The Charlotte News
Saturday, February 4, 1950
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that Lt. General Leslie Groves told the press, in advance of his testimony to the Joint Atomic Energy Committee, that Dr. Klaus Fuchs, arrested the previous day in Britain for giving atomic secrets to the Russians, may have had access, during his time in the U.S. between 1943 and 1946, to secrets about the hydrogen bomb.
The Committee decided to call FBI director J. Edgar Hoover to testify about the matter on Monday. Senators quoted the director as saying that Dr. Fuchs had been a Russian plant in the British atomic program.
In New York, twelve top American physicists, headed by Dr. Hans Bethe of Cornell, one of the leading scientists involved in the Manhattan Project, warned that one hydrogen bomb could destroy New York City or any other large city, but that such a bomb could not destroy enough military capability to win a war. They urged the U.S. to pledge not to use it first and only in the event of attack by such a bomb. They described it as a "means of extermination of whole populations" rather than a weapon of war. They also said that the Russians would be able to build one shortly and that it could be detected if the Russians did explode one in a test.
John L. Lewis effectively rejected the President's proposal for a 70-day truce in the coal mine dispute while a fact-finding board made recommendations. But he left the way open for partial resumption of coal mining in the captive steel mines being struck provided the President would arrange resumption of negotiations between UMW and the operators. The mine strike was possibly set to spread by Monday.
Columnist Bruce Barton finds that he often had the urge to send to the President and Secretary of State the passage from Luke 14:31-32, referred by Cecil Rhodes to Sir Leander Starr Jameson just before the launch of the raid on the Transvaal. He wondered whether the leaders of the country ever determined whether the country could carry out the policies which they announced or whether they assumed that the country had the money and power to change the whole world to make those policies succeed. He suggests that the Founders made clear the limitation of the power of the state and that such needed to be heeded in the realm of foreign policy more than in any other endeavor. The country could not always change centuries of tradition of other peoples, no matter how much it disapproved of some of those practices. In many countries, dislike and disapproval of the U.S. was mounting because it had made too many promises it could not keep.
He says that in the previous session of Congress, the processes broke down and many Federal workers had to depend on handouts from emergency appropriations because the Senate had not passed the regular appropriations bills, for the reason that the President and the State Department had placed so many foreign policy issues before the body that the Senators could not keep up.
He concludes that Sir Leander had not read the passage in Luke, with the consequence that he and his men were defeated and wound up in jail. He again hopes the leaders of the country would read it.
Near Stanley, N.C., a 100-year old iron mine caved in late the previous day, killing one, age 12, and injuring three others from a group of 25 young students touring the mine from Stanley High School.
A piece tells of the statement earlier in the week by former Senator Robert Rice Reynolds of his intention to run for the seat occupied by Senator Frank Graham. It had been thought that he would seek the other seat occupied by his successor, Senator Clyde Hoey. As indicated, he would come in third in the spring primary race, behind the winner, Willis Smith, and Senator Graham.
Tom Fesperman of The News tells of GOP Representative Clarence Brown of Ohio visiting Charlotte and indicating that he was certain that the previously canceled Veterans Hospital slated for Charlotte would be built. He was in town to talk to Republican leaders, decrying wasteful spending.
On the editorial page, "Opportunity for the South" discusses the Senate's approval during the week, by a vote of 64 to 27, of the amendment proposed by Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., to alter the electoral college such that the votes would be apportioned based on the popular vote in each state rather than on the winner-take-all basis currently used by all of the state legislatures as the manner for determining electoral slates. If two-thirds of the House approved the proposed amendment, it would then go to the states for ratification, requiring three-fourths of the states to approve it.
The piece asserts that such apportionment of electoral votes would aid the South and cause both parties to pay more attention to it; no longer would it be taken for granted by the Democrats. The South's Republicans, as things stood, cast their votes for nothing in the popular vote, essentially disfranchising the South for the previous 80 years since Reconstruction. The new amendment would give life to the concept of one person-one vote, no matter where that person lived.
Things have become so strained and
utterly confused, Breitbartified, stultified, fortified, and Foxified
Figuratively nuking the electoral college, at least as to the winner-take-all formula, would, however, be a good idea. Anyone who thinks otherwise has in mind an oligarchic state run by a dictator, the functional equivalent of Nazi Germany. There is no excuse for this silly, undemocratic convention being held over from the eighteenth century, when code duello was still in use, indeed when the chief proponent of the electoral college among the Founders, Alexander Hamilton, died by that very means, delivered by the pistol of Aaron Burr. It is rather stupid, as stupid as the convention of the duel over petty slights of honor.
