The Charlotte News
Saturday, November 1, 1952
THREE EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports, via Stan Carter, that South Korean infantrymen had attempted slowly to climb the slopes of "Triangle Hill" this date, seeking to regain the peak where hundreds of their fellow troops, in "gallant disobedience of orders", had sacrificed themselves the previous day to prevent a Communist attack on the main allied line. They had been ordered to retreat when the Chinese had attacked in waves prior to dawn, but had stayed and died on the peak. Allied airstrikes on the crest of the hill were slowing the retaliatory Communist fire. Other allied troops had fought off a Chinese battalion attacking "Jane Russell Hill", a lesser ridge on "Triangle", and "Pinpoint Hill", the highest peak on nearby "Sniper Ridge". The 19 days of continuous battle for the Kumhwa ridges had been the longest and bloodiest fighting of the previous year. (It does not say why that hill was named for Jane Russell.)
In the air war, U.S. Sabre jets engaged MIG-15s north of Sinanju in northwest Korea, and one enemy jet had been shot down. The Fifth Air Force said its Sabres had shot down 26 MIGs during October and that 27 allied planes had been lost behind enemy lines during the month, including five shot down in air combat, 14 lost to anti-aircraft fire and eight having failed to return for unknown reasons.
Governor Stevenson returned to the campaign trail this date after a short cessation of his campaign to deal with the resolved prison riot in Illinois, visiting Ohio, defending the Democratic foreign policy and the war in Korea. He asserted before a crowd estimated at 2,000 that the cost of international cooperation was heavy but was worth the price if it prevented a third world war and the threat of atomic annihilation. He said that he had been told to avoid the topic of foreign policy in Ohio, but that he did not intend to obtain votes under false pretenses, regardless of the subject being unpopular. He stressed that there could be no retreat into isolationism and that the country had to continue to fight against Communism abroad. He said that General Eisenhower's promise to go to Korea personally to try to effect an end to the war was "a promise without a program" and did not believe that the American people would be taken in by the promise. He said that the General was "seeking one easy solution after another" for the war and again attacked him for shifting to the Old Guard Republican line.
The President said this date in Terre Haute, Ind., that the "club of millionaires", who had raised $18,000 for Senator Nixon to pay his expenses after the 1950 Senate campaign, had believed that his votes in the Senate would be "worth a little subsidy". The President left to the voters judgment on whether the fund was ethical or not, but declared that the Senator had "proved himself a good investment for those fund contributors". He said that the members of the club included men whose business interests were in oil, real estate, big manufacturing, banking and insurance, urged the people to compare those interests with the way Senator Nixon had voted in Congress and they would find why the contributors to the fund had thought it worth a subsidy, such as his votes in favor of giving tidelands oil back to the states. The President called the Senator "one of the most thorough-going reactionaries in our public life today" and "frequently an isolationist on foreign policy".
His last whistle-stop of the campaign would be in the afternoon at Granite City, Ill., and he would deliver his last major speech of the campaign this night in St. Louis. A top aide to the President indicated that he believed Governor Stevenson would win the election, and one of his chief political advisers predicted that the Governor would win a minimum of 294 electoral votes, with 266 needed for election. Whoever he was perhaps ought get a new job, outside the election prediction business.
General Eisenhower this date would return to New York after a final trip into Illinois, with a nationwide television speech set for this night at 10:00, to be broadcast over NBC. His last major speech of the campaign was scheduled for Boston on Monday night. He was stressing four central issues, Korea, Communism, corruption and peace based on prosperity. In his appearances in Chicago the previous day, he had said that the Democrats were trying to fog over those questions with personal attacks on the General and by spreading fear. He had spoken before 15,000 people at the Western Electric plant in Chicago, but the applause for some of his statements was tepid. His top strategists believed that the General had a better than even chance of carrying both New York and California, and that Pennsylvania was considered in the bag, together amounting to 109 electoral votes.
Senator Taft believed that General Eisenhower would win the presidency by perhaps a large vote, but conceded that all political predictions had their feet in quicksand. He stated that he also believed that incumbent Senator John Bricker of Ohio would defeat his opponent Mike DiSalle, and that Senator Taft's brother, Charles, would win the gubernatorial race. He predicted that the General would win Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, West Virginia, Iowa, Nebraska, Virginia, Tennessee, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Wyoming, Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, Oklahoma and South Dakota. He also believed he would carry New York, that Texas, Louisiana and South Carolina were unpredictable, with each of those states' Governors having switched parties to support General Eisenhower.
