The Charlotte News
Wednesday, July 5, 1950
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that U.S. infantry troops had been cut off by tank-led North Korean troops in a battle in the central front south of Suwon, captured by the Communists Tuesday, and South Korean headquarters had confirmed a gathering threat east of that town which would open the way to Taejon, 73 miles to the south. General MacArthur's communique made no mention of the size of the American contingent or the trap, but the latter information was included in the report of the advanced headquarters in South Korea. It further stated that the North Koreans, numbering about 40,000, had driven the South Korean forces onto high ground north of Osan, where U.S. troops had been previously located, eleven miles southeast of Suwon, 23 miles south of Communist-conquered Seoul. North Korea continued to pour troops and arms across the Han River despite repeated U.S. air strikes on the rail lines leading to them. General MacArthur's headquarters estimated that North Korea had between three and four divisions south of the Han River. Two North Korean tanks had been knocked out and six had retreated.
A late report indicated that South Korean forces were in full retreat from the area where American forces had made their first contact with North Korean invaders, presumably in reference to the above fighting below Suwon. It was hoped that the Americans could make a fighting withdrawal.
General MacArthur's headquarters said that several U.S. carrier plane sorties against Pyongyang had been successfully carried out without loss on Monday and Tuesday, inflicting heavy damage. Sixteen sorties had been flown against Munan, above Seoul in South Korea, with good results reported. A total of 158 land-based sorties had been flown by fighters against various strategic targets. Two Russian-built Yak fighters were shot down.
Tom Lambert of the Associated Press tells of the death of the first American infantryman in the fighting, an ammunition bearer for a bazooka squad, shot through the heart by a machinegun aboard one of two enemy tanks which had broken through to the outskirts of Sojong, thirteen miles south of Suwon. He had raised his head momentarily to try to see the location of the tanks when he was hit. The bazooka squad had fought a four-hour battle against the tanks during the afternoon without knocking them out. Mr. Lambert reports that Carl Mydans of Time and Life, Marguerite Higgins of the New York Herald-Tribune, Dennis Warner of the Australian press, and Andrew McCartney of Reuters had witnessed the engagement. The American command post had been set up in a squalid farmhouse, where the officers and several men had come in from the pouring rain to eat breakfast from a Thermos.
Enjoy your ham and eggs and bacon and good coffee, as you read of it, by the sun porch.
Generals Marshall and Eisenhower urged to a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee expansion of the Voice of America programming to combat Russia's propaganda campaign, supporting Connecticut Senator William Benton's proposal for a "Marshall Plan of Ideas". General Eisenhower cited the ongoing twisting by the Communists of American intentions in South Korea, having characterized the intervention as "imperialism", when North Korea had attacked South Korea without provocation and by surprise. As a result of the propaganda, according to Senator Benton, many Koreans believed that they were fighting "Yankee imperialism".
Secretary of the Treasury John W. Snyder, testifying before the Senate Finance Committee, gave his limited approval to the House-approved bill to cut excise taxes by a billion dollars while raising taxes by 433 million dollars on corporations to offset it. He said that he thought the tax cuts went too far as he praised, without reservation, the increased corporate taxes.
In Oklahoma, incumbent Senator Elmer Thomas was trailing challenger Congressman Mike Monroney by 7,000 votes as the count neared completion from the previous day's Democratic primary. But a runoff was set to occur as no candidate among the seven in the race had received a majority.
In Palermo, Sicily, police shot and killed a notorious bandit, Salvatore Giuliano, in his mountain hideout near Castelvetrano, shortly before dawn. He had eluded capture since 1943. He and his band had been tracked for eight months by a force of 2,000 Carabinieri packing machineguns. Most of the band had been eliminated or captured and were standing trial, accused of killing nearly a hundred policemen and involved in various robberies and kidnapings. Sig. Giuliano had once proclaimed the "Free State of Sicily" and challenged Government leaders in Rome to duels to determine who should rule Italy.
You no longer have anything about which to fear.
The accidental death toll in the United States for the four-day holiday weekend was 783, a new record, topping the 761 of a four-day holiday period at Christmas, 1936. Traffic accidents accounted for 482 of the deaths, with only Delaware not recording a traffic fatality. The previous year's Labor Day weekend toll had been a postwar holiday record, with 410 highway deaths. The 1949 three-day July Fourth weekend traffic accident toll had been 296 fatalities. By contrast, during a non-holiday, four-day period the previous month, 455 persons had died in accidents of all types. The National Safety Council had predicted 385 deaths in traffic accidents. Fireworks claimed only one victim, in South Dakota—apparently correcting the prior day's report that the person was in New Hampshire. The head of the Council said that the safety record for the weekend made the American effort in Korea look as a Sunday school picnic.
Quit driving and volunteer for the picnic. Leave the driving to them.
