The Charlotte News
Saturday, September 2, 1950
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that tank-led allied infantrymen of the 25th Division attacked two North Korean divisions in the southwest sector of the defense arc, causing the enemy to flee across the Nam River, leaving behind 2,500 dead and 7,500 wounded. The 25th regained all of its old positions lost Thursday night, cutting off the largest offensive yet of the war by the enemy, involving 120,000 troops. Another prong of the offensive was blunted by reinforced U.S. Second Division infantrymen who regained burning Yongsan, where the enemy had penetrated as much as 8.5 miles, and retook the dominating hills to the west on the 25th Division's northern flank. The action had disrupted the enemy timetable which had called for taking Masan by Sunday. The enemy was reportedly, however, massing tanks three miles west of Yongsan for a new push.
South Korean troops almost encircled Kigye, northwest of Pohang, and pushed the enemy back north of Taegu.
B-29's supported the ground action dropping 200 tons of bombs on enemy troop concentrations at Kumchon, Chinju, and Kochang.
Hal Boyle and Tom Lambert, reporting from Pohang, tell of the Patton 45-ton tank, the country's most powerful, being placed into action on the northeastern front for the first time. It was the best answer to the Russian T-34 tank used by the North Koreans. It was a mobile tank with a 90-mm gun, and a more powerful engine than the similarly appearing Pershing, with greater armor and a much larger gun than the light Sherman tank. The Patton fired its shells at a speed three times that of sound, causing its shells to hit targets before the enemy could hear them coming.
A North Korean fighter plane strafed a railway station at Samnangjin, 23 miles northwest of Pusan, killing two South Korean civilians and wounding four others on Friday.
The President, in his speech via radio and television to the nation the previous night, announced that American fighting strength would be doubled to nearly three million to meet the threat of Communist aggression. He said that enemy gains in Korea had reached their peak but that the need for broad mobilization would persist for some time to come. The plan enunciated by the President received bipartisan support in Congress.
The Administration suspended Air Force Maj. General Orvil Anderson as commandant of the Air War College at Montgomery, Ala., for his statements favoring preventive war against Russia to smash its atomic bomb stockpile, saying that after he was done doing so, he could appear before Christ with the explanation that he had "saved civilization". He believed it dangerous to assume that Russia would not use its atom bombs if the U.S. did nothing. Air Force chief of staff General Hoyt Vandenberg announced the suspension, saying that the Air Force was "first, last and always an instrument for peace". The President in his speech had made it clear that the country did not support preventive war, regarded it as the "weapon of dictators" and that "defense against aggression" was the only valid basis for waging war.
The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Philip Murray, president of CIO, along with other high-ranking officers of CIO and AFL, had, per Taft-Hartley, to take a non-Communist loyalty oath before affiliated unions could partake of collective bargaining before the NLRB. The Court declined to enforce an order of the Board requiring that the defendant company bargain with the Textile Workers Union of America as the duly elected representative of the employees, for want of the requisite non-Communist affidavits by CIO officers.
G.E. faced a nationwide strike of the International Union of Electrical Workers regarding increased pay and pensions, starting Tuesday, after 22,000 workers walked off the job in New York and Massachusetts the previous day, with more to follow during the weekend.
In Milwaukee, two electrified interurban trains, carrying an estimated 200 model railroad enthusiasts on a pictorial tour, crashed, with one hitting the rear of the other, causing the deaths of at least five persons and injuring 50.
A hurricane hit the Florida Keys with 42 mph gale-force winds. Another storm with 75-90 mph winds was circulating in the Caribbean near Puerto Rico.
The National Safety Council predicted that 435 persons would die in traffic accidents during the Labor Day weekend, and eleven deaths had already been recorded by mid-morning Saturday, since the official start of the weekend at 6:00 p.m. Friday.
On the editorial page, "Notice to the Klan" tells of the Sheriff of Horry County, S.C., having taken action to arrest the Grand Dragon of the South Carolina Klan, Thomas L. Hamilton, for allegedly causing the melee which resulted in the shooting death of a Klansman, who was also a Conway, S.C., police officer, and destruction of a black dance hall in Myrtle Beach the previous weekend.
The police in Charlotte had also undertaken seven arrests of Klansmen allegedly involved in a cross-burning incident.
It concludes that all too often, such cases either went unprosecuted or, when undertaken, resulted in nullification of the laws by sympathetic juries. It praises the swift work of the two law enforcement agencies.
