The Charlotte News
Monday, March 27, 1950
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that Far East expert Owen Lattimore called Senator Joseph McCarthy's claims that he was the top Soviet spy in the State Department "pure moonshine". He said that he was glad that the Senator had pinned his entire claims about the State Department on this contention as it would fall flat. He made the statement in a cable in response to an inquiry by the Associated Press, sent from Afghanistan where he was on an economic mission for the U.N. Mr. Lattimore said that he would be back in the country in a few days and would then answer the charges in detail, as he was not yet privy to the details of the Senator's claims. The identity of Mr. Lattimore as the formerly unnamed person accused by Senator McCarthy as the top Russian spy had been revealed on a radio program the previous night. The Senator had no immediate comment on Mr. Lattimore's reply.
A piece by Drew Pearson on the front page provides the biographical background of Mr. Lattimore, currently head of the Walter Hines Page School of International Relations at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. He had been working diligently in the Far East to combat Communism, having persuaded the living Buddha of Mongolia, Dilowa, to come to the U.S., where he had lived for a year under the tutelage of Mr. Lattimore in Baltimore. The Communists had ousted the living Buddha as one of their first moves in Mongolia. Mr. Lattimore had served as an adviser to General Marshall for a time but had not been connected with the State Department for the prior five years, since during the war. He had been an adviser to Chiang Kai-Shek between 1941 and 1942, then entering the Office of War Information as deputy director of Pacific operations.
A woman testified before the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee, investigating the charges by Senator McCarthy, that she and her husband were not Communists, as claimed by the Senator. She worked for the State Department and her husband was a former Navy commander who was now engaged in research on explosives for the Navy. She presented letters from Milton Eisenhower, brother of General Eisenhower and president of Kansas State College, as well as from former Senator Joseph Ball, attesting to their loyalty and anti-Communist sentiments.
Another object of Senator McCarthy's claims sent a letter to the subcommittee claiming that "whisperings of suspicion and hate" had been raised against him since the false accusation that he was pro-Communist. This person was scheduled to testify to the subcommittee.
The President, according to sources, had decided to wait until after testimony to the subcommittee by FBI director J. Edgar Hoover and Attorney General J. Howard McGrath before determining whether to release the loyalty files on those accused by Senator McCarthy for inspection at the White House by subcommittee members.
The President was said to be backing up completely Secretary of State Acheson against the attacks by Republicans, now being led by Senator Styles Bridges, to get him ousted from the post.
At the U.N., Russia walked out of the Human Rights Commission after making a verbal attack on Eleanor Roosevelt, accusing her of attempting to use the organization for the political purposes of the United States. Mrs. Roosevelt, as chairman of the Commission, angrily banged the gavel and said that they were not listening to any more propaganda speeches and would proceed with the business at hand. The Soviet delegate was permitted, however, to finish his speech. The attack was precipitated by the eighteen-member Commission upholding the ruling of Mrs. Roosevelt that the Soviet resolution to oust the Chinese Nationalist delegation was out of order. Russia and Yugoslavia had cast the only negative votes. It marked the sixteenth time since January 10 that a Russian representative had walked out of a U.N. committee regarding the Nationalist issue.
Senators Taft and Vandenberg called for a non-partisan survey to learn what future American help might be needed by the world's democracies, possibly to include investigations regarding the President's "Point Four" program to assist underdeveloped nations technically in building industry and agriculture. Senator William Knowland welcomed the idea as recognizing that some concrete planning had to be undertaken with regard to Southeast Asia, which was under threat from Communist China. Secretary of State Acheson and roving Ambassador Philip Jessup would soon testify to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee re Dr. Jessup's recent survey of the Far East.
In Germany, Russian guards slowed Berlin-bound truck traffic at the zonal border at Helmstedt to half its normal pace, backing up 50 trucks.
