The Charlotte News
Friday, November 2, 1951
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports, via William Jorden, that two meetings of the ceasefire negotiation teams had failed to produce any progress this date, as the Communists urged the allies to accept their proposal for the western half of the ceasefire buffer zone, there having been agreement the prior day on the eastern half. The Communists, urging that the U.N. negotiators give up their demand for Kaesong, did not frame their insistence, however, in the form of an ultimatum and the talks would continue the following day. The head of the U.N. negotiating subcommittee said that the position of the allies regarding Kaesong was "firm but not adamant".
In the air war, allied airmen shot down one enemy jet and damaged four in nine separate dogfights, a record number of battles in a single day for the war. All U.N. planes returned safely to base. The lone kill was the 100th MIG-15 shot down by the Fifth Air Force during the war, while B-29s had shot down 33 additional MIGs.
The ground war was completely quiet in the snow-covered fronts this date.
The Defense Department announced that Selective Service would call up 59,650 men in January for induction, the largest number for any single month since the prior spring, making up for the relative low call-ups in December, when only 16,900 men were scheduled for induction and all inductions were to be suspended for the holiday period between December 21 and January 2. The record high for inductions in a month was 80,000, occurring the previous March. The average had been 40,000 per month.
Selective Service estimated that about two million men would have their liability for military duty extended from their 26th to their 35th birthday, applicable to men under 26 who had been deferred from the draft since the previous June 19, at the time discussion began of holding the ceasefire talks. A spokesman for the Service said, however, that unless the world situation took a serious turn for the worse, there was little likelihood of widespread drafting of men in their thirties.
A Fifth Cavalry Regiment company in Korea had discovered a solution for the company's loudest snorers, by teaming them with one another. The one who remained awake on watch had trouble hearing anything because of the loud snoring of his partner. One of the members of the company suggested that the snoring was probably the reason the Chinese never tried to get through their positions, as it probably sounded like an M-46 tank.
General Eisenhower, arriving in Washington to meet with the President on Monday and Tuesday, was expected to urge maximum acceleration of the European rearmament program under NATO. It was expected also that the President might inquire of the General whether he intended to leave his command post early to run for the presidency in 1952.
Averell Harriman arrived in London this date for talks with new Prime Minister Winston Churchill and other Cabinet leaders regarding Britain's rearmament and economic problems. Mr. Harriman had recently been named by the President to be head of the U.S. foreign economic and military aid program and was invited to lunch by Mr. Churchill and Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden. Later, he would go to Paris for meetings of the committee organized to study economic problems of NATO.
In Naples, Admiral William Fechteler, chief of Naval operations, said at a press conference that the aircraft carriers of the Mediterranean Fleet were capable of delivering an atomic attack in the event of war, though at present were without an atom bomb. He declined to disclose how soon an atom bomb might be available to the Fleet. The Admiral was conducting a tour of the U.S. Naval installations in Western Europe. He urged the immediate appointment of a supreme naval commander for NATO, a position to which he had been originally appointed, until other NATO powers objected to an American commander.
The President said that the Congressional appropriations for civil defense had been "tragically insufficient". The statement came as he signed two supplemental appropriation bills, one of which provided 75 million dollars for civil defense and the other, four million for community facilities. He had requested 535 million dollars for civil defense and 25 million for community facilities, such as schools and water systems.
Assistant Attorney General Lamar Caudle of North Carolina told a reporter this date that he had recently withdrawn from an oil development project in Oklahoma because his name had been used to promote the venture. One of the promoters of the project had been indicted in Pittsburgh in 1946 for possession of a false sugar ration document, of which Mr. Caudle said he had not been aware until recently. The case had been dismissed when Mr. Caudle had been head of the criminal division of the Justice Department in 1947, but he said that, while he probably approved the dismissal, he did not recall the action. Mr. Caudle said that he took a big loss on the project when the wells dried up. He denied that three other men, one of the whom was a gambler and another with an arrest record in Pittsburgh, had been partners in the venture. Mr. Caudle had testified the previous day before the House Ways & Means subcommittee investigating outside activities of tax collectors, Mr. Caudle now being head of the tax division of the Justice Department. He admitted to the subcommittee that he had made an expense-paid trip to Italy the previous summer to provide legal aid to American wine merchants with financial interests in Italy.
