The Charlotte News
Thursday, July 26, 1951
FIVE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the U.N. and Communist negotiators at Kaesong had agreed this date on an agenda for Korean ceasefire negotiations and preliminary substantive talks had begun. U.N. negotiators said that the sides were far apart on four main points and that the shooting would continue until a ceasefire was established. The resolution of the agenda came after the sides agreed apparently that a meeting could be held within a time certain after a ceasefire to discuss the issue of withdrawal of foreign troops from Korea and make a recommendation to the governments involved. The session lasted only 58 minutes, the shortest to date.
At the fighting front, one of the quietest days of the war occurred, but front line officers continued to be skeptical of the peace talks as the Communists continued to build up supplies and manpower, indicative of a coming offensive. The only significant fighting occurred on a small scale through the day after an attack by the Communists on allied positions northeast of Hwachon reservoir.
Chinese Communist troops had been sunbathing for the previous three days just beyond allied artillery lines, until an American unit quietly moved forward some howitzers and began firing 200 rounds at the troops when they emerged from their foxholes for this day's sunbath.
That's not very nice or smart. Let them cook themselves to death. That sunbathing causes cancer.
Lt. General George Stratemeyer, former Far East Air Forces commander, suffered a heart attack in Tokyo while playing golf.
The President sent a letter to the Congress accompanying his report on the U.S. participation in the U.N. during the prior fiscal year, indicating his belief that the resolute stand of the U.N. forces in Korea had headed off the potential of a world war by causing the Communists to think twice before launching other offensive actions.
Secretary of State Acheson told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that it would take about 25 billion dollars in additional aid over the ensuing three years to provide defense "capital equipment" for U.S. allies. He was urging passage of the present 8.5 billion dollar foreign military and economic aid bill. He discounted the prospect of a potential armistice in Korea as lessening the need.
Millionaire leftist Frederick Vanderbilt Field testified before the Senate Internal Security Committee, saying that the Army had offered him an intelligence position in 1942 which was then blocked by outside persons because of a "certain problem", which he refused to disclose under the Fifth Amendment. He identified three persons who tried to break the logjam, including Owen Lattimore and Edward Carter of the Institute of Pacific Relations, the latter of whom had testified before the Committee the prior day. Mr. Field also refused to state whether he had posted bond for anyone. He was in jail for contempt of Federal Court for refusing to disclose the names of the Civil Rights Congress members who posted $80,000 dollars in bail for four top Communists who failed to surrender to begin serving their sentences, among the eleven convicted under the Smith Act and whose convictions the prior year had been upheld recently by the Supreme Court.
In Washington, the Justice Department announced a new FBI roundup of eleven more second-tier Communist Party leaders in Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York City. Each was accused of violating the Smith Act. Among those arrested was William Schneiderman, chairman of the California Communist State Committee and a member of the party's alternate national committee.
Senate and House confreres seeking to reconcile the two versions of the economic controls bill agreed to permit rent rollbacks to May-June levels in 1950 in newly declared critical defense areas, thus giving a victory for the Administration.
The President for the first time sent a labor dispute to the Wage Stabilization Board, set up earlier in the year. The dispute involved a strike at the American Smelting & Refining Co. in Utah, having a serious impact on copper and sulfuric acid production.
In Kenansville, N.C., a Duplin man was held in jail without bail as a suspect in the fatal shooting of his 39-year old stepdaughter the prior Sunday, following the recommendation of a coroner's jury which found that the shooting occurred after an all-night party during which the mother engaged in a brawl with the victim, her daughter. The man claimed that he did not know the shotgun was loaded and was trying to scare his stepdaughter into submission. The mother's first husband was serving life in prison for the insurance murder of a young stepson in 1939.
In Charlotte, an 18-year old girl died in the hospital during the morning hours from injuries suffered when she lost her footing and fell over the 30-foot waterfall at Linville the previous afternoon into swift water. She had been a student at Charlotte's Central High School.
