The Charlotte News
Monday, December 3, 1951
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that Communist ceasefire negotiators this date proposed inspection by neutral observers behind the lines and a complete freeze on troops and arms in Korea, appearing to be major concessions which could pave the way for agreement on another major issue necessary for a final armistice. The Communists stipulated that any inspection would be limited to "mutually agreed upon ports of entry in the rear". Previously, the Communists had refused to allow observers behind their lines and had insisted on the right to build up their armed strength while the armistice was in effect. The major question posed by the allies was what neutral parties the Communists had in mind to police the truce, a question among 21 questions posed by the U.N. negotiators, scheduled to meet again on Tuesday. If the Communists had in mind Russian satellites as the neutral parties, then the term would be unacceptable to the allies. Relatively few Western countries had not participated in the war. The allies took the "ports of entry" provision to include seaports, airports and rail and highway centers, but that condition also would need clarification. The Communists indicated that they would respond to the questions the following day.
John Randolph of the Associated Press reports that, according to A.P. sources, the Communists could have an informal ceasefire if they wanted it by ceasing all attacks on allied positions, keeping their artillery and mortars at bay and out of sight, sending forth no troops other than small scouting patrols, upon which would be kept a tight leash, and keeping their heads down. Such an informal ceasefire could be changed at any time and nothing would prevent an occasional lapse into a shooting exchange. As far as anyone knew, no one in the allied high command had indicated those words to the Communists, but for the previous five days, the allies had been behaving in accordance with that policy across the front and the Communists, if they followed the four points, would soon discover that it would result in a de facto ceasefire. For the time being, the ground war at the front remained quiet.
A Chinese amphibious force drove 300 to 400 South Korean guerrillas from an island near the mouth of the Yalu River the prior Friday in the face of opposition fire by three British ships and planes from a U.S. carrier. The U.S. Navy reported the loss of Taewha Island and said that about a thousand Chinese had taken part in the assault on the island, which had been used for several months as an allied staging area for raids.
The State Department stated that the U.S. would take immediate action to free the four-man crew and an American Army plane reportedly forced down in Communist Hungary, and rejected a Moscow charge that the plane was carrying equipment to help anti-Communist spies and saboteurs behind the Iron Curtain. It said that the C-47 cargo plane was carrying only standard equipment when its crew of four disappeared on November 19 during a flight from Munich to Belgrade. The previous day, Russia admitted that Soviet fighter planes had forced the craft to land at an Hungarian airfield. A long search by U.S. planes had failed to turn up any trace of the lost plane in the vicinity of Yugoslavia. The Hungarian Government had just confirmed this date that the plane and its missing crew were in Hungary.
General Eisenhower said in a letter to Representative W. Sterling Cole of New York that he was "flattered" to learn that he was regarded by many members of the House as presidential timber, but gave no indication that he would be available. Mr. Cole had recently polled House Republicans and found that the General was the first choice of 54, compared to 71 votes for Senator Taft. Mr. Cole said that he believed that the General was devoted to the NATO command and had given little thought to the nomination. The General's full reply is provided verbatim.
The President signed a fair employment practice executive order pertaining to Government contracts.
The first of five large U.S. air bases being built in North Africa had gone into operation in the desert of French Morocco the prior weekend, with the arrival of six B-36 bombers after a 5,000-mile nonstop flight from Carswell Air Base in Fort Worth, Texas.
In Denver, a B-29 crashed in a wealthy residential section of the city, setting several houses on fire and killing all members of the crew of the bomber.
A Justice Department attorney, John Mitchell, testified to the House Ways & Means subcommittee looking into the prosecution of tax fraud cases, that Representative Frank Boykin of Alabama and former Assistant Attorney General Lamar Caudle, in charge of the tax division, had taken a "highly improper" interest in his prosecution of an Alabama tax fraud case. Mr. Mitchell said that it was proposed that he be the guest of Mr. Boykin on a trip to Alabama in connection with the case, an invitation which he refused, and that on one occasion the chief assistant of Mr. Caudle had told him that he had the distinct impression that Mr. Caudle did not want the case prosecuted. Eventually, the case was prosecuted and the two men accused convicted, but their wives, also the subject of charges, had been acquitted. He added that Mr. Caudle had never told him that he did not want the case prosecuted and, the day after he had the discussion with the assistant, told Mr. Mitchell that he did not know what was wrong with his assistant, that he did want the prosecution to proceed. Mr. Caudle had told him, however, to be very careful in his prosecution and to consult with him at every stage of the proceedings.
