The Charlotte News
Monday, January 8, 1951
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the President, in his annual State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress, said that the country was ready to enter into "honorable settlements" with the Russians but would not engage in appeasement. He said that the country would vastly expand its airplane and tank production, to enable building of 50,000 modern planes and 35,000 tanks per year, in preparation for "full-time mobilization" if it should become necessary. He said that a major increase in taxes would be required to meet the increased cost of defense. He also submitted a ten-point legislative program, including the military build-up, the increase in taxes, extension and revision of the draft, military and economic aid for the free world, revision and extension of authority to expand production and stabilize prices, wages and rents, and aid to the states for education. He asked for unity in the Congress in the sense of exhibiting responsibility, but added that he did not expect unanimity or an end to debate, through which wise decision-making occurred.
In Korea, the allied rearguard troops yielded the ruins of Wonju to the enemy following a holding action which had obtained time for the allied withdrawal southwestward from Seoul along the road leading to Pusan on the southeast coast. Correspondent Tom Lambert reported that the U.N. forces had retreated on Sunday south of Osan, 28 air miles south of Seoul and 50 miles southwest of Wonju. Eighth Army headquarters reported light allied casualties and heavy enemy casualties. It said that as of early Monday, the allies still controlled Wonju.
At the U.N., Britain called on the organization to make another effort to effect a ceasefire in Korea after the three-person ceasefire committee had reported the previous week that its efforts with China had failed. Britain favored a seven-stage proposal presented the prior week by Israel, whereby peace would be achieved in stages, starting with a ceasefire, followed by a progressive withdrawal of all non-Korean troops and then elections held under U.N. supervision.
Congressman Carl Vinson of Georgia, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, introduced a bill to expand Navy shipbuilding by two billion dollars, included in which would be a supercarrier.
Senators George Malone of Nevada and Richard Russell of Georgia introduced a bill to establish universal military training for one year for males between ages 17 and 19. Under the bill, the program would not become effective until after the Korean war.
The Agriculture Department said, in response to a report to the contrary, that there would be no need to ration cotton goods, materials or raw cotton.
The Republican policy committee named four Senators who had been unfriendly to Administration policy in the Far East, out of six new members of the committee. The four were Senators Alexander Smith, William Knowland, Owen Brewster, and Homer Ferguson, in addition to Edward Thye and Edward Martin.
The Supreme Court ruled 5 to 3 that price cuts made in good faith to meet competition were not violative of the Robinson-Patman antitrust law. Justice Harold Burton delivered the majority opinion of the Court and Justice Stanley Reed wrote the dissent, joined by Chief Justice Fred Vinson and Justice Hugo Black. Justice Sherman Minton did not participate.
White House officials said that former Senator Frank Graham of North Carolina might soon be appointed to an important defense mobilization post, pursuant to the request of newly appointed defense mobilization director Charles E. Wilson.
The Economic Stabilization Administration said that it would seek to control meat prices as soon as it could.
From Blythe, Calif., it was reported that a search had been launched in Baja California for a suspected killer of eight persons after the car of one of the victims was found abandoned with bloodstains on the seats in desert country, 40 miles south of the Mexican border on Sunday. The owner's body had been found near Ogilby, California, in a Sheriff's car after the desperado had kidnaped, tied up, and thrown out a deputy from Blythe. The deputy said that the man admitted having murdered seven people, including two in Oklahoma, and said that he would as soon therefore murder the deputy. The deputy recognized the man as having been a dishwasher in a Blythe restaurant. Tire tracks found at the location of the abandoned vehicle in Mexico indicated that he had commandeered another car and headed north. The 24-year old man was an ex-convict from Joplin, Mo., and was wanted for questioning in connection with the disappearance of the Illinois family of five in Oklahoma, as reported Friday. The man had been identified as a hitchhiker who robbed a motorist in Oklahoma.
