The Charlotte News
Saturday, September 27, 1952
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports, via George McArthur, that U.S. and Belgian infantrymen this date had repulsed 300 Communist Chinese troops in a seven-hour battle for a hill on the western front in Korea, the Communists breaking off the fight at dawn. Allied patrols had reported many enemy dead in the battle area.
General James Van Fleet, commander of the U.S. Eighth Army, congratulated allied units for recapturing "Old Baldy" hill on the western front and defending key hills near the "Punchbowl" a week earlier. He specifically praised the South Korean Eighth Division for a "magnificent performance" in the Punchbowl sector.
In the air war, allied pilots had shot down eight enemy MIG jets during the week, and one U.N. plane, a prop-driven F7F Tigercat, had been lost to unexplained causes. The total enemy jets shot down thus far during the month of September had reached 56, shattering the previous record of the prior April, at 44.
A North Korean security officer who had fled the Panmunjom neutral zone and surrendered to the allies said this date to reporters that in June, 1951, he had seen about 20 Russians dressed in Chinese Communist uniforms at the Sinuiju airfield across the Yalu River from Manchuria, and that it was his understanding that they had installed anti-aircraft guns but did not know whether they had remained to operate them. He indicated that he had heard of a Soviet pilot flying Communist jets in June, 1951, and of two others the previous spring. He had also heard that Russian advisers were attached to the North Korean Army officers school and had been sent to various government ministries in North Korea after the outbreak of the war. He said that most of the arms and ammunition used by North Korean forces were Russian-made and that about half of the arms used by the Chinese Communists had come from Russia. He had been a security officer at the truce talks until deserting on September 5. Eighth Army officers did not indicate whether they believed him. High-ranking American officers had reported publicly that Russian-speaking pilots in Communist jets had been heard over radio communciations by allied airmen in the so-called MIG alley of northwest Korea.
Governor Stevenson completed a tour of Indiana this date, promising "bare bones economy" in the Government if elected, and briefly defending the fund he had set up to supplement the State incomes of a small number of State officials he had appointed from the private sector. He criticized Senator William Jenner of Indiana as "a man who slanders one of our greatest patriots and deprecates in ugly words the gallantry and sacrifice of Korea and the fight for freedom and peace", referencing the Senator's statement anent General Marshall as a "front man for traitors". He said that General Eisenhower was inexperienced at government and could not work miracles with a meat axe or with mirrors in cutting Federal spending. He also said that Senator Taft would be writing the labor laws and conducting the foreign policy in an Eisenhower Administration. This date, the Governor was traveling through Kentucky, where he would talk in Paducah, the hometown of Vice-President Alben Barkley, and then speak, along with the Vice-President, in Louisville at the Memorial Auditorium, in what was billed as a foreign policy address.
The Governor released to reporters this date the names of contributors, the amounts each had given, and recipients of the proceeds of the fund established for the few State employees. The names were not to be made public until this night, and the list was accompanied by a statement of the Governor, also not to be made public until this night. Reports published in advance stated that the total of the fund was about $18,000, out of a campaign fund for the Governor which had once totaled $160,000, generated for the Governor's 1948 campaign and in later Illinois campaigns. Three State officials appointed by the Governor had already disclosed that they had been beneficiaries of the fund. Several other department heads in Illinois had denied receiving any compensation from the fund.
General Eisenhower, after campaigning in Richmond, Va., was taking a three-day respite to return to New York from his second brief tour of the South, to write speeches and rest, before flying to Columbia, S.C. In Richmond, he had been greeted by 20,000 persons who shouted "I like Ike", as he spoke on the Virginia statehouse lawn. The crowd expressed its approval when he said that Senator Harry F. Byrd more nearly represented their opinion than did the Truman Fair Deal, adding that nobody owned them. After the speech, he had walked down a wooden ramp, at which point he was caught in a crush of a crowd surging toward him, causing the ramp to crack and crash to the steps of the Capitol a few feet below, pushing the General forward to his knees, at which point Senator William Knowland of California, walking beside him, grabbed him and kept him from falling. The General straightened up, brushed off his suit, grinned and said that he was not hurt. None of the people who had fallen with the ramp were injured beyond a few scratches. The General had been campaigning continuously for 12 days through the Midwest and South. In all, reporters estimated that about 140,000 persons had turned out to see him in the South.
