The Charlotte News

Tuesday, July 3, 1951

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports, via Olen Clements, that the allied command had agreed to a meeting regarding a ceasefire to start July 10, with a preliminary meeting suggested for July 5 by General Matthew Ridgway in an effort to stop the killing as quickly as possible. The General agreed that Kaesong, as suggested by the Communists, would be the place of the meeting. No reply had yet been received as of 8:30 a.m. EST, nine hours after U.N. radio began broadcasting the acceptance.

Peiping broadcast that the ceasefire would occur on the 38th parallel, while President Syngman Rhee of South Korea insisted that an armistice on that old boundary would be unacceptable for leaving Korea divided.

Meanwhile, there was no break in the fighting as one of the longest artillery duels of the war on the eastern front transpired. On the central front, infantrymen captured the highest peak in the Chorwon-Kumhwa-Pyonggang "iron triangle" area following a three-day battle. The allies failed to dislodge the Chinese, however, from neighboring hilltops.

Sixty American jets and six B-29s bombed, rocketed and strafed the Pyongyang downtown airfield.

Drew Pearson reports on the front page that he had obtained a copy of the exact ceasefire terms cabled to the enemy by General Ridgway, which included that the opposing armies would be separated by a 20-mile demilitarized zone, with its southern limit at the 38th parallel; that naval forces would stay at least three miles from enemy shores except to keep supply lines open to U.N.-held islands in Wonsan Harbor; that prisoners of war would be exchanged on a one-for-one basis pending final settlement; and that the ceasefire would be supervised by a U.N. commission with free and unlimited access to all of Korea. The terms had been approved earlier by the 16 U.N. nations fighting in Korea and were supposed to have been transmitted to the enemy on June 25, the first anniversary of the start of the war. But Jakob Malik, chief Russian U.N. delegate, had heard of the proposal through the Egyptian delegation and was able therefore to jump the gun and submit his proposal for ceasefire negotiations on June 23. Mr. Pearson quotes verbatim from the copy of the proposal.

Testifying before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Averell Harriman, former Ambassador to Moscow and special assistant presently to the President, urged prompt enactment of the Administration's proposed 8.5 billion dollar foreign military and economic aid program for the coming fiscal year. He urged not relaxing the effort because of the Korean ceasefire talks, thus playing to the hands of the Kremlin.

Defense Mobilizer Charles E. Wilson told the Senate Finance Committee that a Korean truce would have no impact on the nation's mobilization program, that it should be based on the present aims and tactics of the Soviets. He urged the Committee to approve the President's proposed ten-billion dollar tax increase. He said that he was not satisfied with the progress in production.

Senator John Sparkman of Alabama said in an interview that the U.S. might not accept any peace agreement which set the 38th parallel as the international boundary between North and South Korea.

Price administrator Mike DiSalle predicted that continuously rising prices would take place, to as much as seven percent, if the present ban on rollbacks for the month of July were written into the final price control law at the end of the 31-day temporary extension period to the end of July.

In Prague, Associated Press correspondent William Oatis, accused of espionage by the Czech Government, took the witness stand in his trial to testify against himself, saying that his "espionage activities" had resulted from his efforts to check dispatches filed by other Western correspondents. He apologized for allowing the A.P. to "use" him to obtain stories on Communism. The American Newspaper Guild in Washington meanwhile charged the Czech Government with extorting a "phony confession" and "railroading" Mr. Oatis.

In New York, the four missing convicted defendants in the Smith Act case against the eleven top Communists in the country, seven of whom had already surrendered the previous day to begin serving their sentences, had their appellate bond forfeited after they had not surrendered. Some officials believed the missing four, three of whom faced five-year sentences and one, three years, were hiding in an effort to set up a new Communist underground.

A man who claimed that he was born in Jersey City, N.J., was being deported to Italy for the fifth time, after the Italian Government had previously refused to accept him but now had identified him as having been born in Italy in 1907, from which he was taken by his mother to Boston in 1913. He later joined the Navy. He was subject to deportation for having been convicted of a felony in Florida a decade earlier for obtaining insurance funds by fraud. He continued to insist that he was born in the U.S.

