The Charlotte News
Tuesday, February 14, 1950
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that a CIO representative testified to the House Ways & Means Committee that the President's tax program did not go far enough in cutting excise taxes, and proposed a plan whereby the tax burden would be shifted from low income individuals, via exemptions, to the wealthy and high-profit corporations, by re-enactment of the excess profits tax as during the war and a new levy on undistributed profits instead of an increase of the corporate rate from 38 to 42 percent as proposed by the President.
The White House said that the President would designate Sumner Pike to act as chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission pending the appointment of a successor to resigning David Lilienthal, who would leave office the following day. Mr. Pike was one of the original members of the Commission.
In Prague, the Czech Foreign Office announced that the state police had arrested two American Mormon missionaries, missing since January 28 while traveling through Moravia, on charges of attempting to enter a prohibited area. The Government had ordered thirteen Mormon missionaries expelled from the country for "endangering the safety and security of the State".
In Bonn, West Germany, a plot was uncovered to murder West German President Theodor Heuss, with one man arrested. An official said that it was believed that the plot did not have a political motive and that the man was acting alone.
The UMW said that it had instructed all of its locals to return to work, in light of the Federal court order issued the prior Saturday to do so pending a hearing on an injunction pursuant to Taft-Hartley.
An authoritative source had reported that a B-36 with sixteen men aboard had ditched in Queen Charlotte Sound in British Columbia, 400 miles northwest of Seattle, while searching for the source of an unidentified light in the Sound. Some Air Force officers said that the story was just an unconfirmed rumor.
It was probably one of them UFO's in the Sound.
More rain fell in Mississippi, Arkansas and Louisiana, already beset by flooding. The Mississippi and Ohio Rivers were reported rising again after having caused the bulk of the flooding.
Tom Fesperman of The News again reports from Winston-Salem regarding the Committee of 100, which actually had 130 members, so named because it was easy to say. It represented all areas and classes of the community, with the purpose of making improvements and spotlighting needed changes. No political candidate or officeholder could be a member. He tells of its structure and that when special problems arose, special committees were appointed to investigate, as when the issue of local choice for ABC-controlled sale of liquor had come up the previous year.
In Charlotte, a five-day old baby was saved by a delicate operation performed at Memorial Hospital to correct a birth defect which had cut off the stomach from the esophagus, thus preventing passage of food.
In Atlanta, Coca was having her leg rigged in a sling to take pressure off a bum knee when a female Atlanta Constitution reporter, present to capture the story, apparently alarmed her, causing her to squirt muddy water all over the reporter. The photographer ducked.
Coca was obviously a Republican.
On the editorial page, "Alibi for Prejudice" discusses the statements of Mrs. J. Waties Waring, the wife of the Federal Judge in Charleston who had found that to comport with the Constitution, the South Carolina primary had to permit black citizens to vote. She had stirred controversy by stating in January at the Charleston black YWCA that white Southerners were "full of pride and complacency, introverted, morally weak and low." The previous weekend she had stated on a national radio program that she thought blacks and whites ought intermarry, charged that South Carolina was a "replica of Russia", and that the Southern press had "sunk below the level of the people."
The piece finds that she was understandably upset by being ostracized by Charleston society, had claimed that no white person had been to their home since the 1948 ruling on the primary. It finds that she would do herself and the cause of civil rights more good, however, by not engaging in such intemperate language and expression of extreme views. She was, it suggests, giving small-minded Southerners a new alibi for their prejudices and a new excuse to attack her husband's "eminently fair" rulings.
"Strong Delegation Needed" tells of Eastern North Carolina historically having a disproportionately strong voice in the Legislature, given the population of the region as compared to the Piedmont and Western sections of the state. It encourages able candidates to run for the General Assembly from Mecklenburg County to provide strong representation for the community.
"The Heart—A Double Symbol" tells of Valentine's Day being coincident with the week of the American Heart Association campaign to raise six million dollars for research on treatment of heart disease, responsible for one of every three deaths in the United States. It urges contribution to the campaign.
"Motivation of the Times" discusses the marathon prayer session which spontaneously occurred the previous week at Wheaton College in Illinois, involving students and faculty. While the College had a graduate theology program, it was not a "Bible college" and the students in the marathon were not theology students. To a nation accustomed to seeing stories about college parties, it was a puzzling exception to the rule. It finds that the students' turn to religion for answers was not so different from mankind's quest through the ages, save for the particular form this supplication took. They were struck, it offers, by "the need for faith in a benevolent superior being in an age of uncertainty."
A piece from the Louisville Courier-Journal, titled "An Academic Challenge", finds that the importance of naming of a new president of UNC extended beyond North Carolina, as the institution, under the guidance of president Frank Graham from 1930 until early 1949, had become "a source and guardian of liberalism and freedom of thought throughout the South."
