The Charlotte News

Thursday, April 3, 1952

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that there were rumors of a possible break in the prisoner exchange deadlock in the Korean truce talks this date, as an allied spokesman disclosed that the recently inaugurated secret talks on the issue were postponed for 24 hours for "constructive purposes". U.N. supreme commander, General Matthew Ridgway, Eighth Army commander, General James Van Fleet, and other generals had flown to Munsan in Korea for conferences with the U.N. truce negotiation team. The Eighth Army was set to handle the actual exchange of prisoners.

The subcommittee on truce supervision met for the first time in two months this date to attempt to break the deadlock over the Communists' demand that Russia be nominated as a neutral nation to inspect ports and other facilities for compliance during a truce, but it was reported by the allies that nothing new had taken place.

U.S. Sabre jets destroyed or damaged eight enemy jets this date, bringing the total number of enemy jets destroyed or damaged during the first three days of April to 40, more than a third during the entire month of March. This date's three battles included the longest jet battle on record, lasting 45 minutes between 18 Sabres and 60 MIG-15s.

The Administration threatened to seize the steel industry unless they reached agreement to avert the threatened strike set for the following Tuesday, April 8. About 700,000 of the United Steelworkers out of the union's one million members were ready to strike at that time. The other 300,000, principally in the steel fabricating plants, were still under contract and therefore ineligible to strike. The threat of seizure of the industry by the President prompted Senator Taft to state that it was "very high-handed and arbitrary" and, he believed, illegal.

Senator Taft's legal analysis would eventually be borne out by the Supreme Court.

Attorney General J. Howard McGrath fired newly appointed Government corruption sleuth Newbold Morris, issuing to him a curt letter notifying him of the decision. Mr. McGrath did not indicate whether the President had formally approved of the action, but it followed a series of talks with the President the previous day, including an apparently heated exchange at National Airport as the two awaited the arrival of Queen Juliana of the Netherlands. Mr. McGrath had appointed Mr. Morris on February 1, but had become disenchanted with him after Mr. Morris had issued a questionnaire to top Government officials seeking disclosure of outside income and overall income. The Attorney General had released the letter of termination to the press even before Mr. Morris had received it, considered brusque by Washington standards. The Attorney General was surrounded by FBI director J. Edgar Hoover and others in the Justice Department when he made the announcement.

Daniel Bolich, formerly a top official at the IRB, refused to answer questions of the House Ways & Means Committee investigating the tax scandals, providing only his address, pleading the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination to the rest. The Committee sought to explore testimony received the previous day from two special intelligence agents of the IRB that in five years as chief of the IRB's New York intelligence office and later as assistant commissioner, Mr. Bolich had been paid $53,000 by the Government, but had spent at least $115,000.

The Supreme Court ruled 5 to 2 in Ray v. Blair, 343 U.S. 214, that candidates to become presidential electors could be required to pledge loyalty to their national party, overturning an Alabama court ruling that a Democratic candidate for a presidential elector could not be barred from the state's primary ballot because he had refused to promise to cast his electoral vote for the eventual Democratic nominees for president and vice-president. The elector in question had refused to cast a vote for the President or for anyone who advocated the "Truman-Humphrey civil rights program". The Court indicated that full opinions would follow later, the decision this date, for reason of urgency, being rendered only in the form of a per curiam opinion. Justice Stanley Reed would deliver the opinion of the Court, with Justices Robert Jackson and William O. Douglas dissenting. Justices Hugo Black and Felix Frankfurter took no part in the decision.

In Paris, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., chairman of the Eisenhower-for-President movement, arrived to discuss with General Eisenhower the prospects that he could be nominated on the first ballot at the Republican convention in July. He expressed optimism regarding the outcome of the New Jersey primary on April 15. He refused comment on what he would specifically discuss with the General, telling reporters that the outcome of the Nebraska primary, won by Senator Taft in a write-in vote, would not impact the General's candidacy. He suggested that the method of write-ins in Nebraska had made it into a spelling bee rather than a popularity contest, as it was much harder to spell Eisenhower than Taft.

In Vermillion, Kans., a B-29 crashed early this date, killing two aboard, while 12 others parachuted to safety. The body of a colonel had been thrown clear of the wreckage and a corporal's parachute had failed to open.

Queen Juliana of the Netherlands urged a joint session of Congress not to imitate Iron Curtain countries which placed so much emphasis on defense that their economic, social and cultural well-being suffered. She stated that the U.S. could count on support from the Netherlands and indicated that, with the aid of the U.S., her country had been able to stand once more on its own feet economically. She stated that European unity was growing and that political integration might come eventually. She also predicted that the negative portion of the world embracing slavery would eventually have to yield to the democratic nations. She and her husband, Prince Bernhard, were the first guests to be received at the newly renovated White House, from which the Trumans had been absent for three years, living across the street at Blair House, until the prior Thursday.

A nationwide strike of about 30,000 Western Union Telegraph Co. operators began this date over a dispute regarding wages and hours. Meanwhile, Federal mediators arranged a delay until the following Monday of a scheduled strike of telephone workers in three states, Michigan, Ohio and Northern California.

Tom Fesperman of The News tells of the nationwide strike of Western Union employees having brought local telegraph operations nearly to a halt, as the Charlotte local had directed its employees to join the strike. It was the first telegraphers' strike in the city since 1919.

In Boston, the Massachusetts Senate considered a bill to forbid drinking of beer or other alcoholic beverages in the seating areas at sporting events, but after long debate, defeated it by a vote of 19 to 9. One State Senator said that spectators at ballgames were fed up with having beer spilled on them while they were watching the games, while another Senator argued that the bill would be a hardship for football fans, that they would not have any way to stay warm.

How about coffee or hot chocolate? You're going to die of obesity or heart failure drinking enough cold beer to stay warm on a freezing day.

On the editorial page, "It's Still a Horse Race" tells of Senator Taft having re-emerged as a viable candidate for the Republican presidential nomination after the Wisconsin and Nebraska primaries the prior Tuesday, and that Senator Kefauver had so emerged on the Democratic side with the President now out of the race. On the other hand, Harold Stassen, it ventures, might as well go back to the University of Pennsylvania, where he was currently president.