The Charlotte News
Monday, June 23, 1952
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports, via Stan Carter, that 500 Air Force, Navy and Marine fighter and fighter-bomber planes had knocked out five major Communist hydroelectric plants, blacking out much of North Korea and parts of Manchuria, in the largest air raid of the entire war in Korea. Pilots reported seeing more than 200 enemy jets parked at a Manchurian base within sight of one target, but all had remained on the ground. Every allied plane had returned safely. The world's fourth largest hydroelectric plant at Suiho, about 30 miles up the Yalu River from an enemy MIG base, had been completely knocked out of service. Two generating stations at the Chosin Reservoir, where American Marines and the Seventh Division had fought against the first waves of Chinese Communist troops in December, 1950, were also knocked out. The other two plants which had been knocked out were on the Songchon River in eastern Korea. All targets were on the North Korean side of the Yalu.
The power plants had been spared when there appeared to be hope for resolution in the armistice talks. It was not yet clear what the significance of the raid had been, but it was possible that it was the beginning of the military pressure which U.N. truce negotiators had said was needed to persuade the Communist negotiators to reach resolution in the talks. The bombings occurred just short of the second aniversary of the start of the war, on June 25, 1950, and just prior to the first anniversary of the discussions leading to the truce talks.
Near Helmstedt, Germany, British soldiers supported the West German police at a disputed frontier point this date in defiance of Communist orders to stay away, following the kidnapping of 43 West German workers the previous morning by Russian-led East German police, as the workers had been dismantling a railroad spur. The workers were released without explanation early this date and ten other workers had fled without injury, though being shot at by the East German police. The incident occurred in a five-hundred yard pocket of territory which was part of a state within the Soviet zone but which had been given to West Germany when the zonal border had been established. The East German police had warned the West German police to stay out of the pocket, but the West German police then brought up reinforcements, including 13 British soldiers, and took up their regular patrol positions, at which point the Communists made no effort to halt the patrols. The kidnapped workers stated that they had not been mistreated but had been exhaustively questioned by Russian officers and the East German police. British and U.S. officials were investigating the matter. All was quiet along the East-West border this date, but the recent tensions remained.
Secretary of State Acheson arrived in London this date for Big Three talks which he said would regard the "great common tasks" the three countries were carrying forward. He told newsmen at the airport that he and British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden and French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman would talk over matters regarding Europe, the Far East and Korea. The talks between the Secretary and Mr. Eden would begin the following day, and M. Schuman would join the talks the following Friday.
A Presidential board, the Materials Policy Commission, recommended this date that the U.S. scrap laws which prevented other nations from selling to the U.S. raw materials it needed for war and peace. It recommended that a thorough search at home and abroad for sources of materials be conducted by the Government. The country, it said, was unable to supply its own needs, and by 1975, could be forced to import a fifth of the material it consumed. It recommended stockpiling on a permanent basis. It said that the high tariff system was obsolete and the Buy-American Act of 1933 was "a relic of depression psychology … a self-imposed blockade". The Buy-American Act forbade Federal purchasing overseas unless U.S. supplies were unreasonably priced or inadequate in quantity or quality. A more recent law barred stockpile-buying abroad unless the domestic price was 25 percent above the foreign market price. The Commission proposed that the Government be given the power to cancel tariffs whenever the need for foreign materials became critical. It recommended special tax incentives to private firms seeking out new sources of materials at home and abroad.
Senator Taft said this date that he believed the Texas delegates temporarily admitted to the Republican convention should be barred from voting on the permanent seating of that state's delegation, but also said that he did not agree with General Eisenhower that delegates from all contested states should be barred from voting on other state contests, that the temporarily seated delegates from contested states should be permitted to vote on contests outside their states, that otherwise, fake contests could be brought in a majority of the states and the convention would be rendered helpless to act. He said he wanted to make a formal statement or speech later to answer the charges made by the General in a Dallas address on Saturday night which indicated that the Texas delegation had been stolen by Taft forces. He denied the charge and said that the law had been on the side of the Texas national committeeman, Henry Zweifel, a Taft supporter. The Senator said also that his supporters had polled the 46-vote Michigan delegation and believed they had 27 votes. He also repudiated some campaign material which had been circulated by Gerald Winrod, as well as some "anti-Semitic sheets" which had also been circulated on his behalf.
