The Charlotte News
Tuesday, September 9, 1952
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the U.S. Fifth Air Force said that allied jets this date had destroyed seven enemy MIG-15s and damaged 12 others while blocking 150 enemy fighters from an allied air raid on a North Korean military academy near the Manchurian border. It was the sixth straight day of jet battles over northwest Korea, raising the September bag to 29 enemy jets destroyed, one probably destroyed and 29 damaged. The record for a month had been set the previous April, with 44 jets destroyed.
For the fourth consecutive day, South Korean and Chinese infantrymen battled one another for control of "Capitol Hill" on the central front. As of the morning, according to an allied officer, no one controlled the hill. The Eighth Army estimated Chinese casualties at 954 killed or wounded during the first 14 hours of fighting.
In the Republican primary race for the Senate in Wisconsin, it was predicted that the heaviest vote in the state's history would take place this date, with Senator Joseph McCarthy running for re-election. Nearly one million voters were expected to cast their ballots, and early reports had indicated a heavy turnout. The weather was ideal and voting in the first hour in Milwaukee had broken all previous records, including those in presidential elections. It was anticipated that 400,000 votes above the norm would be cast. The Senator's chief opponent was Leonard Schmitt, an upstate attorney who had relied on marathon radio talks to deliver his message against McCarthyism. Four other opponents were not expected to be a factor. The Senator remained the favorite, but it was not known how many Democrats would vote against the Senator, with cross-voting permitted under Wisconsin law, as voters were not required to state party affiliation when registering.
In Indianapolis, General Eisenhower was greeted at the airport this date by a cheering crowd which included Senator William Jenner, a bitter critic of General Marshall, having described him as a "front for traitors". The General had responded that General Marshall was "a perfect example of patriotism". A crowd of about 5,000 shouted "we want Ike". The General was set to deliver a speech at a rally this night at Butler University in a hall seating 16,000, starting at 9:00, to be broadcast nationally by NBC and ABC radio, but not televised. A crowd estimated at between 50,000 and 70,000 had greeted the General along his motorcade route from the airport to the Claypool Hotel.
Governor Stevenson headed from his campaigning in Seattle to California, via Portland, where he said that he thought he could say with confidence that the campaign was "going beautifully". He had toured Minnesota, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Oregon and Washington. Most Western political observers considered California a doubtful state for the Democrats in 1952, though it had voted for President Truman in 1948 by a narrow margin. The Korean War, the Far Eastern policy and American foreign policy generally were considered the major issues in the campaign for Californians. The Governor planned to spend 2 1/2 days in the state, whereas some of his other stops had been only long enough to make speeches and return to the airplane. He would speak in San Francisco this night on foreign policy, to be carried nationally by radio and television. On Wednesday, he would begin his first whistle-stop trip, traveling through the San Joaquin Valley, where Governor Dewey had run strongly in 1948. He would arrive in Los Angeles on Thursday, where he planned to visit his birthplace. He would then depart on Friday for Phoenix. During his Portland and Seattle stops the previous day, he had covered the development of America's natural resources, the role of the Federal Government in building up the Pacific Northwest, and sub-topics of major interest to the area. He received enthusiastic applause at his stops.
The Mutual Security Agency had turned over documents to the Justice Department which might result in Government suits against two additional American oil companies which had allegedly over-charged for crude oil bought with foreign aid funds. The Federal Government had already filed charges against four other large American oil companies, accusing them of overcharging the Government by 67 million dollars for oil shipped to Marshall Plan recipient countries. The two additional companies were Gulf and Atlantic Refining, which, along with Socony-Vacuum Oil Co., already sued in Federal court, had allegedly overcharged for oil deliveries to Kuwait, from May, 1949 to August 31, 1952.