In Memphis, former Supreme Court Justice Owen Roberts, speaking before the Atlantic Union Congress, of which he was president, said the previous night that free peoples had to form themselves into one common bulwark against Communism to avoid a third world war. The Congress was organized to promote world peace and work for the confederation of Democratic countries.
UAW members called off, at least temporarily, their three-week strike at Borg-Warner based on the urging of the President to allow an attempt to settle the strike by the Government's Wage Stabilization Board.
In Sestri Levante, Italy, an explosion of a secret Communist arms cache occurred the previous night, resulting in the deaths of at least seven persons, with seven others injured. An entire street in the village was destroyed. Police said that seven men, all of whom were Communists, had been taken into custody for questioning.
In Jasper, Tenn., during the prosecutor's summation in a murder case in which a man was charged with killing his wife, the prosecutor's upper denture plate suddenly came loose and flew out of his mouth, skidding across the courtroom floor, causing the judge and all of the spectators to break down laughing, without attempt to restore immediate order. After the prosecutor had recovered his teeth and resumed his argument to the jury, he suddenly placed his hand over his mouth, saying, as he gulped, that he almost lost them again.
Princess Elizabeth and her husband,
the Duke of Edinburgh, took in a whirlwind sightseeing tour of the
Capital this date, their last day of visiting the U.S. after two days
Were they not treated to
frankfurters as ma and pa by the Roosevelts? If not, why not? Did
former Senator Robert Rice Reynolds ever drop in for tea
On the editorial page, "Where
Do We Go
He wanted a return to the two-thirds rule for nominations at the Democratic convention, a rule abandoned in 1936, greatly weakening the power of the South in selection of the party nominee. He wanted the South to oppose the re-nomination of the President, repeal the civil rights resolution of 1948, introduced to the convention by then-Senatorial candidate from Minnesota, Hubert Humphrey, and seek a platform setting forth "the true principles" of the Democratic Party, reaffirming states' rights.
But having set forth this desired course, he did not say what Southern Democrats should do in the event the party refused to abide by these requests, whether he would bolt the party and support the Republican nominee or whether he would establish a splinter-party movement, as in 1948 with the Dixiecrats. He believed it was too early to make definite plans.
The piece thinks that Southerners would begin to feel resentment if plans were not soon laid forth. The editorial states that the newspaper supported voting Republican if the Democrats of the South did not like the President or the version of the party which he had organized.
"Dynamic Business Leadership" finds refreshing the philosophy of Carroll M. Shanks, president of the Prudential Insurance Company, as imparted to the Committee of One Hundred of the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce, stating his belief in the "stewardship" of business, its responsibility to provide economic opportunity as a means of reclaiming the less fortunate in society. He believed that business also had the responsibility to withdraw its support of the inflationary spiral by means of wise handling of pricing of labor and profit operations. Only then could business demand that government stop unnecessary spending, that labor stop demanding more money, increasing thereby already high prices, that farmers seek lowering of their price supports, and that the public spend less and save more.
Mr. Shanks believed that business had come a long way in caring for the welfare of employees, especially in the South, as virtually every major industry now had a pension plan and usually provided also a full panoply of insurance coverage to employees. The supposed disadvantages in the South of a high birth rate, lack of skills, and an inadequate local market, had actually worked to the region's advantage, in that the high birth rate provided more customers, the lack of skills became an outlet for skills, and the limited market was found to be a result rather than a cause.
He did not believe that the country would return to its true course by means of great messiahs on the national scene but rather through "thousands of sound, strong and true men" exerting their influence in their particular areas.