In Denver, General Eisenhower said that the President had never offered him the 1952 Democratic nomination, confuting a statement made by Arthur Krock of the New York Times the previous fall, and that he was not interested in any third party movement. He also said that the theft of the Texas convention delegation by the Taft forces was a "great betrayal" of Republican principles and urged fair play at the Chicago convention the following week. He visited Nevada for five hours the previous day, and his supporters indicated that he had perhaps picked up three or more delegates to the national convention in that state. The General would make a televised statement on NBC for 15 minutes, starting at 10:00 p.m. this night from Denver, taking issue with Senator Taft on matters of foreign policy.
In North Carolina, the Davidson County clerk of Superior Court announced that he would support General Eisenhower at the Republican national convention, bringing to ten the number of North Carolina Republican delegates who were pledged to support General Eisenhower, while Senator Taft had 13 pledged delegates, with three remaining uncommitted.
On page 14-A, a new Gallup poll showed that the President's popularity was on the upswing.
The superliner United States, America's new largest passenger ship, was welcomed to its new home port in New York this date with much fanfare, following a 500-mile voyage from Newport News, Virginia, where it had been built. It had carried 1,300 guests aboard during the trip. Its maiden voyage across the Atlantic was set to begin July 3, and it was believed it might try to beat the record set by the Queen Mary on its maiden voyage in August, 1938. Secretary of Commerce Charles Sawyer released a statement indicating that Comptroller General Lindsay Warren had been seeking to create the public impression that he was a knight in white armor, defending the taxpayers from a "nefarious plot" to which Mr. Sawyer and the Maritime Board had been parties. The Government had agreed in 1949 to pay 42 million dollars of the cost of the ship, while the company would provide about 28 million. Mr. Warren believed that the Government subsidy was too much.
In Atlanta, a woman who was the detective bureau clerk noted that in a check of pawnshop reports, a man from Philadelphia had pawned a dental plate with eight gold teeth and then had returned and hocked another plate containing seven teeth. She expressed the hope that he had not bitten off more than he could chew.
Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh returned to Buckingham Palace this date after spending the previous week at Windsor Palace, as they attended the Royal Ascot horse races. No word was provided on the cold which had beset the Duke. We hope he is feeling better. It is no time of year to have the sniffles.
In Liverpool, England, the police court clerk called the name "Black Man Trouble" this date, prompting a middle-aged black man to arise in the courtroom, saying that it was his true name and that he had been drunk the previous night. He was fined 10 shillings, the equivalent of about $1.40.
Did he have a collomoration of hair?
On the editorial page, "Germ Warfare—A Propaganda Weapon" tells of the question of germ warfare coming before the U.N. Security Council this date and therefore informing of a few aspects of the matter. For several years, U.S. and foreign scientists had been exploring the possibilities of use of bacteriological warfare, the U.S. interest having been stimulated by German experiments and the need for defense against same during World War II. The U.S. had considered, but never deployed, use of germs against portions of Japan's rice supply during the war. The piece finds such contemplated warfare no more heinous than a blockade which prevented food from reaching a country.
Some of the laboratory concoctions were capable of killing or incapacitating thousands of human beings with only a tiny vial.
The Communists had been claiming that the U.S. had been using germ warfare in Korea, denied by U.N. and U.S. officials. An Indian cultural mission, being given a guided tour of Communist China, had been unimpressed with the Chinese "proof" of these charges, but the purpose of the propaganda campaign was being achieved by driving home to the people living under the Communist regimes that the American people, and not just the "Wall Street imperialists and warmongers", were behind these efforts to kill the people within the Communist nations.
In 1925, the Geneva Protocol had outlawed the use of germ and gas warfare, and had been signed by some of the members of the League of Nations, and Russia's chief U.N. delegate, Jakob Malik, had called the special session of the Security Council to provide some of the non-signatory nations, especially the U.S., an opportunity to sign it. It was doubtful that the U.S. would do so because of the loopholes in the protocol, which had caused President Truman to withdraw it from Senate consideration. Russia, while ratifying it, had placed a reservation on its approval, permitting Russia to use germ warfare after another country had used it, to be unilaterally decided by Russia.
