The Charlotte News
Monday, November 13, 1950
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that along the center of the Korean front, parka-clad U.S. Marines had pushed cautiously 5.5 miles through lightly defended icy hills toward the Changjin reservoir, four miles away. On both flanks, however, there was intense fighting near both coasts. Communist troops were digging in on the west coast, where First Cavalry Division units advanced 1.5 miles to Yongbyon while other units were stopped by the enemy eight miles southeast of Yongbyon near Won. On the east coast amid a blinding snowstorm, the enemy crossed the Orangchon River, about 90 miles from Soviet Siberia, threatening to outflank a South Korean regiment. A line was built below the front between the Third Division, with replacements including South Korean and Puerto Rican troops, and the South Korean Eighth Division.
Following allied air attacks by 40 B-29's, it was believed that both bridges across the Yalu River from Manchuria to Sinuiju had been knocked out.
An intelligence officer at MacArthur headquarters stated that it was unclear whether the Chinese Communists were sending reinforcements in large numbers across the Yalu. He said that the Chinese were throwing greater strength to the central portion of the peninsula, around the Changjin reservoir.
Hal Boyle, with the 24th Division, tells of a battalion following for 13 miles a retreating enemy column by the sound of its tank tracks, engaging it in a night battle near Kwaksan without a single American death, and destroying it in a three-hour period on October 31 at point-blank range, one of the largest night battles of the war. The seven-tank, 500-man enemy column eventually had turned and tried an ambush, but was defeated by American artillery and mortar fire, destroying five tanks with the other two missing, killing 50 and wounding at least 100, the remaining troops dispersed and on the run. The Americans suffered 24 wounded, none seriously.
British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin said in London that the Russian plan, proposed by Russia and its satellites recently in Prague, for an end to armed occupation of Germany was unacceptable.
The Administration made public the previous night a new blueprint for aid to Western Europe beyond the scheduled end of the Marshall Plan in mid-1952, to cost as much or more than eight billion dollars over the ensuing several years. The recommendation was based on a report prepared by former Secretary of the Army Gordon Gray. The proposal was to be part of the President's State of the Union message to the Congress in January. Both Senator Taft and Senator Joseph McCarthy had expressed support for such continued aid, but Senator McCarthy excepted reservation about the method of doing it.
At the U.N., the Security Council sought to keep the Korean war localized, reassuring Communist Chinese leaders that the U.N. forces had no designs on Chinese territory, would not interfere with its electrical power grid in North Korea, and would build a united, independent Korea which would present no threat to China. It also said, however, that continued intervention in Korea would lead to drastic action.
Secretary-General Trygve Lie received an appeal from Tibet for U.N. aid against the Chinese Communists invading that country. No details were yet available.
The Senate Crime Investigating Committee headed by Senator Estes Kefauver indicated that it would follow up a survey of juvenile delinquency, published over the weekend with special emphasis on crime comic books, with an inquiry into the basic causes of crime. The previous day, Senator Kefauver had addressed a nationwide television audience, saying that the Committee's general findings were that organized crime wielded a great amount of influence over public officials across the nation and that it would make the Capone operations of the Twenties look like child's play, with Chicago being one of the most important centers of organized crime, with extensive organizations also in New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Miami, San Francisco and many other cities. Kingpin Frank Costello had contacts with his gambling operations across the country. The Continental Press Service of Chicago supplied racing results legally to the bookie organizations, but, Senator Kefauver assured, the Committee would reach some kind of cure for the problem. The report on juvenile crime said that, with a few exceptions, there had been a leveling off of such crime, though, according to FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, it remained abnormally high. Senator Kefauver said that the general opinions from experts on juvenile delinquency showed that the worst comic books were deleterious while the others ranged from healthful to moderately impacting. But parents were regarded as the chief contributing factor, that even a ban on crime comic books would have no notable effect on delinquency.
The Government cut non-military use of aluminum by about 35 percent beginning in January.
