The Charlotte News
Wednesday, August 2, 1950
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the U.S. 24th Division in Korea had recaptured hill positions eight miles northeast of Chinju and held on in a fierce battle 40 miles from Pusan, the key supply port. Many American casualties were suffered in the battle and several tanks were lost. If the battle were lost, then the enemy could move to a high ridge overlooking plains leading to Pusan with no river barrier intervening. The battle line was marked by burning villages all the way from the southern coast to abandoned Kumchon, which was also on fire as enemy troops entered its outskirts. American planes set fire to Kumchon as they had when Chinju had fallen. Yongdok was a no-man's land, as South Koreans continued to battle nearby. According to MacArthur headquarters, no gains for the enemy had taken place in the previous twelve hours, as of Wednesday morning, Eastern time.
Marines with Pershing tanks had arrived in Pusan and were thus only forty miles from the front. Heavy Sherman tanks had gone into action hours after the start of the battle in the Chinju area.
Hal Boyle, with the Fifth Air Force over Kumchon, describes the flaming towns along the battle line, as the North Koreans had captured the rail and road center only 30 miles from Taegu, the latest provisional capital, and 90 air miles from Pusan. American engineers had blown up the railway bridge on the eastern side of the Kachon River, a tributary of the Naktong, on the opposite side from Kumchon. The highway bridge would be blown as soon as all American troops had evacuated.
Tom Lambert and Don Whitehead report
of the Marines, after 20 days aboard ship from San Diego, being
welcomed at Pusan by a brass band playing "Halls of Montezuma"
Don Whitehead reports separately of the need for the American soldier to harden his heart and shoot down anyone wearing civilian clothes in the combat area for self-preservation from guerrillas posing as refugees. The Americans had not yet done so, but many had lost their lives by trying to respect civilian life. It was not the orthodox war fought in North Africa in 1942, in Sicily and Italy in 1943-44 or in Central Europe in 1944-45, where generally the rules of warfare were recognized. It was instead dirty, sneaky guerrilla warfare, where there were no rules recognized by the enemy. Among the refugees pouring through American lines were guerrillas who reported on American positions and then slipped into the hills to act as snipers, or harassed the Americans from the rear.
To counteract the problem, the Army had formed a "security belt" into which all natives were evacuated and in which it was presumed all were enemy guerrillas. But in practice, it had not worked, as the Americans could not bring themselves to kill civilians. The civilians could not be searched as they streamed by the hundreds behind the lines, for the fact that American manpower was needed at the front. Repeatedly, such persons then reported on positions and then themselves became snipers from the hills. Soldiers complained that they were not trained to fight such a guerrilla war.
Mr. Whitehead concludes that he would rather see the Americans shoot down the civilian refugees than suffer slaughter at their hands.
At the U.N.
Despite Russia losing in the effort the prior day, some, such as India's chief delegate, considered it good that Mr. Malik intended to return this date, signifying that the Russians apparently were back to stay. India had voted for the ouster of Nationalist China from the Council, consistent with its previous diplomatic recognition of Communist China. Britain, having offered that recognition, not yet accepted by Mao Tse-Tung, voted, however, with the U.S. and the majority of the Council, against the Russian effort to unseat the Nationalist delegate.
Secretary of State Acheson told a press conference that he opposed the Senate's proposed Spanish loan rider of 100 million dollars for the Franco regime, saying there were adequate funds already available from the Export-Import Bank for any such justified loan. The proposal still had to clear the House.
The Senate Banking Committee approved prison sentences and large fines for those found guilty of hoarding and black market practices. It also approved broad credit controls. It put off until later in the day the issue of whether the President should be authorized to have standby wage and price controls. Republicans generally were backing giving such powers to the President, who had not sought them.
In Missouri, former Congressman Thomas C. Hennings, Jr., led in the Democratic primary over the candidate supported by the President, State Senator Emery Allison, with most of the votes counted. Republican Senator Forrest Donnell had easily won renomination.
