The Charlotte News
Monday, October 9, 1950
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the North Koreans put up strong resistance this date against the deep penetration of South Korean forces fighting for Wonsan, the east coast port city. It was the first resistance offered since the South Koreans had crossed the 38th parallel on October 1. The South Koreans might turn west at Wonsan and fight across the peninsula toward Pyongyang, 85 air miles away. South Korean commanders said that they hoped to enter Wonsan by morning on Tuesday.
Correspondent William J. Waugh quoted a North Korean prisoner as saying that the officers would not allow surrender, that anyone who sought to surrender was shot. Prisoners previously had said that the North Korean forces were preparing to make their stand at Wonsan.
The first American forces to cross the 38th parallel, units of the First Cavalry Division, had also joined the fight, about 85 miles to the southeast of Pyongyang. The two pincers would seek to strangle the capital of North Korea. The Americans began to encounter resistance, according to Mr. Waugh, within thirty minutes of crossing the parallel. The enemy held commanding positions in the mountains on three sides of the Seoul-Pyongyang road.
At the U.N., during debate in the political committee, Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Vishinsky said that Russia favored some of the points, though not specifying which ones, contained in the U.S.-backed seven-nation resolution to give the General Assembly emergency powers to combat aggression. The proposal included creation of standby military forces to back U.N. decisions and enabling the Assembly to undertake emergency actions without restraint by the veto of the Security Council. Mr. Vishinsky's statement puzzled and surprised some of the other delegates.
The Supreme Court turned down review of the Alabama Court of Appeals decision affirming the conviction of Senator Glen Taylor for disorderly conduct stemming from an incident on May 1, 1948 in which he had sought access via the black-only entrance to a black church in Birmingham where he intended to speak as the vice-presidential candidate of the Progressive Party ticket, running with former Vice-President Henry Wallace. The Alabama Court of Appeals had held that, contrary to Senator Taylor's assertion, there was no attempt by the police to enforce the segregation ordinance but rather he had been charged with conduct amounting to assault and battery upon a police officer. At the Supreme Court, Justices William O. Douglas and Hugo Black favored review, but the remaining seven justices voted against it. It took four affirmative votes to grant review.
In Los Angeles, the annual national convention of the American Legion was asked by its executive committee to recommend use of the atomic bomb against Russia in the event of further aggression.
In Des Moines, Ia., the United Lutheran Church in America voted to retain the present titles of its officers, in lieu of a proposal for adoption of episcopal titles.
In New Haven, Conn., a 27-year old 1943 Yale graduate and 1945 Harvard Divinity School graduate was identified as the night caller who had fatally shot a prominent Yale psychiatrist and professor of psychiatry, also critically wounding his wife, who identified the man after he had been picked up by police at a busstop and was found to be armed with a pistol. The wife had heard an argument just prior to the six gunshots which killed her husband, and then the man turned the gun on her, firing twice. While at Yale, he had given, under a different name, a lecture on "rational altruism, a new theory of morals", which had attracted considerable attention. (See page 8 of linked Yale Daily News edition, under "Philosophy Club".) He had been committed for three years to the Middletown mental facility as a schizophrenic in 1946, and eventually would be deemed by the judge mentally unfit to stand trial in the instant case and recommitted, following the Grand Jury finding him "criminally responsible" for the murder of the professor and assault on his wife.
Herein may lie an example of what might have been preventable had there been at Yale a required freshman course on the effect of mass media on the individual and collective mind of society, beneficial not only to the alienated actor involving himself or herself too much vicariously in untoward roles such that he or she eventually becomes an actor in untoward conduct, but also to the outside perceiver who might seek to cast or push further the actor into those roles simply for disagreement on a matter of controversy, a matter close to the heart and mind of the perceiver who thinks a theory
In Whiteville, N.C., a tornado caused an estimated $100,000 in damage and injured three persons.
In Chapel Hill, Dr. James Morrill, president of the University of Minnesota, would speak at the ceremony on the second day of installation proceedings of Gordon Gray as president of the Consolidated University, the first having been at Woman's College in Greensboro the previous day. The proceedings would conclude in Raleigh at N.C. State on Tuesday.
Serialization begins of Why I Know There Is a God, by Fulton Oursler, author of The Greatest Story Ever Told, also serialized in the News the previous spring, leading up to Easter. In chapter 1, Mr. Oursler relates of searching for God in every nook and cranny as a small boy, fifty years earlier, only to be told by his Sunday school teacher that God was everywhere. He began to question how anyone could really know that there was a Creator. The skeptic insisted that one could not truly know that God was real.
St. Paul had defined faith as "the evidence of things not seen". Faith came first but also depended for sustenance on understanding, leading to the paradox that belief preceded proof of God's existence. The first way to know God, he posits, was by reason, his own first approach.
The remainder of the day's entry is on an inside page.
On the editorial page, "Gordon Gray's Responsibility" finds that the Consolidated University was held in high esteem by educators worldwide for a variety of reasons, atmosphere on the campuses, the physical plants of the three schools, the tradition of cultural and scholastic contributions, the variety of extracurricular pursuits, and, of greatest importance, the mental and moral fiber of the faculty and administration. It had achieved the latter not by bidding in the open marketplace, as it lacked sufficient funds, but had attracted such personnel through the strength of its other qualities.
