The Charlotte News

Monday, March 5, 1951

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports, via Don Huth, that U.S. Seventh Division and Second Division infantrymen, supported by artillery, had routed an estimated 6,000 North Korean troops from a mountain stronghold ten miles northwest of Pangnim in central Korea, forcing their retreat to a new position to the north. The enemy had fought hard, probably a delaying action to enable building up of positions for a counter-attack on the central and western fronts.

On the west-central front, a tank patrol of the First Cavalry Division fought an eight-mile running gun battle with the Communist Chinese, as it moved four miles east of Yongdu on the road to Hoengsong. No tanks were lost in the exchange of fire.

On the extreme right of the central front, Seventh Division troops moved ahead 2.5 miles, the largest gain of the day, to within 500 yards of Changpyong, controlling the highway from the east coast at Kangnung.

Fighter-bomber pilots reported inflicting on Monday more than 750 casualties along the front and behind enemy lines. The Air Force was able to fly 670 sorties in improved weather.

As the Chinese had swarmed over ridges in attack of Second Division forces recently on the central front, they blew bugles and whistles in a typical attempt to distract the allied troops. An American sergeant countered by gobbling like a turkey, causing one Chinese soldier to raise his head, whereupon the sergeant shot him. He repeated the gobble-and-shoot routine five more times.

The Senate was preparing to vote this date on the Morse amendment to the draft revision bill. The bill would lower the draft age from 19 to 18 and a half, rather than to 18 as the main bill did. Senator Morse also wanted in a separate amendment to limit service to the present 21 months, rather than raising it to 26 months under the proposed bill. Senator Lyndon Johnson, floor manager of the bill, predicted that the Morse amendment would be defeated by a substantial majority.

The Western representatives at Paris, laying the groundwork for the agenda of the proposed Big Four foreign ministers conference, said that unless Russia was willing to discuss world problems other than Germany, there would probably be no conference. Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko was representing Russia at the preliminary conference. Philip Jessup represented the U.S. The West wanted to include questions regarding Germany, the Austrian peace treaty, and inspection to ascertain general armament on both sides.

The Government's first price ceiling of 45.76 cents per pound on the basic grade of raw cotton went into effect this date. Ceilings for up to 400 other grades and sizes at the farm varied from about 36 cents to 61 cents per pound. Senator Burnet Maybank of South Carolina said that a fight would ensue in Congress to counter the order with legislation. The president of the New Orleans Cotton Exchange said that the major exchanges would likely remain closed as long as the order was in effect. They had been closed since January 25 when price regulations were first implemented.

The United Labor Policy Committee met to discuss its withdrawal from the mobilization effort and further criticism of the program dominated the meeting, despite the weekly CIO News saying during the weekend that "the crisis need not be long extended" and that it could be settled by "changes in policy and outlook" in Congress and the defense agencies, giving consideration to the American people rather than "special profit interest".

Investigators for a Senate Banking subcommittee adduced evidence that Senator James Murray of Montana had interceded with the RFC to obtain a million dollar loan for a Miami Beach hotel and that his son, attorney James Murray, Jr., had received $21,000 as a fee for attorney services in that and associated matters. Evidence was revealed also that White House aide Donald Dawson had stayed on a complimentary basis at a Miami Beach hotel which had received a Federal loan. A loan examiner for the RFC testified that he and his family were provided a complimentary ten-day stay at the Saxony Hotel in Miami Beach in 1949, and that he had favored receipt by the hotel of a 1.5 million dollar loan from RFC, opposed by others at the agency. The loan had since been repaid.

The Supreme Court agreed to accept for review the case of FCC approval of the CBS color system, challenged by RCA, whose rival color system had been rejected by the agency. It also let stand the temporary restraining order in place against implementation of the CBS system pending the outcome of the litigation. A special three-judge Federal panel in Chicago had upheld the FCC decision. RCA argued that the mechanical CBS system was incompatible with existing television receivers even in black and white reception. The RCA system was electronic and therefore compatible with existing sets.

We want the spinning wheel in the back. The whirring sound adds to the excitement of the programs.

In Washington, the Government rested its case in the capital murder trial of Puerto Rican Nationalist Oscar Collazo, accused of killing a White House guard during the assassination attempt the prior November 1 against the President at Blair House, temporary residence of the First Family during White House renovation work.

On page 8-A appears installment 23 of Fulton Oursler's The Greatest Story Ever Told, regarding the stoning of the adulterous woman and the remonstrance by Jesus that he who was without sin should cast the first stone.

A new major blizzard was bearing down on the northern Midwest region this date.

According to the "Our Weather" box, horses, cows, and pigs become restless and irritable before an approaching storm. One scientific theory for the phenomenon was that as the barometer dropped, chemical balances in the blood and tissues changed in these animals. Another theory had it that the tissues absorbed more water at such times, potentially causing swelling of the brain.

