The Charlotte News

Thursday, November 29, 1951

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports, via John Randolph, that allied artillery had resumed this date its shooting on the western front in Korea after officers reported receiving new orders from headquarters to "shoot to kill". Ground commander General James Van Fleet had announced that his Eighth Army command had issued certain military instructions which some troops had misinterpreted the previous day as a ceasefire order. He clarified that there was no ceasefire order in place. Front line troops were reported to be confused by the resumption of artillery and mortar fire at the front, one day after they had observed enemy troops unconcernedly playing volleyball across the way. Reconnaissance patrols continued their scouting missions as usual, but were directed not to look for trouble. The original order issued the previous day had not been changed, but its contents remained confidential. General Matthew Ridgway's headquarters reaffirmed that no ceasefire order had been given. The President's spokesman in Key West denied an Associated Press report speculating that such orders possibly had come from the White House.

In the air war, the Communists dispatched a record 320 MIG jets into the air across the Manchurian border this date and the U.S. Fifth Air Force reported that three U.S. Sabre jets and one MIG-15 had been damaged, during a battle between 22 Sabres and 175 enemy jets.

In the continuing negotiations regarding the armistice, Communist negotiators proposed immediate discussion of a plan for gradual withdrawal of foreign troops from Korea following the armistice. It was the first time that the Communists indicated that they might accept terms which did not require immediate withdrawal of all foreign troops. U.N. negotiators had not yet replied. But there was concern expressed by Vice-Admiral C. Turner Joy, head of the U.N. negotiating team, that the Communists were mixing up an armistice with peace treaty terms. The U.N. command had proposed that there be no increase in military forces or equipment after an armistice was signed and that joint inspection teams would ensure that the truce terms were not violated.

Syria's strong man, Colonel Adib Shishekly, threw out of office a newly-appointed Premier, Marouf Dawalibi, who had urged closer ties between the Arab nations and Russia, and the Syrian army seized control of the entire country. All members of the new Cabinet were placed under arrest and the Populist Party of which they were members was charged by the Colonel with undermining the country's independence, breaking up the army and creating a new throne in the country. No violence was reported from Damascus.

Former Assistant Attorney General in charge of the tax division, Lamar Caudle, again testified to the House Ways & Means subcommittee investigating his handling of tax fraud cases, that he had been paid a $5,000 commission from a business deal involving a tax investigator for two New York men later convicted of tax fraud. He said that the commission was for arranging the sale of an airplane to the tax investigator, a transaction approved by Attorney General J. Howard McGrath.

IRB commissioner John Dunlap, who, along with the President, had fired 31 IRB employees the previous day, said the job was far from finished and that other firings were likely.

A special three-judge Federal District Court panel in Washington upheld the legality of the new Federal tax on gamblers, requiring that all gamblers buy a $50 occupation-tax stamp and pay ten percent of their gross income in taxes. The law had been challenged on the basis that it discriminated against one group and might subject its members to prosecution.

Senator Kenneth Wherry, Republican floor leader, died of pneumonia at age 59 this date at George Washington Hospital in Washington, following an illness lasting several weeks. Some of those close to him stated that he was suffering from cancer. He had undergone surgery the previous month to remove a growth from his intestines, had been discharged from the hospital and was reported to be recovering, but had been brought back to the hospital with chills and fever earlier in the day. He was in his second term in the Senate.

Speaking in Greensboro, N.C., at Guilford College, Senator Robert Taft continued his criticism of the Truman Administration's foreign policy, asserting that mistakes in judgment and wavering policy had resulted in the Korean War, which he regarded as an "unnecessary and useless" conflict which had settled nothing. He stated that an armistice would only affirm the aggression by the Chinese Communists, that with a resulting divided Korea, the position would be no different than three years earlier when American troops had been occupying Korea, save for the facts that a million Korean civilians had been killed, billions spent, and 100,000 Americans killed, wounded or taken prisoner. He believed that the war would never have occurred had the American troops not evacuated Korea or notice had been given to Russia that they would return if South Korea were invaded. He asserted that Secretary of State Acheson and Senator Tom Connally had stated shortly before the war that the U.S. could do nothing if South Korea were invaded. He also stated that he believed the U.N. had failed because it had been founded on the theory that the Big Five powers could stop aggression, instead of on the principles of law and justice between nations. The Senator was scheduled also to provide three lectures at UNC in Chapel Hill, after having spoken in Asheville on Tuesday.