The President began his 8,500-mile, 15-day campaign trip across 24 states this date, during which he would seek to convince voters that it would be "dangerous" to return the Republicans to power. It would be his first strictly political whistle-stop tour of the presidential campaign. He would argue that isolationists dominated the Republican foreign policy and that a Republican victory therefore would endanger hopes for world peace. He would remind crowds along the way that he had recommended the prior September legislation to the Congress which would have obviated the problem with the Nixon expense fund by requiring members of Congress to disclose the sources and amounts of all outside income. He would deliver major speeches in Buffalo and New York, two in Montana, three in Washington State, two in California, at San Francisco and at the dedication of the Shasta Dam, and two others at Provo, Utah, and Shenandoah, Iowa. In addition, he would make 77 whistle-stop talks. His daughter Margaret would accompany the President on the trip. His first stop would be in Pittsburgh, but he would make no talk there, following his rule against making political addresses on Sundays. On Monday, he would travel through Ohio and Indiana, making about six stops along the way.
UNC president Gordon Gray, who had been praised warmly the previous day by General Eisenhower during two North Carolina speeches, one in Charlotte and the other in Winston-Salem, released a statement saying that he was not taking any part in the presidential campaign. Mr. Gray had been the Secretary of the Army while the General had been chief of staff. The General also praised former Secretary of the Army Kenneth Royall of Goldsboro, N.C., saying that high government jobs ought to go to such men as Mr. Royall and Mr. Gray. Mr. Royall had announced that he would support the General and had accompanied him during his North Carolina tour.
Mr. Gray would be appointed to three posts in the Administration, beginning in 1955, including that of director of Defense Mobilization, in 1957-1958, and National Security Advisor, between 1958 and the end of the Eisenhower term in office in 1961.
The U.S. Government stood behind Ambassador to Russia George Kennan, following an unprecedented propaganda barrage out of Pravda in Moscow, but officials in Washington conceded that the Kremlin might force him to be recalled. The criticism had followed a comment by Mr. Kennan to reporters while in Berlin on September 19, comparing the present treatment of American diplomats in Moscow to that of interned Americans in Germany by the Nazis in 1941-42. Mr. Kennan had begun his time as Ambassador the prior May, with the avowed hope of restoration of more normal diplomatic relations between the two countries. Speculation in Washington was that such effort did not suit the Russians at a time when there was a great hate campaign ongoing against the U.S.
Starting the following day, a series of events would begin to mark the 500th anniversary of publication of the Gutenberg Bible, the first book ever printed with movable type. On Monday, the first part of a new Catholic translation, the first translation in history undertaken by the American Catholic clergy, would be issued, and on Tuesday, a new, complete revision of the King James Version, marking the culmination of a 15-year Protestant interdenominational project, would also be issued. Volume No. 1 of the "Interpreter's Bible", the third of 12 massive volumes issued as a result of a one million dollar program to compile all modern knowledge of the Scriptures, would also be issued on Tuesday. Churchmen hailed the releases as one of the greatest events in all of Biblical publishing history. The Post Office Department was issuing a special stamp commemorating the Gutenberg Bible on Tuesday. The following day marked the start of Bible Week observations for Catholics, Protestants and Jews.
