The Charlotte News

Wednesday, February 21, 1951

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports, via Olen Clements, that allied forces had flattened out the Wonju bulge against light opposition in central Korea while in the western sector, the enemy blocked, with heavy, accurate mortar fire, two new allied attempts to cross the Han River, as a driving rain turned the whole front into a miserable muddy mire. Some allied troops took advantage of the rain to obtain their first shower in months. Bet that not only felt better...

In the first major lunge since the start of the limited allied offensive, the allied troops took Chunchon after a ten-mile advance from Chechon on the east central front. Bet they were chewing Chiclets.

On the west central front, British troops pushed eight miles north of Kyongan in an area ten miles east of Seoul.

Big naval guns bombarded both the Tanchon and Wonsan areas on the east coast and the area of enemy emplacements on the Han River from off Inchon on the west coast.

Tenth Corps Headquarters in Korea announced that three soldiers and two seamen had died and fifteen others made ill by consuming denatured alcohol while awaiting evacuation from Hungnam during the prior December. The report notes that officers of a Navy-chartered transport had heard rumors that perhaps 50 troops and crewmen had died aboard the ship from drinking anti-freeze.

That there anti-freeze'll keep ye from icin' over and bustin' your raddiater.

The President said to a group of Masonic leaders at the Statler Hotel in Washington that the country was gradually approaching a position in which a third world war could be prevented, provided there was support for the mobilization program from all segments of the population.

Secretary of State Acheson announced that the U.S. was holding talks with friendly governments on the possibility of forming a Pacific common defense organization, similar to NATO, involving, according to other sources, a pact with Australia and New Zealand.

Lt. General Curtis LeMay, head of the Strategic Air Command, testifying at the hearings on Senator Kenneth Wherry's resolution to express the sense of the Senate against sending troops to Europe without Congressional approval, said that his long-range bombers would serve as a greater deterrent to the Russians than any ground forces in Europe, but nevertheless favored the President's plan to send ground troops as part of NATO. He disfavored tying the hands of the military by mandating Congressional approval as it would handicap where he could place his bombers and fighters after the start of a war. He said, in response to a question posed by Senator Wherry, that he did not know whether his bombers could knock out the Russians but that it was his job to try to achieve that end. He had testified at the request of Senator Wherry, despite his testimony having turned out to be in opposition to the resolution.

Economic Stabilizer Eric Johnston renewed efforts to repair the wage control program by inducing labor leaders in a meeting to cooperate with it. One leg of the tripod, he said, needed repair to uphold the system. Price administrator Mike DiSalle, in two radio programs the previous night, defended the price control program against criticism from labor leaders and others for not halting the rise in prices.

Officials of TWUA had told some 200,000 textile workers in New England to prepare for a strike unless wage demands were accepted by management, as 70,000 wool and worsted workers entered their sixth day of strike. The bested had yet to walk out.

The Office of Price Stabilization banned, effective March 2, the sale of new cars at inflated prices in the used car market and set dollars-and-cents ceiling prices on all used cars, to prevent them from selling above new car prices. One used car guide, for instance, had quoted the price for a used 1950 Chevrolet 4-door sedan as being $1,665, while the factory delivered new car price for the same car was only $1,450. Under the new regulation, a dealer could not charge more than the latter price for the used car.

What if the car was new and used all at the same time, and then used again before it became new? Where do we go from here? And what about Fords and Plymouths? Does it only apply to Chevys, and if so, why?

E. Merl Young, one-time Government messenger, denied to the Senate Banking subcommittee that he had ever offered to be influential in obtaining a ten million dollar RFC loan for Texmass Corp., a Texas-Massachusetts oil development company. Ross Bohannon, a Dallas attorney who had represented Texmass, had earlier told the subcommittee that Mr. Young had sought an $85,000 fee from Texmass to grease the wheels for the loan. Mr. Young said that he had met once with Mr. Bohannon at the latter's request to discuss the loan and was told that he would need bring DNC chairman William Boyle onboard. He said that after then telling Mr. Boyle of the conversation, Mr. Boyle said to forget it.

In Philadelphia, an experiment to cleanse a woman's blood because of failure of one of her kidneys, by sending her blood through the kidney of a deceased auto accident victim, failed and the woman died eight hours afterward.

In Raleigh, legislation was introduced to provide all State workers except teachers a ten percent wage increase, costing between 12 and 15 million dollars per year. Another bill was introduced to provide for redistricting in the state to enable fair and equal representation in Congress and avoid gerrymandering, of which Republicans in the state had complained for years. Other bills provided for slum clearance and creation of a North Carolina Turnpike Authority.

You gon' build the turnpike through the slums? That's not gon' be good for the children to see in Winsen-Salem as they're goin' through from the coast to the mountains and back for vacations. Guess the property prices are lower though.

According to the "Our Weather" box, a person achieves a natural high from clear, cool weather because the air is breathed in "like heady wine". How about Heddy Hopper?

On the editorial page, "Driver Training Needed" tells of the American armed forces suffering in Korea during the year their one-millionth death as tabulated in all the wars since 1776. But more shocking than that was that highway deaths since the advent of the automobile some fifty years earlier would also reach one million in 1951.