The Charlotte News

Tuesday, October 24, 1950

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the President spoke to the U.N. General Assembly this date in celebration of United Nations Day, the fifth anniversary of the effective date of the Charter. He challenged Russia, though not mentioning it by name, to agree to a "fool-proof" disarmament plan which would include all types of weapons, be based on unanimous assent, with adequate safeguards to assure compliance and warning of threatened violation. He urged that disarmament would release vast resources for dealing instead with social problems.

In Korea, a large Communist column was reported to be moving south from the North Korean refugee capital of Kanggye, 20 miles from the Manchurian border, toward the advancing South Korean troops, the first indication in more than 36 hours that the Communist forces might be preparing for a new stand. There was some indication that the advance by the South Korean troops had lost some of its momentum to allow supply lines to catch up. A reliable source at Allied headquarters in Wonsan said that the South Korean troops would advance all the way to the Manchurian border, without provision for any buffer zone.

Two American Marine pilots said that they had drawn fire from the Chinese side of the border while flying on a reconnaissance mission near Kanggye.

Correspondent Russell Brines tells of informed sources disclosing the hope that American troops would be home for Christmas from Korea, with General MacArthur expecting the first elements of the Eighth Army to return to Japan by Thanksgiving and that elections under the auspices of the U.N. could be held by the first of the year. The South Korean Army was believed capable of maintaining order after the end of the fighting.

In Washington, the military committee of the twelve nations of NATO met to develop plans for a mutual defense organization. It would prepare recommendations for the defense ministers. One of its goals was to determine how German manpower could be integrated with the defense of Western Europe.

In Paris, French Premier Rene Pleven proposed to the National Assembly that a European army be formed, with German soldiers and officers included. He also warned of resurrection of German militarism. The proposal had been approved by the coalition Cabinet.

Capus Waynick of North Carolina had sought to be relieved from his temporary duties as administrator of the Point Four program for development of underdeveloped nations, to return to his assignment as Ambassador to Nicaragua.

Singer Al Jolson, 64, suddenly died in San Francisco of a coronary occlusion, shortly after saying that Truman had only one hour with MacArthur while he had two. He had returned from entertaining the troops in Korea only two weeks earlier after performing 42 shows in 16 days. He was known for entertaining the troops during wartime and was widely liked by them. He had met with General MacArthur for a two-hour luncheon in Tokyo. He had been scheduled to appear this night for a recording of the Bing Crosby radio show.

On the editorial page, "United Nations Day" tells of the fifth anniversary of the effective date of the U.N. Charter, a high point, it finds, in the hopes of mankind for peace. But such hope had declined since that time, reaching a low point with the invasion of South Korea on June 25 by the Communists of the North, acting at the direction of the Russians. The organization's reaction to the crisis had, however, caused the U.N. to gain more prestige than at any previous time.

Its other accomplishments had been overlooked, the creation of Israel, the Republic of Indonesia, and South Korea. It had provided the peaceful settlement also of the Berlin blockade of 1948-49. It had launched a program of aid to underdeveloped nations and was tending to 200 million people under trusteeships.

It had not yet formed an international police force, settled on a means of control of atomic energy, or reduction of armaments. Russia had vetoed proposals key to those resolutions on 46 occasions. Now, the resolution was about to be passed to bypass the veto in emergency situations involving aggression, giving the General Assembly authority to act.

The U.N. was rapidly solidifying the free nations into a bulwark against which Russian aggression could not hope to prevail.

"The Problem in Indo-China" tells of Ho Chi Minh wanting to gain independence for the Indo-Chinese from the French, who had clung to Indo-China for raw materials as their empire holdings dwindled. The French, through puppet-ruler Bao Dai, wanted to maintain their colonial control of the country.

But there was more to it than independence versus colonialism. Indo-China under Vietminh rule would become little more than a province of China, ruled from the Kremlin. Ho Chi Minh had been trained as a Communist in Moscow. Thus, the Indo-Chinese would only be exchanging one master for another.

There was evidence that colonial policies of the age of imperialism still guided the French administrators. Though America did not endorse such imperialism, it was assisting the French with economic and military aid, along with Army advisers, to combat the Vietminh.

The pattern had a prior example, in Greece, after the war, where an unpopular regime was supported against the Communist guerrillas pursuant to the Truman Doctrine, initiated in March, 1947.

If, however, the U.S. sent American troops to Indo-China after the end of the Korean war, it finds, it would be unfortunate. If and when the non-Communist Vietnam government was functioning independently, the Vietminh sought to take over, then the U.S. might be justified in strong support of Indo-China. But until then, it posits, it was best to walk softly and to be careful how the big stick of Teddy Roosevelt was used.

"Spider Bost's Fine Web" tells of Tom Bost of the Greensboro Daily News having suggested that Governor Kerr Scott had actually wanted Jeff Johnson to be nominated as the candidate for the Supreme Court and so, to rile everyone, had appointed Murray James to the vacant seat on the Court for the interim.

The piece thinks Governor Scott not to be so devious, that the appointment of Mr. James was in the mold of his surprise appointment of Frank Graham to the Senate seat in 1949, and Mr. Johnson was popular enough on his own hook not to need such a reverse boost from the Governor.

