The Charlotte News
Saturday, January 28, 1950
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the dispute continued over whether the U.S. should develop the hydrogen bomb, following the President's statement at a press conference that he had not yet made up his mind on the matter, while acknowledging for the first time publicly that a bomb was being contemplated with a force 10 to 1,000 times more powerful than that which had been dropped on Hiroshima. Senator Brien McMahon acknowledged that the joint Atomic Energy Committee, which he chaired, had been discussing such a bomb. Military authorities were reported to be anxious to develop the bomb on the theory that the Russians could develop it as easily as the U.S. Atomic scientist Harold Urey was a proponent of this position, saying recently that the U.S. may have already lost the arms race to the Russians and that the hydrogen bomb, for its destructive potential, might serve as a deterrent to nuclear war. Before the same group at a Roosevelt Day dinner in New York, Senator Frank Graham urged that the country take the lead in calling an international conference to work out an agreement for atomic control.
John Scali reports that small American arms shipments were being hastily assembled for delivery to NATO nations, as initial "psychological boosters" for the recipient nations. The aid had been approved by Congress in October but could not be implemented until the agreement the previous day by the eight ambassadors of the original NATO members. The President also approved the NATO secret master plan of the twelve member military chiefs, setting forth plans for military action in the event of war, as a deterrent to war.
In Berlin, the Communist press stepped up their attack against non-Communists in politics and industry by vowing to destroy the Christian Democratic Party and to place a secret police network in the Soviet zone.
The autobahn was slowed by Russian guards at Helmstedt for the sixth straight day as the Russians searched trucks, with about seven per hour allowed to pass. The rate had been as slow as two per hour during the week. According to Western officials, the Western high commissioners were likely to intervene with economic sanctions against the Eastern zone if the slowdown were not eliminated by the following week.
In Taiepei, Formosa, the Nationalist Government proclaimed in advance that any agreement between Moscow and the Communist Government in China would be invalid and that the Russians would be held responsible for any violations of the 1945 Russo-Chinese treaty coming from the ongoing meeting between Josef Stalin and Mao Tse-Tung. The statement also urged that the meeting dispelled suggestions that the Chinese Communist Government would rebel against Moscow as had Tito in Yugoslavia, and that the Mao regime was, in fact, no more than a Soviet-sponsored puppet.
Columnist Bruce Barton tells of too many people feeling that life was a free ride rather than a fight. He cites a letter received from a college-educated man of 35 who was married with three children, had volunteered for the Army and remained stateside during the war, complaining that life was passing him by. Great leaders, he asserts, as Winston Churchill, promised that there would be no quick and easy victory, but that it would come only through tears, toil, blood, and sweat. Jesus had promised tribulation which had to be overcome. Someone (Elbert Hubbard, author of "Message to Garcia") had said: "God will not look us over for ribbons or medals, but for scars."
In Yukon Territory, rescue planes of Canada and the U.S. continued to search for a lost U.S. Air Force C-54 transport plane which had apparently crashed two days earlier while en route from Anchorage, Alaska, to Great Falls, Montana, with 44 persons aboard. A Royal Canadian Air Force plane involved in the search was also missing.
Meanwhile, the wreckage of a large four-engined plane was spotted 100 miles northeast of Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., thought possibly to be the missing C-54, which had enough gasoline to reach the vicinity, albeit far off course from its intended destination.
Weather across the country was nearly normal.
In New York, six waiters lost their pants and their employer lost $300 in a holdup of the downtown Famous Restaurant. The robbers had ordered the men to remove their pants but left the trousers in the corner of the rear room into which they had been herded. The robbers then disappeared among patrons getting out of the theaters.
Life is a fight.
In Washington, two women claimed to be the widow of an Army colonel who had died in Berlin at age 54 of a heart attack the previous Monday. One woman claimed to have married him in Germany in 1945 and the other, to have been married to the colonel for 34 years without divorce. The latter had a handwritten letter from the colonel admitting that there was no divorce.
News Editor Pete McKnight tells of a regional meeting of Southern Democrats in Raleigh to discuss what to do about the growing rift in the Democratic Party between the national organization and the South, as further discussed in the first editorial. It was a cross between a state rally and a national rally, leaning toward the latter, with no mention of regional topics such as civil rights. Speakers, starting with Raleigh News & Observer Editor Jonathan Daniels, had set the tone for the rally, urging unity among Democrats against attempts to divide the party. Vice-President Alben Barkley would speak this date.
On the editorial page, "Harmony (?) in Raleigh" tells of the group of Southern Democratic leaders meeting in Raleigh to discuss what to do about the growing rift between the national party and Southern Democrats. The piece suggests that the recent defeat by a coalition of Republicans and Southern Democrats of a measure to provide 60 million dollars in additional ERP aid for Korea, stated as needed to avoid being overrun by the Communists, was an example of this coalition extending beyond the traditional resistance to civil rights for minorities.