In Raleigh, it was predicted that a million people would vote the following Tuesday in North Carolina, and state Democratic leaders appeared confident that the state would support Governor Stevenson. Republicans, however, were hoping that there would be a repeat of 1928, when the state voted for Herbert Hoover and elected two Republicans to Congress. Both sides agreed that there would be a record-breaking turnout based on record-breaking registration. The previous record turnout was 839,000 in 1936 when FDR was running against Governor Alf Landon.
John L. Lewis and the anthracite coal mine operators signed a new contract this date, raising the wages of the anthracite miners by $1.90 per day. The new contract was subject to approval by the Wage Stabilization Board, which had reduced the soft coal mine contract wage increase of the same amount by 40 cents, prompting a strike two weeks earlier, which had been called off by Mr. Lewis the previous Monday after a meeting with the President.
An IRB official, in an interview summing up the year's administration of the law which was designed to force gamblers to pay heavy taxes, said that the law had not produced much result. The Government had collected less than nine million dollars in taxes, compared with an estimated gambling revenue of 400 million. Instead of being forced out of business, the gamblers had gone underground. The official indicated that it was a deterrent, however, to the gambling fraternity.
In Columbus, O., penitentiary officials, mopping up after a six-hour, million-dollar Halloween riot by 2,000 convicts who did not like their food, were preparing to move 200 prisoners to other Ohio prisons. The warden indicated that the transfer was necessary to meet the emergency created by the destruction or serious damage to prison buildings, including the commissary, mess hall and kitchen. There was a problem in feeding the 4,000 prisoners as a result, resolved temporarily by feeding them sandwiches for breakfast. A guard had slightly wounded a State Highway Patrolman on the side of his head, as the patrolman had not been given clearance to climb a wall. No one else was injured and no guard was taken hostage.
In Hillsboro, Mo., county authorities scheduled an inquest this date regarding a fire at a three-story nursing home, taking the lives of 18 patients. The fire had been discovered the previous evening, when a nurse discovered sparks and smoke coming from a first-floor ceiling. Most of the dead had been trapped on the third floor and the fire had spread quickly up stairways and along corridors, as attendants sought to evacuate the 85 residents from the building. It was believed that the fire started in a men's washroom on the first floor. The main building was a total loss.
Autumn forest fires raged over wide areas of the Eastern half of the United States this date, as the U.S. Forest Service warned that fire danger was the greatest in the nation's history. There was no sign of rain in about 20 states which had been hit by thousands of fires, and there was little prospect of any heavy rainfall during the weekend. The only rain was in eastern Montana, which had not reported any serious fires. Arkansas had been one of the states hardest hit by the fires, and the State Game & Fish Commission there had banned all hunting until the fire emergency passed. The largest fire of the season had swept over 10,000 acres of timber near Camden, Ark., the previous day. In Des Moines, Iowa, the Weather Bureau reported that October was the driest month on record in the state, with only a hundredth of an inch of rain.
Near Charlotte, a 27-year old man whom county police had charged with assaulting a Davidson housewife, had admitted to the officers that he had hidden in the home of the woman the previous night and had struck her with a stick when she walked into a dark room. A police captain said that the defendant was trapped by red nail polish found on a jacket which he had been wearing at the time he struggled with the woman, which occurred just after she had finished painting her nails. After he hit her on the head and stunned her, she recovered and fought with him until her screams frightened him away. During the struggle, the wet nail polish transferred onto the man's jacket. His hat had also fallen from his head, carrying asbestos particles from his place of work at an asbestos mill. He was awaiting a preliminary hearing in the County Courthouse on Monday on charges of assault on a female and burglary.
In Beverly Hills, Dixie Lee Crosby, the wife of Bing, died this date at age 40 after a lengthy illness, having been in a coma since the previous Monday. The exact nature of her illness had not been disclosed by her physician. She had undergone a serious abdominal operation the previous July.
King Hussein of Jordan, 17, had escaped injury this date when a car he was driving skidded and crashed into an advertising billboard in London. Was Jane Russell on the billboard?
On the editorial page, "Much Ado about Little" indicates that the Charlotte Observer was in disagreement with a recent editorial in The News, titled "On Emphasis in the News", says that it was not quite sure what the Observer had found objectionable, unless it had been the fact that the piece had quoted Roscoe Drummond of the Christian Science Monitor as saying that many of the newspapers he had read during his campaign trips were showing "marked one-sidedness" in covering the news of the campaign and slanting much of that news which it did cover in favor of General Eisenhower.
It stresses that the point of the editorial had been that only a small minority of the press was guilty of such practices, but that as long as any newspaper permitted its editorial page opinion to shape its news coverage, it endangered the freedom of the press for all.