In Raleigh, the State Revenue Commissioner reported that North Carolina had collected a record-setting revenue of 162 million dollars in the prior fiscal year, compared to 132 million in 1949-50, and the prior all-time record of 140 million.

In Lexington, N.C., a four-state search had been initiated for vacationing parents who had not been informed that their 18-year old son had drowned Sunday afternoon near Lexington.

On page 3-A, Love on the Ropes begins in serialization, of interest to those who followed sports as well as romance.

Who's on first?

On the editorial page, "Way to Peace Still Open" finds the negotiations for a ceasefire proposal proceeding in an orderly fashion under the direction of General Ridgway, despite the armchair critics who saw in the proposal only a trick by the Communists. The General had accepted Kaesong as the site of the negotiations, despite having proposed a hospital ship in Wonsan Harbor, and had also accepted the start date of July 10, urging a preliminary meeting of military officers of no rank higher than colonel to be held July 5.

It finds it significant that nothing had occurred to impose an insuperable barrier to the talks so far. The Communists might yet, however, throw a wrench into the works and seek to tie the military pact to long-range political issues, which the allies had insisted be off the table. But, it concludes, there was still hope that the slaughter in Korea would soon end and the American people would be well advised to discount those who decried the efforts.

"A Time for National Unity" favors restoration of bipartisan foreign policy as truce talks were about to get underway in Korea. On April 11, the President had said that minimum conditions for peace in Korea had to entail that the fighting would stop and concrete steps taken to insure it would not again start, plus an end to aggression. These broad terms, it finds, needed further definition. The Administration had to meet the Republicans more than half way or any settlement would be subject to political attack, resulting in a divided and confused country.

Some Republicans might not want to be consulted but the President had at least to make the effort, so that the terms for ending the war, should they be negotiated successfully, would be fully accepted by the American people.

"In True Senatorial Style" tells of Senator Owen Brewster being back in the news for his prediction during a radio program that President Truman would be the Democratic nominee and Senator Taft the Republican nominee for the presidency in 1952.

Meanwhile, he renewed his attack on the Administration foreign policy by saying that the President and Secretary of State Acheson would get whatever they could out of the Korean war so that they could say that the Democrats kept the country out of war. He had been bitterly attacking Secretary Acheson for a month from the Senate floor. But during the 40-hour questioning of the Secretary by the joint Senate committees investigating the MacArthur firing, Senator Brewster had commented that he was somewhat overawed at questioning the Secretary, given his great intelligence and competence.

It finds that he was very brave when speaking on the Senate floor or from a broadcasting studio, but suddenly lost that bravado when he confronted his target face-to-face. Such, it concludes, was the greatness of the American political system.

"Tax Dodging Device" tells of Vanderbilt University purchasing a Textron Southern textile mill in Charlotte for 2.7 million dollars, then leasing it back to Textron, so that the mill would be able to operate without paying taxes while producing a large income for Vanderbilt, suggesting the need to plug the loophole inducing such transactions before the new tax bill would be passed. The purchase also would provide for unfair competition with other mills forced to pay normal taxes. While educational institutions needed financial help to meet rising costs of operation, some other method, it urges, ought be adopted which did not compromise the Federal tax structure.

A piece from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, titled "Of Sneezing Schizophrenics", tells of the National Geographic Society finding that quail lovers in Virginia had risen up in opposition to the destruction of ragweed because the quail liked the seeds. New Jersey beekeepers joined them as bees also liked the ragweed, and Connecticut peach eaters reported that ragweed nurtured an enemy of the oriental fruit moth.

It concludes that the choice was between eating and sneezing and it opts for the latter, except in the case of a neighbor who had a lot full of ragweed during August and September.

An excerpt from the Harvard commencement address of Warren Austin, chief American delegate to the U.N., appears, in which he described the U.N. as an open society and free association of members of the international community, with its strength dependent on the degree to which the members guided their conduct and developed institutions and methods in accord with fundamental principles of justice, tolerance, self-discipline, self-help and mutual aid.

A year earlier, the free and voluntary response of 53 nations to Communist aggression in Korea had been a positive expression of man's will to survive. The only thing which could be done at the time was to recommend and not order, as the Security Council had failed to develop peace forces. The response was a triumph therefore of higher ethics, obedience to the unenforceable.

