The Charlotte News
Wednesday, March 21, 1951
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports, via Olen Clements, that an American tank force followed by thousands of infantrymen had entered the bombed-out former Communist stronghold of Chunchon and found only flag-waving Koreans greeting them. The Communists appeared to have retreated behind the 38th parallel, 8.5 miles to the north, but some Chinese prisoners were taken south of the city and within it. Chunchon had been used as the staging area to mount the two enemy offensives in January and February against Wonju. Generally within the central front, U.N. troops were unopposed this date.
On the western front, South Korean and American forces met heavy enemy resistance north of Seoul. An American tank patrol on the road to Uijongbu ran into a heavy mine field and enemy small arms and mortar fire prevented the troops from leaving the tanks to remove the mines.
On the east coast, South Korean troops were about 8.5 miles from the parallel and patrols may have crossed it.
Secretary of State Acheson said at a press conference that the U.S. wanted a common point of view with its allies on whether U.N. troops should again cross the 38th parallel, but that no new authority was required for military commanders to give the order. Assistant Secretary of State Dean Rusk met twice weekly with representatives of the allied governments and his latest meeting had occurred the previous day for an hour but, according to a spokesman, no decision had been reached regarding the crossing. The chief differences on whether to cross was between the U.S. and Britain, which disfavored the new crossing as inimical to anticipated diplomatic resolution of the war. British diplomats, however, agreed that it was necessary to make crossings of a strategic nature to keep the Communists forces off balance and to gather information.
The President exchanged telegrams with Secretary of Defense Marshall, disclosing that the the country had uniformed forces numbering more than 2.9 million, twice that when the Korean war had started the prior June 25. The President said that it signified that the country was determined, along with the other free nations, "to establish and maintain world peace". Secretary Marshall said that the current total strength of the armed forces had not been attained for 21 months, more than three months following Pearl Harbor, after the build-up for World War II had begun in June, 1940 with the fall of France. The exchange of telegrams was broadcast around the world via Voice of America.
Frank Costello again appeared before the Kefauver organized crime investigating committee and again refused to answer questions regarding his net worth. He said that he was a promoter of infrared jet broilers for housewives with small apartments but that the business was still in its infancy. He said also that he was an investor in the oil business and had a real estate company. He had admitted having about $150,000 in his strongbox at home but refused to discuss his assets further.
In Washington, actor Larry Parks
He betta watch out with talk like 'at. He'll be goin' to jail or swingin' from a tree branch real soon.
Actor Howard Da Silva
Frederick Vanderbilt Field, a New York millionaire, was acquitted by a Federal judge on his contempt of Congress citation. The judge held that he was within his rights to refuse to answer questions of a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee investigating the charges made by Senator Joseph McCarthy regarding Communists in the State Department, on the grounds that the answers might incriminate him. The judge found that had Mr. Field answered the 32 propounded questions in the affirmative, it would have taken little more to send him to prison.
The heads of the AFL and CIO asserted that Congress was to blame for the dispute with labor regarding mobilization, because it had enacted the Defense Production Act.
Senators who sought to abolish RFC were trying to block the President's efforts to reorganize it.
In Oklahoma City, William E. Cook, Jr., was sentenced in Federal District Court to 300 years in prison for the slaying of five members of the Carl Mosser family of Atwood, Ill. The defendant had admitted the slayings, including that of three children, which took place as part of a cross-country killing rampage earlier in the year, winding up in Mexico.
An 84-year old couple were planning to drive their Model T Ford across the country from Seattle to St. Paul, Minn., in celebration of their 60th wedding anniversary, expecting to reach their destination by June.
Don't go too fast.
Not reported on the page, the first two games of the Western regional in the N.C.A.A. Basketball Tournament transpired this date in Kansas City, Mo., with Kansas State nipping Arizona, 61 to 59, and Brigham Young topping San Jose State 68 to 61. The other two first round games of the Western regional would take place the following night, along with the semifinal of the Eastern regional.
On the editorial page, "That GOP-Dixie Coalition" questions how the Republicans, should they win both the White House and control of Congress in 1952—as they would—, recompense Democrats if the Southern coalition were formed as urged by Senators Taft, Karl Mundt and others of the GOP. Southern Democrats controlled presently several important committees in both houses and thus were able to steer important legislation. It wonders whether therefore Republicans would reward Southern Democrats with some committee chairmanships in the event they would win.
It guesses that the working coalition in Congress would be as far as the Southern Democrats would go and that the Republicans would likely have to do their own campaigning in 1952, without receiving much help from Southern Senators and Congressmen.
"Record of a Reform Movement" tells of the progress of the recommendations made by the Hoover Commission in its various reports on the Government in an effort to make it more efficient and cost effective. It provides a list of the accomplishments thus far by departments and agencies, with less than half of the recommendations implemented. The President was doing his part but the Congress appeared lagging behind. One could carp at the President, it suggests, for trying to include health and medical activities in the proposed new welfare department but generally he had followed the Commission recommendations. Powerful friends of the Agriculture Department, for instance, were resisting its reorganization. The formation of a new department of Social Security, education and Indian affairs had been attacked as a scheme for promoting the "welfare state".
It suggests writing to one's Congressman to urge that the full program be implemented without further delay.
