The Charlotte News

Tuesday, May 19, 1953

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports, via Olen Clements, that the Korean truce talks had been recessed, at the request of the allies, for three additional days this date, through Monday, and an informed U.N. Command source in Tokyo had said that if negotiations collapsed, the allies would probably free their 34,000 North Korean prisoners who refused to return to Communist rule. There were reports in Tokyo that the allies were preparing a revised armistice proposal which might include a time limit on the peace talks. Originally, the talks had been recessed for three days at the request of the allies, and they had requested an extension for three more days, to which the Communists agreed. The U.N. Command indicated that the extended recess was to provide an opportunity for careful consideration of past and present efforts to settle the issue regarding repatriation of prisoners, the last remaining obstacle to an armistice during the previous year.

The air war was quiet this date after six days of aerial battles, but two Chinese battalions had hit allied positions in central and eastern Korea on the ground, repulsed by South Korean infantrymen who eliminated a fourth of the attackers. The ground assaults this date followed several days of relative quiet along the front.

The Air Force this date informed Capt. Joseph McConnell, the leading jet ace pilot, that he could fly no more combat missions over Korea, after accomplishing his 16th MIG kill the previous day, with a total of three enemy jets shot down on Monday, surpassing Capt. Manuel Fernandez, who had 14 kills and was grounded Monday after 125 missions. Capt. McConnell had flown 106 missions, six more than the normal 100 complement. Both pilots had sought another 25 missions. An Air Force colonel said that Capt. McConnell was more valuable to the Air Force alive than dead and was so far out of reach for record kills at this point that there was no sense in pushing it. He had received permission earlier to fly 125 missions.

C'mon, Buzz, you gotta catch up. The war's almost over, kid. Put the voodoo ray on those guns.

The Senate voted this date 45 to 41 against the proposal to provide the President power to freeze wages, prices and rents for 90 days in the event of a grave national emergency. Senator Taft had opposed the legislation, saying that the President did not want it. It had been sponsored by Senator Homer Capehart, chairman of the Banking Committee and was the first vote by the Senate on a bill to extend the 1950 Defense Production Act in a curtailed form.

Senators of both parties criticized proposed cuts to the Air Force budget as dangerous, but Senator Taft said that it was better to have a 100-wing Air Force in six months than 143 wings in three years. It was likely that Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson, appearing before a Senate Appropriations subcommittee this date, would be asked about the proposed 30 percent cut to the atomic energy program, as well as the proposed cut of five billion dollars from former President Truman's Air Force budget submitted in January for the ensuing fiscal year. Mr. Wilson had said that the reduced budget would allow the Air Force to have 114 "substantially well-equipped wings" by the end of fiscal year 1954, with the goal of 120 wings a year later. He described that as an interim goal but said that there had been no decision yet to aim for a higher one later. The Truman budget had set a goal of 143 wings, of which 126 would have been combat groups. Presently, there were 103 wings, but not all of them were at combat strength.

General Matthew Ridgway, supreme commander of NATO and soon to become Army chief of staff, testified to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee this date that Western Europe could not take over its own defense load in the foreseeable future and that the Russian "peace offensive" was putting brakes on the military buildup of the free world through its effect on public opinion in Europe. He supported the Administration's proposed 5.8 billion dollar foreign aid program for the coming fiscal year, saying that the mutual security program was a vital factor in keeping up momentum for Western European defense.

The President disclosed his tax program to Republican Congressional leaders at a White House conference this date, desiring to extend until the end of the year the excess profits tax on businesses, set to expire June 30, and to retain individual income taxes at present rates until the end of the year, when they were already set to be reduced by the ten percent increase made in 1951 to accommodate the war. The President was set to provide a nationwide radio broadcast on defense and the budget this night.

In Las Vegas, another atomic blast had been observed from the Yucca Flat proving ground prior to dawn this date, with the blast producing a rumble as powerful as a minor earthquake. It was the last conventional detonation before the firing of a nuclear shell from an atomic cannon the following Monday to end the 1953 Atomic Energy Commission series of tests. In Bishop, Calif., 200 miles from the test site, the police said that the flash and ground rumbles were the strongest ever felt there. Buildings 75 miles away in Las Vegas were shaken, but there was no report of damage. The detonation this date was witnessed by 28 members of Congress and was made from atop a 300-foot tower, with a thousand observers from the armed forces in trenches 4,000 yards distant. The AEC said that the test was primarily for scientific purposes, with 60 experiments being conducted, including exposure of antibiotic drugs to the effects of atomic radiation. An unmanned Navy AD2 drone plane was flown into the thermal envelope created by the explosion and landed without mishap at Indian Springs. Forty-six other aircraft from Roswell, N.M., were in the air on various missions—undoubtedly running interference to distract the Martians.

