The Charlotte News
Thursday, June 26, 1952
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that Senator Taft had indicated at a news conference this date that the political organization of Governor Dewey was now running the campaign of General Eisenhower and that should the General be nominated, he would likely lose the general election if he conducted the kind of campaign his backers apparently wanted. The Senator also said that Dr. George Gallup, head of the Gallup poll, had "loaned himself as a straight propagandist for Eisenhower." The Senator responded to a question regarding a statement the previous day by Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., General Eisenhower's campaign manager, that the "game is up" for Senator Taft's bid for the Republican nomination, by saying that such was "just political talk" without justification. He also said that a statement attributed to Senator Irving Ives of New York, that he would not run for re-election if Senator Taft were the party nominee as he did not think he could win in that event, to have been simply propaganda from the Eisenhower camp and not reflective of the views of Senator Ives.
General Eisenhower, meanwhile, would deliver a major speech this night at 9:30 EST in Denver, before an expected capacity crowd of 12,000 persons, which would be carried by the NBC radio network as a paid political broadcast.
In London, former British Defense Minister Emanuel Shinwell claimed, in debate before Commons the previous night regarding the U.N. bombing on Monday and Tuesday of the power stations in North Korea, that pressure from Britain's former Labor Government had led to President Truman recalling General MacArthur from Tokyo as Far East and U.N. forces commander in Korea 15 months earlier. Mr. Shinwell said that when Labor had been in power, they never experienced an incident wherein they were not consulted initially before a major change in war strategy in Korea was implemented. When Mr. Shinwell stated that Labor had taken effective action when there was the prospect of General MacArthur exceeding his authority, the Conservative membership had shouted, "No!" He then suggested that they consult Hansard, the daily official verbatim report of the proceedings in Commons, for verification of his assertion.
The White House responded, through press secretary Joseph Short, that there had been no foreign government which had been responsible or had influenced the President's decision to fire General MacArthur the previous year.
The House voted to end Federal rent controls on September 30, except in critical defense areas and cities specifically requesting continued control. The vote was subject to roll call reconsideration. Amendments tentatively approved by the House would also end all wage and price controls on July 31. Republican House leader Joseph Martin, however, indicated that he believed the House might reverse the latter decision.
The House Appropriations Committee recommended this date a 25 percent cut in new funds sought by the Administration for the armed forces, foreign aid, atomic energy, and a variety of other purposes. The total proposed cut would be from the requested 13.7 billion dollars down to 10.3 billion, the largest single recommended cut having been to the Atomic Energy Commission, the budget of which would be reduced by the recommendation by 1.7 billion.
The Senate voted to eliminate from the appropriations bill a House-approved provision barring the President from sending an ambassador to the Vatican without prior Senate approval. The provision had been included in the billion-dollar appropriations bill for the State, Commerce and Justice Departments for the following fiscal year.
In Washington, August 1 was set as the date for execution of Oscar Collazo, the Puerto Rican nationalist who had attempted, with an accomplice who had been killed at the time, to assassinate the President on November 1, 1950. In the process of the attack, a White House guard overseeing the temporary residence of the First Family at Blair House, had been killed, and Mr. Collazo had been convicted for his murder. Only the President could now spare him his date with the electric chair—which the President would do, commuting his sentence to life.
In Tokyo, Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida beat a no-confidence vote by 234 to 113.
In Eddyville, Ky., prisoners rioted at the State prison and State police rushed to help quell the uprising. Two guards had been seized as hostages but were later released, one having been injured slightly. The trouble began the previous night when the prison radio had been shut off, but peace was restored about four hours later, until around midday this date when a group of prisoners refused to leave the recreation shop to report for drill and took the two guards hostage for about a half hour.
Blistering heat hit the Midwest and East Coast the previous day, resulting in 11 deaths thus far. Records had been broken the previous day in scores of cities and the scorching heat was expected to continue through this date. The President had canceled his usual Thursday press conference because of the heat in the nation's capital, expected to reach 99 degrees by mid-afternoon when the conference had been scheduled in the non-air conditioned room at the old State Department building, where the noise of fans would have made questions too hard to hear.
A record-breaking 98 degrees, possibly 100, was predicted for Baltimore, where 100 cases of heat prostration had been treated the previous day. New York was supposed to hit 100 this date, and it was reported at 92 degrees by 10 a.m. The mercury had hit 99 the previous day in Cleveland, but the Mayor issued an order against female workers wearing shorts to work.
