The Charlotte News

Thursday, August 21, 1952

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports, via Sam Summerlin, that it was believed that 30 U.S. soldiers of a single platoon of the 45th Infantry Division had been drowned when a 19-foot high flash flood engulfed them suddenly as they crossed an unidentified river, normally knee-deep, the previous Monday during a training exercise in South Korea. Thus far, 12 bodies had been recovered. The flood developed from the typhoon which had hit Okinawa and Korea during the week. Eleven members of the platoon had been swept onto higher sandbars and had escaped. A truck, with eight men and some ammunition aboard, had been caught in the flood as it started to cross the river at a shallow point, was turned over and swept downstream along with its passengers. One of the survivors on the truck was a sergeant from Charlotte. Three men from the truck were still missing.

A story from the Associated Press out of the U.S. Eighth Army in Korea indicated that a farmer was plowing a field when his ox stepped on a mine, blowing it up, but only scratching the farmer on the chest. He was taken to the hospital and bandaged by allied troops, and to show his appreciation, he offered to help around the hospital tent for awhile, until he got sleepy and laid down on a stretcher inside the tent and fell asleep. A helicopter then landed to pick up a wounded South Korean Marine and fly him to a hospital ship at Inchon, the medics mistaking the sleeping farmer for the Marine, then took off with the stretcher on which he was sleeping strapped to the helicopter. The farmer awakened while the helicopter was in the air, flailed his arms about and yelled, to which the pilot returned a reassuring wave and flew on to Inchon. Upon landing, the confusion was sorted out, and the farmer was returned to his field via the helicopter.

In Kansas City, Kans., General Eisenhower said, in answer to a question at an open meeting of Midwestern Republican leaders this date, that the country might be facing much more serious trouble had it not reacted to the June 25, 1950 Communist attack on South Korea. He said, however, that he could point out terrible blunders which had brought on the Korean War.

In Lansing, Mich., Republicans were hustling to place the names of the Republican presidential and vice-presidential candidates on the November ballot, after the state central committee had failed to certify their names as the nominated candidates to the county clerks who prepared the ballots. Michigan Democrats had done the same thing in 1948.

The President, in his weekly press conference, stated that there ought to be some new blood in the Democratic Party but that there was no mess of which he was aware in Washington, commenting upon a statement attributed to Governor Stevenson by a Portland newspaper editor. He also had nothing to say about a comment attributed to Senator Sparkman that the steel strike had been mishandled. Generally, he had no comment on the way in which Governor Stevenson and Senator Sparkman had begun their campaign. He stated that he could not be their target as he was the key to the campaign, that he would be a target of the Republicans. He said he would give both parties' candidates all the information they wanted, and that it would be the truth. He also said that he had nothing to say about the news of the calling of a new Communist Party congress in Moscow to reorganize the party, saying it was none of his business. At one point in the conference, he stated that the Saturday Evening Post was always wrong, in response to an inquiry whether he intended to answer an article in the magazine which had stated that the President, during the 1948 campaign, had conveyed false information to the public about grain storage shortages. He said he had not read the story and almost never read the Post. In answer to a follow-up question from reporter May Craig, in which she asked him how he knew what was in the magazine if he never read it, he said that all he needed to do was read the table of contents to become aware that it was always wrong. Ms. Craig had also asked him how he would respond on the campaign trail, as he had said he would, to General Eisenhower's attack on the Administration, in his speech in Boise, Idaho, for doing everything for the people but entering the kitchen and washing the dishes, if he had not, as he had already indicated, read the General's speech, to which the President responded that he did not need to read it because he knew already what the Republican opponents since Wendell Willkie in 1940 had said and that it was always wrong, that he would set forth the positive record of the New Deal and Fair Deal and take care thereby of the opposition's statements, as he knew more about the Government than anyone else in the country.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported this date that the cost of living hit a record high this date at 190.8 percent of the 1935-1939 average. The increase prompted a three-cent hourly pay increase for more than a million autoworkers under their contracts, with escalator clauses adjusted to the cost of living. The index had risen 1.2 points since the June index and 5 points since January, 1951, at which point price and wage controls had taken effect. The Bureau attributed the rise to a sharp increase in food prices of 1.5 percent between June 15 and July 15. The cost of living was 12.1 points higher than the level of June, 1950, just before the outbreak of the Korean War. G.M. announced that 90,000 eligible salaried employees would receive an extra five dollars for each penny of increase to the hourly workers, to be paid in a lump sum at the end of December. Ford also announced that 35,000 salaried employees would receive a lump sum payment in December.

