The Charlotte News
Wednesday, October 17, 1951
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that allied infantrymen had advanced to within rifle range of Kumsong on the Korean central front this date, gaining between 1,500 and 2,000 yards in the fifth day of their offensive drive toward that town. The enemy was described officially as slowly withdrawing, though they might still make a stand south of the supply bastion. More than 40 hills had been captured during the advance. Three U.N. divisions had advanced seven miles along a 22-mile front. Allied artillery had moved up to strategic peaks, from which it could blast Kumsong.
In the air war, U.S. Sabre jets flew for 25 minutes through MIG alley over northwest Korea, but were not challenged.
Doctors in Korea cut a live three-inch, armor-piercing shell from the shoulder of a private, and no one could explain why the shell had not exploded. Two experts gave advice during the operation on how to keep the shell from detonating. The private was in good shape and would have no permanent injury as a result.
The Department of Defense announced that American casualties in Korea now numbered 90,935, an increase of 1,553 since the previous week, including a total of 13,731 killed in action, 64,777 wounded and 12,427 missing in action.
General MacArthur, speaking to the American Legion convention in Miami, stated that there could be no profitable negotiation with Communists and urged that greater military power be brought to bear in the Korea. He did not advocate breaking off the ceasefire negotiations with the Communists but made it clear that he placed no faith in their ability to achieve success, favored all-out war against the Communists in the Far East as the best way to achieve any agreement. He also contended that the nation was headed towards socialism and economic disaster under the present Administration.
Secretary of State Acheson said that the U.S. supported the stand of the British in upholding their position in the Suez Canal zone against Egyptian pressure, and that there was no validity to the unilateral cancellation of the 1936 Anglo-Egyptian treaty by the Egyptian Government. The treaty gave Britain access to the Suez in exchange for its defense of the zone. The Secretary urged Egypt to reconsider the proposal made by the U.S., Britain, France, and Turkey for the creation of a Middle East command which would take over responsibility for the defense of the Suez and the strategic Middle East, to include Egypt within that defense command.
In the Suez Canal zone, an atmosphere of an armed camp prevailed, with machine guns and tanks in evidence, as both British and Egyptians rushed reinforcements to the area. Violent rioting the previous day had resulted in at least seven and possibly 12 persons being killed in the area.
A chief of one Sudanese party faction said that the Sudanese would refuse to obey orders from the British governor-general, after Egypt had declared exclusive dominion over the Sudan, which by the 1936 treaty was jointly controlled by Britain and Egypt. The Egyptian press quoted another faction of the same party as saying that all Sudanese would support Egypt in the drive to eject the British from the Sudan.
Ambassador-at-Large Philip Jessup, testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee which was considering his nomination to become a delegate to the U.N., accused Harold Stassen of resorting to a "grasshopper technique" in an effort to free himself "from the morass of misstatements in which he has become mired". Mr. Jessup said that he did not participate in any of the discussions which preceded a White House conference of February 5, 1949 regarding termination of aid to the Chinese Nationalists, a proposal which the President nixed.
Former Vice-President Henry Wallace, testifying before a Senate Internal Security subcommittee, denounced as "slander", "nonsense" and "an affront to the dignity of the Senate", statements by former Communist Louis Budenz that Mr. Wallace had made Communist-line recommendations after the then-Vice-President's mission to China in the spring of 1944. Mr. Wallace said that his mission resulted in recommendations to FDR which, had they been promptly followed, would have been harmful to the Communist cause in China.
Senator Walter George of Georgia, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee told reporters that the Senate had not yet agreed to a new conference or appointed confreres to overhaul the compromise tax bill, surprisingly rejected by a vote of 203 to 157 in the House the previous day, because the Senate had not yet met and formal action would be required later in the day. The vote had consisted of 139 Republicans and 64 Democrats opposed to the bill, while 122 Democrats, 34 Republicans and one independent had favored it. The Democrats in opposition were primarily from Northern and big-city districts, while most Southerners had favored the bill, thus not forming the usual Southern Democrat-Republican coalition of recent times. Leading Democrats seeking to analyze the results believed that many members opposed any tax increase presently while others believed the increases were inequitable and poorly balanced. Two other Senators, who did not want their names used, said that there was a brief discussion at a closed Committee session which placed a roadblock in the plans for Congressional adjournment during the week, in light of the House action. If the Senate failed to agree to another conference with the House to try to reach a new compromise, the bill would die. The House had already named its members to constitute the new reconciliation conference. The rejected bill was a product of a previous conference.