On page 19-A, the fourth installment of the 12-part serialization of Senator Taft's recently published A Foreign Policy for Americans appeared, dealing with "international organization as a means of securing peace and liberty".

In Hamburg, Germany, two persons were killed and six seriously injured this date by two bombs sent through the mail, one of which had exploded at the post office, killing one postal clerk and injuring four others, while the other had exploded at a newspaper office, killing the editor and injuring two others. It was not clear whether the bombs had been sent by the same person.

In Pekin, Ill., a man accused of trying to steal the City Hall cornerstone, which had reportedly contained a quart of 1884 whiskey, was acquitted of drunkenness, despite the testimony of five police officers who said that he was drunk, contradicting the testimony of two bartenders and a waitress, employees at the defendant's local taproom, that he was completely sober. After the trial, the defendant invited the jury across the street for drinks on the house. The cornerstone had been found to contain old documents, including a song in support of Grover Cleveland for president and criticizing high taxes and corruption in Government. It contained no whiskey. The defendant said that he would contribute to the new cornerstone a fifth of his finest stock so that 100 years hence, the people would not be so disappointed.

Maybe if he had not tried to steal it until 1984, he might have found the contents for which he was looking.

In Cuxhaven, Germany, a German lawyer filed a libel suit against a local journalist for reporting that a recent trial, in which the lawyer conducted the defense, reminded him of an "American radio play", which the lawyer took as a grave insult.

On the editorial page, "The Korean Peace Situation" tells of a wave of hope having swept the country the previous day in the wake of the ceasefire reports from Korea, but finds that it was unlikely that the ceasefire would transpire quickly, and warns that the fighting could again easily erupt. While ground troops had quit fighting the previous day and the Communists had abandoned their previous blackout precautions, General Ridgway's headquarters had said no ceasefire order had been given, despite reporters at the front having claimed to have seen such orders, directing allied soldiers not to fire unless fired upon. In Washington, the President's press secretary, Joseph Short, had stated that there had been no ceasefire and would be none until an armistice was finally signed. The Eighth Army had stated this date that orders had been issued but had been misinterpreted by the lower echelon officers, that fighting had not completely stopped and peace was still a long way off.

Meanwhile, the Communist negotiators had turned down the U.N. proposal to allow inspection teams from both sides to patrol the frontier if and when the armistice became effective. The allies had maintained that this condition had to be met, along with the terms of exchange of prisoners and withdrawal of troops, before an armistice could be signed. The U.N. had maintained that in the meantime, no ceasefire would take place, as it was necessary to keep pressure on the enemy to assure that the remaining conditions would be resolved.

The piece finds that a de facto ceasefire on the ground would make some sense as the agreement on the buffer zone would only become permanent in the event of concluding the final terms of armistice within 30 days. It would be easier to obtain the final terms, it posits, if there were peace on both sides during the ensuing four weeks and, to the contrary, if there were a substantial ground gain on either side during that period, it would make it harder to reach agreement. Furthermore, there was no limitation on air activity and air surveillance could maintain a check on enemy activity behind the lines to assure that they were not building up their positions during the period of ceasefire.

It finds that it did not make sense, however, for either the U.N. or the President to say one thing to the troops and suggest the opposite to the public. It urges clearing up the matter, as to whether there was a temporary de facto ceasefire or not.

"High Cost of Electioneering" remarks on the Congressional investigation of the 1950 Ohio Senatorial election, which thus far produced expected results, after Senator Taft had claimed that $600,000 or $700,000 was spent on his behalf and that two million dollars had been spent by his opponent, Joseph Ferguson, while the latter claimed that five million dollars had been spent for the Taft campaign, and that $107,000 had been spent for his candidacy. Senator Guy Gillette of Iowa, who was conducting the investigation, stated its objective to be determination of facts with an eye toward passage of new legislation regulating campaign finances.

Over the years, it had become increasingly the case that elections were being won by the candidates backed by the most money and that candidates with modest means were finding it increasingly difficult to be elected. The Senate included many millionaires and near-millionaires. It refers to the piece by Joseph Alsop the previous day, and agrees that Americans and the Congress were becoming increasingly jaded to the amount of expenditures in elections. Neither the Senate nor the public seemed especially concerned by the amount of expenditures on behalf of Senator Taft, Mr. Ferguson or other candidates.