No salary could have lured Gordon Gray away from his public service positions to serve in the far less visible role as the new president of the University. It would be a challenge to preserve the same factors which had prompted him to do so.
"The Auditorium Bond Issue" addresses the objections to the auditorium and coliseum bond issue, set for a vote the following Saturday. It again urges support of the three million dollar measure as a boon to the city's growth, notwithstanding arguments for fiscal belt-tightening.
"They Did It Again" tells of the World Series victory by the New York Yankees in four straight games, concluded Saturday. It marked the thirteenth American League title and the sixth time they had done so in the minimum number of games. Casey Stengel had now managed the Yankees through two consecutive World Series championships. The Series produced excellent pitching from both teams. Joe DiMaggio had hit what turned out to be the game winning homerun in the top of the 10th inning in game two. The Phillies had been unable to hit when they could have produced runs batted in. Young Whitey Ford nearly pitched a shut-out for the Yankees, but for what should have been a dropped easy catch of a fly ball.
But most of all, fans would discuss the equanimity under pressure displayed by the Yankees, taking alert and quick advantage of the breaks of the game.
Just as Notre Dame's number 1 ranking in football had been taken away by Purdue the previous Saturday, the Yankees' run would end someday. But in the meantime, they were adding new lines to the record book and doing it in such manner to elicit the admiration of the nation.
Incidentally, we wish that we could report in 2017 that Notre Dame's national ranking, albeit not yet in the nation's top 15, had been dashed or diminished this past weekend in Chapel Hill, but alas we cannot, or even call it close in the second half. But, the old season is now past, refused from memory, and a new season is upon us, beginning next Saturday, with a fresh slate of six games, 0-0 being the new record. Now, the Tar Heels start to play for real after spotting a few points to each of five of their first six opponents, for whom they obviously felt sorry, even feigning many injuries along the way to balance the field, during the first half of the season. No pity, no quarter given, henceforth.
A piece from the
New York Times,
titled "A Tree of Your Own", counsels that everyone
should "own" a tree during the fall, that is, to make it
their own in the sense of noticing it whenever they passed and seeing
its change of color
Drew Pearson again elucidates the salary kickback scheme of Congressman Walter Brehm of Ohio, who received $7,300 from the salary of a secretary over the course of three years. He provides the detailed payments and how they continued to be delivered to the Congressman by the son of the secretary even after she had broken her arm and could no longer function in the office.
Congressman Brehm, however, had denied the allegations and called Mr. Pearson a liar. Mr. Pearson reminds that former Congressmen J. Parnell Thomas and Andrew May had also called him a liar when he had revealed their illegal activities, salary kickbacks received by Mr. Parnell and war contract bribes received by Mr. May, for which both had gone to jail. Mr. Brehm had instructed his staff not to talk to Mr. Pearson or any of his investigators.
Stewart Alsop discusses the need for price controls as inflation spiraled out of control in the wake of the start of the Korean war. The President had been seeking to persuade Chester Barnard, president of New Jersey Bell Telephone, to accept appointment as the head of the new Economic Stabilization Agency. The job would be thankless and reportedly several people had already turned it down.
Stuart Symington, head of the National Security Resources Board, was not to blame for the problem. Rather it was the business-as-usual crowd in the Congress and at the White House, refusing to recognize the reality of inflation, with, among other things, rubber up 77 percent and food, 16 percent, since June. Secretary of Commerce Charles Sawyer, in charge of allocations, priorities and inventories, needed to impose tough regulation and instead had sought volunteerism from industry. The Federal Reserve Board had only formalized existing credit practices, while consumer credit shot upward, increasing inflationary pressures. The 4.7 billion dollar tax increase passed by Congress had already been consumed by the five billion dollars in inflation on war materiel, triggering a spiral in war costs. The Congress had imposed a farm policy under which the Government was forced to hoard food in a time of inflated food prices. But, because of election year politics, Congress had not passed a controls bill, leaving them up to the President's discretion.
Thus, soon it would be necessary to impose the full panoply of wage and price controls. He concludes that if Mr. Barnard or someone else tackled the job of stabilization, he would merit the thanks of the country for saving it from economic debacle, rather than the kicks he was almost certain to receive.
Robert C. Ruark discusses the request for renewal of American citizenship by Garry Davis, who, in May, 1948, to great fanfare, had renounced his citizenship in Paris and proclaimed himself a "citizen of the world". He thinks it churlish behavior and a further publicity stunt. Mr. Davis had married a U.S. citizen and so was entitled, as any immigrant, to be naturalized; thus, there was likely no way to stop him. But, he thinks, once someone had renounced such a precious right, he should not routinely be able to get it back. His renunciation, he finds, had been nothing more than a publicity stunt, a "cheap gimmick". His turnabout did not much annoy Mr. Ruark but he was sorry that the country could "breed such a small gnat to inflame the international eye", playing into the hands of Communist propaganda.
A letter writer objects to the bond issue to build the auditorium and coliseum on the ground of increased property taxes as a result. He favors having the projects built by private business.
A letter writer compares the Republicans to a punch-drunk boxer who walked to the wrong corner at every bell, and was starting to hear the bells even when they were not ringing. The latest example was the letter by Harold Stassen suggesting a bilateral citizens' peace conference with Josef Stalin. The writer says that there was nothing to be communicated to Russia to which Britain and France and the other member nations of the U.N. should not be privy.
Framed Edition
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