The Charlotte News
Monday, May 15, 1950
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the Big Three foreign ministers met in London with the foreign ministers of the other NATO nations to begin a three-day conference to unite defenses against Soviet aggression. The Big Three had decided the previous night to continue West Germany as an armed camp and stressed for the first time the defensive nature of the occupation forces rather than their mere police duties. The three foreign ministers said that occupation controls would be relaxed and West Germany increasingly integrated into Western Europe, but they refused to authorize proceeding with German peace treaty negotiations as it remained impracticable as long as the Soviets refused to allow the inhabitants of the Eastern zone to rejoin the Western zone inhabitants and form a unified Germany. West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer expressed satisfaction with the declaration.
In Atlantic City, Senator Joseph McCarthy, addressing a convention of the Sons of the American Revolution, accused Secretary of State Acheson of betraying the U.S. in Asia by reliance on a plan advocated by Owen Lattimore, and asked the President to fire him. He also urged the President to fire Ambassador Philip Jessup for the same reason, terming both men "the Pied Pipers of the Politburo".
Senate Majority Leader Scott Lucas said that he would test the cloture rule requiring 64 votes on the FEPC bill the following Friday. Senator Richard Russell of Georgia, leader of the Southern filibuster effort on the bill, said that he did not believe the 64 votes were available to stop debate. Senator Lucas expressed waning optimism in the ability to pass the measure.
The Supreme Court, in two companion 7 to 2 decisions delivered by Justice Tom Clark, Labor Board v. Mexia Textile Mills, 339 U.S. 563, and Labor Board v. Pool Mfg. Co., 339 U.S. 577, reversed the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals which had referred NLRB orders against the two Texas companies for alleged unfair labor practices back to the Board for further fact findings on matters not raised by the companies at the Board hearings, claiming they had arisen after the hearings, the Court finding that only "extraordinary circumstances" could justify allowing reopening of the proceedings to take evidence not adduced at the hearings. Justice Felix Frankfurter dissented in both cases, joined by Justice Robert Jackson. The Court had refused the previous fall to intervene in three other similar cases out of the same Circuit.
The Court also refused to grant a hearing in a case challenging the New York wiretapping laws which required court supervision for issuance of a wiretap order.
It also refused to allow three groups to file amici curiae briefs in support of petitions for rehearing filed by Hollywood screenwriters Dalton Trumbo and John Howard Lawson, found guilty of contempt for refusing to testify before HUAC in 1947 in answer to questioning on whether they had ever been Communists. The Court had refused review of their cases on April 10.
In Chicago, the President prepared to speak to 3,000 assembled Democrats this night, concluding his week-long cross-country train tour. The speech would be aired on NBC television and and all radio networks at 10:30. He had made 55 speeches in seven days, extending to Oregon and Washington and back, through sixteen states. During his passage through Wisconsin, he had refrained from mention of Senator McCarthy.
No progress had been made toward resolution of the rail strike against four of the nation's largest railroads. Southern Railway operations in the Carolinas had expanded on Saturday and were being maintained.
In Niagara Falls, N.Y., two helicopters worked to rescue a woman clinging to a rock above Horseshoe Falls. A wave hit a pontoon of one of the helicopters and caused a rotor to hit a rock, causing it to go into the water, but the two men on board were not injured. The woman was rescued by the other helicopter and flown to a hospital, suffering from shock and exposure. Her husband said that she had a nervous breakdown and had been ill for some time.
The U.N. International Children's Emergency Fund had persuaded Greek mothers to accept powdered milk and each of the first two mothers who used it gave birth to twins the same day, the first twins born in the town in a decade, prompting the U.N. to have to announce that the powdered milk was not linked to the births.
In Johannesburg, South Africa, the white queen of the Bamangwato tribe gave birth to a daughter this date and the infant was doing well. Her husband, the chief of the tribe, had been exiled for five years by the British Government because of the stir caused both among the native population and in London by the interracial marriage. The British had given him permission to leave the protectorate where he was in exile to visit his wife.
In Dunbar, Scotland, 184 whales had been beached by high tide on Saturday and died Sunday. About a hundred of the carcasses were being harvested by chemical firms for the fats and oils. But they could not handle all of the whales. The rest would have to be hauled to sea.
Were they of more than one species?
In New York, Judy Coplon, convicted of espionage in connection with attempting to give secret documents to a Russian agent, was planning to marry a lawyer she had met during the course of her case. She was free on appellate bond pending the outcome of her appeal of her convictions and sentences totaling up to 25 years in prison.
A recent Russian immigrant had to be taken into custody by police in New York after attacking several policemen who had been called to a theater after the man had struck the doorman and assistant manager following a screening of "The Battle of Stalingrad".
In New York, Katharine Hepburn, after missing two performances of "As You Like It" because of laryngitis, was due to return this night. Get your tickets by phone and catch the plane up there. Don't slug anybody.
On the editorial page, "Calculated Confusion" finds the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and Enginemen to have engaged in a tactic of only slowing down operations rather than halting them in the rail strike thus far during its first week. It had created confusion and diverted public attention from the main issue which was whether the union really needed the demanded additional fireman on multiple diesel-locomotive trains. As there was no fire to tend, it appeared that the railroads had the better of the argument when they contended that it was a "make-work" demand. Consequently, there was no public support for the strike.
