The Charlotte News

Monday, October 15, 1951

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports, via John Randolph, that enemy resistance had diminished on two fronts this date, as allied infantrymen drove deeper into North Korea. On the eastern front, U.N. troops, following a three-day battle, captured a strategic 4,500-foot peak at the northwest end of Kim Il Sung Ridge and pushed lightly defending Chinese troops from at least four hilltops. On the central front, three allied divisions, supported by Marine helicopters ferrying ammunition to the front and evacuating the wounded, progressed nearly two miles closer to Kumsong, a vital enemy supply and headquarters location about 30 miles north of the 38th parallel. The allies took five more hills, for a three-day total of 24, pushing forward as much as five miles in some places as enemy resistance crumbled. The western front remained quiet after fierce battles the previous week.

In the air war, forty U.N. warplanes attacked an estimated 500 Chinese troops moving toward the front north of Yanggu.

Liaison officers met again at Panmunjom to try to reach agreement for resumption of the ceasefire talks, cut off by the Communists since August 23. The primary roadblock appeared to be Communist insistence that the five-mile Kaesong neutral zone be maintained, despite the fact that the new site for the talks was closer to Panmunjom. The liaison officers agreed to meet again the next day.

The Egyptian Government rejected the Western proposal, delivered Saturday, that it become a central component in the Middle East defense bloc against Communism, and took formal action to revoke the 1936 Anglo-Egyptian treaty, proclaiming King Farouk to be ruler over the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. The Western proposal had included supplanting British troops defending the Suez Canal with an international force. The Egyptians believed that the proposal would effectively continue British occupation under a new label. Britain again repeated its warning that it would resist by force any attempt by Egypt to drive out the British from the Suez Canal, to which it had access by virtue of the treaty in exchange for its defense of the Canal. Thousands of Egyptians milled around Parliament as the announcement was made. A French Foreign Office spokesman declared that the U.S., France, Britain and Turkey would go ahead with plans to form the defense command without Egypt.

In New York, a spokesman for the Iranian Government said that it was rejecting further talks with Britain regarding the oil nationalization dispute except on the issues of indemnification and the sale of oil. The announcement came only a few hours before Premier Mohammed Mossadegh was to address the U.N. Security Council as to why it should stay out of the dispute.

Former Minnesota Governor Harold Stassen told a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee that it was "unbelievable" that Ambassador-at-Large Philip Jessup had not taken part in a 1949 State Department conference on the issue of cutting off U.S. military aid to the Chinese Nationalists and that official records indicated that he had participated. Mr. Jessup had denied that he was present and Secretary of State Acheson had confirmed that fact the previous week. Secretary Acheson had said that he supported the proposal to terminate the aid, originating with the military, but that the President had rejected it.

The subcommittee chairman, Senator John Sparkman of Alabama, hoped that the subcommittee would be able to vote by nightfall on whether to recommend the nomination of Mr. Jessup as a U.N. delegate. Indications were increasing that the Senate as a whole would take no action on the nomination before it adjourned. Backers of Mr. Jessup favored shelving the nomination so that the President would be able to make a recess appointment, to enable Mr. Jessup to participate in the November Paris U.N. General Assembly meeting. But such a move was being opposed by Senators Bourke Hickenlooper and Pat McCarran, the latter of whom stated during the weekend that Mr. Jessup "should not be permitted to serve under any circumstances", a view shared by Senator Hickenlooper. Majority Leader Ernest McFarland hinted on Saturday that the nomination would be pigeonholed. Senator Joseph McCarthy had led the fight against Mr. Jessup, claiming that he was sympathetic with Communists, a claim denied by Mr. Jessup and by Secretary Acheson and others.

In Morgantown, W.Va., nine men, and possibly a tenth, were killed in a gas explosion in a coal mine in the early morning, a few minutes before they were to have started home from work on an overnight shift.

In Bombay, India, police arrested a Communist jungle queen, nicknamed "God Rani", who had been sought for five years for waging a bow-and-arrow war against the State. She allegedly had been organizing a new uprising among timber-cutting tribesmen in the jungles outside Bombay, after the last one had been put down in 1947 following a bow-and-arrow fight with police.