In Tehran, the Government of Iran announced this date that it was expelling Associated Press correspondent Mark Purdue for sending abroad "false and provocative news against the interests of Iran." He had been provided three days notice to leave the country, and was the latest of a number of foreign correspondents to be expelled since the Iranian Government had taken over the holdings of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. Mr. Purdue had been in Iran since the previous September.

In New York, Associated Press correspondent William Oatis, just returned from his release by the Czechoslovakian Government after two years of a ten-year sentence for allegedly spying for the U.S. in Czechoslovakia, joked this date happily with his wife and newsmen at the New Weston Hotel before he began a tour of the city. He expressed thanks to all who had worked to set him free. He wanted to buy a new suit, as he had not had a new one since he had been imprisoned. He had worn a two-piece burlap uniform during his term. Before he did that, however, he wanted to attend a jazz session. He had a hobby of collecting records and writing music, and inquired of journalists where he might find a good band, with someone suggesting Eddie Condon's place, where they played Chicago-style jazz, but Mr. Oatis had replied that he wanted Kansas City jazz. He said that he had plenty of socks, because his wife had been knitting them for him since he was first imprisoned. He also wanted to peruse newspapers, something he had been unable to do while in prison. He had not yet even read the coverage of his arrival at Idlewild Airport the previous day.

In New York, a two-year old boy, found wandering alone in the zoo, had been identified as one of two children possibly kidnapped from a Washington apartment the previous Friday night, and police were looking for the other child, a one-year old girl, and the gap-toothed woman in a red dress who had been there impromptu babysitter for a few minutes before they disappeared. The FBI was investigating the case because of the possibility of kidnapping across state lines. The father of the children said that the parents did not know the woman, that he had met her in a beer parlor and took her home with him to meet his wife and daughter. He had been with his two-year old son at the time, while he was having beers. After some conversation, the parents had stepped out for about 15 minutes, leaving the woman with the children, and when they returned, all had gone. A description of the woman is provided, and so if you should see her and the little girl, call the FBI. Then call the welfare department, to get the two children some more responsible parents.

In Chicago, a 12-year old girl had entered the wrong dentist's office and as a result wound up losing two teeth the prior Monday, prompting her parents to sue the dentist for $100,000. She had been sent to the dentist by her regular dentist for treatment of two molars, but the wrong dentist on the same floor of the same building pulled the two teeth. Just how, incidentally, she mistook the offices, as one was for Dr. Saul Levy, the correct dentist, and the other was of Dr. M. B. Cohan, we cannot propose to say. We could understand it if she had been sent to Dr. Saul Cohen, but, assuming the girl could read, we don't get the error, unless she just recalled that it was a Jewish-sounding name of some sort and so hoped for the best. Next time, write it down.

In Frankfort, Ind., the town's favorite robin was a red one which had built its nest and laid its eggs in the cylindrical shade above the red stoplight lens of a traffic signal, and so was lit up about once every minute.

The Atlantic Weather Bureau issued a bulletin this date warning of severe thunderstorms with strong gusty winds and scattered hail, expected over northern and extreme northern portions of Georgia and the northwest quarter of South Carolina during the remainder of the day, with a slight possibility of a tornado or two somewhere in that area between noon and dusk.

On the editorial page, "William Oatis—Symbol of Free Men" indicates that Mr. Oatis, released two days earlier from a Czechoslovakian prison where he had spent two years of a ten-year sentence after being convicted of spying for the U.S., had been weakened and coerced into a confession of the charge, resulting in trampling of all democratic principles of news gathering and reporting. The Communists had sought to make Mr. Oatis an example of their power over the minds of all people within their jurisdiction, but through it all, Mr. Oatis had exhibited an unwavering spirit of defiance and loyalty to principle, was now again a free man, after being pardoned and released by the President of Czechoslovakia, Antonin Zapotocky.

