The Charlotte News

Thursday, June 29, 1950

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that with South Korean forces still unable to stem the invasion beyond the 38th parallel of North Korean forces begun Sunday, the President was considering use of American troops in the conflict, in addition to the already committed combat planes and warships. Some U.S. troop units in Japan had been alerted to be ready for action, but no request had yet come from General MacArthur to use U.S. combat troops in the engagement. The General had undertaken a 15-hour inspection tour of the front by car and air this date, finding it stabilized, and was scheduled to provide a briefing to the President during the day. A Tokyo dispatch had said that action by the U.S. could not be long delayed if South Korea was to be saved. Press secretary Charles G. Ross, however, said that there was no comment on whether the President was considering use of combat troops.

The U.N. proceeded to assemble an international coalition force to save South Korea, ignoring the Russian claim that such an action was illegal under the Charter because of the boycott of the Security Council by Russia, one of the five permanent members, based on the refusal by the Security Council thus far to seat the Chinese Communists. The U.S. had rejected the Russian claim. It would be up to the countries participating in the action to determine who would be the commander of the force.

Shortly after the conclusion of General MacArthur's tour, American B-29 bombers and warships went into action and the bombers recaptured the airbase at Kimpo, sixteen miles northwest of Seoul in South Korea, while the warships shelled North Korean naval and ground units near the Communist-held port of Inchon. Other American warships hit North Korean shore targets and naval units on the east coast in the area of Samchok. A North Korean broadcast said that 27 American bombers had hit the North Korean capital of Pyongyang. American sources had not confirmed the report but said that American planes had been ordered to confine their flights to South Korean territory. One Communist plane tried to attack General MacArthur's unarmed transport and was driven away by American fighters.

About 600 tons of U.S. supplies had already been provided to South Koreans and more were on the way. The troops appeared to be holding the line at the Han River south of Seoul per their orders to maintain the position at all costs. Fierce fighting was also ongoing at Communist-held Uijongbu. Southern army headquarters had been moved from Suwon, 20 miles south of Seoul, to Shihung, between Seoul and Suwon, indicative of improving conditions, formerly so bad that American combat troops were on the alert to move into Korea on a moment's notice. Two U.S. C-54 transports had been destroyed by Russian-built North Korean Yak fighters, both while on the ground, one the previous night.

Senator Harry Cain of Washington proposed additional military aid for South Korea, beyond the 1.222 billion dollars already allocated for foreign military aid. Senator Taft the previous day, while endorsing the President's call for military support of South Korea and Formosa as he criticized the President for not seeking authority from Congress for the move, urged to the Senate the resignation of Secretary of State Acheson. Majority Leader Scott Lucas responded that such statements played directly to the hands of the Kremlin.

India agreed to abide by the U.N. Security Council resolution calling for aid to South Korea after having abstained, along with Egypt, from voting on it. Yugoslavia had been the only dissenting vote and Russia was not participating.

U.S. intelligence reported that troop movements were taking place in Communist-bloc countries near Yugoslavia and in the Middle East.

The Senate members of the Joint Atomic Energy Committee voted 5 to 4 to recommend to the Senate rejection of Sumner Pike for a new four-year term on the Atomic Energy Commission. Mr. Pike had been acting chairman since the resignation of David Lilienthal the prior February.

AEC commissioner Henry Smyth, while recommending approval of Mr. Pike, told the Committee that "great steps" had been taken to develop the hydrogen bomb since the prior January when the President called for continuance of its development.

The House overwhelmingly approved the billion-dollar excise tax cut and also approved 433 million dollars in new taxes on corporations. The bill would next go to the Senate, where the Korean situation might alter or kill it.

The President planned to address the Boy Scout jamboree the following day at Valley Forge, Pa. He then was going to spend the weekend aboard the yacht Williamsburg on the Potomac.

Hollywood screenwriters Ring Lardner, Jr., Lester Cole, Albert Maltz and Alvah Bessie were convicted of contempt of Congress for refusing to disclose to HUAC in October, 1947 whether they had been members of the Communist Party, and were each sentenced to a year in jail and fined $1,000. Adrian Scott and Samuel Ornitz were also convicted but sentencing was delayed. Mr. Lardner told the court that there was only a minor difference between forcing a man to state his opinions and dictating what those opinions ought be. Two remaining writers of the Hollywood Ten were set to be heard later in the day. Two of the writers, Dalton Trumbo and John Howard Lawson, had already been convicted and their test-case appeals affirmed. The other eight defendants had their cases stayed pending the outcome of the Trumbo-Lawson appeals.

