The Charlotte News
Monday, June 16, 1952
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports, via Milo Farneti, that the U.S. 45th Division infantry this date had smashed an artillery-supported Chinese Communist attack comprised of 750 troops on the T-hill formation on the western front in a five-day old battle, which had cost the enemy more than 1,000 casualties. This date's battle had lasted seven hours. Fighting also occurred at other points along the front, and there had been clashes the previous day near Panmunjom, Korangpo and Yonchon in the west, as well as around Kumhwa, Kimsong and the Pukhan River in the center, and near the Punch Bowl in the east. U.S. Eighth Army staff officers had offered no explanation for the increased fighting, the toughest of the year.
They had to know: they were fighting
for the T's. Come on, wake up
In the air war, Sabre jet pilots reported destroying three enemy jets and damaging one during two fights the previous day.
In Haeunde, Korea, three explosions, occurring about 15 minutes apart, in the largest U.S. Army ammunition dump in Korea had killed one Korean, and injured an American officer and seven enlisted men, with four U.S. soldiers missing. South Korean police said they suspected sabotaged by guerrillas.
On Koje Island, the U.S. Eighth Army planned an extensive work-and-play program for the Communist prisoners, provided they recognized allied authority. Camp commander, General Haydon Boatner, said the plan would be implemented as soon as the prisoners were dispersed into smaller compounds. He planned to use the prisoners of war as laborers on road construction and other engineering projects and to expand athletic and other recreational facilities inside the compounds.
In the truce talks, the senior U.N. negotiator, Maj. General William Harrison, accused the Communist negotiators, during a fruitless 22-minute session this date, of directing "your captured personnel at Koje Island to endanger their lives to further your nefarious schemes." He told the Communists that they were choosing between an honorable armistice and the continuation of "a bloody and profitless conflict" by not agreeing to the terms of the voluntary repatriation program, on which the allies insisted.
At the U.N., Russia's Jakob Malik called a meeting of the Security Council for the following Wednesday afternoon to discuss Soviet charges that the U.N. forces had been using germ warfare in Korea. The U.S. and other U.N. countries involved in the fighting had repeatedly denied the charges and had challenged Mr. Malik to take the action before the Security Council. He had already aired the charges before the Disarmament Commission, which had voted the effort out of order, as beyond the purview of the Commission, set up to discuss disarmament only.
U.S. officials started this date a series of talks with British and French representatives on problems of being divided by the new Soviet propaganda. The talks were stimulated by the announcement in Moscow that deputy foreign minister Andrei Gromyko was being assigned as the new Ambassador to Britain. The Big Three would discuss France's desire for increased American aid in carrying on its war in Indochina, and how much assistance the U.S. would provide in case of a massive Chinese Communist attack against that country. Also to be discussed, primarily with the British, was the conduct of the Korean truce negotiations and the handling of the Communist prisoners of war.
In Stockholm, it was reported that Soviet jet fighter planes had shot down an unarmed Swedish military search plane off the coast of Estonia this date, with the seven-man crew, two of whom were wounded, subsequently picked up by a German merchant ship. The Swedish Government issued a strong protest to Russia. Crowds gathered in front of the Soviet Embassy in Stockholm and jeered the Ambassador as he left the Embassy, spitting into the Embassy compound. The search plane had been looking for a Swedish Air Force transport missing since Friday. It was feared that the plane had also been shot down by the Russians during their maneuvers.
The President asked Congress this date for appropriations totaling $168,360,000 for defense production and economic stabilization activities, including $103,250,000 for administering price, rent and wage controls.
The Justice Department, now under the direction of new Attorney General James McGranery, was undertaking a reorganization, with three top officials having submitted their resignations the prior Saturday. Mr. McGranery announced their replacements.
The 19 Scripps-Howard newspapers across the country this date endorsed General Eisenhower for the Republican presidential nomination. The editorial board indicated that it was not casting any stones at Senator Taft, and admired him personally and as a statesman, as well as for his honesty and intelligence. But they believed that the General would meet the "need of the hour".
That sounds ominous. Golf, anyone?