On the editorial page, "Critical Hour in Korea" tells of the battle for Korea entering a decisive stage as the perimeter being defended by the U.N. forces had dwindled, coming ever closer to Pusan, the vital lifeline of supply from Japan. The Communists were now seeking to take Taegu, another provisional capital.
Combat forces from Hawaii had landed, adding fresh reinforcements, and a fresh Army division from the Pacific Northwest had also arrived. The First Marine division from San Diego was also now in the fight and more B-29's and B-50's had been dispatched. The buildup was taking place rapidly while the defenders fought a stalling action to buy time for the buildup to occur. But there was growing concern that time was running out, with perhaps hours left. And the battle to win that time already had been costly in American blood.
"The UN's Gravest Test" favors expulsion of Russia from the U.N. for violation of Article Six, persistently violating the Charter's principles, culminating in aiding and advising the North Korean aggression. Meanwhile, all hope that Russia, after its seven-month boycott, had returned to the U.N. to pursue peaceful ends had been abandoned, as Deputy Foreign Minister Jacob Malik was busy trying to thwart consideration of a resolution denouncing further North Korea for refusing to abide by the cease-fire resolution passed earlier in the absence of Russia. The Russians wanted first to consider the China question and thereby delay consideration of Korea, using the issue as a contingency for discussion of peace in Korea, an unacceptable condition for the U.S.
"More on Parking" finds that the efforts by the City to modernize Charlotte were worthy, but that the provision of offstreet parking facilities still took a backseat to other civic modernization programs while the population grew and the number of parking spaces available, as in other large cities, would continue to decrease commensurately.
A piece from the
St. Louis
Post-Dispatch, titled "The Odor of Pettifoggery",
tells of the D.C. Committee in Congress considering whether residents
of the nation's capital could keep goats, arising from a neighbor's
complaint that the goats had an unpleasant odor
Chief Judge John J. Parker of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, writing in the American Bar Association Journal, describes three tasks for preservation of liberty under law: regulating the economic life of the country to forestall collectivism; preserving essential liberties in the face of expanded governmental powers; and using leadership in the world community to establish world order based on law to assure mankind at large of liberty.
Laissez-faire, he instructs, had never been a principle on which the Government proceeded, repudiated when the First Bank of the United States had been established. Political power as a danger in the early era of the country had been displaced by economic danger following the economic and sociological revolution brought on by the machine age. Monopolies had to be restrained, unemployment curbed, a living wage provided under reasonable hours and working conditions, and those things could only come through economic controls exerted under law.
The contest was not between laissez-faire and governmental regulation but rather collectivism and regulation.
Personal liberties had to be safeguarded in the process. And so it was reassuring that the courts had given so much attention to that security. Freedom of speech especially had to be protected, for in that was the assurance of expression of ideas without fear of reprisal from the government, a fundamental basis of freedom. Freedom of religion was equally important. For Protestants, maintaining such freedom was easy, but the real test came in freedom of religion for Mohammedans or atheists, much as the real test for free speech came with respect to Communists and Fascists, not those with whom the majority agreed.
"We must never forget that unless speech is free for everybody it is free for nobody; that unless it is free for error it is not free for truth; and that the only limitations that may safely be placed upon it are those that forbid slander, obscenity and incitement to crime."
Judge Parker had been nominated to the Supreme Court in 1930 by President Hoover but his nomination had failed confirmation by one vote, with opposition having formed for his supposed anti-labor stand and his opposition to black voting when he had run for Governor of North Carolina as a Republican in 1920 at the time the State abolished the poll tax.
