The Charlotte News

Tuesday, December 25, 1951

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the U.N. command accused the Communists this date of forcing thousands of captured South Korean soldiers to join the North Korean Army after re-educating them in Manchuria. The allies also asked the Communists to account for more than 50,000 allied soldiers reported to have disappeared after falling into Communist hands—presumably, according to the story, including 49,000 Koreans among them, as the prior week, the U.N. had asked the Communists to account for 1,000 non-Korean prisoners of war. The Communists hinted that they may have transferred some prisoners to Communist China for re-education, and while there was nothing illegal about such transfer, previously they had insisted that they had kept all prisoners in Korea.

During the subcommittee session on policing the armistice this date, the Communists insisted that they should be guaranteed the right to rebuild airfields during the armistice, a demand to which the allies had staunchly refused agreement.

The two subcommittees remained at an impasse, with only two days remaining before the provisional agreement on the ceasefire buffer zone expired.

In ground action, several brief fights flared up but ended quickly. Generally, front-line troops enjoyed turkey dinners, Santa Claus and "cold quiet".

In Pittsburgh, the executive board of the United Steelworkers Union and the 170-man wage policy committee were set to meet on Thursday night to determine whether or not to accept the request from the President to continue working past the expiration of the current contract at midnight on New Year's Eve. Steel companies had accepted the request, which was made for the sake of national defense. The President had stated to a reporter the previous night, as he lit the White House national Christmas tree from his home in Independence, Mo., that he would use every power at his command to keep steel production going, which would include invoking the Taft-Hartley Act's option of seeking an 80-day injunction to halt the strike. The previous Saturday, he had already referred the dispute to the Wage Stabilization Board for recommendations, but their analysis would not be completed before the expiration of the contract.

The New York Times reported that Office of Price Stabilization economists had estimated that the steel industry would earn 2.6 billion dollars in before-tax profits during 1951 and that it was 1.2 billion dollars in excess of the earnings standard used by the Government to determine whether price ceilings for an industry were fair and equitable. The figures, according to the story by Joseph Loftus, confirmed the Government's position that wage increases demanded by the Union should not be passed on to consumers in the form of higher steel prices. A U.S. Steel spokesman had criticized the Government's formula for determining fair and equitable price ceilings based on profits.

Senator Allen Ellender of Louisiana, who had recently returned from a tour of Europe saying that there were the "damnedest scandals" in foreign aid spending in Western Europe, stated that he would be backed up in the allegation by Austrian Chancellor Leonard Figl. He said that Mr. Figl wanted to come to America to testify before Congress and had told him of France, Britain and Russia, three of the four occupying powers in Austria, draining dollars from Austria which the U.S. had provided to rebuild the country's economy.

Members of the public and some newspapers and businesses had started funding drives to raise the $120,000 in fines imposed by Hungary on the four U.S. airmen whose C-47 transport plane had been forced down over Hungary November 19. The fines were imposed after they had been quickly tried and convicted of aiding spies in Hungary, and the four would face 90 days in jail were the fines not paid. There was no indication whether State Department officials and Congressional leaders would advise the President to pay the fines from the Government Treasury.

In Moscow, Soviet poet Sergei Mikhalkov, one of the country's best known writers of children's books, warned in verse that Russia would catch any American spies sent to Russia. A translated sample from the poem is included:

No matter how the rope is woven,
It always has an end!
And those who come out,
As Washington tells them,
And openly encroach...

We assume that it lost something in translation. The last line may refer to Archie, the cockroach, as an earlier line says, "In clouds under the heavily arch", referring to one of the places where the spies would be caught. It's the only way to make it rhyme.

Let us see if we may assist the poet:

No matter how the rope is woven,
It always weaves into a coven,
And those who do as Moscow coaches,
Often wind up Manchurian pols de las noches.

The holiday period accident death toll stood at 565, including 394 in traffic mishaps and 79 by fire. The toll did not include the 119 coal miners who lost their lives in a mine explosion in West Frankfort, Ill., during the prior four days.

The funerals of many of the victims of the Friday explosion took place this date, with the remainder scheduled for the next day. There was no cause yet determined for the explosion, thought to be from methane gas. John L. Lewis, head of the UMW, called for stricter standards of mine safety and rigorous inspection, which he claimed was deficient. Governor Adlai Stevenson initiated an investigation into the disaster.