Sounds like a typical go-getter
giving a typical go-getter, feel-good Chamber of Commerce speech, as
people munched on their salads. He should have addressed the fire
hose situation in Birmingham or the foreshadowing arrest by Bull
Connor in 1948 of then-Senator Glen Taylor for trying to enter a
black church, where he was scheduled to speak, via the black-only
entrance. What did Birmingham business do about those things?
"Underpass Cost Study Is in Order" finds that it made good sense for the City Council to determine the cost of an underpass at E. 36th St. and the Southern Railway, even though somewhat belated, after the Council had voted the previous summer to spend $125,000 to widen E. 36th St. from North Tryon to Plaza Road.
We agree wholeheartedly with that and urge that it be done forthwith, tomorrow being too late, as yesterday was already gone and a part of history of today.
A piece from the Greensboro Daily News, titled "Fortuitously Saved", tells of a prisoner in a town jail, booked for public drunkenness, being found by the jailer a few hours after his confinement trying to hang himself with his belt. But for the fact that the jailer happened to be placing another arrestee in the cell, he would likely have not discovered the prisoner in time to save him. There was nothing in the report to suggest that they had followed the urging of a highway patrolman that they take him to be examined by a physician, but it appeared the prisoner was not injured.
The piece is troubled by the report after the incident in the town of Spray in March, 1950, when a jail caught fire from mattresses in the cells, resulting in the deaths of six inmates. It urges that the State should stop being an accessory to these needless jailhouse deaths and that more rigid standards of treatment be enacted and enforced, especially in small town and county jails. Unfortunately, it points out, the 1951 Legislature had not taken the necessary action.
Drew Pearson tells of Spanish dictator, Generalissimo Francisco Franco, having, on October 13, called in Maj. General James Spry, head of the U.S. military mission in Spain, to state in no uncertain terms that Franco wanted monetary aid for Spain in exchange for use of proposed U.S. air bases. General Spry was returning to the U.S., almost certainly to recommend that no U.S. air bases be established therefore in Spain, a recommendation likely to be accepted at the Pentagon, unless Senator Pat McCarran, head of the powerful Spanish lobby in Washington, was able to convince the military leaders otherwise. Mr. Pearson explains in great detail the substance of this conversation. Franco had stated that the only thing he agreed to do thus far was to participate in the joint defense of the Iberian Peninsula in case of direct attack, contradicting the earlier commitments reported to Washington via the late Admiral Forrest Sherman, that Franco had assured free use of the airbases by the U.S. No aid had been promised in return, only common defense of the Mediterranean. General Spry would recommend that the U.S. use only the nearly completed airbases in French Morocco, which were so close to Spain that they could easily be utilized to defend the western Mediterranean.
The Bureau of the Mint had privately declared war on piggy banks because of a shortage of pennies, in turn the result of a scarcity of copper, needed by the defense industry.
Break open your piggy banks and carry those pennies down to the bank for exchange to cold, hard cash, and tell them that the man who announced the landing of the flying saucer directed your actions. If they resist, let them have it with your Captain Video ray gun, and tell them that if they dare call the coppers, you'll drop the coppers all over the floor.
Marquis Childs, in Madison, Wisc., having earlier in the week discussed the fact that Senator Taft would be entering the April Republican primary in Wisconsin as the only presidential preference primary he would enter, and that, in response, it was likely that General Eisenhower's supporters would be urging the General to allow his name to be placed on that ballot as well, a move, however, opposed by Governor Dewey out of concern that the machine organization in the state would marshal forces for Senator Taft, resulting in the defeat of the General because he would be a candidate in absentia, now looks at the wild card, as promised, the potential candidacy of Harold Stassen, who collected in 1948 19 of the state's 27 delegates.
It was unlikely that Mr. Stassen could do as well in 1952, as in 1948, Senator Joseph McCarthy had supported his candidacy and in 1952, Thomas Coleman, the most effective Republican organizer in the state, was directing the organization supporting Senator Taft. Perhaps, Mr. Stassen would manage to garner the backing again of Senator McCarthy, as Mr. Stassen had been very helpful to the Senator's opposition to confirmation of Ambassador Philip Jessup to be a member of the U.N. delegation because of his alleged sympathies with Communist China, a position which Mr. Stassen had supported in his testimony.