On the editorial page, "A Lid on Cotton Prices" examines the order of Price Stabilizer Mike DiSalle, imposing a ceiling on raw cotton two days earlier. Many leaders of the cotton industry insisted that price control would cripple the cotton market because of the many different grades of cotton, making it impossible to impose a uniform ceiling. The cotton dealer, they contended, had to have fluctuating futures as a hedge against possible loss.

But cotton prices would rise in the ensuing six months unless brought under control. The Government did not have a large supply on hand as in World War II to act as a counterweight to high prices.

The basic ceiling price was enough to encourage the farmers to plant the 16 million bales called for by the Government. The stampede in California to turn acreage to cotton had been likened to the Gold Rush. There was also great activity in the Delta and in Texas. The goal would be achieved, short of damage by insects or shortages of fertilizer or labor and machinery.

The piece finds that the DiSalle plan ought be given an opportunity to work, with full cooperation from those who had argued for alternative systems.

"How Tragedies Are Made" tells of a head-on collision near Wendell in Wake County the previous Thursday night between a car occupied by six youths and a truck driven by a man. All were killed. A farmer saw the accident from 500 yards away and observed the two sets of headlights barreling down on one another around a wide curve, then heard the crash.

The youths had been at the drive-in and a car-hop had overheard the driver of the car subsequently involved in the fatal crash say that his car would get up to a hundred miles per hour in 30 seconds. The other youths, who had come in separate cars, piled into his car and, according to the car-hop, they "took off like a hurricane with tires squalling".

Three of the youths were pinned in the wreckage and three were thrown from the car in the accident. The speedometer was stopped at 90 mph.

It finds the recitation of the facts compelling, needing no additional comment.

"Whisky and Taxes" finds that the efforts by a member of the State Legislature to raise taxes on whisky and fortified wines to twenty percent from its current 8.5 percent, and by the House Ways & Means Committee to raise the Federal tax on liquor from $9 to $12 per gallon to be potentially backfiring, as only encouraging bootlegging to avoid the high taxes, rather than raising needed revenue. Liquor was a luxury and the consumer of it deserved to pay their fair share in taxes, but too much, it warns, might provide the proverbial goose which laid the golden egg.

"Spring" tells of not getting too excited about the red breast scratching around in the back yard the prior week because it suspects it was the same bird to which it fed cranberries as a special Christmas Day feast. But spring was coming in—sing, cuckoo, sing goo, goo, goo joob—, and it understands the exuberance with which it was being greeted by residents of the North.

In the South, the golden burst of forsythia, yesterday's dried brown cane, or the carpet of yellow daffodils stood as harbingers of the season.

"Flora changes her garb with the suddenness of an actor in Streetcar."

This day, the bluebirds had returned and it had to write the piece.

Was Flora in Streetcar?

A piece from the Franklin Press, titled "Machines and Hand Skills", takes issue with the Raleigh News & Observer's comment that a three million dollar nylon plant to be built in Cherokee County would provide the Cherokee Indians with an opportunity to become acquainted with machinery in the state's industrial expansion. The piece corrects that Cherokee, the seat of the tribe, was in Western North Carolina, in Swain County. Cherokee County was in the southwestern part of the state.

It also finds remarkable the News & Observer's welcome of a nylon plant to the village of Cherokee in the mountains, an inappropriate vision. Cherokee was rapidly becoming a tourist center and industry did not mix well with tourist centers. Tourists sought refuge from the smokestacks of factories by driving to the tourist center.

We wish herewith belatedly to apologize to the family of Cherokee Indians who posed for a picture we took in June, 1966 in Cherokee, outside a tourist store. They made a fine picture, but we did not realize at the moment that we were supposed to provide a tip after the picture. They said nothing but looked a little confused as we walked away. Upon reflection, we realized our faux pas, but it was too late to remedy by then as we were well down the road. But we still have the photo. So thank you for the nice picture. We shall catch you next time and remember to tip.

Drew Pearson writes from Istanbul, tells of Turkey having once come within a hair's breadth of slipping into the Soviet orbit after World War I when Europe spurned Mustapha Kemal, the liberator of Turkey, and Stalin tried to woo him. In Turkey, there were extremes of wealth and poverty, the proper cultural petri dish for developing Communism. But under its leader, Kemal Ataturk, it developed a moderate socialism.

He recounts of having been in Turkey as a young relief worker 30 years earlier when it was occupied by the British and French. Women wore veils and to see a woman's face meant death for the viewer. Now, the veils were gone and women had become judges and received equal pay to men. It was no longer banned to have gold fillings in the teeth or to call a doctor when ill. President Ataturk had instituted these reforms after he broke with the Mohammedan priests' stranglehold over the culture.

The Marshall Plan had worked so well in Turkey that one coal miner told him that he thought that George Marshall was President of the U.S.

President Ataturk had wisely removed the capital from Istanbul to Ankara. Istanbul was a city of contrasts in civilization, with cobblestone streets juxtaposed to modern movie theaters, bazaars to modern department stores, all alongside the beautiful Bosporus. Ankara was somewhat dull and stuffy but offered no diversions from work for members of Parliament.