On the editorial page, "An Agenda at Last" finds that while it was good news that the Communists had finally agreed to an agenda in the Korean ceasefire negotiations, at least three potential roadblocks lay ahead to constructing a ceasefire. One was the designation of a demarcation line, the Communists wanting the 38th parallel and the allies favoring the present battle lines. Another was the matter of policing a ceasefire, the allies wanting U.N. supervision on the ground and in the air, while the Communists had typically been reluctant in the past to permit representatives of an international organization within their borders. The third was the matter of exchanging prisoners of war, the allies favoring one for one, while the Communists, with 163,000 prisoners held by the U.N. forces, compared to their 10,000 U.N. troops, wanted complete exchange. A fourth, not mentioned by the piece but set forth on the front page, was the recommendations to be made to the governments involved in the fighting.
Thus, in accordance with the warning by General Matthew Ridgway, there remained obstacles ahead to conquer. It finds hope, however, in the fact that the Communists had compromised in the matter of establishing the agenda in the face of firmness shown by the U.N. negotiators.
"Douglas Wins Round One" tells of Illinois Senator Paul Douglas, after the President had appointed only one of his four approved nominees for Federal bench positions in Illinois, while appointing two of the President's nominees as political favors, and one of those approved by Senator Douglas, having three of his approved nominees wind up in the first three polled positions among the members of the Illinois Bar Association while the President's two appointments not on the Senator's list wound up fourth and fifth, the last being the nephew of Congressman Adolph Sabath. Senator Pat McCarran, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, had submitted the names to the Bar Association.
Senator Douglas had vowed also to submit the names to the Chicago and Cook County Bar Associations and stand by the results in his vote for confirmation. It appeared, based on preliminary indications, that his approved nominees would again be rated superior to the two of three appointed by the President who were not on the list submitted by Senator Douglas.
Senator Douglas had recommended that the President not run again in 1952 and had voted repeatedly for fiscal responsibility despite being considered a liberal. He had also suggested that Secretary of State Acheson step down for the sake of national unity and had been an active member investigating Government influence exerted on loans given by the RFC to private companies, among other positions not in accord with those of the Administration.
Thus, the President had reason to find him irritating, but, it posits, there was good reason for the American people to be pleased with the Senator's performance.
"The Case of Max Ingram" tells of a black Caswell County, N.C., farmer being sentenced in that county's Recorder's Court to two years on the roads for attempted assault on a female, after he was originally charged with assault with intent to commit rape. The facts were, according to the alleged victim, a 17-year old daughter of Mr. Ingram's neighboring farmer, Mr. Boswell, that Mr. Ingram was driving by the farm on the highway and then stopped, got out and followed the girl into the field where she was working, causing her, out of fear, to retreat quickly into the woods, after which Mr. Ingram stopped, watched her for a bit, then left. She reported the incident to her two brothers, who told their father, who then called the Sheriff. Mr. Ingram said that he had gone to the farm to ask Mr. Boswell to borrow a trailer and when he was unable to find him, proceeded to another neighbor's farm down the road to borrow the trailer.
It appears to the piece that he had committed no crime and it trusts that the matter would be rectified on appeal to the Superior Court where trial de novo by a jury would be available. But the troubling part was that the Yanceyville newspapers had not developed the story, it requiring a report by the New York Post and an inquiry by Newsweek, before the Associated Press published the full story, as printed in The News on July 13.
It deplores the fact that it took outside press, one such newspaper being as far away as London, and an inquiry by the State Department to dig out such apparent injustices within the state of North Carolina.
Look, look, look, look. This is Cas'ell County, Nor' Ca'lina. We do things ouwa way up heya. Don't need any outside agitatas, up theya, ova theya, down theya, wheyaeva, tellin' us how to run ouwa shop. Leerin' by a boy on a white gi'l is leerin', criminal, simple leerin', dese'vin' of road time, no matta who says what, when or wheya. And no-body from outside, no matta how well-intentioned they may be, which they may be sometimes, not knowin' the true facts as the people of Cas'ell County, Nor' Ca'lina know 'em, will change that fact, anymowa than the leopa'd can change its spots. Sine die. Now, if the boy can prove he had come only to borra the traile', that's anothe' thing—maybe, maybe not—maybe just his excuse and alibi for leerin' at this pretty young gi'l, heya. But that's for a jury to dete'mine in Superi' Cou't late' on, as to what his intent was in the leerin'. Reco'de's Cou't is meant to be what it is, a reco'de' for you 's he' sense and sensations as a young white gi'l. What is is for Gawd to dete'mine, or the jury of twelve good and true Cas'ell County No' Car'linians, not any from London, Newsweek, the State Depa'tment o' Cha'lotte.