The chairman of the subcommittee, Congressman Cecil King of California, said this date that Supreme Court Justice Tom Clark, Attorney General at the time when Mr. Caudle had been his Assistant, and present Attorney General J. Howard McGrath would be invited to testify before the subcommittee. Justice Clark would have the opportunity to clear up the contention that he and Mr. Caudle received use on several occasions of a private airplane belonging to a man from Charlotte who was under investigation at the time for tax fraud. The Justice said during the weekend that he had taken as many as three trips in the man's airplane, the admission coming after a story appearing in the News on Saturday, which set forth an interview between editor Pete McKnight and the pilot of the airplane, a story carried widely on Sunday by the Associated Press. Both the Justice and Mr. Caudle had denied knowing that the man was under investigation for tax problems when they took the flights. Mr. King said that neither Justice Clark nor Attorney General McGrath would be subpoenaed.
In Middlesex, N.C., it was determined that a gasoline tanker explosion which had occurred Sunday night, killing four children, had been caused by one of the children firing a toy cap pistol near a vent in the side of the tank, causing fumes emanating from the vent to explode. The victims ranged in age from 3 to 14 and three of them were brothers. The truck had been parked in the yard of the brothers' home by their father who was the driver of the truck.
In Raleigh, the commissioner of Motor Vehicles called for an unprecedented special meeting of local police and court officials to discuss ways of combating the state's rising toll of traffic deaths. He said that Governor Kerr Scott and Chief Justice W. A. Devin of the State Supreme Court would attend the meeting, to be held at the Institute of Government in Chapel Hill on December 14.
On page 2-A, the seventh part of Senator Taft's recently published A Foreign Policy for Americans appears, this one discussing the relative importance of land, sea and air forces in the event of war with Russia.
In Raleigh, Beattie Feathers, head coach of the N.C. State football team, was fired. In eight seasons as head coach, he had compiled a record of 37-38-3, and his team had a 3-7 record in 1951, following the same result in 1949, a 3-6-1 record in 1948 and a 5-4-1 record in 1950. Their best season under Mr. Feathers had been in 1946, when they finished 8-3 and lost in the Gator Bowl.
In Chicago, on the Mercantile Exchange, wholesale egg prices dropped sharply, with the top grade, which sold for 51 cents per dozen, falling seven cents from Friday and 14 from a week earlier, off 20 cents from the high of 71 cents on November 15. The current prices were 10 to 15 cents lower than a year earlier.
But what were the prices in China and in Raleigh?
In Natal, British Columbia, a hunter in Elk Valley shot one of the largest bears ever felled in the district, weighing 900 pounds and having skin measuring 7.5 square feet.
How many square feet did it have and why were they that way?
On the editorial page, "Questions for Justice Tom Clark" finds that the House Ways & Means subcommittee investigating former Assistant Attorney General Lamar Caudle, former head of the tax division, and his role in tax fraud cases, needed the input from his prior boss, now Supreme Court Justice Tom Clark, who had been Attorney General from 1945 through August, 1949. Mr. Caudle had been elevated from U.S. Attorney in Western North Carolina to Assistant Attorney General in charge of the criminal division in September, 1945. He had subsequently become head of the tax division still during Mr. Clark's tenure.
The piece finds that it was during this time that the enforcement standards had become slack and that personal friendships and political influence had entered the picture, with gifts and loans becoming commonplace methods of buying official favor to avoid tax prosecutions.
No one had suggested that Justice Clark had any role in tax-fixing and, it allows, it might be true, as he claimed, that he did not know that a Charlotte businessman was under investigation for tax problems when he and Mr. Caudle accepted the use of the man's private airplane for personal pleasure trips. It finds, however, that Mr. Clark was responsible for the standards of the Justice Department during his period of administration and could not avoid responsibility for "the laxity and immorality and unethical practices" which had taken place.
The piece wants the subcommittee to ask Justice Clark why Mr. Caudle had ever been appointed Assistant Attorney General in the first place and why he was subsequently appointed to head the tax division when he had no experience in tax matters and no apparent qualifications for that job.
"Will You Be Number 1,000,000?" asks the macabre question whether the reader wished to be the millionth American to die on the highways, as that number was about to be surpassed, likely in the coming month. It warns that it could occur in North Carolina or even in Mecklenburg County. Almost twice as many people had died in traffic accidents during the previous 50 years since the advent of the age of the automobile as in all nine of the wars in which the country had participated.
