The Charlotte News
Wednesday, November 8, 1950
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that 600 allied war planes had struck North Korea along the Manchurian border to cut off reinforcements moving from Communist China. Jets met jets for the first time in combat, over Sinuiju, a key target of the allied air assault, with eighty B-29's dropping 640 tons of bombs on the city, a depot for enemy supply. It appeared the bombing had been effective in taking out the city. An American F-80 jet shot down a Russian MIG-15 jet during the fight. Pilots said that the enemy fighters sought to lure them across the border, a tactic of which they had been warned to ignore. Air observers had reported very heavy traffic across the border toward the Yalu River. They observed also 700 vehicles south of the river.
Meanwhile, elements of the U.S. Third Infantry Division landed at Wonsan to provide reinforcements in the northeast sector.
On the ground, U.N. troops pushed forward on all fronts with the unexplained Communist withdrawal continuing.
MacArthur headquarters placed a temporary news blackout on developments between the Communist battle lines and the Manchurian border.
At the U.N., the U.S. charged that the Chinese Communists had directly intervened militarily in Korea and urged the Security Council to order withdrawal of the Chinese troops. Chief delegate Warren Austin said that there were indications that 30,000 Chinese troops were now engaged in the fighting. The Council was meeting to consider a report on the situation by General MacArthur, commander of the U.N. troops. The Council defeated a Russian effort to prevent the Council from considering the MacArthur report.
In the midterm elections, Senate Majority Leader Scott Lucas was defeated in Illinois by former Congressman Everett Dirksen, surprisingly running a close race against the Democratic leader even in strongly Democratic Cook County. Senator Lucas had been in the Senate for twelve years after four years in the House.
In California, Governor Earl Warren easily won an unprecedented third term over James Roosevelt, carrying all 58 counties. Only one prior Governor, Hiram Johnson, had ever been elected to a second term. The previous day, doctors had discovered that the Governor's 17-year old daughter suffered from a serious case of polio, causing paralysis in both of her legs.
Congressman Richard Nixon beat Congresswoman Helen Gahagan Douglas for the Senate seat, saying that he interpreted the victory as a mandate to continue his fight against the President's foreign policy. Ms. Douglas, however, had refused to concede, though trailing by 240,000 votes after nearly 60 percent of the precincts had reported. San Francisco District Attorney Pat Brown, the future Governor between 1959 and 1967, was elected State Attorney General. A ballot proposition to legalize gambling was defeated 3 to 1.
The President said through press secretary Charles G. Ross that he was pleased with some of the election results and displeased with others, especially the losses of Senator Lucas and Senators Millard Tydings in Maryland and Francis Myers in Pennsylvania. Democrat Thomas Hennings defeated Senator Forrest Donnell in the President's home state of Missouri, the only losing GOP incumbent Senator. The President had expressed shock and sorrow at learning of the polio diagnosis of Governor Warren's daughter.
Senator Robert Taft easily won re-election in Ohio.
Governor Dewey won re-election to a third term in New York, while Governor Chester Bowles lost in his bid for a second term in Connecticut, defeated by Congressman John Lodge, brother of Massachusetts Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr.—who would lose two years later to Congressman John F. Kennedy.
Former Secretary of State James Byrnes won the gubernatorial race in South Carolina and Governor Herman Talmadge of Georgia won re-election, this time to a full four-year term after having defeated in 1948 the interim Governor, Melvin Thompson, following a contested succession in 1947 after the death in late 1946 of Eugene Talmadge, father of Herman, between the gubernatorial election and inauguration.
The Senate, previously 54 Democrats and 42 Republicans, would stand at 49 Democrats and 47 Republicans in the 82nd Congress. The House, previously controlled by the Democrats with 261 seats to 168, would stand at 235 to 199, with one independent before and after. The governorships stood at 22 Democrats and 24 Republicans after the election, with two races yet to be decided, whereas previously the Democrats had 29 governors and the Republicans, 19.
The shift toward the Republican column was attributed to dissatisfaction with the Korean war and the Fair Deal programs, as well as concern over Communists in the Government. Some forty million persons had voted, a record midterm election turnout.
In North Carolina, where Senator Clyde Hoey easily won re-election and Willis Smith won election to the interim seat until 1954, turnout was only 500,000, well below the anticipated 700,000. Senator Frank Graham, defeated in the primary runoff election the previous June by Mr. Smith, received a scattering of write-in votes.
As previously indicated, Senator Smith would die in 1953 and the interim Senator, Alton Lennon, would be defeated by then former Governor Kerr Scott in 1954. Senator Hoey would die in 1954, replaced by State Supreme Court Justice Sam Ervin.
And the rest, as they say...