The Government would seek during the week to get enough steel production going again to prevent a crippling halt in the production of weapons. Both the United Steelworkers Union and the industry representatives had agreed that steel production could continue for essential defense items. Three and a half million tons of steel had been lost since the mills had been shut down in the wake of the Supreme Court's decision two weeks earlier holding that the President's seizure of the mills on April 8 had been unconstitutional without Congressional authority. The Government was to develop a plan for the output. Meanwhile, a few independent steel mills had reached agreement with the workers and were preparing to resume operations immediately.
In New York, an engineers' strike shut down the Long Island Railroad this date, stranding 150,000 commuters who sought alternative transportation, producing massive traffic jams on the large parkways leading into the city.
Swift & Co., one of the world's largest meatpacking firms, was charged with more than 440 violations of the Defense Production Act in criminal informations filed in Federal courts in Boston, Sioux Falls, S. D., Concord, N. H., and New Haven, Conn. The complaints alleged ceiling price regulations to have been violated and the use of false invoicing to cover up the violations, all occurring during a meat shortage in the spring and summer of 1951, and involving the sale of fabricated restaurant cuts of meat to retail dealers, bringing higher prices than those allowed under the ceiling regulations.
Oh well, you can indict, or in this case, issue an information against, a ham sandwich.
In Philadelphia, an arbitration board ordered a 7.7 cents per hour wage cut for employees of a big cotton textile firm, a decision which appeared as a possible pattern for the industry. The Bates Manufacturing Corp. had proposed a 30-cent per hour wage cut in five Maine plants, two in Los Angeles and another in Emeryville, California. The board's cut would reduce wages from about $1.40 per hour to a $1.32. The reason for the cut was so that the company could become more competitive and not have to lay off workers.
Some 89 persons had died in the previous four days directly or indirectly from the heat wave across the country, with six deaths attributed directly to the heat, and 72 from drowning. The heat wave stretched from Texas to the Atlantic Coast, with Sunday's mercury readings reaching as high as 108 degrees. Chicago's high was 94.8 on Sunday, the highest since August 8, 1949, and New York had reached 90.6, its hottest temperature of the year. St. Louis hit 101, a record for the date and its hottest reading since 1947, on the eleventh straight day of 90 or higher temperatures. Six persons had been treated for heat prostration in St. Louis. Lincoln, Omaha and other Nebraska cities had to invoke voluntary water conservation programs. A serious water shortage beset Wichita, following a break in its water main. The heat wave was ripening wheat sooner than expected in Oklahoma, taxing manpower in trying to harvest the record crop before it was ruined. No general relief was in sight.
On page 2-B, Erich Brandeis, in his column, "Looking at Life", expressed this date some thoughts on the newspaper business and its services to readers.
On the editorial page, "Progress in Civil Rights" indicates that the President's commencement address at Howard University the prior Friday had turned a "statesmanlike address into political controversy" by advocating more assertion of Federal authority and responsibility in the area of civil rights. Meanwhile, both leading Republican candidates favored less forceful measures in the field, as did Senator Kefauver on the Democratic side.
It proceeds to list several major accomplishments occurring in the country in the prior 20 years in the area, as two additional states had abolished the poll tax, leaving only five still having it, that 1,000 black graduate and professional students had been accepted by ten state universities, that enrollment since 1930 in black colleges had increased eight-fold, while in housing, the Supreme Court had declared unconstitutional deed restrictions based on racial discrimination, and public housing had been opened to all persons in many states, with nine states and eight cities having outlawed segregation in public housing. In addition, two states had enacted anti-lynching laws, four states and six cities had passed laws against wearing masks in public, and mob violence was being punished with increasing regularity. There had also been great progress in the area of non-discrimination in Federal employment, and eleven states and twenty cities had adopted employment anti-discrimination laws, with segregation in the Armed Forces having rapidly become a thing of the past.
All of that, of course, was during the Roosevelt and Truman Administrations, and sounds like a pretty good endorsement for continuing on that course, rather than going backward, as the News seems bound and determined to do in this particular area, at least since the departure in 1947 of former News editor Harry Ashmore. Being mealy-mouthed on a subject, saying we condemn the idea of segregation as immoral but think integration must await the day when ouwa slow-minded people down heya be ready faw it, is the same thing as agreeing with the segregationists in this particular era. Get some backbone...