Another Gallup poll appears, finding that in late September, 80 percent of voters believed that the President would run for re-election in 1952, whereas during the previous April only 40 percent so believed, and during the previous June, the number had been 61 percent. The poll also found that only 32 percent of voters approved of the job the President was doing, whereas 54 percent disapproved and 14 percent had no opinion, a slight improvement over a poll taken in August which showed 31 percent approval, 57 percent disapproval, and 12 percent with no opinion.
By this bar set by President Truman in 1951, the current "President" is overwhelmingly popular. Asking the latter's fanatical followers for an explanation of that popularity would likely produce the response that it means that he is doing something right, even if it angers most of the country, for they are "radicals", which, if so, says more about those followers than it does the effectiveness of the "President".
In Moundsville, W. Va., a mutiny of 1,300 angry prisoners at the West Virginia State prison ended when hunger overcame them. Their last previous meal had been at noon the previous day as all night they had milled about in the two-acre exercise yard, overseen by the prisons 90 guards, shouting for better food and clothing. Bullets were fired over their heads to deter attacks on the storeroom where groceries were kept and on the power plant. No one was hurt in the incident. The Warden made an announcement 18 hours into the strike that if the men returned to their cells, they would be fed immediately, but could not be fed where they were, whereupon the strike ended. As the temperature had dropped to 47 during the night, some of the prisoners picked up nuts scattered by squirrels across the yard and began to eat them. Some 400 of the prisoners housed at the facility had not participated. Those who did claimed that the prison cook was filthy and that they did not have enough clothing.
See? a majority of the population can be wrong. Only the 400 knew wherein their best interests lay. It is therefore always incumbent upon the Warden to maintain proper order through announcements which are well-conceived to induce action existentially based on environmental stimuli triggering Pavlovian response to known instincts of those who are his charges.
In New York, two furniture movers, who had only a dollar and one cent between them, walked into the police station and handed the lieutenant on duty $1,000 they had found inside a sofa which they had moved. They said they did not want the money on their conscience and wanted the real owner to have it. They provided the name and address of the sofa owner, but were told by the police that if no one claimed the money within 90 days, it would be returned to the two men. The previous week, a mailman who had found $500 in the street turned it over to the same police lieutenant.
Why did not the furniture movers simply go to the address to which they had moved the sofa and turn the money in there? It sounds as if there is an ulterior motive to this ostensibly altruistic act, not quite so freighted with honesty as it might at first appear. But, who knows? Maybe the people had moved again. Or maybe the two men had read of the mailman story and knew in advance that in 90 days, they might get the booty.
On the editorial page, "Taft Will Run, But Can He Win?" finds Senator Taft's announcement the previous day that he would run for the Republican nomination for the presidency in 1952 to have been a political event of major importance. He had made unsuccessful bids for the nomination in 1940, 1944 and 1948, but as of the present, he appeared to be the leading Republican candidate for 1952. He might even be able to accumulate enough delegates to win on the first ballot.
His victory in the Ohio Senate race in 1950 lent support to his supporters' argument that he could beat anyone in the presidential race. He had great influence in Congress, where he was recognized as the Republican leader of party policy and GOP-sponsored legislation. He also had a reputation as being able, dignified, and possessed of integrity and courage.
But if there were millions of Americans enthusiastic about his candidacy, there were others, also numbering in the millions, who viewed the prospect of a campaign between the Senator and the President with great dismay. In the current world situation of Cold War, Senator Taft had a record of isolationism. But the Democrats had been so long in power that symptoms had begun to occur of decadence causing the people who perceived it that way to desire a Republican victory in 1952, to restore needed balance to the traditional two-party system and reinvigorate the Federal structure with new personnel, possessed of fresh ideas and new morality. They wanted to see the Republicans nominate someone who could not be defeated, unlike Senator Taft.
One wing of the Republican Party believed that General Eisenhower would make a much stronger candidate, and his principal backers, Senators James Duff and Wayne Morse, Governor Dewey and Congressman Hugh Scott, were wise in the ways of convention politics.
At the moment, Senator Taft, however, was alone as an announced candidate, and, ventures the piece, the fact signaled nothing to indicate that the leadership of the Republican Party had learned anything from its string of five straight defeats in national elections.
"Congress Shirks Its Duty" tells of the House the previous day, to everyone's surprise, having refused to accept the compromise 5.7 billion-dollar tax bill after approving a seven billion-dollar version earlier. As adjournment approached, it was now unlikely that a new tax bill would be voted during the year, despite the crying need for it to pay for the huge increase in defense appropriations. Republicans had aligned with Northern Democrats against the tax measure, while Southern Democrats had been in favor of it.