Hurricane "Charlie", the third of the season, was moving in a northeasterly direction at 25 mph out of the Atlantic, well off the coast of the Carolinas, and was predicted to continue moving in that general direction for the ensuing 12 hours, packing winds of about 125 mph near its center and hurricane force winds of 75 mph extending outward 80 to 100 miles north and east of its center. Hurricane "Dog", the fourth storm of the season, was reported the previous night by the San Juan, Puerto Rico, Weather Bureau to be about 450 miles east of Antigua, British West Indies, moving west-northwest at about 10 mph, with winds of about 75 mph near its center, extending over a small area.
In Paris, actress Rita Hayworth and her estranged husband, Prince Aly Khan, said this date that their divorce was off indefinitely. Ms. Hayworth had been pressing for a divorce in Reno. The Prince stopped to talk to reporters, telling them that she had her job and he had his, and that the two did not interfere with each other's business. Ms. Hayworth, apparently upset with the Prince for stopping to talk to reporters, rushed out of the restaurant into the Prince's black Cadillac convertible and drove off alone. Sounds like an auspicious start to a reunion.
The News continued to receive letters vying for two $25 bonds for the two best letters, one from a student and one from an adult, on why it was important to register and vote. The story provides some samples.
In Dallas, Texas, a man listened quietly the previous day while a physician advised him to avoid all excitement and take a long rest in bed after he had collapsed in the hospital lobby of a heart attack. He refused the doctor's advice, saying that he had to return to his job, and left the hospital in a taxi, explaining that he was the lion handler for Ringling Brothers-Barnum & Bailey Circus.
Can he handle Dick?
On the editorial page, "It's About Time, Governor" finds that it was time for Governor Stevenson to provide the details of his fund established to supplement the State incomes of certain appointed officials, eight or nine in number, who had come from the private sector at a significant cut in pay. It finds that the Governor had been less than forthright since this fund had been publicized in the wake of the publicity surrounding the Nixon fund. The Governor had stated that there was no secrecy about it, but had initially declined to reveal the names of the contributors and the recipients, who had received the money in the form of salary bonuses at Christmas. There was no evidence that the Governor, himself, received any of the money, and there was no evidence that those who provided the money knew who the recipients were or that the recipients knew who the contributors were.
It finds, nevertheless, that the principle was the same as that involved in the Nixon fund, as public servants sacrificed some measure of their integrity if they accepted and used special contributions from private citizens. It reiterates that it was indefensible for Senator Nixon to have done so, and finds it also indefensible in the case of Governor Stevenson. The Governor had known who the contributors were and who was receiving the money, and thus risked compromising himself by those who had provided the money having greater authority over those who received it. It therefore asserts that there was due a full and detailed explanation from the Governor. It finds that the establishment of the fund had demonstrated "incredibly bad judgment" on the Governor's part, but that he could make amends by full disclosure of the matter.
As the front page reports, he was releasing the full accounting this date.
"Diplomatic Rules Work Both Ways" tells of Pravda having coined some phrases which political candidates might co-opt, such as "ecstatic liar", "slander disguised as a diplomat", "violator of elementary rules", "enemy of peace", "guilty of slanderous fabrications, malicious hostility and obvious nonsense", all of which the official Soviet organ had applied to U.S. Ambassador to Moscow George Kennan. Pravda was upset with Mr. Kennan's statement in Berlin earlier in the month, comparing the existence of U.S. diplomats in Moscow with that of interned Americans in Berlin in 1941-42. He said that if the Nazis had permitted them to walk the streets without having any right to talk to Germans, it would be precisely the situation presently in Moscow.
It indicates that the Soviets had not been pleased with the appointment of Mr. Kennan to the post, as he had been the architect of the Administration's policy of containment while in the State Department, and this latest remark had probably only supplied the pretext for the open criticism by Pravda. Whether it was a forerunner of a demand by Moscow that he be recalled was not yet clear. It urges, however, that the policy of allowing Soviet diplomats to roam free and talk to anyone they wished within a 25-mile radius of the Washington Embassy ought be re-examined, given Mr. Kennan's statements about the conditions in Moscow for diplomats. It suggests that reciprocity in that regard might lead to the Russians loosening their restrictions.