On the editorial page, "Republicans Stage a Come-Back" finds that the Republicans had gained seats in both houses of Congress, coming close to taking back the Senate, though returns remained incomplete. Senator Taft had been re-elected in Ohio. Senator Millard Tydings of Maryland surprisingly was defeated after heading the subcommittee which took to task Senator Joseph McCarthy for his charges of Communists in the State Department, ultimately labeling his claims as a "fraud and a hoax". His opponent, John Marshall Butler, did not campaign on that issue but Senator McCarthy had stumped for him in Maryland, attacking the Tydings subcommittee report as a "whitewash". Senator Francis Myers of Pennsylvania and Senate Majority Leader Scott Lucas of Illinois were both defeated, Senator Lucas by former Congressman Everett Dirksen and Senator Myers by Governor James Duff.
Isolationism and militant anti-Communism worked in the campaign of Congressman Richard Nixon in California, defeating Congresswoman Helen Gahagan Douglas for the Senate seat vacated by Sheridan Downey. Former Senator Henry Dworshak of Idaho, Senator Bourke Hickenlooper of Iowa, Senator Homer Capehart of Indiana, and Senator Eugene Milliken of Colorado likewise utilized those issues to effect their victories.
In the House, Congressman Vito Marcantonio of New York, viewed as the mouthpiece for the Communist Party, was defeated, after 14 years in Congress, by a Democrat, James Donovan.
In the local Congressional election, Hamilton Jones won only a narrow victory over his Republican opponent.
In gubernatorial races, the victories by Thomas Dewey in New York and Earl Warren in California would give both men prominent roles in the 1952 presidential race. The third-term victory in Ohio of incumbent Governor Frank Lausche would likewise give him a prominent role in the Democratic Party.
It asserts that the results would materially affect Truman Administration policies, applying the brakes to the Fair Deal, especially the Brannan farm plan and the compulsory health insurance plan. It predicts that even the slim Democratic majority in the Senate would be more conservative because of the presence of George Smathers of Florida in lieu of Claude Pepper, and Willis Smith replacing Frank Graham in North Carolina. The strong trend toward isolationism, evidenced by the victories of Senators-elect Dirksen and Nixon, and the re-election of Senators Capehart and Hickenlooper, would force the Administration to even greater lengths to assure that the U.S. was firmly allied with other free nations against Communism.
Especially encouraging, it concludes, was the heavy turnout of voters, except in the one-party South.
"Raleigh Doctors Bridge a Gap" tells of the establishment of round-the-clock emergency medical service in Raleigh at Rex Hospital, making it unlikely that the situation of the prior weekend would repeat, whereby the operator of a truck, injured in an accident, could not obtain emergency medical care from several contacted physicians and had to wait 45 minutes while he was extricated from the cab of the truck in which he was pinned before being rushed to the hospital.
The Mecklenburg County Medical Society had set up a similar emergency service three months earlier and it had received no complaints thus far.
"Taking Opera to the People" finds the opening concert of the 1950-51 Charlotte Opera Association, with performances on Monday and Tuesday of Blennerhasset and Sunday Costs Five Pesos, worthy of compliment. Dr. Clifford Edwin Blair, director of the state's six operatic groups, had set out to make opera palatable to the people, presenting short works in English, readily accessible to a general audience. The performances were also competent, adding to the experience.
A piece from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, titled "Beneath Senator Douglas", tells of Illinois Senator Paul Douglas, on a recent visit to Missouri, saying that Democrats were the party of beer and the Republicans, the party of champagne. It finds the remark unworthy of the Senator, with a fine record in Congress. Wisecracks were for the hacks.
Drew Pearson finds that Secretary of State Acheson was likely to resign within 60 days and that Chief Justice Fred Vinson would replace him, that Justice Felix Frankfurter would resign from the Supreme Court and Mr. Acheson appointed to the seat. Justice William O. Douglas would resign his seat to replace General Eisenhower as president of Columbia, and Attorney General J. Howard McGrath would replace him on the Court. Secretary of Commerce Charles Sawyer would likely resign and his successor was likely to be either Morris Ernst or Stuart Symington. Secretary of the Navy Francis Matthews would be made Ambassador to Ireland, to be replaced by George Killion of the American President Lines.
He proceeds to provide some of the reasons for these predicted changes.
He struck out on each prediction, other than the last one, though the replacement for Mr. Matthews was Dan Kimball. Chief Justice Vinson would serve until his death in 1953, replaced with Earl Warren appointed by President Eisenhower. Secretaries Acheson and Sawyer would serve until the end of the Truman Presidency. Attorney General McGrath would resign in spring, 1952, replaced by James McGranery. Justice Frankfurter would not retire until 1962 and Justice Douglas would serve until becoming incapacitated by a stroke in 1975.
A controversy had been brewing for some time prior to the Communist Chinese intervention in Korea as to how far the American troops should go toward the Manchurian border. Secretary Acheson wanted them to stop 40 miles from the hydroelectric plants on the Yalu River, serving Manchuria. The Joint Chiefs agreed. General MacArthur likewise had agreed during the Wake Island conference recently. But when the troops reached the 40-mile limit, the General sought permission to send South Korean troops to the border for mop-up missions. The troops then found themselves outnumbered and the General sought permission to use American troops to rescue them. The Joint Chiefs reluctantly gave their authorization.
