The Charlotte News
Thursday, August 23, 1951
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the Communists had broken off the Korean ceasefire negotiations on the basis of claims of violations by the U.N. of the neutrality zone around Kaesong. A new charge supplemented those made earlier in the week regarding the supposed killing by U.N. forces of a Chinese soldier and a U.N. air attack on a jeep, stating that on Thursday, allied planes had dropped a bomb in Kaesong. The U.N. had denied the first two charges, or in the case of the jeep incident, had indicated that there was no advance warning of a jeep in the area where the attack took place, and also said that there were no U.N. planes in the area of Kaesong on Thursday. Allied inspection teams had found no damage in the area of Kaesong.
There was no indication when or if the peace talks would continue. A Communist liaison officer was quoted as saying that the talks were canceled "from now on". But subsequent Communist broadcasts indicated that they were confused as to whether the talks would continue or not. High-ranking allied officers, however, indicated that they believed the breakdown was not permanent.
General Matthew Ridgway said that the abruptness of the Communist notice showed that they had planned in advance to end the talks, even before their latest complaint had issued. He called it a "frame up from first to last". He said that the evidence he was shown in the early morning hours indicated that the claim of the Communists regarding a bombing was "ridiculous", that any attack on Kaesong had been by Communist planes, and that the announcement of the cessation of talks had come only two hours and twenty-five minutes after the alleged bombing incident, indicative, according to General Ridgway, of advance planning as it resulted from a high command decision which normally took many hours or even days to reach.
In London, British Government officials of the Foreign Office announced their determination to remain at the Abadan Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. refinery until Iran permitted oil production to resume again. The announcement also said that it would give the Iranian Government another opportunity to reopen the negotiations to resolve the oil nationalization dispute, ceased the previous day after the Iranian Government had refused the British proposal to divide profits on a 50-50 basis. Iranian Premier Mohammed Mossadegh said that the negotiations were "finished". British chief negotiator Richard Stokes was returning to London the next day.
The President asked Congress again for stronger price controls and announced that one provision of the law passed three weeks earlier and signed reluctantly by the President constituted "an economic booby-trap", that being the provision that price ceilings had to take into account all increases in costs since the outbreak of the Korean War.
Senator Walter George, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said that the final version of the Committee's bill to increase individual income taxes would ease the blow to middle income married couples. He said that under the recommended Senate version of the bill, no one would have to pay more tax than under the passed House bill.
Louis Budenz testified before the Senate Internal Security subcommittee that in 1942, Earl Browder, then head of the American Communist Party, had told him that an article in the Daily Worker, of which Mr. Budenz was then editor, was intended to root out Communists in the State Department and was arranged by Lauchlin Currie, then a White House aide.
Before HUAC, Maj. General Charles Willoughby, former head of Army intelligence in the Far East for General MacArthur, testified further regarding the Sorge spy ring of Communists in Japan during World War II.
We heard that during that period, the Japanese were the avowed enemy of the U.S. and the Russians were allies, but that must have been "fake news" and "alternative facts". You go root out them Commies, HUAC, wherever you find them.
In Moscow, a Soviet deputy premier renewed Russian claims that the Tito regime could not long continue. The announcement came in Bucharest on the seventh anniversary of Rumania's liberation from the Nazis.
In Belgrade, the Yugoslavs claimed, in a humorous cartoon, that the Russians were "taking ways". The cartoon showed a naked swimmer emerging from the ocean surf, met on the beach by an astonished friend, inquiring as to why he was naked, to which the swimmer replied that his bathing suit had been stolen by the Hottentots. When the friends exclaimed that there were no Hottentots around, the swimmer replied, "Quiet, the Russians may hear you."
We have a feeling that something other than the bathing suit was lost in translation.
The Army announced that, starting in January, it would give new tests to draftees who had flunked pre-induction mental examinations. Since the beginning of the Korean War, 35.1 percent of draftees had been rejected, compared to the rate during World War II of 22.7 percent for the same age group, 19 through 25.