In Winston-Salem, the President participated in the groundbreaking ceremonies for the new campus of Wake Forest College. In a foreign policy speech at the event, the President stated that he was offering to sit down with the Russians at the U.N. to seek agreement regarding disarmament and elimination of the prospect of atomic warfare. He renewed a proposal for U.N. control of atomic energy and asked Russia to put aside its "phony peace propaganda" in favor of constructive efforts to effect a genuine peace. He compared the "suspicion and fear" which abounded at present in the world with that in the state at the creation of Wake Forest in 1833, when the bill to grant the charter for the College was being considered by the State Senate, and a vote of 29 to 29 resulted, with the tie-breaking vote cast by the presiding officer in favor of the charter, whereas the opponents had suggested that the College would be a scourge to religion and the Baptist sect, arguing that to incorporate the College and its Divinity School would produce a "proud and pompous ministry". The President asked rhetorically whether the audience could imagine a proud and pompous Baptist preacher.

The city had heartily welcomed the President, the first President to visit since George Washington had spent the night in Salem in 1791. Some 5,000 persons turned out at Smith Reynolds Airport to welcome him. On hand were Governor Kerr Scott, former Secretary of the Army and current president of the University of North Carolina, Gordon Gray of Winston-Salem, Undersecretary of State James Webb of North Carolina, members of the North Carolina Congressional delegation, local dignitaries and president Harold Tribble of Wake Forest. One of the largest contingents of the press in the history of the state had gathered to cover the visit. It was the anniversary of the President's meeting with General MacArthur on Wake Island the prior year.

The occasion marked the President's fourth visit to the state. He had visited Raleigh to dedicate a monument at the State Capitol to three North Carolinians who became President, Andrew Jackson, James K. Polk, and Andrew Johnson, and to attend the State Fair. On November 7, 1948, right after the election, he visited Cherry Point and New Bern while en route to Key West. And on October 4, 1949, he had gone to Fort Bragg to review 20,000 troops.

It might be noted that ten years later, on October 12, 1961, Founders' Day at UNC, President Kennedy would speak in Kenan Stadium on the campus in Chapel Hill, while also visiting Fort Bragg and Charlotte during the same trip.

In Miami, Defense Secretary Robert Lovett, speaking before the American Legion convention, warned the nation that the U.S. did not have the fantastic atomic weapons which could win a quick and easy victory in war. Until such weapons could be proven useful in the field, national safety continued to depend on orthodox weapons in sufficient quantity and with adequately trained and equipped forces to use them effectively. He warned against the over-optimism which was being promoted by the development of super-weapons for fighting and winning wars, that such was "disillusionment" which could lead to pessimism and despair.

A Caribbean hurricane, which had brought a weekend alert to southern Florida, appeared to be dissipating, according to the Weather Bureau.

On the editorial page, "The Mark of a Kind People" supports the Community Chest campaign and its support of many worthwhile community enterprises. The goal for the year was $386,500, representing the minimum needs for the community, as much more could be spent without being wasteful. Those who gave their time to the drive, it reminds, were doing so voluntarily, and it urges giving to the worthy cause.

"Delinquent Parents" tells of Mecklenburg County Welfare superintendent Wallace Kuralt having analyzed the backgrounds of 201 youthful offenders during the first six months of 1951 and having found that the majority did not come from broken homes, as he had hypothesized, but rather that 128 of them were from homes where both parents were living.

It finds therefore that many Mecklenburg parents were neglecting their parental duties or carrying them out only insouciantly. Parents who were living together ought be able to shoulder their burdens in this regard and those who failed to do so were not only bringing unhappiness to themselves but also to their children, as in the end the youthful offender suffered most from neglectful parents.

"Lunar Lunacy", reminiscent of past "Silly Season" entries to the column over the years, finds that while most moderns believed the notions of erratic behavior on the part of mankind at the full moon to be the product of superstitions and wives' tales, certain reports had surfaced of late coincident with the full moon which begged that the notion be revisited.

One such incident was the man in Detroit who had electrocuted himself with a homemade electric chair.

In South Bend, Indiana, a woman demanded to be served at the bar rather than at a table and produced a gun to demonstrate her will in that regard.

In Hollywood, a woman complained that no one would pick her up at an intersection, despite the fact that she was nude.

In Detroit, a young woman was elated over being named Miss Sewer Cleaner of 1952.

In Idaho, proprietors of a gambling establishment complained to police when two men from Nevada systematically won jackpots from their slot machines.

In St. Louis, a New York Giants fan started to pay off a lost World Series bet by pushing a peanut across the street with his nose, only to find that the path had been paved with pepper.

