The Charlotte News

Wednesday, February 27, 1952

THREE EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports, via George A. McArthur, that staff officers had tentatively agreed this date to return the question of voluntary repatriaton of prisoners of war to the truce subcommittee on prisoner exchange, having settled all prisoner exchange details other than this issue and one minor translation problem, the latter to be completed on Thursday. The second staff officers committee, concerning supervision of the truce, had reached a similar stalemate regarding the Communist insistence that Russia be a member of the three-nation truce inspection team nominated by the Communists. The Communists had rejected the U.N. offer to drop Norway from its list of three nominees provided the Communists would eliminate Russia, reducing the number of neutral inspection nations to two per side. The other remaining question relative to truce supervision was whether the Communists could rebuild airfields during a truce, not addressed by the staff officers.

Secretary of State Acheson returned to Washington from the Lisbon NATO Foreign Ministers Council conference this date and received congratulations from the President for the accomplishments made at the meeting. After conferring with the President, he would also confer with Congressional leaders and subsequently issue a report to the public regarding the outcome of the meeting. His statements to Congress were expected directly to influence the fate of the Administration's request for 7.9 billion dollars in foreign aid.

The Senate Internal Security Committee was examining Owen Lattimore, who stated that he saw no hope that they would "fairly appraise the facts". Senator Willis Smith of North Carolina of the Committee told reporters the previous day that the initial hearing could not have been more fair to Mr. Lattimore, giving him more latitude than any court would. He had denied ever having been a Communist or a Soviet agent and accused the Committee of adding "to the hysteria that has been whipped up in this country by the China lobby." He was in the process of reading a 50-page prepared statement, but after nearly three hours, during which there had been incessant interruptions by Senators asking him questions, had reached only page two. Senator Arthur Watkins of Utah made the observation that if he had made such a statement in a courtroom, he would have been jailed for contempt. The chairman, Senator Pat McCarran of Nevada, stated that Mr. Lattimore would be allowed to finish his statement despite its antagonistic tone.

Secretary of Commerce Charles Sawyer fired a $7,000 per year Department employee accused of "irregularities" in granting licenses to export critical materials. He had admitted receipt of payments totaling $2,500 to influence the decision and the matter was turned over to the U.S. Attorney for investigation of possible criminal conduct. The man had been with the Department for one year. The Department had revoked all outstanding export licenses granted to a large New York exporting firm accused of making the improper payments.

Senator Taft said that he did not question the presidential qualifications of General Eisenhower. The Senator had received a cordial letter from Governor Earl Warren, indicating that he had gone to Cleveland the previous night to make a speech which was "non-political". The letter followed a January statement by the Governor criticizing supporters of Senator Taft in Ohio as being "arrogant and insulting". The Senator indicated that it was his belief that Republicans should not quarrel among themselves and that the newly received cordial letter was indicative of the Governor's agreement on the point. Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., said that if the General, whom he supported, were to win the nomination in July, he would take off his coat and fight for a Republican victory in November "with fervor and conviction".

In London, the funeral of King George VI was said to have cost the equivalent of $162,400, based on the bill presented by the Government to Parliament this date. The largest item was for the armed forces troops who had taken part in the ceremonies, amounting to the equivalent of $100,010.

In Whiteville, N.C., eight former Klansmen were arrested by the State Bureau of Investigation and local authorities in a second wave of arrests, following the arrests two weeks earlier in Fair Bluff and the surrounding area of ten former Klansmen on Federal charges of kidnapping and civil rights violations in relation to the abduction of a white woman and a white man from their home the prior October 6, transporting them to a remote location in South Carolina and flogging them. The current arrests had also taken place in and around the same community within Columbus County, also involving former members of the Fair Bluff Klavern, four of the eight having been among the previously arrested ten, including the Exalted Cyclops, a former police chief of Fair Bluff and that town's current constable, as well as his 18-year old son, Klokard of the Klavern. The new charges centered around the kidnapping and assault of a black woman on November 14 of the previous year, and all defendants were being charged with conspiracy to kidnap and assault, as well as the principal crimes of kidnapping and assault. The victim indicated that she was told by the men that they were going to beat her because she had been associating with a white man, an accusation she had denied. After she told them she was pregnant, they desisted in their threat to beat her but clipped her hair instead. Her case was one of at least a dozen such incidents in Columbus County taking place over the previous year. Each of the eight defendants was being held on $5,000 bond.