The Observer had quoted an Associated Press "survey" of 100 papers to prove that the newspapers were maintaining coverage of the campaign in proper balance. The piece corrects that there were actually 115 newspapers and it had not been a survey but rather a check of front pages for only the date of October 16, when all major candidates were in action. The A.P. had analyzed the front page positions, but did not seek to measure the strength or weakness of headline verbs and adjectives, the length of the stories, the pictures or any of the other variables which determined the impact of a newspaper's front page.
It suggests that there would be time enough after the campaign for a committee of journalists to review campaign coverage and that there was no reason at the present time to regard Mr. Drummond's comments as indicating that the whole profession had abused its ethics or to leap to the conclusion from the A.P.'s one-day spot check that there was "not a scoundrel in the lot".
"Machines Would Speed Voting Here" indicates that with more than 90,000 names on the registration books in Mecklenburg County, officials of the Board of Elections would need to take a close look at obtaining electric voting machines. There would likely be long lines the following Tuesday and returns would be slow in being counted, especially because of the likelihood of split-ticket voting. Previously, Mecklenburg election officials had not warmed up to the idea of purchasing such machines when it was first advanced by the League of Women Voters some years earlier. The Institute of Government in Chapel Hill had reported in a publication that High Point, which had 15 machines, was considering utilization of them for a further streamlining of the vote counting procedure, with it having been proposed that only four voting places be used in the future, one for each ward, reducing lines and speeding up tabulation.
In the past, Mecklenburg had sought to meet the problem of increased registration by creating new precincts, an expensive process, requiring more precinct officials and supplies. It wonders how much longer Mecklenburg officials would wait before coming into the modern age of voting.
"Martin L. Cannon" laments the death at age 67 of Mr. Cannon, a textile industrialist and brother to Charles Cannon of Kannapolis, both sons of the founder of Cannon Mills. His funeral was held this date at his Charlotte home and a major part of his considerable wealth would continue to benefit worthy educational, religious and cultural causes through the family fund. He had assumed heavy responsibilities in directing Charlotte's civil defense volunteers during the war, while maintaining his businesses. After the war, he had largely relinquished his industrial pursuits and sold many of his holdings in the textile industry.
It indicates that many men who were privileged to know Mr. Cannon "admired him as a man who, through innate modesty, shunned public praise and personal publicity, yet deftly mingled kindness, sound judgment, and notable qualities of leadership with a typical courtesy of the Southern gentleman."
A piece from the Syracuse Post-Standard, titled "An Open Letter to Gen. M'Arthur", informs the General that his name was being "used as a shield by hate-mongers and bigots" during the current campaign, that "notorious hate-merchants" had entered his name as a candidate for the presidency in several states, including California, Washington, Texas and others. It suggests that they were not his type of Americans, as their appeal through the years had been based on hatred, most especially anti-Catholicism, anti-Semitism, and "narrow prejudices of every sort". The letter urges the General to dissociate himself from these people offering him their support, that votes for him in those states might shift the election. It suggests that if purveyors of hatred and bigotry wound up holding the balance of power, it would be shocking to the world and place in jeopardy the great name of the General. The letter "respectfully and urgently" asks the General to "repudiate this evil band once and for all, and thus gain yet another shining respect in the eyes of all good Americans.
The letter is signed by Richard H. Amberg, publisher of the Post-Standard.
The group to which he referred was the Christian Nationalist Party, organized by long-time xenophobe and race-baiter Gerald L. K. Smith.
Drew Pearson tells of the Republican high command being worried that they might win the White House but fail to take control of the Senate, as only a third of the Senators, as usual, were up for election, and the bulk of those were Republicans. To win control of the body, the Republicans had to pick up two new seats, but instead were likely to lose six seats and pick up three, resulting in a net loss of three.
He presents a state-by-state assessment of the Republican chances, in New York, Connecticut, Maryland, Michigan, Washington, where it appeared Congressman Henry Jackson would defeat the incumbent Senator Harry Cain, Montana, where Congressman Mike Mansfield was the favorite over the isolationist incumbent Senator Zales Ecton, Indiana, where Senator William Jenner was likely to lose to the moderate Governor Henry Schricker, Missouri, where Stuart Symington was almost sure to beat Senator James Kem, Nevada, Massachusetts, where Congressman John Kennedy was considered likely to defeat Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., New Mexico, Wyoming, Utah, Ohio, where Senator John Bricker was being tested by former Price administrator Mike DiSalle, Kentucky, where former moderate Senator John Sherman Cooper might beat incumbent Senator Tom Underwood, West Virginia, Delaware, and New Jersey.
