The Charlotte News

Monday, July 28, 1952

FOUR EDITORIALS

Site Ed. Note: The front page reports that Bloomington, Ill., had welcomed home its native son, Governor Adlai Stevenson, after he had been drafted for the Democratic presidential nomination on Friday night. Thousands of people jammed the railroad station to extend their greetings to the 52-year old Governor. Another demonstration was planned for his return to the State capital in Springfield. He intended to resign as Governor that he might devote himself solely to the role he did not seek or want.

DNC chairman Frank McKinney told reporters that the party high command had agreed on a "hard-hitting campaign of no more than 60 days" which would begin on Labor Day. He indicated that the "big four" of the campaign would include, in addition to Governor Stevenson and his running mate, Senator John Sparkman of Alabama, the President and Vice-President Alben Barkley. That team, he said, would carry the campaign into every part of the nation, as the President had promised another whistle-stop campaign reminiscent of 1948, which had enabled him to defy nearly all of the pundits and win re-election. Averell Harriman and Senator Robert Kerr, both of whom had been active candidates for the nomination, pledged support to the Governor. Governor Paul Dever of Massachusetts, who had also expressed his support, had persuaded Mr. Harriman to withdraw from the nomination race after the second ballot at the convention, in favor of Governor Stevenson, nominated on the third ballot. A reliable source had reported that Mr. Harriman had planned to delay his withdrawal until the sixth ballot, before the intervention by Governor Dever had convinced him that the delay might enable either Senator Estes Kefauver or Vice-President Barkley to be nominated.

In a recent letter to Cyril Clemens, head of the International Mark Twain Society, Governor Stevenson blamed Mark Twain for the confusion existing as to how to pronounce his first name, saying that his grandfather, Vice-President Adlai Stevenson under President Grover Cleveland between 1893 and 1897, had been at a luncheon with Mr. Twain and afterward, newspapers had quoted the latter regarding the pronunciation of "Adlai":

"'Philologists sweat and lexicographers bray,
"'But the best they can do is to call him 'Ad-lay'.
"'But at longshoremen's picnics, where accents are high,
"'Fair Harvard's not present, so they called him 'Ad-lie'.'"

Governor Stevenson had indicated that the correct pronunciation was "Ad-lay", but that he had, "to put it mildly, been called many things".

Marvin L. Arrowsmith of the Associated Press reports from Denver that General Eisenhower had returned to his campaign headquarters following a ten-day fishing vacation on a cattle ranch near Fraser, Colo., to turn his full attention to the campaign ahead. He met with his political chief of staff, Governor Sherman Adams of New Hampshire, and planned to spend most of the remaining portion of the week conferring with other party leaders. His last day at Fraser the prior day, had been devoted only in part to relaxation, while a good part of it was spent in discussing campaign plans with his vice-presidential running mate, Senator Richard Nixon, after the latter had driven to the ranch from Denver early in the morning and then, before talks began, received his first lesson in how to cast for trout, imparted by the General, an expert fisherman. (Better be careful that he does not hook himself on the backside of his britches, as that seems to be his most usual pattern of behavior, as you and all of us will eventually find out over the years. Indeed, when Mr. Liddy claimed that the reason for the Watergate break-in in 1972 was to search for a list of Democratic call girls, he was really stating their purpose to have been the search for a list of the number of times Mr. Nixon had hooked himself, thought to be in the confidential files of then-DNC chairman Lawrence O'Brien. That was why they called him something like "chic Dick" behind his back.) While seated on a bench alongside the General, Senator Nixon expressed confidence in a Republican "united front" to assure the victory for the General "that the country needs", at which point the General interrupted and added, "Victory for the party and, what is more important, victory for the country, my boy." After the conference between the two, Senator Nixon indicated that they had agreed it would be a "fighting campaign" and that they would visit as many states as possible, including states in the South. (We recommend to Senator Nixon staying away from Greensboro, N.C.)

We should relate, parenthetically, that on the evening of August 8, 1974, when the news first broke that President Nixon would resign from office at noon the next day, we were on the Outer Banks, having, through the efforts of a friend, tried, futilely, earlier in the day to learn to cast a fishing line.