The issue at stake had risen previously in Manchuria and Ethiopia, but this time the challenge had been met. The successful organization and conduct of collective action in Korea transcended in importance the particular geographic line along which the fighting was being brought to a halt. Man had won a victory in his quest for survival.

Drew Pearson tells of the next day being the 175th celebration of America's Independence and supplies some facts which may have been forgotten, that the Liberty Bell did not ring in Philadelphia until July 8, 1776, at which time the Declaration was read in what later became Independence Square. There was no great rejoicing in the streets at the time as the signers were considered by many to be radicals and dangerous, even then, a year into the Revolution.

Four months later, a powerful group within the Continental Congress wanted to end the revolution and only by spare majorities and adroit negotiation were these members, primarily from South Carolina, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, New York, and Delaware, placated. New York had abstained for a week in voting for independence.

One of the best known signers, John Hancock, had been a top smuggler of tea against the monopoly held by the East India Tea Company, leading to inflated prices. He was caught with a warehouse full of smuggled tea when the British had reduced prices and permitted retailers to buy directly from the company. He was angry at the turn of events and so organized the Boston Tea Party. The British retaliation against Boston for the fact was one of the key problems leading to the Declaration.

The Stamp Act, which spawned the phrase, "No taxation without representation", charged only eight cents for a bill of lading and two shillings threepence for a mortgage, chiefly impacting bars, liquor purveyors, and newspaper advertisements. British national taxes were at about 30 percent, more than the Greeks, Italians and Germans, he notes, paid in 1951, and much less than current American taxes.

A mob had almost dismantled Benjamin Franklin's house because he had failed as an emissary to England to convince the British to remove the tax. Eventually, they did abolish it.

The chief rabble-rouser among the signers was John Adams, who had never been out of New England and was amazed at the lavish surroundings in New York.

The other signers were a mixture of 21 lawyers, ten merchants, four doctors, three farmers, a clergyman, a printer and 16 men of fortune. Their average age was 44, with the eldest being Benjamin Franklin, at 71, and the youngest, Edward Rutledge of North Carolina, at 27.

Finally, he relates various snippets of information about the signers.

John Hart of New Jersey, for instance, a farmer, spent much of the Revolution hiding in the swamps from the British who were seeking him for his part.

William Williams of Connecticut said that he had done a thing which the British would never forgive and that if the British were successful, he would be hanged, to which another Safety Council member replied that he had not signed the document and so had nothing to fear. Mr. Williams responded that he should then be hanged for not doing his duty.

The last of the signers to die was Charles Carroll of Maryland, who lived to be 95 in 1832, had signed "of Carrollton" to distinguish himself from his cousin of the same name so that the British would not seek out his relative.

Joseph Alsop, in Belgrade, tells of Yugoslavia's progress in breaking from the old Communist ways through its leaders. Judicial procedures had been reformed to introduce more Western-type justice. The lower ranks of the Communist hierarchy were being sharply disciplined and the political police had been rebuked and retrained. Their intent was to transform a totalitarian state into a relatively free society, to combine their socialism with popular democracy.

It was difficult to see how they could achieve serious elections, an authoritative parliament, limitation of the Communist Party to only an educative role and reduction of the political police to a simple instrument of national security, as these tasks were foreign to Communist training. Yet, they appeared sincere in their desire to accomplish these changes and with intelligent American aid, it was likely that the experiment would succeed.

In that event, Yugoslavia would not only be valuable as an ally but also as a beacon for other satellite nations and the Western European left, offering a path away from Stalinism. But at the same time, they were increasing the danger to themselves from the Soviet sphere.

Robert C. Ruark tells of a young bullfighter from Brooklyn who was already making a splash as a rookie in the bullfighting world, having obtained three bull ears in his first four fights. Someone had sent him to Mr. Ruark to see if he wanted to invest in him, to send him to Spain for further training. He had unloaded a small fraction of the bullfighter to a syndicate manager to pay the syndicate managers back for what they had done to him. He had also enlisted a city editor. The young bullfighter would soon be fighting bulls in Madrid.

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