tuesday, after which the General criticized the meeting as catering to the President's "hand-picked successor" to instill in him the policies and doctrines which had "brought us to the present situation of bewilderment, indecision and fear for the future." The General also said in the telegram to the President that he was familiar with the policies, but would change his mind on the meeting should a national emergency arise.

In Springfield, Ill., Governor Stevenson, speaking at the Illinois State Fair before a Democratic rally in his first major speech since being nominated, called on the states to provide such good government to the people that they would halt the "tidal wave" of centralized power sweeping toward Washington. He said that the states represented the "dikes which we can build more strongly against the flood waters sweeping toward the District of Columbia"—whether embracing the Foggy Bottom area immediately adjacent to the Potomac, opposite Theodore Roosevelt Island, not being made explicitly clear. The Governor defended his record, indicating that he did not know whether it was a New Deal for Illinois, or a Fair Deal or a Square Deal, but that he knew it had been a "no deal State Government". He said that he knew that if the people did not obtain the services they demanded at home, they would then turn to Washington, where every dollar sent by the taxpayers would shrink before it reached back home. The Governor then introduced the principal speaker of the day, Vice-President Alben Barkley.

In New York, it was announced that a former publisher of the Myrtle Beach News in South Carolina, William Kimbel, had been appointed state chairman of the Citizens for Eisenhower-Nixon organization in that state. He was now president of the Myrtle Beach Realty and Investment Co.

In Warren, O., three armed, masked men, bearing a sawed-off shotgun and a revolver, forced a car of a bank official off the road this date and robbed him of about $71,000 in cash. The bank branch manager was transferring the money from the main building of the bank to his branch at the time.

In Zephyr Hills, Fla., a doctor, 83, who had kept for eight years the dead body of a woman that he loved, and serenaded her corpse nightly with organ music, had died three weeks before his body was discovered by the Sheriff's office. The coroner said that his death had resulted from natural causes. He had previously maintained that he would never die because he had died before. He had received international publicity in 1940 when the body was discovered in the tumbledown shack where he lived in Key West. While he had worked in a hospital, he had met and fallen in love with the 19-year old girl who had then subsequently died of tuberculosis. He obtained permission from her family to build a vault for her in the city cemetery, but eight years later, a woman's intuition led to to the discovery of the body in the physician's house. The body was found in a canopied bed, dressed in a filmy négligée and adorned with jewels and fresh flowers in her hair. The doctor had a closetful of bridal finery. He was charged at the time with disturbing a grave and vandalism, but the charges were later dismissed. He had told police that he had taken her body from the tomb and maintained it in an airplane fuselage for two years before moving it to his home. He claimed that she sometimes came to life and talked to him. He preserved her with chemicals he mixed in a vat, and built the organ with which he serenaded her regularly.

He may have been missing a few high notes.

In Charlotte, the president of the North Carolina Bar Association expressed the opinion this date that the candidate for the bar exam, who had been denied his privilege to take the written portion by the State Board of Law Examiners on the basis of lacking the requisite moral character for membership, could appeal the decision to the State Bar Council. He provided his reasoning for the opinion. The Council would next meet the following October.

Meanwhile, in Wrightsville Beach, the declined candidate for the bar claimed that he had been turned down because of his labor union activities and referred to the report the previous day by the Winston-Salem Journal as a "libelous attack" on him in referencing two witnesses who had testified before the Board that he had been a Communist, which he denied. He also denied any unauthorized practice of the law in connection with his labor union activities. He said that it was a smokescreen to hide the real issue, which was that he was the first labor union official ever to apply to take the North Carolina bar exam and had been rejected because of his labor views and activities, by a Board "composed almost entirely of corporation lawyers". Judge L. R. Varser of Lumberton, chairman of the Board, contradicted the contention, saying that it was unfounded and that there was no evidence to support it. He indicated that the candidate's labor union activities and Progressive Party affiliations had not influenced him. The man had run for Congress in 1948 as a member of the Progressive Party. He also contended that the hearing procedure was irregular, that the hearing had been postponed until the day before the examination was set to start and that he was informed of the rejection only at 8:00 p.m., when it was too late to secure any legal redress. He indicated that he had never received notice of any of the charges against him or of the matter to be discussed at the hearing, had no opportunity to know the information before the Board which had prompted it to act, and had also not been afforded the due process right to confront and cross-examine witnesses against him.

