The Charlotte News
Friday, May 26, 1950
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that U.N. Secretary-General Trygve Lie, who had just returned from talks with leaders in London, Paris, and Moscow, said that he hoped for a break in the U.N. deadlock by June or July regarding whether Communist China would be recognized at the U.N., source of the Russian boycott of the organization starting January 10. He did not say whether Russia had offered any proposals for resolving the issue and suggested that it would take two to three months for developments to occur from his talks.
In Berlin, Britain's occupation commandant, Maj. General G.K. Bourne, said that he believed that the rally of East German Communist youth scheduled for the weekend would end in a clear victory for the West. Appearances were that the expected demonstration in East Berlin on Sunday by a half million youths would not lead to trouble. They had been given instructions by the their leaders not to overstep the Russian boundary to the Western sectors and to maintain order.
The U.S. placed tight restrictions on the movement of Rumanian diplomats in the country, limiting their travel to a perimeter of 35 miles around the nation's capital, in retaliation for restrictions placed on the American legation personnel in Bucharest by the Communist Government. It was the first such restriction on any diplomats of a Communist bloc nation. Undersecretary of State James Webb, in making the announcement, said that restrictions placed on American diplomats by both Czechoslovakia and Rumania could lead to a break in diplomatic relations with the countries. The U.S. had already recently severed relations with Bulgaria regarding harassment of diplomatic personnel.
In Chicago, a flaming collision between a gasoline truck and a crowded streetcar resulted in the deaths of 33 people, the worst motor vehicle accident death toll to that date in the nation's history. At least another 30 people were injured, with twenty committed to hospitals. The collision caused explosions and a block-long fire from the flooding 8,000 gallons of gasoline, which destroyed five buildings and rendered 300 persons homeless. The previous record death toll in a traffic accident had been 29 in a Texas collision of a truck and train in 1940.
In Oak Ridge, Tenn., an estimated hundred of the 3,000 workers who had walked off the job, halting construction on an atomic energy plant, returned to work. But an Atomic Energy Commission spokesman said that he doubted it represented enough men to resume work on the project.
In Hartford, Conn., a libel suit brought by entertainers Larry Adler and Paul Draper against Hester McCullough of Greenwich, for allegedly causing them damage by calling them pro-Communist, was sent to a Federal District Court jury for determination following twenty days of trial.
In Charlotte, the wife of former Governor and Senator Cameron Morrison died after being in failing health for several weeks.
The state was preparing for the coming special Democratic Senate primary the following day between Senator Frank Graham, Willis Smith, and former Senator Robert Rice Reynolds, requiring that one candidate receive a majority, failing which, a runoff primary would be scheduled.
In Oklahoma City, Never Fail, Jr., failed to show up for his junior high school graduation.
On the editorial page, "Uniform Truck Load Limits Needed" urges that the necessary rebuilding of roads at a cost of eleven billion dollars, as detailed in the Reader's Digest, would necessarily also entail passage of uniform weight limit laws in the 48 states, each of which set its own limit, vastly varying across the land. Trucks were on the scene to stay and added considerably to the economy, both industrially and agriculturally, and so had to be accommodated by the nation's highway program.
"It Has Happened Here" tells of a recent poll conducted among journalism students at the University of Wisconsin, 30 of 43 having answered incorrectly the question of what post Owen Lattimore, charged by Senator Joseph McCarthy as the top Soviet spy in the country, held in the Government. It finds the result shocking as the students had not dug behind the headlines generated by the Wisconsin Senator to find out the truth, that he had not worked for the State Department since the war and had never been a top Far Eastern policy adviser, even if an expert on the topic.
It concludes that if journalism students were thus confused, the average reader in the country could not help but be so. It finds that it suggested the effectiveness of Hitler's Big Lie theory, even when done amid a free press in a democratic society enjoying free speech.
Hey, they're just students who have papers to write and exams to take, have not the adequate time to do more than lightly peruse the newspapers every day. To be too much concerned with the world about during college might cause a person to go insane, certainly would at least cause an excess of distraction from studies.