On the editorial page, "Kennedy, Hoover, and Now Taft" finds that added to the approaches of Presidents Roosevelt and Truman regarding internationalism, and that of the recently enunciated opinions of former President Herbert Hoover and former Ambassador to Britain Joseph P. Kennedy, both favoring retraction of the nation's defenses on a graduated basis from the Far East and Western Europe to the two oceans, had come now that provided by Senator Taft in his speech to the Senate on Friday in which he said that he doubted that Russia contemplated any military conquest of the world or would start a war with the U.S. He thus concluded that it was not prudent for the country to send further troops to Western Europe as they would only serve to prod Russia into war.
The piece finds the position without basis, as Russia had consistently indicated since it had attacked Finland in 1939 that it had aggressive motives, borne out in the present by the Kremlin's stimulation of both the North Korean attack on South Korea the prior June and the Communist Chinese intervention in November. It finds the Taft position to be similar to that espoused by former Vice-President Henry Wallace during his 1948 campaign for the presidency, as well as that of former Congressman Vito Marcantonio of New York, perceived as sympathetic to Communism, and that of the Daily Worker.
But, it points out, Senator Taft had believed that neither Hitler, Mussolini, nor Tojo and Yamashita intended war. And, furthermore, it questions why if he genuinely held the belief about Russian passivity, he would favor build-up of the naval and air defenses at home and committing of limited divisions to NATO defense, as well advocating spending of 40 billion dollars per year on defense.
The Senator, it concludes, had forgotten or ignored that with the decline of the British empire, the U.S. had inherited the mantle of world leadership and responsibility, upon which the country's own defense depended, that Russia was striving to conquer the world, and that if the Western European resources and materials went to the Soviet sphere, the U.S. could not coexist in its present form. The only hope was to reinvigorate the military potential of the free world to deter Russia from aggression. It expresses confidence that after the present panic regarding the military reverses in Korea had passed, the public, with proper leadership and satisfactory explanation, would see the "illogic and inconsistencies of the Kennedys, Hoovers, and Tafts."
"A Way to Curtail Drunk
Driving" comments on the proposed measure introduced in the
General Assembly to punish with mandatory jail sentences both drunk
drivers and speeders caught going over 60 or 65, as set forth on
Thursday on the front page. Drunk driving would carry a mandatory 30
days or six months sentence, depending on whether it was a first or
subsequent offense. Speeding
The piece thinks a better approach
had been suggested by the Governor's advisory committee on traffic
safety
"Poor Fiscal Policy" comments on two editorials presented on the page, one from the Greensboro Daily News and the other from the Raleigh News & Observer, both opposing the proposed new coliseum for the State Fair Grounds on the bases that it was to be built near the existing William Neal Reynolds Coliseum on the N.C. State campus, was planned for use only one week out of the year, and was already over budget in a time when the State needed to curtail spending.
The piece does not attempt to supplement the arguments as it admits to knowing little about the needs of Raleigh for the facility.
The 1949 General Assembly had appropriated 1.2 million dollars for the facility, but the contract awarded the previous week by the Budget Bureau was for 1.3 million dollars, more than $90,000 more, and that amount was only obtained by cutting out $300,000 for the heating and lighting systems, necessitating that the cost for those systems come from elsewhere. The piece wonders why if the need had been so pressing in 1949 that such a large sum was appropriated, it had taken two years for the Budget Bureau to prepare the plans.
The architecturally futuristic but relatively small State Fair Arena, rechristened in 1961 as Dorton Arena, still extant, would be completed in 1952.
If you wish to learn of details of the arguments against it, you may read the two pieces on the page on your own, as we see no purpose in summarizing them further—unless you propose to bring an action against the State to tear it down as an improvident use of taxpayer money in 1951-52 during a war.
Drew Pearson tells of the Joint Chiefs—following the debacle of General MacArthur's "win the war" offensive, begun November 24, triggering the Chinese onslaught of November 27, forcing the evacuation of the Tenth Corps from Hungnam, completed Christmas Day—, having reined in the General by refusing to send reinforcements to Korea. The General had requested four additional divisions but was refused on the basis that it was not prudent to waste more American lives on an action which was being met with an endless supply of Chinese troops in response, and that he had enough troops, as well because troops were needed in Western Europe to bolster NATO. The Joint Chiefs had decided sometime earlier, though not a hard and fast decision, that withdrawal from Korea was the best policy to follow. They had determined to let General MacArthur utilize his existing complement of troops to effect a stand, failing which, he was ordered to make systematic withdrawals.
