The Charlotte News

Saturday, October 13, 1951

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports, via John Randolph, that U.N. infantry supported by tanks and artillery had made new gains on the western and central fronts in Korea this date, as fighting was renewed with intensity across the front. U.N. forces gained up to nearly two miles along a 22-mile front at the center. American and French troops on "Heartbreak Ridge" in the eastern sector burned the remaining enemy troops from their suicide bunkers along the slopes of the ridge line's northernmost peak, known as "Hill 851", which had been captured on Friday by the allies. Allied officers stated that the mopping-up operation was among the bitterest fights of the war so far.

In the air war, U.S. Sabre jets patrolled MIG-alley in northwest Korea but drew no challenge from enemy jets. Fifth Air Force warplanes pounded enemy road and rail lines.

A captured enemy officer on the eastern front said that the North Korean army was now practically nonexistent. Another captured officer said that his division of 4,000 men had been depleted by half in casualties during the month-long battle for "Heartbreak Ridge".

Communist and allied liaison officers would meet again on Sunday in Panmunjom in another effort to renew the ceasefire talks. Negotiations on Saturday had been interrupted by a new Communist complaint that three U.N. warplanes had strafed the fringe of the Kaesong neutrality zone on Friday, killing a twelve-year old boy and wounding his two-year old brother, an incident U.N. liaison officers were investigating. Associated Press correspondent Robert B. Tuckman had accompanied the U.N. liaison officers conducting the investigation and reported that "correspondents at Panmunjom generally felt the Communists had presented enough tangible evidence to back up their case" but that there was still not enough evidence to render a final opinion, that the evidence was still being evaluated.

In Moscow, Western observers believed that if Winston Churchill's Conservative Party were to win the British elections on October 25, Prime Minister Stalin would agree to a Big Three meeting. Mr. Churchill had stated on October 6 that such a meeting could not do any harm and might conceivably "lift a load of anxiety from the shoulders of our children". The President had repeatedly said, since returning from the Potsdam conference in July, 1945, that he would not go abroad for any such meeting, but that if Stalin wished to come to Washington, he was always welcome.

In Burra Firth, Scotland, a Russian fishing fleet, which normally moved into position whenever the British Royal Navy conducted maneuvers, turned up on schedule off the Shetland Isles during the current maneuver. A lighthouse keeper who had come ashore during the morning said that he had passed within 20 yards of the fleet and had waved and shouted a welcome to them, but that the bearded sailors lining the decks of the vessels only looked at him and stared in silence.

Former Minnesota Governor Harold Stassen would testify before the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee, per his request, on Monday, his fifth appearance before a Congressional committee in recent weeks, three of those times before the Senate Internal Security subcommittee regarding the confirmation of Ambassador-at-Large Philip Jessup as a U.N. delegate. He had appeared the previous day before that subcommittee, again challenging the accuracy of Mr. Jessup's testimony that neither he nor the State Department generally had ever favored recognition of Communist China. It was likely that on Monday Mr. Stassen would again consider the issue of the round-table conference on China policy sponsored by the State Department in October, 1949, at which, according to Mr. Stassen, Mr. Jessup had favored a position taken by Owen Lattimore that Communist Chinese recognition take place forthwith. Mr. Lattimore had sent a letter to Mr. Stassen asking for a full retraction, and for him to point out in the transcript of the meeting where he had taken such a position. He also was distressed that Mr. Stassen continued to say that Mr. Lattimore had described Prime Minister Nehru as a reactionary, indicating that he had not mentioned either India or Nehru at the meeting and considered Nehru to be "the outstanding representative of freedom in Asia".

The U.S., Britain, France and Turkey invited Egypt to join them as a full partner in a new Middle East defense command, designed to counter the Egyptian Government's determination to cancel the 1936 treaty with Britain, which allowed use of the Suez Canal and joint occupation of Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. Britain and Egypt had been seeking without success since 1946 to revise the treaty. British Foreign Secretary Herbert Morrison said the previous night that Britain would maintain its rights under the treaty until some new arrangement came along, that Britain would not attack the Egyptians but would respond if attacked.

The Congress passed the 57 billion dollar defense budget, the largest for the nation ever in peacetime. It was about a billion dollars less than that sought by the President. The total budget thus far had reached 71 billion dollars and another 14 billion was pending in four additional appropriations bills still being considered. The previous record in a peacetime year was 61 billion, in the prior fiscal year, 1950-51, and the all-time record was in 1943, when 147 billion was appropriated. The Treasury estimated that actual spending for the year would run between 68 and 73 billion dollars, despite the appropriations being for 85 billion.