At Cap Gris Nez, France, the Gastonia, N.C., fireman, Bob Paysour, attempting to swim the English Channel, began his effort this date at noon local time, in good weather. He had spent only five minutes on French soil after his arrival, the time it took to get greased, the insulation necessary for the tough swim. He refused to talk to the press. People in his entourage hoped that he could make the crossing in 15 hours. The distance straight across the Channel was 21 miles, but swimmers often were forced by currents to cover three times that distance. Mr. Paysour wanted to hear soft music during the course of his journey and so aides accompanied him in a small boat with a stack of phonograph records of Southern songs. By this night, there had been no word of his progress and the boat accompanying him had no radio.

In Morehead City, N.C., the state launched a bid for a greater share of the world's ocean commerce with the dedication of the new port facilities. Governor Kerr Scott and John Motley Morehead of New York City, after whose grandfather the town was named, were the speakers at the dedication.

In Los Angeles, the "Ding Dong Daddy of the 'D' line"—a moniker given the man by San Francisco Chronicle columnist Stanton Delaplane—had been married for the 15th time, but was in the doghouse, as his new bride had locked him out of their apartment the previous night, nine days after the marriage. He was 66 years old and a former San Francisco streetcar conductor, lion tamer and boxer. His bride was 73 and a Los Angeles widow. She contended that he led her to believe that he was a bachelor and that she did not know he had previously been married. She expressed disbelief at the fact that he had been married so many times. The man had served two years of a ten-year sentence at San Quentin for three counts of bigamy and had been released five years earlier. He had wooed his previous wives on the San Francisco "D" line.

On the editorial page, "From Governor to Ward Heeler" tells of Governor Kerr Scott's grabbing $750,000 in surplus highway money for improvement of roads in his home county of Alamance. It indicates that it had been bad enough when he had ordered his district commissioner to fix up the roads in and around his farm in that county, resulting in his having 15 miles of paved roads accessing his farm. This latest allocation provided even greater damage to public confidence in the administration of the state's highway program.

It indicates its deep disappointment at the Governor's action, that he had sullied a record of clean State Government going back many years. He had made a mockery of his own campaign against "petty graft" and by weakening public confidence in the highway system, had jeopardized the chances of selling the people on an imaginative program for modernizing the primary roads. It posits that he had lowered his office to the level of a ward-heeler who believed in getting his while the getting was good. It finds it sad to see an "inglorious ending of what could have been an illustrious term as Governor".

"The Case of Myron Ross" remarks on the top 1952 graduate of the UNC Law School having been refused the privilege to sit for the State bar exam by the Board of Law Examiners on the basis that he lacked the moral character to practice law in the state. A story the previous day by Chester Davis of the Winston-Salem Journal had indicated that it was because he had been untruthful regarding his prior alleged membership in the Communist Party, to which two witnesses had testified before the Board. Mr. Ross had provided his version of the story, denying that he had ever been a member of the Communist Party and charged that "corporation lawyers" on the Board of Law Examiners had refused him because of his pro-labor beliefs and pro-union activities. He claimed that he was given no opportunity to prepare a defense or offer testimony on his own behalf because he did not know what information the Board had within its files. He had not, however, sought any review of the Board's action.

