The Charlotte News
Wednesday, November 21, 1951
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the prospect of a truce in Korea had appeared to improve, as Communist negotiators submitted a ceasefire plan which could provide for an armistice by Christmas, similar to the U.N. plan for creating a buffer zone along the extant battle lines, provided the remainder of the terms were completed within 30 days. The allied spokesman, Brig. General William P. Nuckols, said that if the proposal meant what he thought it meant, they were very close to a solution. A point still in doubt, however, was whether the Communist proposal allowed for troops to be withdrawn from the buffer zone after the armistice was completed, as the U.N. had proposed. The allies said that they would present the necessary revisions to clear up the proposal the following day.
In the ground war, U.N. forces repulsed the enemy's strongest attempt to halt an allied drive on the central Korean front, with the allies having gained five miles since the previous Saturday. Allied artillery had clobbered the enemy troops, enabling South Korean troops to stop the counter-attacks. On the eastern front, U.N. troops repulsed a Communist attack northwest of the "Punchbowl", following a five and a half hour fight which ended just after dawn. No other major action was reported along the fronts.
The Department of Defense announced that U.S. battle casualties in Korea had reached 100,176, an increase of 950 since the report of the previous week. Of the newly reported casualties, 150 had been killed in action, 762 wounded, and 38 missing. The total casualties included 15,152 killed in action, 72,404 wounded, and 12,620 missing. The death toll did not include the approximately 6,000 U.S. prisoners of war who reportedly had died while in captivity and also did not include those who had died of illness. About 70,000 of the U.S. casualties had occurred since the Chinese had entered the war a little more than a year earlier and about half had occurred since the retreats and rearguard withdrawals of the previous winter during the series of enemy spring offensives and U.N. counter-offensives. Total U.N. casualties were 313,711. By comparison, U.S. combat casualties during the first year of the country's participation in World War II had been 59,000. On November 9, the Army had estimated total enemy casualties in Korea through the end of October to have been 1,442,844.
General Hoyt Vandenberg, Air Force chief of staff, told a press conference this date, following his return from Korea, that the allies' complete air superiority over Korea was now being "seriously challenged by the MIGs", but that the situation was "in hand". He said that China had suddenly become one of the major air powers in the world, benefiting from Russian aid, complicating the situation. He said that because of the ground rules imposed on the Air Force, which everyone understood, it was impossible to obtain air supremacy, as that policy prevented strikes on the enemy's air supply bases across the Yalu River in Manchuria, to avoid confrontations which could lead to a full-scale war with China. He said that in the October 23 bomber strike at the Communist airfield at Namsi in North Korea, the U.S. had suffered its heaviest loss in any single action of the war, when three B-29s had been shot down and the remaining five damaged. He also said that while it was not within his province to make any decision on use of atomic weapons, he saw no profitable atomic targets in North Korea. He also said that the MIG-15 was, in many respects, able to out-perform the American F-86, which was the only plane in production capable of challenging the MIG.
Hungary and Rumania complained officially that a U.S. Army cargo plane, which was still missing after being fired upon by the two countries' border guards on Monday, had entered their territories illegally. The plane, the crew of which reported no damage from the incident, was last reported north of Belgrade at dusk on Monday, with its fuel running low. Marshal Tito in Yugoslavia had given U.S. search planes permission to fly over the northwestern part of the country.
In Rome, Britain was reported to be ready to agree to the appointment by the NATO Military Committee of an American admiral to command the West's naval forces in the Atlantic. Britain had previously blocked the appointment, but now appeared amenable because of its retention of certain powers over naval operations which it considered vital.
A House Ways & Means subcommittee was called into session to weigh a report regarding its inquiry into rumors that its chairman, Congressman Cecil King of California, had once sought to exert influence in tax cases in California. Mr. King had denounced the rumors as "malicious and false" and asked his subcommittee to investigate them thoroughly. The subcommittee heard from nearly a dozen witnesses during its two-day investigation, closing the inquiry the previous night and issuing no statement. A report was promised soon.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the St. Louis Globe-Democrat reported that Ellis Slack, acting head of the Justice Department's tax division, appointed temporarily to succeed Lamar Caudle following his forced resignation the previous week, had sought to interfere with a grand jury investigation into St. Louis tax-fixing, which had led to the indictment for bribery and other misconduct of James Finnegan, the former St. Louis IRB collector.
