The Charlotte News
Tuesday, September 18, 1951
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that the Communists in Korea had charged that four allied soldiers had on Tuesday afternoon invaded the neutrality zone at both Panmunjom and Kaesong, the latter being the site of the ceasefire talks which had been terminated since August 23 because of previous Communist charges of U.N. violations of the zone. This latest was the fourth such charge, only one of which had been found by U.N. investigation to have occurred, an inadvertent strafing of Kaesong by an American pilot who had made a navigation error a week earlier. The Communists demanded a meeting of liaison officers on Wednesday to settle the matter and the U.N. command responded that it would send its representatives to that meeting at Panmunjom.
In ground action, an allied armored force, with infantry in support, launched a surprise attack on the dormant western front at dawn this date, but it was stopped by 400 to 500 firmly dug-in enemy troops after an all-day battle in mud and drizzling rain, in an attempt to gain a series of hills west of Chorwon. Allied troops reached the crest of one of the hills but were forced back by enemy fire and the slippery conditions.
Congress provided its final approval to a 5.8 billion dollar military construction program designed to shore up the country's defenses against Soviet aggression. The House approved a House-Senate conference reconciliation of the two bills, and the final bill went to the President for signature. Under the bill, the Air Force received the lion's share, 3.48 billion dollars, including a billion for a series of secret overseas airbases surrounding Russia.
In Ottawa, Denmark blocked immediate action by the NATO Council regarding a U.S. proposal to include Greece and Turkey in NATO. The Danish Foreign minister said that his Government would prefer to provide security guarantees against Russia to Greece and Turkey by forming a new Mediterranean pact of which the two countries would be members. Inclusion of new members in NATO required unanimous approval. Norway also favored creation of the Mediterranean pact, but was not vetoing the membership of Turkey and Greece. All other members were ready to approve the membership.
Senator Brien McMahon of Connecticut, chairman of the joint Senate-House Atomic Energy Committee, stated in a prepared address to the Senate that mass production of atomic weapons would save 30 billion dollars per year in the defense budget by bringing the cost of an atomic bomb down to less than that for a tank. He urged expenditure of six billion dollars on the three branches to equip them with atomic weapons, whereas 750 million dollars was presently being spent on the atomic program. He said that an atomic weapon could produce the same explosive force of conventional weapons costing thousands of times more. He proposed two resolutions, one to put Congress on record as favoring such development and production of atomic weapons, and a second to urge a special session of the U.N. General Assembly to consider disarmament under proper safeguards.
In Wood River, Ill., a large explosion at a Shell Oil Co. refinery the previous night had killed 13 workmen and injured seriously about 20 other persons. The cause of the explosion was as yet undetermined and was the second major mishap at the refinery in less than a month.
In Campinas, Brazil, a movie theater collapsed on Sunday killing at least 25 persons, most of whom were children, and injuring another 65 seriously, with between 300 and 800 injured to some degree.
In Ann Arbor, Mich., early Sunday, a 34-year old nurse was slain in front of her rooming house after being struck in the head twice, dragged into the street and left by an unknown assailant.
In Guilford, Maine, a 30-year old man the previous night killed his four-year old daughter and then committed suicide with a pistol in his automobile on a rural road, after eluding police, following having beaten his wife and then driving off with the child. After his wife, who had separated from him a month earlier, had threatened to divorce him, he threatened to kill himself and the little girl.
At Colesville, Md., three elderly women died and about another dozen were injured when a fire occurred in one wing of a home for the elderly. The fire had begun in a closet from an unknown source.
In Franklin, Va., a large crowd of about a hundred persons gathered to hear the drunk-driving case against North Carolina Superior Court Judge W. H. S. Burgwyn, necessitating that the case be moved to the National Guard Armory. The local police chief was the first prosecution witness, testifying that the judge's car had been observed striking a street sign in front of a funeral home and then continuing without stopping. He and a sergeant then followed in the police car and observed the judge's car weaving, and as they started their siren to pull him over, his car then struck a parked car and continued to proceed for several blocks before stopping. He showed subjective signs of being intoxicated and was taken to a hospital for a blood test, which was not given because the judge had not answered questions regarding whether he wished to take the test. (In virtually all, if not all, jurisdictions today, such conduct would be tantamount to a refusal to take the blood-alcohol test and would result in an automatic suspension of the defendant's driver's license for a statutorily designated period of time.)