The piece indicates that until he did so, there was not much which could be said about the powers provided the State's examining boards and "the occasional arbitrary and even capricious use of those powers". The state statutes did not specifically authorize appeals from rulings of the Board of Law Examiners at the time and the piece offers that if lawyers could be disbarred by the courts, they ought have the right to have courts rule on questions involving their admission to the bar. It indicates that anyone who went through law school and passed his work should have the right to judicial review of an adverse ruling on his candidacy for the bar.

It finds that the Board had been overly reticent regarding its reasons for the rejection of Mr. Ross's application, beyond the general statement that he lacked the requisite "moral character". It offers that the Board, in fairness to the people of the state, the University and Mr. Ross, ought provide a full statement of its reasons forthwith.

It should be noted that for decades, the right of appeal into the courts of adverse determinations by the Board of Law Examiners has existed.

"Good News and Bad" tells of the Association of Cotton Textile Merchants in New York having indicated that the squeeze on profits had ended and mill activity was increasing, as were textile prices.

A majority of over 1,200 businessmen polled by Dun & Bradstreet had indicated the expectation of increased sales volume and profitable operation for the remainder of the year. Bankers also were optimistic, as was Secretary of Commerce Charles Sawyer. He discounted the bad effects of the drought and the hikes in steel prices and wages.

A report the previous week had indicated that the cost of living had hit an historical high, indicative of producers and sellers obtaining premium prices.

But missing from the total economic picture was the fact that inflationary prosperity imposed a great hardship on the millions of people whose salaries and wages did not correspond to cost-of-living increases and on those living on fixed incomes. Those persons had suffered greatly since the end of the war and were squeezed even worse when the cost-of-living index was moving upward. There were no pressure groups in Washington representing these latter people, who were unorganized and unrepresented.

It warns that the economic climate therefore could one day wipe out the middle class, which had been the bulwark of the nation's political, economic, and spiritual strength.

"The Past Still Hounds the GOP" tells of the 46 Senate seats held by Republicans, 20 would be up for election the following November, thus meaning that for the Republicans to gain control of the Senate, they had to pick up three seats presently held by Democrats and retain all of the 20 contested seats. But the occupants of those seats were members of the undistinguished "Class of '46", composed largely of right-wingers who had ridden to victory in the Republican Congressional win of that year. The Republican nominee faced tough opposition in 12 of those 20 states, and in all except one of those 12 races, the Senator had won his seat originally in 1946. They included Senators John W. Bricker of Ohio, William Jenner of Indiana, James Kem of Missouri, Zales Ecton of Montana, Arthur Watkins of Utah, George Malone of Nevada, Harry Cain of Washington, John Williams of Delaware, and Edward Martin of Pennsylvania. (For whatever reason, it leaves out Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin.) They represented the minority of the minority party, and were out of step with the times and probably with the voters. Many of the contests were in solid Democratic territory.

It concludes, therefore, that for the Republicans to gain control of the Senate was a long shot, even if General Eisenhower were to win the Presidency. It indicates that if the Republicans had produced more modern Senators in 1946, their chances for victory would be considerably improved.

The Republicans would gain a narrow majority, capturing both houses for the first time since 1947.

Drew Pearson's staff, substituting for Mr. Pearson while on vacation, tell of "Big Chief" Eisenhower having promised "full justice" to New Mexico Indians the previous week, while having not known at the time that increased defense demands for timber, oil and uranium had quadrupled the value of Indian land during the previous decade and as a result, causing the Indians to become "worth plucking". In March 1948, the column had exposed the manner in which the Vanadium Corporation had been haggling over the payment of royalties to the Navajos, and the latest development in restoring "full justice" to the Indians was the manner in which a group of lawyers had been scrambling to represent them. Indian tribes had been permitted to file millions of dollars worth of claims against the Federal Government, with the result that legal representation of the Indians could be extremely profitable.

One lawyer had been awarded recently a three million dollar fee for prosecuting Indian claims against the Government. One Indian lawyer had 41 contracts with 36 different tribes or groups and was general counsel of the National Congress of American Indians, representing several diverse and scattered Indian groups. Part of the technique of representing Indians was to make it appear that they were abused and downtrodden, unfairly treated by the Government. In fact, however, the Interior Department's Indian Bureau was now doing its best to get the Government out of Indian affairs, but nevertheless the cry continued to be heard regarding Government persecution.