Former Assistant Attorney General Lamar Caudle was asked to return before the House subcommittee investigating the Justice Department, for public hearings, following his six days of hearings in executive session. The public testimony would begin September 18, following by a day questioning of former Attorney General J. Howard McGrath. Mr. Caudle, according to the subcommittee chairman, had not testified that any of the pressure on him which he claimed had come from various sources, including members of Congress, for resolving tax prosecutions without action, originated from the President or any White House staff. The ranking Republican member, however, stated that there was evidence of pressure from the White House, though not from the President directly.
In New York, an Air Force captain who had flown nearly 100 missions during World War II, had been repeatedly decorated, shot down and badly wounded in one raid, and had flown 27 missions during the Korean War, had finally come home to his wife and little boy the previous Sunday, in time to celebrate his son's seventh birthday. He presented his little boy with a gift of the headphones he had worn during all of his wartime flights. The captain became so excited with the occasion that he suffered a heart attack and later died.
In Asheville, two black youths had been arrested this date and charged with the fatal shooting of a 73-year old Asheville Citizen-Times carrier early the previous day. Police said that the two had admitted the shooting at the scene, but each had accused the other of actually pulling the trigger. They admitted that their motive was robbery. An automatic pistol, believed to have been the murder weapon, was found on one of them.
In Charlotte, the Rev. Robert Crandall had resigned as rector of St. Peter's Episcopal Church and had accepted the position of rector of the Church of the Good Shepherd in Lake Charles, La.
He has those eyes which follow you around.
John Daly of The News tells of William J. Halligan of Chicago, president of the Hallicrafters Co., having visited Charlotte this date for the first time to meet with Hallicrafters television and radio dealers of the two Carolinas and to begin searching for a site in the Charlotte area to establish his proposed large cabinet plant. The retailers numbered about 500. The company's production was about 1,000 television sets and 2,500 radio sets daily.
All of that is why the Hallicrafter name to this day is a household word, synonymous with television, such that every boy and girl asks mom and pop, "Gee, can we watch the Hallicrafter tonight?"
On the editorial page, "The Size of the Nursing Problem" tells of the shortage of nurses in the state, impacting especially blacks and rural dwellers, as well as those living in the cities. At a recent regional conference in Raleigh, the executive secretary of the State Nurses' Association had indicated that the number of nurses could be increased by improving and expanding the education program, by more efficient use of personnel, intensified recruitment programs, and getting inactive nurses to return to duty.
But she had also explained that the solution was not so easy as it sounded, because the state needed 1,200 new nurses each year and had only graduated 723 from its schools the previous year, that one out of every three students entering nursing schools would fail to become a registered nurse, most of whom failing prior to graduation, and nine percent failing the board examination, that of the state's 37 State-accredited schools of nursing, only 14 had been given national temporary accreditation—and so on down a list of nine such facts in all.
It indicates that the health of everyone in the state was at stake, especially that of blacks and rural dwellers, and it hopes that the 1953 General Assembly would pay particular attention to the problem of getting more nurses and training them better, when it examined the five-year record of the Good Health Program, beginning the following January.
"And Now?" discusses former Assistant Attorney General Lamar Caudle having testified for six days in executive session before the House Judiciary subcommittee investigating the Justice Department. The testimony had not been made public, but it was known that he had told of some persons, including some Congressmen, having put pressure on him regarding the prosecution of tax cases.
It suggests that Congress had always stopped short in its investigations when the testimony implicated one of their own. It therefore would find it interesting to see what the subcommittee would do in this instance.
"Sunday Funerals Should Be Discouraged" tells of a resolution passed by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Ministers' Association to discourage Sunday funerals. It supports the resolution, which was based on the need to provide florists, funeral homes and the staffs of the cemeteries a break on Sundays, the day having become jammed with funerals, preventing those persons from spending the day with their families and having a day off during the week.
It recognizes that the Sunday funeral was traditional in some communities, probably a holdover from days when it was difficult to obtain time off from work to attend a funeral, and when travel had been slower. There was no Biblical injunction for a Sunday funeral, in fact, such obsequies in Biblical times having been avoided on Sundays, devoted exclusively to worship.