In Bryson City, N.C., two men were convicted of taking and possessing a bear out of season, after witnesses had testified that they found a pot of bear meat on the kitchen stove in the defendants' home, the pot of meat having also been adduced as an exhibit by the prosecutor, while others testified that they saw the two "packing a dead bear" down the road.
We think that this case is being reported in secret code and that the "dead bear" was actually a gun and that the "pot of bear meat" was a cache of guns, and the "stove" meant to convey that the constituent parts of the cache were locked and loaded, ready to fire. The reporters must have been instructed by the judge to use this seemingly innocuous language so as not to alert the public of the presence of the alien beings.
In Yonkers, N.Y., as pictured, a 1913 Stanley Steamer beat a 1910 Stoddard-Dayton, a conventional gas-powered car, in a 1,078.6-mile race from Chicago, with the winning time being 53 hours and four minutes, beating the gas engine by 37 minutes.
What were the winning and losing speeds? How much fuel was consumed by each vehicle? How much did each driver weigh and how did the total weight affect fuel mileage? What color was each car? Which was more comfortable? Did either have rich Corinthian leather? Did Emperor Hirohito drive either?
On the editorial page, "Getting at the Facts" tells of it being no accident that North Carolina had been chosen by the American Hospital Association as the locus for a pilot study regarding hospital care, given the Duke Endowment's continuous analysis of hospital costs in the Carolinas, the development of many new hospitals within the state under the supervision of the Medical Care Commission, and the selection of Graham Davis, director of the division of hospitals of the W. K. Kellogg Foundation and formerly of the Duke Endowment, to direct the Association's study. Gordon Gray, president of UNC, had been chosen as the chairman of the study, which was designed to determine the adequacy of existing hospital facilities, whether related health services met the needs of the people, the steps needed to strengthen present services, and the best methods of financing those services.
It asserts that because the adequacy of medical care had been confused in the national debate between politicians and professional medical personnel, it was time to adduce the facts.
"Gov. Warren vs. Sen. Kefauver" tells of Governor Fuller Warren of Florida being at odds with Senator Estes Kefauver, having declined the invitation earlier to testify before the Kefauver Crime Investigating Committee, and now indicating that the Senator's book, Crime in America, had cost the taxpayers $265,000 to produce, that being the cost of the Committee's investigation. He criticized the book for not containing information about gambling in Senator Kefauver's native Tennessee or in Washington, D.C. He also found fault with the Federal Treasury being tapped to promote the book through the Government Printing Office.
Governor Warren had been accused by the Committee of allowing the power of his office to be used by the Al Capone gang of Chicago to muscle into gambling operations in Miami, which Senator Kefauver had described as the "winter capital of the national crime syndicate". The Governor was said by the Committee's report to have reinstated a discharged sheriff who had been charged by a grand jury with taking protection money. A Capone associate and track operator testified before the Committee that he had contributed $100,000 to the Governor's campaign because of his "strong friendship" with the Governor.
While it questions the propriety of Senator Kefauver having written articles in magazines before the release of the Committee's report, it finds that he deserved praise for his book in putting before the public a major problem in the country. It also doubts that "almost unlimited funds" were available from the Treasury to support sales of the book, as the Governor contended. It concludes that if Governor Warren really believed that the Committee's report was unfair to him, his best course would be to testify regarding crime in Florida.
"Proposition and Corollary" tells of Senator James Duff of Pennsylvania, leader of the movement to elect General Eisenhower President, possibly to have mixed his metaphors in a Sunday interview when he said that the Republican Party had been "down the drain five times", this time had to get a candidate who could win because it was "the last call for dinner" for the Republicans.