Anent the stated confusion on the subject, incidentally, see the linked article below from The American Mercury of September, 1950, re the Amerasia case, in which it is stated that James Reston of the New York Times had found illustrative the story of an old woman on a streetcar wondering to another passenger why, if Senator Millard Tydings knew that Senator McCarthy was a Communist, he wouldn't just get him out of the State Department. Perhaps, in the light of history, it was more intuitively peeking through to the gleam emitted from obscure gimlet holes, sometimes characteristic of the extraordinary ability of the elderly endowed by longevity when properly heard, than the product of extreme confusion.
"The Force of Hell" tells of Air Force chief of staff General Lawton Collins describing "Loki", the new, experimental anti-aircraft rocket which might be the answer to the atom bomb, as it could intercept planes carrying such bombs. It was capable of firing to an altitude of 60,000 feet. The piece urges that while it would not stop rockets or planted bombs on American soil, it could, if performing as promoted, prove effective against airplane-borne bombs and should be funded.
"The Waiter and the Porter" finds the American people, who had fought so successfully so many wars, not to have the adequate backbone to refuse to tip on the C & O Railroad, which had abandoned its three-year no-tipping policy because too few patrons obeyed it.
A piece from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, titled "Graham & Graham", wishes well to departing Washington University dean of students Edward K. Graham, Jr., to become chancellor of the UNC Woman's College at Greensboro and also wishes well to his cousin, Senator Frank Graham, in the upcoming Senate race in North Carolina.
Drew Pearson tells of the mystery witness, Frank Bielaski, formerly of the O.S.S. during the war, having testified to the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee investigating anew the Amerasia case that he had seen the name of John Hersey, author of A Bell for Adano, scribbled on an envelope at the offices of Amerasia, which contained perhaps 15 documents which he had then seized. Mr. Hersey had never worked for the Government and Mr. Bielaski could not tie him to the magazine, even as a contributor. Mr. Bielaski, who had discovered the information only after breaking into the Amerasia offices, was formerly an investigator for the RNC and had now his own private detective agency which thrived on the publicity surrounding the Amerasia case. He had also been involved in a famous wire-tapping case in Rhode Island in 1939-40. The primary reason the Justice Department was unable to prosecute the Amerasia case successfully against six arrested co-defendants, only one or two of whom were ultimately convicted pursuant to plea bargains and fined, was Mr. Bielaski's illegal seizure of the documents, done, he contended, under the self-executing authority of the O.S.S. for the sake of insuring internal security in time of war. (The above-linked Mercury article, in the authors' apparent haste to clear the F.B.I. and O.S.S. of conducting irrevocably tainted searches in the case, fails to take into account the Fourth Amendment doctrine of the "fruit of the poisonous tree" in recounting cynically the suppression motion of one defendant's attorney which led to the plea bargains, the point being that if the original information leading to issuance of arrest warrants in the case was principally based on the admitted illegal seizure of documents at the Amerasia offices by Mr. Bielaski, then the whole case was tainted and dead in the water, even if the "bulk" of the 1,700 documents, as the FBI claimed, were seized lawfully at the time of arrest. The probable cause for arrest was tainted. You may have fifty Pulitzer Prizes, but a lawyer that does not make you, Messrs. Reporters.)
The claim of Mr. Bielaski regarding unilateral O.S.S. authority prompted objection from Connecticut Senator Brien McMahon of the subcommittee and chairman Millard Tydings that he had set aside the Constitution in deference to the war. Massachusetts Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., however—not unlike the head of the Republican ticket on which he would run in 1960—, found no problem with breaches of the Fourth Amendment for security reasons in time of war. Senator McMahon insisted that no one, including the President, was above the Constitution, war or no war. But Senator Lodge countered that Presidents had done so in time of war, as President Lincoln in suspending habeas corpus at the outset of the Civil War—albeit for domestic insurrection, not a foreign war on foreign soil, and even in the former case, an exceptional power belonging only to Congress. Senator Tydings finally ended the argument by stating that it could be done, but not legally.
Mr. Bielaski also stated to the subcommittee that he could not testify to any disloyalty in the State Department.
—Yeah, Henry, you hang in there. Fight for what's right, boy. You will make an excellent vice-president someday. If not, a terrific ambassador in some troubled far off land where the leaders need to be assassinated to eliminate a trouble spot. Just make sure it's all done with proper deniability. And if it backfires, and they retaliate on our soil, make sure it's the Democrats who pay. Give it to 'em, boy, before they give it to us.