A piece from the Memphis Commercial-Appeal, titled "New Speeds Pay Off", finds that during the first month since a maximum speed limit had been imposed, 70 mph in the daytime and 60 at night, traffic fatalities in the state had been reduced from twelve to four per week. Going beyond those speeds was deemed reckless driving. It urges that those who refused to cooperate should be prosecuted vigorously.

Deport them to Argentina in the middle of the night aboard a fruit ship. That will teach those speeding bastards.

A piece by Harnett T. Kane, a New Orleans author of Pathway to the Stars, regarding John McDonogh, the most hated man in New Orleans, tells of Mr. McDonogh, whose "Southern plan" to end slavery a hundred years earlier had sought to avoid a civil war. His proposal was that slaves would earn their freedom by working hour by hour for it. And as each group became liberated, they would be returned to Africa, in Liberia, giving aid to enable them to establish there on a self-supporting basis. Mr. McDonogh had been the largest single landowner in the Deep South. He believed that Virginia, the Carolinas and Maryland would have a particular role in his scheme, as slavery was proving increasingly unprofitable in those states.

For a time he interested Henry Clay, Supreme Court Justices, and others in the plan.

He had enabled the plan to work well on his own land after his slaves accepted the arrangement. They had labored so hard for their freedom that he would have to stop them for their own good on occasion, working in the field until 11:00 p.m.

The colony formed in Liberia, while not without problems, succeeded in the main. Many had been trained as school teachers and ministers by Mr. McDonogh.

He promoted the success of the program and some went along with it for awhile. But then as intersectional hatreds grew over slavery, the plan slowly failed, leaving Mr. McDonogh bitter with disappointment.

He became hated in new Orleans, known for being miserly with his wealth.

When he died on October 26, 1850, however, the motive for his niggardly behavior became apparent as he had willed to the City millions of dollars worth of land for public education. Other lands were willed likewise for the benefit of his native Baltimore and, to the extent it could be stretched, to the rest of the South. He only asked that the children place a few flowers on his grave. Mr. McDonogh became a hero to the region in death. Annually, tens of thousands of children marched to place flowers on his grave.

But his plan for ending slavery had largely been forgotten.

Drew Pearson, in Portland, Ore., tells of his colleagues in the press missing the beginning of the story concerning the promise by Governor Dewey to Lt. Governor Joe Hanley to exit the gubernatorial race to make way for a draft-Dewey movement, that it had begun in August when Winthrop Aldrich of the Chase National Bank asked his brother-in-law John D. Rockefeller, Jr., to help in getting Mr. Hanley out of the race, before Governor Dewey became involved. Mr. Rockefeller telephoned Roy Howard of Scripps-Howard Newspapers and a powerful Dewey backer, as well as Frank Gannett, head of the Gannett newspaper syndicate, seeking their assistance. Mr. Howard promised to write an editorial for the the New York World-Telegram urging that Governor Dewey be drafted. The Dewey backers then placed pressure on Mr. Hanley to withdraw by promising to pay off his debts.

The real story went back even further, to when Governor Dewey launched a grand jury investigation of Lt. Governor Hanley and then called it off. Since that time, the two had been friends only superficially. Mr. Pearson had elucidated those facts in his column of October 31, 1944, just as he told the other parts of the story in August and September, 1950.

Stewart Alsop, in Versailles, Ohio, discusses the campaign of Senator Taft for re-election, finds him running scared, speaking in every rural hamlet across the state in an effort to get the necessary 60 percent of that vote to win, counter-balancing the industrial anti-Taft areas. He was not an especially effective speaker but his audiences nevertheless responded gratefully to his teacher-pupil style of delivery, repeated up to fourteen times per day in different towns.

No one was prepared to venture predictions on the outcome of this election, the most important midterm election in many years for its national implications.

Nearly everyone in Ohio was moderately comfortable and thus were not especially likely to turn out at the polls in great numbers, something which Senator Taft needed. The Senator therefore tailored his speeches to concentrate on what would happen in the future should the Truman Administration not be checked by a Republican Congress. He foretold of a British-type socialism sweeping the country with Russian Communism everywhere else, as exampled by the fall of mainland China to the Communists, the attack on South Korea, invited supposedly by the soft Truman policies, the "whitewash" of the McCarthy charges against the State Department, the Hiss case, and the Truman veto of the McClarran anti-subversive law.

The view seemed a little unreal to Mr. Alsop in the main square of Versailles, O., as it basked in the "gentle autumn sun." How well it would play with voters would have to await election day to determine.

Robert C. Ruark tells of the answer of the movies to television, Cinerama, provides his view of the experience. It was the first three-dimensional, wide-screen presentation, as pioneering to movies, he believes, as had been sound. The accompanying new sound system was also revolutionary. The three-lens photographic technique which was projected onto a curved screen had been pioneered by Fred Waller and the six-track sound system, by Reeves Sound Studios, under the direction of Hazard Reeves. Both had produced military training films during the war. It would cost between $50,000 and $100,000 to equip each individual theater with the projection system. Moreover, the special cameras necessary to shoot in the triplicate, panoramic form were also expensive.

Many theaters were installing special television equipment to display special events blocked from local broadcast. So it was likely that theaters would not hesitate to invest in this new technology as well. Mr. Ruark wishes that he owned stock in the process.

"You are in a roller coaster as it dips shudderingly down the giant slide, and your belly twists and writhes."

Guess you had to be there in front of the curved screen.

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