The Administration's smug confidence that the Democratic Party no longer needed the South, or at least that part of it which had voted for the Strom Thurmond Dixiecrat ticket in 1948, was a final straw to many Southern Democrats.
It suggests that Jonathan Daniels and his group would have to work magic to restore unity among Democrats.
Mr. Daniels, it might be noted, was a delegate to the 1964 Democratic convention and was a strong supporter of President Johnson, in a year in which Strom Thurmond became a Republican and a strong supporter of Senator Barry Goldwater, the Republican presidential nominee that year. The divide had at last become complete fifteen years hence, ironically when a true Southerner was in the White House for the first time since Andrew Johnson. That the Southerner was also a strong proponent for civil rights proved intolerable to the likes of Mr. Thurmond. The Southern divide would be further widened during the 1968 campaign, with Richard Nixon's "Southern strategy", telling them what they wanted to hear in the spring and then running like hell back to the center in the fall, thus attracting the gullible to the Republican Party.
He, like the current occupant of the White House, did not bother to tell them that no President has the power to repeal the Constitution, mindless, ultimately meaningless executive orders to the contrary, notwithstanding. But as long as photo opportunities may be had amid appealing demagogic rhetoric, the quest against reality appears never ending.
"A Friend in Need?" suggests that giving aid to Tito had been couched in terms of buying an ally against Russia. But Tito was as bad, it ventures, as Franco in Spain. There was as much Communism in Yugoslavia as in Russia, even if Tito had asserted nationalist independence from the Kremlin. But for the latter reason, he was useful to the U.S. and so merited help economically. Yet that, asserts the piece, should not include approbation, tacit or otherwise, of his domestic oppression. It needed to be stated clearly that the U.S. did not blink totalitarian governments.
"This Is Why..." urges contribution to the national March of Dimes drive to combat the crippling disease of polio.
"Urban Redevelopment Committee" praises the appointment by Mayor Victor Shaw of a ten-member Urban Redevelopment Committee to survey the needs for same in Charlotte. The members appointed were qualified, including members of the Planning Board. The Committee would be able to make recommendations to the 1951 Legislature in an effort to overturn the 1949 Legislature's failure to authorize the state's cities to accept Federal funds available for urban redevelopment.
A piece from the Greensboro Daily News, titled "Hoover Progress Report", tells of about a fifth of the recommendations of the Hoover Commission to eliminate waste in Government having been adopted in the previous session of Congress. Pending were the recommendations on the post office, improvement in personnel management, streamlining of the budget and accounting procedures, and further realignment of government agencies. Improvement in some of those areas was already underway. The President was said to be holding back on new recommendations because his recent State of the Union and economic message had given the Congress about all it could digest for the time being.
The piece thinks it, however, good to maintain momentum in implementing the important recommendations of the Hoover Commission.
Drew Pearson tells of Republican Senator Eugene Millikin having recently complained at an RNC meeting that the Republicans were living in an "antediluvian age". It was typical of moderate Republican reaction to "me-tooism".
Senator Irving Ives of New York wanted the party to stand for something, to be able to attract youthful voters. Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., of Massachusetts had similar advice, to prevent the party from falling completely into the hands of the right wing. (They should look forward to the 2017 "President" who is presently, with his never-ending series of Poobah executive orders, striving mightily for the under 6 vote, or at least those of the same average mentality and with the same average understanding of the system of checks and balances in this country, unlike countries where executive fiat determines both policy and its legislation.)
Senator William Langer declared that he was being read out of the party and that the people did not wish to return to the days of William McKinley at the turn of the century. Opposition to liberal Senator Wayne Morse was formed in Oregon. Many Republicans, including Senators Morse and Lodge, objected to the insistence by the RNC that they buy blocks of tickets for the Lincoln Day dinner in Washington, objecting to the lobbyists involved.
Mr. Pearson notes that Republican strategists believed that in order to win, they had to woo Democrats. He indicates that Governor Earl Warren of California was most successful at this practice, having won both primaries in his last election in 1946.
Senator Elmer Thomas of Oklahoma was in trouble back home for his carping about Sweden not being friendly enough to him during his junket to Europe in the fall.
Senators enjoyed dropping into the office of the sergeant-at-arms, Joe Duke, for his array of toys which he kept on his desk, which included a mechanical burro and elephant. Senator Joseph McCarthy wanted the elephant for the fact that Mr. Duke was a Democrat.
Had Mr. Duke a crystal ball, he would have instead offered him the burro as more befitting his anthropomorphized analogue.
