The Charlotte News
Thursday, June 28, 1951
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports, via Olen Clements, that allied artillery had smashed a series of Chinese attacks which, according to ground commander Lt. General James Van Fleet, could portend a new enemy offensive in Korea, expected by allied officers within two weeks. The heaviest action of the day was near Kumhwa, where an enemy battalion attacked a U.N. division the previous night, broken up by allied artillery in the early morning hours. In the adjoining Kumsong sector, two other enemy battalions pushed back allied efforts to probe defenses in the enemy buildup area. The enemy was defending fiercely all across the 100-mile front. General Van Fleet, nevertheless, found allied morale high.
Admiral Forrest Sherman, chief of Naval Operations visiting the front, came under attack from enemy shore batteries while on the battleship New Jersey. The ship's guns responded, silencing the batteries. For the 133rd consecutive day, allied warships shelled Wonsan. Allied planes, however, said that they spotted the heaviest enemy highway traffic in months heading through the Wonsan area toward the front.
The State Department announced that Russia had revealed to U.S. Ambassador Alan Kirk that the peace proposal of chief Russian U.N. delegate Jakob Malik issued in a radio broadcast the previous Saturday wanted the U.N. command, the South Koreans, North Koreans and the Chinese to participate in the talks to negotiate an armistice and that the discussion be limited to military matters, not political or territorial issues.
Secretary of State Acheson, appearing for the third straight day before the House Foreign Affairs Committee urging passage of the Administration's 8.5 billion dollar foreign aid bill, said that unless the Marshall Plan were extended for another year, the country would not get what it wanted in terms of security by 1954, that the new funding was vital for finishing the scheduled four-year program initiated in spring, 1948 after its proposal by General Marshall in mid-1947.
Many members of the joint Senate Armed Services and Foreign Affairs Committees, according to chairman Richard Russell, did not want the Committees to prepare a report on the testimony it had heard since May 3 on the firing of General MacArthur and Far Eastern policy. He said that the sentiment in that regard was increasing among members. He also said that the Committees were unanimous in issuing a statement that the country stood "united in readiness" to defend itself against any Communist aggression. Ultimately, the Committees would issue no report.
The House Banking Committee voted 21 to 3 to extend economic controls until July 31 from the scheduled June 30 end date to afford more time for debate of the proposed permanent extension and alteration of existing controls. Many Senators had been adamantly opposed to any such temporary extension and had vowed to filibuster any such move in the Senate. If that occurred, the existing controls and its machinery would collapse after Saturday.
In Tehran, Premier Mohammed Mossadegh sent a letter to President Truman expressing confidence that the U.S. would support Iran's nationalization of the oil, blaming the British technicians who refused to operate the Anglo-Iranian Co. refinery at Abadan for the cutting off of the flow of oil to the West and stating that the British-controlled company was encouraging the behavior. He said that the presence of a British cruiser in Iraqi waters near Abadan was a breach of the Iran-Iraq friendship pact.
In Budapest, Roman Catholic Archbishop Joszef Groesz was sentenced to fifteen years for his alleged part in a conspiracy with eight other defendants to overthrow the Hungarian Government. One other defendant, a Paulician monk, was sentenced to death after his confession that he had killed a Russian soldier. The sentences of five of the defendants ranged between eight and fourteen years, while two defendants had their sentencing delayed pending the outcome of a military tribunal proceeding on one and conclusion of the severed case of the other.
Secretary of the Treasury John W. Snyder asked Senators to add about three billion dollars to the House bill which passed 7.2 billion in new taxes. Senator Harry F. Byrd wanted to cut the House bill to four billion and Senator Taft wanted the Administration to decide how much taxes it wanted over the ensuing three years rather than engaging in piecemeal presentation. Senator Byrd thought that more taxes would set off a demand for higher wages, triggering a cycle of inflation, and urged instead that the Administration participate in economy on the budget.
A gambler of Reading, Pa., told the Senate crime investigating committee that gambling operations in the form of slot machines had existed for years without interference by local police. He said the gambling was friendly and that the winning bettors paid off the losers who could not afford to lose. He said that anyone who tried to shut it down could not get elected to office.
In Chicago, two police officers were arrested by the FBI for extortion after they met a man at a prearranged drop-off point for payment of $5,000 for protection. One of the officers admitted writing two extortion notes to an often-arrested hoodlum who had been convicted with two other men in Tennessee of bank robbery, had been sentenced to fifteen years in prison, and was out on appellate bond. The officer said the scheme was his idea and that the other officer was non-committal.
In Davidson, N.C., a retired Davidson College physics professor and head of the department, Dr. James M. Douglas, died at his home at age 83. He had retired in 1944 and was well respected by his former students and fellow faculty members.
On page 20-B, columnist Earl Wilson took a vacation from his usual beat of sleuthing around Hollywood and Broadway backstage areas and told of the best jokes he had heard.
We heard one, that Trumpety Dumpety is "President".