For a long time, the country dodged the issue as it simply did not arise after 1888, until 2000, and now again in 2016, with especially dire results in the latter case already becoming evident from the "choice" made by the majority of the electors, constrained by the winner-take-all formula of their individual states.
Get rid of it before it gets rid of us as a democratic country. It is threatening to do so every day, and with daily increasing celerity, since January 20, 2017. We have never elected someone so poorly prepared for executive authority exercised from the White House as the current occupant, and, insofar as the popular vote, still have not. The electoral college was designed to avoid such a result, not produce it.
It is, indeed, "outmoded", as the piece asserted in 1950. For the arithmetically challenged, that was 67 years ago, 62 years after it had last been an issue.
That generation may not have been perfect in some of their ideas, but on this one, they were quite perspicacious.
"High Level Treachery" finds that the arrest of Dr. Klaus Fuchs in Britain for giving to the Russians atomic secrets would have repercussions on both sides of the Atlantic. While it was not yet known precisely what he had done, it ventures that it had to be an airtight case for it to have been brought by British authorities. It was of great satisfaction, it suggests, that the FBI had provided the information to the British.
It finds that the revelation, however, should not deter the spread of public information about non-military uses of atomic energy. It also asserts that only by educating the people of the world to the destructive power of the atom bomb could there ever be hope of avoiding its use.
"Pattern of Education" finds the new Chantilly School in Charlotte to be an example of the better physical plants now becoming standard in the new schools, replacing the old little red school house with dim lighting and poor heating and furnishings. Education, too, was changing from rote teaching to teaching children to think on their own, replacing the chore of going to school with respect for the desire to learn. It urges that the principal factor in education was, as always, still the teacher and that, in addition to funding for the modern school plant, adequate funds had to be devoted to attracting those qualified for the profession.
"The Guild of Charlotte Artists" finds that the problems of the world could cause one to forget about culture and art, but for the Guild of Charlotte Artists, organized in 1948, serving to remind the community of same. The Guild added to the cultural life of the community, as did the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra, the Mint Museum Ensemble, the Charlotte Writers Club, the Poetry Society, the Little Theater and other such groups.
A piece from the
St. Louis
Post-Dispatch, titled "A Voice in the Choir", tells
of the New Yorker having recalled that the New York Sun,
recently absorbed into the ether, was the newspaper of the late
humorist, Don Marquis, creator of "archy" the cockroach
and "Mehitabel" the cat, who knew how to put events in
their place. archy had been a small-letter democrat, unable to hit
the shift key
"a louse i
used to know
told me that
millionaires and
bums tasted
about alike
to him"
"what is all this mystery
about the sphinx
that has troubled so many
illustrious men
no doubt the very same
thoughts she thinks
are thought every day
by some obscure hen"
"coarse
jocosity
catches the crowd
shakespeare and i
are often low browed"
The New Yorker concluded that when the country lost a newspaper, it lost a "voice in the choir". The piece concludes: "On the Sun, Don Marquis—and archy—struck notes that will sound for a long time to come."
Drew Pearson tells of the deal struck a year earlier between Senator Richard Russell of Georgia and Senators Zales Ecton of Montana and Kenneth Wherry of Nebraska whereby Republican votes would be assured to defeat the anti-filibuster rule of Vice-President Barkley, aimed at clearing the way for civil rights legislation, in exchange for Southern Democratic votes for defeating the Government plan to run transmission lines from the Government's Kerr Dam to Anaconda, Montana, in favor of allowing Montana Power & Light to run the lines. He provides the names of the nineteen Republican Senators who voted with the Southerners thus to doom the civil rights program. In return, Senator Russell delivered only six votes from Southern Democrats, whom he also names, to defeat the Government's Montana project. The lack of support had been achieved by an emergency meeting called by public power advocates, Senators Lister Hill, Wayne Morse and Bob Kerr, urging Southern Senators and Republicans to be absent for the vote on the power lines, with the result that the Government project was approved.
He notes that the failure to vote for cloture on civil rights would cost the Republicans more Northern votes than any other single issue during the ensuing six years. He further notes that Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson had recommended appointment of Curtis Calder as Secretary of the Army despite the latter being head of the parent company of Montana Power & Light, leading some Senators to wonder if the Administration always meant what it said.