A Senate subcommittee chaired by Senator Clinton Anderson of New Mexico had recently investigated the profitable Indian legal business, hearing that the aforementioned general counsel to the National Congress had harangued a meeting of Alaskan Indians, cursing the white man and urging the Indians to take legal steps against the Government. He had asserted that the land in Alaska belonged to the Indians, had been stolen from them, that anything the white man received was by the grace of their largess. Governor Ernest Gruening of Alaska had told the lawyer that what he was saying was "bunk" and the lawyer responded that he realized that but it was a good line, obtaining sympathy from the "sob sisters in the East".

The contracts between the lawyers and the Indians had to be approved by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, and the fact had caused constant conflict between the National Congress lawyer and the Indian Commissioner, resulting in bitter attacks on the latter. The Commissioner had found that the fee of this lawyer for one Alaskan tribe was twice the amount of the tribe's annual income. When he started to ask questions about the contracts, the National Congress of American Indians launched an attack to protect the civil rights of the Indians.

One witness had testified to the subcommittee that the National Congress lawyer had women friends spread throughout Washington who could, within a short time, purvey any sort of information or rumor which the lawyer asked them to do and carry out any propaganda assignment which he gave them.

Marquis Childs tells of indecision, conflict and lack of organization in both the Washington and Denver headquarters of the Eisenhower campaign. There was a complaint by Easterners that the candidate was in Denver, remote from the big cities and somewhat inaccessible to those in the East who wanted to discuss campaign strategy with him.

There was a division within the camp between new RNC Chairman, Arthur Summerfield of Michigan, and Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., the former favoring an attack mode in the campaign, whereas Senator Lodge had indicated that the people expected a constructive program from General Eisenhower, not the traditional negative and destructive viewpoint which had characterized the Republican Party for too long.

After Senator Everett Dirksen had been ingratiated into the Eisenhower camp, despite his rueful attack on Governor Dewey at the Republican convention, prompting delegates to boo the 1944 and 1948 party nominee who had been greatly responsible for directing the Eisenhower nomination, an effort was made to get Senator Irving Ives of New York to come to Denver to meet with the General, to counterbalance the right-wing forces and have a pro-Dewey man in the camp. But Senator Ives was averse to flying and could not take the time to ride by train across country when he was having to campaign for re-election to the Senate.

There had been a plan to have the General deliver a second speech, following the Los Angeles speech to the VFW, to be set on August 28 in Philadelphia, but Pennsylvania Governor John Fine objected on the basis that the people of the city would be fleeing to the beaches just before Labor Day, causing great risk of another virtually empty stadium, as there had been in Los Angeles where the General's speech in the Coliseum, which accommodated 100,000 people, had, though free, attracted only 15,000. Thus, there was uncertainty as to whether there would be any such second speech prior to Labor Day, where the situation currently stood.

Joseph & Stewart Alsop tell of the danger in Iran being rated as "desperate" by the State Department, that it could be captured by the Communist-controlled Tudeh Party, which would alter drastically the balance of power in favor of the Soviets. That danger had split the U.S. Government and threatened to cause an open break on Middle Eastern policy between the U.S. and Britain. The State Department had proposed to the British Foreign Office Anglo-American economic support for the regime of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh, and the British Cabinet was discussing the proposal. But support of the Prime Minister, who was a symbol of Middle Eastern nationalism and hatred for Britain, was not a popular concept in Britain. Since the collapse of the short-lived regime of former Premier Ahmed Qavam, the only remaining visible alternative to Prime Minister Mossadegh, however, was the Ayatollah Kashani, who wanted to turn the clock back in the country to the 15th century, transforming it into a Moslem theocracy ruled by Kashani. His chief instrument to achieve that end was the Fedayan Islam, a "Murder, Inc.", in combination with the Tudeh Party, which had combined to engage in bloody rioting in the streets, forcing Qavam from power.

