The Charlotte News
Wednesday, September 5, 1951
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that for the first time in several days there were no notes exchanged between the U.S. and Communist commands regarding accusations by the latter that the former had been violating the neutrality zone around Kaesong and the denials by the U.N. of any such incursion along with counter-accusations that the Communists had in fact caused some of the incidents of which they complained or that there was no evidence that any incident had occurred. Even the normally accusatory Communist radio was relatively quiet. General Matthew Ridgway was preparing a response to the Communist statement the prior Sunday which demanded that the U.N. either stop "instigating provocations" or call off the talks. It was believed that General Ridgway might be preparing to suggest another site at which to continue the ceasefire talks, which had been in abeyance since August 23 at the behest of the Communists.
In ground action, the infantry of the U.S. Second Division moved to the top of a bloody ridge north of Yanggu in eastern Korea and were locked in bitter battles for three other heights. There was no other significant action along the limited U.N. offensive front. General James Van Fleet, ground commander of the U.N., estimated that there had been 26,000 Communist casualties during the limited fighting since the beginning of the truce talks on July 10.
The body of Sergeant John Rice, the Winnebago Indian who had been denied burial in an all-white cemetery in Sioux City, Iowa, was buried with full military honors this date in Arlington National Cemetery, following extension of the offer of that burial by the President after he had heard about the discrimination. Sgt. Rice had been killed a year earlier in Korea.
In San Francisco, Russia blocked immediate adoption of a British-American proposed set of rules for control of the Japanese peace treaty conference and protested the absence of Communist China from the meeting. When Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko proposed that a Communist Chinese representative be invited to the meeting, Secretary of State Acheson, temporary presiding officer of the conference, deemed him out of order. The rules had been designed to prevent a Russian filibuster of the conference or alteration of the treaty.
In Mountain Home, Idaho, seven men were killed when a B-29 bomber crashed and burned a quarter-mile from a runway at the Air Force Base the previous night. The bomber had been on a routine training flight from the base.
Louis Budenz, a former editor of the Daily Worker who had several years earlier turned against the Communists and had testified before Congressional committees regarding Communist activities, said that he believed it was "quite likely" that author Louis Adamic had been slain by Soviet underground agents. Mr. Adamic had been found dead the previous day in his burning farmhouse with a bullet through his head and a .22-caliber rifle across his knees. Mr. Budenz had testified in 1948 that he had been assigned by the Communist Party to "corrupt" Mr. Adamic. He speculated to a reporter that the book on which Mr. Adamic had been working regarding his native Yugoslavia may have revealed information about the Tito break with Moscow which the Russians did not wish disclosed.
Mr. Budenz also owns a bridge in Brooklyn which he is trying to sell if you happen to be interested...
The National Production Administration issued an order this date further cutting its allowances of three vital metals, steel, copper and aluminum, for use in making ordinary consumer goods, the cuts to take effect October 1. The copper cuts were made necessary because of a copper production strike. Thousands of items, from piano wire to safety pins, fell under the order cutting steel use to 58 percent for household products.
In Denver, a temporary restraining order was issued by the Federal District Court to halt the strike temporarily in the strategic copper industry. A hearing to determine whether an injunction should issue was scheduled for September 14.
A late bulletin reports that Price Director Mike DiSalle had said that automobile manufacturers probably would be granted an increase of from six to eight percent in the price of new cars.
Dun & Bradstreet reported that wholesale food prices had dropped to their lowest point in the year.
In Houston, 11 children, ages 9 to 16, had, during the previous year, bilked between $2,000 and $3,000 from a 76-year old woman based on her love of cats. It had started a year earlier when three of the boys had thrown rocks at a cat and the woman paid them a dollar each to desist. The next day, other boys started throwing rocks at a cat with the same result and word soon spread. New wrinkles were added, such as in one case where one of the boys called the woman and said he needed money because he had found a cat with a broken back, and she paid it. The woman, when contacted by police, said that she had indeed paid the money, but did not think it was as much as the boys had suggested. Police said the boys had used the money for movies, soda pop and other items of desire.
In New York, the search by authorities for an alligator in a Queens swamp ended when a man, who had been searching for the three-foot alligator with a bow and arrow, hit it with two arrows to the body and one to the head.