"Grin, Shake, Talk—Some Routine" wonders whether the presidency, after having been the party nominee, was not relatively easy. It relates of General Eisenhower's schedule during the previous few days, following the problems of Senator Nixon and the need of the General to wrestle with his conscience, listen to a lot of conflicting advice, squeeze into a public phone booth with Arthur Summerfield for a long distance call, all the while keeping up his regular routine of speeches, including five extra stops in the Ohio Valley on Wednesday. Then, after meeting with Senator Nixon at the Wheeling airport in West Virginia that night, the General had spoken again, then listened to his running mate speak. On Thursday, there were more speeches, culminating with his Baltimore address on Thursday night, after which he boarded the train for Charlotte. Before his arrival, he had spoken to a group of people outside the train in Salisbury at 6:35 a.m., wearing his bathrobe over his pajamas, and a few minutes later had breakfast with his advisers and local politicians. Before 8:00, he spoke to local Republicans and newsmen, grinned for photographers, then arrived in Charlotte at 8:15, and finished his visit an hour later after a motorcade, a speech and numerous handshakes and smiles in the interim.
It suggests that most anyone could grow up to be President and many wanted to be, but if they were to follow a nominee for awhile, most aspirants to the job likely would "hustle back to the quiet life for keeps."
"Good Old Fair Time" finds that the fair coming to town would provide a respite from the coming month of politics, particularly for those raised in rural areas but now confined to the city. At the fair, one could compare samples of Irish Cobblers or Yellow Dent with those one had grown in younger years, and a woman might find a recipe which had not been printed in a book. One found the 4-H boys and girls displaying their calves in the livestock barns. And on the midway was the basketball throw, the spun cotton candy, and the rides to which the children were drawn. One heard the barkers and pitchmen with their various gadgets designed to afford better gas mileage and so forth, suggesting comparison to the politicians on the campaign trail. Leaving the fair, it suggests, the attendee, though tired, was better equipped to face the closing days of the campaign.
A piece from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, titled "Duck Wings, Rampant", tells of being pleased to see women getting into various trades and professions and taking active roles in politics, but finds it difficult to keep up with the volatile change in fashions and hairstyles from one season to the next, with plunging necklines at one time and rising necklines at another, along with similar variations in the length of skirts. Now, the poodle cut and the ponytail coiffure were out, a problematic turn of events, insofar as the poodle, for women who had just had their hair done accordingly, as hair would not grow back instanter. The ponytail could be drawn up into "Donald Duck", which was a "rampant duck wing".
It concludes that unless someone quickly determined what a duck wing was, whether "rampant or couchant", the piece would have to come out in self-defense for pigtails in buns.
Drew Pearson tells of a bitter power struggle ongoing aboard the Eisenhower campaign train among those seeking access to the candidate, a typical reaction, except for the division extant within the party. The struggle was between RNC chairman Arthur Summerfield, an Old Guard Republican, and Governor Sherman Adams, who had soundly defeated Senator Taft in the first primary in the nation in the Governor's home state of New Hampshire. It was unusual for a national committee chairman to travel on the same campaign train with the presidential candidate, but Senator Taft had advised Mr. Summerfield that he could not control the candidate unless he was with him. Senator Taft resented Governor Adams, representing the internationalist wing of the party, wanted to have the isolationist issue promoted, and so was trying to push the Governor out of the way and place another Taft supporter on the General's strategy board, acceptable to the General based on their agreement reached during their recent breakfast in New York. The Senator was trying to get Paul Walter, one of his campaign managers in Ohio, to accept the position.
He notes that Mr. Summerfield, a large Detroit Chevrolet dealer, had originally been a supporter of Senator Taft, but under pressure from G.M., had switched to General Eisenhower and was instrumental in delivering the nomination to the General, but now was back with Senator Taft, leading one Republican observer to remark that "a politician, like a leopard, doesn't change its spots."
