The Charlotte News

Monday, December 10, 1951

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports, via O. H. P. King, that the U.N. command demanded an answer the following day from the Communist negotiators regarding the U.N. proposal to start immediate negotiations for exchange of prisoners in Korea. There was no immediate indication of the Communist reply. The Communists were demanding that the U.N. first answer their proposal for inspection behind the lines by representatives of neutral nations during an armistice period. The allies responded that the proposal was still under study. The allies told the Communists to cease stalling on the issue of prisoner exchange and that they would be ready to begin negotiations on the issue the following day.

A U.N. broadcast from Tokyo accused the Communists of using the prisoners as hostages to force the U.N. to give into the Communist demands regarding inspection.

In the ground war, U.N. forces repulsed nine minor enemy probing attacks along the war front the previous day and this date, five of the attacks occurring on the eastern front, three in the center, and one in the west. No other significant ground activity had taken place during the previous two days under extreme winter cold.

In the air war, U.S. Fifth Air Force jets sighted ten enemy jets over northwest Korea on Monday but made no contact, and there were no enemy planes sighted in the air on Sunday. An F-84 Thunderjet and an F-51 Mustang had been shot down by enemy ground fire on Saturday.

The President reviewed the world situation, with particular emphasis on the Korean truce negotiations, in an hour-long conference at the White House with his military and diplomatic advisers. No immediate announcement followed the meeting. The President had cut short his Key West vacation by one week to return to Washington, presumably to discuss what would take place if the armistice negotiations were not completed by the current deadline of December 27, which was necessary, without a mutually agreed extension, to maintain the agreement already reached after lengthy, complex negotiations regarding the buffer zone. The White House made clear that there was no significant emergency which had called the President back to Washington.

In Paris, at the U.N. General Assembly meeting, a high diplomatic source stated that the Western powers and Russia had agreed on formation of a disarmament commission which would consider the conflicting East-West disarmament plans submitted by each side. He stated that the plans would be placed before the commission the following spring, with instructions to begin drawing up arms limitation proposals. The Big Four representatives who had been meeting in conference would report to the U.N. political committee the following day.

DNC chairman Frank McKinney told a press conference this date that he and Frank McHale, his close political friend, had each made $68,000 in quick profits on investments of $1,000 apiece in 1946, but stressed that no political influence or impropriety had been involved. He charged angrily that newspaper headlines describing the profits had been phrased in such a way that it could make his children think their father was a "damn crook". He asked rhetorically whether it was criminal or unlawful to hold business interests before becoming DNC chairman.

Lamar Caudle again testified before the House Ways & Means subcommittee investigating lack of prosecution of certain tax fraud cases, this time regarding the alleged "shakedown", to which a Chicago attorney, former counsel for Al Capone, had testified, that gambler Frank Nathan had told the attorney that for $500,000, Mr. Nathan would provide him protection against "tax troubles", through his "connections" in Washington, who included, supposedly, Mr. Caudle. Mr. Caudle testified that he had heard about this "shakedown" the previous August and had then called Mr. Nathan to chastise him for using his name. No questions had yet been asked as to whether Mr. Caudle had taken any further action on the matter.

Publisher Fred Seaton was appointed to the Senate from Nebraska to succeed the late Republican minority leader, Senator Kenneth Wherry. An election for the position would be held the following November. Mr. Seaton was the Midwest leader for the Harold Stassen for president drive and had served two terms as a State Senator. He had been active in the 1936 presidential campaign of Alf Landon.

The Agriculture Department, in its final report of the year, estimated the year's cotton crop at 15,290,000 bales of 500 pounds each. The estimate was 480,000 bales less than the previous month's estimate and much larger than the 10,012,000 bales of the previous year, as well as the 10-year average of 12,030,000 bales.

In Salisbury, N.C., State Representative Kerr Craige Ramsay, one of the most influential State representatives, had suffered a fatal heart attack at the age of 42 at his home during the previous day. He had confided to friends that he still aspired to become governor of the state and observers had believed that he would have been a leading figure in the race in 1956. He had recently indicated that he had no plans to run for governor in 1952 or for Congress, both of which had been rumored. He had been a member of the State House since 1941 and had been elected Speaker in 1949.