Another Gallup poll appears, this one providing a new sample of opinion on voter choice for the Republican presidential nomination, finding that 30 percent favored General Eisenhower and 28 percent, Senator Taft, followed by General MacArthur, at 16 percent, Governor Earl Warren, at 11 percent, and the remainder in single digits. The poll showed a narrowing of the gap between Senator Taft and General Eisenhower by six points since the prior June, when the General had polled the same figure while Senator Taft had received only 22 percent. Among crucial independents, the General led the Senator 32 percent to 20 percent. Party leaders overwhelmingly favored Senator Taft, with 1,110 votes to only 397 for the General, among 1,861 returns.

In Christmas, Fla., postal clerks were weary from licking stamps and placing them onto holiday mail to earn a celebrated postmark. Persons from 32 states and several foreign countries had sent in 102,499 postcards, plus other mail, exceeding by 60,000 the pieces sent in prior years. During December, the small post office handled more mail in a single day than during the entirety of the rest of the year. The only town in the country which competed for such attention was Santa Claus, Ind.

Well, what about Lizard Lick, N.C.?

On the editorial page, "On Earth Peace, Good Will Toward Men" quotes the Christmas story imparted in the Book of Luke, chapter 2, verses 1-14, concluding: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men."

"Merry Christmas, Happy New Year", a by-lined piece by News publisher Thomas L. Robinson, recites the history of the newspaper, that only four men had served as its publisher, including himself, in the 63 years of its publication, during which time it had been the newspaper, not its managers, which had achieved continuity. It had been the medium through which these men had expressed themselves and their aspirations for the community and region which they had sought to serve.

He expresses thanks first to the readers, on whose favor the success of the newspaper depended, second to the newspaper's advertisers, and last and especially, to the employees of the newspaper, who, in reality, he indicates, were The News, wishes all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

"Fear Not" tells of the Christmas story and the angel of the Lord coming upon the shepherds and telling them: "Fear not; for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy."

It finds that in 1951 at Christmas, those words were cloaked in new meaning, as "peace on earth, good will toward men" appeared further from achievement than at any time in history and that though church membership continued to increase, there were dismaying signs that Christian morality was cracking under the strain of modern living. It finds that, nevertheless, the goal of peace on earth and good will toward men was still within reach, provided everyone would strive for it along the "simple and basic lines laid down for us by the Child whose birth we celebrate today."

It counsels remembering the words of the messenger angels, that without fear and confidence in the course being taken, one day the state of morality, peace and goodwill toward men, would, in the final analysis, obtain.

"A Christmas Haircut" provides an anecdote which had occurred two shopping days before Christmas in the barbershop, where, as the writer took his seat, Santa Claus came on the radio, chuckling, "Ho, ho, ho, my, you little boys and girls have been keeping me busy." He then told the audience of the letters he had received, and read some of them. At the time, there was a little boy about six in the barbershop listening to the broadcast, when Santa suddenly changed topics and started talking about Christ and the reason for Christmas being his birthday, continuing to impart the Christmas story, then returning to the letters he had received. At that point, chatter in the shop, which quieted when the story of Christmas was being told, returned and the little boy stood up, zipped up his jacket and walked into the street without saying a word. But the quizzical look on his face had reflected the question in his mind as to what was Christmas.

A piece from the Sharon Herald, titled "Straw in the Wind", suggests that to obtain an early indication of how the President might decide regarding whether he would run again, newsmen might keep a lookout for piano tuners and the President's old bridge partners around his Independence residence.

Drew Pearson tells of a Christmas card he received from the children of Lamar Caudle having caused him great heartache, as it made him realize what an unhappy Christmas they were likely having. He had known the Caudle children since around the time their father had first come to Washington from North Carolina in 1945, as Assistant Attorney General in charge of the criminal division. He had watched them grow up and go off to college, and, more recently, return home to defend their father. They were fine children and had sent him a Christmas card and flowers, in "sort of a mute appeal to defend their father". He had just finished a column, published the following day, regarding how Mr. Caudle had been sucked in by a city slicker and tax-fixer who had flown him around in his airplane and paid him a commission on the sale of a plane, probably prompting the children to believe that Mr. Pearson was a hard-boiled newsman who would "rush to the phone with a scoop if his grandmother were run over by a taxi in front of the White House." He indicates that while a newsman did have to be hard-boiled at times, he also had a heart and so wished to provide some balance to the picture of Mr. Caudle by pointing out some things which had not made the headlines or gotten into the press association stories.

