The Charlotte News

Thursday, May 21, 1953

FIVE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that counter-attacking South Korean infantrymen this date had repulsed between 150 and 200 Chinese Communists from an eastern front ridge after 12 hours of close-quarter fighting back and forth. The Chinese had seized the western end of the 300-yard ridge shortly before midnight, but South Korean troops had clung to the eastern end. The Communists repulsed two of the South Korean counter-attacks, but reinforcements entered the battle before dawn, and after six hours of fighting, the Communists gave up. Elsewhere along the front, the Communists probed allied lines and patrol skirmishes flared between the lines.

Cloudy skies limited aerial action to fighter-bomber strikes along the front and against troop and supply concentrations just behind enemy lines. U.S. Sabre jets remained grounded.

In Tokyo, U.N. Command headquarters this date worked on revised Korean truce plans to be presented to the Communists the following week at Panmunjom, possibly to include an ultimatum that the truce would have to occur "now or never", according to authoritative sources who had insisted on anonymity. It would, according to those sources, include parts of the India plan which had been approved by the U.N. General Assembly the previous December, which had included a political conference to settle the fate of the North Korean and Chinese prisoners who had refused repatriation. The talks were scheduled to resume the following Monday after a six-day suspension which had been sought by the allies.

An Oklahoma pilot flying a B-26 bomber over North Korea learned by radio this date that he had become the father of a son, as the message had traveled to him via front line radio transmitter.

The President, Prime Minister Winston Churchill and French Premier René Mayer disclosed plans this date to have a conference on Big Three Allied problems, among them, whether to hold a high-level conference with the Russians. Within hours after the announcement, however, the Mayer Government was overthrown by the French National Assembly regarding tax proposals and Government subsidies for wine and sugar beet growers, casting some uncertainty on the prospect of the meeting, while optimism still held hope that it would transpire with M. Mayer's successor. No definite date had yet been selected, but M. Mayer had said that the conference would take place on June 17 in Bermuda. White House press secretary James Hagerty, when asked whether the conference might turn into a Big Four meeting with Russia, declined response.

House Majority Leader Charles Halleck of Indiana said this date that he was "very optimistic" about chances for House approval of the President's request to extend the excess profits tax on business from its current expiration date of June 30 through the end of the year. Republican opponents of the measure, however, disclosed a series of strategy moves aimed at defeating the proposal or at least amending it.

In Honolulu, Eleanor Roosevelt arrived the previous night on the second leg of a world tour, voicing hope and confidence that a solution to world problems could be found. She would spend five weeks in Japan to learn about that country and answer some of the questions of the Japanese, giving lectures which, she said, might clarify other questions.

At Fort Devens, Mass., Vic Reinemer, associate editor of The News and a magazine contributor on Communism, was expected to be the first witness to be called at the court-martial of an Army doctor accused of falsely denying Communist affiliation.

In Thomasville, N.C., a story came to light that a hometown G.I., who was in the Army hospital at Fort Bragg, had gone AWOL twice to obtain medical treatment. He had left Fort Eustis in Virginia without permission and ventured to Thomasville to seek out his family physician, who had placed him in the local hospital because he was suffering from the post-operative effects of a hernia, including an infected bladder and back injury. The physician had notified Fort Eustis authorities and then treated the soldier in the hospital for a week, but the previous Friday, he had been transported by Army ambulance to Fort Bragg, with the understanding that he would be admitted to the hospital there. An officer at Fort Eustis had reported that the soldier was determined to be unfit physically for active duty and had been taken to the hospital at the Fort, then released, then taken back to the hospital for a second visit after collapsing in the field, but could not be readmitted, after which he had gone AWOL.

At Lake Charles, Louisiana, the Calcasieu River was threatening the port city with its biggest flood in 40 years, driving 1,250 families from their homes. High water elsewhere in Louisiana had caused two drownings. Volunteers with bulldozers and trucks worked during the warm nighttime temperatures to erect small dirt dikes to hold back the slowly rising waters in residential areas of the eastern part of Lake Charles. The river, normally a calm stream, would, according to the weatherman, reach five feet above its flood stage of four feet this date, and possibly higher.

In Washington, the 26th annual national spelling bee was transpiring, with the field having been cut from 53—one entrant from each state, territory and the District—, down to 32. Two 12-year olds had been eliminated in the round this date, one misspelling "riparian" as "reparrian"—which might apply as a neologism to revers on the river—, and the other placing an "e" for an appropriate "i" in "palliate". It goes on to provide several other misspelled words during the competition, including one which we often see misspelled, "quandary", usually misappropriated to the quasi-clothes hangar qua ringer, as "quandry", consistent with the way it is often mispronounced, though in this case, the 13-year old had misspelled it as "quandery".

In Raleigh, Governor William B. Umstead came to his office this date for the first time since he had suffered a heart attack three days after his inauguration on January 8, arriving promptly at 8:30, when State offices opened. He greeted some callers and then met with the State Board of Public Buildings and Grounds, of which he was chairman. A spokesman for the Governor said that he would probably begin attending office duties for about two hours each day and gradually stay longer as his strength increased.

Donald MacDonald of The News indicates that about 400 raised manholes, protruding from the streets all over the city, had been giving motorists fits for the previous few weeks, but with fair weather, the construction company responsible for the resurfacing work of the streets, would complete its work within about 20 days, eliminating the raised manhole covers. Drive carefully in the meantime.

In Everett, Washington, a sign painter for the City, seeking to spell out, "No Parking in Alley", had been stymied by the fact that the parking spots designated for his equipment were blocked by cars and other vehicles parked in the alleys of three downtown blocks.

On the editorial page, "Extension of Authority" indicates that during the previous weekend, Alan Barth of the Washington Post, in speaking to North Carolina editorial writers in Chapel Hill, had outlined what he believed was a grave risk developing out of Congressional investigative powers. He had said that there were three great institutions in the country which were maintained beyond governmental authority, the press, the church, and institutions of higher learning. It was never intended that the government should be able to invade any of those institutions, and yet the concern over Communism had provided the pretext for the legislative branch to pursue investigation of Communist infiltration into those three areas. He stressed the need for legislative power to investigate, and that there should be no limit on that power imposed against Congress, but distinguished between sabotage or espionage, or teaching or advocating the forcible overthrow of the government, as punishable under the Smith Act, and the mere holding of unorthodox or unpopular beliefs and expression of same.