On the editorial page, "The President's Address" remarks on the President's opening remarks at the Japanese peace treaty conference in San Francisco the previous night, finds that it should convince anyone, save perhaps the men of the Politburo and idealists such as Prime Minister Nehru of India, that the treaty was designed to promote world peace. He emphasized that the treaty was not drawn up in the spirit of revenge but rather to ingratiate Japan back into the community of peaceful nations. He said it offered more than talk of peace, but also action for peace, and that therefore the conference would show who was seeking peace and who was seeking to prevent it, an obvious reference to the Communist delegations present.
It finds that it remained to be seen whether his remarks would have any softening impact on the delegations who came to San Francisco with the intent of wrecking the conference. But it finds it certain that the President's account of Japan's progress toward democracy and his promise of generous and friendly help to other nations in the Far East seeking to become democracies would effectively counter the falsehoods of Communist propaganda.
He had said that the old militarism in Japan had been swept away by the will of the Japanese people and that the police-state methods used by the former imperialistic government had been abolished and replaced with a Japanese Constitution which provided a bill of rights for all citizens. They now enjoyed universal suffrage and in the most recent election, 90 percent who were eligible had voted. Japanese women could now vote and take part in government service. Free and independent labor unions had been established. Farm cooperatives had been expanded. The monopolies had been largely disbanded and progress had been made in land reform such that 90 percent of all cultivated land belonged to the people who worked it, as compared with less than 50 percent at the end of the war.
It finds that these were actions, not words, and spoke louder than all the shallow promises of Communism.
"The Furor over Justice Douglas" comments on the controversy stimulated by Supreme Court Justice William O Douglas's remarks in San Francisco advocating diplomatic recognition of Communist China as a way to divide China from Russia. Senator Herman Welker of Idaho had immediately jumped on the remarks and sought to tie them to the Administration, to which Senator Tom Connally of Texas had immediately objected and suggested that Justice Douglas stay at home and not roam around "making fool statements". Then came Congressman Roy Woodruff of Michigan who urged the President to ask Justice Douglas to resign from the Court.
It asserts that the President would not pay any attention to Mr. Woodruff as Justice Douglas, as any other citizen, had every right to express his opinion, no matter how unpopular his ideas might be. He had not been the first American to suggest that diplomatic policy should be used as a wedge to separate Soviet satellites from Russia. The Alsops, in a recent series of columns, had shown examples of how this was being done, and the examples included General MacArthur who had told Congress that the "spark of a nationalist urge" in China had been brought to its greatest fruition under the present Communist regime. While ostensibly allied with Russia, he had said, China's concepts and methods had become "aggressively imperialistic". Similarly, Wallace Caroll of the Winston-Salem Journal, a psychological warfare expert and member of the O.S.S. during the war, believed that the urge for freedom within the Soviet satellites was greater than in the free nations and that the tendency should be encouraged to widen the gaps between Russia and its satellites.
It suggests that such was the only thing Justice Douglas actually intended by his somewhat ineptly worded statement, at least as quoted in the press. While recognition of Communist China was out of the question at the moment, when it was waging war against American troops in Korea, once that war ended, such recognition might indeed create separation between China and Russia and so should be given careful consideration.
"William T. Buice" tells of the recently deceased vice-president and merchandise manager of J. B. Ivey & Co. of Charlotte and of the Ivey stores in Raleigh, Greenville, South Carolina, Asheville, Orlando and Daytona Beach, Florida. Mr. Buice had been a key factor in the fast growth and development of that department store chain. He had been active in civic affairs as a member of the Rotary, Goodfellows, and Executives clubs, and was two-term president of the Charlotte Merchants Association. He had been active in his church and was friendly, talented, and responsive.
The piece concludes that he would be sorely missed by his many friends in the community and in the larger business community.
"Fascinating Story Dept." tells of a story coming out of the courthouse the previous day that the County Commissioners wanted to sell three million dollars worth of bonds and use the money to continue the City-County school construction program. But first they had to obtain approval from the Eastern Investment Banking Voluntary Credit Restraint Committee, which the piece finds, in itself, a foreboding name. It was an agency which operated under the Office of Price Stabilization and its approval was required for incurring local indebtedness, as a means to halt inflation.