The Supreme Court upheld, in a 5 to 2 decision announced by Justice Sherman Minton at 339 U.S. 161, the conviction of Eugene Dennis, general secretary for the American Communist Party, for contempt of Congress for willful disobedience in 1947 to a subpoena issued by HUAC, finding that the presence of several Government workers on the jury which convicted him not to constitute, as claimed, a denial of due process or the right to a fair and impartial jury secured by the Sixth Amendment. The majority found that Government employees could not be challenged for jury service solely because of their employment and that the defense claim that since Government workers were subject to loyalty examinations, they would be afraid to acquit a Communist, was only conjecture, not supported by voir dire answers to the contrary of seven of the twelve jurors, leaving no record of actual bias to support the defense challenges of those jurors for cause. Justice Stanley Reed filed a concurring opinion in which he stated that he found the majority opinion to mean that in the case of a finding by a trial court of implied bias by Government employees, they could be disqualified, and so concurred on that basis. Justices Hugo Black and Felix Frankfurter filed dissenting opinions, both concluding that the atmosphere in Washington was such that the fear of discharge for disloyalty as expressed in a verdict was real enough to disqualify Government employees from jury service under the circumstances. Justices Tom Clark and William O. Douglas took no part in the decision. The case was separate from the 1949 convictions of Mr. Dennis and ten other American Communist Party leaders for violation of the Smith Act.
Blinding dust storms hit the plains states the previous day, in Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, Nebraska, and New Mexico, causing eight traffic-related deaths and injuring another 50 in Kansas and Texas. Crop and top soil loss were heavy.
News Editor Pete McKnight provides the first in a series of three articles regarding an interview with Senatorial candidate Willis Smith—who would win the May 25 Democratic primary over incumbent interim Senator Frank Graham and former Senator Robert Rice Reynolds. His family had been residents of Eastern North Carolina for generations, but he was born in Norfolk in 1887. The family moved at his father's death, when Mr. Smith was three, in 1890 and he soon returned to Elizabeth City where he grew up. When fresh out of high school, Mr. Smith had taken a job as a shipping clerk in a wholesale grocery operation in Elizabeth City, and had just been promoted to city salesman when he dropped a case of syrup, earning a stern reprimand from his boss, prompting him to quit.
He entered Trinity College, later to become Duke University, and was top in his class his first year but his interest in basketball and a tailoring enterprise interrupted his college career.
Eventually, after entering on the practice of law, he ran for the State House, becoming Speaker by the early Thirties. He had been president of the ABA in recent years.
Mr. McKnight had also previously published in the newspaper a series of three articles each on interviews with Senator Graham and Senator Reynolds.
A part of chapter fifty-nine of The Greatest Story Ever Told by Fulton Oursler appears on the page as part of the abridged serialization of the book.
On page 9-A appears the first
installment of Vida Hurst's newest story, When Lovers Laugh
On the editorial page, "Acheson's Critics" tells of one of the Washington pundits having suggested that Secretary of State Acheson was honest and competent but lacked the common touch. It finds the latter attribute to suggest good breeding and a logical mind, rather than being a drawback.
The newsletter had also suggested that his "popping off on Hiss" had been a "big, dumb blunder"—in reference to his defense of his old friend despite his conviction for perjury in denying having been a Communist spy in the latter 1930's, as accused by confessed former Communist spy, Whittaker Chambers.
The same newsletter, informs the piece, had predicted Thomas Dewey's victory in 1948 and had prepared a booklet telling businessmen what to expect from a Dewey Administration. It finds the motive for it to be "less unselfish and less Christian" than the motive behind Mr. Acheson's assertion of loyalty to an old friend.
It suggests the statement in the newsletter to be typical of the ongoing campaign of innuendo against the Secretary by those who could not understand the enormity of the effort he undertook to repair the damage in a rent world girding against Communism. It concludes that it was not often that men of real ability entered Government service and when found, the people should ignore such attacks by "small-bore politicians and Washington 'experts'."
"Secrets on Capitol Hill" tells of James Reston of The New York Times raising questions in the current issue of Atlantic Monthly regarding how much of the affairs of government should be released to the public. He offered that the Government had to protect private discussions and private negotiations while also keeping the people adequately informed, that the Government was not performing sufficiently in the latter vein. He regretted that Secretary of State Acheson, whom he regarded as the ablest head of the Department since Henry Stimson under President Hoover, felt compelled to play "cops and robbers" with the press, trying to conceal information whenever the press sought to disclose it.
