The Charlotte News
Friday, October 19, 1951
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports, via Robert Tuckman, that liaison officers had agreed on the size of the neutrality zones around Kaesong and Munsan, that they would extend to a three-mile radius rather than the five-mile radius preferred by the Communists, such as that which had been around Kaesong during the previous ceasefire negotiations. Two points of disagreement, however, remained to be resolved, whether to create a security corridor along the road linking Munsan and Kaesong with Panmunjom, the new truce conference site, and whether aircraft should be banned from flying over the neutrality zones. The U.N. was willing to informally assure that its planes would not fly over the zones but did not want to guarantee neutrality, while the Communists wanted the guarantee. The Communists wanted a two-mile wide corridor from Kaesong and Munsan to Panmunjom while the U.N. had agreed to provide safe conduct for the negotiating parties along the road but did not want a corridor, saying it was unnecessary as the troops guarding the delegations could provide adequate protection. Both sides agreed that no planes would fly over Panmunjom, but the Communists wanted protected areas extended to Kaesong and Munsan, where the respective delegations were staying. The allies wanted to limit the chance for further claimed violations by intrusion of the neutrality zones by aircraft.
In ground fighting, allied artillery hit Kumsong as tank-supported U.N. infantrymen fought to within two miles of the former Communist bastion on the central front. Southwest of Kumsong, the U.N. troops took two hills against surprisingly light resistance and 52 Chinese troops were taken prisoner. The enemy resisted attacking U.N. troops in almost every sector, as the allies failed to take two hills on the western front in day-long battles. On one hill, troops fought at hand-grenade range for more than two hours before U.N. infantry withdrew. A ten-hour allied assault was repulsed on the other hill.
The Army estimated that enemy casualties in Korea stood at 1,373,229 as of October 10.
The U.N. Security Council decided to drop debate on the British-Iranian oil nationalization dispute until after the International Court of Justice could rule on the Council's legal competence to entertain the question. The postponement was proposed by the French delegate to the Council after it became apparent that there was such a split on the question of jurisdiction that positive action was not possible. The vote on postponement was 8 to 1, with Russia casting the lone negative vote. No veto was available on the issue, as it was one of procedure. Iran was contesting jurisdiction on the basis that the oil dispute was strictly a domestic issue. It was likely that the postponement would delay action by months.
Britain tightened its hold on the Suez Canal area this date and moved against Egyptian officials in the Sudan, ordering two top Egyptian officials not to return to their posts for the time being on the grounds of maintaining public order. The British and Egyptians had maintained control of the Sudan jointly under an 1899 agreement, canceled unilaterally by the Egyptian Parliament the prior Monday, at the same time it had abrogated the 1936 treaty regarding the Suez Canal. The British were deploying ships and paratroopers to the Suez Canal zone and both British and Egyptian troops were digging in along the Canal. Britain informed the Egyptian Government that it would be held responsible for any riot damage to British property in the Suez or elsewhere in Egypt. The British War Office had estimated riot damage in one Canal zone town at 1.4 million dollars. Britain said it was intervening because British lives were in danger from the rioting and looting.
Lebanon's Chamber of Deputies unanimously voted to support Egypt in its dispute with Britain.
House Administration leaders temporarily sidetracked the tax bill in a tactical move designed to provide more time for picking up needed votes. A vote was likely during the afternoon. The bill had only been changed slightly from the compromise bill which had been soundly rejected by the House three days earlier. The new bill reduced the size of the 5.7 billion dollar tax cut by about 41 million dollars.
The House passed a bill to raise postal employee wages by $400 per year and sent it to the Senate.
The Government indicated that there was adequate antifreeze for motorists during the winter despite increased demands by the military, enough for more than two gallons per vehicle.
The IRB suspended three more agents in its New York office pending an investigation of their testimony to a House subcommittee investigating scandals at the IRB.
A planned test detonation by the Atomic Energy Commission in the vicinity of Las Vegas, scheduled for 5 a.m. this date, had been delayed because of a mechanical failure in an electrical test circuit between the control point in the tower. The AEC planned to reschedule the test for the next day.
