The Charlotte News
Wednesday, January 31, 1951
TWO EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that allied forces attacked with bayonets and grenades following armor and air strikes which had failed to smash Chinese Communist resistance seven miles northeast of Suwon on the eastern flank of the western central sector in Korea. One allied patrol reached to within seven miles south of Seoul.
Otherwise in the western sector, stiffening enemy resistance held the allies to minor gains. Allied planes spotted 15,000 to 20,000 enemy troops near Konjiam, a village nine miles northeast of Kumyangjang.
On the east coast, allied Naval guns and carrier planes hit Kosong, 20 miles north of Kansong, decimated Tuesday by a similar attack.
It was the seventh day of the allied limited offensive, accounting thus far for about 3,700 enemy dead along a 40-mile front.
At the U.N. the previous night, the General Assembly's 60-member political committee passed the U.S.-sponsored resolution branding Communist China an aggressor in Korea. The sanctions to be imposed in consequence had not yet been determined. The vote was 44 to 7, with India, Burma, Russia, Poland, Czechoslovakia, White Russia and the Soviet Ukraine voting against it. Afghanistan, Egypt, Indonesia, Pakistan, Sweden, Syria, Yemen, and Yugoslavia abstained. Saudi Arabia did not take part in the voting. No more than 18 votes had supported renewal of another ceasefire proposal generated by India and eleven other Arab-Asian nations. One ceasefire resolution had already been approved, with U.S. support, on January 12 and then rejected by Communist China. The condemning resolution also requested formation of a committee on collective security to study what sanctions should be applied to China but authorized it to delay its work if a good offices committee reported progress on peaceful settlement in Korea, approval of creation of such a good offices committee also having been included in the resolution.
The Atomic Energy Commission, in its ninth semiannual report to Congress, reported "continued progress" in the development of atomic weapons. The report, as usual, was concealed by a veil of secrecy and dealt only in vague generalities, not mentioning anything about the hydrogen bomb. It said that in the previous four years, 1,600 persons had been refused access to secret data or had left AEC jobs while under investigation, while 198,000 were provided clearance. It also suggested that larger nuclear weapons would be tested henceforth only at Eniwetok in the Pacific while only smaller nuclear weapons would be tested at the Nevada test range near Las Vegas.
General Eisenhower had reached Washington, following his two-week tour of the Western European capitals to assess the capabilities of Western European nations to participate in NATO. His plane touched down at Washington National eight minutes early, at 12:22 p.m., and the President therefore was not yet on hand to meet the General as planned.
In Frankfurt, Germany, American authorities provided commutations to 21 Nazi war criminals sentenced originally to hang, and freed Alfred Krupp, German steel magnate, restoring his property rights. Also freed were seven other Krupp executives. Among those granted clemency were six SS troops convicted in the Malmedy massacre of American prisoners of war and Belgian civilians during the Battle of the Bulge in December, 1944, the only remaining prisoners still facing death on the charge. None had been executed for the atrocity. U.S. High Commissioner John J. McCloy and military commander General Thomas T. Handy, who made the rulings, confirmed seven other death sentences, including four Nazis convicted in the slaughter of a million Jews and Gypsies, and SS Maj. General Oswald Pohl, who had directed the concentration camp system.
The fast-spreading strike of railroad switchmen, which had started the prior day in Chicago and Detroit, crippled freight traffic at vital points.
In Three Rivers, Quebec, four
concrete and steel spans of the Duplesis Bridge
An eighteen-year old Canadian Army private, who claimed to have lost his leave papers and received a paper from the Canadian consulate in substitute, had used it to travel for free on Air Force planes all over the U.S. without questions being asked. But his home base in Alberta would have questions for him upon his return, after U.S. Immigration Service officers had taken him into custody for entering the U.S. illegally the prior November 1 at Blaine, Wash.
In Raleigh, the renewal of the motor vehicle safety inspection law appeared doomed in the 1951 Legislature, after the two-year program had been jettisoned by the 1949 Legislature.