In Pickens, S.C., Senator Olin Johnston campaigned in the Democratic primary race against Governor Strom Thurmond, with the election set for July 11. Senator Johnston said that he had some things yet in reserve to say. Governor Thurmond, who had made an issue of Senator Johnston's support of the President's program, claimed that paid hecklers for Senator Johnston were dogging him through the Piedmont section of the state. He said that when they heckled him, they were heckling a man who had dropped from the skies onto Normandy on D-Day.

The only problem with his comeback line is that it was susceptible, in his case, to the suggestion that, as he made his way through the hedgerows, the Nazis might have given him a pass, welcoming him with open arms as one of their own, once they understood his political philosophy.

On the editorial page, "The Meaning of Korea" covers the key points of the President's commitment to South Korea and the Far Eastern region. It included provision of air and sea forces to cover and support Korean troops, placement of the Seventh Fleet to prevent attack on Formosa, cessation by Nationalist China of attacks on the mainland, strengthening of U.S. forces in the Philippines, military aid to France for Indo-China and establishment of a military mission there, plus continuing to uphold the rule of international law.

This new policy was significant and had worldwide implications, committing the country to defense of friendly areas and to a war against Russia should it use force to control nations friendly with the West. It finds that this policy had been adopted precisely when needed, when the American people were disposed to support it.

It might be that Russia's silence was ominous, portending war, and it would be reckless for the U.S. military not to anticipate that possibility. The country had to stand by the action and be prepared to take even stronger action elsewhere, notwithstanding the fact that intelligence reports suggested that Russia's army was stronger than the U.S. ground forces and that the Russians had constructed more tanks, planes and submarines. Furthermore, Russia was calling the shots. If the U.S. defensive effort was to be effective, it had to strengthen each of its three branches and not rely solely on the atom bomb. That meant returning to a wartime footing, not a pleasant prospect, but better than the alternative, surrender to Communist tyranny.

It concludes that the decision made by the leaders on Tuesday might have been the most important in diplomatic history and would require bipartisan support and a united citizenry behind it.

"The Cost of Office-Seeking" tells of the Greensboro Daily News inviting Senate investigators, looking for violations of campaign laws in the state, to stop and enjoy the many sights and attractions from the seashore to the mountains. The piece doubts that the investigators would have time for such recreational pursuits in the process of determining whether there had been overspending in the Senate primary race. It suggests that total spending by each campaign had to have been far greater than that reported, as the latter did not include expenditures at the county and precinct levels.

It suggests that it cost too much money to run for public office and when candidates did not have the money, they had to turn to others, sometimes taking money provided in exchange for favors not in the public interest.

It concludes that while the time might come when the candidate spending the largest amount of money would be rejected by the voters, that day appeared far in the future.

"The Other Side" praises the Saturday Review of Literature for establishing a new column, "Good News", in which was collected news of man's good deeds, showing that he was not so bad as the regular newspapers made him out to be. The editorial points out that the reason for the over-emphasis on bad news in newspapers and magazines was that editors knew what the public wanted and provided it. It reminds that the newspaper was what the readers made it.

"What's Happening to Baseball?" finds problematic the fact that hitters in the game had advanced over the pitchers to the point where Major League baseball scores appeared as football scores, 10 to 9, 13 to 4, 12 to 9, and 11 to 5 being four recent examples. The Red Sox had scored 29 runs against the hapless St. Louis Browns early in the season.

The obvious remedy was to move back the fences but the heavy investment in the ballparks prevented that change. Deadening the "rabbit ball" was another suggestion, protested because the ball had not been changed since the Twenties. John Lardner of the Saturday Evening Post had said that some of the baseball executives wanted the spit-ball and other outlawed pitches returned to the game.

It concludes that unless something were done, it would be hard to find people willing to pitch, as it had become dangerous to stand on the mound for very long.

Drew Pearson tells of the invasion of South Korea having occurred by surprise despite General MacArthur having jurisdiction of the area, just 30 miles from Japan, and being allotted large funding, along with the CIA, to keep an eye open in the region. But despite General Omar Bradley and Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson having just returned from a visit with General MacArthur days prior to the attack, he had imparted nothing in the way of warning, reported that all was at peace, was much more concerned about Japanese Communists and the danger to Formosa.