He notes that if the Republicans were to win three new seats instead of dropping a net of three, they would still have to be concerned about the defection of Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon and Senator William Langer of North Dakota, the latter having ridden on the President's train. Their two votes might be necessary for the Republicans to organize the Senate in the event of a GOP majority.
Stewart Alsop, with General Eisenhower's campaign, tells of the General campaigning in the coal-mining country of Pennsylvania, a heavily Democratic and unionized area around Pittsburgh, encountering hostility and indifference from the people who were silent, "almost sullen", until the General's open car came up beside them. "Then, suddenly, there would be the General sitting up on the back of the rear seat, waving both arms in his odd, and by-now-nationally familiar gesture." Everything about him had radiated warmth and a feeling that he liked the people, and they, somewhat reluctantly, decided that they liked him, bursting into cheers and applause as his car passed by.
The General's quality of warmth was greater than any recent presidential candidate had demonstrated, other than the two Roosevelts, Theodore and Franklin. When there were no crowds around, however, the General would slump into his seat in exhaustion. But using his quality wisely and well, he could count on securing a strong national response in times when a strong response was needed. His warmth had shone increasingly as the campaign had progressed, showing that he was more at ease among the complexities of civil leadership.
Much had been made of the General's so-called embrace of Senator McCarthy, with the idea being propagated that if he were elected, he would continue to tolerate the Senator and his methods. But, in fact, he had already given evidence to the contrary, such as in Massachusetts, a close state, where Senator McCarthy had a strong following among those who had followed Father Coughlin during the New Deal years, prompting Massachusetts Republicans to invite the Senator to speak in Boston during the latter stages of the campaign, until the General personally intervened to nix the idea, similarly preventing an invitation to the Senator for appearance in Jersey City.
Many had argued persuasively that the General should have disowned Senator McCarthy outright, but his aforementioned actions were also quite important, forecasting his future policy toward the Senator. He had not repudiated him because he and his staff had thought it unnecessary and unwise to go that far, but the General had also refused to seek advantage from the Senator in both Massachusetts and New Jersey, crucial states for him to carry the election. Senator McCarthy was aware of this fact and had taken it as a declaration of war from the General, and, observes Mr. Alsop, one did not declare war on a man whom you intended to tolerate.
Marquis Childs tells of Governor Dewey finding the climax of the 1952 campaign to be a dividing line, either marking the end or a new beginning of his public career. Through the Republican convention, he had been quite active on behalf of General Eisenhower, and had, along with his friend, Herbert Brownell, more to do than anyone else with obtaining the nomination for the General. But after the convention, when the General went to the Midwest and embraced Senators Jenner and McCarthy, following the meeting in New York with Senator Taft, it appeared to Governor Dewey that the victory in Chicago had been nullified. He had told close associates that it had been a bitter and humiliating experience for him to be pushed onto the sidelines and have to wait, while he believed the East, and particularly New York, had been sacrificed to the Midwest. The Governor informed the General of that belief, that he would likely lose New York, prompting the General to return to the East to campaign. Governor Dewey was determined to assert his role in this latter part of the race.
At Troy, as well as at Buffalo, the Governor had introduced the General with such a "violent harangue as to make the General's pedestrian speech on inflation seem like a sad anticlimax." The Governor told a wildly cheering crowd that Governor Stevenson and the President had made a deal under which the Governor would run for the presidency and the President would "go out behind the barn to find the manure to throw." He said that the President could not be trusted under oath. Mr. Childs observes that while such statements could be the result of frustration from the earlier weeks of the campaign when the Governor believed that the election was being lost, it also might be a reflection of four years earlier when the President had charged the Governor in a Chicago speech with having sympathy for Nazi doctrines, much as the President had used a similar charge against General Eisenhower in 1952.
A letter writer from Davidson comments on the newspaper's statement that everyone would profit in following the example of General Eisenhower in refusing "to condone or emulate the unprincipled tactics of Senator McCarthy". He suggests that passive refusal to condone such a person as the Senator was not enough, that Hitler's rise to power had been made possible by millions of self-respecting Germans doing the same thing. Such conduct called for positive and active condemnation, not only of the Senator's methods, but of the "irresponsible and vicious amorality he represents." He believes that General Eisenhower's failure to recognize the threat inherent in McCarthyism and his naïve assumption that he could endorse the Senator's candidacy without giving encouragement to his unprincipled tactics, had shaken the confidence of many independent voters who respected the General as a fine and able man. He urges the General to repudiate decisively and unqualifiedly the Senator.
A letter writer from Albemarle says that she had four sons who had been in war and not one was planning to vote for General Eisenhower. She indicates that she recalled the depression and never wanted to see another, that it did not matter that in the latter 1920's and early 1930's the dollar had more spending power, as no one had any dollars to spend. More had been undernourished during the Hoover Administration and had pellagra than at any time in the history of the country, all because of the lack of food.