The U.S. took the position that limits and prohibition of gas or germ warfare had to be included in an overall disarmament program, which would include the machinery for enforcement. The piece regards that as a logical position which should be earnestly pursued despite the slim chances for its success in the near future. It regards the most important thing for the present to be refutation of Russia's charges and transmission of same to those who believed the U.S. had used germ warfare in Korea.
"Another Myth" tells of Senator Taft's supporters still saying that generals did not make good presidents and implying that Senators made good presidents. It finds that the Presidents who had served previously in the Senate included James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Martin Van Buren, William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson and Benjamin Harrison, whom it regards as "hardly a preeminent group". Three Senators had come directly from the Senate to either the Presidency or Vice-Presidency, Senator-elect James Garfield, who was assassinated during his first year in office, Warren G. Harding, whom, it comments, many thought should have been shot, and Harry Truman. It concludes: "'Nuf said?"
Well, you have included in your brace of Presidents the origin of the Monroe Doctrine and the origin of the Marshall Plan, the Truman Doctrine, NATO and Point Four. So probably not "'nuf said".
"Congressional Batting Averages" finds that since it was baseball season, it was a proper time to figure batting averages of various Congressmen, based on the divergent calculations of the organizations which rated them. The AFL and CIO rated Senators on ten votes regarding domestic and foreign policy, and the Council of State Chambers of Commerce rated them on 20 votes regarding economy versus spending issues. If those organizations agreed with the way the member voted, he was rated as "right", and if they disagreed, he was "wrong". The more correct votes, the higher the rating.
As a result, North Carolina's Senator Clyde Hoey was rated at .400 by AFL, .300 by CIO, and .550 by the Chambers of Commerce. Senator Willis Smith was rated by the latter at .750, at .285 by AFL, and at .143 by CIO.
Senator Richard Russell of Georgia, the choice of both North Carolina Senators for the Democratic nomination, had received a rating of .875 from AFL, .625 from CIO, and only .200 from the Chambers of Commerce.
Local Congressman Hamilton Jones received .500 from the latter, .400 from AFL, and .200 from CIO.
The Chambers gave a perfect rating to Senators Harry F. Byrd of Virginia, Owen Brewster of Maine, Everett Dirksen of Illinois, John W. Bricker of Ohio, Ralph Flanders of Vermont, John Williams of Delaware, and Styles Bridges of New Hampshire. But labor gave zeroes to Senators Byrd, Bricker, Bridges and Dirksen
Senator Taft had received a zero from AFL, but .200 from CIO, and .866 from the Chambers.
Senator Estes Kefauver received .100 from each of AFL and the CIO, and .050 from the Chambers.
Most of the Senators who had rated well with labor, rated poorly with the Chambers, and vice versa, with the exception of Senator Paul Douglas of Illinois, who had a perfect score with the CIO, .800 with AFL, and also .700 from the Chambers. It regards him, therefore, as "really quite a fellow".
"The Perils of Pearson" comments on the column of Drew Pearson this date, correcting some of his recent reporting errors, reminding that about 18 months earlier, he and Senator Joseph McCarthy had come to blows at a club in Washington after the columnist had made some remarks about the Senator's remarkably low income tax payments. The previous week, Joseph Clark, who represented dictator Francisco Franco of Spain, said that he was tired of Mr. Pearson calling him a lobbyist and was also mad because Mr. Pearson's column had contributed to the defeat of Senator Owen Brewster of Maine in the Republican primary.
The piece trusts that Mr. Pearson would emerge intact from these political fights and hopes that he did not give up the good fight, as, perhaps, where others would fail, his direct approach would someday arouse the silent mystery man, Henry Grunewald, to "violent verbosity".
A piece from the New York Times, titled "Jersey Battlefront", tells of the annual attack by mosquitoes in New Jersey, being combated by bug specialists from four counties, in the hope of curtailing their blitz the following Sunday when they would sprout wings, after heavy rains and flooding during the year had created broad stretches of stagnant water where they bred. Oil sprayers, ditch diggers, tractors and machines which laid down a fog of DDT were being employed to stop them. Yet, there were only 200 fighters against millions of larvae, as each female mosquito produced 50 to 75 offspring.
It finds that the fight bore all the earmarks of classic campaigns of American arms, and failing the valiant efforts of the small army arranged to fight them, it would be up to the Home Guard.
