The Charlotte News
Saturday, August 30, 1952
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports, via Milo Farneti, that the U.S. Fifth Air Force had indicated that U.S. Sabre jets had this date shot down at least five enemy MIG-15s and damaged 12 others, one of which was probably destroyed, in dogfights near Suiho Dam and Sinuiju in northwest Korea, after 100 enemy jets had crossed the Yalu River from Manchuria less than 24 hours after U.N. fighter-bombers had hit Pyongyang in record numbers on Friday, in one of the heaviest air raids of the war. Seventy-nine Sabre jets had engaged the enemy jets, the largest enemy armada to appear in several months. The total U.N. bag for August thus far had reached 30 MIGs destroyed, three others probably destroyed and 42 damaged, the best monthly record of the war.
The previous night, 17 B-29's, flying from Japan, had followed up the Pyongyang raid with a raid on newly repaired enemy power installations at the Changjin Reservoir in northeast Korea.
The Friday raid on supply centers, factories and political centers at Pyongyang had been accomplished with few, if any, U.N. losses of planes. One Marine pilot reported that his squadron had dropped 104 tons of bombs on an underground meeting place for high enemy officials.
In its weekly summary, the Air Force indicated that three U.N. planes had been shot down by ground fire and one lost by unexplained causes, though not indicated whether those planes were lost during the Pyongyang raid.
The U.S. and Britain this date proposed a three-point settlement of the Anglo-Iranian oil crisis, including a grant of 10 million dollars from the U.S. to Iran. The President and Prime Minister Churchill made the offer personally to Iranian Premier Mohammed Mossadegh. The terms were that the matter would be submitted to the World Court regarding compensation to be paid to the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. for its property in Iran, which had been nationalized 18 months earlier, that there would be appointment of "suitable representatives" for the Iranian Government and the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. to negotiate arrangements for the flow of oil from Iran to world markets, that if the Iranian Government accepted the first two points, then the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. would release for immediate sale 20 million to 30 million dollars worth of oil presently held in Iran by a legal blockade, Britain would relax restrictions on export to Iran and on Iran's use of British sterling, and the U.S. would make an immediate grant of the 10 million dollars to the Iranian Government to assist in its budgetary problem.
In Springfield, Ill., the DNC committeeman from Oregon, Monroe Sweetland, had conferred with Governor Stevenson this date and predicted that he would win all of the Northwestern states in the fall election, including Utah, Idaho, Montana, Washington and Oregon. He stated that four months earlier, he had said that General Eisenhower might carry all five states, but that the General's "middle-of-the-road" speech in Boise, Idaho, recently had disappointed voters in the region and cost the General those five states. He said that he looked like "another tired old Republican after having been in the captivity of the Republican bosses for two months". He had not been specific about the things about which the people of the Northwest were concerned, the development of electric power, the allocation of land and water rights.
Governor Stevenson was reported to have been pleased with his two days of speechmaking in and around New York, and was now preparing for his Labor Day speeches in Detroit, Pontiac and Flint, Mich., on Monday. Some political observers believed that he would use the occasions to advocate repeal of Taft-Hartley.
General Eisenhower had said that he favored state, rather than Federal action, to assure equal employment opportunities. Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., had accused Governor Stevenson of double-talk in urging abolition of Senate filibusters for having blocked action on the FEPC and other anti-discrimination legislation, as the Democrats had controlled the Senate for the previous four years without doing anything to enable the breaking of filibusters. He had also accused Senator John Sparkman, the vice-presidential nominee, of opposing a civil rights program while speaking in Alabama in 1950. Senator Sparkman told reporters in Chicago that he was "completely in accord" with Governor Stevenson's view on civil rights, but declined to discuss in detail the proposed FEPC, anti-poll tax and anti-lynch laws.
Another Gallup poll appears which had asked respondents to predict the winner of the fall election, regardless of who their personal choice was, with General Eisenhower having been predicted by 45 percent, Governor Stevenson by 36 percent, and 19 percent not venturing a guess. Since the poll had been tapping this prediction, the public had missed only one out of the previous four elections, that being 1948, when a majority had predicted that Governor Dewey would win. For a time during the 1940 campaign, a majority had predicted that Wendell Willkie would defeat President Roosevelt.
In Wadesboro, N.C., former Assistant U.S. Attorney General Lamar Caudle would testify the following Tuesday before the House committee investigating alleged Justice Department irregularities. He told The News this date that he would leave the next day, would testify in executive session, and would impart to the committee anything he could about the St. Louis grand jury case. He declined comment about the case at present. He said that he understood that former Attorney General J. Howard McGrath would also testify before the committee.
