The Charlotte News
Monday, September 21, 1953
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that in Korea, the Communists said this date that most of the 3,404 allied troops for whom the U.N. Command had demanded an accounting had never been captured. The Communists also demanded an accounting for 98,742 North Koreans and Chinese whom they claimed had been captured by the allies and were missing from the returned prisoners. The missing troops on the allied side consisted of 2,400 South Koreans, nearly 50 British and more than 90 Americans. The Communists claimed that 519 of those on the list had already been returned and that 380 others had been released at the front during the war, had escaped, or were dead. They indicated that part of the remainder of the group had refused repatriation, but that most of them had never been captured. The allies were expected by Monday night to have transferred to the custody of Indian troops in the demilitarized zone all except about 2,300 North Koreans and a few Chinese prisoners who had refused repatriation, among the 23,000 total in that category. Meanwhile, the Communists were expected to deliver on Thursday more than 300 South Korean and 20 non-Korean prisoners, whom they claimed refused repatriation, to the custody of the Indian troops. Each side would then have 90 days to talk to the prisoners not desiring repatriation to try to convince them to return home.
A North Korean pilot flew a MIG-15 from North Korea to Kimpo Air Base near Seoul this date, surrendering the plane. The U.S. had offered a reward of $100,000 for the first such MIG jet surrendered to the allies, and the U.N. Command said that the reward was still in effect. The pilot's name would not be released by the Command unless he consented. He would be granted asylum if he desired it. An American pilot who met the North Korean pilot said that he had pulled a picture of a girl from his flying suit and tore it up. The American pilot pieced together the picture, saying that the girl in it appeared as a North Korean.
At the U.N. General Assembly meeting in New York, Russian chief delegate Andrei Vishinsky, in a 63-minute address, called on the body this date to impose an unconditional ban on the production of atomic and hydrogen weapons without delay. He also said that he would wage a vigorous fight to try to get the body to revise its earlier decision barring neutral nations from the peace conference on Korea. He criticized the U.S. as the real cause of world tension, stating that Western policy in Germany threatened to produce a new war and that NATO was aimed at weakening the U.N. His disarmament proposal called for the Security Council to supervise compliance, with an immediate and unconditional ban of atomic and hydrogen bombs, an immediate one-third reduction of armed forces by the five permanent members of the Security Council, with a conference shortly to follow to discuss reduction by other countries, dismantling of military bases maintained in foreign countries, and condemnation of propaganda which tended to stimulate warlike psychosis.
Senator Joseph McCarthy's Senate Investigations subcommittee, according to an informed source this date, hoped to know within a few days whether a mysterious figure who claimed to be L. P. Beria really was the deposed boss of the Russian secret police. Senator McCarthy had refused to be quoted on the matter. Investigators were convinced that Mr. Beria had escaped from Russia and was hiding in a neutral European country, while other Government sources, who did not wish to be quoted by name, were skeptical, saying that the chances of his having escaped from behind the Iron Curtain were one in a million. The man in question was seeking asylum in the U.S. in exchange for providing Russian secrets, and a representative who was familiar with Mr. Beria was being sent to Europe to assess the matter.
Paul Crouch, originally from North Carolina, told a Senate Internal Security subcommittee that the Communist Party had "a very large organization" on the campus of UNC during the 1930's. He also said that there were a large number of Communist professors at Duke and a small number of Communist students there. The testimony had been given months earlier but had only just been released the previous night. Mr. Crouch said that he was a Communist between 1925 and 1942, and was now a consultant for the Justice Department Immigration Service. He said that the printing room for the Communists during the 1930's had been located in the rear of the Intimate Book Store, a press purchased by J. Peters of the underground apparatus of the Communist Party, with money provided by Alton Lawrence, a member of the district committee of the North Carolina Communist Party. Senator Herman Welker of Idaho, chairman of the three-member subcommittee, said that Mr. Lawrence had been president of the United Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers of the South, and that the union had been evicted from the CIO because it was dominated by Communists. Mr. Crouch had said that Mr. Lawrence was one of the most important undercover leaders in the party within the South. He identified two UNC professors as Communist leaders. The UNC News Bureau said that one of the professors, a native of Monroe, N.C., had joined the faculty in 1930 as an associate professor of English and served in that capacity until 1946, except for a two-year leave of absence during which he was connected with the Fort Devin division of MIT, and had left the University to join the faculty of Augustus Adolphus College in Minnesota. It said that the other identified professor had been a part-time instructor from 1930 through 1933, had left to become an instructor at Michigan State—departing Spartans for Spartans. (Incidentally, for the Jesse Helms Social Club members who see Red everywhere, the Intimate was bought only subsequently, in the late 1960's, by Wallace Kuralt, Jr., brother of CBS correspondent and former mid-1950's News reporter Charles Kuralt. The story indicates its owners at the time in question. And the "C" in CBS does not stand for "Communist". And, contrary to Mr. Crouch's implications, everyone at UNC, the claims of Mr. Helms in the late 1960's, among other excoriating deviations from the norm, to the contrary notwithstanding, were not Commies and Pinkos, even if many believed in and advocated openly social integration of the races.)