Emery Wister of The News indicates that in Charlotte, it had been 100 degrees by 12:30, the highest mark for the date on record, the previous high having been 99 in 1948, and the highest ever recorded in June having been 102.7 on June 29, 1945, a record, he indicates, which might fall this date or the next. The highest temperature ever recorded in Charlotte had been 103.2, on July 22, 1926, and that mark, too, might fall in the ensuing 48 hours. The humidity, however, in Charlotte, while starting out in the morning at 82 percent, was expected to fall to an average of 35 percent for the day, having been only 37 percent the previous day. The low in Charlotte the previous day was 75 and the expected low this date was 77. By 8:30 a.m., the thermometer had already reached 90. The story provides a table of hour by hour Charlotte temperatures for the previous 24 hours. There appeared no relief in sight, with the Carolinas appearing as the center of the new "Torrid Zone", as the mercury soared past 100 throughout the two states the previous day. Durham had posted a high of 100, and Raleigh and Winston-Salem each hit 102, the latter registering the highest temperature in the history of the Weather Bureau in that city.
Local theater business was reported brisk because of air conditioning, as was restaurant and department store business for the same reason.
In Youngstown, O., a two-year old boy celebrating his birthday in the 104-degree heat, took a dip in a washtub and then stepped out onto the pavement of the driveway, blistering the soles of his feet, then sat down and blistered his bottom as well.
In Toledo, O., a casket salesman collapsed and died while displaying caskets to members of the Ohio Funeral Directors Association in 99-degree heat.
In Hell, Mich., it reached 110 the previous week and 100 this date, whereas in Paradise of that state, it was a relatively mild 70.
By contrast, in Long Beach, California, it was so cool that most of the 70 young women competing for the Miss Universe title had to don wraps over their bathing suits.
In Copenhagen, a well-known Danish scientist, who had requested anonymity, announced that his two-year old daughter had eaten a State lottery ticket a few days prior to it winning a prize the equivalent of $3,500.
That may not have been cool or so hot.
On the editorial page, "Why We Like Ike" explains the newspaper's reasons for supporting General Eisenhower for the Republican nomination over Senator Taft, and generally for the presidency in November. It supports his positive and constructive foreign policy, placing emphasis on free allies and not on useless name-calling or 20-20 hindsight, believes that he understood America's role in the 20th Century world. He had brought men together of differing opinions and produced order and harmony from confusion, was respected and honored throughout the world as a leader and as a man who could guide the troubled free world into the future.
It also likes his views on domestic issues, being opposed to the growing accumulation of power and authority in the Federal Government, his moderation, avoiding the extremes of the left and the right, his support for local and state responsibilities, and for morality and integrity in government. It likes the fact that he believed the Republican Party had to cleanse itself before it could clean out corruption in Washington, and that the party should open its doors to new recruits among young people, independents, and Democrats.
It likes that he was a warm, friendly man, honest and sincere, unpretentious, with an instinct for fair play and a willingness to examine both sides of an issue. It also likes the fact that he did not profess to know all the answers and was honest enough to say so, that he was not a professional politician of the Pendergast or Ohio Gang background—references to the President and Senator Taft, respectively, although the latter more properly applied to the Harding Presidency.
It likes Ike also because he could win in November and indicates that if he were the only candidate in the race, it would still like him, and that by comparison to Senator Taft, "that architect of acrimony and crown prince of connivance, we like Ike even better."
Soon, however, the question will become whether you like Dick.
"Hurry Up and Wait Routine" finds that the President's approach to the steel crisis resembled the Army's well-known Hurry-Up-and-Wait practice, that when he addressed the joint session of Congress on June 10, he had expressed a critical emergency, seeking Congressional authority to seize the steel industry again after the Supreme Court had ruled his April 8 seizure unconstitutional without Congressional authority. He had indicated in the speech that to invoke Taft-Hartley and have a fact-finding board issue a report would take a week to ten days to accomplish and that authorization of seizure was a quicker means of ending the strike. When Congress refused to grant him that authority, however, and requested that he use Taft-Hartley, he had sat on his hands thus far, proving, according to the piece, that there was no serious urgency as he had described.
It fails to point out that the reason the President did not wish to resort to Taft-Hartley was because the United Steelworkers had already postponed the strike for 99 days prior to the April 8 seizure, and because the Wage Stabilization Board had already studied the matter thoroughly and issued its recommendations, and so the President had indicated that another Presidential fact-finding board would only be redundant.
Stick to the facts and stop brow-beating the lame duck, just because you never really liked him in the first place, and because you like Ike.
