The Charlotte News

Saturday, November 17, 1951

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports, via Robert Tuckman, that that the U.N. command had offered to accept the Communist buffer zone proposal, provided a final armistice could be signed within 30 days, and the Communists indicated that they might agree to those terms. The Communists said that they would study the issue overnight and comment further the following day.

In ground fighting, an allied division supported by tanks and planes had advanced nearly two miles in a surprise attack along a nine-mile front in central Korea, southeast of Kumsong. At only one point had the enemy stood and fought, otherwise beating a hasty retreat. In the western sector, U.N. infantrymen had regained an advance position, lost to the enemy on Friday northwest of Chorwon. The enemy still presumably maintained its hold on two hills seized on Friday. Other U.N. troops were engaged in battle on the eastern front to regain lost ground northwest of the "Punchbowl".

In the air war, jets engaged with enemy jets for the first time in a week over northwest Korea, with one enemy MIG-15 damaged.

U.N. supreme commander General Matthew Ridgway verified the report of Communist atrocities against U.N. prisoners of war in Korea, as revealed by a colonel in the Eighth Army war crimes section the prior Wednesday, indicating that 6,600 allied prisoners of war, including 5,500 Americans, had been slaughtered since the beginning of the war. Chinese Communist radio in Peiping issued a blanket denial of the report, claiming that "thousands and tens of thousands" of Chinese and North Korean soldiers who had been taken prisoner by the U.N. forces had been "massacred". The latter was contrary to all U.N. reports. An Associated Press photographer had visited a large U.N. prisoner of war camp the previous day and said that he found the Communist prisoners well-fed and well-clothed.

In Paris, at the U.N. General Assembly meeting, the political committee voted to begin immediate discussion on Monday of the Western Big Three disarmament plan, deferring debate on the Russian counter-proposal until the end of the session.

The President the previous day had fired embattled Assistant Attorney General Lamar Caudle, head of the Justice Department's tax division, and the President's confidants assured that the firing was just a beginning of a sweeping Administration house-cleaning. The President had reportedly given orders to fire, retire or obtain resignations from all Government executives whose outside activities, however legal, might provide fodder for Republican campaign efforts in the coming year.

A brief biography of Mr. Caudle, originally from Wadesboro, N.C., and a graduate of Wake Forest College, where he also had received his law degree, is provided.

In Rovigo, Italy, an estimated 150,000 persons were reported to be fleeing their homes in the Po Valley Delta as the worst floods in 50 years continued to rampage through the area, having caused the deaths thus far of 94 people.

Another Gallup poll had found that Governor Earl Warren of California was the preference among 53 percent of respondents in a head-to-head contest with the President, favored by only 35 percent of the respondents, while 12 percent were undecided. The poll had been completed before the Governor had announced his entry to the 1952 presidential race. Among independent voters, Governor Warren led the President 57 percent to 21 percent. It notes that in 1948, when Governor Warren was on the GOP ticket as the vice-presidential candidate, California had voted for the President. The Governor also received support from some Democrats in the poll, 23 percent of whom supported him, against 66 percent for the President. The Governor received 90 percent of Republican support in the poll. The Gallup poll had reported the previous day that respondents favored General Eisenhower over the President by 64 percent to 28 percent. The poll's third head-to-head assessment would pit the President against Senator Taft, to be reported on Monday.

In Yonkers, N.Y., the traditional red and green Christmas street lights would be blacked out in 1951 apparently because the voters had rejected a pay increase for City employees, as the City lighting inspector had informed the Merchants Associations the previous day that they could not burn Christmas lights under City ordinances, which had never before been enforced. Yonkers policemen, who had also been denied pay raises by the voters, had recently dramatically increased the number of tickets issued to motorists.

Maybe, the Yonkers merchants should seek circumvention of the ordinances by utilizing only purple lights, connected to a stroboscope, operated in rhythmic syncopation with the drumstick of the electro-mechanically transmitted analog to the Little Drummer Boy.

On the editorial page, "'Just a Starter'—We Hope" finds the most surprising thing about the President's firing of Assistant Attorney General Lamar Caudle to have been its swiftness, given the President's usual protection of subordinates who were loyal, which Mr. Caudle had been. It finds that his oil speculations and trip to Italy, while perhaps being "outside activities incompatible with his office", did not constitute a good reason for his forced resignation, that apparently the chairman of the House subcommittee investigating IRB problems had told the President in a telephone conversation during the week more information about Mr. Caudle than he had disclosed publicly. Mr. Caudle, having already testified in executive session, was scheduled to testify publicly before the subcommittee after Thanksgiving and only then would the full story come to light.