A letter writer indicates that it was too bad that Governor Stevenson was not old enough to remember the panic during the Administration of President Grover Cleveland and his own grandfather, Vice-President Adlai Stevenson, when cotton had been three cents per pound, butter eight cents per pound and eggs ten cents per dozen. She wonders why they kept talking about the Hoover depression.
A letter writer from Florence, S.C., indicates that Governor James Byrnes, like thousands of Jeffersonian Democrats, was 100 percent for General Eisenhower, that for 65 or more years, the Republican Party had not sponsored an FEPC, that the late President Roosevelt and President Truman and "his so-called Democrats" had "sold the Southern states down the river, for political greed and the Negro vote, by subsidies, encouragement of labor strikes, increased wages, high costs for necessities of life and war, all of these things financed by taxation. Yet they have the nerve to say what a wonderful accomplishment and prosperity." He urges voting for General Eisenhower and Senator Nixon to "save our United States".
Here they come to save the day...
A letter writer from Marion indicates that Senator Nixon had said that business had seen its greatest growth during the previous few years, finds that the irony was that despite its great growth under Democratic Administrations, business was almost solidly supporting the Republicans. He believes buying votes and special favors was neither fair nor honest and wonders how anyone could vote a Republican ticket after seeing and hearing the rally of Governor Stevenson and his "quite wonderful speech" recently on television. He adds that the editors had nearly destroyed the meaning of his last letter by leaving out parts of it, and suggests that they showed more bias in the manner of handling the letters than in a few of their editorials.
The editors respond that because of the flood of letters regarding the election, the editors had been forced to edit practically all of them to conserve space, that in every case they tried to preserve the main thought of the letter, and indicate regret if they had failed to do so in the case of the letter writer's previous submission, assuring that it was not the result of any bias. They indicate that more pro-Eisenhower readers had written to the column, that every letter which had been properly signed, was legible and neither libelous nor scurrilous had been published, at least in part.
A letter writer indicates that he had known Congressman Hamilton Jones for a long time and believed him a good Congressman, who was honest and kind to people, was always on the floor to vote on important bills and for what he believed was best for the people of his district. He urges voting for Mr. Jones.
A letter writer from Heath Springs, S.C., takes exception to a letter writer from Cheraw indicating sad disappointment in Governor Byrnes, this writer saying that many stood solidly with him in the stand he was taking. She was also tired of the "never had it so good" claim, indicates that the Government had borrowed too heavily, showing ostensible prosperity, but only after becoming mortgaged to the hilt.
Well, other people are probably tired of reading the statements of morons talking about being mortgaged to the hilt, when the overwhelming bulk of that mortgage had to do with paying for the fight against Hitler, Tojo and Mussolini, you moron.
A letter writer indicates that it was the first letter he had ever written to the newspaper and was intending to respond to the letter from the sailor in the Navy from Albemarle. He suggests that the sailor had to be in his late 20's or early 30's, and so could not speak firsthand of bread lines or working for a dollar per day 20 years earlier, that he could not have been the sole breadwinner for his family at the age of between 10 and 15. He thinks that such observations tended to distort the "really thinking people". He concludes that the letter writer's observations were based on hearing or reading unfounded propaganda regarding matters of 20 years earlier, "apparently supplied by his Democratic ancestors". He indicates that FDR had sold the country out to Russia and instigated the policy of President Truman, and that the latter had been "only an errand boy for the Pendergast 'clique'". He also indicates that nine years in the Marine Corps was probably a little more than the previous letter writer actually had.
Here we have another moron.
A letter writer, signing as "Mother for Ike", indicates that she was not planning to vote but would have the right to gripe if her husband had to go to war or her son were killed by a bomb because his country had not prepared to defend itself. She says she was not voting because she had only lived in the state for nine months and therefore was not eligible, that all she could do was to sit and pray to God that the people who had the right would elect Ike.
A letter writer from Paw Creek indicates that the "Republican seedling sprouted and grew, in the simple minds of quite a few, and those simple minded will vote alike. They'll cast their votes for dear Old Ike." And she goes on in that rhyming vein, concluding: "They cussed the Democrats and called them a bad name, but the banks stayed open just the same. If Ike gets in I'll go back to the farm and plant some taters behind the barn, and steal my neighbors' roasting ears, and try to get by for another four years."
We appreciate the sentiment, but
don't plan to take up poetry any time soon to supplement your income,
come the recession of 1958
Framed Edition
Links-Date — Links-Subj.