The Charlotte News
Wednesday, May 3, 1950
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that Owen Lattimore, accused by Senator Joseph McCarthy of being the top Communist spy in the country, testified again to the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee, stating that the Senators had reached a "new low" in American politics by attacking his wife, through a question posed the previous day by Senator Bourke Hickenlooper, suggesting that in 1943 she had addressed the Tom Mooney School, a San Francisco labor school listed as Communist by the California Un-American Activities Committee. Mrs. Lattimore had said that she did not recall whether she spoke at that school and Mr. Lattimore said that he did not know. Senator Hickenlooper then raised the issue again this date. Mr. Lattimore said that, after refreshing their recollections with one another, his wife had recalled speaking before a trade union school as she had before various other organizations. He again denied ever having been a Communist or sympathizer and said that Senator McCarthy had created an atmosphere inhibiting academic freedom in the country for inducing fear of being labeled a Communist sympathizer unless the Communist press attacked one's remarks.
U.N. Secretary-General Trygve Lie, stating that the world was at a critical crossroads, announced that he would fly to Moscow on May 10 to try to persuade Kremlin officials to agree to a meeting of world leaders in the U.N. Security Council in an effort to seek an end to the cold war.
That'll be good. We were concerned that it might go on another forty years or so.
Secretary of State Acheson, replying to Russian charges that the Western powers were failing to de-Nazify and demilitarize Austria, attacked Russia for raising new obstacles to the writing of the long-delayed Austrian peace treaty. He said that the Russian claim was only a pretext for further delay in concluding the treaty, that the U.S. would continue to undertake every means possible to effect it. He also said that the Big Three foreign ministers meeting in London the following week would consider possible moves to bolster Western power through coordination of policies.
Senator Estes Kefauver had finally gotten before the Senate his proposal for an organized crime investigation by a Commerce subcommittee and it was hoped that a vote might occur this date on the resolution.
The House Ways & Means Committee voted to recommend lowering of the tax on so-called economy brands of cigarettes from 7 to 4.9 cents per pack, bringing the total recommended excise tax cuts to in excess of a billion dollars. The Treasury estimated that if the cut on the cigarette tax passed, it would mean consumers would pay 80 million dollars less per year—for enjoying their own hastened demise and becoming, in the meantime, health charges to the rest of us.
If you smoke cigarettes, don't ever complain about the "welfare state" or "socialized medicine". You will likely be a prime contributor to its necessity by the end of your life.
In Florida, Congressman George Smathers handily defeated incumbent Senator Claude Pepper in the Democratic primary. Senator Pepper had been in the Senate for fourteen years. He would return to Congress in 1963 as a member of the House, where he would continue to serve through his death in May, 1989 at age 88.
RNC chairman Guy Gabrielson proclaimed the victory of Congressman Smathers as indicative of Democratic rejection of the President's Fair Deal program, which had been an issue in the campaign. He saw it as rejection of the President's description in 1948 of the HUAC investigations of Hollywood and Communists generally as "red herrings", his plan for "socialized medicine", and the Brannan agricultural plan.
In Glasgow, Scotland, Labour lost control of Britain's second largest city for the first time since 1933, after the Conservative Party took two seats from Labour to obtain a three-vote majority on the City Council.
Romance novelist Faith Baldwin
Her father had been an agnostic, though had contributed greatly to churches and synagogues in the community, Protestant, Catholic and Jewish. Late in life, he returned to his faith based on a belief in the afterlife and thus God.
She says that she had been remiss in
church attendance, always using as an excuse her busy
Tom Fesperman of The News reports that the special Auditorium Committee of the City Council, headed by David Ovens, had recommended a new auditorium seating 2,000 to 3,000 persons and an indoor sports coliseum seating 10,000.
Ovens Auditorium and the Charlotte Coliseum, both juxtaposed structures still extant, were opened in 1955 on Independence Boulevard.