It was believed that the Chinese had used this concentration of American troops close to the border, in close proximity to the hydroelectric plants, as the rationale for sending troops into the war. That intervention appeared to have been conditioned on air support from the Russians, as Russian pilots suddenly had entered the war for the first time. A quid pro quo appeared to have been to allow China to enter Tibet and eventually India in return for the intervention in Korea. Another aspect of the deal would be that China would take over Indo-China when and if the French were driven out, as appeared likely.
The fears that these events might transpire had been the motivation for the U.S. policy of limited duration to neutralize Formosa and to avoid any provoking incidents along the Manchurian border, to prevent a general war with China.
Marquis Childs tells of viewing the midterm election campaign from a distance while he had been in India, finding a central theme to have been the Republicans blaming the Truman Administration for losing China to the Communists. He stresses that such was childish oversimplification of the forces at work in the world, as nationalism was sweeping Asia and had recently surfaced in Puerto Rico, culminating in the attempted revolt and assassinations of the President and Governor Luis Munoz Marin. Nationalism had both positive and negative aspects, developing out of the deep-seated distrust of colonialism born of a century of oppression. Whether a true understanding could develop between East and West in light of this distrust remained to be seen.
India, he found, was a good example, where the seemingly irreconcilable quarrel existed with Pakistan over control of Kashmir. Some parts of the Indian press openly blamed the British for partition of the country into the Hindu and Moslem states.
A source of the suspicion was an inferiority complex regarding American power. And America's use of power often showed immaturity and impetuosity, not helping the process of mutual understanding.
He concludes that a greater mutual effort at understanding had to take place. India had to understand better the real sacrifice undertaken by America in Korea to eliminate Communist aggression. Perhaps Prime Minister Nehru, he suggests, would have more sympathy for the Western position after Communist China had rejected his proposal to negotiate on Tibet and begun its invasion of the country.
At the same time, those who sneered at Nehru for his repeated warning of Communist Chinese intervention in Korea might have sneered too early.
Great patience, goodwill and understanding, he posits, were necessary if a working relationship was to be cultivated.
Robert C. Ruark, in Columbus, O., tells of visiting a jail facility to see what one was like, found the State pen in Columbus a model of penology. It was clean and did not smell like a jail, despite having 5,000 inmates. The warden ran it on the model of the military and had not been crossed by a trusty or a member of the honor camps in the woods where supervision was loose. Talking was allowed except when marching. The food appeared palatable. An intramural sports program took place on O. Henry field, named for a former inmate, the short story author. Meaningless vengeance of the old style penology had given way to more humanity. The big dormitories were no worse than military barracks. The honor inmates had a special dormitory with a television and private kitchen. All prisoners not under discipline were allowed personal radios with earphones. Brutality by guards was forbidden. A convicted murderer presided over the chapel, while another looked after the electric chair. Bugsy Moran, who had bucked the Capone gang, was an attendant on the psychiatric ward. There were also present good therapeutic services in psychiatry and substance abuse. Solitary confinement still existed while the warden regretted its necessity to maintain discipline.
On the way out, Mr. Ruark had met a parrot named Buddy which squawked, "Bum rap! Bum rap!" He typified the inmates' general view that no matter how advanced the facility, jail continued to be no fun.
Harry Golden, secretary of the Shakespeare Society of Charlotte, finds it paradoxical that the English-speaking world had stood in awe of the cultural achievements of Europe when it had produced such luminaries of literature as Shakespeare, Milton, Shelley, Byron, Burns, Fielding, Dickens, Melville, Whitman, Poe, Mark Twain and George Bernard Shaw. The latter, he finds, before his death at age 94 on November 2, had spent the previous 70 years laughing at the foibles and hypocrisies of the world.
He called himself an atheist but attacked Darwin, Freud, and Col. Robert Ingersoll. He agitated against the rich and favored Socialism while spending a lifetime amassing a fortune. Underneath his iconoclasm, he showed deep respect for people. He alternately made people mad and made them think, attacking everything.
Many of the opinions he advanced were contradictory but had their influence on British life. He helped to organize the Fabian Society in 1890, and it won a small following among intellectuals, eventually developing into the Labor Party.
His place in letters would probably be assured by such plays as Arms and the Man, a satire on the false glory of war, Widower's Houses, an attack on slum housing, Mrs. Warren's Profession, an expose of prostitution, John Bull's Other Island, a polemic attacking absentee ownership of land, Back to Methuselah, Man and Superman, Heartbreak House, Saint Joan, Major Barbara, The Devil's Disciple, Pygmalion, and Candida.
Mr. Shaw, instead of holding up a mirror to life as had Shakespeare, stuck a "small flashlight" in mankind's face before it had the chance to apply makeup or put on its company manners.
On V-E Day, he had told the newspapers that he would not celebrate the victory as it was necessary still to live dangerously for "the worst is yet to come". Mr. Golden finds a comment by playwright J. B. Priestley in the London newspapers to have summed up the situation: "Now that we have lost Shaw, the world seems a smaller and drearier place. He was not only the last of the giants, but perhaps the first of the truly civilized men."
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