Ambassador to South Korea John J. Muccio had, however, warned the State Department of pending danger, that there were troop concentrations in the North, and, though the Joint Chiefs had said they had heard nothing else regarding a threat, there had been approval finally of a heavy artillery shipment scheduled to arrive during this week.

He notes that the counterespionage agents were trying to find out who had leaked the information on the shipment as the Communists had known of it and timed the attack prior to its arrival. A Korean beauty who was the mistress of an American officer was suspected of being the connection for the leak.

After V-J Day, Syngman Rhee, then 80, had appeared as the natural candidate to become President of Korea, having been educated in the U.S. and having been a close friend to President Wilson. But he had lived in exile for so long from Korea that he was not familiar with its problems and was also too old. After he was elected, Ambassador Muccio had many sessions with him, urging clean-up of the graft, holding new elections and purging of Communists from the Government, their presence having caused wholesale desertions from the Korean Army and inspired guerrilla attacks. When President Rhee held elections the prior May 30, his party had lost. The prospect of a new, strong government which might clean up graft and Communism may have provided another impetus to the timing of the attack.

Communist leader Huh Hun on June 2 had sought to incite troops at Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea, to train and study to overthrow the Rhee Government. The leader of a group of South Korean Army deserters replied that they would seek to rid Korea of the American military advisers, the U.N. Commission observers, and the Rhee Government. Despite that exchange, the U.S. military did not think there was any danger afoot.

Just two days before the attack, the CIA had informed that the world had not been at such peace since V-J Day, that the Russians had ceased threatening troop movements and border concentrations.

Several editorials are set forth from various newspapers regarding the Senate race just concluded in which Willis Smith had defeated in the primary runoff Senator Frank Graham, these pieces replacing the usual editorial cartoon and the other two syndicated editorials.

The Atlanta Journal laments the fact that the cry of "'Nigger'" had beset the campaign from the Smith side. It finds that it was the first time in progressive North Carolina that such racial or religious bias had been injected to a campaign since 1928 when the anti-Al Smith, anti-Catholicism propaganda entered the campaign, and even that had been the first such instance since the early years of the century. It asserts that the only issue should have been the conservative versus liberal policy stands of the two candidates, as each had been well qualified to serve in the office. It concludes that the state would long regret the entry of the race issue to the campaign.

The state, or at least the substantial elements within it despising that sort of demagoguery, would long regret the entry to state politics of Jesse Helms, more than likely chiefly responsible for the race-baiting of the Smith runoff campaign.

The Washington Post tells of the surprise in North Carolina that Mr. Smith had won the runoff by 20,000 votes after Senator Graham had won the initial four-way race by 52,000 votes, falling short of a majority by some 5,500 votes. Many believed that Governor Kerr Scott may have carried his support for Senator Graham too far in getting highway employees to support him, causing the effort to boomerang.

The election of Mr. Smith demonstrated that the schism in the Democratic Party was not confined to the Dixiecrat rebellion, as North Carolina had followed Florida, after Congressman George Smathers had beaten Senator Claude Pepper, in electing a candidate who was not nearly so sympathetic to the Fair Deal and the President's policies as the incumbent Senator.

The New York Times finds that notwithstanding the defeat of Senator Graham, the fact that 250,000 voters wanted to return him to the seat showed a growing liberalism in the state. It was not indicative of complete rejection of the Truman policies, despite the fact that RNC chairman Guy Gabrielson so suggested it. Senator Graham had been saddled with the claim of support of the compulsory FEPC, even though he had said that he disfavored Federal mandates in the area of civil rights.

Senator Graham had been on more than 200 committees seeking progress and civil rights, and once in awhile had joined one which had turned up on the "subversive" lists. But he was as far from being a Communist, it concludes, as was either Mr. Smith or Mr. Gabrielson, and it hopes that the defeat would not end his public life.

The Columbia State praises the election of Mr. Smith and applauds the defeat of the Fair Dealer Senator Graham, finds the election to have been for "sane government".

The New York Herald-Tribune tells of the first primary contest having had some racial component but to have been balanced by other forms of attack on Senator Graham, while during the two-week runoff, the race issue emerged as preeminent. Senator Graham's repeated disavowals of being in complete accord with the report of the President's Civil Rights Committee, on which he had served in 1947, had not neutralized the propaganda waged against him, especially that claiming that he favored complete abolition of segregation, as the report had favored.