On the editorial page, "Behind the Malik Proposal" indicates that the Russians found a ceasefire presently desirable for several reasons: that Russia and China had decided that U.N. forces could not be driven from Korea and, indeed, could not be driven from portions of North Korea, without more military strength provided than Russia wanted to spare; that the MacArthur hearings had demonstrated strong U.S. opinion for extending the war into China and Manchuria, posing a threat to Russia's power in the Far East; that the war had encouraged the Western democracies to rearm and enlarge their productive capacity, weakening Russia's ground force superiority in Europe; that Communist expansion had been halted by the commitment of Communist supplies to the troops in Korea, with China kept out of Southeast Asia and Formosa; and, finally, that Russia had failed in its major objective, to divide the allies and thus weaken their collective strength.
It suggests that it was not a complete list of Russia's probable reasons but was enough to show that the war was proving more burdensome to international Communism than to international democracy. It posits therefore that since the bargaining position of the allies was strong, the U.N. did not need to accept the initial offer of the enemy.
"Censorship in Our Back Yard" tells of the Inter-American Press Association having surveyed press censorship in the Western Hemisphere and found that in Argentina, the Government had closed La Prensa and several other newspapers, levying such heavy assessments on La Prensa and La Nacion as to amount to confiscation; that in Bolivia, the editor of a newspaper had been jailed and held incommunicado; that in Colombia, three newspapers were closed for a day by the Government for publishing photos without Government approval, among other Government-imposed limitations on the press.
It suggests that the U.S. ought measure freedom of the press the same way among its friends as among its enemies. "To cozy up to them while denouncing dictatorship in Spain or Russia is to create a double standard of democratic morality that implies, if it doesn't state flatly, that we are not concerned over dictatorship so long as the dictators are on our side."
"Prejudging a Judge" tells of the New York Bar Association and the American Bar Association opposing the nomination of FCC Commissioner Frieda Hennock to become a Federal District Court judge in New York on the ground that she was "totally unqualified".
The piece says it knew nothing of her qualifications, only that she had given up a lucrative job with an established New York law firm for the $10,000 per year FCC post. It assumes that she had succeeded as a lawyer but whether that would necessarily make her a good judge was open to dispute. It thinks, however, that a public hearing on the nomination, as demanded by the ABA and NYBA, should not be limited to her qualifications but also require the two opposing organizations to produce, in the tradition of American fairness, reasons for their objection.
Hell, the Senate of the United States did not have to provide any reasons for not holding hearings anent the undisputed fact of the exemplary qualifications of Judge Merrick Garland two years ago, based on the lame excuse of McConnell, Grassley and Co. that it was a presidential election year—despite that specious reasoning having never been put forth previously in the history of the republic as ground for objection to a nominee, despite it having arisen on occasion since shortly after the founding that a vacancy by death or retirement had occurred in presidential election years, some even after the election and prior to inauguration, even then filled by the outgoing lameduck President, and despite the fact that never before in the history of the republic had a Senate majority refused to hold a hearing for a Supreme Court nominee.
Moron McConnell, however, thinks his wisdom superior to that of George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, et al.
Well, why not? A graduate of the University of Louisville and the University of Kentucky Law School, he is a renowned legal scholar of intellectual capaciousness beyond the imagination of us mere pikers and peasants to conceive.
Indeed, we are so dense that we don't recall where in the Constitution it says that despotism or "conservatism" or any other particular approach to governance is entitled to equal or superior time in this country, in defiance of the clearly expressed majority will of the people, such that it's only fair to break or change the rules when the other side, deemed by the opposition as "ungodly liberals", might be catching up on Supreme Court seats and, God forbid, might even achieve again the Court majority for the first time since 1970, ideologically shifted then decidedly to the right in early 1972, fully realized in 1986. Perhaps Legal Savant McConnell could enlighten us on the clause which says that. It may be contained in some recondite language which only those from Kentucky with the sense of the Sport of Kings, at least viewing the matter in hindsight, can decipher.
Heck fire, the word "fair" don't even appear in the Constitution. Who says we have to be fair? We don't got to be fair. We don't need no stinking fairness. We go along with Mitch, wherever
"Remember?" reflects on the cold days of the prior winter, an earlier winter with snow at Christmas, and a black creek which ran cold between the ice in earlier school days. The heat of summer had prompted such memories of colder climes and times.
It was a slow day.
A piece from the Louisville Courier-Journal, titled "The Cap and Gown Invest the Tot", finds it refreshing to hear that local kindergartens were engaging in commencement exercises, replete with caps and gowns and diplomas. It finds it good that the rites of passage were not reserved to the colleges and universities, that "the veriest dumbbell" could amass a string of awarded wrist watches "like a servant's chevrons". It suggests that after every exam or even every correctly answered question the students ought be given a wrist watch, cap and gown and a recorded oration entitled, "Whither Tomorrow?"
Bill Sharpe, in his weekly "Turpentine Drippings", snippets from newspapers across the state, provides one from the Winston-Salem Journal, which told of North Carolina being one of seven Southern states which had lost a total of 1.8 million persons through migration to other sections. Meanwhile, Florida had gained 558,000 residents.