"Cause for Pride" tells of 38 additional indictments having been handed down the previous week by the grand jury in Columbus County against members of the Klan, including Imperial Wizard Thomas L. Hamilton of Leesville, S.C. During the current week, state and local authorities were serving 55 new arrest warrants on charges stemming from nine additional flogging incidents the previous fall and winter, and the arrests were being conducted slowly so that the defendants could be questioned, and, according to an SBI agent, from that questioning, grounds for new warrants likely to emerge.
The piece suggests that the Klan's empire, "built on the shifting foundations of hatred and lawlessness," had already crumbled under the force of the law and that the next assignment would be to obliterate any traces of it. It compliments the Columbus County authorities for doing a good job and indicates that the whole state was proud of them.
They got a whole collomoration of people under arrest up there.
"Another 'Iron Curtain'" tells of Jordan having suddenly, without explanation, canceled the visas of a group of 21 American students and educators traveling through the Middle East on a tour arranged by the American Christian Palestine Committee. There had been a hint that internal troubles within Jordan regarding the crisis over King Talal's mental problems may have been a contributing factor, but the Cairo press had indicated that the group was pro-Jewish, a charge which also may have been a factor.
It posits that regardless of the cause, such short-sighted action could only create suspicion that Jordan did not want outsiders visiting the country, and by denying themselves the chance to state the Arab case to the West vis-a-vis Britain, France and Israel, were cutting off their own noses.
A piece from the Greensboro Daily News, titled "Colloquy in Korea", provides a hypothetical, sardonic interrogation, based on the U.N. survey which had concluded that of the 170,000 prisoners of war, only 70,000 had wished voluntarily to repatriate to the Communist countries.
A sample:
"U.N. officers: We can ship you back very quickly and easily to the Uncle Joe's beloved land of brotherhood?
"Prisoners: No, no, a thousand times no. We prefer the bloodthirsty American eagle to the Soviet dove that goes boom."
Drew Pearson tells of the State Department having struck a snag with dictator Francisco Franco of Spain regarding the naval and air bases he was supposed to provide the U.S. in return for the 187 million dollars which had been appropriated in aid for Spain by Congress. Sr. Franco had been eager to help the U.S. a year earlier, but now wanted American dollars spent in Spain only on his own terms, desiring, instead of U.S. bases, modern military equipment for the Spanish Army. But the U.S. Army was short of the tanks and heavy armor which he wanted, with the first priority being for Korea, and next for the U.S. forces at home, and then NATO allies in Western Europe. The country was already behind on its promises of such equipment for the latter. Defense officials were not very interested in the Spanish Army anyway, as it would be of no help in stopping a Communist army overrunning France and Belgium to the English Channel. The State Department was negotiating for the air and naval bases, a technical aid agreement to improve Spanish agriculture, public health, and the like, and an agreement of non-discrimination against American investors, the negotiations for which had dragged on for the previous three to four months. The appropriations for aid to Spain were to be spent at the discretion of the President, and the State and Defense Departments had advised proceeding slowly.
Political observers wished that the men advising General Eisenhower had more political savvy, following two tactical mistakes which had seriously hurt the General's bargaining power at the coming GOP convention, the first having been his statement at the press conference in Abilene, Kans., early in the month, endorsing General MacArthur, taking away his ability to object to the latter becoming the keynote speaker at the convention, and the second having been the General's statement in Dallas that he would not lead a third party movement, eliminating his bargaining power to seat his delegates at the convention under threat of such an effort. Mr. Pearson indicates that had President William Howard Taft in 1912 known that former President Theodore Roosevelt would form the Bull Moose Party in the aftermath of the delegate controversy at that convention, TR would have been able to get his delegates seated. Son Robert Taft knew from his father's experience in that regard that he could not afford a third party movement. Mr. Pearson indicates that former President Calvin Coolidge, FDR and President Truman, "all master political strategists", would have never allowed such errors to be made.
Mr. Pearson indicates that having been the first to criticize the tax-fixing practice in the IRB, he wished to be the first to congratulate IRB commissioner John Dunlap on the careful manner in which he had picked the new collectors under the Civil Service system, via a five-man board basing their selections on merit.