The results, it finds, showed how difficult it was to divorce race from Southern politics. Senator Graham represented a broad and humane liberalism and had never been a fanatic.

The effort, it predicts, would be turned on other candidates, and such was a sobering concern to all who cared about the stature of Congress.

The Atlanta Constitution finds it shocking that the race issue had been employed in a demagogic manner in North Carolina on behalf of Mr. Smith. The three June 5 Supreme Court decisions striking down aspects of segregation had made the issue easy to exploit.

Given the fact that Russian propaganda had used the lack of rights for blacks in the South as part of its propaganda thrust preceding the invasion of South Korea made the fact all the more disturbing.

The Richmond Times-Dispatch finds the defeat of Senator Graham a more staggering blow to the Truman Administration than that of Senator Pepper in Florida because of the fact that the President, while having wanted Senator Pepper to win, had not backed him openly, as he had Senator Graham, as Senator Pepper had opposed the President's nomination initially in 1948. The issue of support for the Fair Deal versus conservatism was much more strongly delineated in the North Carolina race, as Congressman Smathers was not nearly so opposed to the Fair Deal as Mr. Smith. Senator Pepper also did not have the personal following which Senator Graham enjoyed for his eighteen years as president of UNC, prior to his appointment to the seat in March, 1949.

It finds the election likely to have repercussions throughout the South and the nation and could point to a downturn in the fortunes of the Fair Deal, plus having implications for the 1952 presidential election.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch finds that North Carolina, being a state with a "split personality" in politics, had followed the path of retrogression in nominating Mr. Smith and defeating the progressive, liberal Senator Graham. It suggests that the Smith "loyalty" to Democratic principles, as his campaign had promoted, appeared to be to the party of 30 years earlier when he began his political career, as he had opposed nearly the entire Fair Deal program. His campaign had brought up the race issue and had posted billboards asking, "Didn't anyone ever tell Frank Graham about Communism?" carrying alongside composite pictures of Senator Graham with Earl Browder and Paul Robeson. The candidate, himself, had stumped on these spurious issues.

The smear, it finds, had some effect despite the brilliant record of Mr. Graham at UNC, as a member of the War Labor Board, delegate in the mission to Indonesia, and during his year as Senator.

The Congress, it concludes, lost a Truman supporter and gained a "dixiecratic Don Quixote".

The Charleston News & Courier also finds the defeat of Senator Graham a more stinging rebuke of the Fair Deal than the loss by Senator Pepper, for the same reasons asserted by the Richmond Times-Dispatch. The victory for Mr. Smith was one for the unorganized who had come to realize that the national "'Democrats'" were "sectional haters of the South", leading the country into "socialism".

The Louisville Courier-Journal finds that Mr. Smith's campaign slogan, urging "vote for Southern Democracy", to have been another way of expressing White Supremacy. Black voters had voted heavily for Senator Graham, some predominantly black precincts having voted almost solidly for him. Mr. Smith then raised the warning against "bloc voting" by blacks, turning white voters against Senator Graham, especially in the wake of the June 5 Supreme Court decisions. To many Southern voters, the Fair Deal stood for the compulsory FEPC and an end to segregation, readily convertible in their minds to social equality and intermingling of the races.

Senator Graham's denials of support for a compulsory FEPC and statements disfavoring desegregation of public schools as detrimental to both races could not be heard above the shouts for "Southern democracy". The association of the Senator with Communist groups also served to dispel in many the belief that he was a true native son of the state and the South.

It expects Mr. Smith to blend into the "coloration of Southern Democrats in Congress, lending his voice to their filibusters" and entering as a kindred spirit with Senators Byrd, Russell, George, et al.

The Norfolk Virginian-Pilot finds that the race issue predominated in the runoff campaign, that Mr. Smith would therefore have to live down this legacy of attack and smear, suggests that he was likely, however, not as out of step with the North Carolina effort to solve racial problems as he appeared to have been during the campaign. He had first-rate legal ability and a sense of public responsibility which had led to his having been elected president of the ABA and selected as chairman of the Duke Board of Trustees. It finds therefore that the state had nominated a candidate who could serve it well in Washington.

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