He believed that if the Government was not going to do its best to inform the people, then the members of the Fourth Estate had the duty to do their best to do so.
He believed the reasons for the reluctance to release information to be stubbornness on the one hand and also because officials did not know where they were headed in given areas and so tried to withhold as much information as possible.
The piece offers that an informed citizenry was required in such times when a decision on war might come. It was the heart of a democracy which distinguished the society from the instant authority wielded by the Kremlin.
"Laugh and the World Laughs" tells of a group of 80 or more CCNY students having formed a Laughter Society, meeting each Thursday night, staring at each other until the first laugh would come for no apparent reason, then suddenly becoming infectious.
The "sultan" of the
group was quoted as saying, "With the ho ho
"So," concludes the
piece, "they all get huh-huh-huh together. They ho-ho sit down
and start haww haww heee looking at hup-hup-hee-haw laughing at heee
one haww haww another and haww haww hee ho ho
Perhaps, they were laughing at the Wildcats, taking themselves a little too seriously sometimes—which we Tar Heels never, ever do.
Maybe if some of the Wildcat star players would decide to come to school for more than—hee-hee-haw—one or two years before joining the NBA grab-for-the-ring roundabout, they could haw-haw-haw along with us once in awhile rather than having to cry-cry-cry all the way back home to Lexington in most years they are pre-season favorites or number twos, on the strength of miracle freshmen and sophomores.
It seems that the Wildcats, as well as many other "miracle" freshmen of also-ran teams of recent years, perhaps could benefit by a lesson in academic discipline from UNC player Luke Maye, who, after sinking the winning shot on Sunday at around 7:30 p.m. Eastern Time in Memphis, attended his 8:00 a.m. business class a bit over twelve hours later—it being a feat of derring-do for any student to have, as we certainly avoided like the plague, an 8:00 a.m. class in the first instance, let alone attending it after participation in an exhausting and exciting event 700 miles away, followed by an airline flight back to Chapel Hill. Indeed, he deserved the standing ovation he received from his classmates, just for being there.
In any event, the Beavers were on
track to dam up
That's pretty funny.
But don't get any ideas, Gamecocks, even if the separate tournament formats, for a long time, have prevented joint entries. The N.C.A.A. championship rings are reserved for the tried and true, an exclusive club requiring, after the first Tournament in 1939, at least a couple of prior trips to the finals before admission to the championship.
Thus spake Tarus Heelius Nippin
Tuckus, the Greek goddess of basketball—who also tells us that
the Ducks will not supply the poetic muse
Four down and two to go.
A piece from the Asheville Citizen, titled "Man of the Seas", tells of the O. Max Gardner Award for the year going to Dr. Robert Coker, zoology professor emeritus at UNC and director of the University's Institute for Fisheries Research & Development. His book, This Great and Wide Sea, had won the Mayflower Literary Society award for the prior year.
The fishing industry
The piece suggests that one day, with farm land exhausted, the country might have to turn to the seas for more food and greater employment.
Drew Pearson tells of various plans introduced by citizens to win the peace. One came from West Virginia Jaycees the previous year, planning to have twenty young persons from behind the iron curtain come to the country for work and training in an effort to bring about goodwill and understanding. But the State Department refused to issue visas for the project on the ground that the primary purpose was to stimulate goodwill rather than provide technical training. Meanwhile, other Jaycees around the country prepared similar projects but were left in suspension after the State Department refused approval.
He provides other ideas coming from individuals, including a man who was willing to pay for a million color supplements telling the peace story of the American people, to be distributed behind the iron curtain, another who suggested the production of a motion picture re the results of a hydrogen bomb blast, that of an industrialist who was willing to provide $100,000 for shortwave radio equipment to be dropped by parachute behind the iron curtain so that the Voice of America could be heard, and another who suggested printing of Sears and Montgomery Ward catalogues for distribution behind the iron curtain. Another person wanted to hold a contest with the Soviets to see who could come up with the best peaceful use for atomic energy.