Joseph & Stewart Alsop find from the Senatorial contest tab sheets being compiled state-by-state by both parties, that if the Republican Party continued trying to please only the large contributors, it would destroy itself in the end. Both parties found the fact to be true. Both found Republican Senators Homer Capehart, Bourke Hickenlooper, and Eugene Milliken in serious trouble in their respective states of Indiana, Iowa, and Colorado. Five other GOP Senators were in some trouble, while liberals Wayne Morse of Oregon and George Aiken of Vermont were considered safe. Senator Taft was also considered a likely bet for re-election because the Democrats had not found someone qualified to run against him. Senator Charles Tobey of New Hampshire might lose his seat to the Democrats because of a feud between him and his colleague, Styles Bridges.
The eight Republicans most in danger of loss were those most opposed to "me-tooism", going along with the President's policies on foreign policy, while the progressive or moderately conservative members were the least likely to fall.
Republican hopefuls to take seats from the Democrats included Governor Duff of Pennsylvania versus Senator Francis Myers, Time-Life publisher Henry Luce, provided he could be persuaded to run in Connecticut against interim incumbent William Benton, and Congressman Richard Nixon in California, seeking to unseat Senator Sheridan Downey, to be contested in the Democratic primary by Congresswoman Helen Gahagan Douglas. Former Senator Sherman Cooper was also being urged to run against incumbent Garrett Withers in Kentucky.
Other Democrats in trouble included Senators Glen Taylor of Idaho, whose vice-presidential run with former Vice-President Henry Wallace had not served him well at home, Warren Magnuson of Washington, and Elbert Thomas of Utah.
Democrats believed that at worst only two or three of the Republican hopefuls would succeed. But that confirmed in both parties the likely Republican defeats as well.
Marquis Childs discusses the plans of David Lilienthal after his resignation as AEC chairman became effective the following month. He had received several offers from the private sector but first intended to make a lecture tour and would also write articles for a national magazine, albeit without disclosing secret information. It was hoped that he would clarify his position on the hydrogen bomb and what was at stake in producing it or not.
He had survived the initial fight over confirmation in 1946 and then the brickbats thrown by Senator Hickenlooper the previous year, charging gross mismanagement of AEC. Senator Hickenlooper, in trouble in his bid for re-election, had sought to mend fences in Iowa by pointing with pride to his attack on Mr. Lilienthal having led to his resignation. The editor of the Des Moines Register, W. W. Waymack, one of the five men originally appointed to the AEC, had challenged, however, this assessment, saying that Senator Hickenlooper had sought to exclude all favorable evidence from the hearings in favor of a few things negative about the Commission. Mr. Waymack had also favored an overall re-assessment of atomic energy.
Mr. Childs believes that when Mr. Lilienthal also became a private citizen again, he could shed more light on the controversy and the subject of atomic power generally.
Tom Schlesinger of The News, in his weekly "Capital Roundup", tells of the approving press reaction to the report on the "five percenter" scheme, which Senator Clyde Hoey of North Carolina and his subcommittee had just released following hearings of the previous summer. Most of the assessment found the report fair and even-handed in its treatment of the subject, without undue criticism of any one individual.
Only two North Carolina Congressmen, Charles Deane and Harold Cooley, had voted not to restore the House rule whereby the Rules Committee had been able to bottle up legislation, especially aimed at civil rights legislation. Three North Carolina Congressmen, meanwhile, including House Ways & Means Committee chairman Robert Doughton, had helped to defeat the bill to provide additional ERP aid to Korea. Messrs. Deane and Cooley, and four other North Carolina Representatives, had voted in favor of it. The latter measure might come up for vote again.
There was virtually no opposition in the House Ways & Means Committee to removal of the tax loophole for insurance companies.
Both Senators Hoey and Frank Graham approved the recommendation of appointment of Secretary of the Army Gordon Gray as president of UNC.
Most Congressmen were steering away from comment on whether the U.S. should produce the hydrogen bomb. Carl Durham of the House Armed Services Committee said, however, that he favored it.
Both houses of Congress received bills the previous week to provide for the continued construction of the Blue Ridge Parkway between Shenandoah National Park and Asheville.
Potash, vital to tobacco and cotton farmers for fertilizer, was back in production in New Mexico after a mine strike there. North Carolina had needed a certain quantity by April 15 or spring planting would be harmed. The NLRB thus had obtained an injunction to end the strike.
Former Senator Robert Rice Reynolds was being counted out of the Senate race entirely, after speculation had been that he would contest Senator Hoey for the nomination in the spring.
Senator Hoey had praised the price support programs for cotton and tobacco as having made money during its fifteen-year history, advocated therefore a new two billion dollar program of support for the commodities through the Consumer Credit Corporation.
Attorney Charles W. Tillett of Charlotte had appeared before the Senate subcommittee conducting hearings on genocide and whether to endorse the U.N. resolution setting up an international penal court to hear cases. The ABA had disfavored the resolution on the ground that it subjected American citizens to the jurisdiction of an international penal tribunal. Mr. Tillett was chairman of the ABA section on International and Comparative Law, but was testifying to the subcommittee as an individual.
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