It finds that the President's stubborn loyalty to subordinates and his early indoctrination to the easy-going ethics of Missouri politics had created the atmosphere in which the tax scandal had risen and thrived, and it was refreshing to see this change in the President's attitude, as reflected in a statement from Key West by a high Administration official, indicating that the President was angry over the disclosures which had reflected on him and his Administration.

"UMT and Christianity" finds the North Carolina Baptists to have erred the previous week, just as other church groups and lay groups had also erred, regarding the passage of a resolution against universal military training as striking at the "roots of the Christian way of life" and basic freedoms of the country.

The piece asserts that it was war rather than UMT which struck at the roots of Christian life and the various freedoms. The goal of UMT was to create a ready reservoir of trained manpower to deter war, and, it believes, would be more likely than the draft to achieve that desired goal. Whereas the draft required 24 months of active duty, the UMT proposal would require six months of training, with draft boards deciding deferments to be granted in extreme hardship cases. After the training period, UMT trainees could return to civilian life at their option, remaining on call for up to seven and a half years. Training would begin at age 18 and a half or, if the trainee chose, as early as 17. If a major war should occur, the country would have no opportunity for procrastination and lengthy mobilization as at the outbreak of World War II, as future total wars would be swift and devastating. UMT was designed to prepare the country for that prospect.

It finds that UMT would enable the youth of the country, as the peaceful Swiss had done for centuries, to be free from the consequences of the military outlook which had contributed to battlefield casualties.

"Needless Pedestrian Deaths" tells of two of the three highway deaths in Mecklenburg County the prior Wednesday highlighting the grave responsibility of motorists and pedestrians alike to demonstrate caution along heavily traveled residential streets. One of the victims had been a seven-year old child who suddenly darted across a street in front of a moving automobile in a heavy downpour of rain. The other pedestrian death occurred when a 16-year old girl crossed the street in the path of a car.

Pedestrian deaths were not a large factor in the increasing highway death toll but parents, it counsels, should convince their children to exercise extreme caution in crossing streets to eliminate, insofar as possible, all such deaths. The cooperation of motorists within the urban setting was also required in the effort.

A piece from the Washington Post, titled "Folly to Be Wise", tells of a United Press dispatch from Paris indicating that Prince Aly Khan, husband of Rita Hayworth, seeking divorce, had been sued for selling a defective horse at a high price but that a Paris judge had thrown out the case on the basis that he did not know enough about horses to render judgment.

The piece thinks that applying such a rule of withholding judgment on subjects of which the adjudicator was ignorant would have a paralyzing effect on every phase of man's endeavor to attain "the good, the true and the beautiful", would result in such things as an absence of speakers on the atomic bomb, of doctors opining on the effects to the esophagus of filtered tobacco, reformed Communists telling the Senate of the intricacies of Chinese politics in 1944, and, indeed, perhaps, in the elimination of all further Senate committees. Great blank spaces in newspaper editorial pages might also result.

It concludes that the judge's decision reflected an honesty intolerable to the age and temperament of the times, and it adopts instead the advice of Lincoln Steffens, who insisted that most human problems had to be resolved on inadequate information.

Drew Pearson tells of General Matthew Ridgway having cabled the Pentagon of his recommendation that military pressure on the Communists had to be maintained until all terms of the armistice were settled or the Chinese would stall over such matters as inspection and exchange of prisoners of war. He contended that his forces could speed along the final armistice by maintaining pressure on the Communists and, otherwise, would not feel like fighting for ground which they knew would be returned in the final terms, were the ceasefire line drawn before the fighting ended. His proposal represented a change of policy and was still under active consideration by the Joint Chiefs and the National Security Council. Until they had reached a decision, General Ridgway had been given permission to press for his terms in the ceasefire talks.

As determination of the ceasefire line had been the most critical object of disagreement in recent weeks, the Pentagon initially could not understand why General Ridgway had not accepted the Communist proposal to draw the line essentially on the same basis demanded by the allies. Originally, the plan was to draw the ceasefire line first, as it was not contemplated that during the armistice there would be continued fighting. The last Communist proposal had agreed that the fighting would continue until the final armistice was settled. General Ridgway was now so confident in the military strength of the allies and that the Chinese were seriously crippled that he was willing to gamble on using force to speed up the negotiations and gain a more favorable armistice.

Secretary of the Interior Oscar Chapman had issued an application blank, bearing the picture of Santa Claus, enabling those living near Government-owned lands to cut Christmas trees for their families. The only condition attached to the permit was that the tree would not be sold, bartered or traded and would be used solely for Christmas-season purposes. Mr. Pearson provides verbatim the application, in case you are interested in applying.