The Soviet army newspaper, Red Star, this date called evangelist Billy Graham a "charlatan" and captioned a story on his revival meetings in Washington as "Americans in Hysterics", saying that they were attended "not only by simpletons inexperienced logic [sic] but also by correspondents avid for sensations". The story accused Rev. Graham of supporting American war policies.

In Raleigh, the State Motor Vehicles Department reported that during the previous 24 hours, six persons had been killed on the state's highways, bringing the total for the year so far to 154, one more than on the same date the previous year. A total of 1,071 persons had been killed in highway accidents the previous year in the state.

Emery Wister of The News tells of the sun having come out this date to help melt the four-inch snowfall of the previous day. By noon this date, the covered streets of the previous day and night had become "rivers of slush". The Weather Bureau indicated that the sun would melt most of the snow this date, but added that some would still be on the ground the following day because of a sharp drop in temperature expected during the night, with a low of 25 degrees forecast. No more snow, however, was in sight. The snow had begun falling at 9 a.m. the previous day and at first was mixed with rain, but by noon the rain had ceased and the snow continued to fall until the previous night. It was the heaviest snowfall in the city since it had snowed 7.1 inches during February 9-10, 1948.

Dick Young of The News tells of municipal services working through the night to make thoroughfares passable in the city after the snowfall, such that little or no difficulty had been encountered by traffic at the usual tough spots as people went to work.

The photograph of the snow-covered First Presbyterian Church yard, duly captioned, brings to mind an editorial set in it 12 years earlier.

On the editorial page, "For Republicans Only" tells of Republican voters in the state who were registered as Republicans preparing during the coming weekend to meet in their precincts and counties, leading up to district and state conventions which would select the delegates to send to the Republican convention in Chicago the following July. They were meeting in an atmosphere of enthusiasm and optimism not known since 1928 in the state. There was hope of revival of a two-party system in the state, which the newspaper highly favored.

It suggests that the way to bring that two-party system about was to favor the nomination of General Eisenhower, who had a realistic chance of winning in the fall, whereas Senator Taft likely would not. It warns Republicans not to be overwhelmed by the organization of the Senator, as Governor Dewey likewise had a strong organization in 1948. The Republican Party had an uphill battle ahead to capture the presidency and the Congress, as well as to establish itself at the state and local levels. It therefore urges the Republicans to do everything within their power to assure victory in the fall.

"What's in a Name?" remarks on brothers David and John W. Clark, David, when he was not consorting with Dixiecrats, keeping track of what was going on at N.C. State, and John focusing his attention on UNC in Chapel Hill. David had written the newspaper this date criticizing the editorial which had appeared the previous week regarding the letter from Mecklenburg County alumni of N.C. State, seeking discipline of the editor of the student newspaper for its criticism of the way the student stores were run and of the College Athletic Council for its interference in the matter of retention of Beattie Feathers as head coach of the football team.

Mr. Clark, as had the alumni letter, pointed out in his letter that several of the staff members of the student newspaper did not have Anglo-Saxon names and were from outside the state. The piece responds that it was not aware that prerequisites for admission to N.C. State included in-state residence and having an Anglo-Saxon heritage, that several members of the football team, subsidized by Mr. Clark's Wolfpack Club, likewise had names which were not of Anglo-Saxon origin and were from outside the state, several of whom it lists. It then paraphrases Shakespeare:

"What's in a halfback? That which we call Anglo-Saxon
By any other name would smell as sweet."

"The Treasures of Snow" tells of snow falling in Charlotte the previous day and how the children of the city had reveled in it. "Snow is indeed a treasure. May it fall profusely, on young and old, in the Piedmont."

Another slow day at the editorial desk.

A piece from the Atlanta Journal, titled "They're Sharpening Their Spikes", welcomes the beginning of spring training in baseball. "Touchdowns are for college boys and basketball is an indoor sport. For most of us, from Georgia's red hills to the snow slopes of Mt. Rainier, from Bangor to the Pecos, there is no sound like ash against horsehide, no sight like the white streak over the fence."

Speak for yourself.

Drew Pearson tells of a secret meeting to be held the next day in Chicago between the representatives of the livestock industry and the big food processors, with the intention in mind to lobby out of existence price controls on meat. Price controls existed only on meat but not cattle, but the meat controls kept the prices of cattle down. During the war, the OPA had maintained the ceiling on cattle at 12 cents per pound, but since the Office's demise after the war, beef cattle had risen in price between 30 and 41 cents per pound, causing ground steak to rise in price from 42 cents per pound during the war years to 98 cents per pound in June, 1950, and to $1.12 in May, 1951 after the start of the Korean War. At that latter point, the Office of Price Stabilization had implemented controls on meat prices. The Agriculture Department had estimated that the cattle feeders who were conspiring to end price controls were making a profit of $48 per head in 1952 and had a 10-year average profit prior to that time of $23 per head.