In an ironic twist, Governor James Byrnes of South Carolina, who recently declared his support for General Eisenhower in the fall election, had been the first person to recommend Governor Stevenson to political boss Jack Arvey of Chicago. The Governor, in his role as Defense Mobilizer, had gotten to know Mr. Stevenson when he had been assistant to Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox during the war and later when he worked in the State Department during the time Mr. Byrnes was Secretary of State.
Stewart Alsop, in Springfield, Ill., tells of Governor Stevenson and his small staff of young political amateurs all being intellectuals, in that they were interested in ideas and in the words used to convey them. The Stevenson headquarters in Springfield thus resembled a small university town and the campaign reflected that atmosphere. Mr. Alsop indicates that it was the most intellectual and literate campaign waged since the time of Woodrow Wilson, raising the question of whether intellectuality made for good politics.
After the Governor's atomic energy speech in Hartford, Conn., Mr. Alsop had remarked to a young Connecticut Republican that many intelligent people, who would normally be considered Republican, had obviously accepted the Governor, to which he had acknowledged that all of the "eggheads" loved the Governor but then questioned how many eggheads there were. Mr. Alsop finds that a relevant question, relating that initially the "eggheads" around the Governor had been quite pleased with the reception he was getting from crowds, but now had begun to express concern after the speech the prior Tuesday night by Senator Nixon regarding his expense fund, a speech designed to take advantage of the accumulated skills of the entertainment and advertising industries and appeal to emotion rather than intellect.
The Senator's suggestion that he had been saving the taxpayers money was "hardly complimentary to the intelligence of his audience". But his portrayal of himself as a struggling, idealistic lawyer with devotion to his family and the family dog had resonated with Americans in the same way "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" had in an earlier time. Its emotional message seemed to possess what Governor Stevenson's speeches lacked, leaving the Governor sounding cold and impersonal by comparison. Such polished phrases as the Governor had stated in his Baltimore speech, as "like a new fog bank rising from a troubled sea" or "we shall survive with sacrifice or perish cheap", had sounded good on paper, but his staffers were beginning to wonder if those types of phrases would attract votes. Some of those aides were now beginning to believe that Senator Nixon's problem might turn out to be an asset for the Republican ticket. Another symptom of the Stevenson camp's self-doubt was that they were looking forward now to the whistle-stop tour by the President, to inject some spirit and enthusiasm into the campaign.
Mr. Alsop notes, however, that the voters were unpredictable, recounting an episode following the Governor's speech in Richmond, Va., in which he had referenced the literary achievements of Ellen Glasgow of Richmond and William Faulkner of Oxford, Miss., seemingly an odd choice of subjects in a political speech. But, afterward, Mr. Alsop had overheard an exchange between two elderly Southern ladies in which one had described it as a "funny sort of political speech", resembling more an address, to which the other lady indicated that the Governor knew that he was speaking to a "specially intelligent audience". Mr. Alsop concludes, therefore, that being an "egghead" might prove shrewder politics than anyone realized, "provided the egghead talks as though everyone else were an egghead, too."
Marquis Childs indicates that not since the return of General MacArthur in April, 1951 after his dismissal by the President, had there been such an injection of emotionalism into the political arena as had been supplied by the speech of Senator Nixon the prior Tuesday. The two occasions were not comparable except by the drama they had generated. Senator Nixon's speech had been a production with dramatic appeal, with his wife present and communicating the story about his little dog, and the Senator as the star performer. The role he had adopted of a crusader persecuted by his enemies was somewhat new to him, as in the past, he had behaved as a cool, detached prosecutor bringing evildoers to justice. The Senator, however, had pulled off the new role very well, with the response to his speech being comparable to that of General MacArthur's speech to the Congress. Women in the Cleveland Auditorium, awaiting the speech afterward by General Eisenhower, heard the speech via radio and reportedly wept openly as they listened. Similarly, women had reacted with tears to General MacArthur's address.