In Alaska, a C-47 transport plane with nine persons aboard crashed at Summit, 152 miles north of Anchorage. Initial reports indicated all were killed.
In Hot Springs, Arkansas, according to the FBI, a woman bank teller had embezzled $94,602 since December 1, 1950, and was charged along with her husband, who, it was alleged, had aided and abetted her. The woman explained that she had bet heavily on horse races.
In Paris, the local weather bureau, following a summer of constant cold and rain, issued the following forecast: "Good weather, cloudy."
On the editorial page, "The City Sets a Bad Example" tells of members of the Junior Chamber of Commerce having, some weeks earlier, taken a tour of the administration building at Municipal Airport and concluded that conditions were "deplorable", reported same to City Manager Henry Yancey. Mr. Yancey had promised that he would undertake a program to improve conditions, and the Jaycees had more recently taken another tour and found that conditions had improved but were still not satisfactory.
The administration building at the airport, concludes the piece, was important for making a good impression on travelers to Charlotte, especially when they saw signs everywhere which read, "Make the Queen City the Clean City". It hopes, therefore, that sufficient money would be spent to improve conditions in the building.
"Strangling the Voice" discusses the cuts in the budget by Congress to the Voice of America, vital to getting information on the U.S. and the West behind the Iron Curtain. The House had previously cut the President's requested 115 million dollar budget by 30 million dollars and the full Appropriations Committee had cut it down to 63 million after the Senate Appropriations subcommittee had cut it even further, to 56 million.
The piece praises the President for standing behind the Voice. The recent World Youth Festival in East Berlin, attended by two million Communist youngsters, illustrated how the Russians were able to use propaganda more effectively than the U.S. and the West. While the headlines had highlighted the visit of several thousand of these youths to West Berlin, the vast majority had stayed in the Eastern zone. Dissemination of information was as much a part of the Cold War as blockbuster bombs had been in the previous hot war. Yet, some members of Congress were slow to realize the fact, while Russia proceeded to spend two billion dollars per year on propaganda. The President's request was about one-seventeeth that amount and about one-third of one percent of the entire military budget.
It suggests that the U.S. had a great story to tell, but remained largely in silence as the Soviets promoted themselves to the skies.
It concludes that if the Senate took up where the House left off and succeeded, one of the most essential weapons in the Cold War would have been dealt a damaging blow.
"The Klan in Tar Heelia" tells of various local and state officials having indicated that there was no law in the state preventing peaceable assembly of persons wearing masks or hoods, such as the widely advertised gathering of the Klan near Whiteville the previous Saturday night. Thomas L. Hamilton, leader of the Klan in South Carolina, had presided over the Whiteville meeting, and, according to news reports, most of the 97 hooded Klansmen present were from South Carolina. It had been a hot night and curiosity seekers, numbering 5,000, and law enforcement officials, numbering 100, probably had to wonder what kind of adult men would don hoods and robes in such heat. One Klansman even fainted.
One such meeting did not mean that the Klan should be permitted to transfer its operations from South Carolina to North Carolina. The state, it comments, had no need for it. "And the best way to turn the Klan into a ludicrous, meaningless organization is to strip away the masks and let the world see what fools these mortals be."
It concludes that if there was no law in the state banning the wearing of masks on such occasions, then the 1953 General Assembly ought to pass one.
"Piscatorial Pusillanimity" tells of reading recently of a man in either Denmark or Norway who had developed a large commercial version of the old hand generator which could charge saltwater with electricity and thereby stun fish, forcing them to the surface where they could then easily be caught.
Another report from Madison, Wisc., via the Associated Press, told of scientists having developed an electronic device, similar to an old-fashioned echo sounder, to detect the movement of schools of fish. The device was supposed to be devoted only to scientific research. But, it posits, there was always the possibility that a combination of the two devices could be produced, the one to find the fish, and the other to electrocute them.
