The Charlotte News

Friday, September 5, 1952

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that Governor Stevenson and General Eisenhower had both hit the campaign trail this date, with the Governor heading to Denver to speak this night regarding the Republican claim that it was time for a change. The Governor's Western tour would last nine days. The General was headed for Chicago for policy conferences with Republican leaders from Illinois, Michigan and Indiana, with a talk scheduled before Cook County precinct and ward workers this night. The following day, the two candidates would both appear at the National Plowing Contest in Kasson, Minn.

The previous night, the General had appeared before 17,500 persons at Philadelphia's Convention Hall, delivering a speech on foreign policy, carried nationally via NBC television and radio. His audience responded positively when he declared that America could lead the world to peace.

In Austin, Texas, an unnamed aide to Governor Allan Shivers of Texas said this date that Jonathan Daniels, editor of the Raleigh News & Observer and former Democratic national committeeman from North Carolina, was absolutely wrong when he had said the previous night that the Governor had violated a pledge given the credentials committee of the Democratic national convention by refusing to support Governor Stevenson for the presidency. The aide stated that the Governor's only pledge at the convention had been that he would see to it that the Democratic nominees were placed on the Texas ballot in November. Mr. Daniels had said that he had asked the Governor that if he were seated as a delegate whether he would be bound by the decision of the convention on a nominee and that Governor Shivers had responded that he would. He regarded the Governor's position as reported in the press to be a violation of that personal pledge. Governor Shivers's delegation had been seated at the convention after a contest before the credentials committee. Since the convention, Governor Shivers had stated that he could not support Governor Stevenson because of his views on tidelands oil, refusing to support state ownership. Mr. Daniels stated this date that he had been correct in quoting Governor Shivers and that the statement had been made at a public session of the committee. He said that he was not surprised that the Governor had not denied personally the accuracy of the statement by Mr. Daniels. He expressed his surprise, however, at the Associated Press having permitted itself to be made the vehicle for broadcasting the contest of his veracity with no authority other than that of an unidentified person unwilling to assume responsibility for his own statements.

Another Gallup poll appears, sampling the head-to-head matchup between Governor Stevenson and General Eisenhower, finding that the General led 51 percent to 43 percent, with 6 percent undecided. If the undecided voters behaved as they had in 1948, Governor Stevenson would capture the majority of them, potentially bringing the Governor to within two percentage points of the General. The General was currently running five percentage points stronger than Governor Dewey had in 1948 in the Middle-Atlantic states, and approximately 10 percentage points stronger in the Midwestern farm states. In the East Central section, comprising Illinois, Ohio, Indiana and Michigan, Governor Stevenson's home ground, the General was running about the same as had Governor Dewey. Reports on other sections of the country would be made by the poll in the near future. When respondents were asked who would likely win the election, Republicans, by a seven-to-two margin predicted General Eisenhower's victory, whereas Democrats, by a two-to-one margin, predicted that Governor Stevenson would win. It was the ninth national election covered by the Gallup polling organization since its founding in 1935, and it had been correct seven times, and wrong only once, in 1948. The average error on the division of popular votes in the eight correctly predicted elections had been 3.4 percentage points.

The Defense Department stated that there had been 94 new casualties in the latest weekly report on the Korean War, with 24 killed, 61 wounded, seven injured in accidents, and two missing.

The President named Henry Fowler, an attorney in Washington and Virginia, to be director of the Office of Defense Mobilization, succeeding Charles E. Wilson, who had resigned March 31 and had been temporarily succeeded as interim acting director by John Steelman. Mr. Fowler was presently Defense Production administrator.

Former Assistant Attorney General Lamar Caudle again testified in executive session before a House Judiciary subcommittee investigating the Justice Department and its failure to prosecute certain tax cases.

Former Secretary of State Cordell Hull, 80, was making slow improvement at Bethesda Naval Hospital, where he had been hospitalized a week earlier for a coronary thrombosis.

The American Psychological Association, holding its 60th annual convention in Washington, voted not to meet again in the nation's capital until something had been done to improve treatment of minority groups. The Association had received reports of discrimination against some of its black members, specifically involving an unnamed restaurant and an excursion boat.

