The Charlotte News

Saturday, July 7, 1951

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports, via William C. Barnard, that allied planes were ordered this date to resume air operations against the highway left clear for 19 hours on Saturday for use by the Communist delegation to travel the 130 miles from Pyongyang to Kaesong for the preliminary phase of ceasefire talks to occur Sunday. The road and a five-mile zone around it had been left alone from 5:00 a.m., scheduled departure time for the delegation, until midnight. The allied delegation was ready to depart during the morning from Seoul for the 35-mile trip.

Lt. Clifton Brown of Charlotte was a pilot of one of the helicopters which would fly to points near the front lines in Korea to take care of possible emergencies requiring communication during the transportation of the U.N. commanders to Kaesong. They would go either by jeep or by helicopter, weather permitting.

The President sent a message to the president of the presidium of the Supreme Soviet in Russia, Nikolai Mikhailovich, conveying the McMahon-Ribicoff Congressional resolution which expressed friendship to the people of Russia. He said that he approved the resolution and that if the Soviet people were acquainted with the peaceful aims of the American people, there would be no war, that people denied normal means of communication would not be able to attain mutual understanding to form the basis for trust and friendship.

In a response to the Hungarian Government's demand that the U.S. close down its cultural and informational activities in Hungary, the U.S. charged Hungary's Government with trying "by ruthless and unconscionable measures to terrorize the Hungarian people into submission", and said that the U.S. intended to continue concerning itself with "their tragic plight". It said that the recent trial of Archbishop Josef Groesz for involvement in an alleged espionage conspiracy on behalf of the U.S. had proved nothing except that Hungarian authorities were continuing such terrorism. The U.S. had recalled for their own safety three legation officials who had been recently deemed by the Hungarian Government, in two cases, personae non gratae, and in the third, "undesirable". The legation secretary, one of those expelled, said that a campaign was transpiring against those deemed "undesirables", in which at least 14,700 persons had been thrown out of their homes during the prior seven weeks and relegated to "certain death" for lack of food and other necessities.

Senator William Jenner of Indiana proposed that the U.S. demand release of Associated Press correspondent William Oatis from jail in Czechoslovakia where he had been sentenced to ten years for alleged espionage on behalf of the U.S. Mr. Oatis was originally from Indiana. Senator Jenner accused the State Department of doing "nothing", notwithstanding the Department's statement two days earlier that it condemned the "hoax" trial and was studying all possible means of gaining the release of Mr. Oatis. Senator Jenner wanted the U.S. military brought to bear on the situation and an air mission sent to Prague to take back Mr. Oatis.

A U.S. Air Force B-29 tanker crashed and burned in a mist-shrouded valley 40 miles from Prestwick, Scotland, apparently killing all eleven crewmen aboard.

The House, preparing to vote on extension of economic controls the following week, were looking at the Korean truce talks with an eye toward junking controls if the talks proved successful. Republicans wanted to make controls conditional, while Administration Democrats were hopeful that a flood of mail from consumers urging retention of controls would turn the tide.

In Tehran, the Iranian Government pushed ahead with its plans to seize the Abadan refinery of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co., 53 percent of which was owned by the British Government. A violent street demonstration ensued a suggested compromise by the World Court at The Hague, that two Britons, two Iranians and one neutral form a five-person board to supervise operations of the refinery until a solution could be reached. Shouts of "death to Anglo-American imperialism" and "death to the Hague court" were heard from the crowd. The Iranian Government denounced the proposal as being from a court without jurisdiction. Britain had agreed to accept the compromise arrangement. Iran did not formally reject it but only said the decision was not "valid". A British Embassy spokesman said that Iran's rejection would mean withdrawal of all British personnel from the refinery, resulting inevitably in shutting off of the flow of oil, vital to the British.

In New York, millionaire Frederick Vanderbilt Field remained in jail on his contempt charge after refusing to provide to the Federal District Court the names of the persons who had posted the $80,000 appellate bond for four of the eleven top American Communist leaders convicted under the Smith Act, who had failed to surrender to begin serving their sentences after the Supreme Court upheld the convictions. Mr. Field had been granted an appellate bond but it was too late for his attorneys to gain his release the night before and the weekend might pose further delays.

In Minneapolis, the strike of non-professional workers at ten hospitals erupted into violence at Fairview Hospital as an intern was roughed up as he tried to assist two female volunteers through picket lines. A janitor at another hospital was pushed a half block away from the hospital. Roofing nails and tacks were spread in the driveways of three hospitals, causing an ambulance to have two flat tires while delivering a patient to one of them. At one Catholic-run hospital, the veils were pulled off nuns who exited the building to escort non-strikers through the lines.

In Newark, N.J., exploding bottled gas tanks in the Port Newark area, near the Newark airport, were out of control, according to the Fire Chief. He said that he might have to call on the New York City Fire Department for help. The flames threatened a 100-square yard area. There was no report of casualties.

In Myrtle Beach, S.C., one person was killed and two were injured in a collision of a truck and a car driven by the man killed, near the Springmaid Beach Club.