Drew Pearson, as indicated above, admits to some of his recent mistakes in his column, starting with his statement that the father of the wife of Senator Estes Kefauver had been British-born, when, in fact, he had been born on a farm in upstate New York and had become a British citizen some years later after going to Scotland in 1908 to work as a ship designer.
He had also erroneously reported that Secretary of Agriculture Charles Brannan was holding back the development of newsprint in Alaska because the Forest Service would not cooperate with the Indian Bureau of Secretary of Interior Oscar Chapman, whereas Secretary Brannan had informed him that the two were cooperating and had recently opened up the Tongass National Forest in southeast Alaska to newsprint development.
He had also misreported that Congressman Bob Ramsay of West Virginia had been defeated for re-election because he tried to whitewash the Justice Department while a member of a committee, when, according to the Charleston Gazette, his defeat resulted from the fact that Senator Matt Neely of West Virginia had backed another candidate. He apologizes for having ascribed to the people of West Virginia a higher I.Q. than that to which the Gazette believed they were entitled, adding that Mr. Ramsay had been out to protect the Justice Department officials, even if the voters had not discovered it.
He asserts his belief that the American people did become aware of the shortcomings of their representatives in Washington, provided the newspapers gave them all of the facts. He cites the example in Maine the prior week, when Owen Brewster was defeated for re-election to the Senate in the Republican primary, after 18 years in Congress. Likewise, Senator Elbert Thomas of Oklahoma had been defeated in 1950 after 25 years in office, after he had been reported to have speculated in the commodity market while using his Senate speeches to affect that market. When Mr. Pearson had reported same, Senator Thomas's pat answer was that everyone knew that Mr. Pearson was a liar. When, however, the Agriculture Department substantiated the speculation, a Senate investigating committee, headed by Senator Homer Ferguson of Michigan, had begun to probe his activities, until Senator Thomas began probing Senator Ferguson and his family's connection with Chrysler, at which point Senator Ferguson dropped his probe. Yet, Senator Thomas had been defeated by the people of Oklahoma.
He had published the facts two years earlier regarding Senator Brewster's wire-tapping activities of Howard Hughes during the effort in 1947 to give Pan American Airways a monopoly on overseas travel, at the expense of TWA and Mr. Hughes. When a Senate subcommittee undertook to probe the matter, it had been gentle with Senator Brewster and his close friend, Henry Grunewald, who, while thumbing his nose at the Senate, was nevertheless not held in contempt, until the House committee chaired by Congressman Cecil King of California, nearly 2 years later, called his hand. Even the latter committee, however, had been gentle with Senator Brewster, not cross-examining him when he belatedly explained his receipt of checks from Mr. Grunewald totaling $10,000. The reason was that Senator Brewster was a member of the Senate club. Those and other facts which his column had uncovered regarding Senator Brewster, informing the people of Maine, had undoubtedly led to his final defeat.
Marquis Childs discusses the steel strike as it entered its fourth week since starting June 2, with conflicting reports emerging as to its effect on industry and rearmament. Industry sources were reporting that steel inventories remained substantial, while other reports indicated that defense plants were about to cease operation.
Most observers agreed that the President, regardless of the correctness of his handling of the matter, had gotten himself off the hook politically regarding the situation. If voluntary arbitration did not resolve the strike, then the President would have to resort to Taft-Hartley to obtain an 80-day injunction against the strike, his reluctance in that regard having been that the United Steelworkers had already postponed the strike for 99 days prior to his seizure of the steel industry on April 8, that action having been reversed by the Supreme Court in its decision of June 2, holding the seizure unconstitutional without Congressional approval. Congress, meanwhile, had refused to grant the President authority to seize the industry.
Organized labor remained supportive of the President, and, therefore, the Democratic candidate in the general election. But some observers close to the labor movement were not certain what the net effect of that support would be in terms of public opinion, potentially alienating that opinion to the Democrats.
The workers might refuse to return to work even in the face of a Taft-Hartley injunction, and regardless of an order by Philip Murray, head of the union. The companies believed that the men were eager to return to work, but the union was not so sure. Moreover, at the end of an 80-day injunction, Mr. Murray might call the workers to strike again, falling right in the middle of the fall campaign. Another steel strike could coincide with demands by John L. Lewis and the UMW for the coal miners, prompting yet another major strike, which, in combination, would surely alienate the public against big labor. The resulting resentment among non-union white-collar workers could be exploited by the Republicans, especially if the nominee were Senator Taft.