Another Gallup poll appears, in which substantially more voters identified themselves as Democrats than as Republicans, 40 percent to 32 percent, while 28 percent said they were independents. More people said that they would like to see Democrats win Congressional elections in their state than those who wanted Republicans, 51.5 percent to 48.5 percent. Respondents believed that Democrats were more favorable to persons in their line of work than Republicans, by a margin of 41 percent to 24 percent, while 26 percent said that there was no difference. The study found this economic performance perception to be a critical factor in determining voter preference in elections generally. A total of 38 percent of the respondents believed that the Democrats were better for the country, while 28 percent favored the Republicans, and 20 percent said that there was no difference. Respondents also believed that Democrats could do a better job of keeping the country prosperous than could Republicans, by a margin of 37 percent to 29 percent, with 19 percent seeing no difference. The trend of political sentiment in the previous two national elections had been away from the Republicans, after they had gained ground during the decade between 1936 and 1946. It provides a table with the quadrennial results from 1936 to 1948 of Republican Party voting strength, and another table of GOP Congressional midterm voting strength between 1938 and 1950, demonstrating these trends.
The Gallup study, however, found that the Democrats were hampered by the President's decrease in popularity during the previous year, with only 29 percent currently saying they approved of his job performance and 55 percent registering disapproval, as well as finding that 29 percent of respondents said that the Republicans could do a better job than the Democrats of keeping the country out of war, while only 18 percent thought the Democrats could do a better job and 39 percent found no difference.
The President had said the previous night to the National Women's Democratic Club that the Democrats would not take lying down the "lies and smears" which were anticipated from Republicans and "special interests" during the 1952 presidential campaign. Senator Taft responded that the President should "get the prize for political effrontery" for the speech, that the President headed an Administration which had condoned Communism, immorality and corruption and did not even bother to deny the proven charges, that the President had plunged the nation into the Korean War without consulting either Republicans or Congress. Guy Gabrielson, chairman of the RNC, said that the President had a "flash of realism" when he said "a mistake in a presidential election can cause the country untold harm". He said the country would not make the same mistake again which it had in 1948.
The President, after delivering the address, returned to his vacation in Key West.
In Akron, O., the City Council unanimously tabled a proposal to levy fines of from $5 to $50 against boys who threw snowballs or other objects at buses. Not even the bus driver who introduced the measure attempted to defend it. Police had said that the proposed law would be hard to enforce and that there were existing laws on the books to get at the practice, presumably in reference to laws against vandalism.
John Daly of The News reports that the Duke Power Company had formally requested from the North Carolina and South Carolina Utilities Commissions to be granted authority to increase North and South Carolina electric power rates sufficiently to produce three million dollars annually in additional revenue, about two million of which would come from North Carolina. The request was made to meet steadily rising costs of the company since 1939, when the extant schedule of rates had been established.
In Southport, N.C., the local jailer quit after he had been humiliated when a convicted wife-murderer escaped after drawing a pistol on him, bound and gagged him, and left him locked in a cell for an hour while others sought a duplicate set of keys.
Don't worry. That shrewd lieutenant from Stafford, Indiana, will be on the scene soon to get his man.
On the editorial page, "A North Atlantic Assembly" tells of Senator Guy Gillette of Iowa, speaking in Charlotte, proposing formation of such a NATO Assembly in which elected representatives of the people of the NATO nations would meet for free and frank debate on the issues impacting their well-being. He believed that the NATO nations should eventually come together in a federal union and that the proposed Assembly would be a forerunner to that prospect.
Representatives to the Assembly would have no power to pass laws, but would be advisory only.
The Senator urged the need for a central government over NATO regarding common defense and foreign policy, and other such matters affecting the member nations' common interests.
The editorial thinks it a step in the right direction.