Marquis Childs discusses the issue of statehood for Alaska and Hawaii and the political football it had become within the Senate, the Southerners opposing it for the fact that it would add four more Senators who would presumably support limits to filibuster, while another group of Senators were in favor of it on the basis that the two territories deserved statehood and that it represented the only way they could become militarily and economically integral to the the country.

He finds it emblematic of the notion, especially in the case of Alaska, which needed statehood in order for its many resources to be developed, that increasing numbers of members of Congress appeared to consider themselves no more than special pleaders for their particular local interests, pushing aside the interests of the nation at large.

Alaska would become the 49th state in 1959 and Hawaii would join the union later that year.

Joseph & Stewart Alsop tell of Senator Taft appearing to be on the verge of capturing a majority of the GOP delegates from the state of New Jersey, despite the fact that Governor Alfred Driscoll was a strong supporter of General Eisenhower and the fact that the state's Republicans appeared popularly to support the General, consistent with its moderately progressive, moderately internationalist Republican Party. But Senator Taft's organization in the state had been able to offer potential political rewards, such as floating the idea of the Governor becoming the vice-presidential nominee to Senator Taft, whereas the General's supporters were not yet in that position.

In addition, the businessmen of the suburban districts were strongly supportive of Senator Taft's positions, especially in light of the perceived political weakness of the President, suggesting that the Senator could win. The withdrawal from the race by the President, however, could alter the political balance quickly, shifting it to the General. For the present, however, the Taft forces in New Jersey, as elsewhere across the nation, demonstrated that being the strongest possible candidate in the general election did not guarantee the Republican nomination.

A letter writer from Raeford compliments the newspaper on its editorial taking to task Senator Willis Smith for his recent speech blaming the President and "socialism" for all of the country's ills. He indicates that it was a pity that such errors could not be corrected promptly and thoroughly, errors which even an honest schoolboy would not make.

A letter from David Clark, as indicated in the above editorial, responds to "High-Handed Alumni" and indicates that the 16 alumni who had signed the letter criticizing the editor of the student newspaper were all of the officers and every member of the board of directors of the Mecklenburg chapter of the General Alumni Association. He finds the editorial therefore insulting to all of the N.C. State alumni. He suggests that the matters of which the editorial had treated were not the newspaper's business. He indicates that the plan for management of the N.C. State book store had been set up by a committee of trustees consisting of Dr. Clarence Poe, editor of the Progressive Farmer, the late Josephus Daniels, publisher and editor of the Raleigh News & Observer, and a third trustee whose name he could not recall. The athletics at N.C. State had been placed under an Athletic Council consisting of five members of the faculty, five alumni and five student members who were selected by the students. He lists the faculty members on the Council and indicates that it had conferred with Beattie Feathers and he had agreed to step down as head coach of the football team and become assistant coach at the same salary, was cooperating in that change of position.

He then proceeds, as the editorial had indicated, to list several members of the staff of the student newspaper who had non-Anglo-Saxon names and were from out of state.

He concludes: "You write an insulting editorial saying that it is none of [the Mecklenburg Alumni Association's] business. I would like to know what business it is of yours."

Perhaps, Dave's insistence on pure red-blooded American names populating the student newspaper staff suggests, through the grapevine of time, a belated answer to W. J. Cash's puzzlement 13 years earlier regarding why the Government wanted to know the name by which he had acquired paternity and the maiden name of his closest maternal relative, perhaps being the result of legislation injected to the wage and hours laws by the friends of Dave, who wanted to use it to keep track of those of foreign heritage, to ensure against non-red-blooded takeover of the country through the socialistic welfare state.

A letter from Congressman Thurmond Chatham indicates his disagreement with the newspaper's prior editorial on NATO, stating that as a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee and having served in both world wars, he had come to the conclusion that strength and strength alone was the answer to the country's problems. He was one of the sponsors of the United World Federation measure and wanted to back it up with a navy, an air fleet and an army which would be incomparable across the world. If the country's men were going to fight, he insists, they should have the best weapons and the best organization achievable, and no amount of words in "another great debate" could take the place of strong armed forces.

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