The Charlotte News
Monday, April 17, 1950
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that Attorney General J. Howard McGrath told a Senate Commerce subcommittee that big time gamblers apparently had moved into amateur and professional sports with large-scale operations, including moves into baseball, basketball, and football. He urged that Congress crack down on organized gamblers by forbidding the transmission of gambling information across state lines, a bill providing for which was now pending, requiring a one-hour time lag in announcing or showing the finish of a horse race. He stated also that the Justice Department did not know of a national syndicate run by a national czar but that there were big business operations in major cities.
In a radio broadcast, Senator Millard Tydings, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee investigating the charges made by Senator Joseph McCarthy regarding Communists in the State Department, said that the subcommittee was going to do some investigating of its own, unrelated to the charges made by Senator McCarthy. He also said that the Senator had not provided any evidence thus far to back up any of his claims.
Former Communist Louis Budenz had been subpoenaed by the subcommittee to testify the following Thursday, expected to say that he had seen Owen Lattimore, charged by Senator McCarthy with being the top Soviet agent in the country, at Communist meetings. Drew Pearson had reported on his Sunday program that Mr. Budenz would state that a third person, a Communist, had informed him that Mr. Lattimore had been used, perhaps unwillingly, by the Communists.
The State Department said that Russia had not acted with "calmness and restraint" regarding the alleged shooting down of an American Air Force plane which had strayed over Latvia along the Soviet frontier on April 8 and remained missing. The note said that a further statement in reply to the Soviet condemnation of the incident, purporting it to be U.S. spying, would await receipt of all possible information.
The Supreme Court, in a 7-2 per curiam decision, South v. Peters, 329 U.S. 276, upheld the Georgia unit-voting system, weighting rural districts more heavily per capita than urban districts in the state. The majority relied on precedent in which the Federal courts refused to interfere in matters posing a political question regarding state determinations of methods of electoral distribution within its geographical areas. Justice William O. Douglas wrote a dissent, joined by Justice Hugo Black, in which he argued that the right to vote entailed having the vote count as full value, without being diluted as in the case of the Georgia system insofar as urban votes versus rural votes. Justice Douglas compared the process to diluting the votes of a particular race or religious group, in which case the Court would strike it down as violating the Fourteenth Amendment. He saw no distinction.
The President was informed by his Council of Economic Advisers that the business outlook for the following six months was "very strong".
John Maragon, friend to Presidential military aide General Harry Vaughan and formerly enjoying ready entree to the White House, went on trial this date for four counts of perjury regarding business connections and financial affairs during his testimony the previous summer before the Senate investigating committee looking into influence peddling in connection with the five-percenter scheme. Mr. Maragon had denied receiving fees from his clients for his efforts, aided in wheel-greasing by General Vaughan, whereas records showed otherwise.
In Raleigh, Jonathan Daniels, Democratic national committeeman for North Carolina, said he had no intention of resigning his post in light of his announced support for Senator Frank Graham in the upcoming special election primary in the Senate race. He said that the suggestion of his resignation had come from people who were not supportive of the Democratic ticket in 1948. Mrs. Charles Tillett of Charlotte had resigned her post as vice-chairman of the DNC to campaign for Senator Graham. Mr. Daniels distinguished her position as a member of the executive committee from his mere state position.
Ashley Smith of The News, in the first of two articles, discusses the views of W. E. Horner in his race against incumbent C. B. Deane in the Eighth Congressional race in Rockingham County. He favored an end to deficit spending, holding the line on socialism, defeat of the Brannan farm plan, defeat of the FEPC bill, defeat of the Federal aid to education bill, and fair labor practices.
In Bailey, N.C., a pair of robbers escaped with $16,000 from a farmer's safe after holding a gun on the farmer and his wife the previous night. They tied up the couple and threatened to kill them if they left the house within fifteen minutes, then fired a warning shot into the ceiling. A manhunt was underway.
In London, Princess Elizabeth was reported to be expecting her second child during the following summer. Prince Charles had been born in November, 1948.
On the editorial page, "Potential Achilles Heel" finds the advice of Louisville Times editor emeritus Tom Wallace, in a recent speech in Charlotte, and that of Gabriel Gonzalez-Vidala, President of Chile, in a speech before the U.S. Senate, to be sound in advocating increased Pan American cooperation. In Latin America, Mexico, Chile and Uruguay were well along the way to becoming democracies. During the war, the Germans and Italians established fifth columns in Latin America and there were currently Communist listening posts in several countries. If the U.S continued to ignore the region, it could, it posits, become an Achilles heel in a time of intensification of the cold war.