"Independent Tar Heels" finds that the Congressional Quarterly annual summary of the Congressional session just ended had found that the North Carolina delegation generally voted independently from the Democratic Party. Senator Willis Smith supported the party line on 46 percent of votes, the fourth lowest loyalty rating in the Senate, topping only Senator Harry F. Byrd of Virginia and Senator Herbert O'Conor of Maryland among Democrats, and Oregon Senator Wayne Morse among Republicans.
Senator Clyde Hoey voted with the party 65 percent of the time, similar to his ratings in the previous two Congresses, at 70 percent and 64 percent, respectively.
It goes on to provide the loyalty ratings for each of the North Carolina members of the House, who ranged between 46 percent loyalty and 95 percent, the latter being that of Charles Deane.
The ratings, it points out, did not take into account being for or against Administration positions, but rather were based on votes where the majority of Democrats voted for a particular position. If Administration loyalty were factored into the mix, the scores would have been even lower. Most of the mavericks among Democrats in both houses were Southerners, indicating that resentment among Southerners was not limited to the President's policies, but also extended to the party generally. It predicts that the division would become more important by the time of the national convention in Chicago the following summer.
"The Mossadegh Mission" tells of the 41-day visit of the Iranian Premier having consisted primarily of talks regarding the oil nationalization dispute, first at the U.N. and then in a long series of conferences in Washington with State Department officials. He had not resorted to the usual fanatical language which characterized many of his speeches in Iran, but his visit appeared to have accomplished little, as Britain and Iran were still at loggerheads in the oil dispute and the U.S. had not committed itself to support of either party. Iran wanted to hire British technicians to run the nationalized oil properties but did not want Britons as managers, while the British wanted an international managing company. The Premier's stature at home therefore had not increased while he was abroad and the prospect remained for a more extreme leader coming to power.
The Communists would likely garner Iran's support if the U.S. did not solve the economic problems in the country. Iran had sought U.S. economic aid to replace the oil revenues lost when Western trade was cut off, but such would be money down the drain unless there were a drastic change internally. Thus, U.S. policy was difficult to determine.
The U.S., rather than Britain, was now the dominant Western power in Iran and the country's basic problems stemmed from its aristocratic system under which tax-free, corrupt millionaires controlled the economy and, consequently, the lives of the rest of the citizenry. Such a system did not readily lend itself to democracy, and the solution appeared to be, as previously suggested for Egypt by Stewart Alsop, a benevolent dictatorship of the type existing in Turkey under Kemal Ataturk. The U.S. might be able to get behind an Iranian revolution, with technical and financial aid being conditioned on vast internal reform. It might be worth a try, the piece ventures, to prevent a Communist takeover.
A piece from the Asheville Citizen, titled "Vanishing Christmas Greens", tells of the North Carolina Wildflower Preservation Society having called for renewed conservation of Christmas greens within the state, particularly that of American holly, trailing cedar and laurel. They favored judicious cutting and display of those evergreens.
The piece suggests that it was a small issue but one which was vital, as many plants indigenous to the state were disappearing, such as the Venus fly-trap, along with the trailing cedar or ground pine. Conservation was necessary if these plants were to survive.
Drew Pearson tells of Senator Taft having stated, following his month on the road, that he believed his delegate strength stood at 600 and was on the rise, already enough to win on the first ballot if the convention were held presently. His managers had told him that Indiana, Kentucky and Wisconsin were now in his pocket, and that Illinois, where Senator Everett Dirksen was considering running as a favorite son, might follow. In Pennsylvania, there also appeared great support for the Senator. New England also showed support, including, in Vermont, a cousin of Governor Dewey being openly for Senator Taft. There were also signs of Taft support in Kansas, home state of General Eisenhower, and in New York, despite Governor Dewey's open support for the General. Publisher Frank Gannett was determined to break the Governor's hold on the New York delegation by splitting it for Taft. He also reportedly had good strength in the South and in seven of the eleven Western states.
