The Charlotte News

Tuesday, August 1, 1950

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that heavy pressure from the North Korean forces had enabled them to push to within 25 to 40 miles of Pusan, crucial supply port in the southeastern part of the peninsula. The hardest blows were struck at Kochang, where the enemy troops were trying to break through to Taegu, about 32 miles northeast from their position. The southern thrust had reached to within fifteen miles west of Masan, on the south coast, 25 miles from Pusan, with a gain of about ten miles since Monday. Other Communist thrusts were taking place around Kochang and burning Hyopchong in the south and Andong in the northern part of the front. Fresh American troops, meanwhile, were landing and moving to the front. Slight withdrawals of U.N. forces had taken place, but only to prepared positions. MacArthur headquarters said also that U.N. forces were attacking Communist troops around Yongdok on the east coast and that American pilots had reported that it was possible that some allied forces again had penetrated that port city.

About 50 B-29's dropped 400 tons of bombs on Hungnam, a chemical and explosives center in North Korea.

Associated Press correspondent William R. Moore had not been heard from since Sunday when he went to the Chinju battle front with an element of the 24th Division. The unit was split in two during the Communist thrust when Chungju fell and fled the area on Monday morning. He had served as a major in the U.S. Army of occupation in Korea. It would turn out that Mr. Moore had been killed either the previous day or on Sunday during combat.

Nine other journalists had been reported missing, captured, or killed thus far in the five weeks of fighting, four of whom were lost in a C-47 transport plane crash at sea the previous Thursday, 80 miles southeast of Tokyo. Two other journalists had been killed during combat operations and three others were missing.

The President urged Congress to approve quickly four billion dollars for foreign military aid, to be in addition to the 1.222 billion already approved by Congress. Of the four billion, 3.5 billion would be for NATO countries, 193 million for Greece and Turkey, and 303 million for the Philippines and other nations of Southern and Eastern Asia.

The President said that he had no objection to enactment of standby powers for wage-price controls and rationing, as proposed in Congress. Sentiment for such controls had been growing since Bernard Baruch had testified the prior week favoring them. The President had not sought such controls.

The Senate wrote into the omnibus 34 billion dollar budget package language which would permit the President to cut off economic aid to any country refusing help to the U.N. forces in Korea.

Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson ordered four National Guard divisions and some smaller Guard units into action in Korea. More B-29's and B-50's were being sent to Korea and a new appropriation of 950 million dollars would be urged by the President for purchase of new planes for the Navy.

Russia, acting through Deputy Foreign Minister Jakob Malik, disclosed to the U.N. this date that it would discuss peace in Korea only after the organization had considered seating Communist China instead of Nationalist China. The Russians would later this date end their seven-month boycott of the U.N. over the China matter. Mr. Malik would automatically take his turn as president of the Security Council and planned to place the China question on the agenda ahead of discussion of Korea. But the Council majority could vote to reset the order of that agenda, as proposed by U.S. chief delegate Warren Austin, who had introduced a resolution the previous day to condemn anew the North Korean aggression and appeal to the nations to join to stop the war and prevent it from spreading.

In Damascus, the head of the Syrian Air Force, Lt. Colonel Mohammad Nassar, had been fatally shot the previous night, hit in the head and stomach by machinegun fire while driving home from the airport. He was also dragged from the car and beaten about the head.

In Brussels, the Socialist-controlled Belgian Trade Union Federation ordered all striking workers to return to their jobs following King Leopold's decision to ask Parliament to delegate his powers to his son. The King controversially had recently returned from exile, where he had been since the war, for being perceived as having sold out Belgium to the Nazis in 1940 and for having married a commoner after the war.

On the editorial page, "Natural Gas Issue Reopened" tells of the president of Piedmont Natural Gas Co. having stated to The News his complaint that if the City Council waited any longer to approve the sale of natural gas franchise rights from Duke Power to Piedmont for delivery of natural gas to the area, serious injury would occur to the city.