"The Major Got Things Done" laments the death the previous day of Congressman A. L. Bulwinkle who had served in Congress for nearly thirty years. Though quiet and unobtrusive in manner, he had gotten things done, both nationally and at the local level, having, while representing the district encompassing Mecklenburg through 1940, been partially responsible for the Post Office Building, American Legion Stadium, Memorial Hospital, and Douglas Airport. He was instrumental in securing legislation establishing the National Cancer Institute, the wartime cadet nurses' program, and tuberculosis and venereal disease control. He had paid special attention to the welfare of veterans and had helped organize the House Veterans Affairs Committee.
"A man of firm convictions and stout courage, the Major represented North Carolina well in Congress and his illness and death have removed one of the State's conscientious and capable leaders."
"'That's the Way It Is...'" tells of running across a grim but funny note which read that the old narrow trails where two cars could collide were being replaced by multi-lane roads where six or eight cars could collide. The humor suggested that the society was coming to regard traffic accidents as a matter of course.
It had been predicted by the National Safety Council that 435 traffic deaths would occur during the Labor Day weekend. It wonders what the average person would think if told that 435 soldiers would die in Korea during the weekend. It was probable that such a statement would be greeted with anger and sickness, not blasé acceptance, as apparently the case with the grim forecast of traffic fatalities. Such acceptance, it suggests, was why so many people were killed in traffic accidents.
It urges that drivers pause and consider the uselessness of such traffic deaths before starting trips during the holiday weekend.
"Editorialettes" tells of a Paterson, N.J., bank returning a $280 check signed by "Santa Claus", stamped "no account".
A piece from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, titled "The Way to Save", tells of the House Appropriations Committee having refused to provide funding for the newly created National Science Foundation, formed after five years of delay in Congress. The Republicans and Southern Democrats had previously held it up in the Rules Committee. The savings was only $475,000 while much larger pork barrel items escaped cut. The new excuse was that the Foundation would not immediately aid the defense effort.
It posits that the notion that major defense advances could be achieved without scientific research was folly. If such logic had been applied to the Manhattan Project, it ventures, there would have been no atom bomb developed by the U.S.
It concludes that it was an inappropriate time for the Committee to starve scientific research.
Drew Pearson tells of National Security Resources Board chairman Stuart Symington having recently told the President that the stockpiling of critical materials had been a complete failure because of the inability of the military and Munitions Board to inform the NSRB which strategic materials they needed. The Munitions Board was under control of the Defense Department and so Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson, attending the meeting, was embarrassed by the advice. The military had sent inadequate numbers of bazookas to Korea and failed to look ahead in producing larger tanks. Some members of the Cabinet, after hearing from Mr. Symington, believed that these mistakes might not have been isolated cases.
Republican House Minority Leader Joe Martin was being kidded by two Democrats for neither smoking nor drinking and being a bachelor. They concluded that he must be rich, to which he responded that he was moderately fixed and that it was good to hear Democrats referring to rich Republicans again, as the Democrats now had all the money.
Senator Homer Capehart of Indiana, the Wurlitzer king, had spent $91,000 on his uncontested Senate primary race, despite the position only paying $15,000 per year. He had collected $8,000 more than he had spent, with his chief backing coming from Lilly pharmaceuticals of Indianapolis, which provided $20,000. He had spent $40,000 on campaign workers, over $6,000 on advertising, and $2,000 for recordings.
A House clerk asked Congressman Eugene McCarthy to provide his name and when he stated his surname, the clerk asked whether he was from Wisconsin, home of Senator Joseph McCarthy, to which he responded Minnesota, clarifying that he was the Democratic McCarthy. A fellow Democrat noted for the record that his name was Gene, not Joe. Mr. Pearson notes that he had been doing a quite effective job in such areas as veterans' welfare legislation.
Later to become Senator, he would
run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1968 as "the
peace candidate" regarding the Vietnam War, and would upset
President Johnson in the New Hampshire primary by polling an unexpected 42 percent in what was anticipated as a runaway race for the President, opening up the field
for the nomination, and, three weeks afterward, on March 31, following entry to the race by Senator Robert Kennedy
Senator Lester Hunt of Wyoming had received a threatening letter from Boston that if he looked too closely at the gambling syndicate as part of the Kefauver Committee investigations, he would be "rubbed out". Senator Hunt had responded by introducing a bill to require gamblers to pay 99 percent income tax on their winnings.
The Russians had started jamming radio transmissions of the Seventh Fleet off Formosa as well as Air Force networks in California and Alaska.
Lockheed Aircraft in Burbank, California, had established a "Buck of the Month" club which had collected two million dollars from each worker contributing a dollar per month for sick children, needy families and disabled war veterans.
A Naval officer in the Pentagon Guided Missiles section had started a new rumor regarding "flying saucers" by passing out flying saucer toys as the real thing.