Members of the subcommittee were proposing tighter security measures to eliminate loopholes which they said permitted Communists to flood the country with propaganda in peacetime and set up underground presses for use during wartime. They urged having a law which would require disclosure by Communists of printing equipment which they allegedly had stored away. Another proposed measure would require diplomatic and consular officials distributing propaganda in the country to register under the foreign agents act. Senator William Jenner of Indiana, chairman of the Internal Security Committee, said that the hearings had shown that there were such loopholes in the laws, allowing Communists to flood the country with propaganda and prepare secret printing plants for use in wartime. Senator Welker said that the Communists had spent thousands of dollars in purchasing printing equipment which had been hidden away for future use.
In New York, two Air Force men told of having to fight off sharks with their fists during 22 hours, prior to their rescue after their B-29 weather reconnaissance plane had crashed in stormy weather over the Atlantic the prior Friday. Three other survivors of the crash had already reached Charleston, S.C. Seven of the crew remained missing. One of the survivors who had fought off the sharks said that one of them had nipped one of his hands. The other said that he had been stung by Portuguese poisonous jellyfish. He said that he had remembered something he had read about hitting sharks on their snout, causing them to depart their would-be prey, and the technique had worked. Remember that, should you ever wind up for 22 hours in the Atlantic, having to fend off sharks. (It might also work for those threatened with firing in the last days of the Trump Administration, serving the head shark right. Most of the American people would applaud you, and it would feel good, wouldn't it?)
In Charlotte, a four-year old girl had been killed during the morning hours this date when she darted into the side of a City garbage truck at Caldwell and Trade Streets. It was the city's tenth traffic fatality of the year. The driver of the garbage truck said that he was traveling at approximately 5 mph when his co-worker saw the child suddenly dart toward the truck, and he stopped immediately. He said he had not seen the child before the truck had run over her. A woman who had been holding the child's hand at the side of the street said that the girl had suddenly pulled away when she saw the truck, and that the truck had not been traveling at an excessive speed.
Also in Charlotte, Edward C. Marshall, 76, the president of Duke Power Co., died this date at his home after having been in declining health for several months, and having been critically ill since the previous Wednesday. He was nationally recognized as one of the most able executives in the electric power industry, had arrived in Charlotte in 1907, having hailed from Virginia where he was a member of a distinguished family, the great-great-grandson of Chief Justice John Marshall. He had been elected president of the power company four years earlier.
In Lawton, Okla., a lecturer explained to the local newspaper that he wanted to place an ad for a briefcase he had misplaced. He had just finished a lecture on memory, in which he claimed to be an expert.
On the editorial page, "New England Is Now Fighting Back" indicates that the Boston Herald had suggested to New England manufacturers who had moved to the South that they could now come home and start eating real food, such as clam chowder and Indian pudding, instead of hominy grits, beet greens and hog jowls. It had found solace in the report of a Chicago management consultant who indicated to Northern manufacturers in the Harvard Business Review that the number of places in the South with low costs were decreasing and that where the costs were low, the advantage might be lost by the time the plant was completed.