A special committee recommended approval by the Assembly of the 1.3 million dollar State Fairgrounds coliseum project, after $200,000 worth of construction work had already proceeded. Dr. D. S. Dorton, State Fair manager, assured the committee that the State Fair would not request any further appropriation for the building, which had exceeded by $100,000 the 1.25 million appropriated in 1949, without provision yet for lighting and heating facilities.
Tom Fesperman's special five-part
series for The News on Army training at Fort Jackson, S.C.,
continued with its third entry, printed on an inside page, this one
devoted to Army chow
Rough winter weather continued to grip most of the nation except the extreme Southeast and Southwest.
On the editorial page, "Progress Report" tells of publication this date of the Business Review & Progress Edition of The News, providing opportunity to assess progress on the newspaper's platform for the coming decade as first offered the prior January, with the basic outline appearing in a box above the editorial.
During the prior year, an Urban Redevelopment Commission had been established and the City Council had sought and obtained reservation for nearly $750,000 in Federal urban redevelopment funds, subject to approval by the Legislature authorizing cities of the state to receive such funds, prospect for passage of which appearing good.
Mecklenburg County taxpayers approved the prior year a bond issue of 5.3 million dollars for school construction and improvements, parsed between the City and County systems. Sites were being purchased and construction begun. The goal of ten million dollars worth of new school construction by the end of the decade would have to be revised upward, but much was already taking place toward meeting that initial goal.
Revaluation of property was being undertaken, with new valuations set to go into effect in 1952.
Consolidation of City and County services had not progressed very far.
There were no plans for additional public housing units despite the prospect for any urban redevelopment necessitating such housing for displaced slum dwellers.
The suggestion of creation of a Committee of 100 civic leaders and ordinary people to propose city planning into the future, as in Winston-Salem, had not taken shape, though the newspaper still thought it a good idea.
Planning for the new coliseum and auditorium complex was taking shape, following approval of a three-million dollar bond issue the prior fall. A site had been purchased but Federal strictures on construction because of the war would have to be lifted before construction could begin.
Progress had been made toward the effort to relieve traffic congestion downtown, after approval by voters of a 1.5 million dollar bond to eliminate street-level railroad crossings which backed up traffic.
Material progress had been made toward improving the city's air transportation facilities, with runways at the Municipal Airport having been resurfaced and a site for a new administration building having been chosen and the first phase of work started on construction, with total costs to be shared by the City and the Federal Civil Aeronautics Board.
Positive action on clearing the city's creeks of pollution was going forward, following a report by a Chicago engineer anent the problem.
"Opportunity for Taxpayers" commends Mayor Victor Shaw and County Chairman Sid McAden for the invitation to the civic clubs and other groups to study the recommended consolidation of City and County Government services to provide for more efficiency and economy. It would have been better, it suggests, to have made the invitations earlier, before the General Assembly convened for its 1951 biennial session. Speed thus was now important to get the matter before the Assembly to allow for referendums on the various aspects of consolidation.
It was unlikely that voters would object to consolidation. The only opposition had come from local government officials who did not want their private empires disturbed. So, it recommends that Mayor Shaw and Chairman McAden appoint boards to study the reports of the Institute of Government on consolidation, to allow for leadership toward implementing the proposals.
Four editorials from other publications appear on the page. The Christian Science Monitor celebrates the music and poetry of Robert Burns, whose birthday had fallen on January 25. Addiction to liquor had helped to end his career after his lack of education and lack of opportunities had not. It finds his words apt for the present:
"Oh wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursel's as ithers see us!"
The New York Times finds new variations on January during a road trip south through Virginia, to South Carolina, Florida and the Gulf. Winter still looked as winter through Georgia, with only progressively later sunsets marking the trip south, reminding that spring was not far away.
The Asheville Citizen says that it never thought that it took courage to oppose spending, economy being the watchword of the current Legislature. The charge that an "orgy of spending" had to be cut in Raleigh was so much nonsense. The Director of the Budget was required under North Carolina law to cut spending when revenues failed to match appropriations. There was sufficient money available to pay for improved education in the state.
