The Charlotte News
Friday, November 3, 1950
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that allied forces struggled in a drenching rainstorm to rescue remnants of two trapped American regiments on the sagging U.N. line in the northwest sector of Korea after a surge by the enemy forces, including North Korean and Communist Chinese troops, moving back to within 47 miles of Pyongyang. One U.S. withdrawal by the 24th Division was by 50 miles from its forward-most point of advance, 15 miles from the Manchurian border, back to Chongju to avoid entrapment. The downpour meant curtailment of air support and therefore hurt the allies more than the enemy. Following the downpour, allied forces neither advanced nor retreated. Thirteen American tanks, among other equipment, were captured by the enemy in the northwest sector around Unsan.
The only unit on the offensive were Marines in the northeast sector, moving toward the Changjin reservoir, but they were blunted by an enemy encircling movement, comprised, according to American officers, by the Chinese.
The New York Times reported of the execution of 27 Koreans convicted of collaboration with the enemy by the South Koreans. Included among those executed was a woman entertainer who had been the mistress of the Communist police chief during the North Korean occupation. They were all tied to posts and shot in a hillside cemetery outside Seoul after being removed from a prison by South Korean guards. The removal process, according to the report, involved callous and indifferent treatment of the prisoners, separating a baby from the woman only at the last moment before being loaded onto a truck bound for the cemetery.
At the U.N., the General Assembly ratified by a vote of 52 to 5, with two abstentions, Secretary of State Acheson's plan for collective security, designed to discourage new Korea-type aggressive actions by preventing Security Council veto of counter-measures, allowing the General Assembly, after a veto in the Security Council, to direct action of an international police force on 24 hours notice in an emergency situation. Only the Soviet bloc cast negative votes. India and Argentina abstained. During debate of the resolution the previous day, Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Vishinsky called John Foster Dulles, who had guided the resolution through the Assembly, a warmonger and falsifier of facts, for which he was chastised by the president of the Assembly, the Iranian delegate.
Federal agents widened their probe of Puerto Rican Nationalists following the assassination attempt two days earlier at Blair House in Washington, temporary residence of the President and First Family while renovations were taking place at the White House. The President did not take his usual early morning constitutional this date but there was no indication that he refrained from doing so because of safety concerns, rather the result of working late on his planned Saturday night campaign speech in St. Louis at 10:00. He had taken his usual walk the prior morning, walking to Emergency Hospital to speak with the two wounded guards in the attack.
In New York, the widow of the slain Griselio Torresola, one of the two attempted assassins, was taken into custody. The other attempted assassin, Oscar Collazo, was arraigned for the murder of White House police officer Leslie Coffelt. Officers said that Mr. Collazo told them that the plot was not hatched in Puerto Rico but that the two had acted on their own.
Harold Stassen urged re-election of Senator Taft in Ohio, as he prepared to deliver a rebuttal to the President's Saturday speech. RNC chairman Guy Gabrielson complained that the President refused to implement economic controls to curb inflation from the war.
In Circleville, O., Robert Dale Segee, who had admitted to arson resulting in the deaths of 168 persons in the Ringling Brothers Circus tent fire in 1944 in Hartford, Conn., was sentenced to two consecutive 2 to 20-year prison terms for his plea of guilty to setting two minor fires in Circleville. It was the maximum sentence allowed by law. He had also told authorities that he killed two other persons in a pattern of arson and slaying dating back to when he was six years old. He had been questioned for 120 days at the insane asylum by psychiatrists regarding his stories and they concluded that he was sane and believable. By this point in time, however, though not noted in the piece, he had recanted the earlier admissions, contending that he had been hounded into them by Circleville authorities. He was never prosecuted for any crimes associated with those acts.
An India Constellation passenger plane, with 40 Lascar seamen and a crew of eight aboard, was overdue on a flight from Bombay to Geneva and was believed to have crashed.
On the editorial page, "Over the Top" tells of Community Chest campaign chairman John F. Watlington, Jr., having disclosed that the campaign had met its goal for the first time since 1946, exceeding it by 2.6 percent, raising $344,277. The people behind the campaign had done an excellent job promoting the drive and explaining its valuable purposes to the community.
"The President and His Shield" tells of most Americans feeling sympathy for the President after the assassination attempt two days earlier and also admiration for the way he had taken it in stride, going on, as scheduled, to an event in Arlington National Cemetery and, next morning, taking his usual perambulation, chatting with reporters and guards.
Also admired were the White House police who had responded quickly and decisively to stop the attack of the two men, costing the life of one of the guards.
"'He Was Not for an Age...'" finds that the loss of George Bernard Shaw to the world of letters was a major impact on world society. While a Marxist and a vegetarian, he had infinite good sense and was a master of that "oft-misused technique: destruction by ridicule." He was more subtle than H. L. Mencken and more given to assault on society as a whole. Everyone was indebted to him, whether they had read him or not. The men who wrote the English language also owed him a large debt for lifting it from the "velvet-lined slough of Victorianism." He spoke to conservative and liberal audiences alike.