The piece finds it to be an irresponsible move, as it would inevitably result in a deficit in the Federal budget, in time of inflation, inexorably therefore to produce more inflation.
"The Seething Middle East" finds that with Egypt and Iran possessed of nationalistic passion, the assassination the previous day of Pakistan's Premier Liaquat Ali Khan to have drawn the attention of the world to that region's growing instability. The assassin had opposed the Premier because he refused to launch a holy war against India regarding disputed control of Kashmir.
Earlier in the year, Iran's General Razmara and Jordan's King Abdullah had also been assassinated, all three having been considered friends to the West. Thus, Liaquat's death worsened the U.S. and British position in the Middle East.
By contrast, the NATO nations were replacing nationalism with community effort in pursuit of collective defense. Meanwhile, the Middle East appeared not overly concerned with either the Atlantic community or a Communist threat, wanted only freedom from "foreign devils", a desire, the piece notes, which was recorded in the history of most countries. While these were legitimate aspirations, the U.S. had to back up the interests of the West against demands being made by extremist nationalists. Such was a difficult role to play, but it was one in which the nation had been cast, "and the show must go on."
"What's in a Name?" tells of Miss Sewer Cleaner of 1952 having asked the question of the title in reference to her new crown, saying that she would obtain big blowups of her picture at sewer cleaner conventions all over the country, according to the sponsors, who had thereby made the title seem very attractive. She was an aspirant to the stage and thus, apparently, did not care from whence the publicity came.
The piece quotes the line from Shakespeare, "That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet," and is sure that this young woman, whether she would be called Miss Sewer Cleaner or Miss Star Dust, would be "just as pert".
Maybe she should audition for the role of Trixie, and if that does not pan out, perhaps as the secretary to a future President, the main attribute necessary being a long leg-reach for the foot pedal of the Uher.
A piece from the Asheville Citizen, titled "As Usual, the Assaultingest", tells of North Carolinians, according to the FBI's semi-annual issue of Uniform Crime Reports, having less of a tendency to steal automobiles than residents of other states. But there were more burglars on average in the state than the national average, while incidents of robbery were 16.4 per 100,000 population against the national average of 24.1.
North Carolina topped the list for aggravated assaults, with 202.4 cases per 100,000, while the national average was 34.2. The rate was nearly double that of Virginia, which was second on the list, and six times the rate of Illinois.
The piece cannot determine a reason for North Carolina's tendency to aggravated assault. It finds, however, that Judge Gaston, when he penned "The Old North State", the state song, had overlooked a verse:
Tho' she envies not others,
Their merited glory,
When it comes to guns and poison,
No other's so gory!
Drew Pearson tells of Senators Kenneth McKellar of Tennessee and Pat McCarran of Nevada attempting to obtain from Atomic Energy Commission chairman Gordon Dean the top-secret information regarding the exact number of atomic bombs in the nation's arsenal. The information was too dangerous to be known by members of Congress, whose employees were not cleared for loyalty as other Federal employees. Nevertheless, the two Senators persisted behind closed doors in trying to obtain the secret on the notion that if they were to appropriate more money to the atomic energy program, as Mr. Dean sought, they needed to know what was occurring with that money. Mr. Dean had responded that the Commission had done a great deal of work and had expanded the program by a certain multiple, which Mr. Pearson had been advised not to reveal. Mr. Dean would only say that they had a "substantial" number of bombs, unsatisfactory to the Senators who continued to press him for a precise number. He also told them that there was no deterioration factor. Senator McCarran wanted to know the exact number of carloads of uranium which went into each bomb, also a top secret. He persisted until Mr. Dean finally gave him that figure, but the latter firmly refused to disclose the number of bombs.
Mr. Pearson notes that Senator Brien McMahon of Connecticut, the chairman of the joint Congressional Atomic Energy Committee, was the only member of Congress allowed to know the number of bombs. Otherwise, the President, the AEC commissioners and a few atomic and defense officials were privy to the information.
A non-by-lined report from London previews the October 25 general election in Britain, says that 100 seats would determine the trend, whether for Labour or Conservatives, representing the constituencies presently controlled by majorities of less than 2,000 votes, with seven seats held by less than 100 votes, 45 by less than 1,000. Those seats were fairly evenly distributed between the two dominant parties.
The two parties had so far each nominated about 600 candidates. The Liberal Party would put forward about 100, far less than the 478 seats they had contested in the previous election of February 23, 1950. The Communist Party was putting forward only 24 candidates after failing to win a single seat in the previous election.