"In a way, the resorting to such technical aids is proof that man is pusillanimous rather than puissant in his piscatorial prowess." He equipped himself with all kinds of gear and clothing to catch fish, read the accumulated wisdom of the ages in the fisherman's almanac, and then set forth, following all the rules, using the recommended lures, but wound up returning home without a catch. Then came someone with electric generators and electronic echo sounders, proving that man, as yet, had been unable to imagine himself as a fish and go where fish would go, "as the wag said to the feller who lost a horse."
A piece from Life, titled "Breathless Prose Dept.", provides the flowery effort of the magazine to describe pretty girls.
Sample:
"And of all pretty girls, here
is she, caught by the camera's split-second magic for Life,
the mirror of life, an unconsciously charming dishabille—so
real, so live, so silken that for an instant you scent the faint
perfume she has just touched to her bare shoulders."
Dick Young of the News discusses Charlotte having outgrown its streets, laid out in the horse and buggy days, leading to traffic jams aplenty. He tells of the Traffic Engineer's plan for re-routing trucks to alleviate the congestion, being considered by the City Council.
By the way, how did we ever get a "President" who spells "counsel", as in his attorney, "councel"? Or is that just a deliberate attempt to generate empathy from the uneducable morons who "elected" him and still don't regret their vote? But that would presume they could read and discern that he had misspelled the word, and so probably not.
But, never fear, he knows all the big words and phrases: "perjury", "collusion", "unindicted co-conspirator", "impeachment"...
How about "malfeasance" and "misfeasance"?
Anyway, he's going to need quite a lot of councel soon, even more than during the past miserable year and a half.
Has anyone ever bothered to tell this guy that in fact the country is not doing very well? that any residual good things still going on are leftovers from the Obama Administration.
We digress. Sorry, Mr. Young, but it's more edifying than discussing traffic issues in Charlotte in 1951, though we are quite certain that was completely apropos at the time. We have found in more recent times that the only problem in getting around Charlotte is finding one's way out, if one is not familiar with where one is, once one is in the city.
Bill Sharpe, in his "Turpentine Drippings", snippets from newspapers around the state, provides one from John Bragaw of the Washington News who tells of Lucy's grandmother having given her a dime one Sunday morning for the Sunday School collection plate, such that when Lucy had returned home, her grandmother asked her if she put the dime in the plate, to which Lucy answered in the negative, explaining that she had found a bargain, as she inquired of a man passing by with an ice cream cart whether he went to church, and when he said he did, made him promise that if she gave him a dime for two ice cream cones he would put the money in the plate, which the man assured that he would. So she gave him the dime.
Penn Seawell of the Moore County News tells of his "queen of queens", the previous Saturday, having taken the surplus cabbage on hand and spent the next twelve hours making up a huge batch of sauerkraut—prompting the clever title "Cabbages and Queens".
The Sandhill Citizen in Aberdeen, the fort at the time of Tom Wicker, later of the New York Times, tells of having heard a man talking who had been a civil service employee at a nearby military installation for several years, saying that he dreaded paying Federal taxes more than any other taxes because he could observe how much they were wasted. It comments that if the appropriation of 33.3 million dollars was approved by Congress to convert the Raleigh-Durham Airport into an Air Force transport facility, in preference to using the extant Laurinburg-Maxton or the Seymour Johnson Field as the base, many would agree with that former civil servant.
Alan Browning of the Elkin Tribune tells of being kidded for some time for standing around watching construction projects. A long time earlier, he had watched the construction of the State Theater and he bet that no one knew that high in the north wall, there was a cinder block with two Pepsi-Cola bottles in its cavities.
It's high time to dig into the matter.
The Smithfield Herald tells of the newspaper photographer ringing up Joe to find out if he could come by to have his picture taken, but Joe having said that he was busy with two funerals, to which the lady photographer then explained further that she wanted to take his picture with Miss North Carolina for later use, prompting Joe suddenly to become cooperative.
Mrs. Theo Davis of the Zebulon Record tells of a booklet having been published explaining how and why patriotic songs had been written, leading to suggestion that many might wish to learn more than the mere words of the poems which comprised them, that it would also be a good idea for some to learn the tunes.