The Republicans under Presidents Hoover and Coolidge had leaned toward blue bloods in their appointments, whereas the Democrats, especially under President Truman, had inclined more toward the country boys, neither making the best types of public servants, the better being a medium in between. When the country boys had large families to support and were unsuspecting of the niceties provided to them as being gestures of expectation of something in return, the result was "Caudleism".

The airplane rides which Mr. Caudle had received were no different from the free private cars to the Kentucky Derby which former Secretary of Commerce Jesse Jones had obtained from the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, except that the latter had received a lot more money from the RFC than anyone had ever gotten from influence over Mr. Caudle. Guy Gabrielson, chairman of the RNC, had offered the new chairmanship of the New York Stock Exchange to the RFC's Harvey Gunderson at a time when Mr. Gabrielson was seeking to obtain an eighteen million dollar loan for his company, no different in principle from the wholesale prices Mr. Caudle had received on a mink coat for his wife plus two automobiles, except that the loan to Mr. Gabrielson's company had cost the taxpayers a lot more.

He indicates that he was not seeking to excuse Mr. Caudle or Mr. Jones or Mr. Gabrielson, but merely commenting that Mr. Caudle had been a country boy who was dazzled by smooth-talking friends. He was his own worst enemy when testifying before the House Ways & Means subcommittee, but it had been obvious from listening to him that he was telling the truth. He had paid more for the fur coat at its wholesale price than he would have paid at retail, demonstrating that he was simply a country boy who should not have been palling around with city slickers. Nor should he have held the job that he had, but, he admits, it was easy for a journalist or a Congressman to judge their fellow man.

He recalls that the man who headed the newspaper chain which initiated the first stories against Mr. Caudle had been exposed by the Roosevelt Administration for setting up a personal holding corporation to take tax deductions for his yacht.

Nor had he forgotten that Mr. Caudle had phoned him the previous year, indicating that they were pushing a tax case against a New Jersey man who was a notorious rum runner, seeking information on what Mr. Pearson knew about a feud the man had with another rum runner. That was not the sort of inquiry, he urges, which was emblematic of pulling punches in a tax case. He relates of three other tax cases in which Mr. Caudle insisted on prosecution, including one against a gambler in Washington, in which he prodded the matter three times, before finally, himself, being fired.

He concludes that it was not possible to defend some of the foolish things Mr. Caudle had done, but that when he was testifying he had become so flustered that he could not counter-balance his own record. So Mr. Pearson offers the foregoing balance as his Christmas card to the Caudle children.

Joseph & Stewart Alsop comment on the Christmas season always appearing to be a time for nostalgia and happy recollection of Christmas past for grown men and women, while few of them "who cherish the ghost of Christmas past, really enjoy the present Christmas, with its expense, its bother, its tinsel that looks like tinsel to the adult eye, its dreadful blend of horrible eggnog and dubious jollity." They assert that what made the present Christmas bearable was the ghost of Christmas past, and find that the nation was suffering from "an almost continuous nostalgia", one which was misleading, just as the national recollection of the national past was misleading.

The country yearned for simplicity, "the ease, the absence of burdensome responsibility which once marked American life, at least for the more fortunate."

It had not been so long since the Supreme Court had rejected the income tax as an outrage against the Constitution, or, more recently, since a "little band of willful men" had carried the country back into national isolation while being widely admired as statesmen. Prior to the war, such "cozy little national issues" as farm bills, power bills, securities and exchange acts, and the like had been the chief preoccupation of Americans who took their citizenship seriously. But now, instead of being concerned with dishonest brokers who defrauded their clients out of a few hundred thousand dollars, concerns had to be for the controversy in Iran, where its Prime Minister, Mohammed Mossadegh, was elderly, irrational and a sly fanatic, but nevertheless threatened to bring down the Middle East in ruins, thereby exposing the soft flanks of the free world to Communism.

