The Charlotte News

Tuesday, January 10, 1950

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that Secretary of State Acheson met in a closed-door session with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to defend the Administration's recently enunciated policy of not sending military aid to defend Formosa against potential invasion by the Chinese Communists. Also present at the meeting were non-members of the Committee, Senators William Knowland of California, Homer Ferguson of Michigan, Charles Tobey of New Hampshire, and Leverett Saltonstall of Massachusetts, who had asked to be present. Senators Knowland and Ferguson had been especially critical of the policy. Senator Robert Taft had expressed the opinion prior to the meeting that a little U.S. military aid to Formosa would save it.

A report from aboard the American merchant ship Flying Arrow, which had been attacked the previous day by a Nationalist Chinese gunboat on the Yangtze River approach to Communist-held Shanghai, blockaded by the Nationalists and mined, tells of two American destroyers being present, ready to accompany the crippled vessel to another port for repairs.

The British Labor Cabinet was meeting this date to determine a date for the general election, required by July. It was believed that a date in February would be chosen. The election was usually held on a Thursday.

The Senate Armed Services Committee postponed until January 19 action on the confirmation of Admiral Forrest Sherman as the new chief of Naval operations, after Senator Knowland called first for an inquiry into the ouster of Admiral Louis Denfeld as his predecessor in the post.

The Senate Banking Committee unanimously denounced John L. Lewis for the three-day work week in the coal mines since December 1 and sought a study to determine whether the antitrust laws should be applied to labor unions. The Committee charged that Mr. Lewis usurped the exclusive role of Congress in determining production and price controls.

In New York, Mayor William O'Dwyer favored legalization of gambling on sports contests, spawning a moral and political controversy.

Emery Wister of The News tells of former Secretary of State James Byrnes not indicating in his statements to the press in Charlotte whether he would run for governor of South Carolina. He was in the city to act as counsel for two hosiery mills in their appeal before the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals of an adverse decision in a patent infringement case.

Near Mulhouse, France, twenty workmen were drowned when a crowded bus swerved off of a bridge into a canal.

In Blowing Rock, N.C., police officers and Highway Patrolmen were searching for three armed fugitives after the car in which they were riding wrecked and was found to contain stolen merchandise. They had jumped from the car and fled into the mountains. One of the men was wounded by law enforcement.

Shoot 'em up with BB's if you run across them.

In Lenoir, N.C., a man lit a match to see how much antifreeze was in his car's radiator, landing him in the hospital with burns on his hands and face.

A storm originating out of Alaska hit the Siskiyou Mountains of California, bringing rain, snow, and high winds, a "virtual blizzard", to the Northern California coast in the area of Mt. Shasta, extending to Donner Pass in the Sierra Mountains. In Southern California, more rain fell after ice had covered Los Angeles County roads the previous day.

More rain fell in the Indiana and Illinois flood area.

All in all, more weather occurred—something which we shall avoid in Trumplanderkind with the all-encompassing wall and roof, a splendid time being guaranteed for all, except the majority of the electorate who did not vote for it.

On the editorial page, "Ten-Year Platform—VI" continues to look at the ten-point program for progress in Charlotte during the ensuing decade, as put forth by Tom Fesperman of The News on January 2, this time looking at the proposal for a committee similar to the "Committee of One Hundred" in Winston-Salem, to study and make recommendations for the city. It refers to a piece on the page by Pete Ivey, editor of the Twin City Sentinel in Winston-Salem, telling of the functions and makeup of that city's Committee.

"More Deficit Financing" finds the President's economic message delivered to Congress the previous day to have stated that the deficit for the current year would be 5.5 billion dollars rather than the 873 million predicted a year earlier, an obviously large disparity. The problem had been the unpredictability of receipts of revenue and the needs of the Military Assistance Program for Europe.

It suggests therefore that the President's currently predicted deficit for the coming fiscal year of 5.1 billion dollars might be equally in error.

No one wanted to do anything about deficit financing in an election year. It hopes that the program to resist Communism abroad did not suffer too much from the President's economizing measures in defense spending and that the Congress would manage to reduce spending in the President's domestic programs.