Book-page editor Bob Sain writes on page 7-A of the mixed reception to the posthumously published poetic, impressionistic A Western Journal, the last bit of writing by Thomas Wolfe on his last trip West, two and a half months before succumbing in Baltimore on September 15, 1938 to tuberculosis of the brain, a complication from an extended bout with pneumonia.

on top—and green fields now and grass and steers
and hills forested and cooler and trees and on
and on toward (levelly) the distant twin rims—
blue-vague defined—of the terrific canyon—
the great sun sinking now below our 7000 feet—
we racing on to catch him at the canyon ere he
sinks entirely—but too late, too late—at last
the rangers little house, the

permit and the sticker, the inevitable conversations,
the polite goodbyes—and (almost dark now)
at 8:35 to the edge of the canyon—to Bright
Angel Lodge— and before we enter between the
cabins of the Big Gorgooby—and the Big
Gorgooby there immensely, darkly, almost
weirdly there—a fathomless darkness peered at
from the very edge of hell with abysmal starlight—
almost unseen—just

fathomlessly there—So to our cabin—and
...

On the editorial page, "How Tar Heels Voted on Controls" discusses the proposed extension of the Defense Production Act and its economic controls during the July period of temporary extension while further debate took place in Congress, especially the House, which had yet to pass a bill, the Senate having passed a watered-down version of controls. It presents the roll call votes of North Carolina's two Senators, Clyde Hoey and Willis Smith, on the issues still to be decided under the bill, finding that the two voted against the Administration position in four major Senate tests, while nine members of the House delegation had voted against the Administration in the one major test in that chamber.

It concludes that if, as predicted, controls were to be gutted by special interest pressure, then the voters of the state could recall how their representatives had helped destroy controls.

"Opening Up the West" lists three highway projects authorized by Governor Kerr Scott which would open up Western North Carolina to greater tourism, one between Fontana Village and Brock, a second from the Tennessee line near Colby, Tenn., to Dellwood, N.C., and the third resurfacing and widening of U.S. Highway 23 between Franklin and the Georgia line, joining up with a similarly improved stretch in Georgia, extending to Athens and Atlanta. Nine other projects would also improve access to the Western part of the state.

As the Great Smoky Mountain National Park had drawn more visitors to it in 1950 than any other national park, the road projects would be a boon to tourism in that part of the state, benefiting the entire state.

"A Waste of Public Money" finds that Representative Charles Deane of Rockingham had a good point in favoring use of one of two World War II fields at Laurinburg-Maxton or at the Seymour Johnson base at Goldsboro as an Air Force troop carrier base rather than spending afresh 30 million dollars to use the Raleigh-Durham airport for the purpose, the latter favored by the Durham Morning Herald and the Raleigh News & Observer, both accusing Mr. Deane of playing politics. The piece thinks Mr. Deane was only engaged in wise economic thinking in proposing use of one of the two existing facilities valued at about 20 million dollars rather than spending the funds anew.

A piece from the Arkansas Gazette, titled "Free for All", tells of a correspondent writing to the newspaper encouraging it to stop printing controversial letters to the editor for stirring up strife at a time when unity was needed in the nation.

While it appreciated the woman's feeling in a time of such strife, it also believed that the letters column did not so much contribute to the strife as merely reflect it. It was loath to produce a false decorum by editing out that which was controversial.

It quotes from the dissent of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes in Abrams v. U.S. in 1919—the majority in which upheld the convictions of five Russian-born Communists or Socialists under the Espionage Act of 1918 for publishing certain matter "scurrilous and abusive" to the United States and intended to encourage resistance to the authority of the Government in time of war—, as championing "free trade in ideas", that "the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market, and that truth is the only ground upon which [men's] wishes can safely be carried out." He posited it as the theory of the Constitution, which was an experiment, "as all life is an experiment". The jurist advocated being eternally vigilant against any attempt to check the expression of opinions which were loathsome and believed to be "fraught with death".

Drew Pearson tells of the latest confidential reports from friends of General Eisenhower regarding his possible candidacy for the presidency in 1952. He had decided to seek the nomination of only one party, abandoning his previous idea to seek both nominations. He would prefer to run as a Republican to avoid Democratic holdovers, prior errors, and policies. He would not make a final decision until he knew who the GOP opposition would be or his reception among Democrats. He had no political organization or political agent at this point. He had about 150 votes from GOP delegates committed on the first convention ballot.

Mutual friends of the General and the President, both of whom were friends, believed that the President had not made a firm decision about running and, though not wishing personally to do so, would do whatever he thought best for world peace. If the GOP were to nominate Senator Taft and draw up an isolationist platform, the President might suggest General Eisenhower for the Democratic nomination. He would oppose Senator Paul Douglas, whom he did not like. Otherwise, he would probably favor Chief Justice Fred Vinson for the nomination.

There were 64 journalists presently in Iran, expecting trouble, nearly as many as in Korea.

General Eisenhower was disappointed at the progress of rearmament of France.

The conviction of Archbishop Josef Groesz for espionage in Budapest was the first step, according to allied agents behind the iron curtain, of a systematic program of the Communists to terrorize Catholics in Hungary.