In South Africa, 12 persons were killed and scores injured this date when a dynamite-filled truck had blown up at Welkom, a gold mining center in the Orange Free State. Police were investigating the cause.

In Straubing, Germany, an Army corporal from Gibsonville, N.C., an M.P., delivered a five-pound German baby boy after hearing the mother's screams coming from an adjoining apartment while he was visiting with friends. He sent for a doctor but before the doctor could arrive, the baby was born, with the soldier acting as midwife. Upon the arrival of the doctor, he congratulated the soldier for his performance.

In Charlotte, a former taxi driver who told police he would kill himself by driving a rented car into the Catawba River, led police on a five-mile chase along Wilkinson Boulevard the previous night before he was finally apprehended. City and County police were forced to shoot out the rear tires of his borrowed car to stop it. He was brought to trial in both City and County Recorders' Courts this date and given a total of 22 months on the roads on three charges of reckless driving, two charges of assault with a deadly weapon and one charge of failing to stop at an intersection. He had initially been spotted driving recklessly and somehow found out that he was wanted on the charge, called police headquarters and told the desk sergeant that he was driving his car into the Catawba River and did not want anyone to attempt to stop him.

Tom Fesperman of The News tells of the North Carolina director of the Office of Price Stabilization reporting that thousands of Americans were stranded in Europe because there was not enough space on planes and ships to bring them all home at present. The director had returned from Europe the previous afternoon, indicating that Americans were literally camping out at airports for days waiting to catch home-bound flights. He said that many were schoolteachers and students who were supposed to have already returned to begin school. They did not have much money and were afraid of running out before finding transportation. When he had reached Shannon Airport in Ireland on Wednesday, he said that he encountered about 60 Americans who had gotten that far but could not get any further. He had encountered some people who had been begging to be allowed to sit on the floors of the airplanes. The trouble had been caused by record-breaking crowds of American tourists during the summer, most of whom wanted to return home at the beginning of September.

From Miami, it was reported that the season's second hurricane, "Baker", was moving slowly northward in the Atlantic this date 300 miles east southeast of Cape Hatteras, and was currently not threatening any land areas. Its highest winds remained estimated at 110 mph. The storm had slowed to 6 to 8 mph in its track and was expected to continue at that pace for the ensuing 12 hours. It was past Bermuda and too far away from the North Carolina coast to cause any damage.

In London, the trade journal Tailor and Cutter approved this date of the latest American gadget to hit the British Isles, the inflatable falsie. "In a bouncy essay titled 'All Hands to the Pumps', the bible of Bond Street hailed the new aid to allure as the greatest advance of its kind since the panty girdle." The editor of the journal had hailed it as an invention which could promise happiness to more than one "extant wallflower". "Who knows how many young girls, to whom the door of romance has hitherto remained bolted, may yet discover that their air is their crowning glory." The editor suggested, however, that in an overcrowded room where the temperature became too hot, there might transpire an embarrassing bang or two, leaving a suit modeled around a pneumatic figure not looking its best when a double-breasted fitting suddenly became single-breasted. It might even be worse should the wearer find herself involuntarily bursting the buttons of her bust after being busted.

On the editorial page, "The Candidates' Religious Beliefs" remarks on a letter to the editor this date from members of a men's Bible class, raising the question of the religious beliefs of the principal candidates for the presidency and vice-presidency. The piece responds that Who's Who in America had listed Democratic vice-presidential nominee Senator John Sparkman as a Methodist, Republican vice-presidential nominee Senator Richard Nixon as a Quaker, and listed no church affiliation for either Governor Stevenson or General Eisenhower. A brochure published by the Illinois Stevenson-for-President Committee stated that the Governor was a Unitarian. The church which the Eisenhower family had attended when the General had been a boy had been, according to Current Biography, the Swiss-founded Brethren in Christ. The piece indicates that, to the best of its knowledge, the General belonged to no particular church.

It states that it would not begin to compare religious beliefs of the candidates or to evaluate them, as membership and work in a church did not necessarily indicate devoutness, that a comparison of statements of individuals could be misleading and meaningless, as hypocrites could speak piously. An humble, dedicated man might or might not belong to a church and he might or might not choose to proclaim the innermost thoughts he had in his relationship with God.