In Dallas, Georgia, the police chief said that a flier he had arrested the previous day for drunkenness following a plane crash caused by missing the airport by nearly two miles, had been found to be so drunk that he did not know Dallas had an airport. Who would? The pilot had given about 16 different hometowns and did not have a license to fly a plane or even a driver's license. No liquor bottles had been found in the wreckage and so police surmised that the man was drunk when he took off or tossed the bottles overboard along the way. They had also found an open, wet parachute in the back of the plane, but every time they queried the pilot, he responded that he did not know anything about it. He also said that they were going to get into trouble for continually asking him questions and that it was none of their business. The plane had crashed about 100 yards from a residential area and had flown over rooftops, just missing clipping some houses.

In Kansas, the Tenth Infantry Division provost marshal at Fort Riley went to Topeka to pick up an AWOL soldier and, learning that he would not return home for a couple of hours, decided to kill time at a movie. After he returned to the prisoner's home to pick him up, he realized that he had been sitting next to the prisoner the whole time at the movie.

What was the feature?

In London, England, a burglar stole more than $16,800 worth of jewels from the Washington Hotel suite of singer Frank Sinatra and his wife, actress Ava Gardner.

What was the feature?

On the editorial page, "Too Little and Too Late?" tells of General Hoyt Vandenberg, Air Force chief of staff, having recently stated that while the U.S. Air Force still held air superiority in Korea, there was a danger that if the enemy decided against ending the Korean War and to undertake committing considerable air resources to it, the result could be a bitter and costly struggle for the U.S. Air Force.

On the same day, Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said that U.S. equipment in Korea was held in readiness all the time for speedy evacuation should the Russian air force enter the war, and that if the enemy took control of the air, the allies would be at a considerable disadvantage.

The piece agrees with the latter assessment, and considers that it would be suicidal to wage a major war against Russia in the Far East. It regards the statements by General Vandenberg and Senator Morse as implying that the U.S. would have to withdraw from Korea if the Russian air force entered the conflict. That prospect suggested that there was a deficiency in the production of modern fighters and tactical bombers, partially explained by the Air Force decision to concentrate on the B-36 bomber on the basis that any Russian air attack would come via long-distance. It also suggested that U.S. scientists and engineers had not kept pace with their Russian counterparts.

The piece ventures that in light of these statements, the average American might wonder if the country was following a "too little and too late" formula.

"New Committee Is No FEPC" tells of the Committee on Government Contract Compliance, established by the President by executive order the previous week, having been criticized as a "Little FEPC" by such persons as Congressman Joseph Bryson of South Carolina, but that, in fact, it was not at all similar to the proposed FEPC. Since early during World War II, most Government contracts had clauses which required that contractors and subcontractors not discriminate in employment based on race, creed, color or national origin. During the war, a temporary FEPC, established by executive order per the war powers act, had been in existence to enforce such contracts. The new Committee would not have the same scope of power as this temporary FEPC had, as it would have no power of enforcement and would deal only with contractors and subcontractors, having no impact on transportation, labor unions and other such fields which the temporary FEPC during the war had. The Committee would merely inspect to make sure that the contractors and subcontractors were adhering to the non-discrimination clauses in their contracts.

It concludes that those who were trying to equate the Committee with the FEPC were attempting to "thrust a bogie before the public."

"Babes in Businessland" addresses what the new tax bill did for stocks, as explained in Business Week. If you have a special interest in the arcane issue of what the 1951 tax bill did for stocks, you may read the piece or obtain the original article from Business Week. Candidly, we could care less about the "split-off", the "spin-off", or the "split-up" methods.

"Personalizing Peace" finds that one of the many benefits coming out of UNC was the high school world peace study and speaking program, originated by Oscar Merritt of Mount Airy and conducted by the UNC Extension Division. Nearly a thousand schools and thousands of students had participated in the program during the previous five years, speaking before an aggregate audience of about 400,000 persons. The program was designed as an adjunct to the regular high school curriculum in English, public speaking, modern history and social studies. It resulted in better informed students regarding current issues and events, and could redound also to the benefit of the parents, as the students probably had the answer to most questions arising on such matters as NATO, the Atlantic Union Committee, the United World Federalists, the U.N., and other such relevant matters.

R. F. Beasley, editor of the Monroe Journal, finds that the underpinnings for the current scandal being uncovered by the House Ways & Means subcommittee regarding tax fraud prosecutions, had taken place in 1932 when the people of North Carolina had elected Robert Rice Reynolds to the Senate, "about as fitted to be a Senator as the devil was to lead the Baptist choir." He had been elected not on the basis of his qualifications but because he rode around in a beat-up jalopy while his opponent, interim Senator and former Governor Cameron Morrison, rode in a limousine.