It suggests that U.S. industry was unlikely to put much faith in the survey, as it was quite inadequate and failed to take into account the great trend of industry away from labor-short cities and toward rural areas where there was a plentiful labor supply, which could be trained for new tasks. It also had failed to consider other factors, such as pure and adequate water supplies, plentiful and reasonable power, good climate, political stability, proximity to raw materials and markets, relative isolation in the event of war, the presence of natural skills and aptitudes, plus a willingness to work and a public attitude favorable to business and industry. It suggests that Southern leaders, however, should recognize that the older industrial areas had begun to fight back in the battle for new industry, and it urges therefore that the states in the South, instead of competing among themselves for industry, might develop a more cooperative regional approach to the matter.
"Reticent Witnesses Pose a Problem" indicates that the Senate Internal Security subcommittee, in a report on subversion in Government departments, had endorsed a Senate bill which would provide Congress the power to grant immunity to key witnesses who otherwise would invoke the Fifth Amendment. Many students of the Constitution opposed it for weakening the protection against self-incrimination.
In late August, Look magazine reported that 175 former Federal employees and members of the armed forces had invoked the Fifth Amendment, eight of whom had first appeared before the Investigations subcommittee chaired by Senator McCarthy while the remainder had first been questioned by other committees. Look found that at least 14 had declined to state whether they had engaged in espionage against the U.S., while more than half had declined to say whether they had lied when they signed a Government pledge indicating they had not belonged to any organization which advocated the overthrow of the Government by force, and that witnesses who refused to affirm or deny membership in the Communist Party held key posts in 71 bureaus, agencies and departments.
It indicates that the invoking of the Fifth Amendment by those witnesses had not blocked Congressional investigations, as the investigators had, nevertheless, developed useful evidence on the structure and functions of the Communist Party within the country. It suggests that if Congress approved the bill to grant immunity, it would need adequate safeguards to prevent its abuse by both witnesses and members of committees, and to prevent those guilty of crimes from escaping state and Federal prosecution by providing immunized public testimony. (It should be noted that under the doctrine of use immunity, prosecutions could still occur as long as the evidence supporting the prosecution had been gathered independently from the immunized testimony.)
"Let's Have More Tax Sleuthing" indicates that IRB commissioner T. Coleman Andrews, writing in the current issue of Taxpayers Dollar, provided a statistical breakdown of the door-to-door canvass which his agents had conducted in New England, covering one-sixth of one percent of New England taxpayers, 8,800 persons, finding that 13 percent had not filed income tax returns. The IRB had collected $80,000 directly and received $320,000 more in voluntary contributions from other taxpayers who had not been canvassed. Mr. Andrews estimated that there were many thousands of taxpayers who, through ignorance of the law or delinquency, were not paying taxes, the latter group comprising 1,100 of those canvassed or 13 percent of the total. Subsequently, IRB agents did a spot check in Denver using the classified section of the telephone directory and discovered that many small businesses were not complying with the tax laws.
It indicates that the IRB had been criticized for "snooping", but it believes that most taxpayers would agree with the efforts to track down tax evaders. It ventures that it was not fair for wage earners and salaried employees, who had their taxes deducted from their paychecks, to pay taxes while farmers, traders, professionals and other self-employed persons dodged taxes by failing to file returns. It urges that more such snooping was needed.
"Progress on Another Cultural
Front" indicates that the Charlotte Opera Association would
begin its fifth season with its first concert this night. Director
Clifford Bair and conductor Melvin Sipe were offering four major
productions during the season instead of the usual three. The first
would be Carmen
It suggests that it would be quite an impressive slate for an opera company whose singers worked regular jobs while devoting only their free time to presenting operas. By moving its performances into East High School, the Association had proved that Charlotte liked opera, willing to drive six miles beyond the city limits to partake of it.
It congratulates the Opera Association and the city's businessmen and civic leaders who were its patrons and advertisers, as well as those who attended the performances for two dollars each.