Marquis Childs tells of the number of presidential candidates increasing rapidly with the approach of 1952. Visitors to General MacArthur who had discussed politics with him had come away with the impression of his continuing loyalty to Senator Taft. The General had told of former President Hoover having imparted to him of his concern in advance of the 1948 Republican convention that Governor Dewey and Senator Taft would go to Philadelphia with sufficiently competing numbers of delegates that each would cancel out the other on the early ballots, making way for a third compromise candidate to take the nomination to effect a majority, and so he approached both candidates and told them that each would make a good president and that either could win the election, therefore asked each of them solemnly to promise him that if one of the two showed definite signs of strength and the other began to decline, the latter would withdraw and assign his delegates to the stronger. General MacArthur told of Senator Taft having lived up to this commitment and so it was now his turn for the nomination, and yet Governor Dewey was supporting General Eisenhower for the nomination.

General MacArthur had said that he would do anything to prevent the nomination by the Republicans of General Eisenhower, including allowing his own name to be entered in the primaries where General Eisenhower was also entered. The first such test would come in New Hampshire, where it was reported that General Eisenhower's name was entered. General MacArthur was being constantly told by devoted admirers that only he could defeat the President and that Senator Taft could not win, and if the General became convinced of his destiny in so saving the nation from another four years of Truman policies, he might put aside his own personal preferences and enter the race.

Joseph Alsop tells of American policymakers having become a lot more hopeful regarding Soviet purposes in recent months, the theory being that Western rearmament, even though slow, had caused the Kremlin genuine fear of a major war. This belief in Washington had so increased that it had caused discussion of a slowdown of Western rearmament.

Mr. Alsop finds, however, that this optimism was countervailed by hard facts, that there might be less reason to worry about what Russia might do but plenty of reason to worry about the internal difficulties of NATO. Some difficulties were military in nature while others were political, such as Germany's new status and problematic integration into NATO. The economic crisis in Britain and France, with the double strain placed on those economies by inflation in world prices on one hand and the burden of rearmament on the other, was especially troubling. The most likely remedy, as urged by Averell Harriman, would be borrowing of between 500 million and a billion dollars from the funds already appropriated but not yet expended for American defense, applying this money to aid of Britain and France.

American policymakers believed that such crises would continue to recur unless stronger measures were taken to eliminate the source of the problem, which would require readjustment in the existing economic-political relationship between the U.S. and the other Western allies. Thus, he concludes, there had been a shift from imminent risk of Russian aggression to concern with the serious breakdown within NATO, which, if it persisted, would result in increased danger again of Russian aggression.

A letter writer responds to the November 13 editorial, "People and Politicians", finds incorrect its conclusions, following the divergence of the Gallup polls on presidential preference by Republican county chairmen, who favored Senator Taft for the Republican nomination, versus the choice communicated in the poll by the people, favoring General Eisenhower for the presidency over all other candidates, that most Republican leaders were primarily interested in patronage and that Republican national defeats had resulted from the failure of those leaders to gauge properly the will of the people. He says that he had long been active in Republican circles at all levels and asserts that county chairmen were far better judges of the issues and candidates than the general public. He thinks Senator Taft had been savagely and viciously attacked by the "publicity departments" of the New Deal agencies for years, inaccurately portraying him as a "wishy-washy wrong-guesser". The same Administration publicity machine, he suggests, was busy promoting General Eisenhower. Those behind the General's candidacy on the Republican side had always favored New Deal policies, were "me too" office-holders. These Republicans had been responsible for placing Wendell Willkie at the head of the ticket in 1940 and Governor Dewey as the nominee in 1944 and 1948. He suggests that these Republican leaders would not repeat the same mistake, for if they did, they would go down to defeat again.

A letter writer questions why a man was taxed costs in police court for shooting at a dog which had bitten one of his children, not for shooting at the dog but rather for shooting in the city, when he had been allowed to buy the .22 rifle and issued a license for its possession. He suggests that there were too many citizens who allowed their dogs to run free to damage property and attack persons on the streets, that he owned a dog which was confined behind a fence in his backyard and so bothered no one, but that if his dog ever got loose and bit a child, he would immediately go to the family, apologize and offer to pay the medical expenses rather than sue for hurting his dog.

A letter writer replies to the letter of A. W. Black which had criticized hillbilly music being played on the local radio stations, saying that she was an ardent fan of hillbilly music, had not heard the programs which Mr. Black had singled out, but found the programs to which she listened to be very good and enjoyable. She believed that most people listened to hillbilly programs and that their instincts and emotions were above and beyond the primitive. She knew people who were intelligent and highly educated who enjoyed hillbilly music and that Mr. Black, if he did not like the fare, should tune into another station or cut off the radio. She adds that some hillbilly songs were not so good but that plenty of them were very good. She was not impressed by the big words of Mr. Black.

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