Senator Reynolds had recommended the appointment of Lamar Caudle as U.S. Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina, from which position he was eventually appointed head of the Justice Department criminal division in 1945, and then subsequently head of the tax division.

Mr. Beasley regards Mr. Caudle as a ruined man, probably stemming more from stupidity and weak desire to shine than from any criminal intent, that he deserved more pity than scorn.

When any man achieved a certain level of influence, there would be those who sought from him favors, especially if they sensed weakness.

The public would never know the extent of criminal evasion of taxes which had transpired during this period of lack of enforcement through bribes and favors. He urges that good citizens should not become discouraged, however, as the safety valve of democracy was publicity, exposing both the villains and the weaklings upon whom the villains preyed.

Drew Pearson tells of Canada deliberately withholding precious aluminum from the U.S., which had already reduced aluminum supply for home construction and other civilian uses, as well, more seriously, restricting the amount of aluminum available to the Air Force to build jet fighters. Making the situation worse, part of Canada's aluminum industry had been financed by American RFC loans during World War II. Canada had diverted its aluminum to the British market to force the U.S. to swap steel for aluminum. The U.S. was the only NATO country which had been forced to place restrictions on civilian use of aluminum. The strategy had worked and forced the U.S. to swap American steel for British aluminum, but under the arrangement, the U.S. would be forced to return the aluminum once its own plants had expanded, while Britain would be able to keep the steel.

During the war, Secretary of Interior Harold Ickes had vigorously argued against financing the Canadian aluminum industry on the basis that the U.S. could not control Canadian aluminum, while RFC head Jesse Jones advocated it and eventually got his way.

Beginning January 1, the penny postcard would go by the boards, having been a staple of the mail for the previous 80 years. Mr. Pearson finds it a tribute to rugged individualism in America that it had survived so long, having been first introduced in 1872 during the Grant Administration, followed by the picture postcard in 1898. Congress had boosted the rate to two cents because big business had been exploiting the penny postcard for use as advertising. Only about ten percent of the four billion postcards sold annually in the post offices were being used for personal correspondence. Congress also imposed a ten percent surcharge on postcards purchased in bulk of more than 49 at a time. The Post Office believed that the doubling in price would not seriously impact sales.

He reminds readers to mail postcards, selecting a Republican candidate for president, to participate in his informal poll, the results of which would be forwarded to the Republican National Committee, to be followed by a similar poll for the Democrats.

We vote for that nice young man, what was his name? Naxon? Noson? Well, anyway, we vote for him, as he is no "damn crook".

Marquis Childs, in Heidelberg, tells of American military strength in West Germany having virtually tripled in the previous six months, and undergoing intensive training under real combat conditions, utilizing live ammunition and live land mines. The four new American divisions of about 100,000 men were complemented by doubling of the British forces and an increase in the French forces also in West Germany. It was believed, therefore, that no longer could the Russian army force its way to the English Channel.

The intensive training was taking place on the same ground which the forces would have to defend in the event of a Soviet attack. Once each month, an unannounced alert sent the entire force to the stations they would take in the event of an actual attack. But this rugged training could result in staleness, similar to that experienced by an over-trained athlete, as young Americans uprooted in peacetime suffered from loneliness and a sense of isolation.

Joseph Alsop discusses the flawed Republican concept that the party had lost the previous three elections, and especially that in 1948, because of "me-tooism" practiced by its nominees, that is, following the New Deal-Fair Deal concepts but claiming to be able to implement them more efficiently than the Democrats.

But the fact was that the President in 1948 had run behind more progressive Democrats in such states as Illinois and Ohio, where liberal Democrats beat anti-me-too Republican candidates quite handily. In Illinois, for instance, where the President had won by only 33,000 votes, Adlai Stevenson won the Governor's race over the conservative Robert McCormick-backed candidate, Dwight Green, by nearly 575,000 votes, while Senator Paul Douglas won over the McCormick candidate, Curly Brooks, by nearly 500,000 votes. The same pattern was true in Ohio, as well as throughout the country.

By the same token, Governor Dewey had won in New York by only 161,000 votes, while supposedly following the "me-too" formula, while Henry Wallace, on the Progressive Party ticket, polled over 500,000 votes, most of which would have gone to the President. The same pattern held true in Pennsylvania.

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