Senator Ernest MacFarland of Arizona appeared to be a compromise choice for Senate Majority Leader after Senators Richard Russell of Georgia, Joe O'Mahoney of Wyoming, and Clinton Anderson of New Mexico had turned down the position, following the defeat of Senator Scott Lucas in Illinois. Eventually, Senator McFarland would get the nod.
Long distance telephone operators in New York reported that they were locked out after reporting to work, following striking equipment workers having removed their picket lines. A.T.&T. said that the claim of a lockout was absurd.
In Santa Fe, N.M., a doctor was arrested by the FBI during the weekend after an undercover sting regarding her attempt to pick up $20,000 in ransom money for the return of a kidnaped nine-year old girl. The doctor, disguised as a man, initially said that she was only the go-between, but she had the child in her yellow convertible waiting nearby the ransom drop. The child was found unharmed but groggy from sleep medication. The doctor, who said that she was disturbed by a mountain of debt and her parents' high hospital bills from a recent automobile accident, admitted luring the girl away from her home the prior Friday, now faced a potential sentence ranging from five years to death.
Now, you have a debt to society to pay.
On the editorial page, "Propaganda from Peiping" finds that Peiping's reply to a U.N. invitation that the Communist Chinese participate in the discussion of the Chinese intervention in Korea to have been dictated by the Kremlin. The Chinese had not flatly rejected the invitation but insisted that the Chinese representatives would discuss matters on their own terms, including the contention that the U.S. was the aggressor in Korea.
In all likelihood the Security Council would reject these conditions. The Chinese effort appeared as a propaganda move designed for home consumption and would convince no one outside the Iron Curtain countries who was aware of the true facts through General MacArthur's report to the U.N. regarding the Chinese intervention. It posits that it would delay only briefly the final reckoning of the U.N. anent the intervention.
"Georgia Rejects Talmadge Scheme" tells of the voters in Georgia having rejected a State constitutional amendment, approved by the Legislature, which would have extended to general elections the county-unit voting system used in the primaries, by which Governor Herman Talmadge and his late father Eugene had maintained power, giving to the sparsely populated rural counties a disproportionate weight to that of the populous urban counties.
Governor Talmadge, nevertheless, said that he would try to get the amendment approved again, and in all likelihood, it suggests, the voters would again defeat it.
"Davidson's Alumni" tells of a breakdown of the 7,000 Davidson College alumni showing that over half entered either medicine, the ministry, education or government work, with the largest single group, 23 percent, going into business. It supplied basis to the boast of the College that its graduates contributed to the public welfare.
"In Defense of Mother Goose" finds that Mother Goose ought be left alone, thus disapproves of Manchester, England, clothing manufacturer Geoffrey Hall modernizing the rhymes. The new version, Happy Mother Goose, removed the harmful references to wrongdoing, suffering and violence. It provides examples:
There was a little girl who had a
little curl,
Right in the middle of her forehead;
And when she was good, she was very,
very good;
And never was naughty or horrid.
It felt a loss now that the girl had reformed.
We can add to it, to return to the more original meaning:
But when she got horrid again,
Her kin stuck a rifle to her bum,
And blew her sin to kingdom come.
Another:
Old Mother Hubbard went to the
cupboard
To get her pet dog a bone.
When she got there she found plenty
to spare,
So her nice dog got one.
It finds the dog to have been hungry for a couple of centuries and finally being satiated.
The dog, tempted by the bone,
Got so meat famished,
That one day Ma Hubbard
Turned up vanished.
And:
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall;
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall;
All the King's horses and all the
King's men
Soon put Humpty together again.
It finds that such verse revision could destroy a child's faith, for even young children knew that once Humpty fell apart in his fall, he was hopelessly disassembled.
But, thanks to all of Nixon's
Dissembling Men,
All of the young people's faith was
restored
In the old adage again,
Which enjoyed renascence in
'74.
You may read for yourself of the "three kind mice" and the farmer's wife who "cut them some cheese with a carving knife".