It hopes that the millionth death would have an impact on American driving habits, but recognizes that it was a slender hope, albeit one which was better than none.
"A Heartening Change" tells of the Federal Government having recently violated one of its traditional and long-cherished fundamentals of administration, when the National Security Resources Board, planning dispersal of new industry for defense purposes, declared that there was no need of a bureau in Washington or elsewhere in the Government to do the job, but that it could be accomplished by state and local governments in cooperation with management and labor in industry, while the Government provided technical assistance, allocation of raw materials and award of production contracts to those communities which undertook the program.
The piece thinks there might be a lesson in this precedent which could translate into other areas of government.
"Cotton Picking in Hungary" tells of an Hungarian Communist newspaper finding that under the old capitalistic system, cotton had been picked with only one hand, whereas under the new revolutionary Communist system, picking was accomplished with both hands.
The piece thinks that, like cotton-pickers throughout the world, Hungarian cotton-pickers had likely long ago figured out that two hands were better than one in picking cotton. The most remarkable thing about the story, it posits, was that it told of increase by 500 percent in the volume of cotton picked under the new system.
In a recent publication titled "Measuring Russian Inventiveness", the Russians had claimed to have invented statistics in 1727, the airplane in 1875, and electric locomotives in 1903. They also claimed to have invented the steam engine, the bicycle and the radio, and that they discovered the route to India and had found the Arctic 250 years before the Swedes arrived, as well as discovering San Francisco in 1806, notwithstanding Drake.
It suggests that they had also discovered a new type of arithmetic which compounded double production to make it five times the production in picking cotton. It adds that if they wanted to make the peasants really efficient, they should tie a hoe in back of them so that they could chop weeds and grass while they picked.
That must be what that letter writer
meant the other day when he advocated a "gen-u-wine
A piece of from the Wall Street Journal, titled "Big Business in Vermont", tells of a woman having made some attractive work bags from turkey-red muslin while vacationing in Vermont and that the local ladies had taken such a fancy to them that they made donations for the church fair, but when they went to the village to seek the work bags, were informed by the proprietor of the general store that they were fresh out, did not anticipate ordering any more, for they had gone so fast that the store could not keep them in stock.
Drew Pearson tells of the House Ways & Means subcommittee investigating tax collection irregularities being interested in Dan Bolich, who had recently resigned as deputy commissioner of the IRB, citing health issues. An investigation of tax irregularities involving the Guaranty Finance Corporation of Los Angeles, essentially a gambling syndicate, had begun in the Los Angeles IRB office in the summer of 1949, showing that in 1948 the company had deducted $248,000 paid to a "Lopez" and another $108,000 paid to "special". No further explanation of the large payments had been provided. IRB investigators, believing they had an airtight case for tax fraud, consulted with Treasury officials, including Mr. Bolich, who had been seen in the company of gambling kingpin Frank Costello, but thereafter the case was dropped. The State of California went forward with prosecutions of two officials of the company on another charge, which resulted in jail. No one had ever determined why the Federal Government had dropped the investigation.
Mr. Pearson announces that the column would conduct a public opinion poll, beginning with Republicans, regarding who they supported for president in 1952, to help supplant the absence of presidential preference primaries across the country to select nominees, whereas under the current system, with spotty primaries, selection instead was made by the delegates at the party conventions, delegates who were seeking party patronage and thus willing to go along with the candidate who promised them the most local power upon winning. He provides instructions by which to send the penny postcards indicating the candidate readers preferred. The results would then be published and would be provided to the delegates to the Chicago convention the following summer, with another poll soon to be held for Democrats.
Marquis Childs, in Rome, addresses the NATO Council meeting and the general expectation that no major decisions had been anticipated from it, but rather simply reconciliation of varying viewpoints to smooth the way for agreements at the ensuing NATO meeting after the first of the year.
There had been a general accord on acceptance of "Operation Stiffener", the name given by General Eisenhower to his plan to accelerate the program of defense to enable 30 trained and equipped highly mobile divisions of troops by the end of 1952, rather than waiting for the full defense buildup, which was not scheduled to occur until sometime in 1954. Joint Chiefs chairman General Omar Bradley was convinced that both programs, however, had to be realized, that it would be insufficient to rely only on the 1952 program, a position on which General Eisenhower agreed and advocated to the Council.
