The Charlotte News

Monday, May 22, 1950

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the President provided to Congress an annual report prepared by the State Department on the U.N., criticizing Russia for boycotting sessions with Chinese Nationalist delegates and its refusal still to agree on an atomic control plan, failure to cooperate in ending the arms race, and increasingly isolating itself from the rest of the world.

The President also sent a report to the Senate urging that the FEPC bill being filibustered by twenty Southern Democratic Senators be allowed to come to a vote.

Senator Taft said that he would oppose any further efforts to veto the President's reorganization plans after having led the fight to oppose the plan submitted to do away with the general counsel of the NLRB, as created by Taft-Hartley, giving the counsel the power to determine the cases coming before the Board. As Drew Pearson had reported on Friday, Senator Taft had made a deal with Senator Richard Russell of Georgia, leading the fight against the FEPC bill, to have Republicans cooperate in sufficient numbers to defeat the attempt at cloture of the filibuster of FEPC in exchange for Southern Democratic votes to veto the President's plan re the NLRB.

Senator Kenneth Wherry of Nebraska said that Washington Police Department records would be made available to the Senate Appropriations subcommittee investigating employment of "sexual perverts" by the Government. Police officials estimated that there were 3,750 homosexuals in Federal Government jobs. Senator Lister Hill of Alabama and Senator Wherry stressed that such persons were subject to blackmail by Communists and thus were security risks. It had not yet been determined which committee would perform the full investigation of the issue.

In Kansas City, a Federal Grand Jury, following a nine-month investigation of gambling operations, issued indictments for income tax evasion against a former assistant county prosecutor and a gambler linked to murdered gambling figure Charles Gargotta, slain along with Charles Binaggio the previous April 5.

In Oklahoma City, a woman who was the wife of a vice squad officer admitted that she had led police on a 21-hour wild goose chase regarding her bogus kidnaping. She had concocted a scene which made it appear that she had been abducted by persons seeking vengeance against her husband for gambling arrests.

South Amboy, N.J., began returning to normal after the Saturday explosion of munitions being loaded onto barges, killing 30 people and injuring some 300 others. Live ammunition remained a threat for another three to four days.

In Cuzco, Peru, an earthquake lasting 12 seconds the previous afternoon had devastated the town, killing at least 60 persons and injuring 178 others. The death toll would likely have been higher but for the fact that 15,000 persons were attending a soccer match in the town stadium when the quake struck.

In London, Field Marshal Lord Wavell, 67, hero of the late war in North Africa, remained in critical condition from the aftermath of abdominal surgery on May 5.

In Raleigh, Dr. Edward K. Graham, Jr., was selected to become chancellor of the UNC Woman's College at Greensboro, now UNC-G, succeeding W. C. Jackson. He was the unanimous choice of the University Board of Trustees on the recommendation of Gordon Gray, newly elected president of the University. Dr. Graham was the son of Edward Kidder Graham, former president of the University, and was a cousin of Senator Frank Porter Graham, former president of the University. (Incidentally, we must correct our incidental remark regarding the renaming of Saunders Hall to Carolina Hall in 2015, as we recounted last weekend. Graham Memorial, the old student union until 1970, was actually named for Edward Kidder Graham, rather than Frank Porter Graham. How could we have passed through seven full years on the campus, and several years of vicarious attendance prior to that, without noting that fact? The Graham Memorial was a largely disused building in that time and we never, to this day, have set foot in it. That's how. Nor did we have the internet. But it makes our primary point that nobody in their right mind gives a good damn for whom any building is named, especially one named 95 years earlier, for someone dead 124 years. Indeed, we went through three years at the law school and never once inquired as to who Van Hecke-Wettach was or were, or even how properly to pronounce it. And we still are uncertain of it. Had anyone been so officious as to inquire of us the location to which we were bound of a day, we would have responded, of necessity, for knowing not aught more detail than requisite ontology and its teleological antecedent properties made mandatory, on chance penalty otherwise of forfeiture by escheat of our commission and all goods in accompaniment, "Over yonder, t'other side of the Field, o' course through the wood be it our fancy." We were more concerned about getting to class and understanding what was being taught, especially as much of it was in a dialect to which, to that point, we had not been much exposed. Today's students at the University would be well advised to do likewise, assuming for the moment that is the intent for partaking of the generously extended privilege of attending the University.)

Congressman Hamilton Jones of Charlotte stated that he was neutral in the upcoming Senate primary between Senator Graham, Willis Smith, and former Senator Robert Rice Reynolds. He contested Tom Schlesinger's Saturday column on the editorial page in which he had said Congressman Jones was for Senator Graham.

The 16-year old mother of an infant girl given to a woman the previous week in the Gastonia bus terminal, reported at the time to be the Charlotte terminal, had been located and would stand trial in Juvenile Court for abandonment.

In Angels Camp, California, a seven-year old boy won $250 in the 23rd annual Calaveras County Frog Jumping Contest, made famous by Mark Twain's story. The winner was named X-100 and jumped fourteen feet, nine inches.