On the editorial page, "Better Negro Schools in Sight" praises the State Board of Education for distributing its most recent allotment of three million dollars to schools, in nearly equal proportion between the black and white schools, providing only $35,000 more for the white schools. While previous allotments had been more lopsided for the white schools, roughly two to one out of the 17.6 million dollars distributed of the 50 million available, it hopes that the recent allotment would presage like proportionality, as the black schools, though fewer in number, needed the most attention. It points out that one reason it had opposed the 1949 bond measure supplying half the total funding, with the Legislature appropriating the other half, was that there was no provision for determining the allotment between black and white schools.
"Shelby Sets the Pace" praises Shelby for the dedication of its new $250,000 community center the prior Sunday, the last piece of its $600,000 worth of new recreational facilities, which had begun six years earlier when the town had few such facilities. It had set up a foundation and collected $150,000, adding to that $170,000 in postwar surpluses, plus a $125,000 bond issue. A parks and recreation commission which had been established bought the land and private contributions were then solicited for constructing the main building. A beautiful facility had been the result, replete with a swimming pool, playing field, and a nine-hole golf course. The commission also had purchased a 50-acre site for black facilities and had constructed a clubhouse on the site with two lakes.
It finds that the effort enabled Shelby to live up to its slogan, "The City for Pleasant Living".
Black people, obviously, have no need to play golf or swim in a pool during the summer.
"Why We Are Helping Korea" explains that the "principle of collective security" was being borne out by the collective action of the nations of the U.N. outside the Soviet bloc. Every nation, save Egypt and Yugoslavia, other than Russia and its satellites, had agreed to support the resolution to halt the Korean fighting. It finds this community of nations therefore strong and resolute, proving the concept of collective security to be working, just as when a community supported itself through a volunteer fire department.
"On Panicky Buying" urges consumers not to engage in hoarding out of fear that price and wage controls as well as rationing might again be instituted as during the late war. Such buying would only cause scarcity and resultant inflation, and bring on that which consumers feared in the way of controls. It urges that there was no ground to assume that Congress, because of the Korean situation, would impose such restrictions anytime soon.
A piece from the Winston-Salem Journal, titled "Where Reason Should Rule", tells of Judge Johnson J. Hayes having appropriately drawn a line, warning "The Better Government League" not to send again any letters to the Court or the attorneys involved in the lawsuit being brought by parents of black students against the Durham schools for not supplying substantially equal facilities, seeking injunctive relief to remedy the situation. The League messages had urged that the black residents pay for their own schools and that the recent Senate primary runoff, won by Willis Smith, had settled the issue of racial segregation and equality. The Judge had warned the group that he would refer the matter to the FBI and possibly cite them for contempt if they again undertook the mailings or contacts, as it was a form of intimidation of the court. The piece finds the action quite appropriate.
Robert E. Geiger, in the second of five articles, the first having appeared on the front page Monday, tells of the "Master Plan" for civil defense preparedness and military preparedness, as determined by the National Security Resources Board. The first step was the extension of the Selective Service Act which had just taken place for one year. That alone cut off between four and nine months from the time it would take to mobilize in the event of war. Stockpiling of required war materials was ongoing and a skeletal radar network was being established. Plans for mobilization of industry and manpower in the event of war were also in the works.
The proposal included authorization to impose a freeze on wages and prices, prioritization of materials, imposition of an excess profits tax, setting up of a war labor board, authorization for the drafting of labor, imposition of censorship on communications and mail, and authorization for requisitioning war supplies and seizing of plants. The proposal included providing the chairman authority to issue dummy requisition orders to industry for 900 million dollars in advance, to be filled in the event of war.
Drew Pearson tells of Russia's motive in ordering the attack on South Korea being to enable easy access to Southern Japan, the Philippines and Indonesia. From there, Southeast Asia would be the next target. It was the same goal undertaken by the czars at the turn of the century, in the 1905 Russo-Japanese war which ended after President Theodore Roosevelt intervened on behalf of Japan, and a settlement was reached whereby Japan got half of Sakhalin, control of Korea and Manchuria. The czars had also sought access to the Mediterranean in the Crimean War with Britain and Turkey, seeking to control the Dardanelles. It conquered Finland and the Baltic States to gain access to the Baltic in the north. It had also wanted control of Iran, but British politics and the long overland route across the deserts to that country rendered a war for it at that time futile.
Still, Russia, under Stalin, wanted a warm-water route. If it failed in Korea, then it might turn its attentions on Yugoslavia or weak Iran. Russia had already tried to obtain the iron and coal of West Germany through the 1947-48 Berlin blockade to force out the West. That venture having failed, the Soviets still needed a source and Yugoslavia and Iran presented likely targets. Russia had already gained control of the Baltic States and semi-control of Finland. The reason the Russians had shot down an American plane over the Baltic in May was to protect its military secrets in that area.