It indicates that rigid control of public information was the first requirement of totalitarian rule, and a free press could not exist under a dictatorship for the very reason that dictatorships could not exist with a free press. Hitler, Mussolini, Hirohito, Stalin, and Juan Peron, the dictators of modern times, had all crushed freedom of information as an initial step to exertion of iron rule over their peoples.

As long as Mr. Oatis was free, he would be a reminder that such could happen in the U.S., as it had happened in Czechoslovakia, should the First Amendment freedoms ever be weakened or threatened by "ambitious, power-hungry political leaders."

It indicates that the American people rejoiced at his release and honored him for having carried out his journalistic duties with "scrupulous attention to the digging out and reporting of all the facts." It urges the public to maintain intense scrutiny of any effort by the government to deny them the information which belonged to them as free citizens of a free society.

"A Moot Point, but Interesting" examines the story of the previous day out of Ahoskie, N.C., in which it was reported that a Catholic priest had complained about the local high school having its graduation exercises at the local Baptist church, as being a violation of separation of church and state under the First Amendment Establishment Clause, complaining that no state-funded school ought mix its functions with any church of any denomination.

But the piece indicates that traditionally, the senior classes had voted for the location of their graduation exercises, and finds it not to be a violation of separation of church and state, as neither the church nor the school had directed the choice of location. But, it also indicates that if any student objected to the majority determination of location, and did not wish to attend the ceremony at the church, their objection should be supported, and the traditional Protestant opposition to encroachment on separation of church and state should militate in favor of sympathetic reception of such a protest.

"More Than an Honor" indicates that the Charlotte Civitan Club deserved congratulations for giving even greater significance to its annual citizenship awards. In the past, seniors at 13 Mecklenburg high schools, who had been chosen by their fellow students as the "best citizens", were presented with medals by the Civitans. But this year, for the first time, the 13 winners would be provided a five-day guided, expense-paid tour of Washington and historic places in Virginia—which, no doubt, would include, quite appropriately, Mount Vernon and Monticello, both of which, if things keep going as they are, will undoubtedly be the object of efforts to raze them as inappropriate symbols of the nation's slavery past, and, further, no doubt, will include an effort to blast away half of Mount Rushmore—which would then give the opportunity for the right wingers to realize their great dream of placing Ronald Reagan up there with Presidents Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt, with the fourth slot, undoubtedly, to be occupied then by Don Juan Trump, astride his white charger, jousting stick in hand.

That is because, as we have slowly become aware, these nutbags who are trying to tear down the statues and change the names of buildings ad nauseam, at least those in the current round of protests and vandalism, are actually extreme right-wingers, paid to act as if they belong to the left, so that people like Trump and the other Blazers can stand up, as he did in Tulsa yesterday, and proclaim that all of the protesters and rioters, including the George Washington statuary noosers and flag-burners in Portland, are "liberal Democrats", to great cheers of his sparse audience. That is precisely what he said. (His legal acumen is too bereft of understanding to permit of the notion that his suggestion that Congress pass a law making it a Federal offense, with a mandatory one-year jail sentence, for burning the American flag, would be unconstitutional, as held in 1989 by the U. S. Supreme Court, in which Justice Antonin Scalia was a member of the majority, as violative of the First Amendment, except in cases of actual arson or destruction of a flag belonging to another, as distinguished from symbolic political protest. But his rally attendees, The Mob, Second Amendment advocates all—the militia language in it be damned as flowery 18th Century surplussage—, who eschewed free handouts of pandemic face masks and refused for the most part social distancing, scoffing at any such nonsense as medico-biological science, nevertheless, being also not too keen on First, Fourth and Fifth Amendment legal "technicalities", cheered the prospect of such an inherently reasonable law with enthusiasm. As we have indicated and urged, the ripping down of any such statue on private or public property certainly can and ought to be prosecuted as vandalism and perhaps criminal conversion under state laws.)