Qavam had gone to the Shah to plead for calling out the Army, but the Shah was afraid to do so, and Qavam, after only four days in power, fled for his life, leaving the door open for Mossadegh to return to power. Kashani had taken full credit for the outcome and dictated his own election as president of the Parliament, making him so powerful that Mossadegh was presently in danger of becoming a mere captive of Kashani, an "ignorant and bloodthirsty old man".

That was the real reason for Mossadegh's demand for dictatorial powers and martial law. The Prime Minister and Kashani had long been in an uneasy alliance, as the thugs of Kashani had been useful in putting fear into the Prime Minister's opponents. But Mossadegh had long suspected Kashani's real purpose and had even promised the Shah to kick him out of the country some four months earlier, and now needed the means to control him and his Communist allies.

Kashani claimed to be anti-Communist, but often spoke lines which were close to that coming from the Kremlin, as he had spoken to one of the Alsops the previous fall. Kashani and his fanatical Moslem followers were preparing the way for the Communists, stirring up the peasants and slum dwellers to a mood of revolt. The Alsops regard him as a prototype of a Middle Eastern Kerensky.

They conclude that Mossadegh's regime was in immediate danger of economic chaos and disintegration, and if it were to collapse, the way would be open for Kashani and his Communist allies to take over.

A letter writer tells of a dilapidated cemetery of the old Sugaw Creek Presbyterian Church, dating back to 1756, one of the oldest cemeteries in the area, just a year or so younger than the cemetery of the First Presbyterian Church in downtown Charlotte. He indicates that the cemetery was overgrown with weeds, its iron fence rusting and empty bottles and tin cans strewn over the plots. He wonders who had jurisdiction and what could be done to clean up the graveyard.

Roll up your sleeves and grab some bags and a rake...

A letter writer thanks the newspaper for its editorial, "Ike Should Repudiate McKeldin's Move To Smear Stevenson with Hiss", and indicates that he had repudiated McCarthyism. He also repudiated the idea that Governor Stevenson had defended or countenanced Communism in any way. He regards it as "puerile and asinine" to question the patriotism or loyalty to American institutions of Governor Stevenson. He suggests that for the Republicans to wage an effective campaign in the fall, they had to stay out of the gutter.

A letter writer thinks that the recent letter including Senator Vest's "Tribute to a Dog" and another letter writer's defense of dogs were interesting reading. He agrees that most people were against the notion of destroying all dogs. He thinks the second writer ought to be a candidate for governor and that the man who provided the Tribute ought be his campaign manager. He believes that they would skin the dog hater alive.

That would not be very sensible regarding free expression in the newspaper over mad dogs during dog days, now would it? Not all dogs are cute and cuddly.

A letter writer from Ashland, Ky., tells of recently becoming a subscriber to the newspaper and found it a joy to read, with "liberal, just and complete coverage of the news". He finds that the justice shown on the editorial page regarding current political topics and the fight for a better country was praiseworthy. He did not agree with all of the opinions asserted but believes the newspaper was a purveyor of truthful facts and honest reporting. He thinks there should be more newspapers of the kind.

A letter writer thinks it would be difficult to credit the "so-called good times" to the President, that the credit should go to the American people, the farmers who used tractors and new ways of farming, the factories turning out cheaper products with new methods, and the steel mills making tons of steel each day, whereas it had taken months to produce the same amount several years earlier. He indicates that he worked for a plant in Charlotte which produced peanut sandwiches and food products, and that through modern equipment, they could turn out a product which sold for five cents.

He favors a new President who would be able to produce quality without costing the taxpayers so much to purchase it. He indicates that he was a Democrat but believed in voting for the man and not the party, and so would cast his ballot for General Eisenhower.

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