… Cu'ses, foiled ag'in.
"Task for Wherry, Taft et al." informs that during the previous three weeks Spain had, according to reliable information gathered by C. L. Sulzberger of The New York Times, sold 25,000 tons of copper to the Soviet Union.
It urges investigation of the report by Senators Kenneth Wherry, Robert Taft, Joseph McCarthy and eleven other Senators who the previous year wanted to supply aid to Generalissimo Francisco Franco of Spain and also to prohibit aid to any country which exported any commodity usable in military applications to Russia or its satellites.
It cautions against closer relations with Sr. Franco, as alliances with dictators, as learned in World War II, could backfire, that Iberia and Siberia had more in common than three identical syllables.
"Man-Bites-Dog Dept." praises Congressman Harry McGregor of Ohio for voting not to include 13 million dollars in appropriations, within the seven billion dollar Defense appropriations bill, for an Air Force depot which would be placed in his home district. He lost in the bid but the piece finds it remarkable that in an age of pork any Congressman was willing to take such a stand unpopular with his constituents.
It served as a reminder that Federal spending could never be reduced until some members of Congress were willing to sacrifice pork.
Drew Pearson tells of a meeting called by Economic Stabilizer Eric Johnston of the mobilization chiefs to commiserate about the economic controls bill passed by the House and Senate and currently being reconciled. Price Administrator Mike DiSalle interjected humor to the meeting by calling the result akin to losing an arm after surgery rather than one's life or being similar to the man who took his car to the station for gas and had two tires removed. He intended to submit a special bill to preserve the meat slaughter quotas to keep down meat prices and prevent black markets in beef.
The tidelands oil lobbyists, bent on getting tidelands oil lease control returned to the states of Louisiana, Texas, and California for use by private oil companies, had planned to try to get a vote on the matter in the House when Northeastern Congressmen were out of town for the weekend beginning Friday. These Congressmen, for the most part, favored the plan of former Secretary of Interior Harold Ickes and Senator Lister Hill of Alabama to have the proceeds from royalties on the leases collected by the U. S. Government devoted to educational purposes.
Senator Carl Hayden of Arizona, chairman of the Joint Committee on Printing, had not enforced a requirement under existing law that lobbying groups' required filings of names, incomes and affiliations of Washington lobbyists be published in the Congressional Record, on the ground that it was too expensive. Yet, the Senator had no objection to an array of material published in the Record at the behest of various lobbying groups.
Some shipping companies were seeking to defeat legislation to establish the St. Lawrence Seaway which would enable shipping of iron ore to Chicago and thus make steel cheaper, while protecting such shipments against potential submarine attack along the extant Atlantic Coast shipping routes. The lobby failed by only a single vote in getting the House Public Works Committee to pigeonhole the bill and, Mr. Pearson predicts, would succeed finally in doing so, as it was putting pressure on two Congressmen to reverse their votes.
Joseph Alsop describes the three-man State Department Loyalty Board case of John Paton Davies, Jr., the hearing having lasted a routine one hour or so. Afterward, Mr. Davies, a senior member of the planning staff at State, said that he thought that there would be more to it than had occurred. He had been suspended from duty pending investigation, just as he was about to be sent as a political adviser in West Germany, because of a publicly made charge of disloyalty.
But his name had been defamed and perhaps his career permanently damaged as a result of the charges brought by Senators McCarthy and McCarran.
Mr. Alsop knew Mr. Davies from Mr. Alsop's time as an adviser to T. V. Soong in Chungking during the war, when Mr. Davies also served as an adviser to General Joseph Stilwell. While Mr. Alsop urged strengthening air power and the Nationalists, Mr. Davies had advocated giving aid to the Chinese Communists, in accordance with the views of General Stilwell, the latter view nixed when the General was dismissed.