"Brains vs. Brawn" tells of six Wake Forest football players having been found guilty of cheating on examinations, raising the question of whether they should be allowed to play football if they could not keep up also in the classroom without cheating.

The mania over football, it finds, had produced professionalization of the game in the college ranks to the point where academic standards were being lowered.

At one unnamed Southern Conference school, by contrast, the academic average of the football team was reported to be higher than the average for the student body at large.

The plays had become so complicated, it suggests, that quarterbacks needed to be excellent students and linemen needed at least to have a "C" average.

It concludes therefore that maybe the day would come when brains would mean more than brawn in football.

We congratulate, incidentally, Clemson for its N.C.A.A. football crown for the 2016 season last night. You may now have your pizza party—to which we roundly objected a year ago for a particularly controversial call in the A.C.C. championship game, a non-offside offside call on an otherwise recovered onside kick by UNC which, but for the plainly erroneous call, could have resulted in the game going to overtime, though obviously of no fault of Clemson. C'est la vie.

We follow the prescription that what is good for the A.C.C. is good for all of the member schools. All boats rise together. We hope Clemson fans will appreciate that notion and reciprocate in congratulatory response in the other major sport, come April.

A piece from the Winston-Salem Journal, titled "Tri-City Co-Operation", tells of Winston-Salem, High Point, and Greensboro cooperating to try to lure the proposed Air Force Academy to the Piedmont triad area. It hopes that, whether or not successful in this instance, the spirit would continue in other endeavors, mutually beneficial to all three cities and their residents. It was better to overcome municipal rivalries and pull together.

Pete Ivey of the Twin City Sentinel, as indicated above, remarks on the proposal by The News to form a committee similar to the "Committee of One Hundred" in Winston-Salem, similar, he says, to the "Committee of Seventy" in Philadelphia. The Committee had the influence of a Town Hall body, similar to the Hoover Committee, except that it was not operating under the aegis of the Government. Its function was to supply the citizenry, in a nonpartisan manner, with reliable facts on public affairs. No public official could serve on the Committee.

It had been criticized as having been formed to enable the "big boys" to lower their taxes. But its first act after being formed in 1946 had been to recommend that the tax rate in the city be raised. He proceeds to set forth some of its major recommendations and concludes that it had won the respect of the citizenry.

Drew Pearson comments that the advice of former President Hoover to use the American Navy to secure Formosa from Communist aggression must have brought a wry smile from former Secretary of State Henry Stimson in the Hoover Administration, who had sought firm measures to interdict Japanese aggression in Manchuria in 1931, to avoid what he saw as a future war in the making. But Mr. Hoover had nixed the policy proposal, refused even to allow the American Navy to cruise in the mid-Pacific as a show of strength. Now, Mr. Hoover wanted to send the Navy to Formosa when it was too late.

Secretary of the Air Force Stuart Symington had spent Christmas in Alaska asking the commanding officer there, future chief of staff of the Air Force and chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Lt. General Nathan Twining, what he needed. He had responded that he needed an entertainer. So Secretary Symington called Bob Hope three days prior to Christmas, and, while expressing initial hesitancy for family commitments, Mr. Hope finally responded affirmatively, assembled a group of performers for seven performances in two days. During the performances, he had quipped that Bing Crosby would have come along but they spent all of their time doing nothing for each other.

He notes that Mr. Hope had a year earlier unselfishly spent all of his time during a visit to Washington cheering up the veterans in the veterans hospitals.

Congressman Emanuel Celler of New York, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, had been quietly investigating monopolies, exposing the manner in which the large insurance companies dominated the money market by loaning money to business, circumventing SEC regulation of securities on Wall Street. Mr. Celler intended to propose legislation to put teeth into the Antitrust Act, with criminal penalties for violations, as it was largely ignored by big business for the absence of such stiff penalties.