U.S. High Commissioner in West Germany John J. McCloy told Secretary of State Acheson that he wanted to resign in the fall.

Dr. Cornelius Bakker, a Dutch physicist, had visited Argentina to take a look at the supposed "thermonuclear" atomic energy discovery touted by Juan Peron, reporting that nothing much had occurred. The Austrian-born director of the program, Dr. Ronald Richter, had worked out a new, relatively simple method of releasing nuclear energy based on the thermodynamic principle of solar radiation, but the experiment had been accomplished in the lab only on a small scale, had vaporized all the equipment used in the experiments and the system did not promise development on a practical level anytime in the near future. Through El Presidente Peron's largess, Holland and Argentina were working on agreement for joint development of the program, which could bear fruit in two or three years.

The Army had been calling up men for induction, giving them their physicals and sending them home, resulting in the Army having the corner on 300,000 men, while the Air Force was in need of recruits, prompting Assistant Secretary of Defense in charge of manpower, Anna Rosenburg, to order the Army to release the draftees so that the Air Force could recruit them.

Stewart Alsop finds any complacency on the part of Americans or the West should the fighting be concluded in Korea to be foolish, a prelude to disaster. In addition to the buildup of a thousand Russian-built jets in Manchuria and the presence of new heavy armament there, there was also a new North Korean army which had been reorganized by the Chinese out of the old one, which had become disorganized and tattered following the Inchon landings of the allies the prior September. The North Korean army had then been withdrawn as the Chinese entered the war in November, giving the impression that it had disappeared. It had instead been retrained and re-equipped in Manchuria into a formidable fighting force.

Thus, there was skepticism regarding the sincerity of the peace entreaty, whether it was a Soviet trick to delude the West into dropping its guard so that the enemy might launch a new offensive, utilizing this new accumulation of power, hoping to catch the allies by surprise.

But to do so would almost assuredly provoke airstrikes against Manchuria, possibly even China proper and Soviet Siberia. Should the North Korean army again seek to penetrate into South Korea, it would be met by a much stronger South Korean army and U.N. allies than a year earlier.

Another possibility was that the Soviets were planning an attack elsewhere, such as against Yugoslavia. Refugees from eastern satellite countries were saying such an attack would be launched on August 2. These sources had been deemed not credible, but so had the refugees the prior year who told of an attack imminent against South Korea, set for June 25. Yugoslavia would be the most logical place for the Soviets next to attack.

One thing was certain, he concludes, that the Soviets would try other offensive moves somewhere and soon.

Richard Spong of Editorial Research Reports discusses the sixteen states with changes in Congressional representation resultant of the 1950 census. The nine which had already undertaken redistricting had practiced traditional political give-and-take in terms of constituents.

Congressman Emanuel Cellar of New York had introduced a measure to require redistricting after each decennial census, permitting Congress to deny seats to state delegations where there was failure to provide "contiguous and compact" districts. Under the bill, any state with more than one representative could not have districts which varied in population by more than 15 percent from the average for the state.

California, with an additional seven seats, had provided a plan under which Democratic areas were added to traditionally Democratic districts, making Republicans more likely than before to elect their candidates in Southern California. The most populous district, in Los Angeles County, had 452,000 constituents while the least populous had only 214,000.

The Governor of Washington had vetoed a bill which provided that Seattle would have two districts rather than one. One new additional representative for the state would probably therefore be elected at large, as would a new one for Texas.

He describes action in other states losing or gaining representation.

The states which had not redistricted would have to have all of their representatives elected at large unless they took action before the 1952 elections.

A letter writer wonders why so many men were being "railroaded" to the chain gangs and roads in Mecklenburg County and across the state. He wonders whether it was because of the need for free labor. He wants ministers of Charlotte to devote time in investigating the matter as it existed in the police courts and road camps. Judges gave defendants the option of paying fines or going to the roads. Some men could not pay the fines and had no option despite not being physically able to work on the roads. Some knew someone on the inside and were able to get ten day jail sentences while others served 30 or 60 days on the roads.

A letter writer from Davidson comments on the letter anent segregation appearing July 2, which had suggested that integration of schools would be just as costly or more so than segregation, disagreeing with an earlier editorial. This writer takes issue with the earlier writer, says that he must have assumed that integration would result in closing the black schools and firing all of the teachers therein, obviously not to be the case. He also takes issue with the idea expressed by the earlier writer that integration would harm "racial purity", asking whether children were sent to school for the purpose of breeding. He wonders whether, in any event, it would be such a crime if the next generation determined to scramble the races. White supremacy was a myth and should be treated as such, without purpose or ameliorative result.

He meets the previous writer's remark that the mandated integration of professional schools might lead to integration of undergraduate schools, then primary and secondary schools, by suggesting that students chose their local primary and secondary schools by the neighborhoods where they lived while the colleges and professional schools ought be open to whomever qualified, regardless of race.

He concludes that the main difficulty was that any rationalization sufficed to maintain segregation as long as "the Negroes are 'kept in their place'." He leaves it to the reader to determine if that was not a correct assessment.

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