He says that he never doubted the loyalty of Mr. Davies. It had been apparent by the end of 1943 or so that the regime of Chiang Kai-Shek was bound to fall to the Communist Chinese unless something drastic were done. Mr.Alsop thought the solution was to replace General Stilwell, increase American aid to the Nationalists and intervene actively to reform the Nationalist Government. Mr. Davies believed that the Chiang regime was already past saving and that the only question was how to come to terms with an inevitable Chinese Communist victory.
He had made that which was now known as "Titoism", Communist defiance of the Kremlin, possible by promoting confidence in the U.S. among such Communist satellites.
Mr. Alsop says that he did not foresee the U.S. abdication of policy toward China after the dismissal of General Stilwell, whereas, in hindsight, the policy favored by Mr. Davies, had it been followed, might have averted the disaster of Communist China falling into the Russian sphere.
He concludes that it would be wiser to start loyalty investigations with the members of Congress, such as Senators McCarthy and McCarran, who were wasting time by picking over bygone views of such men as Mr. Davies and thereby "working all-out to destroy the last vestiges of decency and fair play" in American public life.
Marquis Childs, in Ottawa, is struck by the calm and caution pervading the atmosphere of Canada's capital, as opposed to the partisanship reigning supreme in Washington. Canadians were appreciative of the leadership demonstrated by Washington but were also determined to act as interpreter and catalyst for change between America and Western Europe, a determination led by Minister of External Affairs Lester Pearson, who believed that a new and better world could emerge from the present trials and tribulations.
Canada had increased its defense budget in the previous 18 months from less than a half billion dollars to 1.7 billion. In proportion to its population of 14 million, Canada was next to the U.S. in numbers of troops serving in Korea. It was also training a brigade group of about 6,000 to be sent to Europe as part of the NATO forces.
It was having trouble, however, equipping its troops because of snafus in enabling sale of military equipment by the U.S. to Canada, leaving it partly equipped by British arms and partly by American arms, precipitating difficulties in the event of war.
Some in Canada felt the U.S. was acting too precipitously, however, in making arrangements without the approval of its allies, such as the recent overtures toward Spain in exchange for use of bases, which the Ottawa Citizen regarded as tending neither to make Spain any stronger nor more likely to prevent social upheaval than the billions spent in China on the Chiang Kai-Shek regime prior to the civil war there. Premier Tommy Douglas of Saskatchewan believed the U.S. was out to use the U.N. for its own ideological purposes.
Yet, he finds, the doubt and dissent were minor when compared to the increasingly closer ties between the "colossus", the U.S., and the "young and friendly counselor", Canada.
Robert C. Ruark, in Tanganyika,
finds Swahili a perfect language for the beasts it named, such as
Simba for the lion and Faro for the rhinoceros, or Tembo for the
elephant and Chui for the leopard. But the best name, he finds, was
M'Bogo
His white hunter, Harry Selby, had a mad fascination with the buffalo, despite being nearly killed by them on four occasions, standing firm and shooting them at a range up to four feet. One wounded, charging bull had required 14 hits before collapsing at his feet. But Mr. Selby loved them because they were hard to hunt and deadly, unless he matched their power and violence with skill, caution, intelligence and luck.
Mr. Ruark was scared stiff, however, of M'Bogo. So, to try to conquer his fear, he shot one, but was now more frightened of them than before. The one he shot was not a "record bull", requiring at least 50 inches of horn, but had 43 deadly inches, enough for Mr. Ruark.
He and Mr. Selby had tracked the animal, while they were bent double, for a few thousand yards as they sought their coign of vantage, and, finally, Mr. Selby told him to shoot at a range of 40 to 50 yards, a command which Mr. Ruark reluctantly obeyed, thinking it too far away. As he stood to shoot, M'Bogo had stared at Mr. Ruark as if the latter owed it money or had murdered its entire family. He shot the animal, unintentionally unloading both barrels simultaneously, felling the buffalo instantly. Mr. Selby also shot it in the back, as it was heading for the bush where it might have mounted a retaliatory charge.
When they reached the animal, it was bellowing and so Mr. Ruark put it out of its misery with a shot to the head. His first shot had cut the animal's jugular, penetrated its heart and severed its major arteries, but it had nevertheless gotten up and run as if it had been hit with a .22.
Framed Edition
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