Senator Brien McMahon of Connecticut, 48, who had been a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, died this date from lung cancer in Georgetown Hospital in Washington, where he had gone in June for an operation. The cancer, meanwhile, had spread to his back and pelvis. The illness had prevented his campaigning as a candidate for the nomination, but friends from Connecticut had given him 16 votes at the convention the previous week. He had ordered that his name be withdrawn, while lying in his hospital bed. The Senator, who had begun his Senate career in 1945, had become chairman of the joint Senate-House Atomic Energy Committee and was the voice of Congress on all atomic matters, the highest lay authority on the subject. He had first won fame as chief of the Justice Department's criminal division, where, in 1933, he personally moved into bloody Harlan County, Kentucky, during a war between coal mine operators and union labor. At one point during that time, he had been shot at from an ambuscade, but was unhurt. Two of his key witnesses had been slain and the homes of two others had been dynamited, but he had restored law and order after spectacular trials regarding the terrorism. As a Senator, he had fought tenaciously to fill U.S. arsenals with terrible new weapons of the atomic age, but denounced in bitter terms the world tensions which had made them necessary. He had repeatedly counseled the world to live in peace and eliminate the terrible new atomic weapons. On February 2, 1950, he had outlined a world peace and disarmament plan, under which the U.S., Russia and other nations would pledge to reduce military spending and use large portions of the savings accumulated thereby for "a great worldwide attack on poverty and disease". A year later, he had sponsored a resolution, passed by Congress, expressing the country's friendship for all peoples of the earth, including those in Russia, and urged the Soviet Government to make that fact known to its citizens. The Senator had been educated at Fordham University and graduated from Yale Law School in 1927, before entering practice and eventually briefly becoming a judge in his hometown of Norwalk in 1933.

Congressman Carl Durham of North Carolina, vice-chairman of the joint Atomic Committee, would automatically accede to the chairmanship until a successor could be elected by the membership. Senator Richard Russell of Georgia was the senior Democratic Senator on the Committee and Senator Bourke Hickenlooper of Iowa was the senior Republican.

Governor John Lodge of Connecticut, a Republican, and brother to Massachusetts Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., would be able to name a successor to Senator McMahon, but that person would only serve until the November general election.

James A. Michener reports from Korea, as part of his assignment as a correspondent for Holiday Magazine, on the U.S. First Marine Division, indicating that occasionally one met a man whose extraordinary bravery was stunning, but a high on anyone's lists had to be the amazing Marine whom they called the "Kandy Bar Kid", whose real name was Lyle Lewis, of Tacoma, Wash., 23. More than 40 times during the previous two months, he had penetrated Communist lines to a depth of more than two miles, had scouted enemy positions for periods of up to 40 consecutive hours, and had wandered back to his own lines to report on the enemy. He had been ambushed by the Chinese five times, had engaged them in pointblank night fights eight or nine times, had lived through several artillery barrages, and had been wounded once and gone back behind enemy lines three days later. In appearance, Mr. Michener found him to resemble a fast-shooting cowboy in a B-movie. He describes in detail some of his courageous ventures. His nickname derived from the fact that a friend had indicated that if you gave him three candy bars and a submachine gun, he could invade Hell. His commanding officer had indicated that the only limit to his courage was the order that he could not penetrate more than three miles inland. He came from a good family, was married and had two children, spoke softly but had a good sense of humor.

In Paris, NATO supreme commander, General Matthew Ridgway, this date named Lt. General Willard G. Wyman, commanding officer of the IX Corps in Korea, to command Allied land forces in Southeastern Europe, to consist of Greek and Turkish land troops.

In Tehran, Premier Mohammed Mossadegh the previous night promised "exploitation of Iran's oil resources", indicating his hopes for a settlement with Britain to end the blockade of the country's oil, which had nearly bankrupted Iran. He also called for higher taxes, land reform, and work projects for the unemployed. He had been reported to have notified Britain during the weekend that Iran was willing to begin talks on compensation for the nationalized oil properties seized the previous year from the British. Although the British had been ousted from the country, Iran had failed to circumvent the British ban on foreign shipping of Iranian oil. The Iranian Foreign Minister told a New York Times correspondent that Iran was now willing to test its case in the oil dispute before the International Court of Justice, which had recently upheld a previous Iranian contention that the tribunal had no jurisdiction in the case.