The latter prospect was one for which the CIO and AFL were preparing, realizing that the Senator would not be a pushover, as he had not been in the Ohio Senatorial campaign of 1950. They were already mailing out pamphlets warning of the Taft tactics used in that campaign, and that the Senator had in mind a new version of the law which would outlaw industry-wide bargaining in most industries, a provision incorporated in the House version of the original 1947 bill but eliminated in the Senate version by a single vote during the Republican 80th Congress.
Mr. Childs finds it remindful of the trust-busting era against industry during the Administration of Theodore Roosevelt, only now aimed against big labor. He finds that given the trend in politics, it was hard to see how the increasing power of big labor could be cured or curbed by government action.
Robert C. Ruark considers the game of tennis as one of the penalties paid by society for being overcivilized. He finds it a game in which red-faced people batted balls back and forth over a net, and then dropped dead from exhaustion. He believed it a sillier game than golf, as the ball never arrived at a particular goal, but just bounced back and forth.
It was supposed to be, erroneously, a rich man's sport and extremely social, whereas in fact, it was vindictive, and no sport of which he knew had more unsporting people playing it. Yet, tradition demanded politeness and formal ceremonies, such as leaping over the net to congratulate the loser, which he finds completely idiotic. When he had been a sportswriter, one of the peaks of his career had come on a hot afternoon in Chevy Chase, when a player leaped over the net to shake the hand of the other player and caught his foot on the top, breaking his leg. He believed that the audience had applauded and politely stated, "Well played."
While the competing players consistently complimented each other's shots, they actually hated each other, especially true of women players, in whose hands the tennis racket became a dagger, with each stroke a knife thrust into the vulnerability of the other woman player.
Good amateurs were referred to as tennis bums, even among themselves, as they lived off the under-table dollar, the expense account, and other people's club tabs.
Tennis players believed themselves superior to all other athletes, including polo players. They also saw themselves as superior to all other people, and their conversations were a mixture of "elegant profanity, girlish slang, and early Noel Coward dialogue". He finds, however, one consoling aspect, that if they played the game long enough, they became exhausted and did not play any more.
A letter writer wishes to correct the record on the Texas Republican convention, which had voted a Taft delegation to the national convention. She explains that on February 16, the Texas Republican state executive committee had met in Fort Worth and passed a resolution requiring that all qualified voters in the Republican precinct conventions sign a loyalty oath for 1952. On May 3, those who had signed the oath attended precinct conventions and voted for Eisenhower delegates to the county conventions. The Eisenhower forces had won 736 delegates, while the Taft forces had won 282. But when the Eisenhower delegates attended the state convention, 510 of their number were contested by Taft delegates who claimed that they had been certified by local Taft chairmen or elected at rump conventions. The state chairman allowed the 510 Taft delegates to vote to seat themselves, and on that basis, they elected 34 Taft and two Eisenhower delegates, with two also for General MacArthur. The Eisenhower supporters then bolted the convention and held their own state convention, electing 33 Eisenhower delegates and five for Taft. The Texas national committeeman, Henry Zweifel, justified the disregard for the democratic processes by maintaining that a great majority of the Republicans who had taken the loyalty oath were not in fact Republicans.
The writer concludes that the Republican candidate for the local Congressional seat, Charles Jonas, was a man of unquestioned integrity, who would represent the state at the national Republican convention, and, she adds, he and the North Carolina delegation would be a credit to the state and the nation.
A letter writer from Dublin, Ireland, the librarian of the Royal Dublin Society, at Ball's Bridge in Dublin, indicates that he was writing the life of Arthur Dobbs, a founder of the Royal Dublin Society and Governor of North Carolina from 1754 to 1764, therefore requesting help from readers to fill a considerable gap in information regarding his governorship.
A letter writer believes that if the Republicans achieved the Presidency in 1952, the country would be in for hard times, just as during the Hoover Presidency, when the Great Depression occurred. She indicates that she was a Democrat and hopes that everyone would vote for "an honest Christian", Senator Richard Russell of Georgia.
A letter writer from Fairbury, Nebraska, indicates that if the Old Guard managed to nominate Senator Taft for the Republican presidential nomination, it would be the "biggest swindle since the Teapot Dome scandal", of the Harding years. He indicates that there was no choice for the people, if both parties became corrupt.
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