It suggests that the Constitution had intended that the Senators and Representatives represent the people and not such big corporations as Pan American Airways or Anaconda Copper, or such large organizations as the Farm Bureau or UAW. The Federal Corrupt Practices Act of 1925 had limited expenditures by candidates to $25,000, but did not limit amounts spent by others for the candidates. It concludes that if the investigation resulted in legislation which would limit these latter types of expenditures, then it would have served a salutary purpose.

It never ceases to be amazing how obviously uninformed voters can, on the one hand, complain about their democracy being bought and sold out from under them, jobs shipped overseas by greedy corporations, etc., and then turn around and become Trumpies or the functional equivalent, allowing themselves to be sold the concept of voting for proven demagogues and outright liars, out of rationalized expediency to have "conservative" Federal judges and justices appointed to protect their "states' rights", to be free from "legislation from the bench" and preserve such nebulous and presumptuous notions as the "right to life"— presuming to "know", mystically, when life begins apart from empirically proven viability outside the womb—these demagogues and liars telling and selling them one thing and delivering quite another, trickle-down economics and the like, for the benefit of big corporations who continue to ship jobs expediently to other countries, because it boils down to simple economics, thus another hunky-bunky Trumpie fooled, over and over again, ad nauseam.

The ultimate issue is crystallized in the 2010 Supreme Court case of Citizens United v. FEC, wherein the five-Justice majority, comprised exclusively of Republican appointees to the Court, voted to hold unconstitutional that part of the McCain-Feingold legislation, preventing campaign advertising or contributions by corporations or other organizations directed to advocacy of voting for or against specific candidates, on the contorted reasoning that it violated the free speech of corporations and other organizations, notwithstanding the fact that the First Amendment was intended, obviously, to apply to individual free speech and not to supply the very ground for undermining free debate and the political process it was designed to protect, ignoring the fact that the political process has, for decades, since the creation of mass audio media in the 1920's, been polluted by the ability to brainwash the masses through slick political advertising, especially that of political action committees funded by big corporations and campaign contributions by large corporate donors, with their agendas hidden from the public. That holding was based on the circuitous premise that because a corporation or other organization is considered a recognizable entity under the law in other contexts, such as in the formation of contracts, antitrust cases, or the like, and so has the right to sue and can be sued or even charged or indicted criminally under the law, such organizations also have fundamental rights recognized under the Constitution, such as free speech, just as individuals.

But since the individuals within and comprising such organizations are never prevented from exercising their free speech individually by any such law as McCain-Feingold, why would they be permitted to form a gang, maybe even a criminal gang, made legal by papers of incorporation, and thereby have super rights, not available to any of us as individuals? It is the foundation for syndicalism, which formed the basis of Fascist Italy under Mussolini. It presumes the need to form a large corporation to combat other large corporations, merely to protect democracy, discriminating thereby against the individual and his or her rights to be heard, drowning out free speech on the pretext of protecting that right for the large, moneyed organization. It is based on a philosophical determination that the individual must either join a large organization and thereby subordinate his or her individual free speech to that of the larger body acting as a conglomerate voice, or not be provided any meaningful free speech at all, an idea completely antithetical to individual liberty and democracy, and thus to the very foundations of this country. Or do you understand that basic idea?

The question arises, parenthetically, when such Republicans might consider conception of the corporation to occur, when its idea is formed firmly in the mind of its founder or when the bylaws are ratified and its officers determined, or when the incorporation papers are filed with the secretary of state in Delaware or some other state of incorporation.

Every Trumpie who sat around their living rooms cheering the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh this past October, as if it were a football game, ought to sit down and read Citizens United carefully, and, especially the four-Justice dissent authored by Justice John Paul Stevens, appointed to the Court originally by President Ford, and understand what actually is at stake when a vote is cast for the likes of Donald Trump, the most thoroughly consummate liar ever to occupy the White House in the history of the country, a bait-switch artist who is nothing more than a glorified salesman of the worst type. His "election", by dint only of the electoral college, is the epitomizing result of Citizens United.