"Battleships vs. Bunkers" indicates that the old Navy had never been as the modern Far East Naval Forces, providing a recent report which indicated that the Navy was directing its guns toward enemy 76-mm. guns and their supporting bunkers, as well as against enemy caves, troops and one gun position.
The Navy, it indicates, while not receiving much publicity in the Korean War, had been playing an important role for its close support of the troops, a tribute to the Navy's versatility as well as the unification of the services.
A piece from the Chicago Daily News, titled "Beware the Ilk", tells of the term "ilk" cropping up frequently in newspaper editorials during the campaign year, with the Alsops referring to "Senator McCarthy, Senator Jenner and other Republicans of their peculiar ilk", and others describing "President Truman and his ilk". It indicates that Webster's New International Dictionary described "ilk" as a word of Scottish origin, the popular meaning of which as "of the same breed or class" having resulted from a misunderstanding of the expression "of that ilk". Fowlers Modern English Usage stated that "ilk" meant "same", rather than family or kind. "Of that ilk" came from an expression indicating that the proprietor and property had the same name.
"All this is very hard on the ilk. Perhaps in the better days ahead the nation will extend a security blanket to cover them, and the English-speaking peoples will enroll voluntarily in the benevolent and protective order of ilks."
Drew Pearson tells of the armed services finally doing what they had promised to start doing six years earlier, pooling their purchases of supplies instead of competing with one another for them. Only following hearings by Congressman Edward Hebert of Louisiana, supported by chairman Carl Vinson of Georgia and Jack Anderson of California, plus a lot of badgering from Mr. Pearson, had the Army, Navy and Air Force finally consented to cooperation with one another in procurement. The column had revealed in February, for instance, that the Army had bought six different types of carpenters' squares at prices ranging from 65 cents to $2.19. The Air Force had paid 12 cents per pound for 10-penny nails while the Navy had paid six cents for exactly the same nails. And he goes on with several other such examples.
He provides the names of several members of Congress who had already been retired during the election year. Senator Owen Brewster of Maine, following 25 years dominating the Republican Party in that state, had been ousted by progressive Governor Fred Payne, after the voters became wise to the manner in which Senator Brewster had been working for dictator Generalissimo Francisco Franco of Spain, Pan American Airways, and others. Congressman John Rankin of Mississippi, the hate disseminating racist, who had "spewed more intolerance than any other Congressman since Bilbo", and had suggested that General Eisenhower was Jewish based on a humorous reference to him in the West Point yearbook that he was a "Swedish Jew", had been beaten in the primary. The Republican machine in Philadelphia, which had held sway over that city continually almost since the Civil War, had been ousted the prior year and a new Democratic administration was now running that city. Senator Kenneth McKellar of Tennessee had been beaten in the primary by Congressman Albert Gore, after the Senator had served in Congress for nearly 50 years. Senator Pat McCarran's Nevada machine had dominated that state for years, until the previous week when a former newspaperman, Tom Mechling, had defeated the law partner of Senator McCarran, Alan Bible.
Joseph Alsop, writing from Kasson, Minn., finds that both General Eisenhower and Governor Stevenson had made virtually identical promises to the farmers in their farm policy talks at the National Plowing Contest the prior Saturday. The people at the Contest were cheerful and very prosperous and hard-working, with tractors selling for nearly $3,000 each and selling plentifully. The general attitude was that the candidates would get their votes when they were sure that each one meant what he said.
The General had appeared quite confident after his tour through the South, different from his previous demeanor. He told the farmers what they wanted to hear, endorsing high farm supports and extending of support prices to crops not presently covered. It smacked of "me-tooism", but Governor Dewey in 1948 had lost the election because of not promising enough to the farmers, and so it was only natural for the General not to want to repeat that mistake.
Governor Stevenson made nearly the same promises as did the General, but obtained a somewhat better response through his natural eloquence, and at one point, unlike the General, had received a loud ovation when he said that the General was "plowing under" the farm plank in the Republican platform, warned of the reactionary farm views of the Republicans in Congress and asked how anyone could tell what farm policy would finally be adopted by the "two Republican parties". Those latter points appeared to represent the advantage enjoyed by the Democrats with the farmers.