"Wasted School Facilities" tells of the Charlotte school system now having 33 buildings, with four additional ones set to open in the fall and others projected for the future. The current value for the whole school plant would run 15 million dollars or higher, and yet the buildings remained idle for three months of the year during the summer vacations. There was a severe shortage of classroom space, prompting the need for double sessions at many schools, and the new classrooms would be filled to capacity the first day. By using the buildings year-round, the facilities could be expanded by a third without the investment of a single dollar.
The idea was being put forward by many U.S. educators, and a piece on the page by Dick Young explored that idea. The students would continue to attend school for only nine months of the year, but the three-month vacation period would rotate among the students.
We pity the poor fourth of the students who wind up only getting the winter off and those also who would have to swelter in the summer, along with their teachers. And once the rotation was established, how would it ever be changed without making a quarter of the students take turns attending a whole calendar year without respite?
Bad idea. Better idea is to go ahead and just accept Federal aid to education, you dummies, and stop worrying so much about the superstitions connected with integration, and whether blackness might rub off on you.
"Whatever Its Name, It Works" discusses the new device to clock speeders, called variously a radar speedometer, a "whammy" or the "evil eye". In Raleigh the previous week, 32 persons had been caught by it and hauled into court on speeding charges. Each pleaded guilty and paid their fines. The City had collected $637.65, the largest single day's receipts from speeding charges in the traffic court's history. In Greensboro, the device had been used for some months and the results had been so good that the Greensboro Daily News had referred to the device as the "good eye", with traffic accidents involving injury having been reduced by 20 to 30 percent during the first five months of the year.
The County Police Chief had indicated that he would soon start training personnel in the use of the device in Mecklenburg County, and it hopes that the training would be conducted as quickly as possible to put the gadget into use.
Just keep a keen eye out for the two black snakes lying closely parallel to one another across the road up ahead, spotting the tandem, brake like crazy. If you see only one hose, pay it no mind as it is just a traffic counter.
"An Event without Historical
Parallel" finds that the President's address at the keel-laying
ceremonies
In the space of a mere decade, the discovery of atomic power had developed into productive use, despite it having taken 2,000 years from the first application of steam until the development of the steam engine, and 150 years between Benjamin Franklin's experiments with the kite and key in the lightning and the first incandescent lamp.
It hopes that the Nautilus would never see action in war and would one day wind up tied to a dock, an object of historical interest, much as Old Ironsides. But meanwhile, there was no peace in the world and until war was put aside as a means of settling international disputes, the Nautilus and its successors would strengthen the free world. Other productive uses of atomic energy would also be explored in the meantime.
As indicated in the above editorial, News reporter Dick Young explores the idea of having a 12-month, rotating school year, to alleviate overcrowding in the schools.
Not too good. You can provide heat to the schools, but you sure as hell can't yet provide air conditioning. Build us some new ones.
Drew Pearson indicates that the President had a letter on his desk for some time from Secretary of the Army Frank Pace regarding the question of General MacArthur having engaged in politics while on active duty, but had been reluctant to berate General MacArthur about that fact. Secretary Pace had sent the letter only after the question of the General's right to participate in politics had been carefully examined by the Judge Advocate General, who had ruled that it clearly violated Army regulations, as the General remained on active duty. Those regulations also prohibited activities at political conventions, seeming to bar the General from giving the keynote address at the Republican national convention the following month, as had already been decided by the convention organizing committee.
The Hatch Act also prohibited officers on active duty from taking part in political campaigns, with the penalty of removal of the officer from active duty.
General Eisenhower had given up his Army rank and his annual salary, in order to participate in the campaign as a presidential candidate.
Mr. Pearson speculates that because the President had been heavily criticized a year earlier when he had fired General MacArthur as supreme commander in the Far East and as head of the U.N. forces in Korea, he was now reluctant to take action again.
The ambassador to the U.S. from Honduras had turned down a declaration from El Presidente Juan Peron of Argentina, as he wanted no part of the dictator, an act which Mr. Pearson contrasts with the acceptance three years earlier of a decoration from the dictator by Maj. General Harry Vaughan, military aide to the President.