So Stalin, as the czars, wanted to dominate North Asia and then Southeast Asia. A Japanese democracy was antithetical to these goals. The first move toward this initial stepping stone would be the taking of South Korea, being in such close proximity to Japan that ferries had once run across the Fusan Straits several times daily between the countries. Also, the Japanese needed Korea as a market. These reasons combined to form the basis for the President's decision to intervene to stop the invasion of South Korea—plus, he neglects to add, the key preexisting commitment of the U.S. to protect South Korea's independence under the prior U.N. resolutions, which the President, himself, had stressed. (See, e.g., para. 7 of the November 14, 1947 resolution, and paras. 2 and 8 of the December 12, 1948 resolution)
Russia might not take the intervention lying down and might strike elsewhere, in Iran or Yugoslavia, once some time had passed and the U.S. commitment to the war was in full swing. He posits therefore that the ensuing six months were crucial for the U.S.
Marquis Childs finds the fact
that some Senators were questioning why the North Koreans had managed
to invade South Korea by surprise to have evoked a grim sort of humor.
For the Senators had of late involved themselves in such momentous
investigations as those of South American coffee prices, homosexuals in the
Government, and crime in government, with emphasis on the gambling
syndicate. He quips that stamp collecting
Senator Guy Gillette of Iowa had launched the investigation into coffee prices, potentially upsetting trade relations with South America and, in consequence, cutting off needed raw materials, such as copper from Chile needed in wartime. The tariff on copper of $40 per ton had been lifted during the war and unless the Senate took affirmative action, unexpected, it would be resumed. With industry at postwar highs in production, the copper export would likely continue despite the tariff, but a slight drop in production would then drop demand and, in consequence, the price, cutting off the flow.
Venezuela's export of oil was in the same situation, with a proposal by American independent oil producers to increase the price ten-fold to $1.05 per barrel, eliminating the competition. Restrictions on production were being taken off because of increased demand, easing the push for such an increase in imported oil prices; but the coal industry continued to press for higher prices on imported crude because of its adverse effect on coal. Venezuela had 679 million dollars worth of positive trade balance, the bulk of which came from oil exports, and elected to use most of it to purchase American products as automobiles and refrigerators. To cut that export trade by raising prices therefore would harm both Venezuela and the U.S.
To Latin American countries, he suggests, it might appear that the U.S. was trying to maintain them in colonial status, supplying raw materials at cheap prices. And such perceptions tended to be confirmed when Congress sought to force down the prices of those raw materials or exclude them completely through high tariffs, when they were badly needed during wartime.
Robert C. Ruark tells of having been a press censor in his three years in the Navy during the war, constantly blue-penciling information about kamikaze pilots crashing into Allied ships, to avoid allowing the Japanese to know how effective the raids were as there was no possibility, obviously, for the dead pilots, themselves, to register a mission report. Kamikaze, he imparts, was a verboten word around such censors, even after the war. It had come to mind by reports of Japanese pilots being anxious to take to the air again to aid South Korea.
The British ships had steel decks and the American ships had wooden decks, causing the Zeroes to disintegrate on the British ships and then the remains swept overboard, while they would crash through to the lower decks on the American ships. The British Navy, having taken a licking early in the war, needed a propaganda instrument and so had sought during the last year of the war to brag of their ships standing up to the raids. That had to be stopped.
Only toward the end of the war had the regulations loosened to permit some reports of the kamikaze raids, but it had been hard to change course and allow the information to get through to publishers. An ongoing game of hide and seek had been played by correspondents during the blackout period, seeking to hide the information, forcing him to engage in "shaking each piece of paper", turning it upside down and backwards to insure that the word kamikaze or its equivalent was not being transmitted subliminally or in code.
He felt a bit sad, he says, when the restrictions were lifted, and he continued to wince every time he saw information pass by his desk on kamikaze pilots.
A letter from the Mecklenburg County campaign manager for Willis Smith, thanks the newspaper for its coverage of the campaign and the activities of the two candidates. The News had endorsed Mr. Smith.
A letter writer responds to the letter writer of Monday who had talked of Governor Kerr Scott pulling the "teats" of the voters once too often in going around the state campaigning for Senator Graham, such that the voters had "kicked" Senator Graham, Jonathan Daniels, and Governor Scott out of the proverbial barn, wherein the prior writer had suggested that the Governor and Mr. Daniels had once pulled the teat of a cow too hard.
This author thinks the previous writer to have been a "crank" and that he should hang his head in shame, that it would be an honor for him to milk a few cows, adding that one, however, might give him a "good kick". He suggests that he must be opposed to the good roads and schools which Governor Scott was providing to the state, more so, he finds, than any Governor in a long time.
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