The Charlotte News
Thursday, February 8, 1951
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that U.S. tanks shelled Seoul's ruins this date and howitzers then hit Chinese positions north of the frozen Han River this night. Puerto Rican troops seized Manggyong mountain, a commanding 1,800-foot height overlooking Seoul, 4.5 miles from the city. The enemy had fled so quickly from their positions that rice was found still warm in their bowls. The entire allied line then advanced another mile or more toward the former South Korean capital, to within 5.5 miles. The tank column had advanced to within four miles of the capital and then, after shelling it, withdrew for the night per its usual practice. A staff officer reported that it was likely that the enemy would withdraw to the north bank of the Han, which had begun to thaw on Wednesday but again froze over this night, as snow fell on the western sector.
The Eighth Army had estimated that more than 57,000 casualties had been inflicted on the enemy during the two-week allied limited offensive, most of them in the western sector, putting the enemy's back to the Han and causing resistance to crumble, with no opposition encountered in some sectors.
The Army, which was operating the nation's railroads, served notice on the striking railway switchmen that they would be dismissed if they did not return to work by 4:00 p.m. Saturday or show proof that they were physically incapable of doing so. The announcement came shortly after the President had instructed the Army to take necessary action to assure full operation of the railroads. He had said at a press conference that the striking railroad workers had run out on the previous wage-hours agreement "like a bunch of Russians".
At the conference, the President also accused a Senate Banking subcommittee, chaired by Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas, of making an "asinine report" in finding that White House aide Donald Dawson had exercised influence in the grant of Reconstruction Finance Corporation loans. He said that the subcommittee should have asked Mr. Dawson to testify before making its findings and that the chairman had left town when he found out that the President wanted to discuss the matter with him. Republicans were making political hay out of the contentions in the report that Mr. Dawson had tried to dominate the RFC. The President said that the report reflected on him and that he had never sought to bring pressure on the RFC. Senator Fulbright had said that the RFC was infected with "institutional dry rot" and recommended that the board of directors be replaced with a single administrator.
The Government planned to cut by 25 to 40 percent use of basic metals for production of automobiles and home appliances starting April 1, to conserve steel, copper, and aluminum for defense production. The National Production Authority said that the automotive industry had promised to cut voluntarily use of basic metals in its production for the present quarter, but had not yet done so, prompting the necessity for the order.
In Woodbridge, N.J., site of the derailment two days earlier of a commuter train as it passed over a temporary trestle, the death toll had risen from 82 to 83. Police believed that the toll would not rise further unless some of the eleven still hospitalized in critical condition were to succumb to their injuries. No one was reported missing and no more bodies were expected to be found in the wreckage. Police said that the engineer had slowed the train from 60 mph just before the derailment but had seen no caution signal on the curved approach to the trestle. Two Pennsylvania Railroad officials had told the police that the train had no speedometer, that there were no advance safety checks performed on the trestle, and that there was no warning signal on its approach. Engineers had practically ruled out any structural deficiency in the temporary trestle as a cause of the accident.
A Middlesex County prosecutor meanwhile accused the Pennsylvania Railroad of "complete and indifferent disregard for human life" and said his office would explore thoroughly any possible criminal charges arising from the incident to present to the grand jury at the earliest opportunity.
In St. Paul, Minn., an explosion in the minerals building of the 3M Co. plant killed at least nine persons, with the coroner implying that there were perhaps as many as 15 dead. The cause had not yet been ascertained, but fire officials and company officials believed it to have originated from gas furnaces used in treating abrasives.
In Fostoria, O., four men were killed and one injured in a gas explosion at the Atlas Crankshaft Co. The men worked in the steel hardening department.
In Locarno, Switzerland, an avalanche swept away a 70-year old farmer.
The former Communist Foreign Minister of Czechoslovakia, Vlado Clementis, who favored independence for Slovakia, was seeking political asylum in Yugoslavia after arriving in Belgrade the previous night. He had been warned by President Klement Gottwald of his pending arrest, resulting in the President reportedly being placed under close police surveillance, although other reports from Prague found no unusual guard around his residence.
In New York, former Government economist William Remington, following his conviction by a jury the previous night for perjury for denying to a grand jury that he had ever been a Communist, was to be sentenced this date. He faced a maximum of five years in prison and a fine. During the case, evidence was presented that he had passed secret Government documents to admitted former Communist courier Elizabeth Bentley. His former wife, an admitted former Communist, testified against him at the trial.
In Raleigh, the State Senate Appropriations Committee approved pending legislation providing for funding of construction and improvement of city streets out of the State Highway Fund, a measure opposed by Governor Kerr Scott.
Icy blasts from the Midwest cut a wide swath across the Eastern and Southern states this date, sending temperatures south, to freezing in Northern Florida and to near zero in Virginia. A temperature of 34 below zero was recorded in Wisconsin and sub-zero temperatures prevailed over the Midwest.
On page 8-A, Hal Boyle, reversing roles, reports to the soldiers of what was happening on the home front.