Amorphous groups such as "Black Lives Matter", without any cohesive message or direction other than a slogan on a placard, thus accountable to no one, and consequently exhibiting a crazy-quilt variety of manifestations in the streets, need to beware, assuming that there are some sincere people among them, as to just who some of the marchers, and rioters, really are. The news media need to start interviewing some of these individuals and probing their politics and backgrounds to determine whether or not they are, in fact, paid political operatives of the right, with a mission, whether realized or not, to undermine that movement from within by exhibiting increasingly bizarre actions, just as with the case in the 1960s of the infamous FBI cointelpros, infiltrating civil rights and anti-war groups, with the intention of undermining their efforts and blowing the whistle on them. The Trumpies at the top of the food chain have a lot of money to throw around. Do not forget it. Things are not necessarily as they seem.

Why, for instance, did a group of protesters, most of the leaders of whom were white, attack CNN Center in Atlanta about three weeks ago during the ostensible protests over the death of George Floyd? Minneapolis is nowhere near Atlanta, and, of course, it preceded the death of Rayshard Brooks at the hands of police in Atlanta a bit over a week ago. We did not see any protesters breaking down the doors of Fox News in New York or elsewhere. What goes here?

And while we are about criticism, we think it horrendous that some teenagers attempted to undermine and suppress the Trump rally attendance in Tulsa yesterday, June 20, 2020, by gaming the system with dirty tricks. That is the stuff of Nixon, Gordon Liddy, E. Howard Hunt, Roger Stone, and the right-wing. Democrats don't need it. Such teenage pranks should not be encouraged and the Democrats should affirmatively denounce them. Trump is way behind in the polls, all of the polls, and has been for some time now, and there is no need at all to resort to dirty tricks. You only provide the fodder for the Trumpies to gin up their base to a fever pitch, and provide them rationalization for their own dirty tricks on the other side come the fall—such as that which we saw in 2016 with the Russian interference with the election and surreptitious, illegal payoffs of bunny hush-money. There is one thing that the Trumpies at the top are very skilled at doing, and that is manipulation of voter beliefs and attitudes for the short-term, especially in strategically targeted key precincts in swing states, virtually coercing support for their failed policies, which require brainwashing for acquiescence if your income is less than about a million dollars per year and if your savings account is less than about half a billion—the old Nixon appeal to staid mores eschewing violence in the streets "triggered by Democrats".

If you are sincerely desirous of a new Administration in Washington, please refrain henceforth from any more dirty tricks against the Trump campaign, as that will only surely backfire come November, and even if not then, will provide the fodder for the next four years for Republicans to complain that the election was "stolen", stonewalling any chance of reform. Leave dirty tricks to the Nixons and Stones. Get your Dicks out of your Tucks. Grow up.

Politics is a serious business, especially in an election year, and most especially in this particular election year, and there is no room for dirty tricksterism. There is nothing more repugnant to democracy than playing dirty tricks on the opposition. It is one thing if you are way behind and have little realistic hope of winning, but for the winning side to do it, just as when the CREEP's did it in 1972, is way beyond the pale of acceptability, implies to the most objective and seasoned observers that an unwholesome power-grab of monumental proportions is in the making by a new set of amateurs and neophytes to politics, to counter the power-grab accomplished in 2016 by the Trumpie amateurs and neophytes to politics, with equal incompetence and disastrous results assured.

Media outlets who are giving tacit praise to that effort should be reflective for a moment as to what they are doing. Today, in the wake of the disclosure of this dirty trick, if we were to close our eyes, we would think that we were listening to "Fox & Friends" in fawning, tacit approbation of an anti-Biden, anti-Democratic dirty trick by the Trumpies, only to find that we were not—though look out soon for the retaliatory gesture in all likelihood, justifying it by this dirty trick. If you want to get Trump re-"elected", keep up that kind of work. Just because the Trump campaign did it in 2016 does not mean that the Democrats should or must resort to such tactics in 2020. Please do not snatch from the jaws of victory defeat. The more we see of the street protests and the more we see of this kind of nonsense, the more the tables are being destabilized in an already destabilized society from the health pandemic, and we are concerned that such destabilization could result in an upset, the only way now open for Trumpy Dumpy to claim victory. We do not wish to be in a position in November to say, "We told you so, but you wouldn't listen." We have been through all of this sort of stuff before, in 1968 and 1972. Please listen to experience.