The Shelby Star says that the decision to require only a rear plate on North Carolina motor vehicles would save enough steel for the tags of the 1.3 million automobiles expected to be registered the following year—an astute and complex calculation requiring division by two. While it would inconvenience police officers trying to catch automobiles through license tag numbers, cars, it opines, would run just as well with one tag. They ran "too well", it says, as it was.
Ashley Futrelle of the Washington News tells of a man who related than when a boy, there had been a neighborhood fad of overturning outhouses for kicks on Halloween. One time, a father asked his son whether he had participated in the activity, which he admitted, at which point the father told him to prepare for a thrashing, to which the boy said that when George Washington had admitted cutting down the cherry tree, he was not whipped, whereupon the father retorted that the elder Washington had not been sitting in the cherry tree when young George chopped it down.
The Bladen Journal offers some statistics which, if true, are a little confusing, for they seem to suggest that within 106 days, a person weighing 175 pounds would waste away to nothing. The moral seems to be to gorge one's self, irrespective of the sin of gluttony, until one is on the other side of that downward curve, or at least to consume 1.65 more pounds of liquids each day than the stated average.
And according to the "Our Weather" box, the hair and nails of the person would grow longer in the heat—though by all adaptational, evolutionary reasoning, as well as anecdotal observation, it should be the case in the cold.
North Callahan of the Sanford Herald tells of Clarence Griffin, of the Forest City Courier, who wrote books, especially history books, of which his latest, Essays on North Carolina History, had interesting stories of everything from picturesque grist mills to history-making episodes of national import and was entertaining.
And
so forth, so, and on and so forth more and so
Drew Pearson finds interesting the timing of Jakob Malik's speech offering a proposal for peace, given that it occurred just as Congress was about to vote on the biggest tax increase in the nation's history, most of it to pay for mobilization, and at a time when extension of price controls was being debated. Diplomats had said that the worst thing the Soviets had done was to stimulate the invasion of South Korea by North Korea, as it had unified the United Nations, mobilized the U.S. and aroused the American people to support the mobilization effort. The best thing they could do in response was to propose peace, said the same diplomats, as that would tend to loosen the unity of the allied nations and lull the American people into a state of complacency again.
Republicans had pulled strings backstage to keep Senator Joseph McCarthy off the GOP policy committee. He explains the maneuvers.
The last time Congress had a major debate on price controls had been in 1946. Some of the same members of Congress who then promised reduced prices if controls were relaxed were now opposing further price control. He provides quotes of the kind from Senator Kenneth Wherry, Senator Taft, Congressman Arthur Miller, Congressman George Schwabe, Congressman Claire Hoffman, and the National Association of Manufacturers. After the release of price controls in 1946, however, food prices had risen 50 to 100 percent.
Marquis Childs discusses the potential for a Republican presidential nomination of General Eisenhower in 1952, finding it increasingly likely, though many of the professional politicians without a horse in the race believed that Senator Taft, with his early organization, had the nomination sewn up. Word was that the General had finally agreed that if the nomination were offered, he would accept, enabling the creation finally of an organization to promote his nomination.
Senator James Duff of Pennsylvania and Herbert Brownell, campaign manger for Governor Thomas Dewey in his run for the presidency in 1944, and former Senator Harry Darby of Kansas were in the General's corner to organize that effort and were a formidable trio. Mr. Brownell, who would become Attorney General under President Eisenhower, and Governor Dewey were confident that the General would receive the votes of the 97 delegates of New York, and there was effort to attract, with the help of Governor Earl Warren, the delegation from California. He would also have considerable pull in New England. The campaign would be run from his home state of Kansas, to offset the claim of Taft supporters that the General's candidacy was being promoted by wealthy Eastern internationalists.
The General had to have a professional organization because of the lateness of the hour in getting in the race, compared with the headstart of Senator Taft and his organization.
But the General had support among independents, which was where Senator Taft was weakest, and an area in which the Republican nominee would have to poll well if there was hope of capturing the White House again after 20 years of absence.
The General also had to overcome the potential that in a year's time, he would not perhaps have accomplished much regarding NATO. But his friends had convinced him that he would leave the job as supreme commander to enter on a new phase of his career as President.
Robert C. Ruark, on safari in Africa, provides an earlier published piece in which he describes Ye Olde Chop House in New York, established around 1800 and having largely the same staff for the prior 20 to 45 years. Only six people had been discharged from employment in the prior 42 years. No union had ever operated there.
It had not served liquor during Prohibition but nevertheless counted among its customers nine railroad presidents, J. P. Morgan and Jay Gould, Cornelius Vanderbilt, the Astors and the Whitneys.
He tells of its history and its menu, with foot-thick steaks, pompano stone crabs, mallard duck, South American quail, venison steak, Scotch grouse, English mutton chops and "all the seafood there is". It also housed a museum. Yet, there was no pomp, head waiter, hat-check girl, photograph girl, or limousines pulling up from Wall Street.
He says that there were not many such places left and so he thinks it ought be sent around the nation as an ad for employer-labor relations and a sermon on uncomplicated living.
Sorry, the place, located at 111
Broadway, closed in the Seventies. But a few others
Framed Edition
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