In Sioux City, Iowa, a six-year old girl with polio, unaware of the death from polio the prior Tuesday of her four-year old brother, was eagerly awaiting a visit by her father who had been airlifted from a military transport at sea and flown home. Her father had already arrived, but he and his wife first had to attend to funeral arrangements for their son, and he did not wish to upset his daughter's routine by yet letting her know that he was present. She said that she had some new dollies to show her father. Her mother had lost 31 pounds since March and weighed only 89 pounds, having a spinal ailment on which doctors were hesitant to operate until her husband was present.
Near Carthage, N.C., a man was killed and five others injured in a predawn highway accident, after the car in which they were riding hit a parked truck on U.S. Highway 15.
In Baltimore, Governor Theodore McKeldin commuted a sentence of 10 lashes by a whip to have been administered to a man of Frederick, who had been convicted of wife-beating. The Governor said that the offense was "peculiarly brutal and revolting" but that "a higher standard of civilized conduct than that exemplified by the convicted man" had to be expected from the State, so as not to repeat the crime in the punishment. The defendant had also been sentenced to six months in jail. The Governor noted that all except one other state had abolished whipping as "barbarous and inhuman". He stated that he would like to see it abolished in Maryland.
The first hurricane-strength storm of the season, denominated "Able", was about 100 miles east of Jacksonville, with slow northwest movement expected to bring hurricane force winds of 75 mph or more to the Georgia coast this night. Hurricane warnings had been posted along a 250-mile stretch of the Atlantic Coast, between Fernandina, Fla., and Georgetown, S.C. Rain was falling from Jacksonville, Fla., to Charleston, S.C., and while tides were surging high, winds had not yet become heavy along the coast. Residents in the storm-warning area were headed for shelter, boarding up their homes and generally preparing for the hurricane. Practically all of about 5,000 summer visitors and residents of Tybee Island and Savannah Beach had evacuated to escape the predicted high water during the afternoon high tide this date. A Savannah Beach official said that some residents were going to remain on the island, come what may, but that others were pulling out by the hundreds. The situation was similar at dozens of other islands and resorts. A 1947 hurricane had hit Tybee Island with 100 mph winds after heading seaward, causing damage running into the millions of dollars. The highest winds were estimated at around 90 mph near the storm center and there were indications of slow intensification as the storm advanced. Charleston area residents were advised to prepare for winds up to 75 mph during the afternoon. Gales might reach 150 mph northward from the eye of the storm, which extended about 200 miles northeast and 75 miles west of the storm's center.
Those two rising Duke freshmen who were canoeing from Rutherfordton to Charleston had better row fast so that they don't get blown out of the water all the way to Durham.
On the editorial page, "The Lesson of the Moscow Moves" tells of Pravda the previous week having carried a statement by Premier Stalin which called for a meeting in October of the All-Union Party Congress, which had not met since 1939. He had also enunciated the goals of the current five-year plan and indicated a new party statute which would broaden the base of membership in the Russian Communist Party. Stated organizational changes in the Soviet government were to be formalized at the October meeting.
Meanwhile, a Chinese delegation, headed by Premier Chou En-lai, held a series of conferences with Premier Stalin and other Russian leaders.
It wonders what those moves portended, whether peace or war. It was possible that Premier Stalin was suggesting his successor when he announced that Georgi Malenkov would report to the Congress. It was also possible that enthusiasm for greater defense efforts would come from the meeting. Many observers believed that something big was in the offing, and that whatever it was would not be good for the West.
The New York Times believed that it suggested a last call for Western Europe to unite or be gobbled up by Communism. The piece suggests that the moves might portend the tightening of the grip by the Communist Party on Russia, as it had in the Eastern European satellites, and that strengthening of the Russia-China axis would create a power bloc dwarfing Europe and the free nations of Southeast Asia. It suggests that it provided reason for the free world, not just Europe, to unite. Despite the difficulties, that unity had to be achieved because the Communist threat was long-range and the Western defense remained short-range, because the Communists were well-organized and the free nations were not. It indicates that there would be no return to the pre-World War II status quo. There might be war even with such an organization and unity, but without it, the risk would be even greater. Such a goal, it posits, offered hopes for peace as well as defense against war.
"Eye-to-Eye" indicates that on the prior February 12, Senator Willis Smith of North Carolina had told an audience in Charlotte that the persons responsible for high Federal spending were "radical elements of the Democratic Party which are trying to bring about socialism". Two days later, The News had disputed the statement and quoted a Congressional Quarterly breakdown of the President's 1953 budget, showing that 88.4 percent of all proposed spending would be for wars, past and present, and foreign aid, leaving only 11.6 percent covering all domestic functions of Government, including the "socialistic" domestic policy.
Senator Smith had taken exception to the editorial in a letter and stated that its facts on war and foreign aid spending had been wrong.
The previous day, in Switzerland, Senator Smith had told an audience that more than 80 percent of the budget for the previous two years had been devoted to "items of foreign aid and defense".