Dick Young of The News tells of a City-hired engineer from Greensboro providing a blueprint to the City Council for eliminating bottlenecks in downtown caused by railroad crossings through construction of an efficient system of underpasses, costing 4.5 million dollars. Details are provided.
On the editorial page, "Loyalty Probes vs. Sideshows" finds Senator McCarthy not to have proved his critical assertions that Owen Lattimore was the top Russian agent in the country and the chief architect of U.S. Far Eastern policy, defined by the Senator as the keystone of his claims regarding Communists in the State Department, initiated February 9 during his Lincoln Day speech in Wheeling, W. Va. His only adduced "proof" had been the hearsay statements of Louis Budenz, the sources for which had denied associating Owen Lattimore as a Communist or sympathizer, and the assertion of opinion by Freda Utley, both former Communists.
The Government's own system of loyalty checks had proved successful as the Senator surely could have provided at least one documented case of a Communist had it been otherwise.
The piece urges adherence therefore to democratic principles, with investigations as necessary, but no more "sideshows in the McCarthy tradition."
"The American Tragedy" quotes Eric Johnston, former head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and now head of the Motion Picture Association of America, to the effect that the jobless man of 45 was the "displaced person" in the society. That group made up 30 percent of the unemployed, compared to 23 percent a year earlier. As the population grew older, the useful life of a worker shortened as the speed of assembly lines increased.
Mr. Johnston had warned that the growing mass of unemployed over 45 could, as voters, impose their will to effect pensions which would destroy the economy and so advised business that it was time to do something to resolve this growing problem. He wanted business to eliminate age as a basis for disqualification of job applicants, to consider that stability on the job was a counter-balancing factor to age and diminished productive capacity.
"Counting Ten" tells of Texas Senator Tom Connally, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in an interview with U.S. News & World Report, having stated that he did not think war was imminent with the Russians but could occur given the way the Russians were proceeding, that they were not, however, ready for war yet. He nevertheless allowed for the possibility of an inadvertent war being triggered by such incidents as the shooting down on April 8 of the unarmed U.S. Navy plane over the Baltic or regarding the volatile situation in Berlin.
The piece thus suggests counting to ten before making some decision that the world would regret.
A piece from the Fayetteville Observer, titled "On People Making Money", finds that the Raleigh News & Observer, in supporting Senator Frank Graham against the challenge by Willis Smith, was wrong to find U.S. Steel's 7.9 percent profit ratio to be excessive. It suggests that higher taxes and socialism in the country were methods to reduce corporate profits, and should the public favor such methods, they should vote against Willis Smith.
Hogwash. The Fair Deal social legislation was a small part of the tax burden, most of which was devoted to defense spending, foreign aid, the basic running of the Government and debt service on the war debt.
Dumb argument. Try again, stupid.
Drew Pearson examines the background and character of Louis Budenz, former Communist, who had claimed, based on hearsay, that Owen Lattimore had associations within the Communist Party, though stopping short of ever claiming that he was a member. Those associations had been disputed by the very sources of his claimed hearsay and so it was, says Mr. Pearson, legitimate to inquire into his past. He had been married at one time to two women simultaneously, had three children out of wedlock and had relations with a third woman.
Apologists for Mr. Budenz minimized the history on the ground that he had reformed, but Mr. Pearson finds it nevertheless instructive of the type of person he was, including lying to "Who's Who" about his marital history.
He quotes extensively from the record of testimony on his prior marriages given to Congress in the course of hearings in 1947 on the deportation of an alleged Communist. He points out that Mr. Budenz had refused to answer a total of 23 questions during the testimony, based on the claim of privilege against self-incrimination.
Joseph Alsop, in Rome, tells of the Marshall Plan being officially at the midway point of reconstruction in Europe. But that timetable was worthless, as rebuilding of political and economic life would require a much broader effort, with a more elastic time limit. To throw in the towel would be to consign Europe to Communism.
Two and a half years earlier, Rome was a Communist hive of activity but with Marshall Plan aid, the city was well along the road to economic recovery, checking the Communist propaganda in the process. While there remained two million unemployed in the country, the semblance of a normal life had returned to Rome.