Nevada Senator George Malone had earlier been in favor of giving the tidelands oil from the Federal Government back to the states, when the Long Beach Harbor commissioners were being solicited for $50,000 by the Senator's assistant, utilizing the Senator's official stationery, to help lobby for state ownership. But after that deal fell through, Senator Malone reversed himself and began supporting Federal ownership, which could turn over large tracts of tidelands to E. L. Cord, the auto magnate, who had bought forgotten Civil War scrip which he claimed would entitle him to Federally-owned tidelands. In the meantime, Senator Malone was flying around in Mr. Cord's private plane and had been a house guest at his ranch in the Sierras.
Mr. Pearson indicates that the Senate was investigating Vice-President Alben Barkley's secretary for doing much less, but ventures that it was unlikely the Senate would investigate one of its own.
Bertram Benedict of Editorial Research Reports discusses the economic outlook for farmers in 1952, finds that they should do about as well as in 1951, based on the U.S. Bureau of Agricultural Economics outlook. Gross earnings were expected to be higher but their costs would be higher, too. Labor would not be as available as in 1951, based on a continuing decline of the farm population in the previous decade. Farms generally were doing progressively better in income during the decade and in carrying less debt. The value of farm land had doubled and mortgages had been dramatically reduced by seven-eighths since 1940. High production and high prices accounted for the relatively good year of 1951.
Marquis Childs tells of the Joint Chiefs and National Security Council assessing the risk of sending all of the country's newly produced weaponry to Western Europe to hurry the process of equipping NATO so as to avoid the prospect of having to use the new strategic atomic weapons, which now appeared to be ready within a few months for deployment. The primary consideration was that if the NATO forces were overrun by the Russians, then all of the weapons would be obtained by the Russians, leaving the U.S. to have to start its rearmament program anew. The new atomic weapons, however, would enable that risk, as the tests had shown that they could be used against troops in the field effectively, without concomitant risk of radiation poisoning to the deploying troops.
To prevent such a destructive showdown, creation of an adequate force in Western Europe in the shortest time possible was essential, the primary point made by General Eisenhower during his recent visit to Washington. The General wanted to create a small, efficient fighting force in the meantime in 1952 rather than have to wait for creation of the larger army, estimated to take until 1954.
The authority already existed to allocate the weaponry to Europe, but the President had been advised to invite Democratic and Republican leaders from Congress for consultation before making the final decision. Mr. Childs indicates that it was likely that General Eisenhower's personal fortunes politically would be greatly improved if such a small force were created forthwith, as it would show demonstrable progress in his organization of NATO, bound to help him in his expected run for the presidency the following year.
A letter writer from Greensboro finds that the country was on the brink of "helpless disintegration" because of it being sold down the river by those in Washington giving the people a "raw deal". Foolish spending and corruption had led to the necessity of higher taxes. He urges prayer for the salvation of the country.
A letter writer from Marion says that he had grown impatient with the bickering in the letters column between Protestants and Catholics, that he found Catholics to be erecting a smokescreen over what they knew the Vatican's real intentions were, while Protestants had not given Catholics a good reason for their opposition to the President's appointment of an ambassador to the Vatican, the Protestant position resting on separation of church and state. He believes that while it was true that there were many Catholics who had made great contributions to the nation and the world, there were also many outstanding Protestants and Jews, and that everyone should aim to maintain the life of the nation accomplished through hard work, dignity and humility.
A letter writer tells of a nightmare he had, in which "Pogo" was removed from the comic strip of the newspaper. He believes that Pogo had to remain, as vital as the theory behind the Ten Commandments. He does not know where else one could find such a clever satire on witch-hunting, and warns that he would commit homicide if one hair on Pogo's body was harmed.
There is another one to be persecuted, prosecuted and have his life ruined forever for communicating threats. We need justice now.
A letter writer responds to A. W. Black's previous letter decrying hillbilly music being played on the local radio stations, saying that Mr. Black probably liked the music but refused to reveal his true feelings. She says the majority of people liked hillbilly music but because of social pressures, hid their true feelings. One of the leading songs on the Hit Parade, she instructs, had originally been recorded by a Grand Ole Opry star, and quite a number of hit tunes presently had been hillbilly songs previously. She says that she enjoyed the music and was not afraid to admit it.
"Long live hillbilly music and many praises for the great host of fine stars who have been and are making an outstanding contribution to the entertainment life of our nation—especially this section of the Southeast."
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