The piece finds it hard to accept all of his statements and agrees with the City Council that further determination of the matter ought await the ruling of the Federal Power Commission on the issue, as there were too many confusing nuances for decision locally. But it also favors the City Council finding out in the meantime the experience of other cities in ownership of natural gas systems.

"The Changing American" finds that Americans had metamorphosed over the course of the first half of the Twentieth Century, tempered by two world wars and inadequate preparation therefor, such that they now accepted the inevitability of war with Russia and the consequent need for full mobilization for that prospect at once. Gerald W. Johnson had chronicled this transformation in his Incredible Tale.

The change in attitude demonstrated, suggests the piece, that Americans had the capacity to learn from harsh experience.

"Senatorial Grab-Bag" tells of the efforts of Senators Homer Ferguson, Leverett Saltonstall, and Styles Bridges the previous week to trim half of the pork-barrel fat, 366 million, from the harbors, rivers and navigation bill ending in defeat, with Senators Clyde Hoey and Frank Graham of North Carolina and Senators Olin Johnston and Burnet Maybank of South Carolina all voting against it. Later, Senator Paul Douglas of Illinois proposed trimming 40 percent from the bill, also defeated. Another Democrat, Senator John Williams of Delaware, tried an amendment to cut it by 25 percent, but that, too, had gone down to defeat. Senator Douglas, in exasperation, then tried to cut the amount by $5 and that was defeated by voice vote.

It suggests keeping the facts in mind when citizens were making out their income taxes the following March.

"Strong Medicine" tells of two young men from the upscale Myers Park neighborhood in Charlotte having stolen some tacks and nails from a construction site to build a shack on the Catawba River. They were caught in the act and fined $50 and costs for petty theft, plus another fine for reckless driving for leading the police in a chase from the scene of the crime. It commends the judge for the imposition of the fines as it was not a "youthful prank" to engage in the behavior.

In today's world, they would most likely be dead for eluding police. But the current "President" thinks arrestees are treated "too nice" by the police. He seems to prefer the approach taken by the Syrian assassins, as reported this date, adding insult to injury.

An excerpt from the Congressional Record, titled "Flashbulbs in the Senate", provides a colloquy between Senator Kenneth Wherry and Vice-President Alben Barkley re Senator Wherry's exception taken to snapping pictures in the Senate while it was in session, a violation of Senate rules. The Vice-President, however, corrected the Senator, that the flash he had seen had emanated from outside the chamber, but instructed that if the sergeant-at-arms found that a photograph had been taken while the body was in session, he should see to it that it was not developed. Senator Wherry concluded that it was a strong flashbulb to leak inside the chamber, to which the Vice-President agreed.

Drew Pearson tells again of the police lieutenant for the Metropolitan Police in Washington who had engaged in wiretapping of the Ambassador of Argentina because the husband of the Ambassador's paramour had hired the detective to do so while the latter was being paid by the taxpayers. Meanwhile, the same lieutenant occasionally also surreptitiously listened to the phone conversations of the late North Carolina Senator Josiah W. Bailey who had occupied an apartment in the neighboring building, the same in which the lieutenant set up his listening post in the basement. These intrusions occurred in the same period of 1947 during which he was tapping the wires of Howard Hughes, at the behest of Senator Owen Brewster, during hearings on war contracts, designed to obtain trade secrets of TWA helpful to competitor Pan Am, whose head, Juan Trippe, was a friend of Senator Brewster, who wanted to facilitate a merger between the airlines, resisted by Mr. Hughes.

Senator Bailey had been chairman of a committee which passed on aviation policy, of which Senator Brewster was a member, and so the reason for the tap of his phones was likely related. Senator Bailey opposed the proposed making of Pan Am a chosen airline for certain overseas routes, preferring instead free competition. Partly because of Senator Bailey's opposition, the preferred-route bill sponsored by Senator Brewster had been defeated.

The police lieutenant in question continued to hold one of the most important jobs on the D.C. police. Yet, Senator Matthew Neely of West Virginia, chairman of the D. C. Committee, resisted holding hearings on the matter.