On the editorial page, "Facts Versus Opinions" tells of a letter to The News from Dr. Paul Magnuson, chief medical officer of the V.A., explaining that there was no need for the proposed 16,000 additional hospital beds, contrary to the opinion of Congressman Hamilton Jones of Charlotte and his colleagues in the House. Dr. Magnuson, who stated that the staff was not available for such additional facilities if built, had the better of the argument and it urges the Senate to reverse the House action and, failing that, the President to veto the bill.

"Mixed Blessing" tells of the Citizens Committee for Political Action in Charlotte delivering votes of the black precincts to the candidate who was perceived to represent black interests the best, whereas in earlier times black votes could be literally purchased by ward-heelers. But the newer trend remained somewhat unwholesome as black voters continued to vote as they were told, not exercising their independent judgment.

The Committee had gotten 7,000 black voters registered and deserved credit for the fact, but the piece urges that the Committee should also place greater emphasis on independent voting.

"FEPC and Politics" finds that the failure to produce cloture of the filibuster of FEPC had been a desirable result, as giving such a proposed committee the ability to go to court to enforce its decisions regarding unfair employment practices was not the way to eradicate centuries of prejudice in hiring and promotion practices by private employers. It recognizes that there were such prejudices and agrees that they needed to be curtailed to afford more economic opportunity for minorities, but finds that most of those backing the bill had done so only to curry political favor rather than in any sincere effort to bring about fairer employment practices. It favors less politicking regarding a matter involving individual freedom.

"On Cats and Traffic" finds that some people loved cats while others loathed them, finds them the most unattractive of domestic animals. Only as a kitten were they cuddly, then became animals of stealth and prey. It limits its attack to the housebroken feline, finding respect for the alley cat which usually hissed at a beribboned sissy version on a leash.

So, when Congressman John Rankin of Mississippi bemoaned the fact that 848,000 cats were destined to die from being run down by motor vehicles during the year, it induced but a shrug in reaction.

A piece from the Asheville Citizen, titled "The Case in Miniature", tells of Pantego having initially resisted consolidation of its high schools with those of the community of Belhaven, but after it was done, having realized that it was best for all concerned. The piece presents it as an ameliorative result for education in microcosm, which could occur with consolidation of smaller schools in every county across the state.

Drew Pearson tells of a statement by General Anthony McAuliffe—originator of the "nuts" reply to the Germans demanding surrender at Bastogne in December, 1944—regarding nerve gas at the American Chemical Society's annual meeting in Detroit having prompted an imaginative reporter to concoct the story that the Army had invented a way to make war bloodless and painless. In fact, the two German gases which the Army had used to experiment on animals, sarin and tabun, drove its victims mad, producing homicidal tendencies in men, before killing them. Gas masks offered no protection. It smelled somewhat like Juicy Fruit chewing gum. Goebbels had recommended to Hitler in the last days of Nazi Germany that tabun be used, though it never was for fear of retaliation.

It was safe to assume that the Russians were also experimenting with these gases.

He notes that Dr. Albert Speer had planned to use tabun to kill Hitler by pumping it through his ventilation system, but Hitler had built a protective chimney around the system before Dr. Speer could carry out the plan.

The President seemed to do well when out among the people of the country and away from his advisers in Washington, something about which the Republicans had to worry.

The U.S. information effort had been curtailed by the Republicans so that propaganda in support of the excellent results of the Marshall Plan was not reaching Europe. He urges the President to make a tour of Western Europe similar to that conducted across the country, that it would likely have a salutary impact.

Stewart Alsop discusses the unpopularity of the Truman domestic program with the Democratic leadership on Capitol Hill, especially Senate Majority Leader Scott Lucas, in a tight race for re-election against former Illinois Congressman Everett Dirksen. Senator Lucas had begged the President not to include Secretary of Agriculture Charles Brannan in his entourage when he spoke in Chicago, as the Brannan farm plan was extremely unpopular in the state. The President did tone down his promotion of the plan in Chicago but Secretary Brannan was present and participated in the President's simulated Cabinet meeting, which, he says, appeared silly.

Agriculture Committee chairman Harold Cooley of North Carolina also opposed the plan as did former Secretary of Agriculture, now Senator from New Mexico, Clinton Anderson.

Most of the President's Fair Deal was not of much concern to the Democrats as no one in Congress believed it could be passed, including repeal of Taft-Hartley and the Brannan plan. It gave the President, however, plenty of issues to discuss for the fall elections and probably right through 1952, making it a happy situation for all concerned, he concludes, except possibly the Republicans.

Robert C. Ruark does not care for the Twenties nostalgia becoming the current fashion. He found the era not to arouse good memories, that rumble seats had been drafty and full of corners, not much good for romancing, ukuleles had been for losers, the Charleston and Black Bottom, dances he never learned and possessed no desire to do so. The three best looking women of the era, Gloria Swanson, Marlene Dietrich, and Nancy Carroll, had become grandmothers. The styles of the decade were silly and had not improved in appearance with the passage of time. Moreover, the whole period had culminated in the Depression, presenting nothing about which to be sentimental.

A letter writer from Pittsboro makes his case against the Truman "welfare state" as a means of making the case against Senator Frank Graham in the coming May 27 primary.

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