Drew Pearson indicates that the Commerce Department had given the runaround to the Cuban Government regarding the proposal to help U.S. publishers by manufacturing newsprint from a byproduct of sugarcane, bagasse. The Cuban Government, on May 19, had requested technical aid from the Administration in developing the byproduct. The proposal was supported by U.S. newspaper publishers, as it would break the Canadian newsprint monopoly, which had caused publishing costs to go so high that some newspapers had been forced out of business. But after a four-month delay, the Commerce Department had still not responded, though Cuba had promised to pay all of the costs for the technical adviser. The Grace Steamship Lines had set up a factory in Peru for the purpose of manufacturing newsprint from sugarcane, and Dr. Milton Eisenhower, the President's brother, had inspected the factory during his recent trip to South America. Cuba had then proposed that the State Department loan its expert on the process, and that Cuba would pay his expenses and salary for 3 to 4 weeks, while he advised on the establishment of a newsprint plant. Cuba was the largest sugar-producing nation in the world but constantly faced a problem of being a one-crop country. In the event of a U.S. recession, one of the first commodities affected would be sugar, producing anxiety in Cuba, hopeful that other industries could be developed from the crop. The State Department had immediately approved the plan, but Commerce had stalled. Eventually, Assistant Secretary Craig Sheaffer, the pen manufacturer, wrote on July 20 to Cuba that the expert in question could not be spared, but that other experts would be made available. The Cuban Embassy in Washington found that strange, as the expert in question was being allowed to resign from the Government under the new economy program, and he was the only Department expert on the process of developing newsprint from bagasse. The Cuban Embassy wrote back on August 31, asking how soon the expert could be spared to assist in the process, but no reply had yet been received. Meanwhile, the expert had no pressing duties. The fact had aroused Cuban suspicions that certain officials within the Commerce Department wanted the Canadian newsprint monopoly to continue, as it was actually controlled by Wall Street.
The President never signed his full name to the paintings which he produced during his spare time, preferring to use his initials, keeping him in the amateur class of painters.
When guests visited the New Hampshire farm of Secretary of Commerce Sinclair Weeks, they were given chunks of maple sugar or small jars of maple syrup as souvenirs. Secretary Weeks and his wife had toured upper New York state in their beach-wagon, footing all of their own expenses.
What is a beach-wagon? He does not explain.
Marquis Childs indicates that despite the continued popularity of the President and the perception that he was a strong, confident leader, Republicans were beginning to become concerned about the 1954 midterm elections and the impact on them from the farm vote, given the downturn in farm prices. Republican leaders in Minnesota, a key farm state which the President had carried by 155,000 votes in 1952 over Governor Stevenson, had taken a poll of farm workers, concluding that the farm vote in that state was lost and could not be retrieved by the point of the following year's election unless something were done quickly to remedy the situation. In a question posed to State Fair attendees in Minnesota, respondents were divided equally on whether they would vote for the President or Governor Stevenson if they were voting again, whereas the same group indicated that they had voted by a margin of 9,000 to 6,600 in favor of General Eisenhower in 1952.
Mr. Childs notes that Minnesota, with its Farmer-Labor Party a few years earlier, had a maverick political tendency. The RNC was taking special aim at Senator Hubert Humphrey, up for re-election in 1954, but the State Fair poll showed that his support was strong, with 9,000 out of 14,400 saying they would support him for re-election, Congressman Walter Judd, who had been considered the most likely challenger, had decided not to oppose Senator Humphrey. Former Governor Luther Youngdahl, who had resigned to accept an appointment as a Federal Judge in the District of Columbia, would be the most formidable opponent. Senator Humphrey had persuaded President Truman to appoint him to the D.C. Court and Republican leaders had been furious about it. But they now hinted that Judge Youngdahl was considering running.
Stewart Alsop indicates that the loud disputes and recriminations about the Korean peace conference had begun again at the U.N. and would likely continue for some time, even though those who were shouting the loudest did not actually believe that Korean unity would result from the conference. Secretary of State Dulles reportedly was of the belief that there was only about a 25 percent chance of reaching a settlement leading to Korean unification, and even that amount of optimism placed him in the minority among the experts. The State Department was considering a proposal whereby the Communists would be offered Korean neutrality and withdrawal of all foreign troops, in return for free elections and peaceful unification.
But South Korean President Syngman Rhee had already made clear his intention to fight against any neutralization of Korea, as the military pact promised by the U.S. in case of Communist attack would be nullified by such neutralization. In any event, the Communists would likely demand more for a unified Korea, principally admission of Communist China to the U.N. and an end to the economic blockade of China. The Administration, however, would not agree to those terms, and Assistant Secretary of State Walter Robertson, who had placated President Rhee prior to the Armistice, was convinced, along with others in the Department, that such conditions would ensure a Communist takeover throughout Southeast Asia. Thus, a failure to reach any agreement on a unified Korea was practically certain.