The proposition, echoed time and again by Republican leaders, was that the Democrats were leading the nation to ruin and that its only salvation lay in a Republican President. The corollary was that stated by Senator Duff, that therefore the Republicans should take no chances on losing the next election, that it was their patriotic duty to nominate the strongest candidate possible, i.e., General Eisenhower. It adds conversely that if they nominated someone other than the General, it made the original proposition somewhat suspect.
"Marking Motor Madness" tells of the newspaper usually being loath to support schemes to dramatize horrors but ready to make an exception in the case of the National Safety Council's plans to dramatize the millionth death in American traffic accidents, to occur sometime by the end of the year, a dramatization which would deter reckless driving.
It again points out that in less than 50 years since the automobile had become a staple of the highways and roads of the country, twice as many American deaths had occurred as in combat in all the wars since the Revolution, and the same number of deaths from all causes in war since the Revolution.
The president of the Council had stated that it was estimated that the second million deaths on the roads would occur within 30 years. Despite Government-mandated continuing safety improvements to automobiles, thanks to Ralph Nader, from the mid-Sixties onward, the actual number of traffic deaths between 1952 and 1981, inclusive, was 1.143 million, primarily because of the increase in population from 155 million to 229 million during that period, with per 100,000 incidence of traffic deaths rising during the 1960's, when emphasis was on more powerful engines, and dropping sharply in 1974, when E.P.A. standards went into effect and the power of engines necessarily dropped to accomodate them, along with greater emphasis, in the wake of the 1973 OPEC crisis, on fuel economy than in the past, again remaining at a virtual constant through 1981, but having steadily dropped since 1982 to the point that auto accident deaths per 100,000 in 2014 reached their lowest rate, at 10.28, since 1918, 40 percent of the rate of 25 occuring each year from 1965 through 1973. While airbags, mandated since 1991, may have contributed to some of the improved safety, engineering advancements through increasingly more sophistocated computer-modeling likely explain the greater decline in the rate of fatalities since 2008, slightly up since 2014.
Anyone who makes even casual observations while driving can anecdotally attest with authority, however, that the decline in fatalities is not the result of drivers being more cautious or improving their driving techniques
A piece from the Baltimore Sun, titled "As to Those New Weapons", comments on the "fantastic new weapons" which were being developed by the military, according to Senator Milton Young of Idaho, prompting the decision of the Senate Armed Forces Appropriations Committee to favor unanimously the Department of Defense five-billion dollar expansion program for air power. It suggests that there was no use in speculating about the nature of these weapons, that if they fulfilled the purpose of deterring aggression, as Senator Young contended, they would be worth the money. But, it cautions, it should not be assumed that there was a cheap and easy formula for assuring victory in another world war or in preservation of the peace. For however much these new weapons increased the power of the U.S., it would be unwise to relax based merely on their existence.
H. W. Kendall, editor of the Greensboro Daily News, provides a tribute to the late Tom Bost, for 37 years a reporter for that newspaper, specializing in State Government, dying suddenly the previous week. He tells of Mr. Bost having started his Sunday column in 1917, a few years after starting with the newspaper, providing each week a religious message. Mr. Bost had been trained as a minister, but three days before his ordination, having become upset in his theology and faith, deciding not to go through with it, albeit later in life having gained a deeper faith. In the ensuing years, there had only been three or four Sunday editions which did not include his column. He had written it in advance when he was on vacation or when his regular schedule interfered with its production. The column had widespread influence and prestige and had become a fixture at the newspaper.
He provides high praise for Mr. Bost personally, finds him to have been the proverbial Good Samaritan, with his creed being the Sermon on the Mount, his faith, of divine inspiration, such that every human being, regardless of race or creed, was considered by him to be a child of God. He loved mankind and his happiness was people, being with them and working with them, as well as humanizing government, commenting on what particular programs did to or for humanity. The only thing for which he had intolerance was intolerance, itself. He had no prejudice and would brook no prejudice. He detested deceitfulness, sham, hypocrisy, social injustice of all kinds, and never missed an opportunity to lambaste them.