Trumpies need to learn to think analytically and not engage in so much childish emotion, that they might exercise their franchise, not as in some third-world dictatorship where El Presidente informs them, through chicanery hidden in plain view, how to vote, and wherein failure to vote for El Presidente or open criticism of him has dire consequences, but rather on the issues which actually affect their everyday lives and interests. Confirming Brett Kavanugh to the Supreme Court, for instance, assures the continued vitality of decisions such as Citizens United; it will have no impact on Roe v. Wade, which even he testified to the Judiciary Committee is "settled law".

Read the case, Trumpie, and find out what is really going on in your world, rather than persisting in being reliant on the hucksters at Fox News and the like to provide you a gestalt, consisting solely of a giant false filter of information about the world, constantly slanted to one ideological stance, "conservatism", another word, in the Fox context, for keeping the money in the hands of those who already have it, regardless of their worth or wisdom, while everyone else works as their slaves, doing what they are told to do, regardless of their intrinsic worth or education. Who are those people at Fox News and other such media outlets, how much do they earn and from whom, who tell you daily what to think?

"Willoughby's Tempest" tells of Maj. General Charles Willoughby having delivered a broadside in the Hearst-owned Cosmopolitan against six famed American journalists and three news magazines and thereby obtained more news coverage than deserved. The article was simply a thinly disguised effort to explain away his own failure as an intelligence officer for General MacArthur, as well as the General's military mistakes, while serving up blame and censure on others. General Willoughby had praised the Scripps-Howard and Hearst newspapers and the Shreveport Times, all of which had been slavish in their praise and even deification of General MacArthur.

It suggests that at least five of the individuals General Willoughby had singled out would not be damaged by the criticism as they were able and conscientious reporters who had sought to bring to the American people an accurate picture of the war in Korea. They would weather the storm stirred by "an embittered, egocentric military man who apparently knows nothing of the functions of a free press." The piece does not identify the six journalists or who it had in mind as the sixth person in the group, who might not weather the storm so well.

"'Mr. Southern Railroad' Steps Out" tells of Ernest Norris having been, since 1937, "Mr. Southern Railroad" to thousands of his friends, patrons and customers throughout the area served by the railroad. He had been jovial, friendly, full of anecdotes and good humor, as he rode up and down the tracks in his special Pullman car, promoting the South and the Southern Railroad, and generally being liked as a goodwill ambassador. He was retiring as president, but would continue as chairman of the board of the railroad. While he had been president, the railroad had undertaken a great modernization program which had resulted in better service to shippers and passengers. It anticipates that his successor, Harry DeButts, would continue the railroad's progress commensurate with that of the South in general.

A piece from the Wall Street Journal, titled "State Secret", tells of the menu which had been laid out at the dinner given by the President and First Lady Bess Truman for Princess Elizabeth and her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, having been maintained as a secret, and regardless of what it may have contained, the piece thinks it was all right, for what one ate was one's own business, and the President was no exception.

Bill Sharpe, in his weekly "Turpentine Drippings", snippets from newspapers around the state, provides one from the Smithfield Herald, in which was related the story of a pupil in an elementary school class, who said that he had gone to the circus once and seen a two-headed boy in a sideshow eating a slice of watermelon with one mouth and spitting the seeds out with the other.

The Winston-Salem Journal advocates finding a way to provide adequate security for the country and for the West "without allowing the military mind to dominate the thinking, life and action of the nation."

The Southern Pines Pilot reports of the president of the Aberdeen Jaycees having lost his prize setter three weeks earlier, and, while driving along with three other Jaycees 37 miles from Aberdeen, having spotted a brief glimpse of a dog in his headlights, then slammed on the brakes, turned around and drove back to find his setter trotting along the road, whereupon he called to it and it jumped into the car and they made their way home.

The Sanford Herald reports of a woman saying to her husband that they should buy their son a bicycle, to which the father inquired as to whether that might improve his behavior, to which the mother replied that it would not, but might spread his meanness over a wider area.

And so more, on more, more on, and more so.

Drew Pearson finds that the politicians were so busy criticizing the State Department of late that when it did achieve a diplomatic coup, it went unnoticed. The disarmament proposal made by Secretary Acheson in Paris had been a tremendous victory against Communist propaganda. The Russian section of the State Department had been convinced that the Russians would react adversely and play into the hands of the West, just as Andrei Vishinsky had done. U.S. intelligence had learned that Mr. Vishinski had received an angry cable from the Politburo reprimanding him for the response, and it was likely he would soon be fired as Soviet Foreign Minister.