The Government of Prime Minister Alcide De Gasperi was a stable, non-Communist regime with able representatives, restoring authority in the country. But nothing had been done regarding social and economic problems such as land reform, the vast gulf between rich and poor, over-population and the widespread joblessness. And normal political life had not yet been restored as the dynamic of the elements comprising the De Gasperi coalition resulted in maintaining the status quo, blocking bold action. The Government, in consequence, became increasingly sterile, reliant on strict police tactics to maintain order in the face of the discontented masses.
The Communists would win eventually, even if Marshall Plan aid were not abruptly ended in 1952, unless the political monopoly vested in the centrist Government could be broken. There was need for a vigorous non-Communist left wing in the country.
Another problem was the lack of recovery, as throughout Western Europe, from the neurosis resultant of the two world wars, causing Western Europeans to believe that they were not masters of their own fate and thus not responsible for the future. A sense of security from aggression would cure this neurosis, but absent that, the Communists could rather easily gain control.
Marquis Childs relates of four years earlier in 1946 when Senator Robert La Follette was running for re-election, being contested both by Joseph McCarthy on the right for his progressivism and the Communists, who had control of some of the labor unions in Milwaukee, on the left, fearful of his progressivism destroying their raison d'etre.
There was a published report also, denied by the Democratic headquarters, that the Democratic high command had organized to provide $10,000 secretly to defeat Senator La Follette in the primary, on the assumption that Mr. McCarthy, then a judge, would be a much easier target in the fall.
Senator La Follette was busy at the time in Washington with the Congressional Reorganization Act to promote government efficiency and only returned home late in the process, resulting in his defeat in the primary by Mr. McCarthy by about 5,900 votes. The difference ironically may have been provided by the Communists who went into Wisconsin's open primary to do a "hatchet job" on the Senator, whom they feared for working for social change through progressive policies, the bane to Communism.
Now, with the furor having erupted since the previous February over McCarthyism, Mr. La Follette, who had believed he was finished in politics, was considering running against Senator McCarthy in 1952.
He concludes that the Communists had to feel satisfied with their accomplishment in getting Senator McCarthy elected, as they had wanted to undermine U.S. foreign policy abroad and the resolution of Americans at home to see the policy through. "They got more than their money's worth four years ago."
Robert C. Ruark tells of the Gayety Theater, home of burlesque in Washington since the Teens, having been refurbished and reopened, now showing such plays as Tennessee Williams's "A Streetcar Named Desire", playing to audiences composed of both white and black patrons.
The other major theater in town, the National, remained closed because it had been unable to determine how to resolve the issue of allowing all free people to purchase admission. As Marian Anderson had been barred from singing at the DAR's Constitution Hall in the city, he finds it nice to report that the Gayety was getting on well, without incident in the face of an integrated audience.
Mr. Ruark was only sorry that burlesque had to die to impart a lesson in tolerance to its "snooty contemporaries, the concert and legitimate theater." Economics, through the rising cost of living and the unions, had killed burlesque in Washington, as through the rest of the country. Touring with 50 to 75 people on a 50-cent top admission charge would no longer turn a profit. Talent was more expensive, as the radio people either stole the material or the movies hired the burlesque entertainer.
The ancient burlesque, before it had
become a backdrop for strippers, had been an important part of
American entertainment and gave rise to future stars of radio, such
as Will Rogers, Bob Hope, and others, the latter, according to the longtime Gayety impresario, then only playing a
Class D circuit
He says that he thus hated to see die the burlesque act, with its mainstays serving as the supports for all of the higher forms of stage and television comedy performance, just as he had hated to see the minstrel show leave the stage. But he finds it ironic that it took a former striptease venue to bring democracy to a city which talked a good game but would not live up to its own rules established for the rest of society.
Sorry to say that such will take some doing, Mr. Ruark, and will require ultimately passage of the Civil Rights Act one year before your death on July 1, 1965.
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