It concludes: "That's where we came in."
"An Unwise Proposal, Wisely Rejected" tells of the State Highway Commission having taken the only possible course when it had rejected a plea from pulpwood companies to increase the weight limits on the state's newly-paved secondary roads. Lifting those initial weight limits before the roadbeds were properly settled could cost the taxpayers of the state millions of dollars in expensive repairs, just to save the pulpwood haulers a few dollars. It hopes that the Commission would be equally firm if there were a similar move in the 1953 General Assembly.
"Unwarranted Charges" tells of the Salisbury Post having stated that rumors in the town for the previous few months had it that the United World Federalists was a Communist-front organization, such charges having been voiced the prior week at the Veterans Council. When the Council convened a special session, called by the UWF members implicated, the accusers were absent and silent.
It suggests that possibly the stature of one of the men present and defending the UWF, dean of the UNC Law School Henry Brandis, had cowed the critics.
It indicates that any suggestion that the UWF was subversive or a Communist-front organization was nonsense, that some of its doctrines were poorly reasoned and it had too much faith in the peace-keeping ability of its proposed universal system of law, but that it was also one of the bulwarks of the U.N. and had fostered a sane spirit of internationalism.
The organization had been attacked in publications of the D.A.R. and the V.F.W. It suggests that it would be a bad day when a burning desire for peace could be construed as being pro-Communism.
A piece from the Greensboro Daily News, titled "Picking out Cantaloupes", indicates that some of the editors around the state had been engaging in the topic of how to select a good cantaloupe, indicating that there was no formula for guaranteed results. The editors had been in touch with the Guilford County farm agent and the home demonstration agent at A. & T. College, the first having said that one should try to obtain a firm and healthy-looking cantaloupe, while the second had advised selection of one firm all around and a little soft on the ends. Amateurs were just as vague about their advice, some indicating color as an index, and others, smell or texture, or all of those qualities. Some suggested particular types of cantaloupe, as the Rocky Ford or the Emerald Gem. A native of Scotland County, where cantaloupes grew in abundance, stated that he did not know whether he could impart how to select a good one, but that he knew it when he saw it. He said that it should not be green, but straw-colored between the nets, and should be netted. The cantaloupe also should be one not pulled prematurely for shipping, that such examples never became sweet.
The piece admits that it had no expertise in the matter, that the cantaloupes it thought looked best turned out worst and that those which looked worst turned out to be the most flavorful.
Governor Fuller Warren of Florida, substituting for Drew Pearson while he was on vacation, writes from Tallahassee, suggesting that Mr. Pearson was a great man but a little careless with fire, just as a homeless citizen of Atlanta had once remarked about General Sherman. He regards Mr. Pearson as a "clever and cagey" writer, but a little careless with the facts. He points out that President Roosevelt had once said that he was a "chronic liar". The Governor says he would not go that far, that Mr. Pearson sometimes told the truth, that occasionally truth crept into his column, even if not intentionally. He suggests that Mr. Pearson mangled the truth when he turned the column into a vehicle for propaganda for an aspiring politician, as he frequently did. He also finds that he often prostituted the column in engaging in character assassination. Despite the fact that many untrue statements had been pointed out to Mr. Pearson, he rarely retracted those statements, sometimes voluntarily correcting trivial untruths while sticking to his "big lies".
He suggests that Mr. Pearson had told roughly two dozen lies about the Governor within the previous two years. He indicates that one column on June 3 had contained a large number of such lies, and that Mr. Pearson had suggested to the Florida Legislature that those statements be incorporated into articles of impeachment. He did not mention that the Florida House had already overwhelmingly rejected the stale accusations. One Florida newspaper had reacted by indicating that Mr. Pearson had warmed over some old, discredited stories, already rejected by the Legislature.
The Governor states that he was not angry with Mr. Pearson—to whom he refers as "Colonel" or "Baron" throughout. He indicates that he had a benevolence of nature which made it difficult to feel harshly toward him, despite his "recurring tramplings upon truth". He indicates that when truth did creep into his column, the public weal was served. He says that he would not silence Mr. Pearson but would like him to reach at least a 50-50 rate of fact versus falsehood.
Marquis Childs tells of Governor Stevenson having made a bold speech to the American Legion convention in New York the prior Wednesday, despite the fact that reason might have dictated caution, especially since he was only technically a veteran, that having arisen from the fact that in 1917, while a freshman at Princeton, he had joined the Naval training unit to prepare to become an officer. During World War II, suggests Mr. Childs, he might have followed the example of Senator Paul Douglas, who joined the Army as a private at the age of 41, but instead had chosen to go into the civilian branch of service, as an assistant to Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox.