"Notes on the Silly Season" comments that while, as a result of the Korean war, it had not gone looking for its usual silly-season entries from the prints, it had nevertheless stumbled upon them. The Army had devised cold-weather rations which finally arrived in Korea on a day so warm that the soldiers had gone boating on the river. An Air Force general in Honolulu had suggested to a sailor that he join the Air Force, causing the sailor to slap the general because he believed him a Communist for recruiting at 2:00 a.m. A man in Virginia who had been an ensign in World War II was drafted into the Army and after going through basic training, had to be discharged because he had been called to active duty in the Navy as a lieutenant (j.g.). And the recent report had come from San Francisco of the young corporal who wanted money to get married and decided to rob a bank, after which he tried to get away in his car, was frustrated by being unable to open the door, jumped into another car which turned out to be up on blocks and immovable, then hopped into a car right beside a police officer responding to the scene of the bank robbery.
It finds that the silly season had been called to active duty.
A piece from the Salisbury Post, titled "The Play's the Thing", tells of a report that a private utility company was expanding service into the mountains of Western North Carolina, the result of the attraction of crowds to Kermit Hunter's outdoor drama, Unto These Hills. The fact demonstrated that art could produce a positive and practical impact on business.
A speech by former Charlotte Mayor Herbert Baxter to the North Carolina Ice Association is reprinted, in which he urges getting involved in politics, that more people from business needed to run for office rather than complaining about how politicians behaved, in receiving mink coats for their wives, freezers, or paid vacations in Florida. He urges not to be afraid of either defeat or offending, that such was always going to be the case in politics. He suggests that the late Congressman Joe Ervin—brother of future Senator Sam J. Ervin—had the right idea when he suggested an academy for training diplomats, similar to West Point and Annapolis.
"So gentlemen, to liquidate
your frozen assets, reduce your taxes, and protect your own business,
get the right men
Drew Pearson, in Berlin, finds that Winston Churchill had done the world a disservice in 1946 when he described the boundary between the Soviet sphere and the West as an "iron curtain", that it was not so impervious as "iron" would connote. It could be crossed fairly easily in some places where the barbed wire was absent, as along the border between Czechoslovakia and the American zone in Germany. Germans regularly crossed it to make their living smuggling goods back and forth. The border between East and West Germany was like a sieve. In Berlin, thousands rode or walked back and forth daily between the Eastern and Western sectors. He had entered the Russian zone without knowing he had crossed and drove through its battered streets for miles.
The ease of access raised the question as to why the American Government was not doing more to try to reach the people of Eastern Europe. The State Department was doing its most effective job of relaying information to the East via radio station RIAS. It carried a regular schedule of entertainment, with quiz shows and musical cabaret, interspersed by wisecracks and political commentary. It caused laughter among the East Germans at the expense of Stalin. It was so popular that when the youth meeting had occurred in Berlin the prior December, Communist youths stopped in at the station out of friendly curiosity. One of the most popular shows was the evening news in which the commentator regularly uncovered actual Communist agents in East Germany monitoring their neighbors.
At the other end of the iron curtain, the State Department operated another station in Salonika but lack of funds had prevented it from getting up to speed. Voice of America operated from 4,000 miles away by shortwave, limiting its reach and its local appeal, whereas RIAS operated on a standard frequency. The latter covered local news and disseminated local political gossip. What was needed therefore was a series of such locally oriented stations extending from Berlin to Turkey. He suggests that such a network would pay for itself in dividends by broadcasting Western ideas behind the iron curtain.
Marquis Childs discusses the delay in defense mobilization both at home and in Europe, occasioned by several things of which he cites three examples. First, American wheat for India had been delayed in Congress after favorable action on the provision of two million tons from American surplus had been taken in the House Foreign Affairs Committee. But the House Rules Committee had rejected the bill out of economy, the Southern Democrats forming a coalition with the Republicans on that basis. Democrats were trying to obtain compromise under which the wheat would be made by loan rather than the grant passed by the Foreign Affairs Committee. But a loan would leave an opening for Russia to achieve propaganda by providing a gift of several shiploads of wheat to India. The failure to provide the wheat would result in starvation in India by June and Communism could thrive under such conditions.
Second, Yugoslavia's economy was deteriorating from a drought and its boycott of the Communist Cominform, resulting in Soviet economic isolation. Yugoslavia had sought raw materials from the U.S. to keep its manufacturing plants running but Congress had again delayed in responding. Failure to provide the goods could result in the fall of the best example of defiance to the Communist iron grip on Eastern Europe, in the event of an expected spring attack by Russia or its satellites. If that should occur, other satellites would be reluctant therefore to follow the example of Tito.
Third, the arms and men for NATO had been delayed by Congress's insistence on debating whether the President had the authority to send troops to Western Europe without Congressional approval. The President hoped to get the two resolutions approved by the end of the current week but that could be too optimistic. Mr. Childs urges that delay was hindering the effort to form a unified defense in Western Europe.
Robert C. Ruark discusses whether television should have the right to peer into the lives of private individuals, such as in the currently televised Kefauver hearings re organized crime. Frank Costello had insisted that his face not be shown and so the camera showed only his fidgety hands while he testified.
Mr. Ruark finds the camera an unnecessary intrusion, that anyone could look nervous and untruthful under such circumstances, no matter what they were discussing. He, himself, had been nervous on television while merely appearing on an innocuous tv show.
He concludes that until someone was charged with an offense, they should be free from the prying eye of the television camera, and that broadcasters should take pains to see that such intrusion on private lives did not occur, much as press photographers had always sought to avoid placing private individuals in embarrassing or compromising situations in photographs, such as a preacher caught in an ungraceful momentary pose.
Framed Edition
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