In Cairo, the head of Egypt's powerful Wafdist Party, Mustafa El Nahas Pasha, whom King Farouk had ousted from the premiership following the previous January's fire riots in Cairo, indicated, upon return from a European holiday, his complete and enthusiastic support for the country's new strong man, Maj. General Mohammed Naguib, and hailed the ouster of King Farouk and the new strong man's promise of a relentless nationwide cleanup of "bribery and corruption".

In Washington, an American official indicated that King Farouk, who had, under threat of an ultimatum issued by General Naguib, recently abdicated in favor of his infant son, sometime earlier had told an American acquaintance that soon there would be "only five kings left in the world", the King of England and the kings of each of the four suits of cards. (That statement had obviously been made prior to the death the previous February of King George VI.)

In New York, Judge Saul Streit this date accused mental experts of foisting "dangerous maniacs on the public with the most dire consequences". He made the statement during acceptance of the first-degree murder indictment of a 29-year old man, with a long history of insanity and known by doctors who had treated him to be dangerous to society. The man was accused of shooting and killing a young woman at Columbia University recently, because she happened to be the first person he encountered, according to his statement to police, after he had gone to the location in response to the rejection of some of his strange theories by the lab for which the young woman worked as a secretary. The judge's statement took to task both the State mental institutions and the mental health personnel of the Veterans Administration for not taking action to commit the defendant or to treat him, instead having allowed the "veteran-maniac" to "roam at large on an unsuspecting public and to kill this innocent victim". The same judge had won nationwide attention previously for being a critic of "sordid commercialism" in college sports.

Near Uniontown, Pa., a heavily-loaded, out-of-control truck was involved in a head-on collision with an automobile full of picnickers, killing six persons the previous day, including five passengers in the car and the truck driver.

Near York, S.C., a private plane crashed in flames, killing a woman and injuring a man and a woman, all from Greensboro.

On page 3-B, television and radio critic John Crosby reports that the high spot of the Democratic convention for him had been a tiff between Governor James Byrnes of South Carolina and a television commentator.

On the editorial page, "Democrats Bid for Southern Support" indicates that the selection of Senator John Sparkman as Governor Stevenson's running mate was final proof that the moderates had seized control of the Democratic Party. The young turks of the left had preferred someone with a more liberal approach to civil rights. The Old Guard had wanted a candidate less completely identified with the progressive policies of the New Deal and Fair Deal. The former group would have been satisfied with either Senator Kefauver, Averell Harriman, or Senator Hubert Humphrey, whereas the latter group would have been satisfied with Senator Richard Russell. The moderates chose someone who should be acceptable to both extreme wings.

The selection of a running mate from the Deep South, after Senator Russell's impressive showing in the campaign, indicated that Southern Democrats were regaining their prestige within the party, after it had been weakened and virtually destroyed in 1936, when the two-thirds majority rule for selecting a nominee and adoption of the platform was abolished.

The Democratic leaders had assessed the situation, and realized that with such a formidable opponent as General Eisenhower, with appeal in the South, and with the threat of a revolt even larger than the Dixiecrat revolt of 1948 in the offing, without Southern electoral votes, they could not win the general election.

It indicates that it had great admiration for Senator Sparkman, who had risen from an Alabama tenant farm to the Senate without having been reliant on demagoguery, often the hallmark of a Southern politician. He had a distinguished record on foreign affairs and a progressive record on domestic policies. His selection strengthened the Democratic ticket in a crucial area and in a crucial year, in that the loyalty of Southern Democratic leaders was virtually assured, as they could not turn their backs on the dominant moderate group who had selected a moderate presidential candidate and had paid tribute to the South by selecting Senator Sparkman.

"Morrison Caps a Distinguished Career" tells of Cameron Morrison, former North Carolina Governor and Senator, having performed well in the Democratic convention the previous week, winding up a source of pride for his native Mecklenburg observers. He had, it indicates, steered an adroit course, neither giving way before the pressure of the "upstarts" nor defying the judgment of the convention.