Nevertheless, it was likewise fairly certain that such a failure would not cause the fighting to resume unless the Communists violated the demilitarized zone, triggering the U.S. pledge to go to war with China, with the U.N. allies to support that pledge. Thus, it was unlikely that there would be such aggression unless Russia and Communist China were prepared for a world war. Most agreed that President Rhee was not in any position to start the fighting again unilaterally, and would be less able as time went on. Thus, the Armistice appeared to be a de facto settlement of the war, and, Mr. Alsop posits, the disputants at the U.N. might as well save their breath.
A letter writer indicates that the sidewalks and curbstones in downtown Charlotte were in a deplorable state, resembling "a patchwork quilt consisting of cement segments, some dating from the last century." It was his understanding that the sidewalks were not public property and, he says, if that were the case, the responsibility for maintaining them fell to private property owners who ought be willing to cooperate in a sidewalk and gutter improvement program.
A letter writer indicates that the double sessions in the public schools were hard on pupils, parents and teachers and that another solution to overcrowding needed to be found. She suggests utilizing various educational facilities of the churches nearest the overcrowded schools, providing examples.
A letter writer from Efland—the town in which all of those who flunked out of UNC congregated—indicates that because of the enormous number of homes and farms being advertised for sale for delinquent 1952 property taxes, the citizens should not vote for more bonds until property owners could pay the heavy bonds already outstanding. He indicates that Orange County had been trying to set up an ABC liquor store system, but wonders how honest men and women could vote for such a system when millions of dollars were leaving the state, and wonders how anyone could vote for 72 million dollars in bonds during one of the worst droughts in many years. He believes that there should be a statewide referendum on liquor, in which case the ABC system would be voted out of existence. He had announced that he would run as a candidate for State representative from the county in 1954, for governor in 1956, and for president in 1960, and if elected, assures that he would provide one-fourth of his salary to the public schools, as he believes that the representatives, governors and the president were being paid too much for what they did.
A letter from Bob Cherry, Jr., responds to a letter writer, whom he had previously accused of being "red", despite the letter writer being a minister, for writing that the appointment of Judge John J. Parker to the Supreme Court would be a "colossal tragedy" for his segregationist tendencies. Mr. Cherry indicates that the writer, who had previously written lamenting the imposition of the death penalty against Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, was still in mourning for their deaths and "things just ain't settled in the right places yet in his h'aid."
Some might think, Mr. Cherry, that things ain't quite right in your'n.
Anyway, did you vote for Trump? He lost by five million popular votes and by a "landslide", by his own definition in 2016, in the electoral college. Are you going to the mountains with him, cloaked in a white robe, to listen to his daily diatribes against Democrats as Commies, Socialists, and Gasconaders, the Gospel of St. Don the Demi-Divine? If so, bye-bye.
By the way, it is becoming clear, through the rump-thumper, shirt-tail Tucker counsel of St. Don, that what these thieves intend is to steal the election by claiming "fraud" at the polls last Tuesday and thereafter in the counting process, only, of course, in the crucial, electoral-rich states which President-elect Biden clearly won, wherein there are majority Republican state legislatures, as in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, and Arizona, intending to claim, on the basis of dumpster "evidence" to be presented in courts, regarding certain particular counties in those states, that the election results therein, for the whole of those states, should not be certified by the respective secretaries of state, which would, in turn, if upheld by the courts, leave it up to those Republican state legislatures, in some of those states a slender majority accomplished by only one or two legislators, to determine how the electoral votes of each such state will be allocated. In other words, they want a handful of state legislators out of rustican Republicanvilles to be responsible for determining how, on a rationalized basis of "voter fraud" in certain areas, those states actually should have voted, rather than how they did vote, all, of course, to the benefit of Trumpy-Dumpy-Do and Mitch and the Sing-Along Choir and their crazy attempt to perpetuate themselves in power ad infinitum and ad nauseam.
Alternatively, they hope that such decertifications would deprive both candidates of an electoral college majority, throwing the election "immediately" into the House on January 6, that favoring the Republicans, as the House would vote in such circumstances—previously invoked only once, in 1824, in the first John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson election—, by state delegations, each state delegation's majority counting as one vote, with Republicans having more state delegation majorities than Democrats.