He indicates that the political pundits were having a difficult time deciding whether Senator Taft or General Eisenhower would win the Republican presidential nomination, with secret tallies showing a maximum of 540 first-ballot votes for the Senator and 521 for the General, but with the latter having more reserve strength. Senator Taft's strategy was to create the psychological impression that he was a sure winner, hoping to attract enough votes for a bandwagon effect on the first ballot. The General's strategy was to let Taft blow up his bubble, and then prick it. The Senator had the advantage of controlling the convention machinery, but the General could still erect roadblocks to the Taft steamroller. He could call for Harold Stassen's delegate votes anytime he needed them, privately been pledged to the General, as well as those delegates supporting Governor Earl Warren, whose 76-vote delegation from California also leaned toward the General. Both sides claimed the majority of the crucial Pennsylvania delegation. The General had also reportedly been making inroads among the delegates who had visited him recently in New York and Gettysburg. Ten previously uncommitted delegates, including some who had been believed to be leaning toward the Senator, had promised to support the General after their visits. Mr. Pearson concludes, however, that it was still either candidate's race.
An editorial from the Greensboro Daily News tells of North Carolina leading the Southeast in progress, quoting from a news story which said that the state had achieved superiority over other South Atlantic states in various statistical categories, including having more people and making more profits on industry and crops than any other state in the region, leading the nation in the manufacture of textiles, tobacco and furniture—which was to say underwear, socks, cancer-sticks and sticks and boards from which to eat your victuals and sticks and boards on which to sit to digest them.
It quotes from Nat Macon, from a century earlier, stating that North Carolina might be a good state but it could never be a great state, finds those statistics to belie the notion. It posits that the progress had not been based on boasting but rather on a recognition of deficiencies and a determination to overcome them.
It urges that there was still, however, too much concentration on textiles and tobacco, accounting for three quarters of the industrial output of the state, leaving little room for other industries. It counsels more diversification of industry, especially those utilizing more skills and production of more finished goods, bringing better wages and higher profits. The state was not doing as well as its neighbors in attracting new industry.
In agriculture, the state needed to concentrate more on livestock, which accounted for only 19 percent of agricultural production, the lowest in the country.
Also, the state's per capita income ranked 43rd among the 48 states in 1948.
The state had more colleges than any other state in the region, but it had the lowest proportion of college-educated adults in the country, save for South Carolina. The latter two statistics resulted from there being more people in the state than any other state in the region. It chastises the people of the state, nevertheless, for being too lazy to get a good education.
It urges that the state should not sit on its laurels, that such was not the way to make progress, that the only way to do so would be, as in the past, to recognize frankly the shortcomings and undertake to remedy them.
Joseph & Stewart Alsop tell of Senator Taft's strategists preparing to legitimize their efforts in Texas and other Southern states, where they had steamrolled their way to delegation majorities for the Senator, when the people had preferred General Eisenhower. There was an effort afoot to suggest that the Southerners who had voted for the General were not "real Republicans". The Senator's national campaign manager, David Ingalls, had defended the Texas steamroller in an ad which he had run in the Dallas Times Herald before the Republican precinct meetings which gave the Eisenhower supporters their triumph in the state, inviting pro-Eisenhower Democrats to attend the Republican precinct meetings, sign a pledge of loyalty to the Republicans and then vote for their candidate, which was the legal method for electing delegates to the party's county and state conventions in Texas. The result had been in favor of General Eisenhower at the county and state conventions, until the Taft supporters disenfranchised them.
The ad which Mr. Ingalls had placed had promised that the people who joined the Republican Party and voted in the Republican precinct meetings could also vote in the state Democratic primaries. That statement was reversed by Mr. Ingalls, however, after the Eisenhower victories, to suggest that the converts to the Republican Party were not "real Republicans". By that reasoning, suggest the Alsops, the pro-Taft minorities also were not "real Republicans".
The one-party system in Texas effectively prevented anyone from voting on state issues except in the state Democratic primary. Even in the Old Guard Republican organization in the state, many people wanted to have some say in state affairs. As a result, many Republicans had made a practice of voting in the state Democratic primary for many years, without waiting for an ad to invite them to do so. Many of the old guard Taft supporters had done so in Dallas County, and the practice was typical of Republicans throughout the state.
The Taft leader in Texas, Henry Zweifel, had publicly invited Democrats to sign the Republican loyalty pledge and vote in the Republican precinct meetings and had not complained until those persons had voted for General Eisenhower.
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