He notes that through maneuvering with the White House, Pan Am had gotten the President to reverse a Civil Aeronautics Board ruling that Pan Am should not merge with American Overseas Airlines, giving Pan Am also the choice routes to Paris and Rome, going a long way toward establishing a monopoly.

Congressman Harry Davenport of Pennsylvania had advised the President that local citizens committees were proving effective in his district to stop hoarding. Housewives stood in front of stores and when they spotted a hoarder, drew attention to the practice, deterring it by shame.

Stewart Alsop discusses the question of whether the country ought mobilize completely, with price and wage controls plus rationing, as recommended by Bernard Baruch. Stuart Symington, chairman of the National Security Resources Board, agreed with Mr. Baruch. But the majority of the President's advisers disagreed, in part because conservatives in Congress would resist full control at the present time, and while the matter was being debated, the economic situation could deteriorate. The other reason was that defense spending was going to continue at a high level for years to come and no one would welcome indefinite controls with it, that if sensible anti-inflationary devices were implemented, they would not be necessary.

One such device was higher taxes. The five billion dollar tax hike proposed by the President was only a first step. Much more stringent control of credit was another necessary move. Tough allocation and priority controls also would be necessary. Increase of production capacity through incentives and finally ruthless use of the Government-owned surplus commodities to keep food prices under control represented other necessary steps. But to implement these measures also meant stepping on toes politically and Congress would therefore be reluctant to do so.

There was, however, general agreement that the current price surge could not be allowed to continue much longer without restraint.

Robert C. Ruark tells of hoarding of liquor, as during World War II. Civilians and soldiers alike liked to drink. He recounts some of his wartime experiences, in one of which he had to place a gun-crew, drunk on Italian marsala, in a makeshift brig to prevent them from shooting each other as they had mistaken one another for the enemy. He had seen officers of the Navy, drunk on a mixture of champagne, compass-cleaning alcohol and grapefruit juice, spearheading a parade of Senegalese soldiers until the local gendarmes led them away.

He favors rigid control of liquor during the Korean war and severe punishment, as if for treason, to be meted to those who produced makeshift forms of liquor, such as "Scotch-type Scotch", which would cause everyone to switch to vodka, probably, he concludes, that which Stalin had in mind.

A letter writer congratulates the newspaper for its July 21 editorial "Big Trucks and City Streets", re City planning to provide specific routes for trucks in the city.

A letter writer inquires as to what had happened to the box on the front page, "What's Inside". The editors note that it had returned the previous day.

No doubt, the Globalist Conspiracy and the New World Order, in combination with Skull & Bones and the landing party from Roswell, pilfered it for awhile and took it to Mexico to a secret F.E.M.A. camp to learn of its recondite matter.

A 12-year old letter writer says that the "How's Your I.Q.?" column had mistakenly indicated that a decade was 20 years, and suggests, trying to play the smart aleck, that someone's I.Q. was "wrong".

A decade is twenty years, sonny. Everyone knows that. When the score is 20-0, the announcer will inevitably say that it may take another decade for the losing team to recover. And four score and seven equals 47, ten points per score as in deer hunting.

What is wrong with youngsters today? They don't know the score by the decade...

A letter writer encloses a letter he had written to the head of the new State traffic safety committee in which he praised the appointment of Stanhope Lineberry as the enforcement officer and Herman Hoose as the person in charge of standardization. He favors strict enforcement of traffic laws, as had been effective in Atlanta.

A letter writer wonders whether the Americans ought evacuate Korea and leave them to stew in their juices with the Communists rather than mobilize and risk a third world war. He finds that Asians did not like Americans, and that after enduring decades of colonial exploitation, itself, America had thrown in with the exploiters. He finds that the situation did not recommend Americanism to the Asians, is resigned to losing Korea to the Communists.

Framed Edition
[Return to Links
Page by Subject] [Return to Links-Page by Date] [Return to News<i><i><i>—</i></i></i>Framed Edition]
Links-Date Links-Subj.