In Philadelphia, a fire erupted in the waterfront produce district early in the day, causing an estimated one million dollars in damage and causing heat and smoke prostration to 20 of the 400 firemen responding to the blaze. No fatalities were reported.

A "Quiz for Married Women" appears, asking two questions, whether a wife would say that her husband is handsome and whether she would say that he was more handsome or less so than when she married him. Answers provided by wives across the country in a Gallup poll are provided on page 3-A. "Undecided" is allowed as a cop-out for each question. Inquiring minds want to know.

On the book page, on 9-A, new books are reviewed by Harnett Kane, Vance Partolini, Lawrence Renser, and Irving Stone.

On the editorial page, "Two Warnings Are Enough" tells of outside experts having warned for the second time in two years the City Council that the Charlotte Fireman's Retirement Fund was not on a sound actuarial basis. The first warning had come from the Institute of Government in Chapel Hill in its consolidation study reports, which stated that the Fund faced a large deficit by 1963. During the week, the audit report contained the same warning. In consequence, the trustees of the Fund had sought the advice of the City Attorney on the matter, to determine whether they had the authority to examine the soundness of the system and, if so, to spend the money for an actuarial study.

It ventures that it was not fair for the people to have to support a retirement system for public employees more lavish than those generally provided in private employment, and a half pay provision on a fireman's earnings, based on the last three years of his employment, appeared to be overly generous, following only 25 years of productive work. Such a scale for all public employees, it suggests, would break the back of the American taxpayer.

"A Practical Truck Route Plan" finds that at the Wednesday City Council meeting, a majority had swung behind a workable, if not perfect, solution for the truck route problem through the city, consisting of adopting the City Traffic Engineer's plan, with the exception that parking on Graham Street would not be prohibited entirely.

That sounds like a winner. Let's do it forthwith.

"This Thing Called Sovereignty" finds that national sovereignty was rapidly becoming a thing of the past, as recently observed by Anne O'Hare McCormick in the New York Times. National sovereignty was disappearing in Europe more rapidly than in the U.S., as the Eisenhower plan called for breaking down European national sovereignties, at least insofar as military defense.

Columnist Stewart Alsop, presently in Europe, found that military unification necessarily required political and economic unification, as well as an end to national foreign policies.

Each member of the NATO Council had unilateral veto power, but none had exercised it against the largely American policy being implemented, as each of the nations relied upon the aid provided by the U.S. But unless machinery was developed to deal with differences between the U.S. and Western Europe, an impasse might occur which could inflict a severe blow to the community spirit being developed among the NATO nations. Joint Chiefs chairman General Omar Bradley had hinted as much in an interview with Raymond Brandt of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, from which the piece quotes, in which he had said that it was not a matter of giving up sovereignty but rather how much was to be gained through collective action, pooling the political, economic and military strength of the combined sovereignties.

It urges that it was time for the country's future relations with Europe to be fully discussed in an open forum, especially as to whether Americans were prepared to engage in such pooling of strength with Europe and whether the NATO Council would be able to act swiftly enough to coordinate the activities of the alliance.

"Taft and McCarthy" comments on the refusal of Senator Taft to take any public stand approving or disapproving of Senator McCarthy's tactics while not disassociating himself from them. Recently, as further indicated below in the column of Drew Pearson, Senator Taft was quoted as saying that the Senator had done some good by bringing the attention of the country to subversive influences in the government. The piece questions that proposition, finding it moot in the face of the clear fact that he he had done great harm to the country by impairing the reputations of many loyal Americans, thus bringing into question many of the free institutions which Americans had long cherished, disturbing the usual equanimity of the American state of mind, producing doubt, fear and confusion in time of national emergency.

Given the position of honor and integrity of Senator Taft and the fact that he was the leading candidate for the Republican nomination in 1952, it was incumbent upon him to express forthrightly his true views on Senator McCarthy as both a man and a Republican. The piece ventures that he did not need to curry the favor of Senator McCarthy to win the nomination and that the Republican Party did not need the latter's help to win the election.

Drew Pearson tells of Senator Taft having let his hair down recently at a private dinner for Republican newcomers to Congress, talking like a presidential candidate but not admitting that he was one. He told one Congressman that he was not yet a candidate, said to another that he would not be interested in a Taft-MacArthur ticket but that the General might be interested in a MacArthur-Taft ticket. He also said that RNC chairman Guy Gabrielson ought be given full opportunity to present his side of the case regarding any influence he exerted on the RFC on behalf of his company, before being forced to resign from his post, but added that, eventually, he would have to go.