Based on the prior election, the overall results to determine control of the Government might not be known until the following day, as counting among the rural constituencies was slow, constituencies which, based on the previous election, tended to vote Conservative.
The House of Commons, which had been dissolved by King George VI the prior week in anticipation of the elections, was the most evenly divided in the previous century. Labour had begun with a seven-seat majority, with that reduced to six through a by-election after one Labour candidate died during the previous general election, and the existing majority being only five over all other parties combined. Labour held 213 seats and Conservatives, 295, with Liberals holding nine.
During its time in office, the Government had survived only by a series of narrow votes, requiring members of Commons to sit for all-night sessions to assure the requisite votes to retain power on questions of confidence. Even sick members on occasion had to return to the floor to cast a vote, ultimately producing the pressure on the Government to call another election.
Marquis Childs tells of the previous unfailing loyalty of the President having failed at last with the resignation of William Boyle as DNC chairman. But in that case, the provocation had been great. As Mr. Boyle had stated in his letter of resignation, his health had been failing for months and he had been the object of criticism by other Democrats for paying too little attention to the job as a result, as the DNC had been costing nearly a million dollars thus far in 1951 without producing clear results.
Within the White House inner circle, it had been assumed he would remain until the first of the year and then quietly resign after some of the headlines had dissipated regarding his alleged influence-peddling with RFC.
But the previous week, reporter Theodore C. Link of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, who had first disclosed the role of Mr. Boyle and his law associates in the alleged influence exerted to obtain three substantial RFC loans for a St. Louis printing firm, presented new evidence to the Senate Investigating Committee, chaired by Senator Clyde Hoey of North Carolina, but was informed that the Committee was not interested in opening up new cases.
One of the new cases involved the effort to acquire a nickel company in Cuba, available for a bargain as a war asset, by the "Missouri gang", with advice from Mr. Boyle, seeking it through an RFC loan, an effort which had failed. Later, according to the Post-Dispatch, a metallurgist associated with another group, also seeking the same Cuban plant, had been approached by the collector of Internal Revenue in St. Louis, who had since been indicted by a Federal grand jury for taking a bribe in relation to his tax collection duties, and was told to meet with his friend, Mr. Boyle. The metallurgist then went to Mr. Boyle's office and discussed the problem of obtaining an RFC loan. Mr. Boyle, according to the story, then sent him to a personal friend at RFC, an official who had recently testified that he was paid $11,000 over a four-year period by Mr. Boyle while also drawing his $10,000 per year salary at RFC, claiming that the payment was for attending to Mr. Boyle's personal finances and investments. The metallurgist was willing to testify before the Hoey Committee.
That story prompted Senator Hoey to talk to the President regarding the seriousness of the latest allegations, which Committee member Senator Richard Nixon was determined to investigate—"and Nixon has a healthy reputation as an investigator."
For he was not a crook.
No, now, don't you say that. We do
not know who the devil did that to you, young lady, but it was not
him. He was not the one. That's not nice. Everyone is innocent
He was a private dick, a bulldog, a relentless investigator in pursuit of the truth. And as the President just got through saying at the groundbreaking ceremonies for the new campus of Wake Forest, "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."
We note that on that site, which became the site for Wait Chapel, we first saw the Zapruder film in all of its indelible horror, as shown during a national tour, on October 20, 1975. We had recently, within the preceding month, been to see "Give 'Em Hell, Harry".
A letter writer favors an open primary system as the only way to revitalize a two-party system in the South.
"Let the people rule. If democracy is right, then let us have it in its purity. The only way to cure the ills of democracy is more democracy—unbridled. So it is."
But does that not encourage cross-party voting whereby the object becomes on each side to vote for the weakest candidate in the field of the opposing party? Perhaps, he means to eliminate all party labels in the process, as some states do in judicial elections.
A letter writer from Raeford finds that the increased consumption of illegal liquor through the State's ABC stores was not the result of greater efforts by law enforcement officers to eliminate bootlegging, but rather the fact that there was more money in circulation, enabling people to buy more luxury items, such as liquor. He says that it proved the old saw, that "a fool and his money are soon parted".
A letter writer from LaGrange, Ga., wants her letter published that she may determine whether anyone knew two of her close relatives, from whom she had not heard in over 30 years. She provides her address and the names of the individuals, should you have information to provide her. If she has been unsuccessful in the interim, she will have been out of touch with them now for 97 years, and therefore high time for them to be reunited.
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