V. C. Marley of the Asheboro Courier-Tribune tells of a friendly bus driver, Walker, who always spoke to everyone as they boarded the bus and talked to them along the way, despite some bus companies limiting driver conversation with the passengers. He also tooted his horn and waved "Good morning" to all the children as he passed. It says that people spoke well of Walker.
How about Mr. Leitch and Mrs. Wagner?
So on, and so forth, on, so and so, so 'n' so.
Drew Pearson, still en route through Europe, tells of the Continent being a study in contrasts between East and West, and between the Continent and the U.S. He provides a series of four scenes to demonstrate the point, the first one being in East Berlin. Flags were everywhere, German, Chinese, Czech, Korean and Hungarian, interspersed by blue and white flags of peace. Doves were in abundance. International words for peace adorned the base of every pillar. The words of President Truman, Secretary of Defense Marshall, and Secretary of State Acheson were featured in dramatic contrast, warning of the danger of war and that the West had to prepare for war.
He finds the international propaganda at its best, and despite the State Department's valiant effort at counter-propaganda, hundreds of thousands of the two million youngsters who had attended the Berlin youth rally the previous week, he suggests, must have gone home with the impression that the U.S. was a "big bad ogre of the world" and that the U.S.S.R. was their only hope for peace.
In scene two, he describes the U.S. Senate, where Senator Kenneth McKellar of Tennessee, at age 88, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, was listening sleepily to State Department personnel testimony regarding its budget, as George Perkins, chief of European affairs, explained the needs for more funds to run the American Embassy in Communist Poland. The Senators wanted to know why it would cost more to run the Embassy in the coming year than during the previous year, to which Mr. Perkins had responded that the battle against Communism had become more intense and that the Embassy had lost money the previous year through the depreciation of the Polish currency. Senator McKellar broke in to ask by what authority the "young man", age 56, had tampered with another country's currency.
Mr. Pearson adds that it was this same Senator who was influencing how much money the State Department had to combat Communism.
Scene three took place also in the Senate, where Senator Pat McCarran of Nevada, age 75, was listening to Assistant Secretary of State Barrett testify regarding the Voice of America and the importance of selling the U.S. to the rest of the world. Senator McCarran admitted that Mr. Barrett made a plausible argument, but then added that he would hate to answer for the spending of all that money being requested to prevent war when he felt sure war was inevitable.
Scene four, again in Berlin, inside the studio of radio station RIAS, operated by the State Department in the Western sector, found a group of East German youngsters crowding into the studio to see from whence the broadcasts emanated to which they had been listening across the Iron Curtain. A singer performed in the studio and they provided a hearty round of applause. Then came a political commentator who every night criticized Soviet operations in East Germany, and he, too, was gleefully recognized by the youths.
He points out that these youngsters were the future generation of Germany and so impressions made upon them were important. Yet, Senator McCarran, who would not have to fight in a war at his age, and Senator McKellar, likewise too old to fight, believed that the State Department's radio program, Voice of America, was a waste of money.
He lists the Senators who had voted to cut the budget of the Voice, Senators McCarran, McKellar, John McClellan of Arkansas, Styles Bridges of New Hampshire, Homer Ferguson of Michigan, Kenneth Wherry of Nebraska, and Bourke Hickenlooper of Iowa.
Robert C. Ruark, returning after an absence for almost three weeks during which he was returning home from his Tanganyikan safari, tells of Bernard Baruch, on the occasion of his 81st birthday a few days earlier, giving the simple advice, "Don't bellyache." Mr. Ruark thinks he probably meant not to whine, as bellyaching meant fretting and Mr. Baruch had been a fretter most of his days. He finds it a good thing to fret, that the Constitution was founded on fretting, that the First Amendment encouraged it. Government criticism was no more than bellyaching.
He says that he had been a bellyacher about many things and people.
He finds also that "bellyache" could mean a pain in the stomach, and that as people looked around at things occurring legislatively, they must be having such an ache, regardless of the injunction against it by Mr. Baruch.
Framed Edition
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