Rather than an apologetic speech to the Legion, the Governor indicated that he did not intend to accept pressure from any lobbying group, including the Legion and other veterans groups. He assailed those who embraced a false patriotism by exploiting the Communist scare. He did not name names, but he did not have to do so, clearly having in mind Senators Joseph McCarthy, William Jenner, and others of the stripe. In so doing, he sought to make it more difficult for General Eisenhower to embrace those two Senators, especially given their attacks on General Marshall, attacks which Governor Stevenson bitterly criticized. He also made a point of noting that he had vetoed a bill passed by the Illinois Legislature which would have set up a system of loyalty tests. He decried self-appointed censors and "thought police" who dictated what should and should not be taught in the public schools. At least one of his advisers had favored taking out the statement about the pressure groups, but the Governor wanted to leave it in.
Joseph Alsop also looks at Governor Stevenson's speech to the Legion, finding him to have entered the lion's den and come out unscathed and "in glory". He warns the Republicans to take note of the fact, that he had shown his mettle before the veterans. Mr. Alsop recapitulates the ground covered by Mr. Childs in terms of the content of the speech.
A draft of the speech had circulated in the hall before its delivery and so the audience had an idea of what the Governor would say to them. The galleries were filled with non-Legionnaire Stevenson supporters, cheering loudly. But at first, there seemed little enthusiasm on the floor until he got into the speech, initially kidding the Legionnaires, saying that he knew that they were much too busy visiting New York museums and art galleries to desire to hear him speak, causing them to laugh and listen. His delivery of the little joke was perfect, and Mr. Alsop indicates that he could have made a pretty good dry comic, in the form of Fred Allen. His speaking style had been unemphatic, without oratorical flourish, but nevertheless possessed of passion, especially when he spoke solemnly of true patriotism not consisting of "short, frenzied bursts of emotion, but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime". He also was quite convincing in stating his regard for the beauty of the land, communicating depth of feeling in the words. In the end, it was evident that he had stirred the audience. The whole hall, including hundreds of Legionnaires who had disapproved of most of what he had said, joined in loud and admiring cheers.
A letter writer from Cheraw, S.C., calls attention to the critics of Governor Stevenson's stand on tidelands oil, for which the writer believes everyone ought compliment him for siding with the Supreme Court's decision on the matter, holding that the Federal Government had the right to the tidelands oil. The writer suggests that when the big manufacturing concerns had things go their way, as when the Supreme Court had struck down in the mid-Thirties the National Recovery Act as being an unconstitutional cession of Congressional authority to the executive branch, they sided with the Court, but when things went the other way, they rebelled against it. He says he that would vote for Governor Stevenson.
A letter writer says in one sentence that Ambassador to Mexico William O'Dwyer could say to King Farouk, "not so bad if you are still on the payroll."
A letter writer from Pinehurst responds to a letter of August 20 regarding the albatrosses of General Eisenhower, including McCarthyism. He suggests that the reasons provided by the General and Senators Nixon and Mundt as to why Senator McCarthy should be re-elected, as long he became the GOP nominee, showed that they had a "bear by the tail" and could not let it go. There remained also the question of support of Senator Jenner. He finds that anyone who retained American ideals of fair-play, sportsmanship and decency could not dismiss McCarthyism as trivial, but indicates that the prior letter writer had done so.
A letter writer advises putting the comic strip "Peanuts" on the comics page, as her father liked it and she liked it, having seen it in the New York World-Telegram.
Never heard of it and never want to see it. Comics are stupid, appeal to illiterates.
A letter writer from Bennettsville, S.C., responds to the August 27 editorial cartoon and editorial titled, "Putting Principle above Party", by referring the editors to the New York Times of August 24, on page 50, quoting from General Eisenhower, in an April letter to Jack Porter, the RNC committeeman from Texas, having said that he favored state ownership of tidelands oil but had later stated that he was not aware of the Supreme Court decision which had declared that the Federal Government had the superior interest in the tidelands. The writer concludes that the General had jumped without knowing how deep the water was, or whether it contained a stump.
He also comments on the editorial titled "Double Burial", counseling burial of the terms "police action" and "Truman's War", asking whether there was anything dishonorable about a "police action" in Korea and whether the Korean situation was not in fact that, despite it having grown considerably since the term had been originally employed by the President at the outset of the war, in June, 1950.
As to the query of the Johnson City (Tenn.) Press-Chronicle, regarding what makes the Smoky Mountains smoky, we would say that it is because there is a lot of smoke up yonder, that a lot of people are smoking constantly or producing smoke in their little cabins, and that the smoke has got to go somers, so it just floats up 'ar 'n' congregates. Why it don't do that in t'other mountains is 'cause not so many people smoke or make smoke 'ar like 'at. It could be 'cause Smokey the B'ar lives up 'ar, too.
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