The Dayton Daily News favors drafting columnists into the war effort, to take advantage of their ability to get to the core of issues in a few words. It finds that while General Drew Pearson might differ with Admiral Walter Winchell and that both might be jealous of Field Marshal Walter Lippmann and the Alsop brothers, that Sgt. Westbrook Pegler would cause friction, they could nevertheless stay two editions ahead of the enemy.
Didn't you mean two armored columns ahead?
Drew Pearson tells of the U.S. forces in Korea having captured a Chinese combat bulletin which attacked U.S. military determination to fight, saying they would surrender when surrounded or hide until nightfall, abandon their equipment and sneak away in the darkness. It further said that a few troops sent to the flanks and the rear to infiltrate them would cause confusion among the American troops to the point that their only thought was withdrawing. It also charged that American troops were not aggressive.
Mr. Pearson finds that, with notable exceptions, as the conduct of the Marines in their fight to Hungnam, this intelligence estimate was true. The fighting spirit had also been roused by the presence of the new ground commander, Lt. General Matthew Ridgway.
The Chinese estimate had been written apparently after the Second Division had panicked at the front and retreated 120 miles against an inferior Chinese force. But it nevertheless tracked the criticism contained in the American intelligence reports regarding its own forces and so was to a degree accurate.
A healthy sign was that Senator Lyndon Johnson's Defense Preparedness subcommittee was studying the mistakes of the war, such as failure to prepare for the Oriental and Communist type of warfare, characterized by attack at night using hand grenades, noise and ambush tactics. General Walter Krueger had developed effective tactics against such fighting during World War II, but despite being younger than both General Marshall and General MacArthur, had not been called from retirement to develop anti-guerrilla tactics.
Another mistake being studied was that rear echelon troops were not trained to fight, enabling the enemy to grab valuable supplies after penetrating or flanking the front lines. Other mistakes included the failure to train troops for harsh winter climate, lack of heavy winter clothing from the start of the war, since remedied, too much dependence on push-button warfare, poor intelligence regarding the likelihood of Chinese entry to the war, and lack of instilling of proper morale. As to the latter, in the early days of the war, the occupation troops from Japan had surrendered in large numbers.
There was some salutary dividend in that recognition of these blunders in the Korean war had given the opportunity to correct such mistakes before the start of a general war with China or Russia.
Marquis Childs tells of continual prodding by Congress having a lot to do with the decision to impose the current wage and price freezes. The risk was great, as the personnel were not yet in place properly to police the system of controls, such that widespread voluntary compliance with the program would have to take place for its success to be realized.
The head of the enforcement section of the Economic Stabilization Agency had just resigned because he said that he did not believe politics had any place in economic controls of the American home, and the FBI had balked at becoming the enforcement agency.
Yet, after a month in session, the 82nd Congress had not undertaken, beyond committee hearings, the passage of the necessarily concomitant tax legislation to suppress inflation effectively. To prolong the unreality of the taxpayer that perhaps such harsh medicine might be avoided would be irresponsible. The recommendation of Treasury would likely include an increase in excise taxes, amounting to a Federal sales tax, thought necessary to raise the increased revenue for new defense spending.
If inflation was to be averted, there could be no exemptions granted to special interests as in the past. No one liked it, but it was the only course available to stem the vicious cycle of inflation during war.
James Marlow discusses the Wage Stabilization Board's consideration of the potential exemptions to the wage freeze implemented the prior Friday. The general freeze had to be temporary until such exemptions could be determined by the nine-man Board chaired by Cyrus Ching. There would have to be continued control over wages to avoid the price freeze becoming a failure. If price controls failed and prices again spiraled upward, labor would not be content to follow the wage controls, starting the cycle of inflation.
The Board would likely allow workers to obtain a ten percent increase after a particular date. Determinations would have to be made for persons receiving job promotions within that period or previously agreed incremental pay raises.
The coal industry, for example, had just agreed with UMW to give the miners a raise starting February 1. No one expected the WSB to nix that agreement. But it would be a hole in the freeze, the first of many it would have to make.
Framed Edition
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