Joseph & Stewart Alsop regard two orders issued by the Government, one secret and the other open, but the latter's true purpose concealed. The first had been issued June 1, ordering the Panama Canal and the nation's ports so restricted to Soviet and satellite-nation vessels that it essentially barred them. The secrecy surrounding it was to avoid stirring criticism against the order. The second was the 24-hour watch placed on the great urban and industrial centers of the nation, against penetration by hostile aircraft, its motive having been based on the hidden fact that six months earlier, the Soviet strategic air force had occupied its forward bases closest to the U.S., on Kamchatka in the Pacific, engaging then in aerial reconnaissance to test U.S. air defenses which had not detected the aircraft. Their presence became known only from their vapor trails, indicating that the nation's air warning and defense systems were inadequate. The air watch would only be partly effective, as its motive was concealed.
For the same reason, the civil defense program had been gutted by Congress.
The Alsops find the two orders striking by the schizophrenia thus evidenced in defense policy. The first order was necessitated by the danger of a single freighter carrying an atomic bomb into a U.S. port or into the Canal Zone and thus potentially tying up U.S. shipping and its ability to supply allies. Thus, under the order, the Navy had been assigned protection of the Canal and the Coast Guard, the ports. Since no Soviet or satellite traffic was present, however, there had been no need to enforce the order thus far.
The fact had become known that the Soviets had placed orders in East Germany for 6,200 microwave towers to provide the Soviet empire with a closed communications system.
Marquis Childs tells of the control of the Republican convention by the Taft forces being more complete than had been generally assumed. The temporary chairman, Wallace Hallanan of West Virginia, was a strong supporter of the Senator, as was General MacArthur, the keynote speaker. The RNC had a Taft majority, though comprised of lame ducks who had been voted out in their states but would continue to serve through the 1952 convention. The key arrangements and credentials committees, which would seat contested temporary delegates, able then to vote for permanent delegates, also had Taft majorities. The permanent chairman of the convention, former House Speaker Joe Martin, was said to be neutral, but in fact was first for General MacArthur and second for Senator Taft.
Mr. Martin had been the permanent chairman of the 1940, 1944 and 1948 Republican conventions and knew the delegations well, and could thus ingratiate himself to the proper delegates and potentially engineer the nomination for Senator Taft, much as Elihu Root in 1912 had obtained the nomination for incumbent President William Howard Taft over former President Theodore Roosevelt.
Mr. Martin had brought in Governor John Fine of Pennsylvania to consult with General MacArthur on the keynote address, which could so impress the undecided Governor that he might be swayed to the Taft column, with his control of the majority of the 70 delegates from Pennsylvania, considered a key swing state for the nomination.
A letter writer indicates that he was a taxi driver in the city with no other means of earning a living, and that he fought traffic 12 to 14 hours per day to make his living, while he saw around him City firemen who made around $300 per month and then drove cabs in their off hours, making it hard for a full-time cab driver to earn his living. He says that he had nothing against City firemen but hoped they would realize that when they had already made their living from the City, their spare time driving made it tough on the regular cab drivers.
The editors respond that the new Fire Chief, Donald Charles, had indicated that his department had a rule forbidding firemen from competing with any other labor, trade or profession and if there had been violations of that rule, they had not been brought to his attention, and he would like to receive specific complaints.
A letter writer comments on Tom Fesperman's column of June 24 in which was written: "The children lined the street and we remembered particularly one block on Main Street full of little darkies, chattering among themselves like a bunch of magpies." The writer indicates that she was not quite clear on the term "darkies", that she knew it had been used about 100 years earlier to refer to slaves but that in 1952, thought "intelligent news reporters, American and foreign, refer to a race of people, if that is necessary, by their proper name." She advises that if a reporter had to say something other than merely "children" or "Americans" in such descriptions, "it would be a privilege to be called a Negro and Negro is capitalized." She concludes that the News had not been guilty of misrepresenting citizens in the past and wondered what had brought about the change.
The editors respond that the reprinted passage was actually attributed in the piece to the Monroe Journal, and set off in quotation marks—presumably, though the editors did not so indicate, in reference to some long past event.
A letter from the Mayors of Huntersville and Cornelius indicates that there were circumstances relating to the runoff in the race for the Mecklenburg County Board of Education, to be held June 28, which they wanted to called to the attention of voters, that if one particular candidate failed to be nominated, the entire membership of the Board would be concentrated in the southern and eastern sections of the county. The letter promotes the credentials of this particular candidate and urges voting for him.
A letter writer tells why he favored Judge William Bobbitt for the State Supreme Court in the runoff election against Judge R. Hunt Parker, indicating the former's many good qualities.
As stated, Judge Parker would win the race, but Judge Bobbitt would be subsequently appointed to the Court by Governor William B. Umstead in 1954. Both would subsequently serve as Chief Justice.
Framed Edition
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