Senators John Sparkman of Alabama, Burnet Maybank of South Carolina, and Congressman Brent Spence of Kentucky, proponents of public housing, recently visited the President, and Senator Sparkman plugged his proposed legislation for middle-income housing, with which the President agreed. The President also wanted rent control renewed. He further remarked that his daughter Margaret had been working hard on her singing career, but that critics had been harsh, indicating by his tone that he was hurt by the fact.

They then exchanged quips about corn and mules—perhaps, in the juxtaposition, intended as a subliminal comment on the critics.

Joseph & Stewart Alsop tell of the Government's indecision regarding Asia policy coming to an end in light of the policy apparently soon to be enunciated to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee by Secretary of State Acheson.

Formosa was, in fact, valuable, more because its surplus product being useful to feed Japan than for its strategic importance. But it was less valuable by any test than the mineral and agricultural wealth of the Southeast Asiatic peninsula. The practical objection to preservation of Formosa by means of an American military force was that it could impede any attempt to hold Southeast Asia against the Communist advance in China.

To engage in such a military mission on Formosa would arouse suspicions throughout Asia of American imperialism and would hopelessly divide the U.S. Asiatic policy from that of the other Western powers having Asiatic interests, particularly Britain, compromising thereby the first task of U.S. policy in the region, to obtain the cooperation of the former colonial powers in putting the emerging nations of the region back on their feet. Such a military mission would also alienate the leaders of the already independent nations of the region, such as Pandit Nehru in India and President Soekarno and Premier Mohammed Hatta in Indonesia. The policy needed instead to induce these leaders to take the lead in the effort to save Asia from Communism.

They posit that it would be erroneous to judge the new Asiatic policy by the old hands-off policy toward China. But the new policy would be doomed to failure from the outset unless the U.S. engaged itself in the region politically and strategically, as well as economically.

Burma and Indochina were the keys to Southeast Asia and if those countries fell to the Communists, a chain reaction would be started which would follow in Siam, Malaya and Indonesia—that which would come to be known as the "domino theory". But both Burma and Indochina were in peril from strong, well-armed Communist movements. And both had to be made secure before the region could be rebuilt.

But saving Asia would entail significant political risks and spending a lot of money. And the State Department did not wish to take political risks and the President wanted to hold the line on foreign expenditures.

"In short, the Asiatic policy that looks so good in outline, may prove to be inadequate in practice. We must be ready to put up the cash, get into the mess, and even get our hands dirty."

And, eventually, we would, starting in the ensuing six months in Korea and then, following the 1953 armistice there, picking up, first, with the Quemoy and Matsu standoff of 1958, and then entering full-scale into the quagmire of Vietnam in 1965, continuing off and on therefore for the following 25 years.

Is anyone to blame save events as they transpired out of World War II, spawned ultimately by the imperialist warlords of Japan?

Henry C. MacFadyen, superintendent of the Albemarle, N.C., schools, in the nineteenth in his series of articles on childhood education—transforming from a "Mc" to a "Mac" for the first time two weeks earlier—, discusses the overcrowding in city high schools being a function of the large number of small rural high schools. There were 800 rural high schools in the state in 1950 and over half had five or six teachers with 90 to 100 students, some with fewer. Such small high schools could not offer the students the advantages of larger schools with 400 students—or 1,800, as, for instance, at a certain high school in Winston-Salem by the latter 1960's.

If the smaller schools combined, they would have more resources to build better facilities, as laboratories, adequate libraries, and gymnasiums. Hundreds of the small schools in the rural areas could not even afford home economics and agriculture classes. (We had all of that, the whole Plowboy culture, including 40 acres and a mule on the Erie Canal in the Sea of Verrazano.)

The smaller schools had so few teachers that they had to teach six or seven different subjects, causing their resources to be spread too thin. A fairly large high school could offer about 30 different subjects—including typing and the secretarial arts, at which we did not excel.

The consolidation in the rural areas, insofar as it was practical, could not take place until the parents realized that it was in the students' best interests to do so and abandon the community pride which maintained the existence of those schools.

Framed Edition
[Return to Links
Page by Subject] [Return to Links-Page by Date] [Return to News<i><i><i>—</i></i></i>Framed Edition]
Links-Date Links-Subj.