In New York, rebel leaders of a wildcat stevedore strike threatened to tie up the entire port of New York over a new set of contract demands the wildcatters wanted presented to employers. The union leader agreed to meet with the dissident faction in a conference. Waterfront tough-guy Anthony Anastasia sent out "flying squads" of 800 men and a fleet of 250 cars to prevent striking stevedores from returning to work. Previously, he had tried to get the men to return to work by importing crews of strikebreakers. Mr. Anastasia, member of a racketeering family, refused to explain his change of tactics but said everything would be settled this night. At Brooklyn's big Army base, which had its shipping operations shut down for most of the previous five days, the Army said ships were being moved to other piers in Staten Island for loading.
Also in New York, singer Josephine Baker said that she had been discriminated against by the Stork Club because of her race. She said that she had gone to the club on Tuesday night as a guest of Roger Rico, the French singing star of "South Pacific", and that she had waited about an hour after ordering crabmeat, then steak and wine, none of which ever arrived at the table as the waiters refused to wait on the party, that the steak finally arrived when they prepared to leave. The wife of Mr. Rico confirmed the incident, saying that when her husband called for the waiters, they simply turned their backs in silence. She said that she was consulting her lawyers to do something about the incident, for the sake of America. Sherman Billingsley, proprietor of the club, withheld comment.
Also in New York, Waxey Gordon, 64, who had been a prohibition-era beer baron, pleaded guilty to an indictment charging illegal sale of narcotics, being warned by the judge that he could get a life term in prison for being a fourth offender, which his record indicated he was. He had been arrested on August 3 on a dark East Side street corner with three other men, in possession of heroin worth an estimated $180,000.
In Washington, James. J. Strebig, aviation editor of the Associated Press, died this date of cancer at age 44, having been ill since March 1.
In Upper Marlboro, Md., a "hideous, leering head of a wolf" topped the body of a female witness testifying before a grand jury investigating gambling, as the witness sought to avoid identification as she left the jury room.
Maybe she was implicitly telling prosecutors and the grand jury that her testimony was of the trick-or-treat variety.
In Calgary, Alberta, George-Got-The-Gun-In-The-Easy-Way, an Indian, for weeks had practiced his chicken dance in preparation for a performance before Princess Elizabeth and her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, but the performance never occurred as the program-makers had overlooked it.
A new Gallup poll asked respondents what they thought of inclusion of Turkey and Greece in NATO, and the outcome is printed on page 4-A.
On the editorial page, "On Smoking in the Schools" finds that it was no "compromise with evil" for the City School Board to permit students to smoke on school grounds outside the school buildings. The big tobacco companies advertised smoking with enticing billboards, magazine layouts and newspaper presentations, plus singing rhymes, clever verses and testimonials from movie stars and athletes on the radio. And "church universities" were endowed by profits from the sale of cigarettes—those being Duke and Wake Forest.
It finds that the young person so inclined was going to smoke whether on the school grounds or on the public sidewalk or somewhere else beneath the rose, regardless of school policy banning it from the school grounds. The Board's recognition of this fact prevented fire hazards from occurring by pushing students into sneaking puffs within locker rooms or in the school basement, and pretending that it was an evil would do little to deter students from taking puffs wherever they found a place to do so.
If the parents wanted it stopped, then they should intervene to push the School Board to stop it. But, it thinks, the better approach would be for parents to have a talk with their children to try to impress upon them the health hazards of smoking, even if the parent was a smoker, in that event stressing that the parent simply lacked the willpower to resist a bad habit. But it concludes that there was no point in expecting school officials to do something which parents could not or would not do.
"A Star Has Fallen" tells of General MacArthur in his speech to the American Legion during the week having shown that his star had fallen and the "great light it once shed" was "fast fading away". He had implied that General Eisenhower, the President and members of Congress who had voted for NATO were, in the case of some of them, "more in line with Marxian philosophy than animated by a desire to preserve freedom, would finance the defenses of others as a means of sharing with them our wealth" which he believed would serve "as the means of covering Socialist or Communist deficits abroad."