The Senator also said that it would be a mistake for the Republicans to try to run in 1952 only on the basis of exposing Democratic corruption, though he favored continuing that exposure. He believed that other issues, such as Communists in the Government and the trends toward socialism and too much government spending, ought also be stressed.

In response to a question of whether he approved of the tactics of Senator McCarthy, he said that no one should make charges which could not be proved, under the cloak of Congressional immunity, but also stated that Senator McCarthy had done some good in alerting the country to subversive influences in government.

He also claimed that the Republican Party could show that Taft-Hartley was actually a help to the working man, but that he favored amending it to include a provision to end the union-shop-election procedure.

Stewart Alsop, in Bonn, West Germany, tells of General Eisenhower having reportedly said that NATO could do the job of Western European defense without the Germans, if necessary. Presumably he believed that superior air strength and atomic superiority would suffice over Soviet superiority in manpower.

It was to be hoped that this belief was accurate, as allied plans for a West German defense force had gone awry. It had been a year since Secretary of State Acheson had demanded immediate German rearmament. At the time, the Pentagon was laboring under the delusion that Germans would immediately respond to the call and therefore predicted the contribution of substantial German rearmament within a matter of months, leading to an unrealistic and rigid timetable for the rearmament, depriving U.S. High Commissioner John J. McCloy flexibility in negotiations with the West Germans.

The position had given much impetus to the fanatically nationalist Dr. Kurt Schumacher, leader of the Social Democratic Party in West Germany. Thus, negotiations had moved sluggishly between Mr. McCloy and Chancellor Konrad Adenauer. It was necessary to have a sufficient inducement, a "carrot", for the West Germans to be willing to accept the rearmament program.

That carrot would consist of providing them complete internal sovereignty, within the Western European framework. The other option to complete rearmament would be "the stick", that NATO would concentrate everything on the defense of the Rhine, leaving West Germany as a temporarily useful outpost and maneuver area in case of war, meaning that it would be the flashpoint in such event, without its own defense capability.

Robert C. Ruark makes a 15-year overdue apology to Red Skelton, who had recently begun his television show after long appearing on radio and in movies. His apology was that Mr. Skelton was "not as funny as a duodenal ulcer", as he had once claimed. Rather, in video, he was very funny.

Mr. Ruark had reviewed his performance at the Fox Theater in Washington in 1936 or early 1937 as a cub drama critic and had panned Mr. Skelton, believing him to be "of the best possible moronic denominator, and that it improved, on the moron level, as Mr. Skelton progressed to larger fame."

He now found him to be either runner-up or even in a dead heat with Sid Caesar in the comedy department.

He says that his new view had been formed, after spending a "particularly harrowing" evening with Jackie Gleason, billed as a very funny man, but whose act, according to Mr. Ruark, would have been in "questionable taste in one of the old grind houses of burlesque, and rather admirably adapted to" his deodorant and laxative sponsors. Mr. Gleason had managed to obtain humor from spilling booze, mixed in a hot-water bottle, on his parents and flourishing an old-fashioned chamber pot, as well as cracking jokes about bad breath and poverty, while using the latter as a blackmail device. Mr. Ruark became slightly ill when Mr. Gleason used the National Amputation Foundation as a gimmick, saying that if one gave money to it, it would help erect a building where the donor could drop in and show his friends his name inscribed as a contributor.

By contrast, he found Mr. Skelton's brand of humor clean and amusing, without the "hard-mouthed humor that has developed since video came to our house to stay, where the crude insult is construed as funny". So, he eats his previous words from 15 years earlier, believes that more of Mr. Skelton's "current happy exhibitionism" would be welcome "in a medium that seems to be withering before it has flowered", that there was nothing wrong with television "that a little less Berle and a little more taste can't cure."

A letter writer does not agree with the previous letter writer objecting to the permissive smoking policy at Myers Park High School. She, being a student at the school, believes that students ought be allowed to smoke in the open instead of hiding it behind their parents' backs. She was getting sick and tired of the gossip that was going around town about smoking at the school, that it was not just occurring at Myers Park but at every high school in the city. She questions why everyone had to pick on Myers Park. "Are they jealous of us or what?" She says that the students were trying to make a good reputation for the school, but could not when people were spreading untrue gossip about it around town, not just the letter writer in question, but "the rest of the people too."

She adds that as for the marijuana, that was an entirely different issue from smoking tobacco in the schools, but that the next thing people would probably be saying was that all of the students were also smoking "marijuanas".