There were about 3,000 Americans in Ankara, most performing unique jobs. An American colonel, for instance, was teaching guerrilla tactics. U.S. Ambassador George Wadsworth occasionally raised Turkish eyebrows, as recently, when he wore a fez to a dress ball, as the fez had been banned by law as a symbol of the past. The British Ambassador, Sir Noel Charles, dressed for the ball with good sense of humor, as the valet of the British Ambassador to Turkey during World War II who had approached Franz von Papen to sell all the secrets of the British Embassy to Germany for a million dollars, supplying the minutes to the Teheran and Yalta conferences of November, 1943 and February, 1945, respectively. The valet had been paid, however, in counterfeit bills.

Stewart Alsop tells of Ambassador-at-Large John Foster Dulles having just returned from his successful trip to Japan to lay the groundwork for a treaty. The immediate implications of such a treaty, which would provide for Japan's complete sovereignty and retention by the U.S. of troops in the outlying areas away from the cities for Japan's protection, would be that General MacArthur would almost assuredly leave his command and return to the U.S. for the first time in over a decade, likely to occur, he posits, in the coming months. The General had repeatedly told visitors and acquaintances that such would be the case upon the successful negotiation of a treaty, even before ratification.

Mr. Dulles believed, and General MacArthur concurred, that time was of the essence in forming and ratifying the treaty, that occupation had gone on too long and that to preserve Japan in the anti-Communist sphere, it was imperative to move forward with the treaty. He believed it should be done, regardless of Soviet acquiescence or even that of the Pacific allies. The British wanted assurances against Japan becoming an economic competitor, especially in shipping. The Philippines wanted reparations. Australia and New Zealand wanted limitations on Japanese rearmament. All of those demands would be impractical to accord.

Mr. Dulles had obtained agreement from the Japanese regarding retention of American troops by convincing them that it was in their best interests, rather than demanding bases in exchange for sovereignty.

The U.S. believed that the way to preserve Japan as part of the non-Communist sphere was to make it an equal member in the Pacific, along with the U.S., the Philippines, Australia and New Zealand. It would be permitted a level of armament allowing it to contribute to its own defense and enabling reduction gradually of the U.S. commitment, without allowing Japan again to become a menace.

Robert C. Ruark looks at the current skiing craze, finds that it presented an excuse to sit around the fire drinking and trying to pick up girls, rather than representing any enjoyment of the sport itself. In fact, when it rained, the skiers rejoiced as they did not feel any pressure to take to the slopes but could sit by the fireplace and drink.

The non-skier in such company was an outcast, a coward, stupid, equated with a Communist and a tax-dodger, as out of place as a horse hater at a horse show or an honest basketball player in Madison Square Garden.

Mr. Ruark says that he was as scared of horses as he was of skis, sees no sense in defying gravity while heading down a slope at sixty miles per hour, crashing full tilt into a snow-covered rock.

A letter writer comments on the letter of February 27 anent the objection of the writer to Charlotte supplying a municipal venue for an address by Louis Budenz regarding his conversion from Catholicism to Communism and reconversion to Catholicism after repudiating Communism. This writer finds the reconversion of Mr. Budenz a fit topic for an address and that one should never be permanently consigned to the realm of perdition by the fact of a mistake in choice, that such was un-Christian in attitude.

She adds that the fact that Mr. Budenz's testimony had been helpful in convicting the top eleven American Communists further suggested him as a salutary influence.

But he was just following Dick's Rule.

A letter writer tells of Southern whites for a half century having based their laws re segregation on Plessy v. Ferguson of 1896, requiring separate-but-equal facilities to pass muster under the Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection Clause. The state, he says, did not offer opportunities for blacks to be educated in pharmacy, medicine, dentistry, engineering or architecture. The few existing departments at North Carolina College at Durham, (subsequently N.C. Central University), were not equal to those of white State institutions. The president of the College had recently said that it would require ten million dollars to bring the College up to the standards of an accredited university. He posits that continued segregation would cause the Southern states to go bankrupt in trying to maintain separate but equal facilities.

Blacks, he says, had earned the right to first-class citizenship and were asking nothing that was not rightfully theirs, equal freedom as an individual. In many criminal cases, trials of blacks as defendants were farces, as the potential jurors had prejudged the guilt of the accused because of his or her skin color, even before an arrest was made. Blacks wanted abolition of public segregation as "separate but equal" was a myth.

A letter writer from McBee, S.C., tells of talk in the community that the Klan had visited a local resident, dragged him from his home and whipped him black and blue while bent over a stump. Notices had appeared of a Klan meeting to be held on March 1 in the area.

He finds the Klan to be a "filthy, Communistic organization" bent on destroying "sacred American institutions", "dupes for the Kremlin". He suggests that they discard their white robes and don military uniforms, but doubts that they had the courage to do so.

He urges the Klan, not wanted in McBee, to "[g]et going you bums and keep going!"

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