Stewart Alsop tells of plans in the works for a foreign policy arranged around "total diplomacy" and, to that end, the appointment of a central coordinator to handle economic coordination of such problems as the dollar shortage, the British sterling problem, the American tariff and import policy, the Middle Eastern oil problem, and American shipping and agricultural surpluses.
Several plans had been suggested, as expanding the National Security Council or having National Advisory Council chairman, Secretary of the Treasury John W. Snyder, become the economic high commander. Both ideas, however, had been rejected as impractical, in favor of appointing initially a commission to study the problem and gain acceptance for it, as the Harriman commission had been a forerunner of the Marshall Plan.
Mr. Alsop suggests that with such a daunting task ahead, the coordinator would have to be a genius and geniuses were rare in Government service. But even a genius would be helpless in an atmosphere of business-as-usual, which had pervaded foreign policy in the Truman Administration for too long. That it was coming to an end perhaps was foreshadowed by the consideration of the new orientation toward total diplomacy.
Marquis Childs discusses the potential problems of public scrutiny and denunciation for anyone who accepted Government employment in sensitive positions, especially in the State Department, Defense Department, or the CIA, deterring qualified persons from applying. He takes as example a case from the file of Senator McCarthy, who he dubs "X". This X had been directed by the State Department to develop a relationship with a private organization and in the course of that relationship, got to know an individual who was helpful and reliable and was never suspected of being a Communist, although the private association was under suspicion. An Intelligence agent became aware of X's association, however, and reported it as part of his confidential file. When the file was examined, the reason for the contact was realized and the matter cast aside. But that nevertheless became a source for Senator McCarthy to call into question the loyalty of X.
Another basis was X's association with Y, whom he had brought into the State Department. Y was called before HUAC and refused to answer questions under the Fifth Amendment. X was out of the country and when he returned, recommended that Y be terminated for incompetence, two years before his HUAC testimony. Yet again, the incident was part of Senator McCarthy's charges against X.
A third association involved X's contemplated hiring of Z, whom security officers regarded as a doubtful security risk. Z was never hired but the mere fact that X had contemplated hiring him formed the source of a third suspicion of his loyalty.
Mr. Childs suggests that in each case, X fell under suspicion in Senator McCarthy's world for what happened either after employment or contemplated employment under X, or, in the first instance, because of work directed by his superiors in the State Department. The time had come, he thus argues, to be less simple-minded about such matters. While being willing to embrace any former Communist who decided to make a clean breast of his former ways, as in the Whittaker Chambers accusations against Alger Hiss, there was an effort afoot to impugn the loyalty of dedicated employees of the Government. He finds that no better method could be employed by the Russians to ingratiate a master spy to the American public with a cloak of respectability. Appearances, he concludes, were not always what they seemed.
A letter writer wants the City to turn the Quartermaster Depot, should it acquire it, into a centralized truckers' depot.
A letter writer wants both James P. Elliott and Kimbro paroled.
A letter writer finds it hypocritical for the City to engage in the sale of alcohol under State ABC control while the City also planned a hospital to treat alcoholics.
A letter writer questions whether America was losing its freedom. He says that no politician would ever win votes by saying he was trying to take away freedom. But politicians campaigned for the New Deal on the ground of it being the new Utopia. He thinks P.T. Barnum, rather than Abraham Lincoln, had once said, "You can fool some of the people all of the time." (Mr. Barnum said, "A sucker is born every minute".)
He asserts that the New Dealers, in seeking to make the country free from fear, had sought to "socialize" the country.
The editors make the above correction on Mr. Barnum and add that the sucker comment "may be just as applicable" to the letter writer's point.
That's right, assuming the point of view that the letter writer is the sucker.
A letter from twice-failed Republican Congressional candidate P. C. Burkholder, now running for the Democratic nomination for Congress, asserts that the atom bomb was not as destructive as the people had been "lead" to believe, and that the hydrogen bomb was "just a dream", that the millions appropriated to bring it to reality were a waste of the taxpayers' money. He questions whether the Government in Washington was trying to prepare the people for Communism and shaking hands with Stalin. The Good Book assured him that they would never succeed in making the hydrogen bomb and that even if they did, that they would never use it. He thus recommends forgetting about it.
Drink some country buttermilk and make P.C. happy.
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