Three years earlier, Senator McCarthy had so strongly supported former Governor Stassen that the Senator had written a letter challenging the eligibility of General MacArthur for the Republican nomination on the basis that the General had been divorced and was of advancing age. The General received only one delegate's support, coming in third in the race, though making no effort at campaigning, occupied at the time with rebuilding Japan.
Mr. Stassen had stated to one of his close friends that if General Eisenhower did not enter the race, Mr. Stassen would not do so either. But to a group of Republicans, he had stated that he would enter the Wisconsin primary, regardless of whether General Eisenhower did or not. And to another strong supporter of General Eisenhower, he had said that he would enter the race, but only to garner delegates to throw to the General at the convention, a statement received with considerable skepticism.
Mr. Childs concludes that to a great degree, Mr. Stassen was a man without a home base, as he had hailed from Minnesota, of which he had been Governor, before becoming president of the University of Pennsylvania after the 1948 election, in the latter capacity becoming allied with the Grundy-Pew Republican machine faction in that state, earning the resentment of anti-machine Senator James Duff, one of the primary supporters of General Eisenhower. Mr. Stassen still had strength in Minnesota, but the old guard faction of that state had always been loyal to Senator Taft.
Mr. Childs adds that anyone who ventured into the country was told of the growing weakness of the Truman Administration, but he regarded the impression with a grain of salt as he had heard the same thing in 1948. Nevertheless, Republican hopes for 1952 were soaring, causing increased enthusiasm among Republican candidates to seek the prize.
Robert C. Ruark tells of New York being the greatest city in the greatest country in the world but recently leading him to desire instead to be stranded in Patagonia with a broken back, as a milk strike had put milk into the same black-market which governed beef prices during the war. People were going to fashionable restaurants to see if they could obtain a spare pint of milk for their babies while others were going to the country trying to obtain the milk first hand.
In addition, Scotch was becoming more scarce and soon would be extremely expensive because of the dock strike. Barbers were also on strike and so no one could get a haircut. He assumed that with no milk, chances were that the honey producers were also on strike.
At the same time, the Stork Club waiters had refused to provide service to singer Josephine Baker because of her race, an issue which proved more important in the city than the fact that the dock strike was preventing ambulances from being transported to Korea.
Traffic jams abounded in the city, leading to double and triple parkers. A new fifteen percent increase in rent was about to be implemented.
While there had been no transportation strike of late, that would likely be the next shutdown of services, along with a renewal of the earlier water shortage.
He concludes that New York was a
city which was subject to the whims of its own organization, "a
sprawling baby that can be rendered helpless by a momentary
interruption in the rhythm
A letter writer thinks Senator Taft ought level with the South regarding his stand on civil rights and state honestly that in his Ohio Senate campaign the previous year, he had told a large industrial audience in Cleveland that the President was stalling on civil rights and that the only way there would ever be an adequate civil rights program was to vote for the Republicans. Then, says the writer, he would deserve the cheers of Southern audiences, if they continued to cheer.
A letter writer responds to another letter writer who supported the President's appointment of General Mark Clark as Ambassador to the Vatican. He disagrees on the basis that the Vatican should not be recognized as a sovereign state. He favors ditching 95 percent of the laws on the books in the country, preserving the "original" Constitution and the Ten Commandments and then "starting over". He asserts that the country had made its biggest mistake by electing a President for a third term.
A letter writer thinks that the laws and ordinances against placing stickers on windshields of automobiles ought be strictly enforced as against both Federal and State agencies, such as gas rationing stickers placed on windshields during the war and inspection stickers of various kinds. He also thinks ordinances in Charlotte regarding hanging signs across the street ought be enforced, as well as those prohibiting advertisements on poles. He wonders whether it was a violation of an ordinance for a truck to be parked on Tryon or Trade Streets for the purpose of advertising.
There is probably still an ordinance on the books making it unlawful to spit on the sidewalk, for earlier concerns with sanitation, but...
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