It had been learned from within the Catholic hierarchy that Bishop Emmett Walsh of Youngstown, Ohio, had been key to the Catholic bishops' statement against Senator Joseph McCarthy. Bishop Walsh had been the former Bishop of South Carolina and was presently chairman of the legal department of the National Catholic Welfare Conference, and had been appointed by the President as a member of the Nimitz Commission, scrutinizing loyalty and suspected Communism in the Government, a Commission which had been killed off by Senators McCarthy and Pat McCarran. Originally, Senator McCarthy had obtained his idea to promote Communist purges from a Catholic professor at Georgetown University, Father Edmund Walsh, who had indicated that the Senator could thereby keep his name before the public so that he might be re-elected to the Senate from Wisconsin in 1952. Many, however, within the Catholic hierarchy believed that Senator McCarthy had smeared too many innocent people in his attacks. Moreover, the hierarchy had never approved of the quickie divorces which the Senator, while a judge in Wisconsin, had allowed for his special friends. These factors had led to the statement by Bishop Walsh, representing 132 bishops, denouncing "dishonesty, slander, detraction, and defamation of character" as "transgressions of God's commandments when resorted to by men in political life, as they are for all other men."

Congressman George Bender was being urged by some Taft supporters to run against Senator Taft's brother, Charles, in the 1952 Ohio Republican gubernatorial primary. Most GOP leaders in Ohio, however, favored Mr. Taft. The reason for the opposition was that many Republicans in the state believed that two families, Taft and Bolton, were grabbing up too many of Ohio's political plums, as Oliver Bolton, son of wealthy Congresswoman Frances Bolton, had announced his intention to run for the Republican nomination for Representative in another district. Congresswoman Bolton, Mr. Pearson notes, had an excellent record in Congress. Charles Taft had a distinguished record as a progressive, but Mr. Pearson notes that he was in error when he had previously reported that Mr. Taft had voted for FDR, and corrects that he had always voted Republican.

Marquis Childs, in Rome, tells of there being, behind the formal meetings of the NATO Council in Rome, a concern over Korea and the underlying desire of the Western allies for a Far Eastern settlement to avert a full-scale war in Asia. That concern placed the focus on Secretary of State Acheson and newly installed British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden. The two shared many similarities, in their urbanity and moneyed background and education as well as an old-school demeanor and outlook. Yet, they viewed certain basic problems from different perspectives, and that was true of their view of the Far East. Whereas Mr. Acheson, in his opening address to the U.N. General Assembly in Paris, had talked about the "sub-barbarism" of the Chinese Communists, coincident with the release in Korea of the report of Communist atrocities against allied prisoners of war, a coincidence which the British believed was calculated in its timing, Mr. Eden, in his opening talk, took a conciliatory tone, pleading for settlement of the conflict between East and West, a tone similar to that which he adopted in his first speech to Parliament.

Mr. Eden wanted to use the methods of older diplomacy to effect a resolution, while, in a good-natured way, Mr. Acheson showed scorn of this attitude, suggesting that Mr. Eden was laboring under the delusion that they were still in the old days of the League of Nations where the techniques of the older diplomacy applied.

Robert C. Ruark tells of Stanley Stein, blind from Hansen's disease or leprosy, having returned to New York for the first time in 21 years, was living in a good hotel, had spoken at a large banquet, danced with pretty girls, attended Broadway shows, and been kissed goodnight by Tallulah Bankhead. Mr. Stein had spent 21 years trying to abolish the word "leper" as stigmatizing his condition. When his disease had become apparent at that earlier time, he was forced to leave New York after being thrown from his hotel, and so marveled at his acceptance of late. The disease was now accepted as curable or at least arrestable and not transferable by contact.

So much was the acceptance now that when Mr. Ruark got into a taxi cab after having interviewed Mr. Stein, he told the driver that he had just visited some people who suffered from leprosy and wanted to know whether the driver would accept his money, to which the driver responded that he was aware that Hansen's disease was not contagious and so accepted the money gladly, indicating that he had caught far worse diseases when he was in the Pacific with the Marines.

Mr. Ruark concludes, "Welcome home, Stanley Stein."

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