It finds that he had written his own
epitaph: "This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature
Mr. Shaw had also written that "everything happens to everybody sooner or later if there is tme enough." Regrettable was the fact not only of losing him but that he
would not be back to write of this newest of his experiences, death
A piece from the Norfolk Leader-Dispatch, titled "Tar Heelia in Titoland", tells of North Carolina Congressman Thurmond Chatham being in Eastern Europe along with two other Congressmen from the Foreign Affairs Committee. One stop was in Yugoslavia where Tito was seeking a loan to keep his Government viable against Soviet harassment. The entourage was likely to recommend giving the loan. Mr. Chatham had gone a little overboard, however, in comparing Tito's looks to those of Governor Kerr Scott, his eye contact and hand-shaking to that of Senator Frank Graham, and his gift for speech with that of Senator Clyde Hoey. The piece wonders when the first load of barbecue would leave for Belgrade.
R. F. Beasley, of the Monroe Journal, responds to two editorials from The News of October 27, one praising the establishment of the technical college in the Piedmont and the other, "The Underdog Comes into His Own", anent the plethora of upsets in college football and the continuing tendency to buy players despite their youth. He finds an interconnection in the editorials in that college resources were being drained away by the stress on football. He had heard that a half million dollars per year was being spent at UNC on the football program, albeit most of it probably coming from alumni and friends of the University and the rest from box office receipts. He nevertheless finds the trend disturbing, favors jettisoning college football from the college and university extra-curriculum and making it an exclusively pro sport, that it was too distracting from the main purpose of college, to obtain an education. He adds that a person was not expected to be educated after four years of college but only to have the foundation for acquiring an education, if one so pursued the goal, throughout life.
We did not fare badly, incidentally, in our prediction last week, even if the outcome was a UNC fumble short, at the 35-yard line of Miami with 2:10 remaining in the game, from giving the opportunity for the result to have comported with our forecast. The final score was 24 to 19 in favor of undefeated, number eight Miami over the injury-riddled UNC team, now 1-8, missing a fifth of its squad for the last several weeks.
And, no, we do not agree with Mr. Beasley that the sport ought be abandoned in college because of the abuses which he cites. Clean up the abuses to the extent possible and leave the sport to be enjoyed by the students and the public. At any college where the professors sufficiently challenge the students during the week, such an escape is necessary on Saturday afternoons, whether via football or basketball, for enduring the rigors of academic discipline with preservation of sanity.
Drew Pearson examines the race for the Senate in Utah, with incumbent Elbert Thomas facing a major challenge despite having pioneered the major policy, initially opposed by the State Department but now accepted and proposed before the U.N., that an international police force would be directed in emergencies by vote of the General Assembly, not subject to Soviet veto in the Security Council. His opposition was being coordinated by former Undersecretary of State Reuben Clark who had served in the Twenties and done a good job under Secretary Frank Kellogg. Mr. Clark was a leader in the Mormon church, and Senator Thomas, though also a Mormon, was being accused of being a Communist, an absurd charge. (As pointed out on the front page, the resolution originally proposed by Senator Thomas had been approved this date by the General Assembly.)
In Oklahoma, the candidates were Reverend William Alexander, formerly a Democrat, a showman who did not exemplify honesty, and Congressman Mike Monroney for the Democrats. The latter was being attacked for having a bar in his basement. It smacked of hypocrisy as Rev. Alexander was also quite free with a bottle when he left Oklahoma.
Oklahoma Congressman Victor Wickersham was seeking re-election despite one of the worst records for feeding from the public trough, the facts supporting which Mr. Pearson provides.
Marquis Childs, in Rome, tells of the Marshall Plan administrators having figured out that Italy, after infusion of hundreds of millions of dollars of American aid during the previous 2.5 years, had a surplus in its budget of gold and dollars. It meant that the dollars had not gone toward capital investment to create jobs, but remained stagnant because of the conservative fiscal policies of Prime Minister Alcide de Gasperi's Christian Democratic Government. There were about two million unemployed in the country, about one of every eight employable people.
There was even evidence that some of the capital had been sent out of the country to safe deposits in U.S. banks.
The U.S. mission had substantiated the story, first published in the New York Times. The Prime Minister then cried out that the disclosure was an outrage against the sovereignty of the country. The U.S. Ambassador, James Dunn, then apologized to the Government on behalf of the mission, clearing the air. Mr. Childs wonders whether such was within the role of the Ambassador.
Some basic reforms in government, especially in taxation, were necessary if a democratic government would survive and prosper. He was informed that one of the members of the Cabinet had an income of about 1.5 million dollars per year and paid taxes of less than $4,000, not an exceptional case. A wealthy cotton mill owner paid practically no tax on 37 million dollars of income, had faced charges resulting in fines being imposed of the amount equivalent to the income, on which no effort, however, had been made to collect. Only about five percent of the revenue came from income and excess profits taxes.
A new tax law had no provision for swearing to the truth of the tax filing, a provision to which objection was made by Senators. The reason offered was that it would place too much of a burden on the conscience of the taxpayer.
He concludes that there could be no progress in the country as long as American aid dollars were diverted to special privilege and old channels.
Robert C. Ruark, in Chicago, looks
at television shows originating from the city, finds "Garroway
at Large"
The Garroway show produced the
effective equivalent of a musical
He says that he may have become overly enthusiastic about both shows but doubts it. New York television, he concludes, was a good two years behind that in Chicago.
You can keep that Kukla. They got on
our nerves. Bing, bang, boong. Hit, grab, slap. Violence. If you like
that, you are in bad shape, especially as an adult. Stop it, Kukla, you high-pitched moron
Framed Edition
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