It concludes that the church membership of the candidates would likely not figure much in the campaign, despite the occasional remarks through time regarding the denominational affiliation of one or more candidates. North Carolinians could remember the "baseness" of the 1928 presidential campaign between Herbert Hoover and Governor Al Smith, when the latter's Catholicism had appeared important to many voters. It suggests that a man's religious beliefs were difficult for that person to put into words and that such was not required, even if seeking the presidency.

"Old Fogies Fade Out" tells of changes being accomplished in major upsets in primaries across the country. Senator Owen Brewster of Maine, who had been in the Congress for 18 years, had been defeated in the Republican primary by Governor Fred Payne. Senator Kenneth McKellar of Tennessee had been defeated by Representative Albert Gore for the Democratic nomination. Representative Gene Cox of Georgia had been beaten by Congressman Tom Abernethy for the Democratic nomination. And the Democrat favored by Nevada Senator Pat McCarran to face Republican Senator George Malone, Alan Bible, had been defeated by a former journalist who had just arrived in Nevada a few months earlier with the purpose of defeating the Senator's chosen candidate.

It concludes that there were not yet enough examples to suggest a movement toward or away from the Fair Deal or the Republican Old Guard. But there did seem definitely to be a trend away from "old fogies", a trend which it indicates it likes.

"Congress Faces Slow Start" tells of the Federal financial outlook promising to be more confused than usual the following January, regardless of which party controlled Congress and the Presidency. President Truman would chart a financial course by delivering the budget message and would possibly include an appraisal of the nation's economic health and suggest a legislative program in an economic report and the State of the Union message. A few days later, the new President would come into office, and inevitably would disagree with some of the matters laid out by President Truman.

That situation had been the case since the "lame duck" 20th amendment to the Constitution had been ratified in 1933, changing the inauguration date from March 4 to January 20 and the date on which Congress convened to January 3, unless Congress appointed a different date. Since that time, the incumbent had always been elected, and so this would be the first time that the change would create a potential problem. While the State of the Union and the economic report had been delivered previously at the start of each new session of Congress, they could be delayed, but the budget message was required by law to be submitted within 15 days of the convening of the Congressional session. The President had not indicated how he would proceed, and it was unlikely that he would do so until after the election. In any event, one Administration would assemble the reports while another would be responsible for acting on them.

It suggests that in the meantime, it could be hoped that the outgoing and incoming Presidents make the best of a bad situation, even if they wound up being of opposite party affiliation, by cooperating sufficiently to reduce the confusion and minimize the procrastination which would surely result.

"A Good Investment" tells of the Mecklenburg County Commissioners having recognized a bargain when they saw it, deserving compliments, for agreeing during the week that the City of Charlotte would initiate a planning survey, to be conducted by the UNC Department of City and Regional Planning. The chairman of the County Planning Board had estimated that it would cost about $25,000 to hire an outside expert to make such a survey, while under the plan approved, the City and County would each pay $3,000. The following January, ten graduate students from UNC would come to Charlotte to make the preliminary studies, while working under the supervision of a faculty member. Their reports would enable local residents to understand better and anticipate community problems. The survey would suggest long-range planning and would be of considerable interest to any industrialist who was considering locating in the area, as well to prospective home buyers. It would be useful to those who administered the government of the City and County, and would provide Mecklenburg residents with an overall picture of the community and what needed to be done to improve it.

A piece from the Twin City Sentinel of Winston-Salem, titled "Pinocchio Wins an Election", tells of Carlo Lorenzini having written Pinocchio 70 years earlier, as the story of a puppet whose nose grew longer as he lied. Pinocchio had recently helped to defeat the Communists in Pescia, Italy, where Mr. Lorenzini had written the story, with the Christian Democrat candidate for mayor having defeated strong Communist opposition. In so doing, he had promised that, if elected, he would erect a monument to Pinocchio for the town, and had won overwhelmingly. Schoolchildren, including some from America, were sending in their contributions to build the monument.

It indicates that the Communists liked puppet governments, and finds irony in the fact that a puppet had now struck back at the Communists "who lie and lie without any noticeable growth of their noses but with a quite evident and reassuring shrinking of their prestige."