Instead of the evil ways of utility holding companies or the desirability of a higher tariff on knit goods, the country now had to consider the insoluble economic problems of France, the British Commonwealth and half the other nations of the West.

Such were the penalties for the country having come of age as the world leader, with global responsibilities, producing higher taxes to go with Christmas bills, inflated by the defense program.

But the country could not retreat to the past, lest disaster accompany such ignoring of the present and future, "guarded by the greatness and the adulthood of these United States."

Marquis Childs finds that in the scramble of gift giving and receiving and spending, the wrapping and mailing, people sometimes forgot the true meaning of Christmas. One gift had special significance in this time, that being the gift of blood to the American Red Cross. The privilege of giving it so outweighed its inconvenience that the burden of gratitude was on the side of the donor.

To provide blood had been made easy, with every city having a blood donor center. Yet, the response of the public during 1951, despite the needs of the battlefield in Korea, had not been good. Volunteers at the blood centers had fallen off dramatically the previous summer, such that during the fall, a national publicity campaign had been initiated with the assistance of the Defense Department, helping to approach the goal of 75,000 pints per week, considered a minimum to reach the total of three million pints by the following June.

With the prospect of an armistice in Korea at hand, officials were concerned that blood donations would diminish again, and wished to stress that the need for blood remained high, as the present backlog was dangerously small. No reserve existed for a major emergency and there were only limited means for processing whole blood into plasma, and so a sudden acceleration of the process would not be possible in the event of an emergent circumstance. A steady flow was required from a constant stream of donors.

To run the risk of such a narrow margin in the present world was "part of a larger folly of playing ostrich in the face of the need to organize the rudiments of a civilian defense organization."

Elizabeth Blair of The News imparts the history of the Christmas tree, deriving from Germany in the year 1605, when the first tree was erected in the Square of Strassburg. Previous Christmas trees had existed in legend, Martin Luther, in the 16th century, having supposedly cut a fir tree and taken it home to his children on Christmas Eve. Long before the time of Martin Luther and long before the dawn of Christianity, the ancient Teutons had depicted the sun rising higher and higher in the heavens, as the spreading of the branches of a great tree.

Decorations on the tree, she further explains, derived from Teutonic beliefs. The lights represented the flashes of lightning, the golden apples, the sun, the nuts, the moon, and the Christmas balls, the stars—the latter probably having derived from the old Two-tonic black-and-blue tradition of kicking one's Christmas decorations so hard that the kicked saw stars. Animals hung in the branches represented the sacrifices of the Teutonic people. Lighting candles on the tree was supposed to have derived from the belief that during the Christmas season, candles miraculously appeared on evergreens—and sometimes, not so miraculously, burned the house down, also.

The tree had been introduced at Christmastime in England in 1840 by Princess Helena of Mecklenburg and the Prince Consort, 99 years after the first Christmas tree was brought to America by Count Nicholas Ludwig Von Zinzendorf in 1741, a German immigrant to the Moravian settlement at Bethlehem, Pa. (For older Winston-Salem residents, it was for him that the Zinzendorf Laundry and the Zinzendorf Hotel were named, wherein, it is said in city lore, Christmas trees once proliferated and abounded in such profusion as to light up the whole city and then the whole world.)

The custom of setting up a community Christmas tree in a central place had spread throughout the country, one of the largest being placed at Rockefeller Center in New York City—the hidden symbolism of which was finally revealed by Vice-President Nelson Rockefeller in his single-handed salute to Christmas in 1976.

Pagan Romans had decorated their houses with evergreens in celebration of the winter solstice, when the days begin to get longer. Mistletoe, a parasitic plant which grew on trees, had been revered by the Druids long before the beginnings of Christianity, also in celebration of the solstice, a symbol of future hope and peace, hence the tradition of kissing underneath it having derived from the custom of enemies being required to forget their differences when they met under the mistletoe. (Each former combatant was forced to propose a standard mutual toast, whereby they simply stated, in unison, "Forget you." That, by turns of the wrack, was the ancient origin of the line, "May old acquaintance be forgot.")

She reminds that "O Christmas Tree" was only the English translation of "O Tannenbaum" in the German.

First Day of Christmas: A big, bright evergreen, which will never lean.

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