"Security vs. Relief" remarks on the Business Week editorial appearing on the page, favoring the expansion of Social Security to embrace 12 million new people and provide increased benefits. Though a conservative publication, it endorsed the program as being beneficial both to workers and business, with both labor and the major business organizations supporting it. The rationale for it was that there were more people of retirement age in the society than ever before and that they were no longer as independent in old age as they had been in earlier times. Present Social Security coverage was inadequate and private plans of individual businesses and industries could not be extended to cover all people.
"Farm Plan Joker" tells of the Farm Quarterly having reported of an Indiana farmer who sold his corn to the Government for $1.48 per bushel at support prices, stored it on his own farm, and then bought it back as feed for 65 cents per bushel, all legally.
The piece suggests it as an example of the problems associated with the current Government farm price-support program and cautions that unless those who opposed the Brannan plan could come up with something better, the President might not have difficulty persuading the public that the plan would be superior to the present program.
"Is Winnie a Commie?" tells of the London Economist finding aptly that Senator McCarthy's method of defining a bad security risk was something more tenuous than merely guilt by association. It suggested that Winston Churchill, being a member of the Church of England while the Dean of Canterbury was an admitted fellow-traveler, being a member of Commons when a known Communist, William Gallagher, was a member, being a member of the Big Three when Josef Stalin was a member, being a member of the Conservative Party when another member had praised Tito, and, indeed, praising Tito, himself, all would combine to make it clear to Senator McCarthy that Mr. Churchill was a Communist. The Economist had stressed that it was no exaggeration of the methods of the man Marquis Childs had called the "10-cent Robespierre".
A piece from the Cleveland Times, titled "Gentlemen, It's Spring", tells of an incident involving the philosopher, novelist, and teacher George Santayana one spring day in class. He was lecturing to a distracted group of students when a waft of spring air entered the room. He trailed off, closed his book, arose and pronounced the statement which serves as the title for the piece. He then took his hat, his leave, and never returned.
A piece from Business Week, as stated above, favors expansion of Social Security for the reasons above-stated.
Drew Pearson tells of the sluggish 81st Congress which had accomplished in the current session thus far passage of only two bills, both of which were opposed to the Fair Deal, the vetoed natural gas deregulation bill and the bill to restore basing point pricing, outlawed by the Supreme Court as violative of existing antitrust laws. With less than four months left until the recess for the midterm elections, the major fair deal programs, civil rights, appropriations for foreign aid, liberalization of Social Security, the Brannan farm plan, and the bulk of the Hoover Committee's recommendations for streamlining government had yet to be addressed. In addition were the President's compulsory health insurance plan, the military aid program, Federal aid to education and the President's "Point Four" technical assistance to underdeveloped countries.
In Senator Herbert Lehman's address before the Senate in honor of the fifth anniversary of FDR's death, only one Senator, including several Republicans present, had been less than respectful. Senator Elmer Thomas of Oklahoma walked out, apparently forgetting the fact that in 1938, President Roosevelt had made a special effort to re-route his train to Oklahoma to help Senator Thomas be re-elected in his otherwise flagging campaign.
The American Legion "Tide of Toys" campaign to bring toys to Western European children and even to those of Yugoslavia and Finland, had gone well and was helping to create a peaceful atmosphere for the future on the belief that such generosity extended to foreign children would make it harder for them to be recruited to fight against the United States in the future.
Stewart Alsop discusses the importance of an obscure May 2 primary in Alabama to determine whether a slate of Dixiecrats or the slate of Senators Lister Hill and John Sparkman would be elected to the state Democratic committee. Dixiecrats Gessner McCorvey, former Governor Frank Dixon, and corporate lawyers Horace Wilkinson and Marion Rushton, largely controlled the Alabama Democratic Party, transforming it in 1948 into a Dixiecrat party.
Along with Louisiana's Leander Perez
Senator Taft had gone on record against Federal civil rights legislation with compulsory provisions, but he was considered too much a traditional Republican to be suitable to Southern voters.
The Hill-Sparkman slate had been helped by the Administration's delay of civil rights legislation until after the May 2 primary date, as it would be a crucial defeat for the Democrats if the Dixiecrats succeeded.
Senator Sparkman
Robert C. Ruark tells of Rear Admiral Charles Momsen, assistant chief of Naval operations for undersea warfare, recently telling a group of businessmen in Springfield, Mass., that with a strong Navy, the country could ward off any attack on its shores and keep any warfare abroad. Mr. Ruark regards it as a hollow boast in the age of the hydrogen bomb and guided missiles. Moreover, he reminds that the Germans had a strong submarine Navy but had lost two world wars.
He tires of the boasting of the independent branches of the military and believes it contrary to the interests of the nation and a unified defense strategy. No single branch could win the next war, he cautions, and, indeed, there might not be a winner on either side. He prefers slapping a muzzle on the braggadocio being exhibited, in which case the country might actually form the kind of military which could substantiate the boast of its constituent elements.
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