While it says it approves of that function, the IBVCRC did not need to worry about Mecklenburg County as the five Scotchmen who controlled the County's purse were no spendthrifts. Moreover, when the County borrowed money for capital investment, it provided for definite repayment on a fixed schedule, unlike the Federal Government. The need for school buildings was urgent, in contrast to many Federal projects. The people of the County had authorized borrowing of the money at a special election, with full knowledge that they would have to repay it out of property taxes. The County Government had operated with a surplus for as long as the piece could remember, while the Federal Government had operated at a deficit in all except two years since 1932.
It concludes that it would make more sense for the County Commissioners to keep the lid on inflationary Federal spending than the reverse.
U.S. Seventh Division Army Corporal Charles Francisco substitutes this date for Drew Pearson, returning from Europe, tells of what it was like in Korea during his service since the previous September, shortly after his induction. He says that he thought of three things standing out in the life of the soldier in Korea, "mountains, loneliness and death." "I think of rotation and home and the future. And I know that those things are in the minds and bones of most infantrymen in Korea."
He thinks that most civilian reporters covering the war had not made enough mention of the hills, which had a major bearing on the job of the individual soldier and the entire tactical situation. The average soldier carried 50 to 60 pounds of equipment on his back and had to climb with it, almost straight up, to 3,000 feet, locate the enemy and either kill him or drive him from the hill. There were no paths or footholds and so the soldiers had usually to walk the ridge lines, putting the soldier in the enemy's sites.
Warfare was like the island hopping in the Pacific during World War II, in that each hill was an island fortress which artillery and air support first softened up before the infantry then went in to go it alone. Mountains and weather were as formidable enemies as the Communists. During the previous winter, it had been cold and snowing and during the summer thus far, the temperature had averaged in the 80's with high humidity.
The Chinese soldiers, according to intelligence reports, were sometimes waiting for a full moon or for three consecutive days of rain before attacking. They were superstitious and frightened easily, but fought fanatically. The allied troops dreaded nightfall because the enemy loved to infiltrate at night and launch wild, whistle-blowing Banzai attacks. They used their artillery mostly at night. Unlike most wars, there were no clear-cut front lines and the enemy could be found any place at any time.
The combat soldier understood that each minute could be his last. He recalls the first man he had seen killed, who had been joking with him about how easy they had it, and then the artillery began firing and he was suddenly dead from a shell which could have just as easily killed Corporal Francisco.
He regards any man who performed his duty under fire to be a hero. At least one good thing came from war, teamwork. In his regiment, racial or religious prejudice was not to be found. Men appraised one another based on courage under fire. It was usually kill or be killed. There was no pretense among men during battle and the will to live tore away the protective veil which men sometimes adorned in civilization. Everyone was afraid at times, but most fought that fear as they fought the enemy.
Korea was also a lonely place. Within the battle zone, there were no cities, as Americans knew them, only hills and wilderness. It would be a thrill to see such things as telephone poles, paved streets, brick buildings and stores.
He concludes by saying that every man had learned the horror and waste of war and that they were glad it was happening to them and not to those they loved. He hopes that in waging the war, they had proved to potential enemies that it would not pay to test the strength of Americans in their own backyard.
Joseph Alsop tells of Senator Pat McCarran of Nevada seeking to prove that the Communist victory in China was the result of a plot by the Institute of Pacific Relations, but suggests that he read carefully the column, as Mr. Alsop lays forth facts which suggest that "everyone" would be involved if the Institute was. John Carter Vincent had been named as a member of a "Communist apparatus", but Mr. Vincent, in the spring of 1944, had reported to then-Vice-President Henry Wallace that General Joseph Stillwell, whose "follies in China had been the strongest support of the Communists", should be replaced with General Albert Wedemeyer, a strong anti-Communist. The report itself therefore was anti-Communist, and had its recommendations been followed, Chiang Kai-shek would likely have avoided the defeats of that summer, opening the way for the Communist victory in the subsequent civil war.
Another name of supposedly an actual Communist Party member was Lauchlin Currie. But Mr. Curry was one of two or three men in Washington, the most important of whom had been Harry Hopkins, to whom Chiang Kai-shek's agent, Dr. T. V. Soong, routinely turned for help in the fight for supplies and money for the Nationalists.