Drew Pearson, returning after a three-week vacation, tells of finding a bag of rabbit food on his desk, a broken slingshot, a book called "Trigger", about Roy Rogers's horse, a pair of swimming trunks on a chair, a pair of dirty socks and very small shoes under the couch, his room in a shambles, littered with remnants of his vacation, reminders of the small boy who had spent the vacation with him. That small boy, his five-year old grandson, was not interested in the presidential election or the fact that the election could shape the destiny of the world, and perhaps determine whether he would have to fight in a future war. Instead, he wanted to know why mosquitoes made people itch, who taught little calves how to get milk from their mothers, whether eagles could fly away with little boys in their talons, why pigeons always ate alfalfa seed, and why their bull broke down so many fences, all of which Mr. Pearson found difficult to answer.

His grandson had caused him to get plenty of exercise, such that he had never been so exhausted after a vacation or so in need of the relative peace of the political arena, where one only had to badger politicians. But, he indicates, he would not have exchanged the previous two weeks for a dozen trips to the Adirondacks, Maine or Alaska. During the interval, he had scarcely picked up a newspaper and had written nothing. He advises that if a person were to want to recapture their youth, they only needed to take their grandson on a farm for two weeks, leaving the grandparent so tired at night that there would be no lying awake worrying about the world's problems. The farm was on the banks of the Potomac where the stone forts of the Union Army had once looked across at the Rebels on the other side in Virginia. And sitting there in the moonlight, he recounts, he could almost see the ghosts of the men maneuvering for position in that war of 90 years earlier.

He indicates that he did not know how many soldiers had been sent forth to war as a result of decisions made on the banks of the Potomac and that he could not predict how many would so march in the future. He only knew, as he had been left with strict instructions on how to feed two rabbits, that the present generation had a greater obligation than perhaps it realized. If it could instill some of the love and faith of their grandchildren, while banishing hate, deception, and fear, and could truly remember the teaching, "A little child shall lead them", then the wars that had been fought along the Potomac and elsewhere, he suggests, someday might be no more.

Stewart Alsop tells of Government specialists in air defense using the words "crippling" and "catastrophic" to describe the two potential results of an atomic attack on the United States, the first describing great reduction, but not elimination, of the military potential of the country to retaliate, while the second described the complete elimination of retaliatory capability. The experts did not believe that a catastrophic attack was possible in the foreseeable future, but they did believe that a crippling attack by 1954 could take place unless far-reaching countermeasures were first undertaken.

The first reason for this assessment was the growing atomic stockpile of the Soviets, with current estimates that they had the equivalent of 130 to 150 medium power atomic bombs. That stockpile was deemed not enough for a crippling attack, as the Soviets would expect high operational losses, would have to hit a number of bases outside the U.S., including airbases abroad, and would have to maintain a prudent reserve in their stockpile. But by 1954, their stockpile was predicted to have increased to between 275 and 370, plus perhaps a small number of hydrogen bombs, enough to accomplish a crippling attack, provided the Soviet Air Force could deliver a sufficient number of bombs to the targets.

General Hoyt Vandenberg, Air Force chief of staff, had pointed out recently in a speech that Soviet military development had emphasized long-range atomic striking power. He probably included in that assessment their building long-range four-motor jet bombers, and likely having built prototypes of six-motor jet bombers. The Soviets also had several hundred of their version of the B-29. These TV-4s, with one refueling over Soviet-controlled territory, had a range of over 5,000 miles, enough to reach major American targets from existing Soviet bases. The Soviets could also send high altitude, high-speed L-28 jet bombers over major American targets, with the TV-4 serving as a mother ship. Unlike the Soviet target cities, most U.S. target cities were on the coasts or in the Northern tier of industrial states.

Another reason for U.S. vulnerability was that air defenses had been neglected since 1945 when the atomic bomb had first been achieved. The Air Force had no choice but to concentrate almost exclusively on its long-range striking force during that time. That had resulted in a gap in U.S. defenses between that which the Soviets had in long-range striking capability and the creation of an adequate American air defense to counteract it.