He had witnessed more executions through time than any other North Carolinian and yet did not become cynical or disillusioned in his faith in mankind, rather condemning capital punishment and using his witness to establish a firmer belief in its ineffectiveness.
It concludes that the newspaper personnel and his regular readers would remember him for his beliefs and verities and would seek to pattern themselves after those traits.
Drew Pearson tells of Secretary of Interior Oscar Chapman having sent hasty letters to Stuart Symington, head of the RFC, and Manly Fleischmann, head of defense production, withdrawing his approval of a 46 million dollar loan to the Harvey Machine Company, based on facts presented by Mr. Pearson in his column, based on that company having been suspected of sabotage on war contracts in 1943 and referred by the Navy to the Justice Department for prosecution, a prosecution which never transpired because the Justice Department believed they did not have a strong enough case to prove that the Navy was seriously injured.
He proceeds to provide the details of the matter.
At San Francisco, during the recent Japanese peace treaty conference, Guatemala, a semi-Communist state, and Argentina, a semi-Fascist state, had backed the U.S. position in support of the treaty. The Brazilian Ambassador to the U.S., Carlos Martins, had received instructions from his Government to propose minor changes to the treaty, but first went to Secretary of State Acheson prior to the conference to ask him what he thought he should do about the proposals, to which Mr. Acheson said that he should not open the door to other nations offering their own proposed changes. Ambassador Martins assented and relented from carrying out the instructions.
Stewart Alsop, in Normandy, tells of spending time with a French Army infantry battalion during maneuvers, finding that doubts of their spirit and morale by U.S. military observers were unfounded. The French had developed an Army through belated military aid from the U.S. in which training was excellent and morale "downright remarkable". While there were many things still wrong with the French Army, principally that there were not enough men and equipment, they were not bedraggled or cast in an atmosphere of "moral squalor" as was Paris, not unlike most of the world's capitals. Much of the skepticism derived from the fall of France in May-June, 1940, unfair because once the Maginot Line had been breached by the Germans, France lacked the means to fight.
Another source of skepticism derived from the belief that one of every four French soldiers was a potential Communist, a belief belied by Mr. Alsop's personal interviews of members of every rank within the French Army, indicating that Communism was not a serious problem at all. The dedicated Communists in France were very small in number and active Communists had been weeded out of the ranks of the officers, who formed the backbone of the Army. In addition, the 19-year old recruits, making up the bulk of the manpower, were too young to have been deeply indoctrinated, and army life, itself, as in any army, tended to subordinate political questions to the urgency of the task at hand. Moreover, Frenchmen remained Frenchmen and given the means to fight, they would defend their country.
Bertram Benedict of Editorial Research Reports discusses Prime Minister Nehru's troublesome actions in India, causing consternation in the West, as being a function of the upcoming elections there. The elections would be held the following January and would be the first in India since it had achieved independence from Britain, such that all of the electoral machinery had to be devised and set up. The elections would be held over the course of several weeks. The Communist Party had been banned in four of the Indian states but was recognized in the rest.
In the meantime, elections were being held for a constituent assembly in the half of Kashmir which was occupied by India. Nehru claimed that the elections would show the prevailing sentiment in Kashmir for either India or Pakistan, while the Pakistani Prime Minister, Liquiat Ali Khan, contended that the elections there were rigged by India and so would show nothing. Indeed, in the districts which were presently voting, there were no candidates running against those committed to Nehru.
Recently, Nehru had positioned himself to replace Purushottam Tandon as president of the All-India Congress, thus changing the leadership from a rightist-leaning position to leftist. The change was probably intended in part to placate the Moslem voters in India, as well as those in Kashmir, who mistrusted Tandon's orthodox Hinduism and his opposition to the previous partition of India, leaving Pakistan as a separate Moslem state.
Also ascribable in part to the coming elections, there were recent constitutional amendments in India, as well as bills pending before the parliament, which provided the Government "reasonable" restrictions of the press.
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