The farmers' natural inclination was to vote Republican, and only vote Democratic in secret. Yet, a lot of them had been voting Democratic. Mr. Alsop concludes that the General had taken a long step toward gaining the farm vote which Governor Dewey had lost in 1948, but that the final outcome was still quite uncertain, as almost everything else in "this uncertain election".
Mr. Alsop also provides the names of the two $100 winners of the contest which he and his brother had put forth on Labor Day regarding Presidential history. He provides the answers. We think we should have received at least $10.
The Congressional Quiz, from the Congressional Quarterly, provides a question as to whether a woman often ran for Congress to fill a term left unexpired by the death of her husband, to which it answers that four such instances had occurred with members presently serving. Representatives Vera Buchanan of Pennsylvania and Elizabeth Kee of West Virginia had succeeded their husbands following special elections in 1951, and veteran Representatives Frances Bolton of Ohio and Edith Nourse Rogers of Massachusetts had obtained their starts in Congress that way, in 1940 and 1925, respectively.
The next question was whether there were many female members of Congress, to which it responds that the only Senator was Margaret Chase Smith of Maine, but that there were ten Congresswomen in the House, whom it lists.
The third question was whether it was acceptable to call a Congresswoman a "Congressman", to which it replies in the affirmative, indicating that it was also acceptable for female members to be called Congresswomen, and that in the chamber, each was referred to as a "gentlewoman".
The fourth question asks why two Connecticut Senators, William Benton and William Purtell, were running against one another in the general election, which it explains had occurred because Senator Purtell had won the Republican nomination in the contest against Senator Benton, after having been appointed by Governor John Lodge to succeed deceased Senator Brien McMahon until the November election for the other seat. Senator Purtell had decided to run for the seat against Senator Benton, however, in the fall election, while Prescott Bush was chosen as the Republican nominee for the seat formerly occupied by Senator McMahon and then Senator Purtell.
The fifth question was when a legislator named to Congress during a recess started on the payroll, to which it answers that pay began immediately.
The last question was whether a Congressman could ask Federal employees in his or her district for financial help in the campaign, to which it answers in the negative, forbidden by the Federal Corrupt Practices Act.
A letter writer indicates that a prior letter writer had been especially vitriolic in his attacks on Republicans and, in particular, General Eisenhower, finding that the practice of smearing everyone who thought differently from the New and Fair Dealers to have become a little tiresome. She says that it was a good thing to have a two-party system, and she believes that one party had been in power long enough. She urges that everyone be more Christian in their thinking and attitudes and less one-sided and vicious in their attacks upon the opposing party.
A letter writer indicates that on September 5, the editorial page had indicated that Congressman Eugene Cox of Georgia had been beaten by Congressman Tom Abernethy, when, in fact, the latter had beaten Congressman John Rankin of Mississippi. He thinks both Congressman Cox and Congressman Rankin had served the country well, that the latter had been one of the first to call attention to the Communists in the "corrupt administration of Roosevelt and Truman" and had consistently fought the idea of "'equal rights'" which many were advancing "so there will eventually be free inter-racial intercourse in every state." He objects to the editorial having referred to Congressman Cox as a "rabble-rouser" and, by indirection, having done so to Congressman Rankin.
The editors respond that The News had erred in saying that Congressman Cox had been defeated and apologizes accordingly, corrects itself by referring to Congressman Rankin as a "rabble-rouser".
A letter writer from Pinehurst indicates that in the debate between Pittsboro and Pinehurst, he would select typewriters as his dueling weapon of choice and leave albatrosses to the writer from Pittsboro. He thinks the letter from the Pittsboro resident appearing September 4 contained some thoughts with which he agreed, while others were debatable, but all had ignored the only question which had arisen, whether McCarthyism was "mere trivia" or something which provided concern to those who still had regard for the Bill of Rights, justice and decency.
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