The Charlotte News
Friday, April 6, 1951
TWO EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports, via Olen Clements, that a surprise Chinese withdrawal of troops who had been fighting hard for two days in the central front above the 38th parallel left a "no-man's land" area. Allied units moved forward against heavy to no resistance, pushing as far as eight miles beyond the parallel. The British scored substantial gains northwest of Chunchon against light opposition.
On the western front, the allies had hit concrete fortifications as the enemy guarded the flank of its spring offensive build-up.
On the east coast, two South Korean divisions were fifteen miles north of the parallel.
There were only a few of the enemy still south of the parallel.
Correspondent Elton C. Fay reports that General MacArthur had proved again that he was a "hot potato" for the Administration as he had challenged policy in a letter to House Republican Leader Joe Martin, endorsing the Congressman's demand that thousands of Chinese Nationalist troops in Formosa be used against the Chinese Communists and North Koreans. He also said that Asia was where the Communists had elected to make their stand for global conquest. Both of these statements were in contradiction to Pentagon and Administration policy. The President was meeting with Pentagon and State Department officials to consider what to do about the matter, as it violated a recent directive to the General to obtain official Washington clearance before making any statements on foreign policy, after his recent publicly disseminated statement that he was open to peace negotiations with the Chinese Communist commander and that if the U.N. were to approve bombing of Chinese bases and coastal defenses, defeat of the Chinese would be imminent.
Mr. Fay indicates that there was doubt, however, whether the President would risk a clash with Congress by relieving the General from command of the U.N. forces.
This incident would be the last straw and General MacArthur would be relieved of command on Tuesday and called home, with ground commander General Matthew Ridgway appointed in his stead.
Speaking in Raleigh at N.C. State, General Lewis B. Hershey, director of Selective Service, said that the issue of deferring students for the draft was not a closed question, that he rebelled inwardly against it but that it was being implemented on a trial basis, and that he saw no inclination by Congress to draft veterans and hoped to avoid drafting men over 26, even if the Korean war continued.
In Tel Aviv, Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion stated that Israel had no intention of waging war against Syria, following the U.S. and French ambassadors voicing concern over the prospect as tension was reported to be high on the Israeli-Syrian border after the Israeli air force had bombed Syrian troops the previous day because of claimed incursion of the demilitarized zone on Wednesday by Syrians who killed seven Israeli policemen, wounded two others and captured one. Prime Minister Ben-Gurion said that the bombing was ordered after the U.N. failed to preserve the DMZ.
The House Appropriations Committee voted to provide a 43 percent cut to the 843.4 million dollar emergency fund sought by the President for the remainder of the fiscal year, approving only 478.1 million. One of the larger cuts was to Voice of America, which broadcast positive information on the U.S. behind the iron curtain. Non-military agencies were cut from 454 million to 224.75 million.
The President had wooed labor back into the defense mobilization program with his newly reorganized 17-member Wage Stabilization Board, replacing the former nine-member Board which had ordered in late February a limitation of ten percent on wage increases over wages of January, 1950, prompting the three labor members to walk out. The new Board was made up of four members each from labor, industry, agriculture and the public, whereas the previous Board had three members each from labor, industry and the public. The new Board would be headed by Defense Mobilizer Charles E. Wilson, whereas the old Board had been chaired by Cyrus Ching, former Government chief mediator in labor disputes. The President also would take a tighter control of the mobilization effort.
It was believed that the renewed role of labor in mobilization might hasten the end of the textile workers strike in the South, entering its sixth day without resolution to TWUA's demand for a 13-cent per hour wage increase to a minimum wage of $1.14.5 per hour.
The Senate Expenditures Committee approved, by a vote of 7 to 6, a resolution to block the President from abolishing the five-man RFC board and placing the agency under one-man administration. Senator Willis Robertson of Virginia voted with six Republicans to form the majority. Among those in the minority were Senators Clyde Hoey of North Carolina, Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota, and John McClellan of Arkansas, the Committee chairman.