Nobody said anything about marijuanas. How would you know about marijuanas unless...?

Moreover, you have missed covering the most salient issue brought up by the prior letter writer, that potential trend toward unmarried mothers. What about that? Is that going on at Myers Park? You seem suddenly reticent about addressing that issue.

Inquiring minds want to know. Don't worry. We shall keep it hush-hush and on the qt.

A letter writer, also a Myers Park student, in the eleventh grade, responds to the same prior letter, also resents the attacks, by both the letter writer and Tom Fesperman, in his original article on the subject of student smoking, which prompted the response by the previous correspondent. She thinks that both were making much ado about nothing, as students all over the country committed this "horrible crime" of smoking. The letter writer, she says, did not seem to realize that teenagers had minds of their own and were not three-year old babies who had to be told exactly what to do. They needed a chance for their minds to develop and had to be given that chance. Myers Park was that chance, she suggests, offering a student the opportunity to speak rather than imposing prison-like discipline. The students loved and respected their principal because he placed trust in them as few adults did.

She adds that the issue raised by the letter writer regarding marijuana was absurd and that no students at the high school had use of drugs in mind, were greatly shocked to find that such a thing was suggested.

She wants to know what everyone had against Myers Park, as it was the greatest school in the world.

But, as with the previous writer, while not mentioning the marijuanas, thus avoiding an implicit admission of usage, you have managed to dodge that other question of unmarried mothers. We take it, therefore, that there must be a rampant trend at the high school in that direction.

We do not even wish to discuss, given the disgusting performance recently by now-Justice Brett Kavanaugh before the Senate Judiciary Committee, this topic in relation to the carrot and stick phenomenon discussed above by Stewart Alsop regarding West Germany, for somewhere we read that Justice Kavanaugh said at the hearing that his high school mentality and that of his friends had to do with "Animal House", released in 1978, "Caddyshack", released in 1980, "Fast Times at Ridgemont High", released in 1982, and other such movies of the period.

Yeah, well, we had "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" and "Bonnie and Clyde" and a lot of other such fare when we were teenagers, but we did not become bank robbers as a result or engage in the rhetoric associated with those films. Nor did attendance of "The Graduate" at a younger age than high school lead to the behavior depicted in that film, or "Rosemary's Baby" result in joining a coven, "The Odd Couple", on the same double-bill at the drive-in, immutably suggest an irresistible impulse to throw linguine against the wall, "Midnight Cowboy" translate to a desire to move suddenly to New York or Florida or form tomato soup from ketchup and boiled water, or "Five Easy Pieces" lead to ordering chicken salad sandwiches on wheat toast.

So what exactly was your point, Justice Kavanaugh? Were you suggesting that all high school students and even college students are so immature, as you obviously were, to be unable to distinguish between characters in a movie and reality, and thus helplessly induced to emulate behavior depicted in movies, no matter how aberrant, anti-social, neurotic or even psychopathic it might be? You have one hell of a perception problem, if so, Boofer. Maybe that comes from having been a spoiled brat attending prep schools and Yale, boofing the while.

Did you ever go see "Psycho"?

Good luck in the impeachment hearings next year. Maybe you can pull out the "I like beer—do you like beer?" defense line again. We have a feeling that most DUI suspects will be trying that one over the course of time, to seek to obtain sympathy from the arresting officer, citing your performance before the Senate as binding precedent for avoiding culpability. Hint: The statement appears to derive from a commercial broadcast during this year's Super Bowl.

Just as with the psychopaths who seek to blame "The White Album" or "Natural Born Killers" or some other media presentation for their murderous rampage, it appears typical of the guilty to seek to blame some outside stimulus, to which others might relate, for their aberrant conduct of one sort or another, not possibly the result of disturbed personal perceptions gone unchecked and thus left to run rampant across the subconscious mind until untoward behavior finally manifests itself in reality, usually skewed toward that unchecked result by consistent release from normal behavioral inhibitions through excessive use of drugs or alcohol.

A letter writer also responds to the same letter and asks the previous writer whether or not she believed the issue ought be left to the parents of the individual student, rather than one person seeking control of them all.

First, we do not understand how the prior writer was seeking control of them all by merely expressing her opinion in the newspaper. She did not advocate police intervention or the like to interdict the smoking. And, no, if student behavior at school were left solely up to parents to determine, all manner of disruptive and delinquent conduct would have to be overlooked on the notion that the parents condoned it at home. What if the parents take their offspring to the shooting range or hunting on a regular basis?

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