Senator Tom Connally of Texas had reacted to debate on the issue of defending Formosa, championed by Senators William Knowland of California and Alexander Smith of New Jersey, after Senator Wherry proclaimed that Nebraska had more Americans per square inch than any other state in the union, by saying that if they could be compressed into a square inch, they must be getting pretty small.
Joseph & Stewart Alsop find that the President, in making his statement at a press conference earlier in the week that he had ordered the production of the hydrogen bomb, had not answered the question adequately whether he meant that the theoretical research by the Atomic Energy Commission, which had been transpiring for some time, would continue or whether he meant that the program would be intensified to accelerate production on a two-year crash program, similar to the Manhattan Project. The cost of such an accelerated production program had been pegged by opponents at two to four billion dollars while proponents claimed the bomb could be produced for about 200 million dollars.
The President had not indicated any intention to ask Congress for additional appropriations, leaving a question as to whether the additional funding would come from the existing allocation for production of fission bombs, a necessary component of defense.
Furthermore, it would take two years to complete development under such a program and the Russians had already developed an air defense capable of stopping delivery of atomic bombs to Russia, and two additional years would allow for yet more improvement in these defenses. Thus the question was begged whether such a program would produce a bomb which could not be effectively delivered, giving in the process a false sense of security.
A third problem was the meaning of hydrogen bombs to the American public. The Russians presumably could build such a bomb in four years. Dr. Harold Urey, who had been a principal scientist in the Manhattan Project, had said that the fallout from a few such super-bombs could conceivably wipe out all life on the North American continent. Another unnamed authority had informed the Alsops that guided missiles bearing such bombs could be launched from submarines 200 miles off the American coasts and could wipe out all life in New York, Boston, San Francisco and Los Angeles, rendering those cities' ports unusable for thousands of years, meaning inevitable defeat to the Soviets under such a scenario. The Navy had no way to defend against such submarines and the defense budget did not provide for development of that means.
They urge therefore that the President provide a plain and complete statement of his intentions so that the public would be informed and could make rational choices.
Robert C. Ruark finds the grounding of the U.S.S. Missouri two weeks earlier to have been a fitting conclusion to a year during which the Navy, in which he had served during the war, could not win. Running one's vessel aground was the equivalent for the Navy of going to sleep on sentry duty in the Army, the worst sin imaginable. The captain was always responsible for such a mistake.
He reels off the various problems encountered by the Navy during the year and decides that he should have signed up for the infantry. The Navy was supposed to be the service which could save the country from atomic destruction but was now the service which appeared to be capable of being taken by the infantry.
The Air Force, he concludes, appeared to be around to stay, with the "Mighty Mo" stuck in the mud in drydock.
Tom Schlesinger of The News, in his weekly "Capital Roundup", tells of Senator Frank Graham likely to be one of the leaders in the battle over the displaced persons bill. He was one of three Judiciary Committee members who voted against the Senate bill approved by ten members of that Committee, but it was believed he would vote for it on the floor. The bill out of the Committee had been revised by Nevada Senator Pat McCarran, who had been responsible for the discriminatory measure out of the previous Congress. Liberal members of the Committee had voted for it to get it out of his hands. Senator Graham and the other two opposing members wanted the House measure which did not have the limits imposed by the Senate measure as amended by Senator McCarran. The latter required that 40 percent of admitted displaced persons had to come from the Baltic countries and that 30 percent had to be farmers, while applying a restrictive definition of "displaced persons".
He next provides some of the press reaction around the country to the Raleigh meeting of regional Democrats, finding generally that it was a meeting which accomplished little and was more significant for who did not attend and what was not said.
Everyone in Washington was surprised when former Senator Robert Rice Reynolds announced his candidacy for the seat occupied by Senator Graham.
Senator Hoey thought the President's decision to build the hydrogen bomb was wise. Senator Graham hoped that it would give new impetus to the need for strengthening the U.N., preventing war, and eliminating the veto on the Security Council held by the Big Five permanent members.
Both Senators had been furnished with electric typewriters.
After five weeks of the session, the
Congress had sent to the President only one bill, to declare February
6 "National Children's Dental Day"—a safe
Representative Hamilton Jones of
Charlotte had been among the Congressmen televised as part of an
amateur show for the Heart Fund
A letter writer thanks The News for presenting a good paper, likes especially the columns of the Reverend Herbert Spaugh, Dr. George Crane, and Erich Brandeis.
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