Seemingly being "cool" in the streets now, for the short term, is going to be cold comfort for being the fool for another four years—that is, if you are sincere about wanting to change from the current executive branch and Senate majority. If not, then at least be honest and openly dissociate your politics, to the extent you have any, from Democrats and either state your affinity for the right wing or for general anarchy, a revolution out of which you hope to install yourselves in power in a violent coup, without a vote, under some self-proclaimed new constitution, the first article of which will condemn all statuary and edifices dedicated to persons who lived before 1921 when that arch-liberationist Warren G. Harding became President and the ratification of the Versailles Treaty and Fourteen Points of President Wilson were defeated by the new Republican Congress returning to the robber-baron age of laissez-faire economy, ultimately ushering in abroad the age of Mussolini and then Hitler.

"When Editors Get Together" indicates that at the previous Saturday's conference of North Carolina editorial writers in Chapel Hill, readers might have delighted at the criticism of editorial writers, both as to their style and syntax as well as to their logic. Editorial writers learned to have a thick skin in that regard. Weeks prior to the meeting, pages were exchanged among the members of the groups assigned to critique one another, and each person took out their red pencil and marked up someone else's editorials, following which there was a no-holds barred discussion. Afterward, everyone emerged as friends again and profited from reading each other's work with a critical eye, in the process recognizing their own misdeeds as well as the criticism expressed to them directly.

"Mr. Dooley once said that the duty of a newspaper is to afflict the comfortable, and comfort the afflicted. In applying the first part of that mandate to their own craft, the editorial writers of North Carolina are keeping faith with themselves, with their readers, and with the best traditions of a free and responsible press."

A piece of from the Wall Street Journal, titled "For Somebody Else", asks whether voters really wanted the Federal Government to spend less money, as asked by New Hampshire Congressman Norris Cotton, based on the large amount of mail he was receiving from constituents about the proposed cuts in Government programs. He had received one letter from a grange which had adopted a resolution against cuts to agriculture, while a pulp company executive was concerned about cuts to forestry funds, a business association was upset about discontinuance of an industrial census, and a nurseryman was worried about control of the Japanese beetle.

Mr. Cotton was a member of the House Appropriations Committee and he knew a lot about what cuts were being made, and wondered whether they were politically worthwhile. He recently addressed a letter to constituents informing them that an Administration which deprived people of enough fancy benefits to put the nation back on a pay-as-you-go basis would likely be a hero to history but a "dead pigeon" at present.

The piece has a lot of sympathy for Mr. Cotton's view, but realizes that habits were hard to break, especially bad habits of receiving handouts from the Government. The people had become inured to Government benefits for the previous twenty years, making it difficult to change things. Such a system fed upon itself because it was "a corrupt system" and sickened what it fed upon.

It concludes that some were willing to allow the cuts to occur where they might, but most wanted cuts as long as those cuts hurt somebody else.

Drew Pearson tells of Treasury Secretary George Humphrey facing the prospect of tax policy being stacked against him when he would present his ideas to the House Ways & Means Committee, as chairman Dan Reed, who favored tax cuts before balancing the budget, was not prepared to cooperate with the Administration's policy of holding the line on cuts until spending was substantially curtailed. Thus, no matter what the Secretary proposed in the way of new taxes, his fellow Republicans were not going to cooperate. He would likely receive more cooperation from the Democrats. Mr. Humphrey's tax program was to continue the excess profits tax, not to cut income taxes in 1953, and as a concession to business, consider more generous depreciation rates, allowing quicker write-offs of capital investments. Congress could not cut taxes substantially, according to Mr. Humphrey, without jeopardizing national defense.

But the Secretary was unaware that the Republicans on the Committee had entered a secret deal to allow the excess profits tax to expire on June 30, regardless of what he recommended. Mr. Reed had become very upset recently when Mr. Humphrey had conferred with Senator Eugene Millikin of Colorado, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, about taxes before consulting with Mr. Reed. Senator Millikin was prepared to follow the advice of the Secretary and so the result of the consequent impasse would probably be no tax legislation passed in the current session, and that the excess profits tax would automatically expire June 30 while income taxes would automatically be reduced ten percent at the end of the year, based on existing legislation, removing the excess profits tax and the ten percent increase in individual income taxes passed to pay for the Korean War.

U.S. intelligence experts were convinced that the Chinese Communists wanted to end the Korean War. Not a single anti-American sign had been produced in the May Day parade held in Peiping, whereas previously, even before the war in Korea, every May Day parade had featured such signs. The British-American quarrel over the latest truce proposal offered by the Communists could upset things. The CIA had warned that the Chinese would not reach terms until the allies agreed among themselves and presented a united front, would use the split to gain advantage in the truce talks.