As president, Mr. Graham had made his views known on matters of civil rights, free speech, and labor rights such that everyone had known where he stood, often sparking conflict with the conservative industrial interests of the state.
Gordon Gray, heir to the Reynolds tobacco fortune, had a background bearing little resemblance to Mr. Graham, who had an academic background before becoming UNC president. But Mr. Gray, a newspaper publisher in Winston-Salem before becoming Secretary of the Army, had always wanted to be involved with academia. The piece suggests that if he were able to exert the same force on the South while maintaining the good will of the financial powers of the state which Mr. Graham had, he would accomplish a public service job which many would envy.
Drew Pearson tells of the gambling interests in Miami Beach, a stronghold for gambling, as was Southern California. He relates of one City Councilman, Melvin Richard, who was seeking to buck the system and clean up the city. His former campaign manager, who was now seeking his recall, had counseled that he enter into an agreement whereby a gambling syndicate could operate again freely in the city, with the campaign manager to be one of four partners, and a quarter of the proceeds of the operation, totaling about $750,000 per year, to flow to Mr. Richard by means of legitimate fronts. Mr. Richard could also rail against the syndicate in public meetings of the Council but not discuss it in private with the police chief or city manager. He could also go with police on highly publicized raids of certain gambling establishments, such that the public would be convinced that he was performing his promise to clean up the city.
Mr. Richard refused to go along with the plan and called his campaign manager "insane". Shortly, thereafter, the recall campaign began, with the former campaign manager leading the effort. Thus it was not yet clear whether Miami Beach would fall victim again to the gambling interests of Frank Costello and his henchmen or could be cleaned up by a lone City Councilman fighting these powerful interests.
Joseph & Stewart Alsop find that Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson had been misleading the nation by overstating its defense capabilities after his military budget cuts, especially harmful to the Navy. They provide the figures for the Navy reductions, including its air wing.
The Air Force, which the Joint Chiefs and other authorities had assessed as needing 70 groups to function properly as a striking force, had been cut to 48 groups from 54. The cuts were in tactical groups and troop-carrier groups. The Air Force, however, had the same number of planes as in 1949, but, as with the Naval air arm, was not being replenished with the most modern aircraft, with the replenishment rate cut 25 percent below that thought necessary to keep the 48 groups ready for modern warfare.
In the Army, under the leadership of Secretary Gordon Gray, economy had been applied without cuts in combat strength.
But Secretary Johnson had repeatedly denied any loss of strength in the Navy and Air Force, indicating either that he was too incompetent to recognize the problem or was making false statements. They find he was also guilty of larger misrepresentations, to be examined in a subsequent column.
Henry C. McFadyen, superintendent of
the Albemarle, N.C., schools, in the twenty-fourth in his weekly
series of reports on childhood education, again looks at reading
instruction in the first grade, finding that, as with walking,
children were ready to read at different ages. He offers to parents
of first grade children of normal intelligence tips on improving
their children's reading skills, starting with the suggestion that
they provide as many life experiences as possible to teach the child
to read, such as a visit to the Grand Canyon
Well, what about introducing the
child to the neighborhood Dick and Jane and Alice
Another beneficial act would be to give the child practice in speaking simple English sentences by asking questions regarding the child's activity which required a descriptive explanation rather than simple yes and no answers. The parents also should assist the child in building a good vocabulary, by discussing various topics with the child using words which were appropriate to the subject, not trying to simplify the vocabulary, and always answering questions as to the meaning of words the child did not understand.
The final aid to reading he
recommends was to encourage the child to speak clearly, so that by
the time he or she was in high school, people could understand the
student's name the first time
A letter writer finds that the entry of former Senator Robert Rice Reynolds to the Senate race against Senator Frank Graham would give the people a clear choice. He thinks that the Federal Government had no right to pass any civil rights legislation as it was the right of the individual at stake.
He seeks to eliminate or simply misunderstands the application of the Equal Protection Clause and the Commerce Clause. No one was seeking to legislate away individual rights to associate with anyone of their choosing and, indeed, that would violate the right of free association under the First Amendment. Rather, the effort was to insure the right of all citizens to enjoy equally the fundamental rights secured by the Constitution, including the rights to vote, to equal educational and employment opportunity and the right to have access equally to transportation, public accommodations, and businesses open to the public which engage in interstate commerce.
A letter writer takes issue with Secretary of State Acheson's notion of "peace through strength", as stated the previous week. He equates "strength" with the hydrogen bomb and finds such an axiom morally bankrupt, that the rationale for dropping the first atom bomb, to save lives by shortening the war, was damnable. Labeling dissenters "subversive" subverted the meaning of the word. He concludes, quoting Walter Winchell, "Hmmmph!"
Well, that's a matter of opinion.
Framed Edition
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