And in Medina, Ohio, a man looked up into the sky and saw a flying barrel making a hissing noise.

It concludes that there may have been some other explanation, but that the moon was nearly full.

"Americanism—Pro and Con" tells of being long puzzled by the term "un-Americanism" and what it really meant to be guilty of it. Burping Buffalo, Li'l Abner's Indian roommate, had told his dancing partner, Turkey Wing, that "to show any emotion in 'Big Grapple' is un-American", but the following day, had hinted to a waiter that anyone who would not accept wampum as legal tender was also un-American—a "foreigner".

Unsatisfied with either of those definitions, it turned to the Encyclopaedia Britannica and found therein that the term was not defined, whereas there were two pages devoted to "Americanism", given two definitions: "(a) any word or combination of words which, taken into the English language in the United States, has not gained acceptance in England, or, if accepted, has retained its sense of foreignness; and (b) any word or combination of words which, becoming archaic in England, has continued in good usage in the United States." Examples of the first category included raccoon, hominy, moccasin, chinkapin, pone, tapioca and succotash, whereas greenhorn, catty-cornered, swingle-tree, bay window and flapjack fell into the second category.

President Washington was said to have coined "to derange" and Gouverneur Morris had popularized "to eventuate", both considered un-Americanisms in their time. But the early American grammarians had refused to accept "happify", "to compromit" and "to homologize".

The 1951 Britannica did not suggest "Americanism" as being "synonymous with loyalty, virtue, love of mother and the home and devotion to country", or that "un-Americanism" indicated "treason, espionage and pro-Communism". But such attributes had been assigned to the terms by Congressional investigators. It hopes that this latter definition would be abandoned, just as certain awkward terms had been in early America.

A piece from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, titled "The Age of Woman", tells of women outnumbering men in the United States, owning more property and able to cast two million more votes than men in elections. It does not know what this new Age of Woman was going to be like, as women had not tipped their game plan, but ventures that it would not be long until it would become clear—and suggests the feeling that it would not be unpleasant.

Carl Goerch, writing in The State Magazine, discusses moonshining as a business in the state, about which few knew, despite it being a multi-million dollar enterprise which had been in existence since North Carolina had officially become a state. The Federal Revenue Department maintained 51 investigators constantly on the job in the state, with their offices located in 18 key cities. Locating a still had become something of a science, based on the need for accessibility to it by wagon or automobile to transport the merchandise. Airplanes were being used by the investigators to some extent and when the moonshiners became aware of the surveillance, they camouflaged their stills, but could not hide the access roads.

During June, 1951, the Federal agents had captured a total of 135 stills in the state and a total of 1,393 during the previous fiscal year. While there was no way to assess the number of stills, it was safe to suggest that about one of every ten wound up raided. Mr. Goerch then proceeds to extrapolate, from the stills busted in June, which produced over 29,000 gallons of moonshine, and the 268,112 gallons from those busted during the previous fiscal year, to a total figure of over 2.6 million gallons, assuming ten percent of the stills were actually busted. The average price was about $10 per gallon, suggesting 26.8 million dollars worth of product flowing from from the stills each year.

In addition to the Federal agents, State ABC agents also worked to ferret out the stills, along with county officers, busting three or four times the number of stills which the Federal agents put away. And so he concludes that the total amount of still product during a given year was around 100 million dollars worth of moonshine. By contrast, legal sales of liquor in ABC stores in the wet counties of the state during the previous fiscal year had totaled 52.4 million dollars.

He concludes with an anecdote, suggesting that the "revenooer" who went looking for a still in the backcountry would, according to the child of a moonshiner accepting a bribe of a dollar to tell him where his father's still was located, likely not return and so the child had to have the dollar immediately.

The inclusion of this piece is obviously in honor of "Lunar Lunacy".

Drew Pearson tells of 21 of the 31 passengers aboard the "Freedom Train", which had defected, along with its anti-Communist engineer, across the border into Germany from Czechoslovakia a month earlier, having been stranded by bureaucratic red tape. The Canadian Government had agreed to receive the defecting passengers, but a Canadian security officer had held up 21 of them as "security risks". Mr. Pearson telephoned the State Department and found the officials distressed but incapable of prompt action. He had also telephoned the Canadian Ambassador, who got busy with his Government. At present, however, the passengers remained stranded.