It indicates that it did not share Mr. Morrison's devotion to the Democratic Party, but it did respect it and his intense personal loyalties, even though sometimes they interfered with his better judgment. He was, however, not an opportunist and was a dependable quantity. It concludes that at the convention, he had capped not only his political career but his private career, and believes that he was very tired and so hopes that he would take it easy for awhile and rest.

"One Reason for Fat Budgets" indicates that because of the very nearly incalculable size of the budgets considered by Congress, the members perenially would try to work out some better system for checking unnecessary expenditures. Yet, they had not so far done so.

Spending bills originated in the House and were handled initially by the House Appropriations Committee, which had a limited number of assistants on its staff, with the result that the Committee could do little more than skim the requests for spending.

It cites the President's budget request for fiscal year 1953 having been 85 billion dollars, and that if the Committee spent even an hour on each million dollars requested, its members would have to work ten hours per day for six days per week and 50 weeks of the year, and would still be considering the current budget in the year 1981. The Committee devoted about ten weeks to budget matters, in other words considering an average of 142 million dollars per hour.

Among the more thoughtful members of Congress, such as Senator Paul Douglas, reform in spending procedures was being urged, to allow the Congress to consider spending more discriminately and intelligently. The outdated system, it concludes, related to an earlier time when the national budget was measured in the millions, and so was an anachronism.

"Delayed Divorce" relates that although there had been a measure of surface harmony between the Northern and Southern wings of the Democratic Party at the Chicago convention the previous week, the basic incompatibility of the two wings remained, such that there were grounds for divorce. It believes that following the general election in November, the Southern Congressmen would again join in coalition with Northern Republicans.

It asserts that General Eisenhower would be able to induce many Southerners to vote for the Republican ticket in 1952, despite the apparent healing in Chicago among the Democrats. The split might have occurred had it not been for the realization by the Northern wing of the party that the Democrats could not afford any schism in 1952 with such a strong opponent on the scene.

It suggests that it was a year, however, in which Southern voters would decide whether to "throw off the shackles of its one-party system and vote for deserving Republican candidates, thus hastening the needed party realignment which the Democratic convention decisions merely delayed."

A piece from the Christian Science Monitor, titled "Word That Unites", tells of the Soviet delegate in the United Nations Economic & Social Council having read in a U.S. newspaper that striking workers had been told to return to the job or be "fired", causing the delegate's shock regarding these workers being slaves in a wicked capitalist system, being ordered back to work on penalty of being shot for failing to do so. A Mexican delegate then informed him of the meaning of "fired", having nothing to do with a firing squad.

A reader had written to the Monitor a couple of weeks earlier protesting against Lord Alexander's remark that Americans were putting on "a good show" in Korea, finding it shameful for a national leader to be "amused" by the death and destruction of the Korean War. The writer had been answered by explaining the meaning in England of "a good show", that it was in fact high praise for outstanding displays of courage and heroism, having nothing to do with musical comedies.

It wishes that all international misunderstandings could be so easily resolved, but finds that there were grave differences regarding the meaning of words such as peace, democratic, neutral, etc. It concludes that when it was said that dictators understood only the language of force, it had to be remembered that there was a force of love, as well as a force of arms.

Drew Pearson tells of the behind-the-scenes negotiations during the prior two weeks which had eventually led on the prior Thursday to the resolution of the six-month dispute and 53-day old steel strike, which had followed the Supreme Court's holding on June 2 that the President's April 8 seizure of the steel industry, based solely on his inherent executive authority, without Congressional approval, was unconstitutional. He indicates that the White House had been especially eager to resolve the strike so that it could be announced at the Democratic convention. Benjamin Fairless, president of U.S. Steel, had told Presidential assistant John Steelman that if the Administration would give the steel industry a substantial price increase, he could have the strike settled within an hour, indicating, in response to Mr. Steelman's inquiry as to what kind of increase he had in mind, that $5.65 per ton would be adequate. Mr. Steelman then indicated to Mr. Fairless that he could arrange the $5.65 per ton increase. A short time later, however, Mr. Fairless indicated that the Steelworkers Union was demanding greater benefits than earlier, and that he would therefore need a greater increase in the price of steel. Mr. Steelman then phoned Philip Murray, president of the Steelworkers, and asked about the new union demands, to which Mr. Murray responded that the union had not altered its position at all. That led Mr. Steelman to conclude that the steel companies were negotiating in bad faith and were not really trying to settle the strike. Economic Stabilizer Roger Putnam was also quite upset and indicated that as far as he was concerned, the steel companies would not get more than $3.50 per ton as an increase and could "wait till hell freezes over" before they would get any more. (In other words, he wouldn't grant the higher increase for all the farms in Cuba...)