The previous spring, during the joint Senate committee hearings on the firing of the General and Far East policy, he had stated that he was opposed to the school of thought which had it that U.S. ground forces had to be confined to the continental United States, with the nation furnishing only air and sea units in the battle against Communism, as had been favored by former President Hoover, former Ambassador to Britain Joseph P. Kennedy and others at that time. He had also asserted his belief that the Senators ought pay closest attention to the professional advice of military leaders in approving the use of U.S. troops abroad.
His statements to the American Legion, however, ran counter to the principles upon which he had stood at that time, that it was, consistent with the principle implicit in the Truman Doctrine, incumbent upon the nation to resist Communism everywhere in the world.
"Action on the Hoover Report" finds that congratulations were in order for Senator Olin Johnston of South Carolina and his Post-Office & Civil Service Committee which the previous day had passed on to the Senate a recommended bill which would streamline the Federal Government's wasteful personnel policies. One agency had required 14 man-years and $50,000 to process a reduction of 2,000 employees, as hiring and firing procedures were outdated and inadequate, complicated by bureaucratic red tape. An average of 218 days elapsed between the announcement of an examination for a Federal job and the first appointment. Congress had adopted improved classification and efficiency rating systems recommended by the Hoover Commission, but much remained unaccomplished. The bill recommended the previous day would go a long way toward correcting those faults.
The piece urges Congress to pass the bill, and also urges Senator Johnston to report out the bill favorably to take the Post Office out of politics, a bill which had been before his Committee for two years.
"False Fall" tells of signs of fall being on the way but not having yet arrived, as the fragrance of burning leaves and a consequent fog-like blue haze drifting across the town was not yet present. Only at that point could it be said that fall had arrived.
Drew Pearson tells of the backers of Senator Taft getting ready to play hardball with General Eisenhower should he enter the campaign for the presidency, saying that he would be treated as any other candidate, regardless of his exemplary military service. There were indications that they were going to engage in a smear campaign, with columnist Westbrook Pegler the previous week reporting the General's alleged affair with an English WAC during the war and warning that the President would use this information against the General in the presidential race. Mr. Pearson suggests, however, that it was more likely to be used by the Republicans than by the President, who valued his friendship with the General and was especially grateful that the General had not entered the 1948 race for the Democratic nomination. Mr. Pearson urges the Republicans to recall, by using such smear tactics, the 1888 example of Grover Cleveland and the attempt to defeat him with a claim of out-of-wedlock paternity, after which Mr. Cleveland was elected in spite of the scandal.
There had been an undertone of smear against the General during the Senate hearings regarding the confirmation of Ambassador Philip Jessup as a delegate to the U.N., as Mr. Jessup had served on the General's staff at Columbia University while the General was president thereof before taking his leave of absence to become supreme commander of NATO. General Eisenhower defended Mr. Jessup against the attacks spawned by Senator Joseph McCarthy that he had Communist sympathies. Senator Owen Brewster had led the attack in the committee against Mr. Jessup, while privately admitting to other Senators that Senator McCarthy had not proved his charges.
Senators believed that Harold Stassen, as he stumbled through the hearings on Mr. Jessup, also attacking him for supposedly favoring termination of aid to the Chinese Nationalists and supporting recognition of Communist China, had apparently not counted on the release of the transcript of the 1949 high-level conference on Far Eastern policy, which showed that it was another State Department official who had set forth the Department policy position, which was against recognition of Communist China, and that Mr. Jessup, contrary to the claims of Mr. Stassen, had not made the assertion at all. Mr. Pearson concludes that throughout his testimony, Mr. Stassen "twisted the truth in an attempt to reflect on the State Department."
Marquis Childs tells of Senator John Sparkman of Alabama, as chairman of the Small Business Committee, being one of the few members of Congress who was working to try to stem the tide toward monopoly or near-monopoly control of various industries. Senator Sparkman, who would become the Democratic nominee for the vice presidency in 1952, was trying to save, in particular, the small, non-scheduled airlines which received no Government subsidy and were operated, in many instances, by veterans.
While the Civil Aeronautics Board had ordered a study of the future of these airlines, it had proceeded through regulatory measures effectively to kill them, with only one member of the Board, Joseph Adams, having consistently shown concern for maintaining at least some competition within the airlines.