It hopes that new legislation would be passed which would be more stringent than Taft-Hartley to curb such strikes—even though the Railroad Act and not Taft-Hartley governed the railroads.
"Lament of Three Cities" tells of Winston-Salem being behind Greensboro in planning a new auditorium and coliseum complex, as Greenville, S.C., was behind Spartanburg, S.C. But Charlotte, it finds, though a proposal had been laid out for a new auditorium and coliseum, was behind both pairs of cities.
Don't worry. All of you will get your facilities eventually. We have seen the future.
"Character in Business" tells of the principles of Rice Leaders of the World Association, honor, quality, strength, and service, being worth consideration by the public and the business world. Too many people had forgotten that character was an important part of business, beyond just the drive to make a profit. The Rice Leaders, founded by Elwood Rice in 1912, had made a valuable contribution in this regard. No amount of promotion could save a business lacking in its enunciated principles.
A piece from the Louisville Courier-Journal, titled "Budding VA Hospital Scandal", questions the necessity of the Louisville V.A. hospital program, in light of the statements made by Dr. Paul Magnuson, the V.A. medical chief, that pork-barrel politics had produced a lot of unnecessary V.A. projects. It suggests that it was proper to be wary of anything which Congressman John Rankin of Mississippi and the American Legion were pushing, the reinstatement of the funding for the hospitals nixed the previous year by the President as unnecessary.
Drew Pearson again relates of Congressman Victor Wickersham of Oklahoma who had paid an employee, James Taylor, a Congressional aide's salary though he was actually employed only in a business in Oklahoma, and a second employee, likewise paid from the Government trough while working in Mr. Wickersham's real estate office. Mr. Wickersham had also gotten his father a job on the Government payroll and the Congressman had operated a used car business on a rent-free, tax-free lot reserved for Congressmen. He claimed that Mr. Pearson had apologized for his previous report of these facts, but he reports that he had not.
He tells of the FBI probing the matter and having obtained one admission that Mr. Wickersham was taking salary kickbacks, the same offense which had sent former HUAC chairman J. Parnell Thomas to prison, the underlying facts of which having also been uncovered initially by Mr. Pearson. Mr. Wickersham had sought to dismiss the claim as the product of a disgruntled employee. He also contended that he had asked the FBI to perform the investigation, an apparently false statement.
Mr. Pearson provides some more tips for the FBI and then says he was concluding his apology to Mr. Wickersham.
Marquis Childs tells of May 27 marking the expiration of the statute of limitations on the theft of ballots which had been evidence against 72 members of the Kansas City Pendergast machine, indicted in 1947 regarding the Democratic primary election in which Congressman Roger Slaughter was defeated by Enos Axtell, the result of being purged by party forces at the behest of the President who did not like Mr. Slaughter's rebellion from Administration policies. The Department of Justice, however, had indicated that it was not clear that the statute would expire since there had been indictments—but speedy trial limitations would apply.
Republican Senator James Kem of Missouri accused the Pendergast machine of supplying the votes which gave Harry Truman the victory in his first Senate primary race in 1934. Senator Kem had demanded of Attorney General McGrath an explanation as to why the theft of the ballots had not been solved, and the Attorney General responded that despite Federal jurisdiction being doubtful, the FBI had thoroughly investigated the matter and that if a Federal offense were disclosed, the Department would take the proper action. The election had been at the state level, even though for a Federal office. States rights advocates had insisted that such elections were within the purview only of state law. And Senator Kem was a states righter insofar as economic and welfare issues.
America, The National Catholic Weekly Review had editorialized against this inconsistency of position and related that at the funeral of murdered boss-gangster Charles Binaggio, a priest had condemned public officials who permitted the racketeers to function, in addition to the racketeers themselves. He reminded that national political parties were built on the state and local organizations and that reform should begin therefore at that latter level.
Mr. Childs remarks that through the fall elections, the voter fraud issue would continue to be raised.
Robert C. Ruark tells of "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" doing a box office business on Broadway, despite its songs not holding up to the least of those of Cole Porter and Oscar Hammerstein, and the fact that it was not very funny. But its chorus girls were pretty and kicked their heels high as in earlier times and so it was popular. It had no ballet or message, points in its favor. He was sick of sermons from the stage. He found "tolerance" to be "the broad whippingpost of the intolerant".
He had seen "Finian's Rainbow"
which he found musically delightful but spoiled by being crammed full
of propaganda. "South Pacific" had its racial propaganda
in the song "You've Got to Be Taught"
He had disliked Arthur Miller's
"Death of a Salesman"
Ballet had become too routine since Agnes De Mille had placed several nice sequences in "Oklahoma".
He had not laughed one time during "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" and only one song had seemed worthwhile, but had, nevertheless, left the theater with a "wonderful sense of well-being and great feeling of peace."
Well, Mr. Ruark, you said last week that you like Jane Russell and so you will be in for a double treat come 1953 when the film version is released. Mr. Miller probably will be quite impressed also.
And as for message, just wait until
he writes "The Crucible". You may like it
A letter from a doctor takes to task the editorial of May 5, endorsing Willis Smith in the Senate race against Senator Frank Graham and former Senator Robert Rice Reynolds. He systematically takes apart the logic of the piece and lauds Senator Graham as a devoted Jeffersonian Democrat who had brought peace to Indonesia, which General Marshall had termed "a miracle of diplomacy", against the backdrop of Communist opposition.
Framed Edition
Links-Date — Links-Subj.