Robert C. Ruark tells of having developed a lump in his throat when the old-timers had come to Yankee Stadium recently to honor Clark Griffith, who had managed the Yankees when they were still call the Highlanders, and had since managed the Washington Senators for some 40 years. He remembered Dizzy Dean, Arky Vaughan, the latter having drowned recently, Pepper Martin, Joe DiMaggio, Bill Dickey, Red Ruffing, and Lefty Gomez. He recalled the aging Phil Rizzuto as a rookie in Kansas City and he had been around for the last couple of seasons of Lou Gehrig, as well as for Al Simmons, Mike Cochrane, Tony Lazzeri, Jim Foxx, and Mose Grove. Tommy Henrich had been a rookie in his time and Charlie Keller, presently an old timer, had been studying at Maryland when Mr. Ruark had covered college sports.

Joe Louis and Mr. Ruark had come out of the "cotton patch" at about the same time, and he saw Bronko Nagurski play for the Chicago Bears, watched Sam Baugh break into pro football. He had bumped into the aging Buddy Baer recently and had remembered when he had knocked Mr. Louis from the ring into his lap in Griffith Stadium a few years earlier.

Though only 37, Mr. Ruark finds it amazing to see so many professional athletes who had been around in his younger years now turned out to pasture. He finds it hard to accord any great respect to the younger athletes. None of the new crop of baseball players, not even "the evidently wondrous" Mickey Mantle, could ever look as threatening at the plate as the muscular Jimmy Foxx. No one appeared as sinister on the mound as the mellowed Mose Grove. Ted Williams and Bob Feller had come up in his time and they looked different from the new players he saw presently. All of the old-timers, he believes, looked more natural in their positions, despite their aging, in the exhibition game he had seen recently, than their latter-day counterparts appeared later on in the day when the Yankees took the field.

He concludes that there was no actual point to the piece, except that he was finding increasing numbers of white hairs in his mustache, less hair on top of his head and that he did not worry about his waistline anymore.

A letter from the president and secretary of the Men's Bible Class of Hawthorne Lane Methodist Church in Charlotte, as indicated in the above editorial, expresses concern about the problems confronting the nation and world and says they wanted to exercise their franchise on the basis of principles of Christianity and in the interest of mankind, and so seek the record of the candidates regarding their Christian principles and beliefs. They set forth a resolution which the class had passed to that effect. The resolution had been sent to both the Charlotte Observer and The News, requesting that both newspapers publish the religious beliefs and church history of the candidates.

The editors respond by referring to the above editorial.

A letter writer from Lancaster, S.C., a minister, finds it disturbing that during both national conventions, for the first time nationally televised, delegates milled about, talked and laughed while prayers were being said from the rostrum by ordained ministers. He believes it showed a lack of respect and reverence toward God and that such a showing ought make every true American bow their head in shame. He hopes that the next conventions would not invite ministers to lead the prayers, but that if they did, such ministers would refuse the invitations. He thinks it better not to have prayer than to make a mockery of it.

A letter writer indicates her agreement with the previous letter writer who had asserted that dogs were man's best friend, indicates that her family had always had a dog and now had one named Duke, who helped them enormously. Her father had been in the tuberculosis sanatorium and while there, Duke had stood guard of their property and let them know whenever anyone set foot on it. She suggests that the man who had previously been labeled a "dog hater" by urging that all stray dogs be eliminated, probably did not understand how much love and company a dog could provide. She says that all dogs were not alike, that each dog they had behaved differently.

A letter writer from Lincolnton, the dog lover of whom the previous letter writer remarks and who had been promoted as a gubernatorial candidate for 1956, indicates that should he become a candidate, he would fight for a free press, "first, last and always", that those who advocated government control of the press sought the downfall of democracy and the end of liberty and justice for all mankind.

But what is a dog going to do with a free press, except use its product as a means to avoid soiling the floor or carpet and occasionally as a replacement for a chew toy? How are you going to reconcile these two utterly irreconcilable planks of your platform? For is it not the case that most doggies apparently wish to eliminate the free press, at least judging by their conduct? Why, you cannot tell the difference between the average dog and a dictator, such as Juan Peron or Generalissimo Francisco Franco. Inevitably, you will have either to drop one part of the platform or the other, or find a way to change the behavior of dogs vis-à-vis the newspapers.

Framed Edition
[Return to Links
Page by Subject] [Return to Links-Page by Date] [Return to News<i><i><i>—</i></i></i>Framed Edition]
Links-Date Links-Subj.