He next switches to the recent flying saucer sightings in Washington and elsewhere, prompting the Air Force to become involved, despite having been greatly skeptical of the whole business. The Air Force had admitted, however, that they had detected something which appeared as flying saucers on radar, at the same time observers had claimed to see the objects. Thus, they could not be hallucinations or freakish cloud formations, which would not appear on radar. Another admission was that the flying saucers could possibly be spaceships from another planet. It was recognized by the Air Force that the U.S. would soon be able to build a spaceship to visit the moon if the country was willing to spend the money for research and construction.

That will never happen.

In any event, the Air Force officers were willing to admit that a more advanced civilization could be surveilling earth through flying saucers.

The third admission had not been announced, but scientific observation posts had been established in New Mexico, around the site where guided missile tests were taking place, with the purpose of tracking flying saucers as well. A number of flying saucers had been observed in the Southwest and since a number of trained specialists were already on the job in the area, the Air Force had ordered them to observe and track flying saucers as well. The Air Force had also instructed the round-the-clock air observers to watch for flying saucers, as well as enemy aircraft. It had also set up special cameras on radar screens to keep a pictorial record of flying saucers or any other strange objects in the skies.

The text of the 17-minute acceptance speech of Adlai Stevenson is set forth in its entirety this date, on the editors' belief that because he delivered it starting at 2:05 a.m. Friday night, few had seen it on television.

We watched the whole thing, and also saw Senator George McGovern's 2:00 a.m. 30-minute acceptance speech live on the tv in 1972, placing us probably among the half dozen or so people in the nation who did so. This land is your land... The Watergate burglars took that notion, and the other side of the sign, too literally.

As the bumper sticker of the post-election period used to say, "Thank God for Massachusetts..."

A letter writer from Pittsboro compliments a letter writer of July 22, indicating that, like him, he had been voting a straight Democratic ticket for the prior 30 years. He indicates that from 1896 through 1912, he had been subjected to "just such political bunk as we have been subjected to this week" at the Democratic convention, with the single exception of the speech of Governor Stevenson. He indicates that the welfare state could not last, as the supply was inadequate to take care of all who desired to partake of it, that it was ultimately headed toward a police state, with the inevitable loss of freedom. He indicates that he did not like the record of the New Deal and Fair Deal and would vote for a change. In veiled reference to the German Siegfried Line or Westliche Wand, he thinks that World War II had planted "far more dragon's teeth than it plowed up".

A letter writer indicates that he had listened to the speech of House Speaker Sam Rayburn of Texas on Wednesday night at the convention, in which he had told of the inevitable chaos to come should the American people put a man of high moral integrity in the White House, instead of one who was "a combination of New Deal, Fair Deal and an English Laborite". He laments the fact that the Democrats no longer advocated states' rights, while proudly promoting the affiliation of Thomas Jefferson with the Democratic Party, despite Mr. Jefferson having been an advocate of those rights. (That which the writer appears really to be advocating is a return to economic slavery, where the big companies tell the workers what to do and when to do it.) He also thinks that the financial condition of the country was worse in the latter Thirties than it had been in the early Thirties, and that it had been the war which delivered the country from the economic mess. He wonders whether that was the reason why the Democrats would not let the country win the war in Korea but wanted to prolong it so that they could continue "to line their pockets with our money by graft", an accusation, he says, they had never denied. He declares that he would vote for General Eisenhower, though having been born a Democrat and still being one. The Democratic Party's platforms through the years had switched so much during the prior 20 years that he was willing to switch affiliation in the general election, so that General Eisenhower could "take graft and corruption away".

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