General MacArthur's G-2 Army intelligence sources said that the Chinese were not attacking in the strength being communicated by the press reports issued from Tokyo, not nearly achieving the three-to-one advantage in manpower necessary for overrunning the allies, and that the U.N. forces enjoyed complete air superiority, a firepower advantage of ten to one and a mobility advantage of a hundred to one.
In Europe, the press was providing a less varnished picture of the Korean war than was the American press. For instance, the Turk out of Turkey had criticized the MacArthur offensive for not foreseeing the Chinese onslaught in response, after the Chinese had repeatedly warned via radio that they would not allow the U.N. forces to camp out on the Manchurian doorstep at the Yalu River. It also said that the number of Chinese troops never exceeded more than 250,000, compared to 150,000 U.N. troops. The column says that this report was substantiated by the figures provided by General Charles Willoughby, General MacArthur's chief of intelligence.
The President was upset that Virginia Congressman Burr Harrison, backed by conservative Democrats, was appointed to the House Ways & Means Committee. Liberals, including the President, had wanted West Virginia Congressman Cleveland Bailey or Indiana Congressman Winfield Denton. But Speaker Sam Rayburn, concerned about offending the Southerners, did not want to back Mr. Bailey, but eventually agreed to back Mr. Denton as a compromise, a choice also supported by Majority Leader John McCormack of Massachusetts. As a result, Mr. Denton and Mr. Bailey split the vote and the nod went to Mr. Harrison. The consequence was that because of House rules, a good portion of the Fair Deal could be blocked within the House Rules Committee during the ensuing two years.
Marquis Childs tells of the military strategy ahead for Korea and Western Europe, insofar as it could be ascertained out of necessary military secrecy and rapidly changing events. In Korea, the military had never regarded the peninsula as defensible, the decision for commitment of American troops having been made at the political and diplomatic levels to support the U.N. action. With the intervention of China, realized as a possibility from the outset of the war, it would not be possible for the U.N. forces to match the manpower of the enemy, no matter how many divisions of American troops might be sent. Thus, no more American manpower would be committed to the fight. But to abandon the fight would be to abandon a principle, sending bad signals through Asia and Europe to allies. Thus, the decision had to be either to hold the line at or around the 38th parallel or in small perimeters surrounding key ports, or slowly to withdraw as the Chinese army pushed the allied forces back. The latter course was likely now to be followed, given the quickness of the current retreat and the mass of Chinese troops committed to the fight.
The evacuation of American forces would be to Japan where defenses were in need of support. John Foster Dulles, Far East adviser to the State Department, was advising an immediate treaty settlement with Japan before the end of the Korean war, but military men were opposed to ending occupation at this juncture as it would weaken Japan militarily. This disagreement on policy, however, was friendly in nature.
As for Europe, even if ten divisions of American troops were ready to be sent there, they would not be as it would still result in an inadequate force to resist any concerted Soviet aggression. Instead, possibly four American divisions would be sent in 1951 to supplement the existing two, but only when the Western European countries had equipped and trained enough troops to provide sufficient strength at least to effect a holding operation to permit evacuation of the men and equipment in the event of Communist aggression.
The goal was to build up additional divisions in an orderly and quick way as equipment became available. The number of men involved was secret and confused, based on how fast production would be expanded to accommodate them.
One group favored complete mobilization of the country while another resisted the buildup, and to reconcile the two sides was not easy.
Robert C. Ruark discusses his new
dog bought to befriend his boxer. The family thought it was a French
poodle when they first got it but now were not sure that it was not a
cow or a yak, in any event a "Thing" which was of
indiscernible character at eight months of age, hidden behind a shock
of fur. They were not sure it even had eyes or which way it was
headed, forward or backward, when it walked. They had originally
named it "Mam'selle" but now simply referred to the Thing
When spring arrived, they were going to call the gardener in to have its fur mowed, to make sure that some nubs of horns were not hiding underneath. Mr. Ruark was not sure that it would not give milk. And he believed that as he saw it grazing among his private papers, he heard a distinct lowing sound.
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