In Washington, Oscar Collazo, Puerto Rican Nationalist convicted of first degree murder of White House policeman Leslie Coffelt and murder in the course of an attempted assassination of the President in the shooting outside the President's temporary residence at Blair House on November 1, 1950, in an attempt to call attention to the Nationalist movement, was sentenced to death in Federal District Court. The death sentence was mandatory for the crimes. His accomplice had been killed at the time of the incident. Mr. Collazo told the court that he had done what he did for his "just cause" for his "country", Puerto Rico, a territory of the United States. The Judge set execution for the following October 26, agreeing to grant a stay if appeals were not completed by then.
In Los Angeles, gambling gangster Mickey Cohen and his wife were indicted for tax evasion, stemming from recent admissions of Mr. Cohen during the Kefauver hearings on organized crime that he had borrowed about $300,000 in recent years with little security backing it.
In Raleigh, among the bills killed in committee was one sponsored by Representative Joe King of Forsyth County to make convicted drunk drivers display on their license tag a skull and crossbones.
Some of them would probably drive drunk just to get one of those.
The fifth installment of Dale Carnegie's How to Stop Worrying and Start Living tells of his belief that what one thinks was the most vital lesson he had learned, as thought made people what they are. He cites Marcus Aurelius for the prescription: "Our life is what our thoughts make it." Happy thoughts made one happy and miserable thoughts made one miserable. Sickly thoughts would likely make one ill.
He proceeds to distinguish between concern and worry.
That's easy. Worry is regarding who's in the closet, while concern is regarding what he might do when he comes out.
On the editorial page, "The Battle of the Budget", a by-lined piece by Editor Pete McKnight, writing from Raleigh regarding the General Assembly's 502 million dollar budget for the coming biennium and dissatisfaction over the amount allotted to increased teacher salaries, only enough to accommodate the $2,200 to $3,100 salary range for teachers with top credentials, paid the previous year on the contingency that there was enough in the General Fund to pay it. The teachers wanted more, arguing that the same salary would amount to a cut, in the face of increased costs of living since the start of the Korean war.
The new budget was premised on the assumption that there would be no recession in the ensuing two years and that revenue would therefore continue to increase per forecasts of increased income. But if war tension decreased, causing reduction in the national defense buildup, the State General Fund revenue receipts could drop sharply, requiring the Governor either to cut appropriations across the board or call a special session of the Legislature to develop new tax revenue.
The current General Assembly, facing criticism from Governor Kerr Scott for doing so, had held the line on new taxes and on new spending, but had appropriated all the money which was projected to be raised as revenue over the biennium, which might turn out to be more than the State would take in.
"Reprehensible Practice" finds the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals to have been correct in describing the practice of eye doctors in North Carolina in accepting kickbacks from opticians as "unconscionable and reprehensible", concludes that the AMA and Medical Society of North Carolina, both of which having condemned the practice as unethical, should take steps to discipline members who participated in this scheme, which came to light in the context of the optical companies taking the kickbacks as tax deductions for "trade discounts", disallowed by the Court of Appeals.
Drew Pearson tells of questions recurring since he returned from his tour of Europe as to what Europeans thought of Americans and why they did not like Americans better. To some degree, popularity could be measured by the distance of each country from the iron curtain, with Americans popular in Greece, Turkey, and Yugoslavia, all pressed up against the iron curtain, while further west, as fear of Russia lessened, American popularity decreased. Yet, the people appeared genuinely friendly toward Americans in places such as France. But in England relations needed to be bolstered, as the gibing at the U.S. was nowhere else so widespread.
The reasons for that situation were that the U.S. had replaced Britain as the dominant world power and that the U.S. appeared to the British to desire war and to be pushing Europe into it. While not true, the statements by such persons as General Orvil Anderson, favoring a preventive war, had alarmed the British, not understanding that such was not American official or unofficial policy. The British also had a tightened meat ration while the Americans appeared on easy street. Finally, there were differences over China and the policy of General MacArthur—as explored below more fully by Marquis Childs. The British believed that the General was seeking to spread the war into China to expand his own power as supreme commander of the U.N. forces.
Mr. Pearson provides two examples of erroneous conceptions by the British—the supposed appointment of an American admiral over the NATO fleet in waters adjacent to the British isles and the purchase of canned surplus U.S. beef from Mexican cattle infected by hoof-and mouth disease—which could have been corrected by better information, as both stories were untrue.