A piece from the Richmond Times-Dispatch, titled "Novices Have More Fun", tells of the pastor of the Highland Park Methodist Church in Richmond having formed a choir for those who could not sing, on the theory that those who could not carry a note were as desirous of harmonizing as those who could. He called it the "One-Two Choir", because its members would hit one note and then miss two.
As in golf, the piece suggests, novices sometimes had more fun than experts. Recreation taken too seriously ceased to be fun. It plumps for an orchestra of musicians who hit bad notes, for a stage where people who thought they could act would get to perform—inclusive of about every other movie we see these days. Amateurs could dabble in the performing arts and also have a good time.
Just don't do it around us.
An analysis of the midterm election results of the prior Tuesday appears, showing that the President stood to lose among the fourteen new Senators three votes on foreign policy, six on domestic issues, and seven on labor issues. Of the six new Democrats, three would give the President strong support for most of his program, while Mike Monroney of Oklahoma would cast more votes on foreign and domestic programs and less for labor, as newly elected George Smathers of Florida and Willis Smith of North Carolina had backed most of the foreign policy but not much of the Fair Deal legislation.
Of the new Republican Senators, Richard Nixon of California, Everett Dirksen of Illinois, and Wallace Bennett of Utah would oppose most of the President's program, foreign and domestic. Francis Case of South Dakota opposed most of the foreign and defense measures which defeated Senator Chan Gurney had supported. Frank Carlson of Kansas opposed many of the domestic issues which Harry Darby had supported. James Duff of Pennsylvania was part of the Vandenberg bipartisan foreign policy group. John Butler of Maryland, who defeated Senator Millard Tydings, opposed foreign and defense policy of the Administration, though both opposed the domestic agenda. Herman Welker of Idaho, like his predecessor Glen Taylor, opposed the President's foreign policy but for different reasons, and Mr. Welker opposed the domestic agenda.
The piece provides details of the stands on foreign and domestic issues of each Senator-elect. For instance, Mr. Nixon as a Congressman had opposed the prewar aid to Korea, Point Four technical assistance to underdeveloped nations, and extension of the Reciprocal Trade Agreements. He also wanted to cut foreign military aid. On domestic issues, he had voted against housing loans to cooperatives, for limiting of credit controls to consumers and for real estate credits, limiting rent control, was for the natural gas deregulation bill, vetoed by the President, and for Taft-Hartley. Replacing Democrat Sheridan Downey, he represented a lost vote for the President on the controversial parts of his program.
In North Carolina, Willis Smith favored the positions of Senator Clyde Hoey, opposed the Fair Deal support of Senator Frank Graham, whom he had defeated in the primary runoff election the prior June. Senator Graham had voted with the Democrats 93 percent of the time and Senator Hoey 70 percent. Mr. Smith was expected to follow Administration foreign policy but would vote against civil rights legislation, labor, health and farm programs.
A piece from the Memphis Press-Scimitar, titled "A Juror Speaks Out", finds that a juror was within his rights to speak out in protest when the jury was asked to confirm a plea bargain entered between the State Attorney General and defense counsel in a drunk driving case, whereby the defendant would receive a probationary sentence and a $75 fine. The juror thought that drunk drivers should receive stricter penalties. The judge had told the objecting juror to sit outside the courtroom. The piece thinks that all judges would want to hear such opinions.
In most, if not all, jurisdictions today, incidentally, jurors are not called upon to approve plea bargains. Only the court, itself, is required to approve—and sometimes, though rarely, judges do not lend imprimatur to plea bargains to which both the prosecution and defense have agreed.
Drew Pearson finds that despite the slender Democratic margin in the new Senate, some personal friction had arisen between the President and Congressional leaders regarding the President's plan to recall Congress back after Thanksgiving. Vice-President Barkley, worn out from campaigning, even said that he would ignore such a call. Senator Scott Lucas of Illinois, defeated for re-election, and Republican Leader Kenneth Wherry, were also against calling the special session.