Marquis Childs tells of General Omar Bradley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs since the prior August, having increased responsibility heaped on him since the war after showing that he was a capable administrator, first as head of the V.A. after the war. He was now chairman of the Defense Committee on NATO, carrying the chief responsibility of shaping defense policy acceptable to the NATO nations and the U.S. He found it appropriate at the same time to inform the American people of the purpose of NATO, being the first to suggest that the U.S. might have to sacrifice some of its military establishment to carry out the specialization required to maintain the greatest security for all of the twelve NATO nations.
During Armed Forces Day the previous weekend, he had made speeches suggesting that the country was not doing enough to maintain the peace through military strength. He had accepted, however, unlike some military brass, his role as implementer of policy made by the Defense Department and the President. He believed in carrying out the policy thus determined, even if he favored, personally, increased strength.
He operated at a handicap in that the Joint Chiefs had a small staff and had to farm out problems to be solved by others.
Shortly, he and Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson were scheduled to leave for Japan to confer with General MacArthur, potentially involving General Bradley in the sharpest of the many differences between Defense and State Department policy decisions, State being concerned that the present stagnant viewpoint of Defense was almost an invitation to war.
Robert C. Ruark tells of popular concern over Dr. Hermann Sander, acquitted in the mercy killing of a terminally ill patient in New Hampshire, following evidence that the patient may have been dead at the time he injected air to her veins, and possibly of insufficient quantity to cause death. For he had lost his medical license and was working for four dollars per hour as a plowman.
He finds that the evidence adduced at trial that the patient was at or near death tended to make the idea of euthanasia superfluous, that irresponsibility being compounded by the doctor having stated "mercy killing" on the patient's chart, tending to dispute his asserted belief that the amount of air was not adequate to cause death. That he claimed during the trial that he had blacked out at the time of the injection was the final irresponsibility.
So, he concludes, he did not feel sorry for Dr. Sander now having to do menial labor, because at least he was no longer able to practice medicine, for which he was not qualified given his actions. "This is fortunate, in his uncertain state of mind, because everything might go black, and there you'd be with a plowshare in your stomach."
A letter writer from Davidson College favors defeat of Senator Graham in the primary and finds it not surprising that his many affiliations with questionable organizations had come back to haunt him, that he was a "Welfare Stater" of the Truman stripe.
A letter writer finds the opposition to Senator Graham, the friend to the weak, to smell of Fascism.
A letter writer likes Willis Smith and finds Frank Graham to be a Trumanite as was Governor Kerr Scott, questions why the Governor denied that Senator Graham was a Communist when no one had charged him with being a Communist.
A letter writer responds to an article by Dr. B. W. Armstrong appearing in The News on May 18, saying that the deaf were the loneliest people in the world, says instead that they were the happiest people in the world, and provides details of some of the many social outlets for deaf people in the community.
A
letter writer, responding to the
previous letter writer from Lenoir who had said that he was glad that Governor Scott had appointed Frank Graham to be Senator so that UNC would be rid of him as president and thereby banish from the University
forever the "hammer and cycle", wonders what kind of
cycle he had in mind, a bicycle, motorcycle, or tricycle
Hey, Mister Wiseguy, not everyone can spell properly. Or maybe he meant the cycle of capitalism, going into depressions about every twenty years, driving down each time some of the bourgeoisie into the proletariat until, eventually, there is a large proletariat and a small ruling class, causing the proletariat to revolt and overthrow the ruling class, according to Marxian theory. You want to make some deal of it?
A letter writer from Shelby, John P. McKnight, formerly of The News and brother of editor Pete McKnight, endorses, contrary to The News, Senator Frank Graham on the basis of his great intellect, increasingly a rarity among the "mediocrities" in the Senate. He finds that Governor Scott had done a profound service for the state and the nation by the appointment of Senator Graham the previous year, as the Senate was conceived by the Founders to be an august body of persons. He hopes that the electorate would not send another mediocrity, in the person of Willis Smith, to the Senate.
Wait until 1972. You have not seen anything yet.
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