Averell Harriman, in his talk before the Council, stated that it was realistic to hope for both programs to be realized, provided the member nations gave up their separate fears and adopted a belief of collective defense. The British cautiously favored this position, being fully aware that they needed more American aid if they were to fulfill the rearmament program, even under the 1952 plan. Prime Minister Churchill, during his planned visit with the President in January, would address these issues against a backdrop of British support for this position. Mr. Harriman's aid committee would be surveying difficulties arising out of the rearmament program and would seek to complete its report prior to the next Council meeting.
By that meeting, the date of General Eisenhower's retirement as supreme commander of NATO might be set, as a feeling coming out of the recent meeting was that the concentration in the U.S. on his political future was handicapping him in performing his job.
Joseph Alsop addresses the issue of influence peddling and its needed remedy by removing the objects from the political process which were driving it. The Government grew bigger all the time and thus guidance of businessmen through its labyrinth, by means of campaign contributions or otherwise, was the object of big business. He suggests that the first and simplest correction would be for business to stop treating the Government as a huge, hostile power and instead assign executives to Washington to study their problems with the Government as they might arise.
Second, campaign costs and campaign contributions needed to be addressed. He suggests that the most clear solution lay in public financing of campaigns. While the questions had to be addressed regarding how much to spend and whether to spend on party primaries in the South, where the primary usually determined the general election winner, as well as the question of whether to include third parties, the taxpayers would benefit in the long run by public financing, at least as to the two primary national parties in national elections.
Third, the problem of staffing the Government had to be addressed, as Government employees dealt with millions and billions of dollars on a regular basis, with no professional training or security of tenure, and on salaries which were lower than that of the lowest vice-president of a corporation in the private sector.
A letter writer from Durham says that he had enjoyed the newspaper's editorials until he read "Threat to the Southern Conference" the previous week. As a graduate of Clemson in 1936, he wonders whether the editorial writer was a graduate of UNC, which he notes had been to three bowl games in the previous six seasons and had lost all three.
The editors respond: "Nope. Davidson '38."
A letter writer from Efland—which, as we have noted previously, is where all flunkees from UNC have to reside after flunking out, to set an example for other students—finds that temperance versus intemperance was the most important question before the state and nation—that also being a key issue usually involved in flunking out of UNC. He suggests allowing the State to manufacture alcoholic beverages for medical uses and that they then be sold in every courthouse by a salaried deputy sheriff under heavy bond, who would be subject to recall and overseen by a board of 300 men and women elected for a single term of five years, also subject to recall. He posits that such a system would cut out 75 percent of the operating costs and 75 percent of the drunk driving.
He adds that he was the Golden Rule Temperance candidate for governor of the state in 1952 and that if elected, he would give one-fourth of his salary to the public schools of the state.
Incidentally, we mean no offense to Efland, full of successful people. We simply reiterate a standing joke from the fact that the town has an exit off I-40 as one heads toward Chapel Hill from the west, that is, assuming one takes Highway 86.
A letter writer from Pittsboro finds that Russia did not pose the danger of which the nation seemed to have so much apprehension. Russia was well aware that the U.S. would have to establish Western defenses, as most of its allies were bankrupt. But the U.S., he thinks, could not hold up this burden financially, as Russia also knew. Russia was simply applying pressure here and there while awaiting the economic decline of the U.S. He says that he was not an isolationist, but following the instinct of self-preservation, that the expenditure of funds to prop up the rest of the world was being done on an imaginary basis, and favors knowing where the country was headed and wanted to head rather than being maneuvered into collapse internally by the Soviet Union.
A letter writer suggests the abolition of the required unanimous verdict by juries, positing that a three-fourths majority would be sufficient for justice and would render juries safe from tampering, while also allowing swifter verdicts. He also thinks that confusion of the facts via questions asked by lawyers of witnesses ought be changed.
Thus, he would apparently eliminate the right to confront and cross-examine all witnesses presented against one's interest, a fundamental tenet of Due Process under the 5th and 14th amendments, the right in criminal cases to effective assistance of counsel under the Sixth Amendment, and would also accept in criminal cases the concept of guilt being determined only beyond three-quarters of a reasonable doubt. The letter writer apparently fancies that he would never become involved in either a civil or criminal proceeding. Start tampering with the Constitution and you will find out very quickly that your assumptions are, indeed, fanciful. Eliminate, for the sake of convenience, these time-honored safeguards to justice, and what next? Streamline the whole process and just have a vending machine dispense verdicts via computer analysis?
A letter writer from Cherryville states succinctly to the critics of hillbilly music: "You may knock it, but thank goodness you can't stop it." She adds a p.s. that she also liked Pogo.
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