The News tells of selecting a new type, Corona 8-point on an 8.5-point base, for its news columns, starting the following Monday. The present type was 7-point Ionic on a 7.75-point base. The new type, which would allow more space between the lines, had been perfected by the Mergenthaler Linotype Co.
Better be perspicacious, as more space will allow the readers to read more in between.
We'll be sure and let you know if it makes any difference to the price of eggs in India.
On the editorial page, "Senator Byrd's Tax Proposal" finds that Senator Harry F. Byrd of Virginia had proposed that Congress hold up action on new taxes until all appropriations measures had passed so that cuts would be made before raising taxes, the opposite approach to that favored by the News earlier in the week in its editorial urging "tax now and spend later".
It challenges the theory of Senator Byrd, saying that, based on the record, the approach simply did not work. Congress had followed this procedure for the previous 18 years and in only two of those years, during the Republican 80th Congress of 1947-48, had the Government raised as much revenue as it spent, with surpluses having resulted of 754 million in 1947 and 8.4 billion in 1948. Deficits had been the rule in the other 16 years, with a high of 54 billion in 1945.
It concludes that the average Congressman voted to spend money irrespective of revenue and then blamed the President and the Administration for not practicing parsimony.
It urges that another reason existed currently for its recommended approach, that being the prospect of higher excise taxes spurring the public to engage in panic buying to avoid them later. So, it suggests, even if Congress wanted to delay imposition of higher income taxes, it ought vote to impose the excise taxes forthwith to forestall such hoarding and restrain inflation.
"Railroad Accidents" urges finding out the reason for the three recent train wrecks in the New York metropolitan area, as they presented implications nationally for train safety. Railroad safety had shown improvement in the 1944 to 1948 period, with passenger injuries dropping by a fourth, from about 4,800 to about 3,600 and deaths from 267 to 59. In contrast, three passenger train accidents in 1950 had killed 144 persons. The commuter train wreck in New Jersey two days earlier had killed 83.
It favors the Interstate Commerce Commission examining railroad safety standards to improve the likelihood of a safe trip, though human error, it also reminds, would always be present as a looming precipitant to tragedy.
"The 'Boom' for Sam Ervin" tells of Burke County making a push for its native son, State Supreme Court Justice and former interim Congressman Sam Ervin, to run for Governor in 1952. Beatrice Cobb of the Morganton News-Herald was leading the charge, setting forth his virtues in an editorial, that he had "the qualities of mind, character and heart" expected of a Governor.
While former interim Senator William B. Umstead had the general backing of Democrats for the 1952 nomination, it advises Democratic leaders in the state not to ignore Ms. Cobb and her loyal subscribers in their effort to promote the candidacy of Justice Ervin.
"A New Low in McCarthyism" takes issue with Senator Joseph McCarthy's statement Monday to a Republican Party gathering, at which he had suggested that the American people had turned their backs on the "planners", apparently a reference to the Administration and military chieftains, who had sent the people's sons to fight in Korea "in order to disguise their sellout to Communism at home". The piece finds the statement to be the nadir thus far of Senator McCarthy's low tactics.
It hopes that the Senate would soon call the Senator to account for his litany of base and reckless charges during the prior year and that the American people would see through and ignore his sinister political motives and tactics. If not, it fears for the sustenance of the free institutions of the country along with its ideals of fairness and justice.
A piece by Jack Tarver of the Atlanta Constitution, titled "I'm Incensed at the Censors", tells of his being upset at the City Library Board's decision to ban the local appearance of Mae West. He finds her act, which had run for two generations in Boston, as lewd as a "1911 edition of Captain Billy's Whiz Bang." The action had made Atlanta the national laughingstock while giving Ms. West nine million dollars worth of free publicity.
Bill Sharpe, in his weekly "Turpentine Drippings", snippets from newspapers across the state, provides one from Mrs. Theo Davis of the Zebulon Record, saying that she was going to wear what was hung in her closet, not what the fashion experts were predicting women would be wearing in the coming year.
"Winston-Salem", not specifying the publication, found that with butchers charging three cents per pound for dog bones, it would not be long before they found a way to charge for the pig's squeal.
J. M. Eleazar of the Hamlet News-Messenger tells of having to chase his hat in Charlotte after it was tossed from his head by a sudden breeze out of an alley.
The Montgomery Herald finds that the hue and cry raised over the rejection rate for North Carolinians from the draft because of mental deficiency, suggesting it to have been the result of truancy, was refuted by the similar rate of rejection in New Jersey, and that it was in fact the result only of the Army having too high mental standards for the draft.
So you are saying that North Carolina should strive no higher than New Jersey in its mental standards? Where did you go to school and for how long? We are not comparing the public schools of North Carolina to Princeton as a representative exemplar of New Jersey schools, now, are yous?
Estelle Loomis of the Richmond County Journal finds children, with the advent of television, wanting, as was their wont to keep up with the Joneses, the placement of an antenna on the roof to make it appear that there was a set in the house, whether there was or not.
Jim Parker of the Chatham News tells of overhearing an elderly farmer, while standing in the high school hall at the Farmers School, complaining that he had not come to Siler City to attend "no dern fool school", that he had learned all there was to know about farming from his long experience at the toil, that he had "done worn out three farms already."