Some of his notable decisions, all upholding civil rights, giving substance to his above-stated respect for the sacrosanct nature of civil liberties, included: Alston v. School Board of Norfolk, 112 F.2d 992, decided in 1940, holding racially discriminatory public school teachers' salary schedules to be unconstitutional per the Fourteenth Amendment Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses; Barnette v. West Virginia State Board of Education, 47 F. Supp. 251, decided in 1942, subsequently affirmed in 1943 by the Supreme Court at 319 U.S. 624, holding that the State's compulsory flag salute, as applied to objecting Jehovah's Witnesses was violative of the First Amendment proscription against governmental interference with freedom of religious belief; Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen & Enginemen v. Tunstall, 163 F.2d 289, decided in 1947, holding that the Brotherhood had discriminated against black firemen in seniority status and advancing their interests as collective bargaining agent, in violation of the Railway Labor Act; Rice v. Elmore, 165 F.2d 387, also decided in 1947, holding South Carolina's attempt to privatize the primary to eliminate black voting to be State action violative of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, affirming the District Court decision by Judge J. Waties Waring; Briggs v. Elliott, 98 F. Supp. 529, decided in 1951, with Judge Waring dissenting, holding that Clarendon, S.C., public school segregation was not unconstitutional per se, but that the facilities provided were unequal under Plessy v. Ferguson separate-but-equal doctrine and thus violative of Equal Protection, requiring equalization of the facilities but that black students would be denied entry to the white schools during equalization, remanded thereafter in 1952 for further proceedings by the Supreme Court, at 342 U.S. 350, decided then on remand the same way, at 103 F. Supp. 920, finding that the unequal facilities had been largely remedied, Judge Waring's dissent to the original decision then eventually being adopted by the Supreme Court insofar as strking down Plessy doctrine as being per se unconstitutional, in Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483, in 1954; and School Board of Charlottesville v. Allen, 240 F.2d 59, decided in 1956, upholding a District Court injunctive decree against continued racial segregation, contra Brown, as practiced by two Virginia school boards.
Drew Pearson tells of General Lawton Collins, chief of staff of the Army, having told the House Armed Services Committee in executive session that a new super tank, the best ever produced, would soon be ready for use in Korea to combat the large Russian-made tanks.
According to the Justice Department, the Washington Metropolitan Police lieutenant who had tapped the phones of Howard Hughes and others at the behest of Senator Owen Brewster in 1947 during hearings on TWA war contracts, had reportedly received a thousand dollar bill on one occasion.
Secretary of the Treasury John W. Snyder had been responsible for holding the President back from seeking all-out economic controls. He would likely allow the Republicans to steal the show in protection of the public from price-gouging. The Republicans in the House Banking & Currency Committee had voted for the wage-price controls, losing by only one vote, scaring Administration Democrats that the country was ahead of the Congress and that the Republicans were even ahead of the people.
Stewart Alsop discusses the prospect for a Soviet attempt to stimulate a "people's uprising" among the Communist Party in Japan, with the U.S. conventional forces almost fully committed in Korea, leaving only one division and a diffuse police force to guard Japan. The Russians could direct a Communist Chinese attack against Formosa to keep the 7th Fleet pinned down as well. He posits that the only reason the Russians would not do so would be because of the vital commitment of the U.S. to Japan and the notion that any such unrest or attack would lead to general war, in which the U.S. would then be forced to unleash its nuclear stockpile against Russia.
But other countries, Finland, Iran, Yugoslavia, or Burma, where there was no U.S. defense commitment, could conceivably become targets for such action. For the Russians to wait to do so would mean a lost opportunity, as within a couple of years, the new post-Korea effort of the U.S. to rearm and modernize its conventional forces would be complete.
Serious consideration was therefore being given to issuance by the U.S. of a formal warning that any act of aggression by the Soviets or its satellites would be considered an act of war. Mr. Alsop suggests that it would be the only way to preserve the peace.
Marquis Childs finds that political necessity might cause Congress to institute standby wage-price controls and rationing, as the Congress was being flooded by letters expressing anger at suddenly soaring prices since the start of the crisis. Hamburger was at 85 cents per pound and coffee had reached 90 cents.
Increased wage demands would follow price increases without controls on both. Senators Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota and Lister Hill of Alabama were both for the Bernard Baruch proposal to authorize such standby controls. Detractors, however, worried that people who were presently hoarding goods would begin to engage in a black market under controls.
Republicans appeared determined to exploit the American lack of preparedness for the war in the fall elections. If Congress gave the President the controls over wages and prices, then much of the grumbling among constituents could be alleviated. Congress was concerned about the prospect of an inflationary spiral which could be blamed on incumbents in the fall and so would likely grant the authorization to the President.
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