Marquis Childs suggests that the informal foreign policy partnership between the U.S. and Britain might be on the verge of breaking up, as differences of opinion were becoming greater in all spheres, from the Big Four conference planning to the Korean war and the Far East generally. American top policy-makers believed that the British Labor government was directing British policy toward a separate and independent course. Reports from Britain had it that the British policy-makers maintained the same opinion of American policy, fearing that the Republican backing of General MacArthur and the desire for a limited war in Communist China would counter the efforts to end the Korean war.
The highest military opinion in the U.S. doubted the wisdom of Korean peace talks at the time, as General MacArthur believed that not until the impending Communist spring offensive had been successfully thwarted could meaningful peace negotiations begin.
On the proposed peace treaty with Japan, there were also differences, as the British wanted the treaty to restrict Japan's ability to build ships, not in the treaty proposed by John Foster Dulles after his special mission to lay the groundwork for the treaty. The British also wanted Hong Kong and Malaya included in a potential Pacific mutual defense pact, similar to NATO, while the U.S. believed this inclusion would be impractical.
Differences between the two Western powers regarding what to do about Iran had also developed, as the British feared that the vital oil supply would be lost to a Communist takeover, with the oil having already been recently nationalized. France also received a third of its oil from the Middle East, chiefly from Iran and Iraq.
The British were reported to be so anxious for the Big Four foreign ministers conference to commence that they would agree to almost any agenda concession to make it happen, while the U.S. was not of the same mind.
He concludes that the desire for a common front against Communism would necessitate preservation of the U.S.-British alignment on foreign policy.
Robert C. Ruark wonders at the complicated scheme to control food prices, recently unveiled by Price Stabilizer Mike DiSalle. He finds it unfathomable, reminding of a dog show with no leashes, and wonders how grocers could implement it during April. He cannot understand how Washington could prepare double-quick an income tax increase but could not direct a simple formula for food price controls, answers that it was because of political tenderness being shown to the farmers, dairymen, and cattlemen, whose vote was necessary. He thinks the politicians were underestimating the anger of the housewife, however, in having to deal with the complicated scheme and having to balance the household budget on food. As things stood, he did not know what the cost of dinner would be the following week and ventures that no one else did either.
A letter from the editor of the Star of Zion responds to the editorial, "The Shaky Foundation of Segregation", finds it brilliantly written and documented, but also refuting of its own statement that UNC president Gordon Gray was entirely justified in asking the Board of Trustees of the University to file a petition for writ of certiorari to the Supreme Court on the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals decision reversing the Federal District Court and holding that the University Law School had to admit four qualified black applicants because the N.C. College of Negroes Law School at Durham was found not to be substantially equal to that of UNC, based on the Sweatt v. Painter decision by the Supreme Court in 1950. The editorial believed that the McKissick, et al. case had gone beyond Sweatt in its holding, making it virtually impossible in the future for any State to justify segregation on the basis of provision of separate but equal facilities under Plessy v. Ferguson. The letter writer agrees but finds that to be the point, that North Carolina had to follow the law of the land, as stated under Sweatt, and that the effort to distinguish Sweatt from the McKissick case was futile, and to seek Supreme Court review, therefore a waste of time.
The Supreme Court would refuse review of the McKissick case, letting the Court of Appeals decision stand.
A letter writer from Lincolnton praises the newspaper and its delivery boy in Lincoln County, but takes exception to the April 2 "What's Inside" box on the front page which said that the radio program guide was on page 2-A when in fact it was on page 11-A, suggests a good proof reader.
What's your problem? Should have been watching tv anyway by now.
A Quote of the Day: "Any tremor you feel is probably caused by Dr. Naismith, who invented basketball, turning over in his grave." –Kingsport (Tenn.) Times
The quote is in reference to the
point-shaving scandals which were being uncovered in college basketball in
1951. It might also be apropos to the present in 2018, with the
problems uncovered last fall by the FBI regarding payments through
shoe companies for the really big shoe
Whatever the outcome of those cases,
the game was invented as a winter sport to keep young boys off the
streets and out of fistfights
We used to play in the snow out in the village yard—four feet deep sometimes.
Framed Edition
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