The White House was quietly planning to appoint Harvard professor Archibald Cox to become the new chairman of the NLRB. Mr. Cox had been the former Wage Stabilization Board chairman, but had split with President Truman regarding the coal case. Senator Taft, however, was attempting to block the appointment and wanted to curb the NLRB's power, turning its judicial functions over to the Federal courts. (The youngsters employing dirty tricks need to study the history lesson imparted in 1973 by Mr. Cox, as well some other history of 1972-74. You do not wish to wind up the Donald Segretti of the 2020 election cycle. For what's good for the goose is also applicable to the gander.)

Shipowners from all over the world were registering their vessels in Liberia, where shipowners paid practically no taxes, wages were low, safety inspection haphazard, and the Government did not object to shipment of strategic materials to Communist countries. Mr. Pearson observes that if U.S. blacks who had founded the free republic of Liberia had known what was happening now, they would "turn over in their graves".

Chiang Kai-shek had rejected American appeals to his Nationalist troops in Burma. Washington was worried that the Chinese Communists might invade Burma on the pretext of pursuing the Nationalists, whom Chiang had no excuse for leaving in Burma, some authorities believing that he was trying to provoke trouble in the hope of stimulating a casus belli for World War III, as that would be the only thing which could ever get him back into power in mainland China.

Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson had become so Navy-minded that he was using a Navy plane instead of the regular Air Force plane which had always been employed by the Secretary of Defense in the past.

Newsweek magazine had been so sure that General Carl Spaatz would be named chairman of the Joint Chiefs that it had almost used his picture on the previous issue's cover. The General worked for the magazine and had talked the editors out of it. Admiral Arthur Radford had been named by the President as the new chairman.

The U.S. was secretly negotiating with Mexico over its untapped uranium deposits, but Mexico wanted to keep its uranium for peacetime purposes, including an atomic-study project on agricultural uses.

The Administration's newly proposed military budget was almost identical to an economy budget which Assistant Secretary W. J. McNeil had tried to get former Secretary of Defense Robert Lovett to adopt 18 months earlier. Mr. Lovett had rejected it on grounds that it would jeopardize national security.

Joseph & Stewart Alsop tell of Vice-President Richard Nixon having addressed the Business Advisory Council at Hot Springs recently, telling them that the country had to be careful not to crush the free enterprise system under a too heavy defense burden, while also pointing out the dangers of the Soviet arms buildup and Russia's eventual capability of destroying the U.S. by atomic attacks via air. He estimated that it would be four years before that could take place, a more optimistic estimate than had been provided by many atomic experts, who placed the estimate at two to three years. The fact that the Vice-President had been sitting in on meetings of the National Security Council gave his words special importance as someone informed from the inside. (Of course, the always politically calculating Mr. Nixon may have been simply gaming his predictions for play in the 1956 election cycle, to afford leeway for a campaign issue, the imminent threat of Soviet buildup which might have been in 1957, having been scotched in the meantime by the wise and propitious policies of the Eisenhower Administration.)

He further indicated that the Soviets could always launch a surprise attack on the U.S. and that when the Soviets achieved their capability of air-atomic attack, U.S. policy would tend to be paralyzed, such that the future danger needed to be forestalled by altering the balance of world power to eliminate the Soviet threat or reduce it considerably. He argued that the containment policy of the Truman Administration was insufficient and that there should be a confrontational policy achieved by means of U.S. military power, to deter any Soviet offensive effort. He thus had concluded that the defense budget could not be cut as deeply as the economy demanded, not what the Business Advisory Council wished to hear.

Senator Taft had also attended a session of the Council's meetings and addressed the group, ignoring largely what the Vice-President had said and attacking the Eisenhower defense program as merely a revision of the Truman program, the works of the same Joint Chiefs, which he hoped would be revised once the newly appointed Chiefs began their tenures the following August. The Senator wanted a new examination of the military-strategic problem by Joint Chiefs whom he could trust and hoped they would form a program which would cost far less than that proposed by the President—whose recent budget had cut the Air Force by five billion dollars, comprising most of his defense budget cut. The Senator did not exclude the possibility that the new Chiefs might come up with an even higher budget, as many things had been left undone by the prior Administration.