The subsidy dispute centered on "mail pay" at a rate of 45 cents per ton-mile, which was what the four largest carriers had agreed to accept, compared to 23 cents per ton mile which the airlines charged for carrying freight and express and 34 cents, said to be the cost of carrying regular mail. Senators George Aiken of Vermont, Paul Douglas of Illinois, John Williams of Delaware and Herbert Lehman of New York had sought to cut the Government subsidy in the name of economy, while friends of Pan-American Airways, Senators Pat McCarran of Nevada, Owen Brewster of Maine, and Brien McMahon of Connecticut wanted contracts without reduction for a period of 10 years, which Senator Aiken described as the worst bill the Senate had ever had before it, providing the major airlines almost an airtight monopoly on foreign routes, with Pan Am leading the way. Eventually, a compromise was reached whereby the period was cut to five years. One estimate had placed the airline subsidy paid since the end of the war in 1945 at 250 million dollars.
The airline industry was still in its relative infancy compared to more established industries where monopoly was so far along that the anti-trust laws were completely irrelevant, but the major airlines were well on their way in the same pattern.
Robert C. Ruark finds that the resignation of William Boyle as DNC chairman had achieved very little in terms of eliminating the influence-peddling of the "loosely moraled carryings-on of the high binders who infest the Truman era", as no top malefactors had been brought down and Mr. Boyle's resignation itself left the President's record of protecting his friends still clear. Nevertheless, there had been so much scandal and near crime exposed during the previous two years that national indignation had been aroused.
The fact of Mr. Boyle's resignation, however, was a tacit admission that he had posed too much trouble for the Democrats to handle in the coming election year and such fear was a healthy sign for the Government. The focus on the corruption had begun to trickle down to the average person, who was no longer in a position to say that they wanted to get theirs, too, because everybody else was doing it. There been so many scandals and hints of exploitation of public funds in public office that the people could not help but notice.
Former New York City Mayor William O'Dwyer, who had looked the other way in the scandals involving police graft, including payoffs from mobsters and gambling tycoons, had been "one of the more outrageous aspects of the Pendergastian-type reign", and still remained an insult to the American public because he had been appointed Ambassador to Mexico, enabling him to leave his position as Mayor in the midst of the scandal.
Mr. Ruark hopes that the public would continue to be aware of the problem and do something drastic about it in the election the following fall. "Up to now the more important rascals are in, not out, and casting time has come."
A letter writer from Philadelphia writes from a motel in Morganton, providing her compliments to the newspaper for printing the "Evening Prayer" on the front page, thinks other newspapers would do well to follow the example.
A pair of letter writers, both newcomers to Charlotte, tell of commuting to town by bus and finding it difficult to figure out where the bus stopped as there were no signs in the Sedgefield section indicating bus stops. They had been catching the bus in front of their house and the drivers had always stopped, but recently one driver told them he could not pick them up because the stop was in another block. They could not understand why a city the size of Charlotte would not provide bus benches for the patrons.
A letter writer from Chickasha, Okla., tells of no model airplane flying having been allowed in that town in September, 1949, when he saw some fellows flying their planes in Duncan, and after inquiry, found that the reason was complaint over too much noise, the same as the problem encountered in Charlotte by the model airplane flyers. He had started a hobby shop in response and the flyers flew their planes on the campus of the Oklahoma College for Women, until one flyer had flown an Anderson Spitfire .645 during class hours, after which they were chased from the campus. They then retreated to the golf course, where they had to brave flying golf balls and complaining neighbors, until a petition circulated by those neighbors drove them away, whereupon they took to the baseball field, until the team needed it for play. The flyers then went to the City Council meeting with their problem and the Council passed a resolution giving them a plot of ground at a hospital park, designating it as the Chickasha Model Airplane Flying Field. Thus, their problem was solved.
They were, he explains, the Sky Chick Model Airplane Club, with 48 members pledged to fly their planes only during hours which were not too early in the morning or too late at night and never on Sunday morning, to be considerate of neighbors and at all times conduct themselves in a sportsmanlike manner.
A letter from the chief of the Charlotte Fire Department, Donald Charles, expresses gratitude to the newspaper for its cooperation during Fire Prevention Week earlier in the month.
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