All too often, such was the case with persons who had defected from behind the Iron Curtain. It was estimated that 1,200 escapees left Russia, Poland, Czechoslovakia or other Iron Curtain countries for the West every month. They were then thrown into German or Austrian jails where they were forced to associate with common criminals, and eventually came to believe that they had made a mistake by defecting, that they would have been better off remaining in Russia. Many did return. Recently, 2,000 Russian defectors who obtained work in Belgium coal mines voted to return to Russia.

Blame for the situation could be shared by the U.S. Army, the CIA, and the State Department, each of whom had divided responsibility for defectors but worked at cross-purposes if they worked at all. The U.S. Government had authority to handle all such defectors but usually ducked the responsibility. Once someone arrived from behind the Iron Curtain, counter-intelligence wanted to interview them, as did the CIA and military intelligence. Once they were done with them, after a period of endless interviews during a couple of months, they released them into the German job market where about a million Germans were already unemployed. Their only option was to go to a refugee camp. Thus, many wished they had never left Russia.

Defectors had to be screened to determine whether they were Communist plants, and in some cases were common criminals. But many could be extremely useful to the allied cause through providing information as to what was occurring behind the Iron Curtain, of great value to the U.S. military and the Voice of America in preparing recipes for psychological warfare. Moreover, the U.S. Army was able to accept 2,500 recruits of foreign nationality and there was no reason why this number could not be enlarged. Most of the defectors volunteered to enlist and, he ventures, if properly screened, there was no reason why they should not be allowed to serve. They could also be organized into groups which could eventually take over Iron Curtain countries. But West Point traditionally taught techniques of waging war, and not revolution or psychological warfare, increasingly more potent tools in the modern world than traditional warfare. He concludes, therefore, that placing these defectors in prisons and concentration camps was a "most tragic national blunder".

Marquis Childs tells of General MacArthur leaving his Waldorf-Astoria Towers apartment for a speaking engagement at the American Legion convention in Miami the following Wednesday, to be the featured speaker on the platform, to be preceded by Secretary of Defense Robert Lovett—who had spoken this date. It was anticipated that the General might announce his candidacy for the presidency in 1952, as he had stated that he would allow his name to be placed on the ballot in any state primary in which the name of General Eisenhower was also entered, expressing confidence that his candidacy would be shown to be as popular as that of General Eisenhower. General MacArthur had remarked to friends that in his travels across the country, he had not seen any groundswell of support for General Eisenhower.

In his speech to the Legion, he would probably openly endorse Senator Taft for the presidency, based on his shared Asia-first views, the belief that the Administration was placing too much emphasis on Western Europe to the disadvantage of the more important Asia insofar as American interests.

Senator Taft, in his forthcoming book on foreign policy, had adopted that viewpoint and it was a strong conviction running through the Republican Party, with even Governor Dewey, a strong supporter of General Eisenhower, soon to be releasing a magazine article in which he advocated a mutual security pact, similar to NATO, for the Pacific.

Moves within the Taft camp were being coordinated with those of General MacArthur, as Senator Taft was expected possibly to make his announcement of throwing his hat in the ring at the National Press Club, where he was scheduled to speak also on Wednesday.

At the recent Gatlinburg governors conference, Governor Adlai Stevenson of Illinois had stated that the split in the Republican Party was to the extent that General Eisenhower would be handicapped by the isolationists in a run for the presidency, with the result that President Truman would win in 1952.

Mr. Childs acknowledges that, regardless of whether the latter assessment proved accurate, there was a considerable split within the Republican Party, with the Eastern internationalist wing disagreeing sharply with the foreign policy of Senator Taft and even more sharply with some of his backers, such as Senator William Jenner of Indiana, George Malone of Nevada and Herman Welker of Idaho. General MacArthur had been seeking to get these extremists to modify their stances out of fear that they would damage Senator Taft's chances for the nomination.

Robert C. Ruark tells of the retirement of Joe DiMaggio from baseball, going out in good fashion in the World Series, helping his team substantially to achieve the victory. He had not stayed too long, at age 37, as had Babe Ruth or, in boxing, Joe Louis. Mr. Ruark thinks that if he were to stay another year, he would not quit so strong as he had in 1951. He did not wish to see that, with the inevitable accompanying boos and catcalls by the fans.

"My boy Joe wound up right, with the big swing on the ball he didn't have to hit, and when he hit it I knew where it was headed. I can't think of a better epitaph for a guy who always handled himself with fierce pride. When he strode off the field he was still dangerous. He was still the Big Man."

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