The speech had the effect of assuring that the Senator would be retained on the ticket, as organization Republicans were, almost without exception, opposed to dropping him, RNC chairman Arthur Summerfield having resisted it from the start. But the question had to be asked whether those who had reacted so emotionally to the speech were already convinced Republicans who would have voted for the ticket in any event, and whether the Nixon appeal would extend beyond the party faithful to the independents and dissatisfied Democrats, necessary for victory. Once the emotionalism had worn off, many might recall that the Senator's personal accounting had omitted an explanation for the source of a $20,000 cash down payment on his $41,000 Washington home, among other omissions which had been publicly criticized by observers after disclosure of the fund the prior week.
The main issue, he suggests, would be whether the identity of interest between the Senator and the wealthy contributors to the fund might directly or indirectly influence his decision on important legislation.
As to the down payment, it would take him perhaps 21 years to issue finally that explicatory statement
A letter from the international representative of the national CIO tells of Senator Clyde Hoey having been named by Lamar Caudle in his report to the House Judiciary subcommittee investigating the Justice Department, in relation to the Senator having represented a client in 1944, prior to becoming a Senator, speaking with then-Assistant Attorney General Tom Clark, successfully pleading the case of his client against criminal prosecution for a price control violation. The letter writer points out that Mr. Hoey had been the Democratic nominee for the Senate at that time and since nomination as a Democrat was tantamount to election in North Carolina, he ought confess the problem. He points out that on 16 of 21 key issues, the Senator was on the wrong side from labor interests, including a bill encouraging free foreign unions, statehood for Alaska, public health centers, medical school aid, increase of public housing units, publicizing public relief rolls, corporate tax loopholes, split income tax loopholes, keeping wage stabilization intact, permitting price rollbacks, using Taft-Hartley in the steel strike, fair trade, tidelands oil, the St. Lawrence Seaway, the "wet-back" enforcement fund, and overriding the immigration veto.
A letter writer from Hamlet urges the Government to learn to function better at home before trying to start functioning abroad, as history was replete with many failures of absentee government, from ancient Greece to Rome to England.
A letter writer finds Senator Nixon, in his speech of the prior Tuesday night, not to have stood up like a man, for the first thing a man did when he was in trouble was to bring in his wife, his children and his parents, to focus attention away from his own acts and encourage sympathy. He finds that his wife Pat had not solicited or accepted the fund and should not have been called upon to help provide the explanation by her appearance in the studio with the Senator. "It is the oldest trick in the world." He suggests that the old vaudeville actors had used it when they saw their audiences getting bored or starting to walk out, referring to home and mothers to appeal to the audience's emotions. He suggests that Southerners, accustomed to shielding their women from the trials and tribulations of the world, should have been the first to see through the "shabby trick" of the Senator.
A letter writer from Pittsboro finds Governor Stevenson to have ducked the issue on his fund by indicating that it went to his appointees, contrasting the fund with that of Senator Nixon, as the expense money had gone directly to the latter for expenses. This writer thinks that no public servant could be depended upon to represent properly the public interest when he was the recipient or beneficiary of an outside subsidy. He believes that such a fund also carried with it the prospect of influence by the contributor, who had an advantage over the average citizen in Illinois. He indicates that he had almost prayed the previous night that Senator Nixon would resign from the ticket at the close of his broadcast rather than leaving it up to the RNC to determine his fate. He believes that the Democrats wanted to "chew upon his bones", to take the heat off of them and distract from the issues of the campaign. He indicates that President Wilson had refused to allow his brother to be on the Federal payroll as he considered nepotism to be a vicious public policy, and that Senator William Borah had refused to accept an increase in his salary during his term, on the basis that he had been under a contract to the people to serve them at the salary in effect when he had been elected. He wonders whether there were politicians still on the scene of that type.
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