The President and Chief Justice Fred
Vinson were trying to convince Justice William O. Douglas not to
resign from the Supreme Court, to which he had been appointed by FDR
in 1939. Justice Douglas was interested in becoming the successor to
General Eisenhower as president of Columbia or going into private
practice
Russian MIG-15 jets were playing a deadly game of cat and mouse across the Manchurian border, climbing to high altitudes over Chinese territory and then pouncing on American patrols just across the border, then swooping back to safety in Manchuria. The American pilots, strictly ordered not to cross the border, sought to lure the Chinese pilots into their sights but seldom got more that a few seconds of opportunity to shoot at them.
The Admirals and Air Force generals had met recently and swore not to feud with one another anymore regarding which service was the more capable of delivering strategic bombing. Chief of Naval operations Admiral Forrest Sherman and Air Force chief of staff General Hoyt Vandenberg agreed not to criticize each other's weapons or leak news stories undermining the other service. They passed the word to their admirals and generals. Secretary of the Navy Francis Matthews also told Frank Hecht, president of the Navy League, the civilian propaganda arm of the Navy, to lay off the Air Force. Mr. Hecht pledged to work for unification and goodwill henceforth.
Stewart and Joseph Alsop find the chances of Senator Taft to capture the GOP presidential nomination to be good in light of his commanding victory in the Ohio Senate race, garnering the largest majority in state history. Only Senator Taft could beat himself, with his commitment to the type of isolationist agenda championed by Col. Robert McCormick of the Chicago Tribune. Unless he would be challenged in the East, likely by General Eisenhower, he would probably capture the nomination over Governor Earl Warren in the West, whose election to a third term in California over James Roosevelt had also placed him in the running for the nomination.
But Governor Dewey, who had also just won a third term in New York, favored General Eisenhower and would sway the New York delegation toward that candidacy. And Governor James Duff of Pennsylvania, who had just been elected Senator, was also privately stating his preference for the General, though he and Governor Dewey did not get along, Governor Duff having supported Senator Taft over Governor Dewey for the 1948 nomination. Together, they would command two of the largest state delegations at the 1952 GOP convention. The only real roadblock to the nomination of General Eisenhower would be his own determination not to run. That he was about to be appointed Supreme Commander of NATO, however, would place him in an awkward position in which he would not likely allow a draft-Eisenhower movement while in active service.
Robert C. Ruark, in Memphis, tells of a "real gone" trial having just ended regarding a "real gone witch doctor", Dr. Samuel Shoknubi of Nigeria, found guilty of fraud under Food and Drug Administration laws for selling dried newts' livers for the purpose of sprouting new hair and curing other ailments. He was sentenced to nine years in prison and Mr. Ruark thinks it ashamed, as many had testified in his behalf that they felt better after taking his panaceas, "Tree of Life" or "Asthma Aid", roughly equaling the performance therefore of modern psychiatry. Moreover, others were getting rich off remedies similar to Dr. Shoknubi's "Scalp Food" without being bothered by the FDA. He finds him no more a fraud than the purveyors of other such remedies.
Dr. Shoknubi testified that most of his remedies came from a volume compiled by Dr. Culpepper of England, who had died in 1640, a time when doctors prescribed snorts of wolfbane for whate'er ailed their patients.
Mr. Ruark believes that everything except cancer and automobile accident injuries were subject to cure by psychological suggestion. So he hopes the authorities would not treat Dr. Shoknubi too roughly, as he wished to consult with him soon about his wheezing in the morning. He would skip "Tree of Life", however, and opt for "Scalp Food".
A Pome appears from the Atlanta Journal, "In which A Point Of Gentlemanly Conduct Is Emphasized:
"Do
not look down
On a
strapless gown."
Nor look up
during the dance,
When, for indiscretion, on your
knees,
After being
punched in the pants
By her
favorite squeeze.
Framed Edition
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