In Tehran, Iranian Premier Mohammed Mossadegh ordered the wealthy ruling class to pay back taxes at once or face jail and loss of their land. He made the order pursuant to his recently granted dictatorial powers provided him by the Parliament during a six-month period for the purpose of restoring order and economic stability in the country.

In Sao Paulo, Brazil, one of the quintuplets born to a couple on Tuesday night had since died, but the other four were reported to be in good condition, despite each weighing less than three pounds.

In Winston-Salem, N.C., a young female doctor, 27, stabbed her three-year old daughter through the heart with a pair of scissors, killing her, and wounded her two other children, also stabbing them with scissors, before attempting suicide with poison. She had recently been under the care of a psychiatrist. Her husband, also a physician, was present at the time in the home, but was unaware of what was transpiring until he heard one of his children cry out, at which point he called out to his wife who did not respond, and then he went to her location and found her unconscious on the floor and the children in their beds, stabbed. One of the children was not seriously wounded and the other wounded child was given a good chance to live, though in critical condition. The Baptist Hospital personnel who were treating them said also that the mother would likely live, though still in a coma. She had left a note saying that she was despondent and had nothing left for which to live, wanted to remove her children because they were unhappy over her condition. A hospital attendant indicated that she was suffering from a "profound psychosis" brought on by sleeping pills. Friends said that she had been in bad physical health since the birth of her son. She was a graduate of Duke University Medical School, had done post-graduate work at Harvard, and had come to Winston-Salem with her husband in 1948 to practice medicine. Both she and her husband were eye specialists and she had taken a leading role in the establishment of the Winston-Salem eye bank. (The wire story is ambiguous as to whether the latter related facts, and the post-graduate work at Harvard, were in reference to the mother or only the father, as the report also identifies her as a pediatrician. Given her age, it is more probable that only her husband was the eye specialist with the post-graduate work. It really does not make too much difference regarding the main point of the story, but if you need to pin down her specialty and the full extent of her education more firmly, you may research it more deeply. Predictably, on September 2, she would be designated incompetent to stand trial after examination by four concurring psychiatrists, and turned over to the State Mental Hospital in Raleigh for treatment and the continued possibility of standing trial should her competency return. In 1956, the prosecution would decline to prosecute the case further on the basis that the outcome, not guilty by reason of insanity, would have been a "foregone conclusion" based on her mental state at the time of the incident and because the prosecution might cause her to regress. She was returned to the mental hospital for further treatment.)

In York, S.C., a judge denied a new trial to Nathan Corn of Rock Hill, previously convicted of the murder of his employer and serving a life sentence. The motion had been made on the basis of a signed confession by Mr. Corn's father not long before his death. The judge ruled, based on handwriting analysis, that the confession was written by the mother, however, would be inadmissible as evidence and therefore could not change the result of the prior trial.

Dick Young of The News tells of a revision to the plans for a Western link of Independence Boulevard, to carry it under Morehead Street near its intersection with South Boulevard, having been presented to City officials by officials of the State Highway Commission this date.

In Oakland, California, the "Ding Dong Daddy of the D Line", accused of marrying his 16th wife without first divorcing his 15th wife, was again placed in jail for bigamy, having previously served a sentence at San Quentin for the same offense based on prior marriages, from which he had been released five years earlier. The 66-year old former streetcar conductor was appearing in an Oakland burlesque theater, billed under the act "My True Love Life", where he was to be arrested the previous night by two Los Angeles police officers bearing the warrant, but for the fact that he was not initally present. But his manager subsequently appeared on the stage, indicating that he would give himself up, which he then did.

In Detroit, a waitress at a hamburger stand the previous night had encountered a man who stood with his hand in his coat pocket saying that he was holding up the stand, whereupon the waitress reached under the counter and produced a .32-caliber automatic pistol and told him that it was not a holdup. The robber then removed his hand from his pocket, reached across the counter and grabbed the weapon, saying, "Now it is." He then departed with $50 from the cash register.

In Brookville, Ind., a blank charge from an American Legion cannon two years earlier had scorched the seat of the pants of a man from Indianapolis who was standing six inches from the muzzle, prompting him to sue the Legion for the $20 cost of his trousers and $39 in consequential medical treatment and lost time at work.

Sounds like assumption of risk, assuming it is not a comparative negligence jurisdiction. In any event, next time don't be so stupid as to stand six inches from the muzzle.

On the editorial page, "Eisenhower Heads Down the Middle" indicates that General Eisenhower the previous day in Boise, Idaho, in his first address of a political nature since the convention, had indicated that he would go squarely down the "middle way", neither left nor right. It finds it a difficult assignment, as the "middle way" was difficult to find in a confused era and difficult to maintain once found. It was easy enough to describe the left and the right.