The Charlotte News

Thursday, May 31, 1951

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports, via Olen Clements, that the enemy halted American advances this date thirteen miles from Chorwon and Kumhwa, Communist strongholds, with the stiffest fighting at Chorwon and Inje. During a night attack, the enemy pushed American troops from the ridges around Yonchon, itself a no-man's land, and drove them back over a half mile. But at dawn, the Americans counter-attacked and by noon, had regained their position on the road to Chorwon. At least two Chinese divisions, according to American officers, stood between the Americans and Chorwon.

Other U.N. forces, with relative ease, gained control of the 275-foot high Hwachon dam. Elsewhere across the 125-mile front, allies made slow gains in the mud or fought off attacks.

In the air, twelve enemy jets tried to attack U.S. B-29s but F-86 Sabre jets drove them away, with two of the Russian MIGs downed and one damaged, permitting the B-29's to proceed with their bomb attack on a rail bridge.

The Defense Department reported that there were 611 new American casualties in Korea above the prior week's report, bringing the total to 67,427, based on notifications of next of kin through May 25. Of those, 10,127 had been killed in action, 45,889 wounded, and 11,411 missing, of whom 9,987 were still listed as missing.

In Paris, the U.S., Britain and France, in their joint note to the Soviets, challenged Russia to accept a four-power foreign ministers' meeting in Washington on July 23 in the interests of strengthening peace. The West rejected the Soviet demand for inclusion of NATO as a subject for the meeting, the last sticking point for determining an agenda.

Admiral Forrest Sherman, chief of naval operations, testified again before the joint Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees, saying that Russia could call off the war at any time and might do so as the U.S. became stronger. He told Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., that the country was not sufficiently strong to bring that kind of pressure yet. He clarified that the statement he had made the previous day regarding a blockade of China was referring to the future and that an economic blockade ought first be tried.

Secretary of State Acheson would begin testifying before the Committees the following day.

A Navy officer was fired for writing a letter which called the Roosevelt-Truman-Acheson foreign policy Communist-inspired and Secretary Acheson, "Red", along with "his pro-Red gang". He also said that he believed that the State Department was the "enemy behind the enemy" and claimed that his views were shared by the majority of the fighting men in the Far East. The letter was written to Administration critic Alfred Kohlberg and the officer gave him permission to publish it, which he did. Admiral Sherman in his testimony the prior day said that he did not think the statement true and that an investigation had shown that the officer's shipmates did not share his beliefs.

In the first of two reports on Formosa, correspondents Frank H. King and Spencer Moosa, in Taipei, tell of one Nationalist official stating that Mao Tse-Tung and Stalin had been the Nationalists' best allies. The Korean war and the assignment by the President at its outset of the Seventh Fleet to protect Formosa had worked to bolster the fortunes of Chiang Kai-Shek and the Nationalists, placing Formosa on firmer footing than it had been prior to the war. ERP was providing 56 million dollars of aid to Formosa.

When the Nationalists had taken over Formosa after World War II, ending 50 years of Japanese rule, they immediately began making enemies, initially sending a notoriously bad administrator as the first Governor, General Chen Yi. A revolt occurred among the Formosans in early 1947 and while it was suppressed, thousands were killed or wounded. Resentment continued until the prior year, when Chen Yi was thrown out and executed for trying to deal with the Communists. Fireworks followed. When Chiang took over, he appointed Chen Cheng as Premier, who began land reform cutting tenant farmers' rent by a fourth. There was presently talk of a Nationalist comeback. The Nationalists conceded that corruption and inefficiency of the government on the mainland had caused their downfall to the Communists, and they had vowed to make Formosa a model of efficiency.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce urged Congress to wipe out the government's authority to control wages and prices and adopt in its stead an indirect program to combat inflation.

The bus strike in Charlotte and five other cities in the Carolinas had a temporary hiatus as a two-week truce was called between Duke Power Co. and the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, representing the bus drivers and mechanics. The mayors of the six cities and Federal and State mediators negotiated the truce. During the truce, negotiations would continue, starting the following week.

Dick Young of The News provides insight into the process of obtaining the truce, the effort for which had been led by Mayor Victor Shaw of Charlotte.

On the editorial page, "The Busses Are Rolling Again" finds that the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen had acted in the best public interest in agreeing the previous day to send striking bus drivers and mechanics in the six cities subject to the strike back to work during the two-week truce period. Those who depended on public transportation for their livelihood had been the most hurt by the strike. With the buses rolling again, the tension in the cities would dissipate, lending an atmosphere in which positive compromise would more likely be effected.