That, in a nutshell, is their nefarious scheme for stealing the election, as Pompeo, a disgrace of disgraces as "secretary of state", leading a State Department never more politicized in the history of the country, pompously proclaimed today, indicating, incredibly and cynically, that he was preparing for a "smooth transition to a second Trump administration", thereby arrogating himself to the will of the American people plainly spoken, without any ambiguity produced by the electoral college as in 2016.
Good luck, nutbags...
And to the former Mayor of New York City, you need to go home and take some time to figure out your own domestic and psychological problems, boy, learning, in the process, how to tuck in your shirt-tail in the presence of a lady. Here is how
We understand the King's motivation. For, otherwise, if he leaves the protection of the White House, he may have to seek out asylum, if not an asylum, in Russia to avoid extradition when the grand juries start in on his highness next year. You do not want to get too close to all that, Mr. Mayor, lest you be dragged down with him, as some of his other erstwhile counsel and defenders have been. He's done. Get real.
That goes for you, too, Mitch, and you, also, Barn, from South Carolina, and the Sing-Along choir-leader from Texas. Time is ticking, alright, but unto Twelfth Night in Georgia, and the Epiphany next day, not to the routine, predetermined vote of the electors on December 14, following the popular vote of each state.
As a former, honorable, Secretary of State once said a few years ago: If you break it, you pay for it. That goes for our democracy as well as foreign states' infrastructure.
To the Republican idiots, devoid of details on history, indicative of C- students, who are trying to equate this election result with that in 2000, as Pompeo sought to do this morning, the two do not equate. In 2000, the final certified result in Florida showed Vice-President Gore down to Governor Bush by 537 votes, with the electoral vote in that state being determinative of the 270-vote majority necessary to win the electoral college, despite the Vice-President having won the national popular vote by more than 500,000 ballots, and there having been a controversial ballot-tabulating machine in Florida at the time which did not register all of the dimpled ballots or those with partially punched holes, the so-called "hanging chads", such that the expected totals by the exit polls from four key counties, Volusia, Broward, Palm Beach, and Miami-Dade, did not square, leading therefore to the Vice-President's requested recount in those counties, appropriate under state law with such a narrow margin, that recount then challenged by Governor Bush for its claimed constitutional infirmity, first in the Florida courts, that claim being denied by the Florida Supreme Court, ordering the recount to continue in all counties of the state, leading to review in the U.S. Supreme Court, which stopped the recount by temporary restraining order, eventually making the order permanent by its notorious 5 to 4 decision of December 12, holding that Equal Protection would be violated by allowing recounts in all of the counties when there was no uniform statewide counting procedure.
The facts of that case have absolutely no application to the present situation, except that the claims by the King and his shirt-tail tucker court-jester might very well be deemed to run afoul of the Bush v. Gore majority legal rationale, as you cannot have it both ways and now claim that certain Inner Town votes in certain metropolitan areas of Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and so forth, ought not be counted at all because of voting "irregularities" in those cities and counties, and thus seeking decertification of that state's entire vote, without thereby running afoul of the Equal Protection Clause and the Fifteenth Amendment. The Florida vote in 2000 was never ordered decertified by the courts because of the held Constitutional infirmity associated with the recounts without uniform procedures established statewide. To the contrary, Loch Katrine's premature certification of Florida's initial vote total, while the recount was transpiring, was upheld, even if not particularly inspiring at the time to those who believe our country ought at least aspire to the concept of one-person, one-vote, that is, democracy, as provided in Baker v. Carr and the Fifteenth Amendment, when read in conjunction with the Fourteenth Amendment and the whole of the document as it was intended by the Founders, as elucidated by the papers of Publius, not as an exercise in judicial intrigue to advance partisan political interests.
Anyway, you folks up there in the White House need to be preparing for moving day, and imparting that bad news to your tragically brainwashed retinue, not busying your little heads and minds with chicane schemes, which ultimately pass beyond your understanding when viewed objectively within the laws and the whole of our Constitutional processes. Bye-bye.
Or, as more succinctly and pointedly put a few weeks ago by the man in the shades with the Stingray, "Shut up, man."
We would prefer that he had a T-Bird
Framed Edition
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