The Institute was no more than an academic body on the most distant fringe of the China controversy. Mr. Alsop had been a close friend and adviser to Dr. Soong and he never once had heard him mention the Institute.
Most of the important reporters in Chungking had openly detested Chiang and his regime, and were openly sympathetic to the Communists, including reporters for the New York Times and members of the staff of Time and Life. The views of these men were known to their publishers and were reflected in their reports. He wonders whether Henry Luce would therefore now be investigated. He also wonders whether Maj. General Patrick Hurley would be investigated, as he used to say that the Chinese Communists were not Communists at all and that he had Stalin's and Molotov's assurances on the point.
He concludes that while it was obvious that General Hurley and Henry Luce and many others were not in any wise guilty of anything more serious than "mild infections of the foolishness about China which in those days afflicted almost all Americans interested in the subject", Senator McCarran would be wise either to stop investigating or investigate everyone.
Marquis Childs, in San Francisco, looks at the Japanese peace treaty conference and finds that its outcome would be determined by the degree to which the American diplomatic hand could be played, not by the damage the Russians were able to inflict. Some foreign delegations were suspicious that America would resort to bulldozing tactics, which, if they occurred, could weaken support for the treaty, already producing new divisions.
The U.S. had an ace in the hole which might not be disclosed until some time after the end of the conference, in the form of a letter from Premier Yoshida of Japan, which was effectively a promise that Japan would not recognize Communist China after the peace treaty was signed. That was significant as the treaty, itself, left the choice of recognition of Communist or Nationalist China or neither up to Japan. Thus, it was a relief to the Administration that they had this assurance from the Premier.
It was believed that Japan would exchange ambassadors with the Nationalists shortly after the conference ended. John Foster Dulles, chief architect of the treaty, would travel to Japan in early October to solidify the U.S. position on Okinawa. Russia would likely attempt at the conference to play on the Japanese desire to regain control over those possessions.
While it would appear therefore that the U.S. had things well in hand, American officials were nevertheless concerned over how widely the treaty would be accepted, especially in Asia. If it appeared to be the result of U.S. dictation, with the Europeans merely going along, accompanied by two or three smaller countries in Asia, then the treaty would mean little. As the U.S. had insisted that the treaty would be signed on schedule, resentment was growing. The real uncertainty was the nature of Russian intervention at the conference, which could result in a unity counter to the aims of the treaty.
A letter writer from Wadesboro objects to an editorial reprinted in the News from the Philadelphia Bulletin on August 6, in which it was implied that Senator Harry F. Byrd of Virginia sold his apples to the Government or received subsidies, suggesting it as hypocrisy because Senator Byrd normally called for Government economy. He relates that a short time earlier at an alumni meeting of the Citadel, he heard the Senator speak and had met him afterwards. He had said that he never sold an apple to the Government. So the writer sent him the reprinted editorial and had received a reply which he encloses.
In it, the Senator again states that he had never sold any apples to the Government, nor had received any subsidy payment, though he was entitled to about $8,000 per year in soil conservation payments for the previous 16 years.
A letter writer from Aurora, Ill., comments on the need in Charlotte for a field where model airplane enthusiasts could fly their planes, and tells of the same situation having arisen in Aurora in 1945, at which time he had appeared before the City Council and urged that such a field was necessary, after which it was made available. He adds that insurance had been taken out by the Aurora Model Plane Club for the protection of the city and those flying their planes, and that a fence had been erected to keep spectators off the field. He says that at their monthly meets, they attracted as many as 2,000 spectators and no one had ever been injured. He provides the name of the Mayor so that anyone interested could write to see what the official reaction was to the Club. He wishes success to the efforts in Charlotte to obtain a site for the model airplane flyers.
A letter writer comments on the controversies surrounding Justice Douglas's comments on recognition of Communist China and the call in response that he resign. He finds such reaction to prompt concern over how the average person would be greeted after expressing an unpopular opinion. He reminds that under the New Deal, there had been no such threats to basic freedoms of Americans to express their opinions. Right up to the time of Pearl Harbor, Charles Lindbergh, North Dakota Senator Gerald Nye, and others had demanded that the country remain out of European affairs and had insisted that Japan and Germany would never attack the United States. No one demanded their heads, but rather supplied them police protection to make sure that they could speak their minds.
Well, a different set of rules
applies to Commies...
Framed Edition
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