The Alsops conclude that the question remained whether the new Chiefs would look at the military-strategic situation honestly and develop a program actually based on national defense needs, that such an examination would be invaluable but would also be disastrous were it simply to be an exercise to discover what could be accomplished under an arbitrary and inadequate feeling on defense spending.

Robert C. Ruark finds that baseball was getting "a little sissified", to the point where a player could not dust a batter or quarrel with an umpire or even take a punch at an opponent. Sportswriter Red Smith had recently said that attendance was declining.

"One player, like Billy Martin, belts another, or Jackie Robinson gives it to Solly Hemus, and they call in the United Nations to settle it. Or Mr. Maglie pitches high and inside to Mr. Furillo, and Mr. Furillo looses his bat at Mr. Maglie, which calls for horrified comment, and a new revision of the intent rule, whatever that is. My idea of intent when a pitcher throws one tight is that he is attempting to hit his chum in the head, and when the bat is heaved in retaliation the idea is to fracture a leg."

He goes on about the situation, concludes: "The only modern hero I pay court to is young Mr. Martin of the Yankees. Mr. Martin has a temper to match his nose, and I truly hope they don't reform him into amicability. If they do, they'll have to bob his bugle, because a man with a nose as big as Billy's simply must strike the first blow."

When the latter managed the Oakland Athletics, they came to call it "Billy Ball", for all of those reasons which Mr. Ruark references from his playing days. But, as we have said many times, we are not partial to baseball, prefer basketball or football, because when you get hit in the head with the ball in those latter two sports, it is not likely to give you a concussion. We will take a hit any day from another person, but do not want to be hit in the head with a baseball. Sorry, but that's the way it is.

A letter writer from Newton indicates that newspapers were publishing releases about the records of the Ford Archives, which had been dedicated on May 7 as part of the 50th anniversary of the Ford Motor Company, and some of the news releases had referred to Mr. Ford's wife, "Callie". He says that one item about her had, he believes, never been published, that being that in the early 1920's, when he was acquainted with several young women investigators in the Public Welfare Department in Detroit, Mrs. Ford, with a background interest in the welfare of unfortunate people, had appeared at the Welfare office one day while women were receiving their daily assignments, and asked them if they had to go out into the cold, drizzly day by foot, that when said that they did, she arranged for a new Ford sedan to be delivered to the entrance of the office for their use. He says that the story was related to him by one of the women investigators on the same day it had occurred.

A letter from Francis O. Clarkson, Charlotte attorney, expresses appreciation for the editorial of May 13 regarding the Mecklenburg County Bar Association's endorsement of him for appointment by Governor Umstead as a Superior Court Judge, and also thanks the Bar Association for the endorsement.

A letter writer objects to an article in the newspaper which had said that there was one hospital bed per 115 white residents of the city, claims that it was false because there were a lot more than 100,000 white citizens of the city, including those in areas just outside the city limits, who also depended on those same hospital beds. And moreover, she indicates, patients came from all over the states of North and South Carolina to Charlotte for medical care. She also indicates that residents were spoon-fed information that they had no complaints about their doctors and hospital facilities, but it was far from the truth. She liked her doctor, but many people expressed dissatisfaction with their physicians and the inadequacy of the hospitals, with too few beds and an insufficient number of private rooms. She indicates that at the height of the flu epidemic the previous winter, an article printed in one of the local newspapers had stated that most doctors were treating their patients at home, while two hospital administrators in the city privately admitted that they had a waiting list of over 100 at one hospital and 90 or so at the other. She wants truthful information published regarding the situation and why the city did not provide a much-needed new hospital or a greatly enlarged city hospital.

A letter from two staff sergeants stationed in the Far East indicates that they had not been receiving much mail from home and would appreciate the newspaper putting their names in print, with their address, in the hope that someone might write to them.

You had better hurry, because the war is almost over—at least, for now.

A Quote of the Day comes from Senator Lyndon Johnson of Texas, who had said in a May 3 radio broadcast: "They … want to go back to … the good old days when Northern and Eastern industries were protected at the expense of producers in the South and West and consumers everywhere." Presumably, the Minority Leader's reference to "they" was to Republicans.

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