Penn Sewell of the Moore County News tells of a rustic agreeing with a salesman that the salesman would ask a question and if the rustic could not answer, the latter would pay the former 50 cents and if the former could not answer the question of the latter, the latter would receive a dollar from the former. The rustic then asked the salesman, as they were riding down the road, what had one head, three wings and four feet, and the salesman, after cogitating on the matter for a bit, gave up and paid the dollar. After an interim of silence, the rustic turned off the road and paid the salesman 50 cents, saying he did not know either.
The Waynesville Mountaineer imparts of six American soldiers in Korea crouched in a rice field as an enemy shell landed nearby, spraying them with mud and rice. One remarked that they were in a tough spot, to which another, twice divorced, responded that one was always in a tight spot when they began throwing rice.
And so on, so, so, more so.
Drew Pearson tells of the nation's top labor leaders meeting with defense mobilizer Charles E. Wilson the previous week regarding the manpower program, prompting ill feeling and signaling potentially more labor trouble ahead. The labor leaders wanted to continue the civil manpower program under the direction of the Labor Department. Secretary of Labor Maurice Tobin and Assistant Secretary of Defense Anna Rosenberg had threatened to resign if control were taken from them and given to the Office of Defense Mobilization headed by Mr. Wilson, with his right-hand man, General Lucius Clay. General Clay, during the war, had advocated that FDR resort to a labor draft to assure manpower and so was not in favor with labor. But the labor leaders did not convince Mr. Wilson of their position, as he made it clear that he had authority from the President to direct manpower and was going to use it, probably to set up a manpower commission under Civil Service commissioner Arthur Flemming, and if he did not accept, Mr. Wilson might head the commission, himself. The labor leaders insisted on having an equal voice in the Government's manpower policies for war production work, as had been the case under FDR during the war.
Communist Party membership was down in Europe, in the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, France and Italy. He suggests that positive inroads had been made on the attitude of the populace toward the U.S. by such citizen-led action as the Friendship Train of fall, 1947 and the American Legion Tide of Toys during the present year.
Army chief of staff General J. Lawton Collins had told the Senate Armed Services Committee that there were 950,000 Communist troops in Korea, while General MacArthur's G-2 intelligence reported only 276,000.
The Munitions Board's failure to stockpile wool had forced the Army to bid against Russians on the ever-increasing prices in the Australian wool market.
Joseph & Stewart Alsop tell of official attention now being given to unfreezing the American atomic stockpile, in addition to the rearming of the West stimulated by the Korean war. The immediate stimulus for the idea was the preparation by Soviet satellites Hungary, Bulgaria and Rumania for attack of Yugoslavia. Such conquest would not only destroy the substantial Yugoslav army but would neutralize Turkey and create conditions which could be conducive to rapid absorption by Russia of the Middle East. It would also probably prompt formation of "neutralist" governments in France and Italy. The entirety of the results would likely break the Western alliance, without the Soviets enduring a major war.
To make it clear to the Kremlin that it could not attack Yugoslavia, either directly or through its surrogates, without risking the potential for atomic attack, was now being considered as a deterrent.
Yugoslavia presented an appealing target for Russia to attack before the West had an opportunity to rearm fully, even more so than had South Korea in the face of comparative U.S. emasculation of defense capability before the attack by North Korea in June. If war broke out against Yugoslavia, Tito had made it clear that his country would resist and so a war there could probably not be limited from engulfing the rest of the region. To warn the Kremlin that such an attack might prompt use of nuclear weapons by the U.S. would likely deter such aggression, as intelligence had determined that were it not for the fear of the U.S. dominance in atomic power, the Russians would have been preparing for attack on West Germany rather than on Yugoslavia.
Marquis Childs examines the effort to stem inflation generated by the war, finds that the President's tax recommendations to Congress would likely be delayed for several months in deference to cutting the 71 billion dollar proposed budget instead, including cuts to defense budgets. A Senate subcommittee had exposed how former Reconstruction Finance Corporation personnel had taken large sums to push through RFC loan applications. A case in point had been the Lustron Corp. receipt of 37 million dollars in loans, now in default, for postwar construction of prefabricated housing, facilitated by a person with White House connections. The controversy between the Treasury and the Federal Reserve Board regarding interest rates on Government bonds had caused doubts to arise regarding fiscal policy. The President had called the Board members to the White House to discuss the policy, the first time any President had done so, as the Board was designed to set the nation's credit rates independent of the executive branch and the Treasury.
Secretary of the Treasury John W. Snyder urged that to raise interest rates on Government bonds by half a percent, as the Board proposed, would cost a billion and a half dollars in additional interest charges. But Board member Marriner Eccles and others on the Board asserted that the cost would be about 200 million and that even if it were much higher, it was essential to check the flow of credit through the banks.
Mr. Childs posits that to permit politics to enter this arena would do great damage. The wage-price freeze could not work alone to halt inflation without credit controls also in place. Thus, the Board's remedy should be considered, even if undesirable temporarily.
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