In an attempt to make friends in Korea, a bill was pending to grant U.S. citizenship to 3,000 Korean immigrants, but it had been delayed by Senator Pat McCarran of Nevada for political reasons, putting in numerous amendments providing for security, so much so that it had been held up by Senate Majority Leader Scott Lucas.
Joseph Alsop, in Korea, tells of having returned from the front to the rear where the "big wheels", as the brass were called, were predicting a massive onslaught by the North Koreans, one which not only did not materialize but wound up in general withdrawal. That had resulted in celebration by the 27th Regiment on which he had been reporting from the front, as they were being pulled back to rejoin their parent 25th Division after many weeks at the front.
The men who did the fighting therefore believed that the first great crisis of the war was over, just a few days after ground commander Lt. General Walton Walker had called for immediate, total mobilization of all air transport in Japan for evacuation of as many ground troops as possible from what appeared to be imminent breakthrough of the defense lines by the enemy. If the thin defense line had been breached at that time, it would have been difficult not to have lost half the American fighting force, men and materiel, in the evacuation.
The line remained very thin and its defense depended largely on crack units, such as the 27th Regiment and First Marines, being used to plug holes. But now the enemy was growing visibly weaker, with supply lines cut by air raids and prisoners of war reporting that they were fed only once every two or three days, while the U.N. forces grew stronger, overcoming the economy cuts imposed by the former policies of Secretary of Defense Johnson.
The 27th Regiment had driven back an enemy force menacing Taegu, but they had kept coming despite having no air support, using their armor and mortars sparingly and being hardly able to maintain their stocks of small arms and machine gun ammunition.
If, however, the Russians or Communist Chinese decided to join the fight, the situation could change overnight. If not, he posits, existing U.N. forces in Korea should prove enough to withstand the remaining North Korean strength. A relatively small force could also attack the enemy's unprotected rear, either through establishing a new beachhead or by direct breakthrough, leaving only mopping up operations.
And the latter would occur, with the landing at Inchon on September 15.
Marquis Childs discusses the French desire for the NATO nations to pool their resources, as with the Schuman Plan to pool steel production, as the combined resources were not inferior to those of the Soviets. But unless they were combined and coordinated, there was no point in adding up the totals.
French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman would come to New York soon to meet with Secretary of State Acheson and Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin of Britain to discuss the subject of troops for Western European defense. It was expected that M. Schuman would say that France could not afford to supply all of the military manpower for the NATO defense plan, that both America and Britain would need to contribute to the pool, with America providing a minimum of three divisions for the purpose, beyond its occupation force in West Germany. The French wanted the complement added by the end of the year.
If that were done, French rearmament could proceed with the confidence of adequate support. If not, then the French people would likely relapse into apathy and hopelessness, with arming of Western Europe relegated to an exercise merely on paper.
He concludes that it would present Secretary Acheson with a thorny problem at the conference.
Tom Schlesinger of The News, in his weekly "Capital Roundup", tells of both Senators Clyde Hoey and Frank Graham applauding the President's tough response to General MacArthur, ordering the General to withdraw his statement intended to be read to the VFW regarding praise for ostensible change in U.S. policy toward Formosa, implying that the U.S. would be permanently defending Formosa, acting unilaterally, apart from U.N. policy in doing so, contrary to Administration policy which explicitly followed U.N. policy on the subject, neutralizing Formosa for the duration of the Korean war only. Both Senators thought the General had transgressed his military role and intruded on the area of policy determination, reserved for the executive branch.
The bulk of Congressional mail regarding the bill to draft doctors and dentists who had been trained at Government expense but who had not been in active service for any length of time, favored its passage, most of it coming from doctors and dentists.
Both Senators Hoey and Graham favored creation of a U.N. police force made up of volunteers from the smaller nations.
The recent success of televised debates in the U.N. Security Council had again raised the possibility of broadcasting Congressional debates. Most of the objections to the latter would come from members who would not want the people to see the extent of absenteeism from such debates. Senator Hoey believed that the presence of cameras would delay legislation.
The FDIC had responded to a crisis of a North Carolina bank which had over-loaned its assets to the point where it was short on cash. During a weekend, the FDIC examined the bank records and was ready to issue a statement Monday morning that no depositor was threatened with loss, avoiding a run on the bank, as would have been the case before 1933 when the FDIC had been created. The FDIC advanced about 1.5 million dollars to cover all deposit liabilities.
A rumor had been circulating that Warren Austin would quit as chief U.N. delegate to become Ambassador to Britain, to replace Lewis Douglas, who had not given sufficiently to the President's 1948 campaign. If so, Senator Graham was in line to succeed former Senator Austin.
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